The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street: A Novel

by Susan Jane Gilman

  “I know you!” he cried.

  I sucked in my cheeks and glanced away from him. “No you don’t,” I said, my heart pounding. “That’s not possible.” I tried to come up with some plausible lie, some way to extricate myself as quickly as possible. “Please. I can pay double.” I fumbled to open my purse. “Can we just go? I’m in a terrible hurry. My husband is shipping out tomorrow, you see.”

  By presenting myself as a soldier’s wife, I hoped to cast myself in a softer, more sympathetic light. Yet the man bore down on me, circling me, studying my face. “Your husband?” he yelped. He was so close I could feel his hot breath on me, his animal presence. When he reached out to grab my chin, I jerked my head away.

  “You’re right. I can’t possibly know you. You’re far too young,” he said with astonishment. “But I do. Tillie?”

  And that’s when I looked at the ghostly, familiar face, fleshier and grizzled in the half-light, the now-rheumy gray eyes. The old gangster circling me. He knew me, all right.

  He wasn’t E. Lazarre at all.

  He was my father.

  Chapter 10

  To this day, darlings, I have no actual memory of Salvatore Dinello’s horse colliding with me and crushing my legs, ribs, and pelvis on the cobblestone streets of the Lower East Side. The trauma, the sheer shock of it, from what I understand, can wipe your mind clean like a blackboard. And so, similarly, I have no memory of how I wound up in a brown DeSoto seated beside my father as he gunned the engine—such as one could with the speed limit at thirty-five miles per hour—down Canal Street toward the Holland Tunnel.

  “Well.” He exhaled. “I guess it’s been awhile, hasn’t it?” He steered with one hand, his arm slung casually over the back of the seat. But he kept glancing at me, checking if I was really still there. He was more compact and jowlier than I remembered, and his thinned hair had only a faint sheen of copper left to it. He wore it combed back with pomade, the way older men did. He also appeared to have false teeth. Yet even in his sixties, he was still handsome in a vaguely canine way.

  “My God.” He shook his head. “You’re the spitting image of her. It’s bashert, I suppose.”

  Bashert is the Yiddish word for “fate.” Yet he was speaking English to me. We had each been speaking English for nearly thirty years, in fact—though this was the first time, of course, that we had conversed in it to each other.

  “Look at you, Malka.” He let out a long, disbelieving whistle. “All grown up.” It was hard to tell if he was pleased or not.

  “I’m Lillian now,” I said faintly. “Mrs. Lillian Dunkle.”

  “Well, well. How do you do, Mrs. Lillian Dunkle? I go by Hank Bailey myself these days.” We were stopped at a red light. He offered his hand awkwardly. Dumbly, I shook it. I was not sure how to proceed at all. Part of me wanted to demand he stop the car. I wanted him to hold still and let me catch my breath and think.

  For so many years, oh, how I had imagined this moment in such extravagant detail! Back in the Beth Israel Dispensary, I had even believed that once I was reunited with Papa, my leg would grow anew like the fresh green shoot of a flower. I envisioned elaborate scenarios where I raced into his arms and apologized to him—for singing at the dinner table, for having a big mouth that caused nothing but tsuris, for begging to go to America. And Papa, he would see my goodness—and my sincerity, and my damaged leg—and take me back with tears in his eyes, saying, “I forgive you, Malka. I promise I’ll stay.” Where did you go? I would ask. And in my dreams his answer was always, I was simply out searching for you.

  Until, of course, I had concluded he was dead.

  Yet now, as Papa maneuvered the car down into the Holland Tunnel, it felt as if a butterfly had alighted on my palm. Any sudden movement, I feared, would scare it off for good. Better to breathe quietly and remain stock-still. To take my cue from Papa and behave as if this were the most natural and unremarkable thing in the world—a father and daughter simply going for a Saturday-afternoon drive together—as if we hadn’t been separated for more than thirty years.

