“Castleman, Ritchie Castleman. And you are?”
“Mrs. Kazorney, Esther Kazorney.” She frowned, as if to say, “I can’t believe what’s happening.” Then, timidly, she said, “Moise, are you really still there somewhere?”
“Of course I’m still here. Where else would I be?”
Ritchie noticed that Grelich’s voice was more robust then his own. Grelich spoke emphatically and somewhat dramatically. His sentences were filled with highs and lows, and he made full use of diminuendo and crescendo.
“Yes, Esther,” Grelich went on, “By the grace of the times we live in I am still here. These klutzes couldn’t even kill an unhappy Jew, even though Hitler showed them how some years ago. Esther, we are living now in an age of the goyishe apotheosis. The peasantry is now at the controls, and they are showing us what it really means to screw up, you should excuse the language.”
Esther made a small dismissing gesture. She studied Moses’ face and said, in a low voice, “Moise?”
“I’m still here,” Moses said.” Where else would I be?”
“This fellow who lives inside you—is he a landsman?”
“Atheist!” Ritchie said. “Purebred atheist.”
“You see?” Moses said. “Atheism is the first step toward Judaism.”
“Not bloody likely,” Ritchie said.
“What type of atheist are you, anyhow?” Grelitch asked.
“How many types are there?”
“At least two. Intellectual and instinctive.”
“I guess I’m the intellectual type.”
“Aha!” Grelitch said.
“What, aha?”
“Out of your own mouth you have proven a thesis which I have long held. Jews are not instinctive atheists. Jews, even the dumbest among us, are born arguers, which is to say, intellectuals. No Jew comes to suicide without a long, reasoned argument in his mind, an argument that takes into account the question of God’s view on suicide.”
The doorbell rang again. Grelich opened the door. “Solomon!” he cried, seeing the tall black man on the other side. “Solomon Grundy, the Ethiopian Jew,” he explained to Ritchie.
“Can you hear me, Moise?” Solomon said. “Esther gave me this address.”
“Yes, yes I can hear you, Solomon. You have come to the apartment of therman who owns my body. Unfortunately, I’m still in it.”
“How can that be?”
“It’ll be sorted out presently. Meanwhile, what do you have to tell me? Some more of your mystic African Hasidic pseudo-scientific nonsense?”
“I simply come as a friend,” Solomon said.
“That’s very nice,” Grelich said. “The murderer returns to weep over the corpse he has made.”
“I don’t quite understand your point,” Solomon said.
“The point is, where were you when I needed a friend? Where were you before I killed myself?”
“Killed yourself? You don’t sound very dead to me.”
“I tried. It’s an accident that I’m alive.”
“So might we all say. But something that is tantamount to an accident can be said never to have happened.”
“Sophistry,” Grelich shouted.
Solomon sat silent for a long moment, and then nodded his head. “I’ll accept that. The fact is, I was not a very good friend. Or rather, I was not a good enough friend at the time you needed one.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” said Grelich, momentarily uncertain of the line Solomon was taking.
“We are both responsible for what happened,” Solomon said. “You elected yourself a victim, I perforce became a killer. Together we obliterated a life. But we reckoned without God.”
“How do you figure?” Grelich asked.
“We thought we could produce the nothingness of death. But God said, “That’s not how it’s going to be.” And he left us both alive and able to suffer the consequences of the deed we attempted, but didn’t quite bring off.”
“God wouldn’t do that,” Grelich said. “That is, if He existed.”
“He does.”
“What kind of a principle could He make of that?”
“He doesn’t have to make a principle out of it. He is not restricted to His own precedent. He can do what he wants fresh every time. This time it’s for you to suffer, and you deserve it, since God never told you it was all right to suicide.”
Ritchie loved listening to what was going on. He qvelled (a word he would soon learn) to hear the aggressive, intellectual Grelich getting it in the neck from a guy like Solomon, who came on like a religious rapper and really knew how to dish it out.
But it occurred to Ritchie that all the talk was on Grelich, and none of it was on him.
“Hey, fellows,” he said, “it looks like this talk could go on for a while, and I haven’t even been introduced.”
Grelich sullenly made the introductions.
“Why don’t we get a bite to eat?” Ritchie said, now that he found himself able to speak. “I could use something, myself.”
“Is there a vegetarian restaurant around here?” Grelich asked.
“Christ, I don’t know,” Ritchie said. “There’s a pretty good Cuban café just a couple blocks from here.”
“I wouldn’t eat that treif junk,” Grelich said. “Not even if I weren’t a vegetarian.”
“So recommend your own place, big mouth,” said Ritchie.