E. Doctorow - The Book of Daniel

“What is wrong, what is the matter?” Aunt Frieda called from upstairs.

“Nothing,” Ascher yelled. “Nothing is the matter. Now children,” he said lowering his voice, “there are things to be done. Shhh, don’t cry, Susan. Your aunt is packing up your clothes. I want you to help her so she’ll know what to take. Any of your toys and things like that, you will have to show her what is important to you. And you both look — unkempt. Can’t you wash yourselves a little bit? Can’t you make yourselves clean?”

“I’ll wash her,” Daniel said. “And there are things like our toothbrushes. We’ll have to take those.”

“That’s right.”

Daniel patted Susan till she was no longer crying. Her body shook with sobs that were like hiccups. He said to Ascher: “Why can’t we go see them? The guards can search me and they can search her and they’ll see that we don’t have guns or anything like that.”

“Well, it is not a matter of guards, Daniel. Your mother and father both feel that it would upset you to see them in the jail.”

“Why?”

“Because when the time came to leave they wouldn’t be able to leave with you. And you and especially your sister might not understand and be upset.”

“Maybe they would be upset too,” Daniel reflected.

“That’s right. And so it would be worse than not seeing you at all.”

“Well, how will they know where we are?” Daniel said.

“They asked me to ask your aunt if you could stay with her, I will report to them that you are with her.”

“Do they know the address?”

“They know it.”

“If we write to them from there will they get the letter?”

“I have arranged it so they will.”

“I got the letter they sent,” Daniel said. “When you see them tell them to write more often.”

“But you see I told you, Daniel, they are allowed to write just one letter a week. So you can get no more than one letter a week. They also have to write each other.”

“You mean they aren’t in the same place?”

“Your father is in one jail and your mother is in another jail which is for women. They haven’t seen each other since your father was arrested.”

What God hath joined let no man tear asunder —FATHER OF THE BRIDE, with Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor

Who wrote that Russian story, was it Babel or maybe Yuri Olesha, about a man dying in his bed. His death is described as a progressive deterioration of possibilities, a methodical constriction of options available to him. First he cannot leave the room, so that a railroad ticket, for instance, has no more meaning for his life. Then he cannot get out of bed. Then he cannot lift his head. Then he cannot see out the window. Then he cannot see his hand in front of him. Life moves inward, the sensations close in, the horizons diminish to point zero. And that is his death. A kind of prison cell concept of death, the man being locked in smaller and smaller cells, his own consciousness depleted of sensations being the last and smallest cell. It is a point of light. If this is true of death, then a real prison is death’s metaphor and when you put a man in prison you are suggesting to him the degrees of death that are possible before life is actually gone. You are forcing him to begin his dying. All constraints on freedom enforce conditions of death. The punishment of prison inflicts the corruption of death on life

“You mean they are by themselves?”

“Yes.”

“They’re alone?”

“Yes.”

“Are they unhappy?”

“They are not too happy.”

“Are they frightened?”

“No, they are not frightened. They are innocent so they have nothing to be frightened of. They know they will be released after their trial. We shall prove that they are not guilty. And then you will all be together again. You hear that, Susele? Your mommy and daddy will return to you and hug you and kiss you and you will all be living together again.” (So you must be a good girl and do what your brother tells you. So go now both of you and help your aunt.)

Ascher took out a big handkerchief, gave it a flap, and jammed it to his nose. We stood and watched him. He turned his back to us and blew his nose loudly, a ridiculous sound as if in antic celebration of the day my parents would be let out of jail.

Just two or three images left from this period of our life. Aunt Frieda’s long, hard, change-picking fingers folding a five and two ones given her by Ascher in half, in half again, and pressing the pellet of bills into her change purse, snapping it shut, snapping her pocketbook shut. The cab driver yawning behind his wheel. On his dashboard, in a shallow cigar box with no lid, a fascicle of pencil nubbins bound in rubber bands. In times of crisis I am always sensitive to the people on the periphery. The cab driver was named Henry Lichtenstein, and his number was 45930. He wore a tan beret at a hundred-eighty-degree angle on his head. He had a toothbrush mustache and a gold tooth that flashed in his rear-view mirror when he yawned.

“I’m not making any promises,” Aunt Frieda told Ascher through the window. “I’ll do my best, but that’s all.”

I’LL DO MY BEST BUT THAT’S ALL.

In those days the cabs were still limousines, with jump seats in the back. This was a big yellow De Soto. Our bundles were piled on the floor at our feet. Susan sat in the middle between me and the bird woman. Ascher said goodbye and moved away from the window. I had perhaps eight seconds for a last look before the cabbie put down his clipboard, put the De Soto into gear, and drove us away from our home. Up from the alley rose Williams embracing an ashcan. Riding his great flat feet with an eagle’s grace, floating his body through the air like a song. Stops, puts down his burden. I watch his breath steam out of him. He looks at the taxi. I stare into his red eyes of menace. He dips his head and points his arm at me, the cab lurches, and he is gone. In front of Aunt Frieda’s head, on the other side of the seat, the diamond interstices of the schoolyard fence become blurred. I have not once mentioned school to Ascher or my aunt. I have not mentioned leaving school, or transferring to another school, or anything about school. They have either forgotten or don’t care. But no school is what I have worked out with myself as a justification for going with Aunt Frieda. It will turn out to be not enough. Somewhere in the Bronx she orders the cabbie to the IRT. She will save most of the seven dollars by dragging us up the stairs, valises, bundles and all, and standing us with her on the elevated all the way to Brooklyn.

They’re all gone — the friends, the girl who writes for Cosmopolitan , the photographer. Artie Sternlicht is on his back on the mattress with his hands behind his head. “I have no energy,” he says. His voice is soft now. “I’m sick. I can’t get up off my ass.”

Daniel wants to leave but both Artie and his girl insist that he stay for dinner. She is in the cubicle kitchen just inside the front door, where boards lie across a sink-bathtub to make the table, and the icebox is half-sized so that you stoop down to open it, and the blackened two-burner stove has curved legs. The whole apartment is this front alcove converted to a kitchen, a closet bathroom with a water tank and pull chain hanging from the wall, and the bedroom furnished with a mattress, a table, a color TV set and a collage.

“Your sister mentioned you only once,” Artie says. “She said she had a brother who was politically undeveloped. She made it sound like undescended testicles.”

A Japanese paper lantern around a hanging bulb provides the light in the room.

“She’s beautiful,” Baby says from the kitchen. “I really like her. I didn’t figure her to freak out. I mean, y’know, she’s not the kind.”