The Jew's Wife & Other Stories

By Thomas J. Hubschman

What do you do when your next-door neighbor is arrested for sexual molestation? How does a dirt farmer from the old country feel about working for a Jewish landsman? The author’s world embraces Catholic convents, risqué Halloween parties and the steamy corridors of New York apartment buildings with equal ease. His observations are penetrating, his voice invites sympathy and understanding.

What the Reviews Say:

"THE JEW'S WIFE is a fine collection from a newly debuted master of storytelling, and is a solid and recommended pick for short fiction fans everywhere." - Midwest Book Review

"First-time readers of Thomas J. Hubschman's short stories can be forgiven for thinking they have discovered a forgotten master of the form: his fiction is classic in tone, yet remarkably current in its concerns. It's old-fashioned to speak of heart and moral vision and the redemptive power of narrative, but this book has all those. It's astonishing to think this is a first collection and not a "best of.” It reads like the culmination of a life's work." - Richard Cumyn, author of The View from Tamischeira (Dundurn Press)

"Perfectly crafted short story collections are rare – which is why Thomas J. Hubschman's The Jew's Wife is such a treat. For Hubschman, it’s God who’s in the details--those minor aspects of everyday life that writers often miss.... This is a worthy addition to the world of the American short story and certain to win devoted fans." – Anjana Basu, author of Curses in Ivory (HarperCollins) and Black Tongue.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Savvy Press
• Release date: Apr 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781939113146

Thomas J. Hubschman

Thomas J. Hubschman ([e-mail]) is the author of Look at Me Now, Billy Boy, Song of the Mockingbird, My Bess, Father Walther's Temptation and The Jew's Wife & Other Stories (Savvy Press) and three science fiction novels. His work has appeared in New York Press, The Antigonish Review, Eclectica, The Blue Moon Review and many other publications. Two of his short stories were broadcast on the BBC World Service. He has also edited two anthologies of new writing from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, which remains his chief inspiration

Book preview

The Jew’s Wife

&

Other Stories

By Thomas J. Hubschman

Copyright © 2011 Thomas J. Hubschman

Published by Savvy Press at Smashwords

All rights reserved.

All the characters in this book are fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

Savvy Press PO Box 63

Salem, NY 12865

http://www.savvypress.com

Cover art by Eric Black

ISBN: 978-1-939113-14-6

"The Jew's Wife and Other Stories is a fine collection of short stories from a newly debuted master of storytelling...a solid and recommended pick for short fiction fans everywhere." - Midwest Book Review

The Jew’s Wife was published in Gruene Street, Rough Justice and The Naked Woman in Blue Penny Quarterly, Death of the Monsignor in ViewsUnplugged, Crank Call in MeThree, Fidelity in HotRead, I Am So Loving the Cello and The Hit Doctor in Eclectica, The Devil You Know in The Antigonish Review, The World on the BBC World Service, Company in Morpo Review, Going to Glory and The Virgin in Blue Moon Review and Still Life in In Vivo. The Virgin was also published in New York Press.

For Richard

Other books by Thomas J. Hubschman

Available at Smashwords

Song of the Mockingbird (Novel)

Look at Me Now (Novel)

My Bess (Novel)

Father Walther's Temptation (Novel)

Billy Boy (Novel)

Contents:

Rough Justice

The Jew’s Wife

Death of the Monsignor

The Naked Woman

Crank Call

Fidelity

The Hit Doctor

The Devil You Know

I Am So Loving the Cello

The World

Company

Going to Glory

The Virgin

Still Life

Rough Justice

For years we shared recipes with Ian and his wife Martha, fetched the Times for each other and baby-sat each other’s kids. Ian helped me put up my deck, and I hauled bags of soil for his tomato plants and roses. We planted matching dogwoods in our areaways and painstakingly restored the bluestones instead of re-paving our sidewalks in concrete as so many other brownstoners were doing. We played poker the first Friday of every month with Harry Lyons and Bill Storch, the only African American on our block. Our daughters went to private school together. We were as close to being family as any two groups of people could be without actually having blood ties.

