Mrs. Kaplan and the Matzoh Ball of Death

by Mark Reutlinger

  Now Pupik is one who likes to run what he calls a “tight ship,” and he dislikes anything that upsets the orderly flow of activities at the Julius and Rebecca Cohen Home for Jewish Seniors. And a resident who expires in her soup is just the sort of thing that he might call “disorderly.” But there it was, and so he and Dr. Menschyk disappeared into Bertha Finkelstein’s room, closed the door, and left us to continue without her. And to be honest, some of the residents left their soup uneaten, just in case it might have figured in Bertha’s demise. This did not go unnoticed by Mrs. K, and she was a little hurt by the implication regarding her matzoh ball soup.

  Can you blame her?

  4

  It was almost an hour later, when we had about finished our seder—and the macaroons were delicious, as usual; Mrs. Freedman puts just the right amount of almond extract in them—that Dr. Menschyk and Mr. Pupik came out from Bertha Finkelstein’s room, looking even more upset than when they went in, and locking the door behind them. Pupik, whose round, puffy face frequently turns bright red when he is upset, looked like he was made up to play a tomato, his face was so red as he passed us. Mrs. K, in whose soup after all it was that Bertha Finkelstein expired, tried to get some information from them, but they waved her off and hurried into Pupik’s office and shut the door. Clearly they were discussing poor Bertha’s death, but what they were saying no one had any idea.

  —

  And that was all that we heard or found out about it for the moment. Meanwhile life, it went on, as they say, at least for the rest of us. Among us we naturally discussed what had happened and we decided that it was a heart attack that did in poor Bertha. What else could it be? Of course, there are always a few smarty-pants “experts” who have an opinion that is different from what everyone else thinks, but as usual we ignored them. It was a heart attack.

  The day after the seder, which was also the second day of Pesach, we all were recovering not only from the disturbing event that we witnessed, but also from the seder itself. At our age, we are not used to eating all that heavy food, especially all the matzoh (which after all is just flour and water, also a recipe for paste) and eggs and shmaltz (chicken fat). So at the Home we didn’t observe a second seder that evening, even though some of us always did when we were younger. It’s traditional that there is a second seder, because a long time ago the beginning of the holiday was determined by when there was the new moon, and that could be decided only by the authorities in Jerusalem. Jews in the diaspora—in the rest of the world, like here in America, but back then it was places like Babylon—might miss the seder because of how long it took to get the official word from Jerusalem. So a second seder was held to make sure everyone had a chance to celebrate. But for us, once is more than enough. Thank goodness for the Metamucil.

  We therefore don’t usually get around much on the second day of Pesach, and the atmosphere at the Home is very subdued. It’s not until the following day that we generally get back into our usual routines, such as they are, and life returns more to normal. As I said earlier, death is not a stranger to the Home, and we try to take it in stride.

  But this time the second day of Pesach, being the day after Bertha Finkelstein’s death, was far from quiet and subdued, at least for me and Mrs. K. In fact, it was on this day that life at the Home became totally farblondzhet—all mixed up.

  The day started out innocently enough. Breakfast was over and Mrs. K and I were sitting quietly in the lounge and reading. Mrs. K was reading a book, a mystery story like usual, and I was reading the newspaper. It seems always to be filled with only bad news, but should there ever be any good news, I do not want to miss it. I like to sit in the lounge, which is large and bright, with windows looking out onto the little garden in back, and sofas and stuffed chairs and potted plants sprinkled all around.

  It is almost like when I and my David (of blessed memory) would sit together in the living room of our house, enjoying each other’s company without having to say a word…

  Anyway, Mrs. K and I were just about to get up and get some tea, when once again we saw Dr. Menschyk scurry into Mr. Pupik’s office and close the door.

  “I wonder what that means,” I said to Mrs. K. She only shrugged her shoulders a little and went back to her reading. Menschyk and Pupik were in there a very long time. Finally the two men came out of Pupik’s office and entered the lounge. Mrs. K and I were sitting on a sofa in the back corner, the quiet part of the lounge, when Mr. Pupik looked over at us and pointed in our direction. I looked around and could not see anyone else to whom this pointing might apply, so I assumed it was us. And sure enough, a moment later this Pupik-Menschyk duet made its way over to us.

