LOVE IS A REBELLIOUS BIRD
Copyright © Elayne Klasson, 2019
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Published 2019
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 978-1-63152-604-6
ISBN:. 978-1-63152-605-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019906961
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance is coincidental.
To David and Bill, mensches both
Love is a rebellious bird
that nobody can tame,
and you call him quite in vain
if it suits him not to come.
Nothing helps, neither threat nor prayer.
One man talks well, the other’s mum;
it’s the other one that I prefer.
He’s silent but I like his looks.
Love! Love! Love!
Love is a gypsy’s child,
it has never, ever, known a law;
Love me not, then I love you;
If I love you, you’d best beware!
The bird you thought you had caught
beat its wings and flew away …
Love stays away, you wait and wait;
when least expected, there it is!
“The Habanera”
Excerpted from Carmen, 1872, by Georges Bizet
1
Beauty
Over seventy, I am considered by most of the world and for most of history, an old woman. I find that all of those things said about getting old are true. I walk by the mirror and am startled to see the reflection of my mother, who died long ago. It is not an unpleasant image. My mother was a reasonably attractive woman—with well-chiseled Russian features. I inherited her fine skin and narrow face. She was a fashionable, well-groomed woman for almost her entire life. Unfortunately, toward the end, she lost most of her memory and allowed bits of dropped food to remain on her clothes. She looked up when I came to visit her at the assisted living facility in suburban Skokie, her once-lively eyes having now taken on a blankness, and said, “Where the hell am I?”
I am terrified of this confusion I saw in my mother at the end. So now, before the memories are lost, and while curiosity still flickers in my eyes, I am trying to make sense of what I did with my life. You see, I have these two essential questions. Who is it we love and why have we loved these people? For me, it was always you, Elliot. Even now, more than sixty years later, with the evidence at last completely gathered, that fact remains unshakable. I do not know if you will hear this story, and if you do, how you will react, but I present it in its entirety and swear, just as in the courts of law you knew so well, that it is truth as I know it. Volumes have been written of such an enduring and obsessive love as mine. Sometimes you and I even discussed them: Nabokov and his Lolita, for example, being the gold standard. But wasn’t it usually a man’s obsession we read of? Women are more pragmatic. We get on with life. We search for the appropriate sperm to unite with our eggs, which are, after all, numbered and won’t (unless stored in a freezer somewhere) wait around unfertilized forever. We get married, have children, maybe get a divorce or two, and, actuarial odds being what they are, become widowed.
Certainly there is pragmatism in my story as well; I may have acted foolishly, but I am not wholly without reason. By many, I was even regarded as a sensible person. I appeared to live life fully, marrying, having children, working in a profession known to help others. But the true tale is one of a passion consuming, painful, and, ultimately, unsuitable. Why you, Elliot? I asked myself again and again. Yes, I am a stubborn woman. But surely, sixty years of unwavering love could not be mere tenacity. As I puzzled over this question, I tried to examine the components of this love for you. I began, of course, with your beauty.
Love is like an economic transaction; we reach more easily for someone in our own range: social, financial, or educational. Race used to be a factor, although in recent times, it is less of a deal breaker. Beauty of the partners is usually part of the equation. A very beautiful woman may jump several strata in social, economic, or educational standing. However, a less attractive woman will rarely be found with a beautiful man (barring some exceptional attributes of money or standing of the female).
There was a relative inequity here. You, Elliot, the boy, were very beautiful and the girl, me, was spoken of as cute. Neither plain nor ravishing. Nice regular features, the nose perhaps a bit on the long side. Small stature, medium build. Thick, dark hair that could not make up its mind whether to be curly or straight. Frustrated by this hair that refused to behave, I kept it rather short, the so-called pixie cut contributing to the impression of cuteness. Clear brown eyes and, my best feature, a wide, ready smile. I was complimented often on my smile. “Judith is such fun,” people would say. The smile made people assume that I was happy, but I’m not so sure about that. It was just my smile.
I am not saying that there was a shocking disparity in our looks, yours and mine, one in which passersby might turn their heads and wonder what on earth you saw in me, but the generally agreed-upon opinion was that you, Elliot, possessed unusual attractiveness. You had no awkward phase, no blemishes, pre-, during, or post-adolescence. You almost always had a dash of color high on your cheekbones, looking as if you’d just come rushing in from outdoors. And you had grand hair, just the right weight so that it settled on your forehead and then was flicked from your eyes with that careless toss of the head. Later, people would call that tousled mane Kennedy hair. Your eyes were dark and heavily lashed, the full lips ready with a self-deprecating smile which showed your even white teeth, never marred by the metal braces found on almost all Jewish children of that time and place. (This information can be verified by anyone growing up in that particular neighborhood of Chicago, West Rogers Park, in the mid-1950s.)
