Shmerl; and Max, who had essentially swapped places with Jocheved and was reduced now to a residual voice, missed his comrade with a fervor that made sense in no category the girl could understand. Missing him made the uptown streets, awash in fallen leaves and garment magnates with their stout, bedizened wives, seem as much exile as refuge. But Jocheved reproved Max for such thoughts. Shmerl Karp was after all tsedrayt, was he not? A screwball. That much was even more apparent from her West Side elevation. And God knew he wasn’t that easy to look at. Though she’d always averted her eyes from his unclothed body, she thought that his hump had become more pronounced during the relatively short time of their acquaintance. His bandit eyes were beadier, and his ginger hair resembled the ruffled feathers of a turkey cock. Then there was his odor, the scent of the stables (despite his much trumpeted visits to the Rutgers Square baths) having never really left him. Of course, he had his talents: There was that rogue brain of his that made him some kind of a deluded crank, perhaps even a visionary of a specialized nature, and so impetuous was his energy that he seemed never to yawn. That had always impressed Max. Also, he was fearless in his devotion to his friend and apparently without an ounce of guile, which made him vulnerable in ways that would surely be a burden to any woman who would have him; though who would have such a total shlemiel as Shmerl Karp? As for herself, for Jocheved, the whole issue of men and women was in any case moot. The stigma she’d incurred in her former life—lest she forget—was still heartsickeningly active and would expose to infamy any man who entered her purview. But for all that, she sometimes had an impulse to award Max’s bosom friend with some token of her esteem, some gift of a rare significance… though what should it be? The rabbi was already effectively his.
With or without Max’s presence, however, the business prospered; the creditors were soon paid in full. The ice men circulated throughout the city in wagons bearing the Ice Castle trademark (a castle carved out of ice—what else?). They had become a fixture in the neighborhood streets, the Castle’s agents, cutting ice to order with their picks before swinging the blocks onto broad shoulders protected by hemp, carrying them up several flights to deposit in enameled ice safes. In the factory, Shmerl’s crew of engineers took pride in their increasing expertise at maintaining the machinery, sometimes even anticipating their supervisor’s improvements, so that the inventor was able to spend more time in his “laboratory.” He enjoyed working in his locker in the heart of the industry, surrounded by the clatter of equipment and the rowdy exertions of men moving goods. Still, he never neglected his responsibilities as chief technical engineer and met regularly with Mr. Levine to ensure that things were in order. They were not always in order, nor did he and Levine always see eye to eye, but Shmerl suspected that their disagreements had more to do with the old man’s enjoyment of a heated exchange than with any urgent bone of contention; and the inventor tried his best to hold up his end of the argument. It was diverting enough, his life, to counteract from time to time his inveterate yearning, and there was always the satisfaction of knowing that his efforts were making his absent friend rich.
Then a message arrived at the icehouse, relayed from the foreman to the chief engineer, requesting Shmerl’s presence for dinner at a posh address on the Upper West Side. Scarcely able to contain his excitement, Shmerl instantly tried to damp it down, pretending that there was nothing unusual in the invitation. No doubt Max only wanted to talk business, as what else did they have in common these days? Perhaps, now that the Castle had acquired its own head of steam, Max would inform Shmerl that his services were no longer needed. But that wasn’t right, they were partners, though Shmerl always deferred to Max as the de facto head of the Ice Castle, which nevertheless bore the name of Karp: a paradox. Then Shmerl remembered that he was essential to their enterprise and that this line of reasoning had no basis in reality—so why was it with such a mixture of dread and anticipation that he took the Elevated uptown that evening?