Tender at the Bone (4 page)

That was her mother, the impresario. “You’ll have a wonderful time with Nanny,” Mom assured me, taking me around the apartment and pointing out all the signed pictures of my grandmother’s famous friends. “You’ll meet Menuhin and Rubinstein!”

But the music bored me and I bored Nanny. Three days after my parents left she called Aunt Birdie.

This did not make me miserable. I had Aunt Birdie. I had Alice. And I had a whole month to try and solve the mystery of Hortense. Why wouldn’t anyone talk about my father’s first wife?

Aunt Birdie lived in Washington Heights, a neighborhood that had, she said, “gone downhill.” What that meant was that the streets were strewn with trash and broken glass and half the time the elevator didn’t work. Aunt Birdie seemed oblivious to all of that; she and Uncle Perry had moved to the neighborhood a million years ago when it was fashionable. Then the stock market crashed and they got stuck. She stayed on, even after Uncle Perry died, surrounded by the beautiful objects of better times. The neighborhood was a slum but the apartment was splendid, filled with dark mahogany chests, soft old sofas, and a jumble of drawings and paintings. It was always spotless. This was because Alice angrily chased every speck of dust as if it were an invader.

“I think Alice was the first Negro my mother ever hired,” said Aunt Birdie. “A lot of colored people came north after the Civil
War, but in those days my mother hired Irish girls right off the boats. Sometimes she would take me down to the docks when she was looking for maids. I liked that. When Uncle Perry asked me to marry him my mother said she would train a maid. Naturally I expected another Irish girl. I was so surprised when Alice appeared.”

“I remember your face,” said Alice. “You opened the door and you jumped back a step when you saw me. I thought my job was ended before it could start.”

“Well I did try to fire you,” said Aunt Birdie. “Once.”

“I remember,” said Alice with a certain asperity. “But I wouldn’t let you.” She turned to me and I watched the strong lines that etched deeply into each side of her face move farther apart as her mouth turned down; suddenly she looked just like the drawing on the wall above her head. “It was right after the crash. Your Uncle Perry came home one night looking really beat and I knew that it had happened to him. It was happening all around us, good men getting up rich and going to bed poor. He called your Aunt Birdie into the living room and she went out and closed the door. When she came back I could see that she had been crying.”

“Where was Hortense?” I asked.

“I told her,” said Aunt Birdie, picking up the narrative, “that we were going to be really poor. That we had nothing left. And that we couldn’t afford to keep her anymore.”

“And I told
her,”
said Alice, “that I was not leaving. She was not going to get rid of me so easily!”

“‘But Alice,’ I said,” said Aunt Birdie, “‘we have no money. Nothing.’ And do you know what Alice said?”

I looked at Alice.

“I said, ‘You just pay me what you can. I know you’ll be fair.’”

“And do you know what she did next?” asked Aunt Birdie.

“Made a batch of apple dumplings with hard sauce,” I said. Because that is what Alice always did when an occasion called for a response but she wasn’t quite sure what it should be.

Alice would have snickered derisively at the notion, but she was the first person I ever met who understood the power of cooking. She was a great cook, but she cooked more for herself than for other people, not because she was hungry but because she was comforted by the rituals of the kitchen.

It never occurred to her that others might feel differently, and I was grown before I realized that not every six-year-old would consider it a treat to spend entire afternoons in the kitchen.

Most mornings I spent in Aunt Birdie’s big, perfectly ordered closet trying on one navy blue dress after another. By the time I was six her size two shoes actually fit me. Afterward I might walk around the apartment examining the etchings, watercolors, and drawings on the walls. They were all so familiar: Alice, Aunt Birdie, the silver teapot in the living room. But inevitably there came a time when Aunt Birdie sighed and said, “Why don’t you go see what Alice is doing?”

Alice and Aunt Birdie had the easy relationship of two people who have been deeply disappointed by life, but not by each other. An accident of fate had thrown them together for the better part of sixty years but they had given it so little thought that Alice looked surprised when I asked if she liked Aunt Birdie.

She was mixing spices to make meat loaf but she stopped in mid-motion, like a rabbit when it sees a car. Her eyes opened wide. She picked up the meat, gave it a good pat, and then nodded her head. “Yes,” she said, “I do.” She sounded surprised.

