by Tamar Myers
‘Nu, Magdalena, do you vant to discuss accents wiz me, or do you vant dat vee should put our kophs togedder and find zee man who killed zat vonderful voman, my dear friend, Ramat Sreym?’
‘Your friend?’ I gasped in disbelief. ‘You didn’t like her one little bit.’ Gabe’s mother was an all-too-frequent visitor at my establishment, and the two women often ran into each other—sometimes quite literally.
‘I din’t?’
‘You din’t! She constantly made fun of you. She described you as being shaped like a triangle standing on a point. She said that you had enormous bosoms and a humongous head. She had you speaking in an atrocious accent and mollycoddling your son. She even had you cutting his meat, for crying out loud!’
Ida beamed. ‘Yah, eez all true.’
‘Yes, but don’t you see how emasculating that description of Gabriel is to him? Do you really want your son, a prominent, retired cardiologist, to be seen as a Mama’s boy?’
‘Eez nozzing wrong wiz dat. You vill see, Magdalena. Und anyvay, zees voman, she had zee hots for my Gabeleh, und she said zat eef you vood haf set him free, zen she vood haf converted und moved back to Brooklyn wif us.’
‘Converted?’
‘She vood haf become Jewish.’ So saying, Ida crossed her paddle-like hands, on account of her bosom being so bountiful that her stubby arms couldn’t reach any further.
‘Why, that’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. People aren’t supposed to convert away from Christianity; if anything, Gabe should become a Christian!’
‘What? And turn his back on four thousand years of Judaism?’
It was a good thing we were sitting, because my jaw dropped into my lap. Ida Rosen had suddenly lost all trace of her Eastern European accent. In fact, she sounded more Milwaukee than New York.
I slapped my jaw back into place. ‘Golda Meir!’ I cried. ‘Have you reincarnated?’
‘Vhat?’
‘Don’t “vhat” me, Ida. A second ago you sounded like a native-born Midwesterner. I’ve always suspected that there was something fishy about your accent. Now it’s time to fess up; just who is the real Ida Rosen and where are you from?’
Ida jumped to her feet. This was not an easy maneuver, due to her monstrous bosoms and oversized head. Yes, I know, I could have let her land face down, but then I would have missed yet another opportunity to feel self-righteous. That said, I jumped spritely to my boat-sized feet and pulled her upright before her noggin could hit the pavement of the garden path, taking great care to stay out of the trajectory of that enormous bobbing head.
‘S-s-spy?’ she finally sputtered. ‘Eez dat vaht you tink I am?’
‘I didn’t say that – well, not exactly.’
‘Yah, but dat is vaht you deferred, no?’
‘Hmm. Out of deference to you, I’ll leave that one alone.’
‘Riddles! Always mit zee riddles wiz you, Magdalena. You come here casting precisions on my friends und me, und den you start talking in deez riddles like some crazy voman. Nu, how can I be happy wiz my leetle Jacob, my bubbeleh, growing up wiz a meshuggeneh voman for his mama? Tell me, already, vaht vill happen to my poor grandson now dat his future stepmother eez dead?’
‘Oy gvalt,’ I growled, having picked up those Yiddish words a long time ago from this very kvetching grandmother herself. ‘Look, dear, before I skedaddle, let me make myself perfectly clear: Little Jacob is the fruit of my looms, so to speak. I’m the one who endured the thirty-six hours of agonizing labor—’
‘Eez dat so? From vaht I hear, you shoot him out on zee floor of a grocery store een feefteen minutes.’
‘Maybe so, but they were fifteen minutes of agonizing pain. Although let’s not forget the three agonizing minutes it took to get him in there in the first place.’
Am I ever glad that I don’t believe in karma! How I would hate for it to turn around and bite me. I can only imagine the pain that a mother must feel to hear her daughter-in-law reference sex with her son. Oh, how cruel I had been to poor little Ida! This time I had definitely gone too far. I’d intentionally tried to pluck the oedipal strings that bound her to my husband, knowing full well that whatever I said on that score would crush her.
‘Ach,’ I said, settling back hard onto my rickety wooden chair. ‘I went too far that time; sometimes the most unchristian things just slip out of my mouth.’
