Getting Old is a Disaster

by Rita Lakin

  Abe turns slightly to them. “Your friend is a very smart woman, is she not?”

  Bella says, “She sure is. She knows about everything.”

  Abe comments, “She even seems very well in-formed about the skeleton they found.”

  “Didn’t it creep you out?” Sophie asks. “Finding out you lived with a dead guy right under you all those years?”

  “Certainly gives one pause,” he answers. “My dear friend Stanley told me he and Gladdy went to Tampa and found out the skeleton wasn’t really that Johnny Blake person. So, I might: assume the trail ends there.”

  Sophie beams. “Not with our bloodhound-dog leader. Even as we speak, she's at the police station with Detective Morrie Langford, Jack’s son. Now they know for sure that the real Johnny Blake is buried in Tampa and she figures someone stole his papers when he was on a boat and then someone must have known the guy and he came to find him...”

  She’s out of breath, so Bella eagerly continues. “And that guy got killed, too. So the way she figures, there are two murdered men. Johnny Blake and the poor guy who became our skeleton.” She grins, proud of being able to remember it all.

  For a moment, there’s silence. Then Abe says, “Yes, your friend is very smart.”

  Bella smiles with satisfaction. “That killer better watch out—our Gladdy’s on his trail.”

  A few minutes later they arrive at the Chinese restaurant where their luncheon meeting is being held. Abe gets out and opens the doors for them. They thank him profusely.

  Sophie and Bella are pleased to see he is watching them walk to the door. Probably to make sure they get safely into the restaurant. “Such a gentleman,” Sophie comments.

  Breakdown

  Darkness outside. Darkness in. From where she lies on her bed, Enya dreams she is tied down. A movie appears on all four of her bedroom walls. Black-and-white. No color. Except for the blood. Shouts she knows well. “Achtung! Rause!”

  The lights from the towers zigzag, splashing grays and sharp whites from one side of the room to the other. She ducks her head to keep them from finding her.

  Schweinhund!

  The dogs bark and bare their slobbery fangs.

  “Vyhlizet!” someone cries out to the others in their filthy shack. Look out!

  Inmates who can still move run quickly. Others barely crawl. Confusion everywhere.

  The boots march relentlessly. “Achtung!” Halt!

  The machine guns chatter. Rat-a-tat. Rat-a-tat.

  Splazit se! Hide!

  Schvat se. Run!

  Nein! Das zaun! The fence!

  Electrfiziertes! Electric!

  Banging.

  Tearing.

  She needs to run. To hit!

  To smash back at them.

  She can’t... She must.

  She closes her eyes. She cannot bear to look into his eyes again.

  She moans.

  She screams.

  Evvie wakens abruptly, hearing the hard knocking on her door. She struggles into her robe and hurries to answer. It’s Denny, looking wild-eyed and frightened. “Something’s wrong with Mrs. Slovak,” he cries.

  Denny’s apartment is directly below Enya’s. He continues breathlessly, “There’s banging and screaming. I can hear it from my ceiling. It’s scaring me. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Okay,” she says, “wait here.” She dashes into her living room, where Joe sleeps on the couch. She shakes him awake. He is groggy. “What—”

  “Come. I need you,” she says. He grabs his robe and they rush outside. At Enya’s door she and Joe can hears sounds of things breaking. And Enya shouting.

  Evvie pokes Joe. “Go back to my place and call

  Gladdy. We may need her help.” As he runs, Evvie moves to Enya’s door and rings the bell.

  Hy and Lola, also in robes, call from their doorway at the other end of the same floor. “What’s going on over there? Why is everybody up?”

  Evvie says, “We don’t know. Go back to sleep. We’ll tell you tomorrow.”

  Hy is about to protest, but Lola pulls him inside. Denny, glad not to get involved, goes downstairs to his apartment again.

  Evvie rings Enya’s doorbell again and again.

  Joe comes out of her apartment. “Gladdy’s on her way.”

  “Joe, grab the master keys on the hall table.” Joe once again is happy to do her bidding.