Let me further describe you. Once, in my twenties, I was visiting Boston and found myself with an afternoon unplanned. I walked through the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, browsing the galleries. Suddenly, I stopped dead in my tracks. There, painted by El Greco in 1609 and placed inside a lavishly gilded frame, was a young man. The young man in the portrait was Fray Hortensio Félix Paravicino, a seventeenth-century friar. You, my dear Elliot, were then twenty-five, studying for the New York bar exam and making your first stab at being a proper Jewish husband. No friar. Yet, I saw your face in that of the elegant Paravicino. His broad forehead spoke of his intelligence, while his narrow nose and full lips were those of a poet. El Greco must have been a little in love with fine young Hortensio. How else could he have painted the boy so luminously? Mind you, I’m over seventy, and my knowledge of the digital is not as comprehensive as it might be, but with the Internet, I found Fray Paravicino in just a few clicks and I still concur with my assessment of so many years ago. You, so like that boy painted by El Greco, were undeniably beautiful. Your remarkable face, your lon
g, well-shaped limbs, lovely shoulders, and slim waist, stirred everyone: your mother, father, your two brothers, all of us, even as children.
And me? No resemblance to any famous portraits. However, once you wrote that you’d seen Liza Minnelli in performance at Carnegie Hall. “You look just like her!” you told me. Liza Minnelli. Ugh. Who wants to look like Liza Minnelli?
The first time I saw you was the morning I transferred to Pratt Elementary School. I was ten when we moved to our north side neighborhood, a more prosperous community in Chicago than the one we’d come from farther south in Logan Square. On that first day of fifth grade, my mother accompanied me for the eight-block walk to the new school.
“Nervous?” she asked, going at a maddeningly slow pace in her high heels.
I walked backward to see her face as well as to slow down. I thought about it. “No,” I said. “Just excited. Everything’s different here. Nicer.”
“Good,” she said. “It’s good you like new things. It’s good you’re not afraid.” Then she spit three times into a tissue and used it to smooth down my hair. This gesture was an efficient combination of wishing me luck and tidying me. The fancy new neighborhood would do little to change my mother.
We entered the school office. With amazing nonchalance, she signed a few papers, presented my birth certificate, then gave me a quick kiss and walked out the door. My mother never lingered. Mrs. Zimmer, the principal, a likable lady who I would see only at school assemblies and graduation from eighth grade nearly four years later, guided me through the deserted corridors, her hand resting lightly on my shoulder.
“You’ll like Miss Schaffer,” Mrs. Zimmer said. “You’re a smart girl. I saw that from the report cards your mother brought. Sometimes children find Miss Schaffer strict, but you’ll get a fine education from her.” Oh, dear, I thought. A strict teacher. I began to worry. I’d coasted through school up until then.
Miss Schaffer was a frightening sight at first glance, looking more like a Japanese geisha than a middle-aged American schoolteacher. Her lips were painted a bright scarlet, her face heavily powdered. I remember her hair, dyed vivid orange, and lacquered straight back from her forehead. The tension was relieved when a girl in the back row, a long stick of a girl, jumped out of her seat and waved her arms.
“Judith, Judith. Remember me? It’s Roberta!”
The principal had left the room. Miss Schaffer narrowed her eyes as she peered back at Roberta. “Miss Feingold, if you don’t wish to stay inside at recess today, you will sit down immediately and quiet yourself.”
But Roberta, a child of irrepressible enthusiasm, could not do that. Roberta lived on the same block as my aunt Gussie, who was my mother’s twin sister. Aunt Gussie and Roberta’s mother were good friends, regular mah-jongg partners, and I’d visited the Feingold house several times. Roberta had already been told by my aunt that I would be transferring to Pratt Elementary and she hopped up and down with excitement.
“But I know Judith,” Roberta wailed to Miss Schaffer. “I could show her around. Be her New Student Buddy.”
“Sit down, Roberta. We’ll pick her Buddy later. And it will certainly be someone who can set a better example for our new student.”
“I told you I knew the new girl,” Roberta said in a loud whisper to the child on her left. “She’s a really good dancer.”
Bless Roberta Feingold. Her recommendation got me invited to the weekend slumber parties that were social currency for preteen girls. We danced with each other in carpeted and paneled basements, some larger than the whole apartment my father had persuaded my mother to move to, which was at the fringe of this affluent Chicago neighborhood, barely inside its “good” school district. I didn’t often host the slumber parties, but was regularly included in these Saturday nights of pizza delivery and practicing dance moves we’d seen on American Bandstand.
On that first day at the new school, I obediently sat down in the seat Miss Schaffer indicated. I knew that I had a lot to learn. An only child of aging parents, I was long used to watching people, well attuned to social cues. My eyes darted around the classroom and the well-dressed fifth graders. I tingled with excitement and felt no nostalgia whatsoever for the dingy old neighborhood. Tucking my gray poodle skirt under me, I barely heard Miss Schaffer give instructions for the history lesson. Instead, I watched the classroom clock, slowly creeping minute by minute toward the really important part of the day—recess. There I would meet these exotic new people. Luckily, boisterous Roberta would serve as my unofficial and capable guide.