That night as Alice and Aunt Birdie were setting the table for dinner Alice said, quite casually, “It’s not so easy caring for a six-year-old when you’re in your eighties.” She gave Aunt Birdie a sidelong glance and said, “I think I’ll just go home and get a few things. I’m going to stay here until Ruthie leaves.”

“Wait until after dinner,” Aunt Birdie replied, setting a third place at the table. Alice and I had spent a lot of time in the kitchen together, but that was the first time we ever sat down to share a meal.

When we had finished eating, Aunt Birdie and I did the dishes while Alice went to get her clothing. Then Aunt Birdie let me stay up to watch
The Honeymooners
. I was still awake when Alice slid into the bed next to mine.

“Did you live here when Hortense was little?” I asked.

“Shh,” she said. “Go to sleep.”

In the morning we slipped out quietly, trying hard not to wake Aunt Birdie. We walked down 168th Street to Broadway, where Alice moved regally through the stores, pinching fruit and asking questions. Alice wanted to know about everything she bought. “Where did it come from?” she asked. “When did it come in?” Trolling in her wake I began to see the status conferred by caring about food.

As I tried to mimic her serious and disapproving face I must have looked funny. A sturdy child with a round face surrounded by unruly brown curls, I was usually dressed in mismatched hand-me-downs; my mother did all her shopping at Loehman’s, which did not have a children’s department. “That Hortense’s child?” asked the man who sold us grapes. Alice shook her head and gave him a dirty look.

I recognized Georgie, the butcher, right away; there was an etching of him in the kitchen, wearing the same white cap and anxious look he had now as he held out one piece of meat and then another for Alice to inspect. As she peered suspiciously at the deep red, marbled meat he seemed to hold his breath a little. “I wouldn’t dare give her anything but the best,” he said, wrapping the chosen sirloin with one hand and slipping me a slice of bologna with the other.

When we had everything we needed Alice took me to the Puerto Rican coffee shop, where she had a small, strong cup of coffee and I had a guava-and-cream cheese pastry. “When I get back to Barbados,” said Alice, “I’ll sit in the sun every day and drink coffee.” She told me about the home she was planning to buy when she retired, talking as if it were still far off in the future. “But you’re so
old!” I blurted out. She nodded, unoffended. “Hope never hurt anyone,” she replied.

Later in the day Aunt Birdie and I walked in and out of the same stores, picking up the tidbits that Alice had forgotten. I noticed that Georgie did not stand to attention looking anxious and respectful as he did with Alice. In fact, he gave her a wink and when he handed me a slice of bologna she got one too. As she ate it she said, “Did I ever tell you about the time your Uncle Perry and I took a steamer up the Hudson and the conductor sold him a half-price ticket for me? I was a married lady!”

Anybody else would have been disappointed to be such a puny specimen but Aunt Birdie reveled in her size. Even when she was an old lady people treated her as if she were an adorable little girl. Everybody loved her.

“Except Hortense,” said Alice darkly. Then she put her hands to her mouth, as if she wished she could stuff the words back inside.

When we got home, Aunt Birdie got out the photo album to show me pictures of the trip up the Hudson. There they were, she and Uncle Perry, looking over the rail and smiling. I flipped the pages, searching for traces of Hortense, but there were no little girls. Instead I found a formal portrait of stiff people posing in ancient clothes. “That’s my wedding!” said Aunt Birdie, coming to join me on the sofa. “Doesn’t Uncle Perry look handsome?” She ran her hand lovingly across the page, then turned it. “And here’s the menu,” she said, looking at a long document covered with writing. She began to read: “Green turtle soup. Fried oysters. Salmon with lobster sauce. Roast capons. Filet of beef. Chicken croquettes. Sweetbreads. Dressed salad. Oysters on the shell.”

“Did everybody get everything?” I asked, unable to believe the lavishness of the spread. Aunt Birdie nodded and said, “People ate more then.”

“Have you ever made green turtle soup?” I asked Alice as she sliced the bread for our cold meat loaf sandwiches.

“Of course,” she said disdainfully. “It’s nothing.”

“Alice used to make the most wonderful fried oysters!” said Aunt Birdie.

