I was overconfident. Besides the coffee and cake on Saturday night, I also persuaded Walt to schedule a Sunday brunch at a nice restaurant in Berkeley. Just the four of us. First, I’d drop the kids off at Sunday school, then we’d meet and chat over bagels and lox. Reluctantly, Walt allowed himself to be swept along with both of these enthusiastic plans.
Poor Joe and Anna Kahn were incapable of joy, let alone the admiration I’d unrealistically expected. The charm of my house, with its brightly colored walls and crafty furniture, was lost on them.
“I don’t know how you live with such colors,” Mrs. Kahn said, when I gave her a tour that night. “It would give me a headache to live here. Myself, I like neutrals. More restful.” She actually shielded her eyes with one hand when she said this.
“Where did you find these chairs?” Mr. Kahn asked, before he sat down.
“Oh, I picked them up at Goodwill,” I cheerfully replied. “Then I did a few repairs and, voilà!”
“They’re strong enough to sit on?” he asked.
Worse, my beautiful twelve-year-old twins seemed to offend Mrs. Kahn. They ran into the living room, then over to Walt, surrounding him, both demanding his attention.
“Walt, you have time for a game, tonight?” Evan asked hopefully. “I got this new chess book from the library. Can I show it to you?”
“Sorry, buddy. We’re going to stay in here with my folks, but we’ll catch up in the next few days,” Walt replied.
“Walt,” Miriam said, “that bleach treatment I concocted for the horse seems to be working. His hooves look a lot better.”
“Great, Miriam. I knew you’d get it under control,” he said.
The fact that there were two—a tall, already maturing girl and her smaller, impatient brother—must have seemed excessive to Anna Kahn, and I saw her recoil from the children. She looked from one to the other: at Evan, hopping from foot to foot, his quick gestures punctuating his long, wordy descriptions, and then up at Miriam, with her somber gray eyes and sleeveless blouse, its shirttails tied rakishly just below her pubescent breasts, leaving her midriff exposed (the latest style at the horse barn).
“They’re twins?” Anna asked, her forehead wrinkling, when the children had left the room. “They look nothing alike. They have the same father?”
I was startled at her rudeness. Walt came to my rescue.
“Ma,” he said, “of course they have the same father. They’re fraternal twins, not identical. I told you Judith was divorced from their father. You know that fraternal twins don’t have to look like each other.”
“Excuse me,” Anna said, looking into her purse for a tissue, “Mr. Fancy Doctorate of Physics. I didn’t know. I haven’t got all your degrees.”
“Anna, please,” Joe said, putting his palms up in front of his body, as if to deflect the conversation. Incorrectly, I interpreted this as Walt’s father’s defense of me and the children.
“Would you like some more cake?” I asked Mrs. Kahn and tried to smile.
“No,” she said and held out her cup. “Too sweet. But maybe you could add some boiling water to my coffee. It’s very strong.”
This began many years of Anna Kahn correcting the flavors of my food. Too strong. Too sweet. Too salty. Too much. One Passover, I came up behind her in my kitchen and, horrified, saw her sprinkle a generous tablespoon of sugar over the tray of gefilte fish I’d prepared for the Seder. She watered down most things, from the finest coffee to expensive cabernets from Napa. Don’t get me started on the topic of my mother-in-law and watering down. To me, her taste buds were illustrative of her reluctance to experience strong flavors in life. Tepidness, not just moderation, this was her preference. I wished myself to be more charitable toward the woman. Perhaps this was due to Anna’s experiences during the Holocaust. What could I know of that? Yet, Anna’s ways irritated me, and I could not help blaming both Anna and Joe for Walt’s taciturn personality. In the end, Anna and I made peace, but there were many years of hell before that happened.
Brunch the next day was even worse than the evening before. I had mistakenly thought Joe was my ally. He’d seemed to enjoy the yellow rum cake and had complimented the kids on the trophies in their rooms. But I was wrong. After dropping the children at Sunday school, I drove to the restaurant and dashed over to the Kahns’ table. I beamed at Walt’s parents as I slipped into the semicircular booth.
