by R.P. Burnham
Meeting Secretly
With his wife Natalie Feldman, Edmund Carter was sitting on a bench in Monument Square in Portland, Maine on a pleasant mid-October day. It was Friday, and they had both taken the day off from work so that they could meet Ed’s mother. Ed, just graduated from law school last June, was working as a public defender in Boston; Natalie was counsel for an ecological action group. She had graduated a year ahead of Ed and was, from his perspective, already an experienced lawyer. He had only this week made his first court appearance defending a man accused of shoplifting. He was clearly guilty; his only defense was the pathetic story he told. A scrawny, nearsighted man, he lived on the streets where he was preyed upon by the strong. He told Ed that the only time he had private space was at the shelter when he closed his eyes and listened to his pocket radio through earphones. When it was taken from him by a street thug, he was so desperate that he shoplifted another pocket radio. Ed managed to get the sympathy of the prosecutors before a jury was impaneled and to arrange a plea bargain for probation and time served since the poor man had no record. During the car ride from Boston they had talked about the case at length, but now in Portland their minds dwelled on the reason for their surreptitious visit. If she was open to the idea, they were going to offer refuge to his mother. Disowning his younger son for falling in love with a Jew was only a symptom of the way his father conducted himself as head of the family. He was sternly authoritarian and opinionated and tolerated no contradiction. As a father he was a martinet; as a husband he dominated his wife to such a degree that her spirit was crushed. Having hinted on their last visit that they were willing to help her become free and finding her either purposely acting obtuse or actually obtuse (since all their hints sailed over her head), they anticipated her reluctance to break free from her bondage. Natalie thought she exhibited many of the psychological characteristics of a hostage. She identified with her captor and rationalized his behavior. One thing only was stronger than her wifely thralldom, however, and that was mother’s love. Although forbidden to see or even speak to her son on the phone, she did acquiesce to secret visits—today’s was the third—and once or twice a month she would call them from a public telephone so that the call would not show up on the home phone bill.
“I think she has a good heart,” Natalie said, picking up their conversation after a long silence. “It’s like she’s a woman under the Taliban when they ruled Afghanistan. She wears a psychological burka.”
Ed nodded. His mother was late, and he was starting to feel tense. His eyes constantly scanned the crowds looking for her.
“She can use you as a model for how to break free.”
He shrugged, telegraphing his doubts, and when she didn’t understand his nonverbal message, he said, “I don’t think it will be easy. I’m not even sure it will be possible.”
“But you’ll try, Ed, won’t you? For her sake?”
He nodded grimly, his eyes still scanning the crowds of people.
Silence reigned again, each thinking his or her own thoughts. It was Natalie who especially wanted to pursue this scheme. For Natalie his mother’s situation was not only personal; it was a left-wing cause. He drummed his foot.
An elderly lady, spry and walking with her back erect and who had a kindly grandmotherly air about her, came up to the bench. “Excuse me. Could you tell me where Exchange Street is?” She addressed Natalie.
“Oh,” she said sorrowfully through narrowed eyes and a sad shake of the head for emphasis, “you’re asking the wrong person. This is only my third visit to Portland.” Then she favored the elderly lady with a sweet smile and turned to Ed. “But help is at hand. Ed, tell this nice lady where Exchange Street is.”
He stood and pointed. “Walk to the end of the concourse and go left. Cross the street—the parking garage and movie theater will be right in front of you. Then bear right to the corner. Go left past the other side of the movie theater for about a block and you’ll be at Exchange Street.”
While the lady thanked him for his businesslike directions, Natalie stood and asked, “Isn’t that what they call the Old Port section, Ed? Where all the shops are?”
It was, and she said to the lady, “You must be shopping. I’ve been to Exchange Street and done some myself.”
The lady smiled at this invitation for female discourse. “I’m looking for Christmas presents for my grandchildren. I thought of sweatshirts or T-shirts with Portland, Maine. They collect such things. They have them with universities, towns, states, everything.”
“Oh, I just saw someone go by awhile ago with a sweatshirt that had Portland, Maine and a gull emblem on it. I bet that’s what you’re looking for.”
