Tales of the Black Widowers

  "My wife, Caroline, was crying and saying, 'Leave him alone, Simon,' but I couldn't leave him alone. I couldn't let him die in despair. I said, 'We'll have to move the couch toward whatever it is he's pointing to.' Caroline didn't want to, but the old man was nodding his head.

  "Caroline got at one end of the couch and I at the other and we moved it, little by little, trying not to jar him. He was no light-weight, either. His finger kept pointing, always pointing. He turned his head in the direction in which we were moving him, making moaning sounds as though to indicate whether we were moving him in the right direction or not. I would say, 'More to the right, Grandpa?' 'More to the left?' And sometimes he would nod.

  "Finally, we got him up against the line of bookcases, and slowly his head turned. I wanted to turn it for him, but I was afraid to harm him. He managed to get it round and stared at the books for a long time. Then his finger moved along the line of books till it pointed toward one particular book. It was a copy of The Complete Works oj Shakespeare, the Kittredge edition.

  "I said, 'Shakespeare, Grandpa?' He didn't answer, he didn't nod, but his face relaxed and he stopped trying to speak. I suppose he didn't hear me. Something like a half-smile pulled at the left side of his mouth and he died. The doctor came, the body was taken away, we made arrangements for the funeral. It wasn't till after the funeral that we went back to the Shakespeare. We figured it would wait for us and it didn't seem right to grab for it before we took care of the old man.

  "I assumed there would be something in the Shakespeare volume to tell us where the bonds were, and that's when the first shock came. We turned through every page,

  one by one, and there was nothing there. Not a scrap of paper. Not a word."

  Gonzalo said, "What about the binding? You know, in between the stuff that glues the pages and the backstrip?"

  "Nothing there."

  "Maybe someone took it?"

  "How? The only ones who knew were myself and Caroline. It isn't as though there were any robbery. Eventually, we thought there was a clue somewhere in the book, in the written material, in the plays themselves, you know. That was Caroline's idea. In the last two months, I've read every word of Shakespeare's plays; every word of his sonnets and miscellaneous poems-twice over. I've gotten nowhere."

  "The hell with Shakespeare," said Trumbull querulously. "Forget the clue. He had to leave them somewhere in the house."

  "Why do you suppose that?" said Levy. "He might have put it in a bank vault for all we know. He got around even after his first stroke. After we found the bonds in the clothes hamper, he might have thought the house wasn't safe."

  "All right, but he still might have put them in the house somewhere. Why not just search?"

  "We did. Or at least Caroline did. That was how we divided the labor. She searched the house, which is a big, rambling one--one reason we could take in Grandpa- and I searched Shakespeare, and we both came out with nothing."

  Avalon untwisted a thoughtful frown and said, "See here, there's no reason we can't be logical about this. I assume, Simon, that your grandfather was born in Europe."

  "Yes. He came to America as a teen-ager, just as World War I was starting. He got out just in time."

  "He didn't have much of a formal education, I suppose."

  "None at all," said Levy. "He went to work in a tailor shop, eventually got his own establishment, and stayed a tailor till he retired. No education at all, except for the usual religious education Jews gave each other in Tsarist Russia."

  "Well, then," said Avalon, "how do you expect him to indicate clues in Shakespeare's plays? He wouldn't know anything about them."

  Levy frowned and leaned back in his chair. He hadn't touched the small brandy glass Henry had put in front of him some time before. Now he picked it up, twirled the stem gently in his fingers, and put it down again.

  "You're quite wrong, Jeff," he said, a little distantly. "He may have been uneducated but he was quite intelligent and quite well-read. He knew the Bible by heart, and he'd read War and Peace as a teen-ager. He read Shakespeare, too. Listen, we once went to see a production of Hamlet in the park and he got more out of it than I did."

  Rubin suddenly broke in energetically, "I have no intention of ever seeing Hamlet again till they get a Hamlet who looks as Hamlet is supposed to look. Fat!"

  "Fat!" said Trumbull indignantly.

