He pulls them out onto Husvikveien and then onto the 153, which also seems to be called Osloveien if he’s reading the map correctly. His first marker is Riksveg 23, which he hopes will be announced by some kind of sign or something, and is about thirty minutes away at their current pace. He figures he can settle into the trip for a bit and try to adapt to this unfamiliar place.
It doesn’t feel so unfamiliar, though. It feels like the Berkshires in western Massachusetts, where white- steepled churches keep vigil over the salt-box houses with their black, blue, and green storm shutters, and school children carry tin lunch boxes with cartoon characters, and policemen stop traffic on Main Street to make way for ducklings as they walk across the road with their stubby orange legs and curious little faces.
The last time he was in the Berkshires was in 1962, when Saul was ten. It was the perfect time to take the family ‘leafing’ to see the magnificence of the New England tapestry unfold all around them and envelop them in the seasonal bliss of autumn and the coming of Halloween.
They were staying in a bed-and-breakfast near the town where Sheldon was born. Saul had run down the carpeted stairs, absurdly early, to launch an untethered attack on the breakfast table as he and Mabel idly wondered what it might have been like to have had a girl.
‘Quieter,’ Sheldon figured.
‘For you. I was tough on my mother,’ she’d said.
‘Mothers and daughters.’
‘Right.’
‘But we might have slept later.’
‘Maybe.’
‘I can go down and keep him company. Wanna stay in bed a bit?’
And so Mabel slept for another hour as Sheldon watched Saul consume twice his body mass in cranberry muffins, blueberry pancakes, hot chocolate, eggs, bacon, maple syrup, and butter.
It was mid-October, and Sheldon was reading about the Cuban missile crisis in the
‘If there’s a nuclear war, you know what you’re supposed to do, right?’ he’d asked Saul.
‘Ruff and rubber.’
‘Don’t talk with your mouth full.’
Saul swallowed and then said, ‘Duck and cover.’
‘Right.’
Parenting done, Sheldon refilled his coffee and decided that today would be an excellent day to pick apples at the orchard. And after that, he’d take in the front nine on a round of golf. Mabel could do some leafing with the kid, and he’d give himself a break. Take a deep breath in his native state, and get the car fumes of New York out of his lungs.
The apple-picking went well. They paid ten cents for a big basket and set off into the rows of trees.
Mabel was in a red shirt and a white blouse. Remembering it now, he marvelled at how tiny her waist was, how shapely her calves. How she wobbled ever so slightly in her shoes over the uneven ground. He walked behind her and smiled as the heels speared the fallen leaves and followed her around like a stack of receipts on a spike back at the repair shop.
It was a pity that day was ruined.
Mabel came down with a bit of a headache in the afternoon, so Sheldon decided to take Saul to the golf course to teach him to hold the putter properly. What ten-year-old kid wouldn’t want to caddy for his dad?
There was an old country club with a low and long white colonial home at its centre, and the course stretched out behind it like puddles of emeralds. The blue of the sky lit out to the heavens, and a string quartet was playing on the terrace on account of some fancy catered event. It was a delightful place.
Sheldon and Saul walked into the lobby and smiled at the man who waited like a maitre d’. The man smiled back.
‘Hi. My son and I want to play a round of golf. Just the front nine. He’ll caddy. We won’t hold anyone up.’
‘Your name, please?’
‘I’m Sheldon Horowitz, and this is my son, Saul.’
‘Mr Horowitz.’
‘Yes. So, who do I pay and where do I get some clubs?’
‘I’m sorry, sir, but the club is for members only.’
Sheldon furrowed his brows. ‘You’re the only course in town. I asked at the B&B. They said everyone plays here.’
‘Oh, no, no. They were mistaken. It’s members only.’
‘How can the guy be mistaken? He lives here and runs a tourist business.’
The man used the old technique of raising his ears and leaving the question unanswered in the hope that the other conversant would see where the conversation was headed and, not wanting to pursue it, leave off there. This technique was not designed with Sheldon in mind.
‘Sounds like you didn’t hear me. Allow me to repeat. “How can the guy be mistaken? He lives here and runs a tourist business?”’
‘I’m sure I don’t know.’
‘Fine. I come up here pretty often. How much for membership?’
‘It’s very expensive. And there’s a selection process. You need to be nominated by a member.’
In a gesture that surely harkens back to the Greek chorus, Sheldon looked around him for witnesses to the insanity he was experiencing.
‘What kind of thing is that to say? Are you trying to attract new members, or repel them?’
Out of habit, which can overpower learning, the man tried the same technique again, upon which Sheldon decided that the man had some screws loose, and so chose to speak slowly. As one does to foreigners and small animals.
‘Do you, or do you not, want to sell people memberships to your clubhouse so we can play on your shiny green fields with little white balls and then drink your drinkies in the bar?’
‘Mr
Sheldon, genuinely trying to do the maths, squinted as he looked at the man. Then, perhaps for moral support, or to be reminded of the face of normality, he looked down at his well-fed ten-year-old son. And, on looking at his son, his eyes fell upon the gold Star of David that Mabel’s sister had given him for Hanukkah last year.
Then Sheldon turned back to the man.
‘Are you saying you won’t sell me a membership to your country club because I’m a Jew?’
The man looked to the left and right, and then whispered, ‘Sir, please, there’s no need to use language here.’
‘Language?’ Sheldon shouted. ‘I’m a United States Marine, you pipsqueak. I want to play a round of golf with my son. You will make that happen
It did not happen then or even later. A security guard, larger than him and with darker features, made towards Sheldon.
At this moment, Sheldon was undecided, and he looked back at Saul. He should have walked away. He should have accepted that the world was a big place and that change happens gradually. He did not want — sincerely — to do anything scary that could upset or even traumatise his son. He didn’t want to get arrested and upset Mabel. A higher wisdom was, even then, available for consultation.
But it was not convincing. Because what he saw on his son’s face was shame. And Sheldon, being no intellectual, made his decision. And the decision was based on what he felt was the least shameful way to respond, given who he was, and who he wanted his son to be. The line from this moment to Saul’s death in Vietnam was to be, for Sheldon, immutable and absolute.
As soon as the guard was in range, Sheldon sprang into the space between them and swung his right elbow