The woman’s face lit up. “That’s exactly the thing I’m looking for.”
“Is this your first visit to Portland?”
“It’s our first visit in over twenty-five years. My son and his wife got a cottage on a lake this summer. We’re visiting them for the weekend at the cottage. We came early and have been to L.L. Bean in Freeport. We’re meeting them tonight at the lake.”
“How old are your grandchildren?”
“Nine and seven.”
“I have nephews six and seven and a niece who is four. They’re quite active little devils, but I love them.”
Ed, still searching for his mother while listening to the conversation, found his tension had abated. Natalie’s capacity for making instant friends had long ceased to amaze him—he’d seen it too many times. He started watching her face and body language, feeling as he regarded her a wave of warm love wash over him. She spoke with her whole body. When she said “Oh,” her mouth went round, her eyebrows were raised, her hands sculpted the air in wide circles, and her dark curly hair bounced on her shoulders. He thought she was the sexiest woman in the world. She was very short, five feet nothing, well shaped, and while some might not regard her as pretty, no one would call her plain either. She had a long face, an olive complexion, a big nose, and dark eyes. Today she was neatly dressed in a short skirt with her shapely legs covered in tan hose and a lavender V-necked top. The word that described her was vivacious. Being at ease with herself, she had a real knack for making others feel at ease, but it went further than that. She was genuinely interested in other people—that was her secret. The way she was making this grandmotherly lady feel like a friend was the same way she had befriended his mother. Within minutes of meeting her she had put his mother, normally reserved and guarded, completely at ease with a series of questions and statements about her jacket. Is your jacket Polartec? I’ve heard it’s a wonderfully warm material. Do you know it was made from recycled plastic soda bottles? I love that shade of maroon. It makes your blue eyes even brighter. Do you prefer practical clothes or do you go for fashion? This jacket is both.
By the time she had exhausted the conversational potential of his mother’s jacket, she had made a friend for life. More importantly, his mother had made a friend in Natalie. His wife had naturally met his mother with uncertain expectations. She was a Jew, his mother the wife of a Nazi. Thanks to Natalie’s social instincts they had met human being to human being. The result had been to create enormous sympathy in Natalie. She saw his mother as a victim of oppression and took it upon herself to try to liberate her.
When the grandmother, after further talk about shopping and children, was on her way, Ed checked his watch. “She’s twenty minutes late. Perhaps she couldn’t get away safely.”
They sat back down on the bench. Ed’s leg began drumming again.
A few minutes passed, and then the mobile phone rang. Natalie answered it and made a series of staccato responses: “Yes, okay.” “I see.” “Yes.” “Yes, of course.” “ Okay. Bye.” It was his mother calling to explain that she was delayed. Her husband had come home to get some papers from his home office. He was in the process of signing the dealership in Kennebunk over to Len Jr., Ed’s older brother. She called from a phone booth on the way and would be in Portland in about fifteen minutes.
Thinking that this was a good time to try to dampen Natalie’s expectations, Ed said, “Remember, Natalie, your idea won’t be easy. She’s a very dependent person. My mother has never worked a day in her life. She’s not in any way what you would call a modern woman. She’s never even done charity work or anything that would give her a sense of accomplishment. Except for deciding what’s for supper and buying clothes for my brother and me, she’s never made a decision in her life of any consequence. My father rules the house with an iron hand. She’s learned to obey, that’s all.”
“But she’s seeing us today. She made that decision.”
Yes, she had, and it was the basis of any hope he had as well, but for self-protection he wasn’t going to think too far in that direction. He put his arm around her shoulder. “Well, we can hope. Just don’t have any expectations.”
Calm now since the tension he had felt arose from the uncertainty of her being able to get away, not from anticipating problems trying to talk his mother into escaping, he leaned back on the bench and enjoyed the sun. Occasionally one or the other would remark on something they saw or thought, but like him Natalie was content to simply sit and enjoy the day. He watched some pigeons and gulls three times the pigeons’ size competing for some bread an old man had strewn about a little ways from their bench. The old man was dressed shabbily, and it occurred to Ed that he had never seen a well-dressed middle-class person feeding the pigeons. Maybe, he thought, poor people had a better understanding of the kind of life that was the pigeon’s lot. He was glad to see they were holding their own against the larger gulls.
