The Collected Stories

scolded him. “You know what? Come over to my place and we’ll have lunch together. I don’t like to eat by myself. For me, eating alone is even worse than sleeping alone.”
    “Really, I don’t know what to say. What did I do to deserve this?”
    “Come, come; don’t talk nonsense. This is America, not Poland. My refrigerator is stuffed with goodies. I throw out more than I eat, may I be forgiven.”
    The woman used Yiddish expressions that Harry hadn’t heard in at least sixty years. She took his arm and led him to the door. He didn’t have to go more than a few steps. By the time he had locked his door she had opened hers. The apartment he went into was larger than his and brighter. There were pictures on the walls, fancy lamps, bric-a-brac. The windows looked out directly at the ocean. On the table stood a vase of flowers. The air in Harry’s apartment smelled of dust, but here the air was fresh. “She wants something; she has some ulterior motive,” Harry told himself. He recalled what he had read in the newspapers about female cheats who swindled fortunes out of men and out of other women, too. The main thing was to promise nothing, to sign nothing, not to hand over even a single penny.
    She seated him at a table, and from the kitchen soon issued the bubbling sound of a percolator and the smell of fresh rolls, fruit, cheese, and coffee. For the first time in years Harry felt an appetite in the middle of the day. After a while they both sat down to lunch.
    Between one bite and the next, the woman took a drag from a cigarette. She complained, “Men run after me, but when it comes down to brass tacks they’re all interested only in how much money I have. As soon as they start talking about money I break up with them. I’m not poor; I’m even—knock wood—wealthy. But I don’t want anyone to take me for my money.”
    “Thank God I don’t need anyone’s money,” Harry said. “I’ve got enough even if I live a thousand years.”
    “That’s good.”
    Gradually they began to discuss their finances, and the woman enumerated her possessions. She owned buildings in Brooklyn and on Staten Island; she had stocks and bonds. Based on what she said and the names she mentioned, Harry decided that she was telling the truth. She had, here in Miami, a checking account and a safe-deposit box in the very same bank as Harry. Harry estimated that she was worth at least a million or maybe more. She served him food with the devotion of a daughter or wife. She talked of what he should and shouldn’t eat. Such miracles had occurred to him in his younger years. Women had met him, grown instantly intimate, and stuck with him, never to leave again. But that such a thing should happen to him at his age seemed like a dream. He asked abruptly, “Do you have children?”
    “I have a daughter, Sylvia. She lives all alone in a tent in British Columbia.”
    “Why in a tent? My daughter’s name was Sylvia, too. You yourself could be my daughter,” he added, not knowing why he had said such a thing.
    “Nonsense. What are years? I always liked a man to be a lot older than me. My husband, may he rest in peace, was twenty years older, and the life we had together I would wish for every Jewish daughter.”
    “I’ve surely got forty years on you,” Harry said.
    The woman put down her spoon. “How old do you take me for?”
    “Around forty-five,” Harry said, knowing she was older.
    “Add another twelve years and you’ve got it.”
    “You don’t look it.”
    “I had a good life with my husband. I could get anything out of him—the moon, the stars, nothing was too good for his Ethel. That’s why after he died I became melancholy. Also, my daughter was making me sick. I spent a fortune on psychiatrists, but they couldn’t help me. Just as you see me now, I stayed seven months in an institution, a clinic for nervous disorders. I had a breakdown and I didn’t want to live any more. They had to watch me day and night. He was calling me from his grave. I want to tell you something, but don’t misunderstand me.”
    “What is it?”
    “You remind me of my husband. That’s why—”
    “I’m eighty-two,” Harry said and instantly regretted it. He could have easily subtracted five years. He waited a moment, then added, “If I were ten years younger, I’d make you a proposition.”
    Again he regretted his words. They had issued from his mouth as if of their own volition. He was still bothered by the fear of