Disturbances in the Field (11 page)

Alan says we must do something special. He reminds me she is arriving just around Passover. Spring springs and with it Evelyn, a sprite. We should have a Seder, he says. A Seder? I thought Alan had given his soul to the Quakers. The Inner Light. “You used to make them when Grandma was alive.” “I did it for her. The season wouldn’t seem natural to her without one.” “I know. Last year was the first time we didn’t have one. It didn’t seem natural.” “I didn’t think you cared. All right, if you care that much, we’ll do it.” We’ll do it right. It shall be a huge feast. Althea, faithful scullery maid, will be called in to dip her capable hands in matzo meal and roll balls. We will have our friends. Evelyn can look everyone over, as she did once before, years ago, when she came to Columbia to hear me play Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet with the Chamber Music Society. “Gabrielle’s family and Nina are not even Jewish,” says Althea. “Do you invite them to a Seder?” “By all means. You’re supposed to have outsiders at a Seder—it’s a tradition.” Who knows, this might even be true. “Maybe I should ask Darryl to come, then.” Darryl is her boyfriend of physics fame. “Sure, ask him if you like.” “But do you think people would think it’s odd to invite a black person to a Seder?” “I’m quite sure no one would gasp, Althea, if that’s what you’re worried about.” “But the Haggadah says all those terrible things about Egyptians. It might make him feel uncomfortable.”

Often I wish my mother, who didn’t worry about the finer points, were around. My mother would be appalled at Althea’s having a black boyfriend, but once she got over being appalled, which she would in due time, having inspected Darryl, she would say: What’s all this fuss? You want him there? Then invite him. So I say that too.

“I don’t know if I remember how to do it,” says Victor. “It’s been a couple of years.” “I can ask George to do it. He’s from a family of rabbis, you know.” “No, never mind, I’ll manage.” I knew any suggestion of George filling his shoes would bring him round.

I have offered Evelyn a bed in the large room Althea and Vivian share, but she stays in a hotel. She is careful not to interfere, to maintain privacy. It is clear that though I am the main object of her visit, she has other interests too. What they are she doesn’t say, just disappears. But when she is with us she is one of us. She talks to the children as if she has known them forever; she is one of those people who can talk to children, who remember. She and Victor seem to appreciate each other. It strikes me that she and Victor are alike in some ways. They have little small talk. They speak the truth, their versions of it, directly, without elaboration or justification. They see by their own lights and are unaffected by trends of interpretation, cultural weather.

When we are alone together I feel a touch of that old harmony. We could be in the bedroom downstairs at the brown house again, whispering secrets late at night.

“You were such a good swimmer, Lydia. Weren’t you ever afraid of the waves?”

“No. I was a little afraid up on the dunes, though. That height.”

Evelyn smiles. Her smile is Vivian’s, wise, wide, full of marvel. We are walking, Sunday morning, on the broad mall down in Riverside Park. All around us, groups are playing volleyball on the grass; sweaty joggers pass by, roller skaters, bicyclists—some are little children learning to ride, wobbling, with a parent chasing behind, every few seconds gripping the back of the seat to steady it, shouting encouragement in Spanish and English and French. On our left is the river. Whatever muck lurks beneath, the surface is sparkling cleanly in the sun. An early spring. Cherry blossoms are in premature bloom, their so brief life, and I am glad Evelyn has come in time to catch it. I point them out like a proud landowner; she nods and smiles at their beauty. Then I think, how can this compare to her Alps? Nothing I have to offer could make her stay. That family is over.

Evelyn and I speak in shorthand, eulogizing. Evelyn does not make statements with subjects and predicates. She gives fragments—the missing pieces are inside her.

“Those stringbeans,” she says, “at the brown house.”

“Born in the soil.” I laugh.

“Grew up in the sun. Remember Mother with that knife? She took it so seriously.”

“Yes, the zucchini.”

“Cut so it doesn’t hurt.”

“I never liked zucchini. I ate them so I wouldn’t hurt her feelings. She was so proud. Seven ways of cooking zucchini.”

“Remember when I lost that dragon kite?”

“Oh Lord, Evelyn. I thought you’d never shut up about it.”

“A man came along ...”

“You were always afraid of getting lost.”

“The blue slipper on the umbrella.”

“Sometimes when I said we were lost we weren’t really. I just wanted to ...”

“I know. Sometimes when I cried I wasn’t really crying, either. I figured I’d let you ...”

“I didn’t know that. I thought you ...”

