by Gaby Koppel
“Oh you know, the pay’s surprisingly good.”
“But what happened to art?”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. Showing off.” I look at him, but he’s still avoiding eye contact.
“Look at me and say that again.”
“No pain, no gain, kiddo,” he says in his Clint Eastwood voice.
“It’s not a joke.” His face drops.
“No it’s not. If we’re serious about getting hitched – and I bloody well am – both of us need to be earning some dough. I don’t think your parents or mine are going to fork out for much of a do.”
The mention of our marriage brings a lump to my throat. I know we’ve announced it to my parents which means it’s real and does exist, but somewhere deep inside I don’t really believe in it. Even forgetting my night of idiocy with Jon, the fact that I’m actually engaged to be married seems like something theoretical and distant, not practical and immediate. It’s an idea that’s still taking shape. I smile in a way that I hope is sphynx-like and mysterious but suspect is more like an uncomfortable grimace. Thankfully Dave doesn’t seem to notice, he’s still on photography.
“So?”
“So, be happy. But not too happy because it hasn’t happened yet.”
We have a pint and a cheese sandwich to celebrate, sitting on the lawn outside the pub.
On the way home, driving along a country lane, Dave suddenly tells me to pull in. Up ahead of us is a picturesque little church. I don’t worry much about this, because it’s what he does. In London, he’s always pointing out interesting bits of architecture and historical whatnots, though he favours industrial features, mostly Victorian. This church is older than that, with ivy growing up one side. All around it, ancient gravestones peep out of the grass at odd angles, like a set of bad teeth.
“This is really cool,” he says. “Come and have a look inside.” According to the inscription on a brass plate, there’s been a church on this site for hundreds of years, though the present building is Georgian. Sunbeams pierce the stained glass windows, reflecting on the airborne motes of dust. He gets his camera out to run off a few shots of the carved ceiling and simple altarpiece. Then he takes my hand.
“Do you fancy getting married here?” Suddenly the whole marriage thing is terribly real. Dave is taking it seriously in a way I didn’t expect him to. Worse than that, it’s all going off in the wrong direction. I should love the fact he’s thought so carefully about it, that he’s taking it seriously for God’s sake, that he wants it to be utterly beautiful. Unfortunately there’s just one thing I can’t stop myself saying.
“But it’s a church.”
“Yes. And I believe it is common practice for people to get married in places of worship.”
“Hold on a second,” I say. “I know we’re not going for the big Jewish thing, with the canopy, stamping on the glass and people shouting ‘Mazel tov’. But getting married in a church is something else completely.”
“Think of it as a location. We don’t want to get married in a register office, do we? A church is the only cool kind of place to get married.”
“I don’t think my parents will be happy about coming to a church to see me married.”
“But these days a church has no religious implications at all,” he insists. “It’s neutral but pretty. Rural, in an inner city kind of way. Romantic in an English kind of way. There’s no such thing as a nice register office. However much they try, there’s always the depressing air of bureaucracy.”
“It’s still a church, though. That means a vicar, hymns, Lord’s Prayer and all that.”
“Nobody takes it seriously. What else is there?”
“A lot of people have a humanist service. We choose prayers that we like, or readings, or poems.”
“That’s a bit Blue Peter isn’t it?” In the pause before he answers, it hits me. This walk in the countryside was his idea. He must have known this church was here. Now the conversation about work strikes me as horribly calculated. He’s played me, priming me to feel good about him, by throwing me a carrot. He’ll drop the artistic pretentions to pay for the wedding. And while I’m feeling grateful to him, he slides in the church business and expects me to fall for it.
“If you think it will be easier,” he says, “let’s talk to the vicar about bringing in some Jewish stuff. Let’s see if we can put together something tailored to our needs but based on the traditional service. With lots of flowers. Ranunculus and gerbera if you like. Bold colours.”
“Hold on a second, not so fast.” My heart is banging in my chest. I should walk out now and tell him the whole thing’s off. He can’t just expect me to go along with this.
“Elizabeth, you are always telling me that you aren’t that religious. You haven’t set foot in a synagogue since we met, and that’s two years ago.”
“We do Passover, w-we always have a Seder – you know that!”
“So once a year, you and your folks sit down for some chicken soup and matzo balls. That doesn’t strike me as reflecting a deep religious commitment, any more than Christmas lunch makes the rest of the country into devout Christians. And if I remember correctly, you trotted home for turkey and all the trimmings with your parents in December – you’re already halfway there.”
“Yes, but it’s a long way from that to getting married in a church.”
“It’s one way of showing your parents that you are your own, separate person. You have to decide, are you going to put them before me?”
“Of course not, but they are dubious about the whole project as it is.”
“Whatever gave you that idea?”
“I just know.”
“And there was me thinking they were warming up. Silly old me.”
“They do like you. You are perfect in every possible way. Except one.”
“Now let me guess – would it be something to do with the kind of toothpaste I use? No, of course, they don’t like my record collection. They are into Acid House, and can’t understand what I see in Wham.” I try not to laugh, and fail. “Elizabeth, you want to marry me, I want to marry you. Can’t we leave your parents out of it? You’re old enough to make your own decisions.”
