A/N: hey guys! you likely thought this story was abandoned but in fact i have been trying to update for quite a while between other stories. i deeply love rabbi's character and so i would like to keep going, however long it takes me to update. if you're still willing to give it a read, then i hope you enjoy! as a warning, there are some allusions to sexual abuse, violence for rabbi, and other themes that probably won't surprise you because it's implied rabbi's father abused him. however i want to put the warnings here in bold! it's nothing overly graphic at all but relevant to his character and a lot of fan theories had that in mind. soon satchel will be arriving too! :) i read so many fan theories recently i just want to include them all.
all the best! - zed.
four
In the dream, I felt wet droplets splatter my face and thought that it was raindrops, for the world was misty-blue. I understood that my eyes were not closed and never had been but I was merely blind to all that was around me until those faint lumps peppered my cheeks. It was not rain but dirt; great heaping clumps of dirt thrown at me, where I lay in damp soil – it was soil thrown at me, too, so that all around me was muddy brown mixing into that misty-blue and I could no longer tell them apart, could no longer tell apart soil and sky. It was a man tossing the soil, one hand stuffed into the pocket of his coat, its colour shimmering into sight. The coat was faint red, perhaps bordering maroon. Soil stuck against my hair, clipped my teeth, settled in the hollow of my collarbone.
The man held another clump of soil. He said, "Not a face anymore."
It fell into my eyes, this dirt, fell to the back of my throat too and woke me.
x
Nell called me Friday afternoon. The hallway allowed me a viewpoint into the kitchen and, through its window, the garden. I could see Rabbi and Don Fadda sitting on a bench together, at the very end of the garden. Rabbi had his shoulders hunched forward like he often did, his posture sunken and uncomfortable. Don Fadda ate sliced apple that I had made for him, plucking it from a bowl that he offered to Rabbi. It had seemed to bother the other men that Rabbi had been summoned by Don Fadda. It made him special, I supposed. In a way, he was. Don Fadda seemed to like him, or felt some kind of kinship with him. The men had watched them walk through the grass and continued watching them. Josto was not in the house, and I thought it a good thing. He would have been jealous of his father speaking with Rabbi. He would have been spiteful about it.
I picked up the phone and listened to Nell. "Seems to be trouble," she said. "I overheard the Morenos talkin' about it."
"Meanin'?" I asked.
"I'm not sure," she said. "But it doesn't sound like it'll end well."
Outside, Don Fadda put his arm around Rabbi's shoulder and drew him close.
x
Warm pink light pooled across the marbled altar, splashing itself against the pews. Italian lapped at us from the altar, between reams of Latin. The priest spoke with hands aloft and I felt myself like foam atop calm waters, simply drifted back and forth by the depths underneath me, for I heard and understood little. I roused myself only for shaking hands and shuffling into the aisles to take daily bread, placed like dry cardboard against my tongue and soon dissolved in saliva.
As I walked away from the altar, I felt eyes all around; those of the Italian men who stood behind the Faddas, without wives or kids of their own, alongside the watchful gaze of the Fadda women and the Italian families who attended the service. I felt more judged beneath their stares than that of the carved, marbled figure of Christ draped overhead. If anything, He seemed more sympathetic to my plight. I returned to my seat, falling into place alongside Rabbi, who understood Italian fluently but seemed not to follow the service all that closely either.
"If Father Castigliano ever needed a break," he had once said drily, "I could stand up there and pick up right where he left off."
The drone of a mass was familiar enough for both of us to follow the movements; back and forth, back and forth, foam upon the sea, merely drawn around to the will of something much larger. Whether it was in Italian, punctured in Latin or English or anything else, we could remember the pauses in which we should recite our responses to the priest, vessel to God, so that our words might pierce the high ceilings and rise ever further beyond the clouds.
While Rabbi had dressed more sharply for the service and had shed his haggard old coat for a neater grey coat, its hem was not low enough to hide his scuffed shoes. Beneath it all, he was still himself. He was not like Josto, who had entire closets of pressed shirts and expensive cufflinks to pin at either wrist. Rabbi had a small drawer in his room where he folded three shirts on the left, two pairs of trousers in the middle, some socks and a few briefs on the right. He needed little. He asked for less.
