Marjorie Morningstar (16 page)

Marjorie tried to smile at her with aristocratic good humor, but it was a rather hard
effect to bring off with a turkey leg in her hand and the immense old man bobbing
and bellowing around her.

Mrs. Goldstone returned a smile that was pleasant enough in the circumstances, slipped
backward into the crowd, and disappeared.

The banquet that night did not start off badly at all. Mr. Connelly, the Irish bank
manager, picked up the skullcap that lay by his place card, and put it uncertainly
on top of his pink bald head. “This way?” he said to Mr. Goldstone. “First time I’ve
ever worn one.”

“More like this,” said Mr. Goldstone, snugging his cap flat at the back of his head.
“Me, I wore one every day of my life till I came to America, couple of years after
that.” Sandy awkwardly put a cap on, imitating his father. Marjorie thought it looked
almost as odd on him as on the Irishman.

“Well, it’s all very interesting, very interesting.” Mr. Connelly looked around the
ballroom. “The whole thing has certainly been done beautifully.”

“Oh, leave it to Lowenstein,” said Mrs. Goldstone. “It’s always perfect.” Diamonds
sparkled at her throat and wrists. Despite her graying hair, she looked hardly forty
in a black Paris dress that Marjorie guessed cost more than her own mother’s entire
wardrobe. Only the glasses on the silver chain gave her a touch of gravity. She had
greeted Marjorie cordially, not mentioning the dance with the turkey leg.

Marjorie was feeling optimistic, now that the banquet was upon her, and she had had
a couple of glasses of champagne. She was even hoping that it might turn out to be
fun. She had pictured the Goldstones as an island of pained superiority at one of
the old-time family gatherings in the Bronx. But the flower-decked ballroom, the spacious
dance floor, the waiters in blue mess jackets, the murmuring orchestra behind potted
palms, the fine linen and silver on the tables, the camellias by each lady’s plate,
left nothing even for the Goldstones to desire. Her mother had arranged the seating
perhaps cold-bloodedly, but with wisdom. Marjorie’s table was on the favored side
of the dance floor, where one saw nothing but stiff shirt fronts, black ties, pearl
studs, and evening dresses. Here were her father’s business associates, her mother’s
friends from fashionable charity organizations, and a number of acquaintances gathered
over a lifetime who had done well. On the other side of the dance floor were acquaintances
who had not done so well; also her father’s employees, and Bronx neighbors who were
entitled to invitations for old times’ sake, and the aunts, uncles, and cousins. Some
of the guests on that side wore evening dress too, but most of them were in street
clothes. On the dais at the long rear wall of the ballroom, on either side of three
vacant seats in the center, were several rabbis with their wives, and Assemblyman
Feuer, Mr. Morgenstern’s highest connection in the world, a red-faced little man with
pince-nez glasses on a black ribbon. There was also Seth’s one living grandparent,
Mr. Morgenstern’s mother, a tiny old lady who lived in New Jersey with Aunt Shosha,
and who now looked bewildered and lost in a big gilt armchair.

Mr. Goldstone pointed to empty chairs between himself and Sandy. “Who’s missing in
our party, Marjorie?”

“The Robisons, and my cousin Geoffrey Quill,” said Marjorie. “They’re all from out
of town.”

“Well, what do you say, should we start on the grapefruit?” Mr. Goldstone’s voice
was harsh and his manner direct. He had a thin-lipped wide smile and bright satiric
brown eyes, which seemed to take on crinkles of kindliness when he looked at Marjorie.
She instinctively liked him and suspected—at least hoped—that he had taken to her.
Yet she could well understand the fear with which Sandy usually spoke of his father.
Mr. Goldstone had a long face like Sandy’s: browner, leaner, and very seamed. When
he wasn’t talking or smiling he looked rather like an oak carving of an Indian.

She said timidly, “I think we’re supposed to wait for the grand entrance. Mother and
Dad with Seth, you know. But please go ahead if you—”

“Of course we’ll wait,” said Mr. Goldstone.

“Is that the novelist you told me about, Geoffrey Quill?” said Sandy, peering at Geoffrey’s
place card.

“Yes, he’s my cousin—our cousin.”

“You have a cousin writes books?” said Mr. Goldstone.

“He wrote
The Gilded Ghetto
,” said Marjorie. “It got wonderful reviews.”

“I had a son writes books, I’d shoot him,” said Mr. Goldstone. “Put him out of his
misery.”

The ballroom lights went out and a pink spotlight cut through the darkness and struck
the doorway. The musicians began to play
Pomp and Circumstance
. The doors swung open; the headwaiter appeared, a tall gray man in tails, wheeling
in a table on which a hissing copper cauldron was shooting up orange-blue flames.
Behind him marched the parents, each with an arm linked through an elbow of the stiff
unhappy boy. All the guests stood and applauded.

