“That’s just it. You don’t. I’m the one who owes you.”
“Bullshit.”
“If my reasons don’t interest you, then don’t think about my reasons. But take the money. If not for yourself, then at least for your little girl. I’m not asking you for anything. I just want you to have it.”
“And then what?”
“Then nothing.”
“I’ll be in your debt, won’t I? That’s what you’ll want me to think. Once I take your money, you’ll feel that you own me.”
“Own you?” Sachs said, suddenly giving in to his exasperation. “Own you? I don’t even like you. From the way you’ve acted with me tonight, the less I have to do with you the better.”
At that moment, without the least hint of what was coming, Lillian started to smile. It was a spontaneous interruption, a wholly involuntary response to the war of nerves that had been building between them. Even though it lasted no more than a second or two, Sachs was encouraged. Something had been communicated, he felt, some little connection had been established, and even though he couldn’t say what that thing was, he sensed that the mood had shifted.
He didn’t waste any time after that. Seizing on the opportunity that had just presented itself, he told her to stay where she was, left the room, and then walked outside to fetch the money from the car. There was no point in trying to explain himself to her. The moment had come to offer proof, to eliminate the abstractions and let the money talk for itself. That was the only way to make her believe him: to let her touch it, to let her see it with her own eyes.
But nothing was simple anymore. Now that he had unlocked the trunk of the car and was looking at the bag again, he hesitated to follow his impulse. All along, he had seen himself giving the money to her in one go: walking into her house, handing over the bag, and then walking out. It was supposed to have been a quick, dreamlike gesture, an action that would take no time at all. He would swoop down like an angel of mercy and shower her with wealth, and before she realized that he was there, he would vanish. Now that he had talked to her, however, now that he had stood face to face with her in the kitchen, he saw how absurd that fairy tale was. Her animosity had frightened him and demoralized him, and he had no way to predict what would happen next. If he gave her the money all at once, he would lose whatever advantage he still had over her. Anything would be possible then, any number of grotesque reversals could follow from that error. She might humiliate him by refusing to accept it, for example. Or, even worse, she might take the money and then turn around and call the police. She had already threatened to do that, and given the depth of her anger and suspicion, he wouldn’t have put it past her to betray him.
Instead of carrying the bag into the house, he counted out fifty one-hundred-dollar bills, shoved the money into his two jacket pockets, then zipped up the bag again and slammed the trunk shut. He had no idea what he was doing anymore. It was an act of pure improvisation, a blind leap into the unknown. When he turned toward the house again, he saw Lillian standing in the doorway, a small, illuminated figure with her hands on her hips, watching intently as he went about his business in the quiet street. He crossed the lawn knowing that her eyes were on him, suddenly exhilarated by his own uncertainty, by the madness of whatever terrible thing was about to happen.
When he reached the top of the steps, she moved aside to let him in and then closed the door behind him. He didn’t wait for an invitation this time. Entering the kitchen before she did, he walked over to the table, pulled out one of the rickety wooden chairs, and sat down. A moment later, Lillian sat down opposite him. There were no more smiles, no more flashes of curiosity in her eyes. She had turned her face into a mask, and as he looked across at her, searching for a signal, for some clue that would help him to begin, he felt as though he were studying a wall. There was no way to get through to her, no way to penetrate what she was thinking. Neither one of them spoke. Each was waiting for the other to start, and the longer her silence went on, the more obstinately she seemed to resist him. At a certain point, understanding that he was about to choke, that a scream was beginning to gather in his lungs, Sachs lifted his right arm and calmly swept everything in front of him onto the floor. Dirty dishes, coffee cups, ashtrays, and silverware landed with a ferocious clatter, breaking and skidding across the green linoleum. He looked straight into her eyes, but she refused to respond, continuing to sit there as though nothing had happened. It was a sublime moment, he felt, a moment for the ages, and as they went on looking at each other, he almost began to tremble with happiness, with a wild happiness that came surging up from his fear. Then, not missing a beat, he pulled the two bundles of cash from his pockets, slapped them onto the table, and pushed them toward her.
