From a Sealed Room by Rachel Kadish

Author:Rachel Kadish
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

11

Dear Maya,

This is the way the fog sits in Brooklyn, before the daylight is sure of itself. . . .

Dear Maya,

This is the way the children drag stubs of chalk across cracked schoolyard pavement, scrape their knuckles bloody. . . .

So much needs describing—the latest program at the Center, the latest rally, the latest political outrage. My mother’s handwriting is loose with hurry. Often there is nothing in my mailbox for days; then two or three envelopes arrive at once, reports from a distant battlefield.

The morning after I lose Gil’s cloth, I find a small ragged bundle at the door.

“What’s this junk?” His satchel over one shoulder, Gil steps, yawning, into the stairwell. He kicks at the tattered newspaper wrapping.

As I follow the motion of his foot with my eyes, I am positive that the bundle is from the woman downstairs. I respond with reflexes I didn’t know I possessed. In an instant I’m in front of him. “Garbage,” I say, and hug him so hard he laughs and loosens my arms.

Only after he leaves do I stoop to gather the parcel. It is misshapen, and has an unbalanced heft.

I set it on the living room sofa, then go to the kitchen. I drain my glass of grapefruit juice, wash it, and set it on the rack. As if some suspense is required, I forbid myself to rush a single motion. I’m strangely excited to see what is inside the newspaper—a welcome from someone in this neighborhood, at last? Perhaps, I tell myself, my spying neighbor has simply been shy about her accented Hebrew. She’s wanted to befriend me all along, now she’s chosen to make this first overture without words.

Finally I’ve waited long enough. I lock the front door like someone about to handle stolen merchandise, then take a knife from the kitchen drawer.

The paper, on closer inspection, is not only tattered but speckled with age. The twine is easy to cut. Inside the wrapping are several daisies, their crushed stems staining the newsprint a faint green. Shrouded in newspaper beside the flowers is a small tin. Faded Hebrew print on its label identifies it as Moshe’s Asparagus Soup Wonder Mix. “Just add water,” the label boasts. I examine the tin. It could be ten years old, even twenty. I pry the lid open: the contents are dry and hard as stone, a petrified block of dull green.

I turn the objects over, lift the bunched flowers in my fist and nudge the stems that droop almost double. I scratch the brick of soup powder with the nail of my little finger and taste the grains of powder. A sickeningly salty glob forms in my mouth and I rush to the toilet to spit.

The taste in my mouth is bitter; the woman downstairs has left me her garbage, a spiteful joke.

I don’t know what I expected.

I walk, aimless, to the balcony, and squint against the brightness for several minutes before admitting to myself what it was I had hoped for. I wanted some gift to fulfill the promise of that arresting stare.

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