The Ruined House Read online

  Andrew sits up and turns to his latest piece with satisfaction, reading it as carefully as if going over the proofs one more time. The clarity and originality of his phrasing—his own yet no longer his own—pleases him greatly. From time to time, on Saturdays between the hours of ten and twelve, he indulges in a small, harmless dose of vanity.

  4

  September 10, 2000

  The 10th of Elul, 5760

  The wind gusting from the river carves imperceptible signs on the soft limestone cornices of the buildings’ facades. It howls between the glass and metal cliffs of midtown Manhattan, shrieks in the hollows of the Gothic pilasters of the cathedrals, and charges around the capitals of the soaring towers that glisten against the melancholy blue of the evening sky, ringing the unheard bells of the great city and waking the gargoyles from their slumber on the old rain gutters, causing them to suddenly seem menacing and malevolent. The deep, dark wind of Time itself rises and demands its due.

  Yet in the empty apartment, an absolute, majestic silence reigns. The windows keep outside and inside, cosmos and chaos, apart. The walls glow in the orange sunset; the polished parquet floors gleam; the rectangular screen of the computer glows in the twilight as if a small sliver of the river were brought in and carefully placed indoors. The day battles against its own shadows, but in vain. The outcome is foretold. The light will be vanquished; darkness shall cover the earth and a dim, damp mist will blanket the river. The last glimmers will retire from the face of the water. The strongly pronounced faces of the wooden masks will be flattened and swallowed by the shadows. The masterful brushstrokes spelling “serenity” will be gathered one by one on the darkening wall. It is time to rise, illuminate the room, fill it with music, uncork a bottle of wine. No sun ever truly sets. Light is eternal. Far away, a golden dawn is breaking, shedding its light on nameless islands. White ships sail into it, awash in the fresh radiance of a day reborn.

  5

  September 10, 2000

  The 10th of Elul, 5760

  Six p.m. Although his guests will soon be arriving, Andrew lingers in the kitchen. He is as attentive to the presentation of the food as he is to its flavor and texture. He loves to cook. His dinners have an almost regal reputation and not just because of the outstanding food and expertly chosen wines: like everything on the menu, the guests are carefully selected, in a way that creates a perfect balance between stimulation and relaxed intimacy. His cooking is creative without being provocative, so much so that someone once remarked that its proportions resembled a Mondrian, almost perfectly geometric. Furthermore, his impressive collection of cookbooks does not deter him from improvising and enjoying himself in the kitchen. Although his Italian, especially Tuscan, dishes are superb, he sometimes flirts with French cuisine and even conducts controlled experiments with Asian fusion. But surprisingly, his true specialty is meat. It is indeed strange that a man like him, so ethereal and aloof, would so masterfully work with such rough and bloody material like beef, bison, lamb, and venison; there is an almost visual contradiction between his thin, delicate form and the large cuts of dry-aged Black Angus that he seared to perfection.

  Andrew’s renowned dinner parties are served with a semi-comical, theatrical relish that is part of the experience. The guests are long seated, a third bottle of wine opened, and the appetizers quickly consumed as the conversation becomes more and more lively—but the host is shut in the kitchen with the meat, a large cut of which lies on a gray granite slab. Sipping the wine around which he has planned the meal, Andrew stares at the cut as though to penetrate its inner being; then, suddenly, he puts down his glass and attacks the meat with sharp, sweeping movements, cutting it, spearing it, sprinkling it with pepper and coarse salt, beating the spices into it, and lovingly massaging it with olive oil and seasoning. Anyone observing his single-minded intensity at such times might think him an avatar of an ancient hunter or tribal shaman charged with sacrificing to the gods. The oven is now at the right temperature and the large wrought-iron skillet, purchased from a restaurant equipment wholesaler in Chinatown, is red-hot. Taking a deep breath, Andrew seizes the meat with both hands and flings it at the skillet’s center. The effect is cinematic. A loud sizzle explodes in the kitchen and a tidal wave of mouthwatering scent quickly spreads through the apartment.

