Free An Orphan's Tale by Jay Neugeboren

he had someone with him.
    â€œRabbi Akiba started out from home when he was forty,” Danny said. “And he didn’t even know how to read and write. When he returned to his village six years later he was already the most famous scholar in the land of Israel.”
    Charlie patted Danny on the shoulder. “I had him in mind,” he said.
    Charlie embraced Mrs. Mittleman. “How’s my sweetheart tonight?” he asked.
    Danny watched the woman’s eyes, over Charlie’s shoulder. They were slate gray, and they stared at him coldly. “I’m Danny Ginsberg,” he said. “I telephoned you two days ago.”
    â€œOf course,” Mrs. Mittleman said, stepping away from Charlie. “I would have thought you were older—on the telephone your voice was much older—but come. Max is already showing his movies. You’ll enjoy them. Are you hungry?” She smiled. “You must be.”
    She left them. Charlie hung his jacket in the hall closet and spoke to Danny, softly. “It goes against what most people think, my living here, but it’s the very thing people resist too much. Just relax with her if she seems jealous. She likes to think of me as her only child, if you know what I mean. That’s desire too, right? They never had a son, I never had parents. We fill one another’s needs. It’s what lets things work out.”
    Danny took his jacket off but held on to his sack. “How much will you tell her?” he asked.
    He followed Charlie through a dark room where there were desks and file cabinets. The neon light flashed red on the inside walls. “Like with you,” Charlie went on. “I mean, my wanting you to stay with me. We know the reasons, right? So why fight them?”
    â€œSometimes you don’t answer my questions.”
    â€œCome on now,” Charlie said, taking Danny and pressing him to his side. “What are you so scared of? Let’s put it this way—I always wanted a kid brother and you probably wanted an older one like me, right?”
    They were in the living room and Mrs. Mittleman stood in front of them, blocking images on a movie screen, plates in her hands. “I don’t think so,” Danny said to Charlie. “Not really.”
    â€œWe’ll work on it then.”
    Mrs. Mittleman led Danny to a metal folding chair and he sat. She set up a TV tray in front of him and put a sandwich and a glass of milk on it. “This will hold you while the chicken warms,” she said.
    Mr. Mittleman, sitting on a three-legged stool next to a movie projector, grunted slightly, acknowledging Charlie’s presence. Charlie sat on the couch, his arm along the back, Mrs. Mittleman’s head resting on his arm. He balanced a plate on his lap. Danny bit into his sandwich and looked at Mr. Mittleman. He was a thin man with a large round head. He wore a jacket, a white shirt, and a tie, and he was smoking a cigar. Without looking at any of them, and without removing the cigar from his mouth, he spoke to Charlie. “Here’s a new one—what’s the difference between a Jew and a pizza?”
    â€œI give up,” Charlie said. “What’s the difference between a Jew and a pizza?”
    Mr. Mittleman’s voice was even and dry, and his lips did not seem to move when he spoke. “When you put a pizza in the oven, it doesn’t scream.”
    Nobody laughed.
    â€œDanny’s going to be staying here with me for a while,” Charlie said to Mrs. Mittleman. “If that’s okay with you—”
    â€œOf course,” she said.
    â€œIt’s my house too,” Mr. Mittleman said. “I pay the bills and tell the jokes.”
    On the screen, in black and white, a boy and girl were in a bathtub together, the boy spilling water on the girl’s head. “Max has home movies of his whole family,” Charlie explained to Danny. “It’s his hobby. He has