Read Online All the Time in the World by E. L. Doctorow - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: E. L. Doctorow
Tags: Fiction, Literary, Fantasy, Short Stories, Short Stories (Single Author), Short Stories; American
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birthmark, where it is located. Things.
She brought her boyfriend to the wedding, Ramon said.
Of course.
I didn’t like that. It was unnecessary.
In two years, once she has her green card without conditions, she will divorce you and bring him here in turn. And they will marry and be Americans.
Maybe. Maybe the lovers will not be able to wait that long. He will come for a visit and I will kill him.
Yes, of course, Leon said smiling. Listen, Ramon, she is just a dumb Hunky. No class, from the sound of it.
She is still my wife, Ramon said.
I say split the difference with them. Sign the paper and you’re good for two years. You wait tables and make some decent money. She gets the card with no strings, and you go on to be a famous movie director.
HE DID KNOW a thing about her, that she had English as a schoolgirl because she spoke it well enough. And that she wore a navel ring, a silver bar with three teardrop crystals hanging from it. But, of course, everyone knew about her navel because Jelena made sure that they did. She was the one waitress at Borislav’s and so her red jacket was cut for the female figure and between it and the short black skirt a flat band of flesh was visible, the teardrops dangling from her navel and sometimes catching the light as she walked with the tray held high and balanced on her palm.
Of course the patrons ogled her and the regulars asked for her tables, but that was all right—her tips went into the pool.
Ramon himself had picked up the waiter’s craft quite easily,after all his time busing, and he discovered that his formality and careful, quiet demeanor and efficient service had the effect sometimes of raising the manners and lowering the voices of the boors he served.
Jelena smoked. She would take a drag in the kitchen and leave the cigarette burning in a dish as she went out through the doors, and it would be there smoldering until she came back in for another order and another hit.
She did not match the photograph of the smiling blonde with the sunglasses in her hair. She was, instead, an ordinary working girl with a life of serious plans and no time to pose for a picture, with her long legs in the sun and a European city behind her.
He wanted to learn everything about her, maybe for insurance as Leon advised, but more because he felt he had rights as her legal husband. It was Jelena’s habit, when she had a moment, to step into the alley to use her cell phone. He saw her cast in a red glow from Borislav’s electric sign. He listened at the slightly opened door, hearing her voice despite the kitchen shouts and the clatter rushing past his ears. She spoke loudly as if to cover the great distance to her boyfriend in Europe. Of course it was her boyfriend, that heavy fellow with the sloping shoulders who had been at the wedding. Who else in Europe would she be calling at night? With the time difference, she had to have awakened him, or maybe he had not yet been to sleep. Perhaps she was making sure that he was not with someone else, because sometimes she seemed about to cry—this could be inferred from the tone of voice, never mind the language.
Jelena lived in Borislav’s house, a few blocks from the restaurant. I’ll walk you home, Ramon would say at the end of a night’s work. Good night, Ramon, Jelena would say, but made no further effort to stop him as he walked beside her. On these occasions, he would ask her about her family, if her parents were alive, what herfather did, did she have brothers and sisters, where she went to school. She would not answer.
It is not wise for you to keep things from your husband, Jelena.
Ramon, you are a pestilence, you know that?
Not a pestilence, Jelena, you mean a pest. Nevertheless, the time may come in front of the authorities when I need to know these things, for your sake, not for mine.
And when that time is here I will tell you.
He would wait in the street while she climbed the steps and entered the house and wait some
She brought her boyfriend to the wedding, Ramon said.
Of course.
I didn’t like that. It was unnecessary.
In two years, once she has her green card without conditions, she will divorce you and bring him here in turn. And they will marry and be Americans.
Maybe. Maybe the lovers will not be able to wait that long. He will come for a visit and I will kill him.
Yes, of course, Leon said smiling. Listen, Ramon, she is just a dumb Hunky. No class, from the sound of it.
She is still my wife, Ramon said.
I say split the difference with them. Sign the paper and you’re good for two years. You wait tables and make some decent money. She gets the card with no strings, and you go on to be a famous movie director.
HE DID KNOW a thing about her, that she had English as a schoolgirl because she spoke it well enough. And that she wore a navel ring, a silver bar with three teardrop crystals hanging from it. But, of course, everyone knew about her navel because Jelena made sure that they did. She was the one waitress at Borislav’s and so her red jacket was cut for the female figure and between it and the short black skirt a flat band of flesh was visible, the teardrops dangling from her navel and sometimes catching the light as she walked with the tray held high and balanced on her palm.
Of course the patrons ogled her and the regulars asked for her tables, but that was all right—her tips went into the pool.
Ramon himself had picked up the waiter’s craft quite easily,after all his time busing, and he discovered that his formality and careful, quiet demeanor and efficient service had the effect sometimes of raising the manners and lowering the voices of the boors he served.
Jelena smoked. She would take a drag in the kitchen and leave the cigarette burning in a dish as she went out through the doors, and it would be there smoldering until she came back in for another order and another hit.
She did not match the photograph of the smiling blonde with the sunglasses in her hair. She was, instead, an ordinary working girl with a life of serious plans and no time to pose for a picture, with her long legs in the sun and a European city behind her.
He wanted to learn everything about her, maybe for insurance as Leon advised, but more because he felt he had rights as her legal husband. It was Jelena’s habit, when she had a moment, to step into the alley to use her cell phone. He saw her cast in a red glow from Borislav’s electric sign. He listened at the slightly opened door, hearing her voice despite the kitchen shouts and the clatter rushing past his ears. She spoke loudly as if to cover the great distance to her boyfriend in Europe. Of course it was her boyfriend, that heavy fellow with the sloping shoulders who had been at the wedding. Who else in Europe would she be calling at night? With the time difference, she had to have awakened him, or maybe he had not yet been to sleep. Perhaps she was making sure that he was not with someone else, because sometimes she seemed about to cry—this could be inferred from the tone of voice, never mind the language.
Jelena lived in Borislav’s house, a few blocks from the restaurant. I’ll walk you home, Ramon would say at the end of a night’s work. Good night, Ramon, Jelena would say, but made no further effort to stop him as he walked beside her. On these occasions, he would ask her about her family, if her parents were alive, what herfather did, did she have brothers and sisters, where she went to school. She would not answer.
It is not wise for you to keep things from your husband, Jelena.
Ramon, you are a pestilence, you know that?
Not a pestilence, Jelena, you mean a pest. Nevertheless, the time may come in front of the authorities when I need to know these things, for your sake, not for mine.
And when that time is here I will tell you.
He would wait in the street while she climbed the steps and entered the house and wait some
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