Shadows of Berlin

8.

The Big Tsimmis

The evening comes. The evening of the Big Tsimmis masquerading as a Small Tsimmis. In the bedroom, Aaron is gabbing away from the bathroom as he finishes his shave. “By the way. My mom called. ‘Mazel tov’ she says for your birthday.”

“That’s nice.” Rachel has just taken a dose of Miltown to level herself. To allow herself to participate in normal life. A normal wife.

“Not to ruin the surprise of this year’s present,” Aaron is telling her, “but it’s gonna be pot holders.”

“Pot holders,” she says. This fits. Usually gifts from her mother-­in-­law are meant to fill some deficiency that the lady has noted. A kitchen whisk. (Now maybe you won’t need a fork to beat an egg every time.) A set of eight Lucite coasters. (No more rings on your furniture!) Tupperware measuring cups. (Now you won’t have to guess!)

“Crocheted pot holders,” Aaron informs her. “It’s what you get for burning your fingers on the casserole dish that time she was over.”

“Two years ago and she still remembers.”

“What can I say? The woman never forgets.”

“Is that all she said?”

“Like what else?”

“I don’t know. Like anything.”

“Nope. Just pot holders,” Aaron answers. But she must wonder if that’s true. After how many years of marriage with no kids, his mother has stopped asking directly. But there’s usually something said. (Maybe it’s a blessing after all that you don’t have kids. They just break your heart.)

“Okay. I’ll send her a very enthusiastic thank-­you note,” Rachel assures him. She stands in front of the vanity’s mirror, a glass that by name is designed to flatter, and examines herself in Naomi’s black pencil dress, adjusting the satin opera gloves. Her lips are Pure Red from Elizabeth Arden, her face is powdered, her cheeks lightly rouged, her eyelashes thickened with mascara, her eyebrows shaped and defined by a brow pencil. The dress fits her in spots where she seldom notices the fit of clothing. Aaron steps up behind her in the dinner jacket he usually reserves for New Year’s Eve, knotting his bow tie. “Okay, now here’s a meydl mit a kleydl,” he says appreciatively.

“Zip me up, please, sir,” she whispers.

“Yes, ma’am.” Aaron obeys, cheerfully solicitous.

She eyes herself as he zips. “Now the pearls.”

Aaron connects her necklace at the back of her neck. “Yowza,” he proclaims.

“Yowza?”

“Yowza. Caramba. As in, holy mackerel, I’ve got Audrey Hepburn for a wife. Where’d the dress come from anyhow?”

“Your sister lent it. I was worried you’d think it was too much.”

Frowning his appreciation. “Nope. For once, the screwy kid got it right.” He slides his arms around her from behind and kisses her on the neck.

Rachel gazes back at their mirror image. Tonight she is content with this counterfeit image of herself. This beautiful counterfeit image. “I’m glad we’re doing this,” she informs him. “Really. It’s a good idea.”

“Yeah?” He is pleased.

“A perfect idea.”

“Well, I have them from time to time,” he can only admit. “So happy birthday, Mrs. Perlman.” He nuzzles her neck lightly. She reaches back to sift through his hair with her fingers. “Hey. You smell good.”

“I wonder why,” she replies. His gift that morning at the breakfast table had been a bottle of perfume. Moonlight Mist from Gourielli, though she suspects Naomi’s involvement in the choice, since her husband so often likes to compare perfume scents to paint thinner. One bottle smells like the next to him. “You have the tickets?” she asks softly.

Still nuzzling. “All taken care of by my dear friend Mr. Chernik,” he starts to say.

“Do you even know his first name?”

“I do, but it happens to be Rumpelstiltskin, and he’s very sensitive. As I was saying, my dear friend Chernik—­”

“Rumpelstiltskin Chernik.”

“Is going to meet us at the restaurant with tickets in hand. Air-­conditioned orchestra seating, no less. It’s all under control.”

In the cab, Aaron makes a small deal of lighting her cigarette for her. Something he very seldom bothers with any longer. She smiles. Puffs a bit of smoke back at him in a playful way. He smiles too, pretends a cough as a joke—­but then cracks the window. He’s happy but anxious. Anxious for things to go well. She can tell by the slightly pained but eager tone of his voice that he’s looking for distraction by suddenly devoting his attention to the cabbie, instructing him how and when to turn to avoid Midtown traffic. Rachel cracks her own window as well, and the smoke slips away into the night.