Turning from the pigeons he started watching the people walking through the square. One of them, a young and pretty black woman, caught his eye, and as she passed she smiled shyly and said hi. She was with two women a little younger than she, perhaps in their late teens or early twenties. As the black woman passed on they heard her say to the plumper of the two young women, “Remember to have your chit ready, Ann Marie.” The woman answered her, speaking animatedly, but already they were out of earshot.
“Who was that?” Natalie asked.
Ed gazed at his wife and back at the black woman. He put his arm around her again and grinned. “She’s the reason we’re married, that’s who she is.”
For a moment Natalie seemed nonplussed. She frowned thoughtfully as her eyes followed the retreating figure of the black woman; then after a quick look into Ed’s eyes to see if he was serious, suddenly a light came into her own eyes, “Was she the one? The black girl you told me about?”
He nodded, still watching the woman now a block away. “That’s her. Fiona Sparrow.”
Perhaps he was exaggerating when he said she made their marriage possible, but not by much. Something had happened to make the son of a Nazi fall in love with a Jewish girl and get disowned by his father, and Fiona had played a catalytic role in his liberation from hate and prejudice.
He was very quiet in high school. He lacked self-confidence, didn’t date much, and took part in no clubs, activities or sports. He was a good but not great student—he ended up with a B+ average, with math and science costing him a higher academic status. His father was already a Nazi, and though he hadn’t done much publicly yet, he was in the process of constructing his paranoid compound. Ed was always afraid other students would learn about his father; that was the reason he tried to keep in the background. Already he hated more than loved his father, but the hatred was born of fear. More than anything he was afraid of his father, but because all his life he’d heard him rail against Jews, blacks and immigrants, the poison was endemic in his system. Blacks were lazy, shiftless, dirty, ignorant, violent, welfare chiselers; they were human beasts, criminals, sex-crazed, filled with hatred and jealous murder lust against the superior white race. This is what he constantly heard, and having had no experiences that refuted the ugly things he heard, on an unconscious level he was probably as racist as his father.
Then one day on his way to class in the main building of Courtney Academy he had accidentally been jostled by Fiona, causing him to drop his books and papers. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said. He looked at her and was surprised to see fear in her eyes. He saw that she was afraid he would be angry, but how could he be? It was a small thing, an accident, and besides, she looked so vulnerable and defenseless that he was moved to a moment of recognition. She too did not want attention drawn to her; she too was afraid of nameless faces whispering or staring at her. “It’s all right,” he said kindly. “It was just an accident.” Responding to the kindness of his voice, her face relaxed and her mouth curled into a tentative smile. “I guess I wasn’t looking where I was going.” They both bent down and gathered up the books and papers; then she apologized again and they both hurried to their classes.
That was the extent of their interaction. He saw her occasionally at school or on the street after that incident, and they always exchanged a shy smile and a short greeting just as they had today, but they had never had a conversation. The accidental encounter was something so seemingly trivial that the numerous students passing by on their way to class either ignored them or were merely slightly inconvenienced in having to walk around them, and yet almost instantly Ed recognized that for him it had been a momentous discovery. He saw that she was human and he saw that his father was wrong. The following semester in social studies class he studied Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement, and his eyes were opened further. Black people weren’t lazy, shiftless welfare cheats or sex-crazed maniacs filled with murder lust against whites; they were oppressed people subject to outrageous and arbitrary rules and laws that stifled them. Having been brought up under a private oppression, he understood their feelings and sympathized. He became a new person, and that person married Natalie Feldman.
Natalie was delighted to have seen this iconic figure in her husband’s life. “And such a pretty girl,” she teased. “I had no idea I was in danger of meeting you only after it was too late.” She talked and conjectured about her for several minutes, but the one sentence they overheard about showing a chit mystified them. Ed said she looked more confident and fulfilled, and yet that smile, he said, “was the same smile she showed me when she saw I wasn’t going to be angry. She’s still shy.”
