by Alan Cheuse
The funny thing was, although she still believed that she was fighting on, in part, to defend the wrong that he had done against her friend the teacher-painter, she became distracted from the woman herself. Now that the woman was in a way broken, Sadie often turned to other people for amusement. For instance, and this is not just a for instance but I’m just saying it that way, for instance, as if it just happened one among many because I don’t want to sound like the trumpets and kettle drums at the beginning of the last movement of a symphony, for instance, she joined in a campaign that was growing in the city on the part of the group of crazy children called Jews for Justice.
HER FATHER WAS writing a speech.
After all had seemed to have been said and done on the subject of Sadie’s escapade with her mother, after Maby was back in Owl Valley more miserable and stranger than ever, after Peale was back in New York, out of a job, and smoking so much of that stuff that her head was always filled up with the fog of illusions, and after Sadie pretended to settle back with her schoolwork and take up working with clay—and this is important, the part where the outside world begins to break in on the solitude of the immediate family—after my Manny’s takeover of the Boston company became real, he was writing a speech.
He had, you see, his own illusions and delusions, and these were just as bad as those that appeared in the mind of Peale the painter born out of the smoke of that weed, or worse, because they came to him while he was supposedly sane and sober, alert and alive in the middle of the day.
His first delusion, of course, was that his daughter had settled back in school, while in fact she was merely biding her time. The first private delusion then. You got that one? And the second? It seems to be, to me to be, both private and public. Manny, my little boy from the old days, he’s grown so wise and distinguished, and he’s made such a success in taking over one of the oldest companies on the East Coast, that’s suddenly convinced him that he can do something more than merely be big business. From rabbi to big business to what? He’s on the verge, in his mind having already crossed over the line, of stepping into yet another walk of life—diplomacy.
Oi, oi, oi, my Manny, my Manny, from where did all these dreams and fantasies speed out to you? the talking bird? the delusions in the mind? Listen: he had a lot of things going for him—he had, maybe, too much going for him, and so he got carried away. But the fact is he grew and grew, slipping out of one life like a snake from its skin and taking on another, and there he was getting ready to change himself once again, when it all came down on his head.
This is how.
Rick Sommer, that darling grandson of our Mrs. Pinsker, the youth leader who became an assistant dean at Rutgers, he renewed his acquaintance with his old employer when they had to take care of the business of Sadie at the fraternity house.
What could he say at first? He was sorry, very sorry, that any of it took place. And since the former rabbi wanted to keep things quiet he was well pleased to do the same. After some appropriate punishment for the boys involved, of course. All of them were suspended and the fraternity was put on social probation—no parties—for a semester. A few of the boys in the group, none of those directly involved, grumbled a little, but compared to the possibility of a trial for their brothers, they had to admit the punishment wasn’t so bad.
So here is this boy become a dean, one actor in the next-to-last act of this play. A minor actor, like the taxi, like the fire truck, but an important one nonetheless. Him I can see with my eyes closed, a light-haired fellow, handsome, he doesn’t look very . . . you know, blue eyes, neat suits, a nice smile. Who knows what he was doing in his life except studying since he worked as a youth leader, and remember the Purim dance? Maybe he’s engaged to a nice Jewish girl—to a law student or a doctor, maybe. And he’s the kind of fellow who’s very unhappy with the way he had to fix the problem with Sadie, unhappy for everybody all around. Unhappy with what happened to her, unhappy that the boys did this, unhappy with having to punish. College is paradise and he hates to play the snake. And in his cheerful thoughts a few years later he gets an idea, he’s been reading the business section of the Times, following my Manny’s progress with the growing company, with the latest takeover. And the idea he gets, is to have one of the campus organizations invite my Manny to give a talk, and in anticipation of this, Rick Sommer suggests that the school award my Manny an honorary degree. The president, whatever his name, loves the idea, you know, a former rabbi who in his philosophical wisdom becomes a successful East Coast business magnate. What else could better take away the bad taste of the unfortunate incident with Sadie?
