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Authors: Paula Marantz Cohen

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BOOK: Much Ado About Jessie Kaplan
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J
essie settled
BACK IN HER CHAIR. “LET'S SEE,” SHE SAID, “where to begin?” She looked around the table and, having satisfied herself that everyone was enjoying the chopped liver, continued: “So I met him during that trip he took to Venice. Not Venice, Florida”—she looked over at Carla and Margot—“your father and I spent a few weeks there after we were married—very nice but not the same thing. I'm talking Venice, Italy. It was 1594 or five.”
“You mean 1954,” Hal corrected politely.
“No, 1594,” said Jessie. “As I explained to Carla, it was another life. I know it's hard to believe. When Wanda Pinsky thought she was Ava Gardner, do you think I believed her? Not for a minute. For one thing, Ava Gardner was still alive, and for another, I knew that Wanda was crazy for Frank Sinatra, and what with that husband of hers, it was no wonder she let her imagination run away with her. My case is different. I remember—places, people, details even from the plays—and I was never one for literature. I told him so when he wrote me all those sonnets.” She paused and continued wistfully: “I remember the disappointment, the heartbreak, the
tsuris.
As Will said: ‘The course of true love didn't go so smooth.'”
“
A Midsummer Night's Dream
,” said Hal.
“Yes, the one with a lot of meshuggener people running around in a forest with fairies casting spells and mixing everything up.”
Mark and Carla had been rolling their eyes during this exchange and Margot had placed her head in her hands. The children seemed to be largely oblivious; Jeffrey was eating a second portion of chopped liver, and Stephanie was applying lipstick with the help of a pocket mirror. Hal, however, was paying close attention and now spoke with surprising seriousness.
“So you believe that in an earlier life you existed as the lover of William Shakespeare—the mysterious Dark Lady of the sonnets?”
Jessie nodded. “Not so mysterious. But I was the Dark Lady. I looked just like Margot—and he wasn't used to that sort of thing.”
Hal turned and looked at Margot, who rolled her eyes again, but couldn't help blushing.
“The English women were very horsy and fair-skinned, and of course there weren't many Jews; they were all chased out a hundred years or so before. Italy wasn't much better. But Venice was a port, you see, so they needed the business. Poppa was a good businessman. They respected him. All that about his being such a devil in the play was made up. Will wanted to get back at me, that's all.”
Hal had taken a file card from his breast pocket and begun jotting this down.
“What in the Lord's name are you doing?” whispered Margot.
“I'm taking some notes.”
She looked at him disapprovingly. “I hope you're not planning to write a book and turn our mother into a laughingstock.”
“Not at all. I simply find her ideas worth recording. She has a well-defined grasp of time and place, and an impressive sense of how Shakespeare fit into her world. We do know that the playwright Christopher Marlowe may have gone to Venice when it was thought he was killed in a duel—the death staged for political reasons. And there has been speculation that Shakespeare may have visited him there. We know that some of his plays were set in Italy, including of course
The Merchant of Venice
, probably written soon
after the sonnets. It revolves around the Jewish character of Shylock, who lends the Christian merchant Antonio money to finance his young friend's courtship.”
“Up to that point,” said Jessie, nodding as Hal provided this background, “there was some truth. We had no problem with that much of it. Poppa did lend the young man money—though he hardly charged any interest and didn't even expect to get the money back. It had happened before, and he chalked it up. To think that Will took such advantage!”
Hal elucidated for the company: “In the play, Shylock lends money to the Christian merchant under the agreement that if the merchant doesn't pay it back by the determined date, then he will take a pound of the merchant's flesh as compensation.”
“Neat!” exclaimed Jeffrey. “A pound of flesh—from where?”
“Excellent question, young man. That question would become a point of some contention later in the play. For when Antonio loses his ships at sea and cannot pay back the debt on time, as promised, Shylock attempts to execute the agreement. That's when you have the famous scene in the courtroom in which the girl, Portia, for whom the loan was taken out in the first place, disguises herself as a lawyer and turns the tables on Shylock. She finds a loophole—that you can't take a pound of flesh without also drawing blood, and that blood is not part of the agreement. As a result, Shylock is forced to give up all his money to the merchant and, as an added punishment, has to convert to Christianity on top of it all.”
“No fair!” protested Jeffrey.
Jessie patted Jeffrey's hand approvingly. “Absolutely right, sweetheart, but of course the whole plot was to make us look bad. That, and the other part with the daughter.”
