Boris Fishman - A Replacement Life

“How did you start fact-checking?” he said cautiously.

She looked over at him. “ Why is this so important to you?” she said.

“Oh, I just hear you every day,” he said. “‘Mr. Maloney, is your bar made of pine or aspen? Can you call the manufacturer?’”

“Yeah, I guess it sounds strange from the side.”

“Mr. Maloney’s gone his whole life without knowing is it pine or aspen. When has anyone asked him what that bar’s made of?”

“What’s your point?”

“Does it really matter?” he said.

“I guess,” she said, putting down her phone. “But think about it. Maloney’s is in New Jersey. Let’s say they don’t have aspens in New Jersey. I mean, they do — I checked. But let’s say. Somebody happens to know that, they see that wrong, they say, What else is wrong? They lose trust. You can’t give a reader a reason to lose trust.”

“Okay,” he said. “But it’s not always an either/or situation.”

“Meaning?” Her eyebrows gathered.

“Let’s say Century didn’t hire women. You’d raise hell.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Now, take — I don’t know — an Arab woman. An Arab woman might say, ‘God willing, they will hire women at some point.’ Which strikes you as—”

“Fear-based naïveté.”

“Right. She’s… unenlightened. But she might not see it that way. She may be happier than you.”

“Because she doesn’t know better.”

“But to her it’s a fact all the same.”

“So you report that American women and Arab women see it differently.”

“Would you be a stay-at-home mother?”

“No.”

“But you aren’t having your direction chosen for you like the Arab woman? If you have a story that says, ‘Arab women are unfree,’ that may be factually true from an American standpoint. But it’s not true from a Moroccan standpoint. Or at least not a yes/no proposition.”

“She may be happier than me, but she’s still not free, however you look at it. I don’t want to be a stay-at-home mom, and let’s say it’s a mechanical response to how it was with my mother, but I’m free to choose. I won’t be harassed for it.”

“Not physically,” Slava said.

She rolled onto her back. “Slava!”

“During the war,” Slava said, “my grandfather ran away. World War II. When he turned conscription age, he had his identity card revised down by a year. Then he got on a train and ran off again, even farther east. If he hadn’t, he would probably be dead. And I wouldn’t be here. Which would make you less happy.” He peered over at her, but his attempt at levity failed. “Is he a hero or a coward? Which is it?”

“I don’t know. A bit of both, I guess. A hero to you, a coward to somebody else. A hero to me.”

“Pick and choose,” Slava said.

“Why not.”

“When does ‘pick and choose’ become ‘ignore inconvenient facts’?”

“When you’re trying to get at me.”

He waved her away. After a moment, he said, “I don’t get it. The witness in the box has put his hand on the Bible, so everything that comes out of his mouth is treated as fact unless there’s proof that he lied? Talk about naïveté! Because he’s put his hand on the Bible? Now lightning has struck and all of a sudden he’s unable to lie?”

“You can still check that a woman has two children, not three,” she said. “This village was founded in 1673 but that one in 1725. Chickens lay eggs. We landed on the moon. There’s video!” She stared at him. “You have to see the limit of your point.”

He shrugged and watched the fan spin above them. Arianna did not have air-conditioning. Outside, the sun dimmed under passing clouds.

“Maybe it’ll be cooler today,” he said.

“You’re actually going to talk about the weather.”

“It’s the stuff of poetry,” he said bitterly. The cat cocked its head, sensing an opening.

“This is nice,” she said. “It isn’t for real until you’re fighting. Why is it you can’t make me breakfast?”

“I have to run an errand,” he said flatly. Then he added: “For my grandmother.”

“Oh,” she said. “Sure. I’m sorry. You’ll come back here after?”

“No, I need to go home.”

“Okay, I can come there later.”

“Arianna.”

“Day apart,” she said. “Got it.”

“Not that I—”

“It’s okay. You’re right.”

“Tomorrow—”

“Just give me five minutes.”

She cantilevered her left leg over his right and lifted herself above him. He could feel on his groin the thin thread of hair between her legs. Even soured by sleep, her breath was fragrant — soap, musk, sunflower seeds. She cradled him in her hand as her lips descended on his. Quickly, he was hard, and she lowered herself on top of him, closing her eyes. She rocked above him steadily, as if he weren’t there. As she neared orgasm, she leaned forward until their chests touched, both sweating. The pallor of her breasts was translucent against his chest. Coming close, she placed her palms around his head and began to thrust herself into him. He had never been fucked that way before. He had never been fucked.

She didn’t open her eyes until she had come. Then she kissed him on the forehead and said, “Thanks, honey.”

He rode home with Arianna drying on his legs. He showered for a long time, just thinking. The violent creak of the stair door as he headed back out roused Irvin from a reverie of Albanian vineyards.

“Hello, Mr. Gellma,” he sighed. “Valk?” He walked two fingers through the air. “A little raining.” He pointed at the ceiling, frowning.

“I think it’s clearing up,” Slava said.

Irv, to which the doorman’s name had been reduced by some of the tenants, nodded with the enthusiasm of an Albanian spotting a Serb in his garden. You fockin moron, you could be relax at home on day off, but you go walk in rains. “Vait, pliz,” he said. He opened the delivery closet and rifled through coats. He withdrew a long, sturdy umbrella with a carved handle of a zebra hanging its head. “Mr. Seetrick forget,” he said. “But Mr. Seetrick Saturday is dinner come out only — you bring back, okay?”

“Thanks, Erv.” In deference to liberal values or immigrant solidarity, Slava insisted on calling the Albanian by his actual name, and often wondered if the doorman heard the subtle distinction. On this matter, Erv/Irv kept Slava in suspense, which led Slava to try harder in ever more deformed ways, so that he ended up addressing the doorman by some variation of “Aaaairvvv…” The latter’s mystified distaste in reaction to this was clear, though he did not feel entitled to correct a tenant. America had suffered him greater indignities.

“Vait, vait, vait.” Irvin held up a hand. “Vait.” He disappeared under the podium and emerged with half a loaf of bread in a plastic bag. He banged it against the podium. “For birds,” he said. “You give.”

Slava hesitated. “Maybe you do it, Erv.”

“They hungry now,” Irvin said, disappointed. “Afternoon — hungry.”

Slava obeyed and took the loaf.

“Small pieces, give small pieces,” Irvin said, joining his thumb and index finger. “Bon appétit.”

Slava valked. He valked to the river, closed his eyes, and sniffed at the salt in the air. He was an object of indifference to the one thousand pigeons hopping around the pavement, but when he opened Irvin’s plastic bag — after ten minutes of trying to unwork the impossible knot, uttering an obscenity, and finally tearing it open — their feelings changed. Following Irvin’s instruction, he tore off small pieces and scattered them gently. The pigeons wobbled toward the bread and pecked, bopping one another.