Augusta Played (30 page)

“No,” Norman said.

“So I'm complaining. Did I ever once complain in all the years you were growing up? No. I sponsored modern art. I wore mink and for what. So Sid could use up his whole life working to get on the Supreme Court and break his heart in his old age by failing. Now I'm complaining. For once in my life I'm complaining, Norman, because it's not right that a mother should have to imagine that her son is dead, and also I'm giving advice. Eat.”

“It's not half bad,” Norman said, eating. “In fact, it's better than Mitzi used to make. I never knew you could cook.”

“I wasn't allowed. Your father said Mitzi should cook, that's what Mitzi was for.”

Finished, Norman pushed the plate away, lit a cigarette and blew several smoke rings. They rose toward the Tiffany chandelier hanging from the ceiling. In this room he had eaten many of the meals of his life. On such facts, Norman thought, feeling stuffed and mellow, the world turns. He remembered how he used to eat upstairs and then again down here and then tear out to Loew's with Phil Fleischman. Who knew Phil was going to grow up to be a hip ad-man? Who knew he himself would end up learned, lonely, married, and visiting his mother on the sly?

Esther waited. Behind the winged frames, her pale green eyes watered. It was almost two years since she had seen her son, and now here he was, blowing smoke rings over the leftover spaghetti. Her heart was full.

Norman felt suddenly bashful. On a full stomach, it no longer seemed so reasonable to tell your mother that your wife had found another man more satisfactory than your mother's son. It was not something he really wanted anybody to know. But then when his mother said, “Go ahead, unburden yourself, I'm your
mother”
Norman found himself talking in an unexpected access of freedom, as if he were jettisoning months of hurt, anxiety, and anger like useless cargo overboard, and as he talked, he began to feel wonderfully light. Ah, Dr. Morris, Dr. Morris! If Norman had only known in the years since elapsed what he discovered now, under the Tiffany chandelier, he might never have lain for so many darkened hours on the leather couch in your air-conditioned, centrally heated womb room! For what he discovered now was that talking to his mother made him feel exactly the way he had felt talking to you, his analyst, mentor, parental-substitute, and way-out-of-high-school-and-the-army. Relieved.

It was like emptying himself of the heavy emotions, the ones that weigh a person down and prevent him from exercising successfully that backstroke of the soul, breaststroke of the heart, which propel said person through the deep and turbulent, the capable-of-causing-to-drown elements of life, and the lighter he became, the higher he floated, until once again he was on top. Norman preferred being on top and considered this a normal enough preference, if a sexually loaded one, and indeed, when he felt he was on top, he became a kinder person, more expansive and receptive to other people's feelings and generous with his own. Right now, for example, he was becoming aware that his mother had been quite prolongedly silent. “That's it,” he said, coming to a halt. “Hacking gave Gus the money for the hall and she took it from him.”

Esther said, “Augusta never wrote me about anyone named Hacking. Richard, you said? She never mentioned a Richard either.”

“Well, she wouldn't, would she? Considering.”

“I want to be very sure of something,” Esther said. “You said they meet at this woman's apartment, Birdie something?”

“Birdie Mickle.”

“How did you find that out?”

“I heard it from”—he couldn't say his father—“someone who knows her.”

“This someone,” Esther said. “It could be a confused person.”

“Why do you think that? There's no question in my mind.”

“I'm just suggesting that maybe there should be.”

“I don't see why.”

“Norman, I want you to do me a favor. Don't go off the deep end.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Norman,” Esther said, thinking hard, “I don't believe Augusta would do what you are saying. What's more, I have reason to think that there is some element of confusion here. I can't quite put my finger on it, but something is, if you'll excuse the expression, screwed up.”

“I never heard you use an expression like that.”

“Before you weren't such a big boy. I know all about satyriasis too.”

“Why would you know about something like that?” Was his father even more active than Norman realized? Christ, he must be a horny old bastard!

“Never mind, I know. My God, I think I know too much. Now tell me something else, Norman. This Birdie. Did you ever have anything to do with her?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, stalling.

