His honest assessment, which was also what he knew his mother-in-law thought, was that Ell brought far more to their relationship than he did. Mrs. Fessler believed her only daughter could have done better, marrying a doctor or a wealthy businessman. He was the more unimaginative, unexciting, of the two. His current job, as Senior Research Economist, for Price and Index Number Research, in the Bureau of Labor Statistics Office of the Associate Commissioner for Prices and Living Conditions, at the U.S. Department of Labor, was satisfying for him. But when he met strangers at dinner parties and they asked what he did, he could see their eyes glaze over when he told them and he could almost feel their urgent desire to move on to converse with someone more interesting.
Eleanor’s job suited her more dynamic and energetic personality. She was the chief Congressional lobbyist for the Alliance to Promote Progressive Literacy and Education (APPLE). She traveled around the country, visiting State chapters, helping them hone their message before State Legislatures and selecting those compelling cases of great injustice or stupendous success, which were the red meat for the media at Congressional hearings.
In matters having to do with the family, Ell had told him, it was important for her to know he was always there for her and the kids, that he shared in raising the children and didn’t sacrifice the family for his career. For him, that was simply natural as a husband and father. He thought the fact he held an unexciting and unglamorous job at BLS, and probably would hold that same job until he retired, was evidence more of his lack of ambition and drive than familial devotion.
However, he did think of himself as an incurable romantic. He inscribed books he bought Ell as presents with words of love and devotion, and sent flowers to her office for her birthday and their anniversary, all with poetic little love notes. Once in a while he would buy flowers for the sheer joy of surprising her and reaffirming his love. She had told him that many of the married women she worked with were jealous. He had responded that life is too short to waste time being jealous of someone else’s relationship. As long as he and Ell were solid, he felt he could do anything.
Chapter Four
The next morning, Friday they had one of their rare, but incredibly bitter fights, snarling at each other, spitting out nasty sarcastic comments, poisoning the air in the kitchen, before Amy and Josh came down for breakfast. They maintained a frigid, formal courtesy until the kids had left for school. Afterwards, at an appropriate moment before leaving for work, they grudgingly apologized to each other for what they had each said in anger.
It had been a silly argument about going to Temple that night after dinner for Rosh Hashanah services. All of them could not fit in the Taurus. Ell was adamant that the children not go in their grandmother’s car. Mitch had argued, it wasn’t that far to the Rockville Hebrew Congregation. He had conceded that at 76, his mother-in-law did lack judgment. Mrs. Fessler had never been a very good driver. She got flustered at circles, one of which was two blocks away from their house. Sometimes she merged on to main streets without looking. At other times, she was oblivious to traffic flow, driving exactly at the speed limit in the left lane. She never used her turn signals. It was more difficult for her at night, with her deteriorating eyesight. The problem, as he had pointed out to Ell, was that her mother thought she was a competent driver. Her vanity prevented her from acknowledging the impact of age on her judgment and vision. Ell had refused to risk the children’s safety. She was adamant. She would go with her mother. Mitch would drive Aunt Helen and Amy and Josh in the Taurus. After services, her mother would drive by herself to her apartment in Maryland and they would take Aunt Helen back to the nursing home.
They both knew that Mrs. Fessler would be furious at the implicit criticism of her driving. She would let her daughter know how hurt she was by such blatant disrespect. She had an uncanny ability to make Eleanor feel guilty about their relationship. She compared everything Eleanor did unfavorably with how she had devoted herself to her own mother and sacrificed everything, including her own happiness, until the day her mother died. These guilt trips had become more frequent since his father-in-law had passed away. Eleanor always reacted stoically to her mother’s onslaughts, but they took their toll. She would become melancholy while straining to pretend that everything was normal. Her stomach would churn; her appetite fall off and she would consume first Tums and, when that didn’t reduce the burning acid, move up to Pepcid, and finally Zantac.
