Read Online Anna in Chains by Merrill Joan Gerber - Free Book Online

outside on the front porch, sleeping in his chair, his head back against the stucco wall. Had he really been there all night? Anna stared. She thought she could see dew condensed on his bald head. His white shoes glowed in the dimness. Maybe he was dead. She went over to him and tapped on his skull. He jerked upright.
    â€œDummy,” she said with relief. “You don’t have a bed?”
    â€œI wasn’t sleeping,” he said, straightening his eye glasses. “Just taking the air.”
    â€œWho cares?” Anna said. “I’m going beachcombing.”
    â€œI’ll come with you.”
    â€œI’m going alone,” Anna said. “I need an adventure. When did I ever see the sunrise? In California, you only get sunsets. And at the end of the day, who’s going to run to the beach?”
    â€œHere no one runs, we all walk,” Irving explained, as he creaked himself out of the chair. He offered Anna his arm. “But allow me to come along and be your bodyguard.”
    They saw it happen, a fuzz of pink over the blue horizon, a blur of white cloud, and then the emerging burning ball, coming up on a fountain of flame.
    â€œThat alone,” Irving said, standing against the rail of the narrow boardwalk while seagulls screeched and wheeled overhead, “…and you could believe in God.”
    â€œYou believe?” Anna asked.
    â€œWhat am I, some kind of sucker?”
    â€œSmart people, really smart people—some of them are believers.”
    â€œI’ll take my medicine straight,” Irving said. “I’ll face the firing squad without a blindfold.”
    â€œIt would be nice to believe something,” Anna said. “Then you could have reasons, you could have meaning, you could have a social center, you could have someone to say a prayer when you’re dead. This way, like for my husband Abram, I had to hire a stranger, a baby calling himself a rabbi, he reads from a printed sheet ‘This was a good man, a good husband, a good father.’ A know-nothing.”
    â€œIf I were going to believe, I’d choose Jesus,” Irving said. “He’s the best deal around. But no one in Miami Beach, Florida, in the Jew-nited States of America, thinks he’s worth two cents.”
    â€œThey prefer Moses?”
    â€œHe can’t hold a candle. All he did was talk to God in the burning bush. The trouble is, when you’re this old, you should have something to hang on to.”
    â€œHow old?”
    â€œNinety-two,” Irving said. “Come June.”
    â€œMy husband died at fifty-five,” Anna said. “You had a whole lifetime extra over him.”
    â€œIt’s never enough,” Irving said. “It doesn’t feel like I even started yet.”
    They began to walk along the wooden boardwalk. Two seagulls lit on the railing and walked right up to them. They stared boldly, craning their beaks forward.
    â€œThey want something,” Anna said.
    â€œSo who doesn’t?” Irving answered. The sun was well out of the ocean now, getting redder.
    â€œLook,” Anna said. “Is that beautiful or is that beautiful?”
    â€œYou’re what’s beautiful,” Irving said.
    â€œDon’t get carried away, Irving,” Anna said. “My week is up. I’m going home tomorrow, and anyway I’m not available.”
    â€œMy mistake. The first day I saw you on the porch we should have got acquainted. I should have talked to you sooner. You got a boyfriend?”
    â€œMy heart belongs to Arthur Rubinstein,” Anna said.
    â€œHe’s younger than me? Richer?”
    â€œNever mind,” Anna said. “It’s not going anywhere with Arthur and me.”
    â€œEven at our age we have a right to pleasure,” Irving said.
    â€œDon’t lump yourself together with me,” Anna said. “You’re old enough to be my father. Look how you can hardly walk and