by Sonia Taitz
Betty backed away in seeming deference.
“It is a question of my ribs, son,” said Neil Whitsun from his supine position. His voice was low and sepulchral.
“Do they hurt much? I was only trying to get you off of me, but—”
Neil Whitsun interrupted him:
“Adam lost a rib so he could have a woman to support him in life. In my case, it is a bit different, eh?” He glared at his wife.
Collum wondered how his mother could be implicated in this.
“HE is YOUR son now, and I am done with him. You have raised up a traitor in our midst, and I cannot have that.”
“I’m sorry, I’ll try harder,” his wife said, simply. It was as though she had said this many times before. But she meant it. She would try harder. One always could. It was amazing how hard one could try.
She glared at her son in an unusual way:
“You must never, never again act like you did tonight. How could you hit your own father?” None of the other boys had ever lifted a hand to her husband. He was not a perfect man, it was true, but this boy was the worst possible son for a man like this. And now he was growing big and strong and defiant.
“In the old days,” Neil said, chewing his words with slow delight, “such a son would have been stoned to death in public, and good men would have cheered. Such a son have I long endured and foreseen the evil of.”
“You did foresee it, luvvy,” said Collum’s mother, soothingly.
Collum wondered at her essential loyalty. Did she really mean what she said, or was she just trying to survive?
He, too, was only trying to survive—and he would do so by assuaging his father for as long as he could, while he waited to hear from his girl.
“Father, forgive me,” he said to Neil Whitsun. In his mind, he added silently, “’cause I’ll never forgive you.”
Dodging
Neil Whitsun had other battles to fight beside that primal one with his devil-son. The Church itself had betrayed him with all kinds of reforms; it had introduced the anti-Christ to the central halls of the Vatican. And now the country he lived in was slowly going mad.
But he had a family to take care of, three strapping sons and a wife who depended on him for guidance. Time was not stopping for him; it was moving inexorably on and challenging God’s and his own authority. A war was being fought on the other side of the world, and sons were being drafted. Ryan’s number was especially terrible, and if nothing was done, he would be sent to the other end of the world to help save some sly, slant-peepered heathens.
Worse, in his objection to the growing war, Neil had motley company. This was a time when teenagers all over the country were escaping the draft. Some went to Woodstock, others to San Francisco. Many fled to Canada or Sweden.
Woodstock? San Francisco? Canada? Sweden? Well, his family was not going to handle this like a bunch of indecent, dirty reprobates. Rob had tried to grow his hair; of course, he, Neil, had put a stop to that with a good razoring. In fact, what his boys needed was to get away before more changes occurred. Jews were dating and mating with Christians (why, there had been a Jewess in his house not long ago—batting her eyelashes at his youngest!). Negroes jigged with fair-haired girls. Women were trying to wrest power from their men, men were beginning to go soft and weedy. Rock and roll, unisex, revolution.
Neil Whitsun would have no part of this rotting, cursed Gomorrah. Thank Christ, he’d been given a way out. There was family in Australia. His father’s people worked on a cattle station and said there was plenty of opportunity there for men who knew how to earn their wages. Yes, Collum would lose a month or so of school while they settled in, but what did that matter? His boys were not scholars, sitting in their ivory towers and ruining everything with their casuistry and false idols.
Anyway, Ryan and Rob would love the new land. They would share its values and adore the manly ways of it. Both were short, snub-nosed, and muscle-bound. Collum was different: rangy, handsome, and smart as Satan. Betty coddled him too much. He was her baby; she had spoiled him. Only Collum was soft enough to cry when he was hurt.
And only he had ever dared to strike his own father, thought Neil Whitsun. He vowed that such an outrage would never happen again. He would work him hard, this boy, and break his spirit. Collum would get the toughest horses. Mankillers. Yes—the one who would be drafted would be not Rob or Ryan, but soft-eyed, temperamental Collum, drafted into a different life down under.
