Mohr. Frederick Reuss

      “Like me? What do you mean like me?”

      “A Jew. Just like you.”

      Mohr stops short, inspects his hands, palms up, palms down, in mock panic. “Really? Just like me?”

      Nagy laughs, a nasal honk that draws glances. Mohr keeps the pantomime up, light-headed, wisps of the schoolyard. Funny, how he finds himself recalling so much of innocent, cabbage-white boyhood lately. He is dizzy, disoriented, still thinking about the young man downstairs, how he refused help and staggered off like a beaten dog. He’s seen it so often, beaten Jews staggering off, refusing help. Suddenly he feels ashamed, and stops again. A streetcar clangs past.

      “What’s the matter?” Nagy asks.

      “I don’t much care for all this Jewish talk. Never have. The world would be so much better off if people just stopped it. All this preoccupation with identity.”

      “You may be right. But it’s hard to ignore something when it is foisted on you.”

      Mohr takes out his handkerchief, pats the perspiration from his forehead, his neck. “Do you know what it is to feel a connection? I can close my eyes and feel a connection. A real connection to everybody whom I have known and even those I never knew—whole families dead and gone. I can see their faces, as if I were looking at their photographs. When I open my eyes again they are gone, and I am all alone. I wish I could be among them always—the living as well as the dead. A true connection. It’s beautiful and horrible at the same time. I don’t know where it comes from.” He stops, wondering if what he is saying makes any sense at all. Is it the alcohol? Nagy is looking at him with baffled admiration.

      Mohr tucks the handkerchief away. “I will sign the book, Dr. Nagy. I don’t know what it means, but I will sign it.”

      Nagy nods his thanks, slightly embarrassed. They continue walking.

      “August would be a good time,” Nagy is saying as they finally arrive back at the Yates Apartments. Mohr fishes the keys from his dampened trousers pocket, feels the whiskey evaporating from his skin, smells it percolating on his breath. “There is an American doctor coming from Canton,” Nagy says. “You are free to go as soon as he gets here.”

      “Go? Go where?”

      Nagy shrugs. “Anyplace you like! To Ching-tao. To the seashore. It’s where everybody goes in summer.”

      The idea of going where everybody goes is not at all appealing. Mohr offers his hand. “Thank you. I enjoyed the evening.”

      Nagy clasps Mohr’s hand tightly. “You’re no dilettante,” he says, leveling. “I will remember our conversation tonight.”

      A gracious nod. Nagy’s sincerity makes Mohr feel foolish. He knows better. The smell of food cooking wafts from the building as he approaches the front door. Before going in, he turns to watch Nagy settle back on the upholstered seat of a rickshaw, then disappear with a wave into the melee of Bubbling Well Road.