A Castle in Brooklyn(54)

The following Wednesday, Esther informed Andrew that she could no longer be his tutor. His reaction was more calm than she had imagined it would be. Raised eyebrows were the only signal indicating surprise. And so, after the last note in Chopin’s sonata had been sounded, Andrew shook her hand, looking more man than boy, thanked her for her help, and left. Esther shut the front door before returning to tuck the sheet entitled “Isabel” into the piano bench.

A few months later, Andrew graduated from middle school, and less than a year after that, word came that he and his father had joined family living in Chicago. Esther choked back tears when she heard the news. She knew that it was impossible to return to that happy time when he was student and she teacher. Just as she could never go back to those other times in her life, it was another door closed.



Yet again, the days settled into a quiet monotony. Sometimes when Esther was sitting at the dining room table grading papers, or polishing the surface of its shiny mahogany, she would glance at the piano, which had resumed its mute aspect, and think of Andrew, whose young fingers had raced so expertly across the keys. But more and more she would recall Zalman and the look on his face when he would walk in the door and see her seated at the piano bench playing the familiar strains of a beloved song.

Once and only once did Esther dare to challenge the normal order of things. It was five years after she had dismissed Andrew from her tutelage, two years after she had begun a new, more demanding job teaching music at the local high school. One evening as she sat alone, Jacob already having gone upstairs to bed, she even opened the piano bench, allowed her hand to explore the sheets until, reaching the bottom, she pulled out a page, now tattered and yellow. “Clair de Lune.” She glanced at the notes, hearing the music once again in her head, but didn’t attempt to play the chords. She returned the sheet to its place inside the bench.

The couple had just returned from seeing a movie, and Jacob was in an unusually jovial mood. After exiting the car, Esther stopped on the porch, which had recently begun to sag, and gazed up at the roof, now gray with the last remnant of snow, and took a deep breath.

She walked into the house and removed her coat. Again, she glanced around the room, her eyes skipping from the couch, the glass table, polished, as always, till it glistened, the flower-adorned wallpaper on the kitchen walls. Making herself a cup of tea, she asked Jacob to join her at the kitchen table.

As he did, he removed a Stella D’oro biscuit from its package and dunked it into the cup filled with hot liquid.

“That was a good laugh we had at the movie,” he said, chortling at the memory. They had seen Flashdance. She watched Jacob as he ate the last bite of the biscuit. A late-afternoon sun was filtering through the blinds.

“Jacob, I have been thinking about—something.”

As he bent over his cup, Jacob’s pupils shot up. He knew all too well what the consequences of his wife’s “thinking” had been.

“The two of us in this house, this very big house which each day is eating up more of our dollars. This year the boiler broke down, and by next year we’ll need a new roof. The windows will soon need better sealing, and the freezer now works only half the time. The furniture is okay, I suppose, but is becoming outdated. We could use some new bookshelves on the walls or a new wall unit. But I don’t think I’ve got the energy for decorating the place anymore. What I’m trying to say is perhaps we should go looking for an apartment to rent—just to see what is there—not to buy anything just yet. This house, Jacob, this house is too big for—for only two people.” On these last words, she let her voice drift off.

Esther watched her husband’s face for an expression, some sign. She saw none. She watched as he got up with great effort, the easy smile that had been on his face minutes earlier erased.

“No.”

And with that simple word, he left the room.





TWENTY


Jacob


Jacob finally relented and hired someone new. It was Esther who convinced him that he could no longer carry the business alone, that he needed someone younger, with more education, who could keep up with the rapidly changing technology.

Morris Leibovitz was ten years younger than Jacob and also from the old country. He was one of the hidden children who survived the war living with a Catholic family. “Christof” (what name could be less Jewish?) spent four years studying the Gospel and praying the rosary while filling his belly with warm oatmeal each morning and a slab of roast beef in the evening. At war’s end, he reunited with his parents, who had survived arduous labor in the concentration camps, changed his name back to the original, and began life anew in the United States. Working as an architect on some projects with Jacob, Morris was always talking about his “adventures” during the war, while Jacob said little. How could this man even begin to understand the terrors that he had endured?

Like Zalman, Morris was a gifted architect, a meticulous one, proud of his handiwork. But that was where the similarities ended. While Zalman was mostly self-educated, Morris was trained in all the best schools, had received certificates, and was also a licensed Realtor. He had far more knowledge on the new technology, handled the floppy disk with ease, and was able to navigate Microsoft programs on the new Commodore 64 in the office. He also took every opportunity to remind Jacob of his skills.

While Jacob acknowledged that the man was something of a show-off, he could not deny that Morris could contribute to the business and even take some of the weight off his own shoulders. So, after observing him for a few months, he extended an offer to Morris to be his assistant, with the possibility of becoming a partner one day. Morris jumped at the chance. Four months later, Jacob could no longer deny that Morris had become an asset. The business was thriving, more homes at a lower cost were being constructed, paperwork was reduced through the new computer system, rentals were in demand, and even some of the clients were commenting on what a pleasure it was to work with the new man. Still, as he watched Morris’s fingers tap quickly across the computer keyboard, the man incessantly making glib remarks about the AIDS crisis or the starving children in Africa as if he were commenting on the weather, Jacob couldn’t help but feel there was something about the man he didn’t like.