Harry Steinman - Little Deadly Things

“How did you know I was watching?” Eva asked.

“I heard you. I live in a quiet world. Why would you sneak up on me?”

“I didn’t sneak. My world is quiet, too.”

The proprietor held the shop door open for Eva. Today he’d replaced the fedora with a gray homburg, the wide brim turned up all the way around. A long white feather shot from the hatband, transforming the semiformal headwear into something jaunty. On another, the feather would be an affectation. But on this man, it was an antenna that transmitted his vitality.

The strange pair entered, a sedentary looking older man bristling with energy and a diminutive child brimming with strength. Without a word or backward glance, the man walked into a room behind the store. Eva followed into an office-cum-kitchen. The shelves were lined with books from earlier centuries. An antique red and blue Persian carpet muted their footsteps. Two parallel walls were painted yellow, as bright a color as she could imagine. Their counterparts were a correspondingly deep blue. A triptych of paintings hung along one of the long yellow walls, three masses of color, each swirling in a tight pattern of curves, streaks, and spatters. Along the back of the office was an antique partner’s desk. Both sides were crammed with books and papers. To her right, Eva saw the shopkeeper at a small counter, fussing with a kettle and hotplate. A stained teapot, its glazing cracked with age, matched two antique white ceramic mugs. He whistled tunelessly as he worked, and gave Eva sidelong glances. When she caught him looking at her, he held her gaze and smiled. Tiny pastries appeared on a small plate and suddenly there were two chairs and space on the counter for their impromptu snack.

The store owner gestured with an outstretched hand to the tea and pastries and they began a snack and a silent conversation. Eva nodded acceptance of the invitation and then pointed with her chin to the trio of paintings. The man tilted his head down and formed an arched eyebrow question. She looked at the reproductions and shook her head. Then she spoke for the first time since entering the store.

“What’s your name?”

“Coombs, at your service.”

“Is that your first name or your last name?”

“Just Coombs. And you?”

“Eva. Coombs isn’t a Slavic name. Are you British?”

“What do you think of the paintings?” he asked, without answering her question.

Eva looked at the framed art and asked, “Worms?”

He laughed. Once again, the sound was unforced. “I take it you’re not familiar with the work of Jackson Pollock.”

“You’ve got bugs for brooches and worms for paintings.” She paused, considering, “I’ve never seen worms like that. The colors are wrong. It’s not realistic.”

“No, not realistic at all for worms. But Pollock didn’t so much try to paint worms as he tried to make art without a brush coming between him and his creations. So he dripped paint on his canvases rather than brushing it on.”

“You like these?”

“I do. Eva, look at them. If you wanted to make a painting of the energy in a chemical reaction, how would you do that?”

“I don’t know. Not like that, I don’t think.”

“What about, say, Brownian motion?”

“These paintings are supposed to be the random movement of molecules?”

“Good. Now think bigger. Pollock was trying to show the energy and movement of life. That’s my opinion, anyway.”

“It looks like a baby’s scribbling.”

“Maybe yes, maybe no. Look deeper, Eva. What he did was to use things he could control—the thickness of the paint, the movement of his body, how absorbent his canvas was—to portray things he couldn’t control. It looks chaotic, but isn’t life chaotic? Don’t we all try to control the chaos around us? That’s what I see in his work. Think of chaos theory and then imagine it as art. You just might end up with Jackson Pollock.”

“So what? Why would anybody want to paint science?”

“Art can inspire science.”

Eva gave a snort.

Coombs continued, “A sculpture that looked like a tower of needles inspired a major breakthrough in understanding cell structure. Four hundred years ago, the divisions on a horsetail plant inspired John Napier to discover logarithms.”

“I don’t need art to do science.”

“Okay.” Then, “How’s your tea?”

They sat without speaking for several minutes. Eva stood and explored Coombs’s work area and looked at his book titles. “May I offer a suggestion, young lady?”

“Eva.”

“Yes, indeed. Well, Eva, I have a suggestion. Your work cleaning the sidewalk was better than I expected. I should be taking advantage of you by offering only the brooch as full payment for this good a job. I’d like to give you a book, real paper, an old edition with some value.”

“What book?”

“It’s called To Kill a Mockingbird.”

“How hard can that be?”

“Eva, it’s not a textbook.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s the story of a young woman like you. A good girl named Scout must face terrible things and terrible people. She has to struggle to be herself despite awful events that happen around her. I rather think you might enjoy reading about how she managed.”

“How old is Scout?”

“When the book starts, she’s five.”

“I’m thirteen.”

“You were five once, yes? And now you’re older?” Eva nodded. “Well Scout grows older, too.” Coombs went to his book collection and muttered, “I know it’s here.”

Eva continued to wander about the work area. She stopped at the Pollock triptych for several minutes. She said, “It’s funny. I don’t like stories because they try to tell you something is true when it’s not. This—” she nodded to the grouping, “—doesn’t try to lie. It doesn’t try to pretend to be a picture of something. It might be nonsense, but at least it’s honest nonsense.”

“How does it make you feel?” Coombs asked.

There was a long pause and Eva turned away. She turned back to Coombs and said, “I have to go. Thanks for the tea.”

“What about the book?” He reached back to the shelf for the slim volume.

But when he turned back, Eva was gone.

She did not miss her duty once, not even Sundays. Thirty-one days after first meeting Coombs, she skipped home, bobbing under her mantle, the brooch in her pocket. What a splendid gift she would present to Gergana. Eva imagined all of the things that they would do together, once again, and she smiled.

Eva’s smile died the moment she crossed the worn threshold into the Rozen apartment. She heard hoarse cries of pain from Gergana’s room, exhausted pleas in place of Gergana’s insubstantial chatter.

Eva edged to the door, paused, listened and heard the crack of a palm striking flesh. There was a muffled thud followed by an explosive whoosh of air forced from unprotected lungs. Why today, of all days? When she had the brooch that would bring them back together and restore the magic they once shared?

She turned the doorknob, paused, and slipped into the bedroom. Her senses recoiled at the tableau before her. She registered the sour stink of sweat and hatred. An obese man was the source. He was naked, with blemish-mottled pallid skin. He lay between Gergana’s legs with his hands loosely at her throat. Skin puffed out from his neck to give the impression of a bleached bullfrog. His face was frozen in a rictus, a grotesque parody of ecstasy.

Eva tore her eyes from the fat man and took in every detail in the room. The markers of Gergana’s youth—stuffed animals and movie posters—were torn or trampled. She saw a broad-shouldered man in one corner of the room. His mouth was a compressed red slash. His bare chest was decorated with a heavy gold chain and thatched with a dense mat of black hair. Shards of pale blue ice, shaped like human eyes, looked from his face and focused on Eva. They froze her in place.