  The fire sputters with glee. The seared flesh cries out in pain, writhing in the skillet as though struggling to escape while Andrew stands over it with merciless concentration, pinning it to its fiery bed of torture with a double-pronged fork. The searing sound begins to fade, the meat surrenders to the flame. Turned on its other side, it rages and resists again, but its defiance is short-lived, and its soul, fleeing the infernal flames, withdraws to its interior, turning into a hot, heavy, bloodred essence that oozes onto the serving tray and mingles with lemon juice, ground pepper, and olive oil as Andrew carves the roast expertly, the knife in his hands fluttering lightly over it as if it has a life of its own.

  The guests, transfixed by this ceremony with its smells and heathenish display of succulent slices of meat wallowing in their juices, singed black at the edges and reddish-pink at the center, hesitate a bit before cutting and biting into it. The warm blood fills the mouth and feels as though it is trickling down the neck and throat. It ignites them with its raw saltiness, its soul transmuted into theirs. Andrew stands by, expressionlessly, small beads of sweat glistening on his forehead. Long seconds pass in silence, until someone (usually, a woman) gasps in astonishment: “Oh my god, this meat is divine.” Now all join in, breathlessly. “Fantastic!” “Amazing!” “Unbelievable!” Only then does Andrew snap out of his trance, his face relaxing and reverting to its usual amiable expression. He refills the wineglasses with wine, takes his seat, and cheerfully welcomes his guests.

  6

  September 18, 2000

  The 18th of Elul, 5760

  Ten a.m. Though the morning music has finished playing, its last notes still float in the apartment before fading into the walls, ceiling, and furniture. Andrew sits at his desk, wrapped in his silk robe, his reading glasses playfully perched on the tip of his nose. Two or three books, a laptop, and a coffee cup lie on the desk. The keyboard, its keys like little mice dancing mischievously, click away almost inaudibly. Before beginning to work, he decided to record a dream in a special notebook kept for that purpose, an old habit retained from the psychoanalysis he completed several years ago. A huge, splendidly uniformed warrior, blood-drenched and enraged, strides with giant steps toward a sunrise. Everything is in black and white, as in a Kurosawa movie. The uniform is like a samurai’s magnificent armor. Oddly, he awoke with a wonderful feeling. There was something powerfully liberating, almost comforting, about the warrior. Whom did he represent? A transposed father figure, most likely.

  Ten twenty. The apartment is still. Andrew is hard at work, whistling merrily with a slight smile on his lips. He has never been a pedantic library rat. Scholarship is an art form for him. His light, airy manner suggests a painter or sculptor working in a spacious, well-lit studio, whistling to himself as he works. Most academics of his generation, products of the ecstasies of the sixties, translated their once-youthful rebellion into political radicalism, but that did not necessarily lead to methodological creativity. Andrew had never succumbed to the cheap temptation of being a professional rebel or playing the exhibitionistic role of the university enfant terrible. Although well versed in the standard critiques of capitalist society and proficient in teaching them to his students, he had never fallen prey to the anger and bitterness that characterized many of his colleagues. The buoyancy of his ideas keeps them afloat. From above, they can easily shift perspective, sometimes tumbling into creative free fall like Alice down the rabbit hole.

  At ten thirty his answering machine comes alive with Linda’s voice. “Hi, Andy. About Thanksgiving. We’re making it at four as usual. Everyone will be there. There’s no need to bring anything. Alison says hello. Bye.” As always, Linda plans things months in advance
and doesn’t trust him to remember them. Her mention of Alison makes Andrew smile: she is such a sweet child, he wished he saw more of her. The damned thing about life in New York is that it never leaves time for what really matters. He will bring flowers and a bottle of good wine. No, not wine: chocolates. A big box of Belgian chocolate truffles. There is a new Godiva store on Broadway and 84th Street. It’s settled, then: Belgian chocolates and flowers. Linda never filters her incoming calls the way he does. Like an anxious, obedient clerk, she answers the phone whenever it rings. Blinking and bleary-eyed, she lets salesmen wake her early on weekend mornings and friends bare their souls to her far into the night. It never occurs to her that she need only pick up the receiver when it suits her.