‘Plez,’ my mother-in-law said, smiling like a Cheshire cat, ‘eez nahsing to vory about. Be-leaf me; I hear eet all before. My Gabeleh steel complains about his vedding night. Mama, he says—’
The worse thing about rickety wooden chairs is that they sometimes come with peeling plywood seats. The seat that I’d been directed to sit on was a virtual nest of splinters. Unfortunately I happened to be wearing a very inexpensive skirt, which was a cotton-poly blend with an open weave. The resulting combination was not unlike Velcro, so that when I leapt to my feet a second time, the chair seat broke loose from its moorings and came with me. Thus it was that as I strode angrily out of the courtyard and back through the main hall of the Convent of Perpetual Apathy, a roughly square piece of manmade wood flapped against my bottom, rudely spanking me with each step.
FOUR
Where does one go after being bested by the empress of platitudes, the nun of everything nunsensical, she who is the antithesis of apathy? Why, if one is Magdalena Portulacca Yoder Rosen, then one would drive straight into charming little Hernia then out again on Corkscrew Mountain Road. One would then drive another four miles on a bumpy gravel road with so many tight turns that it is sure to remind one of a horse’s colon. Perhaps it is best just to trust me on that.
The point of the aforementioned travelogue is to demonstrate how great my affection was for Agnes Miller, who I was about to visit, and who, coincidentally, was also on Chief Toy’s list. We had been best friends our entire lives, and after college our bond was strengthened by the shared knowledge that the two of us would inevitably remain lifelong spinsters. Then when the unbelievable happened and I married a bigamist, Agnes stuck by me, like a tigress to her cub. She never, ever judged me. Agnes never waivered in her faithfulness to me, not even when all of Hernia called me a Jezebel for marrying outside my faith.
The only negative thing I can say about Agnes really doesn’t have as much to do with her as it does her septuagenarian uncles. Agnes belongs to a very liberal branch of the Mennonite Church, but these two loony uncles of hers became Presbyterians, then Unitarians, before quitting religion altogether. This, then, explains their total lack of shame and their unfettered delight in parading around in the altogether, which is ‘American’ for stark naked. It is bad enough to catch a glimpse of the brothers on a chilly day in, say, autumn or spring, but woe to the woman who finds herself staring face-to-face (actually down-in-front) with either of them on a warm September morning, as I was now.
We Americans are fanatics about equality. We even have it in our constitution that ‘all men are created equal.’ Although the Miller brothers were the only nude men I’ve ever seen standing side by side, if I were to extrapolate from this one example, I would have to conclude that the Good Lord did indeed play favourites. Either that, or God has a bizarre sense of humour. On this particular morning the brothers were standing in the middle of the road, shoulder-to-shoulder, facing oncoming traffic. Since I have a scientific bent (well, I did ace biology in high school) I thought it my duty to at least observe the situation in front of me carefully before tooting my horn. After a rather thorough study, and some photos on my cell phone, I concluded that a pony and a chipmunk were the two images that came to mind.
‘I say there, Magdalena,’ called the brother of equine proportions as he approached on the driver’s side, ‘you’re supposed to try and pass.’
I shut my eyes tightly. ‘I do, dear; believe it, or not, pass for sane. The two of you, however, might need to have your meds readjusted. I’ll be sending those pictures on to your caseworker in Bedford. Does she know that the two of you are still running around like
Adam before the Fall?’
That’s when the poor brother with the rodent-sized equipment ran around to the passenger window and commenced banging on the glass. With my eyes closed, the pounding took me by surprise. I felt violated, and then suddenly very angry. Stupidly I lowered both front windows so that I could better confront the pair of senile old men.
‘What the heck is going on?’ I demanded. That particular ‘h’ word is almost as bad as I can swear, and I hardly ever trot it out.
‘We’re broke,’ said the first brother.
‘And bored,’ said the other.
‘Yeah. You see, we need spending money, and St. Agnes won’t give us more until the first of next month, so Alvin here thought up a plan. We’re pretending to be highway robbers. But the stupid plan isn’t working.’
Alvin stuck his head and half of his naked, wrinkled torso through the window. Thank goodness Charles, the centaur, kept his distance.