“This is for you,” he said. “It’s yours if you want it.”
She glanced down at the money for a split second but made no move to touch it. “Hundred-dollar bills,” she said. “Or are those just the ones on top?”
“It’s hundreds all the way through. Five thousand dollars’ worth.”
“Five thousand dollars isn’t nothing. Even rich people wouldn’t sneeze at five thousand dollars. But it’s not exactly the kind of money that changes anyone’s life.”
“This is only the beginning. What you might call a down payment.”
“I see. And what kind of balance are you talking about?”
“A thousand dollars a day. A thousand dollars a day for as long as it lasts.”
“And how long is that?”
“A long time. Long enough for you to pay off your debts and quit your job. Long enough to move away from here. Long enough to buy yourself a new car and a new wardrobe. And once you’ve done all that, you’ll still have more than you know what to do with.”
“And what are you supposed to be, my fairy godmother?”
“Just a man paying off a debt, that’s all.”
“And what if I told you I didn’t like the arrangement? What if I said I’d rather have the money all at once?”
“That was the original plan, but things changed after I got here. We’re on to Plan B now.”
“I thought you were trying to be nice to me.”
“I am. But I want you to be nice to me, too. If we do it this way, there’s a better chance of keeping things in balance.”
“You’re saying you don’t trust me, is that it?”
“Your attitude makes me a little nervous. I’m sure you can understand that.”
“And what happens while you’re giving me these daily installments? Do you show up every morning at an appointed hour, hand over the money, and then split, or are you thinking about staying for breakfast, too?”
“I told you before: I don’t want anything from you. You get the money free and clear, and you don’t owe me a thing.”
“Yeah, well, just so we’ve got it straight, wiseguy. I don’t know what Maria told you about me, but my pussy’s not for sale. Not for any amount of money. Do you understand that? Nobody forces me into bed. I fuck who I want to fuck, and fairy godmother keeps her wand to herself. Am I making myself clear?”
“You’re telling me I’m not in your plans. And I’ve just finished telling you you’re not in mine. I don’t see how it could be any clearer than that.”
“Good. Now give me some time to think about all this. I’m dead tired, and I’ve got to go to sleep.”
“You don’t have to think. You know the answer already.”
“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. But I’m not going to talk about it anymore tonight. It’s been a rough day, and I’m about to fall over. But just to show you how nice I can be, I’m going to let you sleep on the couch in the living room. For Maria’s sake—just this once. It’s the middle of the night, and you’ll never find a motel if you start looking now.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I don’t have to do anything, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do it. If you want to stay, then stay. If you don’t, then don’t. But you’d better de
cide now, because I’m going up to bed.”
“Thank you, I appreciate it.”
“Don’t thank me, thank Maria. The living room’s a mess. If something’s in your way, just shove it onto the floor. You’ve already shown me you know how to do that.”
“I don’t usually go in for such primitive forms of communication.”
“As long as you don’t do any more communicating with me tonight, I don’t care what happens down here. But upstairs is off limits. Capeesh? There’s a gun in my bedside table, and if anyone comes prowling around, I know how to use it.”
“That would be like killing the goose who laid the golden egg.”
“No it wouldn’t. You might be the goose, but the eggs are somewhere else. All snug in the trunk of your car, remember? Even if the goose got killed, I’d still have all the eggs I needed.”
“So we’re back to making threats, are we?”
“I don’t believe in threats. I’m just asking you to be nice to me, that’s all. To be very nice. And not to get any funny ideas into your head about who I am. If you don’t, then we might be able to do business together. I’m not making any promises, but if you don’t screw up, I might even learn to stop hating you.”
