A Castle in Brooklyn(60)

Lost in his memories, Riku sank into a deep silence. And still the two women, each seeming now to blend into the other, waited. Perhaps they could guess what was in his mind; perhaps they had suffered too. Maybe that was why he felt this sudden familiarity with these two strangers.

“I never wanted children of my own. Never had a desire for them because my early years had been so difficult. Eventually, that all changed when I met my wife, Jenny. So now I find myself with four little ones, all under ten, and I am already fifty-seven years old!” At those words, for the first time since he had entered the home, Riku felt a lightness wash over him as a smile came to his lips.

Esther was the first to rise from her seat on the couch.

“Mr. Matsuda, I believe you will make a great tenant for this house.”

“Good!” Riku answered promptly as he rose to his feet. “I’ll take it.”





TWENTY-THREE



Zalman, 1983

By the time word reached Zalman, it was too late. All he could do after learning about his best friend’s death was sit quiet as a stone for several days. No one, not even Miriam, could coax him out of the bottomless hole. His best friend dead. How was this possible? His last breaths taken without Zalman by his side. Zalman, who had been there during the darkest times, when both Jacob and Esther were sure they were facing their last glimpses of this dreary earth. But there were times of joy, too, when they had been together, tasting the first delicious drops of freedom, men in love with the life they had begun anew. Yet now—Why wasn’t he there?

It was the cousin who told him, Moshe, who had arranged for his travels to Minnesota all those years ago, and who now revealed the news as calmly as if he were telling him to put on a sweater to shield himself from the cold. Jacob had gone to bed one night and then . . . and then. That was it. Zalman hadn’t asked any questions then and couldn’t see the point of it. When he put down the phone that had delivered the news that sent him spinning back in time, it was as if something in his mind boomeranged, and for several days he couldn’t regain his balance. Immediately, at 8:00 p.m. that evening, when on any other day he would be taking off his slippers, readying himself for a hot shower, he decided to go for a walk.

“Just going out to clear my head,” he announced, putting his hand on the metal knob, before a blast of cold air slapped against his cheeks. He walked for blocks, as he had done on numerous occasions since they had moved to the town of Highland Park in New Jersey, where his cousin’s best friend had lived for the past twenty years—not a grand metropolis like New York, but not a farm either. Also, his friend knew of a piece of business for Zalman, something to call his own. He had resolved long ago never to work for anyone else again.

So Zalman walked in this place he had barely lived in for a year, ignoring the vibrant sounds of the neighborhood, still alive with shoppers, strollers, and men winding their way through the thinning crowds—the Hasidim, Hispanics, Irish, and Italians as they came home from work. Zalman saw none of it. Not the young couples strolling under leafless trees, the dogs straining on leashes, shop owners sitting on hastily stationed bridge chairs outside, nodding at potential customers as they passed by. Today, as his eyes fixed on the scattered cigarette butts, rumpled sales receipts, and empty paper cups that rolled underneath the parked cars, he saw none of it. Instead, he had one thought swirling through his mind. It would have been so easy to call her, express his sympathy, suggest they meet for a coffee. So easy. So devastating, for the minute he allowed his mind to fixate on the idea, he was swamped by a sea of guilt, drowning, unable to breathe.

After about twenty minutes, he was lost. He couldn’t find his way back home; the street numbers blurred, and the sounds of the neighborhood rolled into each other, creating a wild cacophony from which he could not escape. Zalman stopped at a street corner, trying to find his way, before realizing, finally, that he didn’t want to go home at all. Lost, at least for now, was better.





TWENTY-FOUR


Riku


As soon as his family moved in, Riku set to work. First, he had the rugs lifted and the wooden floors hidden beneath the tiles scraped so that the light pine was revealed when the sun bounced off its surface in the morning. He covered the middle of the newly naked planks with the deep-red silk rug, whose design was scattered with delicate green-and-white renderings of cherry blossoms. Riku took pride in knowing that it was the very same rug that had been in his grandmother’s home in Japan and that had adorned his parents’ parlor when he was a child in San Francisco. And, with Esther’s approval, he had placed the massive velvet sofa, along with the coffee table and standing lamp, upstairs in the main bedroom, replacing it all with a flowered chintz sofa, two end tables with small lamps covered with simple white shades, and the chinoiserie, black lacquered, which held his father’s collection of painted wineglasses. The piano, though at first an object of mild interest to the children, remained untouched in the corner of the room.

When he was done with the inside, having painted the bedroom his daughters shared a soft pink and having set up bunk beds for his sons in the blue room, Riku turned to the outside of the home. Enlisting the help of his twin sons, he ripped down the rickety deck, which he calculated could withstand only a couple of years’ worth of stormy winters. It wasn’t long before the entire deck had been replaced with a sturdy one made of redwood in time for its first Fourth of July barbecue. Jenny, of course, insisted on starting a vegetable garden, which by summer’s end would already be flowering with full red tomatoes, hearty zucchini, and ripe green cucumbers. The hefty apple tree that had overseen its share of mellow springs and tumultuous winters found a slow renaissance as leaves emerged on every branch, and the smallest of embryos that would blossom into juicy apples in the fall, bringing shade to the parcel of grass. The backyard with the oak overshadowing it all had become a peaceful place, with gentle breezes that weaved through the newly formed leaves.