Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.
John 5:1-4
Sarah stood beneath Bethesda Fountain, staring up at the impassive bronze face of the Angel of the Waters. Completed in 1873, ten years before she was born, Sarah had never known a time when the majestic seraph hadn't been there. The angel's right arm outstretched in blessing over the fountain waters, had been there when Sarah was a girl, small enough to receive piggy back rides from her father, when Mayer still had health and youth on his side. The lilies—symbols of purity and fertility—in the angel's left hand were there now, a balm for the eyes of man and beast alike. And Sarah had no doubt, that the angel would be there, her expansive wings a welcoming beacon for all those in need of shelter, long after those whom she loved had passed on. Sarah pictured herself at eighty, hobbling up to the fountain aided by a crook cane, coming to feed the birds with day old bread. This image brought a smile to her face. She found herself feeling grateful for the sheer permanence of the statue's presence in Central Park, and in her life.
Sarah turned away from the statue in time to see David walking down the grand staircase of the terrace that stood on her left. He had apparently spotted her before she had turned around because his right hand raised to acknowledge her as soon as they locked eyes. Sarah noticed, not for the first time, but with deeper recognition, how her brother was aging. The lines around his eyes were much more noticeable now when he smiled.
"You beat me," David said when he was close enough to his sister to be heard without shouting.
The corners of Sarah's mouth lifted slightly. "I've always been an early riser."
David nodded his head. "Remember when you threw Les' shoes at me to get me up for school?"
Sarah let out a small laugh at the mention of this childhood memory. "He was always leaving his shoes by the bed instead of by the door, like Mama wanted him to.
"You were lucky you got your own bed. I hated sharing one with him," David admitted. "He tossed and turned so much in his sleep; he kept me awake half the night."
"Remember that time that he fell out bed?" Sarah asked.
"Of course I do—and it happened more than once."
This easy back and forth between Sarah and David about their younger brother, had only started to flow naturally in the last year or so. Before that, talking about Les had been much too difficult for the both of them.
It was a few minutes before ten-thirty, still too early in the day for lunch. The passersby were mostly solitary pedestrians out for morning constitutionals, or people walking their dogs. A stately woman attached to a pure black Great Dane passed in front of David and Sarah. Sarah admired the woman's hat, a sky blue cloche with no adornment on it. The families with small children would come around noon. The couples seeking a charming venue for a romantic stroll would come even later.
David looked around Bethesda Terrace, admiring the skilled work of Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould. "I haven't been here in forever. I used to love coming here when we were kids."
"Jack and I come here sometimes with Lucy and Teddy." Sarah paused to reconsider her words. "Well, not as much as we used to, now that they are busy with school and their friends."
"Life gets busy I guess," David offered. He then inserted his right hand into one of his pants' pockets, eventually withdrawing a single penny. David closed his eyes, and for a moment just stood in front of the fountain holding the penny in the open palm of his hand with a thoughtful expression on his face. When he opened his eyes, he tossed the coin into the fountain water, where it gradually sank to the bottom.
"What did you wish for?" Sarah asked, eyeing her brother with curiosity.
"Nothing special," David responded. He looked up from the pool of water towards his sister. "You still think this is a good idea? Meeting Alvin I mean."
Sarah did not hesitate to answer. It was almost as if she had been thinking the exact thing that David had voiced. "When I got up this morning, I wasn't sure, but when I was eating breakfast, I started to think about mama and papa. If they were still here, they would want their grandchild with the family."
"But Sarah, we don't know that Alvin is their grandson."
Sarah looked at David with mild surprise. "Jack told me that you told him that there is no way to prove that Les isn't Alvin's father."
"Sure, but…" David trailed off. "You still haven't told Lucy and Ted about any of this?"
"No. There would be too many questions. Teddy, I'm sure, knows where babies come from, but Lucy…"
David chuckled. "Sarah, she's thirteen years old. She probably knows more than you think she does."
"I didn't when I was her age," Sarah said indignantly.
"That was a different time—" David began but was interrupted.
"David, that's them." Sarah nudged her brother lightly with her elbow.
David looked in the direction of Sarah's gaze and saw an elderly man and woman, whom he could only suppose to be Ari and Anita Delman, approaching the fountain from the west side of the terrace. A little boy with a pale complexion and medium brown hair traipsed along close to Anita holding a wooden toy sword. Even though the boy had a slight frame, the navy-blue sailor suit that he wore was ill-fitted and appeared to be at least one size too small for him. Sarah noticed that both Anita and Ari wore the same clothing that they had had on when she first met them. She began to suspect that the Delmans were of quite meager means. She imagined that Alvin's sailor suit was the nicest piece of clothing that he owned and that it had once fit him quite well, but that the Delmans could not afford to buy him something better fitting.
"Hello again," Sarah said warmly when the Delmans were a stone's throw away from her. "David, this is Mr. and Mrs. Delman."
