by Mary Marks
Hilda opened the door with a huge smile and twinkling eyes. A baby-blue plastic headband kept her short hair from falling in her face. A former nurse, she had lived among and ministered to the health needs of the homeless. Now, in her early fifties, she’d become too old for the rough life on the streets. She jumped at the chance to be my uncle’s live-in caregiver, with her own room and three meals a day guaranteed. She wore a clean white apron with a bib over a simple yellow cotton housedress. “Come in, come in. Where’s our surprise guest?”
“Turns out she had other plans. I’m afraid it’s only me.” Something about the living room seemed changed. It appeared more tidy and cheerful than before. I began to take inventory of the familiar items, most of which hadn’t been changed in thirty years. I stopped at the front window. The beige drapes with the torn lining were gone. New, white polyester pleated drapes were open to let the sunshine in.
I smiled. “Those new drapes look fabulous. They change the whole feeling in this room. Is this the surprise you wanted to show me?”
She winked. “Take a seat.”
While I settled on the sofa, Hilda slipped her hands into a pair of thick red rubber rectangles. Then she lifted her voice and shouted, “Okay, Isaac, we’re ready.”
My uncle emerged from the hallway wearing a black yarmulke and long, black workout pants made of ripstop nylon. Parkinson’s slowed his walk across the floor. We Are the Champions was written on the front of his T-shirt under a picture of Freddie Mercury. Uncle Isaac also wore brand-new red high-top sneakers and red rubber boxing gloves. He stopped when he reached Hilda and grinned at me. “How do I look, faigela? Like Maxie Rosenbloom, nu?”
More like a skinny old ninja. “Who was he?”
“Oy! I guess you’re too young to remember. He was a world champion boxer. Jewish.”
I couldn’t help myself and began to laugh. “Okay, what have the two of you cooked up? What’s with the boxing?”
“Hold onto your hat.” He chuckled.
“This I’ve got to see.” I settled back in the chair.
He turned to face Hilda. “Okay, coach.”
Hilda stood with her feet apart and held the rubber rectangles in front of her. “Give it the old one-two, Isaac.”
Uncle Isaac began to slam his gloves into Hilda’s hands, yelling “Oy!” and “Oof!”
“Don’t forget the feet.” Hilda gestured with her chin toward the floor.
In between each punch, my uncle made little dancing steps, chanting “cha-cha-cha.”
He soon established the rhythm of his workout, repeating, “Right, left, cha-cha-cha. Left, right, cha-cha-cha.”
He stopped after five minutes, breathing heavily. Tiny beads of sweat quivered on his upper lip. Hilda took off her mitts and reached for a plastic squeeze bottle. Uncle Isaac opened his mouth like a fledgling bird and waited for Hilda to squirt water inside.
“Great work, Isaac. You went one minute longer today. Are you done?”
He nodded, still panting.
Hilda removed his boxing gloves and gave him a small hand towel. “We’ll do some more tonight.” With a smile and a promise of lunch, she retreated to the kitchen.
“Why the boxing? I’m truly perplexed.”
Uncle Isaac mopped his face with the towel, then draped it over his shoulders. “The doctor prescribed it. He said boxing teaches the brain to make new pathways. You know, for balance and mobility. God willing, it will stop the progression of the disease. Could even reverse the effects, halevai.” It should only happen.
“Halevai,” I repeated.
“And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go change for lunch.” He turned and disappeared, leaving me alone in the living room. When he returned fifteen minutes later, his step was slightly less hesitant than before. He’d replaced his workout clothes with khaki trousers and a long-sleeved blue shirt. His curly white hair was still wet from a very quick shower. When he bent over to give me a kiss on the forehead, I got a whiff of Irish Spring.
Hilda served large bowls of savory chicken soup with broad egg noodles and matzah crackers.
Uncle Isaac tasted his first spoonful. “Boy! Hilda can really cook, can’t she?” He looked at her and smiled. “She’s a genuine balabusta, this one.”
