Dark Plums (23 page)

Then the dream-mother of her childhood wafted through to her, the dream-mother of otter-soft walls. Her rich dark fur enveloped Adrianne. The dream-mother whispered, “I love you.” Then she added, “Accept Max's love.”

The women around her were standing up, and Adrianne stood, too, smoothing out her white wool dress. She noticed that most of them were middle-aged and old, dressed in clothing that looked many years out of style. They began to sing a plaintive melody.

The English words in the prayer book swam and danced in front of her. Lifting her eyes, she looked about the room. It was fairly large, with light green walls and a high ceiling. Its dark linoleum
floors gave off a stale, gingery odor. There were folding metal chairs. How dingy the place was, Adrianne realized. How poorly the room was heated. She wrapped her black rabbit coat more tightly around her shoulders. Through small side windows she could see it had grown dark outside. Again she had an urge to run, to escape the collective sorrow of these women all around her.

Her neighbor nudged her and once again pointed to a page number. The woman was scrutinizing Adrianne, her eyes flashing as if to say, “I can see through you. You are an imposter.”

Now the rabbi was speaking in English, but Adrianne could not concentrate on his words. Then she seemed to hear the faint sound of laughter. Apparently, no one else heard. Tremors ran through her nerves.

At last the service ended. Women buttoned their coats, readjusted their hats, and put on their gloves as they prepared to leave. Adrianne wanted to reach Max right away, but she had to follow the women who walked sedately, with muffled voices. Max was waiting for her by the foot of the stairs. He was engaged in conversation with another elderly man, but his eyes kept darting upwards.

“Adrianne!” he cried when he saw her. “Benjamin, I want that you meet my new wife!”

A strained look came over the man's face as he stiffly shook her hand.

She sensed people pointing her out and speaking about her. Some spoke in undertones while others did not bother to lower their voices.

“… a
shikse
young enough to be his daughter …”

“… a man his age … crazy in the head. His mother would turn over in her grave.”

“She is Jewish?” Benjamin asked dubiously.

“No, I'm not.”

“She has met the rabbi?” Benjamin, too, had a marked European accent.

“Here he is now,” said Max. “Adrianne, this is Rabbi Zimmerman. Rabbi, my wife, Adrianne.”

“Hello,” said the rabbi. When Adrianne reached out to shake the rabbi's hand, his arms remained at his sides. “A woman does not shake
the rabbi's hand,” Max whispered.

“Are you Jewish?” asked the rabbi.

“No,” said Adrianne.

The rabbi's look was severe. “If she is not Jewish, you cannot be married in this synagogue.”

“We were married in City Hall,” said Max. “Good evening, rabbi.
Shalom shabbat
.”

“
Shalom shabbat
.”

Max elbowed Adrianne out of the building into the streets. “They do not understand. For them it is a scandal you are not Jewish.”

“Do you want me to become Jewish?”

“No,” he said angrily. She had never seen him angry before. “Narrow minds they have. It is better we move to the country far away from these people. All these years it is this synagogue that keeps me in the city.”

“My father's family was Jewish long ago, before they converted.”

“Oh?” Max exclaimed eagerly. “Your mother's people, too?”

“She's Catholic.”

“Then you are
goyim
.”

They continued walking. He was breathing jerkily, and she could tell he was still angry.

“I have been with this synagogue for many years, for almost as many years as you are alive, Adrianne. But now is time to cut the old ties and move away.”

“I thought you wanted to move anyway.”

“This synagogue, this rabbi I thought was my friend, all were keeping me here.”

“Max, wait! Have you forgotten me?” They turned to see who was calling him. A plump elderly man in an overcoat and
yarmulkah
ran up to them. He heaved, catching his breath, and he and Max embraced. The man's spectacles had slid to the end of his nose, and he pushed them up. Under the street light, Adrianne could see that the man had a kind, ruddy face.

“Aren't you going to introduce me to the young lady they say is your new wife?” While this man, too, spoke with an accent, it was less marked than Benjamin's.

“Ah, she is indeed my wife. Adrianne, this is my good friend of many years—perhaps now my only friend—Morris Kaplan.”

“Also his attorney,” said Morris. “I have to stay on good terms with my client.” He chuckled and gave Max a friendly pat on the shoulder.

Both men took off their black satin
yarmulkahs
and folded them into their vest pockets.

“We'll go out for a drink to celebrate this marriage. We'll have some schnapps, a cognac, perhaps a pastry for the young lady,” said Morris. “I'm inviting you to Steinberg's Delicatessen.”

“I accept,” said Max. “Is all right with you, Adrianne,
meine liebe
?”

“Of course.” She walked between the two men. It had grown much colder, and their breaths were frosty in the night air. When she slipped on a patch of ice, Max grabbed her arm.

