Dr. Heptulla came in soon after and arranged three chairs so they could all have a chat.
“You had quite a journey to get here today,” intoned the doctor with elegant, clipped English.
“Yes,” said Mordecai, wiping his brow under the fur hat with a cotton handkercheif. “Sixty-four stairs just to get to this floor!” Pearl laughed, but there were tears in her eyes. She sat beside her daughter, squeezing her hand.
“It took us an hour and a half, door to door,” she said. The doctor shook his head, smiling.
“Mr. and Mrs. Edelman, we have done an EKG, and a sonogram, and a chest X-ray,” the doctor intoned, one long-fingered hand in the air as if dispensing a benediction. “Masha has an acute case of pericarditis, an inflammation around the heart, which in a healthy young woman like her we treat with bed rest and Tylenol. These cases are generally triggered by a virus. I can find nothing organically wrong with the heart itself.” Pearl nodded, smiling, the tears in her eyes trembling. She had known for days that there was something wrong. Masha had said her chest hurt, she couldn’t breathe properly. She should have brought her in sooner.
“If the pericarditis doesn’t recede within a week, or if it recurs, there are other tests we can do,” said Dr. Heptulla. “Other medications. But for now I think we should go with a gentle approach.”
9
My wedding night was a disaster. Though fourteen, Hodel had the mentality of a small child; her submission to my clumsy fingers seemed obscenely forced by the unseen hands of our parents and tradition. She whimpered and shrank away from my caresses. Her newly shorn hair, cut after the wedding, as was our tradition, made her look even younger, and confused me terribly. I persevered, mumbling encouragements that it would soon be over. All I could think of was the examination our sheets would be submitted to by Mme Mendel in the morning. With no blood, the marriage would not be real and I would not be a man. As it turned out, I had to prick my own finger and wipe it on the sheet in the morning, having given up my entreaties by dawn. My bride had a week of relief after that first night; the blood of my finger was accepted as Hodel’s, and so she was “unclean” for a week and we had to sleep in separate beds. But on the eighth day, my efforts continued. To be fair, Hodel wanted to become a woman and do her duty, but she was terrified. It took a full month to actually deflower her; her plump little body seemed to have no natural ingress. I felt I was trying to puncture a thigh, or a belly, so resiliently did her flesh resist my poor prick. Night after night I came to a crisis without actually entering my own wife, her rubbery body repelling me again and again. At last I convinced her to straddle me, and I impaled her, though my sense of triumph was dulled by her whimpering as I finally burst the dam.
I fluctuated between guilt and despair in our first months together as I realized that I had been saddled with a hysteric. Hodel spent most of her time in my presence crying for her mother.
The terrible Mme Mendel lived upstairs from us (as per our marriage contract we had been allotted one large, drafty room previously occupied by the recently deceased paternal grandparents of my Hodel), but she insisted from the first day that we live on our own as husband and wife, not as her children. A good head taller than her husband and all but one of her six sons, Mme Mendel had black eyes and swarthy, wind-lashed skin. She had an intimidating, predatory slowness about her; she never rushed, yet she was prone to sudden surges of dislike and irritation, and lashed out at her endless progeny with a whip of a tongue in the fastest Yiddish I had ever heard. Having come from a tiny town in Poland when her first few children were young, she still had the mind of a provincial woman. Her superstitions were elaborate and terrifying: a pregnant woman stepping on fingernail clippings meant certain miscarriage; a hair in the milk meant a demon had been in the house. She never entered a room without kissing the mezuzah. She had even gone so far as to avoid giving her children grand names, so as not to make the demons jealous. She chose Hodel, Leib, Sheindl—no Esthers or Abrahams for this canny lady! She never paid anyone a compliment, for the same reason. If anyone complimented her, she spat on the floor to ward off the evil eye. When her children were babies, she made tiny tears in their garments. Demons were of a lower order than humans, and they were always jealous of us, she explained. No one should be too beautiful or too lucky. She sensed countless evil spirits and sprites swirling around her, just waiting for her to slip up. Still, I was grateful that she allowed us to eat our evening meal upstairs with her and the rest of the family, as Hodel seemed to be genuinely afraid of boiling water or hot liquid of any kind.
