The Lost Family

by Jenna Blum

  “Thank you, Maria,” said Ruth. “Are you sure the bird’s cooked enough? I don’t want we should all get worms.”

  “Why don’t I look,” Peter offered, but then Sol came in with a fresh Scotch.

  “Siddown,” he commanded. “In my house men don’t work in the kitchen. That’s what the girl is for. Maria!”

  “Yes, Mr. Sol?”

  “Bring the bird and my carving knife.”

  “Yes, Mr. Sol.”

  Peter nudged his foot against June’s under the table. He raised his eyebrows—All right?—and she smiled. They sipped their wine as Maria ferried in the side dishes: string beans and squash; sweet potatoes with pineapple and—abomination!—marshmallows; the cranberry mold and stuffing. The turkey came last, a leathery brown giant on a silver tray. “Twenty-seven pounds,” said Ruth proudly, “from the kosher butcher in Mamaroneck!” They all applauded except Maria, who got to her knees to plug Sol’s electric knife into a socket.

  Peter made one last attempt. “Are you sure you don’t want me to carve? I do it twenty times a day—”

  “I said I’ve got it,” said Sol.

  He took the knife to the turkey and switched it on. The blade whirred, then shuddered as it cut through the skin into the breast. Little shreds of turkey flew everywhere. Peter couldn’t watch. He couldn’t look at June, either, who was kicking him; he knew they would both burst out laughing. There was a squeal as the knife hit the bone.

  “Goddamned thing,” Sol said.

  Finally the butchering was done and Sol sat back, breathing hard. “Isn’t that lovely,” said Ruth.

  “Everybody eat,” said Sol.

  The plates went around the table clockwise: turkey first, then the sides. The table brightened and darkened as the sun winked in and out, clouds moving in on the previously sunny sky. June took a full portion of each dish, though Peter knew she would only rearrange it artfully on her plate to make it look as though she’d eaten.

  “This looks delicious, Mr. and Mrs. Rashkin,” she said. “Thanks for inviting me.”

  “Please, it’s Ruth and Sol,” said Ruth. “Do you know, you’re the first girl this one has brought home in twenty years? It must be bashert.”

  June smiled at Peter. “Is that good?”

  “It means ‘meant to be,’” Peter explained.

  “And of course he brings a shiksa,” said Sol around a mouthful of squash. “Just like the last one. His wife.”

  “My former wife,” Peter emphasized quickly to June, who nodded—by this time she knew about Masha.

  Ruth grasped Peter’s hand in her small, chilly, corded one. “Well, I for one am thrilled,” she announced. “Peter is a son to me, the only one I ever had.” She gave his hand a resounding kiss and set it back on the tablecloth. “And now, he’s yours,” she said to June. “Such a beauty, shayne punim. And so tall! You should be a model.”

  June smiled. “Actually, I am a model.”

  “I told you that, Ruth,” said Peter.

  “Did you?” said Ruth. “Maybe you did. Maybe you didn’t. My blood pressure medication—I get forgetful.”

  Sol stabbed through the turkey on the platter. “Where’s the tuches?” he demanded. “You know I always like the tuches.”

  “How should I know?” Ruth raised her hands. “You’re the one who cut it.”

  “Euh,” said Sol and contented himself with a drumstick. “What kind of outfit you work for?” he said to June, chewing. “Catalogs, department stores?”

  June crinkled her nose at Peter, who knew she was trying not to laugh.

  “Because if you wanna get into stores,” said Sol, “I know a guy. He owns Bamberger’s—you familiar with Bamberger’s?”

  Peter dropped his forehead into his hand in mock anguish. “Sol,” he said, “June works for Ford. The Ford Agency.”

  “You model cars?” said Ruth.

  Peter pantomimed banging his head on the table.

  “Sometimes,” said June. “Among other products. I mostly do runway and covers.”

  “Oh,” said Ruth. “Well, what do you know about that?” She lifted her hands and smiled around as if she’d arranged the whole thing. “Who wants seconds?”

  The food carousel resumed, counterclockwise this time. Peter took more turkey, though his first portion had been stringy and dry. Sol took more yams and Scotch.

  “Where are your people from?” he said to June. “You’re not from around here.”