  Ten forty. Andrew’s fingers are still poised over the keyboard. He opens a book, turns its pages, finds what he is looking for, and replaces it facedown on the table. Ten fifty. Now the commanding voice of the legendary Ms. Harty—the department secretary—sounds in the apartment. Would he please get in touch with her today? No, it isn’t urgent, but she will be waiting to hear from him. Andrew grunts something, picks up the book again, compares a quote with the original text while noting its page number and publication date, shuts the book again, and returns it to its pile. Although he is considered a fashionable thinker, this isn’t because, as is commonly thought, he strives to be one. His detractors who accuse him of being a popularity hound are wrong. Projecting their own dogmatic selves onto his, they fail to grasp his true motives, exactly as they fail to guess a step ahead as to where the academic fashion is heading. The au courant character of his thought, with its playful language and quick, unmediated transitions between seemingly unrelated assumptions and discourses, is a sign not of glibness but of a mercurial, Peter Pan–ish nature that makes other, often much younger scholars, though still at the beginning of their careers, feel stodgy and conservative by comparison. Coupled with their annoyance at the poetic liberties he allows himself is their objection to what they call his “Popular Science” approach. (One cultural critic, a neo-Marxist who failed to get tenure in New York and was forced to wander to a state university an hour and a half from the city, called this “the school of the soft academy.”) In this, too, they are mistaken. There is nothing opportunistic or designed to inflate his list of publications in the wide range of subject matter and media that engross him. He simply has an open and curious mind that refuses to be restricted to any one field. In his fashion, he is a true Renaissance man.

  Eleven twenty. The hesitant voice of Bert, his teaching assistant, requests clarification of Items 1 and 7 on the reading list. Bert speaks quickly and nervously; well aware that Andrew screens his calls, he has trained himself not to be insulted, but he is nevertheless at a loss each time he is ignored. Next come the chiming tones of a young woman, obviously a junior secretary: “Hello, Professor Cohen?” She is inviting him on behalf of the administration to the opening of an exhibit the following month. Andrew goes on writing. Almost any message beginning “Hello, Professor Cohen” is immediately ignored. Every few days he takes all these calls and answers them from the phone in his office. Sometimes he entrusts the job to his young research assistants, who, Andrew observed, feel the same excitement at such moments that is felt by a small child bursting with pride at having been asked by his parents to perform a grown-up task. At other times he asks Bert to confirm his participation in some event or apologize for his inability to attend, while in special cases he even avails himself of Ms. Harty—behavior deemed by his colleagues to violate the laws of nature, all the more so inasmuch as she complied with it even before rumors of his imminent appointment, expected to be announced in September, had begun making the rounds of offices and corridors. Yet neither openly nor in private does anyone protest his presumption in asking to be freed of the annoying everyday chores whose very existence, so it seems, are at odds with Andrew’s aristocratic image. No one feels exploited, not only because, unfailingly polite and respectful, he never crosses the lines of fairness as others in the department occasionally do, but because of the precious, heady, even addictive nature of the time spent alone with him while receiving instructions or reporting back.

  Eleven forty. It takes Andrew a moment to recognize the voice of the rental agent. “It’s all arranged. The house in Montauk is yours for the third weekend of December. You and your lady friend” (does he detect a smirk?) “can have it starting Thursday. Enjoy yourselves!” Andrew grunts his approval: he likes the romantic charm of off-season vacation spots that are otherwise insufferable. It will be nice to be alone, just the two of them, with some privacy and quiet before the bustle of the winter holidays and the spring semester.

  Twelve ten. The cautiously friendly voice of Shirin Zamindar, one of his recently graduated research students, catches Andrew off guard. She is so sorry to disturb him, she knows how busy he is, but she hopes it’s okay to ask him whether he read her last article, recently published in Theory Revisited. She is very eager to know what he thinks. She is waiting to hear back from him, okay? Andrew frowns in discomfort. No, he hadn’t had the chance to read it yet, and was sort of dreading it, not knowing what to say if he didn’t like it as much as she wanted him to like it. He must do it soon, though. He must read the damn thing and find something nice to say about it—he can’t keep her hanging in the air like this forever.

