The Hazards of Good Fortune

by Seth Greenland

  When they shook hands, Christine noticed that Franklin held hers too long. His was fleshy and slick like an eel. She had been an emotional wreck since viewing the photographic evidence of her husband’s perfidy and Franklin’s attentions had a palliative effect on her feminine ego. She stood a little taller as she walked to the car, entirely resolved to exploit her new benefactor’s remaining hormones.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  When the Biblical Exodus took place and the enslaved Hebrews cast off their chains and lit out from Egypt headed for the land deeded by Yahweh to Abraham as recounted in Genesis 12, crossed the conveniently parted Red Sea which crashed down on the pursuing Egyptians (notoriously non-buoyant), wandered the inhospitable Sinai Desert for forty years—a fractious time during which Moses received the Ten Commandments—then hiked to a mountain summit where, sun-seared eyes feasting on the plains of Canaan and what should have been, if their deity’s approbation was any indication, a radiant future, the Chosen People watched their leader expire, at which point, exhausted but unbowed, the ragtag Israelites descended into the beckoning valley and the next phase of their journey through history, the idea that multiple millennia later the descendants of this hardy and disputatious desert tribe, ex-slaves now liberated, would gather in their finery around brisket-laden tables in the New York suburbs to commemorate these unlikely events with song, prayers, and sweet wine would have been inconceivable.

  Passover was never Jay’s favorite holiday. When Grandpa Jack reached the age where his ego no longer required he host the service, the patriarch announced that, following the Hebrew predilection for primogeniture, the family would now gather for the feast at the home of his eldest son, Bernard (Bingo). At that juncture in the family history, although Bingo was the designated host for the evening, Jay’s Uncle Jerry led the service and Jerry’s religious devotion, while not full-blown Orthodox, nonetheless significantly exceeded that of his brother. Uncle Jerry was a forbidding presence in the Seders of Jay’s youth, presiding at the table in a suit and tie, a model of decorum. His trim physique, in contrast to Bingo’s more bulbous one, and his enviable head of well-coiffed, silvery hair, crowned with a yarmulke for the occasion, led Jay and his sister to refer to their uncle as the Jewish Johnny Carson only without the gags, since the prevailing atmosphere during the annual Passover holiday resembled that of a morgue. Jay’s cousins exhibited all the liveliness of the daily catch at a fish restaurant until they were tasked with reciting prayers or chanting songs, both of which they would do in passable Hebrew, to the wonder of the children on the other side of the family, for whom the language might as well have been Mandarin.

  The absence of anything resembling levity was, for Jay, what defined those dreary celebrations. Uncle Jerry would lead the prayers in a monotone and woe to anyone who did not participate in the hour-long slog with anything other than rapt attention. Bingo, typically a far looser presence, acted as his brother’s enforcer. One year Jay and Bebe locked eyes during the Ten Plagues when Uncle Jerry, dipping his fork into a glass of Manischewitz and placing drops of red wine on his white china plate to commemorate each more horrendous curse, hit the word “boils.” Jay murmured “zits” to his bored sibling—this passed for wit in a twelve-year-old—and a mutual laughing attack ensued, suppressed at first, hidden behind hands, swallowed in gulps of breath before finally bursting forth into prolonged hysterics that resulted in temporary banishment from the table. Other than his Aunt Estelle’s gefilte fish—truly superb with horseradish—it was Jay’s only joyful Passover memory.

  Jay’s mother Helen was a happy participant at those family gatherings but, at eighty-two and in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, she was unable to recall most of them. Still, when he picked her up at her east side condo where she lived with her Jamaican caretaker, Mrs. Braithwaite, her pleasure at the prospect of another Seder pleased her son immensely.

  Boris held the back door of the Mercedes as she delicately folded herself in, Mrs. Braithwaite, in a starched dress, beside her.

  “Is Uncle Jerry leading the service?” Jay’s mother inquired.

  “Mom, Uncle Jerry died.”

  “Really?” she said, her spirit undimmed at this news. “Well, Jerry was very dull.” Jay was never sure what she would remember, but her mood usually remained steady. “Will your Aunt Estelle be there?”

