A Long Island Story Read online

  ‘You cannot go on like this, Mo. Schlepping your stuff round the city, the clubs, the girls, the shady contacts. Those crappy Italians!’

  He nodded.

  ‘So they’re after you at last? I’m not surprised. You saw it coming?’

  He nodded again.

  ‘I thought I had a little more time, then I could give it up.’

  She smiled like an experienced mobster.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I guess everyone thinks that . . . How much do you owe them? Who? That putz Sal?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He looked weary and defeated, so exhausted that not even her prescience aroused his curiosity. She knew. So what? Big deal.

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Couple of grand. It’ll be OK, I can just about find it . . .’

  ‘I’ll pay it,’ said Perle, standing up and retreating to the kitchen. ‘Finish your beer and I’ll get dinner ready.’

  There were a great many reasons, compelling reasons, for Ben to resist the precipitous and humiliating exit from DC. As he sat next to a silent Addie on the streetcar on the way to Union Station, he enumerated them to himself. He hadn’t had time to pack. Hadn’t told his colleagues that he was taking the rest of the day off. Hadn’t packed the necessary papers and briefs for next week’s work. Not to mention hadn’t found a way to tell Rhoda what was going on.

  The alternatives to these humiliations and inconveniences great and small would have been either to refuse to go (consequences unbearable) or to at least have gone back to the apartment to pack (consequences intolerable). So here he was sitting like a naughty and recalcitrant child at his mother’s side, paying the price of his misdemeanour. Felony, rather.

  On the train to Penn Station they sat in silence, smoking and reading their newspapers, both aware that, for the time being, this was all that was left to them by way of marital connection. At some point they would have to talk, but for the foreseeable future what they would have to do is pretend. They ought at least to make up some story to tell the folks and the kids. They could call ahead from the Long Island Railroad.

  ‘OK,’ said Addie, lighting another cigarette with the butt of her last one, ‘here’s what we are going to do.’

  It was up to her.

  ‘We will say we have agreed’ – she looked at him like some sort of recalcitrant specimen, a balky llama perhaps, something formerly useful, cute even, but now cowed and biddable – ‘that you are going to look after the kids for the weekend . . .’

  He looked at her quizzically.

  ‘. . . because I cannot bear to be anywhere near you. I’ll stay at the folks’ apartment in the city, then come back when you are ready to go back to Alexandria.’

  ‘But what am I to tell them?’

  ‘You’re a first-class liar, you’ll think of something.’ She hunched away from him as if from a putrid smell, then turned and took the sleeve of his jacket and tugged it slightly, redirecting his gaze towards her, making sure he was listening.

  ‘That gives you four weeks to pack it up. Resign, negotiate whatever severance terms you can, give the shortest notice you can, get some document that says you have left of your own free will.’

  ‘That is not . . .’

  ‘No lawyerly points! Just do whatever you can to make yourself look less bad. And here’s the other thing: I will never set foot in that apartment again. You can pack it up, get rid of the bed, the sheets and pillow cases, put my things in some suitcases, do what you can. I’m not sniffing the foul air in there ever again.’

  He looked surprised, his eyes narrowed slightly, forehead wrinkled.

  ‘Sure, see her again. Say goodbye, forever. Have a weepy farewell, feel sorry for yourselves. I don’t give a damn. But if you ever contact her again after that it is going to get nasty.’

  He had no doubt about that.

  There were compensations, she supposed. She’d been betrayed and could hardly find the means or even motive to contemplate forgiving him. Not yet anyway. But on the far horizon was the image of the children and the sanctity – no, hardly that – but the impulsion of the ongoing family. Did she want to raise the children on her own? God forbid.

  Might she parlay her ascendency into a change of terms? To insist on a move not to dreary Long Island but to Manhattan! Could Ben refuse that now? He would trot out the usual excuses: they didn’t have connections in the city to start a practice, she would find it harder to find work, costs of living and accommodation were high and standards low, it was an uncongenial place to raise children, they had no close family there . . . blah, blah, blah. But when you added them up, however reluctantly, counted them on your fingers, it made sense: people didn’t move into the cities these days but out of them, into the open spaces, new houses, burgeoning opportunities.

