“Once,” says Landsman.
“By whom, please?”
“Well, we don’t know that.”
“Any witnesses?”
“Not so far.”
“Motive?”
Landsman says no, then turns to Berko for confirmation, and Berko gives his head a somber shake.
“ Shot. ” The Rebbe shakes his head as if marveling: How do you like that? With no discernible change in his voice or manner, he says, “You are well, Detective Shemets?”
“I can’t complain, Rabbi Shpilman.”
“Your wife and children? Healthy and strong?”
“They could be worse.”
“Two sons, I believe, one an infant.”
“Right, as usual.”
The massive cheeks tremble in assent or satisfaction. The rebbe murmurs a conventional blessing on the heads of Berko’s little boys. Then his gaze rolls in Landsman’s direction, and when it locks on him, Landsman feels a stab of panic. The rebbe knows everything. He knows about the mosaic chromosome and the boy Landsman sacrificed to preserve hard-earned illusions about the tendency of life to get things wrong. And now he’s going to offer a blessing for Django, too. But the rebbe says nothing, and the gears in the Verbover Clock grind away. Berko glances at his wristwatch; time to get home to the candles and the wine. To his blessed boys, who could be worse. To Ester-Malke, with the braided loaf of another child tucked somewhere in her belly. He and Landsman have no dispensation to be here past sundown, investigating a case that officially no longer exists. No one’s life is at stake. There is nothing to be done to save any of them, not the yids in this room, not the yid, poor thing, who brought them here.
“Rabbi Shpilman?”
“Yes, Detective Landsman?”
“Are you all right?”
“Do I seem ‘all right’ to you, Detective Landsman?”
“I’ve only just had the honor of meeting you,” Landsman says carefully, more in deference to Berko’s sensibilities than to the rabbi or his office. “But to be honest, you seem all right.”
“In a way that appears suspicious? That seems to inculpate me, perhaps?”
“Rebbe, please, no jokes,” Baronshteyn says.
“As to that,” Landsman says, ignoring the mouthpiece, “I wouldn’t venture an opinion.”
“My son has been dead to me for many years, Detective. Many years. I tore my clothes and said kaddish and lit a candle for his loss long ago.” The words themselves trade in anger and bitterness, but his tone is breathtakingly void of emotion. “What you found in the Zamenhof Hotel-was it the Zamenhof? — what you found there, if it is him, that was only a husk. The kernel was long since cut out and spoiled.”
“A husk,” Landsman says. “I see.”
He knows what a hard thing it can be to have fathered a heroin addict. He has seen this kind of coldness before. But something rankles him about these yids who tear their lapels and sit shiva for living children. It seems to Landsman to make a mockery of both the living and the dead.
“Now, all right. From what I have heard,” Landsman continues, “and I certainly don’t claim to understand it, your son-as a boy-he showed certain, well, indications, or… that he might be… I’m not sure I have this right. The Tzaddik Ha-Dor, is that it? If the conditions were right, if the Jews of this generation were worthy, then he might reveal himself as, uh, as Messiah.”
“It’s ridiculous, nu, Detective Landsman,” the rebbe says. “The very idea makes you smile.”
“Not at all,” Landsman says. “But if your son was Messiah, then I guess we’re all in trouble. Because right now he’s lying in a drawer down in the basement of Sitka General.”
“Meyer,” Berko says.
“With all due respect,” Landsman puts in.
The rebbe doesn’t answer at first, and when he finally speaks, it is with evident care. “We are taught by the Baal Shem Tov, of blessed memory, that a man with the potential to be Messiah is born into every generation. This is the Tzaddik Ha-Dor. Now, Mendel. Mendele, Mendele.”
He closes his eyes. He might be remembering. He might be fighting back tears. He opens them. They’re dry, and he remembers.
“Mendel had a remarkable nature as a boy. I’m not talking about miracles. Miracles are a burden for a tzaddik, not the proof of one. Miracles prove nothing except to those whose faith is bought very cheap, sir. There was something in Mendele. There was a fire. This is a cold, dark place, Detectives. A gray, wet place. Mendele gave off light and warmth. You wanted to stand close to him. To warm your hands, to melt the ice on your beard. To banish the darkness for a minute or two. But then when you left Mendele, you stayed warm, and it seemed like there was a little more light, maybe one candle’s worth, in the world. And that was when you realized the fire was inside of you all the time. And that was the miracle. Just that.” He strokes his beard, pulling on it, as if trying to think of something he might have missed. “Nothing else.”
“When was the last time you saw him?” Berko says.
“Twenty-three years ago,” the rebbe says without hesitation. “On the twentieth of Elul. No one in this house has spoken to or seen him since then.”
“Not even his mother?”
The question shocks them all, even Landsman, the yid who asked it.
“Do you suppose, Detective Landsman, that my wife would ever attempt to subvert my authority with respect to this or any other matter?”
“I suppose everything, Rabbi Shpilman,” Landsman says. “I don’t mean anything by it.”
“Have you come here with any notions,” Baronshteyn says, “about who might have killed Mendel?”
“Actually-” Landsman begins.
“Actually,” the Verbover rebbe says, cutting Landsman off. He plucks a sheet of paper from the chaos of his desk, tractates, promulgations, and bans, classified documents, adding machine tapes, surveillance reports on the habits of marked men. There’s a second or two of tromboning as he brings the paper within focusing range. The flesh of his right arm sloshes in the wineskin of his sleeve. “These particular homicide detectives are not supposed to be investigating this matter at all. Am I wrong?”
He sets down the paper, and Landsman has to wonder how he ever could have seen anything in the rebbe’s eyes but ten thousand miles of frozen sea. Landsman is shocked, knocked overboard into that cold water. To keep himself afloat, he clings to the ballast of his cynicism. Did the order to black-flag the Lasker case come straight from Verbov Island? Has Shpilman known all along that his son is dead, murdered in room 208 of the Hotel Zamenhof? Did he himself order the killing? Are the business and directives of the Homicide Section of Sitka Central routinely submitted for his inspection? These might make interesting questions if Landsman could get his heart out of his mouth and ask them.
“What did he do?” Landsman says at last. “Exactly why was he dead to you already? What did he know? What, while we’re on the subject, do you know, Rebbe? Rabbi Baronshteyn? I know you people have the fix in. I don’t know what kind of deal you’ve worked for yourselves. But looking around this fine island of yours, I can see, you should excuse the expression, that you are carrying a lot of serious weight.”
“Meyer,” Berko says, a warning in it.
“Don’t you come back here, Landsman,” the rebbe says. “Don’t ever bother anyone in this household, or any of the folk on this island. Stay away from Zimbalist. And stay away from me. If I hear that you have so much as asked one of my people to light your cigarette, I will have you and your shield. Is that clear?”
“With all due respect-” Landsman begins.
“An empty formula in your case, surely.”
“Nevertheless,” Landsman says, recovering himself. “If I had a dollar for every time some shtarker with a glandular problem tried to scare me off a case, with all due respect, I wouldn’t have to sit here listening to threats from a man who can’t even manage to shed a tear for the son I’m sure he helped into an early grave. Whether he died twenty-three years ago or last night.”
