Beautiful Inez

by Bart Schneider

  “Where are you going?” Joey asks.

  Inez doesn’t bother to answer.

  “Are you going with Daddy?”

  “No, I have an unexpected rehearsal. Will you help me, Joe?”

  “Sure. Whatcha want me to do?”

  “There’s a couple of fresh loaves of sourdough in the bin. Will you slice one and get the butter out?” Suddenly, she’s ravenous. Her mighty appetite is coming home to roost.

  Going through a loaf of sourdough with Joey is among her happiest times in the house on Thirty-ninth Avenue. There have been times when bread is the only thing she’ll eat for days. Sometimes Anna will join them for the simple feast, but Anna doesn’t approach a loaf with the same fervor. To ensure that both Anna and Joey will spend a little time with her in the kitchen, Inez will splurge occasionally on a little smoked salmon, which they lay with cream cheese atop slices of French bread. Joey was born with a hard heel of bread in his mouth. Inez gave him crusts of bread to teethe on. Jake was afraid baby Joey would choke on the bread. Nonsense, she said. The real issue was that Jake didn’t trust her with Joey, although he’d never come out and say that. She’d been a bad mother, she wouldn’t argue that point, but she’d never set out to purposely harm her son.

  When he was five, Inez showed her son how to hold a serrated knife and safely slice a loaf of French bread. Once, while Joey was handling the bread knife, Jake hollered at her: “Don’t let him play with that knife.” “He’s not playing,” she answered.

  Some Thursdays after matinees, she’ll drive by Larabaru Bakery on Sixth and Balboa and buy a couple of afternoon loaves, still cooling on the racks outside, and when Joey gets home from school, they’ll take turns hacking away at a loaf. Joey sits up on the kitchen counter and, between slices of bread, tells his mother more about his day than Anna has told cumulatively over eight years of school.

  “You want to do the tuna recipe,” Anna asks, “from the dummy cookbook?”

  “Sure, unless you want to find another,” Inez says and bites into her first thick slice of buttered sourdough.

  “No, let’s stick with the dummy.” Anna pulls the red plaid Better Homes and Gardens cookbook off the shelf.

  In the last year, Inez has led Anna through the “Easy Meals” section. Together they’ve mastered “Skillet Spaghetti,” “Fillets Elegante,” “Hurry Seafood Curry,” and “Speedy Chop Suey,” not to mention the tuna casserole. It seems a pathetic legacy to leave a child, but maybe Anna can build on it. Inez considers the sum of what she learned at home about cooking: how to boil an egg. Her sister had done all the cooking. Anytime Inez showed any interest in helping to prepare a dish, Bibi said, “Your job is to practice. I’ll do the cooking.”

  Now, thirty years later, her daughter digs through the pantry shelves for the Star-Kist. Inez anticipates the smell of tuna before a single can is located. She takes another slice of bread and spreads it with as much sweet butter as is decent.

  “Should we try something a little more complicated tonight, Anna?”

  “Like what?”

  At the far counter, Joey starts a chant: “Tuna, tuna, tuna.”

  Inez chews on her bread—she could finish the whole loaf herself— and pours another shot of gin into the 49er glass, tinting it with a splash of lime juice.

  “Why don’t you bring the dummy cookbook over here, Anna? And, Joey, give me another slice.”

  “Wow, Mom, you’d be good in a pie-eating contest.” Joey slides the loaf from Larabaru completely out of its sleeve and starts to wield the bread knife as if he were Zorro.

  “You be careful with that thing.”

  “I’m real careful,” Joey says. “How many more do you want?”

  “Let’s stick to one at a time.”

  After plucking a couple of Star-Kists out of the stack of cans and setting them on the counter, Anna tilts her head sideways, assuming a classic posture of teenage indifference. She strolls toward Inez with the cookbook.

  AS Anna aligns the first can of Star-Kist with the blade of the can opener, Inez stuffs another slice of buttered bread in her mouth as if a glut of sourdough, in all its dark and twisting savoriness, might overwhelm her olfactory sensitivity. It seems to work. Either that, or not even the smell of tuna bothers her anymore. With a crust of bread half in and half out of her mouth, she steers her mind from tuna to lovely Sylvia, whom she’d once thought homely. Sylvia, stuffing her mouth with crumb cake. Sylvia, the impostor.

