Among the Living by Jonathan Rabb Page A

the head from Mrs. Weiss, and Goldah started back. He felt a wonderful surge of purpose moving past the chairs and the waiters. There was something here that resembled a life he had once known. He felt invigorated by it.
    The sight of Pearl and the others brought him quickly back to earth. Before any of them could catch his eye, Goldah decided on a quick trip to the bathroom.
    Five minutes later he stepped from the men’s room and saw Mrs. Weiss standing in front of the ladies’. The lights were dim but he recognized her at once, an awkward moment between them as they stood in the little corridor: odder still as Goldah felt as if she had been waiting for him.
    “Hello again, Mr. Goldah.” Her voice was no less distant.
    “Hello.”
    “You’ll forgive me, but this seemed somewhat more private.”
    Evidently he had been right.
    “Yes,” he said, not knowing why.
    “My husband doesn’t know you’ve met with my daughter or that the two of you have spent time together. If he did I’m certain your conversation would have gone a very different way. You understand that, of course.”
    Goldah didn’t but nodded all the same.
    “I think I’ll say my piece and then be done with it. Is that all right?”
    The unspoken threat was voiced with such gentility that Goldah had no choice but to nod again.
    “I’m sorry for all that you’ve gone through,” she said. “I truly am. And I’m so pleased that you’ve been able to find a home here with your people. But my daughter is still very fragile, even now, and there are things you can’t possibly know or understand about what she is going through. I believe the word they like to use these days is ‘susceptible,’ and you, Mr. Goldah, are the perfect vessel for a woman in that state. A man who needs help. A man broken by this war. You can understand that, too.”
    Goldah realized he wasn’t meant to answer, just nod.
    “You may have her pity, Mr. Goldah, but please know that pity is all it can ever really be, despite what even she herself might come to think. I have no doubt your own experiences tell you such. Am I right?”
    This time Goldah simply stared and Mrs. Weiss said, “Yes, I imagine you do. I do hope you enjoy the holidays and I wish you and your family a very sweet and happy new year.”

4
    THE SEVEN A . M . Nancy Hanks got them into Atlanta just before two p.m. They had spent half the trip in the grill car, Jesler praising the Georgia Central for its steaks — the best of any of the lines, he said, even the ones up to New York. Goldah agreed and let Jesler finish the slab of meat that remained on his own plate. It was little more than a thick spine of fat and veins when the boy in the white coat came to clear the table.
    Out in the cab the streets beyond the station grew wider while the buildings — littered with signs and awnings — moved past at full assault. Goldah had let himself forget the pace of a real city. He settled back and listened to Jesler drone on as the streets moved by in a blur.
    Their hotel, the Georgian Terrace, was a grand affair, with white columns and a series of red-striped canopies out front. It lived up to its name, with a side terrace where early drinks or late lunches dotted the tables among the legion of tuxedoed servers.
    Goldah felt the heat at once as he and Jesler stepped from the cab. It was a different heat here — different from Savannah — drier, and Goldah wondered if it was possible to miss a thing he had only just come to know.
    The sixth-floor room was plush, with sitting chairs and a small ottoman. Goldah pressed his hand onto the mattressand it gave with his palm; he imagined the pillows would do the same. Jesler had tossed his jacket and tie onto his bed and was now in the bathroom running the water.
    “You can see the Tech campus from the window,” Jesler said between splashes.
    Goldah was already staring out. In the distance he saw a few green patches — trees, red brick — congregating in a small