Before Natalie could conjecture on the meaning of this observation, Ed spotted his mother walking towards them. She hadn’t yet seen them and was looking around nervously. He nudged Natalie, then stood and waved. “Over here, Mom!” he shouted.
Like Natalie his mother was very short, but here the similarities ended. She was matronly plump, wore her straight gray hair short, just below the ears, and her dress hung shapelessly on her. Ed had heard someone describe her as pale and worn-out, and he had to admit the description was apt. He always felt upon seeing her after a long absence a little sad, probably because the aura of reticence and unassertiveness reminded him of her life of bondage. He was sure Natalie noticed the same thing and felt the same way, which was the reason she wanted to rescue his mother and make her whole. His mother always warmed up after a while—after she was treated with respect and dignity and saw that she could safely be herself—but their initial greeting was subdued. He kissed her on the cheek while the two women smiled at each other and said hello. He asked her where she had parked, and after finding out it was in the municipal parking garage, he said that was where they had parked as well. After this awkwardness they started walking. Since noon was drawing close, he suggested they go to a nearby sandwich shop and have lunch.
At 11:45 they were early. Only one other party was in the place, so they had their choice of tables. Ed chose one in the back as far away from the window as possible. The waiter, a clean-shaven nervous man who dropped the fourth setting as he was taking it away from the table, got tea for Natalie and his mother; Ed ordered apple juice.
After they had ordered their sandwiches, Ed asked about the Kennebunk dealership, and his mother said that all she knew was that plans were being made to assign ownership to his
brother Lenny. Apparently she assumed the legal business was motivated by fatherly love; she didn’t seem to have any idea that it might be a way to protect assets from legal proceedings. Ed wondered if his father was doing this now because he anticipated doing something that could lead to a lawsuit, but decided it was unlikely. His father was so cautious and so greedy that he was unlikely to endanger his business empire. Probably the transfer has something to do with taxes. For sure it had nothing to do with him.
He sipped his apple juice, finding it tepid. “By the way, Mom. While we were waiting for you I saw someone from the past. Do you remember Fiona Sparrow, that black girl I knew in high school?”
Instead of ruminating as he expected, she said straightaway, “Yes, I do. It’s rather strange because of course I had forgotten about her, but just this week I heard her name mentioned at home.”
“You did? How’s that?”
“Well, it wasn’t from your father, for he never discusses these things with me—I’ve asked him not to. It was from Darren French.”
“Who is he?” He was frowning, he knew. He didn’t know Darren French, but the context of the remark told him what sort of a creature this man was.
“He’s one of the party members. He’s a very big man, and Len asked him to come to the house to move a freezer in the basement for me. It seems that Fiona is going with a white man now and the party doesn’t like it. You know, they have a name for it. Mmm…?”
“Miscegenation?”
“Yes, I think that’s the word they use. No. It’s mongrelization. Anyways, Darren was boasting about it. If you knew him you’d know that’s the kind of man he is. I said to him, see, ‘I see you from the house from time to time.’ I was just trying to be friendly since he was helping me. But of course I don’t mix with party business, I told him. ‘I wouldn’t understand all that computer business anyways. Those things scare me.’ He said kinda boastfully, ‘Ah, computers ain’t hard to use.’ He must have seen that I was rather doubtful about that because I remember once that Len said he didn’t like French using the computers because he made a mess of things. He gave me a look, anyways, and that’s when he mentioned Fiona. ‘We ain’t just playing with computers and putting out pamphlets. We’ve got a case of mongrelization right here in Waska. It ain’t right and we don’t like it.’ He sounded like he had some scheme up his sleeve. But you know what Len says about him?”
They both raised their eyebrows.
“That he isn’t too bright.”
Their sandwiches arrived, egg salad with chips and a dill pickle for his mother and Natalie, a turkey club with french fries for him. His mother asked for more tea; he still had his apple juice and Natalie, as usual, drank water.
