Ghita Schwarz - Displaced Persons

She was still speaking in Polish, and looked at him, her lips turned downward: Don’t you smoke anymore? You always said you would never stop.

He didn’t want to speak. He could not speak!

“No more!” he croaked, in English, pushing his hand through the air, as if to swat at a fly. It was over, the cigarettes. Since the first heart attack. He saw Hinda fidgeting. She was dying for one. Dying. It made her more nervous. But what could she do? If she left to smoke outside, she couldn’t come back in. Not without him.

Pavel bent to his coleslaw. Swallowing was not such a pleasure either, thanks to the damage done by the respirator, but he had to gain weight, add muscle. It was necessary. His daughter had given a start when she saw him standing the day he left the hospital, wearing his own clothes, his dark pants ballooning around his waist and legs. He had looked different, pretty good even, in the step-down unit, at least next to the others. But in the apartment things had worsened; he had lost another two pounds upon first arriving home, like a baby in the first days after birth.

Kuba was very sick, said Hinda. Has an ulcer that started seven years ago.

Pavel kept eating. Was he supposed to sympathize?

All the stress gave him an ulcer. He bled from his stomach.

In English, Mayer said, “Hinda, please.”

It was difficult for everyone, said Hinda. Not just you, Pavel. Her hands were shaking.

Pavel looked at her straight in the eye. He couldn’t have spoken even if he’d wanted to, even if his voice was a young man’s. Was she crazy? She must be crazy. He’d lost his business! To his partner, his brother-in-law, who had pushed him out when it came time to sell, who had taken more than his rightful half, plus a salary too, from the company that bought, who had told Pavel that the new owners did not want old blood! Who, to make Pavel go along, threatened to report some mistakes Pavel had made years ago, taxes on wholesale or retail, it hurt Pavel even to remember exactly. Yes, Hinda must be crazy. Married to a blackmailer and traitor, someone who lived to rip things apart, and pretending it was all just a little argument.

Mayer went to Yiddish. Hinda, this is not how to talk about it.

“What I’m trying to say is, I still love you.” She forked her tuna fish.

Love! thought Pavel. Love! He needed a new dictionary to find out what she meant by that word. There she was, trembling like a drunk into her salad, not even hoping that God would forgive her. There was nothing to forgive! She was just covering all points, just to make sure. Just in case she one day stopped sleeping so well.

Mayer said, That’s it. That’s better.

Pavel stared at his cousin. Mayer raised his eyebrows toward him. This was all that Mayer had expected. A statement of love. No apology, no admission.

Mayer went again to English. “I heard Sally Klein had a baby. At her age! And it was healthy.”

“Yes,” said Hinda. “She did. She was in bed rest, but it was fine. I went to the party.”

Mayer chattered on. Pavel sat back in his chair. His belly seemed to him to be growing toward the table, swelling like a starving person’s. It was clear, wasn’t it, that nothing more would be said. He wished suddenly that he had something to tear, that he had torn something that month seven years ago, when he had come back from repairing his mother’s grave and suddenly realized what was happening, realized but did nothing to stop it, sure that it wasn’t, sure that she would speak for him, order her husband to negotiate a deal that would keep Pavel in the business they had built together, keep the family intact. He knew that she knew. He had smashed eggs in the sink out of rage. He should have torn something then, a piece of good clothing, a new scarf, a favorite shirt, and worn the scrap pinned to his jacket like in the week of mourning after a loved one’s death. He should have, but he didn’t. He looked at her napkin, white cotton stained with pink lipstick. What if he grabbed it and ripped it to shreds right this second?

He made an involuntary noise with his lips. His mouth was dry, but he did not want to take in a drop of water. He was full. Anything else would spill out of him.

The waiter came over with the bill. Pavel signed without checking to see if it was right, and took out ten dollars as a tip. Mayer looked at the cash but said only, Are you ready?

“Yes,” said Pavel. “I have something to do.”

They stood up. Pavel twisted into his coat while Mayer brought over Hinda’s. Mayer had no hat. Pavel looked over at the center of the room. No one he knew. Hersh was gone. Pavel pushed his legs forward, letting Hinda go in front of him, not for politeness, but so she wouldn’t see if he had to stop and rest.

Outside, Mayer told Pavel to wait while he got the car from the corner.

“No,” said Pavel. “I’ll go.”

Hinda turned to walk in the opposite direction. My best, she said in Yiddish.

But Pavel’s face was already sideways, his hands in his pockets. He followed Mayer, who rushed to the meter. Who cared if Hinda saw him so slow? He doubted she even was watching.

FELA WAS NOT HOME; he could tell as he turned the key that it was locked from the outside. His magazine lay on the hallway table, with unopened bills from the hospital. The insurance was not paying the doctors on time; day after day Fela complained on the phone; he did not have the patience.

When she came home after five, carrying two bags from the grocery, Fela found him sitting in the kitchen, light not yet turned on, watching the news. She had bought potatoes and would warm up her good barley soup. A piece of chicken if he felt like it.

That was good, Pavel said. Everything she made was good.

So? she said.

So, he answered, so nothing.

How can it be nothing? said Fela. She poked around: Hinda’s clothes, her face, her sliver-thin lips. She must have said terrible things about someone, no? Pavel tried to comply with her questions, but there was nothing to say. Empty. He fished around the soup bowl, waiting for words to come out.

Fela moved the bowl away, angry. You still won’t eat anything. Maybe Helen will have something. I don’t know why I make so much food.

His daughter was visiting after their dinner, on her way home from work. They saw her quite often now, every two or three days. Not a big talker, Helen, not a shouter and laugher like her brother, but a good girl. A good girl, a professional, a public-health worker, doing what, exactly, he had difficulty remembering, but with a satisfactory husband, if only one child. Well, maybe more children would still come. He was not supposed to say anything about it to her, Fela said. It just got her upset.

But Helen did not appear to be in a sensitive mood as she tripped into the kitchen, dropping her satchel in the hallway as Fela cleared off the table and brought out the tea. She took off her jacket and pulled out the white chair between him and Fela. A kiss on his forehead. All right.

“You must want something to eat,” said Fela. “I have extra soup. He didn’t finish anything.”

“No, no, no. We’re going somewhere for dinner. Jonathan is meeting the sitter. I’m going straight from here.”

“Did you change your hair? It looks a little red.” Fela stretched her hand to touch her daughter’s head.

“I got highlights. And, you know, a trim.”

“Guess who he saw today.”

“Who?”

Helen looked at Pavel. There had been a big discussion, not four weeks ago, when he lay prone in the bed, barely able to make it to the window seat to eat the egg and toast Fela brought him. Mayer, the big peacemaker, had wanted to bring Hinda to the house. Hinda wanted to see Pavel, claimed Mayer, it was Hinda’s idea, he insisted, she asked about him all the time, desperate. Fela had refused to be home for it; she had seen enough of Hinda to last several lifetimes, thank you very much. If Pavel wanted to see her, she was his sister, and who was Fela to stop him? Fela did not have a sister living, and so she could not judge. She could not judge, but she did not have to be in the apartment to officiate, to give the idea that this person called a sister was being invited like a piece of royalty into her home. Larry had called from a conference in Chicago, furious. She just wants to see you lying down, that’s all! She wants to feel good about herself before someone dies! This had shaken Pavel. The words were harsh. But perhaps Larry was right.