Bess and Frima

by Alice Rosenthal

  “Does it come with a curse—Moskovitz?

  “You’ve heard it already, you sly man!”

  “No, but I’ve heard about the Ibarra Tiara.”

  “Well, that’s certainly not Borscht Belt.”

  “More like garbanzo soup country.”

  “Frima and Beth should both know better. I don’t know who coined that name for this area, but it always has something demeaning in it—a synonym for lowbrow—you, know, like Borscht-Belt Chopin or Borscht-Belt theater.”

  “I didn’t know. But maybe they were joking as if we were all what Beth calls MOT. She sometimes compliments me by allowing me to be a Member of Our Tribe, though with my background she’s taking a pretty big risk, I’d say. My family like to think they are descended from Torquemada.”

  “I’ll risk it also. As far as I’m concerned, you are MOT.”

  It was clear by the time that Frima and Beth returned that Hannah and Eduardo were pals.

  “And another woman hits the dust,” Beth murmured to Frima.

  Beth had described Eduardo as a very private man, and Frima could believe it. There was a quality—not exactly reserve—but something hidden and unknowable. Yet here, relaxing on vacation, he was quite friendly and engaging, though he was seldom the instigator of social contact. He wears well, this man, she said to herself.

  What really surprised and delighted her was his way with her children. The couple of times that Beth and Frima could drag him away from his books for a swim, he good-naturedly played with them in the water and left the two women to loll on the grassy beach. And even better, he read to them and told them stories, mugging and clowning and making silly noises. By the third day of their visit, Rosalie wanted no one but him to read her storybooks, except at bedtime, when she still wanted Frima. Even Lena, who was quite a good reader herself and proud of it, hung around when Eduardo told stories. She was getting a crush on him.

  “Lena wants to ask you something,” Frima said in a low voice to Eduardo, “but she’s kind of shy about it.”

  “Ask me what?” He smiled at the little girl.

  “Do you have a nickname? I really want a nickname. But Mommy says my name is too short, like hers. Rosalie has a nickname—Daddy calls her Rosie. Aunt Bethie has a nickname—her real name is Bethesda, but it’s silly, so nobody calls here that.” The adults hid their smiles. “And Eduardo—that’s a long name too.” Lena spoke a little breathlessly. “Do your friends call you Eddie? Could we call you that?”

  Eduardo considered this seriously. “Well, I’ll tell you the truth, Lena. If you called me Eddie, I probably wouldn’t answer, because I wouldn’t remember you were talking to me. I’m not used to it. But if you called me Lalo, I’d answer, because that’s what my family calls me.”

  “Lalo—that’s a funny name.”

  “Yes, it is, but it’s a very common nickname for Eduardo in Spanish.

  “Can we call you Lalo?”

  “Yes, But it’s a secret. It’s a silly name, and I don’t want anyone else to know about it.”

  “Does Aunt Bethie call you Lalo?”

  “Sometimes, but only in our house, when no one is around.”

  “But I still don’t have a nickname.”

  “Well, where I come from, people sometimes add ito to a name for a boy or ita to the name of a girl. It’s like a nickname for some one they like. So we would call you Lenita.”

  “Lenita, I like that!” Lena said after thinking about it for half a second.

  “I want to be an ita too!” Rosalie chimed in.

  “How about Rosalita for you?”

  “Yes!”

  Lena was excited, catching on immediately. “So Mommy would be Frimita, and Daddy, Jackito?”

  “Well,” answered Eduardo seriously. “You have to be careful. It’s usually for kids, not for grownups, unless you’re really sure they like it. Some grownups might think it was disrespectful. As if you called your father, Jacky, instead of Daddy. If I were you, I’d just keep these nicknames a secret for now. Just like my nickname. So people don’t think we’re silly.”

  Rosalie looked puzzled, but Lena was satisfied. “Okay, but when we’re alone with you, it will be Aunt Bethie and Uncle Lalo.” Both of them skipped away, excited. “Don’t tell!” they heard Lena warning her sister.

  Eduardo lit a cigarette, his expression blank.

  “My God, Lalito, what have you wrought?” asked Beth, grinning. “Can you see my brother when he hears about Uncle Lalo?”