  Jay chose not to remind his mother that her sister-in-law had been interred next to Uncle Jerry two years earlier, so he only said no.

  “She’s got somewhere better to be?” Jay’s mother asked, reaching into her purse to produce a peppermint candy that she unwrapped and placed in her mouth. “Big shot.”

  On the ride to Bedford, Jay reflected on the call he had received earlier that day from his ex-wife in which she informed him that their daughter and Imani were sharing a bed. What I’m about to mention isn’t gossip, Jude said, but in the interest of co-parenting, I think you should be aware that we might have a gay child. Jay informed her that he already suspected as much and wished his ex-wife a happy Passover. After much cogitation on the subject, he found Aviva’s putative homosexuality considerably less distressing than her support for the Palestinians.

  He stole glances at his mother in the backseat where she was nibbling Saltines. Before her mind had begun to dissolve, she had been a formidable presence in his life, stern and opinionated. She had expressed pride in Jay but was not shy about letting him know when she disapproved of his behavior, as was the case when he divorced Jude. Nor was she a fan of Nicole although the arrival of her new daughter-in-law coincided with the diminishment of her mental capacity and her negative attitude about the marriage eventually disappeared into the maw of vanished memory. Jay contemplated his mother in sadness at her state, but also because the situation reminded him of the ephemeral quality of everything. A day earlier, his urologist Dr. Tenenbaum had removed a tiny chunk of his prostate because he had noticed something suspicious. He did not want to think about what that procedure might portend.

  If you wanted the world to see you in a certain way, there was a limited time in which that could happen. To their congregations at Yom Kippur, the rabbis would intone, “May you be inscribed for another year in the Book of Life.” The Book of Life, indeed. Our lives are written in ink, and always hurtling forward, Jay reflected, as they drove north. What has been done cannot be erased. His mother’s life, the part of it when a woman known as Helen Gladstone was in charge of her cognitive faculties, had been written. And yet the effect this paragon of rectitude had on her son persisted. Jay’s diffidence was his maternal inheritance.

  The condition of the modern kitchen in Bedford did not reflect the five hours of preparation the dinner had required because along with the chef Nicole had enlisted to assist her, she had hired two young waitresses, both recent Irish immigrants—they were employed by Jay and Nicole’s nearby country club—to serve and clean up. Counters and sinks were clean, covered dishes warming in the oven. The fragrant smell of chicken broth filled the room. As the chef (it was his day off from Babbo) put the finishing touches on the Seder plate, Marcy Gladstone tasted the matzo ball soup simmering in a large pot. Nicole watched her warily, a second glass of chardonnay in her hand. Bebe freshened her spritzer.

  “Not bad,” Marcy said. “Is the broth from a can?” Nicole nodded. Mouthing the words so the chef wouldn’t hear her, Marcy said, “I would have made it for you from scratch. What are you paying him for?”

  “My mother used canned broth,” Bebe said.

  “Who’s perfect?” from Marcy.

  Nicole topped up her wineglass and imagined herself in a mikveh bath with her cousin-in-law, warm water caressing their naked bodies, united in this millennia-old rite of purification shared by Jewish women, while she held Marcy’s head under the water long enough for her to drown.

  “Only you,” Nicole answered.

  The servers set the long table in the sunlit dining room for thirteen. On e
very plate was a Haggadah. In the living room hors d’oeuvres had been laid out, herring, chopped liver, even gribnitz (fried chicken fat) that Nicole had tracked down at Sammy’s Roumanian on the Lower East Side. Everything had been done to reduce the variables and, while the intent of the evening was to honor the holiday and recall the story of the Exodus, Nicole was going to remind Jay—through her actions because she would never be so crass as to lay it out verbally—of her immense skills as a hostess, a wife, and, by implication, a mother. She refilled her wineglass and gazed toward the backyard where Franklin addressed Aviva and Imani, both of whom were drinking vodka and Coke.