“Yes,” continued Hal, taking her cue to continue the story. “Shylock in the play has a daughter who runs off with a Christian, one of Antonio's friends. Her name”—he paused—“was Jessica.”
Everyone stopped eating for a moment and looked at Jessie.
“At least he could have changed my name,” she said irritably. “I
understand he was angry because I'd broken off with him, but to put the name out there like that—it was a low blow. He was always saying that his poetry would live for a thousand years. So there you have it, Jessica abandons her father—sells the ring. There
was
a ring that Poppa gave to Momma that passed to me—I'd never have sold it for the world, no less for a monkey.”
“In the play, Jessica sells her mother's ring for a monkey.”
Jessie continued, incensed: “He was a genius, I grant you—how else do you take such spite and turn it into something that lasts? But it's spite all the same.” She had begun to grow teary-eyed.
“I'm sorry,” said Hal.
“Thank you,” she sniffed, drying her eyes with her napkin. “You can't know it, of course, that you're him come back, but I'm sure you've had feelings now and then—they're like shadows that pass inside your brain. They only start to get stronger later.”
Hal looked at Jessie quizzically. Jeffrey, who was taken with the idea of having once been someone else, looked toward his grandmother and exclaimed stridently: “Who was I, Grandma? Say I was James Bond, please!”
“James Bond is a fictional character,” corrected Stephanie superciliously. “He never existed.”
“There were books about him,” objected Jeffrey. “They based the movies on books.”
“Yes,” said Stephanie, with strained patience. “Just because they were based on books, doesn't mean that the characters were real. The characters in the books were made up.”
Hal intervened. “Well-expressed clarification, Stephanie. But Jeffrey's view is also understandable. Nowadays, we tend to associate movies with made-up stories and books with historical fact. But it's true, Jeffrey, that some books are based on real life and some are made up. And Ian Fleming made up the Bond character.”
“I knew that,” said Jeffrey defensively. “But I can come back as Ian Fleming.”
“That's true,” agreed Hal. “Fleming lived a very exciting life.”
Jeffrey stuck out his tongue at Stephanie to indicate he had won, while she simply took out her lip gloss and began reapplying it.
Jessie, diverted from her recitation, had gone into the kitchen to bring in the next course, leaving the rest of them to talk freely.
“You're acting as though you believe what my mother is saying,” Carla spoke accusingly to Hal. Things were not going quite the way she had planned. Hal appeared to be encouraging Jessie, as if she had tapped into some delusion of his own about
being
William Shakespeare.
“It's not a question of believing,” responded Hal gently. “The fact is that her story casts interesting light on the composition of the sonnets and of
The Merchant of Venice
, a play always viewed as problematic. Whether I believe in reincarnation or not isn't the issue. What matters are the ideas. As a scholar and critic of Shakespeare, they interest me enormously.”
“But that's ridiculous,” said Margot. “If you take what she says seriously, you're encouraging her in her craziness.”
“I don't think she's going to be persuaded one way or the other by anyone,” said Hal, “so I don't think it's fair to blame me for encouraging her. I'm just what you could call a good listener. It's what critics do. They listen. They don't discount anything. They try to learn from the text.”
“But our mother is not a text,” objected Carla. “She's a human being.”
“Everything is a text,” said Hal. “And I don't mean to be dehumanizing in saying that. We read whatever we see. As soon as I walk in the door, I read your living room for what it tells me about your taste and your interests. Same with a person. I don't have access to your inner thoughts and feelings, but I can see the outside and hear what you say. Based on that, I draw conclusions about who you are.”
“And the conclusion to be drawn from my mother,” said Margot, “is that she's nuts.”
“I won't disagree that her ideas are highly eccentric and, according
to our notions of logic, irrational. But I'm not prepared to dismiss everything she says out of hand. Especially since her words have a curious coherence based on what I know of Shakespeare during that period.”
“So what do you intend to do?” asked Carla. “Are you going to have the Shakespeare Association do tests on her?”
“I don't know what I'll do,” said Hal, “but I can't deny that I find her remarks intriguing. I've always had a special interest in
The Merchant of Venice
—in the way it incorporates so much contradiction and so many shifts in tone. It may be that having seen or read the play at some past time in her life she now finds herself able to see it more clearly than the rest of us. The notion of a former life is the scaffold she has erected to hang her interpretation.”
“That makes sense,” said Carla, nodding—she was relieved to see that he was at least trying to explain her mother's statements logically.
“Or it may be that she met someone in the course of her life who had great insight into the play and the period and relayed this to her. And that now, for some reason, it's come back to consciousness.”
