Painted Ladies

63

If you didn’t know you were Jewish,” I said, “would you know you were Jewish?”

Susan looked at me carefully.

“Is this a trick question?” she said.

We were in bed. Having completed the more rambunctious part of our evening together, we had invited Pearl into the bedroom. She had tried to settle in between Susan and me, but I outmuscled her, and she settled for the foot of the bed. Dogs are adaptive.

“No,” I said. “I know you’re not religious. And your ancestors came from Germany. But . . .”

“But I’m Jewish,” Susan said. “I’m a Jew in the same way I’m a woman. It is who and what I am.”

“And if you didn’t know?” I said.

“I don’t believe in magic,” Susan said. “Although there are moments in a therapy session . . . No. No more so than I can speak Hebrew. The irony about Jewishness, I’ve always thought, is that it has been intensified by repression.”

“Containment enhances the power of explosion,” I said.

“Something like that,” Susan said.

Our earlier rambunctiousness had pretty well done away with the bedcovers. Susan made a weak effort at modesty by pulling one edge of the comforter over her thighs. She had been doing power yoga for some time now, and was pleased with her strength and flexibility. As she talked, she raised one naked leg and pointed it toward the ceiling, which pretty well took care of the modesty issue.

“Flexible,” I said.

“And strong,” she said.

“Good traits in a woman,” I said.

She smiled and raised the other leg. Pearl eyed the space that had been created but stayed put. I eyed her both legs pointing at the ceiling.

“Also comely,” I said.

“Jewesses are frequently comely,” Susan said.

“None as comely as you,” I said.

Susan flexed her elevated ankles.

“Doubtless,” she said.

“This thing with the paintings has been the most Jewish thing I’ve ever dealt with.”

“Except me,” Susan said.

“As always,” I said. “There’s you, and there’s everybody else.”

“All the bad guys appear to be Jewish,” Susan said.

“I’m beginning to feel like an anti-Semite,” I said.

Susan, with both legs still sticking up in the air, turned from admiring them to look at me.

“You’re not,” she said.

“I know,” I said. “Now, if I could just find Ariel Herzberg.”

Susan put her legs down, which was good news and bad news. The good news was I could think of something else. It was also the bad news.

“What is he like?” Susan said.

“I don’t know. I have no handle on him. I thought I could lure him into trying to kill me, and instead I lured him into disappearing.”

“Disappearing may be a bit solipsistic,” Susan said. “He’s not disappeared. He’s someplace. You just don’t know where.”

“My God,” I said. “I’m in bed with Noah Webster.”

“Think about it,” Susan said. “Worst case. He’s on the run. He’s alone. He has to go somewhere. If you were at the end of your rope and in his situation, where would you go?”

“To you,” I said.

Susan nodded.

“Does he have a me?”

“No one does,” I said.

“You know what I mean,” she said. “There’s an ex-wife. There’s a daughter.”

“Ex-wife doesn’t hold him in high esteem,” I said.

“ ‘Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in,’ ” Susan said.

“It’s not Noah Webster,” I said. “It’s Robert Frost.”

“When people run,” Susan said, “they run home.”

“And the daughter thinks he’s heroic,” I said.

“It’ll be the wife,” Susan said.

“How do you know?”

“Shrink, woman, and comely Jewess,” Susan said.

“Oh,” I said. “That’s how.”