Jo
Neace Krause
The
Smitten Rock Of A Man's Body
YOU HAD TO KNOW THEIR WHOLE STORY before you understood
the tears. You had to know where they lived. In that city. In one
of those old salted down outposts on the upper lake front region of
New York state, where the winds never stopped blowing and snows buried
the streets in ten foot piles for five months out of the year.
It was colder than Russia, with the old section of town full of tall
three story houses, all wood, never stone nor brick, just like in
Russia, with narrow dank little gardens in the back, empty and bare
like a fenced in feed lot.
Herschel Sushmon lived in such a house with a little denuded garden
attached, and sometimes actually thought he was still in Russia, outside
Moscow, in the little Jewish village of X where he had counseled everyone
and they had listened seriously, determined to bounce off the hard
luck that was always on the way and make it pay off somehow.
"The Jews are going to be robbed!", Hershel told them the
minute he heard Khrushchev had Stalin's embalmed body removed from
Lenin's tomb and buried in a concrete pit in the middle of God knows
where. "It's an omen! Things are going to be blamed on you, so
leave as soon as you feel a lull in the air."
He was so respected that nearly half the village packed up and followed
him straight to train station with the immigration papers they had
been saving. There Hershel had helped everyone. It was his nature.
But his own family here in New York would listen not a word to anything
he said. Here his family went straight to stinking hell and he was
the first to admit it.
So God help him, after all he had lived though, just to think the
only pleasure he got in life now was the January thaw:--- those few
warm foggy days when the winter broke and he could stand outside in
his coat buttoned up to his chin and listen to the icy snow breaking
down in little trickles out of the shrubs and flooding the streets
just like the cold swollen river back home, winding its dark way into
the Russian heartland. Only a light wind blew in this winter warmth,
down from the tall stately elms that grew like a forest in this part
of town. People he had forgotten, or had presumed dead during the
long short months appeared again, pale and expectant on the sidewalks,
walking among the frozen dog droppings or smoking cigarettes. Herschel
stared at them, but he never spoke to them now. He thought of their
dreadful leach brains and held himself back with the humble reluctance
of old people who have finally learned this world and know it is never
going to change..
When he was a few years younger however he would tell anyone who stopped
out front,"Yah, my name is Sushmon. Herschel Sushmon. We are
Jews. Russian Jews. I came here in l953 with close ties to people
who have since made it big for themselves. Made doctors out of themselves.
Judges.
Department store owners. I helped them all to rise. But my own family?
I suppose you know like everyone else on this gossiping earth about
my family? They are about like this."
Here he would measure a tiny space with his thumb and forefinger which
the person he was talking with would stare at with a pathetic silence.
"My own family, now----not a word would they listen. I have two
daughters. Louise and Inez.
First with the Louise. All she ever wanted was some man to lay her
down. Any goddam man would do, apparently. Because look at who she
chased, yah, all the time after this Irvine! This Irvine bum! Followed
him around for years bawling her eyes out. Why doesn't he love me!
I love him! I would do anything for him. I want to kill myself I am
so ugly! And so forth until you'd think, my god, is there nothing
on earth so evil as love. Every time I hear the word I want to run
and jump out the window now, I tell you. I want to run down to the
bridge and scream at the swift turning water, take me, take me away
from the mention of love this minute, O merciful deep!
"That's what love has done for me! Because of Louise mostly.
Louise was a pretty fair skinned woman with a little pointed chin.
Beautiful girl! She could have gone to Hollywood. Or to college. She
could have taken her pick. But all she could think about was plastic
surgery to make Irvine notice. Imagine such a thing! If only my nose
was shorter is all you heard out of that girl.
She would sit with the mirror and cover her nose with a piece of paper
and say, there, pretend that part is gone. What do you think?
Oh, to have your chances for happiness ruined by a little quarter
inch of bone, she'd weep. And give me dirty looks form dinner to bedtime,
wanting to cut off this part of her face just so some bum would stick
six inches of himself back into her! Oh, if only my nose were short,
she cried again,, and for the last time to me....for, I am sorry,
but I could not restrain myself a second longer. I snapped like a
green bean and let her have it, pow pow pow! Three quick slams right
in that nose causing all the worry. Like dynamite I was whirling my
arms around my head, and daring her to move. Oh, God above, you should
have heard the screaming and racket that caused. She got out of there
and I didn't see her again for two years.