‘We were going to hit you up for twenty-five dollars to let you pass,’ Alvin said, ‘because you’ve always been nice to our little niece.’
‘Plus, Alvin’s always had a thing for you,’ Charles said.
‘Have not!’ Alvin said.
‘Not that it matters much,’ Charles continued, ‘because he hears voices, even when he’s on his meds. Then again, I hear voices as well.’
‘Do you ever hear voices, Magdalena?’ Alvin asked.
‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘Do you mean like God whispering in my heart? That kind of thing?’
‘Could be. That’s how mine started, what with God telling me how special I was, and that if I just had enough faith I could walk across the Monongahela River.’
‘It didn’t work,’ Charles said.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I remember. Alvin tried to walk across the river three times – twice when it was in flood stage. The rescue squad had to be called each time, and it ended up costing the state hundreds of dollars. Alvin, you could have at least tried walking across a pond, or maybe just your bathtub. Any place where the water isn’t moving.’
‘Duh,’ Charles said.
‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Play nice.’
‘Sorry, bro,’ Charles said. ‘Hey, Magdalena, can we please hitch a ride back up the hill with you?’
Forsooth, I had to think about their request for a moment. They were, after all, buck naked, and I had just been handed the squad car. Didn’t I have the right to enjoy it without all those sweaty man parts sticking to leather seats which I had yet the pleasure of sniffing? On the other hand, the brothers were officially elderly by social security standards (full eligibility begins at age sixty-six), and a steep hill lay between where we were and their house.
‘Hop in, boys,’ I said at last, ‘but no talking, and positively no shvitzing.’
‘What is shvitzing?’ chatty Charles said.
‘Stop,’ I said, with mock sternness. ‘I said no talking!’ I said it dramatically enough to let them know how annoyed I was at both of them, and at myself for being so accommodating as I continued, ‘Shvitzing is Yiddish for sweating. I learned it from my mother-in-law.’
‘A delightful woman,’ Alvin said.
‘Too late about the warning,’ Charles said. ‘Besides, it’s not something that one can help.’
‘Oy vey!’ I cried and thumped the steering wheel.
The startled brothers jumped so, of course, when they landed they left new puddles of perspiration on my newly acquired leather seats.
In the old days, or so I’ve heard, a man threw a pair of horse shoes out the kitchen door and where the farthest one landed, that’s where he built a cottage for his parents. This was called the Grossdawddy house. The Amish, who never collect social security money from the government, still maintain the practice of having the grandparents living on the farm. In the case of Agnes and her brothers, a separate cottage meant keeping the old coots out from under her feet, as well as not having to live with the guilt stemming from committing them to a nursing home. Like many of our inbred kin, and perhaps a good many of the English aristocracy, they are eccentric, not dangerous – except, perhaps, to upholstery.
Although Agnes is my age, she does not have to work. The reason is that her family made a small fortune inventing nail polish for horses, and horn polish for the beef cattle on the western plains. Named Happy Hoofers and Happy Hookers respectively, they became instant hits with dilettante and celebrity ranchers. Happy Hookers, which comes in neon yellow, fuchsia and chartreuse, all but eliminated the need for branding, even before the invention of the microchip. Free to do as she pleases, it pleases Agnes to sit on her sofa eating biscuits and watching television, for crying out loud.
Television! The Devil’s mouthpiece, Mama called it, and she was right. Years ago there used to be one good show worth watching called Greenacres. It was about country living, and a pig, and a Hungarian immigrant with a charming accent – really good stuff. Today it is about fornication and violence, and violence while fornicating. Seriously, you wouldn’t believe the TV programs that I’ve had to suffer through, and all of them on behalf of my church, Beechy Grove Mennonite. Some of our young people had been caught watching the tube in the homes of secular friends, and some poor adult had to volunteer to discover just how much worldly temptation they might have been exposed to.
At any rate, when Agnes opened her kitchen door that morning, her red, swollen eyes resembled a pair of Chinese lanterns. I gasped appropriately, although I wasn’t shocked; Agnes is a world-class crier.
‘What happened, dear?’ I said. ‘Were you using your night-vision goggles again looking for Martians? Isn’t that risky, given that your uncles run around in the buff?’
