The Lost Family

by Jenna Blum

  Elsbeth dropped the tripod—she’d forgotten she was holding it. The Afro woman looked over; she was wearing a mask as well, a bird beak with silver sequins. “Who the hell are you?” she said.

  “Who the hell are you?” said Elsbeth.

  Julian lifted his head and squinted—the hall light being much brighter than that in the bedroom, which was provided only by the colors of the wondrous clock. “Who is that,” he said, “Who’s there?” and then: “Oh my God—Charlie? Is that you?”

  “Who the fuck is Charlie?” said the Afro woman, but Julian ignored her and tried to leap off the bed. He didn’t get very far, however, as the woman was still attached to him from behind.

  “Ow!” he yelled, “get the hell off me,” and he shoved away from her and scrambled.

  “Charlie!” he said, “Charlie, wait!”

  But Elsbeth didn’t wait. She backed away until her shoulders bumped the wall, then turned and ran. She bolted without looking back at the apartment she had loved so much, through the room where they’d had their first shoot, where Julian had first told her she would be beautiful. She sprinted out the front door and down the staircase, her breath painful in her throat, her lungs hurting, jumping down the stairs two, three at a time, and all the while Julian’s voice, calling, “Charlie, wait up! Charlie, please!” grew fainter and fainter behind her.

  * * *

  She started with the easy things: a plate of deviled eggs, tomato halves filled with crabmeat salad, June’s cottage cheese with the Post-it attached to it: “Do not eat all of this—Elsbeth, this means you!” A tub of vichyssoise. Sour cream, scooped from the container. Then on to the cheese drawer: Brie, Jarlsberg, Gruyère, Roquefort. She wrapped hunks of it in prosciutto and roast beef and crammed it into her mouth. She dipped Peter’s garlic dills into Thousand Island dressing, mayonnaise. She wolfed a whole platter of profiteroles and drank the chocolate sauce that went with them; she gobbled grapes by the fistful. When she got to the back of the refrigerator, she devoured the food Peter was supposed to eat but didn’t: nonfat cream cheese, fake sausage links, heart-healthy bread with margarine. She moved on to the freezer: Häagen Dazs, coffee and vanilla and rum raisin; Popsicles; orange sherbet. Frozen lemonade and grape juice from the can. She even ate a half-open carton of Eggo waffles with ice crystals in their indented squares—and then she scrambled to the powder room off the kitchen.

  She jammed her three middle fingers into her mouth, shuddering and crying. She had sobbed all the way home from the city on the bus, trying to hide her face behind the collar of her denim jacket so nobody would see; luckily, there had been only a few other passengers, some witches and a devil and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, and they were drunk and nobody cared. “Hey, little kitty,” the Stay Puft had said as Elsbeth stumbled down the aisle at her stop, “want to come out and play?” but Elsbeth had said “Fuck you” and hopped off. All she could think about was getting home so she could do what she was doing now; she had thought it would be a relief. It was not.

  She managed to get the ice cream up—that was easy. The rest stayed down. Elsbeth crammed her hand in to the knuckles, drooling; over the past two months it had gotten harder and harder to do this, her gag reflex used to it, her throat as wide as the Lincoln Tunnel. She choked up something that had probably been profiteroles, maybe waffles, but a clump of dough lodged, burning, in her esophagus. Not for the first time, Elsbeth wondered whether she could choke to death doing this, or give herself a stroke. She pushed harder, gagging. Little lights danced in front of her eyes.

  Then—bam bam bam! on the bathroom door, and her mother saying, “Elsbeth?”

  Elsbeth froze, her fist in her mouth. What was June doing home? Why wasn’t she out with the Motherfucker?

  “I hear you in there,” said June, “I know what you’re doing,” and Elsbeth swore—she’d forgotten to turn on the faucets to mask the sound. At least she’d remembered to lock the door.

  “Go away,” she called, but there was food stuck in her throat. She coughed and added, “I’m sick!”

  “You’re not sick,” said June, “you’re purging,” and she rattled the doorknob. “Elsbeth Rashkin, come out right now.”

  “No,” Elsbeth said.

  “You need help. Let me help you. If you don’t open this door—”

  “Fuck off!” Elsbeth yelled, hurting her raw throat.

  There was a pause, and then June said, “I’m getting your father.”

  Good luck with that, thought Elsbeth. She flushed the toilet, then stood and washed her hands. She glared at herself in the mirror: eyes streaming, the blood mask back around the sockets, a vomit beard dripping from mouth to chin. She was still wearing the stupid Pink Pussycat ears. She took them off and hurled them into the corner. “Fuck you too,” she said to them and crouched over the toilet again.