  WHEN Jake steps in the front door, neither whistling nor calling hello to the house, but hauling his heavy briefcase like a man who believes his work is never done, Inez surprises him with a whiskey sour, in a glass from the set meant for company.

  “Thank you.” Jake grabs the drink as soon as he’s parked his briefcase by the front door. “Aren’t you having one?”

  “No, I’ve already had a gimlet.”

  “Have another.”

  “I already have.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Yes, but not exactly wise—I have an unexpected rehearsal tonight.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know, Eugene Ormandy is guest conducting this week.”

  Jake gives her a skeptical look. “Why didn’t you let me know?”

  “It just came up this morning. Maestro Ormandy isn’t very pleased with ‘the condition of this orchestra.’ ”

  “You could have called,” says Jake, glaring at her.

  “I didn’t think it would matter to you one way or the other.”

  Jake shrugs. She follows him into the living room and watches him collapse onto the sofa with his drink.

  “You look tired, Jake.”

  He knocks a cigarette loose from his pack, kicks off his shoes, and puts his feet up on the coffee table. “I need to talk with you about something.”

  “I can’t now, Jake.”

  Jake takes a large gulp of his drink.

  “I’m going to be late if I don’t run.”

  “You’re making this up,” he says, angry.

  Inez grabs hold of her violin case and faces her husband with a calm, steady look. “I’m not in the habit of lying to you, Jake.” She might have a future as an impostor herself.

  As she shifts out of her pose, Jake says, “We’ve gotta do something about the old man.”

  Inez thinks about her father-in-law, the reports she’s heard of his steady recovery in the past couple of weeks—all but his old bow arm functional. “I can’t talk about that now. Are you hungry? Anna’s making up a tuna casserole.”

  “Cat food,” Jake says and blows a stream of smoke in Inez’s direction.

  “It’s Joey’s favorite.”

  Jake stands and begins to pace. “He has to leave the hospital next week.”

  “What do you mean? The man had a stroke.”

  “Yes, and now he’s getting around in a wheelchair. He’s beginning to walk with a crutch. He’s cursing anybody who gets in his way. Throwing food. They won’t keep him after next week.”

  Inez realizes that she hasn’t seen Isaac since the day he was hospitalized. She’s done her best to forget he exists, which has been her basic strategy toward Isaac for years.

  “We have to move him somewhere,” Jake says.

  “Then move him.”

  “I can’t find a place that will take him. There are waiting lists.”

  Inez stands, impatient. “I told you I can’t talk about this now.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To a rehearsal. Are you deaf?”

  Jake shakes his head. “You never have rehearsals in the evening.”

  “We never have Gene Ormandy.”

  Jake snuffs his cigarette and glares at Inez. “How many gimlets have you had?”

  “Just two.”

  “Two gimlets before rehearsal. Can you drive?”

  “Of course I can drive.”

  “Be careful.”

  “I’m always careful.”

  INEZ, forti
fied by three oversized gimlets, quaffed from a football glass, drives very slowly to The Little Sweden. On her way to the restaurant, the radio is playing, of all things, the overture to Stravinsky’s Petroushka. Does Sylvia now have control of the airwaves? Apparently not, as a sudden news bulletin interrupts the Stravinsky. President Kennedy is speaking to the nation. She likes the sound of his voice, how, even with the absurd accent and patrician diction, he conveys a certain intimacy as he speaks to the masses. But the man seems strangely tense today. Leave one tense man at home and pick up another on the radio. She’d rather hear the rest of the Stravinsky. She switches off the radio and hums the charming, neoclassic theme from Petroushka. The only difficulty with driving after drinking three 49er gimlets is that she’d like to close her eyes as she hums the Stravinsky and imagine the original dancers from the Ballet Russes. Did Nijinsky dance with them at the premiere? She imagines the dancers prancing about the stage in feathery blue and reddish costumes, appearing as odd as creatures dropped from the moon. Why hadn’t she been a dancer?

