A New Yorker's Stories

by Philip Gould

  AS GOOD AS IT GETS: PART 4

  Shortly after our marriage, my mother-in-law came to visit us. On this visit she took the liberty to tell me that I should make the beds in the morning. She had been in the habit of making the bed for her daughter and now that her daughter was married that task should be passed on to me. I thought that piece of advice was quaint as I had no intention of ever following it but I said nothing. My new wife had no habit of making beds and she never did either, so we lived very well without making beds.

  What my young bride liked most of all was to lie in bed with a book at any time of day or night. She was a voracious reader then and remained so all her life. Above all, she hated housework and found all kinds of means to avoid domestic chores, sometimes with dire consequences. At least I thought so. For example, the dining room table was not wiped clear after meals. I discovered this fact when I placed an important document on the table only to find that the greasy table had stained the document. I was furious and I remonstrated about the absolute need to clean the table. That logic was barely grasped and pleads for table wiping continued for many years. Of course I took cautionary measure to check the table whenever I needed to work there and cleaned the surface if necessary. But I didn’t like that chore any more than my wife did. Somebody had to do it.

  You may well wonder why we would eat and work at the same table. The answer is perfectly clear to me even if it may be a puzzle to others: our apartment became so cluttered before too many years had passed the space at the end of the table where we dined was also the only space left for us to work at.

  Cooking, no less that cleaning, was another drudge which was done with as little attention as possible. One day, upon returning home I found our small bathroom toilet overflowing. The floor in the room was awash with water from the clogged basin. My wife just kept pressing the lever to flush the toilet and the water just kept overflowing. I discovered in short order that she had dumped a pot of mixed vegetables into the toilet to dispose of them. But solids like vegetables would not flush away. I had to reach down into the toilet and extract the mass of cut peas and carrots hand full by hand full, and then mop the floor and put things back to order. I could not figure out why my wife did not throw the old food into the garbage container in the first place. We didn’t discuss the matter.

  Mechanical devices were another problem because my wife would not take the time or care to use them properly. At the time the French version of the kitchen aide was the Cuisinart, an electric machine to cut and chop all kinds of raw foods or to prepare a batter for baking. There were several different blades for these purposes but all of them had to be carefully seated on a central spinning axle. My wife invariably didn’t take that kind of care. The blades were set off center and when the machine started the motor jammed and the machine was broken. We bought half a dozen machines in the space of a couple of months. My wife never got the hang of it.

  On the other hand my wife loved machines which made housework easier. So it was with the washing machine in the basement of our apartment house. Just toss the dirty clothes into the machine and voilà. On one occasion I had the good luck to find a shirt that was black. My wife had often suggested that I get one because she liked the looks of men in black shirts. Since I am very tall and slender, or skinny if you wish, finding a second-hand shirt that fit my frame and black was no easy task. Let me say I never wore that shirt because my wife threw bleach into the washing machine that held my black shirt. What came out after the wash was a modern art version of a shirt: irregular splashes of white and black.

  The kitchen dish washing machine was a definite delight for my wife. I suppose no one hated washing dishes by hand in the sink more than my wife. In her enthusiasm for the machine she would pile the dishes, or rather stack the dishes, one on top of the other; bowls and plates pressed up against each other. The machine was a powerful beast and when the water gushed through the dishes they bounced off one another so that most of our crockery had chipped edges. Well, we just ate off of less than perfect dishes.

  The mechanical fascination extended to the vacuum cleaner. My wife insisted on buying a powerful machine, almost two big for her to manipulate. Sure enough, the first time the vacuum cleaner went into use my wife managed to vacuum the electric cord into the machine stopping the operation of cleaning right in its track, until a technician came to unwire the sucked up wire.

  My wife, however, was not adverse to fashion. When we were in Paris she took the opportunity to buy a pair of shoes in a fancy shoe store on the Rue de Rivoli near the Hotel de Ville. She selected an expensive pair made in Italy. The shoes looked really elegant; the leather really classy. She went out of the store elated but after twenty paces she couldn’t bear the pain in her feet and quickly donned her old pair of shoes. I have no idea whatever became of the Italian shoes.

  My wife was also coquettish about her hair. In mid life as her hair began to turn grey she used hair dye to keep her brunette coloring. The problem with the hair dye occurred when I had a sabbatical leave and used the full seven months to travel around the world. My wife thought she had to bring along seven pints of hair dye to use during the trip. It just never occurred to her that hair-coloring dye could be found in most every city we visited. I was initially unaware of this liquid addition to our luggage which I ended up carrying from place to place during that sabbatical adventure.

  Speaking of luggage reminds me of our trip to Guatemala when my wife managed to bring along twenty-one pieces of baggage. I am sure we didn’t need half the things she packed. In Guatemala we took a bus to get to Antigua, the former capitol of the country. But the bus was not direct. We had to change buses halfway on the trip. Well, our twenty-one pieces of luggage were placed on the top of the bus. To make the transfer, handlers tossed the bags from one bus to the other in rapid fire. I just stood by watching this transaction wondering how the men could know which bags to throw. I had no way of checking and remained resigned to my fate. Happily, every one of the twenty-one pieces arrived safely in Antigua. But I promised myself to check the packing on future trips.