  “Just drove her back from Saratoga.” Papa laughed glibly, like a salesman. “Milt changed her oil. I’ve driven this route several times since I came back east. There’s the speed limit, all right, but I know a few tricks.” Yet nothing he said registered. I was too disconcerted by his face, by his all-American clothes—a sharp, almost preposterously tailored jacket and hat—and, of course, by the very fact of him. I absorbed only the cadences of what he was saying, like a song in a foreign language—even though there was no Russian or Yiddish inflection at all to his English. At some point he must have taken great pains to get rid of his accent. He wore a small gold ring on his right pinkie finger with a seed pearl set inside a gouged starburst. A few liver spots salted the backs of his hands. Two tan lines marked where a wristwatch had been. He smelled of vinegary cologne and cigarettes.

  He cleared his throat. “So,” he said, trying to sound offhand, “you’re married? Your husband’s in Dover?”

  After the oppressive darkness of the tunnel, the hazy marshlands of New Jersey came as a bright shock. Between sneaking glances at Papa, I watched the landscape unspool. Little shields along the roadside read U.S. 1. I had first been on this highway on the bus with Bert going to Atlantic City on our honeymoon. Thinking about how hopeful and unknowing we had been—it made me feel like weeping.

  “You don’t say very much, do you?” Papa said. Was I imagining it, or did a look of displeasure cross his face? I grew suddenly aware of the fact that I had not had time to don my best dress. Nor had I been to the beauty parlor all week.

  Papa regarded my leg. “Polio?”

  I did not know how to begin to reply to this.

  He lit a cigarette as he steered. In an afterthought, he offered me one. I shook my head, waved it away.

  “I seem to remember you were a very talkative little girl. A regular chatterbox,” Papa remarked.

  “You remember?” My voice, when it finally came out, sounded more reproachful than I intended.

  “Well, of course,” he said irritably, sucking deeply on the cigarette. “As I recall, your mama always complained that you asked too many questions.”

  The word “mama,” as soon as he said it, hung in the air. We both grew quiet, as if waiting for a bomb to explode. Finally I said, softly, “She’s gone, you know. From what I understand.”

  “Oh,” said Papa, staring at the road. “You don’t say.”

  “And Flora and Bella, too. I don’t know where. Rose, she died of diphtheria.”

  “Oh,” Papa said again, somberly. His eyes remained fixed on the horizon. “I am truly sorry to hear that.”

  “Papa,” I said carefully, “what happened?”

  “What happened?”

  “Where did you go?”

  He let out a long, beleaguered sigh. “That was another lifetime ago, Malka.”

  “I’m just curious, is all.” I tried to sound as offhand as possible. “Did I do something wrong?” I smiled intensely. “Did you leave because of me?”

  “Christ,” he groaned, turning the steering wheel sharply. “Here we go with the questions.”

  “No, Papa. I just—”

  A trapped look came into his eyes. Yet then he seemed to calm down. “Listen,” he said. “I just needed to try my luck. Score big somewhere. But a man can’t do that with a family in tow. You understand?”

  “Were you ever planning to come back?” I said quietly. For all my difficulties with Isaac, I could never imagine abandoning him.

  Papa looked at me as if he were greatly offended. “How can you even ask me that, Malka? What kind of person do you think I am?”

  He fixed his gaze on me long and hard. For a moment I thought he was going to drive right off the road.

  “It got complicated, okay? Some deals fell through. I had a sort of accident.” He motioned to his thigh.

  With a sudden jerk, he slid the car across both lanes, brought it to a halt on the sho
ulder of the road, and got out. “You see?” He paraded grandly back and forth along the gravel, then nodded at my cane. “Just like you.”

  I squinted. Frankly, I couldn’t see anything at all. “Your right leg or your left?”

  “My right,” he said with exasperation. He walked more slowly now, with an exaggerated drag, then got back into the car and started up the engine.

  “Broken ribs I had, too.” He maneuvered the DeSoto back onto the turnpike. “A concussion. For a while, in fact, they thought I was blind. That’s right. And the shysters who did this to me, they took everything I had.”

  “You didn’t go to the police?” Though, having grown up in Little Italy, I knew better. No immigrant with any brains ever went to the police.

  Before Papa could reply, a billboard appeared. The Statue of Liberty came into focus, lifting her star-spangled red-white-and-blue ice cream cone instead of her torch.

  I could not help it. “Papa, look.” I pointed.

  “What? The Statue of Liberty?”

  “No. Dunkle’s Ice Cream. Dunkle. That’s me. Lillian Dunkle.”

