Barney's Version

by Mordecai Richler

  Immediately we were pronounced man and wife, I kissed the bride, and made straight for the bar. “What’s the score?”

  “Mahovlich went off for cross-checking a couple of minutes ago and Backstrom44 scored. So it’s one–zip, but it’s still early in the first period. They’re missing Beliveau bad,” said the bartender.

  Ill at ease among so many strangers at the Ritz, my mood unspeakable until everything changed. Then and forever. Across the crowded room, as Howard Keel once belted out,45 there stood the most enchanting woman I had ever seen. Long hair black as a raven’s wing, striking blue eyes, ivory skin, slender, wearing a layered blue chiffon cocktail dress, and moving about with the most astonishing grace. Oh, that face of incomparable beauty. Those bare shoulders. My heart ached at the sight of her. “Who is that woman being talked at by Myer Cohen?” I asked Irv.

  “Shame on you. Don’t tell me you’ve only been married for an hour and you’ve already got eyes for another woman.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m curious, that’s all.”

  “I forget her first name,” said Irv, “but I do know that Harry Kastner tried it on with her, maybe a half-hour ago, and whatever she said, it made him turn pale. She’s got a sharp tongue, that one. She lives in Toronto since her parents died.”

  Absolutely exquisite, she stood alone but alert now. Myer Cohen dismissed, another suitor had gone to fetch her a glass of champagne. When she caught me staring, and saw me starting toward her, she averted those blue eyes to die for, retreating, turning her back to join a group that included that bastard Terry McIver. I wasn’t the only one watching. Skinny bony-backed and girdled butterball wives were looking her up and down disapprovingly. Then The Second Mrs. Panofsky was with me, having just finished a dance with Boogie. “Your friend is such a melancholy man, so vulnerable,” she said. “I wish we could do something for him.”

  “There’s nothing to be done.”

  “I think you should go over and talk to your friend McIver. He seems lost here.”

  “Fuck him.”

  “Sh. That’s my grandfather at the table right behind us. Didn’t you invite McIver?”

  “Terry comes to all my weddings.”

  “Oh, nice. Very nice. Why don’t you have another drink? Your father has already had too much, and if he starts on one of his stories my mother will die of shame.”

  “Now tell me who is that woman bloody Gordon Lipschitz is coming on to?”

  “Oh, that one. Forget it, Mr. Love Bucket. You’re not good enough for her. Now will you please do something about your father. Slip this into your pocket.”

  “What is it?”

  “A cheque for five hundred dollars from Lou Singer. I hate to nag, but I think you’ve already had enough to drink.”

  “What do you mean, I’m not good enough for her?”

  “Because if I knew she was going to honour us with her presence, I would have laid out a red carpet. Don’t tell me you find her attractive?”

  “Certainly not, my darling.”

  “I’ll bet she wears a size nine-and-a-half shoe, and even at that it squeezes her toes. Her name’s Miriam Greenberg. We were at McGill together, she had a scholarship, a good thing too because the fees would have been difficult. Her father was a cutter and her mother took in sewing from a dressmaker. She comes on so grand, tell me about it, but she was brought up in one of those cold-water flats on Rachel. My uncle Fred used to own a bunch of them and he said it would have been easier to draw water from a stone than collect the rent from some of those types. They could do a flit in the middle of the night. Sue? There was no point. Uncle Fred adored me. I’m going to kidnap you, he used to say. The fraternity guys wanted Miriam Greenberg to be Winter Carnival Queen. God knows she’s not that attractive, those feet, but it would have been the first time for a Jewish girl. She said no. Miss America was good enough for Bess Myerson, but of course Bess wasn’t, ahem ahem, an intellectual. She didn’t shlep Partisan Review or the New Republic with her to classes, so that everybody could see what she was reading. Yeah, sure. I’ll bet if you checked out her room she also took Cosmopolitan. Some young pianist, nobody ever heard of him, would be making his debut at Moyse Hall, and she would stand there on stage in that same black dress, it couldn’t have cost more than $29.99 off the rack at Eaton’s, turning the pages for him. Big deal. Now she’s moved to Toronto to look for work in radio. Some hope with that voice. Your father’s back at the bar again. He’s talking to Dr. Mendelsohn. Do something.”

