Under the biggest tree was a circle of flat, mossy stones. M. Croiset told us, through the interpreter, that there were some bones under the largest stone. While the men took off their jackets to pull up the stones, the interpreter said that M. Croiset was sorry but the bones didn’t belong to the judge.

  The men kept pulling. We all stood around. M. Croiset leaned against the tree, wiping his face with a handkerchief. “C’est dommage,” he said a few times. “C’est une femme. Ce n’est pas Sally Lou Ritz.” We both watched the digging with interest. The FBI agents got excited and the FBI photographer started snapping. There was a medium-size skeleton under the rocks, and M. Croiset crossed himself and went over to look. He talked and the interpreter told us that this was the skeleton of a dead girl from about sixty years ago. M. Croiset had tears in his eyes. The interpreter said that the girl was a servant, that she had told her lover that she was pregnant and he had killed her. Then he went to sea. Ted Ronson told the two youngest men to stay with the skeleton and the rest of us walked back to the FBI cars. They dropped me and M. Croiset and the interpreter at a diner and said they’d be back in an hour.

  “We’re probably going to stop for the day,” Ted Ronson said. “We have to check out this body.”

  The diner was dark and sticky, hot air pushing at us from the big fan in the corner. The pies were sweating. I told the interpreter that we might just want to have lemonade and ham-and-cheese sandwiches and potato chips. I said I was sorry about the food, which would probably be awful. He told M. Croiset, who smiled and said, “Limonade! Parfait.” M. Croiset spoke to the interpreter for a little while and the interpreter said that while we waited, M. Croiset suggested that we could play a game. I said sure. The interpreter told me to picture anything in the world. Anything, he said. From anywhere, even outer space.

  I was sweating like a pig. My skirt stuck to my legs and even my feet were sweating in my sneakers. I pictured the window of Holman’s toy store in Abingdon, when I was a little girl. My mother and I went every year, a couple of weeks before Christmas. We went to admire the windows, which were always beautifully decorated, and we went to pick out one toy that I really liked. My father would come the day after Christmas or the next day and the toy I wanted would be produced. Mr. Holman and my father and mother came through every year.

  I pictured my favorite of all the Christmas windows. Mr. Holman had hung dozens of glittering snowflakes on a fishing line, so they seemed to float in the window. The window was framed in candy canes and there was a little village, all red and black, in front of a lake made out of a mirror. Around the lake, spreading out to the corners, was a miniature countryside of fields and forests, of green, snow-dusted pine trees, old-fashioned villagers, rushing by with packages, a couple of Model T’s and at the very edge, a barn, glowing from within, its doors flung open and a cow and calf lying down in the middle. And all of that, including the cow and the calf in the golden light, is what M. Croiset sketched on the back of the place mat. He smiled at me and put down his pen. He took my hand in both of his hands and he nodded to the interpreter. He was so intent and his face was so expressive, I felt I knew what he was saying before the interpreter spoke.

  “Vous n’êtes pas fait pour ce travail.”

  The interpreter spoke very quietly and kindly. “You are not cut out for this kind of work.”

  “Ne vous inquiétez pas. Votre secret es dans de bonnes mains.”

  “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”

  M. Croiset pressed my hand. He handed me a napkin so I could wipe my eyes. M. Croiset spoke again, but this time I didn’t know what was coming.

  The interpreter said, “M. Croiset feels that you have not found your gift.”

  M. Croiset spoke again, and this time, he seemed a little annoyed with the interpreter.

  “I beg your pardon. You have not yet found your professional calling. M. Croiset sees that you are a mother and a daughter.”

  M. Croiset spoke.

  “Like a mother and a daughter. He sees the little boy and the older man, from Spain. You are loved. He says that soon you will find your calling.” The interpreter paused. “He says do not lose your nerve when the time comes.”

  M. Croiset kissed my hand.

  Ted Ronson came through the door, sweating like the rest of us. I didn’t look at him twice. They bundled us into separate Oldsmobiles and took M. Croiset and the interpreter back to the city. The two junior G-men drove me home and told me not to talk about what I’d seen or repeat anything that’d been said. I told Danny and Francisco what happened. I included finding the skeleton, not finding the judge, and the amazing place mat. I left out the part about my being a complete fraud. I told them that M. Croiset had mentioned them both, but I didn’t say he said I was a mother and a daughter. Danny said that he might become a G-man and Francisco and I nodded, as though we would not strip naked and publicly declare ourselves Communists to keep that from happening.