  If it was up to my wife I suppose we would not have traveled much. She had absolutely no sense of direction. I used to follow her, in the beginning, because she appeared to be so sure of herself. But invariably she was going in the wrong direction. I decided my own strategy: I would henceforth just walk by myself ten or fifteen paces until my wife found herself going it alone. Then she caught up with me. We didn’t discuss this matter. Words would not have made any difference. My little dance in the right direction did the trick. I should add that I had training as a surveyor and mapmaker and I always knew where I was going.

  One of our greatest frights came while our twin daughters were only fourteen or fifteen months old. They had a room to themselves. We could close the door to that room and we had chicken wire on the lower halves of the windows. There was also an interior window in the room which gave light to the corridor that ran behind the room. One pane was removed from this window so my wife could throw peanuts to the twins and keep them happy for long periods of time. On this occasion the time must’ve been too long because when I came home and casually walked down the corridor I discovered both girls stark naked, standing on the upper frame of the chicken wire window barrier. I immediately retreated to the living room to summon my wife who was, what do you think, reading a book. We quietly entered the girls’ room and each of us lifted one child from their window perch and set them down. The twins had, in the time they were left alone, removed their diapers full of you know what and had made play time with the treasure they found. The room was covered with splotches of doo-doo from top to bottom. How they managed to climb up the chicken wire is still a mystery to me but I realized that the babies had no way of getting down. We arrived just in the knick of time. We cleaned up the room, cleaned up the kids, put the diapers back on but we never discussed the circumstances that led up to the potentially and frightfully dangerous consequences of inattention.


  The next day I replaced the half-length chicken wire window guards with a taller wire that covered the entire height of the windows.

  I can conclude this brief memoir with a firm affirmation that I had a wonderful wife and that I embrace all the ups and downs over our fifty-seven-year marriage.

  A WAR STORY: PART 5

  My wife’s life was marked by one traumatic event: her escape from the German occupation of France. She was raised to love her country and to believe that France was the best possible of all countries with the best of language, of tradition, of food, of climate and so on; the idea of having to leave France to survive was appalling. There were moments of grave danger when she took the train from Paris to Vichy France in the south. She was given several bars of chocolate hidden in her traveling bag. When the German inspectors came to her compartment they found the chocolate, took them as expected and let her go on. She was fourteen when she joined her mother and father for the crossing of the frontier into Spain on foot. They were caught and arrested and put into prison but the Spaniards were not insensitive to the plight of the fleeing Jews. Eventually the family made their way to Portugal and America by different turns and paths.

  My wife loved to recount this history and did so on every possible occasion; it was the story of her life. I must’ve heard one version or another a hundred times, and her audiences were always fascinated by her telling. Eventually, with the advent of the computer, she was able to put her story into print, at first as an e-book and later as a paperback edition. I could write in my wife’s New York Times obituary of August 12, 2007 that she had four careers, as an artist, a teacher (of French), a folk singer, and as an author.

  CLOSURE: PART 6

  Yesterday my wife’s ashes were, as the expression goes, strewn away. We were gathered on a walkway jetting into the Hudson River. My twin daughters were there as well as my second son and his whole family, wife and three children. The son of my first son, Cyrus did the honors by leaping over the low metal barrier to stand right on the edge of the water and letting the ashes from the plastic bag spill out into the tide driven stream. In an instant a long bloom of grey mist appeared in the water and then slowly faded away as the water moved out seaward. The ceremony was over without long laudatory speeches or maudlin recollections, just as my wife would have wanted. We stayed a bit longer to take the obligatory high tech photos with a tiny camera that has enormous capacity which will be translated into printed pictures of our motley crew.

  My son drove me to the gym on 80th Street and Broadway just in time for me to join my senior citizen class in aerobics. And so went the day almost two years after my wife’s death.

  I had a strange dream that night. I must have been dreaming for I thought I heard the front door bell ring. I turned to my wife by my side and said, “There must be someone at the door.” Then I actually got up and walked down the hall to check the front door. Of course no one was there at four fifteen in the morning. After breakfast, as is my want, I went back to bed. When the night’s sleep is broken I feel the need for additional rest the next morning. I must’ve fallen asleep quickly. I remember another dream of traveling in Egypt and of visiting an ancient Egyptian house. The house appeared clearly, vividly as a one-storied structure with a projecting forward room rising on slender, paired, squared off, wood posts, supporting an open architrave of wood. Just as I was about to walk toward the building to examine it close up my dream picture was broken by the ring of the telephone next to my bed: a recorded message from Verizon offering a fast internet service for a low introductory monthly fee. I replaced the telephone receiver as quickly as I could disconcerted by the silly commercial call; the picture of that old Egyptian house still strong in my mind’s eye. (7/21/09)

  CHAPTER IV: FOOD

  WIDOWER’S LAMENT

  Life without one’s mate changes things a lot. The change that constitutes being daily reminded of the absence of the partner who did the cooking. Over the long course of marriage, fixing meals was never my concern. Oh, I could make bacon and eggs, which I was expected to do on some weekends or holidays, and I could tell just when the spaghetti was “al dente” on the evenings when we were improvising a supper. That was the extent of my culinary expertise. My wife carried the major responsibility of preparing meals and she was good at it. She was French and understood the burden of upholding a noble tradition. Even if she hated the time and energy that went into preparing every repast for the family, the task could not be evaded. And now do I ever appreciate that effort as I am thrown upon myself to cook up the meals. Well, I still can’t do a good job at it. I would much rather find alternatives to starving. That’s where ingenuity comes into play.