“I know. I mean, I knew you didn’t know. That was part of ...”

“Oh Evelyn.” We link arms.

Oh Evelyn, why did you go so far? Princess of the Beach. Now landlocked.

“That sand woman,” says Evelyn.

“Remember how I knocked her in? God, I was a little sadist, wasn’t I?” Evelyn doesn’t answer. There are so many things I want to know, but to talk with her of the present feels strange. The past is more comfortable. Still ...

“How are you up in your Alps, Evelyn? Are you happy?”

She smiles. “It’s beautiful.”

“I imagine Rene is very busy. What do you do with yourself?”

She shrugs and brushes her hair off her neck. So warm for this time of year. Our necks are damp. “There are things to do. I have some friends. In the winters I ski. Do you go skiing?”

“No. Not enough time.”

Why no children, I want to know. She had a miscarriage, a bloody rush to the hospital, but that shouldn’t ... Did they take it all out and no one told me? What about work? Isn’t there anything she wanted to do with a passion? I can’t ask those things. Those are the kinds of things Evelyn would tell the sunflower. She was the closest person to me once, and I don’t understand her at all. I don’t understand how to be without doing.

“When they used to leave us alone,” she says.

“Yes, in their bed.”

“Then I was scared.” She laughs. “You too.”

“I shouldn’t have been. I was eleven.”

“Oh Lydia. You’re still setting standards.”

What do you do in New York when you’re not with me? Is it a man? Or the change of flat city streets? Fancy shops? Museums? I don’t care, I’d just like to know.

“That time you played the ‘Trout’ at Columbia,” she says. “You were wonderful.”

“We had that pizza after. So many of us, they had to push tables together.”

“Daddy talked about the concert all the way home. He couldn’t get over it. Anchovies, was it?”

“Sausages. But he used to tease me about the piano lessons. Remember? My little Paderewski. It really irked me.”

“I know,” says Evelyn. “But he was very proud. That George. You were sleeping with him, weren’t you?”

“How could you tell? You were only seventeen.”

“I don’t know. I could tell.”

“Do you think Mother and Daddy knew?”

“No. I liked Victor better, though.”

“So did I. George will be at the Seder.”

“Oh. You don’t still ... ? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ask ...”

“Oh no. It’s all forgotten. We’re friends, that’s all.”

“Yes,” says Evelyn. “Sometimes that’s easier.”

What on earth does she mean? Some love affair? Or with Rene, nothing? I have seen Rene several times. A solid, portly, courtly banker, master of four languages and fifteen years older than Evelyn. In his early fifties now. He collects
objets d’art.
Perhaps she is one. He treats her adoringly. Dotingly, in a way that seems to preclude any grownup passion she might return. He has traveled everywhere and seen everything and talks well. After his visits, lying in bed, I try to figure out who he is, for he gives little indication. He uses the passive voice, and the pronoun “one,” like an Englishman. Victor reminds me that he’s a banker. “So? What is that supposed to mean?” “The mind of a banker,” says Victor, “—it’s so simple, Lyd, why can’t you see?—is on money.” But I am always looking for something else in him, what Evelyn sees. Victor says security, ease. “Plus, well, he’s a cultivated man, better than your average American banker. Sweetheart, your knee seems to be somewhere in my liver. Would you mind?” “Sorry. Do you like her?” “Sure I like her.” “Would you like her, I mean?” He pauses, visualizing. “She’s a little airy for my tastes.” “Phil thinks I’m airy.” “Hah! What does he know about women, a mere boy.” Victor sees into things and I suppose he is right about Rene. But why? What made her run for cover so early? I study her profile against the passing trees.

“You were always so busy with so many things,” says Evelyn, “and I ...”

“You what?”

“I didn’t know how to care about things.”

This time I am silent, waiting.

“Maybe,” she gropes, “because you did so much, it left me ...”

“Don’t say it left you nothing to do, Evelyn. There are plenty of things to go around.”

“I Wasn’t going to. I was going to say it left me free to ... As if you would do it for me.”

She is persuasive in her fuzziness. I am almost ready to agree. Then I think, Nonsense, Evelyn. You have a poetic vision, but life is not a poem, balanced. “I don’t think so. I guess it’s just our different natures.”

She sighs. “I guess so.”

“Why don’t you adopt a child?” I say on impulse. “There are so many needy children.”

“It’s such a big job. Maybe I wouldn’t love it enough. And then ... you have so many.”

