The Museum of Extraordinary Things(40)

I did not realize that Moses’s death was coming until my teacher could no longer stand or speak. On the day of his passing, I was the one who found him. I slept in a storeroom then, and he in the bed that later became mine. Everything in the loft changed when his spirit left him, as if a whirlpool had drawn the light from the room. I sat beside his body and wept, not only for the loss of this great man but also for the darkness that settled upon me once more.

I was the only one at the funeral at the Mt. Zion Cemetery in Maspeth, Queens. I hired a rabbi who went from cemetery to cemetery for a fee. He was an old man from Russia, who owned a single suit that he wore every day. There was sorrow in the seams of his clothes, but he was used to death. It seemed that life was a bolt of cloth to him, and he was there to fold it and set it in a drawer. He said the prayers over the open grave, then, after being paid, quickly went on to his next appointment. I shoveled the dirt onto the coffin, as was the custom of our people, while the gravediggers looked on, arms folded across their chests. In our faith we are instructed to bury our own, and in doing so grant them that last favor.



I could not completely rid myself of my first life, though I tried my best. On several occasions I went to photograph rallies and strikes, sent there by the editors I sometimes worked for. This was not by choice. I gave excuses, and I often managed to get other assignments. But occasionally I was forced to go to events I dreaded. Though I looked nothing like the boy I’d been, there were times when I was spotted by ghosts from my past. Once I’d gone to photograph a meeting of hundreds of shirtwaist strikers in Washington Square. This park had once been a public gallows, with bodies still buried beneath what were now paved paths; it seemed as good a place to be haunted as any. Just as I turned onto Great Jones Street, I found I could go no farther. I felt a chill spreading through my chest. There, among the strikers who held up signs in Yiddish and Italian, I thought I saw my father. I dodged into a doorway, as if I were a common thief, and from those shadows I peered out at the crowd. Upon closer study, the person in question was revealed to be someone else entirely, a much younger man than I’d initially imagined, perhaps the age my father had been when I first began to work for Hochman. I felt an odd mixture of relief and disappointment, for in all honesty, I wanted to see for myself that he was alive and well. In a haze of emotion, I realized that my resentment as a boy had arisen not only from the idea that he was willing to end his life and leave me when he leapt from the dock but from the fact that I felt, from that moment on, responsible for him. I was too young, or foolish, or headstrong to meet that responsibility. I did not want it, and I paid for my choice dearly simply by knowing the sort of man I’d become.

I went back into the crowd and set up my camera stand. When I scanned the mob, I noticed several young men shouting and glaring in my direction. I heard the name I never used, and then I knew their taunts were directed at me. I turned and slinked away, convinced I had been marked. Those who’d known me in my other life saw me for who I truly was, Ezekiel Cohen, traitor, the boy who had not leapt into the river to rescue his own father.

Soon after that I was sent by the Tribune to photograph a rally at Cooper Union on Third Avenue. I was young, little more than twenty-one, and I thought I could express an opinion in such matters when working for the papers. I said I preferred crime scenes, which was true enough. I went so far as to declare I had a fever and might be ill, hardly the truth at all. But no one else was available, so I had no choice but to go, even though my guts churned. I knew it would be bad for me, and it was. I came upon several leaders of the Workmen’s Circle, an organization for the betterment of the workingman that was concerned with community and social justice, serving as a welfare agency, especially in times of tragedy. There among them, I spied my childhood companion, Isaac Rosenfeld. Unfortunately he spied me as well as I set up my camera.

“Here he is. The anti-Jew,” Rosenfeld called out, nodding to me. “I hear you’re Ed now. To some people at least.”

“I’m here to do a job,” I told him.

“To watch us? To stand outside of us? Maybe to judge us? You’re very good at that it seems. You don’t care what happens to anyone else, even your own people. What would your father think?”

“I don’t know what other men think,” I said. “That’s God’s business, not mine.”

Rosenfeld spat upon the ground. I didn’t react, though I suppose he wanted me to. He was a decent man and would not strike me first, but I didn’t give him the pleasure of hitting him. I merely took a photograph of the crowd that had gathered, Jews and Italians who worked in factories and wanted more for themselves and their families, basic rights at the very least. Rosenfeld’s father had worked with mine in the second factory where we’d found employment, and Rosenfeld and I had spent a portion of our boyhood together. We had once been friends, when such things were possible for me. I didn’t react when he shoved his hand in front of my camera’s lens. “Well at least you know what this man thinks,” he said. And yes, I knew. He despised me.

I kept the photograph of his hand and have it still. The lines of his palm are like a map to a country I cannot name. I kept the broken watch as well, stored in my pocket after Moses’s death. Soon after my run-in with Rosenfeld, I happened to pass a watchmaker’s shop on Houston Street. The sign proclaimed the shopowner could repair any timepiece. If stumped he would present a customer with a new gold watch at no cost whatsoever. The proposition sounded fishy, but I could hardly afford to have the watch fixed, so I went in to see what he could do. The watchmaker was working when I entered. He was an elderly fellow, and a sign informed me that his name was Harold Kelly. It was likely clear to him that I was a young man with a chip on my shoulder. I cared little about my appearance and wore a frayed blue jacket, baggy trousers, boots, a black cap with a brim. I kept my hair clipped to my scalp, as a convict newly released from prison might have. I suppose I looked ragged in every way, lanky and dark, headed for trouble. I had spent so much time photographing criminals, I may have taken on some of their airs. I assume Kelly thought I wasn’t a customer worth the bother. He ignored me until I placed the watch on his counter. He glanced at it, and as soon as he did, he stopped working so he could peer over his glasses at me.