The Last of the Wise Lovers

  I remember chewing a roll and thinking: what do I really know about her? Should I take one lie to mean that she's lied about other things, too? Now it seemed weird: her sudden willingness to make up, and the fact that she hadn't mentioned last night, the wrecked car, or my broken promise to drive only to school and back. For a moment I weighed whether or not to try to talk to her again, but then I decided that there was no point in it.

  Of course, you know us only too well. Nevertheless, I wonder what you know about how a mother and son live, alone together in a foreign country, when the father is away from home most of the time. In our case, there were years when there was this awesome friendship between us, a kind of connection that grew out of the fact that each of us was the only person the other one knew. (Even Dad, when he was home, felt left out. Once he said, jokingly, of course, that Mom had birthed herself a friend. Another time, when they'd had a fight, he said that Mom was ruining me by teaching me to be the man she'd dreamed of all her life.) Even now when the relationship between us has cooled a bit I feel a great sense of obligation toward her, and a kind of compassion that made me realize that morning that all her denials were her way of avoiding an even more uncomfortable situation, in which she'd have to come right out and say, "Don't tell your father."

  When we'd finished our coffee, I went on ranging around the house and looking into all sorts of corners. Mom went off to her room, to read. After about half an hour of restlessness, I went in and sat down beside her.

  She picked up her head and looked at me. "You still worried, huh?"

  I nodded.

  "I know how you feel, I know exactly. It happens to me, too, sometimes, that life just seems too heavy to bear." That's part of her charm. When she wants to, she can understand exactly what I'm feeling and can even put it into words. She took my hand. "But let's go over what actually happened: somebody got into our car and started talking nonsense? Maybe he was crazy, or maybe he meant some other woman... maybe you just think he said my name, and besides how many Ford Fairmonts like ours are there in Manhattan?"

  "He followed me from here."

  "And how many cars like that are there here?"

  For a moment I felt relieved, but then I remembered something else.

  "He spoke Hebrew...”

  She was silent a moment. This was indeed something that could not be brushed off, just like that.

  "That still doesn't say anything," she said. "How many Israelis are there in New York, half a million?"

  "A hundred thousand. But it's not a matter of number, it's a matter of coincidence. What's the chance that a guy could get the wrong car, the wrong person, and relay a message in Hebrew?"

  "Not big," she concurred, "but there isn't anything that I have to stop...”

  This I couldn't answer.

  "You see? One can see everything in a positive light if one is only willing to devote a little thought to it...” she stroked my head. "I suggest that we forget the matter and not mention it again...”

  And we didn't mention it again, because somebody made a noise near the front door. I looked at Mom. She was silent, and only the nervous twitch of her eyelid gave away the tension she might have felt. I went to the door. It was only the postman, who had dropped three envelopes through the slot. I picked them up and put them on her bed. She opened the envelopes and got lost in reading a color brochure advertising cosmetics, with a picture of a big ship on the cover. I went to my room and lay down on the bed, dejected. I started thinking again about what had happened in the Lincoln Tunnel. The more I tried to believe that it had all been a joke or a mistake, the harder it was for me to convince myself. I didn't think that Mom had lied to me when she had denied any involvement in the whole affair, I just thought that she was trying to protect me from something that she would deal with in her own way.

  Mom called to me from her room. "Look," she said when I got there, pushing the color brochure to the end of the bed.

  "Dear Sir/Madam," it said on the front page. "Have you ever wondered how we choose our products?" The logo on the envelope belonged to The Society for Proper Nutrition and Care of the Body, from which Mom purchases her facial cleanser and other stuff.

  "So?" I said absent-mindedly. "They're always sending something."

  "Read it," she insisted, "it's actually quite interesting."

  I went back to reading. The Society offered Mom membership in a group of preferred customers who would report their opinions about the Society's products to the Marketing Department. In order to join the group she'd have to solve a small riddle. Not only was whoever solved the riddle correctly "not likely to force reality to fit her perceptions, and therefore suited for the group" but she was also likely to win a cruise to the Caribbean.

