Much Ado About Jessie Kaplan (23 page)

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Authors: Paula Marantz Cohen

BOOK: Much Ado About Jessie Kaplan
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“Avram Rodrigues. But she wouldn't know about him.” Jessie nodded toward Felicity. “He didn't like to put himself forward.
He used to say, ‘Let Daniel get the
covet
, make the appearances. Me, I'm content to stay in the background.'”
Felicity took out a pad and began taking notes. “It's something to look into,” she observed. “Other family members may well have been involved in some of Rodrigues's trade negotiations; there may be no record of such involvement, but it would be interesting to search the annals for possible references.”
“Well, I think that's enough background for now,” said Hal. He had noted that Jessie had begun to look tired. “We all need to be fresh for our adventure tomorrow. Let's get an early start and agree to meet for breakfast at seven. As for you”—he looked at Jessie affectionately—“you need to get a good night's sleep. I'm counting on your daughter”—he glanced quickly at Margot and then, just as quickly, looked away—“to see to that.”
T
he next
MORNING AT SEVEN THEY ALL GATHERED FOR breakfast in the hotel's lavish dining room. Hal and Anish, both excited about the forthcoming adventure, were in high spirits and launched into a debate about literature—more or less a standing argument they had had since college. It was Anish's view that James Joyce was the beginning of the end of western literature, while Hal was Joyce's energetic defender.
The debate flared up now as they stood selecting from various delicacies at a central buffet table. Hal argued that Anish was too deeply “colonized” to recognize revolutionary genius and innovation. “Let's face it, as the product of cultural imperialism, you've come to identify with the oppressor. It's the Patty Hearst syndrome.”
“Spare me your PC posturing,” responded Anish irritably. “We're not undergraduates anymore. Why are you American-born liberals allowed to have free will and I, an Indian-born conservative, am not? It sounds to me like classic colonialism masquerading as moral righteousness—just another turn on white man's burden. As for my openness to new ideas, I'm the first to recognize originality when there's something more to it than gimmickry. Mrs. Kaplan's thesis has captivated me, for example. I see
a basic intellectual design to the thing, which is more than I can say for your Mr. Joyce, who merely opened the door for every posturing fool who could concoct nonsense and call himself an
artiste
.”
“But Joyce
was
a great artist and a great innovator,” protested Hal. “He was trying to encompass the entire history of civilization, of language, of meaning itself within the frame of his literary enterprise.”
“Well, then, he was trying to do too much,” pronounced Anish dismissively. “Give me Jane Austen's fine brush any time.”
“And what about Milton, Tolstoy, Melville? What about our own fellow, Shakespeare—they all took up rather a large canvas, wouldn't you say?”
“You confuse epic scale and imagination with babble and pastiche. That pantheon—and I am not prepared to grant them all equal greatness since, as you know, I feel there's been a sad falling off since the age of Samuel Johnson—but at least those you mentioned were determined to communicate with some semblance of clarity and logic. No, it's these gibbering monkeys of modernism and postmodernism that I have no use for. They think that by speaking nonsense they speak all tongues—that the less clear they are, the more they say. And there are always snobs and suckers—forgive me if you fall into those categories—willing to agree.”
Margot, who had been standing nearby next to the trays of Parma ham and fresh fruit, intervened at this point: “So, Anish, if you're so opposed to Hal's views, how come you continue to be friends?”
“Views have nothing to do with it,” responded Anish with surprise, as if it would never have occurred to him to think that they did. “Our friendship is based on character, not opinion.” He had entirely changed his tone, dispensing with “views” and warming to the idea of praising his friend. “Hal is someone I respect and trust—indeed I love. He is the
honnête homme
, as Molière's Alceste called his friend Philinte. I hold him in my ‘heart's core,' as Hamlet held Horatio.”
“That's right,” joked Hal, “I'm the hero's best friend. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.” He darted a glance at Margot.
“Hal is comfortable with ambiguity,” continued Anish, determined not to let Hal's jokes get in the way of his exposition. “Look how he's managed to deal with your mother's situation. He neither believes nor disbelieves; he accepts. There's a bit of the Zen master about him.”
