Mount Terminus Read Free Page B

and guided a length of film on a wayward journey from one magazine up top to another below, with each frame of film stopping intermittently in front of the projector’s condenser lens and light source. This device he named the Rosenbloom Loop, which included in its design the Rosenbloom Drive. When Mr. Dickson saw in what an ingenious manner Jacob had made it possible to roll over as many feet of film that could be scrolled into the two magazines, and that the images they produced were larger than life, Dickson, who was not nearly as arrogant or prideful a man as Edison, said, Now, I would have never thought of that.
    At which time, Jacob’s modest riches began to transform into lasting wealth.
    *   *   *
    In Jonah Liebeskind’s former machine shop, Jacob manufactured his mechanisms, and continued to attend to Mr. Liebeskind’s longstanding clients. And as the old man’s regimen had served him well thus far, he continued it on his own. He dressed in coveralls when working in the machine shop; when making deliveries, he dressed in his delivery suit; for dinner he dressed in his finest attire. On Friday nights after Sabbath prayers, he sat for a theater performance, sometimes two; on Saturdays he perused the wings of the museum. For many years he kept to these routines, and in doing so began to inhabit the character of his deceased mentor. More and more he resembled the fastidious bachelor whose work left him no time for holidays. And then, one Sabbath afternoon, a dozen years after he had watched Rachel and Leah slip away through the narrow opening of the Asylum’s doors, an event he had long ago stopped hoping for befell him. On a bench in the museum, a sketch pad on her lap, a nub of charcoal in her hand, Rachel sat, drawing, re-creating in her own style Tiepolo’s The Rest on the Flight into Egypt . There she was, the same little girl, now grown into the woman she had once pretended to be.
    Jacob watched for a long while, well aware as he observed her in what ways he had become a man she wouldn’t recognize, so precise and regimented, tailored and mannered, manicured, as upright as a soldier. For so long now, the boy she was familiar with had long since vacated his body. Even if he wanted to, he knew he wouldn’t be able to summon him back. He rounded the stone bench on which she sat and continued to stare at her. He regarded with wonderment the movement of her hand and the shape of her lines, the curve of her wrist, and as soon as he formed her name on his lips, tears welled in his eyes. He thought for a moment that he should walk on and hide his face, but she sensed his presence and turned to see him crying in the silent manner he sometimes cried as a child, and upon seeing him this way, she recognized him.
    Jacob? she said. Is it you? Is it really you?
    That she knew his face without a moment’s hesitation left him unable to speak.
    My dear, dear, Jacob, she said. It’s Rachel.
    Yes, I know, he said. Of course, I know. How could I not?
    And now, her eyes, too, filled with tears. They fell from the soft bulb of her chin and ran rivulets through the pitch, down the arm of the virgin mother, over the lines forming the newborn’s head. He sat beside her and took her hand, and for a long time they remained there, silent, expressing their awe with searching looks, looking at each other with immense curiosity, imagining in their recollection of each other how they must have appeared in the intervening years. After a long while, she expressed her regret for not having said goodbye to him the day they departed the orphanage. She said how often she’d thought of Jacob, described in what ways she continued to feel his absence as if he were a phantom limb. She told him she had returned to the Asylum after she and Leah had settled into their new lives. She had hoped to find him there, but he had already moved on, and, she thought, perhaps he was angry with her for