Cricket in a Fist

by Naomi K. Lewis

  “This is some family,” Esther said. “We touch men, they crumble like dust.”

  Tamar was the sole beneficiary of Robert’s will, except for the piano, which would be Ginny’s when she married or turned twenty-one, whichever came first, and a surprisingly large sum that he left to Esther.

  Six months after Robert died, Ginny contracted pneumonia and spent a week in the hospital. Then she pirouetted into the end table and fell on the vase, splintered glass wedging into her side. She broke a rib skating on the canal, burnt her foot with the iron and sprained her back dragging a bed away from the wall to check for demons. Tamar hoped Ginny’s long, shelf-knocking limbs would give way to a model’s figure, but puberty brought Ginny’s upward growth to a halt and she swelled outward instead, into a sensual voluptuousness. Esther said, “Trouble.” Ginny’s lips were full and red, and she stood habitually with one hand pressed against the small of her back, breasts straining her buttons. Esther was always stealing disapproving looks, seeing the girl had become all inefficiency and seduction.

  “Don’t worry,” said Tamar.

  Yet the pregnancy seemed like another mishap, another accident that could have been prevented if only Tamar had been vigilant. Once again she had let Ginny out of sight with a man. A man with no sense. Asher opened the door of his rusty red Ford and Ginny climbed inside. A little girl with two new, smooth braids, sitting on the handlebars of a bicycle, skinny legs dangling.

  Tamar had shoved a few items into Ginny’s bags when the girl moved out, including a bottle of salon-quality shampoo, and now, looking for something to use on her daughter’s grease-heavy hair, she found this bottle amid the clutter in a metal basket at the foot of the tub. An ashtray was balanced on top of the basket, encrusted with the sludge of dampened and dried ashes. Putting it on the floor so she could wash it later, Tamar ignored her fleeting desire for a cigarette. Ginny and Esther had never seen her smoke; it usually took her a week to get through a pack, and she only indulged at work, in the department store’s employee changing room. It occurred to her for the first time, and with a strangely desperate sense of loss, that when she left her job in a month to start her new business, her smoking days would be over.

  Asher had left his shaving cream behind, and dried-up drips of foam glued several blond hairs to the top of the container. Tamar wondered if Asher planned not to shave in Israel, if he planned to grow facial hair and ear locks. She imagined the fair scruff the boy would likely find on his cheeks in lieu of a beard and closed her eyes against the image, immediately aware that she was squeezing her lids together, a habit that had already caused wrinkles to start beside her eyes. She dropped the shaving cream into the trash can — Ginny clearly wasn’t using it to shave her legs or armpits — and poured a generous amount of shampoo into her palm. Ginny kept her eyes shut. It was a long time since Tamar had washed hair, even her own. She and Esther had their hair washed and set twice a week. After they moved and Tamar opened her salon over the apartment, Esther would only have to walk upstairs to have her roots touched up. Tamar planned to start with two stylists, a manicurist and a pedicurist. She would sell cosmetics and work the cash herself. She had worked in enough stores that she was confident she could manage the books, at least until she could afford to hire an accountant.

  She rubbed the shampoo between her hands and said to Ginny, “Doesn’t this smell wonderful?” It did: fruity and musky, the smell of griminess cleared away and beauty released. In Tamar’s view, beauty products didn’t add to or change a woman’s appearance but smoothed out hard edges, revealing her best self. At the vanity table each morning, Tamar watched her real face emerge, features sharpened. According to Asher, she felt the same way about grooming that Esther did about cooking. Asher said that she and Esther were both warding off the spectre that lurks beneath civilization. When she recalled this conversation, Tamar felt ill. It had been not only an act of betrayal, it had also been monstrously silly, an indignity that recalled her second date with Robert, all those years ago, after which she’d lain awake for hours remembering how she squeezed his hand between her legs, gasping, mouth against his. She was tortured by the absurdity of it — how ridiculous that she’d let herself go. And, despite everything, the knowledge that, if given a chance, she would do it again.