Every evening at six o’clock I would report upstairs to the family apartment. My child-wife, having already been basking in her mother’s indifference for several hours, always looked up at me from the dreaded bubbling stew she’d been forced to stir, standing as far away as possible from the pot, lest the liquid boil over and scald her—with a frightened, surprised smile, her shiny cheeks the purplish color of turnips, a few cropped ginger hairs peeking out of her matron’s bonnet, as though she had forgotten all about me and our marriage and then, with my entrance, was compelled to remember.
Only eight people could sit at the Mendel table at a time, so there were three sittings a night. Mme Mendel stood until the last child was served, languorously scooping meat stew out of the enormous, dented, seemingly bottomless pot. Hodel and I were allowed to attend the first seating, because we were married. Also in attendance was Hodel’s badgerlike father, Moishe, her idolized oldest brother, Leib, who, at sixteen, was the only one of the other Mendel children to be married, and his cunning wife, Leah. Leib had already impregnated his wife twice in two years. I could tell from the way the hugely pregnant Leah asked Mme Mendel, lisping, how old she was when each of her babies was born, that she planned on outdoing her. Mme Mendel, however, was not out of the running yet. Her fourteenth child was only two; she could easily drop another litter. She answered Leah’s questions with deliberate vagueness, as if the age she was when she bore her eighth or twelfth child were a secret akin to Kabbalah. I was always seated next to the silent and shrunken mother of Mme Mendel, who had skin the texture of dried beef. She spent much of each meal glowering at me as I ate my stew, as if every mouthful I took were an affront to her finer manners.
Dinner inevitably began with Mme Mendel asking me in a sort of offhand way how much money I had made that day. I always told her, to the last sou. She then asked me exactly what I had sold. I had to describe each object in great detail: one painted enamel snuffbox, twenty sous; one pair of feather-lined men’s kid gloves, four livres; one collapsible walking stick with an engraved tin handle, five livres; one iron teapot, ten sous. After each description, Mme Mendel would squint her eyes, as if visualizing the object and matching it with the price. Then she would either nod, frowning appreciatively, her eyebrows up, or shake her head and smile derisively at my lack of business acumen. M. Mendel, with his two badger’s streaks of white down the center of his reddish hair, and his long, pointy nose, would chuckle and then suddenly gasp for air. The first time Mme Mendel asked me for my inventory, I tried padding my list with a couple of items I had not actually sold. But at the end of the meal she demanded to see the money; I was humiliated and had to confess I had made a mistake. She looked at me and smiled, as if to say, That’s just what I expected.
Mme Mendel’s disdain for me was conjugated throughout the family: male, female, plural and singular, from the wizened grannie to the petulant toddler, they all thought of me as beneath them. Only Hodel, the irregular one, did not judge me in this way. My low status was due in part to my family of peddlers being far humbler than the Mendels, and in part because I had been duped into a marriage with Hodel, a child they all knew was not right in the head. The main reason I had no status in the family, though, was that Mme Mendel had decided I was a nudnik with no head for business. If she had fallen in love with me, I would have been a demigod. Her power in the clan was absolute.
10
It was Monday. Vibrati
ng in the back of the now-allowable Edelman van, I crouched in the fuzzy folds of Masha’s woolen cap, near the crest of her forehead, and breathed in her scent: almond-scented soap, milk. Through the thick woolen hairs that blurred my view like tree trunks, I could see Mordecai Edelman’s everyday black felt hat brushing the ceiling of the car as he drove. His peltlike beard was etched against the blare of light pouring through the windshield, the cloth of his coat bunched up at the elbows whenever he turned the steering wheel. Pearl was twisted around in the passenger seat, one arm stretched back so she could hold Masha’s hand. Masha held her mother’s hand loosely in her own, playing with the fingers.
