Gella drove an assembly-line prewar Ford. It was painted black and didn’t even have a radio installed. A spare machine, it was spotless and unadorned. Fearless and I sat in the backseat, while Fanny and her niece rode up front in silence. It was only a short ride, ten or eleven minutes. On the way we passed many white and turquoise and blue little houses, all sporting neat lawns and white cement driveways. It was around six o’clock, dinnertime for working people. Through many windows and open doors, you could see brown-skinned and some white-skinned people eating at family tables.
A few men were standing out in front watering the grass, or maybe lugging a trash can. Any man that saw us drive by stopped what he was doing and looked. That’s because Los Angeles was still a small town back then, and most residents were from the country somewhere. They treated their surroundings as familiar and friendly, and they wanted to know who was driving on their street.
There I was swallowing the slow trickle of blood from the cuts inside my mouth, being driven through a blue- collar paradise. I had the irrational notion that I could just ask that gawky white woman to stop the car and I could open the door and walk out into a peaceful life, leaving the trouble I was in behind. But before I could speak up, we were pulling into the Tannenbaum driveway. Layla’s pink car was still parked at the curb. Fearless was there next to me, pressing his swollen jaw. There was no escape.
When we were all out of the Ford, Fearless went up to Fanny and shook her hand.
“I promised your husband that I wouldn’t let anybody rob you, Mrs. Tannenbaum,” he said. “So if you need me…”
Fanny looked up at Fearless with an expression that many women had for him. There was trust and hope and even faith in that gaze. Gella and I exchanged worried glances.
“Have you eaten?” Fanny asked us.
“Why no, ma’am,” Fearless said.
“Hedva,” said Gella.
“What, dear?”
“I have to go home.”
“Go on then, I’ll call you.”
“But…” Gella let the word hang in the air, obviously meaning that Fearless and I were the reason she could not leave.
I didn’t blame her. Her uncle had been stabbed, she had just been to the police station, her husband was angry and scared enough to have raised his hand to her. And then there we were with our disheveled clothes and bloody faces, looking like thugs.
“Go home to your husband,” Fanny said flatly. “I’m fine.”
“But…” Gella said again.
Fanny raised her voice and fired words in a language I did not understand. The meaning was harsh though — that was evident by the lowering of the younger woman’s gaze.
“I’m sorry, Auntie,” the girl said. She looked at us and hunched her shoulders in an apologetic sort of way. Then she went to her car and got in.
As the engine turned over, Fanny said, “Come in, gentlemen.”
We followed her through the front door we’d been to earlier that day. This time we were ushered in with a smile.
Fanny was five feet tall, tops. Her husband had maybe an inch on her. The house reflected their height with its low ceilings and small chairs. The rooms were tiny, even for me.
She sat Fearless and me down at a round table in an alcove off of the kitchen. The meal came quickly and in courses. We had cabbage stuffed with ground beef, potato dumplings that she called knishes, chicken soup with rice, and chopped chicken livers on white bread. It was all delicious. For me, a man who had faced death twice in the last two days, it was a king’s feast.
After she made sure that we were eating, Fanny made a call. She wasn’t on the phone very long, and when she got off she was weepy and sad.
“That the hospital?” Fearless asked.
Fanny nodded and took a chair.
“Is he okay?”
“He came awake for a little while,” Fanny replied. “They said that he’s sleeping now and shouldn’t have
