Up From Orchard Street (41 page)

“Two weeks of sheer heaven.” She blushed at the memory as though regaling us with details about a new lover. “We flew to San Francisco, rented a car and did the city as they call it, then drove to Los Angeles. Now that’s something. Palm trees tall as mountains, hills the color of clay in the daytime, blue at night. And the houses. The mansions in Beverly Hills and Hancock Park. The movie theaters are like palaces. Everything is oversized, gaudy. You know the line in
The Great Gatsby
about Daisy? Her voice had the sound of money? Los Angeles thunders with the sound of money.”

Lil admired Estelle’s ability to speak vividly and well. Though Jack tutored her without cease, this was beyond her.

“Did you see any movie stars?”

“Not in Los Angeles. But we drove to the Del Mar racetrack and at a table at the Turf Club, right beside us was Walter Pidgeon. Talk about handsome and a deep voice! I said, ‘It’s a pleasure to sit near you,’ and he answered, ‘Well, thank you.’ I didn’t want to embarrass my husband or son but my knees were weak.”

We loved that anecdote. We wanted Estelle to repeat it again and again.

“The Pacific Ocean is everywhere, and the surroundings take your breath away. I was in tears when we left. I could imagine myself becoming a painter or a writer, maybe a poet, if I lived there.”

Not knowing how to respond to this declaration, Lil presented her own recent worldly experience. “We had a photo shoot at our apartment. It’s coming out in an architectural magazine.”

“No!”

“Our architect lent us the chairs and the art, and an armed guard brought the furniture into the building. The armchairs were from Boo-cher-on ay Fees. One thousand dollars for two chairs fit for movie stars.”

After dinner, on the strength of the lively conversation and the inedible food, we walked toward what was formerly the dilapidated house with its many unkempt children. The tumbledown shack was gone; in its place stood a charming Cape Cod cottage.

Willy ran ahead. “Where is it? What happened to it?” he cried.

“Destroyed,” said Estelle. “Hank, Mr. Pankin, bought the land from here to the fork in the road. He built this new house for the Gladkowskis in exchange for their land. They’re now in the produce business together and sell vegetables for miles around. An entire staff cultivates the produce. Hank is very restless. These projects keep him busy. The Pankins are a restless breed.”

“Hal isn’t,” I said.

“True. But Maurey expects each day to be an adventure.”

As if to prove it, we heard the steady honking of a truck horn.

Maurey yelled into the wind, “Ladies, ladies, it’s Monday, movie night. I’ve come to fetch you.”

“What’s playing?”

“Boys Town.”

“We saw it a hundred years ago.”

“Then see it a hundred and one. Or not.” Maurey let the motor idle. “Hey, you missed Jack’s phone call. He called on the dot of six and you were out walking. He said to tell you he bought a coat with a swing back. What’s a swing back? How would you like to swing into the truck and accept my treat for ice cream? The dinner was pretty awful . . .”

“You can say that again.”

“The dinner was pretty awful.” Maurey whirled my mother around before seating her, breathless, in the front seat. Estelle was hoisted up next and Willy and I sat on the women’s laps.

Exuberant, restless, irrepressible, Maurey nibbled on my mother’s ear without shame. “I’m hungry for ice cream but I’d like to dive into the new pool we’re going to build. I wish it would appear by morning. Did you know that I’m going to be the swimming instructor when the pool is finished? You’ll be my first pupil. I’ll cure you of your water phobia.” He tapped my bony knee.

“I don’t have a water phobia.”

“Of course you do. You don’t wet your toes, let alone splash in the lake.”

“It’s not because I’m afraid. I can’t stand the noise. The children scream and the mothers scream. It gives me a stomachache.”

“What do you suggest for that beautiful space that used to be the old Gladkowski farm? A reading room? A library?”

“A library with an aquarium would be restful. Not a big aquarium like Battery Park, but small with little fish.”

“Your daughter is a number-one eccentric,” he told my mother. He didn’t slap her thigh, only pretended to play the piano on the thin fabric of her slacks. “I have a great new song for you. First lesson, tomorrow morning at nine.”

