Джонатан Келлерман - The Golem of Paris

Jozef says, “Where are you coming from?”

“I said I’m sorry.”

“You keep apologizing. Nobody is asking you to.”

“I am anyway.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re mad.”

“And how do you know this?”

She fights back sarcasm. “You’re waiting up for me.”

“Yes?”

“So, I’m assuming you’re mad.”

“This is your problem,” Jozef says. “You assume.”

Barbara says nothing.

“Where are you coming from,” he says.

“Manhattan.”

“What is in Manhattan?”

She can’t help herself. “Pigeons.”

“ Neopovažuj se ,” Věra says. Don’t you dare.

“Why did you go there?” Jozef says.

“To see a friend.”

“Don’t lie,” Věra says.

“I’m not,” Barbara says.

“You went to see a boy,” Věra says.

Jozef says, “Who is this friend?”

“You don’t know her.”

“She has a name.”

“Frayda.”

“Frayda what.”

“What difference does it make? You don’t know her.”

“Answer your father.”

“Gonshor. Okay? Happy?”

“Frayda Gonshor,” Jozef says. “Where did you meet Frayda Gonshor?”

“Around.”

“Around where.”

“Just around, okay?”

“What kind of friend is she?”

Bina rolls her eyes. Only they would ask a question like that. “A good one.”

“A good friend does not keep you up until the morning,” Věra says.

But they’re wrong. That’s just what a good friend does.

It began at that first Shabbat dinner.

Barbara arrived early, nervously crushing a bouquet of flowers as she climbed the stairs to the Gonshors’ third-floor walk-up. The door was open and she stepped into silken light and raucous laughter and the soft golden aroma of fresh challah.

And people. So many faces smiling at her, names thrown at her like rice at a wedding. Frayda was the fourth of six. Her older siblings lived in the neighborhood and had brought their own small children, as they did every Friday night. Barbara smiled politely, struggling to memorize the full roster: Elie, Dina, Ruthie, Danny, Benjie, Shoshie, Yitzchak, Menachem, Little Sruli, who plucked the flowers from her hand.

Yonatan, Frayda’s quasi-fiancé, was a sturdy, well-proportioned fellow with a reddish beard and an abstracted mien. He acknowledged Barbara, saying how much he’d heard about her. Then he went back to his book.

Don’t mind him Frayda said, leading her to a table set with white beeswax candles.

Barbara copied her: gathering the light, covering her eyes. She tripped through the blessing, a syllable at a time. The Gonshors’ unit faced the airshaft, and Barbara could see dozens more flames waving. The building was half-Jewish, Frayda explained — down from what it had once been, as families gained a financial foothold and relocated uptown.

Mrs. Gonshor took her hands. We’re so happy to meet you.

Three folding tables of unequal height stretched from the kitchen to the front door. The chairs didn’t match; the couch had been pressed into service. There was no art, just yards of books on sagging shelves. Frayda’s sister Naomi shrieked as her daughter lurched for the window, cracked to relieve the heat pouring from the kitchen, the heady smell of yeast now mingling with chicken soup and garlic and vegetables roasted a deep caramel. Everyone talked at once. Despite the hubbub — because of it — the space felt more expansive than her own home, choked with the unspoken.

Mr. Gonshor clapped his hands, summoning everyone to their seats. Frayda had gotten her height from him. A towering man, six-six, at least, and like his daughter, thin as a thread. He taught social studies at PS 110 but dressed like a Hasid, black hat and satin coat belted at the waist, black beard meticulously barbered.

The singing began — noisy, joyously out of sync. People swayed, people stood still. There seemed to be no rules, yet Barbara felt she was breaking one simply by existing. A little white booklet appeared in front of her. She stared at Hebrew, blocks and blocks of incomprehensible Hebrew. For all she knew, she was holding it upside-down. She felt like a dunce. She wondered how bad it would look if she ran out. She would’ve, except it was raining, and she didn’t know where they’d stashed her coat, and her mother would kill her if she came home without it.

Frayda’s hand slipped into hers, squeezed. Relax.

They sang another song. Mr. Gonshor blessed each of his children, one by one.

And welcome, Bina.

Nobody had ever addressed her by her Jewish name. She smiled back self-consciously. Thanks for having me.

Mr. Gonshor recited a blessing and distributed silver thimble cups of wine. The family rose en masse — the sound of chairs scraping the parquet was earsplitting — and filed into the kitchen to wash their hands at the sink. Scarred pans covered the range, the countertops, the table, the chairs. There was a single dented oven, hardly bigger than a shoebox. That it had produced so much food seemed nothing short of biblical.

Like this Frayda said, showing her how to wash her hands from the ritual cup.

Back at the table they broke bread, and in short order courses began flying out of the kitchen. Barbara tried to help and was shooed away, leaving her sitting with Mr. Gonshor, who amiably peppered her with questions. What did her parents do? Where did they come from originally? Did they change their names when they emigrated?

The more she answered, the more specific he got.

Stop interrogating her Mrs. Gonshor said, handing him a platter of potatoes, which he promptly passed along.

I’m not interrogating, I’m making conversation.

The meal was simple, tasty, massive. Five or six conversations ran in parallel, currents weaving and tangling. Barbara’s neck began to hurt from turning to address this person, then that. A fight broke out between two of the youngest children. A peace was brokered with chocolate layer cake.

The racket would have driven her parents up the wall. At home, they could eat an entire meal without so much as a request for salt.

Yonatan got up to bus his plate, leaving his book open at his seat. Barbara stared at it as though it might leap up and bite her.

Frayda pointed to a spot in the text and read: “These are the generations of Noah. He was perfectly righteous in his generation.”

She slid her finger to a paragraph at the bottom. “Some of the Rabbis interpret this favorably: if he lived in a righteous generation, he would have been even more righteous. But others see it negatively: only in his evil generation did he stand out.”

She smiled at Barbara. Context is everything.

A second round of desserts arrived. Barbara noticed that Frayda hadn’t touched her cake. She’d barely eaten, in fact. The same went for Mr. Gonshor. Barbara had to wonder how you got to grow that tall on a diet.

They recited the Grace After Meals, Frayda pointing to the words in the booklet.

When they were done, she kissed the cover. Would you like to stay awhile? We could learn more.

Thanks Barbara said. I don’t want my parents to worry.

Or to call Cindy’s house. She thanked Frayda’s parents and walked to the subway, her mind inflated with sweet wine and filled to capacity with strange, intoxicating words.

Soon afterward the pottery class came to an abrupt end. Sri Sri announced that he was moving to California to be with his (much older, much richer) girlfriend.

Fly free, little chicks he said.

Barbara traded the hours devoted to working clay for sitting in the Gonshors’ apartment, practicing letters in a composition book.