by Jenna Blum
“I don’t think I can let you go,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“Not by yourself,” Peter clarified. “I don’t want to alarm you, but the news was full of warnings earlier—lootings, possible assaults. It’s not safe for you to be out in the blackout by yourself.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“I insist.”
She turned fully, and Peter felt her breath, warm and brandy-scented, on his face. “You wouldn’t be trying to put the make on a girl, would you?”
“Certainly not,” said Peter. “Perhaps a little.”
She grinned.
“I’ll wait,” she said.
She stood demurely while Peter extinguished the candles and got his own overcoat and ring of keys—he could return early to deal with the mess on the bar. He took her furry arm, and they stepped out onto the sidewalk together. Peter realized with surprise that he could see her without artificial light: although every shop and storefront along Second Avenue was as dark as Masha’s, there was a full moon floating over the stricken city, a huge white thing like a prop from a Broadway musical.
Peter pulled the metal grate down over Masha’s and locked it. “Now then, how shall we get you home?”
“I’ll get a cab.”
“I don’t think so,” said Peter. The longer they stood outside, the stranger the night became: there were no cars on the street, no taxis or buses or bicycles or beggars, the only movement a band of pedestrians hurrying northward carrying candles, like pilgrims. The November air smelled of cold, subway soot, and—faintly, from Harlem—fires.
“I’ll walk you,” Peter offered.
The girl laughed. “Don’t be silly. I live all the way down in the Village.”
“Even so.”
“No way,” she said. “I can’t let you do that.”
“Let me escort you to the St. Regis, then. There will be taxis there.”
“All right,” she said. “Or how about the Plaza? I’ll get a horse and carriage!”
“Now you’re talking,” said Peter.
He offered her his arm again, but just then a taxi did come around the corner, a Checker cab with, like everything else in the city, its lights off. The girl jumped into the street nonetheless and windmilled her arms, a movement that caused her dress and coat to ride up and expose garters and a flash of panties that looked lavender. The cab screeched to a stop.
Peter held the door for her as she folded herself in. She grinned up at him. “Thank you again for everything.”
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“June. June Bouquet.”
“Aw, come on,” said the cabbie from the depths of the front seat.
“What?” said June Bouquet indignantly. “It’s true! It’s pronounced ‘Bucket’ where I come from.”
“It suits you,” said Peter. “June Bouquet. Lovely as spring.”
He tapped the roof of the cab, and it slid away. Peter stayed where he was, watching until it turned a corner. He was struck by a number of peculiarities: the stillness, the blackened buildings standing silent like the surviving walls of air raids; the lack of streetlights, color, people, and noise; the enormous full moon. June herself, a bouquet of contradictions. Charming and fey, brash and fearful, young and ambitious, a model who drank like a sailor. Could that possibly be her real name? Had she been fibbing to Peter; was it a professional sobriquet? It didn’t matter. The oddest thing of all about this night was that for the first time in a long time, much further back than he allowed himself to remember, Peter felt regretful about having let someone go.
2
Carnegie Hall
That Saturday night, after the city had been restored to its usual bustle and glitter, Peter had what he considered a command performance to join his cousin Sol and Sol’s wife, Ruth, at Carnegie Hall for a concert. Peter had explained to Sol time and time again that Saturday night was prime time at the restaurant, the busiest slot on the schedule, but Sol was not only a Gold Circle Patron of Carnegie Hall, he was Peter’s patron too, Masha’s sole investor and Peter’s partner. So Peter worked the first dinner seating, then went back to his office and emerged in what Lena called his penguin suit. “You are going to zoo?” she yelled over the sizzle of that night’s special, pan-fried flounder, as Peter tried to sneak out the back door. “What other costume you have in office? Clown outfit? Pilot uniform?” Peter raised a hand in acknowledgment of his staff’s catcalls and wolf whistles; they loved it whenever they caught him making the transition to the other side of what they called his double life.
Peter was only a little late; there was still quite a crowd milling about in front of the hall, smoking, ambling toward the doors, greeting each other with breath that steamed with smoke and the November chill. In Sol’s case, it was a Cuban cigar. “What took you so long?” he said as Peter climbed from his cab.