  “Miriam Who, did you say?”

  “Greenberg. You want me to introduce you?”

  “No. Let’s dance.”

  “The bartender is trying to catch your eye.”

  “Oh, yeah, I told him if he had any problems to — Excuse me. I won’t be a minute.”

  “First period’s over,” he said, “and we’re now up three–zip. Geoffrion46 and Johnson47 have both scored. Bower looks shaky in their nets.”

  “Yeah, but now they’ll lay back and let the Leafs come to them. Mahovlich or Duff can still do a lot of damage.”

  Wheeling my bride onto the floor, I contrived to lead her in the direction of Miriam, who was dancing with McIver. I came close enough to sniff her subtle scent, memorizing it. A soupçon of Joy applied to her temples, the backs of her knees, and the hem of her skirt, as I would eventually learn. Once, years later, lying in bed with Miriam, emptying my cognac snifter onto her breasts and lapping it up, I said, “You know if you had really, really been intent on entrapping me on my wedding night, you wicked woman, you would not have dabbed yourself with Joy, but in Essence of Smoked Meat. A maddening aphrodisiac, made from spices available in Schwartz’s delicatessen. I’d call it Nectar of Judea and copyright the name.” But on my wedding night, I said, “Excuse me,” to Miriam, having bumped against her, and then The Second Mrs. Panofsky said, “I don’t want to hear you’ve been checking out the latest hockey score with that bartender again. This is our wedding night. It’s insulting.”

  “I won’t do it again,” I lied.

  “Your father has moved to the rabbi’s table. Oh my God,” she said, thrusting me in that direction. But it was already too late. Including the rabbi and his wife, the Hubermans, Jenny Roth, Dr. and Mrs. Mendelsohn, and some others I didn’t know, there were twelve stunned people gathered at the long table, a sodden Izzy Panofsky in full flow. “It was when I was on morality,” he said, “that I learned to appreciate the madams. Parisian ladies some of them, and very nice. There was always from fifteen to twenty-five girls there, and as soon as you came in the madam would open a door and say, ‘Les dames au salon,’ see, and they’d all come in and you pick out who you want.”

  “May I remind you there are ladies present at this table,” said the rabbi in his mellifluous voice.

  “Yeah, so? They all look over twenty-one to me. At least. Only joking, girls. Nobody stayed the night, the turnover was too much, you know what I mean? Some of them whorehouses was elegantly furnished.”

  “Daddy, I’d like to have a word with you.”

  “Clean? Rabbi, you could eat off the floor. And, oh, they had beautiful beds and everything was systematically … you know what I mean? … You get a big pitcher in the room and as soon as you’d come in they wash it for you.”

  “Daddy, my bride is waiting to dance with you.”

  “You’re interrupting.”

  “Excuse me,” said the rabbi’s wife, rising from the table, grudgingly followed by two more ladies.

  “Well, in them days it was a dollar a shot, and the girls had to pay for the soap, for the towel, and by the time she’s finished she’d have to pay to work there half the time. Then they had all kinds of peddlers going in there, Hebes, smart, selling them goods on time. Hey, Doc, didn’t you say your name was Mendelsohn?”

  “Bessie, would you care to dance?”

  “Hold your horses, Doc. Shmul Mendelsohn. We used to call him ‘Grabby,’ because, well, do I have to draw a map?” asked my father,
winking. “The peddler. Was he your old man?”

  “I’m coming,” said Bessie.

  Finally I was able to hoist my father out of his chair and propel him to the bar, where I immediately asked the bartender for the second-period scores.

  “Geoffrion48 popped another one between Bower’s legs and then Bonin8 banged one in.”

