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By Root 460 0

where I would have been born, and Auschwitz would have been the end of our story, as it was for too many Charnofskys. But the children of many of those whom Chaim brought over here, men and women who have prospered in America, now regard him as an embarrassment. An atavism. A ghetto Jew. And they don’t want him putting on his tallis and davening in their living room in the morning, which makes their children giggle, or sunning that pale body, but wearing his yarmulke, in their gardens out on Long Island, or in Florida, lest he compromise them before their neighbours. Okay. Enough. I talk too much. Ask my wife. And I’d have to agree he is a narrow man, obdurate, intolerant, but you see he is still baffled by what has become of the Jews in America. And from your point of view, I have no doubt, he was unpardonably cruel to Clara. But how could he be expected to comprehend such a precocious and wilful child in his house? She was so difficult. Such a troubled spirit. Oh poor Clara,” he said, biting his lip, “when she was only twelve years old she would lie on the floor of our parlour, surrounded by books, sketching, her skinny legs swinging away, crossed at the ankles. I loved Clara and deeply regret I didn’t do more to shelter her from … what? From the world, that’s what.”

“Was it you, then, who came to Paris looking for her?”

“It was me. Then she wrote, pleading with me to stay away, not to worry, she had met a good man — you Mr. Panofsky — and he was going to marry her.”

Norman taught a remedial-reading course one night a week in Harlem. He belonged to a group that collected clothes to be mailed to Jews in Russia, he was a blood donor, and had once stood as a Socialist Party candidate for the state legislature. His wife, Flora, had given up her job as a grade-school teacher to care for their only child, a boy who suffered from Down’s syndrome. “Flora would be so pleased if you came to dinner one night.”

“Another time, maybe.”

“If Flora were here, she would say stop kvetching and come to the point. I brought you here because I have found a publisher for Clara’s poetry and a gallery that is interested in her drawings. But let me assure you, even if there was somebody who wanted them, it goes without saying that Clara’s diaries could not be published in the lifetime of my uncle Chaim or aunt Gitel.”

“Or mine?” I asked, my smile tentative.

“But if you read between the lines,” he protested, “she was more than grateful for your devotion. I think she loved you.”

“In her fashion.”

“Look here, this could all come to nothing. But it is my duty to tell you that it could also turn out that her work has substantial financial value, and if that were the case it is you who are entitled to benefit from the income.”

“Oh come on, Norman, you’re talking nonsense.”

“I have a proposal to make, which I want you to think over carefully. I’m crazy. Ask anybody. But just in case money should come in, I wish to establish a foundation in her name to help women of artistic or academic bent, because it continues to be exceedingly difficult for them,” and he went on to run numbers at me of how few women at NYU or Columbia achieved tenure, or were appointed professors, and how they had to manage on smaller salaries and deal with male condescension. “I have brought some papers for you to look at,” he said, reaching into his bulging satchel. “Waivers. Releases. Take them with you. Consult a lawyer. Consider the matter carefully.”

Instead, eager for Norman’s approval, I signed the papers in triplicate right there. Better my right hand should have been cut off. Go know I was setting in motion events that would lead to the ruin of one of the few truly good men I ever met.

1The correct spelling is Coreo.

2 Actually, Richard finished fourth in the scoring race. Ted Lindsay, of the Detroit Red Wings, won the title with twenty-three goals and fifty-five assists. Sid Abel came second, Gordie Howe third, and then Richard.

3 It was the Queen Mary, which made its last voyage in 1967, encountering the Queen Elizabeth at sea at 12:10 a.m., on September