by Diana Altman
Joan and I had to come up with words to put on his headstone. We couldn’t say beloved husband. Could we say beloved father? Some of the girls at school had beloved fathers. I saw them walking around the campus comfortably chatting, the energy between them relaxed. I heard them on the phone in the dorm speaking with no strain. Their fathers figured into their conversation, seemed to know just what their daughters were doing. I was always surprised when a friend’s father knew my name. My father didn’t know the names of any of my friends. Beloved brother? But beloved brother alone sounded as if he was never married and had no children. Having just graduated and still being full of Shakespeare sonnets I suggested: Who can say more than this rich praise, that you alone are you.
Uncle Norman was supposed to be in charge of getting those words etched into the gravestone but he phoned and said he didn’t want to be the one who chose the stone, that it was too important and Seymour’s daughters should do it. “You mean you want us to come to Worcester?” I heard Joan say on the phone. When she hung up she said, “Can’t he do anything? I’ve got a whole backlog of color combinations and repeats. I can’t drive five hours to Worcester and five hours back to New York.” We agreed that I’d go by myself once we put the house on the market, because Worcester was only an hour from my apartment in Cambridge. Clement Monroe said he’d deal with the real estate broker so Joan and I left the house forever and went back to our apartments. I wasn’t sorry to say goodbye to that house, though it was a charming house on an ample lot in a leafy neighborhood full of robins and antique stone walls.
On a street in Worcester, I parked my father’s Pontiac. The front yard of the gravestone place was full of gravestones carved in various ways to show customers what was possible: garlands, angels, hearts, Jewish stars, crosses. Uncle Norman was waiting for me inside and said, “Hello, dear,” as I came toward him for the ritual hug that wasn’t a hug. He smelled of peppermint gum which I took to mean he’d had a few before arriving. The salesman, a man in his fifties, told us his family had owned the Monument Company for eighty-five years, that granite needed no maintenance, and that he would stand behind anything we chose to buy. Then he told us the prices, and I chose one that wasn’t cheap and wasn’t expensive. “Have you decided on an epitaph?” he asked Uncle Norman, who looked at me so I handed Uncle Norman the quotation from Shakespeare written on a piece of note paper. He read it, then fished his glasses from his breast pocket and read it again. He stood there with the notepaper in his hand unable to respond, unable to say one word. He seemed dumbfounded. He did not like our choice at all. We hadn’t said beloved, we hadn’t said anything that sounded as if we loved his brother. How could daughters be so cold? Uncle Norman probably thought Seymour was a wonderful father because he gave Joan and me so much, a nice house to grow up in, summer camp where we learned to swim, braces on our teeth, a college education. Seymour had provided us with so much more than he had enjoyed as a child. Nothing was given to Seymour. Everything he had he earned. And everything he earned went toward providing a comfortable life for his daughters. Uncle Norman stood there baffled because he’d just heard from Seymour’s daughters that they thought beloved didn’t apply. Chin on chest, he looked at me from the top of his eyes. “If that’s what you girls want.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
My mother’s letters from Florence didn’t mention Seymour’s death. She couldn’t imagine, so it seemed, that anyone would need consolation for the death of man she found so unlikable. Nor did she seem to understand the difficulties Joan and I faced clearing out his house while somehow not getting fired from our jobs. She wrote about casting her pieces in bronze, how she stood before Michelangelo’s Lamentation over the Dead Christ at the Museo del Opera del Duomo and marveled at how he made marble look like fabric. Each time she went to the Uffizi and saw Botticelli’s Primavera it was as if she’d never seen it before. The paint colors were so vibrant after so many years! As for Fra Angelico’s Annunciation at the Convent of San Marco, she didn’t think there could ever be a more delicate work of art. New paragraph. The Contessa had become frail and was starting to rely on my mother. The housekeeper, also an elderly woman, had gone to Bulgaria to visit her daughter and the Contessa seemed to think Violet should fill in for her. My mother was a tenant, not a servant. Love you so muchy muchy muchy, Mother.
I was surprised that she came home for Joan’s wedding, and she was offended that I was surprised. When I asked why she came home, she said, “It’s the thing to do,” and frowned at me. A mother plans her daughter’s wedding, that’s the rule. I was sorry she had to express her love for Joan in that way instead of just saying she wouldn’t miss her daughter’s wedding for anything in the world. It was her darling daughter whose baby dresses had smocking and who, around the age of six, had changed Violet into a tip toeing tooth fairy.