  She had choked up the grapes, or at least their skins, when she heard her dad say, “Ellie? What is happening? Your mother says you are throwing up?”

  Oh, God, Elsbeth thought. “I’m fine, Dad. Go back to bed.”

  “She says she is fine,” Elsbeth heard Peter reporting, and June said, “She’s not fine, Pete. I told you, she’s binged on everything in the kitchen and now she’s vomiting it up. I saw it all the time when I was modeling.” She pounded on the door. “Elsbeth! Come out, now!”

  “No,” said Elsbeth, as Peter said, “But why would she do such a thing?”

  “Because she thinks she’s fat,” said June, “or to impress some dopey boy like that waiter at the club, who knows!”

  “But she is not fat,” said Peter. “If anything she is too thin.”

  “Well, she is now,” said June. “I did notice she was losing a lot lately, and now we know why. Elsbeth!”

  “Ellie,” said her dad. “Is this true? What your mother is saying?” Elsbeth slammed the toilet lid down, hot tears leaking from her eyes. “Ellie, please. Open the door. We just want to help you.”

  “Yes, darling, we’ll take you to a doctor,” said June. “Or an eating disorder center, there are good places for these things—”

  “Surely you don’t mean a sanitarium,” said Peter.

  “No, I mean a treatment center, like I said,” said June.

  “As in a hospital? She is not sick, June.”

  “She is, Pete, she’s sick in her mind, and you don’t want to see it because you made her this way.”

  “I? I did this to her? How can you say such a thing?”

  “Because it’s true. Her whole life, you’ve related to her only through food, your little commis, you stuffed her like a foie gras goose—”

  “And you, you should talk, you are the one who told her always she is too heavy. Not a single day went by that you did not comment on her weight. Telling her not to fill her plate. Telling her not to take seconds. I’ve heard you, June. It’s you who’ve given her a complex!”

  “Okay, Pete, whatever you say. I was only trying to help her—and none of this is getting her out of there. I’m calling the cops.”

  “And telling them what? Our daughter is vomiting?” Peter banged on the door. “Elsbeth Rashkin, come out this instant. Or I will break the door down.”

  “Good luck,” said June, “it’s solid maple.”

  “Stand back,” said Peter. There was some scuffling while Elsbeth buried her head in her arms and sobbed, and then her dad said, “Three . . . two . . .” The door shook in its frame. “Goddamn it,” he said.

  “Surprise,” said June.

  “I suppose you have a better idea?”

  “I told you, I’m calling nine-one-one.”

  “And I told you—”

  “Stop it!” Elsbeth screamed. She leaped up, unlocked the door, and shouted right into her parents’ faces. She had never done this before. “The door’s open, you happy now? Now go away and leave me the fuck alone!”

  She hurled herself back into the little room and slid down the wall while her parents looked in, frozen, aghast. Elsbeth put her f
ace in her hands. She heard her dad come in, the pop of his knees as he knelt.

  “Ellie, Ellie,” he said. “The worst is over now. You opened the door, that’s my brave girl. Now we can help—”

  “You don’t understand,” Elsbeth sobbed. “It’s all over. Everything’s ruined.”

  “That’s rather dramatic,” said June from the doorway, and Elsbeth shouted at her, “What do you know? And why are you wearing that stupid outfit?” for June was also in a cat costume, although she was a sexy tiger.

  “Work party,” said June, “and watch your mouth, young lady.”

  “Fine,” said Elsbeth, “whatever, do whatever you want with me, my life is over anyway. I’ll never see him again, never,” and she put her face in her hands and wailed.

  “Who, Ellie?” her dad said; he was still kneeling next to her, in his khaki pants and button-down shirt, on the bathroom rug. “Is it a young man? on whom you have a crush?” and June said, “See, I knew it was a boy.”

  “It’s not a boy, Mother,” shouted Elsbeth. “It’s Julian, Julian Wilton. I’ve been his model for months now. There, now you know!”

  “Julian?” said Peter, still confused, but Elsbeth could tell from her mother’s face, suddenly stricken beneath makeup whiskers, that June knew exactly who she meant.

  “Oh God,” said June. “Please tell me we’re not talking about the same person.”

  “Will somebody explain to me what is going on here?” said Peter, and June said, “The guy from the party, Pete, from Sol and Ruth’s, remember? The photographer, or pornographer, depending how you look at it—the one who takes pictures of nude kids.”