And there is another actor involved here, too, a smaller part, I should tell you, but one that makes big waves. Say he’s like the horse that drew the milk wagon. A nice-looking boy, a Jewish boy for sure, since what he did was organize . . . But wait, let’s just say he’s working behind the scenes, and it will come out in a minute when I tell you what he’s doing. He could have been—he was a student there—might have been the same boy, remember him? that Sadie met on the street and who gave her directions, him or one of his roommates, why not? He had a plan. So here, listen.
Rick Sommer invited my Manny to give his speech, and Manny was so proud when he got the invitation. Like a little boy again almost he was. This is what I mean. Even at his highest he was never showing off, just feeling good, wanting his mother to know.
“Can you imagine?” he said to me over the telephone just after he got the call. And when he came home, hours and hours later, over the dinner I fixed for him—I sent home the cook and did it all by myself, like the old days—he was still talking like he was a child again, standing on the roof of the old building, looking out across the rooftops toward the uptown, saying to himself, one day I’m going to own a building like that, like that, the spires in his mind, the glass windows, the towers.
“I have worked hard,” he said.
“Yes, darling.”
“I have worked harder than most men I know.”
“Yes, darling.”
“I studied the Torah as though I had no time left to live.”
“Yes, my darling.”
“And I threw myself into a business I didn’t know and learned as much as any human being.”
“You did it, darling.”
“I have led two full lives where most men they don’t know what it’s like to lead even a full one.”
“Yes, you have. But please eat a little, Manny. It’s getting cold.” There was a veal chop on a plate, with nice spinach I had cooked. And a salad of lettuce and tomatoes, this we learned to eat over the years. But here is his plate in front of him, his food getting cold, like he was a boy again, and talking about what he wanted, his dreams.
“I helped a few generations of fractured congregations put themselves back together.”
“You did, darling.”
“And I took old man Sporen’s business and I have, with of course the enormous assistance of my brother-in-law, parlayed it into a company that has now the largest holdings in a country greater in size than New Jersey.”
“I’m impressed, my darling. I didn’t know that—bigger than Jersey? That’s big, my darling, that’s big.”
“Mother. Mama. I have accomplished many things . . .”
“Yes?”
“. . . but even this last, the putting together of the package, taking over the holdings down there in the country . . .”
“In the country? In Jersey?”
“In that country down there, Mama. You know the Panama Canal?”
“Sure, I’ve heard of it.”
“Near there, Mama.”
“I’ve heard of it. A big ditch, no?”
“A big ditch, sure. Filled with water from two oceans. After supper I’ll show you on a map.”
“I’ll look at it, I’ll see.”
“I was thinking . . .”
“Yes, darling. Look, there, please eat.”
“I will, Mama. But listen. I was th
inking that I would fly down—organize an inspection tour of our new holdings.”
“A good idea. But you should wear short-sleeved shirts because it’s probably very hot.”
He laughed. When I realized that I had made my little big Manny smile I laughed myself. Why not?
“I’ll remember that, Mama.”
“And you’ll get yourself a lighter suit for a change, Manny.”
“I’ll think about it, Mama. But what I wanted to tell you . . .”
“You’re telling me.”
“I’m telling you, if you’ll let me have a word . . .”
“Take four or five.”
“I’ll do that. Mama, I’ve been invited to give a lecture at Rutgers. Now what do you think of that?”
“I’m impressed. So who invited you?”
And he explained to me the whole thing. Of course it wasn’t until later that he told me how he had in mind inviting mother and daughter, which as it turned out was a mistake bigger even than Jersey. But this again was the little boy in him—he wanted to give his speech in front of his family so that they could puff up their chests in pride. Me, I didn’t need no puffing, let me tell you. And you think Maby did? No, sirree. And Sadie? She puffed—on the funny cigarettes from her friend the painter, ex-teacher, who saw her now and then in Manhattan when she was supposed to be up at the school it was costing my Manny a pretty penny for her to attend.
