“The missiles . . .”
“He didn’t look so good. We called an ambulance, just in case.”
Sylvia pushes her way toward the men’s room.
“The missiles . . .”
She is almost to the bathroom door when she hears the wail of a siren. She stops still a moment. Tells herself to breathe.
“The missiles . . .”
The siren is growing closer. Her mother would have her deconstruct the word. Siren. Picture a winged creature, half-woman half-bird, steering sailors toward the rocks. Even at a time like this.
“Count them, for they are our currency.”
But she thinks of a wounded animal instead.
“One missile, two.”
The siren, an electronic aria in the night, is making the crowd edgy. The siren and the poet, a combined frenzy.
“Knock down their shanties,
knock down their towns.
One missile, two, one missile, two.”
A roar goes up from the crowd. Sylvia yanks open the bathroom door and spots Hy lying on his back by the sink. Somebody, perhaps the bartender, has propped up Hy’s head under a couple of bar towels; the string tie is ripped off, his shirt open to the ropy folds of his white neck. As the ambulance pulls up, the siren curling back into itself, Sylvia can hear a slight wheeze coming from Hy as his chest rises and falls. She crouches beside him.
“Hello, beautiful.”
“Are you okay? You in pain?”
“The slight . . . the slightest twinge,” he says, his breathing labored.
A pair of medics in starched white shirts and trousers burst into the bathroom.
“The ambulance is here, Hy.”
“Good. Let them . . . know . . . I’m here.”
“They know, Hy.”
“Thing that dis . . . disappoints me . . .”
“Hmmm?”
“I wanted . . . wanted . . . see you drink a Bloody Mary . . . in a blindfold.”
circumstances
IT’S been three days since President Kennedy’s dire speech to the nation, and the entire world is gripped by the high-stakes standoff: Soviet missiles aimed at the United States as the navy enforces a strict blockade of Cuba. The frenzy of fear seems to have bypassed Sylvia. Or so it seems to Inez, perched in the window seat of Sylvia’s apartment, a hearty bowl of niçoise salad in her lap. As for Inez, she’s fascinated by the prospect of the world ending. And yet, she’s surprised that she’d rather not have it happen anytime soon.
Inez dips a fork into her salad. “So you’re not afraid of this missile thing?”
Sylvia, who’s sitting cross-legged on the floor in a cute pair of pink pedal pushers, shakes her head. “Hy thinks it’s a big bluff.”
“Yes, but what do you think, Sylvia?”
“I tend to agree with Hy. I think it’s a grand game of chicken and, fortunately, everybody’s chicken.”
Inez is tired of hearing about the oddball character from the piano shop. He’s all that Sylvia’s talked about since Inez got here. Now, given his terminal illness, Hy’s ascended to mythical status. Inez thinks about her father-in-law. Jake keeps threatening to bring the old man home to live with them, but she’s hoping Jake will find someplace else for him. The prospect of Isaac Roseman in their house is more frightening than any missiles.
“The thing about Hy,” Sylvia says, holding a forkful of tuna in the air, “the thing that really makes his illness sad, is that he’s so young at heart.”
Young at heart; Inez finds the phrase galling. Perhaps because she’s always felt old at heart. The consequence of being a prodigy rather than a child. She has an old soul, Isaac Roseman once told her father, and it’s our job to cultivate it. Inez blames the process of cultivation, at least in part, for turning her into so separate a creature. After the first charmed years with Jake, Inez became who she’s been for years, a distant woman, a step outside of her own time. The relationship with Sylvia has changed that, but how can she trust that Sylvia is who she says she is, or feels what she claims to feel.
Inez pushes her salad around with a fork.
“I can’t believe Hy’s dying,” Sylvia says.
Inez takes a bite of salad. It’s dry and fishy tasting. What does she expect; it’s tuna.
