A Town of Empty Rooms Read Online Free PDF

upright.
    â€œNothing,” he said. He chewed his gum thoughtfully. “Go home.”
    Â 
    Â 
    Â 
    THAT NIGHT, SERENA DREAMED ABOUT the rabbi. She was sitting at a pew in the synagogue; the light was dim, and the room was shabby but had, in the antique light, the ashen majesty of a castle. She heard him come up behind her. “Serena,” he said. She knew it was him without looking; she was surrounded by the sweet and dark odor of a swamp. “Hold still,” he said, and he put his hands on her
hair. He began to stroke it; he was trying to braid it. She felt each finger stroke her hair, as though he understood how to touch every cell in her body. His smooth, clean fingers brushed against her scalp. It was almost too much to feel each finger against her skin, as though if one of them pressed too hard she would explode. “Look,” he said, and she felt like the inside of a mountain, the foam on a sea, the dampness underneath clouds in the sky. She wanted to be surrounded by and to surround him; his fingers worked carefully until he had finished, occasionally brushing her neck. She had never been touched in this particular way, with this miraculous softness, this attentiveness. “There,” he said, in his low, sweet voice. It was as though she were now ready for some important event, and she reached back, touched her neck, her hair, lightly with her fingers, tried to feel the braid there, to see how he had arranged her hair. Her skin was cool, alive, but she could not feel any difference, and when she turned around, he was gone.
    She awoke. Her husband slept beside her, and even in his physicality, the soft avocado muscles in his shoulders, the brown skin of his arms, there was the disorienting sense that he was an intruder. She was sweating, her heart was racing, and she felt somehow ashamed; she stumbled out of bed and into the living room. The air conditioning worked badly, and the air was thick as cream on her arms. She opened a window and looked out on the dark street. The scent of the magnolia and honeysuckle filled the room, and, all at once, it held the fragrance of honey. The sweetness of the air saddened her. The trees swayed in the soft blue wind. She held the edge of the windowsill and, slowly, she breathed.
    Â 
    Â 
    Â 
    SHE WENT BACK TO THE Temple — a few days after she had had the dream about the rabbi, for she had wanted it to fade — and sat on a wall outside, looking at it. She felt foolish sitting there, for she had never liked going to Temple, but she had a sense that once she walked in, she would be, in some way, forgiven.
    She thought of the last conversation she had had with her father. There had been three calls from him that morning. He had wanted to know why she wasn’t demanding more money from her employer.
“What are you getting? You’re worth more than that paltry sum they’re paying you.” He was touchingly wounded by the concept of the world’s lack of wonder for his children; less touchingly, he planned to correct it.
    â€œI’m actually making a good amount for a speechwriter,” she said. She had lied to him for fifteen years, sitting in the gray-lit cubicle at Pepsi, pretending that she was a successful speechwriter. She had, admittedly, written a couple good lines: Ladies and gentlemen. I submit that you are the most computer-literate generation that has lived in this country. And you are about to become the lucky few who are going to take the next step. Or: We do not see the glass half-full. We are going to fill the glass! Or: Our finish line is every line we step!
    Her father had thought the fact that she was working for a big corporation meant that she would instantly have money, a lot of money, which would ensure safety through any national crisis, strife, impending war. He liked the fact that she was permitted to carry her boss Earl Morton’s credit card, as though this implied her high ranking