Robert Tanenbaum - Outrage

The two boys split up and walked to their respective rides, both conscious that their teammates in the other car were watching. Giancarlo was surprised that Zak was in the back of the truck; usually he called shotgun and couldn’t be budged.

“Well, hello to you, too,” Lucy said as Giancarlo got in the front passenger seat and buckled his seat belt without speaking. “Don’t tell me both of you are in foul moods. Grumpy the Dwarf hasn’t said a word since he got in.”

“Sorry, Luce, I’m fine,” Giancarlo said, despite being able to see the boys in the other car mouthing words he couldn’t hear but whose intent he understood. “Zak’s just upset because the coach got on his case.”

Lucy frowned. “Is everything all right?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” Zak snarled.

“Not a problem,” Lucy replied. “Maybe something tasty at Moishe’s will put you in a better mood.”

“What?” Zak asked.

“Did you forget? I’m supposed to take you to see Moishe for your report. Mom and Dad are both working late.”

Both boys groaned. But their complaints ended the moment they walked into Il Buon Pane. They chose cherry cheese coffee cake and disappeared chattering happily to the upstairs apartments with Moishe.

When they were gone, Goldie motioned for Lucy to have a seat at one of the tables. I will lock up and we’ll have something to eat and drink, she signed.

Lucy shook her head. Thank you, but I really should be going, she signed back. The twins have cab fare and -

There is something so important that you cannot spare a few minutes for an old woman? Goldie signed, and smiled, her blue eyes twinkling.

Lucy laughed. Well, since you put it that way… but it will cost you another piece of that cherry cheese coffee cake.

Good, good, a small price to pay for such lovely company, Goldie replied. She finished locking up and then scurried behind the counter, reappearing with two pieces of the coffee cake, which she set down on the table before sitting herself.

So…, the old woman signed, when is the wedding?

Lucy almost choked on her coffee cake at the unexpected, and unwelcome, question. It was a topic she’d been avoiding even with her mother. She didn’t want to talk-even in sign language-about it now. However, Goldie was looking at her as if she’d asked about the weather.

“I just don’t think the timing is good for getting married right now,” Lucy said, picking her cup of tea up and taking a sip, hoping the discussion was over.

It wasn’t. Goldie put her cup down and sat still for a moment, but then her hands began to fly. I want to tell you a short story, she said, about when Moishe and I met. As you know, we were both survivors of concentration camps, and I met him shortly after the war in a refugee camp. I could tell he liked me-he kept hanging around, making eyes, and trying to speak to me, though I would only sign for him to keep his distance.

Goldie sighed. I was the least likely love interest imaginable. Not after what the Nazi doctors did to me in the camp when I was a young girl. It is the reason I could not have children, though I did not know it until much later. I did know that I did not want a man to touch me again… not ever.

Taking another sip of tea, Goldie spent a moment gazing into the cup as though she could see distant memories. Then her hands continued with her story of the young man who refused to go away but stayed close and vigilant. At first she had seen him like any other man-after one thing only-but as she watched him she thought there was both an innocence and a sad, quiet strength to him that said he was different from the others. She hated to admit it to herself, but she felt safer when he was nearby.

Moishe would try to talk to me even though he knew that if I deigned to speak to him with my hands, he wouldn’t understand. I should tell you that back then my hands spoke a combination of sign languages I had picked up in the concentration camp, as well as my own additions. But he kept trying… that young man would not give up.

Goldie smiled. Finally one day he walked up and handed me a note. I dropped it to the ground and signed for him to leave me alone. He walked off and as soon as he did, I picked up the note and read it. It said, “I’ve decided that I love you and that I want to marry you. We will go to America and surround ourselves with children and grandchildren.”

I found a pencil and wrote a response and then stomped around our camp looking for him so that I could give him a piece of my mind. He saw me coming and though the men around him looked suddenly worried-I must have seemed like an enraged Valkyrie coming for the mortals-he just smiled.

The old woman laughed. I think that is the moment I may have first realized that I loved him. But I gave him my note, which said, “How can you talk of love and marriage and bringing children into a world as evil as this one? You are a stupid man, and I am not interested.” Not very eloquent but to the point. I saw the hurt on his face-and regretted my note. But all he said was, “That’s okay. I’ll ask again tomorrow.” I told him not to bother, but the next day when I saw him walking toward me, I have to admit, my heart skipped a beat. He asked me to marry him again, and I said, “No. Love has no place in this world for me anymore.”

Day after day, however, Moishe returned and asked his question, the old woman told Lucy. And day after day, I rejected him. Goldie laughed again. I believe that I must have a world record for the most proposals by one man. Finally, one day he came up to me, but instead of asking his question, he said good-bye.

The memory brought tears to Goldie’s eyes. I pretended that I was only mildly interested but asked him where he was going. He said he was going back to Sobibor and that he would lie down there and die. I asked him why and he said-and I can remember his very words to this day-“If they can stop us from falling in love and marrying and having children… if they can convince us that the world is such a terrible place that there is no more room for love, then they have won anyway. Why not give them my bones to lie near those of my mother, sister, and father, and so many friends?”

Goldie reached across the table for Lucy’s hand. I didn’t know if he was just being dramatic, but suddenly I could not stand the thought of him leaving me. I pleaded with him not to go. I said that perhaps in the future there would be a better time to consider marriage, but it wasn’t the right time.

The old woman squeezed the young woman’s hand. And he said, “There is no right time for love, there is only now.” Then, before I could stop him-or maybe I didn’t want to stop him-he kissed me.

Goldie sighed and fell silent. Lucy wiped at the tears rolling down her own cheeks. “Then what happened?”

Goldie spread her hands to indicate the bakery and all that it stood for and signed, Don’t you know? I married my prince and lived happily ever after.

Although he kept his expression dispassionate, inwardly Karp was seething as he waited for Gilbert Murrow, Pat Davis, and Danielle Cohn to take their seats in his office. Guma, Fulton, and Tommy Mack, the chief of the Homicide Bureau, were already present, the former in his favorite chair, Mack seated near him, and Clay leaning his big frame against a wall.

It was midmorning, the day after his visit to Columbia University and Dale Yancy, a morning that followed a sleepless night. This could have all been so easily avoided, he thought, fuming, with just the smallest bit of patience and attention to detail. But everybody got caught up in the immediacy of the now. The cop wanted the bust. Cohn wanted to take on a big case. And Davis wanted to shine while he was at the top and position himself for when Mack gets his judgeship.