  “Two black guys are walking past a synagogue during the High Holy Days,” Franklin was saying. With one hand, he moved his fingers through the air to simulate walking. His other held a glass of scotch. “And they hear,” now Franklin tucked his chin and: “MMMMMMMMUUUUUUU.” He repeated the noise in several staccato bursts. Satisfied with his performance, he continued, “One black guy turns to the other and says, ‘What’s that sound?’”—This question was delivered in the vocal equivalent of blackface—“and the second black guy, he says, ‘Dey blowin’ de shofar,’” pronouncing it chauffeur, with the accent on the initial syllable. “And the first black guy says, ‘Dem Jews sho’ do know how to treat dey help!’” Franklin’s buttery gut shook in delight as he awaited a reaction to his material.

  The young women stared at him. Franklin, expecting appreciative laughter, heard crickets.

  “I did a little comedy when I was younger,” he informed them, in the event they doubted his credentials. “That was Redd Foxx’s voice.” Still nothing. “You girls have any idea who Redd Foxx is?”

  Imani laughed listlessly in a way Franklin wanted to interpret as assent.

  Aviva’s face remained impassive. Staring at her second cousin, she said, “Where do I even start with that?”

  “I’ll send you some DVDs,” Franklin offered.

  “That’d be swell,” Imani said.

  It dawned on Franklin that a social blunder had been committed and he developed a sudden need to refill his drink. He excused himself, marveling inwardly at the lack of humor in so many young people today and wondering just what was going on with those two.

  In the media room, Boris played Gears of Death with Ari and Ezra. He did not spend time with the twins outside of family events for two reasons, the first being that they had far more disposable income. This disparity stopped Boris from participating in the bottle service, nightclubbing, Zovirax-ingesting life led by the pair. The other reason: Since they were, to Boris, in their sense of entitlement, incurious intellects, and general obliviousness, a personification of the argument for a one-hundred-percent inheritance tax, he barely tolerated them.

  The twins were gaming with Boris because, upon having scrutinized their cousin Aviva’s girlfriend and determined that neither of them considered her a potential sex partner (Imani’s lesbianism eluded them), they concluded video games were a more valuable use of their time.

  Ari and Ezra had discussed violating their father’s order to not talk about their bid for the hockey team. The two thought it would increase their status, but fear of Franklin’s wrath kept them mute on the subject. Conversely, Boris would have enjoyed lording his involvement with the Sapphire over the twins, but his self-control forbade it.

  Ezra deftly maneuvered his controller and destroyed Boris’s avatar, which exploded in a cloud of pixilated shrapnel.

  To Ari, Ezra said, “Give it up, bro,” and they bumped fists.

  To Boris, Ari said, “Want to put some money on the next one to make it interesting?”

  “It could never be interesting,” Boris said.

  The empty living room was an oasis and Jay could be found there seated on the sofa with a laptop searching for a relevant, nonreligious text with which to kick off the Seder. After looking through several political speeches, essays, and poems, he chose a passage he found meaningful and went to his upstairs office to print it out. He heard the murmur of voices from the various rooms, a comforting pre-ritual hum, and trusted that this congenial evening would be a respite from his vexations.

  The Passover table resembled a glossy magazine layout. The most exquisite white china and linens, the finest silver, and in the middle of it all a Seder plate on which were arrayed the requisite maror, charoset, karpas, shank bone, and roasted hard-boiled egg in a still-life arrangement that Renoir would have been glad to paint had he been able to put his anti-Semitic sentiments aside long enough to complete the task. The tiny bulbs of a crystal chandelier glittered benevolently, light particles knitted into a warm raiment draped across the shoulders and over the heads of those fortunate enough to be present. All of it whispered that if the attendees could not be in Jerusalem on this night, northern Westchester County was the next best place.

  Jay presided at one end of the table opposite Nicole. To his left were his mother, Bebe, Franklin, Marcy, and their fifteen-year-old daughter Chloe (wraithlike, saucer eyes, profoundly bored), on his right, Ezra, Ari, Aviva, Imani, and Boris. Mrs. Braithwaite had been invited to dine with the family but elected to eat her dinner in the kitchen.