  Even though she’s tipsy, the fifteen steps down to The Little Sweden are familiar. Had she come here with Jake and the kids? Her father? She spots Sylvia as soon as she steps into the cellar restaurant. It’s Thursday evening, and Sylvia, fetching in the black-and-white getup of a Swedish maid, is, again, right where she said she’d be. She offers her puckish shrug at the sight of Inez and twirls around in a happy circle with three dirty plates balanced in her arms. Not exactly the Ballet Russes, but surely a sight for sore eyes. Inez is soon seated in Sylvia’s section. She remembers sitting at a similar table with Jake, her father, and Bibi. A dozen years ago now? Little Anna at home with a babysitter. Was that the night she realized her father was terminally sad, sitting over his plate of Swedish dumplings, the night she understood that Bibi, more than being a little odd, might be going out of her mind?

  Sylvia comes over to the table and curtsies deeply. It is a lovely gesture, and Inez is tempted to ask her to do it again. Instead, Inez hums the opening notes of “Bye Bye Blackbird.”

  “I was impressed with your piano playing, Sylvia.”

  “Don’t embarrass me.”

  “You’re multitalented.”

  Sylvia blinks her eyes, coquettishly. “Do you think so?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Maybe I should become a journalist and interview you? You’re a famous violinist, aren’t you?”

  “Fame is fleeting.”

  “Don’t be glib.”

  “It is. Just like love.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way,” Sylvia says, holding Inez’s attention with a steady gaze.

  “How would you know?”

  “I’m not talking about fame,” Sylvia says, folding her arms in front of her. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “But you’re an expert on love?”

  “I know some things.”

  Inez offers the Swedish maid a coy smile. “You’re a big talker. It’s all those vocabulary words.”

  “If you only knew. What if I called you my amorósa, Inez?”

  “I might not have any recourse.”

  Sylvia bends down close to Inez and whispers, “Meaning both my lover and my glass of sweet oloroso sherry.”

  “You’re making that up, Sylvia.”

  “Not a word of it.” Sylvia stands up straight. “Shall I bring you an aperitif, or do you already have an appetite?”

  “Actually, I’m half stuffed with bread. My secret addiction. But what do you recommend?”

  “Is this your first time to The Little Sweden?” Sylvia asks primly, the proper waitress.

  “No, I believe I’ve been here before.”

  “Fine, then you know that we’re a Swedish smorgasbord. You fill your plate with whatever you like. We can also grill a nice piece of fish for you, if you’d like.”

  “Yes, and what do you recommend?”

  The cook rings a bell. Sylvia turns an eye toward the kitchen and then back to Inez. “I like the shrimp and the hard cheeses. The dumplings are always good. You might care for some of the salads and the cardamom cake. It reminds me of a wonderful crumb cake I once had.” The cook’s bell rings again. “I’ll be back; somebody’s order of trout is up.”

  Despite all the bread, Inez does have an appetite. Perhaps she’ll have a few dumplings. Now she remembers the night with Jake, her father, and Bibi. The old Swede at The Little Sweden. Her father’s loneliness loomed large that night. He had been a widower for years. She’d never realized how lonely he was. He sat with a plate of dumplings that he barely touched. Jake kept encouraging him to get more food. “Max, get another plate, something you like better—the creamed herring, or the meatballs in lingonberry sauce. The shrimp.”

  Her father shook his head and looked down at his dumplings. “This,” he said, “is sufficient.”

  “Papa knows what’s good for him,” her sister said.

  Bibi, her father’s caretaker, appeared to need somebody to look after her. In the last year Bibi had started acting strange. Always a paragon of hygiene, Bibi had stopped bathing regularly. Her hair was often dirty. Never a churchgoer, she began attending services daily. When Inez spoke with her father about these oddities, he said, “She’s all right; leave her alone.” Which is exactly what she did. Inez had a baby at home; she didn’t need to worry about an eccentric sister.

  That night long ago, Bibi, after eating a neat plate of salads and a few slices of hard cheese, took a ball of brown wool and a pair of knitting needles out of her sewing basket.

  “What are you making, Bibi?” Jake asked her.

  “A pair of socks.”

  “For your father?”

  “No, he has plenty of socks. These,” she said, “are for baby Jesus.”

  Inez looked at her father’s face then. His expression didn’t change. Had he even heard Bibi?