Sylvia tells Inez about The Blindfold Café, how her boss collapsed there while she was with him. Talking about it brings her close to tears. Inez wonders whether the sentiment is legitimate. Inez climbs off her perch by the window, puts down her salad, and sits cross-legged beside Sylvia on the floor. “I’m not as agile as you are,” Inez says, taking hold of Sylvia’s left hand. What begins as a gesture of comfort quickly turns. Once Sylvia is within her grasp, Inez wants to squeeze her hand. She wants to hurt her, to make a modest impression. Inez is surprised by the force of her grip. She keeps squeezing the hand. Sylvia stares back at her. “You’re hurting me,” she says calmly.
“Sorry.” Inez lets go. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Apparently you did.”
Inez glances at Sylvia, who’s sitting perfectly relaxed, flexing and unflexing her sore hand.
“You’ve fallen in love with me, Inez. And now you’re confused. That’s enough to make any reasonable person angry.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think I do.”
Inez stands and returns to her spot by the window. The street is perfectly quiet now. No cable cars. No pedestrians. Nothing but parked cars. She should force herself to leave, but Sylvia has cast her usual spell. Sylvia pushes her salad aside and massages her palm with the opposite hand. “I’m sorry I’ve talked so much about Hy,” Sylvia says, working her thumb in slow strokes. “I’m upset about his condition.”
“I didn’t realize you were so close to him.”
Sylvia sighs. “I’ve learned a lot from Hy.”
“Like what?”
“You’re not really interested.”
“I just asked you . . .”
“You’re jealous.”
“I’m not jealous.” Inez stands.
“What are you going to do, leave? You crush my hand and then you walk out.”
“Is your hand crushed?”
“No.”
“You have a flair for the dramatic,” Inez says, with satisfaction. Standing, she has more control of the situation. She can walk out of this apartment right now, if she chooses, and leave Sylvia with her “crushed” hand, musing about her dying mentor.
“I don’t want you to leave.”
“Why not?”
“I want to go to bed with you.”
Inez smiles. “You’re a sex fiend.”
“Now who’s being dramatic?”
“Is that the only reason you want me to stay?”
“No. Sit down.”
Inez sits across from Sylvia in the wicker chair. “So tell me what you learned from Hyman.”
“He taught me a way of using my mind to get what I want.”
“Has it worked?”
“Yes, it has,” Sylvia says, her eyes fixed on Inez.
ONCE they go to bed they stay there a long time. Sylvia is even more daring today than usual. Perhaps “the crisis” has filled her with false courage. What, Inez wonders, if the prospect of death, instead of provoking fear, turned everyone into fearless sensualists? What if America turned degenerate, a little like Germany between the wars? “Fatality,” as her stand partner Paul Scaffidi is fond of saying, “can be so ennobling.”
Inez inhales deeply. Despite the scented candles, the room is still gamy with the smell of their lovemaking. How can a woman who’s spent so much time imagining her own death feel such satisfaction? What if pleasure were as habit forming as misery?
Sylvia smiles mischievously and climbs out of bed. “I have a treat for you.”
“What kind of a treat?”
“You stay there.”
Inez watches Sylvia slink off toward the closet. She pitches her voice down an octave. “A
nd now what you’ve all come for. Please welcome, the one, the only—Sylvia Bran!”
“What’s this?”
“I’m going to strip for you,” says Sylvia, behind the closet door.
“But you’re already naked.”
“I was,” says Sylvia. She extends a bare leg into the room.
Inez hardly considers herself a connoisseur of the female body. She’s known her own, she’s getting to know Sylvia’s. As a girl, she’d seen her sister’s body, but Bibi, like her daughter, Anna, was modest.
When Jake began to cheat on her, Inez thought a lot about the female body. What drove men so crazy about this particular formation of flesh? She remembers once wandering through the Rexall on the corner of Sutter and Powell and noticing a couple of men at the magazine rack flipping through girlie magazines. She could see bursts of pink flesh fly by. They flipped through page after page of rosy-nippled breasts and perfectly rounded rumps as if they were skimming through a sample book of floor coverings. These men were all business. Inez kept expecting a lusty grin, a bit of snigger caught in the throat. Occasionally, a guy shifted his weight from one foot to the other, but that seemed to be the sole reflex to the miles of female flesh.