“I’m terrified they might be right.” I say, looking away. “What if they really do know something about me that I don’t understand myself yet?”
“All they are saying is that they don’t feel entirely happy and relaxed with me, because I’m not like them. I’m not a middle–aged, middle European businessman. Terribly sorry, my dear, but I’m not marrying them, I’m marrying you.”
“I feel like a fraud getting married at all, it’s not for people like me. It’s for girls who believe in the redemptive power of a designer wedding dress and the sanctity of the perfect table setting.”
“There’s no rule that weddings have to come out of a ‘Brides to Be’catalogue. It will be special in the way that we want it to be.” He puts his hands on my shoulders and turns me round so that I am looking directly at him. “Not the way our parents want it to be. It’s about what makes us happy – wearing fur loincloths in a cave if we like.”
“Being married and being happy are not the same thing. Look at my parents.”
“Now who is falling for the glossy magazine view of marriage? Believe me, your parents are happy. That’s what happy looks like. They have loved and supported each other for nearly fifty years. It doesn’t get much better than that.”
“Apart from the times when they want to kill each other, or themselves.”
“For better or for worse, remember?” I’m about to snap back that “better or worse”, far from being universal, comes from the Christian wedding service. But I think better of it.
We look at each other across the sunny, dust-glinting haze of light. And, somehow, I realise that I’ve pretty much agreed to the church. After the ceremony, a liberal minded rabbi will come to the reception to bless our union, but I doubt that will impress my side very much.
Chapte
r 15
As it turns out, we have to call on the rabbi earlier than expected because my father dies of a heart attack during a minor operation to remove piles. Just over a week has passed since we agreed on the wedding venue but we haven’t quite got round to sharing that with my folks when the phone rings and I think it must be Mutti. But it’s a nurse and I think she’s made a terrible mistake. It’s a wrong number. No, she insists. She is very, very sorry. The silent moment stretches out. It’s like when you cut yourself, at first you can’t feel anything but you can see the blood leaching out of your finger and you know that the pain will come.
The nurse is talking to me but I don’t hear her. I’m watching myself holding the receiver to my ear, but I don’t know what the conversation is about. Then, like a television that has come off standby, I re-start. The nurse is concerned about my mother, who is unable to come to the telephone. I’m gripped by a terrible fear about what kind of craziness grief will lead Mutti to, all alone there in the hospital, with no company but the corpse of her husband. Dave takes over. He puts me in the car and drives me down the M4. I am still waiting for the pain when we arrive, and furious with myself for being grateful that this has happened on a weekend. God forbid my father’s death should interfere with my work schedule.
We find Mutti stranded on a taupe sofa, marooned in a sea of fitted carpet, lost in the atrium of what looks like a business hotel. It is actually a private hospital. We discover that Dad decided to rush ahead with the op before his health insurance ran out. He’s been killed by an irrational fear of the NHS and desire for an ensuite room with a la carte menu options. He didn’t even tell me it was happening. When it came to discussing his bottom, he’d turned out to be surprisingly English.
Behind her dark glasses, Aranca looks like a burst balloon that is being kept upright on a stick. I put my arms round her, she doesn’t respond, though I can feel her trembling for a moment before she pulls away. It’s not clear exactly how long she’s been waiting here. She sits back down on the sofa again, and rocks slowly back and forth, like an orphaned child.
When we get home, Mutti goes into her room and shuts the door, leaving us to arrange the funeral. Uncle Bernhard calls. His sympathy soon evaporates. Cremation is not permitted for Jews, he bellows down the phone. I remind him that his brother had very strong views about burial, which he regarded as both primitive and environmentally unsound.
Bernie calls several more times, and gets some of his rabbinical friends to call us too, to dissuade us from the sacrilegious incineration. I tell them it is not a question of whether it is correct in Jewish law to cremate my father, but it is what he wished. They all say that is irrelevant. If his ashes are scattered, where will I go to pay my respects? Where will I say kaddish? I tell them that I don’t know how to say kaddish, I wasn’t planning to start now.
And finally, the predictable, “You are finishing the job that Hitler started.”
“I didn’t kill my father.”
“No, but you’ll shove him in an oven, just like the Nazis.”
On the day of the funeral, flowers are delivered early in the morning, from one of my father’s oldest business associates. Mutti accepts them with an expression of disbelief, then leaves them on the hallway table as if she thinks she can stop death entering the house, if she keeps its floral tributes outside. Soon after, the hearse arrives, followed by a large, shiny black limousine. I see the two vehicles gliding up the road towards us, and drawing to a halt next to the raised flowerbed. A man wearing a fraying black top hat and tailcoat gets out. He processes towards the front door. My mother, who has been subdued for several days, sees all this from the upstairs landing, and starts screaming “O mein Gott, it’s a cortège. Why? Warum? A cortège, a cortège!”