  "Yes, fat. The Queen says of Hamlet in the last scene, 'He's fat, and scant of breath.' If Shakespeare says Hamlet is fat-"

  "That's his mother talking, not Shakespeare. It's the typical motherly oversolicitousness of a not-bright woman-"

  Avalon banged the table. "Not now, gentlemen!"

  He turned to Levy. "In what language did your grandfather read the Bible?"

  "In Hebrew, of course," Levy said coldly.

  "And War and Peace?"

  "In Russian. But Shakespeare, if you don't mind, he read in English."

  "Which is not his native tongue. I imagine he spoke with an accent."

  Levy's coolness had descended into the frigid. "What are you getting at, Jeff?"

  Avalon harumphed. "I'm not being anti-Semitic. I'm just pointing out the obvious fact that if your wife's grandfather was not at home with the language, there was

  a limit to how subtly he could use Shakespeare as a reference. He's not likely to use the phrase 'and there the an-tick sits' from Richard II because, however well-read he is, he isn't likely to know what an antick is."

  "What is it?" asked Gonzalo.

  "Never mind," said Avalon impatiently. "If your grandfather used Shakespeare, it would have to be some perfectly obvious reference."

  "What was your father's favorite play?" asked Trum-bull.

  "He liked Hamlet of course. I know he didn't like the comedies," said Levy, "because he felt the humor undignified, and the histories meant nothing to him. Wait, he liked Othello."

  "All right," said Avalon. "We ought to concentrate on Hamlet and Othello."

  "I read them," said Levy. "You don't think I left them out, do you?"

  "And it would have to be some well-known passage," Avalon went on, paying no attention. "No one would think that just pointing to Shakespeare would be a useful hint if it were some obscure line that were intended."

  "The only reason he just pointed," said Levy, "was that he couldn't talk. It might have been something very obscure which he would have explained if he could have talked."

  "If he could have talked," said Drake reasonably, "he wouldn't have had to explain anything. He would just have told you where the bonds were."

  "Exactly," said Avalon. "A good point, Jim. You said, Simon, that after the old man pointed to Shakespeare, his face relaxed and he stopped trying to speak. He felt that he had given you all you needed to know."

  "Well, he didn't," said Levy morosely.

  "Let's reason it out, then," said Avalon.

  "Do we have to?" said Drake. "Why not ask Henry now? . . . Henry, which verse in Shakespeare would suit our purpose?"

  Henry, who was noiselessly taking up the dessert dishes, said, "I have an average knowledge of the plays of Shakespeare, sir, but I must admit that no appropriate verse occurs to me."

  Drake looked disappointed, but Avalon said, "Come on, Jim. Henry has done very well on past occasions but there's no need to feel that we are helpless without him. I flatter myself I know Shakespeare pretty well." "I'm no novice, either," said Rubin. "Then between the two of us, let's solve this. Suppose we consider Hamlet first. If it's Hamlet, then it has to be one of the soliloquies, because they're the best-known portions of the play."

  "In fact," said Rubin, "the line 'To be or not to be, that is the question' is the best-known line of Shakespeare. It epitomizes him as the 'Quartet' from Rigoletto typifies opera."

  "I agree," said Avalon, "and that soliloquy talks of dying, and the old man was dying. 'To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is-' "

 
"Yes, but what good does that do?" said Levy impatiently. "Where does it get us?"

  Avalon, who always recited Shakespeare in what he insisted was Shakespearean pronunciation (which sounded remarkably like an Irish brogue), said, "Well, I'm not sure."

  Gonzalo said suddenly, "Is it in Hamlet where Shakespeare says, 'The play's the thing'?"

  "Yes," said Avalon. " 'The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.' "

  "Well," said Gonzalo, "if the old man was pointing out a book of plays, maybe that's the line. Do you have a picture of a king, or a carving, or a deck of cards, maybe."

  Levy shrugged. "That doesn't bring anything to mind." "What about Othello?" asked Rubin. "Listen. The best-known part of the play is Iago's speech on reputation, 'Good name in man and woman, dear my lord ...' " "So?" said Avalon.

  "And the most famous line in it, and one which the old man was sure to know because it's the one everyone knows, even Mario, is 'Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing; 'twas mine, 'tis his . . .' and so on."