Believe it or not, he went through with it, and Sadie and the Jews for Justice, they all showed up.
As my Manny saw it, for him it was the high point of his long climb after his first fall, the opening of another part of his life, the first step on a trip toward becoming a part of diplomacy, an ambassador somewhere in the world, and all of this, he was sure, was to come from the way he handled his new holdings. The company he took over had the worst reputation in the world for the way that it treated people down there. People called them everything including slaveholders, and a lot of it must have been true because my Manny went out of his way from the start to explain all the good things he wanted to do to change this. In his mind, he was going to make the business, the fruit and whatever it was down there, work better than ever, and he was going to do it in a way that would make everybody, north and south, feel good. Included in this package of dreams was, of course, the idea that he was going to show Sadie once and for all that he was not the monster she took him for. What he wanted to show Maby, that’s harder to say. I suppose, big man that he was, he was just being a little more sentimental than I expected—his mother I could see he should have around at this time, but the wife who had such trouble and made so much trouble, did she have to be there too? It could have been that deep in his heart—and my Manny, after all, had a good one—he wanted to make a complete picture, the mother, the wife, the daughter, the grandmother who was also his mother, in his hour of greatest success. If everybody in the picture, present person excluded, wasn’t a little crazy, it would have worked. Oh, darling, remember how he talked to you about it? Remember how you wanted to come but didn’t even dare try to sneak in?
“I want to see you,” you said. “I want to see you in action.”
“Impossible,” he said. “I’m bringing Maby, Sarah, and my mother.”
“Bring me.”
“Impossible.”
“I’ll come by myself then. I’ll stand in the crowd.”
“There won’t be a crowd. You’ll stand out.”
“I’ll wear a mask. I’ll paint my face.”
“Then you will stand out.”
“I’ll sit down, I’ll wear a veil.”
“Who is the lady in the black veil in the back row? The mystery lady. Darling, I don’t think so. I don’t.”
“I’ll bring a pen. I’ll sketch you, I’ll make a record for you of your triumph.”
“My triumph. Not a triumph at all. But certainly something very satisfying to me. I wish only . . .”
“What?” you asked him.
“I wish . . .”
“You’re weeping,” you said. You touched a hand to his cheek.
“My . . .”
He was choking on his memory, pouring tears out from his wish.
“What is it, Manny?” you said to him, cradling him in your arms.
“My father . . .”
Of course, like any man feeling always like a little boy, he wanted Jacob to be there to see him, he wanted to pull his spirit up out of the dark where it has rested all these years and put him in a seat in the whatever-it’s-named auditorium and make the speech for him to hear, in front of all the students and teachers for him to see. And if my Jacob might be wondering what’s the problem with the family—with the wife who doesn’t look at the husband, and the daughter who shoots heat from her eyes, like lightning, at the father, and the father, however big a success he is, struggling to hold the family together for just this afternoon—well, he would look and see the success and that would be enough to return with into the dark, into the forever ended, into the black hole where my eyesight stops and the nothing of the rest of the time of things begins.
“Forty-seven!” Manny shouted, pounding his fist against the pillows of your bed. “Forty-seven! Forty-goddamned-seven!” Oi, and how he cursed, for the first time he did this, and you can imagine, well, you saw it in his fiery eyes, in the reddening cheeks, the puffed-up shoulders, the emotion he was feeling. “And I’m like a child! I have this speech to make, and all I really care about is that I could make it in front of my father! I have this company, and all I really care about is that I could show my father what I’ve done! I have this country, I explained it to you, an entire goddamned country almost, and it means nothing to me . . .”
“It means a lot to you,” you interrupted him, stroking his head, stroking.
“No, it means nothing. Nothing, because I cannot have the satisfaction . . .”
“Your mother will be there.”
“No!” And here he pounded again, and doesn’t it strike a little spark of misery into my heart to hear this? Yes, it does, but it is the truth, and that is all I know, sitting here in the dark, that is all that comforts me. So I tell you again, and I listen again as I tell you, and I’m sad as I was when I heard it the first time, but so what else is new? A mother is sad? So a mother is sad. And the sun goes down. And the stars come out, with a moon.