Driving to work, he felt badly for urging Ell to let her mother drive the children. It was the easy way out to avoid a confrontation with Mrs. Fessler. There was an element of selfishness in his desire to have Ell remain vivacious and loving for him. She was the better parent, he thought, willing to endure her mother’s cold anger and manipulative nature to protect their children from even a remote possibility of a car accident. He felt ashamed for making matters worse by letting the argument escalate. He should have tried to come up with a way to help Ell feel secure about the children without provoking her mother. He recognized there was something about Mrs. Fessler, which made him rigid, short tempered and sarcastic. He primarily resented her for making Ell miserable but also for turning him into someone he didn’t like.
In that sour frame of mind, Mitch forced himself to think more kindly of Mrs. Fessler. She had been extremely beautiful in her youth. Eleanor had inherited not only her mother’s errant bushy wayward eyebrows but also her clear complexion. His mother-in-law’s nose, which in the early photos was proportionally correct, now was more beaklike and prominent in her aging face. Her nose had been broken several years ago when his father in law hadn’t seen a red light and their car was broadsided on the passenger side. She walked everywhere with her characteristic vigorous stride, although her posture was becoming stooped with the onset of osteoporosis of the spine. She exuded a confident air of superiority, still wedded to the sophisticated German culture of Vienna and the city’s artistic heritage as the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Give her a break, he thought. After all, it’s almost Rosh Hashanah and her childhood had been rough. He knew she had been 12 years old, a little younger than Amy was now he realized, when her normal middle class life in Austria was destroyed. Anshluss had brought the Nazis goose-stepping into Vienna. She and her parents had managed to escape from Vienna to Bucharest, leaving almost everything they owned behind, to live with distant relatives in a cramped apartment, anxious, poor and adrift. At the outbreak of World War II, Helga’s family together with the Rumanian relatives, fled across Europe, ending up in Portugal. Miraculously, they had obtained a visa to the United States for transit to China. Mitch vaguely knew it had something to do with Helga’s father’s business partner who had fled to Shanghai. Once they had arrived safely in New York City, the family had applied for permanent visas, spent a cold winter on the Canadian side of the New York State border, and in January 1943, entered the United States with the coveted permission to stay.
Helga had celebrated her 17th birthday in a barely furnished apartment her parents rented in the mid 80s on the upper west side of New York. She and her mother, bundled up in layers of sweaters to keep warm, had sewed gloves and done other piece work, while her father struggled to improve his English and get a job. Despite Mrs. Fessler’s experience as a refugee and the initial poverty the family had endured in New York, Mitch couldn’t bring himself to forgive her for the deliberate hurt she inflicted upon his wife. He knew it didn’t excuse his own bad behavior toward Ell. He felt even worse because today she had to leave work early in time to get home and prepare dinner before they left for evening services and break the news to her mother about the driving arrangements.
By the time he left DOL just after four, it had begun to rain. He drove up Wisconsin Avenue in heavy traffic, to pick up Aunt Helen. Normally, the High Holidays were a time for reflection and renewal. For him, Jewish New Year in the fall was more logically in rhythm with the changing seasons than January 1st in the middle of the winter. After evening services, wi
th the children in bed, he and Ell would usually have a glass of port and discuss how the past year had gone and what they would try to do better in the year to come. This year, he didn’t feel ready either to be contemplative or refreshed. He definitely was not looking forward to dinner and evening services, or for that matter going to services on Saturday morning, when the tension with Ell’s mom would be palpable. Mrs. Fessler would have had the night to sleep on the indignity of not being allowed to drive her own grandchildren. She would rehearse what she would say to Ell when the two of them were again alone in the car on Saturday. By the end of the weekend, he anticipated that Ell would be tense with her stomach tied into an acidic knot.
He got to the nursing home, just as the rain and wind increased in intensity. The umbrella was useless and he sprinted to the lobby with it clenched in his fist like a spear. He found his aunt sitting on the edge of her bed. She was wearing a dark blue dress and an old white knit sweater, which was too big for her. She didn’t have her shoes on.