  It looks as if the place had been robbed and tossed by vandals. Chairs are knocked down. The pillows on the couch have been thrown every which way. Books are ripped and hurled from overturned shelves. The curtains are tom from the living room windows. From the kitchen door Jack and I see dishes smashed, cupboards open, pots and pans flung across the room.

  I call, “Evvie, where are you?”

  “In the bedroom. Hurry.”

  We rush to the bedroom, where Evvie and Joe are gently trying to stop Enya as she tears her bed apart. I am surprised—such unnatural strength from so fragile a woman.

  “Enya, dear,” I say firmly, “let us help you.”

  Between the four of us we get her to sit on the edge of her bed.

  The dresser drawers have already been upended. The bedside lamp lies on the floor, spot-lighting the ceiling.

  She stares at us, befuddled. “He’s come,” she says. “I won’t let him take anything from my home. I leave him nothing.”

  I find a blanket to wrap around her. But Enya pulls her arms out in order to grab my hands and clutch them. “I am going crazy. Help me. Madness. All I see is madness! Put me in an asylum in a straitjacket.”

  From the wildness in her eyes, I’m afraid she’s telling the truth. She drops her arms; her eyes seem blank and far away.

  Jack says, “I think we should take her to the emergency room.”

  “Even the smell of him,” Enya cries out. “How can I remember? Such a thing as a smell? Can a smell last so long?”

  “Who are you talking about?” I ask quietly. Enya cries out to me imploringly, “He was fatter then. Fat with his importance. How he loved to see the skin cling to our bones. It gave him such an ap-petite.”

  We look from one to another, not knowing how to help her. She is shaking now. I’m at a loss to know what to do, other than let her talk.

  “His face. The beard. I did not see it because of the beard.”

  Joe says, “Should I get some whiskey?”

  Evvie nods. “We have to try something.”

  Joe runs out again to go to Evvie’s.

  Enya asks pleadingly, “Where are his boots? I was always so frightened of his boots.”

  I say, “Maybe we should get her to the hospital.” Enya’s eyes seem to whip about. “How is it possible? Such a nice man. Such a religious, good man. What can I be thinking?” She stares at the wall leading to the kitchen. “It can’t be. No. It’s me. I am crazy.”

  She is sobbing by now. “It’s the scar. Under his eye. It’s the scar!”

  Jack tries. “Enya, please,” he says softly. “Tell us who you’re talking about.”

  She walks out of the bedroom, into the living room. We follow her. She continues walking until she reaches her kitchen.

  Joe returns, whiskey bottle in hand. All of us watch as Enya points to the kitchen wall. The one that connects to Abe’s apartment.

  She wipes the tears from her face, then whispers in an almost childish voice filled with awe, “Shhh, it’s him. Don’t let him hear you. Er ist Der Oberfiihrer. Er ist Der Bosewicht, the evil one with the evil eye. He will be very angry.”

  What Can It Mean?

  There’s a knock at the door. Jack goes to answer it. It’s Mary, our nurse friend who lives right above Hy and Lola. She carries what looks like a doctor’s bag. She says, “Lola called me and said there was a problem. Perhaps I can be of assistance.”

  I’m very glad to see her.

  Evvie says, “They shouldn’t have wakened you.”

  Mary shrugs. “Comes with the territory.” She glances around, taking in the
mess and the near- hysterical woman on the couch, who sits there with a coat around her shoulders.

  Joe says, “We were just about to take Enya to Emergency.”

  Enya rears back, terrified. “No, I don’t want to go.”

  Mary examines her. Takes her pulse, her blood pressure. Listens to her heart.

  “Mary.”

  Enya begs, “Don’t let them take me away.”

  “It’s all right, dear,” she says. “Maybe you just need to sleep.”

  Enya nods, childlike. “I haven’t been able to sleep.”

  “Do you have any prescription pills?”

  “The doctor gave me some, but I was afraid to take them.”

  Mary looks to us. “See if you can find them.” Jack and I go into the bathroom and look through Enya’s medicine cabinet. We bring back the few bottles we find there and hand them to Mary.

  She picks one out. “This will do fine.” She tells us, “Mild tranquilizers.”