Until last autumn.

Connie and I like to sleep late on Sunday. Ian was usually up at the crack of dawn. He took long walks before breakfast, sometimes with Martha but usually by himself. He wandered through Prospect Park, hiked down to Grand Army Plaza or occasionally explored the Irish neighborhood bordered by Greenwood Cemetery. On his way home he picked up two copies of the Times and deposited one of them on our front stoop before rustling up breakfast for his wife and daughter. In return, Connie and I never took a ride upstate without bringing him and Martha a basket of apples, peaches or whatever was in season.

What really happened that particular Sunday morning I may never know. But at nine-fifteen or nine-thirty my wife came rushing into the bedroom shouting, Ian’s been arrested!

I was only half-awake and didn’t understand what she was saying until she explained that Ian had just called from the 72nd Precinct to ask if we could please get him a lawyer.

Arrested for what?

"He said something about a demented woman bringing charges against him. He said he was only allowed one phone call. He wants you to get hold of Charlie Foxx.

Charlie’s a real estate attorney.

Maybe he can recommend a criminal lawyer.

Did Ian say what the charge was?

Just something about a crazy woman.

She was close to tears. Maybe if I had taken the call myself I would have reacted with similar distress. But the idea of Ian getting arrested seemed so absurd that I still had trouble believing it.

You told Martha? I said.

"No. Would you tell her?"

All right. But do me a favor and find Charlie Foxx’s number—his home phone.

I went next door and broke the news to Ian’s wife. For the better part of a minute she stood motionless, covering her mouth with her hand. She was wearing a blue robe she had put on to start coffee in her country kitchen. I made her sit down and drink some, but she still looked as if I had just told her Ian had been run over.

Don’t worry, I said. It’s just some kind of stupid mistake. As I was speaking the phone rang—Connie calling to relay Charlie Foxx’s number.

How is Martha taking it? she asked.

Not so good.

Should I come over?

That might not be a bad idea.

Charlie was home but didn’t know any criminal lawyer who would be willing to run down to the 72nd Precinct on a Sunday morning.

What did this friend of yours do?

I don’t know. Some woman brought charges.

This is kind of out of my line.

For Christ’s sake, Charlie, the man’s in jail.

I know. But chances are they won’t arraign him till the morning anyhow. They wouldn’t even be holding him if it wasn’t a felony charge.

Felony? I said, causing Martha, who had been starting to calm down under Connie’s ministrations, to go catatonic again. Charlie, I said more quietly, can’t you, you know, bail him out or something?

Not before he’s arraigned.

He just has to sit in the precinct house until tomorrow?

They’ll probably transfer him to the lockup on Atlantic Avenue. They might have done so already.

Jesus.

Sorry, chum. That’s how these things work. But let me try calling a couple of my colleagues. They might know something—or at least put me on to someone who does.

I didn’t have the heart to tell Martha what Charlie Foxx said. Instead, I assured her that he was making some calls to contact an appropriate attorney. Then I headed back to my own house to make breakfast for Tanya, leaving Connie to look after Martha. Connie’s a brick at times like this. She once sat through a ten-hour operation with a neighbor whose husband had colon cancer.

It was only when I was alone with the mixing bowls that I had a chance to think. I had known Ian about six years—not a long time as friendships go. Even so, six years is not six minutes, and nothing during that time had prepared me for the shock of hearing that my friend was about to be charged with a serious crime. Not that I believed for a moment he was guilty of anything criminal. Even so, the police did not make a habit of arresting white middle-class males just for taking a walk in the park.

How’s Martha doing? I asked Connie when she returned.

I gave her Valium and called her sister.

She’s with her now?

She’s on the way. Honey, you don’t think Ian really did something?

