The Goldfinch

“Theo, my God, I’m sorry,” he said. We stood looking at each other for an uncertain moment and then—in an impulsive, what-the-hell movement, so awkward it was almost fu

“So sorry,” he repeated, shaking his head. “My God, what a thing.” Goldie, since his divorce, often worked nights and holidays, standing at the doors with his gloves off and an unlit cigarette in his hand, looking out at the street. My mother had sometimes sent me down with coffee and doughnuts for him when he was in the lobby by himself, no company but the lighted tree and the electric menorah, sorting out the newspapers by himself at 5:00 a.m. on Christmas Day, and the expression on his face reminded me of those dead holiday mornings, empty-looking stare, his face ashy and uncertain, in the unguarded moment before he saw me and put on his best hi kid smile.

“I been thinking about you and your mother so much,” he said, wiping his brow. “Ay bendito. I can’t—I don’t even know what you must be going through.”

“Yeah,” I said, looking away, “it’s been hard”—which was for whatever reason the phrase I constantly fell back upon when people told me how sorry they were. I’d had to say it so much that it was starting to come out sounding glib and a bit phony.

“I’m glad you stopped by,” said Goldie. “That morning—I was on duty, you remember? Right out front there?”

“Sure I do,” I said, wondering at his urgency, as if he thought I might not remember.

“Oh, my God.” He passed his hand over his forehead, a little wild-looking, as if he himself had suffered only a narrow escape. “I think about it every single day. I still see her face, you know, getting into that cab? Waving goodbye, so happy.”

Confidentially, he leaned forward. “When I heard she died?” he said, as if telling me a big secret. “I called up my ex-wife, that’s how upset I was.” He pulled back and looked at me with raised eyebrows, as if he didn’t expect me to believe him. Goldie’s battles with his ex-wife were epic.

“I mean, we hardly talk,” he said, “but who I’m go

Jose—spotting me—had strolled back from the front door to join our conversation, in his distinctive springy walk. “Mrs. Decker,” he said—shaking his head fondly, as if there had never been anyone like her. “Always say hello, always such a nice smile. Considerate, you know.”

“Not like some of these people in the building,” said Goldie, glancing over his shoulder. “You know—” he leaned closer, and mouthed the word—“snobby. The kind of person stands there empty-handed with no packages or nothing and waits for you to open the door, is what I’m saying.”

“She wasn’t like that,” said Jose, still shaking his head—big head movements, like a somber child saying no. “Mrs. Decker was Class A.”

“Say, will you wait here a second?” Goldie said, holding up his hand. “I’ll be right back. Don’t leave. Don’t let him leave,” he said to Jose.

“You want me to get you a cab, manito?” said Jose, eyeing the suitcase.

“No,” I said, glancing back at the elevator. “Listen, Jose, will you keep this for me until I come back and get it?”

“Sure,” he said, picking it up and hefting it. “Happy to.”

“I’ll come back for it myself, okay? Don’t let anybody else have it.”

“Sure, I get it,” said Jose pleasantly. I followed him into the package room, where he tagged the bag and hoisted it onto a top shelf.

“You see?” he said. “Out of the way, baby. We don’t keep nothing up high there except some packages people got to sign for and our own personal stuff. Nobody’s going to release that bag to you without your personal signature, you understand? Not to your uncle, your cousin, nobody. And I’ll tell Carlos and Goldie and the other guys, don’t give that bag to nobody but you. Okay?”

I was nodding, about to thank him, when Jose cleared his throat. “Listen,” he said, in a lowered voice. “I don’t want to worry you or nothing but there’ve been some guys coming around lately asking after your dad.”

“Guys?” I said, after a disjointed silence. “Guys,” coming from Jose, meant only one thing: men that my dad owed money to.

“Don’t worry. We told them nothing. I mean, your dad’s been gone for what, like a year? Carlos told them none of you lived here no more and they aint been back. But—” he glanced at the elevator—“maybe your dad there, he don’t want to be spending a lot of time in the building just now, you know what I’m saying?”

I was thanking him when Goldie returned with what looked to me like a gigantic wad of cash. “This is for you,” he said, a bit melodramatically.

For a minute I thought I’d heard him wrong. Jose coughed and looked away. On the package room’s tiny black and white television (its screen no bigger than a CD case) a glamorous woman in long jangling earrings brandished her fists and shouted abusive Spanish at a cowering priest.

“What’s going on?” I said to Goldie, who was still holding the money out.

“Your mother, she didn’t tell you?”

I was mystified. “Tell me what?”

It seemed that—one day shortly before Christmas—Goldie had ordered a computer and had it delivered to the building. The computer was for Goldie’s son, who needed it for school, but (Goldie was hazy about this part) Goldie hadn’t actually paid for it, or had only paid for part of it, or his ex-wife had been supposed to pay for it instead of him. At any rate, the delivery people were hauling the computer out the door again and loading it back into their van when my mother happened to come downstairs and see what was going on.

“And she paid herself, that beautiful lady,” Goldie said. “She saw what was happening, and she opened her bag and she took out her checkbook. She said to me, ‘Goldie, I know your son needs this computer for his schoolwork. Please let me do this thing for you, my friend, and you pay me when you can.’ ”

“You see?” said Jose, unexpectedly fierce, glancing back from the television, where the woman was standing in a graveyard now, arguing with a tycoon-looking guy in sunglasses. “That’s your mother that did that.” He nodded at the money, almost angrily. “Sí, es verdad, she was Class A. She cared about people you know? Most women? They spend that money on gold earrings or perfume or some things for themselves like that.”

I felt strange taking the money, for all sorts of reasons. Even in my shock, something about the story felt dodgy (what kind of store would deliver a computer that wasn’t paid for?). Later, I wondered: did I look that destitute, that the doormen had taken up a collection for me? I still don’t know where the money came from; and I wish I had asked more questions, but I was so stu

“None of my business, you know,” Jose said, looking over my head as he said it, “but if I was you, I wouldn’t tell anybody about that money. You know what I’m saying?”

“Yeah, put it in your pocket,” said Goldie. “Don’t walk around waving it out in your hand like that. Plenty of people on the street would kill you for that much cash.”

“Plenty of people in this building!” said Jose, overcome with sudden laughter.

“Ha!” said Goldie, cracking up himself, and then said something in Spanish I didn’t understand.

“Cuidado,” said Jose—wagging his head in the way he did, mock-serious, but unable to keep from smiling. “That’s why they don’t let Goldie and me work on the same floor,” he said to me. “They got to keep us separated. We have too good a time.”