Marilyn the Wild Read Online Free PDF Page A

he muttered to himself. A clown in a snot-green shirt.
    The rue de Rivoli became a region of shabby department stores, with windows that had the defiled look of a battlefield, and soon Isaac was in the Marais. Narrow streets with hump-backed buildings spilled over into each other’s lap at crazy, undefined angles. Chimney pots cropped out over Isaac’s head like warts on a monstrous finger. He passed kosher butcher shops, restaurants that sold “ Boercht Romain ” and “ Salami Hongrois, ” signs that spit competing slogans (“ Israël Vaincre !” and “ Halte à l’Agression Arabe ”), and a synagogue strictly for North Africans. Joel, who cursed the rabbis of New York, had gone religious in his old age.
    Isaac regretted his trip; he should have visited London instead, the London of Whitechapel, where Joel’s father came from; he’d been a petty merchant, hustling bloomers on Princelet Street, and a “deacon” of the Spitelfield synagogue. Even then the Sidels didn’t pray; they were in charge of the synagogue’s economic affairs and its soup kitchen for indigent Jews. They were all charitable men.
    Isaac discovered Joel’s place on the rue Vieille-du-Temple. There seemed to be no court in reach, no passageway for him to use. He stood by the house until an old woman emerged from an opening in the wall. Isaac went inside.
    He groveled in the dark, searching for nonexistent bannisters with both his palms; he touched greasy wood and roughage on a low ceiling. He came out in the back somewhere, sliding against a tricky doorsill. He was in a court with ravaged blue ground and a nest of sinking trees. He clumped towards a set of stairs. His father lived on the top floor.
    Joel’s mistress was Vietnamese (Sophie had never bothered to divorce her wandering husband); a woman with delicate jaws and exquisite bones around her eyes, she worked as a chambermaid at The Iroquois. Joel called her Mauricette. She couldn’t have been over thirty, but away from The Iroquois Joel was a much younger man. He abandoned his bottle-green smock and the trappings of a portraitist, and sat in an old velvet shirt that forced Isaac to contend with the handsomeness of his father. Joel wasn’t a clown at home. The rouge had been wiped off.
    â€œIsaac, who ripped your coat?”
    â€œIt’s nothing, papa. I met two pickpockets in the street They wanted to dance with me. I refused. They won’t be so nimble for the next couple of weeks.”
    Joel shrugged at Isaac’s delivery; he couldn’t unravel detective stories. He summoned Isaac to the table. The fragrance of perfectly cooked rice caught Isaac by the nose. He softened to his father’s circumstance. Joel didn’t need more than one room. All his articles were here.
    They ate fish with their hands, sucking between the bones. Isaac drank a silky wine that growled in his throat Joel didn’t plague him until the end of the meal.
    â€œA super detective with his kid brother sitting in jail—Isaac, there has to be a moral in it. Did he rape the Police Commissioner’s, wife?”
    â€œPapa, he isn’t inside with criminals, I swear. It’s only a civil complaint. I wouldn’t let perverts near Leo. I have a brother who thinks it’s chivalrous to be deaf, dumb, and blind. He’s free with his own guts, that Leo. He scratches his ass with a leaky pen and signs his life away. Now he’s a slave. His ex-wife owns the teeth in his mouth. Leo runs with his testicles stabbing the floor. He can’t catch up on his alimony.”
    â€œIsaac, I could raise five hundred dollars. How much does he need?”
    â€œDon’t talk money, papa, please. Wouldn’t I help that miserable prick? He won’t take a nickel. He enjoys his misery.”
    Isaac walked down the stairs with bandied knees. The wine had put a blush on his neck. He groped against the walls