Хлоя Бенджамин - The Immortalists

‘I won’t watch,’ said Gertie – half-threatening, half-despondent. The bunk beds had been purchased at Sears forty years earlier, but even after Klara and Simon were gone, she wouldn’t take them down. At first she claimed that everyone would need a place to sleep, should Daniel and Mira and Varya all visit at once, but when Daniel suggested that at least one of the pairs could be taken apart, Gertie became so agitated that he knew not to raise the issue again. Before Mira ushered her down to the car, Gertie insisted on having her picture taken with the bunks. She stood holding her pocketbook and smiling gaily, like a tourist in front of the Taj Mahal, before she trundled quickly out of the bedroom, turning her face toward the wall so that they could not see it.

Daniel closed the front door behind her and returned to the bedroom. At first, he didn’t see Varya. But snuffling noises came from her old top bunk, and when Daniel peered upward, he saw her right foot listing over the edge. Tears rolled sideways out of each eye, creating two wet circles on the mattress.

‘Oh, V,’ he said. He began to reach for her, then thought better of it: he knew she didn’t like to be touched. For years, he was hurt by her habit of ducking hugs, and by her general distance. They were the only two left, and sometimes it took weeks for her to return his calls. But what could he do? It was too late for either of them to change very much.

‘I was just thinking about,’ Varya said, and inhaled. ‘When I used to sleep here.’

‘What, when we were kids?’

‘No. When we were older. When I was’ – she hiccupped – ‘visiting.’

The word seemed freighted with meaning, but Daniel had no idea what that meaning was. This was the way it went with her: the landscape she saw was different, certain things portentous or ominous, Varya veering around what seemed to him an unblemished piece of sidewalk. Sometimes he thought of asking her, but then whatever channel had opened up between them closed, as it did now: Varya wiped her face hurriedly with one hand and swung her legs around to the ladder.

But she couldn’t climb down. The ladder was attached to the top bunk with screws so old that the sudden force of Varya’s weight caused them to pull out of the wood. The ladder keeled to the floor; Varya cried out, one foot dangling. The jump from the top bunk to the floor was far from dangerous, but she clung to the railing, looking dubiously over the edge.

Daniel held his arms out. ‘Come here, you old bird,’ he said.

Varya paused. Then she gasped her laughter and reached for him. He put his hands under her armpits, and she held on to his shoulders as he lowered her to the ground.

Fifteen years ago, Klara’s memorial took place at the San Francisco Columbarium. Raj planned to have her body sent to the Gold family plot in Queens, but Gertie initially forbade it. When Daniel confronted his mother, she cited the Jewish law that prohibits those who commit suicide from being buried within six feet of other Jewish dead, as though only the strictest adherence could protect the Golds who remained. Daniel raged at Gertie until she cowered; he could have hit her. He had never felt capable of such a thing before.

Daniel and Mira had just moved to Kingston. Mira had secured an assistant professorship at SUNY New Paltz in art history and Jewish studies, Daniel an overnight position at the hospital. His job would begin in one month, his wedding would take place in six, and he had never felt more incapacitated. Simon’s death had been shattering enough; how was it possible to lose Klara, too? How could the family sustain it? After the memorial, Daniel stumbled into an Irish pub on Geary, lay his head on the bar, and wept. He was scarcely aware of how he looked, or what he was saying – Oh God, oh God; everyone’s dying – until someone responded.

‘Yes,’ said the man on the next barstool. ‘But that never makes it any easier.’

Daniel looked up. The man was roughly his age, with strawberry blond hair and thick sideburns. His eyes – a queer color, more gold than brown – were threaded with red. A scruff of stubble extended from his cheeks to the bottom of his neck.

He raised his Guinness. ‘Eddie O’Donoghue.’

‘Daniel Gold.’

Eddie nodded. ‘I saw you at the service. I investigated your sister’s passing.’ He reached into the pocket of his black pants and pulled out an FBI ID. Special Agent , it read, beside an unintelligible signature.

‘Oh,’ Daniel managed. ‘Thank you.’

Was that what one said, under the circumstances? Daniel was glad, very glad, that Klara’s death was being investigated – he had his own suspicions – but he was alarmed that the feds were involved.

‘If you don’t mind my asking,’ he said, ‘why did the FBI take the case? Why not the local police?’

Eddie put his ID away and looked at Daniel. Despite the bloodshot eyes and the scruff, he looked like a boy. ‘I was in love with her.’

Daniel nearly choked on his own saliva. ‘What?’

‘I was in love with her,’ repeated Eddie.

‘With – my sister? She was unfaithful to Raj?’

‘No, no. I doubt she knew him back then. Anyway, it wasn’t returned.’

The bartender appeared. ‘Get you boys anything?’

‘I’ll have another. And so will he. On me.’ Eddie nodded at Daniel’s glass of bourbon, a bourbon Daniel only just realized he’d been drinking.

‘Thank you,’ said Daniel. When the bartender left, he turned to Eddie. ‘How did you meet her?’

‘I was on duty in San Francisco. Your mother called us – she said your brother was a runaway, and she asked us to pick him up. This was, what, a dozen years ago? He couldn’t have been older than sixteen. I roughed him up; I shouldn’t have. I don’t think your sister ever forgave me. Even so, she woke me up. When I saw her outside the station, with her hair blowing back and those boots on, I thought she was the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen. Not just because she was beautiful, but because she was powerful. So I remembered her.’

Eddie finished his beer, wiped the froth off his mouth.

‘Couple years later I came across a flier with her face on it,’ he said, ‘and I started to go see her perform. The first time must have been early ’83; I’d had a god-awful day, bunch of junkies killed each other in the Tenderloin, and when I sat down to watch her I felt – transported. One night, I told her so. How she’d helped me. How her show had made me different. It took months to work up the courage. But she wanted nothing to do with me.’

The bartender returned with their drinks. Daniel gulped. He had no idea how to respond to Eddie’s revelations, which were intimate enough to make him uncomfortable. All the same, they numbed his despair: as long as Eddie talked, his sister was suspended in the room.

‘I’ll be honest with you,’ Eddie said. ‘I was not in good shape. My dad had just passed, and I was drinking too much. I knew I had to get out of San Francisco, so I applied for the bureau. Straight out of Quantico, they had me in Vegas working on mortgage fraud. When I passed the Mirage and saw Klara’s face on the sign, I just about thought I’d gone crazy. Next day, I see her in the parking lot at Vons. I’m driving an Oldsmobile, and she’s on the curb with a baby.’

‘Ruby.’

‘That her name? Cute kid, even when she was screaming. Your sister ran; I must’ve scared her. I didn’t mean to. Soon as I saw her, I wanted to talk to her. So I decided I’d go to her opening. I’d stay afterward, I figured, and make sure we were clear. No hard feelings. Nothing for her to be nervous about.’

They stared straight ahead. It was the gift of parallel bar seating, Daniel thought: that you could have a conversation without ever looking the other person in the eye.