  She had a whole weekend to reflect, to rediscover the city, walk the streets, sit in the park and look at the ducks, window shop, maybe buy something pretty to perk herself up, mooch around the museums, maybe call an old friend or two.

  Maybe call – might this be possible? – maybe call Ira.

  Before she left the bungalow Addie had given her mother strict instructions not to be strict.

  ‘I’m only going to be away for a night or two, but the kids are feeling a bit fragile, so it would be best if you just give in to them, spoil them a bit. No confrontations, no rules, just have fun!’ She was aware, saying so, that it was like encouraging a rhinoceros to be frisky.

  A bit fragile? What do children know from ‘fragile’? (Perle loathed that word!) Children don’t like change? Too bad. What, so they had to move to Huntington? It would be good for them, much better than that boring Alexandria. They’d love it once they got used to it!

  Just have fun? That was Morrie’s territory and he was going to be at work in the city during the days. Perle and the children had never been alone together, just the three of them, for more than a few hours at the beach. Spoil them a little? They could hardly be more spoiled. No, what she was going to do was provide a structure. That meant some rules, for once. Mealtimes, bedtimes, reading times, less television times. It would be good for them, make them less restless and self-engrossed. If only she had not two days but two months, at the end there would be some improvement. She nodded to herself, with the satisfaction of a prison guard imposing a curfew.

  The children weren’t entirely happy with their advice either. Addie told them that they would have fun with Granny – who couldn’t see through that lie? – and that they should just do whatever they felt like doing – or that one?

  Becca climbed onto her mother’s lap, clung to her, took a piece of her skirt into her hands and rolled it up, put it into her mouth. Sucked it, snuffled, wiped her nose with her sleeve. Addie could have sworn her eyes rolled back into her head. Classic regressive behaviour, indulge it for a few minutes, dial up the warmth then dial it down again, count to a hundred and slowly detach. Change the subject, distract. Reclaim the six-year-old from the two-year-old.

  It was classic, and it worked almost too easily. After the required two minutes, Addie detached herself slowly and said, ‘Let’s go smell the cedar chest.’ It surprised the little girl, who looked up immediately, the languor draining from her eyes, surprised and engaged. Addie liked cedar chests too!

  ‘Can we?’ she said urgently, as if invited to indulge a forbidden activity, like swimming after eating a hotdog. She rose and hurried off. Addie made sure to follow in her footsteps; it was an important moment. Becca gestured towards the rocker: ‘You can sit here,’ she said, for at her height she could just lean her neck into the chest. They both readied themselves, leant forwards, took a deep sniff.

  ‘I told you,’ said Becca, sniffing again. ‘Isn’t it just the best?’

  ‘Divine!’ said Addie. ‘Better than flowers!’

  A few minutes later, sniffing abandoned and sniffles abated, the taxi drove up the drive. Addie picked up her purse from under the dining table, opened the screen door and went out with Becca and Perle, who looked about her
anxiously.

  ‘He’s just off having a sulk, making a point,’ said Addie. ‘Just leave him, he’ll come round . . .’

  Perle was not good at just leaving things, much less him, and started back into the bungalow.

  Addie walked to the taxi, where the driver had opened the door for her. ‘Goodbye, Mother, thanks so much! See you in a couple of days.’ She gave Becca a final hug, closed the door and was off.

  ‘Wanna come smell the cedar chest with me, Granny?’ asked Becca.

  Perle took the little girl’s outstretched hand.

  ‘I’d like that a lot,’ she said. ‘Then we’ll have some lunch. Shall we eat on the porch?’

  When Perle was determined to take control, she would say, ‘May I make a suggestion?’ This was not a question, nor was the forthcoming suggestion a suggestion. It would not have countenanced the answer no. Anyone saying no would have regretted it immediately, though no one could predict the duration of her potential resentment because no one had ever declined to hear a suggestion, or to follow one.

  Jake hated suggestions.

  ‘When I was a little girl, only five years old, I had a big move. I will tell you about it so that you can learn something.’