“Sorry I’m late. The twins’ bar and bat mitzvahs are coming up,” I said, and leaned over to Walt, giving him a peck on the cheek, but getting no kiss in return. “It’s getting intense,” I chattered on. “I had to arrange for tutoring with the rabbi. They can’t miss a single class now, there’s so much to learn. They’re fairly motivated, but it’s hard to keep up, with all their sports and homework. I hope you’ll come out here for their big day.” I stopped, finally, and took a breath. I looked around at the faces at the table. “It’s going to be a great party,” I added, my good cheer slowly evaporating.
Walt and his parents were sitting in silence. No one was looking at anyone else.
“Everything okay?” I asked Walt, then turned to Mrs. Kahn. “Getting used to the time difference?”
She didn’t answer, but said, “They go to Sunday school? Like the goyem? What’s wrong with Shabbat? That’s when Jewish children in New Jersey study.”
“Soccer,” I said, feeling the chill at the table. “Kids out here have soccer on Saturday. They all play. Most temples have school on Sunday to accommodate sports.”
Mrs. Kahn sniffed and all three, Walt and his parents, picked up and studied their menus.
Finally, Joe broke the tension and put his menu down. He waved the waitress over to our table.
“Give me an omelet,” he said. “A Denver omelet. Firm. Hold the ham. How about you, Anna?” he asked.
She shrugged, as if she had no interest in what she ate.
I began several conversations at the table that morning. None worked. Finally, I gave up and ate in silence, as everyone else was doing, but I grew increasingly furious with Walt. How could he hang me out to dry like this? Couldn’t he rescue me and find something for us to talk about? But Walt offered nothing. He ate a few bites, chewed each one thoroughly, then after swallowing a sip of coffee, put his cup down with a clatter.
“Okay, Judith. Let’s go pick up the kids. I don’t want to get stuck in the carpool line.” He stood.
I turned to him with confusion. I had just spread cream cheese on my bagel and was about to take a bite. But I put it down and wiped my lips with the napkin. “Okay, sounds good. Bye, Mrs. Kahn. Mr. Kahn. Thanks for breakfast. I’m sure I’ll see you again before you leave.” I gathered my coat and stiffly walked out to the parking lot, following Walt.
When we got to my car, I turned to him and glared. “What the hell? Why didn’t you talk? You let me chatter like an idiot and never said a word.”
“Just get in, Judith. Let’s get out of here. I’ll drive,” he said, and grabbed the keys from my hand. Walt drove in a way I had never seen him do before—angrily speeding and changing lanes and accelerating crazily after a light turned from red to green. I may look tough, everyone says I do. But I become very frightened in the face of such male rage. I can’t explain it—my father was gentle and soft-spoken. Yet, when I am in the presence of the kind of seething, boiling rage that Walt was showing, I fold. Could I be the cause of Walt’s fury? I wondered.
When we got close to the synagogue building, there was still an hour until the kids were dismissed. Walt pulled into a spot and dropped his forehead to the wheel.
“I’m so sorry, Judith,” he finally said, the anger gone, his voice discouraged. “They’ve been on me since last night. For hours and hours. They started in again this morning as soon as we got to the restaurant and kept going until you walked in. I couldn’t take any more of it.”
“About me?” I asked in a small voice. “They’ve been on you about me? They don’t like me?”
He nodded. “My father was b
rutal. He’s really a bully, Judith. You haven’t seen that yet. It’s why I’ve always been so quiet. When I was a kid, he yelled so much, he scared the hell out of me. Later, he wanted me to be a doctor, a real doctor, not a PhD. He couldn’t understand why I wanted to go to Berkeley. Wasn’t NYU good enough? Why not a doctor? A medical doctor? He’d shout and slam doors and stomp through the house. I hope never to be like him. The opposite. He starts to rant and eventually everyone around him has to shut up and listen. He expects to always get his way. Even with my mother. When he gets like that, she tries to calm him down, but almost nothing works. It’s as if every slight he ever received, every humiliation he suffered back in Germany, all of it boils over and he can’t stuff it back in.”