“What’s burning in that copper pot, I wonder?” said Sandy.

“Money,” said Mr. Goldstone.

“It’s the brandy sauce for the grapefruit,” said Mrs. Goldstone. “Haven’t you been
to a Lowenstein dinner before?”

“Brandy before dinner?” said Mr. Goldstone. “Say, it’s an idea. Maybe some ice cream
too?”

“It’s just for the effect, and stop being so clever, Leon.”

While the boy and his parents went to the dais, followed by the spotlight, the waiter
in the center of the floor stirred the cauldron, making the flames leap and whirl.
“Caterers, restaurants, great angle they got,” said Mr. Goldstone. “Anything they
can set fire to they charge ten times as much. Set fire to a twenty-cent flapjack,
crêpes suzette for two dollars. Maybe we could use it in our store, Mary. Sell a flaming
pair of shoes, fifty dollars instead of five dollars. A flaming corset—”

“All right, Leon. It’s very pretty and you know it. Quiet—”

“Maybe we set fire to Sandy, make him worth something,” said Mr. Goldstone.

The lights came on, the flames went out, the music stopped. The oldest rabbi, a little
gray-bearded man in a long black coat, blessed the bread. Waiters brought bowls of
sauce from the cauldron and doled it out at the tables, grapefruit by grapefruit.
“This is fine,” said Mr. Goldstone. “Get drunk on a grapefruit. Maybe I ask for a
second portion, you got to carry me home.”

Mrs. Goldstone turned to Marjorie. “He doesn’t mean anything, it’s just his way. He
goes on much worse at home.”

Marjorie had been gnawing her lip to keep from laughing. She allowed herself one chuckle.
“I think he’s terribly funny.” Mr. Goldstone shot her a keen look, his face puckered
like a comic mask.

“Don’t encourage him,” said Mrs. Goldstone.

The tall headwaiter touched Marjorie’s elbow. “Pardon me, miss. Your mother sent over
this telegram. Asks you to make the apologies.” The wire was from the Robisons. Their
girl had developed mumps that morning, and so they were not coming.

“Robisons from Philadelphia?” said Mr. Goldstone. “Real estate man? One daughter?
I know him. Fine man. Very well-to-do. Sorry to miss them.”

Mrs. Goldstone glanced at Marjorie with new respect, and again the girl was reluctantly
impressed by her mother’s shrewdness. The Robisons had done their work without even
putting in an appearance.

“Hello, Marjorie.”

Geoffrey Quill, rather more pudgy than in the picture on his book jacket, and thinner
of hair, but wearing the same tweed suit and holding the same pipe, stood beside her.
His smile was the old crooked mixture of bashfulness and furtive superiority. “Sorry
I’m late. I can never remember how snarled up New York traffic is.”

“You’re just in time.”

She introduced him and he sat. He picked up the menu, a booklet with Seth’s picture
on the cover, and glanced at the food list engraved in fine italics. “
Pamplemousse royal
,” he read in a wondering tone. “
Foie de volaille Lowenstein, consommé Madrilène, langue de boeuf en sauce piquante
—Ye gods, Marjorie, isn’t this banquet kosher? I’ll get right up and leave.”

“Kosher as
you
want it, surely,” Marjorie said, looking across to the other side of the ballroom,
where Samson-Aaron was roistering from table to table, waving a bottle and pouring
drinks. Accompanying him was Aunt Dvosha, the vegetarian fanatic, who wore a very
strange shiny green evening dress decorated with dyed yellow feathers.

“You don’t have to worry, Mr. Quill,” said Mrs. Goldstone politely. “Rabbi Jung himself
eats at Lowenstein dinners.”

“I assure you, Mrs. Goldstone, these things worry me very little. I had a ham sandwich
on the train.—I trust that doesn’t offend anybody.”

“Not us surely,” said the bank manager with a chortle. “We’re Irish, you know.”

“Of course we respect other folks’ customs,” said Mrs. Connelly. “We’re very strict
about meat on Friday ourselves. I think it’s nice to keep up these customs.”

Marjorie saw Samson-Aaron tug at Aunt Dvosha’s elbow, point with the bottle across
the ballroom at Geoffrey, and lumber through the tables toward the dance floor, dragging
the old spinster with him.

Mr. Goldstone squinted at Geoffrey. “Me, I have a strict kosher home. On the outside
I eat anything. But home is home.”

“Isn’t that slightly inconsistent?” said Geoffrey, clicking his pipe in his teeth.
His back was to his oncoming father.

“Sure. It means I’m only half no good,” said Mr. Goldstone.

