“I want to hear about it. In a bit. Right now I just need—”

“What?”

“Just this. Nothing. Everything. Just sitting here with you doing nothing.”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

“I’m glad I’m here too, George. I’m glad you’re glad.”

“And I’m glad that you’re glad that I’m glad. Ain’t we got gladness—” He drummed a paradiddle on the arm of the couch, finishing with a flourish at an invisible cymbal. “Dinner out, sweetie? I assumed you would be as starved as I am, and there’s not much here. I didn’t want to go out again once I got your message—”

“Anywhere but downstairs, please.” Sometimes Rebecca loved just looking at George’s face. She knew every line, every hollow, every crease. She especially loved the blissed-out look of intense pleasure that made his jaw go slack when he listened to music, including the music in his head that nobody else could hear. He scowled at her now with a look of mock disappointment.

“Coward. Where’s your sense of danger? Where’s your willingness to risk the unknown?”

“Yeah, well, Joe Green told me they were out of the mouse soufflé tonight. And he said the fettuccine rodenti wasn’t al dente. I always trust Joe Green’s advice. So does Moira Hodgson.”

“Who doesn’t?” He gazed at her fondly across the expanse of sofa. “You know, I love your voice, even when it’s got a Brahmsian sadness. It has a wonderful timbre.”

“Oh, please. A Brahmsian sadness? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“No, really, I think your natural register is in G. I’ve told you that.”

“Right. It’s true, you have told me that, but now you’re verging on the self-parodic, which means your blood sugar is probably way too low. Did you eat today? I’m starved. Let’s go eat a really good dinner somewhere decent.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“I hate people who say that.”

“But you’ll always make an exception, won’t you, Rebecca?”

“I also hate people who always think there is an exception that proves the rule.”

“You hate those people as much as people who say ‘win-win’?”

“I despise those people. You’re right. That’s worse. I despise those people as much as you despise Nelson Riddle.”

“Death penalty for all offenders.”

“Absolutely. Sushi? There’s that place just down the block on Eighth Street.”

“You’ll eat dodgy raw fish on a Monday, and you won’t take your chances downstairs?”

“Anywhere but downstairs, please. I mean it.”

“Your profound desire not to eat there trumps my eternal optimism.”

“Advantage, Brahmsian sadness.”

Four

Transcription of Esther Gottesfeld interview #3, conducted by Ruth Zion, West Village Jewish Home, New York City, July 11, 2000. Ruth Zion transcription, July 15, 2000

[question] Morris Jacobs? You begin there? For what? Why do you want to know about him? Jacobs was a nothing, a nobody.

[question] A contractor, yes, that is right. My sister and I, we worked for him at the Triangle. You know as much about all this old history as I do, apparently. [note for the record: this is demonstrably untrue but nevertheless flattering. rz] Just another one trying to get ahead and make some money like everyone in the garment business in those days, trying to make himself into something from nothing. He was our boss, and then he worked for the big bosses, that’s right. That’s how they did it. A lot of bosses all in a row and that way nobody at the top was responsible for anything at the bottom because they didn’t know. They didn’t care to know. Nothing changes in this world.