by Ruth Reichl
“How could you tell?” I asked.
“Right now she’s saying to my stepfather, ‘She seems like a nice girl.’ And he’s saying, ‘Look who’s going to be on Johnny Carson tonight! Art Carney!’”
“What would she have done if she didn’t like me?” I persisted.
“Nothing different,” he admitted. “But I’d know.”
Walking up the creaky stairs to our apartment I breathed in the familiar odor of dust, old newspapers, and pickles from the store downstairs. I took a deep breath, grateful to be home, grateful to feel safe there. We unlocked the door, which still smelled vaguely of the patchouli oil Pat wore, and the cat came to meet us, complaining bitterly at having been left alone. He followed us into the bedroom and leaped gracefully onto the ornately carved antique bed I had bought at the Treasure Mart thrift shop. I turned on the fan in the window, took off all my clothes, and flopped down beside the cat. “You probably couldn’t tell,” said Doug, handing me a glass filled with Ripple and ice cubes, “but that was a really fancy dinner.” He kicked off his shoes, took off his shirt, and lay down beside me. “When I was little we mostly ate on fold-up tables in front of the television.”
“Every night?” I asked incredulously, determined to make it up to him.
I canned tomatoes. I baked bread and pies and cakes. Doug built shelves in the kitchen and we hung up a six-foot ad for a can of peas we had found outside a supermarket. We divided up the rest of the rooms. The living room was mine, a jumble of colors and textures, with a red velvet couch and Tunisian pillows all over the floor. The dining room belonged to Doug: it was very spare, with white walls, a black floor, and a big round table in the middle. The only decorations were his gray sculptures, smooth abstract forms.
My letters home were laced with recipes. “I got an A on my Sienese renaissance paper,” I bragged, “and I’ve invented a pumpkin soup you bake right in the pumpkin. First you cut off the crown and take out the seeds and strings. Layer it two thirds full with toasted bread and grated gruyère cheese. Then fill it up with cream. Put the crown on and bake it in a 350° oven for two hours. Serve it at the table right from the pumpkin, being sure to scoop out the pumpkin meat with the goodies. Everybody loves it.”
Mom was not interested in recipes or grades; she got right to the point. “When,” she wrote back, “are we going to meet Doug?”
I put it off as long as I could. But the following summer, after I had passed my master’s exam, I finally ran out of excuses.
“They’re giving my mother lithium,” I said as we loaded the van for the trip to Connecticut, “she seems pretty balanced at the moment. Still, you can’t be too careful with her cooking. When she gives you something to eat watch me before you put it in your mouth. If you see me pushing it around on the plate, do the same.”
“You’ve said that before,” Doug said. “Stop worrying. It will be fine. I won’t let her poison me. And they’re going to like me.”
“You mean as much as your parents like me?” I asked.
“They do like you,” he insisted.
It was after ten when we pulled into the driveway, but my parents were still sitting at the table, holding hands as the light from the candles flickered in the bay windows of the darkened dining room. I introduced Doug, Dad poured him a glass of wine, and Mom and I went into the kitchen. My parents had already eaten, but Mom had saved a couple of lobsters and she had the water boiling. After we dumped the beasts into the pot I went back to the dining room to rescue Doug from Dad. He didn’t need my help; they were so deep in conversation they didn’t even see me.
“You’ve gotten thin,” said Mom later, as we cleared the table. The men had gone out to the lawn to smoke. I nodded.
“It must be love,” she prompted.
I nodded again. I didn’t want to have one of those intimate conversations my mother conned me into, the ones where I said more than I meant to and regretted it later. I felt soft and vulnerable and I ran up to bed as soon as the kitchen was clean. Doug was still outside, still talking to my father.
I read for a while but I was almost asleep by the time I felt Doug’s long body next to mine. “Why didn’t you tell me your father flew with Wilbur Wright?” he asked.
“He did what?”
“He flew with one of the Wright brothers. Didn’t you know that?” He leaned on one elbow, looking down at me.