  The riddle was printed on the bottom. It really was interesting, and that's why I copied it onto a scrap of paper that's been here in my room ever since: "Arrange the following nine words into three meaningful sentences. Make sure the sentences are logical, and do not give in to the temptation to create sentences that will suit your needs. Here are the words: fruit, is, isn't, sour, food, honey, sweet, is, lemon."

  "There," Mom said gleefully. "I've already solved it."

  On the back of a different envelope she had written the following sentences: "Honey isn't sour. Lemon is food. Fruit is sweet."

  "That's not right. It's not logical," I said.

  "What's not right?"

  "Fruit isn't always sweet."

  "There's sugar in every fruit."

  "But that doesn't mean it's sweet. According to your answer, an olive is sweet."

  "Fruit is sweet," she said in that same voice of hers that always gets me to give in.

  The only way to show her that she was wrong was to find another solution. But I was too uptight, annoyed, and even a little scared. How was it, I thought, that everything that was familiar and clear and obvious a mere 24 hours ago suddenly seemed so uncertain, shaky?

  I passed the afternoon in thought, too. Suddenly I got this idea that maybe everything that had happened was somehow connected to Dad's work. Maybe that was why Mom didn't know what it was about, and maybe that guy who had said what he'd said in the back seat had just assumed that she knew something that Dad had told her. I went back to Mom's room. She wasn't there. The light was on and the book she was reading was resting on its spine. I went to the dining room. Mom was sitting at the large dining room table, writing something in a yellow notebook. Another part of her life that took place in the hours when I wasn't home?

  "I think we should call Dad," I said.

  "What about?" she asked in a tone that made it clear she was willing to hear any reason except that reason.

  "Nothing," I gave up and went back to my room. The phone rang. Mom answered. For a moment I thought of lifting the receiver and listening in, but then I decided not to. I'd had enough of the whole thing.

  Your guys are making noise in the hall. It's now 7:00 a.m. and both of them are tired after a long night. I can hear they've decided to take turns sleeping. I'm not tired. My desire to tell keeps growing.

  THE SECOND NOTEBOOK

  That same night, I thought for the first time of the man who was destined to die.

  He came to me in a dream. He didn't have a face, and his body was hidden by a kind of long robe. He sat down beside me on a wooden bench, and I knew he was blaming me for not convincing Mom to stop whatever it was she was supposed to stop. I tried to get up and walk away. He grabbed me with a clammy hand and bent down to whisper something in my ear. I leaned back as far as I could, but he was taller or more limber and managed to reach my ear. Of all the things he could have possibly whispered to me, he chose to give me the answer to the riddle. When I woke up I didn't remember what he'd said, but after five minutes of concerted effort I arrived at the correct solution: Lemon is fruit. Honey is food. Sour isn't sweet. I wrote it all down on a Kleenex box and ran into the kitchen. Mom was already awake. In fact, it looked as if she hadn't slept at all and had spent
the night writing something, which she covered with her arm when I came in.

  "Here," I threw the Kleenex box on the table, "this has to be the answer."

  She took a piece of chocolate from the chocolate bar in front of her, put it in her mouth, and looked at me thoughtfully. I angled to see what she was hiding. It was the same notebook from yesterday, crammed with lines of scrawl.

  "What's that?" I asked.

  "Recipes," she answered absently. "I'm trying to think of something good to make for tomorrow, when your father comes home."

  That sounded strange, but I was preoccupied with the solution to the riddle. I slid the box of Kleenex across the table, in between her arms. She read it hastily.

  "That's a possibility," she said generously, "no less reasonable than mine."

  "Yours isn't right...”

  "It's too late," she broke in just as the clock struck seven. "I took a stroll to the mailbox last night and sent it. Hurry up now, or you'll have to answer to Mr. K."

  "Will you give me a lift to the bus?" I asked, forgetting for a moment that we didn't have a car.

