The Family Markowitz

by Allegra Goodman

  Susan is reading the wedding program in the social hall, where Miriam is sitting in her gown, two hundred eighty guests milling around her. “Mm,” Susan says. She is wearing a floral dress and a broad-brimmed hat, which she feels does not sit quite right on her head. She has a large head.

  “They’re marvelous, aren’t they?” Henry is standing next to her, stout in his tuxedo, savoring his teriyaki and pineapple on a stick. “I’ll have to go get some more.”

  “No, Henry,” Susan says. “It’s time for the ceremonial veiling of the bride.”

  “Veiling? What veiling?”

  “You aren’t reading the program,” Susan reproves him.

  Henry peers over at hers. “We haven’t been to the groom’s court.”

  “No, I don’t think there’s time,” Susan protests, but Henry guides her into the lounge.

  The little room is full of dark-suited men crowding around a long table where Jonathan stands, tall and slim, giving a learned talk from notes and a stack of open volumes of the Talmud. “Good heavens,” Henry whispers in Susan’s ear.

  “I’ll meet you outside,” she says.

  “Wait, why are you leaving?” he clutches her arm.

  “Henry,” she whispers, “there aren’t any women here.”

  Henry sees that Ed and Zaev are also standing near the door in their tuxedos, each with a white rosebud boutonniere. They are whispering together like ushers at the back of a theater. “Can you hear him?” Zaev asks Ed. “I can’t hear one word.”

  “Can’t hear a thing,” Ed replies. “And, to be perfectly honest, that doesn’t bother me.”

  “No? I thought you liked this kind of thing.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I thought Jon caught this Orthodoxy from Miriam.”

  “From my daughter! Absolutely not.”

  “Where does it come from then? I send my son to a yeshiva so he’ll learn some Hebrew. Now what have I got? A Talmud scholar! Where does it come from? This is what I want to know.”

  “Well,” Ed says, “I’m just going to try to enjoy the wedding and not think about it.”

  Then Zaev claps Ed on the shoulder and tells him, “We think alike!”

  The speech has ended, and suddenly wild singing begins. The men lock arms and dance around Jonathan. They dance him out the door and nearly flatten Henry against the wall. He escapes, clutching his drink and egg rolls.

  “Henry, over here,” Susan calls to him in the social hall. “Hurry, or you won’t be able to see.”

  They cannot see Jonathan when he emerges from the huddle of men and stands before Miriam. He rocks back on his heels and pulls the net of Miriam’s veil over her face. Then the singing starts up, and the dancing huddle dances him away again. The photographer wants to take more pictures of the family as they stand around Miriam—her brothers, shaven and smoothed down; her sister, who is telling Rose she feels like a sachet pillow in all this lace; Ed, who looks as though he’s straining to remember something. But Sarah won’t allow any more pictures, because they are running so late.

  In the sanctuary a flute plays an Israeli version of a ditty from the Song of Songs, and Miriam walks down the aisle with Ed and Sarah on each side. The guests all rise from their seats as she passes. Henry watches his niece in her slow procession, her gown billowing over her parents’ knees in the narrow aisle. He can’t help it; he begins to cry. Susan opens her purse and gives him some tissues. “They’re crushed, but they’re quite clean,” she whispers to him. Henry dabs his tears. “She’s lovely, isn’t she?” says Susan.

  “No, it’s not that,” Henry says. “It’s just that I was thinking about our wedding.”

  “Ours was rather different,” Susan says.

  “But it reminded me, just the same,” Henry tells her.

  Rose cannot hear a word, even though she is sitting in the front row. Her hearing aid is acting up, and she can’t seem to adjust it properly. The ceremony, the celebration, it is all happening in registers too high or too low. The rabbi is murmuring his speech into the microphone and not enunciating at all. She isn’t sure about this man. He couldn’t be more than thirty years old, and to her that is not a rabbi. Rose saw earlier that he wasn’t even wearing a wedding ring. He does not seem to be established in life, but just looks rather wistful. Perhaps he had a young lady friend who listened to his proposal and then declined! But that is neither here nor there. A proper rabbi wouldn’t have such doleful eyes. Miriam, however, is every inch the bride. The dress is not what Rose would have chosen, but it suits her. Rose likes a simpler style. Not so much with the bows and ruffles. And she would have had a proper wedding march. Not Wagner, of course, but at least Mendelssohn.

