The Book of Daniel Read Online Free Page A

wrist, but Ascher’s response was to tighten his grip and pull even harder. “Come, children, come,” the lawyer said. Laboriously they scrambled up the steps from the subway—a steep flight encased in black dirt and littered with gum wrappers and flattened cigarette butts. Rising after them were the hot odors of arcade popcorn, pizza, donuts, pretzels—all the marvels of cheap nourishment following after them like the cries of animals in a pet store. He always imagined they wanted to be bought.
    “Come, children, come.” Susan—smaller, lighter, shorter in the leg—couldn’t keep up. She dangled from Ascher’s hammy hand, her shoes banging on the steps, finding purchase only tobe hauled into the air again. “You’re hurting me!” she screamed. Why was he holding them so? Did he think they’d run away?
    “You’re hurting her arm, Mr. Ascher,” Daniel said. “If you let us go we can get up the steps faster than you.”
    “What? All right then, scoot,” Ascher said. Rubbing their wrists they clambered up, easily outgaining the huge, heavy lawyer. “Don’t fall!” he called after them. “Stay right there at the top.”
    Calm now, curious, they watched the great bulk straining to reach them. Where they stood, in the mouth of the precipitous entrance to the subway, two winds converged, the hot underground draft rising to caress their faces and the cold blast of the street cutting at their backs. Dust, paper, soot, swirled along the ground. It was a cold, windy day. The brightness of the sun made their eyes squint.
    Ascher climbed the last two steps with his hands pushing at his knees. “I’m not going to live long,” he said, trying to catch his breath. He pulled them out of the stream of people pouring down the stairs.
    They stood against the building while Ascher took deep breaths and got his bearings. Across the street was Bryant Park and the Public Library. To the right was Sixth Avenue. “That way—we go west,” Ascher said, and he took their wrists again and they were off. They waited for the lights, crossed Sixth, and proceeded along 42nd Street toward Broadway. The newsstand man wore earmuffs. The wind blew hard. The kids walked with their faces averted, Daniel with the nubbin brim of his wool cap down on his forehead. His nose was running and he knew the wind would chafe him. It cut right through his pants. Ascher’s heavy grey overcoat moved in front of his eyes. Abruptly the hand let go of his wrist and he was thrust up against Ascher’s side, contained by the hand, sheltered from the wind. “Stay in close, that way you can walk,” the lawyer said. So it was like a strange six-legged beast walking down the windy range of Sixth Avenue, the two kids pressed into the man’s sides.
    “Like the rest of our luck,” Ascher muttered into the wind. “Like the way all our luck is running.” With his face buried in the man’s coat Daniel was aware of sounds: horns, cars startingand stopping, the large yet soft sound of innumerable people walking, music coming out of a record store. And then a clop-clopping that made him pull back and look around the coat. Two cops on horses, straight backed, tall, manly on their really fine brown horses. And he felt guilty for admiring them, for he knew they were reactionaries.
    The lawyer spoke. “Now you must stay close to me and do as I tell you to do. We are a little late. I can tell from here, a tremendous crowd, it’s a great tribute. You should feel proud. When you’re standing up there, keep your heads up, look proud and tall and don’t slump, stand up straight. So that everyone can see you.
Vershtey?
Don’t be afraid. What is it, little girl?”
    “I’ve got something in my eye.”
    “We have no time now, Susan. Come.”
    Susan leaned back against Ascher’s grip and planted her feet. “I’ve got something in my eye,” she insisted.
    “Keep your eye closed. It will come out.”
    “No! It hurts,” she said.
    Ascher let go her hand and