Red Hook Road

by Ayelet Waldman

  If he told his granddaughter about her great aunt she would understand the folly of Jane’s words. But he had confided this story to no one, not even to his wife or to his daughter, who had made a career out of scrutinizing and analyzing such stories. He had borne the horror of Felice’s death alone, would take it alone to his own grave.

  Mr. Kimmelbrod reached across the table and took Ruthie’s bony fingers in his gnarled hands. Beneath her soft skin he felt the hard ridge of bone.

  “Ruthie, there is no logic to loss. There is no guiding hand allotting tragedy in bearable increments. Good things happen and terrible things happen and we must all just continue.” Becca was dead, he thought. Alice was dead, Felice was dead, his family was dead. And then he thought of Samantha, and the gift he thought might be struggling for expression, a tiny shoot of green in an arid landscape. It needed only watering. What was Samantha, then, but proof of the wondrous and terrible randomness of life?

  With a sob Ruthie pulled Mr. Kimmelbrod’s hand to her face and covered her eyes with it. “When am I going to feel better?” she said. “I need to do something.”

  “So have your Fourth of July. Your celebration. Why not?” Really, why not? he thought. What harm could it do?

  She lifted her tear-streaked face. “Will that make me feel better?”

  “I don’t think it will make you feel worse.”

  She grabbed his hand. “Will you help me convince Mom?”

  “Of course, granddaughter. Of course I will.”

  III

  As Iris was putting the orange juice carton back into the fridge she heard her father’s cane thumping down the hall from the guest room where he had spent the night. Last night his knees had locked painfully as he tried to get up from the table after dinner, and he had been unable to face the ride back to his house.

  “Good morning, Dad,” she said as he made his slow way into the kitchen. “Did you sleep well?”

  “I haven’t slept well since 1957,” Mr. Kimmelbrod said. When he was a young insomniac he would get up and go outside, into the yard in Maine, or onto their small terrace in New York, and play without regard to the sensibilities of his neighbors. He would return to the comforting repertoire of his youth. Seitz, Veracini, pieces he’d learned as a young boy taking weekly violin lessons from Mr. Haim Teplitz, an outlandish and gifted Eastern European Jew who claimed to have outplayed Paganini.

  Mr. Kimmelbrod would stand in the dark and play his violin with his eyes closed until he registered the gray light of dawn on the insides of his eyelids. Now at night he lay in his bed and imagined the concertos and sonatas. He performed them in his head, every double stop, every bow stroke, running off arpeggios and cadenzas with his eyes closed and his fingers trembling on top of the blanket. He would never allow himself the indulgence of playing in his mind any better than he had in his life.

  “Was the bed comfortable?” Iris asked now.

  “Almost as comfortable as my own.”

  She hesitated, knowing well how much this cost him. “Dad,” she said gently, “you’ve got to be realistic. What would happen to you if you fell? You’d lie on the ground for two days until I came looking for you.”

  “It would take you two days?”

  “Dad!”

  “I’m managing fine.”

  “Now you are, but you won’t always be able to.”

  “So? Neither will you.”

  She filled a mug only halfway with coffee to spare him the embarrassment of spilling it. Of all the evidence of her father’s senescence, it was his tremor that was hardest for her to bear. His mottled, shaking hands broke her heart. She hadn’t felt this way about his need for a cane and then a walker, as tragic as that infirmity was. But the sight of soup dripping from his trembling spoon or his shaky signature on a check caught Iris like a hand at her throat. In his youth her father had beautiful hands: long, tapered fingers; slim knuckles; pale skin covered with fine golden hairs. In the 1936 affidavit that convinced the United States State Department to grant Mr. Kimmelbrod a visa, Robert E. Simon of New York’s Carnegie Hall had said that Mr. Kimmelbrod’s hands possessed a divine magic. Those magic hands had saved his life. Now, trembling and unsteady, they were surrendering it.

  “Do you want me to drive you home after breakfast?”

  “I have arranged for one of the office assistants to pick me up and take me to Usherman Center.”

  “Are you teaching today?”