  Evvie goes into the kitchen and brings a glass of water. Mary hands Enya a couple of the pills. “These won’t hurt you. I promise. And you’ll be able to sleep.”

  Enya takes them and pats Mary on the cheek. “You’re a good girl. Thank you.” She leans over as if to impart a secret. “He had this terrible scar, you know. It circled his left eye. From a knife fight, perhaps. He was very lucky not to lose the eye.”

  With that, she lies back and turns her face into the pillows.

  “I’ll stay with her,” Mary says. “You all look exhausted.”

  Mary walks us to the door. We stand there whispering. Mary asks, “She tore the place apart herself?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Hopefully it’s not a psychotic episode,” Mary says. “Seems like she’s having some kind of break-down. I’ll get in touch with her doctor as soon as I can.”

  We thank her profusely as we go outside. She closes the door behind us.

  The four of us stand there, utterly done in. Joe scratches at the bald spot on the back of his head. “Wow, that was bizarre. What got into that poor lady?”

  Evvie sighs. “God only knows.”

  Jack puts his arm around me. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can’t think clearly right now.”

  “Let’s meet in the morning with the girls and discuss this,” I say needlessly. With last-minute hugs, we head for our own apartments.

  As we head downstairs, I can hear Joe saying, “I don’t get it. What’s with the pointing at Abe’s apartment?”

  “Want me to make some coffee?” Evvie asks as they get inside.

  “No, I wanna crash,” Joe says, yawning, heading for the living room couch. “I desperately need to sleep.”

  “Joe,” Evvie says quietly. “Sleep with me.”

  He looks at her for a long moment. “And then the next night back on the couch? No thanks. I feel like a yo-yo.”

  She goes over and pulls him along to the bedroom. “No more yo-yo. Just yo.”

  “Yo, toots,” he says. Now he’s pulling her.

  Back in bed, I find it difficult to relax. I can’t even begin to process what just happened. “Maybe we should have taken some of those ‘tranks,’ too,” I say.

  “Nonsense,” he says. “I’m better than a pill.” With that, he puts his arm around me and I cuddle into him, grateful for the comfort he offers.

  By ten A.M. we’re gathered in my apartment for a late breakfast. My puzzled girls can’t figure out why Jack and I slept so late, until I fill them in on the night we had with Enya. They need only to look at the circles under our eyes to believe it.

  We are seated around the dining room table. With seven in that small space, we are crowded together. But no one’s complaining as Jack serves us all a wonderful vegetable omelet.

  “Take lessons,” Evvie tells Joe.

  “I already memorized the recipe,” he says, smiling at her.

  Now it’s my turn for eyebrows to go up. These are two self-satisfied apres-sex type grins. Hmmm. I sure hope so.

  As we dig in, Jack still standing, he says, “Let me try to sum up what we know so far about the two of them. Abe Waller moves in next door to Enya. Enya has nightmares about the camps.”

  Ida interrupts. “She started having nightmares before he moved in next door, even before the hurricane.”

  Joe says, “Premonition?”

  I say, “Let’s table that for a moment.”

  Jack continues. “They have conversations a few times.”

  Sophie jumps in. “It looked like a romance brewing like a teapot. Didn’t it?” Sophie and Bella exchange nervous glances. I wonder what that’s about. Sophie takes seconds of the eggs. Looks like nervous eating to me.

  Ida says, “All it means to me is that having talked to someone who also survived the camps brought back her own horrible memories. She’s never spoken about her experiences to anyone. She keeps to herself. Obviously she never got therapy. All that guilt-of-the-survivor pain building up for so many years. Now it’s come to a head and she’s having a nervous breakdown.”

  I say, “I’d agree with you, but she keeps repeating she recognized him by his eyes. Something about a scar around one eye. She called him by a name. I don’t think it was a person’s real name. Perhaps some kind of German title? Der Bosewicht?”

  Jack pours refills of coffee for everyone.

  Ida shakes her head. “Crazy talk. It’s too much to believe. Just by coincidence a German soldier from a concentration camp now lives next door to her? And for this sick fantasy, she picks on Abe Waller, a deeply religious Jewish man, for heaven’s sakes.”

