Read Online The Sunlit Night by Rebecca Dinerstein - Free Book Online

side of Broadway, a man was selling framed photograph prints. They were spread out on a folding table, the unframed prints collected in alphabetized bins. Olyana walked over and ran her finger across the surface of the table. She looked at a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge with a moon, then Marilyn Monroe, John Lennon. Behind those, in black-and-white, a little girl was kissing a little boy. Yasha looked at them—it only confirmed his feeling that he had come late to the whole kissing game. He could never have asked his father about such things, but his mother, who seemed be in a constant state of kissing—her whole body seemed to be tonguing the wind that blew around it—she had, without a doubt, much to say on the subject, and Yasha wanted, despite himself, to consult her.
    Beside the kissing children lay a color photograph of Lincoln Center, the fountain centered and at full blast. The man selling the photographs smiled at Olyana—Russian nose, yellow dress. After looking at her, he looked up above her head at the scrolling text of the AMC Loews movie theater. She took the five-by-seven print of Lincoln Center and dropped it into her large shoulder bag. By the time the man looked back down at his table, she had closed the gap, rearranging the rectangles into an evenly spaced grid. She picked up the photograph of John Lennon and looked at it intently.
    Yasha’s hands started sweating. He looked at the man behind the table, half hoping for confirmation that he hadn’t seen, half hoping for him to call the police. If they took her away now, he would have some time to think. They’d have her cornered, he and Papa, if she were in jail.
    “Poor man,” she said. “Simply too tragic.” She put the Lennon portrait back on the table and thanked the seller.
    Yasha thanked him profusely and wished him a great summer. The man told him to take care of his lovely mother.
    “Take a walk through Central Park!” the man shouted after them.
    “Yes, how would you like to spend a little time in the park,” his mother said, “not just today, I mean every day, if you liked?”
    “You just stole a—” They were still within earshot of the man. “There is something in your bag,” Yasha said. He didn’t know how to make his face look appalled enough.
    “There are many things in my bag, Yakov,” Olyana said. “What about yours?” she asked. “Where are your books? Have you left them at school? At the bakery? Tell me,” she said, turning east onto 67th Street, the trees of the park coming into view, “how do you like working in the bakery? Truly, how do you like it? Are you tired of all the bread?”
    To Yasha, bread was clean and homogeneous. Bread had no veins and no gristly parts. It broke down into sugars, and filled one’s stomach. It soaked up everything else. It won.
    “Tired of Brooklyn, maybe?” his mother continued. “Perhaps you would like to live in Manhattan? You could live with me, in Manhattan.”
    The traffic light changed, and they crossed Central Park West. Eastward-driving cars came rushing up from behind them and drove straight into the park, each car making its own whoosh.
    “You live in Manhattan?” Yasha said.
    “I have been here for three months. At Ian’s apartment in Tribeca. I will need your help to stay longer.” She looked at Yasha intently.
    Yasha didn’t want to look at his mother. Hearing her was enough. A man was riding a unicycle up the park’s western bike path, and Yasha watched the rider’s knees moving in nearly hypnotic circles.
    “Who is Ian?”
    “We are going to be married,” his mother said.
    At that moment, as if to distract Yasha from his rage, the unicyclist lifted his cap to Yasha and rode faster to pass a horse carriage. They all seemed to be circus attractions, hired by his mother, the ringleader.
    “You are married,” Yasha said. “To Papa.”
    “If I ever bring myself to see your father,” she said, “I will ask him to be free.”
    To be free, Yasha