  Mr. Kimmelbrod shook his head. “Today I will watch Spiegelman’s master class, to make sure he isn’t imposing any of his bad habits on my students.”

  “Lucky Spiegelman,” Iris said. “How are your students this year? Anyone worth saving from him?”

  “Not particularly,” Mr. Kimmelbrod said, taking a sip of his coffee. “It is a disappointing group this summer.”

  “That’s too bad.” Iris always sympathized with the students when they were so brutally and impersonally assessed. And never so deeply as on the day he had issued such a withering judgment of Becca. After years of directing her musical education, ensuring she had the best teachers, evaluating her progress, choosing her repertoire, he remained impassive in the face of Becca’s decision to quit the Conservatory. Iris had begged him to intervene, had demanded that he dissuade Becca from her disastrous course of action.

  “You’re the only one she’ll listen to,” Iris had said.

  “I have spoken to her,” he had said.

  “And? Did you tell her she was making a terrible mistake?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “No? What do you mean no?”

  “Becca is not suited to the Conservatory.”

  “Of course she is. This is what she’s been planning for her whole life.”

  “A violinist must be driven by an insatiable need to improve. To set unattainable standards of precision and musicianship and then achieve them.”

  “Becca does that. She’s been practicing four hours a day since she was ten years old.”

  “Four. Four, my dear, four is a lot, but it is not so much. Becca is a sensible girl. But this drive I am speaking of is not sensible; it is a kind of self-punishment.”

  “She’s always been wholly committed to her music.”

  “Committed, yes. Wholly committed? I’m not sure.”

  Mr. Kimmelbrod was a notoriously demanding teacher. His students were in awe of him, both of the depth of his musical talent and of his firm views on the importance of precision. They could not bear to disappoint him. A terse shake of his head could send them spiraling into despair. The granting of a single word of praise made them flush deeply with pleasure. Becca, although never formally a student of her grandfather’s, had shared his students’ fear of disappointing him, and Iris would always believe that it was because Becca feared she could not meet Mr. Kimmelbrod’s expectations that she had determined to escape them entirely by giving up the violin. This, however, was more than Iris had been willing to say.

  “She’s just reacting to the competitive atmosphere of the Conservatory. As soon as she gets used to the stress she’ll start to do well. She’s a brilliant violinist.”

  “Becca is talented, yes,” Mr. Kimmelbrod had said. “She has occasional moments of brilliance. With sufficient education she would make a fine orchestra musician. But she is not a soloist, and she has never quite been able to find her footing in chamber ensembles.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Becca has confronted the limits of her talent and has made her decision.”

  “But it’s the wrong decision! She’s just insecure in the face of competition. She needs to be reassured that she’s as good as the other students.”

  “She knows she is as good as some. Better, perhaps. But not as good as others.”

  “Not as good as you, is that what you mean?”

  As stubborn as Becca had been, Iris thought now, years after that conversation, when it came to music she had always deferred to her grandfather. If Mr. Kimmelbrod
had scoffed at her insecurities and demanded that she continue, Becca would undoubtedly have graduated. She would have made her debut. And then—? And then, perhaps her father was right; she would not have had a solo career. But there were hundreds of professional orchestras in the United States. If Mr. Kimmelbrod had only been willing to encourage her, to give her the merest push, Becca might today be a principal second violinist in Albany, or Tucson, or even Cincinnati. She might be appearing nightly in the pit of the Shubert Theater on West Forty-fourth Street. She would not, Iris thought with a painful clenching in her belly, be lying under a plain granite stone in the Red Hook cemetery.

  To stifle such irrational and dangerous thoughts, Iris began emptying the dishwasher, banging pots and pans into the cupboards and sending silverware ringing into the drawer. Then, when there were no more dishes to put away, she said, “What can I make you for breakfast, Dad?”

  “Nothing, thank you,” Mr. Kimmelbrod said. “Iris, there is something I’d like to talk to you about.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s Ruthie.”

  Iris’s hands stilled.

  “I believe she is struggling.”

  This was really too much. When she had wanted her father to help her with one of her daughters, to take an interest, to interfere, he had refused. When it had been appropriate for him to be involved, he had opted out. And now? When it had nothing to do with him at all?

