Rafael Yglesias - Only Children

“Do you feel you can talk about anything here without being judged, or made fun of, or — not believed?”

“Yes,” Peter said, just rising above the pool of sorrows.

“Good,” Kotkin said, like a mom pleased with her little boy.

THE LOBBY was dreary. Its mosaic tiles were dulled by years of tramping feet and coarse mops. Low-wattage bulbs glowed through globes that were either heavily frosted or very dirty.

“God, I used to think this was so big,” Eric said.

“What, Daddy?” Luke asked.

“I grew up in this building,” Eric answered. He picked up Luke, and kissed him on the cheek. Luke was so beautiful these days that neither Nina nor Eric could come near him without bussing him. His face was in transition from the padded cushions of infancy to the elastic trim of boyhood. His blue eyes radiated curiosity and wonder. His bow-legged walk had straightened, his neck had lengthened, his recent haircut had shaped his straight black hair into manly layers, his fluted baby lips, although still red against his pale skin, had widened, and when he opened them to laugh, there were bright little teeth. The toothless smile had become a boy’s grin. His voice was musical — a relief to Nina that Luke hadn’t inherited her monotone — and he spoke into the air with unrestrained volume and excitement, a trumpet waking the world. Except for the constipation, his disposition was excellent: he was loving, smart, and compassionate. Still afraid, though, to say what he wanted in the face of opposition.

Like me, relying on others to make him happy, Nina thought.

“Remember?” Eric said to Luke. “I was a boy just like you in this building. I thought it was so big.”

Luke smiled that smile, broad and full, showing all the happiness in his soul. “Because you were small,” he said.

“Right!” Eric agreed. “See what a funny elevator they have, with a porthole like a ship?”

Everything was so dreary. The elevator buttons were eroded at their centers by stabbing fingers; the doors shuddered when they opened and closed; the cables squealed; the whole thing sounded ready to collapse. And the smell. Billions of stews and soups and roasts were everywhere, especially in the hallway. The smells made Nina feel full.

“They’re here!” Eric’s father, Barry, shouted from the door. Barry already looked ragged, his shirttail out, his forehead sweaty. He threw out his thin arms, and opened his long fingers to Luke. “There’s my grandson!”

Eric handed Luke right to him, and that skinny old man danced in the tiny foyer, his arms made into a seat, and put his forehead on Luke’s, their eyes locked together. “You’re so big now!”

Nina tried to imagine her father, Tom, doing this jig and she laughed. Somehow the contrast almost made her forgive Tom. It must be exhausting to be Barry, always full, and always emptying, never a still body of contentment.

The apartment was hot with cooking. Voices, the loud, sour voices of old relatives, clanged down the hallway like rattling dishes. The relatives topped each other, in a hurry to remember the best part of the story first, competing to shout the greatest appreciation.

“They’re peasants, that’s what makes them like that,” Eric once said to Nina. “It’s not being Jewish. My old neighborhood, I had two friends who weren’t Jewish. One Italian, one Greek. Same thing at their house. That’s when I knew. These people are all peasants.”

“They’re very loving,” Nina had answered. She thought it again now, as a gaggle of the old folks, jewelry rattling, wrinkled masks hovering, gathered around Luke. Luke clung to his grandfather, averting his face, hiding in Barry’s neck, his eyes taking account of them with cold suspicion.

“So beautiful!”

“Look at his eyes!”

“So cute!”

They appraised Luke, as if Luke weren’t there, weren’t an intelligence. He probably understood more about the world than they; certainly his sensibilities were finer. There was something corrupt in growing old, something that got stuck in a groove. Luke showed what he felt without the civilizing dishonesty of adulthood. Right now he exhibited his loyalty to his grandfather, to Miriam, to Eric, and to Nina, unself-consciously, free of the pressure to pretend delight at the presence of others.

“Come on, come on, I’m gonna introduce you to someone special,” Barry said.

“Give him some room!” Aunt Sadie shouted, although she was the one most in the way.

“This,” Barry said, “is your Great-uncle Hy.”

“Great-great-uncle,” someone said.

“Hi?” Luke said.

“Not like hello,” Eric said.

Everybody laughed, much to Luke’s confusion. He cringed at the harsh collective sound.

Hy, only a few years ago, when Nina had first met him, had been a tall, strong old man, his back straight, his busy white hair neatly combed, his eyebrows black with passion. Now Hy was stored in a wheelchair, his shoulders bent, hands resting like dead paws, his hair dirty and shapeless, the eyebrows white.

“Four generations,” someone said.

Hy attempted a smile for Luke. His head bobbed with effort as he tried to bring welcome to his gaunt cheeks and scared eyes.

Hy’s eyes were pale blue, Nina realized. That’s the recessive gene that made Luke’s blues possible.

Barry offered Luke to Hy like a pet. Luke squirmed, looked away, his body fighting, but the protest was silent.

“Oh, he’s scared,” Aunt Sadie said.

“Okay, Barry,” Hy croaked. “Don’t frighten him.”

“Daddy,” Luke peeped. Eric took him.

“What’s that?” Luke asked, pointing to the wheelchair.

“It’s a chair,” Eric said.

Tell the truth, Nina thought. “Like a walker, Luke. It helps Uncle Hy get around.”

“My legs aren’t so good,” Hy said to Luke, again trying to lift the tired muscles of his face into a smile. He wanted so badly not to frighten Luke.

The gaggle froze in their positions, now silent in unison. What are they scared of? Nina wondered. That Luke might realize Hy is dying? That Hy will? Surely they both, in their hearts, already know.

“I’m the oldest Goddard,” Hy said. “You’re the youngest.” Goddard was Hy’s name, the blood relationship was through Miriam, Eric’s mother.

“Not for long,” Aunt Sadie said. “Julie’s pregnant.” That started them up again. Sadie had mentioned the branch of the family that had made good. Julie’s mother had married well, to a national shirt manufacturer. They lived in California, and the rest of the family, left behind in relative poverty in Washington Heights, talked about them the way their ancestors in the shtetl might have spoken of those who had gone to America. Sadie, who kept up with the shirt manufacturer’s brood, came back tanned from visits to L.A., speaking of Rodeo Drive as though it were a temple, and she sneered at any improvement in the lives of the Washington Heighters by citing better possessions in Los Angeles. Nina saw Eric’s face darken at this new one-upmanship. She could hear Eric think: so now even my son is shit ’cause Julie’s having a kid.

Did he marry me because I come from a rich Boston family? But Eric didn’t know how much, if any, money my father had. Did he marry me because I was a Wasp? Julie’s mother had married into money, but the man was a vulgarian. Nina remembered him at their wedding, taking out thick folds of cash and deliberately selecting large bills to tip the waiters. “Get a bottle of imported champagne,” he said, making the point that Tom had skimped on the liquor.

“The schmuck doesn’t know that less is classier,” Eric had said later about the incident.

“My father’s cheap,” Nina answered.

“No, he isn’t. He isn’t new money, that’s all,” Eric answered.