THENEWYORKER,OCTOBER3, 2022 59
like skin tags. The phone rang, and a dis-
gruntled voice came through the speaker.
His father, Cohen gathered from the few
words of Hebrew he knew. In any case,
someone else to argue with, and the driver
went at him blindly, like a bull at the
mercy of picadors who have changed di-
rection. Cohen felt his inner weather
darken. He tried to shake it off, but now
he saw that it was the sky itself that had
blackened. Heavy clouds had gathered.
While the taxi-driver lay into his father
and they sat unmoving in a knot of cars,
Cohen had the feeling of time passing.
Not minutes but whole years. By the
time he got to the hospital Nava would
be long gone, the child would already be
making a mess of his food, would refuse
to listen, would outgrow all his clothes
and demand privacy, would start to smell
in his sleep, a smell that would invade
the room. He would become a man and
Cohen would call him on the phone
while he was stuck in traffic and the man-
child would lay into him. He who had
midwifed the boy into the world! Cohen
felt the injury, the injustice of it. The sky
continued to darken, and then came the
first splat of rain on the windshield, heavy
as bird shit. The only wave he felt now
was of anxiety—not so much a wave as
an undertow pulling him back into the
deep water from which he had briefly
been rescued. As he arrived at the hos-
pital, the sky opened and began dump-
ing its great weight.
The lobby was full of the old and ail-
ing, or those waiting for news of the old
and ailing. Cohen maneuvered among
the walkers and canes and terminal cases.
When the elevator opened onto the ma-
ternity ward, he was relieved. A young
blond mother was at the nursing station
rocking her precious bundle while the
father filled out the paperwork for their
release. Everything was still ahead here,
yet to be decided. But no sooner had he
thought this than he was intercepted by
the Russian nurse, who grabbed his arm
and reproached him. Cohen stammered
some excuse, and held up the bag with
the gift, but the nurse only scowled and
pushed him toward Nava’s room. There
he found the new mother with a look
of worry on her face. Next to her sat her
roommate, the one Cohen had assumed
to be the father, gently kneading her
shoulder. He was wearing a gold hoop
earring and a pink tank top, but great
bushes of dark hair bloomed under his
muscled arms. What did he care if the
baby was a boy or a girl? It was all the
same to him. He looked at Cohen
blankly, while Nava’s mother sat in the
corner, barely glancing up from her
soundless recitation from a small pur-
ple leather-bound book of Psalms. Cohen
stood foolishly holding the bag with the
necklace. He asked if everything was all
right, which he knew to be a stupid ques-
tion even as he asked it. They had taken
the infant for tests, Nava said. Some-
thing to do with his...and here she
fumbled for the word until the room-
mate said, Like, the breathing. From this
explanation it could have been anything,
a stuffy nose or a hole in the lung tis-
sue, something that hadn’t properly
closed; Cohen had no way to assess the
gravity of the situation. Exhausted, Nava
wasn’t in the mood to elaborate. In a low
voice, the roommate spoke to her in He-
brew, and she replied; perhaps he was
asking her who Cohen was. Not know-
ing what else to do, Cohen offered to
get her another Coke from the machine.
She nodded glumly.
On the way, passing the rooms of
new and expectant mothers, he was
swamped by a wave of sadness. He re-
membered Nadine as she had been back
then, himself as he had been then, when
they were still conduits of the future,
holding their new children, filled with
a great sense of accomplishment, un-
aware that it was premature. He passeda swarthy father carrying his tiny, swad-
dled progeny, talking loudly into his cell
phone. So much pride concentrated in
one place: it was oppressive. Cohen felt
claustrophobic; he needed a Xanax.
Sweating, he punched the button for
the elevator and rode down to the lobby,
then hurried out into the rain. His bel-
ligerent taxi-driver was still parked there,
waiting out the storm perhaps, or too
busy yelling at his father to look for his
next fare. Cohen knocked on the win-
dow, and the driver acknowledged him
with a jerk of his chin, as if he had been
expecting him. He got in, still holding
the wet gift bag, and was about to give
the address of the Airbnb. But it wasn’t
there that he wanted to go. Then, where?
Drive, Cohen instructed the man, who
was still going at it on the phone, howl-
ing his litany of grievances. The driver
shrugged and tapped the meter on: what
did he care, he had his scores to settle.
Cohen, damp from the rain, had an idea.
Take the freeway! He had to raise his
voice to be heard. North or south, what
did it matter? Cohen, failing to remem-
ber the size of the country he was in,
felt relieved by the possibilities, the sense
of motion, of freedom. The sodden gift
bag was torn, and he pulled out the lit-
tle wrapped box. Untying the ribbon,
he lifted up the chain and the golden
circle fell, then caught there and swung. NEWYORKER.COM
Nicole Krauss on death, birth, and middle age.