“This place has a pretty good reputation, I hear. They make their own bread.”
“Hmm,” Natalie said, “this sourdough is good. Nothing ruins a sandwich more than bad bread. American bread.” She reddened, remembering too late that was what his mother had specifically requested.
The remark, however, passed without comment.
“What do the men use the computers for?” Natalie asked.
His mother finished chewing a bite of her sandwich before she answered. “All I know is they have a web page for the party. Oh, and they run chat rooms too.” She gazed at Natalie, a pleased smile on her face. “It looks like married life is agreeing with you, Natalie. You look wonderful, happy, healthy and pretty.”
Natalie smiled in return. “I don’t know if marriage did that, but Ed can take the credit for my being happy.”
His mother emitted a long sigh. “I still feel bad that I missed your wedding.”
“You didn’t miss much, Mom. It was in front of a judge and took about ten minutes. Afterwards we went to a restaurant in Cambridge with two other couples from law school and had dinner. That was our honeymoon.”
“And don’t forget, Mrs. Carter, we were fair. My parents didn’t come either.”
“Call me Ellie,” his mother said, turning towards Natalie. “It’s not only that, it’s…” She looked down, embarrassed. “Well, it’s just that I couldn’t be there to see the son I gave birth to, nursed, and raised, take that final step.”
“Well,” said Ed after a moment of silence, “I am sorry about that. But that’s the way things are.” His father hadn’t wanted him to go to Boston University. He called it Jew U and B Jew and said it was no place for his son. Ed had argued that it was a Methodist university and that the president of it was a Methodist. Remembering that exchange now, he felt his anger rising.
His mother noticed it. “Is something the matter?”
“Oh, nothing really, It’s just that we both know the reason you couldn’t come to the wedding.”
“Don’t be too hard on your father, Ed. He’s a stubborn man, but he does what he thinks is right.”
Natalie, watching his face, decided this was a good time to change the subject. “Are all of your husband’s associates like Darren French, Ellie? You know, boastful brutes.”
For a moment she looked offended, perhaps taking the characterization of French as a comment on her husband. But she let it pass, and the cloud cleared from her face. “Some of the men are pleasant enough fellows. A lot of then, you know, are outdoorsmen, hunters and fishermen. They came into the party through the National Rifle Association. But Rett Murray is different. I do dislike that man.” She looked at Ed. “Did I ever tell you he wanted to live at the compound?”
When he shook his head, she looked surprised. “Well, he did. He had his eye on one of those cottages that were built for…” She stopped herself and blushed. The cottages she was referring to were meant for Ed and Len Jr. and their families. His father had envisioned making his sons his lieutenants and passing on the torch to them, but as this never happened the cottages were never used. Ed knew this, so the blush must have been caused by his mother’s awareness that Natalie might be hurt, insulted or made uncomfortable by this reference to family history.
“…one of those cottages your father built,” she went on. “But when Len mentioned it to me I said I did not like him, and for once your father let me have my way.” She took a dainty bite of her sandwich and chewed with a pleased, faraway look in her eye as she relived her triumph.
Ed felt embarrassed for her. She didn’t realize her pride in such a small thing was an implicit acknowledgment of her childlike state of dependence. It most ways she was a slave to her husband, not a partner. Ed didn’t know Rett Murray very well, but he was sure the reason he didn’t get the cottage was because his father didn’t like or didn’t trust him enough, not because he was acquiescing to his wife’s wishes.
While these distressing thoughts were flitting through his mind, Natalie, whose eyes told him she felt the same pathos in his mother’s pride, was quick to hide it. “What is it about him you dislike, Mrs. Carter?”
“You must remember to call me Ellie, my dear. He’s sneaky. I don’t like the look in his eyes. I don’t trust him.” Nervously she adjusted her napkin on her lap. “Of course I know many would say all of them are bad men, but he’s worse than the rest. Those of them who are outdoorsmen don’t have the look of…” She rubbed her lips with her index finger trying to think of the words. “It’s like his eyes are the eyes of a trapped animal. Dangerous eyes. Scary eyes. He’s not right in the head.” She turned to Ed. “Your brother doesn’t like him either.”