“That makes sense too,” said Carla.
“Or maybe she saw the recent Michael Rubbo documentary on Christopher Marlowe—I think it was on public television a year or so ago—that dealt with the idea that Marlowe staged his own death and escaped to Venice, where he actually wrote the plays that were then attributed to Shakespeare as a kind of cover for him. Maybe she unconsciously incorporated elements of that documentary into an elaborate fantasy.”
“I'll buy that,” said Carla, feeling increasingly relieved.
“Or maybe she really was Shakespeare's girlfriend,” said Jeffrey, finishing off the chopped liver on his sister's plate and belching loudly.
“And that's a possibility too,” said Hal.
“
S
o?” said
CARLA TO MARK AFTER EVERYONE HAD LEFT AND the kids had presumably gone to sleep (though Jeffrey was in fact playing the superviolent Nintendo game he had borrowed from a friend, and Stephanie was picking out her outfit for the next day, a time-consuming task that generally involved trying on a dozen tops and leaving them inside-out on the floor).
“I think the evening went well,” said Mark. “I liked Stephanie's teacher a lot.”
“That's not what I meant,” said Carla irritably. “What happened at work that put you in such a good mood?”
“Oh, that,” said Mark with mock indifference. He had obviously been dying to tell her all evening. He now sat down on the stool in front of her vanity table, began taking off his shoes, and embarked on the story with relish.
“Well, you know how skeptical I was about your wanting me to promote the practice and so forth? I'm no PR maven, and doctors, after all, are a dime a dozen. But I have to amend my view and admit you were right. First of all, Yvette's been a godsend. The girl's a marketing genius, and I don't just mean the haircut, which I must say was a wise packaging move.” He patted his head proudly.
“I can't tell you the number of compliments I've gotten from my female patients—and the nurses are much more helpful; the word in the hospital is that I'm very sexy.” He moved his eyebrows in a seductive manner à la Groucho Marx.
“I suppose I better watch out,” Carla laughed. “But then, I always thought you were very sexy.”
“But you're exceptional,” said Mark. “We're talking man—or rather
woman
-on-the-street sexy. Yvette is an expert on that. But more to the point, she really knows how to reach the media. She interviewed me and read some background articles, then drafted a press kit that only required minor tinkering. Then, she got her boyfriend, a very creative, savvy guy, to make a video in which I remind all fifty-year-olds to make a colonoscopy appointment. Yvette and I came up with a really great closing line: ‘Those polyps may be growing as we speak; do it now!'”
“Snappy,” agreed Carla.
“So we sent out the print material and the video about two weeks ago,” Mark continued, “and today, someone called from the
Courier Post.
They said they thought the piece on warning signs for colon cancer was important and want me to write a column for the paper, maybe a monthly or bimonthly piece on digestive health—from soup to nuts: nutrition to bowel function. Yvette says I could give her the main points, she'll draft the columns, and I can polish them. It would look good on her résumé when she applies to Columbia Journalism School next year.”
“That's great!” exclaimed Carla. “Think of the visibility you'll get with a column in the
Courier Post
!”
“And that's not all,” said Mark ebulliently. “After the
Courier Post
guy called, Yvette picked up the phone and called the special features editor at
Action News.
She told them I'd be writing the column and would they maybe like a segment some week encapsulating my main points? They said sure. They'd been impressed by my video: I had good on-air presence—which I suppose meant the
haircut—and with a print byline, I'd have credibility as an expert. Yvette says that's called synergy. So I'm set to go on a week from today. The topic is spastic colon, one of my specialties.”
“This is fantastic!” Carla exclaimed again. “Next thing you know you can write a book on
How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love My Colon
—and they'll want you on
Oprah
!”
“I don't know about that,” said Mark modestly, “but I do think that being in the paper and on TV is bound to help the practice. Who knows, but if things work out I might finally be able to hire a partner.”
“That would be great,” agreed Carla. “You'd have less night call, and maybe you could find someone who'd be right for Margot—and kill two birds with one stone.”
“Carla!” said Mark with amusement. “Stop trying to set up your sister; she can take care of herself.”
“You know she can't, so don't say that,” protested Carla.
“You have a point there,” agreed Mark.
“I just want her to find a man as sexy, smart, and caring as you.”
“Well, I thought that Hal Pearson was a nice fellow. I liked him a lot.”
“Hal Pearson? Don't be silly. Margot hated him!”
“She did?” said Mark, surprised. “I didn't realize that.”
BOOK: Much Ado About Jessie Kaplan
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