“Well, you’re a great teacher, Isaac.” Hilda blew on a steaming spoonful of soup. “Working out gives you a real appetite. And what the doctor said is true. All the punching, stretching, and footwork helps the brain find new ways to control movement.”
“Uncle Isaac, can I ask you a question?”
He smiled. “Nu?”
“When you owned your tailor shop on Pico Boulevard, did you ever chew on a piece of thread while you were sewing? You know, to keep from losing your wits?”
He scooped another spoonful of soup with a steady hand. “Where did you hear that old bubbe meiser?”
I told him about Fanya and her crusade against the evil eye.
“Oy. My mother, your bubbie—may her memory be a blessing—was from the old school. She sure believed in all of those things. Every morning before I left for the shop, she packed me a good lunch and said, ‘Don’t forget the thread, Yitzie.’ The same thing happened when I came home from work at the end of the day. She always asked, ‘Yitzie. Did you remember the thread?’” Yitzie was a nickname for Yitzhak in Hebrew, or Isaac in English.
He sighed. “Your bubbie always knew when I wasn’t telling the truth. So, lying wasn’t an option. It was easier to gnaw on a piece of thread than face a lecture from my mother about dybbuks and demons.”
“What about after she died? Did you continue with the chewing?”
Uncle Isaac shrugged. “By that time, I was so used to it, I did it without thinking.”
“And yet, when I started sewing quilts, you never warned me about the thread thing.”
This time he laughed out loud. “You’re a modern woman, faigela. I knew you wouldn’t listen to an old superstition.”
Hilda stretched her hand in my uncle’s direction and touched his arm softly. “Isaac, what was the word your mother called you?”
If I blinked, I would’ve missed the briefest caress of her fingers. My senses went on high alert. Was something going on between the two of them?
My uncle looked at her with an expression I’d never before seen in him. “In Hebrew, the name Isaac is Yitzhak. It means ‘He will laugh.’ Yitzie is a nickname.” The tone of his voice betrayed something deeper. Tenderness? Affection?
As Fanya would say, Oy va voy and three sholem aleichems! Something was definitely going on between the two of them.
All during the drive back to Encino I kept thinking about the subtle signals between my uncle and his live-in caregiver, Hilda. Emotions roiled around inside of me like numbers in a lottery drum. He never married or even had a girlfriend. My uncle devoted his whole life to taking care of my bubbie, my mother, and me. I once asked him why he never married. His response was simple and dismissive. “I never met the right one.”
After he retired from his tailor shop, his whole social world took place at the senior center on Olympic Boulevard. Every day he met with his daf yomi group to study Talmud. Now he was in his eighties and suffered from Parkinson’s. What was he thinking? Romance? With a woman young enough to be his daughter? Unbelievable. Or was it?
How could I have misjudged Hilda? Anger stabbed at my vision. I was a fool to trust her. What did she want with an old man like Uncle Isaac? After being homeless for years, she probably wanted security. Like a permanent place to call home. My uncle was more vulnerable now than ever before in his life and easy prey for her seduction. I vowed to replace Hilda with a male caregiver at the soonest possible moment.
I pulled into my driveway around three in the afternoon. In case the kidnappers had come back for Fanya, I searched the street for a blue SUV or black Jeep Cherokee. Everything looked normal. I opened the front door with my key and stepped inside. “Fanya?” I raised my voice.
“In here, Martha.”
I dumped my purse on the hall table and joined her in the sewing room. Dozens of carefully cut triangles and squares lay in neat piles on the cutting table. Her toothy grin was enough to convince me she must’ve been working the entire time I was gone. “I’m done with the cutting and ready for the next step.”
“Wow! You have the makings of a true quilt addict. I’m impressed.”
“Believe it or not, this wasn’t a stretch for me. I’m just not used to measuring to the nearest eighth of an inch.”
“Well, now you get to sew all this together. Do you know how to use a sewing machine?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. The main thing you need to know is this: All quilters use a fourth of an inch for the seams. It’s universal. The presser foot on my machine measures exactly a quarter inch from the outside edge of the foot to the needle in the middle. You shouldn’t have a problem lining up your fabrics to sew a perfect seam.”
