room service. I turn away from the ring.I’m thinking here comes our food, and I’m glad for the distraction, relieved that right now I get to stay ignorant. I’m hungry and looking forward to my sweet potato fries and I hope they didn’t forget to put an orange slice in my soda. Julian jumps up off the chair and says I’ll get the door, you try to find something to watch. And as I’m pointing the remote at the TV, waving it back and forth like a flyswatter ’cause it doesn’t seem to be working, it occurs to me that there’s option number three, which hadn’t even crossed my mind.
Option number three is where things just stay the same.
MANNA
T here Frankmann sat, at the age of eighty, staring out his office window to the busy wharf below. He scratched his short beard and wondered, despite his advanced age, what role he might one day play in the world. Such thoughts—fantasies of future greatness—had filled his mind during adolescence, when he wondered if he would be an officer, a Talmudic scholar, a sculptor, a hunter of tigers. But during the intervening decades of his great commercial success, he no longer considered his role in the world, choosing instead to focus on the daily ledger, the profit and loss, the measure of his remarkable ability to make money in every possible circumstance—and it was only on his eightieth birthday, when Frankmann looked at himself in the mirror and saw for the first time an ancient man, that he realized he’d not yet made his mark.
Frankmann peered through the window, searching for the tuna boat that was scheduled to return from the Sea of Japan. He lookedat his watch and noted that the boat was three hours late. As the vessel’s
de facto
owner, he was concerned. He worried about the safety of the crew. Frankmann knew their wives and children, and he cared for them—not in an apparent manner, but from a safe, some would say unreachable, distance. And, as he was a man guided by economic rationality, he also worried about his investment: the boat, the gear, the fuel, the fish.
He turned his attention to the far end of the wharf. There, the fat woman Garlova stood in front of a makeshift bar. To her side was a green jug of potato vodka and a wooden barrel filled with fermented horse milk that Frankmann had purchased from a slow Mongolian on advantageous terms. Sailors, fishermen, construction workers, young men from the navy, even a poacher who’d come into town to sell muskrat pelts, lined up with rubles in their hands. Frankmann wondered how much he would make selling booze that day—and how much Garlova would steal from him. He didn’t mind if she stole just a little, a few rubles here and there; that was part of the unspoken pact between master and servant in this part of the world. A little theft made things work smoothly, greased the gears of commerce. But with too much, things broke down.
Frankmann’s eyes moved to a store on the other side of the bar—the butcher Korsikov who sold fresh meats and poultry and was rumored to have taken recently to gambling, drinking and other forms of dissipation. For the past year, Korsikov had been habitually late with his rent, and Frankmann began to worry that the butcher might default.
The old Jew watched as the butcher and his wife, a devout woman, carried boxes out of the shop; he wondered what they could be doing. After unloading a flank of venison onto the back of a flatbed truck, the butcher looked up to Frankmann’s office window. Fearing detection, Frankmann quickly ducked to the side and, unsure if thebutcher had seen him, peered out from behind the dusty velvet drapes. Frankmann remained still.
The butcher turned back to his wife and beckoned her to hurry. With a rusted cleaver in her hand, she exited the shop. She locked the front door, turned the knob to ensure that it was secure, and then kneeled before the doormat, placing the cleaver on the ground by her side. She appeared to pray, bobbing her head, making
Option number three is where things just stay the same.
MANNA
T here Frankmann sat, at the age of eighty, staring out his office window to the busy wharf below. He scratched his short beard and wondered, despite his advanced age, what role he might one day play in the world. Such thoughts—fantasies of future greatness—had filled his mind during adolescence, when he wondered if he would be an officer, a Talmudic scholar, a sculptor, a hunter of tigers. But during the intervening decades of his great commercial success, he no longer considered his role in the world, choosing instead to focus on the daily ledger, the profit and loss, the measure of his remarkable ability to make money in every possible circumstance—and it was only on his eightieth birthday, when Frankmann looked at himself in the mirror and saw for the first time an ancient man, that he realized he’d not yet made his mark.
Frankmann peered through the window, searching for the tuna boat that was scheduled to return from the Sea of Japan. He lookedat his watch and noted that the boat was three hours late. As the vessel’s
de facto
owner, he was concerned. He worried about the safety of the crew. Frankmann knew their wives and children, and he cared for them—not in an apparent manner, but from a safe, some would say unreachable, distance. And, as he was a man guided by economic rationality, he also worried about his investment: the boat, the gear, the fuel, the fish.
He turned his attention to the far end of the wharf. There, the fat woman Garlova stood in front of a makeshift bar. To her side was a green jug of potato vodka and a wooden barrel filled with fermented horse milk that Frankmann had purchased from a slow Mongolian on advantageous terms. Sailors, fishermen, construction workers, young men from the navy, even a poacher who’d come into town to sell muskrat pelts, lined up with rubles in their hands. Frankmann wondered how much he would make selling booze that day—and how much Garlova would steal from him. He didn’t mind if she stole just a little, a few rubles here and there; that was part of the unspoken pact between master and servant in this part of the world. A little theft made things work smoothly, greased the gears of commerce. But with too much, things broke down.
Frankmann’s eyes moved to a store on the other side of the bar—the butcher Korsikov who sold fresh meats and poultry and was rumored to have taken recently to gambling, drinking and other forms of dissipation. For the past year, Korsikov had been habitually late with his rent, and Frankmann began to worry that the butcher might default.
The old Jew watched as the butcher and his wife, a devout woman, carried boxes out of the shop; he wondered what they could be doing. After unloading a flank of venison onto the back of a flatbed truck, the butcher looked up to Frankmann’s office window. Fearing detection, Frankmann quickly ducked to the side and, unsure if thebutcher had seen him, peered out from behind the dusty velvet drapes. Frankmann remained still.
The butcher turned back to his wife and beckoned her to hurry. With a rusted cleaver in her hand, she exited the shop. She locked the front door, turned the knob to ensure that it was secure, and then kneeled before the doormat, placing the cleaver on the ground by her side. She appeared to pray, bobbing her head, making
Similar Books