  "So?" said Avalon again.

  "So it sounds as though it applies to the legacy. ' 'Twas mine, 'tis his,' and it also sounds as though the legacy were gone. 'Who steals my purse steals trash.'"

  "What do you mean, 'gone'?" said Levy.

  "After you found the bonds in the clothes hamper, you lost track of them, you said. Maybe the old man took them off somewhere to be safe and doesn't remember where. Or maybe he mislaid them or gave them away or lost them to some confidence scheme. Whatever it was, he could no longer explain it to you without speech. So to die in peace, he pointed to the works of Shakespeare. You would remember the best-known line of his favorite play, which tells you that his purse is only trash-and that is why you have found nothing."

  "I don't believe that," said Levy. "I asked him if he wanted us to have the bonds and he nodded."

  "All he could do was nod, and he did want you to have them, but that was impossible. ... Do you agree with me, Henry?"

  Henry, who had completed his tasks and was quietly listening, said, "I'm afraid I don't, Mr. Rubin."

  "I don't, either," said Levy.

  But Gonzalo was snapping his fingers. "Wait, wait. Doesn't Shakespeare say anything about bonds?"

  "Not in his time," said Drake, smilmg.

  "I'm sure of it," said Gonzalo. "Something about bonds being nominated."

  Avalon said, "Ah! You mean 'Is it so nominated in the bond?' The bond is a legal contract, and the question was whether something was a requirement of the contract."

  Drake said, "Wait a bit. Didn't that bond involve a sum of three thousand ducats?"

  "By Heaven, so it did," said Avalon.

  Gonzalo's grin split his head from ear to ear. "I think I've got something there: bonds involving three thousand units of money. That's the play to look into."

  Henry interrupted softly. "I scarcely think so, gentlemen. The play in question is The Merchant oj Venice and the person asking whether something was nominated in the bond was the Jew, Shylock, intent on a cruel revenge. Surely the old man would not enjoy this play."

  Levy said, "That's right. Shylock was a dirty word to him--and not so clean to me, either."

  Rubin said, "What about the passage that goes: 'Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions .. .'?"

  "It wouldn't appeal to my grandfather," said Levy. "It pleads the obvious and cries out for an equality my grandfather would not, in his heart, be willing to grant, since I'm sure he felt superior in that he was a member of God's uniquely chosen."

  Gonzalo looked disappointed. "It seems we're not getting anywhere."

  Levy said, "No, I don't think we are. I went through the entire book. I read all the speeches carefully; all the passages you mentioned. None of them meant anything to me."

  Avalon said, "Granted they don't, but you may be missing something subtle-"

  "Come on, Jeff, you're the one who said it couldn't be subtle. My grandfather was thinking of something tailored for the mind of myself and my wife. It was something we would get, and probably get at once; and we didn't."

  Drake said, "Maybe you're right. Maybe some in-joke is involved."

  "I've just said that."

  "Then why don't you try it backward? Can you think of something, some gag, some phrase? ... Is there some expression he used every time?"

  "Yes. When he disapproved of someone he would say, 'Eighteen black years on him.' "

  "What kind of an expression is that?" asked Trumbull.

  "In Yiddish it's common enough," said Levy. "Another one was 'It will help him like a dead man cups.' "

  "What does that mean?" asked Gonzalo. "It refers to cupping. You place a lighted piece of paper in a small ro und glass cup and then put the open edge against the skin. The paper goes out but leaves a partial vacuum in the cup and circulation is sucked into the superficial layers. Naturally, cupping can't improve the circulation of a corpse."

  "All right," said Drake, "is there anything about eighteen black years, or about cupping dead men, that reminds you of something in Shakespeare?"

  There was a painful silence and finally Avalon said, "I can't think of anything."

  "And even if you did," said Levy, "what good would it do? What would it mean? Listen, I've been at this for two months. You're not going to solve it for me in two hours."

  Drake turned to Henry again and said, "Why are you just standing there, Henry? Can't you help us?"

  "I'm sorry, Dr. Drake, but I now believe that the whole question of Shakespeare is a false lead."