I was at the sink, scouring the grill. Out in the yard a bluejay was perched on the handlebars of Tanya’s trike. The big maple which made it next to impossible to grow anything but ivy under its massive spread was starting to shed its leaves. In a couple weeks it would be time to start getting ready for our Halloween party. I wondered if Ian would be able to attend. Last year he came dressed as a monk. His wife came as a prioress with a slit habit that exposed one leg almost to the hip where she wore a crimson garter. It was a surprising getup for a woman who never used a four-letter word and even on the hottest summer day sported nothing more revealing than Bermuda shorts.

Charlie Foxx called back to say he had gotten in touch with someone willing to take Ian’s case. He had also found out what the charge was: Sexual Molestation.

The lawyer Charlie had contacted promised to pay Ian a visit that afternoon. I didn’t much care for the way Charlie sounded, like a dentist who was putting himself out to handle a bad tooth that should have come out years ago. He said he would try to get back to me after the lawyer saw Ian. He said there was a possibility Ian would be arraigned that day but that there was no point to our going down to the court without knowing for sure.

It was not going to be an ordinary Sunday—yard work, a nap after lunch followed by an excursion to one of the malls in Jersey or Long Island. Getting Ian legal counsel had taken up most of the morning, and Tanya and Melissa had play rehearsal in the afternoon. Needless to say, my nap went by the boards. I fussed in the basement and pruned the dogwood in the areaway (I would have pruned Ian’s as well but was afraid his wife might take it as a bad omen). But the day seemed to go on forever.

At five o’clock the lawyer called to say that Ian had been to court and was being released on bond. We could come down to take him home.

It seemed like the end of a bad dream. I rushed next door to tell Martha. She started sobbing so hard that I decided I’d best collect Ian on my own.

I found him sitting on the deserted steps of the Supreme Court building. He didn’t look especially unkempt, but he had a jail-worn, almost homeless look. He’s a tall, lean man but a lot more sturdy than he looks. He’s also the cheerful sort, always smiling whether he’s in a genuinely good mood or has had a setback of some kind. But that cloudy, early-autumn afternoon he looked like a lost kid.

Can I give you a lift, stranger?

He said very little during the drive home. I didn’t ask questions and he didn’t volunteer information. I took the long way, through Carroll Gardens where Connie and I lived when we first moved to Brooklyn. He stared at the passing stores as if we were on a six-lane Interstate.

Can we get coffee? he said when we reached Park Slope. From a deli, I mean.

I bought him a ham sandwich and watched him wolf it down. But he showed no other effects of his ordeal until a police car slowed as it passed my Cherokee. Ian stopped chewing until it was gone and spilled coffee on his lap, his hand trembling badly.

Martha broke into a fresh shower of tears when I handed her husband over to her. But Ian scarcely took the time to thank me before making it clear that he wanted to be left alone. I told myself he had to be a bit out of sorts after what he had been through.

Stop by later, I said, after you’ve had a rest.

I expected him at least to telephone. But as nine o’clock passed, and then ten, I began to feel a little miffed. I had, after all, taken the trouble to find him a lawyer who got him released without his having to spend the night in jail. And Connie had looked after his wife and daughter. We had devoted our entire Sunday to him.

If he has nothing to hide, why is he avoiding us? Connie said as we were getting ready for bed.

Maybe he fell asleep early, I said. Maybe he got drunk.

I mean, how well do we really know him?

Only, I said, checking the alarm on the clock radio, about as well as we know each other.

What’s that supposed to mean?

That nobody really knows anyone else inside and out.

She didn’t reply. She just turned out the light without asking as she usually does if I wanted to read for a while.

Ian’s case was scheduled to go to court the following week. Neither Connie nor I had seen him since the day of his arrest. Martha seemed embarrassed by his seclusion but excused it on the grounds that he was busy with his job. Connie and I had a ton of work to do for our Halloween party, so I decided to let him come round in his own good time.

Wednesday night his lawyer called to ask if we would be willing to testify as character witnesses. Of course, we agreed. The lawyer, someone named Briteman, said he didn’t expect it would come to a trial, but he was putting a defense together just in case. The complainant is sticking to her guns, he said. I’ll make a motion to dismiss, but that will just be for the record. I’m sure I can arrange a plea bargain to a misdemeanor.

