A New Yorker's Stories (5 page)

PART 2

Dear Martin,

I hope you enjoyed the “memories” I mailed to you some time ago. I am writing again because I thoug of some other memories that might be of interest to you.

You had an interest in Father Coughlin for a while until you learned that he was an anti-Semite and a fascist. Secondly, a much better memory: you subscribed to a music give-away from one of the New York tabloid newspapers. What you got was a disk of Shubert's Unfinished Symphony which you played over and over again. I think it was the only musical disk you had. In any case, I heard that symphony repeated a hundred times and consequently I remember it until this day. Do you?

The final memory is about your dog Pal. Although Pal, a big Belgian police dog was yours I was the one who had to take care of her a lot of the time. She was a very friendly animal and thoroughly domesticated. She used to snuggle up to me in bed and get under the covers with her head on the pillow. Well, friendly as she was, she got knocked up twice and had eleven puppies each time. On the first occasion Pal didn't know what was happening. She thought she had to make a poop and went crazy trying to find a place in the apartment that would not shock us. She finally landed on the sofa and gave birth to a tiny puppy which fell between the cushion and the back of the sofa—as though to hide something. I didn't know what Pal was up to any more than she did but when the first baby dog emerged we understood. I quickly prepared a place in an open box which I filled with strips of newspaper and got Pal to settle in. She then had the rest of her litter and she knew instinctively how to take care of them. We kept the puppies for several weeks until they were old enough to be given away. That's what we did. We gave the pups away. Do you remember any of this history about Pal? I was very involved and I could not ever forget this episode of our early history.

PART 3

By and by you started to work, maybe in the electrical line. You had the opportunity to travel out of the country to visit Barbados, I think. I was so impressed: going abroad. What I remember most was the day you returned home wearing a new suit you had made to order. The color was almost a Kelly green. I don't think you wore the suit very often.

When you got married in 1940/1941 I was very excited and impressed. I was working in Maine at the time and I remember I bought you and Mildred a wedding gift with my first full pay check. After the war you and your young family were living in a low-cost housing community in San Pedro, just south of Los Angeles. I was struck by the fact that your apartment there had nothing on the walls, just bare walls. The next time I paid a visit to San Pedro I brought two framed reproductions of paintings by Van Gogh and put them up to decorate your apartment. I could never bear bare walls.

Over the years, I have continued to provide you with works of art, not reproductions, but originals and now your living room stands high among many Southern California interiors.

I'm sure there are other moments to remember but these are the ones that come to mind. Enjoy. And let me know how your eye exercise is working. Take the time to relax.

Love, Philip

BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS

COURTING: PART 1

It is almost three months since Nadia died and I still can't believe it. I live in a sort of denial, strange and unclear. I don't know how I go on living without Nadia, for nothing is quite the same anymore.

In a way I always protected Nadia and I took pleasure in that. She never learned the alphabet perfectly and never could tell north from south. But she was feisty and acted as though these deficiencies didn't matter. Whenever we exited from the underground subway, for example, she would begin the walk, invariably in the wrong direction. At first I would follow her because she seemed to know what she was doing; she was leading. I soon discovered to never trust her sense of direction and I just took over. I could protect her in ways like that but I could not protect her from dying as much as I tried.

Nadia was a little lady, barely five feet tall. I met her at first in two ways: on the stage and sitting down. I saw her for the first time at a French Club meeting at New York University where she was singing French folk songs. She wore an ankle length skirt, full and velvety and stood on a raised platform. She was formidable just looking up at her and more enchanting singing her songs with wit and élan and a naughty twinkle in her eyes. I already loved all things French and I fell in love with her on the spot. She was charming in a way you would expect a French singer to be charming: savvy and witty and gracious.

After the program I was sure she had a car waiting for her outside the university to take her back to the mid-town club were she normally performed. I discovered much later that she was a student, just a student at the college and then I arranged to have a friend introduce me to her. I waited almost a full year for this introduction because I was so scared of looking inept. When we finally met we were all sitting around a table in the school cafeteria. This was an eye to eye encounter. Only after I had the courage to ask her out did I discover that she was a tiny thing against my lanky frame of six feet three and a half inches; too late, I was in love.

Our first dates were urban affairs, affordable and accessible. We took the Staten Island Ferry across the New York Harbor and past the Statue of Liberty. When we were about half way toward Staten Island the view back to lower Manhattan was spectacular. The skyline alone was enough to stir the heart. As we both leaned on the wood railing of the ferry I gently passed my hand over hers. She did not pull away or object and from that moment on we held hands.

