Witz

by Joshua Cohen

  It’s about time, Hanna’s friends would have said that, too, echoes up from the voids crenate between the whitened teeth, a chorus of caloriecounters, carbohydratecharters, when she’d tell them the news, whether over the phone immediately after He’d told her, let it slip, coughed into conversation, confessed or else, if Hanna could contain herself a day or two, probably not, then at their weekly brunch and bookclub, their planningcommittee or schoolboard meeting—tonight at eight, don’t forget.

  How long was He going to make us wait? Congratulations. Mazel. Mazl. Mzl.

  No, I’m off apples for the time being, it’s the acids and plus they’re a sugar, and no more pumpernickel for me that’s a starch, trying to stay away from them, what were you saying: Edy Koenigsburg, whose own marriage was by her own admission less than Eden.

  It’s about time. How old is He now? And she? Ask miscellaneous shop assistants, the secretary to the investment mamzer, even her travelagent, frizzily flushed, in pants of spandex overstretched.

  How long was He going to make me wait? Which means, now I can die in peace. Says Hanna to Israel later that night. Israel who might disagree with his son’s choice, but are you crazy not in front of the wife.

  Anyway, it’s moot—an opportunity will never arise.

  About time, and marriages are all about time, and about flowers and gifts of jewelry, second mortgages for third homes, according to the neverwid-owed, nevermarried Misses Teitelbaum who’s said to know a thing or two about—among other things—enteitelment (who says? she does)…about time to shep, time to wish a Mazel Tov to His betrothed whomever she may be and to Ben, the ungroomed groom, the unkempt to be kept for perpetuity. Idea is to arrange Him a virgin, a pure Sarah, Rebecca, or Rachel, a Leah but without that veiled business under the canopy, not for her, and anyway it’s called a chuppah. To procure for Him a woman negligibly eligible, a girl ingathered as of late, a convert as recent as any converted; to arrange for Him a mate, for His soul or not, an intended, better be Beshert: a moll for the paparazzi, a face mouthing a name for the press, an escort for the just selected, custompatterned carpet soon to unfurl its purchase eighteen million inheritances per square foot and far beyond the bulbs and smoke, to fundraisers, to rededicated synagogues, here to the Temple Itself three floors up and growing higher by the prayer, the Donor’s Kaddish: the wiring’s to be installed tomorrow; the sconces (ner tamid) on order to illuminate eternal; the pulpits are having their plaques screwed on, one says Rabbi, the other, Cantor…an Eve in the kitchen and a Lilith everywhere else, is what, and whenever it’s needed, demanded, pleased or begged, no matter what Ben might want, who cares. Those becoming converted frown on His sort of dalliance, His perceived inability to obliterate options, desire, lust, send Eros all to hell and just settle—settle down, Ben; earthbound, without choice. His own handlers fan the flames. To be single is to be a scandal. A shame named Shanda after Wanda. Though the Marys will stay, they’ll assure Him, that a mensch needs His occasional leisure, a permanency at least outwardly proper’s required. Then to get her, the press never wants for speculation, the PR’ll be sure to imply, to get whichever her as long as it’s Her as pregnant as Him, soon expecting kinder, those halfbastard quarterbreeds, mutts, intermingled whatevers, some something to propagate the line. Furtherance, the ideal. And a line is a line is a line, though it be weak, adulterated—anything as far as the public’s concerned.

  What’s my line? Not to be.