But my heart worried itself so much it got weak. You can ask Inez
how I suffered. I live with Inez now for my own wife is gone, and
Inez's Simon is dead from a stroke. Inez is a lady. Keeps a good kosher
kitchen. No worrisome gentiles come near Inez.
Yet nothing but hell comes near Louise, and why should they when she
could do nothing but chase the Irvin bum until he married her, in
spite of that nose which was supposed to protect her! They had a honeymoon
and everything. But settled in the slums. In the projects. Louise
couldn't work she said because being hit in the nose had warped her
self esteem. She and Irvine fought round the clock. Even the blacks
in the building looked down on them and would hold their noses when
they passed.
It was the end of the world. As far down as you could get. But then
here they had a baby. A little girl. Named it Rebecca. Becky. In its
pictures it looked like Irvine shrunk down, so I was revolted and
said don't' bring it here to see me. But what can you do? Nothing.
I turned around and put all my hopes in Inez then. Like I said, she
keeps order. Simon her husband is dead. He was too old for her anyway.
All he wanted was a servant to hand him this and hand him that. A
hand maiden. That man was so old he remembered when you could go to
Columbia University by just paying your twenty dollars. Just walk
in the door and sit down and start listening. That's the way it should
be of course. But nothing ever came of this great opportunity. He
got a law degree, but couldn't get any clients. Don't ask me why.
So he went back to Columbia and became a pharmacist. But that went
to hell too. His partner swindled him out of everything. But Simon
was always working. I'll say that for Simon. Inez didn't see him for
more than eight days out of their entire marriage.
And he was always red in the face. I hate that red look in people.
He was a small red bald wrinkled creature. Reminded me of a newborn
mouse. Transparent. You could almost see his bloodstream coursing
in the capillaries and intestines and bowels. I told everyone, that
man has sugar in his blood and he won't listen, and all he will say
to you is I need a big chocolate ice cream sundae to give me some
energy. And a big malt to drink it down with. That's all I need !
They took his sugar and it was 8OO and still he wouldn't admit to
a problem. Of course he died. A very stubborn man.
The medics came for him in the middle of the night. I stood at the
top of the stairs and watched.
They had this strange thing to carry him out on. It was big and round,
like a huge metal saucer with two handles. Something a kid would slide
on in the snow. Well, they carried him out of the house and dumped
him in the wagon. Inez never said anything but draped the room in
black and sit for two weeks on her little hard mourning stool while
visitors came and went.
She has one daughter. Arlie. Beautiful little Arlie. Suddenly I put
all my faith in that little girl. She's my favorite. We stand by her.
I made all her coats. I was a tailor in Russia. I love to make little
coats. But Louise's kid? What the hell does Louise do for me? She's
a disgrace to the Jews. I tell her off every time she calls. I don't
want to see a woman like that in my house.
One day she's in on the phone to Inez and going on something terrible.
It's about Irvine, naturally. Something terrible had happened to the
bum. He was going blind.
He's
always been that way , I said, so what else is new? But it was true,
the bum had lost his vision completely. I still didn't go to them.
Then I heard he was adjusting to the punishment God had sent him for
some reason, for many reasons, I suspect. He was learning Braille
and the Blind Association had given him a dog. Always in line for
a handout, that's a bum to the end, I said.
But it was strange. This blindness put some courage into him. He liked
the attention, I believe.
He got a job smack in the middle of town, selling candy in the court
house lobby. There he turned on the charm I tell you and began to
amaze people with his voice recognition abilities, especially the
mayor , who was very impressed. 'Hello, mayor! How's it going!' he
would shout as if selling chewing gum and not being a bum was a wonderful
thing.
Oh, all the big shots spoke to him. He was quite the thing, and after
a time the mayor was talking about moving him upstairs to a job in
his own office.
But what
do you think happened then, after he got a little money? He tried
to ditch Louise and the kid! He ran off and got an apartment all to
himself. Yah, a nice apartment with wall to wall and everything. Louise
was furious. She made scenes all over the place. She blamed everyone
but Irvine, including the mayor, she blamed him, and attacked him,
right in public. Tore his shirt off his back and everything. The police
came and sprayed pepper in their eyes. Irvine too got a dose though
he was screaming, I'm blind, I'm blind. That's what they all scream
. The cops didnt' know, so they gave it to him again. Oh, there was
a big scandal. POLICE PEPPER SPRAY BLIND MAN. And wouldn't you know
the bum got a settlement. A big one too. Thousands of dollars.