  Pupik looked at me and then at Mrs. K, and he said to her, “Mrs. Kaplan, would you mind if we spoke with you in private for a few minutes?” He was sort of smiling in an unpleasant kind of way, as if he had a bad case of heartburn and was trying to pretend he did not. He is, as I maybe have mentioned, a small, balding man of about fifty with beady eyes and the general look of a dyspeptic weasel at the best of times, and these were clearly not the best of times. Mrs. K looked at me as if she did not like this suggestion at all, and she said to Pupik, “It is all right if Ida comes along too?” The two men looked at each other, Menschyk shook his head just a little, and Pupik turned back to Mrs. K and said, “I’m sorry, but we’d like to speak with just you, if you don’t mind.”

  I got the distinct impression it really didn’t matter whether she minded or not. Mrs. K no doubt had the same feeling. She looked at me and shrugged and stood up. The men indicated they would be going to Pupik’s office, and that is what they did. So I did not get any more of the story until maybe fifteen minutes later, when the office door opened and Mrs. K, looking almost as bad as poor Bertha Finkelstein, walked back over to where I was and sat down.

  Now Rose Kaplan is one of the strongest and most self-assured women I know, and in her seventy-plus years, she has lost little of the sharp mind and boundless energy I remember from when we were much younger. She is also what you would call a person of imposing appearance, tall and perhaps a bit on the zaftig side—a well-endowed lady you might say—and I am sure she was quite a pretty young woman in her time. But now she was looking anything but energetic or imposing, and on her face was a combination of concern and annoyance that I had seldom if ever seen. “Oy vey,” she said when she reached me and sat down heavily. “This I need like I need a loch in kop—a hole in the head!”

  5

  Mrs. K looked very much like she needed a nice cup of tea. In fact, she looked like she needed something a lot stronger than tea, although I know that she rarely has even a schnapps after dinner, much less anything more potent. I got her a cup of strong tea, and one for me, and after a few sips she sighed, took my hand in hers, and said to me, “Let me tell you what they said. You won’t believe it.” But of course I would believe anything Mrs. K tells me—in the more than twenty years we have known each other we have been through some pretty unbelievable adventures that I am quite certain really happened. “So tell me already,” I replied. And she did.

  “After we went into Pupik’s office, he indicated I should sit down at that round table he has in the outer room. So I sat down, and he and Menschyk sat opposite me.”

  “It sounds like it was two against one,” I commented. “I wish I had been there to sit next to you.”

  “I wish you were too, Ida, but you heard what they said when I asked.”

  “Yes. So what happened then?”

  “Well, first off they showed me a diamond earring, which I recognized as one of Daisy Goldfarb’s earrings—you know, the ones her son Barry bought her last year for her seventy-fifth birthday and she loves to show off whenever she has the chance. They asked me if I recognized it, and of course I do and I say so. This seemed to be news to them, because Pupik made a note on a pad he was holding. So then I asked them what this is about and what happened to Mrs. Finkelstein and what Daisy’s earring has to do with it, and they te
ll me—well, Pupik tells me—that Bertha did not have a heart attack, like we all assumed, and she did not drown in her soup, and she was not poisoned by it (thanks be to God). I mean, that someone should have died from something I cooked, even to think such a terrible thing…”

  “Nu, so what did she die from?” I prompted Mrs. K, for I was getting quite anxious to hear and Mrs. K was getting all worked up and taking her time getting to the point. All of which was unlike her.

  “I am coming to that,” she replied, after sipping some tea and regaining her composure. “So, Pupik, he says that when Dr. Menschyk examined the body, something did not look right to him. It did not look like Bertha had a heart attack. He is a smart man, Menschyk, and he does not miss much. So this he told to Pupik, and to make short a long story, it turns out that Bertha—what is the fancy term?—‘aspirated,’ I think it is, a ‘foreign object.’ In other words, she choked to death on something.”