  The rabbi hands Jonathan the light bulb wrapped in a cloth napkin, and Jon stamps it to pieces under his new black Florsheim dress shoe. Rose’s hearing aid shrieks as the band sings out its klezmer recessional. The family and the bride and groom are streaming back down the aisle, all the tension of the morning slipping from them.

  It is a mitzvah, good deed, at a wedding to entertain the bride and groom, so as you dance and sing, feel free to let loose and do whatever!

  At the head table, Ed has finished his chicken breast stuffed with wild-rice pilaf. He stands up and surveys the twenty-seven round tables in the social hall, each covered with a peach tablecloth. He feels proud, tired, responsible. He is the ruler of this peach domain. Sarah stands next to him and dings her glass with her spoon, and the hall quiets. “As many of you know,” Ed says, reading from his written text, “Sarah and I are Miriam’s parents. We would like to say a few words about this young couple we are here to celebrate with. They are gifted with many things: intelligence, energy, determination, youth.”

  “And they have given us much as well,” Sarah adds from her part of the speech. “They have given us joy and laughter. And, of course, they have given us Zaev and Marjorie. We look forward to sharing many happy occasions with you in the future.”

  Ed takes the microphone. “Jon and Miriam are deeply committed to the sciences, to Judaism, and they have a lot to offer—both to each other and to the world. This is a time of hope in more ways than one. It is a new beginning for Miriam and Jon, and for the Jewish people as a whole. A time of renewal and peace in Israel. There are always going to be skeptics in this world, pessimists and cynics, but at times like this we have a chance to rejoice and to build lasting relationships. I can only say that we wish you the best in love and in life. L’chaim.”

  “You changed the speech,” Sarah tells him when they sit down. “That wasn’t in there.”

  “Yes it was,” Ed says.

  “In the old version! I specifically edited out that part.”

  “I know, Sarah, but the new version didn’t say what I wanted to say!” He leans back in his chair happily. He doesn’t even notice that Zaev has taken the microphone until Zaev starts talking.

  “My name is Zaev Schwartz. Marjorie and I would like to thank Ed and Sarah for their hospitality and to say something as well to all of you. First of all, how happy we are that Jonathan found a girl like Miriam to marry. We always wondered what kind of a girl Jonathan would find and now we know. Our son, Jonathan, is very academic, and when he introduced us to Miriam we could see that she was, too. I was sure even then that on this level they would be compatible. As the New Yorkers here know, Jon was always with his head in a book when he was a child—”

  “My God,” Ed whispers to Sarah, “how long is he going to talk?”

  “He would walk everywhere while he was reading and never look where he was going. Miriam, however, I have observed, is of a much more practical bent and she always keeps her eyes open. What we hope is that in the future she will keep Jonathan from bumping into the obstacles of life. Because one thing that we all know is that there is no such thing as a perfect world. The best intentions”—he asks Marjorie for a word off-mike—“don’t always work out. And the academic theories most of the time when they go for a test
run take a nosedive. We wish you much health and happiness,” Zaev concludes. “L’chaim.”

  Ed has mixed feelings as he leads Miriam to the dance floor. Annoyance at Zaev’s rebuttal to his toast, but also a sense of relief. So the man got up, acted like a complete jerk. He didn’t come off well; he really wasn’t well spoken. Ed took it all with complete equilibrium. This was a wedding reception, after all, not a debate. He and Miriam dance to “You Are the Sunshine of My Life.” The videographer trails them with his extension cords. “How’re you doing?” Ed asks Miriam.

  “I can’t believe it’s going so fast,” she says.

  “What?”

  “The time, the day.”

  It’s not going so fast, Ed thinks.

  —

  “Is there any coffee?” Rose is asking Sarah at the table.

  “Or some tea,” Ilse says from her seat on the other side of Rose. “They have tea, do they not?” Ilse asks Rose conspiratorially. Rose looks at Ilse and thinks perhaps there is a bond between them.

  “It’s coming around,” Sarah tells them.

  “I am very tired,” Ilse tells Rose.

  “I am exhausted,” Rose says.

  “How did you like the rabbi’s sermon?” Ilse asks Rose.

  “I don’t like to criticize,” Rose says in German.

  “I feel this way, too,” says Ilse. “Better to keep silent.” Ilse smiles down at the white orchid at her wrist. Rose tires of making conversation. After all, she and Ilse have little in common.