After the ice cream in the village, I retired to bed. The day had overwhelmed me; too much talk, too many people, too much to figure out and understand. I must have dozed off when a slight noise awakened me—the sound of our bedroom door closing.

“Mother!” I called. “Mother!”

She could have left for the bathroom, returning in a minute. The clock read 11:10. I concentrated on the slightest noise. Not a murmur. Five minutes went by. Ten. Half an hour, each minute increasing my anxiety, my dread. I considered searching for her, but where? In my private attic, the dining area, outdoors? The prospect of finding her was possibly worse than waiting. I breathed with difficulty.

At last, a movement no louder than a summer’s breeze.

“Mother?”

“Are you up? I couldn’t sleep either. I stared out the window at the end of the hall.”

Her voice was calm and steady. She slid beneath the sheets. As an insomniac of long standing I could sense a person who lay awake, eyes gazing at the ceiling. I turned in the direction of the yellow cottage lights. Miraculously, they helped quiet my savage heart.

We drank our breakfast coffee with Estelle, who then excused herself. Every day, including Sunday, she wrote to her husband. “It’s the same as keeping a diary,” she explained, “and Philip enjoys my letters. He can hardly wait to read them.” She liked to take a quick walk to the post office in the village to mail them, after which she spent her leisure hours reading or talking with the guests.

For her first day in the sun, Lil had selected her white sunsuit with the built-in bra. Since she had slept fitfully during the night, she dozed in the aluminum chaise after breakfast until she felt a gentle tap on the shoulder.

“Ready for our singing lesson?” Maurey squatted beside her. “That’s a fantastic outfit you’re wearing.”

“It was hard to find.”

“And well worth the effort. Now let’s start on our new song.”

He gathered her to her feet, held her hand in a steady grip and trotted toward the main house. “My heart, my heart,” she gasped.

“I’m sorry. I truly am. I forgot about your heart.” As if no other soul inhabited the hotel, he lifted her in his arms and carried her up the porch steps. Then he settled her on the piano bench in the dining room, and with his hair flying and his eyes alight with mischief, he placed his ear to her heart and listened to its rhythm, not stirring his head from her chest.

At midmorning, guests were walking to and fro, the porch was filled with card and game players, the dining area was set up for lunch and children amused themselves by jumping from the railing of the porch to the grass below. But Maurey was oblivious to the other guests, acting in the belief that he and my mother occupied a magically invisible private realm.

“The song is ‘Take Me in Your Arms Before You Take Your Love Away.’ ” His singing was flat and toneless but his piano playing was like liquid cascading over smooth rocks.

“Take me in your arms before you take your love away / take me in your arms before we part. Lil, we need lots of vibrato in the middle section, the lowest tones possible, and try to cry a little. Female European singers sob on cue. Americans don’t because jazz has taught them to belt it out. Try very husky. When you sing
fast
and
past
it’s the British
a
. Not too exaggerated or it’s phony, but not New Yorkese either. Pahst. Fahst.” He held her with his daring blue eyes.

“I don’t know if I can do it.”

“Of course you can. You have enormous vocal range. It’s just that you haven’t been trained to take advantage of it.” His long suntanned fingers rested at the base of her throat. “Begin: ‘One hour of sadness that we knew in the pahst . . .’ ”

Lil hadn’t sung much during the year—too busy, too sick, too involved with moving, too emotional about our store and her work. But she desperately wanted to please Maurey. “One hour of sadness . . .” Off-key. Awful.

Maurey could not be faulted for lack of patience. Not a negative word escaped his lips. “A bit rusty. That’s to be expected.” He faced her without playing. “From the top, without music.”

“Take me in your arms before you take your love away.”

“That’s it. Much better. Once more.”

“It’s a sad song.”

“You were made for sad songs. They were written for you. You’ve been spoiled by too much ‘I’ll be down to get you in a taxi, honey.’ You’re good at fast tempo and you’ve been doing it for a long while. Try to think of what you’re singing. You want to tear the listener’s heart out. ‘Take me in your arms,’ pause, ‘before you take your love away . . .’ It’s a true experience. A terrible farewell. You’re not seeing this man again. Ever.”

My father could have sung this duet with Lil, led her in dramatic presentation.