“Hello, Mitchell. Is everybody alright?” she said, looking first surprised and then concerned to see him standing there, water dripping from his raincoat on to the linoleum tiles.
“Of course, we’re all ok. We’re going home for dinner and then to services. It’s Rosh Hashanah. Remember? Where are your shoes?” he said, looking in the closet.
“Stolen. They steal everything here. This is a terrible place.”
He reassured his aunt that no one had stolen her shoes. He checked behind the laundry bag in the closet. He knelt and pulled up the bedspread, stepping on his own raincoat and heard a tearing sound as he stood up. “Damn,” he said to himself. On a hunch, he opened the lowest dresser drawer and found both her shoes and slippers on top of her blouses. He knelt again and gently pushed the low heeled, worn blue shoes over her bunioned feet.
“They knew you were coming and put them back,” she said with conviction. “They’ll steal them again tonight when I’m asleep.”
“No they won’t,” Mitch said, brushing some loose white hair and dandruff from her shoulders and helping her on with her coat. “We’ll put them where they won’t look for them. In the closet,” he said winking at her. She looked at him blankly. She stopped to grab a few tissues from the box on the dresser and stuff them in the sleeve of her sweater. They walked slowly down the hall and she waited with the receptionist while he brought the car around. By the time they got home, the wind had abated and his umbrella protected them from the fine drizzle.
It was clear to him, once they were inside that Ell had not yet explained the driving arrangements to her mother. His mother-in-law was sitting on the sofa with Amy and Josh, looking at the Weekend section of The Washington Post. She reminded Mitch of a Chinese Empress, with her black, lacquered hair perfectly in place. Tonight, she was wearing an elegant black suit with large pearl buttons and round earrings to match. He tactfully complimented her on how well she looked and his mother in law favored him with a smile. So far so good, he thought and sat Aunt Helen down on the other sofa. He went into the kitchen and kissed Ell softly on the back of her neck.
“You smell good,” he said, continuing to hold her.
“Eau de brisket,” she replied, waving the wooden salad spoon toward the oven.
The way she kissed him back told him his part in the argument was forgiven. Josh wandered in and surprised them by agreeing, without complaint, to set the table. Mitch reached up into the cabinet and took down the good wine glasses and the silver candlesticks Aunt Helen had brought with her from New London.
When he went back to the living room, Mrs. Fessler was telling Amy and Aunt Helen about a concert she had been to at The Kennedy Center last Saturday evening. “One part of the evening was a magnificent Mozart violin concerto, a performance you could only dream of. It was exquisite. The audience gave the soloist, this very poised young Japanese girl, a standing ovation. Oh, she played so well. She couldn’t have been more than 20. You know Amy; you should learn to play a musical instrument. It would improve your posture.”
“Which concerto was it?” Aunt Helen asked, ignoring Mrs. Fessler’s comment to Amy.
“I don’t’ remember. It was in the program,” Helga said visibly annoyed at the interruption. “You can’t imagine how good the acoustics are in the Concert Hall,” Mrs. Fessler said, turning back to her granddaughter. “Maybe for your birthday, I can take you to an opera,” she said. “Would you like that?” Amy nodded unenthusiastically. “My first opera was Der Flaubeflote, Mozart’s Magic Flute, at The Vienna Opera House. I was only nine and so excited to be going with my Omi and parents, just like a real grownup.” Mitch knew his daughter’s tastes in music ran primarily to Beyonce and the Jonas Brothers. She definitely was not in to opera. Nor did she think of herself of as a child, yearning to do “grownup things.”
“Time to light the candles and have dinner. We don’t want to be late for services,” Ell sang out from the dining room. As he helped his Aunt to her seat, she said in her audible stage whisper he was beginning to dread, “She doesn’t know anything about Mozart’s music. The violin parts of his serenades are better than most of his concertos. They make you want to cry.” Josh looked from his grandmother to Aunt Helen like a kid in a schoolyard anticipating a fight. Mitch didn’t recall his aunt ever expressing an interest in music. He was so surprised by her comment he blurted out, “How do you know so much about Mozart’s violin music?”
