Old Men at Midnight Read Online Free PDF Page A

distance a courtyard with an odd-shaped synagogue, and beyond that the tall spires of a church.
    I let myself into the house. A low voice came fromthe radio in the den. Something about boats diverted to Cyprus. I went upstairs and knocked on Rachel’s door. There was no one inside, so I left the drawing on her bed. Then I went to my room and closed the door and turned on the fan.
    I sat at my desk, looking down at my notebook. Noah. I felt myself alone and scorched by the heat. On the wall, partially hidden by shadows, were the photographs of my father and Jakob Daw. After a while I took off my clothes and stayed at my desk in my underwear. How unbearably hot it was! I started to write. Minutes went by. I closed my notebook and put it in the desk drawer.
    Showering, I thought of Noah’s drawing. I didn’t know very much about drawing, but it seemed to me marvelously well done: the proportions of the house, the cobblestone road, the bridge across the river, the road leading through a courtyard to the synagogue, the strange-looking synagogue itself—more a barn than a synagogue—and then the spires of the church beyond. How had he learned to draw that well?
    I dressed and went down to supper.
    Rachel ate quietly and busied herself with her drawing. Her long dark hair was pulled back from her face and pinned with a barrette, and her tongue worked furiously.
    My mother said to me, “How is your Noah coming along?”
    “We went to the park and the zoo. Everything was fine until we got to the primate house.”
    “What happened at the primate house?” my stepfathersaid. He wore a white short-sleeved shirt and light-gray summer trousers.
    “He ran out.”
    “What do you mean, he ran out?”
    “He put his hands to his nose and stumbled out.”
    “Ah,” my stepfather said. “Of course, of course. He remembered the latrine smells of his concentration camp.”
    That was unnerving to me. I had not linked the two together, primate house and concentration camp.
    “His next hurdle will be Tisha B’Av,” my stepfather said. “I wonder if Noah will be strong enough to observe a daylong fast. Especially one that commemorates a national destruction.”
    “I hadn’t thought of that. But we can have the lesson here in the afternoon. Are you going to be home?”
    “No.”
    “His aunt won’t like him studying alone with me. Maybe we’ll go back to the park.”
    “I wonder where he was last Tisha B’Av,” my stepfather said. “And the one before that.”
    Rachel suddenly interrupted, “Ilana, would you give this to Noah when you see him?” She had made a drawing of herself standing between her parents, holding their hands. They were stick figures, drawn in black, all on a barren plain. But from one edge of the page to the other the sky was passionate with brilliant colors.
    “It’s a rainbow,” Rachel said.
    “That’s very nice,” said my mother.
    “For his drawing.”
    “What drawing is that?” asked my stepfather.
    “The drawing that he made for me.”
    “Oh?” said my mother.
    “I’ll bring it down,” said Rachel. She slid off her chair and went out of the kitchen.
    “Last Wednesday,” I said. “When he came in. She went by with some colored pencils, and he asked if she could draw, and one thing led to another. He drew her the house he lived in in Kralov, and today he gave me a better version of it to give to her.”
    We sat there eating. I looked at Rachel’s drawing. The stick figures were cutely drawn, my stepfather with a bow tie and dark hair and a mustache, my mother with short dark hair and a yellow skirt, Rachel with long dark hair and sunglasses. I was not in the drawing.
    She came back into the kitchen with Noah’s drawing in her hand and showed it to my mother, who first glanced at it, then gazed at it with interest. She then handed it to my stepfather, who studied it thoughtfully.
    “How old is he?”
    “Going on seventeen,” I said.
    “Where did he learn to do this?”
    “I