I didn’t. My mother took up so much space that I had spent my entire childhood not noticing my father’s silence. He almost never talked about himself. “I don’t even know what city he was born in,” I realized.
“Leipzig,” said Doug. “But by the time the Wright brothers came to Germany the family was living in Berlin.”
“Tell me about my father flying,” I remembered.
Doug reached for me and I turned so that we were nestled like spoons. He stroked my hair and whispered, “No, you ask him.” And we turned out the light.
I had forgotten about the gargantuan breakfasts my mother served, the fresh orange juice and rolls and cold cuts and coffee cakes. It seemed to have grown larger over the years; now there were four kinds of cheese, not just Liederkranz, and jelly doughnuts and salami and Westphalian ham and Canadian bacon. There were even the cold lobster tails from the night before.
“It’s a feast!” said Doug.
“Oh,” said Dad happily, “Ruthie takes after her mother. Miriam is a wonderful cook.”
Doug looked at me, a quick glance of compassion that thrilled me to the tips of my toes. We were in this together. Mom handed each of us a glass of fresh orange juice and said, “We waited for you.”
“I know about this,” said Doug as he took it. He reached over to hit Dad’s glass with his own. “Cheerio,” he said. “Have a nice day.” Dad beamed.
I suddenly remembered Wilbur Wright. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I cried.
“I guess it never came up,” said Dad mildly.
“But it would have been such a good thing to brag about!” I said. “My friends would have been so thrilled.”
“I never thought of that,” Dad admitted, setting down his slice of bread. “I didn’t know you’d be interested. I’m sorry.” He seemed genuinely contrite. “He came to Berlin in 1909 and everybody went to see the American demonstrate his new flying machine. My parents were sitting up on the dais with the dignitaries, but I had to stand in the back with my English governess. How I hated her! When Mr. Wright asked for a volunteer to fly with him I simply sneaked away from Miss.” He grinned with delight, remembering. “The airplane was just a flimsy thing …”
“Ernst,” said my mother suddenly, “remember that you promised to fix the bathroom door this afternoon.”
“… there were no seats, it was all wing,” my father continued as if she had not spoken. “Wilbur Wright lay in the middle, operating the levers. His assistant looked at me, decided I was light enough, and strapped me in across from him. I was delighted. We swooped over the crowd, not very high, so I heard my mother when she screamed. Imagine how she must have felt, looking up and seeing me flying over her head!”
“What happened next?”
“Oh,” said Dad, “we landed.”
“That’s all?”
“Well, not quite. My parents took me home and while my mother fired the governess my father took me upstairs and gave me the only spanking I ever got.”
He took a big mouthful of coffee and added, “It was worth it. Unfortunately they hired another English governess, and she was worse than the first!” He turned to my mother. “Yes, darling,” he said patiently, “I’ll fix the bathroom door.” He smiled shyly in Doug’s direction and added, “Perhaps Doug will help me?”
Doug fixed the door while Dad stood by making admiring sounds. I felt useless, restless, and inexplicably irritable. I roamed the house, picking things up and putting them down. Mom had gone off to run errands and Doug and Dad were in the book-lined, pine-paneled den Mom liked to call the library.
Looking at them, I
wondered why I had not noticed that Doug was built exactly like Dad. They were both slim and tall, and from a distance you couldn’t tell them apart. “You should have seen Doug fix that door!” said Dad. “He’s so fast!”
He was holding a book, running his hands lovingly over the pages. “You see,” he said, “this is Janson in the English monotype. You can tell because the descenders on the y are different.” He went to the shelf and pulled down another book. “Look,” he said, holding it out, “this is the Janson in linotype. See the difference?”
