Homer & Langley: A Novel - By E. L. Doctorow Page 0,34

one whole spring until a tire blew as we cut a corner too closely. Langley’s strategy for repairing the tire was to replace it. In wartime you could not find anything new that was made of rubber, so for a while he picked up secondhand bikes here or there to see if he could get a tire match. He never did, and the bicycle built for two has stood ever since on its handlebars in the parlor and with a few other bikes propped against the wall to keep it company.

The Hoshiyamas also left their collection of little ivory carvings—ivory elephants and tigers and lions, monkeys hanging from branches, ivory children, boys with knobby knees, girls with their arms round one another, ladies in kimonos and samurai warriors with headbands. None of the pieces was bigger than one’s thumb, all together it was a Lilliputian world amazingly detailed, revelatory to the touch.

We will save all their things for when they come back, Langley said, though they never did and I don’t know now where any of the little ivory carvings are—buried somewhere under everything else.

And so do people pass out of one’s life and all you can remember of them is their humanity, a poor fitful thing of no dominion, like your own.

OUR FRONT DOOR seemed to be a wartime attraction. We found ourselves answering to the knock of old men in black. They spoke with accents so thick we couldn’t quite understand what they were saying. Langley said they were bearded and had curls of hair around their ears. Also dark haunted eyes and rueful smiles of apology for disturbing us. They were very religious Jews, we knew that much. They showed their credentials from various seminaries and schools. They held out tin boxes with slots in which we were asked to put money. This happened three or four times over the course of a month and we began to be annoyed. We were uncomprehending. Langley thought we should post a plaque next to the door: Beggars Not Welcome.

But they were not beggars. One morning it was a cleanshaven man who stood at the open door. He would be described to me as having close-cropped gray hair and a Victory Medal from the Great War pinned to the lapel of his suit jacket. He sported one of those skullcaps on his head that meant he too was Jewish. The man’s name was Alan Roses. My brother, who had a soft spot for anyone who had served in that war, invited him in.

It turned out that Alan Roses and Langley had been with the same division in the Argonne forest. They talked as men do who discover a military kinship. I had to listen to them identify their battalions and companies and recall their experiences under fire. It was a completely different Langley in these exchanges—someone who accorded respect and received it in return.

Alan Roses told us what the mystery was with these door-to-door appeals. It had to do with what was happening to Jews in Germany and Eastern Europe. The idea was to buy freedom for Jewish families—Nazi officials were happy to use their racial policies as a means of extortion—and also to inform the American public. If the public was aroused the government would have to do something. He was very calm, and spoke in great and telling detail, Alan Roses. He was, by profession, an English teacher in the public school system. He cleared his throat often as if to swallow his emotion. I had no doubt that what he was saying was true, but it was at the same time so shocking as almost to demand not to be believed. Langley said to me afterward: How is it those old men who knocked on our door knew more than the news organizations?

It was difficult under the circumstances for Langley to maintain his philosophical neutrality. He quickly wrote out a check. Alan Roses provided a receipt on the stationery of an East Side synagogue. We went to the door with him, he shook our hands, and he left. I supposed he would find another door to knock on and subject himself to more embarrassment—he had the reticence of someone doing something out of principle for which he was ill-equipped by nature.

With each day’s papers, Langley searched the news columns. The story was coming out on the back pages in dribs and drabs with no appreciation of the enormity of the horror. This went right along, he said,