  “The—,” said Peter, and suddenly he was gripping Elsbeth’s chin.

  “Look at me, Elsbeth,” he said. “Is this true?”

  Elsbeth was suddenly and horribly aware of how she must smell. She tried to pull away, but Peter’s grasp was strong. She stared defiantly back at him, two green-blue stares locked and blazing.

  “Did he touch you?” Peter said.

  “Let go,” Elsbeth managed to say, and Peter did and she rubbed her jaw.

  “Did he?” Peter repeated. “Tell me this instant!”

  “No, Dad, it wasn’t like that!” said Elsbeth. “It was totally platonic. An artistic collaboration. I was his muse—”

  “In the nude. He took photos of you in the nude.”

  “Well, yeah, but that’s what he does. He’s a genius, don’t you remember? Even the New York Times said— Dad? Where are you going?”

  For Peter had jumped up and pushed out of the bathroom. “That son of a bitch!”

  “Pete,” said June, “calm down, let’s talk about this. Pete!” Peter was pawing through the key rack next to the back door. Some fell off their pegs and jingled musically to the floor. “Where are you going?”

  “Where do you think?” said Peter, seizing the Volvo key tab. “That cocksucker Wilton laid his hands on our daughter!”

  “Dad, no, he didn’t,” said Elsbeth; she stood with June, who had put one arm around her waist, and they watched Peter charge down the back steps.

  “Don’t do this, Pete,” called June, “you’ll regret it.” She went to the doorway. “At least take your nitroglycerin!”

  * * *

  Special to The Village Voice, November 1, 1985

  In the seemingly never-ending controversy surrounding fine-art photographer Julian Wilton, what was supposed to be the opening night of Wilton’s new exhibit, Shameless, at SoHo’s Hazaan Gallery last night turned into something more akin to a Halloween bar brawl.

  Costumed guests, hors d’oeuvres and champagne had just begun circulating when the viewing of Wilton’s latest series, portraits of an exuberantly awkward teenager, anonymous and unclothed per Wilton’s tradition, was interrupted by the arrival of the model’s father.

  Restaurateur Peter Rashkin, retired owner of the once-iconic Masha’s on the Upper East Side and more recently the Claremont in Glenwood, New Jersey, made a more dramatic entrance than the artist himself when he stormed in and demanded of gallery owner Mr. Alfred Hazaan to point out Wilton immediately.

  Had this been a more typical Wilton opening, the photographer would not have been in attendance. Notoriously reclusive, Wilton has been all but invisible since this summer’s FBI investigation, still ongoing, into whether Wilton’s art constitutes child pornography.

  However, luck was with onlookers who like a side of soap opera with their art, since because Hazaan gave Wilton his first Manhattan show in 1982, Wilton honored the friendship by appearing at the opening.

  “Rashkin marched right in yelling, ‘Wilton, you sonofabitch!’” said Dell Smith, art critic for the Jersey City Tribune. “He was shouting when he came through the door.”

  Rashkin, incensed by the 5-by-7-foot nude portraits of his underage daughter adorning the walls, stormed up to the artist and punched him in the mouth.

  “It was chaos for a while,” says Bernadette Lee of SoHo’s Lee & Childs Gallery. “[Julian] didn’t know what hit him. He just lay there on the floor like, Wha?, and Rashkin was like a madman, circling him, kicking him, yelling, ‘Get up, you child-molesting bastard, so I can hit you again.’”

  Onlookers became concerned about Rashkin himself when the former restaurateur then grabbed his chest and asked for medical aid.

  “I don’t know who was in worse shape,” said Whitney Scharer of Art Now! Magazine. “It was a toss-up between Julian and the father.”

  Hazaan had summoned the NYPD when Rashkin dealt the first blow, and police and paramedics escorted both Rashkin and Wilton to the emergency room at St. Vincent’s Hospital.

  “It was an absolute debacle,” said Hazaan. “All Julian’s pieces sold out within minutes. His prices were already escalated this summer thanks to the ridiculous pornography charges. Now they’re through the roof.

  “It was our best opening to date,” he added, “Not to mention Halloween gala.”

  Wilton’s attorney, Gene Rubin of Rubin and Homonoff, Esq., said, “My client did nothing wrong. He never once touched Rashkin’s daughter. He had signed model release forms to photograph her. Rashkin assaulted Julian Wilton without cause, pure and simple.”

  When presented with the model release forms, Rashkin said he had never seen them before. Upon being questioned by the NYPD Child Exploitation Unit, Rashkin’s daughter, the 16-year-old model, confessed to forging her parents’ signatures in order to be able to pose for Wilton. She further insisted Wilton had never touched her.