  Francisco slept over the whole week. It was so hot, I let Danny sleep on the living room floor, on top of a sheet. The crickets made a racket every night. We all woke up at dawn every morning because of the heat. On Saturday, at dawn, Francisco said we might as well have breakfast. He squeezed a dozen oranges and made scrambled eggs and sausage. I made cinnamon toast for Danny, who tore the crusts off and ate my sausage.

  Francisco stamped his feet. He stood up suddenly. He pointed to his chest and pushed his fork and plate and the eggs and the rest of the sausage onto the floor. His face became deep, dark pink. Danny and I stared at him. I pushed Danny out of my way and dialed the operator. Danny was bouncing up and down in terror.

  Oh, God, please, I said, I need a doctor. My father is choking.

  The operator was smooth and friendly. Where do you live, she said, and I told her and she said, Well there’s nobody right near you—and I thought she meant white and I screamed, I don’t care who you get, get me a doctor on the phone, and she did.

  This is Dr. Snyder, he said.

  Oh, Doctor, oh, Doctor, I said.

  Francisco was almost purple.

  Oh, he’s choking, he’s choking. He can’t breathe.

  The doctor’s voice was like silk. That’s all right. You take two deep breaths. Now, how old is he? And can you tell me what he was eating?

  I said he was old and had been eating sausage.

  All right. Hit him hard on the back a couple of times.

  I stood behind Francisco and pounded him as hard as I could. He grabbed the back of his chair but nothing changed. Danny was crying in the corner.

  It’s not helping, I said. Oh, God.

  Okay, now, lie him down on his back. I made Danny help me get Francisco on the floor. He was rigid with fear and his face was getting even darker. His hands were fists.

  A pillow, I said. Does he need a pillow?

  Not right now, the doctor said. Is he lying down?

  I said he was.

  Here’s what we’re going to do—it’s going to be a little scary but you have to do this, and you have to do this now.

  Tell me, I said. Do I have to wash my hands?

  We’re not going to worry about that now, he said. Get your sharpest knife and get a napkin.

  A napkin? A linen napkin?

  I waved my arm frantically at Danny—Get a napkin! Hurry!

  Now, tell him that you’re going to help him.

  I’m going to help you, I said to Francisco, and he kept his dark eyes on me. I told the doctor, I told him.

  That’s good. Get on your knees on your—are you right-handed or left-handed?

  Right.

  Get on your knees on his right side. Feel his Adam’s apple. Do you feel that?

  Yes.

  Good. Do you feel that there’s a smaller bump a little farther down?

  I did feel it but I had to press on Francisco’s soft skin and his fleshy neck and I apologized to him.

  Now, in between, the doctor said, there’s a little valley. Use the edge of the knife in that little valley and make a sideways incision. Just a cut, sideways, just through the skin and half an inch across. And then you’re going to open up the cut a little bit. You’ll see a membrane, a thin, translucent membrane, like frog skin, and you’re going to cut through that too. Then you’re going to keep that incision open with your thumb and forefinger.

  I worried that I would cut his throat.

  And you’ll need the napkin, to blot the blood that will come out. It won’t be a lot of blood. It’ll be okay.

  Danny, I screamed, Napkin! Danny was standing right next to me and put it into my hand. I gave him the receiver.

  You tell me what the doctor says, I said, and you look away.

  I pressed the knife into Francisco’s neck until blood began to seep. I spread the edges of the cut apart with my thumb and forefinger.

  He says you need a straw, Danny whispered, while staring at the kitchen clock. You need two.

  Go get the straws, I said, from the pantry. I kept the knife in. I picked up the receiver with my left hand.

  I made the incision. He looks like he’s going to die.

  He’s not going to die. Take the paper straws and put them in the incision.

  Do I take the knife out?

  He paused.

