Tender at the Bone (26 page)

We went to Dad’s favorite restaurant, an ancient place with wooden floors worn to a velvety gray and screens so old they bellied out toward the Sound. He liked to eat crab-stuffed shrimp and Key lime pie while waitresses in crepe-soled shoes teased him and yachts pulled alongside the pier to fuel up. We passed through the bar on the way in; it was cold and dark, filled with ham-fisted men holding tall glasses of frosty beer. A baseball game blared overhead and Doug and Dad glanced up with identical indifference. “I thought all American boys liked baseball,” said Dad.

“Not me,” said Doug and my father’s face took on the most extraordinary glow of pleasure.

All through lunch they grilled Doug about his work. He told them the story of his mother buying him a correspondence course in drawing when he was five, told them that making art was all he had ever wanted to do. “I understand that,” said Dad, nodding softly. “I made my first book when I was six.”

“And isn’t it nice that Ruthie has a master’s in art history now,” said Mom brightly, “it goes so well with art.” I realized she thought of graduate school as just another way to meet men.

We separated after lunch: Dad and Doug went home to fix the table. Mom and I went shopping for dinner. When we came back with the groceries Dad was standing at the door like an eager seven-year-old who can’t wait to show off a school project.

“Miriam,” he said, “come see what we’ve done! We had such fun
fixing the table!” He leaned on it to demonstrate its sturdiness. I had a brief moment of wishing it would give way beneath him, but it didn’t. “And now Doug’s going to show me his portfolio.”

My father’s German accent was stronger than I remembered; the sound of his voice was getting on my nerves. I felt myself grit my teeth as I went into the kitchen, but even from there I could hear him asking questions. Then, suddenly, he raised his voice. “Miriam,” he called, “come in here. You must see this!”

“Don’t cook the corn more than two minutes,” Mom said as she walked out. I put the water on to boil, feeling like Cinderella. I was still muttering angrily to myself when Doug appeared, offering to help.

“Your father’s going to show your mother my work,” he said, pulling the husk from an ear of corn in one smooth motion. “He probably does it better than me.”

“Mmmm,” I said noncommittally.

“You’re so lucky,” Doug said.

I looked at him, surprised. Doug had never complained about his parents’ lack of interest in his art. He was so self-sufficient it had not occurred to me that his family made him lonely. As I went to put my arms around him my bad mood evaporated.

Mom cooked the steaks in her usual fashion, which was to put the meat in the broiler for about a minute, turn it, and announce that dinner was ready. “It’s
raw,”
Doug whispered, gulping. He ate six ears of corn and pushed his meat around the plate.

Dad ate with his usual appetite. When he was done he turned to Mom and said, “What a wonderful dinner, darling. Thank you so much.” And then he did what he had done every night of my childhood: kissed her hand.

Doug stared, caught himself, and asked, “What made you come to America?”

“Oh,” said Dad, “that’s a long story.” He turned his body so that he was facing Doug directly. “My family had two businesses. Lumber and furs. I hated them both. My cousins said I handled the blue foxes as if they were Picassos and anyone could see I had no head for business. So they let me go to the university. And then I got interested in politics.”

I looked over at my father, startled. “Politics?”

“Didn’t I ever tell you about the Student Pacifist Movement in Weimar Germany?” he asked innocently. It was another little detail he had neglected to mention.

“Did
you
know?” I asked Mom.

“I think we’ll eat outside tomorrow night,” she said. “Remind me to buy some citronella candles in the morning.”

“You were a pacifist?” asked Doug.

“And,” said my father, “a draft dodger.”

It was too much; I stomped up to my bedroom.

Doug’s footsteps followed behind me but I was too angry to turn around. “He certainly does like you,” I said sarcastically. I knew I was behaving badly but I couldn’t stop myself.

“He certainly does.” The voice had a strong German accent. I turned around, startled.

“I thought you were Doug,” I said.

“I want to tell you a story,” my father replied, following me into the bedroom. “May I sit down?”

“Don’t be so polite,” I said. “It’s your house.” The room was still the red I had painted it in high school and the light was so dim I could barely see him as he settled on the bed. “When I married your mother,” he began, “I was so happy that she already had a son. I was middle-aged and I had always wanted children.” He sighed and ran his hands through his hair, as if he were trying to think of the most effective way to say it.

“At first Bobby hated me. That was natural, I understood it. I had taken his mother. I knew he would get over it. But I did not realize that there would always be a gulf between us.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked crossly. “What does this have to do with never telling me you were a draft dodger?”

“The war was on,” he continued. “And he was such a charming little boy that he talked the druggist on the corner into selling him a roll of bubble gum every week. It was quite a coup; bubble gum was very hard to get. Bobby went in every week with his nickel.

“Well, one day I discovered that he wasn’t chewing it, he was selling it at school.”

“Typical,” I said. “He’s a born salesman.”

“Yes,” said Dad, “he is. I asked how much he was selling it for and he said a nickel apiece. There were six pieces in a roll so he was making a 600 percent profit. I tried to make him see that it was immoral, but he just looked at me and said, “But Daddy, the kids fight over it!”

Dad ran his fingers through his hair again, so it was standing on end. “You see,” he said, “we couldn’t talk to each other. It never changed. I feel as if we speak different languages.” He looked at me lovingly and added, “And then we had you.”

Before I could stop myself I blurted out: “Too bad I’m a girl.”

My father looked stung, but he was silent: we both understood that I had spoken a truth neither of us had realized until that moment. I think I knew, even then, that when I married Doug I would be giving the two men I loved most what they really wanted: the one a father, the other a son.

EYESIGHT FOR THE BLIND

When we returned all the wedding gifts we had enough for a EurailPass, two tickets on a freighter to Greece, and a thousand dollars’ worth of traveler’s checks. We intended to stay in Europe until our money ran out; in 1970 you could live on five dollars a day, less if you were as frugal as we planned to be.

We were headed for Crete, where our favorite professor had recently moved. He said his house was a fourteenth-century stone dwelling built by the Venetians, and that it overlooked the harbor. And then he rashly added that we were welcome to stay as long as we liked.

If he is very lucky every almost-grown person will have a Milton in his life. In my case he was an artist with the prominent nose of a Borgia that led him through the junk shops of the world; he never failed to emerge with something of astonishing beauty. When you were walking with him he would suddenly say, “Look!” and you’d find a flower or a stone or a doorknob that you had not seen, one so perfect it made you reach out and try to touch it.

“Why is he so good to us?” Doug and I kept asking each other. In
Ann Arbor Milton took us under his wing, inviting us to all his parties, introducing us to his friends. They all seemed to see more and live better, as if their senses were more acute than those of ordinary people. They dropped in from all over the world, women who had danced with Henry Miller in Paris and men who had been to Black Mountain. One was resurrecting a crumbling opera house in a hill town in Tuscany.

But my favorite of Milton’s friends was an Englishwoman named Hilly who was beautiful, eccentric, and very, very funny. She ran Ann Arbor’s only fish and chips shop, Lucky Jim’s, which was named for a book by her first husband, Kingsley Amis. She told wicked stories about her second husband, the Latin professor, and even funnier stories about herself.

“Tell about the baby and the apple,” Milton would urge and she’d launch into the tale of a dinner party she gave when her son was just a year old. “I put an apple in his mouth, plopped him onto a serving tray, and carried him in to dinner.”

Milton said Hilly was just a friend, but I was convinced that he was secretly in love with her. Who wouldn’t be? It had not escaped my notice that just after she decided to leave the Latin professor Milton announced that he was giving up his tenured job. She was going back to Europe; he was moving to Crete.