  I did not understand. “She choked on something? But if Bertha was choking, wouldn’t we have heard her? Wouldn’t someone have noticed? Given her the what-do-you-call-it, the Heinrich Maneuver?”

  Mrs. K smiled and shook her head. “I think you mean ‘Heimlich.’ No, apparently it happened at about the time when Mary knocked over those dishes. Not only did the commotion drown out any sounds Bertha may have made, but everyone’s attention was on what was happening in the front of the dining room, and not on what was happening in the back corner.”

  This seemed to make some sense. If it was true, Bertha had chosen an unfortunate time to choke. They are right when they say timing is everything.

  “So what happened next?” I was anxious to get to the part that had so upset Mrs. K. So far it was a sad story, but no more than it was when we were thinking Bertha had had a heart attack.

  “What happened next is Pupik then holds up Daisy’s earring again and he says, ‘She choked on this earring, which we believe was in the soup or one of the matzoh balls. Your soup or one of your matzoh balls’—he emphasizes the ‘your’—and then he puts it down and he just looks at me, and they both look at me, as if I could explain how this could happen. But I am just trying to take in what they said, and I am having a lot of trouble in the taking.”

  Mrs. K paused to sip some more tea, and to sigh, and to sip some more tea. I was more patient now, because I was also trying to take in what she had said, and it was not easy. I could remember how proudly Daisy Goldfarb showed off those earrings to all of us at dinner after we sang “Happy Birthday” to her. I must admit some of us were just a bissel jealous of her; in fact I think it was Bertha Finkelstein herself who remarked to me that she wished she had earrings like those. And I am thinking how ironic it is that Bertha, who never had or could afford fancy earrings, did get one of them after all, in a meshugge sort of way. They say be careful what you wish for.

  “Mr. Pupik,” Mrs. K finally continued, “he asked me if I could explain how one of Daisy Goldfarb’s diamond earrings came to be in my matzoh ball soup. Well, of course I cannot explain it, I don’t even believe it, but he seemed to be convinced of it.”

  “That Pupik would believe the worst of anyone,” I replied. “Why someone who seems not to like people would take a job like his I cannot imagine. But did you ask him how Bertha Finkelstein could have an earring in her soup and not notice?”

  “Actually, I was going to ask just that question, but Menschyk, he beat me to it. He pointed out that being diamonds, and not very big ones at that, they would not necessarily show up if dropped into soup or concealed in a matzoh ball; and Pupik adds that poor Bertha had bad eyesight.”

  “Hmmm. I suppose…”

  “Anyway, at that point I asked them if that is all they want. Pupik looked at Menschyk and then says, ‘Yes, for the moment,’ whatever that means, and while I was standing up, Pupik asked me, very politely mind you, ‘By the way, Mrs. Kaplan, do you happen to know where the other earring is that matches this one?’ I was in no mood to play guessing games, so I replied, ‘No, where?’ Maybe he was going to tell me it was in the gefilte fish. But no, he just says, ‘Thank you, Mrs. Kaplan,’ and he holds the door for me. The interview, he clearly is saying, is over.”

  6

  “So just between you and me and the teacup, Rose,” I said, “what do you think happened? I mean, if Daisy’s earring was really in the soup, how do you suppose it got there?”

  She stared into the cup for a while like she was reading the tea leaves, which maybe she was. Just then Mrs. Bissela, who is a real yenta and inserts herself into everyone’s business, wandered past. You can be sure that if what you say is overheard by Mrs. Bissela, it will be public knowledge before you can say “Sha!” It’s a lot like talking on a party line telephone in the old days, or maybe it’s like saying something on that Facebook thing everyone is talking on lately. (About the Facebook I wouldn’t know, as I am what my son Morty calls a “very low-tech” person, whatever that means.)