Each block in Fanya’s quilt was made with twenty carefully cut shapes. I collected the pieces for one block and arranged them on my design wall. The little bits of cotton fabric easily clung to the white flannel sheet. “Study this arrangement and start sewing outward from the little squares in the middle. Remember to iron the seams as you go along. Let me know if you have any questions.”
Fanya swiveled the chair around to face me. “I do have one thing. But it’s not about this.”
By the expression on her face, I could tell something was bothering her. Taking her cue, I sat in the other chair and said quietly, “I’m listening.”
“While you were out, I heard from Hadas.”
“She’s alive? Thank God! The kidnappers let her use a phone? Did they ask for a ransom?”
Fanya shook her head and held her hand in the universal signal to stop. “It’s not what we thought.”
“What isn’t?”
“The kidnapping.”
“Now I’m really confused.”
“I’m trying to tell you Hadas wasn’t kidnapped after all.”
If she’d thrown cold water in my face, I couldn’t have been more shocked. “Wait a minute. What about the note the kidnappers left? The one warning Don’t call the police or she dies. Wait for instructions?”
Fanya leaned back. “The note, the abduction? It was all a fake. The men who took her? Hired actors.”
Now we know why one of them said, All the world’s a stage. Sister Mae Slocum was right. She said one of then looked familiar. Like an actor she’d come across during her career as a cinematographer’s assistant. It was a long shot, but I hoped Sister Mae could give me his name.
Fanya continued, “Hadas needed to disappear for a while. She says someone is after her.”
“Who? Why?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
“If she wanted to disappear, why did she call you today?”
“She needs our help. We have to go to her, Martha.”
The irony of helping Crusher’s wife, Hadas, wasn’t lost on me. I sighed, resigned to play the peculiar role of her adversary rescuer once again. “Right. Where’s she staying?”
Fanya handed me a slip of paper on which she’d written, Delaware Hotel, Grand Avenue, LA, room 990. “She’s registered as Jane Smith.”
“How original,” I snarked.
With afternoon traffic, it took us well over an hour to reach downtown LA. We pulled in front of the stunning and historic Hotel Delaware, noted for its elaborate Renaissance architecture. I exchanged my car keys for a ticket from the red-coated valet, and the two of us entered a grand lobby. Soaring spaces, marble floors, and opulent furnishings reflected the glamour days of Hollywood. Kings and heads of state visited the hotel with its vast oriental carpets, dark woodwork, and painted and coffered ceilings. We headed straight for the elevators and the ninth floor. Fanya sent a text to tell Hadas we were on our way to her room.
I pressed the up button. As we waited for an elevator, a worker in a white uniform entered a door marked Housekeeping. The elevator bell dinged, the doors opened, and we entered and punched the button for the ninth floor. The carpeted hallways completely muffled our steps. If someone wanted to sneak to Hadas’s room and harm her, no one would hear them coming or going.
As we approached the door to room 990, Fanya said, “Hadas texted me to knock three times so she’d know it’s us.”
After three knocks, a voice on the other side of the door said, “Who is it?”
Fanya replied, “Fanya and Martha.”
The door opened quickly and Hadas motioned for us to hurry inside the living room of her luxury suite. Fanya and I moved toward a gray sofa, while Hadas double-locked the door and opted for one of the two armchairs upholstered in crimson velvet.
For someone in hiding, the beautiful Penélope Cruz look-alike showed no signs of wear and tear. Her dark hair tumbled in waves to her shoulders, and a sky-blue dress clung to her curves in all the right places. Only the constant movement of her eyes betrayed any anxiety or distress as her gaze darted from Fanya to me and back again. “Thank you for coming. Does anybody else know you’re here?”
“I didn’t tell a soul. Not even Yossi,” Fanya said.
For once, Hadas looked directly at me. “It was good of you to come, Martha.”
