The Puzzle King, page 18
“What happened to you? Did you walk home?” Flora had asked, greeting him at the door.
“I’m not in the mood for jokes, Flora.”
“Well, then, I’m not either, darling. Shall I get you a Manhattan?”
Lately, bits of Seema had crept into Flora: “Darling” and the trill in her voice when she said “Manhattan.” It irritated him, these affectations, but he would mention it to her later, after he’d had the Manhattan and put his feet up.
She poured herself a glass of sherry and they sat in the sunroom, where Simon described what had happened at the Granite Club.
As he told her how the man had asked about the name Phelps, he threw his hands up in the air and knocked over his Manhattan. The drink spilled onto the red-and-orange diamond-patterned Persian rug under his chair. Flora ran to the kitchen to get a dishtowel. She got on her hands and knees to blot up the whiskey and vermouth when she noticed she was using the towel that Edith had sent her. “It’s amazing how she got the yellow just right,” she said. “I don’t think whiskey stains rugs, do you? But you know what, I’ve been thinking we could certainly perk up this room a little. A new carpet wouldn’t hurt, something a little more modern maybe.”
Usually, it amused Simon how easily derailed Flora could become. But that day, he found it annoying. He wouldn’t tell her about the letter or how he’d gone back and cursed the man under his breath. She’d only have said that the letter was overwrought and he was overreacting. Silently, he fought back. Well, at least someone in this family has one foot in the real world. Okay, I’ll take out the part about Citizen of the United States, Jewish Citizen of the World, but that is all.
Simon stared at his wife. As he often did, he stepped back and watched his thoughts as if they were panel after panel in one of those newspaper comic strips. Flora would be a round character, beautiful with a wide smile and sparkling jewelry. She would have an adoring, and mostly out of the picture, husband and a madcap sister who lived in the big city. Flora would live in a glow of sweetness and innocence. He’d draw it like a pink cloud filled with goose feathers. It would hang over her head wherever she went and make her impervious to anything ugly or mean. During the day, she would have quixotic, pastel-colored adventures, but at night, no matter how far she’d traveled in the day, she’d come home to her husband: an earnest black-and-white fellow with the downcast demeanor of a beagle. In the last panel of the strip, they would always lie together in their bed—she with her pink cloud hovering, he with his eyes wide open and his teeth locked in a grimace. The husband’s head would be oversized, so that his brain was visible. It would look like one of those new-fangled machines with pieces fitted together at right angles, and in big letters over the brain, he’d write: CLICKETY CLACK CLICKETY CLACK.
While Simon was creating his fantasy, Flora finished cleaning the rug and sat across from Simon watching the agitation play across his face. Now in his forties, Simon was becoming set in his habits. He’d taken to reading half the paper out loud, not really to her, but to some imaginary audience who would share his outrage when he’d yell, “Those morons, who are they kidding? Doesn’t anyone pay attention to history? Look what’s happening in Europe!” He was always preoccupied with something, whether it was the state of the world or his business. And then there was the obsession with finding his family. Always calling this one or that one who might have a connection to someone who knows someone. The endless scraps of papers and lists and envelopes filled with God knows what. She loved him for his devotion to them, yet pitied him for what she feared was their fate. All this worrying seemed to wear him down. By the time he came home at night, he wanted to do little else than put his feet up, read the paper, and fret about the state of the world.
Sometimes Flora envied Seema’s glamorous life with its cocktail parties and evenings at the theater. Not that she wanted to go out every night, but once in a while it would be fun to get all dressed up and go out to a fancy restaurant or the opera. She thought about her looks. She was pretty, and because she’d never had children, she still had her figure, even near forty. But what good was being pretty and having a good figure if no one ever saw you? She noticed how men looked at her. It was not the way they looked at Seema, but with steady, appreciative eyes. It wouldn’t last much longer. Seema told her that by the time a woman reached forty-five, all her sex organs started to break down. “They’re no better than a scrap heap,” she’d said. She’d told Flora that when that happened, women gave off an odor, a very subtle odor that only men could smell, even though they didn’t always know that they were smelling it. The odor went to the part of their brain that was responsible for reproduction and gave off a chemical signal that let the man know her time had run out, that she was no longer capable of bearing his children. Because men were biologically put on this earth to procreate, Seema said, the chemical reaction in their brains caused them automatically to reject this woman. “It’s sad,” said Seema. “So many nice women over forty-five. But that’s just how it works.”
Flora never questioned how Seema knew all this, although it sounded like the kind of thing Oliver would tell her. By this logic, Flora had only seven years left. It seemed impossible that in seven years her sex organs would be a scrap heap. She’d forgotten to ask Seema if husbands could smell their wives’ dying sex, or if it was just men who were out looking for women with whom to procreate. Would Simon be the only man she would ever know in that way? She wondered what it would be like to touch another man or go to bed with him before her time ran out. She daydreamed about spending a week in New York City with Seema. They’d go to speakeasies and dances and maybe a cabaret—anywhere that wasn’t in Yonkers and didn’t involve Phelps or Adler or any of the women of the Beth David sisterhood.