Throughout the service, I stood with him at the back. Not one row from the Faddas, not two. We were left at the end of an otherwise emptied row, our bench creaking loudly for only the two of us to hear. It had been somewhat embarrassing, the first service, to be shooed toward the back, like two stains on the family that could not be cleaned. I mulled over the reason for which I could not simply remain alone at the house, in my bedroom. Then I wondered if I was not trusted enough to remain alone around the silverware and the jewellery.
I had asked Rabbi, one night. He had said one word: "Status."
It looked better for the Faddas, having housekeepers and the like, something caught between nanny to little Zero and maid for sweeping the floorboards and dusting the furniture. I balanced in that in-between of titles, often just left as Ava for simplicity through introductions.
The service ended with three chimes of a bell that stirred me from faraway thoughts, readying my coat and purse, relieved that it was all finished. There was another half-an-hour which would surely follow, though, in which Don Fadda would stand in the aisle and speak with the local Italian families, Calamita at his side to stem the current should too many approach at once. Don Fadda would chat with the priest, with the wives of other families, with the children of those families, too.
Then came the husbands of those wives with propositions for business, concerns about their neighbourhoods, scandals of Italians refused jobs in the town which would soon be rectified by the right hand of Don Fadda, brought down in a fist to ensure no Italians that asked of his aid were turned away.
Rabbi was summoned by Calamita, who had nodded his head in our direction. That was all he needed for Rabbi to understand. He looked down at me and said, "Stay here."
"All right."
I fiddled with the pamphlet, smoothing the crinkled face of the Virgin, dressed in baby-blue. I wished for even an ounce of her serenity. I felt myself too scrutinised. I wished that I were in the car with Rabbi, windows parted for a lick of warm air against my cheek, head tipped back and hair rustling in that faint breeze.
Instead, I was swallowed in the heaviness of a lilac dress which Maxia had brought me for mass, which I wore every Sunday and which choked me at the throat even if its collar was loose and gentle. It was all in my mind. She had given me black kitten heels and gloves and I looked prettier than the week-days but felt alien to myself. It was not that Maxia wanted me to feel nice, but she needed me to look nice in front of the other families, to out-do their own housekeeper-nannies-in-between.
From my peripheral, I noticed Josto had thrown his arms up and marched toward me, which put me on edge. He had been arguing with Rabbi, Calamita and Adriano. Rabbi was still behind him, but his face was blank, not teasing even the slightest thought from him. Josto arrived at my pew and gripped the wooden seat in front, leaning forward as he looked at me.
In the last few days, I had not had much to do with him, because he was often out. He would return in the mornings or sometimes in the afternoon for meetings with his father, without the lipstick-stained scowl that had first greeted me when I met him. He was the successor, next-in-line, heir apparent. I supposed that was what made the men take him seriously despite his tantrums and that was what made me stand a little straighter as he addressed me.
"Listen, Ava," he said, "I need you to come with me."
I was too taken aback to do more than stumble out from the pew and follow him as he marched along the aisle, out toward the cars. Rabbi had begun to follow, but he was caught by Don Fadda and Calamita who called for him, motioning that they had something more to discuss, so he could not ask what I was doing or what Josto wanted and I could not tell him.
I could only climb into a car with Josto and hope that I might feel warm air against my cheek, wind rustling, languid and cool. But Josto kept the windows up and his arm rested on the seat, behind my shoulders, like couples I had seen in the American films. It was not quite friendly on his part. It was forgetful, frantic, just like him. But at least he had gotten my name right, this time around.