  Iris said, “Ruthie is grieving, we all are, but she’s bearing up remarkably well, considering. Do you know how hard it is to get a Fulbright in literature? She beat out hundreds of other applicants.”

  “I don’t mean her schoolwork. I think she is struggling to find a way to deal with her grief.”

  Iris began shaking her head even before he finished his sentence. “Is this about the unveiling? I’m sorry, Dad. I’m sorry we didn’t have some kind of big service or lavish reception. But frankly, I wasn’t up to it.”

  Mr. Kimmelbrod took a trembling sip of his coffee before answering, as if trying by example to show Iris the value of calm. “As much as you or I prefer such things to be private,” he said when he put his cup down, “it seems that Ruthie desires some larger, more communal experience.”

  “What does that mean, ‘larger, more communal experience’? You mean this Fourth of July party she’s been talking about? I already told her that wasn’t going to happen.”

  “I think perhaps you should reconsider.”

  “And do you really think that’s appropriate, Dad? Are you really interested in participating in some public display of mourning, complete with lobster and fireworks?”

  Mr. Kimmelbrod smiled thinly. “It would be difficult for me to conceive of a less appealing way to pass my time,” he said. “But Ruthie feels differently.”

  “I know what Ruthie feels,” Iris said. “But she’s a child. She’s got no idea.”

  Mr. Kimmelbrod lifted his cup to his lips, but his hand was trembling so badly that the china chimed against his teeth, spilling coffee over his hand. He put the cup down on the table and pressed his other hand over the shaking one, stilling it against the tabletop.

  The sight caused Iris’s anger to melt away. He was so shrunken. He had gray triangular hollows beneath his cheekbones, his teeth had become too large for his face, and his beautiful hands were crazed with ropy blue veins. His attempts in the face of all that to maintain his dignity filled her with a sorrow almost like homesickness.

  “I’m sorry,” Iris said, rushing to his side. “I’m so sorry, Dad.”

  He shook his head. “No. No need. You are right, I was intruding in your business. Please accept my apologies.”

  Iris pulled a chair out and sat down at the table. When Ruthie had suggested the celebration to her, Iris had dismissed it out of hand. Iris was afraid she could not endure the forced graciousness it would require of her. She had explained this to Ruthie, and pretended not to notice Ruthie’s disappointment.

  “Ruthie’s been talking to you,” Iris said.

  “Please, Iris. I have no right.” Mr. Kimmelbrod pressed his lips together.

  “No, Dad. It’s all right. It’s just.” She grimaced. “It feels so strange. To throw the same party we throw every year, but have it be a memorial? How could that be anything but tragic? The Fourth of July is a day for parades and fireworks, for celebration. Not for memorials.”

  “Ruthie imagines a celebration of their lives, I think,” he said. “Rather than a memorial.”

  Iris sighed. The truth was she had had a certain ambivalence about canceling the picnic. They had been doing it for so long. To cancel it seemed like an acceptance of the derailment of the path of their lives. But, then, how could they continue to throw a party the day before the anniversary of Becca’s death? That was impossible, no matter what they had always done. But perhaps this celebration of Ruthie’s was a way to continue the tradition of the yearly picnic that had always before been so important to Iris, and to honor Becca and John. If this was what Ruthie thought she needed, if this was what she had decided would make her feel better, how could Iris deny it to her? If even Mr. Kimmelbrod was willing to tolerate the mawkishness of a memorial picnic, couldn’t Iris stomach it, too? Perhaps Ruthie was right. Perhaps it would be good for them.

  “Do you really think a celebration will make Ruthie feel better?” Iris asked.

  “No,” Mr. Kimmelbrod said.

  Iris smiled ruefully, reached over to the sideboard, and picked up a pen and a piece of paper. “I’d better make a shopping list.”