Ya think? “Do you mind telling us what the heck this is all about?”
CHAPTER 16
Hadas leaned back and folded her hands together in her lap. “I have to stay in hiding. At least until all of this blows over.”
“All of what?” Fanya looked as if she didn’t know whether the occasion called for salt in the corners of the room or spitting behind her hand. Or both.
“A man is pursuing me. His name’s Alexander. I told him I was married. That always worked in the past with men like him. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Although I couldn’t prove it, I sensed someone was following me. Several times I thought I saw him on the street outside my home in New York, watching. I was terrified to leave my house alone, even in broad daylight.” As she spoke, she licked her lips repeatedly. Her fear could be real. Nobody could fake such panic.
“Did you report him to the police?” I asked.
“And say what? ‘I think I’m being followed, but I can’t prove it’? The NYPD is too busy to go after alleged stalkers based on somebody’s instincts. No. I decided to escape to LA and ask Yossi to come back to New York with me and scare the guy off. I figured once Alexander got a look at Yossi, he’d leave me alone.”
“At least we have that in common,” I muttered.
Hadas screwed up her face. “Come again?”
“I hoped once you got a look at me, you’d leave Yossi alone.”
She avoided my gaze once more. “I’m being a poor hostess. Would you like a drink? Lots of choices in the minibar.”
I stood. “I thought you’d never ask.”
She started to rise. “What would you like?”
I motioned for her to sit again. “No, no. I’ve got this. I’ll see what there is.”
She pointed to a tiny kitchenette at the end of the living room. “There’s a refrigerated minibar next to the sink.”
Fanya followed behind me and looked over my shoulder at the contents of the small refrigerator. “I could use some water.”
I handed her two plastic bottles of chilled water and scanned the selection of snacks. “Nothing to eat? You’re probably hungry after the long ride downtown. I know I am. Surely there must be something kosher here.”
Fanya reached for a small package of salted peanuts. “I’ll have these.”
A price list was posted inside the refrigerator door. Every item was marked up at least seven times above retail. “Here. Take these, too.” I handed her a package of M&M’S, a can of Pringles potato chips, and a Hershey’s with almonds. I figured they would cost Hadas a bit. I grabbed a Coke Zero and all the other snack items and watched Hadas’s face as I spread them on the coffee table in front of the sofa. A hundred dollars’ worth, at least. She pressed
her lips together in a thin line but said nothing.
I smiled sweetly. “No use letting all this go to waste in the refrigerator.” I peeled the wrapping off a Snickers bar and bit into the heavenly chocolate, caramel, and nut confection. “Mmm. I haven’t eaten one of these since last Halloween. They’re my favorites. Don’t you agree? And look. There’s even a hechsher on the wrappers.” I pointed to a tiny printed symbol signifying the item was kosher.
Hadas recovered quickly and raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never indulged. Junk food will add pounds to your hips and thighs. But I guess you know that already.”
I ignored the dig and sipped my diet cola. You had to draw the calorie line somewhere. “So, Hadas, you were telling us about getting away from Alexander. If you were sure Yossi would scare him off, why did you go to all the trouble and expense of planning your fake abduction? I mean, when did you plan to tell us you were okay? Both the LAPD and the FBI are looking for you, as we speak.”
The expression on her face broadcast dismay. “You told the police? I left a note warning everyone not to!”
“So sue me. We were worried about your safety.”
She slumped forward, with her elbows on her knees and head in hands. “Oh my God.”
I pressed on. “And what, for heaven’s sake, was the second break-in on Monday morning supposed to prove?”
Hadas suddenly sat straight, frowning. “There was another break-in?”
Fanya and I looked at each other. “Come on, Hadas. Admit you sent those actors back for a second go-round of my house.”
“I didn’t. I swear.” By now, her face was ashen. “Alexander. He must be in LA, looking for me. You’ve got to help me. You can’t let anyone know you’ve seen me today. Not the police and not the FBI.” She sprang to her feet and began pacing and wringing her hands. “Do you think you were followed here?”