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“The electrician.”
“Tell him I’ll call him back.” “He’s been trying to get in here for weeks, Judah. You’re never home when he rings. Take it up”
“I can’t.”
“Judah, the fuses pop over whenever I have more than two kitchen appliances working at the same time. Sometimes the outlets spark. It can’t go on like that, it has to be dangerous. We’ve got to get him in here to look at it.”
“Get him in then. I’m not stopping you.”
“Who’s going to be here, are you? I can’t be here. And we can’t just leave it unlocked. We don’t have much, but what we do have is all right here in this house.”
Judah straightened up to talk to Emily without realizing that Amy had crawled down from the bed and was trying to do what her sister had done, use him as a bridge. It was all he could do to keep his balance and stave off a fall that might have injured them both.
“Have what’s-her-name let him in, the babysitter. Amy, stop it!”
“He can only come in the mornings, Judah. That’s why he’s calling here now. He’s on his way. He’s calling from his truck.”
“What do you mean he can only come in the morning? What’s that, some kind of rule made up by the electrician fairy? He’s making a living, right?”
“I was lucky to get him.”
“I can’t be here this morning. I’ve got things I have to do.”
“We have things we have to do as well, Judah. Myself and the girls.
I’m not rescheduling this for you again. I told you this was going to happen. Are you going to talk to him or not?”
“I’ve got to get to work, Emily, I’m late as it is.”
Emily bent over to pick something off the floor, the camera. He’d lost track of it somehow and it had been abandoned amidst all the other debris. “You stay here and deal with the electrician, Judah, or I’m not going to be here when you get home tonight. And neither will your daughters. Look at me. Do you understand? This time, I really won’t be here.”
He listened as she corralled their children toward the kitchen, saying, “Come on, girls, get dressed. We’re late and you haven’t had your breakfast yet.”
*
A large billboard advertising the London Zoo showed an ark being boarded in pairs beneath the caring eye of Noah. The last of the animals on the gangplank were cheery, lovesick tortoises with oversized oval eyes and puckering mouths that met in a kiss. Their rear legs and bobbing heads were operated by an electrical motor.
Bassett was driving, He watched them from the intersection. Then he made a turn into traffic. Bassett had once been handed a tortoise as a child. assuming it was a stone, he’d asked if he could hold it, actually, then it’s thick, furious legs, beating the wind in any attempt to get away, had given him a start. He’d always been large for his age, thought stupid. This had happened in a classroom and cemented that impression. All the other children laughed. He was stupid, and now fearful as well.
His partner made of the sign something different. Judah thought, No wonder marriages fall apart so easily. Neither party understood what the other was looking for. Men assumed you paired off for company and sex. Women assumed you paired off to talk and to breed. They were similar enough, these impressions, to go by a common name, falling in love, close enough in conception to appear at a glance to be one and the same. They weren’t, however, were they. Judah envisioned this as a joke on the whole human race. The Fates, he thought to himself, must have a dark sense of humor.
“You and Jane ever think about children, Bassett?”
“We talked about it, sure. But, you know, Zuk—children! How could we manage?”
“Right. I know. Jane never brings it up though? I thought she might.
Most women would, sooner or later.”
“It’s never been an issue.”
“No. I suppose not.”
“Not with our work. You know what it’s like. Times are uncertain.
We don’t see how you do it, you and Emily.”
“Right. How’s her job, she still with the estates agents, your Jane?”
“I talked to Jane, by the way. She said she’d set up a show-about when you and Emily were ready. Things any better between the two of you, Zuk?”
“Coming along—We had a row this morning, actually.”
“Yeah, over what?”
“Electrician. Wanted me to wait till he got there this morning.”
“And?”
“And I didn’t.”
“How was last Saturday night? You never said. Make your way through the minefield, did you?”
“The inlaws?”
“What’s he hate about you most, that you’re short, or that you’re
Jewish?”
“Chaplinesque.”
Years ago, Judah’s father-in-law had described him to a third party they knew in common as “Chaplinesque,” meaning he was a Jew.
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