The lurching of the vehicle was making me feel queasy. Backing into the dense copse of mohair, I was made to see, in my mind’s eye, Leslie Senzatimore parked in his white truck by the side of the road, his big arm hanging out the side, his thumb and middle finger tapping out an impatient rhythm on the door of the cab: di-di-di-BA-di-di-di-BA-di-di-di-BA. Parked just behind him was a car, red and blue lights flashing ominously from its roof.
Dennis Doyle had some very irritating characteristics. He had stopped Leslie for speeding three times since he was stationed six months ago on this flat stretch of the Montauk Highway, which Leslie had to take to get to work and had an absurdly low speed limit. Each time Dennis had stopped him, he’d asked to see his license, then took the laminated rectangle between fore- and middle fingers and walked leisurely, bowlegged, back to his squad car, leaving Leslie cooling his balls while Dennis ran a check on him to make sure he wasn’t a terrorist or wanted by the police in some other state or possibly a scofflaw with outstanding moving violations, even though he and Dennis lived three streets away from one another, had shared teachers from the first through the twelfth grade, and were both on the same Neighborhood Watch Committee. Dennis went by the book. Yet Leslie couldn’t help chuckling as he watched his old buddy in his side mirror, cropped curly hair obscured by the police cap, legs stiff from too much gym work, belly swollen under the tight blue shirt, waddling up to him, pad in hand, like he was going to take his order at a drive-in hamburger place.
“Everything okay with my record?” Leslie asked him, sunglasses still on just like Dennis’s were. He knew a cop was meant to ask you to remove your sunglasses and he wanted to make Dennis Doyle ask a man he had smoked his first joint with to please remove his eyewear so he could compare the photo on the license with his actual visage. Dennis declined to take the bait. “If you don’t like being checked, don’t speed,” he said.
“Okay, officer,” said Leslie. Doyle stalked back to his car with a straight-backed, offended air. Leslie wondered if this man could still be classified as his friend.
It was already quarter to nine; as a rule, Leslie liked to be at work by eight-thirty. It set the tone for his guys. The large sign reading SENZATIMORE MARINE was visible from the highway. Whenever Leslie saw it, his chest warmed with pride and a glimmer of surprise that he had amounted to anything.
The great rolling door was open as he drove up. Leslie walked in, scanning three boats on blocks for signs of progress. The men waved to him as they caught sight of him. He greeted them with the usual good cheer. Once he got his coffee, he would talk the day through with his team and get to work. Leslie did most of the fine woodwork himself. He looked through the glass windows of his office and saw that the coffee machine was fully loaded. Vera, his secretary of the last thirteen years, was sitting at her desk, her curved back to him. Leslie found Vera comforting. He walked into the office and poured himself a cup.
“Hiya,” said Vera.
“Dennis Doyle gave me a speeding ticket,” said Leslie.
“Who’s Dennis Doyle?” asked Vera in a nasal whine, swiveling toward him in her seat. About sixty, wizened, with whipped-up gray hair and manicured arthritic hands, she was a model of efficiency.
“A guy I went to school with,” Leslie said, taking a sip.
“Well, if you knew what I know, you wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to get here,” she answered, turning back to her desk.
“Why?”
“I have bad news.”
Leslie sat down at his desk. “Shoot,” he said.
“Remember how I’ve been chasing down a final payment from that Mr. Croft, for the job you did on his speedboat last December?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s filed for bankruptcy. I don’t know when—if ever—we’re getting paid for that job.”
Leslie took this in quietly. “How much did he owe?”
“Ten thousand. So that makes twenty K in owed bills I can’t get people to pay. They all blame the banks for not lending. Who knows? We can get a collection agency onto them, but some of these people are good customers. Like Mr. Clancy.”
“Clancy?”
“He just closed his store up. Says nobody’s buying high-end furniture.”
Leslie leaned back in his chair. It made a squeal.
“What you need is some blue-chip clients,” said Vera, turning to him, her skinny arms waving in the air. “Truly wealthy people don’t feel the pinch; they keep spending.”
“Okay,” said Leslie. “So find me some truly wealthy people with leaky boats.”
“You think I’m kidding,” said Vera, arching her plucked brows. “I’m not. You’re in the wrong niche. I’m telling you. You need to cater to the very rich.”