If that was supposed to clinch the argument, it didn’t work. He was not fond of his older brother. Never having been particularly close to him as a boy, he had not forgotten how he was frequently the victim of his brother’s petty manipulation, getting blamed for things Len did, and generally being a male Cordelia to his brother’s Goneril and Regan. Lenny wasn’t a Nazi, but he wasn’t much better. He was a shallow, self-serving man absolutely without principles; if conditions were different and Nazism wasn’t disreputable, he’d be running to the head of the parade. While Lenny didn’t go so far as to also disown him when his father did, h
e made it quite clear that he wanted to keep his father’s good opinion so that he wasn’t really welcome to visit. Ed rather suspected Lenny didn’t like Rett Murray, not because the man was a rat but because he was afraid Murray would horn in on their father’s business interests.
“How are Lenny’s kids, Mom? I haven’t seen them for over two years.”
The grandmother took over in answering this question and was very appealing. “Sarah just lost her two front teeth. You should see her smile! She thinks the tooth fairy is her best friend. Bob is playing soccer now. His mother has become a regular soccer mom. And Michael, the dear boy! He runs up and tells me he loves me the moment I’m in the door. He does the same when he sees your father.”
“Do you think your husband knows you see us occasionally, Ellie?”
Natalie’s question surprised her. “I don’t know,” she said. “He’s kinder than people think. He loves his grandchildren very much. The values he’s fighting for is the American family. I’ve heard him say a mother’s love is one of the sacred things in this world. I think it was his principles, not his heart, that made him disown you, Ed.”
“So you’re saying he loves me still?”
She put her hand on her breast, her fingers splayed. “As long as he doesn’t know, yes.”
Natalie questioned him with a slight rise of her eyebrows and tilt of her head upon hearing this bizarre answer. With his mother busy finishing her sandwich, he shook his head. She was worse off than he thought. Directly confronting her might seriously endanger her peace of mind.
But Natalie was not going to be deterred. “Of course, I don’t know your husband, Ellie, but surely that can’t be right. He disowned his own son.”
His mother glanced at Natalie and then looked away towards the street. “You must think Len is a terrible person. But I’ve seen him before he got obsessed with race and Jews and immigrants. I know he believes some terrible things. I know he’s stubborn and mean and horrible to Ed, but he isn’t really a bad man.”
“Would you like some dessert or more tea, Mom?”
“No, thank you, dear. More tea if you’re having coffee, otherwise nothing.”
He caught the waiter’s eye. When he came over he asked for the bill.
“How did he get this way?” Natalie asked. She was not willing to give up.
“I’m not sure. You have to realize that years ago I asked Len not to bring up Nazi stuff in the home. He doesn’t always do that, but still I don’t know much about the operation. He never mentions business to me, you see, and I asked him to regard Nazi stuff as business. I know you’ll think it sounds absurd, but if he wasn’t a Nazi he would be a wonderful man. He’s a Yankee, you know, and Yankee men can be cantankerous. But I remember one thing that set him off. He had business dealings with a Jewish lawyer who cheated him. It was after that he started railing against the Jews.”
Natalie gave her an enigmatic little smile and said, “I’ve heard that excuse before. I always wonder why when the lawyer is a WASP or Scotch or, say, Italian, people don’t react the same way.”
Mrs. Carter glanced at her Jewish daughter-in-law and then looked down at the table as she considered how to answer. “Of course you’re right. I suppose it doesn’t prove anything. Len’s father was very hostile to immigrants, especially French-Canadians, I remember. I guess he inherited his hatreds.”
“But you don’t share them, do you, Ellie? How is that?”
“Mom has always been a live-and-let-live person, haven’t you, Mom?”
“I have,” she said, then colored. “But…”
“You’re so different from him, Ellie. Have you ever considered leaving him and starting a life of your own?”
A look of surprise growing into panic seized his mother’s face. “No, that thought has never crossed my mind.”
“If it ever did, we would take care of you,” Natalie said in a low voice.
