sounded like a politician on the stump. Still, he asked her not to downplay his accomplishments: a satisfactory albeit not glowing career, imminent retirement with a comfortable pension. He had achieved all this through his own hard work, without any special favors or affirmative action.
It’s just old age that attacks them and makes them slaves to nostalgia. His grandmother never got used to life outside the reservation. She demanded that he find shamans for her, even in Manhattan, and wasted her money on witch doctors who promised to help her communicate with the spirits. Toward the end, she was so disoriented that she stopped speaking English and mumbled in an indecipherable language. Yet still she demanded—though it wasn’t clear from whom—reparation.
Lenox’s Indian grandmother and the missing man’s Jewish grandfather. That could have been quite a shidduch.
Shidduch. Another Jewish word.
Matchmaking for the dead—a flourishing industry. A genetic admixture that could spur the spirits of the races, or the nations, or whatever they are.
All people are responsible for one another. The only phrase that will survive this case for him. That’s what he should have written on his application for the police academy when asked why he wanted a law enforcement career.
Lenox tries to hail a cab, but because of the rain they all pass by without stopping. Having no choice, he makes his way on foot, his muscles weary from running. From time to time he stops to wipe the rain off his face.
ARE YOU the officer, Mister?
Yes.
Did you call yesterday? Looking for someone?
Lenox rattles the cell phone to get better reception, and identifies himself in his most authoritative voice.
Your guy was just here. I think. I’m almost sure.
Where?
In our store. Outdoor gear. He talked with the sales girl.
Are you certain?
He had an accent. You thought he was an Arab, right Keisha?
A female giggle is heard in the background.
Where did he say he was going, Keisha? You helped him. Tell the cop, Keisha. Hey, Mister, is there a reward?
The young woman in the background tries to backtrack. She’s not even sure it was the right guy. She didn’t want to get the cops involved. Why go looking for trouble? But the chance of a reward . . . Maybe the grateful family would contribute a few bucks?
They giggle again. Lenox suspects they’re playing him. The caller does not answer his detailed questions about an athletic build or stubble. He only insists that the man was Israeli, in contrast to Keisha’s opinion. The two argue but eventually reach an agreement: You can smell Israelis a mile away. They always drive you crazy, turning the merchandise over and over without ever buying anything. Except this guy did, and he paid cash.
What did my Israeli buy? Lenox asks.
Only tomorrow morning will he consider the fact that he has appropriated the Israeli. At this moment he is simply aware of the tension building in his muscles as he awaits the answer.
A map and a raincoat, says Keisha. Jesus, I was so sure he was an Arab.
The line goes dead.
LET GO, Simon T. Let the man wallow in his anonymity. His reconstructed, recycled life is not your own life returned to you. The Israeli is merely movement in space, something that passed over your head and vanished. Let go, Simon T. Do not give in to the romantic notions about the traces a man leaves behind merely by being present. You are only the audience in this race, and you didn’t even pay a dime to watch it.
The Israeli case is closed, just as it was before you crudely stepped into it. After all, you can’t expect thanks from Liam Emanuel, and don’t be tempted to believe you are his savior, from others or from himself. The sense of intimacy between you and him is inevitable, and all too familiar from other cases. You already know it’s a false intimacy. If you met him face to face, you would be complete strangers to one another. He would scoff, and rightly so: What do we have to do with each other?
And let’s say he was from a different nation—would you dare trespass his borders for your own needs, like you’re doing now? French, for example. Or Hungarian. Is it only because he is Jewish, or Israeli, that his borders are a free-for-all? And is the solid evidence of him being alive not enough to halt your voyeuristic desires? Or maybe that’s a side effect of the bladder problems.
Let go, Simon T. Give this man a final burial, as is the tribal custom.
Your bones mean nothing to him either. It’s best to stick with mutual ignorance.
Boydem. Boydem. Boydem.
A foreign word taps to the beat of the raindrops. The sky is pierced with holes. It’s a pity Lenox didn’t become a doctor, like his grandmother wanted him to. Then he could have diagnosed an enlarged prostate and recommended emergency surgery.
As a child on the reservation, the old lady told him an ancient Indian version of the creation myth, whereby the Raven pissed out the world.
A boydem inheritance. A road map. A raincoat. A patrimony.
This is our pastpresent, the missing man murmured on his father’s grave as he clutched the property title. And Lenox, an experienced detective, had walked into the trap and accepted the Israeli investigator’s opinion that it was just a meaningless mumble.
Or maybe he said presentpast . . . How had that detail escaped him?
Lenox walks out in front of a taxi and waves his arms dramatically. He tells the driver to hurry to the outdoor gear store. When they arrive, he hands over a fifty-dollar bill and rushes to the glass door. The store is closed, but he spots employees inside, locking up the cash registers and arranging merchandise in piles. Lenox holds his badge up to the glass and bangs.
When he is let inside, he finds Keisha standing meekly behind a stack of discounted sleeping bags. She is no longer giggling. She just keeps saying, “I dunno,” and glaring at the young man who made the stupid mistake of calling the police.
Lenox adopts a friendly demeanor and tries to get them to talk.
Sneakers?
They don’t remember.
Backpack?
Maybe.
Stubble?
Shrug.
Finally Keisha mutters: Poor guy forgot to take his change. I ran after him. Didn’t want him saying I was a cheat.
She got so wet. It was stupid. Chasing after a stranger in the rain to give him back three miserable bucks. She caught up with him just as he was starting his car. Dumbass. He could have put on the raincoat he just bought. She’d tried to sell him an umbrella. But he’d said: I don’t mind getting wet in the waterfall. Thundering water, that’s all it is.
His car was parked just outside the store, further proof that he wasn’t from around here, because every local knows that’s a gamble. They’ll slap you with an $85 fine and another $125 for towing. They get away with murder.
Such profligate use of the word, Lenox thinks. That is something only people who don’t have to spend their lives looking at butchered bodies can afford to say.
The car model—do you remember by any chance, Keisha?
With that tone, biting yet gentle, he had won over three women.
Off-road, Keisha says. Four by four. Jeep Cherokee. Olive green. Her favorite color.
The customer had a foreign accent. When she found him outside, he told her to keep the change.
She answered: And you keep dry.
The stranger smiled at her. The jeep door was wide open and the seat was soaked from the rain.