Joan was engaged to Raf. He’d been married before, to a Macedonian woman who wanted a green card. He was handsome and well-built, taught riding at summer camps when he was younger. I enjoyed riding with him because he was fearless and when we went to a stable outside of the city we galloped flat out. He seemed an odd choice for Joan because they had nothing in common. The love of horses is built in and it wasn’t built into her. What she liked was his blacksmith muscles. She listened to Beethoven, he liked Willy Nelson. She admired Fellini, he loved John Wayne. He had to be outdoors, she liked being indoors at art museums. He was gregarious, she was introverted. They didn’t even laugh at the same jokes. Nor did she share her feelings with him. She told me that she was making dinner and sliced her finger with the knife and ran into the bathroom and closed the door so he wouldn’t hear her crying.
Raf couldn’t keep his hands off of her. Sometimes it was embarrassing how much he hugged and kissed her in public. He just loved her!
I assumed Mother would stay for several months then return to Florence but instead, she rented an apartment on the Upper East Side and got her things out of storage. When I asked why she wasn’t going back she said, “It was time.” I wondered if that meant she was tired of looking after the old Contessa. Or did it mean the Contessa asked her to leave for some reason? Something must have happened because she never mentioned sending her a gift or calling her on the phone or mailing a letter or receiving a letter. She didn’t say one word about the Contessa, though she’d lived on her estate for more than three years.
My mother had changed. Before she went abroad there was a pliable quality about her. Now she exuded a defiant self-assurance. It wasn’t exactly confidence. There was a foot-stamping quality about it, like a child who’s been scolded and stands glaring at you. Whereas before I might look up and hook eyes with her, now it was impossible. Her gaze was sealed, no admittance, doors locked.
Joan was oddly passive about her wedding. It was our mother’s event and it was going to be a smash hit in a room drenched in flowers at the Plaza Hotel. When I asked Joan if she wanted a fancy wedding, she answered, “I don’t care.”
“You mean big or small doesn’t matter, because Daddy can’t walk you down the aisle?”
“No. I mean I don’t care. Let her do what she wants.” Age twenty-six, she stood still for dress fittings, was patient during menu discussions and guest list decisions. Should Joan invite Stevie Barash who lived next door to us in New Rochelle even though Joan hadn’t seen Stevie since high school? Maybe he would never hear about the wedding but if he did would he be hurt? Grandpa Greenstone was paying so might as well include Stevie Barash. “It’s only fair,” Mother said. “Why should Dovey Lee’s children have fancy weddings and mine get skimpy little nothings? Why should Alan’s children have lavish ceremonies? Alan isn’t Dad’s only child.” Grandpa Greenstone paid for a room full of white orchids and a prenuptial dinner of lobster and champagne. Joan’s dress was studded with seed pearls and had a train that bustled out like a flow of white lava.
Joan told me that the night before the wedding, at two in the morning, Uncle Alan phoned her. They were both in rooms at the
Plaza. He seemed to know she’d be awake. He said that if her father were alive he would be the one to reassure her. The jitters were normal. She really had nothing to worry about. He said that he could tell that Raf loved Joan by the way he looked at her. The wedding really had nothing to do with marriage. It was a performance and would soon be over, and then she and Raf could be together with no one interfering. Joan said she did have the jitters and couldn’t believe Uncle Alan knew that.
Uncle Norman in a tuxedo, chin on his black bow tie, was chewing gum to freshen his breath. I imagined he was thinking of his brother’s loss, Seymour unable to see how beautiful Joan looked in her wedding dress, tiny waist, a tiara on her head holding a lace veil, her feet encased in white satin shoes. Uncle Norman’s daughters Claire and Avery were bridesmaids. Claire had graduated high school and was doing office work in one of the Woodbridge factories. She came, step pause, step pause, down the aisle with my cousin Wiley, who, despite his courtly way of escorting her was so full of natural exuberance the contrast was painful. Claire seemed like a blown dandelion puff, lots of little pieces drifting in the air. As maid of honor, I had a job. I had to lift Joan’s veil up from her face so she could take a sip of wine when the time came. I wanted to get an A+ in veil lifting. Maybe the gauzy thing would get stuck on a bobby pin, or I’d pull too hard and it would come off entirely and she’d have to shove it back on and it wouldn’t be centered. The groom was already there standing in his tux, big and handsome.