  Papa glanced at me, then up at the passing billboard, then back at me. “You own an ice cream store?”

  I nodded. “My husband and I. You’ve never eaten at a Dunkle’s?”

  “Can’t say I have.”

  “There’s one right here in New Jersey.”

  “So you must be doing pretty well for yourselves if you can afford a big, fancy billboard like that,” he said. “Well, good for you, Malka. Good for you.”

  “We could make a quick stop,” I suggested. “It’s got a drive-up window, even. Just ahead in Edison. You could try anything you’d like. A sundae. A soda.”

  Papa shook his head. “I prefer to keep moving, if you don’t mind. Milt will be pacing like a cat until I get this car back. Besides, ice cream has never been my cup of tea.”

  For a moment we drove on in silence. Though I didn’t want them to, my eyes started to tear. I was not even sure exactly why. I felt foolish.

  Papa jerked the DeSoto to a halt on the side of the highway again.

  “I can’t drive if you start blubbering. It’s distracting,” he said. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said, more gently, rubbing his hands on his thighs. “I don’t mean for us to get off on the wrong foot here. I just have a lot on my mind, okay?”

  He took out a handkerchief and offered it to me. “I understand. It’s been a long time. If you want to share a treat together,” he said, “let’s share a treat. It’s probably a good idea, in fact.”

  Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out a small brown bottle and unscrewed it. He took two furious gulps, then passed it to me.

  I stared at him.

  “This is a treat, too.” He winked. “Tell me you only eat ice cream.”

  I took the flask from him and swigged it in a big, defiant swallow. The whiskey was cheap, a hot wire scorching my throat. Yet it felt good to drink. In fact, I realized, it was exactly what the moment demanded.

  “Attagirl.” Papa grinned. “Isn’t that better?”

  I took another swig.

  He chuckled. “I guess you are my daughter, all right.”

  I handed it back to him, my insides aflame. But something had shifted between us. He was smiling at me slyly now, knowingly, in that same conspiratorial way he’d had when I was a little girl. Suddenly we were a team again. “I seem to remember,” Papa said nostalgically, taking another swig, “you and I, we always did have a special connection, didn’t we, Malka?”

  I felt a peculiar shudder of delight. “Remember in Hamburg?” I said. “When you bought me that chocolate?”

  “Oh, yes. Of course,” Papa said. “Chocolate. Yes. Well.” He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He screwed the cap back onto the flask. I felt a little sorry to see him tuck it away.

  “Why don’t we continue this in a classier joint?” Papa said. “I know a place not too far from here. What do you say, you and I, we stop and get some fortification for the road? Have a little nosh. Get reacquainted properly, someplace where I can concentrate?”

  I looked at him, torn. “Papa,” I said pleadingly. “My husband. He’s shipping out.”

  Already it was nearly four o’clock in the afternoon; the sun was sliding in through the windshield, glazing us with bronzed, winter light. Dover was at least four hours away.

  My father made a face. “Surely you can spare one measly hour for your long-lost papa?”

  Oh, I wanted to cry, suddenly now you have the time for me? And yet, my years of waiting, they tugged at me as insistently as a child. I thought fleetingly of Bert, of my hideous parting shot on the telephone. That “undisclosed location” looming with all its promise of catastrophe. The factory. Isaac’s whining. Yet who could possibly have anticipated this? Papa, he was right here. Right now.

  “One hour,” I said cautiously. Bert, I reminded myself, he did have until 5:00 A.M.

  Reaching over, Papa squeezed my shoulder. “That’s my girl,” he said. “Let’s do this up right.”

  Rickie’s Round-Up sat on a barren patch near the railroad tracks just off of Route 1 in Rahway, New Jersey. BREAKFAST, STEAKS, COCKTAILS was stenciled on the windows. Inside, padded red banquettes and heavy red drapes gave the place the feel of an old Pullman train car. The restaurant was empty, yet several old men sat clustered around the long, dark bar in the back, drinking and listening to the radio. An opened newspaper and a couple of stacks of coupons sat on the counter before them. As soon as my father walked in, the bartender waved. “Hiya, Hank. Long time no see.” All the men turned around on their barstools at once, as if we had caught them at something. “Hoo-hoo-hoo,” one of them joked. “If it ain’t Beetle Bailey.”

