Heart of Stone by James W. Ziskin Read Free Book Online Page A

windows were all thrown open wide, and a warm light spilled out into the night. I paused at the entrance to listen and to watch and wait until they’d reached the end. The hall was a large building with high rafters and a pitched roof at least three stories high. Built completely of pine, it achieved the appropriate rustic look without compromising on fine workmanship and intricate touches. Exquisitely carved flourishes adorned the lintels and stanchions. A mezzanine of sorts, accessible by a wooden stairway and its magnificent balustrade, dominated the room on the north side. At the southern end of the room, an immense stone fireplace rose six feet high. Mounted above the hearth, a proud buck’s head, eighteen points, as I later counted, surveyed the room as if it were his realm. Poor thing. Someone had shot, stuffed, and posed him, then hung him on the wall for the pleasure of whosoever enjoyed gazing upon the severed heads of regal beasts. He was indeed a handsome specimen. I only wished I could have caught the fleetingest glimpse of him bounding through the forest—an instant and no more—instead of admiring him forever in his frozen beauty.
    Isaac was seated with his back to me, playing the violin. Simon was to his right, a cello resting in its case by his side, as he listened with his eyes closed to the duo. A young, raven-haired woman played the spinet piano a few feet away. She looked familiar. It had to be Miriam, I thought. David was also present, as was Isaac’s sister, Rachel, and a few older folks.
    A hand touched my shoulder, and I loosed a scream, just about jumping out of my shoes. The music stopped. I reeled around to defend myself against my aggressor and nearly knocked over a small old man wearing a Greek fisherman’s cap. The musicians and others rushed to investigate. I apologized repeatedly; the man who’d touched my shoulder was Isaac’s sixty-five-year-old father, the painter Jakob Eisenstadt.
    Once it had been determined that no one was hurt, I was escorted into the hall, smiles all around, just as if I hadn’t almost bashed in the head of the oldest and most famous man in the room. Isaac introduced me to everyone. I knew David and Simon, of course, but I hadn’t seen Miriam Abramowitz née Berg (the pianist and Simon’s wife) since I was ten years old. That was a year after the war ended, the last time I’d visited Aunt Lena and Uncle Mel on Prospector Lake.
    Two or three years older than I, Miriam had never been chummy with me. As a young girl she had been inscrutable, always staring but saying little. She had grown up to be a striking creature in an unusual way. Her mane of jet-black hair and beguiling figure inspired envy in women and lust in men. Her face, however, was closer to plain than beautiful. In no way unattractive, her features struck me as somehow ordinary. My brother, Elijah, once said that it would help if she smiled more often. Or knocked off the creepy stare. But her intellectual and physical intensity attracted people of both sexes and of all ages. She was standing before me now in a faded summer dress that, for all its plainness, couldn’t hide her abundant bosom, flat stomach, and curvaceous hips. A head of beautiful hair and a statuesque physique more than compensated for her did-not-place beauty and cheerless personality.
    Isaac’s sister, Rachel, was about my age, unmarried and unlikely to follow the path of matrimony. She was the dutiful daughter, dedicating her life to taking care of her aged widowed father. Rachel and I had played together as children on the lake. My father was fond of telling the story of how Rachel and I had formed a club with three other girls, Ruth and Sarah Hirsch, and Shelly Leonard. At the first meeting, I convinced the girls to elect me president of the club. That settled, the first order of business, I proclaimed, was that there would be no more elections. The other girls went along without