Doug ran his hands over the page. He nodded solemnly. “Do you have the first book you designed?” he asked. Dad put his head to one side and considered. He went to the shelves and pulled down a volume. He opened it, caressed the pages, and said apologetically, “It’s not very good.” He held the book out for Doug to see. “So old-fashioned. A few years later I realized that using only the right-hand page for the title was wasting an opportunity and I began using the left as well.” He was lecturing now, in his element; I remembered, suddenly, that he had been teaching book design at NYU for years.
Dad went to the shelves and began taking down the books he was proudest of: Ulysses with the enormous S and The Disenchanted with its river meandering through the title. He showed Doug the picture of Gertrude Stein on the cover of Portraits and Prayers. “It was new technology then,” he said, “I was so excited about being able to print her photograph right on the binding. I wanted to print the back of her head on the back cover so it would be like having the book coming out of her. But Bennett Cerf said it would be too expensive.”
Dad seemed like a new person, full of fire and passion. I had never seen him like this before. Doug kept asking questions. I could not bring myself to join them, but every time I passed the library I felt more left out.
They talked the whole morning. Dad used so many books to illustrate his points that by the time Mom got home, honking loudly, the library looked as if it had been hit by a cyclone.
We all ran outside to see what Mom was making so much noise about. “Look at what I just found at a yard sale,” she said, pointing to a rickety object sticking out of the back of the car. When we pulled the trunk open we could see a beat-up table covered with many coats of peeling paint and missing a leg. “It only cost five dollars. And you need a table in the library.”
“It needs a little work,” Dad said, eyeing it dubiously.
“Oh, I’m sure Doug can fix it,” Mom said airily. “Ruthie says he can build anything.”
“Uh, I’ll try,” said Doug.
“I’ll help,” said Dad. “But not until we’ve had lunch. I’m hungry. Why don’t we go out to eat?” I looked at him, startled; Mom was the one who made plans in our family.
“Darling, don’t be silly,” she said. “We still have leftover lobster.”
“I don’t feel like eating cold lobster,” said Dad vehemently. “I want to go to that restaurant on the pier and have a decent meal!”
Mom looked stung. She started to say something, changed her mind, and went to fetch her purse.
We went to Dad’s favorite restaurant, an ancient place with wooden floors worn to a velvety gray and screens so old they bellied out toward the Sound. He liked to eat crab-stuffed shrimp and Key lime pie while waitresses in crepe-soled shoes teased him and yachts pulled alongside the pier to fuel up. We passed through the bar on the way in; it was cold and dark, filled with ham-fisted men holding tall glasses of frosty beer. A baseball game blared overhead and Doug and Dad glanced up with identical indifference. “I thought all American boys liked baseball,” said Dad.
“Not me,” said Doug and my father’s face took on the most extraordinary glow of pleasure.
All through lunch they grilled Doug about his work. He told them the story of his mother buying him a correspondence course in drawing when he was five, told them that making art was all he had ever wanted to do. “I understand that,” said Dad, nodding softly. “I made my first book when I was six.”
“And isn’t it nice that Ruthie has a master’s in art history now,” said Mom brightly, “it goes so well with art.” I realized she thought of graduate school as just another way to meet men.
We separated after lunch: Dad and Doug went home to fix the table. Mom and I went shopping for dinner. When we came back with the groceries Dad was standing at the door like an eager seven-year-old who can’t wait to show off a school project.
“Miriam,” he said, “come see what we’ve done! We had such fun fixing the table!” He leaned on it to demonstrate its sturdiness. I had a brief moment of wishing it would give way beneath him, but it didn’t. “And now Doug’s going to show me his portfolio.”
My father’s German accent was stronger than I remembered; the sound of his voice was getting on my nerves. I felt myself grit my teeth as I went into the kitchen, but even from there I could hear him asking questions. Then, suddenly, he raised his voice. “Miriam,” he called, “come in here. You must see this!”
“Don’t cook the corn more than two minutes,” Mom said as she walked out. I put the water on to boil, feeling like Cinderella. I was still muttering angrily to myself when Doug appeared, offering to help.