“Very few taxis,” said Peter. “Saturday-evening rush.”
“Euh,” said Sol, “you gotta be more aggressive,” and he stomped off to mash his cigar out in the gutter.
“Bubbie,” cried Sol’s wife, Ruth, “let me look at you!” She seized Peter’s hands in her tiny, surprisingly strong ones and held them out to either side, all the better to inspect Peter as if she hadn’t seen him in decades instead of the previous weekend.
“Sha,” she said, “handsome as ever. My Peter, the movie star,” and she beckoned Peter down for a kiss. Ruth was a lesson in mathematics: she’d been under five feet tall to begin with, and early osteoporosis subtracted perhaps an inch, but her hair, teased into a permanent maroon soufflé, added it back and then some. She gave Peter a hearty smack on the cheek, then licked her thumb to swipe at the mark she’d left. “I got you all schmutzed up,” she said. “Look who’s here with us: Art and Sylvia.”
“Hello, Arthur,” said Peter, who also saw Sol’s partner Arthur Rabinowitz—called Choppers, Peter assumed in reference to his very large and very white dentures—and his wife, Sylvia, at least twice a month.
“How ya doin’, kid!” boomed Choppers, putting out his liver-spotted hand to shake, which was a little like handling a large, flexible baseball mitt. Choppers had decided during Peter’s first year in America, when Peter lived with Sol and Ruth, that Peter was deaf rather than learning a new language—an impression the subsequent decades seemed not to have erased.
“How’s life in the apron?” shouted Choppers, and laughed heartily at his own joke. Choppers was the kind of man—as was Sol, and as Peter’s own father, Avram, had been—who thought being a cook was women’s work, though that didn’t prevent him from stopping by Masha’s with Sol for free food. “How’s business?” he bawled. “Stealing any recipes from that French broad?”
“Stop it, Art,” purred Sylvia, “you’ll embarrass him.” But Peter put on his best Julia Child falsetto and said, “You simply must use an awful lot of rum!” and they all laughed.
“I forgot you were funny,” said Sylvia to Peter. She was swathed in fur from head to calf, including a fox coat and a matching turban that retained the animal’s small, snarling face, just over Sylvia’s left ear. She withdrew a cigarette from a crocodile clutch, screwed it into a gold holder, and waited for Peter to light it. “Thank you, darling boy,” she said, shooting out smoke. “Where have you been hiding from Sylvia? In that bistro of yours, I suppose,” and she pursed pomegranate-colored lips and narrowed her eyes at him. “Very naughty. I think you need a spanking.”
“And look who else is here!” said Ruth brightly, inserting herself between Peter and Sylvia to usher forth a young lady in a cream-colored wool cape and matching pillbox hat. “Peter, this is Art and Sylvia’s niece, Rebecca Dannett.”
Another niece? thought Peter as he took Miss Rebecca’s gloved hand. Either the Rabinowitz siblings were extremely prolific, or they needed a more creative cover story. They presented Peter with a new niece, with Ruth’s enthusiastic collusion, every few months.
“Charmed,” said Peter.
“
How do you do,” said Miss Rebecca, or at least Peter assumed she did; her lips moved, at any rate. If she looked startlingly like the slain president’s young widow Jacqueline Kennedy in dress, feature, and coloring, her manner of speaking was much more Miss Monroe, a breathy murmur that Peter had to tilt forward to hear.
“Pardon?” he said, cupping his ear.
“I said, you look just like the actor Christopher Plummer,” whispered Miss Rebecca, darting a glance up at Peter from beneath spiky lashes. “I hope you don’t think it’s terribly forward of me to say.”
“Not at all,” said Peter, and indeed, ever since the musical film The Sound of Music had been released that fall, not a day had passed that he hadn’t heard the comparison. Perhaps that was the fellow in the movie June Bouquet had referred to during the blackout. The guy with all the kids and the whistle.
“He does, doesn’t he,” said Sylvia. She gripped Peter’s right arm; he could feel her nails through his overcoat. “Just a dead ringer. Maybe somebody should put him in a captain’s uniform.” She shivered dramatically.
