Marcelo in the Real World: Chapters 24–31

Amos seems unusually lucid this morning. He does not confuse me with James.

Jasmine says that the reason he is so subdued is that the “meds” have kicked in.

“Sometimes the meat from venison lasts us all winter.” I understand that this is her way of explaining why she hunts.

So far those in favor of modern comforts have relented, out of respect and maybe a little fear of the old-timers.

I feel connected to her through my father’s actions. I feel an obligation to right my father’s wrong.

I am so nervous I only see the humor of her statement when I am trying to find an adequate place.

“Remember I told you that there were ways, easy ways to disturb the equilibrium. A mistake could be made by one of the partners and then the other partner would have more power?”

Then you came along and I said, ‘I don’t want to hurt the kid. He’s so naive.’

“You haven’t seen Hesch since I don’t know when. You need to spend a little time around someone on your own wavelength.”
“Aurora is on the same wavelength,” I say.
“No. Your religious interests are way beyond me. Besides, you need to talk about them.”

Rabbi Heschel is unfazed, as if it were natural to one day suddenly stop praying or remembering.

Then she says, “Do you think that God cares one whit whether Aurora believes in Him? She doesn’t need to believe in God or even remember Him to do His work. Her belief is in her deeds, which is okay.”

And we need to remember the holy words and the events in history as much as we can because it’s in our nature to forget. That’s part of my tradition. And look, Aurora brings you here to talk God stuff with me, although I think she does that just to make sure I stay humble, which is what good friends do.

“You are at a loss as to what to do. You lost the bearings you used to rely on.”

I try to picture Rabbi Heschel with her neon-green glasses sitting behind Stephen Holmes’s immaculate glass desk.

I could be a lawyer, but then that wide green pasture in my brain would lie fallow. What a waste that would be, huh?

I had to find a job that utilized my overpowering intellectual capabilities.

I never knew for sure that going to seminary was what God wanted me to do.

She sits up, her back flush against the back of the patio chair.

I know He needs me to do something with more shock value, like what the prophets used to do, to wake people up from their comfortable stupor.

Then she stops talking and makes a concerted effort to calm herself. She resumes, her tone more subdued, more intimate.

It was loincloth-tearing, harlot-marrying, sacrificing, succumbing, and surrendering kinds of urges.

Not without bickering and haggling, I’ll grant you, but ultimately urges of the worst kind, the kind that demanded everything.

It is the same sap that comes from the ground, travels up the roots, and then clambers up the trunk until it reaches the branches.

“Our effort is but a counterpoint in the music of His will.”

I can see Jerry García and Stephen Holmes talking to each other, each in their respective offices—Stephen Holmes thinking that Jerry García is no one to be concerned about and then suddenly snapping to attention.

On my father’s advice, all correspondence and memos to the president of the company go through this guy—probably some kid who files papers all day, but a lawyer nevertheless.

“The arrangement Stephen Holmes created was a way to evade the rule.”

But we were doing what the law allowed us to do. We were representing our client zealously, using all reasonable arguments in support of its case.

And the memo itself does not prove liability. The engineer that wrote it could have been wrong, or maybe he had a gripe against his boss and wanted to get even, or it could be that the windshields are not being properly installed and the people that do the installation are at fault and not Vidromek.

As she draws nearer, I recognize the delicate features on one side of her face: the eyebrows, the eyes, the forehead, all as in her picture, but also different.