The Rags of Time Read Online Free PDF Page B

Socialism was pure Grimm. I cast myself as the clever troll to lead the way.
    But if, you suggested in a reality check way back when, when I was in the heady spin of my misdirection, if, before the war, that lieutenant you’re writing about studied physics with Heisenberg, he should have been stirring the hot pot at Alamogordo with our neighbor Peter Lax, not slogging through enemy fire on D-Day.
    Captain. I promoted him toward the end of the war. Yes , or he might have been translating at Nuremberg and not so easily betrayed by a Rhinemaiden bitch; but D-Day it was for the sake of my PLOT, the nefarious name, in any flash upon the fancy, so advises Henry James. As though calling upon the Master would make amends for my patter of quick steps, the forward march of my story. Did I then presume the glib balance of an aphorism, sum up the argument: Memory prods History. History corrects Memory. As in—
    Where were we when Al Gore won the election?
    In Seville, the Grand Hotel. We went to bed happy.
     
     
    This evening you appeared at the door of my workroom, no longer costumed for the office. For the first time this year, you wore your old wool vest, offered me a glass of wine. You had news of the children and the world, urged me to take off my coat.
    Stay awhile.
    The children, you told me, by which we mean grandchildren, have moved on to pumpkins and plastic masks of action figures unfamiliar to oldies, but the options are still open about what they will actually be for Halloween. Transformed, as we were, to tramps or ghosts in homemade costumes?
    It’s only Columbus Day, a day off school, a parade, no treats. Buy them too early, their pumpkins will rot.
    I noticed the scar on your nose which I lose track of over the years, a perfectly round patch of slick keloid, large as a dime. One day you had a chat with Bernie Simon in the lobby. I’ll take care of that, he said, saving your life. In those days we were cavalier about the ravages of time. Heart-burn, toothache, a touch of vertigo—our vision of the future blurred by cheap drugstore glasses.
    Where’ve you been?
    The Park.
    As though just another jaunt, breath of fresh air, not a reprieve from the heavy sentence of the book I’d thrown aside. What might I have said that was truthful? That I too often looked back, not to presume upon the day’s blessing, isn’t that how my mother might put it? Channeling that cultured voice— Best get on with your business, Mimi. Remember Lot’s wife.
    Well, I do, I remember that wife is given no name, no space in the story, and no say. She disobeys, turns to look at the sinful city in sulfurous flames. Swift chapters in the good book don’t miss a beat turning her into a pillar of salt. Whatever the indulgences of body and soul in Sodom, she was leaving home with nothing like the comfort of Central Park to run to.
    You took Liebestraum, the offending book, from my hand. Leave it.
    Burn it?
    You knew perfectly well what I’d been up to, picking at the gold medallion on its cover like a kid with a scab on my knee.
    I said, Let’s give some thought to supper.
    The new flat-screen TV in the kitchen brought cut-rate news. Corporate Greed, Celebrity Breakup, DNA Frees Convicted Rapist, Dollar Drops Against Euro. As president flops off mountain bike, I shed onion tears. High school bands march down Fifth Avenue: NYPD, Mayor Bloomberg, Senators, Sons of Italy, Knights of Columbus. Car Bomb in Haifa, Helicopter Malfunction in Mosul. Five marines, their deaths verified. Sipping my wine—tears, the real thing.
    So tell me, what’s wrong?
    The Knights of Columbus. My grandfather.
    Who made the money and lost it?
    Nothing to cry about. Those kids.
    Their photos: two in camouflage, three in dress uniform. Tonight the oldest is twenty-three. I could see you didn’t buy my tears for the cruel fate of those boys shipped home, RIP. Onion knife in hand, I left you to go back down the hall to my workroom. Behind the confusion of old postcards