A New Yorker's Stories

by Philip Gould

  My family moved again and I went to another Junior High. The new neighborhood was less affluent than before and had a mixed population. I’m not sure if these facts had a bearing on my progress in school but soon I found that I was excelling in all subjects and sitting in the front row of the class. I got beat up a couple of times after school and had to run like hell to avoid unpleasant encounters as well.

  Nothing could discourage my upward trajectory now.

  I had been aware of drawing and art as an activity of choice. The art teacher in the last year of Junior High recognized my interest and gave me great latitude to pursue my fantasies. She actually helped me to prepare a portfolio which I presented to a committee for admittance to an elite high school for specialized study in music or art. I was accepted and the future of my life in art opened before me.

  MEMORY IS SELECTIVE

  PART 1

  Memory is selective, as everyone knows. Some memories are pleasant and some are not. The memory I wish to talk about now goes back seventy years when I was just fourteen. It relates to an experience that I could not understand, strangely enough, until recently.

  Back then I had a penchant for drawing and painting and to acknowledge the Thanksgiving holiday, I had the impulse to make a Thanksgiving card for my mother. I folded a sheet of paper in half and again in half so that it resembled the shape, more or less, of commercial cards. With colored pencils I drew a picture of a bouquet of flowers in a vase. I was persnickety and fussy about precision and neatness in art so I labored over the little picture and then again on the brief message on the inner page. Did I say that I was fourteen at the time and my older brother was eighteen. Before I had the chance to deliver this loving gift to my mother, my brother came by, noticed the card, picked it up, and on the spot tore it apart. I was stunned, dumbfounded and disconcerted but not really angry or outraged. I didn’t go crying, at that age, to my mother or anyone else. I didn’t look for retaliation or even for an explanation. My bother was not mean, certainly never mean to me. In fact, he came to my defense on a number of occasions when he thought I was being picked on by older boys. He would defend me even if it meant a fistfight. But I was perplexed by his rash action.

  I had a sense this was something over which he had no control. It was a matter of an impulse without an easy answer, something so deep that he probably could not have explained why.

  It dawned on me quite recently that my brother was eighteen at the time, or, in other words, four years older than me. He was not a very good student and he never finished high school. Instead he went to a vocational institute to learn a trade. At eighteen he was gnawing at the bit, as the expression goes, to get out of the house, to be on his own, to demonstrate his manliness, his readiness to tackle the world. He was tall and strong and good looking and interested in females. He was physical, loved the out-of-doors, and had a boat he used for camping trips on the Hudson River. At the same time lots of things were pressing in on him. He would be leaving the parental household very soon to strike out on his own. That fact was hardly part of my consciousness for I was thoroughly pre-occupied with myself.

  I realize now how he must’ve felt as he was about to lose the comfort of motherly love while I, four years younger, would continue to enjoy that blessing for at least another four years. It must have been infuriating. Here I was kissing up to our mother while he was about to be bereft. These two conflicting conditions could only be painful for my brother. Without the possibility to give voice to his anguish he took out his feelings on my little Thanksgiving card. His action was clearly spontaneous, instinctive, and irrepressible. As I said, I was really not so much angry as bewildered and for seventy years I could recall that moment, even talk about it at times, without understanding it until recently. A few weeks ago I had the occasion to speak with my brother over the phone. He and his family live on the West Coast, and I and my family live on the East Coast. He will be eighty-nine this year and I will be eighty-five. We are both slowly losing our memories but the last thing he said in the telephone conversation was: “You are four years younger than me.” Of all the things to remember at this point in our lives was the difference in our ages! That fact spilled out freely now as it could not at the time he first struggled with the thought. I just laughed and laughed.

  PART 2

  Dear Martin,

  I hope you enjoyed the “memories” I mailed to you some time ago. I am writing again because I thoug of some other memories that might be of interest to you.

  You had an interest in Father Coughlin for a while until you learned that he was an anti-Semite and a fascist. Secondly, a much better memory: you subscribed to a music give-away from one of the New York tabloid newspapers. What you got was a disk of Shubert’s Unfinished Symphony which you played over and over again. I think it was the only musical disk you had. In any case, I heard that symphony repeated a hundred times and consequently I remember it until this day. Do you?

  The final memory is about your dog Pal. Although Pal, a big Belgian police dog was yours I was the one who had to take care of her a lot of the time. She was a very friendly animal and thoroughly domesticated. She used to snuggle up to me in bed and get under the covers with her head on the pillow. Well, friendly as she was, she got knocked up twice and had eleven puppies each time. On the first occasion Pal didn’t know what was happening. She thought she had to make a poop and went crazy trying to find a place in the apartment that would not shock us. She finally landed on the sofa and gave birth to a tiny puppy which fell between the cushion and the back of the sofa—as though to hide something. I didn’t know what Pal was up to any more than she did but when the first baby dog emerged we understood. I quickly prepared a place in an open box which I filled with strips of newspaper and got Pal to settle in. She then had the rest of her litter and she knew instinctively how to take care of them. We kept the puppies for several weeks until they were old enough to be given away. That’s what we did. We gave the pups away. Do you remember any of this history about Pal? I was very involved and I could not ever forget this episode of our early history.