  The name of the game is to find people who will take me to dinner, or to lunch, or to breakfast, for that matter. Fortunately I have a wide circle of friends who fill this bill. This weekend is a perfect illustration. Friday, Bob came to see me even though the worst snowstorm of the season was raging outside. We would have ordinarily gone to a local eatery but the weather precluded the search for a restaurant. I thought home delivery would be solution but Bob insisted on going out himself. We had a very nice Chinese lunch with two entrées and my brew of tea. Bob is happy to foot the bill. He believes it is in his interest to spend time with me and I am not about to dissuade him. He lost his job six months ago and is despairing of finding another similar position. The economy and his age are going against him, he realizes. He doesn’t need to have another income. He wife is still working and he, in fact, is disenchanted with the commercial world. At mid life he would rather do something he likes even if volunteering is the only way. I must be something of a model for Bob. I am retired and still pursuing a lifestyle of collecting and studying works of art. By three o’clock the snowstorm had abated and Bob left.

  Tomorrow is Saturday and another full day. Friends from Singapore will visit me between eleven and twelve in the morning. I have no idea if an invitation to lunch is in the works. We’ll see. Saturday evening is co-opted by an invitation to a birthday dinner for an old classmate who is celebrating his eighty-five years. We’ve known each other since hanging out in Washington Square Park which was our campus at NYU. He gave up a law practice long ago in favor of writing poetry. He lost his wife a year ago and joins me now in the widower’s club.

  Sunday is usually a fun day because the flea markets are open; I like to make the rounds always hopeful to find a “sleeper,” that is, a treasure to me but not to the vendor.

  The flea market excursion is a social activity, a chance to exchange a word here and a word there with the dealers and with fellow searchers. I return home by mid-afternoon, in time to take a nap, a necessary repose because I’ve been invited to dinner that evening at neighbors down the block. They are a couple of professionals who invite me whenever they have other guests whose conversational skills are not known. They count on me to keep the talk moving, in interesting directions, of course. The gentleman of the house fancies himself a gourmet chef. He is actually very good at putting together a meal in short notice with simple but exquisitely spiced food. He never fails and neither do I.

  Monday is the day I go to the gym for aerobics so I don’t eat lunch until after the exercise. This Monday I have been invited to a French bakery in the Chelsea area, a sort of hidden treasure where the most exquisite croissants and croissant sandwiches (farci) can be found. A late lunch of these delicacies is a treat. My hosts are French so we indulge ourselves in food and language.

  I have other resources, like friends I can call upon at short notice for meetings and meals. Conversation is the coin of the realm or what passes as wisdom. I am not about to dissuade anyone and the exchange remains viable.

  My friends from Singapore, did indeed, take me to lunch or rather they let me choose the restaurant which was a Thai establishment not far from home. The menu had lots of Oriental dishes, inexpensive but tastefully prepared. My friends felt completely at ease. They had their own agenda for the visit, as it turned out. I thi
nk they are fed up with trying to make a living in the Far East and prefer to try their chances in the United States. So they disclosed their purpose and asked for my help. I gave them the best advice I could about preparing a curriculum vitae and about checking the rules at the US consulate. They are relatively young and very enterprising so I may see more of my Singapore friends in the future.

  The inescapable need to eat is treated in a new way now. Since fixing my own fare is not the best solution because meals need company, I ply my new strategy as cleverly as I can. It is another kind of pre-occupation, alas.

  ROAST DUCK

  I ordered roast duck for dinner last night and what a treat it was. Most of my life I regarded duck with a certain disdain. I couldn’t see why such a fuss was made over roast duck. I thought the very little meat that accompanied each cut was hardly worth the effort. Skin and fat I never liked at all and managed to avoid so not much was left. But I watched many devotees of the dish indulge themselves with gusto and relish ending a meal of roast duck with such an air of satisfaction as though they had achieved a remarkable feat. I couldn’t see it.

  But last night was different: you might say I had an epiphany. The dish I ordered was roast duck served on a green leaf and accompanied by strips of a white vegetable that gave balance to the taste and texture of duck. This time I picked up each morsel with my chopsticks, attacked the crispy yet succulent skin still clinging to a layer of fat with anticipation of a gustatory reward. The skin has to be chewed and chewed in order to squeeze out the juice which delivers a remarkable and complex taste. Now I look forward to each mouthful of the skin and the release of that juicy elixir the chewing brings. I can hardly believe myself that I look forward to the eating of skin and fat, the meat of the roast duck is secondary but not negligible.