  Oh, and she did it again. She’d waited for Robert, planned clandestine meetings, and lied so they could be alone. For a little sliver of time, she ached with a desire that demanded all her attention, and she lived to satisfy it. When he had the night shift and she had days off, she took the bus to his house. One time she even met him in his office, and she didn’t wait, didn’t speak, took the time only to lock the door behind her before tearing into him. When they couldn’t meet for several days in a row, she’d find herself motionless at the cosmetics counter, staring at her own reflection in the magnifying mirrors, thinking about his smell, the sound of his voice saying her name; she thought about him while she was working, while she was eating dinner with her mother, as she cleaned the dishes and did the laundry and dyed Esther’s hair at the kitchen sink. She was a quiet lover, always aware of the sound of her own breathing and his, and held fistfuls of his thick red hair in her hands.

  Robert had shown her something new — he had made her forget about the endless struggle to earn a living and keep her mother’s unease at bay; he warded off her panic over the unlikeliness of staying afloat. She believed his claim that this was some sort of love, though it surely in no way resembled the love her parents had shared, which was the kind that led reasonably to marriage. But the kind of love Tamar indulged in three or four times a week led to marriage as well, it turned out, by way of a small, rushed wedding before anything became obvious.

  The way Asher coaxed her to speak, conjured confessions — it had all reminded her, in some strange way, of Robert. It was the undivided attention, the look of desire, of wanting something she had and wanting it badly. And she wanted to give it to him. As though he could take her words and leave her free of them. She’d told Asher about her father, that he had been tall and bony, with sharp ribs, cheekbones and shoulders, and had black hair that curled straight up. How he’d swung Tamar into the air with a happiness that was matched in intensity only by his frustration, when his fists slammed against tables and plates smashed against walls. He never directed these brief, fierce rages at Esther, Tamar or any other person but always at inanimate objects, which, however expensively, could be swept up and replaced. And Tamar told Asher that Esther had been small and dainty, with elegant, thin fingers and a girlish, pretty face. Jozef used to pick her up and swing her around, too, singing her name. He touched her face and called her “my sweet love.” Tamar’s parents had loved each other with a rare and dangerous fierceness; Tamar had not realized this until she watched the van Daams, the brusque and often irritated manner in which they took care of each other and the way they tolerated each other’s presence and needs. They used to have dinner parties, Tamar’s parents, and she remembered how her father put his arm around Esther’s shoulders as he conversed and pulled her close for a moment, protectively, to reinforce that she was dear to him.

  After written notification of his death, discussion of Tamar’s father stopped abruptly and conclusively, and Esther immediately acquiesced to Tamar’s new plan. Tamar sold everything they owned — many of their possessions had been returned by neighbours who’d managed to take them and safeguard them. With the money from her father’s furniture, her mother’s jewellery, and the art they had bought together, Tamar brought her mother to Canada. They looked in the atlas and were shocked at the size of the country — Tamar had pictured an area approximately the size and location of Alaska. The capital city seemed like a reasonable destination.

  Within two months, Tamar was working at a high-end clothing store in downtown Ottawa. She stood in her smart suits and high heels, long hair pulled up and back, hands clasped, in front of rows of Canadian women’s clothing. She worried about her mother, home with the doors locked a
nd the radio on, watching the snow-covered sidewalk through a crack in the blinds. Esther organized and reorganized the contents of the fridge, cooked the dishes she knew. Chopped liver and potato kugel, pea soup and chicken croquettes. She’d always harboured a basic contempt for all other races and nationalities, and now she was vehemently convinced of every known stereotype. She disdained her own ethnicity as much as any other; she thought Jews were elitist and superstitious and the Dutch stingy and lazy. Yet at first she prepared Jewish and Dutch dishes with seeming reverence, a care that could easily be mistaken for nostalgia. She often prepared pannekoeken with apples for breakfast and challah on Fridays for the weekend.

  The first time Tamar brought home a cookbook from the department store, Esther spent the evening poring over pictures of succulent chickens, hams and pies. The next afternoon, she started on the first page, going through the recipes with her English-Dutch dictionary to write translations in pencil beside each ingredient. On her next grocery day, Tamar asked, “Shall I buy you some of those ingredients?”