I thought I could impress Nadia with my know-how. We did not exit the ferry on the Staten Island side. We just waited quietly until the ferry departed for the return trip to Manhattan so we had a double voyage for the price of one. The next time we went out we visited the Empire State Building. Back in 1948 the Empire State Building was not so old and still a novelty (as it is to this day, mostly for out-of-town tourists). Nadia paid the child's admission: she passed for under twelve because she was so short, barely five feet and so cute. Walking around the promenade deck on the 86th floor with its sweeping view of the whole City was exciting and romantic. At half price it was a great buy. The next date was a bit more serious: dinner at the French restaurant, La Fleur de Lis. I had not been to many French restaurants before and I felt certain that Nadia would be impressed with my savoir faire and by my deference to her country of origin. We could speak French (the little that I could muster at that time) and I actually tried a new word in my French vocabulary: pamplemousse (grapefruit).

When I asked her to visit me at my home for dinner as opposed to going out for supper she was mildly shocked. She lived with her parents in the northern part of Manhattan, about as far north as one can go, while I resided in Jamaica, a district of Queens about as far as one can go in another direction. After a moment she got over the shock and agreed. My apartment was on the top floor of a three-storied private house. The first two stories were occupied by a law firm; after five o'clock the house was mine. I could not be more private than that. I prepared the dinner with wine, put flowers and candles on the table. Nadia arrived on time and we had a very intimate dinner. After the meal Nadia retired to my bedroom and lied down in my bed as though it were the most natural thing to do. I followed. She was submissive and I exercised a male imperative; a moment of history unfolded that evening. The hour was late when Nadia left to take the train back to the other end of town.

I was in a state of anxiety for days and weeks afterwards. I felt exultant in my conquest and at the same time troubled by the implications, utterly unspoken but everywhere in my mind. I was overwhelmed by the sense of commitment that was looming. I thought the future of my life was in the balance and that I could not face a long-term obligation. I spoke of traveling to India for a made up research project the meaning of which was only too clear: Nadia got that message and she was wretched. We met one afternoon after school and walked together toward Greenwich Village. A light drizzle was falling in the City when we took shelter in three-step doorway. Nadia spoke and then she began to cry. She was crying for me and I could not bear to witness her pain. I reflected for a moment: if this girl cares this much for me how could I not respond in kind. I told her to stop crying and that I would never leave her. (10/27/07)

COLLEGE ROMANCE: PART 2

Nadia and I had a very discreet college romance. Nothing would have pleased our college classmates more than knowledge of our affair. Gossip like that travels faster than light and usually ends up in an awful mess of recriminations and sour feelings and some embarrassment. We met outside the college precincts at her parents' apartment up in the Inwood section of Manhattan. Both parents were usually out during the day so we had the run of the place. We were like kittens playing around. We had one minor problem: the floors between stories in the building were very thin, so thin that the downstairs neighbor, close friends of Nadia's parents, could hear our footsteps above. The downstairs neighbor knew that only Nadia could occupy the apartment during the daytime so when we walked we walked in tandem, letting our footfalls match each other. It was our little game of deception and protection. We took our precautions and made every effort not to flaunt our relationship. The extra effort made our affair all the more precious and deliciously private.

PARIS: PART 3

Nadia's father had a different take on our romance. As soon as Nadia graduated from college he shipped her off to Paris. He and I were very different types. I can only guess how much these differences figured in his actions. He was slightly on the short side and stocky with a barrel chest and a belligerent stance to go with his physique. I was tall and lanky and almost all the time a little dreamy, certainly never threatening to anybody. Nadia was in Paris presumably to continue her education at the Sorbonne but I knew she was there to be out of my sight and out of my arms. I just wasn't the suitor Papa was hoping for his daughter.

Nadia graduated in June of 1949 while I had to wait until September because I had one course requirement to fulfill before I could graduate. As soon as I had my diploma in hand I booked passage on the French Line for Cherbourg. I remember the train ride to Paris and the first step I took into Paris. I left the Gare St. Lazare by the Amsterdam Street exit and discovered I was in the land of Lilliputians. The cars were all mini sized and the people all on the short side. How quaint, I thought.