  “That’s why it’s a secret,” he said soberly and turned to his book, ignoring the simultaneous grins from the ladies.

  Frima had a lot of work that week, as much as she’d ever had at the hotel, but with Beth and Eduardo there, it was truly like a vacation—a family vacation. Beth quickly pitched in with the office work, and with Eduardo entertaining the kids for an hour or so, Frima managed to take a little time each day at the piano. She needed encouragement, even pushing from the others to do this, and it didn’t take her long to realize there was a gentle conspiracy to get her playing and performing again. This conspiracy most obviously did not include her husband, whose name was never mentioned by any of them in connection with her music. She was grateful for that. She wanted no further confrontation with him this summer. As for herself, she was a bit uneasy. What if she was opening a Pandora’s box, stirring up a longing she couldn’t fulfill? Still, after several hours of practice and considerable coaxing, she consented to play for the others. Mozart, the “A Major Sonata,” she thought, though she was a little worried about the scherzo; Chopin, the “Raindrop Prelude.” Also maybe a little Schubert. Beethoven? Not yet. She decided on an informal, unannounced mini-recital for anyone who wanted to listen in the late afternoon on Thursday. She figured it would be a time when there weren’t too many people around.

  Frima assumed that only Mama, Leon, Beth, and Eduardo would be there, but more people gathered, as they stopped to listen for a moment and stayed for more. Mama, Leon, and Eduardo, she noted, were smiling steadily, very pleased. At a pause after the Mozart, Beth slipped away, and Frima wondered about that, until she saw that she quickly returned to a seat behind the others, pad and pencil in hand, and began to sketch her at the instrument. It was all very gratifying.

  Jack returned Friday evening, relieved to be out of the city and finished with the long, hot drive. By the time he’d had a quick swim and a cold beer, he was in good spirits, happy to be back with Frima and the kids. In their excitement at seeing him, the girls forgot momentarily about Uncle Lalo. Dinner was later on Friday nights, so the girls had eaten earlier with the other children. With luck Frima could forestall their saying anything about Eduardo until tomorrow morning. No longer than that, though, because the kids loved to get up very early with Daddy. Meanwhile, her mood remained light, and she would not allow anything to deflate it. The weather had begun to cool deliciously, and she looked forward to a stroll with her husband after dinner and to their nighttime intimacies with the renewed enthusiasm that followed their weekday separation.

  At dinner, Jack was borderline cool to Beth and Eduardo, but inoffensive. Mostly he didn’t talk to them directly if he didn’t have to. He passed the salt if he was asked to, and did so courteously, but with no real interest, as if they were casual acquaintances who happened to be seated at the same table. When Eduardo complimented him on the brightness and charm of his daughters, he graciously thanked him, giving Frima all the credit. He would not be engaged any further. There was naturally a little tension in the atmosphere. Still, Frima was optimistic that no storm would break out.

  “My sister is looking pretty good, I have to admit,” Jack said to Frima as they strolled together down the road after dinner. “She looks downright prosperous, not exactly one of the laboring masses. Those clothes she’s wearing—a bit too look-at-me for a modest hotel, don’t you think? I’ll bet she can’t afford them on her own earnings.”

  “She looks terrific—she has a real flair,” Frima agreed, care
ful to keep any envy out of her voice. It was true that Bethie was doing the most with her striking looks by wearing the bright colors and exotic fabrics she loved. And it was equally true that Eduardo very likely paid for them, but that did not make her a fallen woman. Anyone who knew Beth and was sympathetic to her recognized that her clothes were an expression of her liberation from the repressive, sometimes self-inflicted, admonitions of her youth: you’re too tall, too thin, too awkward, all the don’t-call-attention-to-yourself warnings. However, Frima was not about to encourage Jack’s resentment by talking about this any further. She was still high from her recital, and wanted to maintain the feeling.

  “The kids are looking good, aren’t they?” she commented.

  Jack smiled dryly at her obvious change of subject. “They sure are,” he said.

  Considering how deeply he resented Beth and Eduardo’s arrangement, Frima figured he was doing the best he could.