“
Ommm
,” said Margot, putting her hands up in yogi fashion and making everyone laugh.
“Enough already.” Hal cut short the conversation. “I can see that our guide is restless and eager to be on her way.”
In fact, Jessie had barely touched her breakfast and was sitting at the edge of her chair, staring into space. She had slept soundly, but had awakened with a premonition of something momentous about to happen.
They caught the
vaporetto
at the steps of the hotel. It snaked up the canal, eventually arriving only a few blocks from the ghetto. Hal, who was holding the map, led the way as they walked through the cobbled streets. At one point Jessie paused and stood stock-still. She pointed to a small stone building. “There,” she said, “was where Jacopo Robusti lived. Poppa thought he was a great genius.”
“The home of the painter Tintoretto,” clarified Felicity, nodding.
They proceeded onto the little bridge that led over the canal to the area of the ghetto. A carving of two lions marked the arch leading into the area.
“The lions of Judah,” noted Jessie, peering up.
“In actuality,” corrected Felicity, “the lions were the insignia of the Brolo brothers, who originally developed the area before it was made into a settlement location for the Jews. But the later inhabitants appropriated it as the expression of their own identity,” she added, as though giving Jessie permission to have made this historical error.
Having crossed the bridge, they entered the large campo of the so-called Getto Nuovo, or New Ghetto (though actually the first one settled). The stone houses were built very high. Although the general effect was picturesque, one had to consider that living conditions were not very pleasant.
“It's where the poorer ones lived,” explained Jessie. “We didn't mix with them much, except for the shopping. You could get some good buys if you knew where to look,” she said to Margot.
Felicity pointed to the top of one of the buildings. “That's the Scola Grande Tedesca on the top floor. It's the German synagogue, and the oldest in the ghetto.” Everyone craned their necks. They could make out a Hebrew inscription. “There are two other synagogues in this part of the ghetto.” She pointed to the upper levels of two other buildings in the square.
“Yes, they built them on the top to be closer to God, as they liked to say,” said Jessie, “but really where else could they go? There was no room. But this isn't where we lived. We want to go this way.” She had gotten ahead of Hal, and now led them through a narrow, cobbled street into a smaller area.
As they arrived into this small square, Jessie breathed a sigh. “Here we are.”
Everyone stopped and looked around. Jessie had an expression of excited recognition on her face. It was the Getto Vecchio, or Old Ghetto, named for the old foundry that had once been there.
“It looks the same,” she said, “but without the decorations. We used to have flowers in the windowboxes and brass plates on the doors. Sometimes there were banners hanging for the festivals or to announce the special programs. Always they were giving lessons or having meetings: concerts, lectures, talks, you name it. And so much noise: people playing instruments, arguing philosophy, gentiles walking around in fancy clothes with their servants. But now it's quiet, like ghosts live here.”
Felicity stepped in with the supporting commentary. “There were six thousand Jews in the ghetto during the sixteenth century.
Half were killed by the plague in the seventeenth. Centuries later, those who remained were destroyed during the Holocaust. Only about six hundred Jews live in Venice today, with perhaps sixty living in the ghetto area.”
“There's our synagogue,” interrupted Jessie, pointing to a large yellow stone building.
Everyone turned to look.
Then, suddenly, Jessie's eyes began darting back and forth as though trying to locate something. She grasped Margot's arm and seemed for a moment to lose her footing.
“Are you okay, Mom?”
“Yes, yes. It's over there.” Jessie had grown quite pale and was shaking. She pointed to a building in the corner of the campo, and the group followed as she made her way toward it.
As they approached they could see the words GAM GAM on a sign at the front of the building. Closer inspection revealed it to be a restaurant, apparently the only one in the ghetto. A small placard in the window pronounced that it was run by the Chabad of Venice and offered glatt kosher food, from lunch to dinner, Sunday through Thursday, and on Friday, from lunchtime to two hours before the advent of Shabbos. A small note indicated that it also offered Shabbos dinner, free of charge, to interested visitors.
“There must be a big demand for kosher food,” noted Margot, “given they're almost always open.”