After she’d found all her necessary purchases, Inez circled back to the magazine rack. She picked up a magazine called Nugget. The girls wore tiny bits of fur and satin. They leered at the photographer—an attempt to look sexy. Inez flipped through a few other magazines as methodically as the men. The large breasts—Inez thought of them as boobs as she was standing there—didn’t do a whole lot for her. She was rather taken, though, by the curves that ran, page after page, from waists to full hips. She might have convinced herself that her only interest was aesthetic, that this was little different from flipping through a book of Matisse still lifes, if it wasn’t so clear that the sheer naughtiness of the activity was appealing.
INEZ can see little more than the arms of a red silk kimono as Sylvia begins to show herself from behind the closet door. Sylvia slowly flutters into view, the kimono barely reaching her knees. She does a low, swirling dance like a flower in the Nutcracker. She lets the red kimono slip off one shoulder. She grins at Inez impishly, as if to say, Geez, I don’t know what got into me. Finally, Sylvia halts directly in front of the bed and shimmies, the red kimono sliding to the floor. Inez does her best to honor Sylvia’s moment. “Beautiful,” she says. Sylvia’s small breasts swell above a push-up bra. Her rear end makes a cute package in black panties.
But Inez is alarmed by how girlish and white Sylvia looks. It’s hard for Inez to believe that she’s just performed carnal acts with this woman, who appears more innocent the naughtier she gets. As a con artist, her innocence is clearly her most valuable asset. When Sylvia unclasps her bra and her small breasts bounce freely, Inez becomes aroused. This is how Sylvia wants it.
“Come here,” Inez says.
INEZ considers leaving while Sylvia showers. She could write a short, sweet note and creep away. This has to be the high point in the relationship. A rational woman would know that nothing could get better or less complicated. But Inez decides to call home instead.
The sweet boy answers: “Roseman residence, Joey speaking.”
“My, you have exquisite phone manners. Who taught you those beautiful manners?”
“Hi, Mom.”
“Anna meet you at the corner?”
“Yep.”
“You get some candy?”
“A cherry Tootsie Roll Pop.”
“That sounds good. How’d it go at school today?”
“Okay. Miss Fambrini talked about the Russians. She said that this was a good time to make sure we said our prayers at night. Bobby Kent kept raising his hand and saying, ‘Why, Miss Fambrini? Why should we say our prayers?’ ”
“Did you say prayers in school?”
“No. We memorized a Robert Frost poem today. Miss Fambrini talked a lot about Cubanmissiles. Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“Is Cubanmissiles a country?”
“No, Cuba is a country.”
“I thought maybe Cubanmissile was a country, too.”
Inez’s eyes tear up as she listens to Joey.
“Don’t tell anybody. Okay?”
“Don’t tell anybody what, honey?”
“What I said about Cubanmissiles.”
“I won’t tell anybody. So, what are you doing now?”
“Watching The Three Stooges.”
“Are they silly?”
“They’re really silly, Mom.” He starts laughing and talking so fast he can hardly get the words out. “You know . . . you know Larry? You know the bald one in the middle? I don’t mean the fat one, Curly, he’s bald all over, but Larry, who’s kinda skinny, but bald in the middle of his head.”
“I think I know which one is Larry.”
“You know what happened to him? He fell in a big tub of fat.”
Joey starts to laugh really hard now, thinking about Larry in the vat of Hollywood fat. Inez pictures Joey’s baby teeth as he laughs.
“And then . . . and then you know what he does? He pulls out his hair. And he says: ‘I’m just a victim . . . a victim of circumstancers.’ ”
“Do you know what a victim of circumstancers is?” Inez asks, the dutiful mother, taking every opportunity to offer a lesson.
“No,” Joey says and starts to laugh again. “What is it, Mom?”
“It’s really called circumstances. It means the things that happen to people that they don’t have a lot of choice about.”