But the next thing we know Irv takes his dog, has it crated up, and
disappears into nowhere.
Left town in a wink. No one knew where the son of a bitch was. And
if they knew Lousie was the last one they would tell. Oh, she was
in a bad way now, from the stories we got back. Couldn't sleep or
eat because the bum was gone.A black woman who lived in the slums
with her called me one day and said, "Ah, Misa Sush-mon? All
your daughter do is sit and shake." Well, let her shake until
she shakes the building down, that's what I told her.
I don't
know how she got on after that. Sometimes she would come and sit in
the kitchen with Inez and weep and go on. I would stay out of the
way, in the living room with my eyes glued on the television set,
giving my attention to something more sensible, like One Life To Live
or As The World Turns. She was a disgrace! Thrown over and dumped
by a blind bum! In Russia she would have been turned out, exiled to
some government work camp and worked without mercy like some serf
on a big estate.
Well, a whole year went by and the next thing we knew guess what?
She had located Irvine. Chased him down and followed him all the way
to St. Louis , Missouri where he was discovered selling candy and
cigarettes in the Post Office. She had the little girl with her, who
flew screaming to him crying, O,daddy, we have found you! You are
not lost anymore! Don't worry , daddy!"
It was
all very tearful and joyful. Irv came back to New York with them.
Three days later Louise found him molesting the child.
That's when I gave her the beating of her life. I'm not ashamed of
it. I beat her until they had to pull me off her. But what did she
want even before my poor arm had stopped jerking and aching? Money
to get the blind pervert out of jail! Oh, those filthy prisoners will....she
wept, and there was such an anguish in her voice she might have well
been talking about herself going to jail. O, all he needs in counseling
, she wept. A little counseling and Irv would regain moral perfection
Counseling was the plastic surgery of the soul to her. Oh, he would
be cured and everything would be fine. Well, I did get him out of
jail. I had a little money. I couldn't bear the thought of a Jew in
jail, even a cannibal like Irv.
He split as soon as he saw the street thought, just like I knew he
would, and, oh, the grief tore Louise apart. She developed a nervous
jerk in her arm, and you could almost hear her heart moaning through
her clothes. I stared at her. She confounded me with this stubborn
dimness for a man. It was repulsive! Where did this hunger come from?
As if a man's body were a rock to be smitten like Moses did in the
desert. But a man wasn't like water. Like if you didn't get it you
died! I couldn't understand her. She was repulsive!
That's
the way Herschel Sushmon talked some few years ago. These days he
is like a fire all burnt out, a quiet little heap of ashes and coals,
taking the fresh air out front in January , in the melting snow and
smoking a cigarette now and then. He waits for Arlene. Arlie.. To
come crashing around the corner in her unbuttoned raincoat, the red
silk scarf flying around her neck, the one she washes out in the sink
at night and dries with her hair blower. Dashing up and giving him
a fierce hug of pure affection. What a smile that girl has! What beautiful
teeth! He has the greatest expectations for her future. She's going
to be something, Inez' girl is. This thought is the one comfort which
keeps him from shriveling up in bitterness, from hanging to life like
a dry twig over the grates of a storm drain..
If Arlie
is unhappy, the world should be blamed, that's all. But Arlie is not
unhappy. And everyone adores her, his pretty Arlie. Good that she
knows how to put a distance between herself and the outside. She stays
very close to her mother. He can thank God for that closeness.
All the time a little stream of their chatter runs on around him,
like a merry little fire of warmth sparkling through the old huge
rooms, and allows him to drift in pleasant peace.
Arlene
takes every problem to Inez, every little thought and pain that comes
into her head gets washed away through her mother. Oh, the things
they talk about! Clothes, shoes, depression, split personalities,
amnesia. That's the stuff that interests them. Their voices are like
whispers, incantations, distant public prayers. Herschel closes his
eyes and drifts. Out of the laughter a picnic on the bank of the
river. Russia l95l. A boatload of young men and girls discover the
body in the water. In the dim light the face was barely visible, and
ghastly. It was decided to leave it alone. The police would come riding
in and make a big game of frightening everyone. But no one could behave
as before. No one was touching the food. Everyone was subdued. They
said they could smell the body.
Others said they knew who the body was. And that they knew who had
probably done it. Still others wanted to call the authorities just
to settle the argument. The women suddenly began to shout at the men
and cry in terror.