His father had been planning this escape for months. It had little to do with that girl of Collum’s, but she would not see him again. The boy would be corralled by his family and flown to Australia. There, he would be teased and mocked for his accent and his softness. He would work in the baking sun until his looks and talent whisked him away and back into the world. And so they sold the house and flew away within a fortnight of Collum’s desperate dash for refuge.
For decades Collum thought of Judy Pincus, not knowing why she’d never called or written after that night. She had loved him, maybe, but over the years he imagined her cramming for tests, getting her idiotic A’s, posing in the cap and gown to please her mummy and daddy. He could see her continuing to wash her hair with Breck shampoo and drying it in her nice pink bathroom. He could see them all eating that chicken smothered in mushrooms, wiping their faces with napkins that had floral designs. He imagined them listening to classical music, reading books peaceably, with no hurt, bleeding boy to disturb them.
After all, she was the one with the nice, normal family. A typical Jew, he came gradually to think, acting sensibly, playing it safe, and waiting for the best possible deal.
Correspondence, or Social Intercourse
Jude S. Ewington takes a long, transformative shower. She stays under the steaming jets for what seems like forever. Her mind and body travel. After she dries herself, still naked, she writes to Collum:
Collum—there is a man in town who reminds me of you. Your father would be so upset if he knew that I said that, because he’s not only Jewish. He’s a Chasid. Do you know what they are? Super-religious.
Collum replies right away:
Well, I did have a crazy beard when I played that Neanderthal. Didn’t you ever see Mancave? It was the first one I directed, so I’m embarrassed by how many things I could have done better. But I made my point, I think, about the essence of man.
Jude answers:
Yeah, I saw you ravishing away. And it made me feel really bad about so many things.
What things? Collum asks.
That you were so far away. That you looked so good, even with that straggly beard. Even carrying a caveman club, you had that elevated poignancy. It made me feel bad that we’d never had a chance to make love. I think it would have been amazing.
And Collum replies:
When I find you, will we “make love” then?
Let’s use the right word now we’re being honest, shall we?
Will we finally fuck—like you promised?
Jude does not answer, though oddly, she feels sure that it would be right to say “yes.” Her attraction to the Chasid is opening her up in every way. Even the word Collum uses, “fuck,” seems open and real and true. It’s the right word for a powerful act. Archaic, Anglo-Saxon.
The boy she’d known was raw like that. Real love, at its source, was raw like that. Yes. She could say “yes” now.
The Seduction of Slam
Under Heidi’s watchful eyes, David and Delaney are growing closer. She has begun sanctioning this relationship, thinking that the timid Ewington boy will have a tempering effect on her headstrong teen. Now, the two of them come over regularly after his therapy at the ranch. Slowly, they have made their way to Delaney’s immaculate bedroom, where the curtains match the bedspread, and the curtain ties match both. At first, the door had been kept politely ajar, but after several visits, it is shut.
What Delaney does not know is that her mother’s senses are first-rate. Not only are her taste buds evolved, but also her
sense of hearing. Eschewing the full invasion of privacy that a hidden camera or tape recorder would entail, Heidi simply listens at the door whenever she can. To her great satisfaction, David and Delaney tend to do no more than talk; there are few ominous silences that Heidi has noticed. Most of all, she enjoys listening to them chat about their time on the farm, gossiping about the various workers there.
It is especially delicious when Jude’s name comes up in connection with one of the farmhands. David and Delaney seem to think that someone with an odd name (sounds like “Shy”) is all too interested in this married friend of hers. This worker has tried to find out what she is like, what her maiden name is, and—most ominously—exactly where she lives. Perhaps Jude has interacted with this man at pickup time. It would have all seemed very innocent, thinks Heidi, straining to hear more details about the stalker/paramour. The countryside is full of such gigolos. Here and there a foolish housewife had fallen for them, hoping for a way out of the humdrum. (Thank goodness she, Heidi, has business sense and a career, and no time or inclination for such foolishness.)