“Like big tubs of fat?”
“Exactly.”
“Larry has a lot of circumSTANCES. You should of seen the one . . .”
Joey begins laughing again and pretty soon Inez is laughing with him, laughing at the whole idea of them having a conversation about The Three Stooges and the “Cubanmissiles.” It is the longest telephone conversation that she’s ever had with Joey. Then Joey’s laughter comes to a sudden halt. “I’m going to practice the Dvořák some more, Mom. I’m going to get back to it right away.”
“You don’t have to practice, honey.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Watch The Three Stooges.”
“It’s almost over, Mom; I don’t need to watch the rest. I’ll turn it off.”
“Don’t,” Inez wants to shout into the receiver. She thinks of her son sitting down with his half-sized cello. A seven-year-old with a taste for cartoons and imbeciles. “I don’t think you need to practice any longer.”
“Don’t you think I’m doing any good with the Dvořák?”
“You’re doing great.”
“I know I can get it better. A lot better.”
“That’s not the point. You’re only seven!”
Joey is silent. She’s frightened him.
“Listen, do what you like.”
“Maybe now . . . maybe now that Grandpa’s here . . .”
“Grandpa’s there?” Inez says, confused by what she’s hearing.
“I thought maybe he could help me with the Dvořák.”
“Your grandfather is there?”
“I mean even though he played the violin, I bet he could help me.”
“When did Grandpa get there?”
“This morning.”
“Is your father there?”
“He’s at the store. Getting Grandpa seltzer.”
“Is your sister there?”
He doesn’t answer but screams directly into the receiver: “ANNA, ANNA.”
Inez tries to calm herself, but the idea of Isaac in the house is almost more than she can bear. It’s a temporary arrangement, she tells herself, only temporary.
“Hi, Mom,” Anna sounds bothered to have been called to the phone.
Inez does her best to stay cool. “How are you, kiddo?”
“I’m all right.”
“Any news about the Cuba deal?”
“No.”
Anna has seemed more disturbed by the crisis than Joey, b
ut she isn’t about to reveal anything to her mother.
“I think we’re almost in the pink,” Inez says, unable to resist the urge to offer comfort.
“In the pink?” Anna objects. “I thought the whole deal is that we’re fighting the pinkos.” The poor girl is ensconced in what Jake’s dubbed the “splitting hairs” phase of adolescence.
“I think we’re going to be all right,” Inez says.
“If you say so.”
“Not that I have any expertise. . . .”
“I know, Mom. Joey tell you about Grandpa?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Wow, you sound really excited, Mom.”
“I was surprised it happened today.”
“Dad set him up in the TV room. That means Joey’s going to be in your room all the time now.”
“Why?”
“To watch your TV. Unless you think he’s going to watch The Three Stooges with Grandpa.”
“How does Grandpa look?”
“He can walk and talk and everything. His arm’s all twisted up.”
“His bow arm.”
“I guess. He started yelling at Joey.”
“He what?”
“As soon as Joey got home from school, he made him get out his cello. And when he started playing, Grandpa yelled. What’s the matter, can’t you hear? Don’t you listen to yourself when you play? You’re flat. Can’t you hear?”
“That’s terrible!”
“Dad’s here,” Anna says, and, before she knows it, Jake is on the phone.
“Inez?”
“Did you get him the seltzer?”
“So you heard.”
“Couldn’t you find another place for him?”
“I couldn’t secure a place in a nursing home. I told you there are waiting lists. And the hospital threatened a lawsuit if we didn’t get him out of there.”
“You’re an attorney.”
“Don’t start.”
“I hear he’s already been hollering at Joey.”
“He wasn’t hollering.”
“You’re defending him now?”
“I’m not defending him. Where the hell are you, anyway?”
“At Mafalda’s.” Inez concentrates on sounding casual, odd as it is, sitting half dressed on the bed of someone whom she’s just made love to.
“You’re sure spending a lot of time with Mafalda.”
Beautiful Inez Page 20