  By breakfast time the next morning, things were different. “So now there’s an Uncle Lalo in the picture. How sweet! And we have a Lenita and a Rosalita—even Frimita. And my sister, Chiquita Banana? It’s not enough to have charmed the pants off my sister, he has to start on my family.”

  “Oh, come on! You’re making a big deal over nothing. The kids like him—why shouldn’t they? They asked him if they could call him Uncle Lalo. What’s he supposed to say? Now we’ve been having a lovely time here, and you can too, if you’d make an effort. This is the perfect opportunity to bury the hatchet—or at least begin to.” As they walked to the dining room, Frima could almost see Jack silently weighing his options. It reminded her unpleasantly of her father-in-law, whom Beth referred to as the adding machine. Of course, Jack wasn’t crass, and the situation had little to do with money. Still it was a resemblance she didn’t want to contemplate.

  Jack gave a sacrificial sigh. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s have breakfast—one happy family.”

  To their surprise no effort was needed. When they came to the family table, Beth was having a last gulp of coffee, and Eduardo was already out the door. Beth greeted them gaily.

  “We decided at the spur of a moment to drive Leon to Monticello. His car is at the mechanic’s, so we’re dropping him off there and then we’re going on to the Alpine. I’m dying to see the place again. We’ll be back before lunch. Enjoy your privacy a little,” she said, giving Frima a peck on the cheek.

  This was odd. Beth never got up before she had to. For them to be leaving so early, they would have had to arrange it beforehand. Well, everyone looked happy enough, and she had to admit breakfast was more relaxed and cheerful with the others gone.

  CHAPTER 28

  Beth wanted to weep out loud. Her buggy little cabin in the woods was gone. The most beloved place at the Alpine for her, be it ever so humble. Here, she’d enjoyed her first tastes of adult intimacy and freedom and accepted self. Oh, she had wanted Eduardo to see it before anything else. Of course she should have expected this. Everything was changing so fast. She had almost missed the side road leading to the cabin, so transformed was it from a half-hidden dirt path to a macadam road with a discreet painted wooden arrow pointing to the Lodge. This turned out to be a handsome two-story structure with log siding and screened picture windows. Landscaped trees and greenery surrounded it. It would have intimidated any stray mosquito. It certainly intimidated Beth.

  “We’d better drive round to the front of the main entrance. ‘Parking for Lodge guests only,’ it says here. Very fancy-schmancy!”

  “It’s called progress.”

  “I bet Rhubarb wouldn’t even be allowed in here.”

  “Rhubarb?”

  “I never told you about Rhubarb? Well, it was a while ago. He was a dog who adopted me when I worked here. Very comforting and adoring. I could do no wrong according to Rhubarb, who was an old hand around here—a meeter and greeter—one of Max’s mutts, actually.” She peered out at the porch as they drove up to the main entrance. “Speaking of the devil, I believe that’s the man himself. I don’t know if he’s been renovated but he certainly looks prosperous and spruced up.”

  Beth usually found that places revisited always seemed smaller than in memory, but not Max and not the Alpine Song. Everything seemed larger, grander. She wasn’t surprised at the new tennis courts, the renovated pool area, the added cottages, for she’d heard that Max had done well and was expanding the place. But even the unchanged main house and the older cottages gave an impression of development. Everything was newly painted and landscaped, presenting an image of a solid, well-maintained estate. Nothing cheap and postwar looking here; more like old-money suburbia, the kind of community that wouldn’t allow Jews, she thought ironically. She didn’t like it as well as the old place, but she had to hand it to Max; it worked, if you liked that sort of thing. The man who came down from the porch was no longer the lean man in work boots and pants, but a smiling, well-fed proprietor, who would seem quite at home on a golf course in his light tan slacks and striped cotton T-shirt. He had added a few pounds and shed the worry lines on his forehead.

  “Well, well,” he said, coming to greet them. “So this here is Bess! Beth, I understand, according to Hannah Eisner. This is the same young thing that used to have Vincent Migliori, may he rest in peace, hanging around her and also my old dog Rhubarb sniffing at her heels. He’s gone too.”

  “Poor Rhubarb! He wasn’t hit by a car or anything?”

  “Just age, my dear. It happens to the best of us. But look at you! Hannah told me you were, as she says, drop dead gorgeous, and now I see she wasn’t kidding.”

