Snow in August

22

That afternoon, after hanging up his suit and taking a bath to wash away the odor of the solvents, Michael handed his mother the five dollars. He explained about Mrs. Griffin but didn’t tell her the details of his dreams.

“Och, Michael, you should keep it,” she said, holding each corner of the bill with thumb and forefinger. “It was your dream.”

“No, let’s save it for a phonograph.” He told her about the composers Rabbi Hirsch had mentioned, finding their names written into his notebook. Smetana, Dvořák, Mahler. “We can hear all the music they don’t play on the radio.”

“Fair enough,” she said, and put the bill in her purse.

Then they sat down to an early dinner. Kate Devlin did not mention what had happened at the synagogue, so he knew she must have taken the trolley car to the eight o’clock mass at Sacred Heart. If she had walked, she’d have seen the swastikas. But Michael did not want to spoil the meal by relating the events of the morning. The meal was the reason she’d risen so early to go to mass and had then rushed home to scrub potatoes and peel carrots, and prepare the small pot roast for the amazing oven of the new gas stove. That, and one other thing: although she had paid for a new suit for Michael, she did not buy an Easter outfit for herself. “I think I’ll skip the fashion show at the eleven o’clock mass, thank you very much,” she’d said before leaving. Now the kitchen was filled with the aroma of the roast, and before they sat down she toasted the hametz that Rabbi Hirsch had sent to them for Passover.

“Well, happy Easter, son,” she said, “and to all the others who don’t have food.”

She said grace then, with Michael adding an “amen,” and they began to eat. The meat was pink and savory and he cut off small pieces and tried to chew them slowly. He still ate much faster than his mother did. He slathered butter on the opened potatoes and the crunchy toasted hametz. He piled more carrots on his plate. She cautioned him about using too much salt. He sipped cold water. Then he told her what a seder was and how Jesus and the disciples were actually at a seder when they had the Last Supper and how next year Rabbi Hirsch wanted them to come to a seder at the synagogue and was going to invite Jackie Robinson too. Kate Devlin thought that was a wonderful idea and said she would cook and they could carry the food up to Kelly Street.

But when dinner was almost over, he told her what had happened that morning. Kate Devlin was furious about the swastikas and thrilled at what Father Heaney and the men had done.

“At least they’re not all a bunch of bigots,” she said. “There’s still a lot of decent people around here, no matter what you might think.”

They talked about how the police had to find the people with the red paint and how it was probably the Falcons, since Frankie McCarthy had come by with his boys to see the results. They usually ate breakfast when other people ate lunch.

“You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes,” she said, “to figure that one out.”

But as this was Easter Sunday, and she wanted to make it special for the boy, she didn’t dwell on the story. It was one more terrible event in a sinful world. After dinner, they walked together to the Grandview, where she was working that night. This was a big deal for Michael: because there was no school on Easter Monday, he could sit through the entire double feature, along with cartoons, the newsreel, and the coming attractions, while Kate worked in the box office. And he would go home with her when the pictures were over. She took him through the lobby to a side door, bought him a box of Good and Plenty candies, and then went to the box office.

The first movie was a western with Joel McCrea, and although he missed the beginning, he felt as if he’d already seen it ten times at the Venus, with different actors. The other movie was 13 Rue Madeleine, with James Cagney, all about four OSS spies who infiltrated France to destroy a secret German rocket base before D day. The address in the title was Gestapo headquarters, and one of the OSS agents was secretly a German spy. Michael disappeared into the movie, training with Cagney, operating secret radios in barns and basements, moving bravely down dark European streets in a holy mission against the Nazis. When it was over, he felt uneasy. The swastikas were obviously symbols of evil, the Nazis were clearly the bad guys. How could anybody copy the Nazis by putting swastikas on a synagogue? Probably the Falcons. But maybe someone else. Maybe people right here in the RKO Grandview.

His feeling of unease worsened when the newsreel came on after the coming attractions, just before the Joel McCrea picture was to play again for the last time that night and he could see what he had missed. Part of the newsreel was about Jackie Robinson signing with the Dodgers. It showed Branch Rickey shaking hands with the smiling black player, and film of Robinson in Havana, slashing a ball to left field and dashing to first in a pigeon-toed way, his hat falling off as he rounded the base. Some people cheered. But about half the audience booed. In Brooklyn! They were booing a Dodger!

On the way home with his mother, he talked about the way Robinson had been booed, not because he was a Dodger, obviously, but because he was a Negro, and she tried to explain how there were all sorts of people in the world, and how some of them were ignorant or afraid or full of disappointment, and how you had to pity them and pray for them.

“They just don’t know any better,” she said. Then her voice lowered. “But, to tell the truth, some of them…”

She just shook her head, as they turned into Ellison Avenue for the last two blocks to home. The night sky was clear, bright with dense stars and a huge moon. There were more people in the streets now. The night was cool but not cold, with a brisk wind blowing up from the waterfront, and they were both glad they’d worn coats. A half-full trolley car raced by on its metal tracks. The bars of Fitzgerald’s and Casement’s were packed. They turned into the apartment house.

