with Sarco, it was clearly violated when he sliced one of them in half. The portal begins to shrink. One dilapidated old ghost makes a half-assed attempt to hurtle across before it closes and Sasha chops his arm off. And then the portal’s gone, and it’s raining, and Sasha’s beside me, as radiant and mostly alive as ever, and, of course, pregnant. There’s dried blood on her face and a new trickle slips out of her ear. She smiles at me sadly, and then her eyes roll back in her head and she pitches forward, unconscious.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Williamsburg is almost deserted at four a.m. this Tuesday morning.
Almost.
If you happened to be strolling down the darkened streets, you might see a crowd of surly-looking Hasidics blinking against the early-morning rain. They’re wearing long black coats and rimmed hats and one in particular is quite old and quite magnanimous. You can tell by how the others show a certain deference to him, keep their eyes always darting back to him. He might have a century under his belt, but he stands erect and proud, an ancient oak tree in the shadowy Brooklyn night.
Victor parks his SUV in front of the Jews and shuts off the headlights. We glance back and forth to make sure no one’s around and then open the trunk and heave out the enormous bundle. The Jews have a stretcher waiting, probably borrowed from one of their volunteer ambulances, and two of them stand on either side, bracing it as we lower the great weight down.
I hear a weeping sound over the falling rain and realize it’s coming from a small figure sitting on a park bench a few feet away. Traffic rushes past on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway beneath us. The trembling woman stands, escorted by a sturdy young man, and approaches the gurney. I don’t want to see this, but I steady myself and keep quiet. The man looks at us with an unspoken question, and Victor realizes it first and indicates the side of the bundle where the head would be. The Jew unwraps it gently. A flash of horror crosses his face, but he controls it, forces his expression back to neutral and steps aside so the widow can look. Her wail cuts through the night, runs circles through my brain, tears mercilessly down my spinal column, and shivers out in dim echoes down the block.
Two more men escort the sobbing woman away, and then a short, stout fellow beside the old oak tree steps toward me. Could be Moishe’s brother or cousin, from the look of him. “It is as you say,” he says solemnly. “You must tell us . . .”
“I can’t,” I say. “I told you I can’t. I know it’s not fair.”
“We have other methods of compelling you to answer our questions.”
“I’m sure you do, but you won’t find me. And it’s not necessary. Moishe saved my life. The . . . man who did this to him has been destroyed. That’s all I can tell you. It’s over.” I pause, searching for words. “I’m . . . sorry.”
The guy looks like he’s about to say something rude when the elderly man steps forward and silences him with a glance. He regards the body with an unchanged face, and then he looks up at me. Those ancient, squinty eyes: his gaze is penetrating. I’m sure he instantly knows all my secrets, but the trivial inner life of a half-dead Puerto Rican is useless to this old sage. “There is no point, Herschel. Leave him be.” The voice is surprisingly robust for such a withered little body. “This being is like a diaspora unto himself, and he caused no harm to your brother.” He nods at me and with the tiniest of gestures sets the whole entourage into motion, wheeling the gurney away and folding back up into the night.
“C’mon,” Victor says when we’re back in the SUV. “Let’s go see about your lady.”
* * *
Baba Eddie smiles at me. We’re sitting at my kitchen table. I’m trying to ignore the sounds of Dr. Tijou tinkering away in the other room. Baba Eddie’s smoking. Smiling. Smiling and smoking.
“I know you’re feeling particularly like shit right now, Carlos.”
“More or less.”
“But you should know, you’ve done well.”
“I don’t think I have.”
“I don’t know the whole story, but I suspect you’re being too hard on yourself. I can see it on your face.”
I shrug. And then I remember: “Riley told me that you named me.”
Baba Eddie grinds