Festival of Deaths(15)

“You can be just as kosher in New York as you can be in Tel Aviv,” Abraham had told him, “if you’re careful. And there’s not so much… emergency there.”

Itzaak Blechmann was not a hick. He hadn’t been a hick when he was living in Jerusalem. He knew there were problems in New York City, problems with race, problems with poverty. Still, he understood what Abraham meant. In some ways, living in Israel had been very much like living in the Soviet union  . In the most important ways it had not, of course. Nobody in Israel was going to send Itzaak to jail for keeping kosher or going to shul. The Israeli government didn’t send spies in the guise of rabbis or bug the walls of houses of worship. The two countries were as far apart as they could be, except for the fact that they were both constantly and unrelievedly in the middle of a crisis.

There were times when Itzaak would have liked to have been in the Soviet union   to witness the fall. There were times when he wished he knew much more about the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and was on-site to investigate it further. Mostly, he was happy he had come to New York. Standing on a street corner in the dark when the whole of Manhattan seemed to be deserted was just as frightening as hearing the sirens go off in Jerusalem or listening to the sound of heavy boots coming up the stairs in Leningrad. The rest of the time things were calm. It had taken a while, but Itzaak had gotten used to ordinary life. He bought shoes and ate in restaurants without going into spates of mental paralysis. He read the papers in Russian and Hebrew and English without getting his languages mixed up. He played chess with friends without losing his concentration to worries he should have been free and clear of years ago.

Most of what he did, however, had to do with this job, and the three other like it he had for various other shows on the Gradon Cable System. Itzaak Blechmann had not been trained as a lighting engineer. He hadn’t even been trained for the theater. He had agreed to try this because Lotte Goldman had agreed to give him a job. The job he’d taken had been as Lotte’s lighting engineer’s assistant. Itzaak hadn’t known at the time that the man had already declared his intention to leave the show at the end of the taping year. In the long run it had worked out better than could be expected, and Itzaak had been launched. But that was six years ago.

Carmencita was new. Carmencita had been on The Lotte Goldman Show for less than a year. Carmencita was also a revelation. Itzaak Blechmann had known women in his life. He had been married. He had had his share of affairs in Jerusalem and New York. He had never in his life known anyone like Carmencita. Part of it was that she was young. Part of it was that she was exotic, with skin the color of poured gold and deep black hair and eyes so blue they made him think of sapphires. Itzaak didn’t know where the blue eyes had come from, but he wouldn’t have traded them for anything. He wouldn’t have traded Carmencita for anything. She was far too young for him and far too Catholic, but he couldn’t stop thinking of her and he didn’t want to stop thinking of her and that’s the way it was. Itzaak was in the grip of the greatest passion of his life, and it made him think the unthinkable. It made him think that he would die if he didn’t marry this woman who was not a Jew.

Prison camps and exile, the judicial murders of two people he dearly loved, year after year of living in hiding—Itzaak Blechmann had done more than most people would ever be asked to do in the service of his God. It was as impossible for him to consider turning his back on the commandments of that God as it had become for him to consider giving up Carmencita.

Or vice versa.

Or something.

When Itzaak tried to think about Carmencita, he got muddled.

Itzaak had been standing just outside DeAnna Kroll’s office when DeAnna had been screaming at Carmencita about the prearranged permissions. He had wanted to go inside to help, but he had known better. He had retreated down the hall to wait until Carmencita came out, so he could comfort her. But he had turned his attention away for a moment and missed her. Now he was sitting in his office with his feet up on his desk, his job done until the taping started, listening to the sound of her heels in the corridor outside.

“Carmencita?” he called out.

“I’m coming right to you,” Carmencita said.

Carmencita was only five feet tall—which suited Itzaak, who was only five seven—and she wore very high spike-heeled shoes to make herself look taller. She stopped when she got to the door of his office and looked inside, smiling when she saw the coast was clear.

“I just wanted to make sure the dragon lady wasn’t around,” she said. “Whew. I had less trouble from the nun when my sister and I stole the money from the poor box to buy ice cream.”