  Yes, take the knife out right now. Put the straws in and blow into them a few times. Four times. Puff into them.

  Danny handed me the striped paper straws and I put them into the incision, like into a milkshake. I puffed into them. Francisco turned dark pink, then pale pink. Tears ran down his face.

  Yes, yes. Will he be okay?

  Well, he can’t talk, the doctor said. But he can breathe. Keep the straws there. Do you have any tape?

  I turned to Danny. Do we have tape?

  He brought me the Scotch tape and held the phone to my ear, because my hands were starting to shake.

  Now, wrap the straws with tape and then tape the bottom to the skin. You want to stabilize the straws. I looked at Danny and he gave me the receiver. He wrapped the straws in tape and then pressed the ends to Francisco’s throat.

  Do you have scissors? the doctor said.

  Scissors, I said, and Danny ran to my room and got my sewing scissors and he made two very neat cuts in the tape.

  We’ve taped it, I said.

  Good, the doctor said. This is very good. Now, trim off all but two inches of the straws.

  I did that.

  Now, he said, I’m going to call the operator and get an ambulance.

  I gave the doctor our address and phone number and he gave me his phone number and Danny and I sat on either side of Francisco, stroking his hands and watching the straw.

  You saved someone’s life tonight, Dr. Snyder said.

  I washed my face and hands over and over, trembling, until the ambulance came. I told Danny what a wonderful job he’d done. We followed the ambulance, in Francisco’s car, with Danny leaning forward the whole time, his chin on the dashboard, peering through the fog. We got to the hospital twenty minutes after they’d checked him in and gotten him settled. There was really nothing for us to do, but we couldn’t sit or sleep. We walked around the hospital and ate the stale pastries in the cafeteria. I told Danny that for the purpose of visiting hours, we were going to say that I was Francisco’s daughter and Danny was his grandson, and Danny beamed. Who was your mother? he asked. I said that I never knew my mother. He shook his head. I know, I said. What a pair.

  We begged the nurse to let us sit in Francisco’s room and watch him sleep. Danny slid off my lap to stare at the sleeping man in the next bed, whose leg was held up with pulleys and was the size of an entire mottled human being. Danny asked me what the man had and I told him to ask a nurse. He stood in the hall and waited for a nurse and he whispered his question. She said, Elephantiasis, and Danny reported back and we liked how awful that sounded. Danny said elephantiasis about ten more times.

  We went to the hospital for the next four days, at dinnertime, and each time, we just missed Bea and Carnie. We brought in some fruit and Francisco said, “Oh, the Torellis of yesteryear.” We smuggled in vanilla milk shakes from Kriegel’s and shared them. We took turns holding hands. On the last day, I met Dr. Keith.

  “You’re the little surgeon,” he said.

  “I am.”

  The nicest nurse, the one Francisco liked, said, “You’d make a great nurse.”

  Dr. Keith didn’t say anything until the nurse walked away.

  “You wouldn’t,” he said. “You don’t have the right temperament. But you are damn good with a knife.”

  DANNY AND I BROUGHT Francisco home. I thought we might move him into my father’s old room but Danny said, “He won’t like it up there. It’s lonely. If you put him in your room, I’ll be right across the hall and I can get him things. Like water, or anything. I can help.”

  I opened the windows in the attic bedroom to get rid of the smell of urine and old man and menthol. I cleared out every trace of my father, except his glasses and his books and an almost empty bottle of my father’s aftershave, Zizanie, which he’d worn since I was a little girl. The scent used to last from Sunday to Tuesday in my mother’s house.

  I slept on the living room couch for a couple of days, in case. Finally, I looked in on Danny and on Francisco and gathered up my blanket and pillow, my radio, my books, and my pajamas and I went up to the attic room, which was just what I wanted. I put my father’s glasses in their alligator case into my nightstand and the Zizanie bottle in my bottom drawer. I set my pile of Little Blue Books and poetry on the bookshelf next to his books. I could hear my father quoting John Cowper Powys on Whitman: “ ‘He restores to us courage and joy even under circumstances of aggravated gloom.’ ” He would always say “gloom” in his deepest voice, lowering his eyebrows and making me laugh. My father quoted everyone, from Shakespeare to Emerson, on the subject of destiny, and then he’d point out that except for the Greeks, everyone agreed: The stars do fuck-all for us; you must make your own way.