Never mind, I made my way to the Montparnasse quarter and found a place to stay in a rooming house on Edgar Quinet just off Boulevard Raspail and one block from Boulevard Montparnasse where Nadia was living with a family friend. Needless to say Nadia was delighted to see me in Paris and in her neighborhood. My room was on the second floor with a window facing the street. Nadia took to throwing pebbles against the glass to wake me up in the mornings. I would run down the steps to open the front door and Nadia came up to snuggle in bed with me where she claimed was the only place she could really sleep.

I was soon enrolled at the Sorbonne under the GI bill and began a long period of study working towards a doctor's degree in art history. As it turned out Nadia became pregnant and our lives were altered in significant ways. We applied for marriage which involved a complicated and time-consuming process for a foreigner marrying a French citizen. There was a police investigation, papers from a lawyer in the States, posting of bans, medical exams, and so forth. Months went by but we were finally married by the mayor of the Sixth Arrondisement in the Latin Quarter on February 4, 1950. We were legal. Nadia's friends from the Sorbonne were there to witness the event.

I found an apartment on the third floor (Mansarde) of a private house facing the Bois de Vincennes. These rooms were never lived in so I had a lot of remodeling to attend to: a new kitchen with a shower built in and a wood burning stove with an external flue installed in the living room. The place was as cozy as could be and was our home for the next three years.

When our first son, Gregory, was born in August of 1950 my father-in-law had changed his attitude. Now I received a very nice and expensive gold pocket watch and a little later a car, a Hillman Minx, which was actually a practical gift as my area of study was in Lower Normandy. I made many trips in that car to Normandy in the following three years to photograph the sculpture inside and outside of Romanesque Churches. Nadia dropped out of school to look after the baby and by and by took a job in an American law office where she made use of their facilities to type and multilith my thesis. My studies at the Sorbonne were successfully completed in June of 1953 and we were back in the States by September of that year to begin another phase of our lives.

AS GOOD AS IT GETS: PART 4

Shortly after our marriage, my mother-in-law came to visit us. On this visit she took the liberty to tell me that I should make the beds in the morning. She had been in the habit of making the bed for her daughter and now that her daughter was married that task should be passed on to me. I thought that piece of advice was quaint as I had no intention of ever following it but I said nothing. My new wife had no habit of making beds and she never did either, so we lived very well without making beds.

What my young bride liked most of all was to lie in bed with a book at any time of day or night. She was a voracious reader then and remained so all her life. Above all, she hated housework and found all kinds of means to avoid domestic chores, sometimes with dire consequences. At least I thought so. For example, the dining room table was not wiped clear after meals. I discovered this fact when I placed an important document on the table only to find that the greasy table had stained the document. I was furious and I remonstrated about the absolute need to clean the table. That logic was barely grasped and pleads for table wiping continued for many years. Of course I took cautionary measure to check the table whenever I needed to work there and cleaned the surface if necessary. But I didn't like that chore any more than my wife did. Somebody had to do it.

You may well wonder why we would eat and work at the same table. The answer is perfectly clear to me even if it may be a puzzle to others: our apartment became so cluttered before too many years had passed the space at the end of the table where we dined was also the only space left for us to work at.

Cooking, no less that cleaning, was another drudge which was done with as little attention as possible. One day, upon returning home I found our small bathroom toilet overflowing. The floor in the room was awash with water from the clogged basin. My wife just kept pressing the lever to flush the toilet and the water just kept overflowing. I discovered in short order that she had dumped a pot of mixed vegetables into the toilet to dispose of them. But solids like vegetables would not flush away. I had to reach down into the toilet and extract the mass of cut peas and carrots hand full by hand full, and then mop the floor and put things back to order. I could not figure out why my wife did not throw the old food into the garbage container in the first place. We didn't discuss the matter.

Mechanical devices were another problem because my wife would not take the time or care to use them properly. At the time the French version of the kitchen aide was the Cuisinart, an electric machine to cut and chop all kinds of raw foods or to prepare a batter for baking. There were several different blades for these purposes but all of them had to be carefully seated on a central spinning axle. My wife invariably didn't take that kind of care. The blades were set off center and when the machine started the motor jammed and the machine was broken. We bought half a dozen machines in the space of a couple of months. My wife never got the hang of it.

