The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel by Michael Chabon

Author:Michael Chabon [Chabon, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007149834
Amazon: 0007149832
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 2008-04-29T04:00:00+00:00

"No. No, I'm sorry, Mrs. Shpilman. But you will be able to reach Mendel through this person. Whenever you need to. Wherever he goes."

"What person, tell me? Who is this friend?"

"If I tell you, you have to promise to keep the information to yourself. Otherwise, Mendel says" she glanced at her friend as if hoping for some moral support to get past the next seven words "you will never hear from him again."

"But my dear, I never want to hear from him again," Mrs. Shpilman said. "So there's really no point in telling me where he is, is there?"

"I suppose not."

"Only that if you don't tell me where he is, and no nonsense, I will have you sent over to Rudashevsky's Garage and let them get the information out of you the way they like to do it."

"Oh, now, I'm not afraid of you," said the Brukh woman with an astonishing hint of a smile in her voice.

"No? And why is that?"

"Because Mendel told me not to be."

She could feel the reassurance, catch the echo of it in the Brukh woman's voice and manner. An air of teasing, of the playfulness that Mendel imposed on all of his dealings with his mother, and with his dread father, too. Mrs. Shpilman had always thought of it as a devil inside of him, but now she saw that it might be simply a means of survival, protection. Feathers for the little bird.

"He's a fine one to talk about not being afraid. Running away from his duty and his family like this. Why doesn't he work some of that magic of his on himself? Tell me that. Drag his pitiful, cowardly self back here and spare his family a world of disgrace and embarrassment, not to mention a beautiful, innocent girl."

"He would if he could," the Brukh woman said, and the widow beside her, who had said nothing, heaved a sigh. "I really do believe that, Mrs. Shpilman."

"And why can't he? Tell me that."

"You know."

"I don't know anything."

But she did know. Apparently, so did these two strange women who had come to watch her cry, Mrs. Shpilman dropped into a white-painted Louis XIV chair with a needlepoint cushion, heedless of creases that this sudden plunge made in the silk of her dress. She covered her face with her hands and cried. For the shame and the indignity. For the ruination of months, and years, of planning and hopes and discussion, the endless embassies and back-and-forth between the courts of Verbov and Shtrakenz. But mostly, she confesses, she cried for herself. Because she had determined with her customary resolve that she would never see her only, beloved, rotten son again.

What a selfish woman! It was only later that she thought to spare a moment's regret for the world that Mendel would never redeem.

After Mrs. Shpilman had been crying for a minute or two, the frumpy widow rose from the other wing chair and came to stand beside her.

"Please," she said in a heavy voice, and put a plump hand on Mrs.

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