  But she had become absorbed in her writing again. I went back to my room and quickly got dressed. Then I grabbed something to eat and I skipped down the inside steps to the garage. When I'd gotten outside, Mom called to me from the window. I went back. I was hoping she'd finally decided to say something to deliver me from my confusion and embarrassment, but all she wanted was to give me a kiss goodbye. Again I went racing down the steps to the garage. I could feel the slide in my pocket with every step.

  I had almost an hour to think on the bus. I had an overwhelming urge to look at the slide, but I was afraid to take it out of my pocket. I tried to concentrate and to remember why the word `agitator' looked so familiar. Then I went back over Mom's solution to the riddle: Honey isn't sour. Lemon is food. Fruit is sweet. Maybe fruit was always sweet, as she claimed? But then her solution itself would be intrinsically illogical: lemon is fruit - and of course everyone knows that lemon is sour - so fruit is not always sweet!

  I remember wondering: if the riddle really is meant to test how well a person can cope with reality without stubbornly trying to make it fit his needs, and if Mom's answer is incorrect, am I supposed to understand that Mom isn't a realistic person? And if she isn't realistic, maybe she is ignoring some important message that the guy in the Lincoln Tunnel passed on to her through me, by mistake? And if she is ignoring the message, does this mean that an "unpleasant" fate awaits her, like the guy promised, and that someone she's involved with really is going to die on the 7th of September?

  The bus climbed the cement ramp to Port Authority. I could envision the guy breaking the window of Mom's car in order to get into the back seat. I tried not to think about everything that had happened since then, tried to just erase it all, but the knowledge that one word from me could warn someone - maybe even just the suggestion that he should disappear, take off to another city or even to another street around the 7th of September - was stronger than any other thought or sentence or tune that I tried to pound into my brain instead.

  I got up and stood by the door. When we got to the platform I was the first one off. I looked back as I walked down the long, narrow passageway to the main hall of the terminal. The escalator was packed with people. Which of them was plotting something? Which of them would be the unwitting victim of some plot? I wasn't sure of anything anymore, and I kept looking behind me as I walked down 42nd Street. The usual bums were splayed out in front of the library and the coffee shop was still closed. A workman was perched atop scaffolding, spraying water at the lintel that bore the inscription "MUNICIPAL LIBRARY". Since when had that scaffolding been erected? I must have looked pretty lost and confused, because some smiley-faced guy with a pin on his lapel that said "The City of New York - Department of Tourism" came up to me right away and asked, "Can I help you?" Without answering, I ran under the scaffolding and went inside.

  Did I ever tell you what morning at the library is like? Well, there were still three more minutes 'till we were officially open, but the woman in charge, Ms. Yardley (and heaven help anyone who called her `Miss', even by accident) was already standing at the ready behind her counter, watching over the three regular employees who were wiping away at their counters with chamois cloths. My counter was also covered with a fine layer of dust. I wiped it off with my sleeve (my anti-static chamois was stolen from me the day I got it) and the shellac on the wood made a pleasant crackling sound. Next I opened the drawer under the counter and took out the ledgers, stamps, and forms. Finally I took the slide wrapped in paper out of my pocket and wedged it in the crack between the counter and the sign that said "Requests for Books and Periodicals; Course Registration". Again I thought: where, for heaven's sake, have I seen that word ‘agitator’?

  The big hand jumped. 9:00. Ms. Yardley straightened. A uniformed guard opened the door that led to the Reading Room and sat down in the bag-checker's booth. Another guard opened the door that led to the corridor just as Mr. K. came running in and crossed the room, absent-minded as ever.

  "Good morning, Mr. K.," Ms. Yardley said emphatically.

  "Good morning," Mr. K. dismissed, hurrying past.

  From that moment on, nothing happened. Simply no new clients come to the library at 9:00 in the morning, especially in the summer when there's no need to get warm. The regulars already know how to use the computer to find the titles they're looking for; they fill out the proper forms themselves and continue on to the Reading Room to get their books. Not a single one of them needed help, and none of them came to register for any of the courses or to reserve a periodical.