In the mirror between us, I saw the dwindling figure of Rabbi, who had stepped out onto the lawn as soon as he could to watch us pull out from the curb.
x
The car turned corners too sharply and cracked over potholes without care. It roamed about the world like Josto did, uncaring, prowling, looking for an edge. The pedal was pushed just a little too hard at the sight of bridges, so that the car sped toward the rise and arched and came down roughly on the other side. He ignored all lights, breezed past strangers attempting to cross the street, slapped madly at the dashboard when the car whined against his shifting gears, the stick bobbing between us in pitiful bleats each time that he moved it. He was talking – more to himself, it seemed, anyhow, for he only paused long enough for me to offer a nod or a weak murmur of assent.
"Gillis," he said. "In front of my own father, too? At our church? Asshole. Limp-dick-little-asshole –…"
He honked in maddened rage as another car pulled out from its driveway and we narrowly skid around it. I felt sickly and white and saw myself just like that in the mirror.
"You ever been married, Ava?"
Startled, I glanced at him. "No."
"Smart girl," he said. "Only brings you heartache and blue-fucking-balls. In front of my father, he brings up the goddamn –…"
I had little notion of what he meant and who he was talking about and only wished that I could somehow slither down between the padding of the seats and disappear from him, from these unfamiliar streets looming around us. The storefronts were becoming all the more fancy, with golden trimmings and curtains draped in their windows. I had not been around this part of the town, had not even known it existed until Josto screeched to a halt in front of a jewellery store and climbed out.
I sat stock-still until he noticed and came stomping back, swinging open my door and herding me out with him. He pushed through the door into this exquisite store, with glossy displays and a faint swirl of perfume lingering from one client or another. I felt the cushiony softness of the carpet underneath us. He stormed right to the counter dead ahead, uncaring of the couple already browsing rings and bracelets, who had been there before us.
"All right. What one would you take?" Josto asked.
I blinked at him. "I beg your pardon?"
"Which fucking ring? Say I was your guy and I was gonna propose to you. I want to impress your father and I want you to show off this rock to all your little yapping girlfriends at your next dinner-party to fill up time before you croak," he said bluntly. "Which ring?"
I was clueless about rings. "I –…"
"Jesus H. Christ," he groaned. "Ava, look at the fucking rings and pick the one you like best."
Flustered, I nodded and looked down at the rings clustered together behind the glass display. From somewhere in my peripheral, I saw the owner sidle toward us and his lips peeled into a smile, a filthy smile; not filthy in a leering sense, but like he thought I was filthy and it offended him, like I dirtied his carpet from standing upon it and soiled his display simply by looking at it.
If Josto noticed, he did not care.
He was bouncing his shoe against the floor, looking around himself and muttering Gillis, Gillis, like a mantra. I swallowed thickly and felt shame bubbling on my tongue, horrid shame for something – an act I could not quite name, but it worsened when I glanced at the other couple beside us, the woman with pearls around her throat, her handbag drawn close. So, I focused on a ring behind the display with a beautiful strip of diamonds across it, glittering and expensive, but simple and understated alongside all the others.
"I like that one," I said quietly.
Rather than point at the owner, Josto summoned another storeman by snapping his fingers. "Hey, you –…"
The storeman stumbled and lowered the carboard box he was carrying to approach us.
"Yes, sir?"
"That one. How much?"
"Oh, I –…" He took in the suit which Josto wore. "Well, sir –…"
Josto peeled back the breast of his suit and pulled out his wallet, wildly flipping through a wad of dollars, tossing them onto the display. "I want it wrapped real nice," he said. "With a little bow on the box. If you put in those little card-things inside, I want it to say something sappy about love and eternity. Got it?"
The storeman was bewildered and moving too slow for Josto. In his temper, he smacked the display once with his fist, causing a few bracelets to tip sideways from their stands. He leaned forward.
"You got a hearing problem or something, buddy? My girl wants the diamond ring, front and centre. So, chop-chop. Sign it Josto Fadda."
From the moment that his surname rang through the store, there was a sudden shift. The storeman fumbled, just once, enough for Josto to take a crack once again at the display with his fist, but then it was smooth and efficient. The diamond ring was plucked from its cushion and sealed in the most beautiful, intricate box which shone and glistened gold against the light, with a delicate bow wrapped around it and sealed like he had asked.