“We’ll have a nice cup of tea,” she said, “and then a good night’s sleep.”

On the second floor landing, as they passed Mrs. Griffin’s flat, Michael could hear the squeak and bang of the roof door. He was suddenly wary. He remembered clearly hooking it shut. He stepped ahead of his mother on the last flight of stairs and turned cautiously on the landing. He could see a rectangle of sky through the open door.

“Why is that thing open?” Kate Devlin said, fumbling for her key. “Go up and lock it, son.”

He went slowly up the roof stairs. When he reached the door, he could see it: a bright red swastika painted on the inside of the black door. Paint was splashed around the small landing.

“Mom! You better come up here, Mom!”

Coatless now, she left the apartment door open and hurried up the stairs.

“Good God,” she whispered.

She stepped outside, with Michael behind her. In the bright starlight they could see the words JEW LOVR painted on the outside of the door, the paint still wet to the touch. The words filled the door. There didn’t seem to be room for the E in LOVER.

“Those cowardly bums,” she whispered, then went back to the doorway. “Now be careful, don’t get the paint on yourself.”

She hooked the door shut and led the way downstairs. In the kitchen she pulled on her coat. Her face was cold and focused.

“That does it,” she said. “I’m calling the police.”

“They won’t do anything, Mom.”

“I’m calling them anyway. Lock the door behind me.”

From the window, he saw her cross Ellison Avenue and walk into the back door of Casement’s Bar, where there was a pay phone. I should have gone with her, he thought. Suppose they’re down there? Suppose the Falcons are watching her? If they do anything to her, it’s because of me. I’m the one who goes to see Rabbi Hirsch. I’m the one who went to get Father Heaney. Not her. He imagined men in black uniforms and polished boots coming out of the dark to hurt her. A phrase rose in his mind. Got shtroft, der mentsh iz zikh noykem. God punishes, man takes revenge. If they touched her, he would find them and kill them. No matter where they went, if they ran to the four corners of the world, he would find them. He didn’t care if he was caught. He didn’t care if they took him to the death house at Sing Sing and strapped him in the chair. Got shtroft, der mentsh iz zikh noykem…

And then he saw her come out of the back door of Casement’s and step between two parked cars. She ran across the street. In the kitchen, he unlocked the door and peered down the stairwell. He saw her hand on the banister, heard her quick steps, and then she was coming up the last flight and he took her hand and led her into the kitchen and locked the door.

“All right,” she said, removing her coat. “Let’s have our cup of tea.”

Two uniformed cops arrived about an hour later. One was beefy, gray-haired, and bored. He said his name was Carmody. The other’s name was Powers. His skin was the color of oatmeal. Their polite boredom made Kate Devlin seethe.

“Whatta ya want us to do about it, lady?” Carmody said. “Clean it off?”

“Investigate it!” she snapped. “There’s paint all over the floor up there. These idiots probably took the can to the roof and threw it into the yards. Maybe you could find the can. Maybe you can find the brush. Maybe you’ll even find fingerprints!”

“Well, well, a sleuth,” Carmody said. “We’ve found ourselves a sleuth, Powers.”

“Gee, we’d better do what the sleuth says,” Powers said.

Kate’s eyes narrowed to cold slits.

“Don’t get sarcastic with me, Officer. You’re here as a civil servant. You’d better be civil and you’d better be a servant.”

Carmody sighed in a mixture of surprise and surrender. Kate Devlin wasn’t like some of the Irish, who she once told Michael were far too docile in the presence of the police. Michael watched her with a kind of awe. Look at the way she was dealing with these shmucks. She was tough. Carmody took out a notebook and a stubby pencil and sat down heavily at the table, facing Kate Devlin. The other cop gazed around the apartment, peering into the darkened rooms off the kitchen.

“Name, age, employment, number of years in this apartment.”

“Kathleen Devlin. Thirty-four. I work at the RKO Grandview. We’ve been here since 1940.”

“Where’s your husband, lady?” the sallow cop said.

“In Belgium.”

“Whatta you mean, Belgium?”

“He’s buried there. That’s where he died,” she said, and pointed toward the roof. “Fighting people that used that sign.”

Carmody saw the framed photo of Tommy Devlin for the first time, cleared his throat and looked at his partner. His face flushed. They were both more polite now.

“Yeah, well, ya know, Mrs. Devlin, this is really a matter for the detectives, and they can’t do much at night.” He closed the pad and stood up. “But we’ll go up the roof and make sure everything’s okay, all right? Don’t touch nothing.”

