Charles Baxter - Saul and Patsy

“Ah,” Howie said, crossing his arms on his chest. “Golems.”

“What?”

“Golems. Jewish mythology from three or four centuries ago. They’re automatons made out of clay by rabbis. They’re created to be servants— but they always run amuck and the rabbi has to destroy them.” He gazed at the window. “So now I guess they’re running amuck. Did Saul make them in his spare time?”

“Nice theory,” Patsy said. “But I think these kids are all-Americans. How come you know about golems? That’s not Delia’s line. Or yours either.”

Howie shrugged. “Mom took Saul and me to the Jewish Cultural Center when we were kids. That’s about the only Jewish thing we ever did. And all I remember from those sessions were the myths and stories. The first time I saw the marching broomsticks in Fantasia, I thought: Yeah, golems.” He smiled at her in the dark.

“Hey,” she said, “let’s go into the kitchen. If you can’t sleep, and I can’t sleep, we might as well sit up together. Come on.” She inclined her head. “We’ll wait for the sun to come up if we have to.”

After they had arranged themselves in the lightless kitchen, Patsy on a chair near the refrigerator and Howie close enough to the counter so that he could lean his head against it, they sat drinking tap water from glasses Patsy had purchased, years ago, at the hardware store. They had no elegance; she liked the sense of commonality, of plain making-do, when she served drinks in these glasses to guests like Howie. If you were going to be elegant, the true note would have to come from somewhere else. The digital clocks on the stove and the microwave gave off sufficient illumination so that she could see where Howie was sitting, but she could not quite tell what expression was on his face, which suited her. There was an aspect to Howie that was not quite domesticated, that was unsafe, and dangerous to look upon. He could be oddly arousing.

“Tell me more about Emmy,” Howie asked, and Patsy was touched that he would ask about Emmy even if he might not be interested in children generally — single men usually weren’t — a curiosity evoked for the sake of the appearances that Howie spent so much of his time trying to keep up. “Tell me what she’s like,” he suggested companionably, though the request contained a hint of his business side, his wish to issue commands.

“Oh,” Patsy said, “she’s already an individual. They’re individuals the minute they come out of the womb. Emmy’s very sensitive to sounds. She first turned her head in the crib when she heard the singing of a bird outside the window. She’s demanding, you know, like most kids — she likes to have the same things happen in the same way all the time — and she’s still learning that she can’t always get what she wants, but that’s a stage. That’s how infants turn into children. She’s going to have a good sense of humor as a little girl and as a woman, I can tell. She’s very curious about everything. Her first word was ‘Wzzat?’”

“I was wondering,” Howie said from his dark corner, “if you like her. I mean, I know you’re her mother, of course, so you love her, but I was wondering if you liked her, too.”

“What a question!” She waited, trying to unpack Howie’s subtext. Failing at it, she said, “Of course I like her. Mothers always like their children.”

“No,” Howie said. “I don’t think so. Nice to say so, but no. I don’t think my mother ever liked me very much. She protected me because I was sickly, but that’s different. Loved —sure, of course. But it’s a weird scene when your parents don’t like you, don’t feel that friendly affinity, and I don’t think my mother ever did. We were sort of peripheral to her concerns.”

“You know, she had an affair with her yard boy last summer.”

“Yes. She finally told me.” He sounded bored by the subject.

“What did you think of that?”

“I didn’t care for it,” Howie said. “I think she should act her age. She’s a predator.”

“Well, I kind of liked it, myself,” Patsy said, careful not to reveal that Howie’s mother had also told her that she had loved the kid, at least a little. “I give her credit. I take off my hat to her.”

“For what?” Howie asked.

“For guts. For nerve. For being an older woman who can still take steps.”

“Steps. Ha. She’s not your mother,” Howie observed. “When it’s your mother, it gets. . strange.”

“Howie,” Patsy said in the dark, using her flattest voice, “we can’t take your charity. We just can’t.”

“It’s not charity. It’s an investment in you two. Did you talk to Saul?”

“No,” Patsy said, “I didn’t. I just can’t stand the idea of being a millionaire. It would turn Saul and me into. . I don’t know— villains .”

“Then give it away to someone else,” Howie said with equanimity. “Give it to charity. Give it to your children.”

“It’ll turn them into villains.” She shifted in her chair. She had an odd, fugitive idea that Howie liked talking to women in total darkness, that it answered some early-childhood need of his.

At that moment another flying egg hit the outside of the kitchen window. Patsy glanced at it, decided to ignore it, and because she ignored it, so did Howie. What the hell. They were being egged. It wasn’t the end of the world. You could always clean it up.

“Give it to them, ” Howie said.

“Who?”

“The Himmels. The golems. The kids who’re throwing those eggs at your house.”

“That’s impossible,” Patsy said.

“Why?”

They looked at each other in the dark, but Patsy couldn’t quite see him — his eyes, the entryway into his soul, were masked and invisible to her.

Another egg hit the house.

“Tell me more about Lis,” Patsy said. She needed to keep asking questions. If she didn’t, he might try to kiss her. She felt his anarchic erotic charges bombarding her. He seemed to be leaning forward in her direction.

“Who?”

“Lis — your fiancée. The girl in the picture.”

“Oh, Lis.” And for the next half-hour, until they both felt sleepy again and went upstairs, Howie told Patsy about the woman he loved: her hobbies (tennis and photography and cooking), her favorite reading (the encyclopedia, and British novels, mostly Murdoch and Winterson), and her work at eFlea, where her training as a lawyer had helped them establish the business and keep it running, free of litigation. Patsy leaned back in the dark and felt relaxed and happy over her brother-in-law’s happiness. His voice went on, rhapsodic, washing over her. She could not remember another time when a man had felt so trusting in her company that he could describe in full-throated detail a woman he loved, both the inner and outer qualities that had attracted him to her.

“May you live in joy forever,” Patsy said finally, and Howie thanked her for the blessing.

The next morning, after his brother and sister-in-law and niece had costumed themselves for the day, had had their meager cereal breakfasts and then were utterly gone, leaving him alone in the silent breathing despoiled storybook house, Howie found a bucket and a clean sponge in the basement under the laundry tubs. He located a spray bottle of glass cleaner and a roll of paper towels in the kitchen pantry, and after mixing soap and a household cleanser in warm water, he took a scrubbing brush and scoured off the disfigurements on the north side of the exterior wall facing the driveway. Vinyl siding! His brother lived in a house with white vinyl siding! Very poisonous, very up-to-date. Human beings would go far to disguise themselves so that they were invisible to other human beings. Using the glass cleaner and the paper towels, he wiped off the windows, making sure that the sticky raw eggs left no residual trace. By the time he was finished, the glass was perfect, immaculate, and he himself had worked up a small sweat. But no smell. His sweat had no smell and never had had one. His perspiration was as pure as distilled water. This feature he shared with the gods.