Free Among the Living by Jonathan Rabb

a close eye on it all. Who prays when, how long they pray.”
    “I been with Mr. Abe close on twenty years,” Calvin said. “My son was fifteen years before he get killed in the war. And now Mary Royal. I even tell you who sits where on Saturdays. Mr. Abe and Miss Pearl close up front but not as close as them Kaminskys. Mr. Kaminsky always right up there on the left. He’ll get you a good car if you need it.”
    “I’m sorry about your son,” said Goldah. “I didn’t know.”
    Calvin let the weight of it pass. “Yes, suh. Italy 1943. I’m sorry, too.”
    Jacob reappeared at the curtain. “Raymond’s back. He says he’ll take you home, Ike.”
    Goldah pushed himself away from the wall. Calvin pushed himself up as well. “You got a nice story to tell at lunch today, Mr. Ike. A Saffee coming here all by herself from the temple. Got to get her some Jesler shoes right away. You tell Mr. Abe that. He’ll get a kick.”

    Outside the synagogue, Jesler milled about with the rest of the congregation and thought God might have been kinder on a Shabbas. Then again kindness wasn’t really God’s way, wasit? You had to earn everything, even a breeze after two hours trapped inside the sweltering heat.
    Jesler lit a cigarette and knew he had made a mistake. He had let Pearl wander off with the girls, leaving himself open to the likes of Mel Green. Jesler tried to look away but Green already had him fixed in his sights.
    “ Buongiorno, Abe,” said Green with too much affection. “Can’t say I know how to say ‘good Shabbas’ in Italian, but there you go. How you doing?”
    Mel Green was never one to miss a service. He saw the last few rows of the sanctuary as a sort of second office, a chance to get a foot in during moments of private meditation. He had made his greatest killing during Sukkos of 1942, ten thousand yards of cotton to an army supply officer who was visiting from Charleston, and who just happened to be in need of thread. The deal had been struck somewhere in the middle of the haftarah. Green’s shaking of the lulav was, some say, particularly robust that year.
    “Good Shabbas, Mel.”
    “I tried to talk to you inside. Been hearing things.”
    “I got that. The ‘buongiorno.’ Very clever.”
    “It’s a bold move.”
    “And what’s that?”
    Green took a pull on his cigarette. “You got someone up in Atlanta? You’re going to need someone in Atlanta, Abe. I’ve got a New York Jew up there. Very discreet. If you ask me that’s the way you need to go.”
    “Sure,” Jesler said noncommittally. He was trying to figure out how the news had reached Green. Green was always bringing something in through the port. It could have been anyone.
    “So what are you moving, Abe? Three hundred a month, five hundred?”
    “The way I hear it,” said Jesler, “you need to be careful with those New York Jews. They’re smarter than us, Mel, or at least that’s what you’ve got to let them think.”
    “That’s right, Abe, that’s right. But this one knows the ropes. And he knows New York. He knows those unions. So you going to let me make the introductions?”
    Jesler dropped his cigarette to the ground. “Always good to know people in Atlanta. We’ll see.”
    “Good, good.” Green spotted another opportunity. “So I’ll call you.”
    Green was gone before Jesler could answer.
    Unions? What in hell did this have to do with New York unions? Jesler lit another cigarette, exhaled, and wondered how Mel Green had gotten wind of things.

3
    GOLDAH CHOSE not to mention Miss De la Parra that afternoon or any afternoon for that matter. It seemed something for private consumption, at least until he could figure out why. Not that there was a lilt to his walk or a warmth in his chest. He knew he would never recover that kind of ridiculous sentimentality, but the thought that something was now purely his own set him thinking in this new way. If he could have recognized it as anticipation he would have called