  “Hey, hey. At ease, fellas.” Papa grinned. “Just passing through.” He moved in quickly among them, slapping their backs and shaking hands like a politician. “Is Rickie around?” Papa climbed up onto a stool beside them.

  Suddenly I got a sinking feeling.

  I stood there in the doorway in my hat and coat. As the bartender wiped down his station with a rag, he glanced up and saw me. “Excuse me, ma’am, may I help you?”

  “Oh, she’s with me.” Papa waved me over to the bar and tapped the red stool beside him. “This is, uh—”

  “I’m his daughter. Lillian. Papa, I changed my mind,” I said. “My husband is waiting. Let’s just go.”

  All the men stared at me. Nobody moved.

  “Papa, please.” Those words in my mouth, they felt so strange.

  A man with white tufts of hair sprouting out of his ears like pillow stuffing said, “Hank, you never told me you had a daughter.” He turned to me. “Hiya, Lillian. I’m Sid.” He offered his hand.

  Call me Pickles, said another. Charlie. Irving. The men had regional accents, but like my father they did not dress or carry themselves like immigrants. It was hard to tell where they were from beyond New Jersey.

  “What’s everybody drinking?” Papa announced, rubbing his hands together. “I’m buying.”

  “Whoo-hoo. Beetle Bailey’s buying? What is it?” Irving snorted. “Christmas?”

  Papa shot me a wink. It was clear that we would be staying for a cocktail. Resignedly, I unbuttoned my coat and set my hat, cane, and pocketbook down on the stool beside me. Papa put his hand on the small of my back and guided me over to his friends.

  “Today, gentlemen”—he exhaled—“today is the day that I happened to be reunited with my long-lost daughter here. That’s right, fellas. My daughter from the old country. And guess what? It’s her birthday.”

  The men chortled. “Is it, now?” Sid said dryly.

  “Which means, of course, that drinks are on the house for us, right, Julius?” Papa winked at the bartender. “I’ll take a bourbon on the rocks. Malka, what’ll you have?”

  “The same, I suppose,” I said dispiritedly.

  “Ah,” Papa said approvingly. “I see the lady likes her liquor.”

  “I’m not
fussy, is all.”

  “Wait a minute, birthday girl,” said Julius. “Are you Malka or Lillian? If you two are gonna hoodwink me, you better get your stories straight.”

  “My name is Lillian,” I said sharply, more for Papa’s benefit than the bartender’s. “Lillian Dunkle. Malka was just a nickname. From childhood.”

  Julius set two highballs down in front of us. They bled wet rings onto the polished bar.

  “What’s this?” Papa chuckled. “No coaster?”

  “You get a coaster when you pay for a coaster,” said Julius.

  Papa held his drink out by the rim and dried off the bottom with his handkerchief. Then he reached over and wiped the condensation off mine. He was being extremely gentlemanly now. “Happy birthday,” he said, raising his glass. We clinked and took a sip in unison. Our movements were effortlessly synchronized. Father and daughter. The bourbon was surprisingly sweetish and strong.

  “Dunkle, Dunkle,” said Sid, studying me. “Is that like the ice cream?”

  “It’s exactly like the ice cream,” I said. “That’s our company. Dunkle’s Ice Cream.”

  “Hey, Julius,” Papa called out. “You ever hear of Dunkle’s Ice Cream?”

  Julius shrugged. “I never hear anything,” he said. “That’s why I’m a good bartender.”

  My father laughed. “And a great husband, I bet.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.”

  “Wait a minute,” Charlie said to me. “We’re talking about the Dunkle’s on the roadsides? With those pink-and-brown stripes? And those specials, those—what do you call them? Where you buy one, get one free?”

  “Two-for-One Sundae Mondays,” I said. We’d had an advertisement for these on the radio recently. I was pleased to see that someone had heard them.

  “Those stores are really yours?” Charlie said.

  Even Papa was listening now.

  “Well, we franchise them out,” I explained. “But yes. We had twelve before the war, but a few closed because of the gas rationing. So now there are eight.” Our owners, we’d given them all jobs in our factories instead.