"It's nice to meet you Sir," David greeted the older man, offering his hand to Ari which the latter respectfully took for a brief handshake. Anita nodded politely at Sarah and then at David.
Sarah bent down slightly to address the boy, looking for traces of her deceased brother in his eyes as she did so. "And you must be Alvin." Alvin nodded silently, drawing a bit closer to Anita. Alvin looked at Sarah but didn't say anything.
Anita passed a comforting hand over Alvin's head. "He doesn't meet a lot of new people. He's mostly at home with me. He's a little shy."
"I like your sword, Alvin. Who made it?" David asked, trying to draw the child out. Again, Alvin didn't speak.
Now it was Ari who stepped in for Alvin. "We have a neighbor down the hall from us—a Mr. Jenkins. He's a plumber by trade but does woodworking as a hobby. He made it for Alvin for his last birthday."
"Our brother used to play with one when he was little," David noted.
"Well, little boys do tend to like to tilt at windmills, don't they," Ari said with a lightness in his tone that Sarah hasn't heard from him before. "I know that I did, when I was Alvin's age."
For a moment, no one spoke. The adults smiled awkwardly at each other until Ari cleared his throat loudly and said, "Why don't we walk by the lake. We can talk as we walk."
"Sure." David was relieved. "I am sure Alvin would like to look at the ducks."
"And the boats," Anita added merrily. "Alvin has been asking for a toy boat lately."
The group began to walk the short distance from the fountain to the lakeside, with the two women leading the way with Alvin in between them. Shortly after they began walking, David felt Ari slow his stride. It was clear that he was trying to put some space between themselves and the rest of their party.
"We thought that you and your sister might not come today," Ari said in a low voice.
"To be honest, we are still trying to wrap our heads around everything. It was Jack—my sister's husband—who really pushed us to come. He hates the idea of orphanages."
Ari considered David's words. "I can't blame you. Have you made your own inquiries?"
"We spoke with people who worked with Les and Alice at the Iroquois. They all said the same things that you did, so it seems likely that…"
Ari stopped walking and looked at David sternly. "Mr. Jacobs, I want to be clear about something. My wife and I would not have contacted your family if we did not believe that Alvin was your nephew. We do not take this lightly."
"We're not taking it lightly either," David assured the older man.
Ari nodded his head and then continued walking, but not at a pace that would bring them that much closer to the ladies.
Ari looked in front of him as he walked. "Your sister's married name is Sullivan. I take it that her husband is not Jewish then?"
This question took David by surprise. "Jack? No—they give gifts around Christmastime. They're not religious though. Jack's parents were born in Ireland, but they didn't take him to church or anything."
"Oh," Ari said with audible disappointment in his voice. "And that didn't bother your parents? That their daughter married outside of their faith?"
"Our parents were not very observant, Sir. The only time I remember my father going to synagogue was to attend funerals." David explained. "I mean, we celebrated Hanukah when we were kids, but it was more about the spirit of it, you know what I mean?"
"I do know what you mean, Mr. Jacobs," Ari replied. "More and more, I am finding that our Jewish brothers and sisters in New York don't keep the old traditions. You see, we are hoping that whether we are in his life or not, that Alvin will follow the Jewish faith, as we have been bringing him up."
David didn't quite know what to say. He had only been to synagogue a few times in his life. He had never been bar mitzvahed, nor had Les for that matter. He couldn't read Hebrew or speak Yiddish. He didn't even pray. Then he thought of the Nadlers. "My wife's family is more observant. Her father goes to synagogue every week. They have big Passover dinners. "
Ari's face brightened, seemingly pleased by what David had said. "That is good. I didn't know that you were married. Do you have children?"
"No. We don't," David said simply.
Ari knew better than to probe further into David's private life. "Let's catch up with the others, shall we?" Without waiting for David to respond, Ari quickened his pace until he had rejoined Anita and Sarah. David followed the older man's lead and soon the group walked closely together on the dirt path that hugged the lake. The sun was still lingering in the east, sometimes concealed by clouds, in anticipation of its trek west as a handful of morning canoers out on the water glided past them.
"Mr. Jacobs, I was just telling your sister how much the city has changed since we were young," Anita said. "Ari and I remember the park before the statue of the angel was here. When I saw it for the first time—I had just turned eighteen—I thought it was so beautiful."
"Mrs. Sullivan, did you know that it was a woman artist who made the angel?" Ari said, trying to be friendly. He didn't know if Sarah had fought in the suffrage movement, but in his experience, women younger than him and Anita tended to be interested in the achievements of other women.
"Actually, I didn't—and, you can call me Sarah."
Ari folded his hands behind his back and continued talking. "Her name was Emma Stubbins. It was a big deal that the sculptor was a woman. I think she finished it in 1873. I was working in Hunts Point at the fish market with my father back then. When Anita and I were courting, we would meet at Bethesda Terrace."
