Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander

Author:Shalom Auslander
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Riverhead Trade
Published: 2012-01-12T05:00:00+00:00

16.

IT WAS ALREADY WELL past noon when Wilbur Messerschmidt Sr. answered the front door in his bathrobe and slippers.

Kugel, he said.

Senior, said Kugel. Senior was what all the locals called him, and Kugel, preparing for a fight, for denials, thought that it might be helpful to establish some intimacy first.

Senior leaned over to get a better look at the golf-ball-size bump on Kugel’s brow and the purple, half-swollen eye below it. The gash was nearly an inch long. He had iced it for a while that morning, while Mother busily phoned every grocery in town looking for matzoh; he even considered going to the hospital for stitches, but thought that Anne Frank threw vitamins at me wasn’t going to go over that well in the ER. Also, he thought this:

They didn’t have stitches in Auschwitz.

They didn’t have Tylenol.

They had roll call at four in the morning that lasted for hours.

I wouldn’t have lasted five minutes.

Senior tutted and shook his head.

Looks like you picked a fight with the wrong person, he said.

The past is the present, said Kugel.

Not sure I follow, said Senior.

Kugel could smell the whiskey on his breath.

It’s about the house, Kugel said.

What about the house?

Kugel sighed.

About the old bag I found in it, said Kugel.

He waited for a response, a tell, a flicker of recognition. None came.

The old bag? said Kugel. In the attic?

Senior shook his head.

Nerves of steel, thought Kugel. If you had to hide in someone’s attic, Senior wasn’t a bad choice.

Did your son mention anything to you, Kugel asked, about the old bag I found in the attic?

Oh, he’s in and out, that one, said Senior with an angry wave of his hand. All hours, coming and going. Takes care of everyone but his own damn family.

Did you leave something behind? asked Kugel, trying not to get sidetracked. In the attic, Senior, did you forget something there?

Like an old bag?

Exactly.

Nope. Don’t recall leaving any old bags behind. What was in it?

I’m referring, said Kugel, to a certain well-known Holocaust victim.

Senior cocked his head.

In the attic, added Kugel.

Senior scratched his chin.

Elie Wiesel? asked Senior.

Kugel crossed his arms over his chest.

You sold me a house with Anne Frank in it, said Kugel.

Senior looked to the ground and sighed heavily. Then, slowly, he began to nod his head, and, turning and heading back into his house, he motioned with his hand for Kugel to follow.

The Messerschmidts were one of the founding families of Stockton, having originally come to the States during the great wave of German immigration in the mid-1800s. They had arrived by ship in New York City, but the Messerschmidts were farmers and builders, as were many of the German immigrants. Those early years were difficult, and so the next generation moved out to the countryside, where they could find more suitable work. They took what money they had and purchased a rocky, dry patch of land, which they wrestled into producing some meager but desirable crops. In a short time, their small patch of land grew into an impressive farm.

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