He handed it to me while he paid. It was the closest that I had come to diamonds beyond dusting casings or cleaning rings in houses, because it was not often that housewives trusted the likes of me to take care of their rings and bracelets.
So, I had seen rings from afar, but had never known one of my own.
x
In the car, Josto finally unwound himself. He cracked the windows, leaned back against his seat and sighed, his lips blown outward in a sigh. I watched him, that box still held in my hands. It amused me, how confused the storeman had been, because he was not sure if the ring was meant for me or not. I had chosen it and Josto had called me his girl just to force the storeman into movement, but the card had had another name in swirled calligraphy that I had heard Josto grunt out, reluctantly, like it mortified him: Dessie.
"I never knew you were engaged," I said quietly.
Josto ran his hand across his face. "I'm fucked, that's what I am," he muttered. "Besides, I haven't proposed yet. Need the ring for that."
I felt myself turn red. "Oh. Right."
"It was an agreement between me and her father," he spat, his temper flaring. "A gentleman's agreement, ever heard of that? I told him, I'll do it by next week. I got everything under control. But no – wasn't fast enough for him. So he goes around me – to my father –…"
Suddenly, he started smacking the wheel. His hair fell forward, his words came with spittle. The car rocked with his savage beating of the wheel.
"To tell him that I still haven't gotten the ring and he only wants the best for his Dessie, his little pride and joy – fuck you – fuck you, asshole –…"
Never had a man cursed so much in front of me. I was not a prude nor the sensitive type, but I thought it all the more telling that he cared very little about watching his tongue around me. Then again, Josto only ever held his tongue around his mother and sometimes managed not to lose his temper with his three sisters, whose badgering often led him to blow up and storm out of the house in the rare moments that he stuck around for a night, leaving a trail of expletives behind him.
I touched the bow wrapped around the box, smoothing out a crease. Josto had calmed again, righting his collar. I kept my lips pressed tightly together until I thought it was safe.
"Well, I think she'll love it, anyway," I said. "The ring, I mean."
"Yeah?" He pulled a packet of cigarettes from his coat, holding out one for me. I shook my head and he plopped a cigarette between his lips. It bounced while he talked, searching his pockets for a lighter. "Should marry you instead. You talk less than she does."
How he spoke with such distain for his girlfriend baffled me. In fact, the whole affair baffled me, because I had not heard Maxia mention this Dessie nor had I heard anyone speak of a wedding. It was not an Italian name – Dessie nor Gillis. I wondered what that meant for Mrs Fadda, who had, Maxia told me, been so fiercely intent on her daughters marrying only Italian men. Was it different for her sons? If so, why would Josto marry someone he seemed to dislike so intensely?
Awkwardly, I fiddled the hem of my dress, smoothing it out. "My father used to tell me that that was a trick my mother had pulled on him," I said.
Having found his lighter, Josto lit his cigarette. A puff of smoke fled his lips, frightened by his temper, running off before he could catch hold of it and scream again. "What?"
"My father," I said again. "He told me that my mother was very quiet when he met her. Then he married her and she never stopped talking."
Somehow, it was enough to make him snort and shake his head, lightening his sullen mood.
"Christ," he said, "if that's true, then I'll never know silence again."
"But he loved her. Just – I mean, he said that stuff, but I think he loved her despite it. Maybe because of it."
Josto eyed me. "Your parents still around?"
"No."
"Hm. But you gotta get married sometime, right? Can't go around washing other people's floors for the rest of your life." He blew a ring of smoke that wobbled toward me, washed against me and faded. "You gonna marry Irish?"
"I don't know."
He scoffed. "Of course you are. Irish with Irish, Italian with Italian, that's how it goes. Have little Irish babies. God, if she wants kids –…"
Again, his hands clapped against the wheel.
"Is she Italian?" I asked.
Josto turned his head sharply to look at me. "What? No."