  As for this matchmaker, on second look she’s even older but well made up enough, rouged, blushbeaten, mascaramassacred, and lipsmacked haphazardly so that her smile ends just below the hang of her ears, their earrings. A woman of lived years some with love others with less, lately though things not too bad, you know, holding up, nothing bothering save the same old varicosity, not much to complain about, ultimately, not with this recent fame of hers, if maybe she overdoes it a little you can’t hold it against her what with her health and life—her secondcareer celebrity; her premature renown on the renewed West Side of Manhattan, that narrow stretch of upperpark Broadway bordered by liverspotted delis set to reopen, savorystores just under new management, only waiting for their certifications to come through, soon invigorated synagogues about to embark themselves on energetic membership drives and dynamic accounts of outreach initiative; neighborhood, also, of monumental apartments to be rented again above Riverside Drive, columned Classic Sixes furnished with a piano in every fireplace set in walls of more books than could be bound by any tongue; hers a reputation as a shadchaness, a shidducher such as you wouldn’t believe, with references glowing like a superficial venereal disease, a great yenta preceding her, though the impression’s to be honest a bissel mitigated as she goes to pick at any nostril, fivefingered without embarrassment, flicks her snot to the floor while with her other hand extracts six photographs from a shoe under her sock, damp, and slightly mal-odorous, then holds them out of sight atop her swollen knee, a bruised if not chipped patella she don’t whine, thumbs the faces away, as if hoping to rub off the undesirable, you never know, whatever kills a deal: a lazy eye, a limp, a limp hand, she shakes while she limps, a pimpled forehead or cheek lipped with such kiss of death, a chin doubling triple, even flaws invisible, the unexamined, too: money troubles, pending audits, alcoholic uncles, the suspicion of incest, ongoing arson investigations, mild schizophrenia though thought recessive on the mother’s side, these days who can tell, who wants to. Her, prior to her present occupation she’d done the life of the wife herself, having been married for golden years and a night deep enough into the fiftyfirst that she’d rather forget to a developer magnate, an obese slumlord in later years an amateur Luna Park memorabilist and professional stripmaller, who’d owned seven of them statewide long and tall across the suckedin gut of the umpteenth borough, Joysey, who’d died abed with his mistress who she was also his secretary half his age, half her size—if this space hadn’t been so sanctuaried, the Holy of Holiest ground if untenanted as yet, pardon our appearances this inpreparation, she’d hock on its floor, a guttural of phlegm for the undedicated pews. Forgive her the maybe exaggerated gesticulations, forget the tics and bats of eyes a whole teeming winking blinking nation of them she’s just getting used to, trying them out—accessories much like the necklace, stranded fingerthick with pearls like black caviar, the earrings, heavy as her tush and amber as if preservative of an ancient seed, and the glasses, mosquitolidded shockwhiteframing plastic, to match her newfangled Affiliation.

  I’ve always loved Them, she says with that tendency to spit.

  She glances at Ben, so bashful.

  After what happened, I got depressed, I got lonely, couldn’t sleep, that and the business with Bob (that’s the husband), after he died, I moved into a more manageable place…I began studying up on Them, bought a few books, took a class. It all seemed so exotic, They seemed so—happy, you know…and so—she makes with her hands a silent ta-da—this present occupation, the dedication of her retiring years to perpetuating that happiness in an assumed incarnation, a usurped personality; she to her friends a whole new person, always tending to the Other Half, door-to-door making matches, by appointment only matching makers, with machers—and all of it money always aside maybe to compensate, as if to overatone, but for what, spite your curiosity, bite tongue.

  And I’d love to be able to help you, she says then settles back in her pew, you especially.

  Young and in love, is there anything more…nu, maybe not love just yet, but these days, you can understand. It takes time and wooing effort.

  She quiets, lifts the glasses around her neck to her face, glasses without glass, so just those insectual frames she squints through—into the sanctuary, in its incompleteness less sacralizing than unsettling, a making awkward; her less awed by the filigree gilded overhead, by the imposing bulkhead of the, how do they call it…bima, that’s it with its pulpits plaqued and the ark’s vault installed deep between, behind the door of which the scrolls of the Law are said to be stored, rolled a
round their tablets, then crowned with a mappa, the wing of a wimple, than it’s her unwillingness to begin with their bargaining, to initialize an offer, though she knows she’s expected to, and yet further that she’s also expected to stall, to postpone and grossly mislead; that’s why, she has to suspect, they’re meeting here, privacy aside: how can you profane the House of God with such a risky business?

  Aren’t we paying you by the hour? Der asks, and she sighs and with fingers plumped with smoker’s bruise though veined in delicate bone lays the virginal photo on the seat of her pew, facing down, pretends to refresh herself with the information obtainable on the reverse, then flips and keeping her thumb over the face turns with two breasts so imposing they’re cleaved into one to the lip of the pew behind her to hand the photo over.

  Who’s she? Der asks.

  The One, says the matchmaker.

  Why her?