  “You’re looking pretty spiffy yourself,” Beth countered. “Positively prosperous and sleek.”

  “That’s what comes of living and eating at your own hotel,” Max said. “Besides, times are better than before the war. So, are you going to introduce me to your gentleman friend?”

  “Of course. Max Kalish, meet Eduardo Ibarra.”

  “My pleasure,” said Max.

  “And mine.”

  Beth jumped right in, hoping to avoid any of Max’s uncensored questions about their relationship. “You see that interested, curious expression on Eduardo’s face? I call it his interview look. He’s a journalist, you see. And he’s very interested in the Catskill resort country. I’m sure he’d like to hear some of your history here.”

  “I certainly would, if you would do me the honor and can spare the time,” Eduardo added.

  “An hour I can spare. Unless you want to stay for lunch. Can’t? Well, come into my office where it’s quieter. Coffee okay? Hey, Mikey, bring us some fresh coffee from the kitchen and some of that breakfast coffee cake—that’s a good fellow.”

  Max was happy to talk about his history. Eduardo could bring that out in people. Also, Beth realized, her old boss probably didn’t have much audience for this kind of reminiscence.

  “Like the others, I was an immigrant Jew on the Lower East Side, originally from Minsk. But I didn’t want to be a farmer, like Jake Eisner and the others. When did a small farmer ever have a chance in Hell? Only in fairy tales. Me, I started as a cook when I still lived on Rivington Street in Manhattan. Better than being a pants presser in a tenement, like my father, or a peddler with a pushcart. When I got the opportunity for a little land up here, I took it, but I wasn’t going to raise chickens. From the very beginning I liked to think of myself as an innkeeper, even if I was really only a cook in a boardinghouse.

  “My sister was the bookkeeper and the housekeeper when I started to live here. Without her, I never could have survived. In my family she was the educated one, which is unusual. It’s mostly the sons who study, you understand. But she went to classes at the settlement house on the Lower East Side, where she learned about American deportment and culture. The rich ladies taught the girls. For these women, it was like donating to charity. Then she went to night school to learn typing and bookkeeping. She read everything she could get her hands on. Also a couple of summers she was a waitress in Asbury Park, so
she learned about nice manners, how to set a table and fold a fancy napkin. I was a bum until I started working in a delicatessen. There I learned to cook, and I loved it; and I was very interested in food management, I suppose you’d call it.

  “You, know, this was an interesting community in the old days. Everyone worked their heads off. It wasn’t no workers’ paradise, but everyone worked. This place as it grew became my life and my family. I had ambitions. I wanted my Jewish guests to enjoy the luxury of being waited on and catered to like any other Americans at a hotel. They should enjoy a vacation. It’s a fantasy for them, a romance—nothing wrong with that. That’s what I still want to give them.” Max halted and expelled a sigh.

  “Still, some things I don’t want no part of, you know? Like this racetrack they’re gonna build right here in Monticello. Some of the big owners with influence, other hoo-ha businessmen—they try to tell me it’s good for business, brings in more guests, adds revenues to the area, jobs.” Max was getting excited, they could see, and didn’t pause for any response. “Revenues, my foot! Gangsters is what it will bring in! Now, Beth can tell you, people that come here to the hotel, some of them play a lot of cards. But we’re talking about a friendly game. I don’t spy on them, but I don’t take any cut, either. This is not a casino. It’s not like Las Vegas. With a racetrack you get the pros, big casinos coming in. Big-stakes con men—I don’t care, Jews or gentiles—they are out to make their profits off the ordinary guys who come up here for a little break from work, a little relaxation. The little guys always lose—that’s the way it’s supposed to work.” Max stopped talking then, shaking his head, his face somber. Neither of the other two made any immediate comment, but Eduardo who had been scribbling rapidly, looked up from his notepad and smiled at Max pleasantly and steered him in a new direction.

  “You know, I’m intrigued by the name of this place. So many hotels we passed on the road were named for the proprietors, like Grossinger’s or Eisner’s, or for obvious landscape features: The Pines, Green Acres. The Alpine Song—now that’s a lyrical name. How did you decide on this?”