do not report people.”
She shot him a pitying look before leaving to join the other Russians playing cards around the picnic table.
Adam went back to the directory. He was nearing the end without any luck. If only he had a last name. Many of the listings were simply the “Horesh Family” or “Kaplan Family.” He reached the last page. No Dagmar. A red petal fell on the list of names. The tree was shedding its flowers, dappling the lawn. Adam lay back on the grass and gazed into its branches. Golden sunbursts came through the leaves and flowers. One more day, and he could talk to Eyal’s mother. He had seen her name in the directory.
He closed his eyes. The exotic smell of the freshly mowed lawn put him on edge, but the sound of the Russians bantering around the picnic table was homey. Adam had been lullabied to sleep on many a summer night by people chitchatting in a foreign tongue, ever since that first sweltering July night he moved in with his grandfather, almost twenty years ago. Several old people, seeking relief from their lonely, muggy apartments, had dragged kitchen chairs onto the sidewalk, and for hours they sat beneath his second-floor window, kibitzing in German and Yiddish. He lay listening to them for a long time after Zayde explained what had happened to his mom.
When his mother first failed to pick him up that afternoon, nobody had been surprised. Certainly not Mrs. Wadhwa, the Indian woman who babysat several kids in their apartment building in Gowanus. It was normal for Adam to still be sitting in front of the TV long after the other children had been picked up, while Mrs. Wadhwa collected the toys off her floor, mumbling, “I should charge your mother more, I really should.” Things only started to seem different when he was still on the couch as Mr. Wadhwa came through the door in his bus driver’s uniform. After saying hello to Adam, Mr. Wadhwa pulled his wife into the kitchen, where Adam could hear them whispering between muffled phone calls.
Hours passed. Night fell. A knock came at the door, and Adam went running at the sight of his tall grandfather standing with his straw fedora in his hands. “Zayde!” He threw his arms around his legs. His grandfather, cradling his head against his waist, said, “You’re coming home with me.” Didn’t it seem strange to the old man that he took his hand and followed him down four flights of stairs and across the foyer’s black-and-white checkered floor and out the building and down the street without ever asking, “Where’s my mom?”
They took a cab to Manhattan, not the train—another sign this was not a regular day. Adam had never traversed the bridge in a car and was hypnotized by the ever-changing rhombuses made by the Brooklyn Bridge’s crisscrossing silvery cables. The city lay in wait for him, an enormous Lite-Brite, the two new towers soaring into the sky. When they got to the apartment on Essex, Zayde ordered pepperoni pizza, which they ate at the small wooden table pushed against the kitchen wall. Actually, only Adam ate; Zayde sawed off a bite with his knife and fork, but never brought it to his mouth. When Adam had eaten as many slices as he could, Zayde said, “Adam . . .” Adam fell quiet, braced for the bad news about his mother, whatever it was this time. But then Zayde stacked the unused napkins. “Let’s clean up first.”
They did the dishes right away instead of leaving them on the table, as Adam was used to. Zayde washed, Adam dried: they were a team. While Adam brushed his teeth, Zayde sat on the toilet. “Always brush for a count of a hundred,” he said. “Your teeth will sparkle.” Adam hoped Zayde would never get to whatever it was he had to tell him. Why couldn’t they just do this? Just carry on? Adam was led to his mother’s old bedroom. His very own room. No sleeping on the couch. Zayde tucked him in so tight he couldn’t move. Then the old man sat on the edge of the bed and took his hand.
Other grandfathers might have lied, made up a more comforting story, planning to tell the truth some day, but Zayde simply told him his mom had fallen on the subway tracks and the train just couldn’t stop in time. “It didn’t hurt her. It happened so fast, Adam, your mom couldn’t have felt any pain.”
Fallen? The wondering would come years later. Drunkenly? Jumped? Sober?
The Russians around the table burst into laughter. Adam opened his eyes. Beyond the tree and its raining red petals was a cloudless sky. The Russian girl’s face appeared before the perfect blue.
“You’re awake.”
“I wasn’t asleep.”
“What’s your name?”
Adam sat up. “Why? Have you changed your mind about reporting me?”
She shook her head.
“Adam.”
She withdrew a pack of cigarettes from her shirt pocket, the nails on her pale fingers painted pylon orange. “Someone just told me you are from Manhattan. Is that true?”
“Is that what they actually said? Manhattan?” He eyed the people around the picnic table. He’d never spoken to any of them. “That’s surprisingly specific.”
“They know I am obsessed with Manhattan. So they are probably just teasing me. But are you?”
“I am, in fact.”
She paused before lighting her cigarette. “The one in New York?”
“Is there another?”
She dropped the lighter in her pocket and, exhaling smoke, looked at him as if she were trying to decide whether to believe him. “Yes. There are fake Manhattans all over America. There is Manhattan, Kansas. Manhattan, Montana. Manhattan, Indiana. I know everything about Manhattan. If you were from the real Manhattan, you would be more stylish.”
Adam patted his overgrown hair. “Yeah, I don’t look my best. Thanks for pointing that out.”
Golda climbed into the pocket of Adam’s crossed legs and peered up at the girl as if making clear whose side she was on.
“Oh, thank you for asking about me,” said the girl, resting a hand on one hip. “I am Ulyana from Belarus, but I will let you call me Ulya. You know where this is, Belarus? No, of course not.”
“I know where Belarus is,” he lied.
“Can I show you something, Adam of Manhattan?”
“I’m busy.” He held up the directory he wanted to go through one more time, just in case. “Maybe later.”
“This is a kibbutz. Nobody is busy on a kibbutz.”
“I am.”
She cocked her head, smirked. “Maybe you have to be nice to me, or I will report you.”
Adam cocked his head too. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Of course I am kidding!” She grabbed his hand and pulled. “But you have to come! Please. Come to thank me for not reporting you.”
Adam sighed and allowed her to help him up. He tapped his jean pocket, checking for the brooch, and followed the girl to her room. As they approached her door, his eyes fell to her butt. She must have requested workpants a size too small. As she walked, a crease switched from beneath one round cheek to the other, but the sight didn’t rouse him. Even when he remembered seeing the white swells inside the pants, he felt nothing. And that was a good thing. He didn’t need that kind of distraction.
Ulya unlocked the door, and Claudette, on her hands and knees in the