Geoffrey smiled and murmured, “Of course, these folkways remain valid for anybody
who gets solace from them…”

Samson-Aaron and Aunt Dvosha were crossing the dance floor. Marjorie looked toward
her mother on the dais. Mrs. Morgenstern made a gesture which she at once understood.
“Geoffrey!” she exclaimed, jumping up and taking his hand. “There’s your dad. Let’s
go over and say hello to him—”

Geoffrey rose slowly, confused. “Well, there’s no hurry, but if—”

“Stay vare you are!” roared Samson-Aaron from the middle of the floor. “Ve come over
to you! Ve come to the fency side!”

As the Uncle drew near, his boisterous laugh faded. He took his son’s outstretched
hand hesitantly, as though conscious that his own was grimy or wet. “So, Geoffrey,
you came, just to please an old father. You’re a good boy.”

“How are you, Papa?” said Geoffrey in a tone of embarrassed kindliness.

“Thank God, as you see me. Health is everything, the rest is mud.”

Aunt Dvosha seized Geoffrey’s hand. “Geoffrey, your book! I read it. I was so proud.
Marvelous! Geoffrey, with your great gift you can bring important messages to the
world.” She had a high chirping voice and very bright eyes.

“Thank you, Auntie—”

“I would like to talk to you for just five minutes on a very important subject.” She
moved toward the empty chair beside him.

“Sure, Aunt, but not during dinner,” laughed Geoffrey, warding her off with his hand.
“Later, maybe.”

“Of course, I wouldn’t impose on you,” said Aunt Dvosha, hurt. “I’ve never imposed
on anybody and I never will.”

The Connellys and the Goldstones were frankly staring at the visitors.

“Geoffrey, you’re getting a little fat,” said his father.

“I’ve got somebody to take after, Papa.”

Samson-Aaron threw back his head and laughed. He looked at the bottle in his hand
and said with sudden resolve, “Vell, ve all drink to the bar-mitzva boy, yes? Then
ve go back to our side.” He began pouring whiskey in small glasses that stood at each
place. Fat and clumsy as he was, he poured with speedy deftness, spilling not a drop
on the stiff white cloth.

Mr. Goldstone said, “Whom do we have the pleasure of drinking with?”

Marjorie introduced the Aunt and Uncle. Samson-Aaron said, “Pleased to meet you, pleased
to meet you,” and held his glass high. “Vell, the old Yiddish toast, yes? God should
bless the boy and the parents—and he should grow up to the Law, to marriage, and to
good deeds.”

“Best toast I ever heard,” said the Irish bank manager, drinking off his glass with
relish.

“It takes God to fill such an order nowadays.” Mr. Goldstone looked quizzically at
the Uncle. “You’re Mr. Quill’s father, Mr. Feder?”

Samson-Aaron grinned his forlorn gap-toothed grin at Geoffrey, who said quickly, “I
thought Quill seemed a more acceptable name for a book jacket, you see, not that—”

Mr. Goldstone said to Samson-Aaron, “You don’t see him often?”

The Uncle shrugged. “He lives in Albany, and I’m here—”

“Then what the devil are you sitting on the other side of the room for? We’ve got
two empty places here. Sit down. Sit down, Mrs. Raphaelson. You’ll have dinner with
us.”

Samson-Aaron glanced timorously at his son and at Marjorie. “No, ve go back to our
own side—I have no tuxedo—”

“Sit down.” It was a command. Marjorie glanced toward her mother, but she had left
the dais. “Why—it’s a wonderful idea. Please join us, Uncle—Aunt Dvosha.”

“For Modgerie, anything!” Samson-Aaron fell into a chair beside his son, and planted
the bottle firmly before him on the cloth, an explorer’s banner in Arctic snow.

Aunt Dvosha said, “Thank God. We were sitting right next to the radiator. Ninety per
cent of t.b. comes from radiator heat.”

The waiter was replacing the grapefruit with chopped chicken liver. Marjorie had never
seen chicken liver served like this before: at each place a mound the size of a cantaloupe
in a silver-plated bowl of ice. “For pity’s sake, how are we supposed to eat anything
after this?”

“My dear,” said Mrs. Goldstone, “you may as well resign yourself to not eating for
a week. Lowenstein is fantastic.” She began eating the liver heartily, and so did
everyone else except Aunt Dvosha, who sat looking around with a bright smile. Mrs.
Goldstone was trying hard not to stare at Aunt Dvosha, but her gaze was repeatedly
drawn by the shining eyes, the bobbing yellow feathers across the aunt’s shoulders,
and the twinkling rosette of green sequins. Aunt Dvosha caught her eye, and her smile
became twice as bright. Mrs. Goldstone said, “You aren’t eating, Mrs. Raphaelson?”