  PART 3

  By and by you started to work, maybe in the electrical line. You had the opportunity to travel out of the country to visit Barbados, I think. I was so impressed: going abroad. What I remember most was the day you returned home wearing a new suit you had made to order. The color was almost a Kelly green. I don’t think you wore the suit very often.

  When you got married in 1940/1941 I was very excited and impressed. I was working in Maine at the time and I remember I bought you and Mildred a wedding gift with my first full pay check. After the war you and your young family were living in a low-cost housing community in San Pedro, just south of Los Angeles. I was struck by the fact that your apartment there had nothing on the walls, just bare walls. The next time I paid a visit to San Pedro I brought two framed reproductions of paintings by Van Gogh and put them up to decorate your apartment. I could never bear bare walls.

  Over the years, I have continued to provide you with works of art, not reproductions, but originals and now your living room stands high among many Southern California interiors.

  I’m sure there are other moments to remember but these are the ones that come to mind. Enjoy. And let me know how your eye exercise is working. Take the time to relax.

  Love, Philip

  BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS

  COURTING: PART 1

  It is almost three months since Nadia died and I still can’t believe it. I live in a sort of denial, strange and unclear. I don’t know how I go on living without Nadia, for nothing is quite the same anymore.

  In a way I always protected Nadia and I took pleasure in that. She never learned the alphabet perfectly and never could tell north from south. But she was feisty and acted as though these deficiencies didn’t matter. Whenever we exited from the underground subway, for example, she would begin the walk, invariably in the wrong direction. At first I would follow her because she seemed to know wha
t she was doing; she was leading. I soon discovered to never trust her sense of direction and I just took over. I could protect her in ways like that but I could not protect her from dying as much as I tried.

  Nadia was a little lady, barely five feet tall. I met her at first in two ways: on the stage and sitting down. I saw her for the first time at a French Club meeting at New York University where she was singing French folk songs. She wore an ankle length skirt, full and velvety and stood on a raised platform. She was formidable just looking up at her and more enchanting singing her songs with wit and élan and a naughty twinkle in her eyes. I already loved all things French and I fell in love with her on the spot. She was charming in a way you would expect a French singer to be charming: savvy and witty and gracious.

  After the program I was sure she had a car waiting for her outside the university to take her back to the mid-town club were she normally performed. I discovered much later that she was a student, just a student at the college and then I arranged to have a friend introduce me to her. I waited almost a full year for this introduction because I was so scared of looking inept. When we finally met we were all sitting around a table in the school cafeteria. This was an eye to eye encounter. Only after I had the courage to ask her out did I discover that she was a tiny thing against my lanky frame of six feet three and a half inches; too late, I was in love.

  Our first dates were urban affairs, affordable and accessible. We took the Staten Island Ferry across the New York Harbor and past the Statue of Liberty. When we were about half way toward Staten Island the view back to lower Manhattan was spectacular. The skyline alone was enough to stir the heart. As we both leaned on the wood railing of the ferry I gently passed my hand over hers. She did not pull away or object and from that moment on we held hands.

  I thought I could impress Nadia with my know-how. We did not exit the ferry on the Staten Island side. We just waited quietly until the ferry departed for the return trip to Manhattan so we had a double voyage for the price of one. The next time we went out we visited the Empire State Building. Back in 1948 the Empire State Building was not so old and still a novelty (as it is to this day, mostly for out-of-town tourists). Nadia paid the child’s admission: she passed for under twelve because she was so short, barely five feet and so cute. Walking around the promenade deck on the 86th floor with its sweeping view of the whole City was exciting and romantic. At half price it was a great buy. The next date was a bit more serious: dinner at the French restaurant, La Fleur de Lis. I had not been to many French restaurants before and I felt certain that Nadia would be impressed with my savoir faire and by my deference to her country of origin. We could speak French (the little that I could muster at that time) and I actually tried a new word in my French vocabulary: pamplemousse (grapefruit).

  When I asked her to visit me at my home for dinner as opposed to going out for supper she was mildly shocked. She lived with her parents in the northern part of Manhattan, about as far north as one can go, while I resided in Jamaica, a district of Queens about as far as one can go in another direction. After a moment she got over the shock and agreed. My apartment was on the top floor of a three-storied private house. The first two stories were occupied by a law firm; after five o’clock the house was mine. I could not be more private than that. I prepared the dinner with wine, put flowers and candles on the table. Nadia arrived on time and we had a very intimate dinner. After the meal Nadia retired to my bedroom and lied down in my bed as though it were the most natural thing to do. I followed. She was submissive and I exercised a male imperative; a moment of history unfolded that evening. The hour was late when Nadia left to take the train back to the other end of town.