“What did he say?” I began rubbing the back of his head. I felt I could actually see a headache erupting within his skull—like in a cartoon bubble.
“He says he doesn’t trust you. That you’ll leave me. You’re never going to have kids with me. The twins are already too old and they’ll resent me. I’ll never be Evan and Miriam’s real father. I won’t be anyone’s father. My mother says you’re after my money. She called you a gold digger. It was vile.”
I swallowed. “Do you have a lot of money I should be after?” I asked.
Walt looked at me, then barked a short laugh. “That’s what you want to know? You don’t care about any of the other things they said?”
“Well, I’m not leaving you any time soon. I’m really happy. Why would I leave such a good man? I already had one bastard of a husband who constantly made me wonder why he didn’t come home at night. I know a good thing when I see one. You’ll come home at night. I knew that as soon as we met. And, babies. You’ve never mentioned having kids. I actually wouldn’t mind having another baby.” I stopped rubbing his head and looked out the window, my heart beating. Walt had not asked me to marry him, let alone have a child with him.
When I finally turned back to him, I saw a shocked look on his face. “You wouldn’t mind having more kids? I assumed that with the twins so old, you wouldn’t want to start again,” he said.
“I love kids,” I said. “But only one more, I’d think. Three kids are enough. Four is excessive. Unless I had twins again. But the likelihood of that is small. Right? I mean statistically.” I stopped rambling and licked my dry lips. Walt hadn’t spoken. I went on. “So, that just leaves us with the fortune hunter question. Do you have a lot of money I don’t know about?”
He looked at me a long few minutes, and when he finally answered, there was a big smile on his face. “As a matter of fact, I do. My father invented a few things. He sold some patents to Dow. One was an antifreeze which worked really well. It’s left me with a big trust fund. I’ll probably inherit a bit of a fortune when they’re gone. Not that I’d know what to do with a fortune.” He shrugged. “You see how I live. All in brown. And I never buy anything I don’t absolutely need.”
“Poor baby. You obviously need someone to help you with that,” I said and pulled him toward me in the front seat and kissed him deeply, which is how the kids found us when they rapped on the passenger-side window.
“Mom. Walt. Stop it,” Miriam hissed, her mouth barely moving. “Someone will see you.”
“Yuck,” Evan said, a look of horrified disgust on his face, as if he might vomit right there on the street.
We married less than a year later. It was a lovely Jewish ceremony, more modern than my in-laws were used to, but, to their credit, Joseph and Anna smiled throughout. Gratitude was among the panoply of emotions both Walt and I felt on our wedding day. As we were pronounced husband and wife, we joyfully clasped hands and smiled at one another, finally brought out of the cold and into the warmth of coupledom.
My own parents flew in from Chicago, taking their first airplane journey. I was embarrassed at how much their relief showed. They fawned over Walt, barely letting him out of their sight.
“Such a wonderful son you have,” I overheard my mother saying to Anna Kahn.
“Yes, we’re extremely proud of him,” Anna answered, not bothering to return the compliment by saying something nice about me.
Who could blame my parents for their relief? They’d had such concern about me and their grandchildren. Now, they had a son-in-law with a doctorate. Okay, he was not a real doctor, but he was Jewish and gainfully employed. Most importantly, he seemed so genuinely fond of Miriam and Evan and they of him. My mother and father watched with approval all during the party, held in a private room of Walt’s and my favorite restaurant in Berkeley. Walt had even agreed to spend part of our honeymoon at a family dude ranch, not the one in central California that you, Elliot, had paid for a few years earlier, but one in Wyoming. Miriam glowed with anticipation, even though we’d told her that we were going to the ranch not only for horses, but also because of the excellent hiking and mountain biking trails. Walt was an avid bicycle rider and hoped to get Evan interested in the sport.
“Don’t even think about putting me on a horse, Miriam,” Walt warned her. Miriam swore a solemn pledge that she wouldn’t dream of it.
But as we left the wedding reception, I overheard Miriam whispering with one of her friends. “I talked to the head wrangler and he said they have a perfect horse for Walt. A mare. Super calm. She won’t give him any trouble at all.”
