Joshua Then and Now

by Mordecai Richler

  “Yes, I’m sure. And did you know that Bea Rosen’s dead?”

  No, he didn’t.

  “Cancer of the uterus. Last May. She left three children. The youngest’s autistic.”

  “Hey, Yossel, you’re a real barrel of fun, aren’t you? How old are you now?”

  “Forty-seven. Same as you.”

  “What’s wrong with your back?”

  “Nothing. A disc.”

  “I’ve got stretch marks on my ass now. I thought that only happened to women.”

  “Oy vey, Joshua, what a wreck you are. Do you always drink like this?”

  “We’ve got to start taking care, Yossel. These are dangerous times for our old bunch. Forty-seven. Shit. I don’t care for what’s happening to us.”

  A perplexed Yossel suddenly regarded Joshua with something like real alarm. “What did he tell you, that blabbermouth?”

  “Who?”

  “Moish.”

  Moish had to be Morty Zipper, who had sat two rows away from him in Room 42 and was now his physician. “I didn’t even know you were one of his patients.”

  Yossel rubbed his tired eyes.

  “I thought you said it was only a disc.”

  Sighing, he allowed, “Recently I also suffer from shortness of breath after I have enjoyed intercourse.”

  Joshua couldn’t help himself. He giggled.

  “Laugh,” Yossel said. “Feel free.”

  “With everybody, or only with your wife?”

  “Oh, clever! Witty! Noel Coward must be spinning with envy in his grave. I’ll have you know that Bessie and I,” he said tightly, “have always had a one-on-one relationship.”

  Now Joshua was laughing out loud. Without restraint. “Oh, my God,” he said, “don’t tell me that you married Bessie Orbach?”

  “I am happy to be able to answer that in the affirmative.”

  Quaking again, scooping tears out of the corners of his eyes, Joshua said, “I took her out once. Outremont. Her father was a dentist. A poor loser. Her mother used to cover the sofas with plastic. You necked with her, it stuck to your back.”

  “Big talker, you never touched her.”

  “Aw, come on, Yossel, everybody in the Maccabees had their innings with Bessie.”

  “The hell they did, and anyway you struck out at the plate. Looking.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “You think you’re really something, don’t you, Joshua, and that the rest of us are fools? You, and the others in that idiotic Mackenzie King Memorial Society. Well, let me enlighten you. Your spurious articles may have won you some kind of reputation outside of the country, but we know who you are. I remember your father’s picture on the front page of the Herald – wearing handcuffs. I was at your bar-mitzvah, and I still remember what happened there. We know you and what you come from. And I’ve got news for you. Bessie told me about her one date with the great Mr. Shapiro. Pretending to be a McGill student. Calling yourself Robert Jordan. She thought you were pathetic, that’s what.”

  Remembering, Joshua blushed.

  “She dines out on that one to this day,” Yossel continued.

  “I remember,” Joshua said in a faltering voice, “that her mother also left cellophane on the lampshades. As a matter of interest, does Bessie –”

  “My Bessie is an exemplary homemaker.”

  “But a wanton, eh, Yossel? I mean, she leaves you breathless,” he said, erupting in laughter again. Forced laughter this time.

  “My marriage works wonderfully well. But your wife is in the hospital, isn’t she?”

  Joshua didn’t say a word.

  “I’m sorry,” Yossel said, retreating.

  Joshua took out a pack of cigarettes and broke the cellophane. Then he fished into one pocket after another for a match, refusing the lighter Yossel held out to him. Finally he lighted up, dropping the spent match on the carpet. Then he shot Yossel his most pitying look. “I didn’t want to say anything, but Moish is worried about your heart.”

  “You’re lying through your teeth.”

  “I wish I were.”

  “Sit here and I’ll phone him.”

  “But you don’t understand. He won’t say a word to you.”

  “Liar, liar, liar.”

  “Overexcitement’s bad for you. He won’t say anything because he doesn’t want you popping right in the middle of a one-on-one with Bessie. See you around, Yossel.”