  I CALLED ON DR. Snyder. There wasn’t a nurse out front. I sat in his waiting room with a bottle of Macallan Scotch in my lap, leafing through magazines, until he walked in. I was a little disappointed. He was plain and furrowed, with thinning hair. I had to say my name twice, and my address, before he knew who I was. He brought me into his office, a room just big enough for his desk and chair and my chair. I put the Scotch on his table and told him that Francisco had come home, and he said that was great news. We looked at each other. I told him what Dr. Keith had said about my surgical skills and he laughed. Bob Keith’s no fool, he said. I crossed my legs and let my skirt ride up to my garters. Dr. Snyder came out from behind his desk and pulled me up. He pulled at my bra until he held my bare breast and I pressed my hand against him until he was so hard, I thought he’d hurt himself. We necked on his desk, pushing his files and his pens to the floor, until his nurse knocked. I straightened my skirt and my bra. He straightened his tie. I took a quick look in the mirror and reapplied my lipstick, while he watched. He looked over my shoulder and wiped the red off his chin. We looked at each other in the mirror. We were breathing hard and still a little excited and beyond that, deeply pleased with each other and ourselves.

  FRANCISCO MADE MEXICAN CHICKEN soup and tortillas and Danny showed us his spelling test, with the big red 100 across the top. Francisco kissed him, and while Danny was setting the table, Francisco showed me a contract for the Penn Station barbershop. He was selling it to Jorge and Gracie, who wanted to expand.

  “I’m retiring,” he said. “And we got some money in the bank.”

  “I’m going to be on the spelling team,” Danny said. “We’re going to have a tournament.”

  We cheered for ourselves, and ate the soup, and when the ice cream truck came, I gave Danny a dollar. The three of us sat in the back on the picnic table, blissfully eating our Creamsicles. I thought, I’ll be a doctor.

  28

  It’s Been a Long, Long Time

  I BEGAN TO THINK I SAW GUS HEITMANN EVERYWHERE. HIS long, foxy jaw. The sharp, pocked cheekbones. His wide shoulders, dipping to the left, driving the car ahead of me. It was ridiculous to think I’d seen Gus in Great Neck, as if he hadn’t died or, having not died, had chosen to come back here. I told Francisco, who said, “Yeah, I saw De Gaulle in Nassau Hardware. Right behind me.”

  IT TURNED OUT, GUS had seen me. He’d been looking for me. He’d called the Torellis three times and he said that each time he’d felt sicker than when he’d reentered Ellis Island and had to claim to be Gersh Hoffman, Nazi victim. He never reached Mrs. Torelli, who I think would have told him where I was. He got a snippy girl with an English accent, who was probably the new governess, and he got a shy Negro maid, who thought he was selling something. Twice, he got Joey, who yelled, HelloHelloHello, into the receiver and hung up. Once, he dialed his old number in Lake Success but the woman didn’t know any Reenie Heitmann and a man took the phone from her and told Gus to stop bothering his wife. Gus said that he’d never thought he was a coward until he sat looking at my name and address and phone number in the Great Neck telephone book, and couldn’t bring himself to dial.

  He didn’t want to be Gus Heitmann anymore. He wanted only to be Gersh Hoffman, Jewish math teacher, and he wanted to find me. He never told me what he would have said to Reenie if she’d answered the phone.

  DANNY AND I WENT to Stricoff’s bakery like other people went to church. We were Sunday regulars, and if it was a bad week, you could find us picking out a chocolate babka on a Wednesday afternoon. That’s where Gus saw us. He said we looked like the tall and the small of the same person. He watched me give my ticket to one of the Stricoff sisters and get handed a box and a small white bag and right before we made our way through the throng of Sunday shoppers, the old men with their lists and the other young women with their small children, Gus got into his car and followed us home. He parked his car a block away, like a real spy, he said, and stood on our corner. He watched me and Danny carry in our groceries. Francisco held the door open for us, saying, as he always did, “Hail the conquering heroes.”