by Ed Ifkovic
She watched me carefully, her eyes faraway. “That’s what they say I did. But I don’t remember that. What I do remember is bending over him as he slumped on the sofa and seeing my fingertips dark with blood and wondering where it came from.”
My voice was a squeak. “You don’t remember a knife?”
She shook her head back and forth slowly, a sleepwalker’s rhythm. “No. Nothing. Nothing but my…wonder at that dark blood. Then I forgot how to talk. Strangers were talking at me and I was nodding, nodding, nodding. Staring at them, just staring at them. A moan from deep inside me. I don’t remember anything after that, though they tell me they asked me questions. But I simply stared. Nothing. It was like I forgot how to talk—or couldn’t talk. A blur, all of it, the days that followed. Echoes in my head. They told me that I killed Ivan, washed the knife, hid it back in the kitchen, then stooped over his body on the sofa to make certain he was dead. Over and over they said that to me. They said I kept nodding: yes yes yes yes. And then, I don’t know how much later—a blur, everything a blur—some man tells me I’m going away. A home for crazy women, a cell, a cot, food I can’t eat. Food I spit out.” She stopped talking. Her fingers trembled as she touched her cheek. Her face was flushed.
“But now you’ve come home.”
She was looking over my shoulder. “One day they tell me—you can go now. I have conversations with the doctor, and he says, ‘You can be around people now. You can walk outside. Everything is all right now.’ My Herman comes to pick me up in a car that scares me…so far away. Another planet. Herman, the only one who visited but then stopped because I couldn’t speak. For years I didn’t talk—I stared at people. Who are you? What do you want me to say? And then, one day, like that, I found my voice again. Words came tumbling out. I couldn’t stop talking.” She smiled wistfully. “Like now—with you here. I can breathe again—at that moment. And they say, you can go home now.”
She stopped talking for a moment.
“Home,” I echoed.
She waved her hands around the room. “I wanted to be home. Back here.” She shot me a look. “But now that I have my voice back, Sarah tells me to keep still—don’t talk to anyone. People will hurt me. Be still. Stay inside. People don’t want to see you—know that you’re back on Monroe Street. She gets nervous when I talk to Jacob, who watches me too closely. To my daughters who are afraid of me. My son, Herman, who thinks I embarrass him. Embarrass! No, a mother who gossips embarrasses her children. A mother who kills…what word is there that fits? ‘Quiet,’ Sarah tells me. ‘Lower your voice. The neighbors!’ My biggest sin was opening the screen door and sitting on that porch.”
I sat up, spine rigid. “They took your life from you.”
She stood and touched a figurine on a side table, held it up to her face. Her fingers squeezed it tightly.
Suddenly, her voice rising, “You don’t think I killed Ivan?”
Irrationally, I blurted out, “No, of course not.”
A bitter grunt. “Ah, a majority of one.” A shrug. “Maybe two. You and me. Who can believe that?” A long sigh as she tilted her head to the side. “Gey red tsu der vant.” Go tell it to the wall.
But at that moment I knew, to my soul, that my instincts were true and just. Something was wrong with that faded photograph. “No,” I repeated firmly. “When you found your voice again, you would have remembered.”
She put down the figurine, too close to the edge of the table, but then walked to the front window, stared into the street. She faced me. “It doesn’t matter now. I can’t shift the axis of the Earth, right the wind currents, turn back the tides. And, I suppose, I am to blame somehow. I caused my world to turn upside down.”
“What?” This was making little sense.
“I wasn’t a good wife.” Another bitter smile. “Ivan and I fought for weeks. My fault, I tell you now, Edna. Yes, Ivan was a cruel, hard man. He could be nasty, controlling. Not at first—not when we first married. They never are, their words lovely and assuring. Then they change. He’d be mean to me—to the children. Especially my Jacob.” She shivered. “Such cruelty to that boy. The world’s sweetest boy, that one. Impossible—despite my pleading. Of course, the more I defended Jacob, the worse the cruelty.”
“But how did you hurt him?”