Agnes sniffed and dabbed at the corner of each eye with a delicate flowered handkerchief. ‘Really, my dear,’ she said in a BBC accent, ‘you haven’t got a clue, have you?’
I prayed for strength enough to hold back my exasperation before sighing. It isn’t my fault if some of my prayers go unanswered.
‘Actually, I do have a clue. It’s just that silly show of yours about a daunting abbey.’
My land of Goshen, you would have thought that the poor dear had kissed a hornets’ nest, so red did her face become. Fortunately, Agnes can’t be both English and angry at the same time, so she ditched the fake accent.
‘Downton Abbey isn’t just a silly show, Mags! That was a terribly insensitive remark to make at a time like this. No wait; you don’t even know what I’m talking about, do you? Do you? And I bet that you wouldn’t care if you did.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I sort of feel like a sheep that has been asked a geometry question. Although in the spirit of full disclosure, I don’t know very many sheep that have been asked such questions.’
My dearest friend did not seem to appreciate my effort to answer honestly in an amusing manner. More is the pity, if you ask me.
‘Matthew is dead!’ she shouted. ‘D.E.A.D. – dead! He was killed when his car ran off the road and hit a tree. Now I’ll never get married!’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Don’t you see? Now I’ll have to help Tom sort out the problems of the estate—’
I waved my gangly arms in front of her Chinese lantern eyes. ‘It isn’t real!’ I shouted back. ‘It’s a television show. They are made-up people with invented lives.’
‘That may be, Mags, but it is a real castle; I read that in the TV Guide. And it is still occupied by a real Lord and Lady.’
That did it; that hiked my hackles. We plain people, we who are proud of our humility, we who sailed to the shores of the Thirteen Colonies in 1738, book no truck with inherited rank.
‘Aha!’ I said, spotting an easy avenue in which to score. ‘We’re not supposed to call anyone ‘Lord’ except God or Jesus. If you don’t believe it, then look it up in the King James Bible, which was written by the English themselves. Besides, the Our Father is also known as the Lord’s Prayer, not the Earl’s Prayer.’
My friend smiled. ‘Now you’re being silly. Y
ou know that the English didn’t write the Bible; English wasn’t even a language when the Bible was written.’
I returned her smile. ‘Agnes, might I come in, dear? If you fix me a cup of tea and some ginger biscuits, I’ll let you lay your hoary head upon my shoulder and have a proper cry.’
For the record, Agnes is one of those women who proudly claims her gray hair. It is her staunch belief that dyeing one’s hair is the same thing as lying. That is, of course, unless the face that goes with the colored hair is as shrivelled as a prune. Agnes, however, is a ‘fluffy’ woman, with a full, round face. In her own words: ‘Fat don’t crack.’
It requires more to sustain that face than just ginger biscuits and tea. ‘I have a broken heart, Mags,’ Agnes said. ‘It’s either going to be lunch at the Sausage Barn or I’m taking to my bed with pumpkin pie and a can of whipped cream.’
‘Then its lunch,’ I said, ‘but I’ll have to call home first. Freni was making a big pot of stew but I’m sure that she’ll understand.’ I can always be coaxed to eat out in a restaurant, even if that means eating at the Sausage Barn, which is owned by my second-best friend /arch-nemesis, Wanda Hemphopple.
‘Sure, Freni will understand,’ said Agnes as she practically pushed me off the kitchen steps and made a beeline for my car. ‘That woman always understands.’
But Agnes made it only halfway to the cruiser before she stopped dead in her tracks, causing a one-person pileup. Believe me, when one is as tall and spindly as a clothesline pole, with the musculature of a spaghetti strand (that is to say, none), it is possible to fold up rather easily on oneself.
‘Aack!’ I squawked.
‘What the heck is that?’ Agnes said.
‘What does it look like, dear?’ I said, rubbing my nose while at the same time trying to push it back to its original spot on my face.
‘I can see that it is Hernia’s one police cruiser,’ Agnes snapped, ‘but what on earth are you doing with it?’
‘Ah, that,’ I said. ‘Well, you see, our illustrious author’s death has now officially been ruled a murder, and—’