  That was in February, only a week after Pauline had entered the hospital.

  Disgruntled, agitated, but absolutely unable to contend with his bunch at The King’s Arms, Joshua wandered all the way down to St. Denis Street after quitting Yossel’s office. The first bar he came to was called Chez O’Neil. Chrome everywhere. Plastic plants, the leaves dusty. Above crossed Québécois flags, a poster of René Lévesque. Un vrai chef. The imitation-brick walls were plastered with posters of local vedettes. Pauline Julien, Gilles Vigneault, Yvan Deschamps. The new Trinity. Joshua found some solace in a double Scotch, he ordered another, and then he phoned Morty Zipper’s office. “Shame on you. I hear you talk about your patients outside of office hours.”

  “Sure. But only the juicier cases. I tell everybody I’m treating you for syph.”

  “Did you know that Yossel Kugelman was at the Royal Vic?”

  “Yes. Certainly. He’s called me twice in the last hour.”

  “Of course he has. You’re worried about his heart.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes indeed. Now tell me how good he is at his suspect trade.”

  “There are patients who swear by him.”

  “He wears elevator heels. There’s a fucking golf trophy in his office. And he’s married to Bessie Orbach. Remember Bessie?”

  “Hubba hubba.”

  “Would you trust him to take care of your wife?”

  “Yes. No. Maybe.”

  “I want you to tell me if there’s anything wrong with me that I don’t know about.”

  “The way you carry on, your liver should be bloated to twice its normal size. But so far, so good. Now, if you don’t mind –”

  “Wait. Hold it. Remember Bea Rosen’s sweet-sixteen party? We were all there. Pratt Avenue.”

  “Her father kept zipping down to the basement to make sure we hadn’t dimmed the lights.”

  “Yeah. Right.”

  “O.K. I was there.”

  “Now I want you to think carefully. This is important. Didn’t Yossel turn up wearing a fedora?”

  “I’ve got a patient waiting, Josh.”

  “There was a sort of brush nipped into the band. Multicolored. Like a fishing fly.”

  “Call me at home tonight. Goodbye, Josh.”

  5

  “WELL, YEAH. RIGHT. YOU KNOW WHAT THESE DAYS ARE?”

  “Cold.”

  “No, no. Anybody knows that. If you’re Jewish, but.”

  “Colder.”

  “Oh, very funny. Ha ha.”

  “What then, Daddy?”

  “These are the Days of Awe. Tomorrow is Rosh Hashonna, our new year, and like a week later it’s Yom Kippur, when if you shit on anybody during the year you got a legal right to repent. And God forgives you. We’re going to the synagogue in the morning, you know.”

  “Aw, Daddy.”

  “Aw, Daddy, nothing. We’re going for once. It’s only proper, Josh. We’re Hebes, you and me, and don’t you forget it.”

  Joshua and his father were sitting together in the backyard. On a clammy October morning in 1946, the sky a shimmering blue, the swirling leaves already slick with frost. His father had asked him to help put up the double windows. But once Joshua had followed him into the rotting gray shed to help sort them out, he produced a quart of Labatt’s ale and two glasses and invited him to continue out into the yard. They settled down together on a squishy old sofa, long abandoned, bleeding stuffing where it had once been slashed with razors or where the rats had gnawed into it.

  “How old are you now?”

  “Fifte
en.”

  “Already? Well, yeah. Right. It’s certainly time we talked.”

  “About what?” Joshua asked.

  Reuben shot him his most solemn look. “About fucking, and the Jewish tradition.”

  “In that order?”

  “Don’t get smart with me or I’ll land you a good one.”

  “Aw, Daddy, you never hit me once.”

  “Well, I shoulda, maybe. You shouldn’t be talking about quitting school, it’s a shame.”

  His father was fidgety, embarrassed, and in his hand, Joshua saw, he now held a Bible. The real thing. The King James Version. His copy had markers sticking out here, there, and everywhere.

  “Hey, Daddy, don’t tell me you’ve been reading that.”