“Maybe we should go in now.” Ruth let go of Peter’s other arm and nudged him toward Miss Rebecca, to whom Peter offered it. Miss Rebecca laid her kid-gloved hand lightly atop the crook of Peter’s elbow, and thus, Sylvia on one side of Peter and her purported niece on the other, the trio made their slow six-legged way toward the entrance, Sol, Ruth, and Choppers trailing in their wake.
“Excuse me?” Peter said to Miss Rebecca, who had murmured something else.
“I said,” she breathed as they entered the hall’s lobby, “have you seen it? The film? The Sound of Music?”
“Ah. No, I haven’t.” Everyone had told Peter he must. He supposed he should. He had no intention of doing so.
“You must,” whispered Miss Rebecca. “It’s positively magical. So inspiring.”
“So I’ve heard,” said Peter, helping her off with her cape as they queued for the coat check.
“They say it’s based on a true story,” murmured Miss Rebecca, and now she did turn her almond-shaped eyes fully on Peter. She put her hand on her bosom, which Peter had to admit looked impressive beneath a sweet pink evening gown—like mounds of sculpted strawberry pavlova. For some reason this made him think again of June Bouquet, although she’d had no cleavage to speak of.
Miss Rebecca tipped her dark head to unpin her hat and glanced at Peter sideways. “Escaping from the Nazis through the mountains—I can’t imagine such courage! But of course, you can.”
“You’re very kind,” said Peter, handing his and Miss Rebecca’s outerwear through the coat check window and pocketing the chit. He wished he could tug at his collar; it was very warm in the lobby, all the smoke and perfume and body heat. Damn Ruth! he thought, but without much vigor; Miss Rebecca might just as well have found out about Peter’s own time in Nazi Germany, the tragic loss of his wife, not from Ruth but from the profile in the New York Times. Then again, that was Ruth’s fault as well; she had relayed the story to a new friend at a fund-raiser who turned out to be the gossip columnist Liz Sutton, whose story piqued the interest of Mr. Craig Claiborne, the restaurant critic, who then visited Masha’s. “Me and my big mouth,” Ruth had said. “I didn’t mean anything by it! Who knew that nice girl worked for a newspaper?” Peter had been furious at the wholesale marketing of his past, but he supposed in a way he should thank Ruth. Mr. Claiborne’s profile had included a review and Peter’s recipes for brisket Wellington and tzimmes; the verdict had been favorable, and Masha’s hadn’t had an empty reservation book since.
The lights dimmed three times. “Let’s go, people, move along here,” said Sol impatiently, pushing through the other concertgoers schooling toward the hall like fish. Sol was pugilistic in every way, from his short boxer’s build to his manner; he was so like Peter’s dead father that they could have been brothers instead of cousins, which Peter found either irritating or comforting, depending on his mood. “Move it,” Sol repeated. As he passed Peter, he said, “I got a fund-raiser needs catering next month—Young Zionists.”
“Fine,” said Peter. He had long ago tired of explaining what catering events gratis did to the restaurant’s bottom line. Sol only told Peter to quit kvetching and cut food costs, and Peter paid no attention, and the arrangement, which suited no one, had become status quo.
“I’ll have my girl call you with the details,” said Sol as they followed the usher to their row.
“You two kids sit together,” said Ruth, “I insist.” She smiled at Peter and Miss Rebecca. Ruth was wearing one of her habitual caftans, this one floor-length silver lamé, with layers and layers of polished stone beads. Peter let Miss Rebecca slide in first and then stood between her and Ruth until all the ladies were seated. Their placement was excellent as usual, fifth row center. Looking idly about as the audience settled itself, all excited coughing and chatter, Peter saw a young blond woman in the front row, her hair cropped short, her white columnar dress exposing her long, pale neck and shoulders. Peter craned forward, although something told him June Bouquet would have been more likely to attend folk singer Bob Dylan in this hall than Sviatoslav Richter.
Miss Rebecca touched his sleeve and said something, and Peter sat with some reluctance. “Pardon?” he said.
“I said, have you seen Mr. Richter perform before? He’s an utter genius.”
“I have, in fact,” said Peter. “We had the privilege of seeing Mr. Richter make his American debut here in May.”