  At 9:30 Ms. Yardley let up a bit and permitted herself to lean ever-so-slightly on the counter. The other three employees were also leaning on their counters and one of them, Mrs. Kahn, slipped one shoe off and massaged the ankle of her other, still-shod foot with fat, naked toes. At 10:00, Ms. Yardley sat down. Two people asked to register for the course on science fiction, and she sent them to Mrs. Kahn to fill out the forms. I took the slide out of the crack where I'd stuck it and nodded my head at Ms. Yardley. She nodded back a nod that meant - in this place - something like `five minutes'.

  I imagine she thought I wanted to go to the bathroom, but I went to the Reading Room. `Agitator' didn't exist in either the Encyclopedia Americana or in the Britannica. Webster's Dictionary defined it as a political subversive. The scientific dictionary completely ignored it. I tried to think where else I might find something about `agitators', and again I asked myself what there was about this word that was so familiar yet so different from the other words on the slide, like "pneumatic valve" or "exhaust valve".

  The answer might even be inside the computer, programmed to locate books by subject, which sat in the Catalog Room next to my counter. But Ms. Yardley would never in a million years let me use it when I was supposed to be helping the public. There was another terminal, in Section A of the stacks, which the librarians used to locate lost books and books that had been returned without call letters. I went around the copy machine and opened a door that led to a long, dim corridor. "Stacks Section A", blared a red sign, "Authorized Personnel Only". The farther I went, the mustier the air got with the heavy odors of dank paper, glue, and mold. There were books everywhere - on carts, in boxes, in mailbags. A telephone was ringing its head off on a low table next to a terminal whose screen winked green letters.

  I typed in my request: "AGITATOR?"

  The screen shot back: "ENTER SUB-CATEGORIES”.

  "NONE," I typed.

  It quickly fired in response, "AGITATOR: NO SUCH ENTRY”.

  Again I felt defeated. But this time I was attuned to every tiny movement - including the sound of soles on cement.

  "Who's there?" I asked. Of course, no one answered.

  I peeked between the stacks of books. Two or three of the aisles were lighted; the rest were dark.

  "WAITING" the computer winked, but I couldn't go on. Now I thought I could hear
something else, a kind of slow, steady, measured breathing, as if someone was watching me. This is probably what a blind man feels, I thought as I called out, "Hello?" Somewhere an air conditioner kicked in. I went back to the computer. "AGA...” I typed again, but I made one mistake and then another until I realized that I was too busy looking into the screen to see the reflection of anyone who might be coming up behind me. I typed "CANCEL", took the slide, and turned back down the corridor.

  By then I was positive I had heard footsteps. They could have been the echo of my own steps, but they could've been someone else's, too. I didn't stick around to find out. I know that fear is not one of those things the world expects from a guy of more than seventeen and a half, but, after all these years, I don't mind telling you. Besides, I'm sure you'll agree that my fear was justified. After all, what would keep someone who was going to commit murder on the 7th of September from killing me just because I had heard something I wasn't supposed to hear?

  After turning twice I came to a slightly less dark part of the corridor, and for a minute I almost relaxed - except that just then someone grabbed my arm.

  "Aha!" Ms. Yardley cried, dragging me like a prisoner through the door that led to the Reading Room. Her grasp wasn't all that strong, but I was so startled and so busy just trying to remember to breathe that it didn't even dawn on me to resist.

  "From the very beginning I could tell there was something dishonest about you," she prattled, "... and this morning, when you showed up without a wound or a bruise after reporting a `car accident', I knew I'd have to keep an eye on you and see precisely what you were up to." She grabbed the slide from my hand. "And from which book have you torn this?"

  The insult brought me back to my senses.

  "That's mine!" I tried to grab it back. "Let go!"

  She let go of me, but not of the slide.

  "Yours?" she peered at it in front of the light. "I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if you'd torn a nude from one of the art catalogs. Perhaps you can enlighten me as to what this is a diagram of?"