  Esther looked shocked at the suggestion, then nodded. “Ja.”

  “Which one?” said Tamar. Esther showed her a minced-beef pie, full of potatoes, corn and peas. Tamar copied down the list of ingredients, and two nights later came home to unfamiliar and delicious smells. Her mother had recreated the pie so it looked exactly like the photograph. “This is wonderful,” Tamar told her. Esther was utterly absorbed in eating. When they finished, Esther carefully wrapped the leftovers and put them in the fridge.

  Tamar bought her mother more cookbooks, all of which Esther studied carefully and translated into Dutch. She wanted to try Italian dishes, French dishes, Asian dishes, and her quest for ingredients finally drew her out of the apartment. Equipped with purse, map and cookbook, Esther took the bus to Little Italy and to the Chinese stores on Somerset Street. She showed store proprietors the English recipes and demonstrated uncharacteristic respect for anyone who sold, cooked, prepared or was in any other way associated with food. The only exceptions were kosher butchers, who she claimed were barbarians. Her grandfather had been a kosher butcher, and she remembered him as a sadistic, unaffectionate man. Her unlikely descriptions had him covered in blood, head to foot, even at family gatherings. “Always, it was black under his nails. I knew it was meat rotting under there.” Esther’s memories of her childhood had somehow become distorted, warped in strange directions during the two years Tamar had lost her. Tamar knew there was no point in arguing with her mother’s beliefs and had long ago given up trying to convince her of anything, even the details of their own lives.

  Some of the recipes in Esther’s books were too lavish for Tamar’s salary, but they were both surprised by how inexpensive it was to eat well. Spices cost only pennies and transformed the most familiar ingredients into unheard-of delight. Over twenty-five years, Esther’s arsenal of dishes had grown to the hundreds, but she still refused to diverge from the recipes in her books. Wouldn’t replace white flour with whole wheat or habanero peppers with chili. She required exact measurements and penciled them in beside ingredients that could be included “to taste.” Once, when Ginny was a little girl, she suggested that Oma Esther add red pepper to her zucchini risotto. Esther didn’t respond. Ginny said challah with chocolate chips would be a great dessert, and Esther was appalled. She attributed such suggestions, along with all Ginny’s other flaws, to her Irish blood.

  As Esther took on more cooking, shopping and housekeeping, Tamar began to work longer hours for increased wages, and her English improved quickly. She had taken English classes as a child, and the conversational requirements of sales came to her easily. Her manager forgave any difficulties, and so did her customers, because her impeccable appearance and manner more than made up for them. Esther, meanwhile, learned the English words for food and its preparation. Within a year, she didn’t need to use her dictionary as much and recognized the words for most vegetables, meats and spices. She learned cooking verbs, but only in the imperative voice: whisk, knead, separate, crumble.

  Asher tried to convince Tamar that Esther’s fixation on food was a common symptom of what he called “survivor syndrome.” “Inmates in the camps talked and even dreamed incessantly about food,” he told her. “They would spend nights planning the menus for dinner parties. They fantasized about recipes far more than they thought about sex.” Asher forced these pictures into Tamar’s head: Esther, starving, remembering recipes, dreaming of roast chickens and potatoes.

  “My father,” Tamar told Asher, “would roll over in his grave, if he had one, to see the way we eat. When I was a child, we weren’t allowed to put more than one item on a piece of bread. Either butter or cheese, but not both. It wasn’t because we were poor; it was some kind of moral principle.”

  Asher tapped his finger against his chin. “Is it possible,” he said, “that you and your mother feel guilty for accepting your father’s death, for leaving him behind — surviving him?”

  After washing the length of Ginny’s hair, Tamar squeezed more shampoo into her hand. “Once more.” This time, she worked up a thick lather and rubbed her daughter’s scalp firmly with the tips of her fingers. “Ow,” said Ginny. “Nails.” She smiled.