You mean he could actually be convicted of something?

It’s this woman’s word against his. Plus they got a witness.

The woman must be a nut case.

Actually she’s some kind of high-powered executive. I wouldn’t like to see her take the stand.

Word of Ian’s plight got around the neighborhood and people began asking after him. They seemed sympathetic and, for the most part, agreed to sign affidavits on his behalf.

Then, as if nothing unusual had happened, Saturday morning Ian turned up at our house and began retailing the usual gossip about his job—an exclusive private school for rich kids and diplomats’ children. He had a new story about the Ecuadorian janitor and the millionaire parents of a Japanese sophomore. As he mugged his way through it—some confusion about the school toilets and the principal’s office—imitating the Latino janitor and the prim Japanese in turn, he seemed a bit more eager to please than usual but otherwise very much the old Ian. I didn’t mention the court case, and he never alluded to it himself. When the coffee klatch broke up Connie and I headed out to Long Island to buy Tanya a new winter coat.

The hearing was scheduled for the twenty-eighth. Halloween fell on a Sunday, so we had decided to have the party Saturday night. Our Halloween bash has become the main social event in the neighborhood. We held our first one eleven years ago, just as a get-together for a few neighbors. But as our circle of friends widened, so did the guest list, until we now find ourselves entertaining thirty or more couples.

Making it a costume affair was Ian’s idea. People began vying with each other to come up with the most original outfits. We even give out an award—a bottle of Dom Perignon.

Thursday evening Ian telephoned and for the first time spoke about his court case.

Briteman says he thinks he can strike a deal with the assistant district attorney. It should all be over soon.

That’s wonderful, I said. You must feel so relieved.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. We both are. And we’re both very grateful to you and Connie.

I told him I hoped to see him at the party, not knowing how he actually felt about making an appearance in public. He assured me he and Martha were looking forward to the affair. We wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Saturday was cold and sunny—pumpkin weather. Connie finished with the hors d’oeuvres by lunchtime. The main dishes were already in the freezer. We spent most of the afternoon cleaning and decorating, including the carving of a huge jack o’lantern to set out in the areaway. Tanya and I did the last-minute shopping and swept up the leaves. Then we vacuumed and put the finishing touches on our costumes. I was dressing up as Franklin Roosevelt, with crutches, Connie as Eleanor. Tanya was going as Shirley Temple.

The guests began arriving shortly after eight. Half an hour later there was a crush around the hors d’oeuvres. White wine and bourbon were flowing freely.

Ian and Martha had never been among the first guests to arrive at our previous parties. But as it got to be nine o’clock and then quarter-after, I began to worry.

Finally the doorbell rang. I had been holding forth about dry rot back at the booze table, half a house from the front door. At first it was difficult to see through the mix of witches, devils and assorted creatures of the night in my parlor. But as Ian and his wife began threading their way through the crowd, shaking hands and trading back slaps, I was finally able to make out their costumes.

Ian was dressed in prison clothes. Martha had on a guard’s uniform. Ian’s zebra-stripe long johns included an oversize necktie, and he was carrying a black briefcase, the same he brought to work each morning. Martha’s uniform was mini-skirted and included some heavy cleavage.

There was a round of applause. There didn’t seem any doubt who would carry home the Dom Perignon.

I couldn’t help admiring the man’s pluck. Of course, Martha looked like she was being roasted on a slow spit, but her pained smile never flagged as Ian escorted her through the crowd, his wrist shackles attached to her belt by a silver chain.

I kissed her heavily rouged cheek and offered a glass of white wine. Ian asked for bourbon.

You look...fetching, I said to Martha.

It was Ian’s idea, of course.

He, meanwhile, was bantering with Ed Nugent, a stockbroker who helped him refinance his mortgage a couple years back.

"Leave it