“Jesus, Evelyn, what does that have to do with it?”

“Don’t get angry. Look at that man, Lydia! He’s riding a unicycle. Isn’t that fantastic!”

Why haven’t you come more often? It’s easier for you than for me: rich, free. You should be a happy woman. I think all this.

“Lydie.” She squeezes my arm. “I’m not unhappy, you know. I wish you could understand.”

The night of the Seder arrives. It will be a crowd—the six of us and Evelyn; Nina; George; Gabrielle and Don with their children: Roger, a freshman at Amherst, and Cynthia, who is fourteen. (Esther is not here: she is a social worker in Washington. Darryl is not coming after all; his parents had tickets to
Ain’t Misbehavin
’. I asked George if he would like to bring Elinor, the biofeedback woman he mentioned two months ago, but he said, Alas, she is a thing of the past.) Even so, the preparations have not been burdensome. Evelyn rolled up her sleeves—in a kitchen she is down-to-earth and competent. Althea was indispensable with her lists, crisply issuing directions. Victor helped, and even the little ones. Little ones—they laugh at me. Eleven and nine.

Phil walks around examining critically. “Why do you need so much matzo piled up here? It’s really cruddy stuff.”

“That’s the bread of affliction, kiddo,” says Victor, patting his shoulder. “It’s not supposed to be any good.”

“And the lettuce. Do you have to ruin it, drenching it in this salty gook?”

“Bitter herbs. Because it was bitter, being slaves.”

“You have thirteen at the table. It’s unlucky. She should have talked Darryl into coming.”

“That’s okay,” says Victor. “We have Elijah. He makes fourteen. There’s even a glass of wine for him. Hey, Lyd, aren’t we supposed to leave the door open for Elijah?”

“I think in a New York apartment we could get a special dispensation.”

We gather. Victor performs in English, gallantly. He goes to hide the matzo for the children to find later on. He says blessings as if he meant them. He looks around benevolently at the crowd, winking handsomely at Cynthia, who is overweight and has acne. He always makes a point of flirting with Cynthia. Watching him, I remember our first real talk, in a bar twenty years ago. He said I could get to love him and I have. He said he would be a painter, he said he saw in me great potential for arrogance, he said we were the same. He was coercive, but everything he said turned out to be the truth.

Vivian, the youngest, asks the four questions. “Why is this night different from all other nights?” She puts down the book and raises her eyes shyly. “Because this night we have Aunt Evelyn with us.”

Evelyn, alongside her, draws in a quick breath, hugs Vivie close, and says, “Oh love!” Then she hides her face in her hands for a second.

Victor reads the story of the four sons, one wise, one contrary, one simple, and one who does not even know how to ask a question. When the wise son asks the meaning of the Passover he is told all, down to the last detail. The simple son gets a simple, serviceable explanation. And the son who does not even know how to ask a question is given an even simpler account. Each according to his needs. All but the contrary son. In older editions, I remember, he is called the wicked son.

Victor reads: “‘The contrary son asks: “What is the meaning of this service to you?” Saying
you,
he excludes himself, and because he excludes himself from the group, he denies a basic principle. You may therefore tell him plainly: “Because of what the Eternal did for me when I came forth from Egypt, I do this.” For
me
and not for
him;
had he been there, he would not have been redeemed.’”

I cannot look in Phil’s direction, but across the table, Victor’s eyes and mine meet.

“I have to pause a moment to editorialize. That’s what the old rabbis did, you know,” says Victor, placing the book face down. He frowns, strokes his beard in an unctuous, rabbinical manner so that the children laugh. “This seems a little harsh, doesn’t it? A little vindictive. Those old Jews were tough guys, very fussy. Chosen, not chosen, who’s to say? I’ll tell you what. At this Seder, in this house, kids, everyone is redeemed whether he likes it or not. No one is excluded.”

Victor invites the company to spill a drop of wine for each of the ten plagues God sent down on the Egyptians. Everyone spills, uproarious; the tablecloth is spattered red. And for each plague they bang a fist on the table. What rejoicing at the oppressors’ destruction; it has always made me cringe. Blood. Frogs. Vermin. Beasts. Murrain. (“Murrain? What’s murrain?” Vivian asks every year. “Cattle disease, same as last time,” Phil reminds her.) Boils. (“Ugh!” Alan starts a wave of scratching.) Hail. Locusts. Darkness. (Evelyn glances at me. She remembers I turned on the light after I thought she was asleep.) Slaying of the firstborn.