A Catered Affair

by Sue Margolis

  Eventually, Erika had called to say that the dress was ready. It was perfect. As I turned and twirled in front of Erika’s full-length antique mirror, Grace got busy with the Nikon. Afterwards, we looked at the pictures on-screen. My face said it all. I couldn’t wait to get married.

  “You know,” Mum said now, taking another sip of Diet Coke, “it’s such a shame you didn’t consider having the ceremony and reception at the Tate Modern. Somebody at work said they’ve got this amazing new installation. Rows and rows of concrete pillars. Sounds very dramatic.” She paused. “You know, Yorick and Easter de Villeneuve, who used to run Fein Management in New York, had their wedding reception in a giant yurt. Of course, they’re divorced now.”

  “Alas, poor Yorick,” Scarlett said, her face deadpan.

  Everybody was laughing except Nana Ida, who was sitting lost in thought, a kosher pickle in her hand.

  “I can’t stop thinking,” she said, prodding the air with the pickle, “that it’s a bad omen—my Jewish granddaughter having a Nazi wedding.”

  We were used to Nana Ida’s occasional conversational non sequiturs—which had less to do with approaching senility and more to do with a tendency to get lost in her own thoughts—but this one was more surreal than most.

  The Nazi remark hung in the air. Scarlett and I exchanged OK-Nana’s-finally-lost-it looks across the table. Then Scarlett started giggling.

  “Bloody hell, Tally,” she whispered, “and there’s you promising me faithfully that the Görings and the Himmlers weren’t on the guest list. Still, I suppose you can always stick them next to smelly Uncle Alec.”

  Our mother ignored us and continued to dose a bagel with cream cheese. “Mum,” she said to Nana Ida, “enough with the Nazi thing. Why can’t you just let it go?” There was more than a touch of weariness in her voice. “There is no sense in which this is going to be a Nazi wedding.” She forked up a slice of smoked salmon and laid it on top of the cheese.

  Nana Ida was indignant. “That’s your opinion. It doesn’t happen to be mine.”

  “What’s all this about?” I whispered to Scarlett.

  “How should I know? So, is the Führer making the best-man speech?”

  “Funnee.” I looked at Mum and Nana Ida. “OK, this conversation is getting just a tad weird. Would one of you please explain?”

  “It’s just your grandmother being ridiculous,” Mum said. “Don’t take any notice. She’s got some mad notion into her head …”

  “It’s not some mad notion,” Nana came back. “Stop making it sound like I’m losing my marbles.”

  “Come on, Nana,” I said gently, “why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you?”

  Nana Ida took a deep breath. “OK. You know I’m paying for your wedding.”

  “What does that have to do with Nazis?” Scarlett said.

  I wasn’t listening. Instead, guilt surged through me. So that was it. The final wedding payments were due and Nana had realized she was going to be left penniless. “Nana,” I said, “it was such a generous offer, but it’s so much money. If you can’t afford to pay for the wedding, Josh and I will take a loan and repay you what you’ve already spent. I don’t want you to worry.”

  “I don’t get it,” Scarlett butted in, looking really confused. “What does Nana not being able to afford to pay for your wedding have to do with Nazis?”

  Nana ignored Scarlett and looked straight at me. “What? Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, clearly stung by my suggestion that she was low on funds. “How many times do I have to tell you? Of course I can afford it. That’s not the issue. What I can’t get over is that I’m paying for your wedding with Nazi money.”

  “O-K,” Scarlett said, “and precisely how did you come by this Nazi money? I mean, what did you do, hook up with Indiana Jones and pocket the loot?”

  “Who?” Nana looked perplexed, prompting an eye roll from Mum.

  “Scarlett, your grandmother is already confused. Please don’t make matters worse.” Mum wiped her hands on a napkin. “Nana is referring to her war-reparations money. She’s got it into her head that it’s somehow tainted.”

  “Excuse me. I am here, you know. You don’t have to refer to me in the third person.”

