Half the Kingdom by Lore Segal Page B

or his elderly cousin; that they had decided, without the need for discussion, to eat before getting back into their car? Lucy was never going to cross the space between herself and them to ask, “Excuse me, but am I correct in being so certain that you are in your late fifties and you’re not Manhattanites?” Her certainties were reinforced entirely by her certainties.
    She watched them eat in silence, their eyes on their plates. What was there to see in each other’s faces, or to saythat had not been seen or said long ago, and often? He lowered his head to shorten the spoon’s passage from the bowl to his mouth. Escarole and bean soup from the Italian Bar.
    “Taste?” she asked him.
    “Hm,” he said, and opened his mouth into which she guided a careful forkful of pasta in tomato.
    “Hmm,” he said.
    The apple pie, not from the Italian Bar, they ate with two forks from the same dish; she took care to leave him the larger half.
    The short Mexican— was she a Mexican?—was clearing a table for a stout black dad in a business suit and his boy dressed in his best—not, hoped Lucy, to appease a sick mom. The dad took out a cell phone and dialed. The boy dripped ketchup on a fry in the front, a fry in the back, and this fry, and that one, creating a ketchup loop before picking up his burger. The dad finished his call, helped himself to one of the boy’s fries, and dialed another number.
    Two blond young people moved the dishes from their two trays onto the table and took out their BlackBerrys.
    The father finished his second call and asked the boy if he was going to want ice cream. The boy said, no, he didn’t. The dad was looking for a number on his cell, found it and dialed, a business call this, a professional laugh. The boy changed his mind. He wanted ice cream. When he returned with—it looked like vanilla and chocolate—the dad was on an extended call. In the melted brown sauce the boy drew loops that he accompanied with soft airplane noises.
    Lucy waved to the tired young woman from the ER. Thered sweater was the right side out. Maggie brought over her cup of coffee and sat looking into it. She said, “We’re back. My mom seemed okay when we got her home yesterday. She was fine.”
    Ilka Weiss
    Ilka Weiss lay on the sofa with her legs up. She asked for a blanket. Little David helped, impatiently, to tuck it around his grandmother’s legs. He said, “So, go on.”
    Maggie said, “Let Grandmother rest,” but Ilka said, “So the next time King David went down to fight those Philistines …” and Maggie said, “Mom, Jeff and I stay away from the fighting.”
    “Mommy,” said little David, “you can go. And take Stevie. Stevie, stop it.” Baby Steven’s newest skill was turning pages and he was practicing on the King James Bible on Grandmother’s lap.
    “Not to worry. I know the story in my head. But let’s let Mommy and Stevie stay, because we’re coming to the baaaad stuff.”
    “Go on ,” the little boy said.
    “King David,” went on Ilka, “was a great soldier, the soldier of soldiers, only he was growing old. King David was tired. His spear was an encumbrance.” Grandmother Ilka demonstrated the difficulty with which the aging king raised his weapon. “His armor was too heavy for him. Climbingthe hill, he had to reach for one little low bush after another because his balance wasn’t what it used to be. He watched with a thrill of envy—with a thrill and with envy—how his young soldiers ran ahead while he stood and just breathed. Couldn’t tell if it was his hiatus hernia, his heart, or an attack of anxiety because they all three felt the same.”
    “And,” little David prompted.
    “And Ishbi-benob, a Philistine of the race of giants, was wearing his new armor. His spear weighed three hundred shekels.” Grandmother lightly swung the idea of its superhuman weight above her head, “and he was going to strike King David down when—Stevie, if you don’t leave King James