“We would, Mom,” Ed said with conviction.
She frowned and looked frightened. “I didn’t mean to imply anything when I mentioned your father’s hatreds. Really they have nothing to do with me. I married your father for better or worse. You may not see it, but there is some better. He’s really a wonderful grandfather, for instance. He always brings a treat or a toy when he visits the kids. They love him.”
I’m sure he is, Mom. But sometimes he doesn’t treat you with the respect you deserve. Ed formed these words in his mind before immediately censoring them when he saw his mother’s face. Her lips were tightly drawn, and she had a defensive, beleaguered look in her eyes. So he backed off and in a casual tone said, “Well, Mom, it was just an idea, nothing more. We both want you to be happy.”
She relaxed a little and managed a grim smile. “I understand.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like some dessert? They have a peach cobbler here that’s really delicious.”
But she didn’t. She wanted to leave. Her body language yelled it out loudly. She kept looking at the door, and she clutched her pocketbook with both hands. With a pang he realized clearly and unambiguously that if she had to choose she would choose her husband if a line was drawn. She wouldn’t want to make the choice, but she would make it.
Natalie, signaling that she too saw their mission was a failure, began talking about different kinds of tea.
He hardly listened. Family, in Robert Frost’s famous definition, was the place where you went and they couldn’t turn you away. Where, then, was his family? Of the other members of his family, whom did he care for? A couple of elderly aunts and a couple of cousins with whom he played as a boy and of whom he had good memories even though now they had moved to Michigan and North Carolina so that their relationship was reduced to an exchange of Christmas cards. His niece and two nephews had a place in his heart but were cut off from any contact. His brother was a worm, his father a tyrant, his mother like an abused child.
He had spent last Fourth of July with the Feldmans. They all possessed the same social skills and vivacity Natalie displayed, and he was made to feel comfortable and at home. He watched a baseball game with Natalie’s brothers and her father. Professor Feldman, who taught at a small college, had a benign face and a twinkle in his eyes that confounded Ed’s inherited notion of a father as a stern, emotionless man who jealously guarded his prerogatives and expected deference and obedience. Natalie’s father, in contrast, insisted that Ed call him Gerry, asked him to choose the wine for the meal, questioned him about his job as a public defender, and took a deep interest in his life. In their conversation they discovered that both voted for the Green Party or socialist candidates whenever they were on the ballot. After the meal Gerry wanted a cigar, which meant exile to the backyard. He asked Ed to join him. Ed rarely smoked, but Gerry so obviously enjoyed his cigar that it would have been impolite to refuse. Puffing away together, they discussed the American two-party system and agreed it was a corrupt lie comprised of two conservative parties that did the bidding of big business and ignored the people. By the time the cigars were finished and they rejoined the others in the living room, Ed felt as if he and Gerry were fellow freedom fighters for justice. Equality had replaced hierarchy in his notions of a father. In the living room everyone joined in a discussion of Israel. All the Feldmans were secular Jews—the only visible emblem of their ethnicity was a mezuzah on their front door, and that was there because it was a family heirloom inherited from Natalie’s great-grandfather in Russia, not for any religious significance. They all had a certain emotional attachment to Israel but hated the right-wing governments that abused the Palestinian people. They were in favor of a two-state solution and a dissolution of all the Jewish settlements on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Listening to the Feldmans speaking about these issues, Ed recalled his father’s frequent rants about being true to our Anglo-Saxon ancestors and wondered if his father could even conceive of a mind that could transcend group identity and self-interest and be true to what was right. Before he left, Vera, Natalie’s mother, took h
im aside and gave him an expensive watch that had belonged to her brother. He had died young and unmarried and had been very fond of Natalie. He wanted the watch to go to the man who married his beloved niece.
After that day he was filled with admiration and respect for Natalie’s family; the comfortable warm feeling that he carried away was like the embers the Indians took with them on hunting expeditions so that they could quickly make a fire. It was security; it was safety; it kept the beasts of the night at bay. After meeting with his mother today he realized that it was something even more: it meant that the Feldman home was the place where he could go and not be turned away.