  Mum took a deep breath. “How many more times do I have to explain this to you? That money did not come from the Nazis.” She went on to remind Nana that her war reparations—a lump sum and a small pension finally agreed on in 1974 for the loss of her family and their property—had come not from the Third Reich, but from the then West German government.

  Nana Ida jabbed the table with her index finger. “And where did they get it? Eh? I’ll tell you where—from the Nazis, that’s where.” She picked up the bread knife and began slicing more bagels. “The thing is, by paying for the wedding with Nazi money, suppose I put a curse on the marriage? What about the evil eye?” My grandmother let out the traditional peh, peh, peh to ward off any demons, devils or dibbuks that might be hovering over her seniors’ sheltered-housing complex.

  “You have got to stop thinking like this,” Mum said. “This evil-eye thing is nothing but ridiculous superstition. Nothing bad happened when you gave some of the money to me and Mike to use as a deposit on Cedars Close.”

  “What do you mean, nothing happened?” Nana Ida shot back. “Mike died.”

  “That was twenty years later!”

  Nana Ida waved a hand in front of her as if she didn’t know what to think.

  Then I had a brain wave. “OK, Nana, I’ve got it. Why don’t you get the money blessed by a rabbi? You know … get it koshered.”

  Nana’s eyes lit up. She clapped her hands. Mum put her head in hers.

  “My granddaughter the genius,” Nana exclaimed. “Why didn’t I think of that? Of course, that’s it. I need to make the money kosher.”

  So on Monday morning she phoned Rabbi Nader at the synagogue. He considered her predicament and said he totally understood her need to kosher the money. He asked if she could give him a day or so to think up an appropriate blessing. By Wednesday he was back on the phone, problem solved.

  That night, Nana Ida got down on her knees and recited the following prayer over her latest savings account bank statement: “Blessed art thou, oh Lord, our God, king of the universe, who in his infinite wisdom doth realize that there is a majestic irony in using money forced out of the Nazis—may their name remain cursed and reviled for all eternity—to pay for the mother of all Jewish weddings.”

  A few days later, I popped round to Nana Ida with some groceries she’d asked me to pick up. She greeted me with a kiss and a pinch of my cheek. Her knobbly fingers smelled of lily of the valley hand cream and onions. “I said the prayer,” she whispered. “Now nothing can possibly go wrong.”

  Chapter 4

  The water cooler was just outside my office. My door was closed, but I was aware of people standing around chatting. Then Jill’s voice entered the mix. “OK, folks, drinks for Tally in the conference room in ten. Can you pass it on?” It was late on Friday afternoon, two days before the wedding.

  I knew it was meant to be a surprise, but the boxes of sparkling wine and packets of nibbles that had appeared in the office kitchen the day before sort of gave the game away.

  I checked my hair and put on a fresh coat of lippy. Eventually Jill knocked on my door and informed me that I was needed in the conference room. Everybody loved Jill. She was one of a pool of six office PAs that all the lawyers shared.

  Jill was in her mid-fifties, plump and maternal, and like a lot of women who return to work after running a home and raising a family, she was extremely efficient. She was also the person you turned to if you needed Elastoplast, aspirin or a needle and thread. Some of the younger people in the office had actually taken to calling her Mum, which I think she rather enjoyed on the quiet. If somebody was leaving, Jill organized the collection and bought the present. When people were off sick or in hospital, she got the goofy get-well card and made sure that everybody signed
it.

  “You know, you really shouldn’t have,” I said, regarding the surprise party.

  “Shouldn’t have what?” she said, grinning.

  “Gone to all this trouble.”

  “I have no idea of what you speak,” Jill said.

  “Well, thanks anyway. I really appreciate it.”

  Jill and I made our way along the corridor. The room we referred to as the conference room was in fact a large, windowless storage facility. Granted, it did contain a long Ikea table and eight chairs, but the walls were piled high with boxes of stationery, printer ink cartridges and tatty old files. As I walked in, a couple of people cheered and started singing “Here Comes the Bride.” “Aw, stop it,” I said. I was laughing, but my cheeks were burning bright red. I wasn’t entirely at ease being the center of attention.