  “Why not?” he replied, indignant.

  Joshua slapped his cheek and whistled.

  “Listen here,” his father said, “let’s not get excited. There’s no need for you to lose your temper. Tell me, you really want to be a newspaperman, or is it just that, you know, like you once thought you’d be a ball player?”

  “Well, yeah. I dunno. A sportswriter, maybe.”

  “Sportswriters are drunks. They’re bums, every one of them,” Reuben said, remembering old grievances.

  “I could be different, but.”

  “Let me tell you something,” his father said, brandishing his Bible with enthusiasm, “this thing here is just filled with book titles and savvy sayings. I mean, I used to think, you were a writer you had to make things up out of your own head, but you’d be surprised how many of their titles and sayings were swiped out of this one here, and there’s plenty left, so you could do a lot worse than –”

  “Why don’t we talk about fucking first?”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “Me? Nothing. You’re the one who brought it up.”

  “Yeah, well. Right. You know how it’s done?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You do?”

  “You’re goddamn right I do.”

  “Have you done it with anybody yet?”

  “No.”

  “O.K., that’s it.”

  “What do you mean, that’s it?”

  “If you know how, eventually you’ll get some. It figures. What more do you want me to say?”

  “Don’t I get any useful instructions?”

  “We’re not going to talk dirty out here, you understand?”

  “Don’t shout at me. I didn’t bring up the subject.”

  “You don’t do it the night before a fight, it drains you, that’s what Al Weill always used to say.”

  “I’m not going to be a fighter.”

  “Look, there are more important things in the world than fucking.” His father cracked his knuckles. “I shoulda seen that you had a stricter upbringing.”

  “How do I get some?”

  “I’m not a pimp, for Christsake.” His father topped up their glasses with more Labatt’s. “You see all those pimples you got on your face?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “Don’t worry. They’re going to clear up. You’ll be left with little holes in your cheeks here and there, but what the hell.”

  “You mean fucking drains you, but it’s good for pimples?”

  “Goddamn it, Josh, I don’t know how we got into this!”

  “You started it.”

  Lowering his voice to a whisper, his father said, “You are invited into a lady’s boudoir, well, if you’re a gentleman the first thing you do is take off your hat.”

  “Is that how you get it going?”

  “You fold your trousers neat, see, and you’re wearing clean socks, that’s important, and if you got your wallet with you, you keep it under your pillow. You got that?”

  Joshua nodded.

  “And I want you to be wearing fresh underwear. No skid marks. But even so you wash up good first, if only as an example to her, because sometimes they can be real smelly down there.”

  “Down where?”

  “We’re not going to talk dirty.”

  “You said ‘down there,’ not me.”

  “I want to teach you about the etiquette of the matter, not the actual doing of it.”

  “Some help.”

  “All right. O.K. You know what this is?” he asked, blushing a little as he thrust a three-pack of Sheiks at him.

  “Yeah,” Joshua said, smirking.

  “As soon as your dick gets stiff, you roll one on. Don’t forget that.”

  “And then what?”

  “Why don’t you read a book on the subject and leave me alone?”

  “You’re my father, but.”

  “Yeah, right. Well afterwards –”

  “Afterwards?”

  “Yeah, afterwards, you remember to wash up, using soap and hot water. But if, say, a couple of weeks later it hurts you to piss or it’s coming out the wrong color you go right to the doctor, you don’t wait. Got that?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, that’s it. Good luck.”

  “Aw, come on, Daddy.”

  Grudgingly, his father came to a decision. He dipped into his inside jacket pocket and unfolded a sheet obviously torn from a medical book. “I’ve been to the library on your behalf,” he said, shoving the page at him. “That’s what it looks like close up.”

  “What?”

  “Her thing, that’s what! The snatch.”

  Joshua groaned; it looked so uninviting.

  “You must understand,” his father said with some tenderness, “that this is merely a scientific diagram. A map, like.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Look, if I showed you a relief map of the Rockies, in black and white, you think you’d be impressed?”