On the other hand my wife loved machines which made housework easier. So it was with the washing machine in the basement of our apartment house. Just toss the dirty clothes into the machine and voilà. On one occasion I had the good luck to find a shirt that was black. My wife had often suggested that I get one because she liked the looks of men in black shirts. Since I am very tall and slender, or skinny if you wish, finding a second-hand shirt that fit my frame and black was no easy task. Let me say I never wore that shirt because my wife threw bleach into the washing machine that held my black shirt. What came out after the wash was a modern art version of a shirt: irregular splashes of white and black.

The kitchen dish washing machine was a definite delight for my wife. I suppose no one hated washing dishes by hand in the sink more than my wife. In her enthusiasm for the machine she would pile the dishes, or rather stack the dishes, one on top of the other; bowls and plates pressed up against each other. The machine was a powerful beast and when the water gushed through the dishes they bounced off one another so that most of our crockery had chipped edges. Well, we just ate off of less than perfect dishes.

The mechanical fascination extended to the vacuum cleaner. My wife insisted on buying a powerful machine, almost two big for her to manipulate. Sure enough, the first time the vacuum cleaner went into use my wife managed to vacuum the electric cord into the machine stopping the operation of cleaning right in its track, until a technician came to unwire the sucked up wire.

My wife, however, was not adverse to fashion. When we were in Paris she took the opportunity to buy a pair of shoes in a fancy shoe store on the Rue de Rivoli near the Hotel de Ville. She selected an expensive pair made in Italy. The shoes looked really elegant; the leather really classy. She went out of the store elated but after twenty paces she couldn't bear the pain in her feet and quickly donned her old pair of shoes. I have no idea whatever became of the Italian shoes.

My wife was also coquettish about her hair. In mid life as her hair began to turn grey she used hair dye to keep her brunette coloring. The problem with the hair dye occurred when I had a sabbatical leave and used the full seven months to travel around the world. My wife thought she had to bring along seven pints of hair dye to use during the trip. It just never occurred to her that hair-coloring dye could be found in most every city we visited. I was initially unaware of this liquid addition to our luggage which I ended up carrying from place to place during that sabbatical adventure.

Speaking of luggage reminds me of our trip to Guatemala when my wife managed to bring along twenty-one pieces of baggage. I am sure we didn't need half the things she packed. In Guatemala we took a bus to get to Antigua, the former capitol of the country. But the bus was not direct. We had to change buses halfway on the trip. Well, our twenty-one pieces of luggage were placed on the top of the bus. To make the transfer, handlers tossed the bags from one bus to the other in rapid fire. I just stood by watching this transaction wondering how the men could know which bags to throw. I had no way of checking and remained resigned to my fate. Happily, every one of the twenty-one pieces arrived safely in Antigua. But I promised myself to check the packing on future trips.

If it was up to my wife I suppose we would not have traveled much. She had absolutely no sense of direction. I used to follow her, in the beginning, because she appeared to be so sure of herself. But invariably she was going in the wrong direction. I decided my own strategy: I would henceforth just walk by myself ten or fifteen paces until my wife found herself going it alone. Then she caught up with me. We didn't discuss this matter. Words would not have made any difference. My little dance in the right direction did the trick. I should add that I had training as a surveyor and mapmaker and I always knew where
I
was going.

One of our greatest frights came while our twin daughters were only fourteen or fifteen months old. They had a room to themselves. We could close the door to that room and we had chicken wire on the lower halves of the windows. There was also an interior window in the room which gave light to the corridor that ran behind the room. One pane was removed from this window so my wife could throw peanuts to the twins and keep them happy for long periods of time. On this occasion the time must've been too long because when I came home and casually walked down the corridor I discovered both girls stark naked, standing on the upper frame of the chicken wire window barrier. I immediately retreated to the living room to summon my wife who was, what do you think, reading a book. We quietly entered the girls' room and each of us lifted one child from their window perch and set them down. The twins had, in the time they were left alone, removed their diapers full of you know what and had made play time with the treasure they found. The room was covered with splotches of doo-doo from top to bottom. How they managed to climb up the chicken wire is still a mystery to me but I realized that the babies had no way of getting down. We arrived just in the knick of time. We cleaned up the room, cleaned up the kids, put the diapers back on but we never discussed the circumstances that led up to the potentially and frightfully dangerous consequences of inattention.

The next day I replaced the half-length chicken wire window guards with a taller wire that covered the entire height of the windows.

I can conclude this brief memoir with a firm affirmation that I had a wonderful wife and that I embrace all the ups and downs over our fifty-seven-year marriage.