Herschel opened his eyes. He could hear Arlene's voice. Something
was wrong, her voice was not the same. Now edgy and complaining her
voice. No , she was only teasing, laughing the way people joke themselves
through a crisis.
Nevertheless Herschel felt himself bathed in sweat all in a minute.
"It's this house!" the girl said exactly. "If we could
fix it up a little I might be able to bring in some real classy guy."
"Oh, Ar.....leeen," Inez whined in a flat secretive exasperation.
"Don't start that again. You know we don't have any money. It's
your father's fault too. I tried to make him get insurance, but he
hated the companies. They're all crooks, those insurance companies.
That's all he would say. So now look at us already. But, honey, one
of these days you're going to meet some real nice Jewish boy who will
love you in spite of your poverty." And to Herschel the words
had power. They seem to stand up on the edge of the world, like a
war horse reined in by Inez, dressed in war gear, looking out over
the ancient eroded hills of Palestine, waiting for something full
of harmony, good looks, and money, to appear.
"Oh, like hell," Arlie replied with a laugh. "Those
good Jewish boys are the first ones to pick up
their heels and fly at the sight of this diseased looking place. It
looks like a half way house for lepers."
But she was in good humor. She did not fret or collapse in angry abuse
against their condition like Louise. Arlie was bright, she was living
out her turmoil among them with love. She laughed and wore away the
gloom that befell him day after day.
Then a change came. Towards Arlie's junior year in high school things
went bad. It was quite sudden and therefore a shock. The girl wore
retainers on her teeth at night. One morning in the bright sunlight
of the bathroom she noticed a faint indentation on the front teeth.
A line, like a hair. You couldn't even see it unless she stood in
the brightest light, but Arlie knew about the line. She couldn't get
her mind off it.
She threw
herself across the bed and began to scream in a fit. She wanted to
die. It was all over for her if she had to go around with a dirty
string across her teeth. Inez called the dentist. He thought he was
being set up. Someone was trying to sue him. He was bossy and defiant.
He said lines came from bad hygiene, bacteria had grown around the
wires and eaten into the enamel. It wasn't his fault. He couldn't
come and brush her teeth for her. For days she carried on. A new dentist
ground the line away. It was nothing. The teeth were polished until
they shown. Nothing could have been more beautiful than the smile
on Arlie's face once more. But unfortunately the teeth scare had a
strange effect on the girl. It lead to another morbid irrational worry
about imperfections that might be lurking to destroy her good looks.
Knowingly she felt the presence of fat. Fat pressed upon her in waddles
she believed, on her thighs and hips and made everyone hate her at
school. When she stood in front of the bathroom mirror she could pull
out small wads of tissue from her bony ribs and that made her think
about liposuction. Just a small gash made here, in the subcutaneous,
a tube stuck in , a vacuum turned on, like a little vacuum cleaner
cleaning out all the grease and guck. Then you were sewed back up.
She would never eat again. For days she starved herself. She took
mouthfuls of diet pills, pouring them out on the bed and counting
them as if in a trance. She kept her door locked now. No one could
come in there.
Fat as she believed herself to be, she was no good for any man. No
one except maybe that Rocco Zangafuco who had started following her
home on his loud motorcycle. Rocco was not made uneasy by her nervous
dislike of herself. He was very much attracted to it in fact. He relished
such a submissive notion and told her what she needed was some real
fun for a change.
Rocco walked and dressed with a lot of flash and kept saying how he
didn't take shit. If she knew how to keep her mouth shut they could
have some real good times together. He knew what good stuff was. He
knew what rich people pushed up their nose when they fucked.
Inez didn't want him around. But he followed Arlie and came right
in the house without knocking. Bareheaded he looked like a cat rolled
from an oil sick. He stared at old Herschel, bony and slow under his
shabby coat and gave him some free cigarettes. Inez wept in the kitchen,
her head in her hands.
Rocco
looked around to see what he might find functional. Out in the garage
he saw the old station wagon Simon had left at his death but which
no one drove. He wanted to borrow it. When Inez refused, he said in
a threatening tone, "Where's the keys?"
Herschel went out into the street and stood in the snow. He wanted
to be an Arab. The Arabs knew that women should be segregated from
all that was sensible in this world. The ones who dreamed about being
with a man for love were stoned on the spot. Why the Jews were fighting
with these social geniuses was a mistake beyond studying.