  “Hey, that has to be his tenth in the playoffs.”

  “You got it. But when Doug Harvey went off for tripping, Pulford got one back. So now it’s five–two for the good guys.”

  “I thought they’d all be snobby here,” said my father, “but they’re very friendly, it turns out. Boy, am I ever having a good time. What are you laughing at?”

  “Come here,” I said, and I gave Izzy a hug. He wiggled his eyebrows, took my hand and pressed it against the service revolver he wore on his hip. The revolver that would eventually be my ruin. Almost. “I don’t go anywheres naked any more,” he said. “Somebody gives you trouble, you tell me, and I’ll fucken air-condition him.”

  That settled, we laid our glasses on the bar, father and son, and demanded more sustenance. The bartender scratched the back of his head. He winced. “I’m afraid, sir, that your wife and father-in-law were just here and said neither of you was to have any more.”

  My father dug out his wallet and flashed his badge at the bartender. “You’re talking to the law,” he said.

  I leaned over and reached for the nearest bottle of Johnnie Walker Black and poured us both stiff drinks. “Where is that pompous bastard?” I asked.

  “I’m having such a good time,” said my father. “Don’t embarrass me.”

  I found my father-in-law pontificating at a table for eight. “ ‘Lord, what fools we mortals be,’ Shakespeare once wrote, and how right he was, the Bard of Avon. Here we are, gentlemen, gathered together in civil discourse, ruminating on the human condition, our brief passage in this world of woes, exchanging ideas, surrounded by family and old companions. Even as we sit here, consuming the fruits of the vine with commendable restraint, there are some seventeen thousand souls howling in their seats in the Forum, their tiny minds totally engaged by the progress of a little black rubber disc that is being passed up and down the ice, its possession disputed by men who have never read Tolstoy or listened to Beethoven. It’s enough to make you despair of humankind, don’t you think?”

  “Excuse me. There must be some mistake,” I said. “The bartender says you instructed him not to serve my father or me anything more to drink.”

  “It’s no mistake, young man. My daughter is in tears. On her wedding night. And your esteemed father, young man, has deeply upset the rabbi’s wife, and because of him my good friends the Mendelsohns have left early.”

  “Dr. Mendelsohn’s father was a peddler who used to feel up the girls in whorehouses.”

  “So say you. Mrs. Mendelsohn, I’ll have you know, is a Gursky. Somebody should take your father home before he tells more disgusting stories, or falls flat on his face.”

  “If anybody takes my father home, I go with him.”

  “How could you impose such — such — very well, I’ll say it — such hooligans on my family and friends? That young man there,” he said, pointing at McIver seated alone at a table, scribbling, “talks to my guests and then retires to make notes. And that one over there,” he said, indicating Boogie, “was found sitting at a dressing-table in the ladies’ powder room, sucking some substance into his nose with a straw. The ladies’ powder room, mark you.”

  More reproaches followed, but I was no longer listening, for there was Miriam, besieged by admirers again, and I started toward her, beaming foolishly. As the ballroom began to tilt and sway, I gathered my sea legs under me and sailed right over to her, waving off her admirers with a glowing cigar that threatened to do damage. “We haven’t been introduced,” I said.

  “I’ve been remiss. You’re the groom. Mazel tov.”

  “Yeah. Possibly.”

  “I think you had better sit down,” she said, helping me into the nearest chair.

  “You too.”

  “Briefly. It’s late. I understand you’re in television.”

  “Totally Unnecessary Productions.”

  “That’s harsh.”

  “It’s what I call my company.”

  “You don’t,” she said.

  And oh my oh my I had earned a small smile. Oh, the dimple in her cheek. Those blue eyes to die for. Those bare shoulders. “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

  “Like what?”

  “What size shoe do you wear?”

  “Eight. Why?”

  “I get to Toronto often. Could we go out to dinner together one evening?”