  Anyway, Mrs. K immediately changed the subject and inquired, “How is Morty?” As if she didn’t know. But I understood and I answered he was fine, and we went on in this manner until Mrs. Bissela, finding nothing interesting in our conversation, continued on her way.

  “Nu,” I prompted Mrs. K, “so how do you think the earring got there already?”

  “Well,” she said, “I am trying to think like Sherlock Holmes, whom as you know I admire very much from his books.” And indeed Mrs. K has probably read every story there is about Mr. Sherlock Holmes, some more than once. “So let us look at what we know for certain, and the possibilities about what we do not know.”

  She consulted her little notepad and checked things off as she said them.

  “We know that I won the contest and made the matzoh ball soup,” she said, “and that no one else is allowed in the kitchen when I am making the soup, in order that my recipe will stay a secret.”

  I nod in agreement. “And so what are the possibilities for how the earring enters the soup?”

  “First, and the easiest answer, I could have been wearing it and it fell off my ear while I was making the matzoh balls or the soup.”

  “I suppose…”

  “Only I wasn’t wearing Daisy’s earring, or any other earring, as anyone who saw me knows, so we can eliminate possibility number one.”

  “No possibility number one,” I agreed.

  “The next possibility,” she continued, “is that Daisy’s earring was already in the matzoh meal or the eggs or the onions when I mixed them together. But while I did start with an open box of matzoh meal that I found in the cupboard, and I cannot say I looked inside the box for an earring, like it was a prize from Cracker Jake or whatever it is called, this seems to me unlikely, unless Daisy was using that box before me, and while wearing her earrings.”

  “And we both know,” I said, “that Daisy has not cooked anything more complicated than water for tea since she got here, and if she did she certainly would not be wearing those precious earrings of hers, which she wears only when she is all dressed up and wants to show them off. To whom would she show them in the kitchen, the man on the Quaker Oats box?”

  “Exactly. So what is left? I suppose it is possible—just barely possible—that the earring fell into the soup as it was being served. But I don’t remember whether Daisy was wearing those earrings at the seder, and if she was I don’t think she was wandering around looking into soup bowls and dropping her earrings into them.”

  I had to agree with this also. “So where does that leave us?”

  “I don’t know about you, Ida, but it is leaving me with such a headache, I cannot think any longer. I am going to bed.”

  And that is exactly what she did. With no further information being available, I did the same.

  7

  Things got much more complicated the next morning. Mrs. Kaplan and I were just finishing our breakfast—a little yogurt and some fruit for me, an egg and some matzoh for her—and still trying to imagine how that earring ended up choking Mr
s. Finkelstein, when two men we had never seen before entered the room. One of them was tall and good-looking and built like that nice Inspector Dalgliesh who used to be on television. He had a pleasant, friendly expression on his face, like he was glad to be here and was just looking around in case his mother might want to move to such a place sometime. The other looked more like that Columbo person who also used to be on television—only shorter and needing more ironing, if you know what I mean. He had thinning hair that he apparently forgot to comb and seemed sort of nervous, looking around like he expected someone to jump out at him and say “Boo!” any second. I nudged Mrs. K and indicated she should look in their direction, which she did. Any time a stranger comes in, it is an occasion for wondering who they might be; two strangers—especially two such unusual strangers—required twice the wondering.

  As we watched, short and wrinkled went over to Mrs. Katz, one of the residents, and asked her a question. She pointed in the direction of Mr. Pupik’s office. He nodded to tall and handsome and they both went back there and knocked on Pupik’s door. It opened, they went in, and it was another fifteen minutes before all four of them came out and went into Bertha Finkelstein’s room. Again they closed the door.

  Meanwhile, Mrs. K and I were getting more and more curious as to what this introduction of new characters was all about. “They do not look like doctors, and they do not look like undertakers, and they certainly do not look like they would be Bertha Finkelstein’s relatives,” said Mrs. K as they were closing the apartment door behind them.

  “Who, then, do you think they are?” I asked her. “And what are they doing here?”

  “I don’t know, Ida,” she said, “but I will bet you bagels to blintzes that we won’t like the answer when we find out.”