to break Jacob’s heart; enough for him to recognize the reedlike legs, the splayed toes.
The downy upraised throat of a little bird.
CHAPTER SEVEN
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
AUGUST 21, 1968
B arbara Reich says, “I’m going out.”
Her mother frowns, dragging a wooden spoon through the simmering pot of
hovězí guláš
. The stew breathes savory and sour, oily and oppressive, turning the cramped kitchen to a swamp. “Where?”
“I’m studying with Cindy. We have a test.”
“You must eat.”
“I’ll grab something at her place.”
If Věra’s frown deepens, it’s to hide her approval. Barbara has left her knapsack carelessly undone, textbooks poking out—doorstops with titles like
Practical Biology: A Cellular Approach
and
Fundamental Principles of Organic Chemistry.
“Budes okradená,”
Věra says, closing the flap and buckling it.
You’ll get mugged.
“Anyone who wants to steal these deserves what they get,” Barbara says.
Her mother clucks. “Very expensive.”
“I’m kidding, Maminka.”
“It is not funny.”
Right
Barbara thinks.
Nothing is.
In the living room, her father is arguing with the
New York Times
.
“Bye, Taťka
.
”
Jozef Reich slams the paper shut. Like most of his gestures, it lacks the intended punch: no satisfying bang, just a noncommittal crinkle.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA INVADED BY RUSSIANS AND FOUR OTHER WARSAW PACT FORCES; THEY OPEN FIRE ON CROWDS IN PRAGUE
TANKS ENTER CITY
Deaths Are Reported—Troops Surround Offices of Party
SOVIET EXPLAINS
Says Its Troops Moved at the Request of Czechoslovaks
Jozef’s grin is sick and ironic as he hoists his shot glass of
slivovice.
“Socialismus s lidskou tváří,”
he says.
Socialism with a human face.
Before he has set the glass down, he’s groping in the direction of the bottle. Barbara hands it to him and bends to kiss the vein in the center of his forehead. He smells like overripe plums and motor oil. Each day, he comes home from the garage slathered in grease, and Věra fills the kitchen sink and shampoos his woolly arms up to the elbow.
“Study good,” he says.
“I will.”
Outside it’s so muggy the mosquitoes are complaining. Exactly the wrong weather for beef stew. Her mother’s cookery is driven primarily by economics. Chuck roast is on special, twenty-nine cents a pound, they will eat
guláš.
Barbara trudges down Avenue D in the direction of Cindy’s house, rolling up her sleeves as she goes, aware of Věra watching from the kitchen window, staring down with that weird mix of suspicion and satisfaction. She can feel the knapsack imprinting itself in sweat on her back, the clasp of her brassiere biting into her spine, her blouse patching at the underarms. A group of boys wearing St. Vincent’s ties and listening to the Yankee game wonder aloud what’s hiding beneath her skirt.
Barbara pinches off a smile.
Use your imagination, if you’ve got any.
She turns down Thirty-first, then circles back to Nostrand Avenue, where Cindy waits, tan and grinning, a one-woman conspiracy in a lime-green shift dress.
“Clockwork, baby.”
The dress hits halfway up her thighs. Her feet are squished into matching lime-green go-go boots. Her handbag has bright pink flowers on the side. She looks like she’s going dancing. She always does. It’s how she comes to class. Beside her, Barbara feels like a dust mop.
Her own skirt comes secondhand. She tried raising the hemline, so it wouldn’t look so dowdy. The first time she tried to walk out of the house, her mother screamed.
They will rape you.
It wasn’t funny; nothing about her family life was, but Barbara struggled to keep herself from laughing. Because Věra made these dire predictions in her even more dire Slavic accent, trilling the
r
like a cartoon villain.
They—will—rrrrrrrRRRRape you!
Who were
they
, these rapists prowling the streets of Flatbush? The blacks? The Puerto Ricans? The young men of St.
Angel Payne, Victoria Blue