I shook my head, knowing Walt adored Miriam and would probably be unable to resist her. She was a zealot, having a firm conviction that everyone would be happier on a horse. And, of course, my new husband, the bearded city boy, did join her several times for breakfast horse rides in the crisp early morning Wyoming mist. “Miriam,” he said, rubbing his seat, “you owe me. I expect you to be ready this afternoon, on your bike, when Evan and I go out before dinner.”
I was officially excused from all rides, either two-wheeled or four-legged, because I was in my first trimester. This pregnancy was lovely. My doctor had given me permission to lie in the sun reading through the stack of books I’d packed. Walt pampered me and I felt very queenly relaxing on the chair in front of our cabin. I was still and centered despite the noise and activity all around me.
I wore a beautiful silver maternity dress to the twins’ bar and bat mitzvah celebration, which had been postponed for a few months because Walt’s father, Joseph, died shortly after that Wyoming honeymoon. He had a massive stroke at home in New Jersey, and Walt and I and the twins arrived only two days before his death. As we stood by his hospital bed, I studied Joseph’s face. He was in a deep coma, but there was a serenity in his expression that I’d never before seen. All the anger and belligerence was gone.
“Now I’ll get wrinkles,” Anna said softly.
“What do you mean, Ma? You have nice skin,” Walt said, putting an arm around his mother.
“Joseph always told me that sex keeps away wrinkles. Now, I’ll get them,” she explained and turned away, a single tear slipping down her admittedly smooth cheek.
I could not have been more surprised. I had never before heard stiff Anna utter the word sex. I could not imagine those two locked in a carnal embrace. But then, what do we know of other people’s bedrooms?
We named the baby Joseph, of course, after his grandfather. Anna doted on him, showing a tenderness I’d not seen in her before. She visited us often from New Jersey and, to my surprise, grew proud and fond of the twins as they got older. On her visits, I’d sometimes arrive home from work to find Anna in the kitchen with Miriam and Evan, all three having tea and talking comfortably. The twins actually seemed to like their step-grandmother and, to my amazement, told me how funny she was.
“Funny?” I repeated, never having found my mother-in-law in the least bit funny.
“Yeah. Like today. You should have heard her when she was talking about Joey’s pre-school teacher. She called him a fagele,” Evan said, getting the Yiddish just right, as usual his mimicry of accents flawless. “She’s hysterical,” Miriam said. “She did an imitation of his walk.” Miriam demonstrated Grandma Anna’s imper
sonation of Joey’s sweet, but effeminate teacher—swaying hips, bent wrist. I was appalled, but didn’t make an issue of it then, relieved that my mother-in-law and the twins were getting along. I’d have to have a talk with the twins later.
Some things never changed, though. Once I interrupted Anna as she was preparing Joey’s oatmeal—she was vigorously shaking salt onto it. From the beginning, we had never understood each other’s flavor preferences. It seemed we had been born with wildly different sensory wiring—never agreeing on what was too loud or soft, what was sweet or sour and what was bright or pale. When she realized that I was staring at her as she shook salt into the oatmeal for Joey’s breakfast, she stopped, scraped the mess into the sink, and shrugged.
“Sorry,” my mother-in-law said. “It seemed like it needed something.”
So much about that too-short marriage to Walt was right. We lived together in a bubble of safety, imagining it would go on forever. I look back with such fondness on those untroubled years when Miriam and Evan were young teenagers and Joey, the child Walt and I had together, was still small. We sold our houses on Milvia in Berkeley and bought a beautiful old house in the hills with a glorious view across the bay to San Francisco. We kept the house’s large stone fireplaces and high ceilings, but modernized the kitchen and baths. Those were busy years; we both worked hard and the children kept us exhausted, but there was nothing real to worry about. Walt and I finally had the family we wanted. The table no longer listed to one side. It was a sturdy four-legged table, and then when Joey was born, thirteen years younger than his older brother and sister, it added only more stability. No wobbling at all.
Love Is a Rebellious Bird Page 19