A Castle in Brooklyn(38)
The sun was at its full height that Sunday after Esther and Zalman returned from a trip to the local appetizing store, where they had picked up a whole whitefish and some egg bagels, a rare dairy treat for the evening’s dinner. They were entering the kitchen when they heard the sound of rummaging and drawers slamming upstairs. They dropped their packages on the counter, and Esther rushed up the stairs where she found Jacob in not their bedroom, but Gary’s, where he was tossing armloads of their son’s shirts, sweaters, and pants into jumbo plastic garbage bags.
“Jacob! What are you doing?” she cried, covering her eyes with her hand. She hadn’t entered her child’s room since that sunny morning in spring, and since then the door had been kept tightly shut.
“Getting rid of things,” was the curt reply. In a frenzy, he piled a drawer full of white T-shirts into the top of the bag. A framed photograph of kindergarten graduates was lying on the oak floor planks next to the round aqua-colored shag rug, its glass pane shattered. Some of Gary’s rudimentary crayon drawings had been hastily torn off the walls and lay crumpled and abandoned on the bedspread decorated with varicolored baseballs. The bed remained as she had left it, bedsheets neatly tucked into the corners.
“Jacob!” she shouted, surprised to find her voice screeching now. “What are you doing? You are destroying everything!” But her husband didn’t answer, and instead picked up the pace, hurling the pink ceramic piggy bank, a smile still planted beneath the animal’s snout, against a wall, where it cracked instantly, giving up a shower of coins that scattered like beach pebbles throughout the floor.
Esther ignored the mess and ran to Jacob, grabbing him by the forearm as he flung Gary’s Cub Scout cap as if it were a discus. But her husband was silent as a stone as Esther found herself falling backward just like the articles of clothing, so that in a matter of seconds she was sitting on the area rug, stunned, glaring at the man before her. His face was puffed up, flushed, as a storm surged beneath his eyes. Was this the affectionate, tender man she had grown to love? Esther decided not to fight it anymore. She quickly picked up the Cub Scout hat, a couple of the torn crayon drawings, the shattered kindergarten photo, and Spanky, the stuffed black-and-white cocker spaniel that sat on the pillow atop the bed.
At first, she had not even realized that at the bottom of the stairs stood Zalman, his face a mixture of fright and concern.
“It’s no good. Nothing is good anymore, Zalman!” she cried, descending the stairs and dumping the items on the carpet. Still standing, she covered the free-flowing tears that ran down her cheeks. Zalman stood silently watching her as, his arms at his side, he clenched and unclenched his fists. For several minutes he gazed at her helplessly until her tears were spent. Then, just as their eyes locked, there was a whoosh of wind as an object came flying down the stairs toward the two, narrowly missing Esther’s leg.
“What the—” exclaimed Zalman as he lifted the shiny metal off the floor. It was a Little League team trophy for second place, the first and last Gary would ever receive.
Esther lifted it from his hands, caressing the torso of the figurine almost as if in doing so she could bring her son back to life.
Shortly afterward, Jacob came downstairs, huffing beneath the burden of two large garbage bags. This time, Esther did not so much as glance at her husband; he offered neither apology nor explanation as he pushed the bags through the door, lifted the car keys from a side table. The slam of doors, the growl of the key in the ignition, and then the emptiness of silence.
After moments of what seemed like an endless purgatory, Esther allowed herself to be led to the sofa, where Zalman tenderly lifted the trophy, still in her hands, and placed it on the coffee table in front of them. She felt that with Jacob’s departure, the air, the life that had once filled their happy home, had vanished. She was finding it difficult to breathe.
Zalman was saying something. He was sitting next to her now, but it took her a long time before she could make out the words.
“You don’t deserve this. I don’t know what’s wrong with him. I think he’s going crazy.”
Esther looked up at her friend, her eyelashes still dotted with tears as she nodded. “I’m worried that you’re right. Crazy with grief. And there’s nothing I can do to help him.”
Zalman waited, unspeaking, listening to the clock in the hall chime the hour. She turned toward him, noticing for the first time that his eyes, small, overshadowed by heavy eyebrows, were perhaps more green than blue.
“Zalman, I don’t know what I would do without you.” After all, what more was there to say?
After some time had passed—she didn’t quite know how long—the descending sun traced lines of light against the silver drapes, and the whirring blades of the ceiling fan in the upstairs bedroom hummed peacefully, lulling Esther into a blissful sleep. In her dreams, there was Jacob again as he was on the first night they had slept together as husband and wife. And even though barely sixteen years had passed since then, he appeared now as he was once: young, his cheekbones prominent, his face taking on a rosy hue, and his eyes intense, as if they could see right through her even though now they glistened with tears. Esther felt her heart lift then with the same hope. She leaned into her husband, catching the scent of the musk cologne on his neck, the rough stubble of his face scratching her cheeks. If only the world would stop, stop turning, stop everything. She desperately wanted the dream to stay, to hold on to it like a bright falling star. She felt herself pushing closer against his broad shoulders as his arm tightened protectively around hers, his nose nuzzling the locks of her hair, his lips sprinkling her neck with tender kisses like gentle drops of rain, his lips soft then urgent, pressed against hers. Only, she quickly realized, it wasn’t a dream at all—it wasn’t even Jacob now, but Zalman, kissing her with a passion she never thought him capable of. She pulled back instantly, opening her eyes.