The Reasons I Won't Be Coming, Page 28

“Who were you whispering to so early in the morning?”

  “It’s not so early.”

  “Was it him?”

  “Who?”

  “You know who I mean. It was, wasn’t it? It was Kuznetsov.”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you whispering to Kuznetsov for? Isn’t it enough that you’ll spend all day with him?”

  “You’re being ridiculous. You know that.”

  I heard all of this and came in to try to help my mother but I couldn’t think of anything to divert him, so I just asked whether she wanted the shower before me. The radio news was on. I couldn’t hear it properly. There had been a bombing somewhere. My mother was floundering in the face of my father’s interrogation. She tried to turn the conversation towards the question of who should use the shower next.

  “Well, your father is already up and dressed,” she said.

  “What were you whispering about?” he continued.

  “Are you running late, Rose?” my mother asked.

  “Not especially,” I answered uncertainly, not knowing what I was meant to say.

  “What were you talking about?” my father persisted.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, stalling for time.

  “I was calling to tell him I wouldn’t be coming in today.”

  “Why not?” my father demanded.

  “Was there a bombing?” I asked.

  “Yes,” my father answered dismissively before continuing to my mother, “Why aren’t you going to work today?”

  “Where was the bombing?”

  “Where do you think?” my father answered. “In Israel, on a bus. Why aren’t you going to work today?” he said, turning his attention back to my mother.

  There was a thud in my chest. Mitya. Nobody was more vulnerable than my bus-driving Kafka.

  Somebody knocked at the door. My mother looked at me.

  “Because I feel sick,” she said.

  “I’ll get it,” I said, walking to the door, the two of them waiting behind me to see who it was. I opened the door and then turned to see my parents’ reaction. It was Kuznetsov.

  “What are you doing here?” my mother asked in horror.

  “You can’t go one day without her?” my father shouted.

  “Would you like to come in?” I asked him after a moment, and he did, brave man.

  Kuznetsov was a small man. He wore round wire-framed eyeglasses in the style of Trotsky and, later, Lennon. He introduced himself with an apology, always a bad way to start with my father.

  “I am sorry to visit you . . . unannounced . . .” he began.

  “I think the correct English word is uninvited,” my father interrupted.

  “Yes . . . perhaps you are right . . . and I am sorry to have to meet you under these circumstances,” he continued.

  “What are ‘these circumstances’?” my father inquired.

  I looked at my mother, still in her nightgown, and thought she looked faint.

  “I have only come like this because . . . I was worried . . . and thought that . . . perhaps I might be of some assistance.”

  “I cannot thank you enough for worrying about my wife the way you do. Every husband should be so fortunate as me in this regard.”

  “I was worried about her . . . and also—”

  “Thank you, Sergei. We are fine,” my mother interrupted.

  “Also what?” my father demanded.

  “Also . . . your son.”

  My father looked at my mother, who hid from his face by looking at me. I knew we had to tell him. I told my mother to have a shower and get dressed. I would tell my father and Mr. Kuznetsov the story. She agreed. It was, after all, my story. There was no alternative. The two of them sat next to each other in the living room listening to me without saying a word.

  “But is he all right?” my father asked about Pavel when I had finished. He was stunned.

  “Well, he’s at the Leibowitzes’ house with Bernard and his father.”

  “Why is he there?”

  “He has a number of days to detoxify.”

  “Why can’t he do that here?”

  “Because you two don’t get on at the best of times. If he were going through withdrawal around here, there would be a murder. Either he would kill you or you would kill him.”

  “No, it’s not true.” My father turned to Kuznetsov. “I love my son.”

  “I am sure you do,” Kuznetsov volunteered, putting his hand on my father’s shoulder as my mother reappeared.

  She told me to go and have a shower. I heard Kuznetsov volunteer to drive us all to the Leibowitzes’ house.

  “What about the shop?” my mother asked.

  “This is more important,” he said.

  My mother and I sat next to each other in the back. Mr. Kuznetsov drove and my father sat next to him. No one knew what to say until Kuznetsov spoke.

  “Have you heard the news . . . about the bomb in Israel?”

  “Yes,” my father said, “yes, I heard.”

  “What happened?” my mother asked.

  “There was an explosion on a bus in Israel.”

  “There were people killed?”

  “Eleven, many more injured.”

  “It never stops,” my mother said to herself.

  It occurred to me when we got there that I should have called Bernard first to tell him we were coming. But the way it had happened, I just hadn’t thought about it.

  Bernard came to the door. I had asked the others to wait in the car. He told me his father had not slept.

  “Because of Pavel?”

  “No, because of the bomb in Israel.”

  Whenever there was a terrorist attack, Adam would call home. It was a promise their father had extracted from him. Adam had not called. I had forgotten that the Middle East conflict touched them personally. It was more true to say I had never thought about it. I had brought our hell to their place and the radio had home delivered their own. What made it even more frightening than usual, Bernard told me, was that the bus was on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv route. Adam took that bus frequently. He lived in Jerusalem and had a girlfriend in Tel Aviv. Perhaps the buses Mitya drove went between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The thought filled me with terror. Bernard’s father had not slept all night. He had listened to the news not long after I left. Pavel had slept through. He was taking a shower.

  Bernard went to explain my situation to his father while I waited at the front door for instructions. He came back. His father said I should bring my parents inside. He would warn Pavel. I went to the car to explain things to them.

  “The poor man,” my mother said.

  The first thing she said to him when she saw him in the kitchen was, “So you haven’t heard anything?” They had never met.

  “No,” he said, sitting in the kitchen, unshaven and still in his pajamas. “I am waiting.”

  I looked at the number on his arm.

  “He will call,” Bernard said. My father and Kuznetsov introduced themselves. There was an immediate unspoken bond between these people. My mother put the kettle on.

  “Your son is taking a shower. Bernard, will you check on him?”

  We sat in silence in the kitchen, from Russia, from Poland, survivors of Stalin and Hitler, strangers. My brother was in exile, in the shower. He was trying to get off crack. He owed three thousand dollars to a drug dealer. Eleven people had been killed on the Jerusalem-to -Tel Aviv bus, many more were injured. Outside the sun was shining. How could any of this be explained to the neighbors, to the people in their cars, in the shops, factories or offices, people who did not come from where we came from? How do you take a normal person and put them at this kitchen table? Perhaps, for us, this is normal.

  Of course, there is so much more to say. It was not quite like this. There was more. But this is the way I will tell it.

  The kettle boiled. Kuznetsov looked at his leathery hands. My father looked at Mr. Leibowitz’s arm. My mother got up to make tea. Mr. Leibowitz looked
at my father.

  “Your daughter tells me you collect stamps,” he asked my father.

  “Yes,” my father answered.

  “Postage stamps . . . from around the world?”

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t that . . . for children?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  Bernard came back into the kitchen. A few steps behind him was Pavel, with wet hair and a towel around him. The telephone rang. It was louder than usual.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  For their help, in various ways, the author wishes to express his gratitude to Nikki Christer, Wendy Koleits, Virginia Lloyd, Julian Loose, Fred Ramey, Natasha Pahoff and Trevor Hildebrand.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Elliot Perlman is the author of the novels Seven Types of Ambiguity and Three Dollars, for which he cowrote the screenplay. He lives in New York and in Melbourne, where he works as a barrister.