Coda

CODA / Susan Land WHEN CHARLIE'S BROTHER CALLED and said he was moving to Israel, Charlie thought it was the first line of a joke. But Leon was serious. "We've sold the house. The closing was this morning." "Do you want to sell the piano?" Charlie asked. "What's it worth to you?" "I'll give you three thousand dollars. How's that?" "Come on, Charlie. A pawn broker on 42nd Street'd give me more than that." "I learned how to play on that piano, Leon. I'm your brother." "You're a rich, bald doctor." "You're a less than overly-successful businessman—with hair." "If you're so great, make me a fair deal." "How about four thousand?" "How many fingers do you repair for four grand? Three? Four? A hand's worth?" Charlie made a fist. "Leon, I was watching The Godfather on TV, and I got up to talk to you, and you don't even know what you're talking about." "The Ten Commandments have been around longer than rich doctors ." "There've been wars and massacres for quite a while, too, and a lot of them have been where you're going. If you ask me, anyone who leaves this country is just crazy." "If you ask you, everyone is crazy who isn't a wop." "The Italian chest surgeons at the hospital are smarter than Jews. I wouldn't mind being one of them I wouldn't mind it at all, but somehow they know I'm not Italian before I open my mouth." "Your mouth's the same as mine, Charlie. Mother always said so." Charlie bit a piece of dry skin off his bottom lip and said, "She also said that where she came from, religion was worse than the Czar." "But she left me the piano." "Go on, move to Israel. I'm moving to the Italian section of Providence , where they don't have any crime." "You're just like Dad was with your safety—you know he paid protection money to the cops and more protection money to the thugs?" "He had a store to protect. I have my hands to protect. You don't have a thing." Leon hung up. Charlie got a glass, filled it with ice and Chivas and went to watch the Godfather's wife go to mass. When the credits came on, he got up to refill his glass for the late news. His wife went up to bed 220 · The Missouri Review and told him to come upstairs, soon, not to worry in the dark, please. When he heard her get into the shower, Charlie took his blood pressure. He sealed the Velcro armband and watched the diastolic dial. Charlie tried to imagine Leon wrapped in phylacteries, but he didn't know how they were wrapped. "I had it appraised." Leon called back the next night. "The guy said $7800." "He did like hell. That's absurd." "So are you going to top his price, Charlie?" "What exactly is so bad about where you live, Leon? I wouldn't want to live there myself, personally, but no one's trying to bomb Long Island." "Make me an offer, Charlie." "You realize your Medicare coverage won't be honored in Jerusalem." "I only talked to one dealer. Better beat his offer before I get a higher one. Maybe I'll put an ad in the Times and get a call from a Park Avenue plastic surgeon." "Just hold on a minute, Leon. I'm serious now. Why are you doing this meshuggenah thing?" "You really want to know, Charlie?" "I do. I can't fathom it." "There's no place for Jews in this country." "How can you say that? You live in White Plains." "We're scattered all over the country." Charlie moved the receiver and thanked God Leon didn't live next door. Then he said into the phone, "I've always noticed that if too many Jews are in one place, they'll get into trouble. A Jew sold you your partnership in that bankrupt firm, isn't that true? Your boss at the paper company, the one...