"Chaperoned by my mother of course," Anita laughed.
A faint smiled played across Ari's lips. "I remember trying to scrub the smell of fish off of me after work before meeting her."
"Was your father a fish monger?" David asked.
Ari shook his head. "No, my mother and father had a pie stall at the Fulton Market. At the end of each day, they would buy fish that hadn't sold at a steep discount and make little pies with them. They sold well enough. The pies were mostly potato and carrots, but there was always a bit of fish in each one."
"They were delicious," Anita recalled. "I wish I had learned how to make them properly, but my efforts turned out like bricks."
"They weren't all that bad Anita," Ari said.
"They weren't all that great either, dear."
"Mrs. Delman, did you work before you were married?" Sarah asked.
"Oh yes, and after I married too. Staying at home with little ones is only for the well-off, you know. I was a hat trimmer at the same factory on Thirty-Sixth Street for over twenty years, until they went out of business. I tried to get work at another factory doing the same thing, but no one would hire me. I guess they thought I was too old."
"I doubt that," Sarah said to be polite but she knew that older women often had difficulty finding employment. Sarah also knew that what Anita had said about the well-off was true. She had always had to work. So had her mother. Sarah mulled over what Anita had said about being eighteen when the Bethesda angel was erected. If that were true, then Anita and Ari must have had Alice quite late in their marriage, possibly in their late thirties or early forties. She didn't know exactly how old the Delmans were, but she knew approximately how old Alice had been at the time of her death. Sarah wondered if there had been other, unsuccessful, pregnancies before Alice.
While the adults had been talking, Alvin had been walking quietly beside his grandmother, holding her hand, looking out at the lake with searching eyes. But when he spied a male cardinal perched on an unoccupied bench up ahead on their right, he broke away from Anita, running up to the cardinal at full speed with the wooden sword flailing in his hand. At his approach, the cardinal flapped its wings and took off somewhere into the trees faster than one could bat an eye. Alvin turned to Anita, consternation written all over his face, his wooden sword now hanging limply at his side. "It flied away!" he pouted.
This was the first time that Alvin had spoken since meeting David and Sarah. Both of the Jacobs' siblings thought that the boy's naïve bewilderment was endearing. When they looked at each other, they could tell that the other was warming to the child.
"Yes honey, birdies don't like when humans get too close," Anita said tenderly.
"It flied away," the boy repeated, still downcast.
Ari was firmer with his tone. "Alvin, next time you see a bird, just look at it from a distance. Don't try to touch it."
David found that he was enjoying the conversation and the walk by the lake. The Delmans reminded him very much of his late parents, or at least, people who could have been his parent's friends. In a moment of impulsive good will, he said, "Alvin, would you like to take a canoe ride?"
Alvin did not hesitate. "Yes!" he said with much enthusiasm.
Both Anita and Ari seemed surprised at David's suggestion. "Oh, we wouldn't want to impose," Ari said. When Alvin sensed that his grandfather was not going to accept David's proposal, his affect soured.
"No, no—please—I would like to take a boat out. I just thought that Alvin would enjoy it too," David assured them, trying to salvage the child's spirits. David's offer had been made spontaneously without considering the cost of renting a canoe or that the Delmans might consider the rental an unaffordable luxury, the latter being something that Sarah had already cottoned on to. Out of all those present, David had the most disposable income to play around with. Due to the generosity of a childless aunt on their mother's side, Elias and Lily Nadler had both been the recipients of a substantial inheritance which they gained access to upon turning eighteen. David had his pride; his salary paid for rent and groceries, as well as most outings. Lily however, had the financial means to buy her own clothing and furnish the apartment. This was also the reason why Eli, if he was so inclined, might be willing to invest in Racetrack's new business venture even if he hadn't done well abroad and why he could afford to dress like a prince, even back when he was an unemployed university student at Buffalo State.
When Anita saw how disappointed Alvin looked, she cast her husband a reproachful glance which he did not fail to notice. The child was only three after all. Why be a spoilsport? Anita looked at Sarah, who was trying to maintain a neutral expression, and then at David. Mr. Jacobs—David—are you sure that it would be okay? I know that Alvin would love a boat ride."
David didn't waver. "Of course it would be okay."
"I suppose it wouldn't hurt," Ari capitulated, looking at Anita and then at David.
"Then let's go," David said, slapping his hands on his upper thighs while looking at Alvin with a twinkle in his eyes. And with that, the Delmans, the Jacobs' siblings, and Alvin set out for Vaux's Boat House.
Wow - I can't believe that I am still updating this. Usually when I start a multichapter story, I lose interest and give up after three or four chapters. I could definitely see myself doubling the current length and actually giving it a proper finish. I hope that I can do it
I am sure that there are typos and grammatical errors. I will catch them later and fix them.
In the next chapter, we will finally meet Eli!