“Did you ever, you know. Hanky-panky.”

“Don't be silly.”

“I'm a silly old lady.”

“No.”

“Okay, that's all I wanted to know.”

Norman relaxed again. “What do you think I should do?”

“What do you think?” she said. “What I said. Eat. Have dessert. Don't go off the deep end. And don't blame Augusta for something she hasn't done.”

“Don't tell me you think she's not acting like a prostitute. Not your average streetwalker, I'll admit. Two thousand dollars is a rather steep price. But what else do you call it?”

“A boy gave this money to her. His name is Mario.”

“Mario?”

“You beat him up.”

“Oh Jesus. Mario.”

“On your wedding night. Three in a room, my own son! My God.”

“He was the bellhop.”

“The bellhop! My God!”

“I had to give him the money or he would have caused trouble for Pop. Political trouble.”

“So where did you get it, the money?”

“You know where money comes from,” Norman said, mumbling. “It's just sort of there, wherever it is.”

“I don't understand, Norman.”

“I can't explain. Maybe Mario's mother could.”

“Did you get it from this Birdie Mickle?”

“I told you,” Norman said, “there was no fucking hanky-panky, as you call it!”

“Don't tell me,” Esther said. “Go home and tell your wife, who is dying from heartache already. My God. She thinks you're having an affair with Birdie Mickle. Also while you're at it, wash out your mouth.”

65

W
HEN
Norman got home, he found Gus cleaning Tweetie's cage. “There,” she was saying, “all nice and clean. You did not tee a puddytat. Now you can sit on your swing and sing. Twing and ting.” She didn't hear Norman entering, and when she turned around and saw him, she jumped.

“You scared me,” she said.

“I did not sleep with Birdie Mickle,” Norman said. Gus went into the bathroom and washed her hands. When she came back out, she said, “What makes you think I thought you did?”

“I went to see my mother.”

“She told you to say that so I wouldn't feel bad.”

“I'm saying it because it's true.”

“I don't believe you.”

“Why the hell would you? You've been too busy getting laid by that conductor friend of yours.”

“I have not!”

“Why else would you think I was having an affair? People get suspicious of other people when they're doing something suspicious. It's a basic principle.” Norman looked at his wife's face, a face which, if he had been a thousand ships, would have launched him, a face which seemed to him a miracle, as beautiful as a Bach chorale, honey hair tipped with electric fireshine from the round white lamp with the Chinese coolie shade, and he waited for her to convince him that it was not a basic principle.

“What about you, then?” she said. “Doesn't it apply to you? How else could you get such a ridiculous idea about me!”

His glance fell from her face to her hand. “Where's your ring? The pearl?”

“Oh God, I must have left it in the bathroom.” She ran back to the bathroom. “I can't find it, Norman!” she called. Her eyes were blurred with tears, which made looking difficult, and she felt panicky, as if this was a portent.

Norman found the ring as soon as he went to look; it had fallen from the sink into one of the cracks between the peeling tile and the floor. “It's all right,” he said, handing it to her.

Gus put it on at once, soothed, but Norman went back out to the other room and sat down heavily on the dark red and blue bed. He was still wearing his Burberry. He was thinking that women didn't lose their engagement rings without wanting to. It was another basic principle.

66

C
ONCEIVABLY
, Esther thought, there were four thousand dollars involved. It would explain the confusion, but it seemed unlikely. Augusta must have paid for the hall with the two thousand dollars that Mario had returned, and Norman must have gotten that two thousand dollars originally from Birdie Mickle. When he said there was no hanky-panky between them, he had blushed sinfully. Esther knew her son, even if Mitzi had raised him.

But why did he think Augusta was being unfaithful? That piece of news he had got also from Birdie Mickle. If nothing else, the answer, at least, lay with her. What's more, she was listed in the Manhattan directory: B. Mickle. Getting intoher coat, scarf, and galoshes, shutting up the house, Esther saw the situation as an opportunity that could never knock again if she didn't hearken to it now. She had a purpose finally, and nobody could accuse her of being a busybody or a nosy mother-in-law. She was only trying to help.