  Perle rarely talked about herself, nor did she refer to the many tribulations of her childhood. Not to the children. Their childhoods had to be shielded from the details of hers. ‘Not in front of die kinder’ was the maxim, and now was the time to break it. It would be good for them. It would see them right, and serve them right.

  ‘My family came to America on a big horrible boat, seven of us going to New York. And do you know what? When we arrived none of us spoke even a word of English!’

  She winced at the memory. How could the children understand such things? They didn’t. Jake was both uncomprehending and disapproving.

  ‘That’s stupid going there if you couldn’t even talk the language.’

  ‘We didn’t have any choice.’

  ‘Same as us then,’ said Jake triumphantly, delighted to find such easy common ground. ‘You were forced to move! How did you like it?’

  ‘It didn’t matter if I did or I didn’t. None of us liked it. We were frightened and miserable. But even we children knew that what we were going to was better than what we were leaving!’

  She paused to allow the obvious question. It wasn’t forthcoming. She would tell them anyway. Yes, in front of die kinder, how else would they learn?

  ‘In my village . . .’

  ‘Was it in the old country, Granny? Same as Poppa’s?’

  ‘Well, it was in a different place, but yes, it was like Poppa’s . . . And there were very bad men. They were called Cossacks.’

  ‘What’s a Cossack, Granny?’

  ‘A very bad man. And they would come on horses. Gangs of them, they were horrible killers, like wolves, only worse.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because at least a wolf eats what it kills.’

  ‘But who did the Cossacks kill?’

  ‘Our families and our friends . . .’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we were Jewish. Cossacks hate Jews.’

  ‘Well, Jews would hate Cossacks, too! So why didn’t they kill them back?’

  Jake should have been wide-eyed and frightened, but it was too far away, too long ago, nothing to do with him and the threatened exile to Huntington.

  ‘They tried. But the Cossacks had big swords and horses. They could just do what they wanted. They were horrible. The best thing to do was run away.’

  ‘Didn’t everybody run away?’

  ‘Some of us did. My family ran away to America. We had to leave as soon as we could, we left everything behind, the rest of our family, our parents and grannies, all our cousins and friends. And our house.’

  ‘Are they still there?’

  ‘The house might be. It was a nice, big house.’

  The children looked at her politely, wondering where all this was going, why it was of the slightest importance to them.

  ‘Understand this. It wasn’t up to me when we left. Parents decide if you need to move and when you need to move, and parents decide what is good and right for the family and for the children. It is not up to the children. They’re children!’ The term was now invested with contempt.

  ‘Yeah, well, maybe you were just dumb. Anyway, I’m not going!’

  Becca looked both ways, choosing her side. Jake could do most damage.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I’m not going too!’

  ‘Oh,’ said Perle, ‘what a good plan! You’ll stay in Alexandria, will you?’

  ‘Yes! We will!’

  ‘Where will you live, under a bush? What will you eat? Berries?’

  Jake paused to consider.

  ‘We’ll live at Neddy’s,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah!’ said Becca. ‘At Neddy’s! We can live with him!’

  Becca had never met Neddy, though she’d once or twice spotted Jake playing catch with somebody he said was Neddy – if it was him, how would she know? – and she sometimes doubted his existence. Maybe he was an imaginary friend. She had one of those when she was little, her name was Hattie because she wore funny hats; they used to play dolls in her bedroom and talk and giggle and eat gumdrops. One day she stopped coming. Becca wondered where she was now, maybe she had an imaginary friend herself? That would be funny. But where would they meet and how would they get gumdrops?

  After Granny waddled off, looking satisfied, Jake took Becca by the hand, which was unusual, and led her outside.

  ‘You know we can’t live with Neddy, don’t you?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘So here’s what is going to happen. We need to think about it. Addie went away. We might not even see her any more . . .’

  Becca was staring at him, her eyes wider than wide.

  ‘We won’t?’

  ‘Maybe not. It means they are getting divorced. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘What’s divorced?’

  ‘It’s when your mom and dad don’t live together any more, and they have to share out all the stuff. Including the kids!’