  His father had once fought in Calgary. Another time at a smoker in the Banff Springs Hotel. He adored the mountains.

  “Well,” Joshua began.

  “You see this little thing right here?”

  He nodded.

  “You diddle it with your finger, they really like it, they begin to purr.”

  “No shit?”

  “You’d be surprised,” he said, grinning fondly. “But afterwards,” he added, turning solemn again, “you wash your hands with soap and hot water before you touch your face.”

  “There seems to be an awful lot of washing up involved, Daddy.”

  “You can’t be too careful these days.” Then he sighed, relieved, and turned to the Bible. “How many commandments are there?”

  “Ten.”

  “Yeah, well. Right, right. Now, can you recite them to me?”

  “Aw, come on, Daddy.”

  “But you could the batting order of the Royals. Or the Dodgers. With the averages.”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ve got to have these educational talks more often, or you’ll grow up a jerk like me.”

  “I don’t think you’re a jerk,” Joshua said, appalled.

  “Well, yeah,” his father said, pleased, “but what do you know?”

  “I’d certainly like to know more about fucking.”

  “Well, it’s a big subject and it’s best to pace yourself, taking it round by round. I mean, we’ve made a good start, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Good. Now listen to this,” he said, opening the Bible at one of his markers. “Quote, And God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, unquote. Now when you read the whole book, which I fully expect you to do, you will understand that the Hebes were in Egypt like for generations. In those olden times they were not yet into the needle trade or scrap or bootlegging or prizefighting or whatever. They were mostly in construction. Bricks. They were working like niggers and they were not being paid a dime. They were like slaves, in bondage. Got that?”

  “Right.”

  “Quote, Thou shalt have no other gods before me, unquote. You see there were lots of contenders, other gods, mostly no-account idols, bums-of-the-
month, before our God, Jehovah, took the title outright, and made a covenant with our forefathers who he had helped bust out of Egypt. A covenant is a contract. Now, where was I? Oh yeah, quote, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image …” He got as far as “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” stumbling a little, and then, with a burst of speed, went on to: “Quote, Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness –”

  “Can I stop you anywhere?”

  “Sure.”

  “ ‘Thou shalt not steal’?”

  “Listen here,” his father said, “there are ten commandments. Right? Well, it’s like an exam. I mean, you get eight out of ten, you’re just about top of the class, aren’t you? And don’t forget, God was no horse’s ass, and there’s a kicker in the covenant. Like, these are the Days of Awe and all you got to do is repent, even adultery, sincerely, but, and you start with a clean slate in his book of records. God doesn’t keep a sheet on you.”

  “And how does God know if you’re sincere?”

  “Look, I’m no fucking rabbi, you know. I don’t pretend to know everything. You repent, you repent sincere. Got it?”

  “Right.”

  Following the tenth commandment, his father said, “And these being modern times, I would add an eleventh. You interested?”

  “Sure.”

  “Thou shalt pay thy gambling debts.”

  Especially, Joshua thought, if Mr. Colucci was sending Reuben Shapiro round to collect.

  His father, gentle as he was at home, had another life, one Joshua learned about from time to time, but always accidentally. He filled many offices in that life away from home, and in all of them he was not only respected, he was also feared. Among other ventures, his father collected from recalcitrant gamblers on behalf of Sonny Colucci, and it was this, only two weeks earlier, that had inadvertently led to the undoing of Joshua’s first date with an Outremont girl. At fifteen, he was already a washout in the Golden Gloves qualifying bouts but a better-than-average snooker player and, taking his father as his model, a spiffy dresser. The girl’s name was Bessie Orbach and he met her at a “Y” dance. He asked her if she would like to go to a movie on Saturday night, she accepted, and, tricked out in his one-button roll, a hand-painted tie he had borrowed from his father (a full moon shines over Miami Beach, its beams caressing the palms and dappling the water), and trousers that were more than somewhat zoot, he went round to her fieldstone house on Pratt Avenue, only to be greeted by a sniveling, red-eyed Bessie. “I can’t go out with you,” she said.