Her feter had telephoned her that afternoon when she had just stepped out of the shower and had to stand there, dripping, wrapped in a towel, as he’d sung an old Hebrew song for her birthday with a fair number of Yiddish colloquialisms intruding. Mazel Tov! he’d told her. Mit mazel zolstu zikh yern! Your new year should bring you luck! Though was his sudden ability to recall the date of her birth strategic? His tenor had been nothing but upbeat. The caring uncle! The last of her living blood relatives, and who knows for how long he can keep holding on, but never mind. Mazel tov, ziskeit! And then the show was over, and he’d hung up. It was as if nothing had happened, as if no painting in a ugly frame had appeared and then disappeared.

A truck horn beeps. “So okay,” she hears Aaron instructing the cabbie. “One right turn, and you’ll hit Broadway.”

Fine Dining Before Curtain Time. That’s what the matchbooks advertise. Charades on Broadway, across from the Winter Garden. A deco masonry facade with a scribble of neon sketching its name in the gathering dusk, punctuated by flashing masks of comedy and tragedy. Aaron makes a show of discreetly tipping the liveried doorman who holds the door of the cab for them, calling him Smitty. “Thanks, Smitty, my friend. You’re a mensch,” he says.

“Thank you, Mr. Perlman,” says Smitty in a raspy voice. Though Rachel cannot help but notice a hint of something in the aged brown eyes above the man’s smile. Pain? Resentment? Something older. Something stronger.

“A new guy,” Aaron explains out of Smitty’s earshot.

“What happened to Mr. Rubenstein?”

“Made tracks for Florida. Leo decided to hire a colored guy to replace him, like it’s Gone with the Wind or something. I dunno. He thinks it’s snazzier. Also cheaper.”

Inside, it’s faux Corinthian columns, marble-­tile floors with carpet runners, and Moroccan leather booths the color of cognac. Inside, the faces are white. It may be otherwise in the kitchen with the Puerto Rican guys hired as dishwashers, but out front is a sea of whiteness because, here in New York at least, even the Jews are considered white. The only person who isn’t included in that description is the snowy-­haired gentleman at the piano, dabbling on the ivories. Rachel doesn’t know what his real name is because everybody calls him Professor. He nods as he always nods, with a smile at Rachel whenever she appears, but it’s a blind smile, the same smile he offers to all who bother to notice him at the piano bench. His expression alters attentively when Aaron leans over to him, slipping him a little appreciation, saying, “Gimme some of the sweet stuff, Professor. Ya know what I mean?”

“Oh, I do know, Mr. Perlman.” The Professor grins. “I do know precisely,” he says as if they’re sharing a moment of deep understanding of the arc of the universe. But when the man seeks out a tingle-­tangle melody on the piano keys, to Rachel’s ear, it’s really no different from the tingle-­tangle melody he was playing a moment before.

Her husband, on the other hand, appears brightly satisfied. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” he declares.

When Abe, the great golem-­sized majordomo, looms toward them in his tuxedo, Aaron gives him a comradely slap on the shoulder. “Evening, my friend,” says Aaron.

“Evening, Mr. P.,” Abe replies. “And happy birthday, Mrs. P.”

“Thank you, Mr. Goldman.”

“So we ready to go here?” Aaron inquires, rubbing his palms together in a lightly greedy fashion. “Table twenty like I said?”

Abe confirms. “Best table in the house as ordered, ready and waiting.”

But on the journey to the Best Table in the House, Rachel feels Aaron physically clench. “H’boy, here we go,” he whispers to himself, and then she sees why.

It’s Leo. Leo Blume, the owner, silver-­haired and sleek as a seal in his immaculate white dinner jacket. A Jew who came from nothing. The Baxter Street side of the Bend. “Bottle Alley,” Leo says. “The gutter.” That’s the story he tells. Now Hedda Hopper should be so lucky as to get a table during his dinner rush. He holds court at Table 27, one of the brass-­studded, crescent-­shaped booths in the main dining room. A premium table, as Aaron has explained it to her: not too near the service corridors, so there’s no noise from the kitchen, near enough to the piano dais to hear “Stardust” without straining, but not so close that a person can’t have a conversation. And Leo always takes the outside spot on the left-­hand side, just in case he has to launch himself into the aisle in the event that a customer has a heart attack, or the waiter drops a lighted baked Alaska, or Red bombers have been spotted over Rockaway, or Oscar Hammerstein walks into the bar with his wife, Dot, for a midnight Bloody Mary.

Smoking his thick Montecristo B, Leo is busy gabbing away on the jade-­green telephone, but spotting their approach, he cuts short his call, his voice full of gravel. “Milty, I gotta call ya back,” he says into the green receiver, then frowns, apparently dissatisfied with Milty’s response. “So I’ll call ya back,” he insists and hangs up, muttering. “My shmegegi brother, God love ’im.” And then he shows Rachel his trademarked smile. Charming as a barracuda. “Ketsl, you’re gorgeous tonight, sweetheart,” he tells her, standing to exchange a peck on the cheek with her. “Like starshine.”