  There is silence for a few moments as the girls, while thinking, busily fix their coffee refills with their choice of low-fat milk and/or sugar.

  Jack and I both say it in unison, “But what if—” We stop, surprised at having similar thoughts, and he indicates I should go on. “What if it’s true?” I can’t believe I’m saying this. “What if he’s not Jewish. What if—”

  Bella drops her coffee spoon. It clatters to the floor. She looks horrified. She pokes Sophie, who pokes her back and says, “Shh.”

  “What!” Evvie says, annoyed. “What’s with you two? You’re like cats on a hot tin roof.” Always the literary one, my sister. Not that they know the reference.

  Bella blurts, “That we rode in a car with...” She can’t even say his name.

  All eyes turn to the two now cowering women. “Spit it out.” Ida says, “Or you’ll choke.”

  Bella is tongue-tied. Sophie is forced to talk. “You remember yesterday, we were off to Hadassah. Denny was going to drive us, but Abe did instead. No big deal.”

  “You got into a car with Abe Waller?” Ida says, surprised.

  “And?” Evvie says, annoyed. “What’s with the two-second explanation? Why didn’t Denny drive and why did Abe?”

  Sophie, putting her hands on her hips, continues reluctantly. “Abe said a pipe burst in his sink and he needed Denny to fix it right away. And Abe asked where we were off to and then he said he was going to Margate, too, and gave us a lift. End of story.”

  I pick up the phone and dial Denny’s number. Since he is our fixer-upper, I have his number memorized. Denny answers.

  “Hi, Denny, it’s Mrs. Gold.” I listen. “Yes, I think Enya’s much better. Thank you for asking. Just have a question. Did Abe Waller have a big problem with his kitchen sink yesterday? I heard it was flooding.” I listen again. “Thanks a lot. Bye.”

  When I hang up, I say, “Denny said the washer came off. It took him a minute to put it back on, and there was never any flooding.”

  “Wow!” says Joe.

  Bella shakes Evvie’s arm. “What does that mean? What?”

  Jack says, “It means that Abe might have taken the washer off himself and left the faucet running.”

  Sophie, arms still crossed, says, “So?”

  Ida pokes her in the shoulder. “So it means he might have lied, and why do you think he might have done that?”

>   Sophie says, “I have no idea. You punch me again, I’m gonna punch you back.”

  Evvie says, “It could mean that he wanted to get Denny away from you so he could drive you to Hadassah.”

  Bella is practically in tears. “How were we supposed to know that?”

  Ida is next. “How come it didn’t make you wonder? Abe is not friendly. He never talks to anyone, except for Stanley. Have you ever seen him have anything to do with any of us?”

  Sophie says nastily, “Big deal. We needed a ride. He offered.”

  Jack says gently, “Bella, Sophie, try to remember what you talked about in his car. You did have a conversation, didn’t you?”

  Bella nods eagerly. She can handle that. “He wanted to know what was happening with the skeleton and we told him Gladdy was still on the case, and he said Gladdy is real smart and we said she sure is and she’s at the police station right now telling Morrie what she knows. And then when we got there, he opened the door for us like a gentleman.” She stops, out of breath.

  “Oh, my God,” says Evvie.

  “The skeleton?” Joe says, surprised. “He wanted to know about the skeleton? And if he wanted to know about the skeleton, why didn’t he ask Stanley?”

  “Precisely why he got the girls in his car,” I say. “He’s already asked Stanley about it too many times. He didn’t dare arouse Stanley’s suspicion.”

  Ida mutters under her breath, “He went to the two weakest links.”

  Sophie glares at her. Bella hangs her head.

  We all look at one another. The skeleton. No more coincidences. In my mind I can already connect the dots.

  The Skeleton Connection

  We’ve gone back and forth on this subject ad nauseam and discussion is still going strong. The noise level is high. Everyone talks at once. Lots of churning emotion in the air. To move around and stretch their cramped legs, the girls remove the breakfast dishes, but that doesn’t stop conversation—they use the see-through cut in the wall between kitchen and dining room. Joe moves into the living room area and stretches out on the couch, still close enough to keep up his share of opinions.