  “No,” said June. “Minnesota.”

  Sol grunted. “Good trout there.”

  “Where in Minnesota?” Ruth asked hopefully. “Minneapolis?”

  “A little farm town, near the border of Iowa,” said June. “New Heidelberg?”

  “Never heard of it,” said Ruth.

  “I’m not surprised,” said June, “not many people have,” and she cut a polite sliver of quivering cranberry mold.

  “Not many Jews there, I’m guessing,” said Ruth.

  “Not many,” agreed June cheerfully. “In fact I never met a person of the Jewish persuasion until I came to New York.”

  “Is that so,” said Ruth. She fanned herself with her napkin.

  “In New Heidelberg,” said June, “you’re one of two stripes: Catholic or Lutheran.”

  “And which . . . stripe are you?” Ruth asked faintly.

  “Lutheran,” said June.

  “And your people are . . .”

  June waited, bewildered, until Sol said, “What she means is, are they Krauts.”

  “Oh,” said June. “No, we’re Norwegian, not German, don’t worry.” She looked to Peter in confusion, mouthing, No offense. Peter smiled tiredly. It was complicated.

  “Well,” said Ruth. She seemed to be gathering herself to offer a third round of food when Sol said, “Norwegian, German, doesn’t matter—they’re all anti-Semites.”

  Everyone looked at him. “Who?” said Ruth.

  “Lutherans,” said Sol. He swiveled to pour himself another drink from the sideboard. “Their whole religion is founded on driving Jews into the sea. Martin Luther was the king anti-Semite of them all.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Peter, as June said, “I never heard—”

  “Of course you haven’t,” said Sol. “They’re not going to teach that at your church in the sticks, are they? But it’s true. Luther made Hitler look like a piker.”

  Peter bristled. “I think that is hardly apt—”

  Sol smashed his highball glass onto the table. “Are you calling me a liar in my own house?” he thundered.

  There was a silence, broken only by the clink of an ice cube moving in Sol’s tumbler.

  Peter stood. June appeared to be studying her barely touched plate. When she finally glanced up, he sent her a reassuring smile.

  “I’ve had enough,” he said. “Who would like some coffee?”

  * * *

  After coffee—dessert, it was decided, would be reserved for later, when everyone had had time to digest—the men adjourned to discuss business and Ruth whisked June off on a house-and-grounds tour. Peter barely had time to embrace June, to whisper “How are you holding up?” and she to reply “Fine” before Ruth took her away. Peter wondered whether Ruth would show June her prize: the secret garden tucked amid the reeds of the marsh, where, Ruth swore, the mucky, sulfuric soil contributed to the gargantuan size of her vegetables. The dampness, she said, or maybe all the crushed shells. Revealing the garden would be Ruth’s ultimate sign of trust and approval, and Peter made a mental note to ask June on the way back to the city if she’d seen it—without disclosing its importance, of course, if she hadn’t.

  Meanwhile, Sol and Peter sequestered themselves in Sol’s study, where Sol went over the monthly figures Peter had imported in the Masha’s shopping bag and Peter placed a call to the restaurant to ensure everything was fine. It was: only one small fire, easily extinguished, and the prep chef had cut himself, but not into the Brussels sprouts nor badly enough to warrant a ho
spital run. “He barely need stitches,” said Lena, “I sew up myself.” Otherwise, they had done eighty covers and were on track for twenty more, if the reservations were fulfilled. Obviously, not everyone in Manhattan wanted a home-cooked family meal for Thanksgiving, Peter thought. He was thankful for that.

  He told Lena he would be in early the next morning and hung up, wandering around the study to inspect Sol’s latest acquisitions. The little room, whose picture window overlooked the motor court, oaks, and the Sound, contained a leather couch and hassock, a fine library of first-edition books Peter doubted Sol had ever read, and Sol’s newest art purchases, which would be lived with for a while and carefully considered before they were hung. Aside from a small Miro and an Egon Schiele—a colored pencil rendering of a woman’s torso, her face blotted out—Sol seemed to be branching out into photography. They were black-and-white portraits of street people, mostly, taken by—Peter peered at the signatures—Diane Arbus, Lisette Model. Peter had just started to hear of some of the names, floating around Masha’s dining room in conjunction with exhibits, and he had no doubt they were quite good—though whether Sol purchased them because he liked them and the artists or for their financial value was another matter. They disturbed Peter, however. The subjects were unhappy, homeless, missing limbs, obese, isolated in their frames, and although that very grotesquerie was something Peter was drawn to look at over and over—thereby, he supposed, qualifying the images as art—they were nothing he would ever hang on his walls.