The snow had begun to fall, in lazy, sweeping blowings, but by the time she got out of the subway station on the Upper East Side, the wind had changed, and the flakes were smaller, whirling radially. It was dark now. The street lamps were on, and the Christmas decorations glowed in the shop windows, and the headlights cast dancing yellow images on the icing asphalt and the gutter, like little yellow figures, seasonal shoppers made of light. The real people were all shadows, dark coats that bumped insubstantial shoulders and swore at each other, or laughed insanely. A familiar and chilling sense of loneliness enveloped Esther as she walked through the crowd.

She always felt left out at Christmas time. She knew this was not an admirable feeling and would never admit it to anyone else, but all the same, no matter how many Cha-nukah presents she received, all her life she had felt as though Santa Claus and his reindeer stopped at everybody's house except hers. In a way, she was still listening for the sound of hooves on the rooftop, the jingle of bells, sled runners scraping against the wood shingles. Santa never came. A good thing, too, Esther told herself. How could she explain to her dead father, a rabbi and a son of a rabbi and a son of a son of a rabbi, that the fat man stuck in the chimney was a saint already, and not a neighbor up to no good?

She picked her way carefully through the slush and shoppers, wheezing a little from excitement and exertion. When she reached Miss Mickle's building, she had a bad moment, but the doorman didn't even bother to ask for identification. It was the holiday spirit, and besides, why pester a sixty-two year-old lady who said she was a friend of Miss Mickle's mother? “No,” she said, “don't ring. It's a surprise.” He directed her to the elevator.

At the door to the apartment, she stopped to get her breath before she knocked.

Birdie peeked through the peephole. An old lady. UNICEF? She opened the door.

“You don't know me,” Esther said. “I'm Esther Gold.”

Birdie couldn't think what to say. She had never—It was so—Nobody had warned—“Oh,” Birdie said, “oh, oh! You can't come in.”

“What do you mean, I can't come in? I'm here, aren't I? We have somebody in common, don't we? If that's not an introduction, I don't know what is.”

“I didn't mean to be rude,” Birdie said.

“So ask me in.”

Birdie chewed her lower lip and then said, “Okay.” She didn't see what else she could do. Sidney's wife must have known everything anyway, or why would she be here? “If you're sure you want me to,” she said, leading Mrs. Gold inside.

Esther followed, stamping the snow off her galoshes in the hall. At first, she didn't see Sid; she was tangled in her wool scarf, which she was taking off and using to wipe her glasses with. Sid didn't see her because he was seated on the Empire sofa, head bent, hands clasped between his knees. When he looked up and saw her, he didn't say anything. She said, softly, “Sid.”

“Esther,” he said, in his high, fading voice like the whistle of a train headed out of town. “I don't feel so good, Esther,” he said. “I think I'd like to go home now.”

67

M
Y
GOD
,” Esther said, “look at you.” The flesh seemed to have come unstuck from his bones. It was still there, loose rolls of it; but about those overlapping flesh-folds there was an aura of unreality, of insubstantiality, like ghosts multiplying a television image. The essential man was scrunched up at the center, a tiny beam, a soul in a sack of living-and-dying light. Why did she not notice this at home on Ocean Parkway? It became clear only here, in alien surroundings. The place looked to Esther like a scene from
Pillow Talk
. What did her Sid know from satin and velvet and so forth? He was a kid from Delancey Street who worked hard all his life for mixed motives his children, her children, were too innocent to grasp. They needed straight lines. A straight line, Sid was not. All right, then, if this was where it had led him, who was she to bitch about it? She knew a little something about how a person travels from infancy to senior citizenship herself, and it was not such a simple thing, getting there. Now Sid—he would be trading in his judge's black robe for a white heavenly robe. What would he do if there was a heaven and everybody in it was already perfect and there was no one to lay down the law to? He would be lost. Esther wanted to cry. “I didn't realize,” she said. “You don't notice how people change when they're at home, but here—”