He was woken the next morning by a warm breath fluttering against his cheek. When he opened his eyes, he found himself looking into the face of a child, a little girl frozen in concentration, exhaling tremulously through her mouth. She was on her knees beside the sofa, and her head was so close to his that their lips were almost touching. From the dimness of the light filtering through her hair, Sachs gathered that it was only six thirty or seven o’clock. He had been asleep for less than four hours, and in those first moments after he opened his eyes, he felt too groggy to move, too leaden to stir a muscle. He wanted to close his eyes again, but the little girl was watching him too intently, and so he went on staring into her face, gradually coming to the realization that this was Lillian Stern’s daughter.
“Good morning,” she said at last, responding to his smile as an invitation to talk. “I thought you’d never wake up.”
“Have you been sitting here long?”
“About a hundred years, I think. I came downstairs to look for my doll, and then I saw you sleeping on the couch. You’re a very long man, did you know that?”
“Yes, I know that. I’m what you call a beanpole.”
“Mr. Beanpole,” the girl said thoughtfully. “That’s a good name.”
“And I’ll bet that your name is Maria, isn’t it?”
“To some people it is, but I like to call myself Rapunzel. It’s much prettier, don’t you think?”
“Much prettier. And how old are you, Miss Rapunzel?”
“Five and three-quarters.”
“Ah, five and three-quarters. An excellent age.”
“I’ll be six in December. My birthday is the day after Christmas.”
“That means you get presents two days in a row. You must be a clever girl to have worked out a system like that.”
“Some people have all the luck. That’s what Mommy says.”
“If you’re five and three-quarters, then you’ve probably started school, haven’t you?”
“Kindergarten. I’m in Mrs. Weir’s class. Room one-oh-four. The kids call her Mrs. Weird.”
“Does she look like a witch?”
“Not really. I don’t think she’s old enough to be a witch. But she does have an awfully long nose.”
“And shouldn’t you be getting ready to go to kindergarten now? You don’t want to be late.”
“Not today, silly. There’s no school on Saturday.”
“Of course. I’m such a dingbat sometimes, I don’t even know what day it is.”
He was awake by then, awake enough to feel the urge to stand up. He asked the girl if she was interested in eating breakfast, and when she answered that she was starving, he promptly rolled off the couch and put on his shoes, pleased to have this little job in front of him. They took turns using the downstairs bathroom, and once Sachs had emptied his bladder and splashed some water on his face, he moved on into the kitchen to begin. The first thing he saw there was the five thousand dollars—still sitting on the table, in the same spot where he had put it the night before. It puzzled him that Lillian hadn’t taken it upstairs with her. Was there a hidden meaning to this, he wondered, or was it simply the result of negligence on her part? Fortunately, Maria was still in the bathroom then, and by the time she joined him in the kitchen, he had already removed the cash from the table and stored it on a shelf in one of the cupboards.
The breakfast got off to a shaky start. The milk in the refrigerator had turned sour (which eliminated the possibility of cereal), and since the stock of eggs seemed to have been exhausted as well, he was unable to make French toast or an omelet (her second and third choices). He managed to find a package of sliced whole wheat bread, however, and once he had discarded the top four pieces (which were covered with a fuzzy, bluish mold), they settled on a meal of toast and strawberry jam. While the bread was warming in the toaster, Sachs unearthed a snow-encrusted can of frozen orange juice from the back of the freezer, mixed it up in a plastic pitcher (which first had to be washed), and served it along with the food. No true coffee was on hand, but after a thorough search of the cupboards, he finally discovered a jar of decaffeinated instant. As he drank down the bitter concoction, he made funny faces and clutched at his throat. Maria laughed at the performance, which inspired him to stagger around the room and emit a series of dreadful, gagging noises. “Poison,” he whispered, as he sank slowly to the floor, “the scoundrels have poisoned me.” This made her laugh even harder, but once the stunt was over and he sat down in his chair again, her amusement quickly faded, and he noticed a troubled look in her eyes.
“I was only pretending,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “It’s just that I don’t like people to die.”
He understood his mistake then, but it was too late to undo the damage. “I’m not going to die,” he said.
“Yes you will. Everybody has to die.”