"You said Italian with Italian –…"
"Oh, yeah? Remember what else I said, Ava. I like you because you talk less," he grumbled. "So, talk less, would ya?"
x
The grass was crisp and sprinkled in dew. It soaked through my heels, stained my skin in its green shade, trailing behind Josto to the house. There was Calamita on the porch, though he was not playing cards. He was smoking, alone. He watched Josto thunder past him, into the house, that box now safely hidden within his pocket. Calamita merely rose a brow at him and continued smoking, his eyes then drifting coolly to me. I nodded at him, if only because I was not sure what else should be done. He cleared his throat, holding me on the threshold between the safety of the house and the strange, threatening aura of its porch.
"Irish girl," he said. "Did you enjoy the sermon this morning?"
"Yes." I sniffed against the cold, brittle air. "Did you?"
He shrugged. "It is always good for a man to be reminded that there is someone above him," he said, tilting his chin toward the clouds as if God peeked through. "So, Josto took you out."
"Yes," I said again.
Calamita hummed, disinterested. "I see."
"Ava."
Standing in the dimness of the hall ahead of me was Rabbi. He had appeared at the bottom of the stairs, soundless, his coat shed and even his shoes forgotten. I wondered, for a moment, if he had hurried down from his room upon the sound of the car crunching gravel. It seemed that way. Even his hair was not brushed in its normal parting, but rather wet and slicked back him – freshly-washed, I realised.
Calamita rose from where he had been leaning against the rail, dropping his cigarette and grinding it beneath his heel. He stared at Rabbi, then spoke to him in Italian. It was cold and long-winded, before he turned to me and smiled. It was a mocking smile, one that teased and poked fun at me.
"Next time, maybe I take you out," he said lightly. "A little drive, together. Wouldn't that be fun?"
For once, Rabbi spoke in Italian. It was curt, nothing more than a few words that loosened the smile Calamita wore. Though he had already ground his cigarette into the porch, he did so again, reaching to smooth his collar as he moved into the house. He stood in front of Rabbi and I stood where I had been, rooted to the mat in front of the door, rooted to this house, which was not mine and never would be, something that was dawning on me and had been for quite some time.
Behind them, I saw Ebal emerged from the kitchen. He was a kind, older man who often advised Don Fadda on matters that concerned the family. He noticed Calamita and Rabbi stood together. He moved through the hall, glancing at me. I saw from his face that he understood something had been said between the men, something that was probably an insult that I had not grasped. He cleared his throat, but neither Rabbi nor Calamita looked directly at him. They stared only at each other.
"Ava," Ebal called kindly. "Come inside, why don't you? You'll catch a cold."
It was a banal statement, one in contrast to the tension bubbling within the hall. Calamita reached for his pocket, which stilled my breath. Rabbi followed the movement of Calamita's hand, his face schooled into perfect stillness. I looked to Ebal. He was not alarmed, but his stare was knowing, understanding of something that was lost on me, that had caused all this horrid anxiety to churn and churn within me. I stepped forward, blindly and without thought, and the plank beneath me creaked.
The sound seemed to break through the tension, sliced it right open.
Calamita took a tooth-pick from his pocket and placed it between his teeth, which he bared at Rabbi, before his lips lifted in a smile. Slowly, he moved forward, and clapped Rabbi on the shoulder as he passed. Rabbi did nothing, only stood in place, his eyes sinking to the ground. He was so calm, so unworried that I wondered if I had imagined it all, or made it more than what it was. Ebal waited until Calamita was at his side. Then, he muttered at him and the taller man nodded, slipping off toward Don Fadda's office. Ebal nodded politely at me and followed Calamita.
Italian with Italian, I thought faintly. My eyes moved to Rabbi. Irish with Irish.
"Ebal's right," Rabbi said hoarsely. "Cold out there. Mrs Fadda will complain that the heat was left out, if you keep the door open."
So, I followed him, through the aching quiet of the house, broken only by brief bursts of laughter from the office where Don Fadda and his men were likely drinking and chatting. It was something of a tradition, between the men, on the languid stretch of a Sunday afternoon.
Maxia would bring trays of shots or drinks and beam with pride that she had been involved enough, in some small way, to please her father. Rabbi never joined the men for drinks. He said that he drank rarely, if at all, but I doubted that was truly the reason. It seemed he preferred his own bedroom, tucked away in the corner of the house where people hardly ever passed.