He was
ashamed to go to the temple and tell the rabbi that a hoodlum had
taken over his house and was threatening his family because his grand
daughter wanted love so much. Why did she want it so desperately,
so fiercely! Just like Louise! Never had his own wife or Inez acted
like this. There was no dangerous under-surface to them, no aggressive
desires or perverse appetites to be satisfied. They were calm women
who shopped, cleaned each Thursday, bought meat at the Jewish butcher,
went to temple. Like little waves that went on and on, never striking
the shore.
So the rabbi listened. He knew a judge. The judge knew people. The
police saw Rocco in the street one day and asked him with a casual
nod to come over to the cruiser. Rocco was seen leaning back on the
cruiser, scratching his back against the door handle, his eyes rolled
towards the cop who quietly warned him as one of his own people, that
his name was being punched in and brought up on the big board. They
told him straight, "You got no friends in this part of town,
Roco. Maybe in no part of town, eh?"
When
Rocco disappeared, Inez looked tenderly and gratefully at her father.
"Just let's not let Louise get a hold of this," was her
only request. Herschel pretended to sleep in his chair, but he waved
his hand in her direction, in compliance without opening his eyes.
He was very still. Almost too silent. He felt naked and ashamed again
in front of his friends.. He called his grand daughter to his side,
his eyes glimmering with dark tears creeping up to the rims and casting
their soft bodies down his cheek. The girl came and watched with acute
tenderness but underneath she was breathing, o why does he have to
cry! Why do I have to suffer like this?
"Little Arlie, I beg you. Don't disgrace the Jewish people like
some of your blood has done. Make something out of yourself. Stay
away from mirrors and men until the right Jewish boy comes along.
Forget all this love business that is making people in America crazy."
"Why shouldn't I look in the mirror? Is something wrong with
my face?" He saw the panic in her eyes and knew life was hopeless.
He was ready to die and all he had of life was misery. He wanted to
lie down and never get up again. He lay from morning to night like
that. Only slowly in his sickness one morning did he become aware
of the two women's whispering again. They were whispering together
like they did months ago when the hoodlum first came around. Now he
made out a few words that seem to strike with a sudden piercing comprehension
upon his mind."Kill it?
Oh, Ar----leen! You can't just kill it! It's too late! Some good Jewish
home. You'll make some good Jewish couple happier than all the world.
It doesn't matter as long as it goes to some good Jewish couple. We
are all one. We are all one and the same."
He wanted
to die but he did not know how. He simply willed it and lay on. The
days began to pass around his head like flakes falling from dying
flowers. The January thaw came and went and Herschel did not go out.
Winter dragged on like a great claw over the heart. Snow was up to
the
top of the windows. It would never melt. The spring would never come.
They would never again hear the animals in the zoo just three streets
over, roaring and screaming at feeding time.
When Arlie came back from the hospital she looked gutted. So skinny
she could hardly lift a fork to eat. She never went out of the house
either. She lay upstairs. Sometimes she went to the bathroom. Herschel
could hear her crying in the dark at night and he cried with her,
silently.
No one spoke again of the baby. Now she was going to Sarasota, to
a good Jewish charity clinic to be treated for her depression. The
adoption agency was paying the bill
PART II
SARASOTA, FLORIDA
The fine
white gleaming mansion of stone and glass sat with a lifted, gripped
balance upon the picturesque rocky bluff, as if a swift wave might
have surged with it out of the sea below and placed it there . Sails
of boats and large flopping birds passed before it against the sound
of softly thudding waves and the blue eternity of the sunny sky.
The first time Dr. David Ritter and his wife Mary Jane saw it they
stood shading their eyes and not saying a word, completely spellbound.
"But we can't afford something like this," Mary Jane said,
hoping with her protecting tone to show she did not require luxuries
of this sort to top off her happiness. But in truth she was still
afraid of her husband's money and wanted to reject it. For his money
was like his body, all self aggression and triumph, and not really
something that would ever be completely for her alone.
"I can damn well afford it, and it's as good as bought,."
her husband answered, staring down at the bay where the soft waves
were tossing in like a herd of sheep against the steep seawall. "Come
on. The swimming pool is in the back. Under those big sweeping palms."
They had no children then, not at that time. Now they had four: three
girls and a son, and were legally separated, and the house and property
were up for sale. Everything was being divided in a divorce settlement.
Mary Jane had come to hate the place and all the bad memories it held
for her. She spent her days on the phone talking with her friends
about Dave and what he had put her through.