  IV

  Serious measures were required: Iris baked a lime pound cake. It was her most impressive cake; she used a Bundt pan embossed with a complicated pattern of grape clusters and vines. The cake baked up tall and golden brown, and the lime sugar glaze crackled tangy and sweet when you bit into it. She did not make the cake very often, in part because she invariably scraped her knuckles while zesting the limes, and also because Becca used to do most of the baking in the house. But today Iris was aiming to please. She was once again off to negotiate with her machetaynista, the woman with whom her native language did not even require her to have a relationship. If she got out of the experience with no injury worse than a few skinned knuckles, she would consider herself to have been fortunate.

  Once Iris had agreed to the Fourth of July memorial, she had thrown herself, as always, foursquare into the operation. She planned the menu, she ordered the lobster, she borrowed the extra chairs and tables, she made the calls to let friends know that the Fourth of July picnic was happening this year, albeit with a different focus. And after Ruthie informed her mother (somewhat improbably, in Iris’s opinion) that without John’s family there, without John’s mother there, the celebration would be incomplete, Iris found herself sitting, uninvited, in Jane Tetherly’s dark little kitchen, bearing unsolicited baked goods.

  “It’s pretty yummy,” Iris said.

  “I’m on Weight Watchers,” Jane said. “But I guess Matt and Samantha might like it.”

  “There’s a pound of butter in this cake; it’s about six points just to sit next to it. Eight if you inhale.”

  First Jane drew her brows together over her nose and frowned. Then a slow smile crept across her face.

  “Maybe I’d better give it to Maureen, then,” Jane said. “It’s her turn to bring the refreshments to her Overeaters Anonymous meeting.”

  Now it was Iris’s turn to smile.

  “You do that Weight Watchers?” Jane said. “Not that you need to. But you know about the points.”

  “I go on Weight Watchers every January,” Iris said. “For about three weeks. I lose one pound the first week, stay even in the second, and gain two in the third. Then I quit.”

  “That’s how it always went for me. Especially during the change. I packed it on when I was going through the change. For ten years I gained at least five pounds a year. But this time I’m sticking to my points. I’ve lost sixteen pounds so far.”

  Five pounds a year? For
ten years? Iris could not imagine gaining that kind of weight.

  “It shows,” Iris said. “You look great. So, well, I guess this probably isn’t the best time to ask you to bring your famous banana pudding to the memorial we’re planning for the Fourth.”

  The ease of the moment drained away and Jane’s face stiffened. Her frown returned and she gazed over Iris’s shoulder, as if there were something fascinating, something incredible, happening in the far corner of her kitchen, by the toaster. Iris held her breath. When Jane failed to respond, Iris continued, “Ruthie’s calling it a celebration of Becca and John. I think she might have mentioned it?”

  Jane nodded curtly, but made no other reply.

  “I know it seems strange,” Iris said. “I mean, it’s the Fourth, and people usually have picnics to go to. And of course the next day, well. No.” She waited for a response from Jane, but none came. “It’s just that last year the Fourth was such a good day, such a happy day, for all of us.”

  Jane drew her mouth into a thin, disapproving line crosshatched with wrinkles. “I’m short-staffed and backed up on houses. And I doubt Matt will be able to get away. He’s working all kinds of hours down the yard. They’ve got two boats they’re trying to get into the water before August.”

  “Surely they won’t make him work on the Fourth of July?”

  “Depends on how things are moving. If they’re running slow they might.”

  “Ruthie’s really got her heart set on this,” Iris said. “The fireworks, especially. We won’t be lighting them until dark. Matt can come whenever he’s done.”

  “Maureen’s always got plans with the girls. You know, going to this one’s house or that one’s. Can’t really count on Maureen.”

  “But you’ll come, won’t you? And bring Samantha with you?” To distract from the naked pleading in her voice, Iris took a sip of the iced tea Jane had poured for her. The tea was sweet, the ice cubes cold against her teeth.

  “I’m afraid not,” Jane said.

  Iris pushed aside her glass and leaned toward Jane. “Look, Jane, can I be honest here? I—I really could use your help. See, until Ruthie got this idea into her head about the celebration, she was just, well, she’s been sinking. Spending most of her time in her room, lying on her bed and staring at the ceiling, and I think she probably lost ten pounds last year. She is not doing well.” For a moment Iris worried that she might be laying it on a little thick, but then she realized she had said nothing that was not true.