“Unfortunately, they're not open now,” said Hal, looking at his watch. It was only nine-thirty, and the sign said the restaurant would open at twelve-thirty. He had been in a state of barely suppressed excitement as they entered the small campo, and to have this final lap of his journey delayed was clearly a source of frustration. “We'll need to kill a few hours and come back,” he said, trying not to sound disappointed and smiling reassuringly at Jessie.
“So what do you want to do?” asked Margot, glancing at the group around her, though avoiding eye contact with Hal.
“Felicity and I noticed a bookshop we passed on our way from
the
vaporetto
stop,” said Anish. “It seemed to have some interesting reference works on the city that Felicity, with her eagle eye, thought might be useful. I'm keen to have a closer look. What do you say we meet back here around one? It says twelve-thirty on the sign, but in Italy, you have to allow leeway for picturesque tardiness.”
“I'd like to take a gondola on the canal,” said Jessie softly. “I think it would be a nice way to pass the time.”
Hal nodded agreeably and took Jessie's arm, while Margot shrugged and followed behind them. They made their way out of the campo to the side of the canal and hailed one of the more brightly painted boats, replete with a dark-eyed, striped-sweatered gondolier, who kissed his fingers at them, his eyes lingering predictably on Margot.
It took some maneuvering on the part of both Hal and Margot to get Jessie comfortably settled in the front of the boat. They then took their places opposite her, as the gondola began its slow sweep up the canal.
“Very nice,” sighed Jessie, “just as I remembered. The buildings, though”—she pointed across to the rows of stone buildings at the edge of the canal—“they don't seem as high.”
“They say Venice is sinking,” noted Hal. “Lately, an inch or more a year. If the process dates back to your period, I can imagine you'd notice a difference in the size of the buildings.”
Jessie did not seem interested in dwelling on this observation. She had been gazing around her, the soft splash of the oars appearing to lull her into a dreamy state. Margot and Hal sat quietly next to each other, taking care to look scrupulously at the sights and not at each other. Riding in a gondola in Venice was the most clichéd of tourist activities, and yet both felt moved by the experience. A slight shiver passed through Margot. It was December and there was a chill in the air, but she was not so much cold as possessed by the eerie romance of her surroundings. She could feel the slight brush of Hal's jeans against her leg.
“Are you cold?” he asked. “You could take my jacket.”
“No,” said Margot. “I'm just kind of taken with being in this place. It's so beautiful and so old. I feel as though the mantle of time were wrapped around me.” She stopped, wondering if she sounded pretentious, but saw that Hal was looking at her with great seriousness.
“Who's that?” said Jessie suddenly. She had been leaning back, her eyes, half-closed, scanning the streets on the edges of the canal.
Margot and Hal turned to where she was looking. A group of tourists who had been traipsing along the cobbled street in front of them was now rounding the corner and passing out of sight.
“It looked like a tour group,” said Margot. “I didn't get a chance to see them clearly. Do you think you recognized someone?”
“Yes,” said Jessie, “but I was wrong. He wouldn't be here.”
“Not in this life,” laughed Margot, assuming she was speaking of “Will.” “Unless you count his reincarnation in our friend.” She gave Hal an amused glance, and he laughed too.
“No, no,” said Jessie irritably. “Not Will. I mean the other one. He's probably dead too.”
“I didn't realize you had that many admirers,” said Margot, speaking lightly, though struck by her mother's wistful tone.
“Milt, for example, is gone,” continued Jessie dreamily. “He was a fine man, you know, your father. I never regretted marrying him.”
“I should hope not,” declared Margot, “especially given the excellent progeny that resulted.”
“You and Carla are good girls.” Jessie nodded . “I wouldn't have had my life any different, believe me.” As if putting this topic to rest, she now shifted her attention to the gondolier, who had been quietly whistling a tune while continuing to stare appreciatively at Margot. “And what's your name?” Jessie asked the gondolier. “I used to know one who looked like you named Roberto. He was very nice about taking Poppa and me around the city, even after hours, when we were supposed to stay put. I won't deny that he liked me.” She looked a bit superciliously at Margot and Hal, as if to say that they didn't have to wink about it.

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