Mary Jane once worked as a nurse in the hospital where Dave was a
surgeon on the staff. She still was friendly with certain nurses who
kept an eye on Dave's activities and reported back to her with a sort
of shared crushed resentment against the handsome doctor who did what
he pleased , but who nevertheless knew how to tease and charm them.
So when he began to pay a lot of attention to a certain young graduate
nurse on the floor, Mary Jane knew all about it in a flash. The girl
was from upstate New York. Maybe twenty-seven years old. With something
strange about her. Something sad about the eyes. Just a little. Very
cute. No skinny. Real skinny. Little girl skinny. Boyish almost. Quick
quiet movements of a boy. No, not blond. Velvety brown. No, not real
tall. Sort of medium. Good teeth. Maybe wore retainers, but didn't
matter. No , didn't go to college. Not the type. Didn't have the look.
An ordinary young woman , dreamy. Good as dead.
But Dave had not met her in the hospital. He had first seen her in
a local nightclub of smart young people, where he found himself watching
her, a practiced , skilled dancer doing all the rowdy sexy dances,
as if carried away in the rich thrashing darkness of the floor. Where
had she learned all that? It seemed so essential to her too, as he
watched, as if it would be fatal to her should the sound suddenly
go off. Should she have to slide away in the silence, the spell broken,
a colorless dead shadow. He was jolted awake suddenly, more intent
than ever by the way the girl was enjoying herself. The way she walked
into the music and let it take her like a leaf in a whirlwind, with
her head turning and her silky short skirt flying. He was very taken
with her slim readiness in this rather unreal posh underground with
its suggestive atmosphere where you might see anything. Think anything.
But the girl looked so real. So real and lively.
"Boy, Arleeen, are you getting looked at," one of her friends
whispered. "You know who that is? It's Dr. Dave Ritter. He and
his wife have just split like two atoms in a nutron bomb."
The doctor
was forty-five now. He had been married to one woman for eighteen
years and he was looking around in his freedom, eager to soak up from
life the very best of what he deserved after accumulating all the
wealth and power his medical practice had allowed him. Ritter did
hip and joint replacements. That was his specialty that made him sought
after. But in his middle years he had become very conscious of physical
ugliness, to the point where he actually dreamed of his patients as
hordes of giant crustaceans who came towards him in their crippled
strength, their faces formed out of the agony and torture of being
alive and walking , creeping along the corridors of his hospital looking
for him.
He decided that outside the hospital he must surround himself with
only beauty, with only good looking, swift moving bodies ,if he were
not to cheat himself in this life. It became a sort of grinding, secret
alertness in him, he must look for and have the very best in physical
beauty. His ideal body approached a kind of high technology.
He stared on at the girl. He placed her now, from the gang of other
girls she was with, nurses from the hospital. Out on the town. She
was training in dialysis and listened so intently when he he came
in to visit a patient. She had asked his opinion on a procedure last
week. He remembered how she had stepped back out of his way and held
her hands crossed in front of her, watching him, then without the
slightest hesitation, had repeated perfectly what he had showed her.
His eyes caught the little smooth violent twists of her body among
the other dancers, the ruffled clean boyish cut hair, the thin elongated
neck and youthful skinny legs. His excitement grew. She just might
well be the one he wanted.
The day they moved in together the doctor had a nude painting of her
hung in the bedroom. Then he said, "No, let's take it down until
we can have that little teaspoon of waterlogged tissue on that left
eye removed, o.k.? I know a good eye-man who'll take care of it for
nothing."
Inez sat holding the phone to her ear for hours on end listening to
Arlie tell her about the handsome doctor who loved her absolutely
the way she should be loved.. "Ah, maw, what can you know? You
were married to dad. He was so old! And grandfather. That sweet old
shoe of a man. Did either of them ever so much as kiss a woman? Did
they even know what that was? What a woman was?"
Ritter
paid for the phone calls. He had a special line for Arlie that she
could use free of charge. Oh, he was so wonderful to her. Really he
could not have been better. But was he Jewish, that was the question
that plagued Inez and Herschel. A question that sent Arlie into a
gay little trickle of laugher, ringing with happiness. Her voice was
rapturous and transformed. "He won't tell!" she announced
with admiration. "He said it's nobody's business what his religion
is. Let'em guess."
Won't tell! But such things couldn't be kept secret ,not from family,
they just couldn't! What was his mother's name? And where was his
mother, anyway? If Arlie had a photograph Inez could tell her what
to look for. Perhaps she and Herschel should come down and have a
look for themselves, just to see if the doctor were as wonderful as
Arlie said.