  "No," said Levy. "You can't say that. The old man pointed to The Collected Works without any question. His fingertip was within an inch of it. It couldn't have been any other book."

  Drake said suddenly, "Say, Levy, you're not diddling us, are you? You're not telling us a pack of lies to make jackasses out of us?"

  "What?" said Levy in amazement.

  "Nothing, nothing," said Avalon hastily. "He's just thinking of another occasion. Shut up, Jim."

  "Listen," said Levy. "I'm telling you exactly what happened. He was pointing exactly at Shakespeare."

  There was a short silence and then Henry sighed and said, "In mystery stories-"

  Rubin broke in with a "Hear! Hear!"

  "In mystery stories," Henry repeated, "the dying hint is a common device, but I have never been able to take it seriously. A dying man, anxious to give last-minute information, is always pictured as presenting the most complex hints. His dying brain, with two minutes' grace, works out a pattern that would puzzle a healthy brain with hours to think. In this particular case, we have an old man dying of a paralyzing stroke who is supposed to have quickly invented a clue that a group of intelligent men have failed to work out; and with one of them having worked at it for two months. I can only conclude there is no such clue."

  "Then why should he have pointed to Shakespeare, Henry?" asked Levy. "Was it all just the vague delusions of a dying man?"

  "If your story is correct," said Henry, "then I think he was indeed trying to do something. He cannot, however, have been inventing a clue. He was doing the only thing his dying mind could manage. He was pointing to the bonds."

  "I beg your pardon," said Levy huffily. "I was there. He was pointing to Shakespeare."

  Henry shook his head. He said, "Mr. Levy, would you point to Fifth Avenue?"

  Levy thought a while, obviously orienting himself, and then pointed.

  "Are you pointing to Fifth Avenue?" asked Henry.

  "Well, the restaurant's entrance is on Fifth Avenue, so I'm pointing to it."

  "It seems to me, sir," said Henry, "that you are pointing to a picture of the Arch of Titus on the western wall of this room."

  "Well, I am, but Fifth Avenue is beyond it."

  "Exactly, sir. So I only know that you are pointing to Fifth Avenue because you tell me so. You might be pointing to the picture or to some point in the air before the picture, or to
the Hudson River, or to Chicago, or to the Planet Jupiter. If you point, and nothing more, giving no hint, verbal or otherwise, as to what you're pointing at, you are only indicating a direction and nothing more."

  Levy rubbed his chin. "You mean my grandfather was only indicating a direction?"

  "It must be so. He didn't say he was pointing to Shakespeare. He merely pointed."

  "All right, then, what was he pointing at? The-the-" He closed his eyes and fingered his mustache gently, as he oriented the room in his house. "The Verrazano Bridge?"

  "Probably not, sir," said Henry. "He was pointing in the direction of The Collected Works. His finger was an inch from it, you said, so it is doubtful that he could be pointing at anything in front of it. What was behind the book, Mr. Levy?"

  "The bookcase. The wood of the bookcase. And when you took the book out, there was nothing behind it. There was nothing pushed up against the wood, if that's what you have in mind. We would have seen it at once if any thing at all had been there."

  "And behind the bookcase, sir?"

  "The wall."

  "And between the bookcase and the wall, sir?"

  Now Levy fell silent. He thought a while, and no one interrupted those thoughts. He said, "Is there a phone I can use, Henry?"

  "I'll bring you one, sir."

  The phone was placed in front of Levy and plugged in. Levy dialed a number.

  "Hello, Julia? What are you doing up so late? . . . Never mind the TV and get to bed. But first call Mamma, dear. . . . Hello, Caroline, it's Simon. . . . Yes, I'm having a good time, but listen, Caroline, listen. You know the bookcase with the Shakespeare in it? ... Yes, that Shakespeare. Of course. Move it away from the wall. . . . The bookcase. . . . Look, you can take the books out of it, can't you? Take them all out, if you have to, and dump them on the floor. . . . No, no, just move the end of the bookcase near the door a few inches; just enough to look behind and tell me if you see anything. . . . Look about where the Shakespeare book would be. . . . I'll wait, yes."