Except for me.
The stairs trembled beneath our steps. Rabbi paused on the second floor, rather than continuing to our own. He seemed preoccupied, branching off to check on Zero. I heard him ask the boy if he was all right, to which Zero said that he was playing with his horses. He had little figurines, matted in this suede-like fabric that he could brush and clean, their tails luxurious, their manes glossy. Rabbi nodded at him, silent, moving to resume our climb to our mountaintop hide-out on the highest floor of the house.
Before he could slip off into his own room, though, and seal himself away, he turned and swallowed and said "Josto wanted to talk to you."
I understood that he wanted to ask more, that he wanted to know all of it, but he did not want to offend either. I stepped closer to his room, this unspoken question of being allowed into his space. He nodded, because Rabbi was nothing if not intuitive. He motioned toward the two chairs by his window, two lonely chairs which looked out into the garden.
I wondered if he sat there often, with this empty chair beside him, for no reason at all. I wondered if he liked to be alone or if life had made it so that he had no choice but to be. I sat with him, still in that lilac dress that I wished to rip off and toss away. But it would be washed and ironed and neatly pressed for next Sunday and the Sunday after that, so long as the Faddas wanted me around.
"Josto wanted me to help him choose a ring," I said. "For him to propose. Did you know he had a girlfriend?"
Rabbi slid into his own chair, slouching low. The sun was setting. It bloomed in a warm golden-pink tone against his skin, softening his pallor, making him look younger than he was and acted, for he had an old soul about him. From the chairs, we could not see the garden. We could only see the bristling tips of trees, wobbling back and forth in the wind, and the chatter of birds settling for the night.
"Dessie Gillis," he said. "Don Fadda mentioned it."
"He doesn't seem to –…" I trailed off, afraid that I would sound too presumptuous. But Rabbi turned his head, eyes questioning, so I finished it for him. "He doesn't seem to love her."
"More of an arrangement," he said. "Formal, like. Her father is a powerful man in Kansas City. Or set to be."
"It was funny," I said. "He brought me to this store on a street I've never seen and the rings there cost more than I'll make in my lifetime. I know nothin' about rings and I think the fella workin' there knew it. He must have thought – … I don't know. It was funny."
There was no humour in it, so that I neither laughed nor smile when I said it. Rabbi stretched out his legs, gaze still focused on me, but then he looked at the trees and there was a heaviness in him. What other word was there for it but heaviness? He slouched. He seemed tired. He was weighed down in one way or another, an anchor digging into the seabead.
Yet he had slept, I knew that he had, he had washed himself. There was still the muggy clinging fog of heat wafting from the bathroom and into the landing. I wanted to stuff up all that silence hanging between us, hanging like the heat, and so I kept talking.
"He asked if I would ever marry," I said. "Josto did. He asked me. But the fella in the store, he thought that I was with Josto, that I was his fiancée because he called me his girl and the like, but the ring was gifted with a card that had another woman's name on it, so maybe he thought – who knows, really."
Rabbi had let me finish, his eyes flicking back and forth around my face until he found something that he could understand. "They look at us different," he said.
He had not specified what that meant, 'us'; the Irish, the immigrants, or just us. The shifting tones of sunlight, dimming and dying, momentarily blinded me as it breached the trees and shone a sharp gold flash against my eyes. I watched him through little blinking dots of white which soon faded.
"Was it another joke?" I asked quietly. "What Calamita said?"
"Not one about you," he said. "One about me."
"Will you tell me what it was?"
Rabbi crossed his arms. The trees bristled and sighed outside. "Told you it was better not to know."
"Maybe I don't want better."
He straightened in his chair, pulling in his legs, which only reminded me of his height and lanky frame.
"He said Don Fadda asked me to look out for you," he said, "and that it might be better if it was someone else doin' it, 'cause I got a dodgy record behind me."
"Not much of a joke," I said softly. "It's lost on me, anyway."