“I mean not today. And not tomorrow either. I’m going to be around for a long time to come.”
“Is that why you slept on the sofa? Because you’re going to live with us now?”
“I don’t think so. But I’m here to be your friend. And your mother’s friend, too.”
“Are you Mommy’s new man?”
“No, I’m just her friend. If she lets me, I’m going to help her out.”
“That’s good. She needs somebody to help her out. They’re putting Daddy in the ground today, and she’s very sad.”
“Is that what she told you?”
“No, but I saw her crying. That’s how I know she’s sad.”
“Is that where you’re going today? To watch them put your daddy in the ground?”
“No, they won’t let us. Grandma and Grandpa said we couldn’t.”
“And where do your grandma and grandpa live? Here in California?”
“I don’t think so. It’s somewhere far away. You have to take a plane to get there.”
“Somewhere back East, maybe.”
“It’s called Maplewood. I don’t know where it is.”
“Maplewood, New Jersey?”
“I don’t know. It’s very far away. Whenever Daddy talked about it, he said it was the end of the world.”
“It makes you sad when you think about your father, doesn’t it?”
“I can’t help it. Mommy said he didn’t love us anymore, but I don’t care, I wish he would come back.”
“I’m sure he wanted to.”
“That’s what I think. But he wasn’t able to, that’s all. He had an accident, and instead of coming back to us, he had to go to heaven.”
She was so small, Sachs thought, and yet she handled herself with almost frightening composure, her fierce little eyes boring steadily into him as she spoke—unflinching, without the slightest tremor of confusion. It astonishe
d him that she could mimic the ways of adults so well, that she could appear so self-possessed when in fact she knew nothing, knew absolutely nothing at all. He pitied her for her courage, for the sham heroism of her bright and earnest face, and he wished he could take back everything he had said and turn her into a child again, something other than this pathetic, miniaturized grown-up with her missing teeth and the yellow-ribboned barrette dangling from her curly hair.
As they polished off the last fragments of their toast, Sachs saw by the kitchen clock that it was only a few minutes past seven thirty. He asked Maria how long she thought her mother would go on sleeping, and when she said it could be another two or three hours, an idea suddenly occurred to him. Let’s plan a surprise for her, he said. If we get busy now, we might be able to clean the whole downstairs before she wakes up. Wouldn’t that be nice? She’ll come down here and find everything all neat and sparkling. That’s bound to make her feel better, don’t you think? The little girl thought so. More than that, she seemed excited by the prospect, as if she were relieved that someone had finally stepped in to take charge of the situation. But we must be quiet, Sachs said, putting his finger to his lips. As quiet as elves.
So the two of them set to work, moving about the kitchen in brisk and silent harmony as the table was cleared, the broken crockery was swept up from the floor, and the sink was filled with warm suds. In order to keep the clamor to a minimum, they scraped the dishes with their bare fingers, smearing their hands with garbage as they dumped uneaten food and crushed cigarettes into a paper bag. It was foul work, and they registered their disgust by sticking out their tongues and pretending to vomit. Still, Maria more than kept up her end, and once the kitchen was in passable shape, she marched out to the living room with undiminished enthusiasm, eager to push on with the next task. It was getting close to nine o’clock by then, and sunlight was pouring in through the front windows, illuminating slender trails of dust in the air. As they surveyed the mess before them, discussing how they should best attack it, a look of apprehension swept across Maria’s face. Without saying a word, she lifted her arm and pointed to one of the windows. Sachs turned, and an instant later he saw it, too: a man standing on the lawn and looking up at the house. He was wearing a checkered tie and a brown corduroy jacket, a youngish man with prematurely thinning hair who looked as though he were debating whether to walk up the steps and ring the bell. Sachs patted Maria on the head and told her to go back to the kitchen and pour herself another glass of juice. She seemed as if she were about to balk, but then, not wanting to disappoint him, she nodded her head and reluctantly did as she was told. Sachs then picked his way through the living room to the front door, pulled it open as softly as he could, and stepped outside.