Heidi has met many a “bolter” in her day—a married woman who runs off with another man, often one with an outlandish profession. Several women in her mother’s horsey set had done this, one with a golf instructor, another with a polo player. She has never seen Jude near anyone with a Titleist ball or riding crop, but you really never know. That woman is one of the quieter ones, come to think of it, with her wan little complaints about her husband and her refusal to dress well. But she does show a flare of temperament, here and there, as she’d done about Delaney. Such women can surprise you, like a frog with a fly. Now you see it, now you don’t.
Frankly, Heidi does not think that Slam deserves this kind of treatment. Her own Daniel had chosen to “find himself,” but Slam seems to be working his way back to the financial heights of his former consulting career. If he flies a lot between Italy and Putnam County, Heidi believes it is only for the pasta. She, of all people, can appreciate artisanal foods—even if the man’s own wife does not. And if they are not sleeping together often enough, perhaps it is because Slam does not feel acknowledged. Instead, Jude probably whines about her own stunted life, and tries to hold him back. Misery loves company, she thinks, but it’s not a very sexy kind of company. And now there is some sleazy hired hand in the picture, Jude’s supposed admirer.
Heidi is Jude’s friend, but this flirtation will have to be stopped at once. Slam will have to be informed; he is a man’s man and will know what to do. Heidi lures him over with a request for a tasting of his newest tubetti. She promises that if she likes his product, she will tell everyone in her food chain about it; moreover, she will use it in her own catered foods.
He is strange when he gets there, though. Sitting in her kitchen, sipping a glass of her chilled Beaujolais, Slam cannot look more relaxed, even when she begins to explain what she knows about his wife.
“There is talk,” Heidi begins ominously.
“Always is,” he says, setting a large pot to boil and measuring out a sheaf of his product.
“About your wife, Jude.”
“Uh-huh,” Slam says amiably, adding a dash of sea salt.
“And a man.”
“Oh? A man?”
“Yes! An employee at the place where your son is taking riding lessons. And I overheard Delaney saying that he was quite the ‘cowboy’!”
Slam chuckles. “Well, that’s good. Davey deserves the best instructor. Hope some testosterone rubs off on him.”
Is that all he can say? What if the testosterone rubs off on Jude?
“No, no, you misunderstand,” Heidi insists. “This cowboy fellow, he seems fixated, obsessed with your wife!”
“Oh boy. This is—yum. Good and crisp; I might pair it with Alfredo, whaddya think?”
He is talking about the wine!
Heidi embellishes more and more, but nothing changes Slam’s calm demeanor. As the water begins boiling agitatedly, he coolly tosses in the pasta.
“’Bout thirteen minutes, then we’re in heaven,” he says, referring to the cooking time.
“You know, Slam, speaking of ‘being in heaven,’ a woman like your wife might get her head turned by some smooth-talker.”
“Maybe a goat cheese salad? And then this pasta course? But then there is the element of appetite . . .”
“Yes, appetite,” says Heidi, trying to sound suggestive. “It is rumored that the female’s is stronger than the male’s, at least in middle age.”
“Well, everyone loves good food,” he says placidly.
Slam is thinking only about selling pasta to Heidi, perhaps going into business with her. Whatever she is saying about anything else does not interest him in the least.
From this, Heidi deduces that he does not care about his wife—and that what Jude has told her about his apathy is true. A man so blasé about his woman being pursued by a handsome ranch hand is a man who is no longer remotely in love.
And yet, unlike her own husband, Slam is so sexual. What a waste!
His body is amazing, she notices, broad-shouldered and bubble-biceped. She watches his right arm stir the pasta as his left reaches for a drop of olive oil to prevent sticking. Yes, the oil will lubricate the situation, Heidi silently agrees, staring at Jude’s evasive mate.
His hair is still so black and so thick, his nose big and Roman.
She’s heard about his tennis prowess, too—the source of his nickname, or perhaps that was a hint of something else? Slam is, she realizes with a thrill, a real man, with real work, and a focused lust for that sensual blend of grain, eggs, and oil of which one never tires.