I heard a goldfinch sing, outside.
"There's a thing that's done around here," he said. "A tradition between the rulin' families in Kansas City. They trade their sons. First it was the Jewish and the Irish. It works like this: the head of the Jewish family gives their son to the Irish, and the head of the Irish family gives their son over in return. Lasts a few weeks, maybe months. I was the one sent, from the Irish family to the Jews."
The floorboards creaked beneath him as his socked feet shifted, rising and falling, not quite a frantic bounce in his leg but a subtle tremor. He tugged up his trousers and wiped at dirt that was not there; anything to occupy his hands, for his eyes flit about the room, and still I felt he was not seeing me or its furniture or anything about it. He could not see the trees either, for they had melted into the sky, which darkened to purple and ran with streaks of blue, like dripping paint.
"Then the Jews were taken over by the Italians. By the Faddas. And I was swapped again. Not meant to happen more than once. But it happened to me," he said. "More than once."
"You wanted to stay with the Italians."
I heard the uncertainty of my own voice, trailing off, tinged with fear that I would offend him. It seemed delicate, what he was saying, wrapped in a riddle like all the things Rabbi said and here I sat, trying desperately to untangle it like that bow around the box, tugging at either end, hoping it might come loose. But I was sensing that he was leaving out little things, little pieces which would make the puzzle whole if only he would let it.
"Did you want it, Rabbi?"
His throat rippled. "Not about wantin'," he answered. "It's about needin'."
Suddenly, he lifted himself from his seat and began a strange pacing, something totally unlike himself. But then, what did I know about his nervous habits? For he seemed nervous then, and I was bewildered, not because I could not quite follow his story, but because he was jittery and rubbing at his neck and smoothing back his hair endlessly, like he could not find some comfortable way to stand, like his own skin was bothering him and he would peel it off like his Sunday clothes if he could. He would layer it over his laundry line like the shirts which bobbed there; only two shirts, the third already on his back.
"This is delicate stuff, Ava," he said gruffly. "You shouldn't be hearin' it."
"You don't have to say anythin' more." I half-stood from the chair, awkward, clinging to its edge. "I can leave you be."
"I had to kill my father."
The tittering had ended, I realised. The birds had fled. It might have been the men in the garden that frightened them off, drunkenly singing, playing cards until midnight. It was a faint, hazy thought. It layered itself over his words, which seemed foggy like the air in the landing, clotted in a whitish mist from the shower. I had known that the Faddas killed, for there was no other reason to keep guns tucked into their waistbands and no other reason to stand guard at night while other families slept soundly around them. I had even dared guess that Rabbi had done some of the killing, albeit with reluctance.
In my vision of him, it was always with reluctance. I could not quite match him with what was usually said for killers; ruthless, bloodthirsty, violent. Rabbi was none of those things. I could not know much else about him, but I could know that.
"To show the Italians that I meant it, this switchin' sides," he said. "That I was willin' to do what it took, that I was loyal. He cursed me, before he died – my father cursed me and he cursed any children I might have. Agus do leanaí, he said. But I never wanted them, anyway, could never trust him around them. Would never do it to them, what he did to me, what he would have kept on doin' –…"
There it was in front of me, the tightened knot that I had struggled to undo. It was right there in his chest, which heaved. His hair had fallen forward; he did nothing to right it. I was inching toward this looming, horrid understanding but all the while wanting to scuttle away from it, afraid of its truth.
"Rabbi – I'm sorry."
I spoke quietly then, without meaning to do it, but I could not loosen my throat, which had wound itself shut and was now tightening all the more because it had to be abuse, for why else would he keep any future children from his father, and why else would he be standing so far away from me with his shoulders drawn tight together and his hands uselessly pulling at the hem of his shirt and why else would he look so much like a boy, a frightened little boy –…
"Calamita would have told you," he said abruptly. "About my father. Wanted to tell you first. Calamita would have – he would have taken pleasure in tellin' you first."