  For you, only the finest…she retracts her thumb slowly, leaving a print swirled in shvitz over the blondish blue of the prospect.

  Her name?

  Now she goes by Frumie, wiping her hands of it on her skirts.

  But listen: she’s bright, and beautiful, like you wouldn’t believe—altogether a fabulous young woman, an excellent match…you couldn’t do better even if I’d had a daughter—even if He’d be marrying me.

  Which is an option—I look better in my photos than what you see in person.

  I was asking her name, and Der tattoos the pew with a hand gloved in pigskin.

  Did I mention beautiful and bright…a great catch, if you’ll excuse me—she happens to be the daughter of your monger, Fischelson the Fish King; I don’t need to tell you he’s offering generous.

  A pity we’re not offering him.

  Though I’d like to hear from the future groom, at least see Him…and she turns to face Ben seated alongside Der; it’s praiseworthy, how committed she is to even the inconvenience of her pose; her straining across a shoulder, she’s rubbernecking to ask, what are you looking for, Mister Israelien, who and why? what qualities are important? tell me about your mother…

  Down the center aisle, a team of workers barrow in the Menorah, set it up on the pulpit right, are fored over a little to the left, that’s right and leave it lie with one of them remaining, who takes from a pocket of his parka a rag and tin and begins in with the polish. Casks of oil are being rolled step-by-step, for its illumination. The woman snorts all the waged patience in the world, begs a sigh out of herself it sounds bad like a cancer of convenience, frowns, then flips again through the stack arthritic or only stiffly. Fine, she’s saying, not Fein, no, flips, forward, back, and nextward, and this while bending and otherwise creasing her shots in a system so private as to be inscrutable maybe even to herself, then cuts, shuffles, finally deals; peeling the first from the top of the stack, then slapping it down over her shoulder, not bothering to turn around. Hymn, so how about Hanna? she asks, your mother’s name…a match already made, if not in heaven then at least in Joysey, she’s upstate, firstrate, no kidding—Hanna now Geffen-Weinstein née Heather Vinelli.

  Father’s a senator, as you know, recently aligned himself with the faith—for the votes I’m sure you’d say and you might be right, but still, who wouldn’t.

  Her grandfather’s the wine magnate, owns and operates Seedlessence, Inc., exclusive importer of table grapes from Palestein.

  The wife’s father’s the big baker, I only pinch his loaves—the lightest around, but crusty enough on the outside…they’re just perfect together, you know?

  Der waits until she’s finished to finish himself with this shaking his head, begins again the tap with his fingers.

  She reaches exasperated into folds of her garments, onion layers disclosing babushka couture, the flap of her burlap camisole unearthing all manner of lapse and widowed slob: halfzware tobacco, dust of paprika, peppermint, a flask of mashke and the lintily mothballed else, exertions exposing, too, the handle of her dead husband’s revolver, its trigger webbed in reassuring spiderwork; it’s usually kept under the pillow, only brought along on risky consultation—her cleaving a cleft deep into her mammary now, to rise the boozy yeast of those two breasts from one, to produce in fits of fingers and rings of sparkling fauxgold this rolled, tattered photograph she attempts to smooth flat with palm and wrist on the reverse of the facing pew.

  Pass it along, Der’s almost had it. Ben sits trying to peek under His veil, over the pew and her at the shot she has, bowed by her nails manicured in rainbows. Let’s see it, Der demands again and she says, her, let’s see Her…and she hands the photo over facedown to him greedy, grousing, who holds her image bent near his eyes, then squints to crease his forehead.

  Is this who I think it is?

  If not, then her mother’s got some explaining.

  How recently did they embrace it All? Don’t tell me they’ve gone ger! I was down to meet with him last week and…long enough ago, it’s her turn to interrupt, for it not to cast aspersions—it’s only been a day or two but kosher, real legit. He had his own people officiating. I spoke with him just this morning, he’s keeping it quiet for now, asks that you respect his wishes, knows you will…she dangles her empty frames from a ringfinger, touches her tongue to a wart on her nose understood to be her nose until her sniffly tonguing of it explains the flesh behind it, massed in its support.

  Der’s expression as if to say, you were holding out.

  What can I say? she asks and says, complain me no complaint, bitch me no bitch, I just wanted to make you shvitz…. what’s that they say, kvetch, whine your misered heart out.