  I was in a state of anxiety for days and weeks afterwards. I felt exultant in my conquest and at the same time troubled by the implications, utterly unspoken but everywhere in my mind. I was overwhelmed by the sense of commitment that was looming. I thought the future of my life was in the balance and that I could not face a long-term obligation. I spoke of traveling to India for a made up research project the meaning of which was only too clear: Nadia got that message and she was wretched. We met one afternoon after school and walked together toward Greenwich Village. A light drizzle was falling in the City when we took shelter in three-step doorway. Nadia spoke and then she began to cry. She was crying for me and I could not bear to witness her pain. I reflected for a moment: if this girl cares this much for me how could I not respond in kind. I told her to stop crying and that I would never leave her. (10/27/07)

  COLLEGE ROMANCE: PART 2

  Nadia and I had a very discreet college romance. Nothing would have pleased our college classmates more than knowledge of our affair. Gossip like that travels faster than light and usually ends up in an awful mess of recriminations and sour feelings and some embarrassment. We met outside the college precincts at her parents’ apartment up in the Inwood section of Manhattan. Both parents were usually out during the day so we had the run of the place. We were like kittens playing around. We had one minor problem: the floors between stories in the building were very thin, so thin that the downstairs neighbor, close friends of Nadia’s parents, could hear our footsteps above. The downstairs neighbor knew that only Nadia could occupy the apartment during the daytime so when we walked we walked in tandem, letting our footfalls match each other. It was our little game of deception and protection. We took our precautions and made every effort not to flaunt our relationship. The extra effort made our affair all the more precious and deliciously private.

  PARIS: PART 3

  Nadia’s father had a different take on our romance. As soon as Nadia graduated from college he shipped her off to Paris. He and I were very different types. I can only guess how much these differences figured in his actions. He was slightly on the short side and stocky with a barrel chest and a belligerent stance to go with his physique. I was tall and lanky and almost all the time a little dreamy, certainly never threatening to anybody. Nadia was in Paris presumably to continue her education at the Sorbonne but I knew she was there to be out of my sight and out of my arms. I just wasn’t the suitor Papa was hoping for his daughter.

  Nadia graduated in June of 1949 while I had to wait until September because I had one course requirement to fulfill before I could graduate. As soon as I had my diploma in hand I booked passage on the French Line for Cherbourg. I remember the train ride to Paris and the first step I took into Paris. I left the Gare St. Lazare by the Amsterdam Street exit and discovered I was in the land of Lilliputians. The cars were all mini sized and the people all on the short side. How quaint, I thought.

  Never mind, I made my way to the Montparnasse quarter and found a place to stay in a rooming house on Edgar Quinet just off Boulevard Raspail and one block from Boulevard Montparnasse where Nadia was living with a family friend. Needless to say Nadia was delighted to see me in Paris and in her neighborhood. My room was on the second floor with a window facing the street. Nadia took to throwing pebbles against the glass to wake me up in the mornings. I would run down the steps to open the front door and Nadia came up to snuggle in bed with me where she claimed was the only place she could really sleep.

  I was soon enrolled at the Sorbonne under the GI bill and began a long period of study working towards a doctor’s degree in art history. As it turned out Nadia became pregnant and our lives were altered in significant ways. We applied for marriage which involved a complicated and time-consuming process for a foreigner marrying a French citizen. There was a police investigation, papers from a lawyer in the States, posting of bans, medical exams, and so forth. Months went by but we were finally married by the mayor of the Sixth Arrondisement in the Latin Quarter on February 4, 1950. We were legal. Nadia’s friends from the Sorbonne were there to witness the event.

  I found an apartment on the third floor (Mansarde) of a private house facing the Bois de Vincennes. These rooms were never lived in so I had a lot of remodeling to attend to: a new kitchen with a shower built in and a wood burning sto
ve with an external flue installed in the living room. The place was as cozy as could be and was our home for the next three years.

  When our first son, Gregory, was born in August of 1950 my father-in-law had changed his attitude. Now I received a very nice and expensive gold pocket watch and a little later a car, a Hillman Minx, which was actually a practical gift as my area of study was in Lower Normandy. I made many trips in that car to Normandy in the following three years to photograph the sculpture inside and outside of Romanesque Churches. Nadia dropped out of school to look after the baby and by and by took a job in an American law office where she made use of their facilities to type and multilith my thesis. My studies at the Sorbonne were successfully completed in June of 1953 and we were back in the States by September of that year to begin another phase of our lives.