Recess went well. Roberta and I did a little dance demonstration on the asphalt, my skirt twirling outward. The other girls nodded appreciatively. These girls would populate my world for years to come. However, it wasn’t until after recess that the day’s truly significant event occurred. We’d settled back in our seats, giving up the fresh fall air of the playground for the stale classroom atmosphere. Miss Schaffer had just told us to take out our math books when the door opened and the recess monitor, a plump, grandmotherly type, came in, leading, almost dragging, you by your upper arm.
“This one’s been fighting again. It took two of us to separate them. They were around the side of the school. The other boy is in the principal’s office already,” the monitor said.
“That’s fine,” Miss Schaffer replied frostily. “Leave him here. I’ll deal with it.”
I hadn’t noticed you before recess. I had been too busy looking at the girls, assessing their outfits, comparing myself to them. But now, every eye was on you, a tall, lanky boy, standing in front of the class. It was theater. You were extraordinary looking that day, dressed all in white. What fifth-grade boy dresses all in white? The others wore dungarees or dark slacks. But you wore a dress shirt, long-sleeved and crisply collared. Your pants, now dusty, had also been white, a thin black belt snaking through the belt loops. However, a long tear in your trousers revealed a bloody gash. Blood dripped down your leg and your white cotton slacks were turning red from absorbing it. Certainly it must have hurt; the cut was deep. But you showed no pain. Stoically, your hands at your side, you gazed somewhere off into the distance, seemingly not registering Miss Schaffer or the class. No one giggled or whispered; we sat silent and still, the seconds ticking by.
At last, Miss Schaffer spoke, her voice a low growl, filled with disgust.
“No wonder your mother landed in the mental hospital again. You drove her there, Elliot. You would make anyone go crazy.”
I think we all gasped. I know I did, and the noise seemed very loud, as if it had come from the inhalations of all thirty children. Finally, your composure broke. You cried out some animal sound. I’d like to think you said, “You bitch,” to our teacher, but I think it was just a wordless cry. Then you turned and ran from the room, fiercely slamming the door as you left.
I don’t know where you went that day, whether you ran home, or to the nurse’s office, or back out to the deserted playground. But your pain and sorrow were obvious. Miss Schaffer was such a formidable opponent, looming over you with her size and power, and her cruelty knew no bounds. She hated almost all children, I suspect, but you, that particular day with your leg streaming blood, aroused her greatest fury.
In the coming years, I watched you master the skills needed to achieve success in school and beyond. Your intelligence was obvious and you emulated your brothers, working hard and accumulating accomplishments. You stopped getting into fights, and learned to smile sweetly at teachers, becoming everyone’s favorite. How did you do that? I wondered. As an adult, your success bypassed everyone else’s sitting in that classroom. But back then, in fifth grade, your sorrow was too raw. You were the youngest of three boys, and your mother had been in mental hospitals much of your childhood. Your brothers were older when she first got sick; they had memories of a more intact woman. A toddler when she first became ill, you received so much less from her than did Phillip or Jeffrey. She was either away, in a series of hospitals, or home, sadly pacing the rooms of y
our apartment, not at all present for a small boy who yearned for mothering. You missed her so fiercely and could not have understood what took her away for such long absences.
Before you ran from the classroom, blood dripping in your path, I stared wide-eyed at the beautiful boy in front of me. Of course, I had already fallen in love. It took root sixty years ago, and yet I can still summon the moment and feel the lurching of my heart. Stupid, isn’t it? Are you smiling at my foolishness? It doesn’t matter. I know I am not the only one who felt that way about you. Probably even Miss Schaffer, in spite of her venom, was a little infatuated herself.
Your brothers possessed none of your dramatic beauty. They were serious boys, studious and impressive in their accomplishments. Phillip was then an eighth grader, and Jeffrey went to the all-boys technical high school in Chicago. It was a public school that held a rigorous entrance exam, and Phillip had already been admitted for the fall. I soon learned who Phillip was and saw him occasionally around school, a bulky bear of a boy who participated in debate competitions and was president of the eighth-grade class. Jeffrey, at sixteen, had already won citywide science fairs and usually had his beaky nose and thick eyeglasses in a chemistry book. All three of you Pine brothers were tall, but only you wore your height gracefully, while Phillip lumbered and Jeffrey stood awkwardly, hunching his shoulders forward, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
My father had waged a long campaign persuading my mother to move, talking about how much better the schools were farther north in Chicago, specifically in the West Rogers Park area of the city. (Saying the schools were better was one of the codes for it being a Jewish neighborhood.) He had to convince her to give up the large, high-ceilinged apartment she loved, as well as the old, familiar neighborhood, a rich stew of Poles and Greeks and Lithuanians.
“You’ll see, Judith will finally be challenged. She’ll be with a different type of child,” my father argued.
Love Is a Rebellious Bird Page 1
