should take a nice hot shower before he went to bed because tomorrow was another day, and he wasn't off from school, and there would always be another war to fight in this sorry world of ours and more people out of whom to bomb the S-H-I-T, which word she spelled out letter by letter with her fingers lest Carella miss the point that he was beginning to annoy her. He came out of the shower
looking wet and contrite and in need of a haircut, which she hadn't noticed before.
He didn't say anything to her until she herself was in her nightgown—a long flannel granny because even with the temperature set at seventy-two, the old house was drafty and cold on this dank November night—her dark hair loose about her face, wearing a moisturizing cream she claimed was non-greasy but which he swore was made from goose grease, pulling back the covers, and jumping in quickly, and then reaching over to turn out the light—but his flying fingers caught her attention.
'I'm sorry,' he said aloud, signing simultaneously.
She was half-turned away from him, she missed what he was saying. He said it again.
'I'm sorry.'
And signed it.
Only baby boomers in their late forties believed that love meant never having to say you're sorry. Everyone else knew that if you truly loved someone and had hurt her, you had to say you were sorry—but you only had to say it once. You didn't have to get down on your hands and knees and beg forgiveness over and over again for the rest of your life, not if the person believed you. You just said it once. 'I'm sorry.' Unless you had a wife who could not hear your voice because she'd been born without hearing, and could not see your hands because her back was partially turned, in which case you said it again. 'I'm sorry.' And she heard you this time, and nodded, and took one of your hands between both hers, and nodded again.
They left the light on.
She moved into his arms, on his pillow, and he kissed the top of her head and held her close and told her it hadn't been his jackass uncle Dom who'd caused him to drink too much at his mother's house this cold Thanksgiving Day, but instead it was the dead old guy hanging from a bathroom hook and Danny Gimp getting shot in that
pizzeria and the girl stabbed uptown in Fat Ollie' s precinct that made him feel so goddamn worthless. It was suddenly as if all the cases he'd ever closed out had burst open again, exploding into a triple fireworks display trailing white-hot sparks on the night, a single brutal case where everything seemed linked but perhaps nothing was. And on top of that, his jackass uncle Dom probably hadbeen a muscle man for a neighborhood smalltime hood named Vinnie Pineapples, a fat slob with bigger tits than most women had.
Teddy listened to everything he had to say, her eyes performing their magic trick of watching his moving fingers and his moving lips at one and the same time, and then she told him how she herself always felt so worthless at the beginning of the holidays because there were so many gifts to buy, but especially this year when they were short of cash because of the payments on the new car. She didn't want to take a job stuffing grocery bags at the supermarket, but at the same time not very many prospective employers wanted someone around the office who was handicapped, even though she could take steno and type eighty words a minute and was proficient in Word and Quicken and was very well-organized, go ask the twins. So he had to forgive her if sometimes she moped around the house, it was just that she often felt she wasn't doing enough for him or the children, wasn't doing enough for herself. And Vinnie Pineapples probably did have bigger tits than hers.
In the dead of night, in the dark, with the children sleeping soundly in their separate bedrooms down the hall, and the house as still as her own silent world, they comforted each other.
In a little while, Teddy fell asleep.
Carella lay awake for most of the night.
A lapsed Catholic—the last time he'd been to church was when he'd investigated the murder of a priest slain
during vespers—Carella should have felt some vestiges of religious fervor during the Yuletide season, but instead he felt only guilt. Thanksgiving Day marked a full month since Andrew Hale was murdered. The beginning of the Christmas shopping season on the following day should have signaled the beginning of a month-long celebration that would not end until the last carol was sung and the last nog drunk on Boxing Day. Instead, it served as a reminder that the case was still unresolved. Carella wondered if Fat Ollie Weeks, a mile or so uptown, was experiencing the same feelings of helplessness and remorse. He almost called him. Instead, he slogged through a caseload that seemed to grow more mountainous day by day, taking small solace from the fact that the children seemed to be finding more joy in the holiday season than he did.
Meyer was similarly depressed.
A Jew in a Christian nation, he always felt oddly dispossessed at Christmas time. Never mind the euphemistic Chanukah bush he and Sarah had put up for the kids when they were small and still believed in Santa Claus. Never mind the gifts and the greetings exchanged. Try as he might to convince himself that the season had less to do with religion than with people being kind to each other, he could never shake the knowledge that this was not his holiday. He had once invited Carella and his family to a seder, and Carella had later confessed that he' d felt oddly out of place, even though Meyer had himself conducted the traditional ceremony, in English. Carella would hide Meyer in his basement in a minute and fight a thousand Nazis who tried to break down the door. Carella would break the head of anyone who made the slightest derogatory remark to Meyer. Carella would defend Meyer with his honor and his very life. But he had felt strange celebrating Passover with him. A measure of their friendship was that he' d been able to admit this.
In much the same way, Meyer had once asked Carella
if all his Christmas cards read 'Seasons Greetings' or 'Happy Holidays' or 'Yuletide Joy' or the like, or were these just the cards he sent to Meyer and other Jewish friends each year? Did Carella send other cards that read 'Merry Christmas'? And if so, was it to spare Meyer's feelings that he sent the generic card? Carella told him all his cards were similarly antiseptic because what he was celebrating each December was not the birth of Christ, but instead the peace he hoped would prevail at Christmas time—a view he was sure would provoke a flood of letters from people he didn't know. Meyer said, 'In fact, /'// write you a letter, you heathen!'
Thus encouraged, Carella went on to wonder aloud why he sent Christmas cards at all since he knew in his heart of hearts that Christmas—in America, at least—was simply a commercial holiday designed by merchants eager to recoup losses they'd sustained during the rest of the year. Meyer asked him if he was using the word 'merchants' in an anti-Semitic way, and Carella said, 'Vot minns anti-Semitic?' and Meyer said, 'In that case, I wish to remind you that 'White Christmas' was written by a Jew.' Carella said, 'Giuseppe Verdi was a Jew?' Thus encouraged, Meyer said, ''A Rose in Spanish Harlem,' too.' All amazed, both men went out to drink fervent toasts to Mohammed and Buddha.
That was too many Christmases ago.
This year, they shared a guilt that had something to do with what each considered a solemn duty to protect and preserve. A lonely old man had been befriended by someone who'd later drugged him and hanged him. A nineteen-year-old black quasi-hooker had been drugged in the same manner and then stabbed to death, most possibly by the same person who'd slain the old man. That person was either still here in this city, or else in Houston, Texas, or else only God knew where. For all they knew, he himself might be dead by now, killed in a bar fight or a motorcycle
crash, murdered by a stiffed hooker or a miffed lover. Until they knew for certain, both cases sat in the Open File, neither resolved nor any longer under investigation, exactly like the Danny Nelson assassination.
But then, on the last day of November, Carella opened the morning paper.
The article was headlined 'Jenny Redux.'
Norman Zimmer, whose 'Tea Time' is still running after performances, has announced the acquisition of all rights to 'Jenny's Room, ' a musical he plans to revive here next f al .
'Auditions will start this week, ' he said, 'with rehearsals planned for the spring. We're looking for an L.A. tryout in late June, early July.' Mr Zimmer added that negotiations were already under way with a top female star whose name he refused to divulge.
For those with long memories, 'Jenny's Room' was first produced in , as a vehicle for Jenny Corbin, a popular musical comedyperf ormerof the day. It didnot fare well with the critics and closed within a month. Mr Zimmer is certain this will not be its fate this time around. 'I' ve worked too hard acquiring the rights, ' he said. 'The original copyright holders have all passed on, and it was a matter of tracking down whoever had succeeded