Miss Rebecca smiled at him. Really, she was very pretty; with her strawberry-fondant-colored gown and very white teeth, she was like a human petit four. “I’m so envious,” she whispered. “I wish I could have been here. I don’t hear half as much classical music as I’d like. It’s so hard to find cultured men who appreciate it as I do.”
Sylvia leaned past Ruth to tap Peter on the knee with her program. “I heard Richter’s hands span an octave and a half,” she said.
“Bet that comes in handy,” said Choppers and laughed uproariously. “’Specially with the ladies.”
“I heard he’s a feygele,” said Sol.
“Shhh,” said somebody else behind them, and someone else said “Really,” and then the lights dimmed and Miss Rebecca smiled at Peter, her teeth a glimmer in the dark, and the audience applauded wildly as the pianist walked out of the left wing and headed in a very businesslike fashion to his Steinway at the center of the stage.
* * *
As soon as Richter began to play, Peter knew something was wrong. At first he thought it was the pianist: although Peter knew Richter was Russian and that he too had suffered tremendous losses during the war, the very spare planes of Richter’s face—a skull-like appearance emphasized by the stage’s spotlight—reminded Peter of a certain SS sergeant named Stultz. . . . But Peter’s discomfort was caused by more than the maestro; it was the music picking and plucking and running along his nerves, the jangling discordancy, the chords like a piece of furniture falling down a staircase. It wasn’t the piece Peter dreaded above all others, the one he absolutely could not tolerate, but still—
“Is this Prokofiev?” he whispered to Miss Rebecca, tugging at his collar.
“Pardon?” she murmured.
“I thought tonight was Rachmaninov, not Prokofiev.”
“What?” said Miss Rebecca.
“Shhhh!” somebody said behind them. Peter raised a hand in apology and pointed to the program in Miss Rebecca’s lap. He was drenched in sweat; it felt as though ants were creeping all over him. Peter had been here with Sol and Ruth for Richter’s debut concert in May when the hall staff turned off the air conditioning to ensure the audience would hear every nuance of the pianist’s performance; that had been a sauna, but it hadn’t been half so bad as this.
Miss Rebecca handed Peter her program, which confirmed Richter was performing Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 2. Peter gripped his armrests. “Are you all right?” Miss Rebecca asked, her prettily manicured hand descending on Peter’s.
/> “Forgive me, I must get some air.” Peter stood and sidled in a half-crouch past the others in his row, trying to be mindful of knees and toes, hating his rudeness but desperate. Finally he reached the aisle and walked toward the exit door as quickly as he could without drawing more notice from the performance.
In the lobby he ripped loose his tie, unbuttoned his collar, and released a tremendous breath of relief. An usher hurried over. “Are you unwell, sir?” he asked.
Peter waved him off. “I will be fine, thank you.” He headed for the bar. He asked first for a glass of water, which he drank down without stopping, and then a double brandy, which he carried to the men’s lounge with him. The attendant flicked a glance at Peter’s highball glass but otherwise remained impassive.
Peter removed his tuxedo jacket, folded it, and laid it on the counter; as he had suspected, his shirt was transparent with perspiration, sticking to his skin in gray patches and clearly showing the undershirt beneath. Peter undid his cuffs, put the gold links—emblazoned with an M—in his pocket, and took off the top shirt. He blotted himself as dry as he could with several paper towels. His undershirt was still drenched, and he pulled it away from his torso, fanning himself with it. That would have to be enough; he would never remove it in public. Peter swallowed half his brandy and doused his face in cold water; arms braced on the countertop, he surveyed his pale, dripping reflection with dispassion. It was always a surprise for Peter to look in any mirror and see this strong-jawed, even-featured matinée idol fellow with his waves of golden hair—“My very own film star,” Masha had used to tease him, mussing it; “my pet Buster Crabbe, my Van Johnson!” It was a ridiculous disparity, a joke: if Peter’s insides had matched his outsides, he would have looked like a Picasso. Like Guernica. He was shaking out his tuxedo shirt to put it back on when he heard approaching voices and the tramp of feet and knew it must be intermission. Not wanting to risk encountering Sol or Choppers or any other mutual acquaintance who might hinder an easy departure, Peter carried his clothes and brandy into the far stall.