EVEN THOUGH IT was the first week of November, New York was enjoying the kind of Indian summer that made people believe that they’d outwitted winter. Flora was in the backyard planting anemone and tulip bulbs. There were even new rosebuds on the bushes, and Flora was deciding whether or not to prune them or wait for cooler weather. Her train of thought was interrupted by a young male voice.
“Sorry to bother you, but are you Mrs. Simon Phelps?”
Flora wiped her muddy hands on her slacks. “Yes, I am.”
“Then I’ve come to the right place,” he said, handing her a yellow envelope.
It was rare to get a cable. She assumed it was for Simon. Maybe there was some good news about his family.
“Hope you get a good crop of whatever you’re growing back there, ma’am,” he said, heading back to his truck.
She ripped open the envelope and saw the following words pasted side by side: OUR MUTTI IS DECLINING. COME IMMEDIATELY. MARGOT.
She could imagine how Margot must have agonized over those words. But why did she use the word “declining”? In the last letter Flora had received from Margot several months ago, Margot had mentioned that their mother was losing words, as many older people do. Margot had said that when she couldn’t remember names, she’d make up unsettling substitutes. Frederick became the Fleischmann and Edith, der Buckel, “the hunchback”—a reference to the days right after her pleurisy surgery. In the letter, Margot had written that “our Mutti” can be so silly sometimes. At the time it struck Flora as odd. She knew there wasn’t a silly bone in her mother’s ferocious body. But Margot hadn’t mentioned anything about “declining.”
Flora went inside and put the cable down on the kitchen counter. She needed to call Simon. No, she should call Seema first. Of course she and Seema would go to Kaiserslautern right away. Simon wouldn’t want her traveling with Seema. Seema wouldn’t want to go at all. Maybe she’d call Simon first. Oh, but he would be too upset about her possibly missing Thanksgiving. Okay, she’d call Seema.
Seema answered on the first ring. Flora wondered what she did all day and why she would be that close to the phone at eleven o’clock on a Wednesday morning.
“I just got a telegram from Margot.” Flora read her the message. “I guess that means we have to go to Kaiserslautern as soon as possible.”
“Why do we have to go?”
“What do you mean, why do we have to go? Our mother is dying. That’s why.”
“I know our mother is dying. It’s just that she’s lived without us all these years, she can die without us, too.”
Flora had tucked the phone under her ear and had been picking the dirt out from under her nails. But Seema’s words made her stop and grab the receiver with both hands.
“Seema, what an awful thing to say. We have to go.”
All Seema could think about was how harsh her mother had been to her as a child, and how, since she’d come to America, she’d heard from her infrequently, and then only to extol Margot’s virtues as a mother.
“I don’t have to go. I don’t like that woman and I never have, you know that.”
They’d had this discussion many times. Seema would say, “She sent us away when we were little children so she could have her darling little Margot all to herself.” And Flora would answer, “Yes, but she sacrificed a lot to send us here. You’ve got to be grateful to her for that much.”
Usually, when the subject of their mother came up, Flora would let Seema’s comments pass, but today she found Seema petulant and even cruel. Flora didn’t disdain their mother the way Seema did, though whenever she’d thought about having children of her own, she’d hoped that they would love her unsparingly and that they would always live nearby. She understood why a mother would do what she did. But with that kind of time and distance between them, how could her children not be, at best, indifferent, and at worst, resentful toward her?
“Look Seema, we don’t have time for this nonsense now. We’re going and that’s that. I’ll find out when we can book passage and I’ll get back to you.”
“Christ, Flora,” said Seema, “You really can be so annoying. Has Simon given you his permission to leave?”
“I haven’t asked him yet. But of course he’ll say yes. What’s the matter? Are you afraid to leave Oliver alone in the big city?”
“Don’t worry about him, darling, Oliver will be fine. He’ll miss me, of course, but honestly, I don’t expect to be gone that long.”
Flora called Simon. He was always terrible on the phone. He had no time for chitchat and was abrupt and impatient. So she said what she had to say as plainly as she could.
“I just got a cable from Margot. My mother is dying and Seema and I are going to Kaiserslautern.”
There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. “Oh God Flora, that’s awful,” said Simon. “I’m so sorry, that’s really awful.”
He seemed more upset than she did. “Of course you must go. I’ll go with you. I’ll call up the Hamburg American Line and book us all passage on the first boat we can get.”
“Oh Simon,” she said, “I knew you’d understand. And of course I want you to come. It’s just that—how shall I say this? It’s just that she’s dying, but she’s not dead yet. It could be days or weeks or, I don’t know. Can you really miss that much work?”
She heard the rustle of paper and figured that he was looking through his calendar. “Hmm, there could be a problem. But I can’t have you traveling alone.”
“But I won’t be alone. I’ll be with Seema.”
“I know,” he said. “In some ways that’s worse.”
“Oh, you worry too much. I can take care of myself. And besides, we’ll be on the boat for only a few days and then we’ll be in Kaiserslautern. Even Seema can’t get into trouble in Kaiserslautern.”
