The City Beautiful: Chapters 15–27

The chazzan’s sonorous chanting soothed me like balm on a burn.

As I went through the standard motions—the rising and sitting, the donning of the prayer shawl, the prayers that came to my lips as naturally as breathing—anxiety stirred in my gut.

Instead, his voice held a low resonating quality, a certain flat and steady intonation I found appealing, like the rumble of distant thunder.

I recalled how Yakov had looked on the night he died, his features bathed in the garish glow of fireworks.

Just because the world was unjust didn’t mean that I must debase myself as well.

I could still remember the stories he had told to frighten the younger boys, vivid tales he invented from thin air about greedy bosses and perverse overseers just dying to sink their claws into innocent workers. True, those things happened, but not the way he described them, as though there were wardens with bad intentions lurking around every corner. If he wasn’t such a hustler, he would have made a lovely Marxist.

As the silk ribbon cinched tight, my anger was overwhelmed by debilitating terror.

Slick grass under my palms and knees, the scent of stagnant water flooding my nostrils.

But a leather ligature would, certainly. Wrapped tight enough to cut off all air flow.

In my absence, the waiter had set out a small brass samovar and the fixings of a proper tea—porcelain dishes of fruit preserves and sugar cubes, slender spoons, faceted crystal glasses in brass holders, a kettle containing tea so concentrated that it was as dark as molasses.

Over the samovar’s chimney, the waiter had draped a string festooned with bublitchki, small bagel-shaped rolls baked to a glossy sheen.

“I thought dead bodies made you squeamish, like when we found that old beggar who froze to death.”

No matter how well our rabbi thought he could keep secrets, word would permeate through the congregation like the aroma of spice from besamim.

I needed to keep this discreet, keep it distant.

I might have been cold, but I was not infirm.

How I could lose myself for hours watching the way the sunlight teased the contours of his high cheekbones and bronzed his rebellious curls.

There were hints of silver in his beard and sidelocks, but he was hardly the wizened elder I had imagined.

“When a body is left alone after death, in a state of desecration, the soul becomes corrupted,” he said, as though I hadn’t even spoken.

Bullfrogs croaked in a feverish dirge, while larger game, alarmed by my trespass, thrashed through the underbrush, making me feel as though I was being pursued on all sides.

Ten meters tall or higher, the structure’s entire facade was engulfed in flames.

A deep, guttural roar shook the trees.

“Because the life on this earth takes absolute precedence over the whims of the dead, and for your friend, this method will be even more dangerous than an exorcism.”

By then, I was too exhausted to feel more than a twinge of trepidation as the hallucination faded into the smog.

I pressed my forehead against the mirror’s cold surface, poised my fingers over it, feeling as if any moment I’d sink through the pane as though it were a pool of quicksilver.

The tub was filled with clean water that had been gathered in a cistern or pumped from distant pipes.

Frankie showing off the old service revolver he’d traded a filched pocket watch for, practicing on milk bottles and tin cans.

It dawned on me that I was smiling, and I couldn’t stop. The expression tugged at my lips, taut and mirthless.

"...Just spend the night. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s no imposition.”

The walls were all heavy wainscoting and damask wallpaper, while the four-poster bed was fitted with fine linen.

After fifteen seconds of hunting for socks in the armoire, I decided to forgo them entirely.

Just joining a minyan for evening services or listening to the chazzan’s chanting was like stepping back into my childhood home.

“The whole idea of needing to atone is ridiculous when we have done nothing wrong. What exactly do you have to atone for, Alter?”

You look like a good boy, he had said, imploring me with his gaze. You don’t want to do this.

Past the gate, the Yards was a labyrinth of brick walls the color of spoiled meat, smoke-guttering flues, and rickety wooden ramps crammed within two square kilometers.

Votes were bought and campaigns were fixed with dirty money. Anyone who threw a wrench into the gears of the city’s seedy underbelly was apt to end up at the bottom of Lake Michigan.

He lifted his eyebrows, bemused.

The light had become the putrid green of necrosis, reflected in the bottles of amber tinctures cluttering the shelves.

The light had become the putrid green of necrosis, reflected in the bottles of amber tinctures cluttering the shelves.

“I treat my workers with the respect they deserve,” Mr. Katz said, aloof.

“Of course,” Raizel said sagely, before shifting to a more mundane line of questioning.