  AS a girl, Inez used to wade out into the ocean with her father. He loved to get out into the saltwater. That’s how he referred to it. Should we take a dip in the saltwater? The only times that she could picture her father as a young man were when she saw him in the ocean. On those warm Sundays, on fall days like this, warmer than most days during a San Francisco summer, they’d leave the car in the shade by Sutro Park and walk down to the beach with a sack full of sandwiches and a bag of towels. Her father seemed a different man from the one who worked all day in his frame shop or drove her to violin lessons. Shall we take a dip? he’d say. Once in a while, they’d go out farther than she could stand. One time, wading out into the ocean, her father let go of her. He hadn’t meant to scare her, but there she was, bobbing in the saltwater beside him. Instead of going down under the waves, she simply bobbed. It seemed a kind of miracle. Her sister was standing on the shore. Bibi wouldn’t go into the ocean. She said it was too cold, too dirty. She said that the jellyfish might bite you or the giant squid could turn you ink-colored for the rest of your life. Inez and her father kept drifting farther out into the ocean. Bibi started waving at them, becoming a little frantic, and Inez—maybe she was ten years old—began to wonder how long they could stay out there before they’d wrinkle up or turn blue, the undertow pulling them under. It was as if she and her father had made a tacit pact—a mutual understanding that they could just as easily give themselves to the saltwater as not. She hasn’t thought about that for a long time—her father and her in the ocean.

  INEZ helps herself to a frightfully large plate of food: the meatballs in lingonberry sauce, chilled shrimp, a small hill of dumplings—the meal her father couldn’t be persuaded to partake of. She adds a healthy wedge of Gouda, a thick slice of black bread, and a scoop of apple pudding that she has the strange desire to eat first. When Sylvia returns, Inez asks for a glass of Wente Grey Riesling. The Riesling was her father’s wine. The man had the lovely habit of keeping a bottle on the floor beside his right foot. A couple of times during the meal, he’d reach down for the long-necked bottle, pull the cork, and refill his glass. A s
mall pleasure in a simple man’s life. Did her father believe it unwholesome to have a bottle of wine on the table as he dined with his two daughters? What had he wanted for his daughters? He never really said. In a sense, Inez had been taken away from him. It’s doubtful he had any desire to raise a prodigy. But here was a girl with extraordinary talent— or so he was told—and he had no choice but to let her be shaped by people who knew better. She used to wish that she’d never been given a violin. That she could have remained her father’s younger daughter, a simpler creature, a happier soul.

  Toward the end of his life, after he closed the shop, Inez would visit him some mornings. Her sister tended to leave the two of them alone. They’d sit quietly at the kitchen table. Once the pleasantries had been dispensed with, there was little to say to each other. Inez had come to think of her father as a man who’d lived his entire life with only a single idea passing through his head. Strangely, she never had a clue what the idea was. She reasoned that a man who’d immigrated from the Old World and fought all the little battles necessary to establish himself in this world was entitled to nurse a single, phantom idea for the rest of his life. Might Inez have been a simpler soul like this? A good mother, perhaps, a decent wife?

  Her father would fold his hands in front of him when she visited and sit ruddy-faced and silent as a plum. Then he’d smile at her.

  “What, Daddy?” she’d say.

  “Nothing, I just like to look at you.”

  What did he see? What did he want to see? She found it hard to sit there and let herself be appreciated. In these moments she’d wonder about her mother. Being born motherless was her natural condition, and she accepted it as such, like somebody else might accept being born blind. But when her father smiled at her, she’d think how if she’d had a mother, then maybe she could have remained a child, at least for the duration of her childhood. What might it have been like to have had a childhood? If she wasn’t so disciplined, she might be crying right now— a forty-year-old woman, tipsy on gimlets and Grey Riesling, sitting alone at her table at The Little Sweden—she’d break down and sob like a child.

  But she has everything under control. She finishes her apple pudding. She’s cleaned her plate. Wouldn’t her father be proud of her? Her father. What would he make of his two daughters now? The older, good daughter who looked after him, the one who was lost after he died, wasting away now in a mental asylum, and the younger, talented one, the beauty, the one he sacrificed for, who hardly had time for him in the end . . . what exactly has become of her?