Slowly she left the window and settled into a chair, facing me. “I hurt him bad. We hurt him, me and Morrie, his partner. One stupid, idle flirtation, weak and silly, a lapse of judgment on my part, regretted immediately. And confessed at once. I brought shame on Ivan’s head—and he rightly accused me. My wife—Jezebel. He told everyone. I suppose he had to because he was so mortified, embarrassed—what will folks think of him? The proud man with the wanton wife. And I sat on that front porch with a scarlet letter on my chest for the neighbors to gaze at. For Morrie’s angry wife to spit on me. For old Molly Newmann, happy to slight me as we passed.”
I’d not expected such candid revelation, nor, frankly, wanted it. “Leah, I don’t think that I…” I sipped the last of my tea and reached for the pitcher. Her eyes followed my movements.
She spat out her words. “I courted disaster, Edna. Men always watched at me. Lovely, they’d whisper. A beauty, they’d whisper. Look at Ivan, dumpy, a lumpen, the fool with the ravishing bride. Men followed me, got silly, said things they never thought they’d ever say to a woman. But Ivan spent long hours in the back room of the butcher shop where the men hung out. The butcher’s cave, they called it. They talked about me. He said they found me…I don’t know…attractive. So it started to bother him. Pride gave way to fear…to a lack of trust in me. What did I unconsciously tell them when I strutted in? What did those men see when they watched me walk by? Why did it please me so?” For a second she closed her eyes and didn’t move. “All those times Morrie flirted—frivolous, dumb, a ladies’ man behind his wife’s back. A reputation, he had, that man. Ivan laughed but I knew it bothered him. He’d married a wife everyone said was beautiful, and that meant trouble. When we got married, it pleased Ivan, me on his arm. You know, Ivan reveled in it—at first. Drunk with it. But then he got mean, accused me, shut me out. Screamed at me—made me cry. Never tempted by those dreadful men, I was always faithful. The wolf whistles. The leering.” She shuddered. “But I let myself—once—with Morrie—a hug, a kiss. Stupid, stupid. So…stupid of me. Nothing more. A kiss in a doorway. One minute of a nun’s life. I confessed—I had to, because I loved Ivan. But how we fought. And that morning, Ivan home sick and fighting, fighting…”
Here she was now, weary, drawn, but I imagined her years back, a woman in her middle forties, vibrant, those dancing eyes, the Rubenesque flesh, the sinuous flow of a woman’s body that drew men closer, Circe’s siren song. Some magic other women couldn’t understand, only sense, but men couldn’t resist. Leah, the impossible temptress, all the more lethal because she did nothing to foster it—indeed, didn’t want it.
“Leah, I don’t know what to say.”
Suddenly she leaned forward, poured tea into a glass, and drank half of it. When she put the glass down, her hand trembled. “I brought about Ivan’s death. I believe that. That night I let Morrie touch me. That opened the door to all the chaos to follow.”
“But you didn’t kill him.”
She shrugged and interlaced her fingers, spreading them before her face. Only those brilliant eyes were visible. “What can I say?”
A shrill voice erupted from the hallway. “Leah, who are you talking to?”
A woman stepped into the room, a frightened look on her face. She actually pointed at me.
“Sarah, this is Edna. We talked of her staying next door with Esther Newmann. Edna Ferber. Ella gave you her book and…”
A phony laugh that became a cackle. “We really are not ready for guests, Leah.”
She stood with her arms folded across her chest, a humorless schoolmarm momentarily taken off guard.
&nbs
p; Leah said in a soft voice, “We’re just talking, the two of us.” She pointed to the pitcher of iced tea. “A cold glass of…” She stopped.
Sarah pivoted on her heels, glanced toward the kitchen, unsure of her next move. From the back of her throat came a slippery rasp that reminded me of a baby’s sudden regurgitation. “That may be…” she began, but stopped, indecisive. Her eyes caught the figurine Leah had picked up. Nervously she moved it—positioned it next to another. She scowled at Leah.
Like a failed negative of her sister, Sarah had a similar small face, narrow chin, high forehead, with the same abundant white hair, but there the comparisons ceased: Sarah was skinny, wiry, the bird on the wire, twittering, while the alluring songbird luxuriated nearby. Brittle arms, breakable. Her eyes were not Leah’s vibrant, deep brown that hinted at the voluptuous siren of days gone by—rather, Sarah’s were dull, the washed-out eyes of a woman who had lost all interest in life—who, in fact, was indifferent to a world she’d never cared for.
