Kathleen Spivack - Unspeakable Things

Herbert sighed. His boys. Michael — but instinctively his mind recoiled from the memory. Best not to think — but he was the one I loved best. No, how can I say that? Don’t even think that. My David — whom I love best — can I forgive him for living? Can he forgive himself? The story of Abraham and Isaac came to the old man’s mind. The pain almost stopped him in his tracks.

From the dark corner of the Automat, already metallic with morning sounds and smells, David rose. “Father?”

Herbert looked with wonder at this stooped, balding man, his son. David’s skin was faded with living and weariness. David took off his glasses, rubbing his reddened lids. His eyes were permanently tired and strained from looking endlessly at old German newspapers and microfilm. For a moment, Herbert did not recognize his small, shining son in this stooped and tattered man. “My David,” he said, for he knew something was expected from him. The two men took care not to embrace.

“Please, Father.” David gestured to a chair.

Herbert longed, as did David, to run to the other, pressing him forever in his arms, stroking his thinning hair, his strained, suffering face. But next to them both stood the specter of Michael, a wraith in a wreath of smoke. “Think of me always,” insisted Michael with his sad gaze. “I will not permit you to think of anything else.” Michael was as prevalent as air molecules around them.

“My son,” said Herbert, not knowing exactly which one he was addressing, “I am so happy to see you.”

“Father,” said David. Michael stood by his side, breathing his dead breath into David’s living one. “I was at home earlier. But I wanted to see you here.”

“Of course,” Herbert replied, approving.

David got to the point without preliminaries. “I have perhaps some news, Father,” he said. “I have brought copies. No one else knows.”

“Did anyone see you come here?” asked Herbert.

“No. No one has followed me here.” David stopped, then asked in a lower voice, “And Anna? How is she?”

“Fine,” replied Herbert.

“Good.”

The two men sipped the watery Automat coffee for a moment in silence, no hurry, as if over their own breakfast table at home in Vienna.

“Father,” said David, putting down his cup. “I think we have found a link. I have seen ads in the German papers — and for a long time I could not understand them. But now I think I do.” David paused, and Herbert settled back. He knew it would be better not to ask questions; that if he did, in any case David was constrained not to tell him the answers. The less he knew the better, Herbert supposed. He and David, by implicit agreement, never shared anything they did not absolutely have to.

“Look at this, Father,” said David. He pulled an envelope out of his pocket and took out the small bits of film. In the darkened restaurant, Herbert could not make out anything but brownish rectangles.

David produced a small pocket light. “I came across this the other day in the Berliner Morgenpost. ” He had been scanning the Classifieds section of the newspaper.

“Develop Your Tonality Potential,” it read. “Have you ever wanted to be more intelligent, more creative, more musical?” The ad went on to promise success. “For only a small price, Perfect Pitch can be yours,” it concluded. Underneath was an address in Germany to be called to the attention of a certain unnamed “Herr Professor Doktor.”

Herbert put down the little piece of film. “So it is true.”

“No question, this is it.” David pocketed the envelope.

“The Tolstoi Quartet?” asked Herbert. “Do you think…”

“Yes,” replied David, “quite possibly.”

Herbert looked down quietly at his own intact hands. Their five stubby fingers functioned perfectly. He took a long moment. “And Michael? Do you think that perhaps Michael…”

David looked away. “Father, I don’t know,” he said.

“You’re a good boy,” Herbert said mildly.

David looked at him gratefully. “Father.” He seized his father’s hand and pressed it to his lips, feeling the cold metal bite of the large ring. David kissed his father’s ring respectfully.

“No, my boy,” said Herbert firmly, trying to avoid his son’s display of emotion. “This does not do.”

David looked away. He had already put himself and perhaps his family in danger. “We shall say nothing,” he reminded Herbert. He reached across the table, grasping the older man’s wrist for emphasis. “I have already made some inquiries. We think the link to all of this is in New York.”

“New York? But how can it be possible?”

“I don’t know for sure,” said David. “I have friends, you know. Or rather, we have friends. Old friends, Father.” He saw that Herbert wanted to speak. “Don’t say anything. I cannot tell you, and don’t ask.” Herbert stopped his thoughts. “They know of us, of — Michael.”

The air sprang back, shocked at having heard that name uttered aloud, and rapidly David continued, as if to cover up the fact that he had spoken his brother’s name. “Never mind, Father, friends of yours and — Mother’s—”

There was impassive silence; the atmosphere shuddered just a little this time. Herbert showed no emotion. “But you are not to worry about that,” David continued rapidly. “Let us just say that we have friends helping us. And that we know for a fact that the link to all of this is in New York.” David leaned forward, still grasping his father’s wrist, and dragged the older man into a half-leaning posture across the table. “Father”—David looked down at the brown Formica table, avoiding his father’s eyes—“we have reason to believe that he may be one of us.”

Herbert’s heart thudded wildly for a second, then lapsed back into its ho-hum rhythm. Surprise! But yes, why not? Of course, it was obvious.

David got to his feet. “I must catch the train back. I do not want the Archives to know that I have been away.” David was due back in Washington the next morning. “Tell Ilse and the children good-bye for me,” he said. “Tell them I love them.”

“David, one thing…,” Herbert said, faltering toward the departing body of his son.

“Father. What is it?”

“David?” Herbert did not want to seem to be begging. “Your mother…”

David’s face assumed a sharp, impatient outline. “Yes, Father?” he asked, but his voice was brusque.

“David,” pleaded Herbert, “she is longing to see you. Will you go and see her before you leave?”

David’s face turned into a mask of despair and irritation. “Don’t ask that of me,” he snapped.

“But David…” Herbert’s eyes watered, the eyes of an old man.

“No, Father,” said David sharply. He could not bear to see his father plead, and he hardened himself against this state. “Don’t ask that of me. You know it is impossible!” Abruptly, David turned from his father and walked quickly, almost running, toward the door. “I am sorry,” he muttered, “but I just can’t.”

Spring reached David, embraced him as he parted the door and entered the light, gauzy streets. “You selfish bastard,” David thought, reproaching himself, even as he ran toward the train station. David saw no beauty as he ran, only the bitterness in his heart, the veiled, dark gaze of his father, his mother’s madness, and, through it all, his own guilt at still being alive.

“It’s all right, I forgive you,” whispered a ghost, wafting beside his brother as he ran for the train. But David, hot dark liquid rising in his throat, heard nothing.

Ahead of him in the brightening spring air, Grand Central Station squatted, a yawning hulk. David felt for his press pass, the one that allowed him to travel for free. The early-morning newspaper hawkers were grouped beside the flat open mouth of the station, and the shoeshine boys had already set up their thrones for customers inside the door. The light shifted and changed in the doorway, reaching in striated bands through the gloom. The building clanged with activity — the sharp heels of impatient people clattering against the stone floor, and the information rotunda ringed with light and flurry like a pulpit.