Wonder Boys - Michael Chabon [87]
“Why shouldn’t she wash her hands?” Irene said, waving a dismissive hand toward Deborah.
“Maybe you should wash yours,” Philly said. He winked. “I’m not sure you got all the cow pie off them.”
“Fuck you,” said Deborah. “I hate it when you wink at me.
“May I wash mine?” said James.
“Certainly you may,” said Irene, watching with a broad smile as James got up and followed Irv and Marie into the kitchen. We heard the stream of water ringing against the stainless steel sink. The smile died. “You’re such a pleasant person to be around, Deborah.”
“Yeah,” said Philly. “What’s your problem?”
Deborah glanced at me, and I felt a cheesy smile congeal on my lips.
“Okay, then, fine,” she said, leaping from her chair, and for a moment I thought the meal was going to be ended before it had even begun. “I’m going to wash my fucking hands, too.”
Emily looked at me and rolled her eyes, as if her sister were only being her usual impossible self. I nodded, and this moment of private derision, of silent laughter between us, made my heart seize. When the hand washers had returned from their ablutions we proceeded with the dipping of the parsley into the salt water, reading in turn from our booklets about the recollection, thereby, of Jewish hope, Jewish tears, and ancient Near Eastern fashions in hors d’oeuvres. Then Irv reached for the middle matzoh of the three stacked on the silver plate, broke it in two, and wrapped it in a napkin.
“Now,” he said, turning so quickly to James, who’d been watching this procedure with dazed fascination, that the young man jumped.
“What?” he said.
“This is called the afikomen,” said Irv, tapping the little bundle. His bushy white eyebrows knotted over his nose. “Don’t you try to steal it, now.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” said James, eyes wide.
“You’re supposed to, buddy,” I told him. “Take it easy. You hide it, and then Irv here has to ransom it back.”‘
“There might be a little money in it for you, if you’re interested.” Irv set the little bundle beside his plate, slid it a couple of inches toward James, and humorously cleared his throat. “Now,” he said, and took up his Haggadah again, and we all turned the page, and I saw a look of unreasoning panic enter the young man’s eyes. He’d been marking it all along with a fearful thumb, and now it was here. He blanched and looked at me to save him. I clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Go to it.”
“I can’t read this part in Hebrew.”
“That’s okay. We know.”
“Take your time,” said Irene. “Take a deep breath.”
He inhaled, and exhaled, and then, as he started in on that old rigged four-part quiz we’d all heard Philly reel off, in weary Hebrew, so many times before—asking Irv why, on this night that commemorated a strange assortment of emergencies and miracles, he ate crackers, horseradish, and parsley and sat slumped against a crocheted orange throw pillow—the Warshaws left off their arguments, and their wry asides, and their shifting around in their chairs. Instead they just sat, motionless, listening, while James picked his way carefully through the passage, in his clear, high corrupted-altar-boy voice, as though his Haggadah were an instruction manual and there was some complicated machine there in the living room that we were all trying to assemble.
“That was very nice, James,” said Irene, when he finished.
His cheeks colored, and he smiled at her as though he were in love.
“Mr. Warshaw?” he said. His voice came out sounding strangled with emotion.
“Irv.”
“Irv? Could I—No.”
“What James? What is it?”
“Could I have a pillow so I can, uh, recline, too?”
“Get him a pillow,” Irv said.
Deborah got up and went to one of the two pushed-aside sofas, which were all but buried in throw pillows. In the cushions and bolsters that littered the house one could read, as in the strata of metamorphic rock, the handicraft fads of the Warshaw daughters—the eras of needlepoint, rug hooking, tie-dye, crochet. She brought back a cushion embroidered with a green-skinned Peter Frampton with taxi yellow curls and tucked it in behind James’s back.
“Here