The Flame Alphabet - Ben Marcus [114]
The old man sang with Rabbi Burke’s voice. A perfect imitation. Songs not so beautiful, a warm-up to the sermon to come. No one else could sing in a key that old, on the melodic side of awkward. This was a voice that came from only one man’s body in this world. Birds entered his glass tank and careened inside his sounds, as if they could replenish themselves on music. Then they squirmed out through the glass aperture and shot back into the sky.
There was a broadcast bulb above the man’s glass tank—the kind you once saw at radio stations—and it glowed white. He was singing live, over the airwaves, to whatever world remained.
I stroked the man’s hair and he looked up at me with a face I’d always wanted to see. I did not care if his words were from decades ago or today. I did not care if he spoke a decoy service to deceive people like LeBov, whether his sermons were real or fake, because what was the distinction again? It didn’t matter to me. He was still mine. And now they’d gotten to him, too, reduced him to a crooning role in this underground work site. Or else he’d always been here, had never left, and it took me this long to find him.
He rested his head against me and I held him close.
So it’s you, I didn’t need to say.
To which the rabbi offered no answer but a smile so peaceful it was unbearable.
He resumed singing, and the birds circled, waiting their turn in his tank of sounds.
If I were anyone at all, I would have taken the rabbi with me. But I wasn’t. It turned out that I was no one, out only for myself, what little of it that remained for saving.
You might protest when I call this man a rabbi. But you didn’t see him, did you? You weren’t there. You didn’t know his voice your whole life the way I did, and if you did, I ask you now to stand down and believe me.
In those final minutes I prowled the work site, hiding my mouth from the scrutiny of those Jews. Were they going to rush me, hold me down, feed me the final wire?
I’d forgotten how to act as if I had an inner life, but it was coming back to me now. The face could be a powerful instrument. I’d make myself look like a creature sent to perform maintenance. Oh, it was the nth fucking Jew hole I’ve had to fix, I tried to suggest, but before I could get to work, before I could let them use my apparently special mouth as a reception ground for some unprecedented message to flow through, I needed to gather some equipment.
All the while I inched closer to the hole.
That’s not what it’s for, I’d once said. You can’t go in there.
Until I died I’d keep thinking of the things I’d gotten wrong. Like this. Worshipping for years and years over a hole that I’d not once thought of entering.
No one seemed inclined to try to stop me, which suggested that no one sane would ever jump into this hole and climb down into nowhere with any hope of surviving.
Exactly my fucking point.
I crept up to it and from the hole a blast of air hit me, foul and cold, like the rank breath of people who’ve been buried alive. For all I knew, people had been, and they were down there waiting for me.
I’m coming, I didn’t say. I’ll be with you soon.
I grabbed more tools and some cellophane-wrapped lobes of food until my canvas satchel was stuffed.
On a hook beneath the klieg lights hung the quilted coats for a meat locker.
I took one, tested the fit, then layered a larger coat on top of it.
I required a hard shell over my skin. I couldn’t be sure what I would encounter down below in the tunnels.
Because that’s where I was going. Down the hole and out of there forever.
Above me somewhere, in a bed, plugged into support machines, or perhaps plugged in no longer, was Claire.
For the second time now, instead of staying to help my wife, I went the other way.
I looked at no one, then stepped into nothing.
I plunged down the Jewish hole of Forsythe in free fall, the underground wind rushing over