That revelation bothered me because her attitude toward Leah made it clear she found Leah’s return home a nuisance. Routines shifted, the workings of a household realigned—plaster-of-Paris figurines in regimented positions—nothing demanded from Leah but nonetheless her presence monumentally annoying. The spinster forced to share her coveted space.
She spoke to her sister as though I weren’t there. “Jacob didn’t come home last night—again.”
Quietly. “I know.”
A darting glance at me, lips pursed. “Is that why you were sitting on the porch? Waiting?”
“I was sitting on the porch because these rooms are a prison.”
Sarah glanced back at me and shook her head slowly, letting out a tinny laugh. “The years away have allowed dear Leah to cultivate sarcasm.”
Leah clicked her tongue. “Not sarcasm. Realism.”
“No matter.” She turned away, but at that moment the front door opened.
Jacob Brenner strolled in, pausing in the entrance, one hand balancing himself against the doorjamb. “What?” he stammered.
“Jacob,” his mother said. “I was worried.”
A slight, wistful smile covered his face. “My mother loves me.”
“Really, now,” Sarah barked.
Jacob was nearly forty but still resembled some romantic hero on a vaudeville stage, the aging juvenile, though one now tarnished and a bit dissolute. With those dark brown eyes, half-closed, and that shock of coal-black hair in need of a trim, he struck me as a Semite Heathcliff—dangerous because of his beauty and brooding. He’d inherited his mother’s once-in-a-lifetime beauty. Eighteen years back, at twenty or so, he was dashing and smooth. I would watch him move down the sidewalk—that casual saunter or strut, the shoulders high, the head rocking as though to a tune only he heard. He owned the street, that boy—the pavement seemed to dance underneath him. Now, sadly, the long face with the square Leyendecker jaw and the elegant Roman nose seemed puffy, loose, but when he turned to stare into my face I still saw the young, erstwhile matinee heartthrob, the man who gave me sleepless nights.
“A fellow gotta have some fun.”
His mother nodded toward me. “Jacob, do you remember Edna Ferber? We talked about her visiting the Newmanns. The novelist.”
He smiled, trying to charm me, the old instincts taking over. Turning, his foot slipped. “A pleasure.”
I didn’t know how much pleasure he was having at the moment—his Aunt Sarah frumpy and grunting beside him—but he half-bowed and reached for my hand. I refused to offer it.
Edna, not sugar and spice.
Edna, not nice—
For a second, in a practiced, uncalculated manner, he stared into my face, wooing, trying to claim my attention. But I was invisible—me, the dowdy, unloved thirtyish spinster with the bushel-barrel hair and the sallow complexion.
“You don’t remember me?” I asked pointedly, really too sharply.
In his boozy state he tried to focus. A man not skilled at lying. “Of course. I do. I…” He stammered and, of course, he said the wrong thing. “I remember every girl I ever met.”
Sarah grumbled. “For God’s sake, Jacob.”
Jacob, confused, turned away with that chivalrous half-bow, and left the room. I could hear his sloppy footfall on the stairs.
Leah burst out laughing, a little out of control. Sarah watched her, as did I, but Sarah’s look was harsh and spiteful, mixed with nervousness. I was filled with wonder. Leah’s laugh sounded rusty, jagged, The musical instrument you haven’t played since high school.
Leah sputtered, “Lovely, Edna. Lovely. My Jacob doesn’t listen to himself.” Then, through her girlish giggles, “You know, I haven’t laughed in fifteen years. I haven’t…laughed. Really.” She was observing me with affection, and I realized how much I liked the woman. A ripple in her voice, the laughter rose again.
Then, like a slammed door, she stopped, her face closed up. It was as though she’d been slapped in the face. She trembled. I thought she’d cry because her lips quivered, but she said in a cool, deliberate voice, “I won’t allow myself to cry…ever again.”
She looked lost, helpless.
I stood up. “I need to leave. I’m expected back.”
Neither sister moved as I stood up. As I opened the front door, sighing deeply, I heard the rush of clipped steps behind me. Suddenly, Leah stood near me—too near, almost on top of me—as if, because of those horrible, confined years, she’d forgotten about the civility of space. Her face so close to mine, eyes moist, nose running. she was still smiling. Impulsively, she reached out, not to grab my hand, but simply to touch my shoulder. So sudden a gesture, so charged. Like a numbing shock from an electric current.
