The Sunset Gang Read Online Free Page A

bring up that subject again."
He wondered if she understood.
    "You think it's that simple?" she said, looking
at him.
    She had touched his arm and he felt his flesh respond with
goose pimples. He was confused.
    "How many more years do you think we have,
Velvil?"
    Her question left him speechless as his mind groped for
some kind of logic.
    "I try not to think about it," he said at last.
    "I have been thinking about it for the last two
weeks."
    "You have?"
    "I spent the time with my daughter. I felt like a
picture on the wall."
    He knew instantly what she meant and she sensed his
understanding. She, too, had dreamed and longed for this moment, when she would
reveal to him that she was, indeed, willing to pay the price.
    "We are in the elephant burial ground, Velvil,"
she said. "We know the end is coming fast. We have to seize the
present."
    In Yiddish, the words came to him as poetry and he felt the
power of himself. His energy surged as he gripped her shoulders and gathered
her in his arms.
    "It will not be easy," she said firmly, relieved
at last, unburdened. "And, frankly, I don't know if I'll be able to go
through with it."
    "We'll give each other courage," he said.
    They resumed their walk, arms locked around each other like
young lovers.
    "They'll think we're crazy," Genendel said
suddenly. "And they might be right."
    "Between us, Genendel," Velvil said, "we've
been married nearly a century."
    "Eighty-nine years," she said. "See? I've
been thinking about it. I even thought of ways that I might get David
interested in your wife. It would make matters so much simpler."
    "I wouldn't wish it on him," Velvil said.
    On the way back to her car, he pondered the legal problems.
Although he was a lawyer, he had never paid much attention to divorce laws. He
was annoyed with himself for allowing practicalities to intrude. What did that
matter? Somehow they would survive it.
    But it was not that easy to break the news to Mimi and he
agonized over it, sleepless, tossing and turning, unable to shut off his mind.
In the darkness he felt the terror of guilt, knowing what Genendel must be
going through. He felt his courage ebb and only when the light filtered through
the drawn blinds did his resolve return.
    Following Mimi into the kitchen, he sat down at the little
table and watched her as he gathered his thoughts. It was not that he despised
her. Hardly that, although he knew he had lost all feeling for her except
compassion. He did feel compassion, he told himself. Only because he knew that
she would never understand.
    "I want a divorce," he said, flat, straight-out.
    She turned and looked at him quizzically, coffeepot poised
in mid-air, hair still disheveled from sleep. The odor of her floated across
the room.
    "What?" She squinted, as if seeking comprehension
with her eyes.
    "I want a divorce," he repeated.
    "You want a what?"
    "A divorce."
    She started to smile, alert to his words, but not yet
understanding.
    "I'm serious," he said, wanting her to be sure of
his meaning, urging himself to be precise. "I want a divorce. I am in love
with another woman."
    "Another what?"
    He surveyed her coolly, knowing she was aghast, her lips
trembling. The coffeepot slipped with a clang into the sink.
    "Another woman. Genendel Goldfarb."
    "Genendel?"
    "Jennie."
    "Her?"
    He imagined he felt the eruption begin with vibrations in
his toes, like the beginning of an earthquake. He had seen her like this
before--once when he threatened to leave the government, and again when he had
at first refused to move to Florida. But this time he was girded with the image
of Genendel. Watching her now did not diminish his courage as it had done in
the past.
    "Are you crazy?" she began. "An alte cocker
like you. And that dried-up prune. She hypnotized you. You should both be put
away in an institution." She paused, sneering. "You had relations?
That's it. Right, Bill? I got it. Right, Bill? She put her hands on my
husband's fly, right? So what did she get? Such a big