“I’m really sorry”, I scream back at her. “It’s a funeral. What were you expecting? A carnival float?” She looks at me with disdain.
“Not a cortège. Never.”
“But, Mutti,” I say, trying to reason, “it’s what happens.”
“I will not have a dead body at my house,” she shouts. “This is disgusting.”
So I’ve broken her taboo on the paraphernalia of death. It’s here now and banging at the front door. My mother screams and screams. And once we are in the limousine, the stream of bile is unending, as the despicable cortège moves off at walking pace. With us in it.
“You, I blame you for this!” she repeats, and “A cortège, o nein, a cortège”, over and over again on a loop. “Ach nein, nein, nein, I will never forgive you for this, never, never.”
The man in the top hat is marching ceremonial style in front of the hearse, holding a silver-topped black cane to his chest. I’m beginning to panic, wondering if he’s going to process all the way to Thornhill. It’s not that far, but at this pace it will feel like a lifetime. At the end of the road, the convoy halts for the man to step into the passenger seat, continuing on through Rhiwbina village at a dignified speed, calculated to allow people on the pavements to turn and show their respect. They can have no idea what is going on inside the limo. Dave looks desperate.
“Hey”, he says to the driver. “Step on it, will you.” At the roundabout, the limo shoots forward, overtakes the hearse and carries on at breakneck speed past the Deri and up Thornhill Road. We arrive at the crematorium fifteen minutes early so we carry on past and pull up in a layby, for Dave and me to get out and walk along the road for a few minutes clasping hands. It’s a brief respite from Mutti’s onslaught, but as it turns out there is far worse to come.
The crematorium is a squat, eyeless building, brooding on a landscaped plot of regular lawns and symmetrical hedges. As we approach, my eye climbs its industrial-looking chimney. Thank God Bernhard and his frumm friends can’t see this. Sacrilege would be the last thing on their pedantic bloody minds. The place is like a cross between the Auschwitz garden centre and Treblinka town hall. Soon my father will waft up in a big puff of smoke because I was too blinkered to see how wrong it was. Talk about dysfunctional, we can’t even get death right.
Outside the building, several small groups dressed in black huddle together, each waiting their turn on the production line. Familiar faces look towards me, uncertain whether it’s a breach of funeral etiquette to smile. I get out of the car first, to start shaking hands, and turn to see Dave giving Mutti a hand out of the back seat. Her foot catches on the ledge, and she tumbles head first towards the driveway. The chauffeur comes round just in time to catch her by the shoulders. He yanks her up so hard that she stumbles onto her knees with an ungainly crash. Ladders zigzag up her tights in three places.
It’s left to the rabbi to try to maintain decorum while Mutti heckles from the pews, in between the few moments of religious observance. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. My mother should have gone first. She’s the one who does all the drinking and smoking. Why isn’t she paying the price? Dad would have been fine. A bit sad, in a dignified kind of way, but that would pass, with consoling visits to the bridge club. We’d go together to the Science Museum, to discuss the common bonds of technology between Britain and Germany over model engines. He’d bemoan the low status of engineering in this country. In Germany, which he always still thought of as home, he’d be Herr Doktor Inginieur Mueller.
“In this country engineer is nothing. Someone who clears up shit is a ‘sewage engineer’. Same word. The British only know from bankers or barristers. Who respects an engineer?” And the rest of it, about how the word culture is misused nowadays to embrace anything from salt beef to steel drums. How Kultur means Mozart and Goethe. Maybe he’d have a lady friend. And it would have been cool. As long as he didn’t come over with too much information about their sex lives.
He’d take an interest in my work. And of course by then I’d be a fully-fledged producer filming abroad for a documentary series on Channel 4. So he’d feel proud of me, as parents are supposed to be. Not worried about his nebbich daughter and her goyishe boyfriend.
But her without
him, that is not possible. Who’s the sewage engineer now? I’m standing here with the frigging mop in my hands. I look at the coffin, resting on the platform at the front of the chapel. He’s finally escaped without having to go to the trouble of taking his stupid powder. Thanks to him, I’ll be looking after Mutti as she gets madder by the day, while my career and marriage plans rot in hell.
By the end of the service, Dave has taken the prayer book from my limp hands. The coffin starts moving towards the end of the dais, as if it can’t get out of there fast enough. Mutti watches, with a sudden expression of lucidity. Just before the coffin disappears behind the curtain, she gets to her feet. Behind her, some of the other mourners stand too, in respect. Her shoulders heave, her face crumples, and she bellows at the top of her voice, “You old bastard. I hate you.” There’s a shocked silence, as Dave takes her arm in his and marches her out of the chapel, as fast as decency will allow.
We have invited everybody back to the house for a cup of tea and a piece of cake. Not the mouth-watering plum kuchen, but a less delicious chocolate marble loaf cake, made by me for the occasion. Although I have followed her recipe to the letter, I cannot replicate the soft, delicate texture of my mother’s baking. She’s not there to criticise it though, as she has taken refuge in unconsciousness. Leaving me to make small talk with the rabbi.