Once more in the night you drew him in, caring for him as I would have had he searched for sleep and comfort in my own arms, if he had become a real little boy again instead of only a man with white hair who felt young and helpless. But he was not truly helpless, as you know, because of what he did with you after you put out the light and took off his clothes, and yours, and cupped his aching sacs in your palms and sluiced his mouth with your tongue, brushed his eyelids shut with lips wet with saliva, and sketched his body for a finished drawing with your own, your own. No, no, what you do in the dark is not your business only when you do it with my son, because at times like these I am with him in his pleasure because of the times I am with him in his pain, we have been that close from the beginning, we will be that close to the end, and though he has ended he will not become an eclipse until my voice goes out like my lights.
Remembering his best and highest moments, I could cheer. Seeing the sheer drop before him I could tear my hair, pull my eyes, yank my fingernails out by the roots and turn my bleeding fingers into tree limbs, burning in brushfires, slaked by the driest winds.
Manny.
My Manny.
Where are you now? With your father? And do you hold his hand pressed to your chest as you did when you were a little boy? And do you glance with admiration at his thick dark beard, hoping for the chance to give it a playful tug? to show him how much you love him? to make him feel the pressure of your presence, your life?
You arrived, my son, in the college town in your long black automobile driven by the man from down there, one of the Spaniards you always had driving for you, and you enjoyed conversing with him in his langua
ge, a little of which you were learning every day, yet another tongue as you had learned English and Hebrew, and now learning the Spanish, a real smart scholar you were, sometimes enjoying more the thrill of learning than using what you learned, I think, and you had with you your wife, who sat silently, hands folded in her lap, in the thrall of the pills that kept her quiet most of her waking days, and you were to meet your daughter here in the hall where you were to speak—she had refused to come down with the two of you in the car, preferring instead to find her own transportation, but that was all right, because you valued her independence now that she seemed to have thrown off the yoke of that vile and vicious creature of a teacher who had caught her up in her plans with even more of a tenacity than the hold the pills had on your wife, her mother . . .
AND IT SEEMED right and fitting that this should be taking place, you in the same dark suit and white hair that you had when you first addressed your first congregation—though the suit now was made of fine wool, but still the same dark shade, black, black, yea the very essence of all the black suits you had worn, and worn out, in your lifetime thus far—and Maby in her light brown suit, a color that didn’t become her hair—she paid little attention to what she wore, although aided by nurses and social workers she had made some effort to look smart and tailored, because of the nature of the occasion . . .
And you, my Manny, as the long black car slid as if on silent wheels onto the campus, could see the crowds of students filing up and down the avenues, and saw the crowds thicken as the car slowed down in its approach to the hall. You had now several years of such appearances, before boards of elders from the thickest stock of the gentile rulers, and that never fazed you. You had years of wrangling with accountants and consultants and specialists, in paper and machinery and oil and gas and heavy construction and ships and now agricultural experts, agronomists, and econometrical engineers of the size equivalent to builders of small cities and growing empires on sea islands and isthmuses, these things you did and I never understood the inner parts of them, how they worked, but then you ate my cooking all these years in your childhood and you never wondered about the recipes, the seasonings, the heat and length of simmering, the time for pickling, the role of fats and oils, and just as you had mastered the study of the laws you mastered the means and methods of these businesses, yea, better yet, you had the impression that you could and would and had and did, and you understood that after all was said and done you still had yourself and your integrity, the ability to make the right decision at the lowest cost in terms of cash and human dignity also, and pleasure, all of these you factored. I never knew how you did it—to me it always seemed you had magical powers. That you could walk into a room full of experts and make them see that you had more expertness than they, more expertise, is that the word? and more insight and foresight and hindsight and sideways and upside down, all the powers in the world. Manny. My Manny. Oi, oi, oi . . .