His elderly parents walked down the aisle together arm in arm, step pause, step pause, then sat in the front row. Uncle Alan walked down the aisle with Grandma Greenstone, who seemed to be getting smaller every year and whose cheeks were bright pink from the ice she’d held to them in front of her mirror. My mother came down the aisle with Grandpa Greenstone, who refused to step pause but walked at his own pace, my mother next to him bravely matching his steps as he surveyed what his money had wrought. He was pleased. This was a shindig to beat all shindigs! They took their seats in the front row on our family’s side of the audience. Long pause, just long enough for us to start getting fidgety, then out it came, the wedding march played by violin, piano, cello, and viola, a quartet from Julliard.
There stood Joan, a vision of loveliness, as they say, standing next to Uncle Norman who seemed a bit greenish but at least had spit out his gum. Visible under Joan’s translucent veil was a smile that others might have thought endearing but I knew to be a grimace. It was horrible having everyone’s eyes on her. They stepped onto the aisle, step pause step pause, then jerked to a standstill. Violet had warned Norman in a stern voice to be careful not to step on Joan’s train. Uncle Norman, in the habit of doing a bad job at everything, did step on Joan’s dress which brought her to an abrupt stop so they had to start all over again matching their pace as they step paused to the altar. Uncle Norman forgot to give his niece a fatherly kiss, hurried to his seat next to my mother who gave him a stony look.
Officiating was Rabbi Slarsky from the Sunday school in New Rochelle where Joan and I learned that Moses said, “Let my people go,” and the Pharaoh said, “No.” Did Rabbi Slarsky remember me? Though my mother was nonobservant, she insisted that Joan and I continue Sunday School until we were confirmed. There was a window in the bathroom on the first floor of the Sunday school. After the teacher took attendance, I excused myself to go to the bathroom and crawled out the window and roamed around the neighborhood. I didn’t know anyone in that part of town. I returned in time to come out the Sunday School door to meet my mother waiting in the car. At the confirmation ceremony, Rabbi Slarsky called my name. I thought he was going to announce that I didn’t deserve to be there. He announced to the congregation that I won the award for perfect attendance.
We came to the part of the wedding ceremony where I had to perform my task. The rabbi said some words about sharing life and declared that the time had come for the couple to seal their contract by each taking a sip from the same goblet. It was a silver goblet with Hebrew letters on it. Joan turned toward me and I lifted the veil and set it back on her head. She turned and faced the rabbi again. The rabbi said that now the bride would take a sip of wine and pass the cup to the groom. He nodded to Joan who put her hand on the goblet stem. That’s all. She didn’t lift the cup. She just stood there with her hand on the cup. Maybe she didn’t hear the rabbi’s instructions. The rabbi whispered it again, but Joan just stood there with her hand on the goblet. Inside my head I said, “Joan, pick up the goblet. Didn’t you hear him? You’re supposed to pick it up.” But she didn’t. She just stood there. Should I give her a poke? The whole room was waiting for the ceremony to continue, for the groom to take a sip then smash a glass under his foot. With the bang of his heel and the sound of the glass crunching to bits everyone would yell, “Mazel tov!” But Joan just stood there with her hand around the stem of the silver goblet. At last, the rabbi put his hand around hers and lifted the goblet and directed it toward her lips. She took a sip and passed it to Raf.
The chairs were cleared away and tables set up for dinner with space for a dance floor. A band started playing. Raf took Joan in his arms and danced her around. He was a good dancer, twirled her around with exuberance despite her extreme self-consciousness. She seemed relieved when the guests stopped watching and started dancing. Now began the interrogating of the younger sister. When was I going to get married? Any prospects? “You’ll be the first to know,” which meant mind your own business. I was embarrassed being single, and worried. Even my roommate was now engaged, which meant I was going to have to find an apartment I could afford on my own or advertise for another roommate and live with a stranger. What if I never found a husband? What if The Great Unknown had chosen me to be barren? I loved children and wanted a baby. But I didn’t envy any of my married friends. It was appalling to me to watch my friend from college stopping her day to cook dinner for her law school husband who sat at the table waiting to be served then commented on how close she had come to pleasing him. “Could be hotter,” he said the night I visited.