So indeed they did go. The two of them flew down. Ritter paid for
the tickets, which was pleasant, for they both loved adventure. They
loved going into the great plane, just like walking into someone's
living room and having the doors locked from the outside , then the
powerful engines jumping alive and whirling away into the sky with
you, where two hours later another person ran forward and unlocked
the doors in another city. It was really wonderful how advanced the
world was in some ways.
They remained an entire two weeks. Inez was subtle. She never stared
directly at the doctor, but she became aware of his stares on her.
Of his disconcerting questions. He seemed concerned about her spine.
Did anyone else in the family have a hump like that on their back,
he wanted to know. Like the one on Inez's back? Humps were caused
from inbreeding he told her bluntly. But otherwise he was wonderful,
really wonderful.
"Oh, you should have seen the way he was looking at Arlie,"
Ineze cried like a school girl when Louise and Becky visited once
they were back home. "He couldn't keep his eyes off her for a
second."
"I know the feeling," Lousie said softly. Then she announced
that Becky had just been accepted into Harvard law school, but Herschel
broke out in a cough and and spit loudly into his handkerchief. "Fine,"
he said,"You'll need a law degree to keep your father where he
belongs."
Inez showed them her favorite picture of Arlie and the doctor sitting
together in an expensive restaurant. Arlie was smiling her gorgeous
smile , the doctor was looking very dark and handsome and useful.
"He could be Jewish," Louise said with subtle punishment.
'Of couse ,he's Jewish," her sister answered in defense.
"My father was Jewish ," Becky said.
"A Jewish disgrace," Herschel snapped ,folding his handkerchief
into little squares.
"But, oh, you should see their apartment. All the books and oil
paintings and music. Classical music. Of course he's Jewish. And his
former wife never liked to go out and have fun like Arlie does. Arlie
is really more suited to him than his wife ever was. But," Inez
now beckoned her sister into the kitchen. She lowered her voice and
gave her some information she didn't want their father to hear. "Arlie
says if anything ever goes wrong with this relationship, she'll go
crazy. She won't be able to bear it. And I believe her."
"I know the feeling," Louise said tenderly just as they
heard Herschel fall into another nagging fit of coughing.
"What are you doing to that handkerchief?" Becky asked.
Herschel looked up at her watching eyes. What right did someone who
looked like Irv the bum have to question him in his own house? It
made him feel like crying and jumping over the border of death, except
he knew how they would wander about discussing him with hairdressers
and such people.
"It's the mist of the festival down in New Orleans now. Arlie
has gone there with her doctor who's so crazy about her," he
told them, and continued to fold the handkerchief on his knee in tiny
little squares. Then he shook it out and started folding it again.
The girl stared at him. He looked like a dog at a tea party.
Inez
sat with her ear to the phone, an almost permanent posture for her
these day. She had a little table in the hallway next to the kitchen.
Her back hurt her. She was stooping more, but she didn't let Arlie
know. The girl was pouring out her own problems in a steady heated
steam. "Oh, those people in the hospital! They watch every little
move Dave and I make. Mary Jane's friends. Nothing but spies in every
direction. They stick listening devises in the patients. No. No. Mary
Jane's not Jewish. I don't know what she is. Lapplander I'd say. But
Dave wants me out of that place. Away from all the gossip."
Inez listened with darkening eyes. "But, Ar----leeen, you can't
just give up your work. Arleeen, not after all the studying and everything
you've done! " she protested. "If he was asking to marry
you...don't you think it's time you started your own family? Doesn't
he want you to have your own children? Or anything of your own?"
"Oh, he'll get me another job. A better one. He says he will.
Or get me on disability>"
"On disability! Why, Arlie, you're not sick or anything! That's
not honest."
"Dave can fix it up. He can put anything on the papers he wants."
the girl answered confidently. "Ah, maw, please don't get mad.
You don't know how much I love him. You can't know! Look what dad
looked like! You can't know how great it feels. I know Dave can't
think of marriage now. He's just got his divorce. It's not fair to
nag him to get married again this soon. He just wants me out of that
hospital so we can breath again."
"He
wanted me out of the hospital too so he could breath," Mary Jane
told her friends when she heard the news. "Oh, he had a list
of women, I tell you. I found that list. Names of various women with
their characteristics noted next to them like horrible symptoms ,
like strange diseases that challenged his mind. Deposition of fat
on upper forearms. Janet girl. No breasts. Like little rabbit tits.