  Carole, another of the PAs, handed me a glass of wine. “Sorry it’s only cheap sparkling and Pringles, but petty cash wouldn’t stretch to Moët.” Law firms committed to defending outcasts, whistle-blowers and pariahs—even highly distinguished ones like Dacre’s—tend not to be too flush with cash.

  By now I was being met with hugs and kisses from the women and wisecracks from the middle-aged blokes: “Marriage isn’t a word; it’s a sentence.” “Marriage means commitment, but so does insanity.” Everybody asked where we were going on honeymoon. “India,” I said. “But not until December, when the weather’s a bit cooler. I can’t wait.”

  Of course Josh and I were taking a few days off after the wedding, but it was going to be spent getting my flat ready for the builders, who were starting the following Thursday. We had decided that until we’d saved enough for a deposit on a house, I should move into Josh’s flat. It made sense because his place was twice the size of mine. Meanwhile we would rent out my flat. I’d bought it as a fixer-upper, but after three years, I hadn’t gotten around to doing much fixing. The place was in dire need of a new kitchen, bathroom and complete redecoration—hence the builders.

  Finally, George Dacre, the firm’s senior partner, began tapping his wineglass with a Biro. “OK, ladies and gents, a bit o’ hush, if you wouldn’t mind.” You’d think from the broad Yorkshire accent, the comb-over and beer gut bursting out of his shirt that George was the aging MC at a workingmen’s club in Bingley. In fact, George was Sir George Dacre, National Union of Miners’ official turned eminent human rights lawyer. When he received his knighthood in 2004, in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List, the Guardian described him as “a great liberal, radical and man of the left who devotes his life to taking on unpopular, often unwinnable cases.” At the moment he was fighting for the release of three Iraqis who had been imprisoned without charge under the antiterrorism laws. They were all being sponsored by British companies and had no ties to any terrorist organization. Their only crime was that they were in possession of Iraqi passports.

  I remember George interviewing me when I applied to Dacre’s. “Right, lass,” he said, peering at me over his reading glasses. “So why do you want to become a human rights lawyer? If it’s big money you’re after, then you should be looking at one of the big commercial firms.”

  I said that I wasn’t looking for money. I launched into my overrehearsed, overearnest—but nonetheless truthful—spiel. I said that during my time studying law I realized that there was nothing more important than defending people’s fundamental freedoms. I was passionate about freedom of thought, conscience, speech and expression and protecting people from discrimination on grounds of gender, race, religion, sexual orientation and age.

  He asked me if any one case or incident had influenced me.

  “My grandmother was a refugee from Nazi Germany,” I said. “Hearing her story had a huge impact on me when I was growing up.”

  George nodded.

  “Racism turns my stomach. When I’m driving or out walking, I might see a driver being pulled over by the police. Nine times out of ten, the driver is black. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to get into your car each day, wondering if you might get stopped by the police just because of the color of your skin.”

  “Neither can I,” he said.

  It occurred to me afterwards that I must have sounded more like some idealistic, banner-waving activist than a would-be lawyer, but he hired me. A week or so after I started work, George (he hated the sir and forbade us to use it) took me to one side and said, “Never, ever let that fire inside you go out, lass. You have to give a toss. The day you stop is the day you might as well give up.”

  Back in the conference room, George was coming to the end of his speech: “So, on behalf of me’self and everyone at Dacre’s, it only remains for me to wish Tally and Josh all the very best for the future. And may all their blessings be little ones.”

  There were cheers and whistles and hear! hears! Somebody popped another cork. Jill presented me with a two-foot-high silver horseshoe card, a blue garter and a Habitat gift voucher for five hundred quid. “We had a bit of a collection,” she whispered.

  “Yeah, but five hundred quid.”

  “Speech! Speech!”

  I could feel my eyes filling up. In the end, all I could do was blub my thanks.

  When I got back to my desk, I read the card. Everybody had signed it and scribbled daft messages—even Betty the cleaner, who’d written: Me and my old man were happy for twenty years and then we met.

