reactionaries.”
If Tamar ever went on strike her grandmother would enthusiastically undertake to educate her at home, emphasizing eighteenth-century German philosophy. This prospect kept Tamar in school, most of the time.
B UT SOME OF THE TIME she was repelled by even the thought of her classmates, greedy and self-absorbed … One such day she knocked at the Goldfangers’ door.
“Surprise!”
“No school today?” Joe said calmly.
“No school,” she lied. “Shall we take a walk?”
Mr. Goldfanger was agreeable. They set out. Tamar suggested that, since it was a weekday and everything was open, they visit one of the downtown cafés where you could browse the Net. Joe said that Mr. Goldfanger would not enjoy that activity. Tamar wondered if he had ever been exposed to it. They were walking while they argued. In the end they just pushed the chair along the busy streets.
They stopped in a dry courtyard to eat the lunch Joe had prepared. A fix-it shop and a dusty grocery opened onto the yard, and a place that sold ironware.
“Delicious orange,” Tamar said. “When they did practice hepatoscopy, what did they discover about the future?”
Joe unwrapped a sandwich and handed her half of it. “The discoveries were about the past—about transformations that had occurred. Just one bite, dear man.”
“Transformations? What kind?”
“People into fish. Trees into warriors.”
Men into nursemaids? She waited, but he didn’t say that. Caretakers into guardians, then.
“Girls into scholars,” Joe said with a smile. “What a fat book.”
The fat book was
The Ambassadors.
She was trying to improve her English reading skills. The first paragraph was as long as the entire Tanach.
Mr. Goldfanger was beginning to smell. Tamar picked up the debris from lunch and walked with it to a Dumpster in one corner of the courtyard. Her approach flushed a few scrawny cats.
She turned from the Dumpster and saw, across the yard, that the two men had been joined by a third. The third was a beggar, the kind with a story. She didn’t need to be within range to hear the familiar patter. Wife recently dead. Children motherless and shoeless and without textbooks; was the foreign gentleman aware that children who couldn’t afford textbooks had been known to commit suicide? She drew nearer until she could hear the spiel directly. How impossible it is to find work in this country which gives all its resources to Ethiopians who are no more Jews than you are, sir. Sir!
Joe was standing now, one hand resting on Mr. Goldfanger’s head. With his own head slightly inclined he listened to the beggar. The fellow wore a junk-pile fedora over his skullcap. He held out his hand in the classic gesture.
Joe dug into his own pocket for shekels. The beggar put them deep into his long coat. Then he extended his palm toward Mr. Goldfanger. Mr. Goldfanger laid his fingers trustingly on the hand of his new partner.
“That will be that,” Joe said to the beggar, his Hebrew not at all shy.
“Sir,” the beggar said, bowing and stepping lightly away.
They walked home in sweet silence. On the corner of Deronda Street they ran into the Moroccan woman, and a few buildings later the widower caught up with them. In the vestibule they collected the mail. Joe got a letter from his daughter.
W INTER CAME , and with it the rains. Joe fitted an umbrella to Mr. Goldfanger’s wheelchair. That served for misty or even drizzly days, but when it poured they had to stay inside. They listened to music while Joe cleaned and darned. The soprano loaned them her own two recordings of arias—LPs, not remastered.
Joe patched a leak for the widower. He fixed a newel. He accepted a spare key to the apartment across the hall and put it into his sewing box. One or another Moroccan child, forgetting his own key, knocked on the door at least once a week. Joe baked cookies while Mr. Goldfanger napped. The kids forgot their keys more often.
O NE AFTERNOON the soprano
If Tamar ever went on strike her grandmother would enthusiastically undertake to educate her at home, emphasizing eighteenth-century German philosophy. This prospect kept Tamar in school, most of the time.
B UT SOME OF THE TIME she was repelled by even the thought of her classmates, greedy and self-absorbed … One such day she knocked at the Goldfangers’ door.
“Surprise!”
“No school today?” Joe said calmly.
“No school,” she lied. “Shall we take a walk?”
Mr. Goldfanger was agreeable. They set out. Tamar suggested that, since it was a weekday and everything was open, they visit one of the downtown cafés where you could browse the Net. Joe said that Mr. Goldfanger would not enjoy that activity. Tamar wondered if he had ever been exposed to it. They were walking while they argued. In the end they just pushed the chair along the busy streets.
They stopped in a dry courtyard to eat the lunch Joe had prepared. A fix-it shop and a dusty grocery opened onto the yard, and a place that sold ironware.
“Delicious orange,” Tamar said. “When they did practice hepatoscopy, what did they discover about the future?”
Joe unwrapped a sandwich and handed her half of it. “The discoveries were about the past—about transformations that had occurred. Just one bite, dear man.”
“Transformations? What kind?”
“People into fish. Trees into warriors.”
Men into nursemaids? She waited, but he didn’t say that. Caretakers into guardians, then.
“Girls into scholars,” Joe said with a smile. “What a fat book.”
The fat book was
The Ambassadors.
She was trying to improve her English reading skills. The first paragraph was as long as the entire Tanach.
Mr. Goldfanger was beginning to smell. Tamar picked up the debris from lunch and walked with it to a Dumpster in one corner of the courtyard. Her approach flushed a few scrawny cats.
She turned from the Dumpster and saw, across the yard, that the two men had been joined by a third. The third was a beggar, the kind with a story. She didn’t need to be within range to hear the familiar patter. Wife recently dead. Children motherless and shoeless and without textbooks; was the foreign gentleman aware that children who couldn’t afford textbooks had been known to commit suicide? She drew nearer until she could hear the spiel directly. How impossible it is to find work in this country which gives all its resources to Ethiopians who are no more Jews than you are, sir. Sir!
Joe was standing now, one hand resting on Mr. Goldfanger’s head. With his own head slightly inclined he listened to the beggar. The fellow wore a junk-pile fedora over his skullcap. He held out his hand in the classic gesture.
Joe dug into his own pocket for shekels. The beggar put them deep into his long coat. Then he extended his palm toward Mr. Goldfanger. Mr. Goldfanger laid his fingers trustingly on the hand of his new partner.
“That will be that,” Joe said to the beggar, his Hebrew not at all shy.
“Sir,” the beggar said, bowing and stepping lightly away.
They walked home in sweet silence. On the corner of Deronda Street they ran into the Moroccan woman, and a few buildings later the widower caught up with them. In the vestibule they collected the mail. Joe got a letter from his daughter.
W INTER CAME , and with it the rains. Joe fitted an umbrella to Mr. Goldfanger’s wheelchair. That served for misty or even drizzly days, but when it poured they had to stay inside. They listened to music while Joe cleaned and darned. The soprano loaned them her own two recordings of arias—LPs, not remastered.
Joe patched a leak for the widower. He fixed a newel. He accepted a spare key to the apartment across the hall and put it into his sewing box. One or another Moroccan child, forgetting his own key, knocked on the door at least once a week. Joe baked cookies while Mr. Goldfanger napped. The kids forgot their keys more often.
O NE AFTERNOON the soprano
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