  The circle dancing has begun again, fast and furious. The crowds hoist up the bride and groom in chairs. Miriam almost slides off her chair but catches herself just in time. The videographer and his assistant are standing on aluminum ladders to film aerial views of the crowd. Miriam and Jon ride around on their thrones. It is not like flying, more like riding horseback.

  On the ground, Marjorie says to Sarah, “You know, when Zaev and I got married, I think they forgot to lift us in chairs.”

  “Really?” Sarah asks.

  “I think so. They just forgot about it.”

  Sarah looks at the sweaty mass of Jon and Miriam’s friends, the ring of dark-suited boys around Jon, the lacy circle of girls surrounding Miriam. It is not at all like the wedding she and Ed had. When she and Ed entered the hall together, all the guests at the tables stood up and applauded them. Then there was dancing, the fox-trot, the cha-cha, the samba. It had been a very elegant wedding.

  Ed comes up behind her. “The band wants to know—one more set?”

  “Okay,” Sarah says. Liz and Arnie Passachoff come up to tell Sarah they have to slip out early. They have another wedding. “It was beautiful.” Liz kisses Sarah.

  “One down, three to go,” Arnie says, glancing over at Ben, Avi, and Yehudit, who stand near the band mugging for the cameras.

  “It’s a real milestone for you,” Liz tells Sarah.

  “And for Jon and Miriam, too,” Sarah says.

  After Liz and Arnie slip out, Sarah looks at the dancers rushing by hand in hand, some more, some less graceful. She catches sight of Jon in the men’s and Miriam in the women’s circle. Their flushed faces, Miriam’s pinned-up bustle trailing a little. What are they thinking? There is no way to know. They didn’t hear a thing their fathers said. They are surrounded by their relatives, yet they are completely oblivious. Yes, she thinks, this is love. The rest will be on video.

  FOR DAVID

  BY ALLEGRA GOODMAN

  The Chalk Artist

  The Cookbook Collector

  The Other Side of the Island

  Intuition

  Paradise Park

  Kaaterskill Falls

  The Family Markowitz

  Total Immersion

  PHOTO: © NINA SUBIN

  ALLEGRA GOODMAN’s novels include The Chalk Artist, Intuition, The Cookbook Collector, Paradise Park, and Kaaterskill Falls (a National Book Award finalist). Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Commentary, and Ploughshares, and has been anthologized in The O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories. She has written two collections of short stories, The Family Markowitz and Total Immersion, and a novel for younger readers, The Other Side of the Island. Her essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, The Boston Globe, and The American Scholar. Raised in Honolulu, Goodman studied English and philosophy at Harvard and received a PhD in English literature from Stanford. She is the recipient of a Whiting Award, the Salon Award for Fiction, and a fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She lives with her family in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she is writing a new novel.

  allegragoodman.com

  Facebook.com/​AllegraGoodman

  THE FAMILY MARKOWITZ

  ALLEGRA GOODMAN

  RANDOM HOUSE READER’S CIRCLE GUIDE

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. Rose Markowitz has what might be called a selective memory. Do you think she is simply forgetful? Manipulative? A little of both? Does she remind you of anyone in your own life?

  2. Ed and Henry Markowitz are opposites in many ways. What, if anything, do they have in common?

  3. How would you characterize Rose’s Jewish identity? How do her children and grandchildren differ from her—and from each other?

  4. Why is Miriam so impatient with her father’s seder? Why is her behavior so aggravating to her parents?

  5. Sarah Markowitz wanted to be a great writer. What happened to her dream? Do you think she is satisfied with her life? Why or why not?

  6. Sometimes the Markowitzes have dreams and visions. In “The Four Questions,” Ed has a vision of an exodus over the Verrazano Bridge to Long Island in which his in-laws and all their neighbors march over the bridge, driving their poodles before them. Where do you think this vision comes from? What does it mean?

  7. Why is everyone so surprised by Henry’s marriage? Is Henry a little surprised, as well? How so?

  8. The Markowitzes talk a lot, but they also leave certain things unsaid. What do they avoid saying? Do you think they have good reason? When it comes to your own parents—or even your own children—is it sometimes better to avoid certain subjects? Why or why not?

  9. Henry and Ed need to make some decisions about their mother’s future. Do you think they are managing well? Why is it that Sarah ends up doing so much?

  10. Ed studies terrorists—but these stories are set long before the attack on the World Trade Center. What do you think Ed would be saying about terrorism now? Do you think his views might change in response to recent events?

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