“Yes,” replied Alice. “I did. I made them when your father and Hortense were married.” Her voice caressed the words “your father,” as they always did; in Aunt Birdie’s household my father was a prince. As Alice set the sandwiches on the table she folded her hands and said, “There are three secrets to a good fried oyster. First you have to open the oysters and let them drain for at least an hour to make sure they are dry. Then you have to use fresh bread crumbs. But most important”—she stopped here for emphasis—“is to get the Crisco really, really hot. It has to smoke or the oysters won’t be crisp. Should we make some this afternoon?”

After we had pried the oysters open and left them to drain, she coated them with bread crumbs. We set up an assembly line: Aunt Birdie dipped the oysters into a beaten egg and I dropped them into the freshly grated bread crumbs. Then I handed the gooey packages to Alice, who threw them into the fat and hovered over them, watching until they had turned the required shade of brown. It took about a minute, then she scooped them out and plunked them onto the torn brown paper bags with which she had lined the counters.

“Eat it now!” she commanded. I picked one up, but it was so hot it burned my fingers and I dropped it. Alice looked impatient, so I picked it up again. It was crisp on the outside, with a faint sweetness. Inside, the oyster was like a briny pudding. I took one bite and then another, savoring the crispness of the crust and the softness of the interior. Alice and Aunt Birdie looked at my face and laughed.

As the days went on this became my favorite game. Each day I picked a different dish from Aunt Birdie’s wedding menu and Aunt Birdie and I went into the kitchen and begged Alice to make it.

“Will she know how?” I asked again and again. The reply was always the same: “Alice can make anything.”

“Six-year-olds are so much work,” grumbled Alice one day as we waited for bread dough to rise. “It’s a good lucky thing I have so much patience.”

“Was Hortense a lot of work when she was little?” I asked.

“No,” replied Alice, “she was an angel. She spent all her time drawing and painting. You know, all these pictures are hers.” With her chin she indicated the drawing of her, the etching of Georgie, the photographs in the living room, the watercolors. “Everybody said she was such a talented artist; the lessons she had!” Then Alice punched the dough, hard, and it deflated, collapsing with a
poof
. “But she grew up.”

“Yes,” I said brightly, “and married my father!”

“He married two of them …” said Alice, and then stopped herself. She shut her lips tightly and refused to say another word. Two of what? I wondered. It sounded as if she meant more than just two women. I was glad when the phone rang.

It was my Cleveland grandmother, checking in. “Oh, Nanny,” I said, “we’re cooking. Alice can make anything.”

“Ask her if she can make chicken croquettes,” said Nanny.

“Does she think I can’t?” said Alice, her eyes flashing. She unleashed a few choice words about women who not only couldn’t cook but were too busy to take care of their own grandchildren. Then she said, “Get your coat on, we’re going shopping.” She muttered all the way to the store.

“I need some plump chicken breasts,” she said to Georgie, “I’m making chicken croquettes tonight. This one’s fine, fancy grandmother thinks I don’t know how.”

“Aunt Birdie says Alice makes the best chicken croquettes in the world,” I said loyally. “Just like the ones that she used to eat when her father took her to Delmonico’s for lunch.”

“I’ll bet they’re even better,” said Georgie.

Alice smiled. “I’ll bring you one,” she offered, as if she were a queen bestowing a rare gift on a subject.

Alice poached the chicken breasts very lightly, and after they had cooled I pulled the meat from the bones and Alice chopped it. She let me stand on a chair and stir the thick béchamel made entirely of cream. She seasoned it with minced onion, salt, cayenne pepper, and mace, and stirred in the chicken. Then we put the mixture into the refrigerator to chill and went into the living room.

When we came back I formed the mixture into logs and Alice dipped them in cracker crumbs and fried them in butter.

We wrapped Georgie’s croquette in a linen napkin and put the rest on Aunt Birdie’s gold-rimmed porcelain platter. We poured grape juice into the best crystal and after dinner Aunt Birdie turned up the radio and the three of us danced as if we were attending a fancy ball. “Look!” I said, pointing to one of the drawings on the living-room wall, “we look just like that.” Both heads turned to the drawing. Alice said, “My, how Hortense loved to dance!” Aunt Birdie stopped in mid-step. She went over to the sofa and sat down. The dancing was over.

The next night my parents came back from Europe. Alice was making roast beef, mashed potatoes, spinach, and creamed onions to celebrate their return. “They’ll appreciate it after all that fancy French food,” she said, opening the oven to baste the meat. I took a deep breath, inhaling the richness of the roasting meat and the sweetness of the onions.