Aaron smiles stupidly. “Am I married to Audrey Hepburn or what?”

“So look, I won’t horn in,” he tells them. “’Cause I know you two got an evening planned. I just wanted to say that dinner tonight is on me, got it? Soup to nuts.”

The smile has stiffened on Aaron’s face. “No. Leo. Please. Not necessary.”

But Leo only shrugs. “It’s nothing. A gesture on your beautiful wife’s birthday, that’s all. So go. Enjoy. And happy birthday, ketsl,” he adds. “Mit mazl zolstu zikh yern.”

“A sheinem dank, Leo,” she replies.

“Ha! I love that this girl speaks Yiddish! Ir zent a sheyn shtern,” he tells her, calling her a shining star before he motions to Abe. “Abe. Take this lovely lady and her husband to their table, will ya? And remember. My party tonight.”

Abe’s been on the staff since Leo opened the place after Prohibition and is as much a fixture at Charades as the Comedy & Tragedy ashtrays that everybody steals. As much a fixture as the Moroccan leather booths or the Tiffany chandeliers. His belly’s as big as a barrel now, his forehead is livid with liver spots, and his earlobes have flattened and elongated like an elephant’s. But even after twenty years of Sure, Mr. Blume and Whatever you say, Mr. Blume, he still sounds genial and pleased to serve. “Sure thing, Mr. Blume,” says Abe with a smile. “Whatever you say.”

The Best Table in the House features snow-­white linen, gleaming silverware, and Comedy & Tragedy dinner plates rimmed in gold leaf. A flame flickers in a red Venetian lowboy candle lamp. Izzie is one of the middle-­aged waiters schlepping hash here since Roosevelt’s first term. He is resplendent as a grand duke in a crimson Eton jacket with epaulettes and golden aiguillette as he oversees the delivery of their highballs by a young runner, also in livery but without the tinsel. Aaron, however, is disconnected. He looks slightly petulant, so Rachel is smiling for both of them.

“A vodka gimlet for the lady,” Izzie is announcing, “and for the gentleman, a whiskey sour.”

“Yeah, thanks, Iz,” Aaron replies dully. “We’ll start off with a couple of the marinated herrings.”

“Yes, sir. Perfect choice.”

“So what’s the tuna tonight? Off the trucks or off the docks?”

“Tonight? The trucks,” Izzie regrets to report.

“Forget it then,” Aaron instructs. “We’ll do the poached salmon with the eggplant. And make sure Monsieur Bouillabaisse in the kitchen goes easy on the fennel, okay? You tell him that comes from me, okay?” he adds.

“Absolutely, Mr. P. Be back in a jiff with your appetizers.” Izzie and the runner exit, but Aaron only huffs and lights a Lucky with a snap of his Zippo.

“What’s the matter?” Rachel finally asks.

Deadpan. “Nothing.”

“That is untrue.”

“Nothing is the matter,” Aaron insists. “It’s only why did he have to do that?” he wants to know, followed by his gravel-­voiced impression of Leo. “‘It’s my pawty—­soup t’nuts.’ Like I can’t pay for my own dinner.”

“He’s being generous.”

“Oh, sure. Mr. Generosity, that’s Leo Blume all right. The big man’s gotta make everybody else look small. Always looking for the lever,” he says, yanking on the imaginary lever. “Always looking for the upper hand.”

Rachel filches one of his Lucky Strikes, and a runner appears out of nowhere to light it. “Oh, thank you,” she says with a smile, but then the smile departs as she returns to her husband. “So are we going to enjoy our evening,” she wonders, “or are you going to sulk through it?”

He gives her a sideway glance like maybe he’s considering coming around. “Haven’t decided yet. Honestly, it could go either way.”

Rachel breathes in, tries to remain calm. Glances around the restaurant. “Where’s your chum Rumpelstiltskin with our tickets? I thought he was supposed to meet us here.”

Izzie suddenly appears at tableside and clears his throat. “Pardon, Mr. P., but Pauli says you got a call up at the bar. A gentleman by the name of Chernik?”

Aaron turns to Rachel, vindicated. “Ah. Ya’ see now? There he is. My pal.”

“You want I should have the kid bring you a phone?” Izzie inquires, but Aaron waves the suggestion off as ludicrous.

“Nah, I’m not a big shot, Izzie, like you-­know-­who. I can get up and walk to the phone like the rest of us peasants do.” He pats his wife on her shoulder reassuringly. “Be right back.”

Rachel swallows. Alone at the table, her mind wanders toward shadow.

He’s not so bad, your husband, I suppose. Not so bad.