“Pff, I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Okay, so the two of you go and if you’re there—God forbid—for too long, I’ll come.”
“Okay, that’s good.”
Again she heard the rustle of paper. “Flora, you’ll be back in time for Thanksgiving, won’t you?”
Of all holidays, Simon embraced this one the most. Each year they went to Aunt Hannah and Uncle Paul’s and stayed for the entire day. Lev and Ruth would be there plus a crowd of friends and of people who had nowhere else to go. It always amazed Flora how, on that day, Simon, “Dapper Simon Phelps,” would unbutton his collar and roll up his sleeves and play football in the yard, and how later he would throw himself into the game of charades, making funny faces, getting down on all fours, doing a little dance in place—anything to win.
“Ooh, I hope so,” said Flora. “But it could be tricky. One week going over, another week coming back, and we’re already in the first week of November. I don’t know.”
They were both quiet as they realized how long they might be apart.
Finally, Simon spoke. “Well, Flora, you’ll do what you have to do.”
“Yes, I will. And I’ll come home as soon as I can.”
Simon knew his feelings were irrational, but the thought of her going away made him dizzy with anxiety. The morning that she pulled her suitcase from the closet and placed it on the bed so she could pack, he became so nauseated that he had to lock himself in the bathroom. In his life, when you said good-bye to people you loved, you never saw them again. He and Flora had never been separated, and it was his intention that they never would be. It wasn’t fair to burden her with his fears, so he tried to keep them to himself. But when he came out of the bathroom, he paced back and forth, scrutinizing every item she put into her suitcase.
“This would be a good time to talk to Margot and Frederick about having Edith come back here. Do you think it’s out of the question that the two of them might come with her?”
“I’ll certainly bring it up,” said Flora.
“I’m sure I could help Frederick find work,” he said. “And Margot. She’d love having you and Seema around to …”
Simon lost his train of thought.
“You’re packing two hats. I don’t see why you’ll need two hats. You won’t have time to wear both.”
“A lace blouse for a funeral seems awfully fancy, don’t you think?”
“And a suit no less! Are you planning to move there?”
Flora stopped what she was doing, sat down on the bed, and took his hands. He stood before her like a child, his head bowed. “Simon, sweetheart,” she said. “I am coming back. I promise you, I’ll be home as quickly as I can. I’ll write you a letter every day so you’ll know exactly what I’m doing. I hate this as much as you do. After this, let’s promise that we’ll never be parted again.
“I swear it,” he said, squeezing her hand.
“I swear it, too,” she said, squeezing back.
SEEMA WOULD RATHER have died than have anyone watch her pack. She threw in several of the lacy peignoirs and camisoles that Oliver had given her. They were clingy and transparent, and it gave her a spiteful thrill to imagine Flora in her flannel bedclothes trying to pretend that she wasn’t shocked by her sister’s flimsy underwear.
She packed a few simple dresses from B. Altman, a couple of pairs of trousers, some sweaters, and six pairs of shoes. She threw in Edith’s small “Courage” pillow because, while she was never certain why she had sent it, the gift spoke of an understanding between them and gave her comfort. Besides, courage was one of many things she would need for this journey.
She went into the bathroom, sat down on the cold tile floor, opened the cabinet, and pulled out the lavender tin where she kept her crosses. She couldn’t take them all, so she’d have to pick one. She knew which one that would be: her favorite. It was the one made of two slivers of gold, slightly wider than brush bristles. She’d found it at Saint Patrick’s in one of the racks in front of the pews, where the prayer books were kept. The catch was broken and she’d figured that it must have fallen from someone’s neck as she knelt praying. It was so delicate, that cross, it could have even belonged to a young girl. Seema had wanted to do the right thing and get it back to its owner, but Saint Patrick’s had no lost-and-found.
Unsure what to do, she had decided to keep it. She’d gotten the clasp fixed and had worn it under sweaters or tucked into blouses whenever she could. She took that cross as a sign, a covenant, that as long as she was in possession of it she would do what she could to protect it and, by association, the young girl to whom it had belonged. In turn, whoever was watching over things like young girls and their prayers would keep an eye on her at the same time. It was the most she dared hope for. Well, she was making this dreaded trip, wasn’t she, so that had to count for something. She took the cross and slid it into the back pocket of her suitcase.
She’d remembered the cigarettes, thank God, two cartons of them, and the flask. She couldn’t imagine that Kaiserslautern would have cigarettes, much less rum. She wished she had another one of these as she poured the rum into the one she had. She slipped these into the back pocket of the suitcase as well. Oh, and one more thing. She went through the photo album she kept in her desk drawer. There were lots of pictures of her with Oliver. She finally settled on one taken at a lake somewhere upstate, though she couldn’t remember where. It was just before sundown, and the golden light made them look like bronze statues. They were in profile and he had his arm around her. It must have been taken years ago, because her nose was still straight then.
ON THEIR FIRST night aboard the ship, Seema ordered a bottle of champagne. Flora took a tentative sip, then another. Seema, well into her second glass, said, “Simon must be having conniptions that you’re here with me alone. He’s scared to death that I’m going to turn you into a loose woman.”
