“But they aren’t bad memories for me,” she added. She must have known I’d give everything to kiss the open space between her bare neck and her almost-shoulder when we were sitting in our warm corner at Edy’s. She must have known.
“Romance with snow,” I said, as I stared at the glass globe. “Do you already own one of these?”
It was what I ended up asking instead of Why do you turn on and off like this?
“No, never owned one. I’m not the kind who stows away ticket stubs or old keepsakes; I don’t make memories.”
“You savor and spit, like wine experts,” I said.
She saw where I was headed.
“No, my specialty is heartburn.”
“Remind me never—”
“Don’t be a Printz Oskár!”
•
We arrived at the old man’s house sooner than we figured. The roads were empty, the houses seemed shuttered, as though every family in this part of Hudson County was either hibernating in the city or had flown off to the Bahamas. The house was located at the end of a semicircular driveway. I had imagined a shack, or something unkempt and broken down, held together with the insolent neglect that old age heaps on those who have long given up touching up the world around them. This was a mansion on top of a hill, and right away I guessed that the back overlooked the river. I was right. We stepped out of the car and made our way to the front door. But then Clara had a change of heart and decided to enter by way of a side door, and sure enough, there was the river. We stood outside a large porch with a wrought-iron table and chairs whose cushions had either been removed for the winter season or that disuse and sheer age had totally ruined and which no one bothered to replace. But the wooden path down to the boat dock seemed to have been rebuilt recently — so these people did care for the house, and the cushions on the porch were probably being carefully stowed away during winter. From the porch Clara attempted to open a glass door, but it was locked. So she tapped three times with her knuckles. Once again she put on her little freezing-shoulders performance by rubbing her arms. Why didn’t I believe her? Why not take her at face value? The woman is cold. Why go looking for that something else about her, why the hunt for subtexts? To remember to be cautious? To disbelieve what she’d said to me last night and repeated at least twice this morning?
“Don’t you think it would be wiser to ring the front bell?”
“It just takes them a while. They’re scared of wolves. But I keep telling them all they have here are wild turkeys.”
Sure enough, a Gertrude-type old woman opened the door ever so gingerly. Arthritic hands, bad limp, scoliotic back.
They exchanged hugs and greeted each other in German. I shook the arthritic hand. “And I am Margo,” she said. She led us indoors. She’d been working in the kitchen. A large tabletop displayed scattered hints of a lunch to come. Max would be with us soon, she said. They continued to chatter in German.
I felt totally lost in this house, a stranger.
I wished I had taken the train back to New York. Wished I had never stepped out of the shower, or answered the buzzer, or gone to the movies last night. I could undo all this in a second. Excuse myself, step outside the house, take out my cell phone, call a local car service, dash back into their house, utter a hasty toodle-oo — and then be gone, adiós, Casablanca. You, Margo, Inky, and your whole tribe of limp, pandangst kultur wannabes.
I ducked outside on the pretext of wanting to glimpse the scenery. Then I realized I wasn’t interested in their scenery either, came back in, and shut the kitchen door.
“I just made you coffee,” said the arthritic Margo, handing me a mug with her right hand and, with the other, offering me a packet of sugar held between her thumb, forefinger, and middle finger, her bent and troubled arm almost beseeching me to come closer and take it from her before she dropped it and then fell trying to catch it. I wondered why she was offering me coffee and not Clara; but then I saw that Clara had already helped herself to some and was about to sit at an empty corner of the large kitchen table. The old woman’s pleading, beckoning gesture, at once humble and contrite, had touched me.
“Clara always complains I make very weak coffee,” she said.
“She makes the worst coffee in the world.”
“It’s not bad at all!” I said, as if I’d been asked an opinion and was siding with the host.
“Ach, Clara, he’s so polite,” she said. She was still sizing me up and, so far, approved.
“Who is so polite?” came the voice of an elderly man. Mr. Jäcke Knöwitall himself.
Kisses. Just as I’d expected. Firm handshake, hyperdecorous Old World smile that doesn’t mean a thing, slight bow of the head as he hastened, indeed rushed, to take my hand. I recognized the move instantly. Deference writ all over, except when you turn your back. And yet, unlike his wife, not a trace of a German accent, totally Americanized—A real pleasure to meet you!
“What are these ugly shoes, Max?” asked Clara, pointing at what were obviously orthotic contraptions with rows of Velcro fasteners. It was, I realized, her way of asking about his health.
“See, didn’t I tell you they were ugly!” He turned to his wife.
“They’re ugly because your legs and your knees and every other bone in your wobbly, weather-beaten body is out of whack,” she said. “Last year your hips, this year your knees, next year. .”
“Leave that part of my anatomy alone, you pernicious viper. It served you well enough in its time.” This, it took me a second to realize, was all for Clara’s benefit. “Sir Lochinvar may no longer be among us, may he rest in peace, but in the middle of the night you can hear his headless torso galloping above our bedroom in search of a dark passage, and if you paid attention, you toothless daughter of scorpions, you’d open your window, offer him your sagging pan-fried eggs, and put your mouth to work.”
Everyone laughed.
“Ach, Max, you’ve become downright lurid,” said his wife, looking in my direction as though imploring me to pay no mind to his latest outcry.
“Dear, dear Clara, I am out of whack with myself, that’s what I am.”
“Complain, complain. His new thing now is he wants to die.”
He ignored her.
“Do I really complain all that much?” He was holding Clara’s hand.
“You always complained, Max.”
“But he complains even more now, all the time” came back old arthritic.
“It’s the Jewish way. Clara, if I were younger,” he began, “if I were younger and had better knees and a better charger and steed—”
Margo asked me if I could help. Naturlich! Would I mind going with her outside? “Put your coat on. And you’ll need gloves.”
Soon I discovered why. I had to get some wood for the stove and bring it into the kitchen. “We love cooking with wood. Ask my husband. What am I saying — ask me.”
Together we walked out toward the shed where the gardener stored the firewood. She complained about the deer, sidestepped their droppings, cursed when she stepped on something that wasn’t mud, then scraped the bottom of her shoe against a boulder. I wasn’t sure whether she was speaking to me or just muttering. Finally, out of the blue: “I am happy to see Clara.” Perhaps it was an opener of sorts, making conversation, or she might just have been talking to herself, so I didn’t respond.
I returned with two logs. In the kitchen, Margo opened the stove and displayed several halved golden butternut squashes glistening with oil and herbs.
Max uncorked both a red and a white. “To while away the time,” he said, and proceeded to pour the white wine into four glasses. Then, pinching the base of his glass between his thumb and his index finger, he swirled the liquid a few times and finally brought it to his lips.