  Twelve fifteen. A loud, clear feminine voice rings through the apartment: “Hi, Dad, I know you’re there!” Andrew rouses himself. Rachel. He hurriedly presses “save,” runs to the telephone, and grabs the receiver. The sudden exertion makes his “Hello” sound rushed, hoarse, and out of breath. “Hi, Dad, is that you? For a second I thought you really weren’t there.”

  7

  Rachel resembled neither of her parents. Linda liked to joke that she must have been switched at birth. She was long-legged and thin with a stark, angular beauty that made one think of Byron’s or Heine’s Hebrew maidens and rabbi’s daughters, a beauty that was so diametrically opposed to the image of the China-doll, blue-eyed, and blond-haired all-American cheerleader that it seemed to deliberately challenge it. She inherited her father’s aristocratic aura, but hers was not cool and collected; rather it was dark, fiery, and nervous. When she was angry her nostrils flared dangerously and her lips curled in an alluring, cruel smile that had a chilling effect. Her precise, articulate staccato made short shrift of anyone daring to contradict her, snappily dismissing all arguments as blundering and childish. Yet the other side of her, the opposite pole of the same intense equation, was an unrestrained and tender sweetness that stayed with those lucky enough to have kissed her long after she had lost all interest in them and discarded them by the wayside of her trail of romances. In Andrew’s presence, she almost grudgingly softened even more. Her smiles became bigger and lost their all-knowing sarcastic quality, and sometimes, bursting into loud laughter, she would rub her cheek against her right shoulder in a manner that brought them both back to the bright, adorable five-year-old daddy’s girl she once was, when they had spent hours playing word games and competing at intricately invented nonsense rhymes, amazed by their ability to stretch the boundaries of language and even of reality itself, creating and destroying fabulous worlds with wild giggles. Their favorite book was Alice in Wonderland. They delighted in its endless, mercurial imaginativeness, conversed in quotations from it, and felt as at home in its pages as if they themselves had written them. How Linda loved looking at them then, taking so much joy in the father-daughter bond that had seemed a protective wall around the blessed togetherness, the impregnable wholeness, of family life.

  8

  The divorce was devastating for Rachel. She was fourteen at the time, an unusually sensitive, intelligent child able to read her parents’ distress signals before even they dared to do so. She had seen the disaster approaching and had realized, with the maturity precociously imposed on her, that having Alison was their last desperate, irrational effort to keep their disintegrating family together. Stil
l, her feelings of shock and betrayal were as great as her mother’s when Andrew finally left home and moved into a studio apartment in the faculty housing between Bleecker and Houston. For hours on end she shut herself up in her room, stretched out on her bed with her headphones on, listening to music so loud that it could be heard all over the room. Linda, who—for a while—feared she was having a nervous breakdown, was a wreck, too shattered to pay Rachel any attention. Her maternal instincts barely sufficed to care for Alison.

  Rachel went through adolescence like a species in the wild, learning the ways of the adult world by trial and error, at once totally irresponsible and shouldering responsibilities far beyond her years. Her schoolwork suffered; she cut classes and spent her time smoking pot, listening to music, and making out, sweaty and glassy-eyed with random boys, her age and slightly older. At night she was often left alone to feed and bathe Alison, read her a bedtime story, and put her to sleep, after which she sat up waiting in the kitchen, sometimes until the small hours of the morning, for a sometimes drunk and disheveled and other times inappropriately ecstatic mother who would tell her, down to the most intimate details, about her date with a colleague from work, a new divorcé, or a sworn bachelor, a friend of a friend. Once, at the height of her abandon, it was even a stranger she met at a party. Rachel lost her virginity too early, slept with too many boys, and developed too sophisticated an exterior. Femininity seemed to her a crossroads that pointed in one of only two directions: humiliation or anger, and she chose anger. She despised weakness. It took years for her feelings for her mother to mellow and warm.