“Thank you, Edna.”
She backed away.
Outside, stumbling down the wooden steps, I realized I was crying.
Chapter Five
My mother lay on the sofa with a cold compress plastered to her forehead. Sarah Bernhardt, rehearsing. As I walked past her, headed upstairs to my room, she let out the choked death rattle she’d employed many times, always with me, the errant daughter. A moan, a whimper, an alley cat’s meow. This was the plaintive anthem of aggrieved Jewish motherhood, doubtless carried over to America in an immigrant’s heart and soul, in the red blood, the one precious item not declared at Ellis Island.
“My own daughter!”
I stopped walking because I knew my part in this seasoned melodrama.
“What?” I asked with little patience.
My mother struggled to sit, letting the compress slip into her lap, unnoticed. Her face was ashen. “My nosy daughter…of course, you talk to the one person no one talks to. You choose…” She fell back into the cushions.
“Ah, spies in the house of Newmann.”
Sitting up, smoothing her dress, my mother leaned in to me, confidentially. “Molly is a snoop, truth to tell. That old woman doesn’t miss a trick. A real kokhlefel.” A busybody. “She may be an old lady hobbling around with that noisy cane, but her eagle eye covers the street. She can out-walk me to Maxwell, amazingly.” But then, remembering my misdeed and the reason for her taking to the couch, she whispered, “I was in the kitchen with Esther, the two of us sipping lemonade and chatting of…of…nothing, you know, the way old friends talk of nothing. And Molly yells from the back of the house, ‘Your Edna is walking up the steps of the Brenner porch.’ I was flabbergasted.”
“Mother, it’s no big deal. A conversation.”
Leah’s voice echoed in my head. Thank you, Edna.
My tears as I stumbled on the sidewalk.
A conversation.
Slowly, my mother stood up. Huffing, she walked by me, close enough so I could see the pain in her eyes, though she ignored me. In the kitchen, in seconds, I heard the overlapping titter of excited voices—a strident Molly, a hesitant Esther,
and the tumultuous Julia Ferber, who apologized for my behavior. “What can I say?” said Julia, fatalistically. “A mother does her best.” My mind slid maliciously from the idea of the Three Fates—mythic and magnificent—to the dour witches of Macbeth stirring a pot of chicken soup (with just the right amount of black pepper, really) and cursing the heavens that allowed the dutiful daughter her unfortunate lapse in common sense.
Furious, I made a decision. I stood in the doorway, arms folded across my chest, and glowered. All three women paused—all three had been speaking at once, a waterfall of babble—and waited.
“Leah Brenner did not kill her husband, Ivan, fifteen years ago.”
That wonderful line echoed off the copperplate ceiling.
My mother gasped, grabbed for her throat, though she probably wished it were mine she reached for. “Edna, really. We are guests here.”
I repeated the line, louder now, spacing out the words, adding, “I believe she’s been railroaded.”
A good exit line, worthy of Ethel Barrymore as the curtain fell. I turned and began walking upstairs, although I missed the first step, banging into the wall, a clumsy move that somehow diminished the impact of my purposeful declaration.
Silence in the kitchen, and then, as expected, a thunderous roar of indignation, disbelief, and shock.
“Julia, what in the world…?” From Esther.
“Craziness, this child of yours. Meshuga.” From Molly. Tap tap tap.
***
That evening, headed downstairs for the Newmann Sunday supper, I dreaded what awaited me. Throughout the afternoon I fiddled with my notes for my novel, even pecking away on my typewriter, a click click click click ping that battled with the tap tap tap of Molly’s cane in the hallway. My mother had purposely avoided me, except for a guttural grunt as she passed my room. Our first Sunday supper at the Newmanns’, an anticipated one: Esther Newmann’s suppers were legendary. This night’s, especially, due to my mother’s prodigal visit after so many years, my own return after eighteen years—me, the feted novelist, a matter of pride, that invitation. Right now, however, I expected silence, recrimination—I expected a collective cold shoulder or marrow-deep wail.