  “I like this one,” he said, of a very large lady in a black swimming suit, laughing and slapping her legs at the shore while the ocean crashed around her.

  “Quiet,” said Sol, who was breathing heavily as he trawled a mechanical pencil down the numbers in Peter’s ledger—but then he relented and said, “Very talented girl. Good investment.”

  He held out his tumbler—for Sol, coffee translated to more Scotch. Peter refilled it from Sol’s bookshelf bar and poured a Grand Marnier for himself. He sat on the couch to wait, warming the glass in his hands.

  Finally Sol swiveled in his chair, tossed the ledger back toward Peter, and said, “Not so good. Better cut back.”

  Peter nodded because this was what Sol always said, although Masha’s was in the black, a rarity among New York restaurants of which he was justifiably proud. He said, “Cut back on what?”

  Sol shrugged. “You’re the boss, you figure it out.”

  Peter sighed. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about our paper supplier. Linens too; the laundry is eating us alive. Can’t we switch? There’s a supplier in New Jersey—”

  “Forget it,” said Sol. He swirled the remaining cubes in his glass, lifted it, crunched them. “We’re sticking with my guys.”

  Peter ran his free hand through his hair, frustrated. “But they’re charging us twice as much. Your laundry man, three times. If you’re concerned about the bottom line—”

  “No changes,” said Sol. “They’re like family. You gotta cut back on the food.”

  “I can’t do that,” Peter said. He wanted to stand and pace in his frustration but stayed seated; he didn’t want to show his belly, as Sol would say.

  “We’ve talked about this,” he said. “The food is what makes Masha’s what it is. Eighty-five percent of restaurants go out of business in New York in the first year, and we’ve been up and running for ten. The success isn’t in the linens or napkins, I assure you—”

  “No, it’s that sob story Ruth told the papers,” said Sol with satisfaction. He went to the bar to fix another drink.

  Peter stared at Sol’s back, broad and a little humped. Sol meant the story behind the menu: how Peter had based it on the dishes he and Masha once discussed as they lay on the mattress on the floor of their fifth-story, one-room cold-water flat in Berlin. “Wouldn’t it be lovely, Petel,” Masha had said one night, rolling over on her elbow, “if we could own a place together! It would be all our favorite recipes, yours and mine, the things we loved best in childhood. Little Polish doves—miniature cabbage rolls—and roast chicken and duck. And profiteroles! What my mutti called ‘little clouds,’” and she had gotten so excited she’d begun bouncing on the bed, her hair falling over Peter’s face in a white curtain. Peter had been barely twenty then, Masha not out of her teens.

  “Did you have something to do with Ruth telling that story to that gossip columnist?” Peter asked Sol now. “Did you invite her to that fund-raiser on purpose?”

  “I invited her because it’s good business,” said Sol.

  “You did,” said Peter. “How could you?”

  Sol shrugged. “Don’t look at me. Ruth knew the story, and she has a big mouth.”

  He stumped back to his desk chair and sat down with a grunt. “You oughta thank her. You think they’re coming to you for that hotsy-totsy French dreck you serve? They come to get a look at you—for the sad story.”

  “It’s not French,” said Peter through clenched teeth. “It’s Continental.”

