“And you have to watch him.”
“He’s harmless.”
“If you say so.” He sat studying her for a moment. “How are things on the fourth floor?”
“Fine. Whatever the problem with the water pressure was, Igor fixed it.”
“My wife and the handyman are a formidable team, but I wasn’t inquiring about the physical plant. I meant on-site morale. How’s Vivi?”
“Fine,” she said again.
“That’s not what I hear in my part of the house.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I got home last evening, I went into the kitchen to get some ice. Vivi was there with Hannah. Your daughter looked as if she was the one who needed a drink.”
“I’m sorry. If she gets underfoot, just send her home.”
He shook his head. “Come on, Charlie, we both know the one thing Vivi is not in our household is underfoot. Hannah would move her in if you’d let her.”
“I know, and I’m grateful.”
He raised one eyebrow. The problem with Horace was that he observed people too closely.
“Hannah said it had something to do with a party at school.”
“It’s a dance, not a party. And it isn’t at school.” She told him about the grandmother facing her mortality and the rescinded invitation.
“You sound surprised.”
“Shouldn’t I be?” Her voice was incredulous.
“Does the name Dreyfus ring any bells? Not to mention more recent events, of which I believe you’ve had some firsthand experience.”
“That was France. Europe. The Old World.”
“Oh, I forgot. Human nature changes when it crosses an ocean.”
“I just didn’t think it would be as virulent here. And I didn’t think they’d visit it on a fourteen-year-old girl.”
“That’s your problem. You don’t think.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m sorry. What I meant was your lack of antennae.”
“Now you’re saying I’m insensitive?”
“Not in the way you mean it.”
“Then how?”
“Most Jews, even Jews like me—”
“You’re Jewish?”
He sat staring at her for a moment, then threw back his head and started to laugh. “That’s what I mean. You have no antennae.”
She felt her face getting hot. “I assumed Hannah was. Because of her practice. But I didn’t think you were. You don’t act it. You don’t seem it.”
“Now you sound like that anti-Semitic latter-day Miss Havisham sitting in her beaux arts mansion, spewing venom. What does a Jew act or seem like, Charlie?”
He’d caught her out, all right. “All I meant was that you never said anything. You never do anything religious.”
“As opposed to you, you mean?”
“I wasn’t brought up as a Jew. I don’t call myself one.”
“No, you leave that to others. What I’m trying to say is you’re the only Jew I’ve ever known who isn’t aware of it. No, I take that back. Your father wasn’t either, but then all he and I ever talked about was books. He was a helluva publisher. But most Jews, including the ones in publishing that I met abroad, are obsessed with the subject. Even the Jews who are trying to pass, especially the Jews who are trying to pass, which incidentally I’m not accusing you or your father of doing, are always thinking about it. Who is and who isn’t. Who hates us and who pretends not to. Who tries to ignore it, who goes around with a sandwich board advertising it, and who’s looking for a fight about it. It’s a survival tactic. And it’s universal. At least I thought it was until I met you. You’re the only Jew I ever met who’s tone-deaf.”
“You make paranoia sound like a virtue.”
“It’s not paranoia when there’s a real threat. I take it you’ve heard of quotas. I came up against them when I was at Harvard. They still exist. Are you familiar with the word ‘restricted’? I have a picture of a hotel in Maine. ‘No dogs or Jews,’ the sign outside says. That was before the war. These days it’s a little more subtle. If you don’t believe me, try renting an apartment in certain buildings in Manhattan or buying a house in parts of Connecticut, not to mention various other states in this great union of ours. I had a friend who pulled it off, but he had to have his lawyer front for him. Still, look on the bright side. That anti-Semitic old bitch is preparing Vivi for the world.”
“Which you’re suggesting I’m not?”
His only answer was that cold blue stare.
* * *
She hadn’t even had a chance to take off her coat when Horace wheeled into her office the next morning.
“I’ve come to apologize. Something, incidentally, Hannah says I’m incapable of doing.” He’d dropped his voice for the second sentence, and she wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.
“For what?” She hung her coat on the standing rack in the corner and walked around him to sit behind the desk.
“That lecture last night. I don’t know where I got off, pontificating to you about being a Jew. It’s as if you decided to enlighten me about the proper way to go through life as a cripple, if you’ll excuse the expression. Don’t look so surprised, Charlie. Did you think I didn’t know I was in a wheelchair?”
“I just never heard you talk about it.”
“Any more than you talk about what happened to you in Paris. You and I are two of a kind. The walking wounded. Or in my case, the wheeling wounded. Which also makes us the two great mysteries of this place. Subjects of infinite curiosity and speculation. ‘Is it true he was wounded on some heroic mission?’” He shook his head. “It wasn’t a mission, only a battle, and there was nothing heroic about it, but a heroic mission makes for a better story, and we’re in the business of selling stories. ‘Is it true she was tortured in a Gestapo prison? Or managed to sneak herself and her baby off the last transport that left Drancy for Auschwitz?’” He held up his hand. “I’m not asking. I’m just telling you the kind of gossip that flies around here precisely because we don’t say anything. I’m not suggesting we start undressing in public.” He was silent for a moment, and she wondered if he was thinking of the most intense speculation about him. “But,” he went on, “we don’t have to be quite so squeamish with each other. So I’m apologizing for that ridiculous lecture last night.”
“It wasn’t actually a lecture.”
“Whatever it was, I was out of line, and I’m sorry.”
He navigated his chair around, started to wheel out of the cubicle, then stopped at the entrance but didn’t turn back to face her, merely sat staring out into the open area of secretaries’ desks. “And while I’m throwing around apologies, I might as well toss one in for that crack about Hannah saying I’m incapable of them. The line smacks of my-wife-doesn’t-understand-me.” He gripped the wheels of the chair with his big hands and gave them a fierce turn to propel himself out of the cubicle. “Hannah does,” he said as he rolled away. At least, that was what it sounded like.