  “She considered it an honor to pose for him,” said Rubin. “She’s immortalized in art.”

  Wilton, who could not be contacted for comment, is still under investigation by the grand jury. Many art communities in New York and nationwide have made Wilton their reluctant poster boy for freedom of expression. His remaining photos in the SHAMELESS series are fetching upwards of $50,000.00 apiece.

  17

  ED

  The eating disorder clinic was in the Berkshires, and the girls called it ED in a deep, dull foghorn voice, as if it were the name of a particularly dimwitted boyfriend. It was surrounded by forest and ringed by mountains, so even if one of them ran away, there was nowhere to go. They were not allowed outside much anyway, exercise being forbidden; once a week they were taken on a supervised nature hike, as if, Elsbeth thought, they were in third grade and traipsing through the woods to draw pictures of chipmunks. But most of their time was spent indoors: not in the reception area, which had nice couches and a TV to fool visitors into thinking this was a normal place, but in group, family, or individual therapy in back, which was a warren of rooms with industrial carpet, break-proof windows, twin beds, and not a single mirror.

  Today, January 6, 1986, was Elsbeth’s second ED birthday—she had been here for two months, huzzah! This had been fêted in group not with a cake, since they had to learn to celebrate without using food, but by all the members telling Elsbeth one trait they liked about her. It couldn’t be appearance-related; if a
girl was new to the group or forgot and said something like “You have nice hair,” or “Pretty eyes,” the rest would yell, “WAH!” Instead they had all said things like Elsbeth was smart, and funny, and determined. Nobody had mentioned her synesthesia, which was no coincidence because Elsbeth herself had forgotten about it anyway. The ability seemed to have deserted her, to have dwindled along with her weight. That was sad, like losing a favorite pet. “Do you have anything to say to Elsbeth, Tiffani?” Dr. Linda had asked Elsbeth’s brand-new roommate, who had come in the previous day from the hospital wing, fresh off the IV, and was so anemic she looked like a fingernail moon. Tiffani had been shearing off her split ends; their hair was one of the few parts of their bodies they were allowed to control. Finally she said, “She doesn’t snore?”

  After this rather lackluster occasion they were released for the misnamed hour of “free time,” which Elsbeth thought should be called “Big Brother time,” since there were cameras in every room, including the bathrooms. She didn’t mind being left to her own devices, however, since this was when she wrote to Julian. Not letters, of course, which would be confiscated and read before they were out the door, in case they contained pleas to family members for food, diet pills, or laxatives. Elsbeth wrote to Julian in her journal, which with any luck she would be able to share with him in person, someday, when she got out of this godawful place.

  She was scribbling away when one of the nurses tapped on her door and said, “Elsbeth, you have a visitor.” Elsbeth jumped up, tucked the journal back in her pillowcase, and followed the nurse down the hall. The nurse was smiling as if this were good news, but in fact Elsbeth was nervous. She doubted it was either of her parents, not after the disastrous family session they’d had yesterday; an improvement on the first one, according to Dr. Linda, during which Elsbeth had refused to say anything at all, just summoned an interior static that sounded like the ocean in a shell and watched her parents’ mouths move, then Dr. Linda’s, until finally she saw June say, This is useless, and get up and flounce into the hall. Three more sessions had gone this way, until yesterday, when June and Peter filed in and Elsbeth had been dialing up her seashell noise when Dr. Linda said, “We have good news, Mom and Dad: Elsbeth has reached her target weight of one twenty-five,” and Elsbeth, who had come in feeling like a glutinous blob anyway, had snapped, “They’re not your mom and dad.” “Good, Elsbeth,” said Dr. Linda, “you’re vocalizing! Do you have anything else you’d like to say?” and Elsbeth had shaken her head, and Dr. Linda had said, “All right. Peter, let’s start with you. Any thoughts about what we discussed last week, how your profession as a chef might have influenced Elsbeth’s behavior?” and again Elsbeth couldn’t control herself; she’d burst out, “Lay off him, it’s not his fault, it’s hers.” “Me!” said June; “what did I do? You should be thanking me,” and Elsbeth said, “For what, telling me I’m fat my whole life and then shipping me off to this dungeon?” and June had started to cry. “You needed treatment,” she said, “and if we hadn’t put you here you’d be dead of malnutrition or heart arrhythmia like Karen Carpenter, and don’t you forget it,” and Elsbeth said, “Well, fuck you very much.”