“Vera,” said Leslie, chuckling in spite of his worry, “I’m glad you have it all worked out. Because it’s looking pretty dire at the moment.” He rubbed his eyes, thinking of Stevie. There was a private elementary school they had found for him, but it cost thousands. His parents-in-law, his stepson, stepdaughter-in-law, step-grandchild, wife—they all depended on him. Leslie had to find a way of making more money. As often happened when he felt cornered, and for reasons he could not understand, Leslie escaped into the worst memory he had.
On the Saturday his father killed himself, Leslie had finished his pancakes and dumped the plate in the sink. He was late to meet his buddies down the block. Evelyn, his mother, was buttering the two-year-old’s toast. His sisters were putting each other’s hair in a bun for ballet class. His brother was attempting to tie his own shoes. No one was talking. Everyone in the room seemed to be indifferent to one another, yet if you walked in as a stranger you would get the feeling that they were all doing something as a team, so thick was their complicity, despite their silence and focus on their own activities. Even the slap Evie gave Martha was a little percussive ping in the calm symphony of Saturday morning in the Senzatimore home. Leslie wanted to get his bike out before his little brother Will looked up from the wit-twisting activity of learning to tie his own shoes and demanded to tag along.
He walked outside, head down, whistling randomly. There was a chill in the air for the first time all summer. He’d be back in school in two days. The shed had the light on in it, he noticed; his dad must be in there. Charlie Senzatimore repaired boats for a living, mostly holes in fiberglass and ripped upholstery, but when he wasn’t at work he fiddled with wood. He loved to spend time in the shed outside his house where he had his table saw, band saw, lathe, hammers, glue, nails, screws, clamps, sawhorses. He could make bookshelves, tables, jewelry boxes—almost anything. He always made the kids a present on their birthday, and gave it to them as a side dish to whatever bought toy Evelyn wrapped up for them. It was in fact hard to get Dad out of the shed at all when he wasn’t at work or in his armchair reading the paper. Charlie wasn’t a sociable guy. If anyone came over to visit unexpectedly, he’d slip out the back door and stay in the shed till they had left. He couldn’t even stand to have people who weren’t his wife or kids see him eating. If he was at the table and the doorbell rang, he’d just take his plate and finish his meal in the shed.
Over the last few months, Leslie’s father had been working on a secret surprise. He didn’t want anyone to see it and kept it covered with a tarp. He worked on it through the night sometimes. His mother joked she thought maybe Charlie
had a woman tucked under that tarp, he spent so much time there these days. When she said this, Charlie would let a little air escape from his mouth, smile, and look down shyly. He was still a very slender man, no taller than Leslie at thirteen. He had dark hair, swarthy skin, and brownish circles all the way around his eyes, which made him look Italian and exhausted. The thing he was building in the shed must have been important to him; a couple of times Leslie had started to open the door and his Dad had shouted to him to wait a minute. Charlie almost never raised his voice; when he did, it made an impression. After a couple of these incidents, Leslie had taken to knocking on the door of the shed to see if his Dad was in there working on his secret project.
This particular morning, Leslie knocked on the rickety little door, but there was no answer, so he figured it was safe to walk in. The first thing he noticed when he opened the door was the canvas tarp his dad used to cover the secret thing, crumpled on the floor, and the thing itself, displayed on a sheet of plywood resting between two sawhorses. It was a wooden replica of a battleship, about four feet long. Leslie walked up to it, awed. Every gun turret, miniature helicopters, everything but the two aluminum propellers and the helicopter blades, had been constructed out of wood. The hull of the ship had been made with interlocking pieces of wood. Somehow Charlie had cut each piece for the body of the boat with just the right curve, and he had joined them all like a huge puzzle. The wood was raw, sanded, except for the words USS NEW JERSEY carefully lettered on the side with red paint. It occurred to Leslie that this must be his birthday present. Guilt at having seen it months ahead of time, twinned with amazement at the mind-boggling love it would have taken his father to produce such a marvel, overpowered him, and he made ready to leave the room and pretend he hadn’t seen it.
Jacob's Folly Page 6