“Close your eyes. Sob a little. Not over the top, only steady, from the bottom of your toes. Let’s hear it slowly, slowly, one word after another.”

“Take me in your arms before you take your love away.”

Her effort touched him. Without self-consciousness his arms embraced her. She leaned into him with no resistance.

Instinctively I fled, down the steps, past the patio and into the cornfield. Not on the path along the side of the corn but into the corn itself, scrambling over irregular patches, zigzagging, heading for the fruit orchard. Glad to be alone, my heart pounding from the exertion, I recognized a familiar call: “Hey, you funny duck, wait up!” I didn’t stop, but Hal’s legs were longer than mine. He caught up with me.

“Are you practicing for a cross-country marathon?”

The pear tree under which I read
Jane Eyre
last year welcomed both of us. I sank back against the gnarled tree trunk, breathless. My spindly legs were covered with bits of greenery, corn silk, damp earth.

“What’s the rush?”

“Just felt like it.”

He tossed a manila envelope into my lap whose return address read
Architecture
. It was addressed “Roth Family” and marked “Do not bend.”

“The photo shoot! The pictures of our apartment.”

“It came in the early mail. I thought you’d like to see them first.”

The photographers had performed miracles. There was our narrow building in an urban setting—not downtown, just anywhere sophisticated in New York. The spotlighting had re-created the architect’s vision; the morning sky resembled dusk, the sun setting rather than rising.

“That’s Bubby in her summer dress at her kitchen work table and Clayton, her assistant, behind her,” I explained to Hal. Bubby with her white hair and Clayton in his white jacket were out of focus as planned, the food in the forefront clear and sharp.

The living room was spellbinding, the elegance of the furniture immediately apparent. The killer photo was the half-draped window and the wall dominated by the Miró painting.

“What a snazzy apartment. Incredible.”

“The architect borrowed everything. We cried when they carried out the painting. The living room is still not furnished.”

Hal regarded me for a long moment.

“How did you become so honest?”

It was impossible to return his scrutiny. I loved Hal dearly. Not kisses and hugs, but with reverence, admiration. I basked in his understanding, his depth; I could tell him anything without fear. If I were double my age I would throw myself at him and beg him never to leave me.

Then he handed me a stapled green paper bag stamped “Harvard University Book Store.” My fingers twitched as I tried to loosen the staples.

“For heaven’s sake, tear open the bag!”

“No, I want to save it. It’s important to me.”

“All right. But hurry it up. I want you to see what’s inside. It’s a boxed edition. Last year I gave you two secondhand books. This year you deserve better.”

In a heavy gray box separated by a partition lay Tolstoy’s
War and
Peace
and
Anna Karenina,
leatherbound, the titles embossed in gold.

“Only you could buy me such a beautiful present.”

“The moment I saw this in the bookstore, you flashed into my mind. Gabe and I went to the Sullivans’ for Thanksgiving and showing Estelle and Philip these books made the evening.”

He took both my hands in his. “You have to promise me one thing. Don’t save these books as sacred objects, the way you said your Uncle Geoff keeps his books under lock and key. Take them everywhere. Let cookie crumbs fall between the pages. Let these books save your life. That’s what they’re for.”

His hair flopped over his eyes. He was not tall and slender or appealing to both men and women, the way Maurey was. Not a movie star. Just a loving, lovely man. I was too overwhelmed to speak. He enjoyed my wonder.

“I told you, didn’t I, that when my mother died the three of us were half crazed? Maurey, my mother’s darling love, stopped speaking. He’d say a few words and start howling.”

“Did it bother you, that he was your mother’s favorite?”

“Does it bother Willy that you are your grandmother’s favorite?”

“Why don’t you ask about my mother’s favorite?”

Hal nudged me with his elbow. “Hey, this discussion means no holds barred. Lil’s favorite is Jack. You and Willy accept it. I accepted Maurey’s position with my mother and every stranger he met because my father adored me.”

I smoothed out the Harvard bookstore bag, folded it carefully in quarters and placed it inside the back cover of
War and Peace
.

“I have something else to tell you. I went into therapy this year. Like Willy.”

“What for? You’re perfect. Scott Wolfson takes Willy for long drives, buys him ice cream, talks about this and that. Is that what your doctor does?”