  “I think not.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “It’s not a good idea,” she said, attempting to slip away. But I restrained her, grabbing her elbow. “I’ve got two tickets for tomorrow’s flight to Paris in my jacket pocket. Come with me.”

  “Would we pause to wave goodbye to your bride first?”

  “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

  “Your father-in-law is staring at us.”

  “Tuesday we could lunch at the Brasserie Lipp. I’ll rent a car and we’ll drive to Chartres. Have you ever been to Madrid?”

  “No.”

  “We could stop for tapas on those narrow streets running off the Plaza Mayor and order cochinillo asado at Casa Botín.”

  “I’m going to do you a favour and pretend this conversation never took place.”

  “ ‘Come live with me and be my love.’ Please, Miriam.”

  “If I don’t leave now, I could miss my train.”

  “I’ll divorce her as soon as we get back. Anything you want. Just say yes, please. We won’t even take any luggage. We’ll buy everything we need there.”

  “Excuse me,” she said, sliding away, silky things rustling.

  Crushed, I moved over to the table where my father was now holding court, surrounded by enthralled young couples. “Oh, you mean the one on Ontario Street,” he said. “We were right across from it, in Station 4. They was raided from time to time, the whorehouses. So you know you’re working on morality, naturally being a young feller when we went on raids the officer would be downstairs and we’d sneak up, you see, before we’d disturb them, you know what I mean? You want to see a show …”

  Miriam was still in the ballroom, but she had her coat on, chatting with Boogie at the door, handing him something. Then Boogie came to our table, even as my father started on another story, and slipped me a folded piece of paper, which I promptly lowered on to my lap and read under the shelter of the tablecloth:

  Final score. Canadiens 5, Toronto 3. Congratulations.49

  “Boogie,” I said, “I’m in love. For the first time in my life I am truly, seriously, irretrievably in love.”

  Of course I didn’t realize at the time that The Second Mrs. Panofsky was standing directly behind me, and now she embraced me, rocking my head. “And so am I, honey,” she said. “And so am I.”

  With guilt my heart was laden. Yes. But, all the same, I slipped out of the Ritz ballroom a couple of minutes later and got into the first taxi waiting in line outside.

  6

  “Windsor Station, please,” I said to the driver, “and hurry.” I had only minutes to spare, but, shit shit shit, the traffic was being tied up by Stanley Cup merrymakers. Cars, crawling along, honking their horns. Bugles blowing. Drunks, cavorting in the middle of the street, shouting, “We’re number one! We’re number one!”

  My heart thudding, I did manage to get to the station in time to buy a sleeper on the overnight train to Toronto. I found Miriam in the third car, deep into Goodbye, Columbus, and collapsed into the seat beside her, grinning goofily, just as the train jerked to a start. “Hi,” I said.

  “I don’t believe this,” she said, banging her book shut.

  “Neither do I, but here I am.”

  “If you don’t
get off this train when we stop at Montreal West, I will.”

  “I’m in love with you.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t even know me. Montreal West. You or me. Make up your mind right now.”

  “If you get off there, so will I.”

  “How could you do such a thing on your wedding night?”

  “I did.”

  “You’re blind drunk. I’m going to call the conductor.”

  I showed her my ticket.

  “Please, Barney, don’t embarrass me any further. Get off the train at Montreal West.”

  “If I do, will you agree to have dinner with me in Toronto?”

  “No,” she said, leaping up and grabbing a bag from the overhead rack. “Now I’m going to my sleeper and I’m locking the door. Good night.”

  “You’re not being awfully friendly, considering the trouble I’ve gone to.”

  “You’re crazy. Good night.”

  I did stagger off the train at Montreal West,50 and stood on the platform, swaying, watching it chug out of the station. And then, lo and behold, Miriam waved from her window and I could swear she was laughing. My heart soared. Encouraged, I began to run after the train, trying to board it again. I stumbled and fell, ripping my trousers and scraping my kneecap. Outside, I was lucky to find a taxi. “the Ritz,” I said. “Hey, that was some game, eh?”