A month later Max and Adrianne rented a furnished house in Vermont, and at the end of May they moved in. Built late in the last century on the slope of a hill, the dwelling consisted of a living room, a small dining room and two bedrooms, one of which Max used as his study. The kitchen and bathroom had old fashioned fixtures. Faded wallpaper with tiny roses covered the walls of their bedroom.

They were about a quarter-mile from the center of a tiny village with a general store and a post office. In front of their house stretched a narrow tar road. No other houses were visible, and all around them grew thickly planted trees.

“Like the Black Forest,” said Max with a sigh of contentment.

Adrianne, on the contrary, felt a menacing quality to the trees, and for a long time she felt ill at ease amidst the isolation, which was unlike anything she had ever known.

The menace of the trees manifested at night when she and Max went to bed. She tried to please him, to ignore her body's needs. It was hard. At times she sobbed quietly while he slept.

One night the jagged edge of his nail scratched her vagina so that she cried out with pain.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered. “
Meine liebchen
, did I hurt you?”

“No, I'm okay.”

His mouth pressed down on hers. She held back a wave of nausea as she inhaled his sour old man's breath. “Be a good whore, baby,” Alfredo whispered in her mind.

Max had lowered his flaccid body and was licking her vulva. He had no sense of where her nerve endings were. She guided him with her hands, holding his scalp with the fine, wispy hair. After a few minutes he raised his body. “Is the first time I do so to a woman,” he whispered, and she cringed from his voice in her ear.

“Fuck me,” she murmured.

She stroked him until he hardened enough to enter her, but she wanted to cry out with frustration when he came too quickly, with a thin spurt of semen.

During the day, their life followed a calm routine. Breakfast was between eight and nine in the morning. They had Sanka and frozen orange juice, usually with scrambled eggs and coffeecake which Adrianne baked to satisfy Max's sweet tooth. He had stopped following his diet so strictly. While she prepared their meal, he would read his newspapers and smoke a cigar. Sometimes he would turn on the radio to a Middlebury station that played classical music. In rhythm with the music, he would sway back and forth, a satisfied expression on his face, as he looked out onto the trees.

Lunch was at eleven-thirty, which Adrianne found a trifle early. His insistence on schedules annoyed her a bit, since this habit of his had not been apparent before they married. For the midday meal they usually had cold cuts, cottage cheese, or soup with vegetables.

Supper around five-thirty in the evening consisted of a roast or stew with potatoes, cooked vegetables or a salad, and fruit. After a little reading or listening to classical music on the radio, they would retire.

It was an uneventful life, but after a while Adrianne began to find a curious comfort in its regularity. In the afternoon she would go for walks in the woods. When Max accompanied her, they had to stop frequently so that he could catch his breath.

“We must buy a car,” he said shortly after they moved into the house. “Often I must see Doctor Goldfarb in New York, and it is a long trip by bus.”

He arranged for driving lessons. Three times a week a young man drove out from Burlington, and they practiced driving. After several lessons, Adrianne, who had driven several years earlier in Houston, was ready for her license. Max took longer. “Many years ago, before the war, I drove a friend's car in Hamburg. But it was so long ago. Most people then did not own cars.”

Twice he failed the vision test, so he had to get new glasses. After he finally obtained his license, he bought a used Chrysler with only seven thousand miles on it.

There were times Adrianne longed to call Alfredo. She would stare at the phone until it was all she could do to keep from picking it up to call him. The golden wedding ring on her finger gleamed in the light. On her other hand she still wore Alfredo's silver ring. Whenever she thought about taking it off and putting it away in a drawer, something prevented her.

“Tell me,
meine liebe
, what is the matter? Something is troubling you, what is it? Tell me,” Max said.

“Nothing,” she murmured. “You're a good man. I love you.” Her lips brushed his cheek. Then she ran into the bedroom for her outdoor clothing, as she wanted to walk in the woods.

She contrasted Max's thoughtfulness—despite his clumsy manners, despite the occasional food spills on his shirt or trousers, despite his broodings over the past—with Alfredo's treatment of her. Max cared about her in a way no one, including her mother and father, ever had before.

Max used to sit in his rocking chair by the window in his study and half-close his eyes while he listened to music on the radio. Sometimes Adrianne would come in to talk to him while he was listening. One morning when she approached him, he slowly opened his eyes and said, “You startled me. I was dozing. I was thinking about you, Adrianne. Come here and hold my hand.”

She had grown fuller, and she was now as heavy as when they had first met. Ah, how her fleshiness delighted him. She was wearing a navy sweater, a full grey skirt, and tiny hoop earrings. Her golden hair surrounded her face like an aura. She sat down in his lap. He reached out for one of her hands and turned it over in both of his. Her deep blue eyes seemed luminous. She was not stupid, nor was she as passive as she appeared to be.