After the wedding dinner, when the band was on break and Raf was talking to some friends across the ballroom, I sat down next to Joan. “How come you didn’t pick up the goblet?”
“I couldn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“It wouldn’t budge. It was like asking me to pick up a car.”
“Why? Why did it feel like that?”
“Because Daddy was holding it down. He didn’t want me to seal the contract.”
“Why?”
“He doesn’t like Raf.”
“But he never met Raf.”
“He did tonight.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
When I came from Cambridge to visit, Mother made dinner for Joan and me, and it was always a relief when Raf wasn’t there. His was a big presence. He loved to talk about the Vietnam War, how we shouldn’t have bombed Haiphong, about corruption in Albany, about how Albert DeSalvo was not really the Boston Strangler but just some nut who wanted publicity. He talked about the wonders of Wilt Chamberlain setting an NBA record of forty-one rebounds. He didn’t believe the Warren Commission’s conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was the only one who fired at President Kennedy. Raf believed there was a second gunman, that the mafia was involved and so was Fidel Castro.
It was troubling how quiet Joan became around him. Was that true when she was alone with him? She told me that she’d done a painting in her night class and brought it home and put it on the kitchen table. When Raf got home, he set his briefcase right on top of it, didn’t even notice. I was torn between blaming Raf for being so oblivious and wondering why Joan didn’t say anything. Why, instead of wilting and hurrying into the bedroom, didn’t she say get your briefcase off my painting! They were living in a small apartment near the George Washington bridge close to the school where Raf was principal. He was out at meetings two or three evenings a week. As the principal’s wife, Joan had to go to PTA picnics and basketball games. Raf wanted her to
change her style, stop looking like such a hippie, cut her hair, wear high heels.
“I have to go to Stockbridge again,” Joan said reaching for the porcelain gravy boat we hadn’t seen since it went into storage when Mother moved from Chicago.
“Don’t you like going?”
“Are you kidding? For what they’re paying me, they could at least put me up at the Lion’s Inn. I have to stay in some dinky motel next to the factory. It’s torture. You deliver the design, the guy looks at it, says no problem, then you wait for the printer to come out with the sample and he shows it to you and you have to say are you blind? You think this yellow is the same as that yellow? Open your eyes! Then he goes back to print it again and you sit there forever. He comes out at last, shows you the sample, and it’s like he doesn’t have eyes in his head. Can’t you see there’s too much green in the blue flower? He argues. I say can’t you see that? You can’t see there’s too much green? Where do they get these people?” She poured gravy into a dent in her mashed potatoes.
“Aren’t you flattered that they send you?”
“No. They have to. I’m the only one in the whole place with any color sense.”
Joan’s chair faced a mirror on the wall. “I hate this haircut,” she said. “I’m never going to Remio again. I can’t believe I went back to him. I said to him, just a trim, Remio. Don’t make it too short. He says he knows exactly what I mean. Next thing I know, I’m sitting there with a crew cut. I said, Remio! Look what you’ve done to me! He says with the first washing it’ll curl right up again. So I go home. I’m telling you, I was walking along Seventh Avenue like some kind of criminal. I thought if I meet anyone I know I’ll drop dead. I go down into Penn Station and guess who’s there. Every day I take the train and never see a living soul, and just the day I look like an army recruit who do I see but that Linda Sudhalter person from Carnegie Tech who’s having that one-woman show.” Joan took a spoonful of cranberry sauce. “You know what she told me? She said going to Yale graduate school made all the difference to her. She said she never really took herself seriously as an artist until she went there. She said I should go. I felt like saying, oh, yeah, with what.” Joan paused to nibble the inside of her cheek for a beat or two. “Anyway, there I am talking to her like nothing’s the matter. After a while, I couldn’t help bursting out with, Linda, don’t you notice anything strange? She said, what. I said, my hair! Hasn’t it occurred to you that you’re talking to a person with a weird crew cut? She didn’t even notice. Some artist, huh? I never liked her work anyway.”