  The Seder began with Jay remarking that while he loved and missed Uncle Jerry, it was his considered view that the evening could benefit from modernization, and to that end, anyone who had a question, or wanted to talk about a topic germane to the themes of the evening should feel free to interpose. To set the tone, he unfolded a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and began to read “I Dream A World” by the African-American poet Langston Hughes. Between the first and second stanzas, Jay glanced at Imani. The poem was intended to be an act of inclusion, but her expression was enigmatic. He finished and cleared his throat. No one said anything. Unsure of what to do, this being a complete departure from every previous Gladstone Seder, the guests waited. Trying to coax conversation, Jay looked from face to face.

  “No poetry lovers here?”

  Again, nothing.

  Resentful of being forced off script, Marcy said, “Interesting choice,” followed by Bebe bailing him out by saying, “I liked it,” and her affirmation was the end of the discussion.

  “Jay,” Nicole said, “Why don’t you start the Seder?”

  “I thought I had,” he said, attempting a joviality that barely concealed his displeasure. Had his wife missed the point of what he said about making this a different kind of evening?

  “Why don’t you light the candles,” Jay suggested to his wife.

  Nicole stood and lit the candles with a wood matchstick, recited the Hebrew prayer, and glanced obliquely at Marcy to gauge her reaction to the nonkosher nature of the moment. Marcy stared at the cover of her Haggadah and refused to look at the fire-wielding shiksa. Nicole sat back down and took a long pull on her fourth glass of wine. Jay observed what was going on—his wife did not hide her feelings about Franklin’s spouse—and prayed neither of them would erupt. A day earlier, Nicole had told him that Marcy had requested via email to light the candles and Nicole hadn’t answered. She intended to light the candles herself, and when Jay asked why this mattered since she wasn’t Jewish, he was treated to: “Because it’s my fucking house.”

  The first cup of wine, the ceremonial washing of hands, the hiding of the afikomen which Jay placed behind an abstract sculpture in the living room with the poignant knowledge that no one present was still young enough to look for it. He directed each person in succession to read a short portion. Although Jay had made it clear he wanted this Passover to resonate more deeply than those of his youth, no one deviated from the roadmap provided by the Haggadah. The Seder moved briskly along, a direct reaction on Jay’s part to the lugubrious, mind-numbing, endless exercises in religiosity presided over by the sonorous Uncle Jerry. Marcy and Franklin read their assignments in Hebrew (then translated the words to English, thereby doubling the time it took to finish, to everyone’s dismay), Chloe, as
the youngest, listlessly asked the Four Questions, Ari and Ezra read with an excitement that suggested the text was a tax return. Bebe’s reading was clean and efficient. Boris delivered his bit with some fervor since he was the only Jew present one generation removed from actual persecution. Aviva and Imani read with brio because they were engaged citizens of a complex and ever-evolving world who believed all wisdom traditions possessed some inherent value, and Nicole committed to her allotted lines with a rogue energy animated by her loathing of Marcy.

  The group was going around the table a second time when Ari Gladstone dolefully recited the words, “When we were slaves in the land of Egypt,” and Imani answered, half-joking, “What do you mean we, white man?”

  Not sure what she intended, Ari’s brother Ezra said, “Because we were slaves in Egypt.”

  Imani turned to Jay and politely asked if she might say something out of turn. “Go right ahead,” he said, superseding the Uncle Jerry legacy. “The Seder is about freedom.”

  “You see,” Imani said to Ezra, “I’ve got a problem with that.” Marcy stared at her and fretted where this was going. Aviva was interested since it appeared a seminar might be breaking out. Nicole smiled graciously at her young guest, happy that the interruption seemed to annoy Marcy.

  “You’ve got a problem with freedom?” Ezra said, more a statement than a question.

  “No, because that would be ironic,” Imani said, “Wouldn’t it? Being African-American and all.” She waited while the puzzlement on his face retreated and the usual self-satisfied expression returned. “The problem I have is with the whole idea of Jews and slavery.”

  “What problem is that?” Marcy asked.

  “It’s the idea—” Imani paused. “How do I put this?”

  Unable to contain her irritation, Marcy interrupted, “We were slaves in Egypt, Imani.” Her tone brooked no contradiction.