I sank back into my seat. My legs had turned numb, detached from me. Slowly, he moved back to his own seat, dropping woodenly against it. He had told so much, and I felt he had not meant to let it all out like that. It seemed that he had begun talking about one thing and it had run into another. I doubted he had ever spoken it aloud in years. I had not said anything more. I was not crying, but my eyes felt dry and rolled like marbles about my skull as if I had wept for hours. I looked at him, because I wanted to say something.
"I'm sorry," I said again.
"Calamita only wants to frighten you," he said, as if he had not heard. "Wants to spook you. Gets a kick out of it, so he does."
I stared at him, daring myself, pushing myself. "Do you remember when you said you could hear me talkin' in my sleep? Bad dreams, I said."
He grunted.
"I dream about buryin' my father," I told him. "There was a time when we rented our home and my brother was ill and my father couldn't keep the crop. No money for the rent. So, the landlord sends another man from our village to tell my father that he has to move on. And my father tries to shoot him, right there in front of our house. But your man shoots back. Both dead, like that."
Rabbi turned his head, watching me.
"Only my father wasn't dead, really. He was dyin', but not dead. And my mother said somethin' like, 'we have to bury him'. No talk of fetchin' help. No talk of helpin' him. We buried him and he was still breathin'. She was afraid, she said, that they'd come and want to be movin' on my brother when he was too ill for it. He died later that week, anyway – and we moved on. After all that, we ended up doin' what we wanted to avoid, so as they wouldn't find us. Always end up doin' what we want to avoid."
I smiled weakly, afraid that if I did not smile, I might cry or fall apart or something worse.
"And I never understood why she did it. Why I did it. It's not the same thing, what we did. Not the same as what you did and what your father did. But it brings me bad dreams and I feel sometimes that I'm the one sittin' in the grave where he was. That I'm lookin' up at myself and askin' what it is I'm doin'."
Rabbi was scratching at his inner wrist. The skin had flushed red and sore and I reached out to steady his grip. If it surprised him, he did not show it. He was listening, I thought. He was watching.
"Get bad dreams like that, too," he said lowly. "Don't like sleepin'."
"Me neither. Maybe we could keep talkin'. Keep each other awake."
His lips quirked for the first time. "About what?"
"Anythin' you want."
Rabbi glanced around himself, then stood from his seat, his wrist falling away from me. He moved to the drawers beside his bed, yanking open the bottom drawer and pushing aside his Bible. He pulled out a small, battered book with a blue cover, tattered around its edges. He returned to sit beside me, holding it out for me. It was a collection of short stories, bound together with thread that had become frayed, some pages slipping out.
"Dubliners. Joyce. Been readin' the stories, when I can't sleep." His eyes found mine. "When I don't want to."
"Never read it."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Read a story tonight. Can talk about it tomorrow."
"Like our own litte book club," I said to him. "Used to work for a woman who had her friends 'round for talkin' about books, in Dublin. Ate biscuits and drank tea and talked about characters."
Rabbi leaned back in his seat. "If you're askin' if there'll be refreshments for you," he said, "I'll have to break your heart."
I laughed. "But if I take this, what'll you read?"
"Got more," he answered. "Keep 'em in that drawer there. You can borrow what you like. But Dubliners is a grand start."
"Thank you." I smoothed my hand across its cover, finding comfort in its worn state. "I don't want to stay alone in my room now."
His throat bobbed. "Don't much fancy it myself either."
"I'll read it to you, then."
He blinked at me. "What?"
"You don't want to sleep and I don't. Don't want to be alone neither. Rather than me goin' to my own room to readin' it by myself, I'll read it aloud. You can listen if you want."
He thought that I was mad, I was certain of it, but then his lips loosened from a tight, uncertain scowl and he gave me one curt nod, which was all that it took. He settled in his chair, legs stretched out again for his own comfort, his fingers laced on his stomach. The pages were yellowed but smooth, the ink dark and blotched. It was a withered copy and its spine was ridged in deep folds; a copy which had been loved, it seemed to me, which warmed me and made me wish to love it also.
I began to read. "'There was no hope for him this time; it was the third stroke'."
x