  He stood and went to the window and drank his Grand Marnier in one gulp. It burned going down. The sky was now completely gray, and there was no sign of June’s bright head or Ruth’s maroon one anywhere—they must be either down in the garden or somewhere in the house. How Peter wished he could run Masha’s on his own, without Sol’s help! But owning a restaurant was an expensive venture. Peter had not saved a nest egg nor gotten a bank loan to open Masha’s—not that he probably would have received one had he applied. He was working at the place as a sous-chef when he inherited it. Giuseppe, the previous owner, had taken a liking to him from the time Peter walked in the front door, freshly returned from a year of traveling the American West and the South, working as a busboy and short-order cook. Peter was roaming the city then, without any real plan, and had come to Giuseppe’s—as Masha’s was called then—because he was asking every restaurant he passed whether they needed kitchen help, and also because he was hungry. He had ordered espresso and a cannolo, then asked to see the chef because he wanted to know how the little pastry had been made. Giuseppe—Guy—had given Peter a job as a prep chef, dicing herbs and vegetables for mise en place, deboning veal and chicken, making stock. “Not bad,” Guy said in his raspy voice, watching Peter’s knife skills, “for a Yid,” and he’d given the back of Peter’s head an affectionate cuff. One night Guy found Peter in the kitchen with zucchini he’d pilfered from Ruth’s garden, testing a side in which the squash had been spiral-cut to resemble noodles. Guy sampled it and said, “What’m I tasting here, kid, lemon zest?” and Peter said “No, Chef, lemon thyme,” and from then on the men were friends—better than that, equals. When Guy died of throat cancer, he left Giuseppe’s to Peter, who would have had to close the doors without backing. So Peter had gone to Sol.

  There was no way, Peter realized in those early days, that he could run Masha’s without Sol’s help. When Sol said, “Beats me why you want a woman’s job, but if it’s kitchen work you want, kitchen work you’ll get,” Peter took full advantage. He had a fantasy now of replacing Sol’s money with that of another investor, a patron—Mr. Cronkite?—or a bank, but it would mean a major shake-up in the restaurant’s finances. So here he was, beholden to a man who could have cared less about food, who was illiterate about it, to whom Peter could have served dog excrement and said it was pâté and who would not have known the difference—nor cared, it if was cheaper to procure.

  “. . . I don’t know why you gotta serve all that fancy shit anyway,” Sol was saying, as if to prove Peter’s point. “Wild veal this, flaky crust that. I keep telling you, give people something tasty, a little nosh, they’re fine. You gotta go simpler. Scale back.”

  I doubt Craig Claiborne would agree with you, thought Peter, but Sol wouldn’t know the food critic for the New York Times if Mr. Claiborne bit Sol on the tuchus. “I’ll look into it,” he said.

  “Good,” said Sol. “Oh, before I forget, that olive oil importer I mentioned? From Israel? I want you to use him. Top-quality stuff
.” He handed Peter a card, which Peter slipped into his pocket. Sol stood up and started tucking his shirt back into his golf pants.

  “That’s quite a hot ticket you picked up there,” he said. “Where’d you meet her?”

  But Peter had no time to answer—not that he had any intention of discussing June with Sol—because the ladies’ voices could be heard in the hall outside the study, approaching, and there was a tap on the door.

  “Yeah,” said Sol, “come in, we’re done here.”

  The door opened, and June and Ruth stood there. June was in her leather jacket, and her face was red—with November cold, Peter assumed at first. But then he saw that her eyes were pink as well, mascara smeared beneath them, and as June came into the room and threw herself into Peter’s arms, he knew something had gone wrong.

  * * *

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” June asked.

  They were walking to the Sound—not on the reedy, marshy path past Ruth’s vegetable garden, which Ruth had said she thought would ruin June’s boots, but through the neighborhood; Peter knew a way to a public landing. They walked along the side of the road, beneath the great trees and between rock faces. The day had turned blustery and overcast, and the wind brought the smell of fireplaces. In the houses they passed, here a colonial mansion, there a contemporary tumble of glass boxes, Peter glimpsed families eating their own Thanksgiving dinners, heads bent over tables in lamplit windows.

  He felt numb. He was holding June’s hand, had made a point of taking it as soon as they left the house, but he could barely feel it. She squeezed his fingers, to get his attention or out of solicitude; it was a distant sensation, having little to do with him.

  “How could you not tell me?” June asked.

  She bent her head forward to peer into his face. He was aware of her anxiousness, her perfume, the creak of her leather jacket, but he kept his gaze straight ahead.

  “It’s horrible about your wife,” June went on. “It’s such a sad story, Peter. Just awful. And I’m so sorry. But why didn’t you tell me about your little girls?”