  It was almost six, but I still needed to make some calls. There were several newspapers that hadn’t yet covered the Nasreen Karimi asylum story. I needed to beg-slash-guilt them into running pieces highlighting her situation. I was so glad that Josh and I had decided to delay our honeymoon. I couldn’t have walked away from this case now. I found myself thinking about the wedding and how I had a future to look forward to, a life to plan. Nasreen, thin and frail now because she could barely eat from all the worry, had nothing. On Sunday while I was getting married, she would be staring at the walls of her room in the detention center, knowing that at any minute she could be sent back to Iran and a possible death sentence.

  Nobody was picking up at any of the newspapers, so I left voice-mail messages, which included all my phone numbers and e-mail.

  I had just shut down my computer when my office phone rang. I assumed it was one of the newspapers calling back wanting more details on Nasreen.

  “Tally Roth.”

  “Tally, it’s Hugh.”

  “I’m sorry—Hugh who?”

  “The Hugh you used to go out with.” He was laughing. “The Hugh whose heart you broke.”

  “Omigod. You Hugh. I didn’t recognize your voice. How are you?”

  “I’m good. Look, I know we haven’t spoken or e-mailed in yonks and I don’t do Facebook, but I heard on the grapevine that you were getting married this weekend. I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to call or if you’d want to hear from me, but I just had to pick up the phone and wish you all the best.”

  “Thank you. That is so sweet. I really appreciate it. So, where are you?”

  He said he was in Perth for another few weeks and then coming back to the UK for good. The rumor I’d heard was right. He had taken a job advising the government on third world poverty.

  “I’m glad you found somebody to make you happy,” he said.

  “I’m very lucky. Josh is a wonderful guy. So what about you? Is there anybody special?”

  “There was for three or four years, but it kinda fizzled out … I wanted to start a family. She wasn’t ready.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s OK. I’m over it now … Hey, I was thinking the other day. Do you remember that terrible weekend we spent in Barcelona when it rained all the time and you ended up with food poisoning?”

  “God yes. I’m not likely to forget that in a hurry.”

  “And what about the first time I took you out for a drink and you asked for Scotch? I wanted to impress you with something decent so I asked the barman for two single malts that ended up costing fifty quid. Then I didn’t have enough money
on my card and you had to pay. That was so embarrassing.”

  I was laughing. “I still said yes when you asked me out on a second date.”

  “You know,” he said, “I probably shouldn’t be saying this, seeing as you’re about to get married, but I often find myself thinking about us and what might have happened if you’d come to Australia.”

  He was right. This wasn’t the time to be talking about how things might have been. “Who knows?” I said. “It’s all in the past now.”

  “It was just bad timing, I guess.”

  “I guess.”

  The conversation trailed off into an awkward silence. Then:

  “I’m glad it all worked out for you, Tally. I really am. Good luck for Sunday and maybe the three of us could meet up for a drink or dinner one night.”

  “That would be great. I’ll look forward to it.”

  “Bye, Tally.”

  “Bye.”

  It was kind of him to call, but hearing from somebody I’d been so in love with and going over old times—particularly two days before my wedding—was ever-so-slightly discombobulating.

  Chapter 5

  The evening before the wedding …

  Nana Ida held up one finger, then tugged her earlobe. “First word … sounds like … ,” we all chorused. She began tapping her head.

  Everybody started shouting at once.

  “Head.”

  “Skull.”

  “Brain box.”

  “Duh. What sounds like brain box?”

  Nana began playing with her hair.

  “Hair,” we cried.

  She gave an excited nod. Then she mimed stretching elastic, to indicate the word was longer than hair.

  “OK,” Scarlett said. “The first word sounds like hair—something.”

  “Hairdo, haircut, hairdresser … ,” Mum piped up.

  Nana shook her head.

  “I know,” I said. “Hair-y.”

  “That’s it,” Nana said. Mum told her off for speaking.

  “OK, let’s recap,” Scarlett said. “It’s a book and a film. Two words and the first word sounds like hairy.”