  This was too much to take in. Becca had retracted, pulled her shoulders in and up, chin down.

  Her voice had diminished, too.

  ‘How do they share us?’

  ‘Well,’ said Jake, attempting a judicious tone, ‘we have to choose . . .’

  ‘Choose what, what do we have to choose?’ Becca was crying now, her face trembling, freckles displaced.

  ‘Which one of them to go with. Because when there is a divorce you go to a judge and the judge asks the children which parent they want to go live with. So you have to decide.’

  Becca considered for a moment.

  ‘What’re you going to do?’

  Jake had thought about this.

  ‘Ben!’ he said. ‘I am going to stay in Alexandria, and Ben will get a different job. It’s so unfair that he is going to lose his job just because he is a Communist! Communists are good, they want a better world for everybody!’

  Becca wasn’t listening, knew nothing of Communists, save that the horrible man hated them.

  ‘So I have to choose?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Soon, I think soon. School starts soon, so if you are staying with Addie here at the bungalow you’ll have to get your stuff and move it here.’

  Becca set her face.

  ‘That’s what I’ll do then. I’ll stay here.’

  Jake looked surprised.

  ‘Addie needs me,’ said Becca. ‘It’s only fair if each parent gets one kid.’

  Jake gave her a hug.

  ‘I’ll miss you,’ he said. He’d never said anything as nice as that to her before.

  ‘I’ll miss you too!’

  It would be OK living with Addie, it would. Addie was fun sometimes, not just silly like Ben. One night when Ben was in Washington and Granny and Poppa Mo had gone out, Addie had turned out all the lights in
the bungalow and, before the kids could turn on the switches, she would jump out and scream, ‘BOO!’ Becca hid behind the couch, laughing and crying, begging for the light to be turned on. But soon Jake was with her, taking her hand in the darkness.

  ‘We’re going to get you back!’ he shouted in the direction of his mother’s voice, as if bravely. ‘We’re coming to get you!’

  Addie shrieked, ‘No! No!’ and they could hear her stumbling and holding on to the furniture as she went out the back door. She made her way down the yard to the swings, to hide behind the tree, while the children stalked her in the dark, lit only by pale moonlight and the intermittent flashes of the fireflies.

  ‘We’re coming to get you!’ shouted Becca. ‘Woo! Woo!’

  Addie was clutching herself, laughing and crying, and then laughing harder. ‘I’m wetting! I’m wetting!’

  ‘Boo!’ screamed Jake.

  ‘Woo!’ yelled Becca.

  That was so great. After they went into the bungalow and turned on all the lights, wiped their eyes and made hot chocolate. Addie found the marshmallows and put one on the top of each hot mug. It melted and got all gooey.

  You couldn’t play that game with Ben. He’d be too scared.

  You couldn’t make a fort with him either.

  They parted ways at the concourse of the Long Island Railroad, where Addie insisted on escorting Ben onto the Huntington train. Not that he would have had the gumption, or even the energy, to make a surreptitious getaway back to DC: she had told him what to do, and he would do it, somnolently. He’d have time to make up some damn story or other – Addie shopping in the city, or maybe having a few days off with a college friend? No one would believe it, and it didn’t matter. What would they do, give him the third degree, make him confess? No, they’d look askance, Mo would draw him aside to ask what was up, he would shrug and smile and deny and pacify and play with the kids. It would be good for him to see them. The thought of any impending loss of their centrality in his life froze his soul, what a fool he’d been.

  He had never kidded himself that he loved Rhoda, not really, but she had perfect pitch, had made the perfect pitch. All the way up from DC, sitting silently on the train, unable to talk with Addie because of the frozen air between them and the proximity of others in the adjoining seats, he had been thinking of redrafting his novel. It could be so much better, he’d been too young, got the authorial voice wrong, started in the wrong place. It could be rectified. It could be good. Nature’s Priest? Have to reconsider the title as well. What could he have been thinking, precocious Jewish boy from Philadelphia swanning about like Wordsworth in a yellow field of flowers? Hardly! Where’d that come from? Nature? Priest? Hogwash.