She looks over to find her mother seated across the table from her in Aaron’s spot, dressed in her furs and finery, a woman at the height of her renown. At least the poor man is trying to make you happy, Eema reminds her. He’s making an attempt. Of course we both realize, I’m sure, that the boy is neither milchidik nor flaishidik—­neither dairy nor meat—­but that’s not necessarily bad. As men go? You could do worse.

“Were you ever happy, Eema?”

Was I?

“With my father?”

Eema considers. At times. At times I was. And when he died, I grieved. I did. But I was also relieved. At last to have my life back in my own hands.

“And what about her?” Rachel asks.

Her? Who is her? Eema pretends not to know.

“You know very well who is her,” Rachel insists. “Did she make you happy?”

Her mother shrugs slightly, expels smoke from her cigarette in the amber holder. When a person sticks a dagger in your heart, can that person make you happy? she wonders. An unanswered question.

At that moment, Aaron replaces her mother as he slides into the booth looking abashed. “Uh, honey?” he says and swallows something jagged. “There’s been a bit of a wrinkle in the plan.”

The atmosphere in the rear of a checkered taxi is chilly as they head west on 48th. Rachel glares through the window glass blindly. The only sounds are the passing traffic and the occasional snort of static on the cabbie’s dispatch radio. Between wife and husband, there is only silence, until Aaron finally speaks.

“What?”

But all he gets is nothing.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “but it was the only show he could get seats for that weren’t up in the rear mezzanines with the cobwebs.”

More silence.

“It’s supposed to be incredible,” he offers with hope. “All the reviews…”

Nothing.

“So whattaya wanna do? Turn around?” he asks. “Go home and play Scrabble? We can do that,” he offers. A real offer.

Rachel breathes out and finally answers, looking down at her satin-­gloved hands. “No.” She sighs in a small way. “No, too late. It’s only that you promised The Pajama Game. I was looking forward to comedy.”

A moment more of nothing between them, until Aaron proffers his only defense: “I hear there are some funny parts…”

The Cort Theatre on West 48th. As the taxi slows, the marquee blazes.

THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK

She sits beside her husband in the crowded auditorium. But she is unaware of him. Unaware of the audience surrounding her. She can only see the people onstage; she can only absorb what she hears from the performers acting their parts under the claustrophobic lighting. Her nerves are needles. Her muscles clenched. Her throat too thickened to emit the slightest whimper. She has made it thus far, as one act gave way to the next, navigating the desperation of Jews in hiding onstage, through the cloying scenes of fear and fearlessness, of joy and ennui, of petty squabbles, of soaring hopes, and of doomed dreams. Doomed, doomed, doomed by the coming betrayal. The evil blot of human betrayal. Glaring at the stage with sharp grief gleaming in her eyes, she hears the line spoken by the young girl standing center.

It remains her opinion, she informs the crowd, that in spite of all evidence to the contrary, people in their hearts are still good.

And that’s it.

Rachel is up, shoving past annoyed patrons. She can hear Aaron whispering frantically after her, calling her name, but she ignores him. She must flee. She must flee. She must flee.

“My fault,” Aaron is admitting. Breaking the silence in the rear of their cab heading down Ninth Avenue. Heading home.

“My fault,” he repeats. “This is my fault. I should have said screw it the second that yutz Chernik called.”

Silence.

Rachel’s eyes are raw. She glares at the lights of the street as they stream past the taxi’s window.

“Diary of Anne Frank,” her husband concludes. “Bad idea.”

But Rachel does not speak a word. Up in the front, beside the driver, sits a schoolgirl. Her hair woven into a single braid, a wine-­colored beret on her head. Her strong, beautiful face betrays patches of decay. The simple beauty of her eyes is hardly diminished by the rot of death; their humanity is still very clear.

“Stop!” Rachel hears herself shout aloud. “Stop!” But too late. By the time the cabbie stamps on the brakes, she has puked the dinner that Leo had treated them to into her husband’s lap.

She does not sleep that night. Hunched over the toilet on her knees, she cannot stop the upheaval, even though she must be ruining Naomi’s dress. Aaron kneels beside her, holding her hair, stroking her head in between heaves. He blames the salmon, and she does not attempt to correct him. She must have gotten a bad piece of fish is his explanation, though she has already heaved up appetizers, entrée, dessert, soup to nuts, and at this point is simply sputtering bile into the white porcelain bowl.

A schoolgirl is watching with melancholy. Brunette hair plaited into a single braid. A burgundy beret tugged at an angle. She dares to offer Rashka a tentative smile in the recesses of her memory, while the black pencil dress is flecked with her regurgitation. Rachel is sweating and shivering. She cannot stop. She must vomit up her life.

Her past. Herself.