They went out and Michael could hear their heavy feet moving on the roof above the kitchen. His mother washed the teacups in silence. And he loved her a lot for what she had done. He had never heard her use her husband’s death to make people feel sorry for her. Never. And she hadn’t done it with the cops either. It was more like telling them that if her husband could die doing his job, they could try doing theirs. She didn’t weep in public. She didn’t fly the flag like the patriots. She had a mass said every year around Christmas on the anniversary of her husband’s death. But that was all. Some things, she always said, you kept to yourself. Now both of them had called up the memory of Tommy Devlin on the same day.

“Mom, could my father dance?”

“Why do you ask that, son?”

“I was wondering about it,” he said. “Rabbi Hirsch told me that he’d never had time to dance with his wife. And, I, well—”

“He was a wonderful dancer,” she said. “We used to go on Saturday nights to the Webster Hall in Manhattan. In the summer, we danced at Feltman’s in Coney Island. He could jitterbug, all right, and he danced a lovely fox trot. But his favorite was the waltz. Mine too.”

A waltz, Michael was thinking, what is a waltz? And was thrilled at the image of his father dancing. He had imagined him doing a slow jitterbug, smiling and graceful, but now that he knew that Tommy Devlin really could jitterbug, he had trouble imagining this other dance, a waltz. Kate seemed to read his mind.

“That’s the dance that goes one-two-three, one-two-three,” she said. “Here, I’ll show you.”

She took his hand and put another on his waist, and stepped, one-two-three, one-two-three, moving him in the tight space between the table and the sink, and then humming a tune. Do-do-da-dee, da-da da-da, do-do-da-dee…

“That’s Strauss,” she said. “‘The Blue Danube.’ Sure, you’ve heard it before.” He had. “They’re always playing it on Rambling with Gambling, in the morning.” He pictured his father dancing with her, in some ballroom out of a movie, and then Rabbi Hirsch offering a hand to his wife. And then saw a flashlight beam scanning the backyards.

He released her hand and moved to the window. The lights went on in one of the Collins Street apartments, and he could see an annoyed Mr. Rossiter gazing up at the source of the light beam. Michael opened the window and leaned out to see better. He could hear his mother turn on the hot-water tap for the stacked dishes.

“Be careful there, Michael. Don’t, for God’s sake, fall out.”

“No way.”

Then the flashlight beam held on something, and he could hear urgent voices from the roof, and sure enough, there it was, lying in some weeds. The paint can.

“Mom, you’re better than Sherlock Holmes,” Michael said.

She came over to the window, drying her hands on a dish towel.

“Glory be to God,” she said.

“I better tell them it’s Sapolin number 3.”

“Of course, my dear Watson.”

They both laughed, and after the flashlights vanished from the yards, they shut the window. Kate Devlin went to her chair and her book, and Michael went to bed. Lying in the dark, remembering the few graceful steps his mother had taught him, humming softly the melody of “The Blue Danube,” he tried to picture a waltz. He must have seen many waltzes in the movies and didn’t know their names. There were always dances in those boring movies set in earlier centuries, where Englishmen wore wigs and wrote with feathers, and the long, satiny women’s gowns exposed parts of pale breasts. Those movies were hard to follow, because when the Englishmen talked so did all the kids in the Venus; they shut up only when the men were riding horses, dueling with enemies, or stabbing each other in marble castles. Certainly they must have waltzed in Emperor Rudolf’s castle. And he remembered from geography class that the Danube flowed right through Vienna, where Rabbi Hirsch’s mother went after leaving him behind. He wondered whether the Vltava itself flowed past Prague into the Danube.

Then he imagined his father in a tuxedo, like a bigger, darker version of Fred Astaire, waltzing with his mother across the gleaming floor of the Webster Hall. It was long before the war, even before Michael was born, and the music soared, and everybody stepped aside to watch, and his father and mother never got tired. Then, at the far end of the vast ballroom, Rabbi Hirsch stepped forward with Leah, and he was as young as Michael’s father, his face blissful, and he bowed to his wife and started his waltz too.

At daybreak of Easter Monday, when Michael awoke, he saw two detectives in raincoats and porkpie hats down in the yards. They took the paint can away and then came to their house and made photographs of the door and some footprints and took another statement from Kate and Michael. They weren’t the same detectives who had arrested Frankie McCarthy. Abbott and Costello must have had the day off. But they knew about the swastikas at the synagogue and they knew about what had happened to Mister G.

“You oughtta try to remember what happened that day, kid,” one of the detectives said to Michael. “You’re gonna need some help someday.”

Michael said nothing. The detectives went away, and the next day, after school, Michael went to Mr. Gallagher’s and bought some solvent and some black paint with money his mother had given him. She had cleared the costs with Mr. Kerniss, the landlord that Michael had never seen. While she was at work, Michael scrubbed the red paint off the floors of the hallways. Then he painted over the swastikas and the words on the floor. But 378 Ellison Avenue felt dirty now. And somehow frail. He knew they would never feel safe there again.