  Plus, a boy like yours needs options. Do we have a deal or no? She grabs up the photograph from his hands, flips it over to the reverse’s scrawl, smudged dark in stricken zeroes.

  I’m the one laying down the dowry here, is that it? Der nods disappointment. This the price, then? resignation, and he forces a whistle that ends in a kiss, his moustache smeary, pinching.

  Insistent, she nods her wig shifty atop the snowdandruffed, icehump of her head to hang over her one good ear as if she doesn’t hear a thing. And not a shekel more or less, she says then shifts her weight, with her feet asleep; finally, gives up humoring the pretense to obeisance, spits a wad to the floor, worriedover mucus.

  Our schmuck sure has a pair on him, I’ll tell you, two pairs, but tell me this—why didn’t he come direct? We work together. We talk. I know his wife by name. We have what you’d call a relationship.

  You know, she says, I have the impression this used to be easy.

  And then saying to Him, at least your future inlaw respects his tradition.

  Tradition schma—and Der gathers his uniform pants as he rises from the pew, stands over her with his epaulets raising his shoulders above his head as if altars converted to highflown burden; he’s hunched and raging with his medals clinking as if his station’s brassy tongues; they’re shrieking, he is, flapping out the threats: incarceration, outerborough deportation, worse, assaulting even with his hands her ears and their jewelry, low at the lobes, drooping to the knees…ridiculous, this is extortion, pure and simple, you know it, I know it and, as you say, nu—the President knows it; he thinks this’ll help him at the polls, is that it, but do I have news for him: there are no more polls. I mean kaput. No longer exist. Not soon. Schmuck wants his way with posterity, goes about it like he’s doing me the favor…she’s impassive, as if unimpressed at his fume, takes from a pocket of her skinned she lived with fifty always sick and dying cats housecoat an appointment diary, and tries to go through it inconspicuously, holding it upsidedown between the pleats of her skirts. Still, he’s quieting amid the reverberations of his voice, their repercussions, her flipping—distancing, harmful to the greater cause, what he’d wanted originally come knocking too early to wake him from the surety of his slumbering plans, entombed for private worship in this, his icebound Temple—if that’s how he wants to deal…

  Rising to full height herself, all of her five nothing, putting the
Tit in Petite as if to remind that though laughably small as if prepackaged for parody she’s also endowed, still indescribably intimidating, a woman of valor, as goes the translation, of valorous proportions, too, and experience (and this despite having had no kinder of her own)…it’s time, she says bookmarking with a cigarette, replacing the diary, I get my onceover. And so Der orders Ben to stand, too, in the pew too narrow, barely accommodating His girth and perhaps the earliest tingle of a tumescent shed. That and with the height, the stadium’s pitch and the air of its arc He feels but can’t glimpse veiled, He’s dizzied. Der straightens that out as he uncrooks all, pulling the slacks’ bunch up and over Ben’s waist almost to His pits, then tucking in His shirt to tail around it feels at toes, a happy wag.

  Pardoning around the site’s sparescaffold lumber, steel, meshnets, and paintcans to waddle into their pew, the yenta comes close and feels Him, at His hardening, tugs and twists, she slaps tush, prods gut, handles the excesses of flesh that we call love, squats then rests at her knees padded by the hang of her breasts like two hotwaterbottles with protrusive nipple nozzles, and on the floor makes to examine the generous spread of His pelvis, takes with the calipers of her many thicklywrapped necklaces the circumferences of His lowerlegs and thighs, knocks with a fist at His kneestrength, their spring, that of His youth as she slightly rises without having had the pleasure of the toes, their nails, to scrutinize His hands, His fingers and their nails, sniffing at Him, even unfurling a length of desiccated, keeping her regular prunelike tongue, though instead of licking a wrinkle she says to Der: I want the face, too, the teeth, examine the gums maybe, healthy or not—then to Him…bear with me, Ben, I have to know you’re you.

  Impossible, and Der’s unshakable on this, respect it, please, the limits set, the access—it’s nothing personal, know that: it’s for your own protection, ours…I’m sure you understand, what with your confidentials claused: can’t gaze upon the countenance and still expect to live is what we’re going with, our line.