Pasta, pâté, paste, she muses. Wheat, stalk, seed, and harvest. His wares are ambrosial, essential, like Barolo wine and the rind of an old Camembert.
Yes, this man and his culinary calling—so complementary to her own—fascinate her, all the more so when the fire is put out at the peak of al dente.
“Ready for the taste of paradise?” says Slam, draining the water through a colander, his face rising out of steam as from a cloud.
“Put it on a fork and bring it to my mouth,” she says, leaning over him and entering the water-vapored air.
“Say ‘ahhhh.’”
Heidi’s lips part and her tongue quivers lightly as the food enters her mouth. La bocca, she thinks, drunk on the little Italian she knows. La bocca, la pasta, la bocca, la pasta. She is crazy for him, swallowing the harvest he has reaped and is putting inside her.
She tries his pasta hot. She tries it cold.
She admires the firmness of the tubes, and the width of the space inside them. Each is a hollow walled by strength, softening and swooning each time it meets the boiling water. Over and over, they cook the pasta. Over and over she compares and contrasts, pondering all the many things that food can do. And not just food. But Slam does not take the hint in all of Heidi’s well-wrought gustatory phrases. He is just not as appreciative of the metaphor as he might have been.
“I think I prefer it hot,” she says. “Boiling hot.”
And: “Putana. Something that your mouth won’t soon forget.”
And: “The texture? Sauce should be thick enough to give you the mouth-feel, but thin enough to run down your chin. I like a slippery sauce.
“You, too?” she prods.
Heidi gets nothing but the most literal of responses.
“Yes, I think that would be a nice dish,” says Slam agreeably. “I don’t think, though, that the texture should be too firm—some people make a kinda snobby fixation about that, but I want the food to be easy to eat, and then they eat more. That’s economics 101. As for the spicy sauce,” he continues, “that’s your call.
“A lot of people don’t like it that hot, certainly not arrabiata—scratch that off, if you want my advice—”
Heidi is, in fact, becoming arrabiata with Slam’s willful (it seems) obtuseness to double entendres, but hope keeps her going.
“Anyway, ‘hot’ food,
” he is saying, “uh—I don’t think it makes sense from the volume-sales standpoint. It’s known to cause satiety, so from purely the business end—”
“Look!” she bursts out, “I’m sick of purely the business end!”
Slam does not understand her pique.
“People won’t want as much of it,” he explains patiently. “You sell less. Fewer profits.”
“Slam! You talk about ‘satiety.’ I’ll tell you about satiety. My husband Daniel hasn’t made me happy for a long time . . . In fact, there are times that I think he must not like women very much at all!”
“Oh?” is all Slam can say. From what he has heard around the tennis and golf club, Dante does like women. In fact, he likes them so much that he is not a bit particular about them.
But maybe he neglects his own wife. She does seem pretty underserved.
It would, in fact, be all too easy for Slam to turn off the burners, take Heidi by the hand, and drive her off to the nearest motel. He could screw her all day long until she finally relaxes enough to act like a normal person.
It could be nice, actually. She would be so grateful, not at all like his wife, who is often annoyed with him, who expects him to make up for the fact that she is growing older, that he is, too, and that the kids are no longer babies but big, strapping teenagers.
How are men supposed to make up for all the losses women never fail to notice and obsess about? He could fuck someone else’s wife easily enough—that would count for a lot in her ledger. But Heidi’s own husband could never get off so easily. Just the same, Slam could never easily appease his own wife. What about tomorrow, they all worry. Or worse, what about yesterday! Why isn’t today like yesterday, and why can’t tomorrow be like today?
Pasta is simple. You plant, water, cut, separate, add some eggs and a pinch of salt to the mix, and boom! Happiness for both seller and buyer. Passion between people is another thing entirely.
Even if they each get what they want, however briefly, what is next? Slam could see the whole affair—the frantic sex, the tears of shock, relief, regret that Heidi would spill, and the endless fraught moments that would follow.