Too short in the waist. Neck not slender enough. Nose too round. Ears
like elves' ears. I never could stand a woman with dark nail polish.
A criminal mind exposing itself.
"And he was frantic about fat!" Mary Jane confessed, weeping.
"If a woman gained an ounce he wanted to kill her. I couldn't
stand being weighted in every night. Those goddam scales pulled out
and that little notebook ready to record my sins. All the hell he
put me through. He wouldn't let me eat. My fingernails fell off!"
One morning
the doctor seemed reluctant to leave Arlie after they had made love.
The sun flooded brightly over the bedroom out of the dazzling mirrors
in which they could see themselves, their slim tan bodies pressed
together in a strange new suspense that had come from nowhere. How
powerful she was this morning, how her clinging tension seemed to
bend and hold him until she actually felt she owned him. She would
never loosen her hold now. His attention to her must never be divided
with another. "Promise me! Promise me!" she demanded in
a madding whisper, clutching his hair.
"Ah, yes, I promise," he said. "Promise. Promise. Promise."
Kissing her at the door still. Offering his lips puckered up and acting
silly. She in her sea foam dressing gown, almost angelic. Later, still
in her breezy euphoria she decided to do something she had never done
before.
She called Mary Jane. She wanted Mary Jane to feel her great mood.
Mary Jane had often called the apartment in the past. In regards to
the children. When a dental payment was due or roller blade lessons
had to be signed by both parents. She and Arlie had chatted but had
not become really friendly.
"I'm sorry to intrude, just now," Arlie explained . She
was calling about Winifred, Dave's youngest daughter. If Winifred
wanted to come over this weekend she was certainly welcome. Just pack
her hiking boots and even her bike if she wanted.
The conversation had struggled, and after a few minutes had ended
in a puzzled refusal to Arlie's invitation. Then the phone rang again.
It was Mary Jane calling back. She seemed oddly breathless and embarrassed.
She spoke slowly and soberly.
"Arlie, you don't seem to know. You don't seem to know about
Dave."
"Know about Dave? What's there to know.?" Then Arlie heard
the slow attack of the words falling out of the darkness. Getting
Married. "He's getting married."
"Getting married?"
"Oh, honey , I thought you knew."
"When is he getting married? What are you saying?"
"Tomorrow," came the answer.'He's getting married tomorrow."
"That can't be true. Why, he's living here with me. We have this
apartment together. He just left me, walked out the door to the hospital.
He can't be marrying someone if he just got up out of our bed. Who
is he marrying? What can you be saying to me?"
"Oh, honey! That bastard. He should be shot."
When the
phone rang at two o'clock in the morning, Inez came awake from a dream
in which a frightened kitten was sinking its claws into her arms.
She couldn't get it off her. The phone was ringing like a wild animal
screeching with terror. It made her knock her glasses to the floor
in a fumbling half sleep. Her heart began to pound. Something terrible
had happened. She found the light switch. The room sprang up before
her eyes, the old faded tattered wallpaper and crumbling ceiling.
But the ringing stopped abruptly before she could get to it.
Arlie , Arlie, she whispered to herself in foreboding.
"It
is nothing, believe me!" Herschel shouted in the dark from his
adjacent room. He rose up on his elbow. He had not been sleeping.
"It's just an omen. Some big shot has got it. All the phones
acted this way all over Russia when some big shot got it. Don't give
it another thought. They deserved it. Turn out your light."
Inez did
not answer him. She looked at the clock for she had her glasses on
now. It couldn't be Arlie. Arlie never called this time of night.
In this darkness. No one could have hurt her. She was very careful.
She even had a gun, a little pistol she kept for protection. Dr. Ritter----Dave,
had helped her get the permit, so it was all very legal. She was safe.
Nevertheless
a bad feeling lingered in the strange disturbed air. What could it
be? Maybe she had found out something bad about Dave. Maybe he wasn't
even half Jewish. "Go
back to sleep," Herschel called out again. He knew what she was
thinking. "No
one is trying to reach us with bad news."
Inez looked
at the old phone, silent and black and ominous in its cradle. "Don't
you ring," she said to it. Don't you dare ring again in this
good house!"
But just
as her fingers snapped the light switch and the room flashed from
sight, the ringing leapt again into the darkness.
Copyright
© 2001 Jo Neace Krause
All Rights Reserved