“I just do,” she said, putting her napkin on her lap and firmly pressing her lips together, signaling that she was not going to say anything more about Mozart.
Before her mother could respond, Eleanor intervened, lit the candles and recited the blessing. Dinner went reasonably well after that. Aunt Helen remained quiet and Amy and Josh competed to tell their grandma what they were doing at school. Mrs. Fessler truly enjoyed her grandchildren’s company. Mitch thought this would make it worse when Eleanor had to explain the driving arrangements. He stacked the dishes in the washer while Aunt Helen was in the powder room. Ell sent Amy and Josh upstairs for one more hair brushing before services. Here it comes, he thought as his wife took her mother’s arm and walked toward the alcove.
“I need to talk to you alone. It’s about Amy,” Eleanor said, playing on her mother’s soft spot for her granddaughter. “Why don’t you and I drive to Temple together? Mitch can finish cleaning up and meet us there. We’ll save them seats.” As she went out the front door, Eleanor turned and smiled sweetly at him over her shoulder, as if to say, see that wasn’t so difficult was it? Certainly not worth having a fight over.
Amy and Josh got in the back seat as Mitch buckled Aunt Helen next to him. He pushed the door lock button, more for his aunt than his kids. In a few minutes, they caught up with his mother-in-law driving her maroon Regal slowly up Connecticut Avenue in the left lane. Better for me to be the car behind her, he thought.
“Don’t tail gate Grandma,” Amy admonished him, from the back seat.
“I’ve been driving for longer than you’ve been alive, young lady,” he snapped, but slowed down, tacitly acknowledging his daughter was right.
“Where are the boys?” Aunt Helen interrupted. “Will they be at the services?”
“I think they will,” Mitch replied, not sure who she was talking about.
“Dad, can you just drop us at the front and then go park with Aunt Helen. I’m meeting Len and Nate before services,” Josh said. He was going to tell his son that it was too bad if Aunt Helen embarrassed him and they would enter as a family, but thought better of it.
“Ok, but don’t hang out too long. Rabbi Silver starts promptly at eight.”
Josh bolted out of the car and ran up the front steps. Amy distanced herself from her exuberant brother, purposely walking as dignified and refined as possible. Mitch found a parking place near the handicapped ramp and walked slowly with Aunt Helen into the building.
The Rockville Hebrew Congregation, RHC as it was referred to by the adult members, and Rocky Jew amon
g the boys preparing to be Bar Mitzvahed, shared the building with a Presbyterian Church. The two religions initially had been drawn together more by economic considerations than ecumenism. Over the years they had grown closer and were now more partners in shared sacred space than landlord and tenant. At least three times a year, the Rabbi and the Minister held periodic dialogues on portions of the Old Testament. These were generally well attended by members of both Congregations. A common Seder and Last Supper were held around Passover; in the fall, there was their traditional two congregation Thanksgiving Service and brunch, and there were other joint services to raise money for worthwhile social causes.
Nevertheless, it still was a church. For tonight’s services, the Tablets, made of cloth stretched over a light metal frame, were hung by wires from the ceiling to cover the large wooden crucifix. The Ark, a cabinet on wheels, with the Torah, originally from a synagogue in Czechoslovakia, topped by a glowing reddish orange electric light bulb representing the Eternal Flame, was in the center of the nave. A table covered with white linen stood in front of the altar. The tall Shabbat candles, in their large ornate silver holders, stood on the table like beckoning sentinels. Two raised lecterns flanked the table. A member of the Congregation was earnestly testing the audio system, creating a periodic grating, high pitched screech. The Congregation’s choir was seated in the Church’s chorister, beneath the three-tiered section of chrome colored pipes of the Church’s organ. On the far left, a medium sized pipe, illuminated by a line of recessed lights, was adorned with a golden star, representing the Holy Spirit.
The Orange Tree Page 6