  “You should see some of the new products they’re coming up with,” said Tamar. “I know you young girls like to have that straight-down-the-sides-of-your-face look, but you could still use something for shine. Thin eyebrows are in,” she added. She ran her finger over Ginny’s pale left eyebrow, then used her palm to wipe away a puff of soap she’d left. Tamar’s own eyebrows were non-existent, plucked from their follicles and replaced with a brown pencil line. “You could use a facial,” she told Ginny. “Betsy can do it. She’s wonderful. She’d get rid of all those blackheads, too. The things she does for some of these women. They’re like new people.” Tamar paused. “Does Steven know Asher has left?” she asked.

  “Sure, they’re friends.”

  “Steven’s such a nice boy. And he liked you so much.”

  “Steven still likes me,” said Ginny. “And he’s no saint, by the way. He’s an oddball. He keeps brains in jars of formaldehyde. Asher calls him Doctor Frankenstein.”

  “That’s his area of study, isn’t it,” said Tamar. “He’s a scientist.” She winced a little at the thought of the pickled brains. “Anyway, he would never —”

  Ginny splashed water up her arms. “Never what?” She shifted her weight, and her ankle bumped against the corner of the soap basket. “Ouch.” She regained her balance with an arm on each side of the tub. “This one time, I was at Steven’s apartment. There was a dinner party, and I was the last one left.” Tamar paused, gripping a handful of hair like a rope before she continued to knead it between her hands. Ginny reached up and touched the top of her head, then let her arm fall back to her side.

  “And?” said Tamar.

  “And,” said Ginny, “we were finishing the last of the wine when he walked over to the window. He told me to come over and look. We could see right into the apartment across the street. The bedroom. Do you want to hear this?”

  “If you like.”

  “Well, there were this man and woman lying side by side, completely naked, holding hands.” Ginny paused again, long enough for Tamar to wonder if this was supposed to be the end of the story. Then she added, “They were masturbating.”

  “They were — goodness, Ginny!”

  “Steven said they did that every night. Night after night. And he stands there watching them. He insisted I keep watching until they — were finished.” Tamar filled the green bucket and began to rinse the shampoo out of Ginny’s hair.

  Steven Winter was just a sweet, decent boy. He’d been calling Ginny for months, coming by and taking her to the movies, before Asher got in the way. He’d brought Tamar an assortment of teas in a basket. Terribly tall, he had a ponytail and a thick, bushy beard. But despite the fashion of the day, he had an intelligent face, a gentle face that would someday crinkle around the eyes in a
permanent expression of kindness. Tamar was sure that only some strange twist of his sweetness and decency brought him to his window to spy on his neighbours and made him want Ginny to see them, too.

  “Well?” said Ginny.

  “Well what?”

  Tamar pushed Ginny’s head forwards to pour a bucketful of water on the back of her hair. She continued to rinse in silence and Ginny sighed, wiped her wet lips with the back of her equally wet wrist. “There,” said Tamar at last. “Hair’s all clean. Squeaky clean.” She squeaked her fingers down one lock to demonstrate.

  “Thanks, Mother. I can do the rest.” Ginny splashed water on her face. As her mother settled back onto the toilet, drying her arms on an already damp towel, Ginny said, “Honestly. I’ll be fine. Maybe you should check on Oma Esther. Can I call you when I need to get out?”

  Tamar stood. “Thank you would have been nice.”

  “I did say thank you, Mother.” She said it quietly, and Tamar didn’t react. Instead, she paused in the doorway and asked, “Where did you get the paper for all those birds?”

  “Oh. I buy origami paper at the art supply store. And I cut wrapping paper into squares. You can use anything as long as it’s square; sometimes I use old class notes or letters. Junk that comes in the mail. Anything.”

  Shutting the door behind her so it was open only a crack, Tamar manoeuvred through Asher’s clutter to the bed and lifted one end of the balled-up blanket to shake it straight. Asher and Ginny had slept in this bed together for six months. Tamar couldn’t picture it. Sleeping bodies, so vulnerable, waking to see each other’s faces slack and open.