LEONARD KRIEGEL
385
with himself, ticking off legacies the way as a child he used to delight
in listing the titles of books he had read. The apartment in the co-op
built by the union his father had been an organizer for, the rosewood
desk and matching chair his father insisted on leaving for him, the
king-sized bed he was lying on now with Miriam - "She wants new
stuff, Illana," his father explains , embarrassed - the battered Royal
portable on which his mother had written all three of her books of
poetry . And the thickness of memory. That ultimate Jewish legacy.
To be so caught up in the drab history the rest of the world would
remember- if it remembered at all- as a minor footnote . Living in
the union co-op was like living in a time warp. A few months ago he
had ridden up in the elevator with the 94-year-old anarchist whose
skin was mottled like Chinese rice paper. "I knew Trotsky ," the anar–
chist announces in his Italian-accented English. "You've read Trot–
sky?" Michael nods. "I knew him."
His father's laughter mocking, derisive. His father had long
since left such illusions behind. A young wife, a new baby daughter,
a large apartment on Gramercy Park, the presidency of an invest–
ment service that controlled a good deal of the municipal union's
pension funds - and dreams that were undoubtedly different from
the dreams of his son. Dreams of land parcels, development oppor–
tunities , refinancing mortgages, high-risk bonds, whirls and swirls
of green . "Trotsky!" his father snorts. "Better he should know
Hecuba . What's he to Trotsky?" His father laughs gleefully . "Mich–
ael, in the here and now, people eat and drink and sleep. They make
love . And Trotsky doesn't matter."
"That's crass," Michael says angrily, then winces at the opening
he has given his father.
"Crass!" his father mocks, so that the horse-faced Irish
bartender looks up suddenly. "Real isn't crass, Michael. You want to
understand the future , learn Japanese. This longing for revolution is
nonsense. Useless nonsense."
What I should have learned, he thinks, fingers running lightly
across Miriam's quietly receptive body, is the language of New
York. A language for our times. "You used to have politics ," he re–
members telling his father.
"And you think having politics is a distinction . You think it's
better than buying and selling real estate. Some old man in an
elevator tells you he knew Trotsky and you expect the world to turn
upside down." His father pauses, to sip at his scotch . He likes to
