Oliver Benjamin
just then. But he obliged, “After my mother died in childbirth, my
father refused to believe in God anymore. Then years later when he
found his religion again, I was old enough to understand what he had
in mind. I wouldn’t hear of it. ‘Nobody’s cutting anything off my
wiener,’ I told him. He promised it wouldn’t hurt, but I knew better.
Now I know I was right. Seems after all these years he got his wish
anyway.”
“When did he pass away?”
“A year ago. One week before I came back to the States from
Java. Skin cancer, of all things. A black man, and it started on his foot
no less. Where the sun didn’t even shine. He drank his hemlock,
though, before the pain set in.”
“But if he was religious, wasn’t he afraid of being punished for
suicide?”
“Jews don’t believe in hell. It’s more like the Greek underworld.
They think life carries enough of its own punishment. For them, life
after death is like life before death, just with a bit less natural light.”
“Like this place.”
“Yeah,” Roy said, looking around with stinging eyes. He placed
his hand on Partment’s shoulder to signal that he was ready to
mingle. But really he just needed a chance to push back the lump that
had formed in his throat. One week.
Roy knew it was not the pain of cancer his father feared. It was
the loss of his son, an unbearable isolation that drove him to that last
drink.
By the time the party finally came to an end, the sun was coming up
and the core group bid everyone farewell to the last stragglers. The
Hasidic Jews took special care to bid the golden goy goddess farewell.
“You’re dressed like Lilith,” one said, “but you’ve got the heart
and grace of Esther.”
“And the beauty!” said another.
“Thank you for braiding our paiyas,” the third said, shaking his
sidelocks like a Rastafarian.
She said nothing, but kissed him on the cheek.
“A cush!From a shiksa!” the first one exclaimed.
“It’s okay,” said the second, proffering his cheek as well, “It’s a
symbolic gesture.”
They left, skipping lightly, and Roy extended her a formal
invitation. “We open every day at nine o’clock…on the button,” he
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