“Your father’s going to show your mother my work,” he said, pulling the husk from an ear of corn in one smooth motion. “He probably does it better than me.”
“Mmmm,” I said noncommittally.
“You’re so lucky,” Doug said.
I looked at him, surprised. Doug had never complained about his parents’ lack of interest in his art. He was so self-sufficient it had not occurred to me that his family made him lonely. As I went to put my arms around him my bad mood evaporated.
Mom cooked the steaks in her usual fashion, which was to put the meat in the broiler for about a minute, turn it, and announce that dinner was ready. “It’s raw,” Doug whispered, gulping. He ate six ears of corn and pushed his meat around the plate.
Dad ate with his usual appetite. When he was done he turned to Mom and said, “What a wonderful dinner, darling. Thank you so much.” And then he did what he had done every night of my childhood: kissed her hand.
Doug stared, caught himself, and asked, “What made you come to America?”
“Oh,” said Dad, “that’s a long story.” He turned his body so that he was facing Doug directly. “My family had two businesses. Lumber and furs. I hated them both. My cousins said I handled the blue foxes as if they were Picassos and anyone could see I had no head for business. So they let me go to the university. And then I got interested in politics.”
I looked over at my father, startled. “Politics?”
“Didn’t I ever tell you about the Student Pacifist Movement in Weimar Germany?” he asked innocently. It was another little detail he had neglected to mention.
“Did you know?” I asked Mom.
“I think we’ll eat outside tomorrow night,” she said. “Remind me to buy some citronella candles in the morning.”
“You were a pacifist?” asked Doug.
“And,” said my father, “a draft dodger.”
It was too much; I stomped up to my bedroom.
Doug’s footsteps followed behind me but I was too angry to turn around. “He certainly does like you,” I said sarcastically. I knew I was behaving badly but I couldn’t stop myself.
“He certainly does.” The voice had a strong German accent. I turned around, startled.
“I thought you were Doug,” I said.
“I want to tell you a story,” my father replied, following me into the bedroom. “May I sit down?”
“Don’t be so polite,” I said. “It’s your house.” The room was still the red I had painted it in high school and the light was so dim I could barely see him as he settled on the bed. “When I married your mother,” he began, “I was so happy that she already had a son. I was middle-aged and I had always wanted children.” He sighed and ran his hands through his hair, as if he were trying to think of the most effective way to say it
.
“At first Bobby hated me. That was natural, I understood it. I had taken his mother. I knew he would get over it. But I did not realize that there would always be a gulf between us.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked crossly. “What does this have to do with never telling me you were a draft dodger?”
“The war was on,” he continued. “And he was such a charming little boy that he talked the druggist on the corner into selling him a roll of bubble gum every week. It was quite a coup; bubble gum was very hard to get. Bobby went in every week with his nickel.
“Well, one day I discovered that he wasn’t chewing it, he was selling it at school.”
“Typical,” I said. “He’s a born salesman.”
“Yes,” said Dad, “he is. I asked how much he was selling it for and he said a nickel apiece. There were six pieces in a roll so he was making a 600 percent profit. I tried to make him see that it was immoral, but he just looked at me and said, “But Daddy, the kids fight over it!”
Dad ran his fingers through his hair again, so it was standing on end. “You see,” he said, “we couldn’t talk to each other. It never changed. I feel as if we speak different languages.” He looked at me lovingly and added, “And then we had you.”
Before I could stop myself I blurted out: “Too bad I’m a girl.”
My father looked stung, but he was silent: we both understood that I had spoken a truth neither of us had realized until that moment. I think I knew, even then, that when I married Doug I would be giving the two men I loved most what they really wanted: the one a father, the other a son.
EYESIGHT FOR THE BLIND
When we returned all the wedding gifts we had enough for a EurailPass, two tickets on a freighter to Greece, and a thousand dollars’ worth of traveler’s checks. We intended to stay in Europe until our money ran out; in 1970 you could live on five dollars a day, less if you were as frugal as we planned to be.
