“Well, I learned something interesting this morning,” Lydia says. “Did you know that the Jews were most likely never even in Egypt?”
Their mother shares stuff like this all the time. One year, she almost ruined a Seder by making a similarly combative claim that the Egyptians were actually slaves of the Jews. And while it’s true that the Jews almost certainly didn’t build the pyramids, it’s also true that no evidence lent credence to Lydia’s assertion. Either way, there was no reason to bring it up in front of Stuart’s conservative family.
“So you’re saying Passover is bullshit?” asks Rachel. It’s the only holiday to which she feels a connection, in part because the exodus, with its historical roots and contemporary relevance, has always seemed distinctly non-bullshit, a far cry from cartoonish Queen Esther, or the wonder of Chanukah’s magical flame. Not that Passover’s parted sea or rain of plagues belong to realism, but the slave narrative grounds the supernatural stuff, and the story’s central image—the Israelites marching with bread on their backs—is so sensory and concrete. Rachel has always related to Aaron, the unsung sibling. Michael was Moses: silent in his absence, enveloped in an air of charmed mystique.
That Michael is not the one she sees tonight. Her brother’s current incarnation looks wounded and tiny, drowning in an oversized T-shirt. He looks nothing like the slick financier who visited in August, Wendy in tow, the pair turning heads at the Grub and Grog with their New York wardrobes that must have looked, to the local crowd, gauchely European, meaning gaudy and threatening and somewhat gay. Rachel wonders where Wendy is now. Michael looks like he could use a nurturing wife. Rachel knows: Wendy isn’t the nurturing type.
She remembers the dinner after their courthouse wedding. The Mixners were in full force—Rachel’s Long Island cousins, with their polished diamonds and hair-gelled husbands—but there were hardly any guests from Wendy’s side. Aware of this incongruity, Rachel had tried, in her way, to bond with the bride. She’d done this by shit-talking, in perhaps too wine-lit and effusive a manner, the Long Island contingent, telling Wendy she’d rather have no relatives at all than that cunty JAP cousin brigade. Instead of laughing or nodding, Wendy had looked across the table as if seeing the cousins for the first time. She spent a long moment studying Maggie and Hannah, who were in deep debate on the merits and drawbacks of a monthly colonic. “Maggie’s really quite pretty,” was Wendy’s cold reply.
“Well it’s not bullshit,” says Lydia. “It’s allegory.”
“Like ‘Fuck the Police,’” says Michael.
“I mean, it’s the origin story of our culture,” says Rachel. “It’s like if we found out Superman wasn’t from Krypton.”
“There’s archeological evidence,” says Lydia.
“How can there be archeological evidence for an absence?” Rachel asks. “There can be a lack of evidence, but there can’t be evidence itself of an absence. And how is it anything like ‘Fuck the Police’?”
“The violence,” says Michael.
“Your brother is correct,” says Lydia. “And if you think about it, we can read the exodus in light of the Holocaust. We may not have been slaves, but we were the victims of genocide. Are the victims of genocide. And that wasn’t in ancient Egypt, darling, that was in this very century in civilized Europe.”
“It’s a metaphor for black life in America,” says Michael. He got this idea from a book of essays, all by white academics, on the legacy of NWA.
“Last century, Mom,” says Rachel. “We’re in a whole new century now. Have been for a while. And, Michael, I’m sorry, but how is the Holocaust a metaphor for black life in America?”
Stuart interrupts by banging the table.
He says, “My life is fucked.”
“Your life’s not fucked,” says Lydia.
Stuart repeats, “My life is fucked.”
“Everything’s okay Dad,” Michael reassures.
“Your life?” says Lydia, standing. She points to herself and the others. “We’re your life. We’re your family. And we’re all here. Isn’t that nice? You should be happy to have us all here.”
“Fuck,” Stuart says. He stands, tips over his chair, kicks the table, and exits the room.
“What was that about?” says Rachel.
“It’s unfair,” says Lydia. “His making a scene while you’re here for your friend’s funeral. Very unfair.”
“Ricky,” says Michael.
“It’s unfair of him to bring you into this. Not now anyway.”
“Into what?” says Rachel. “What are you talking about?”
“Divorce,” says Lydia.
“You and Dad are getting divorced?”
“Your father and I aren’t planning anything that radical as of yet. He’s getting divorced from Sharon.”
“Who’s Sharon?” says Michael.
“His girlfriend from the game,” says Rachel.
“Wife,” says Lydia. “His wife from the game.”
“They’ve never even met!” says Rachel.
“That’s not how he sees it.”
“Why’s she dumping him?” Michael asks.
“She’d prefer someone younger.”
“What?” says Rachel.
“Your father,” says Lydia. “Sharon thinks his looks are starting to fade.”
“She’s never even seen him in person!”
“It’s a very shallow culture,” says Lydia.
29.
The detectives have left Donnell with his lawyer, a young man in an off-the-rack suit who looks more like someone playing Atticus Finch in a school production of To Kill a Mockingbird than the genuine article. His face is nearly cubist: one ear the size and texture of a wine cork, the other Dumbo-esque; eyes distorted through the thick lenses of horn-rimmed glasses; nostrils misaligned; a swollen tongue that hangs like a dog’s during moments of intense concentration. The lawyer’s office is also his bedroom, possibly a university dorm. In the background sits an unmade bed. Its blond wood matches the lawyer’s desk chair. The lawyer bends forward, revealing a poster of Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
Donnell keeps reaching for a nonexistent remote that might change the channel and provide him with a more experienced litigator. Instead he scoots forward, closer to the webcam, so the lawyer gets a tighter view of his face. He wants the lawyer to see its creases and shaving bumps, his hazelnut eyes, the things that mark him as frail and human. He needs the lawyer to know
