I wondered what kind of evil monster she turned into when her love died — did she tell you it was finished: Just let it go? Did she drop you back into the fish tank where you sank or swam, or did she release a few bubbles at a time and throw you tiny pellets of food as she did with Inky that night at the party, so you wouldn’t go belly-up, though you know and she knows it’s only a matter of time before they pick you up and flush you down where all fish souls end when they go back to the greater scheme of things? Was I making all this up, or was I myself gradually being put in a straitjacket before being dunked in a pickle jar as I looked up at the hole that was about to close on me?
I could always escape. The train to the city. My beloved Greek diner. Doing the New York Times crossword puzzle. I still had Christmas presents to buy, the stores would still be open if I left now. Was there a limit to how late one could give Christmas presents?
“Another slice of strudel gâteau?” asked Margo.
I looked at her and wondered where she stood on the Inky front. Then I remembered that they’d sat us near each other, not once but twice.
Yes, I would take another slice of the strudel gâteau.
“All young men like this cake,” said Margo.
I looked over at Clara. Once again, her face was neutral.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s been nice,” said Max. “Come, Margo.”
I looked up at them, totally baffled.
“I need to take a nap. Otherwise I age by five years, and that, dear friends, takes us to unreal numbers. Or I start dozing in public, and frankly, no one enjoys watching old people nod and drool and mutter things that had better be left unsaid.”
“As if he ever watches his speech.”
“Ach, Margo, it’s not like you don’t nod in the afternoon either.”
“—and leave our guests?”
“Come and cuddle and don’t fuss so much, woman.”
“Cuddling, he calls it — phooey.”
“Fie and phooey to you too, besotted harridan; come upstairs, I said, and watch me be daring in love and dauntless in war—”
“—and dangle your bonnet and plume? I’m not sleepy.”
“Don’t bother about us,” interrupted Clara. “I’ll make coffee and put the dishes away.”
“Esmeralda will do it. Otherwise we pay her for what?”
“On second thought,” Clara said, “we might as well say goodbye now. We’re leaving in a short while. It might snow again.”
“Yes, you don’t want to be snowed in.”
Clara suddenly turned to me. “Do you want to be snowed in?”
What an amazing, amazing woman.
“You know damn well I would love nothing better,” I said.
“Margo never asked if I wanted to be snowed in. You’re a lucky man.”
“Upstairs, Lochinvar,” said Margo. “Upstairs, with your old bonnet and plume.”
Clara kissed the two of them more affectionately than when she’d greeted them.
“You’ll see, you’ll be your dashing self in no time,” she added, knowing he was worried about his operation.
“Just don’t forget to listen to the Handel. With all this talk of soup, wine, and bonnets, I forgot.”
“Don’t blame the wine or my soup, you forgot because you’re old.”
“Because you’re old. Those are probably the last words I’ll hear before I head out to the eternal landfill. But don’t forget the Handel. That Handel was worth waiting seven decades for.”
•
“Let’s make coffee first.”
I watched her open one of the kitchen cabinets and take out the espresso maker. She knew exactly where to find it. She tried to twist it open, but it was shut tight. “Here, you open it,” she said, handing it to me. “They don’t drink coffee anymore,” she added, as though registering yet another instance of their decline. The packet of ground coffee was also where she knew it would be, in the freezer. Even the silver spoon with which she spooned out three heaping spoonfuls was in an old wooden drawer that rattled first before suddenly dipping at a precarious angle once you pulled it out — a cemetery of old cutlery that hadn’t seen sunlight in who knows how many years. “Here,” she said, handing me two mugs. “Spoon. Sugar. Milk?”
“Milk,” I said.
I liked how she made everything seem normal, habitual, routine, as if we’d been doing this for ages.
Or should I be on my guard: people who make you feel unusually at home when you know you’re just a guest can, within seconds, show you to the door and remind you you’re no better than a deliveryman who rang a doorbell on a hot day asking for a glass of water.
I wondered if we were going to sit next to each other at the large table, as we’d done during lunch, or across from each other, or at a right angle. At a right angle, I decided, and put down the spoons accordingly. “I am sure she has tiny sweets somewhere,” said Clara, who began rummaging through the fridge and the old kitchen cabinets. “Found ’em,” she said.
“Ach, Liebchen, not sweets after the strudel gâteau,” she said as she helped herself to a box of Leibniz chocolate cookies, tore off the cellophane wrapper, and put four on a dish, which she placed right between what were going to be our seats. She had mimicked the old woman’s accent so well that I couldn’t help laughing, which made her laugh as well. I asked her to repeat what she’d just said.
“No.”
“Come on.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m embarrassed, that’s why.”
“Just say shtroodel ga’tow.”
“Shtroodel ga’tow.”
I felt my stomach muscles tighten. I was dying to kiss her. She could say anything and I’d want to kiss her, make any gesture and I’d be pulled toward her, and if she happened to lean toward me as we tried to speak softly so as not to wake the old couple upstairs, then I’d have to struggle not to put my arm around her as I did at the dining table, but this time I’d let my palm rub her face, once, twice, just keep rubbing that face, and touch those lips, that mouth, and let my face rub against hers; what wouldn’t I give to touch her teeth with my hand, with my lips. We were standing in the kitchen rinsing the dishes.
“Are you happy you came?” I asked.
“Yes. I liked seeing them, I always do. They are like two coiled snakes corkscrewed unto their last. You watch: when one goes, so will the other, like a pair of old slippers.”
“Is that what love is like — a pair of slippers?”
“Don’t know about the slippers. But they are identical, Max and Margo. Inky and I, on the other hand, couldn’t have been more different. Inky doesn’t have a devious bone in his body. Inky wants you to be happy; Inky misses you when you’re gone, runs errands if you ask, fixes things when they break, will die for you if you so much as hint that you want him to jump from this or that ledge. He is kindness and health personified — which is why he’ll never understand me.”
“Because he is not all twisted?”
“Not like us, he isn’t.”
I liked this.
“So you said no to Inky because he’s a healthy human being?”
“So I said no to Inky.” Pause. “Here, eat this cookie, otherwise I’ll eat it, and when I get fat, trust me, I get even more bitter and depressed.”
“Bitter and depressed, you?”
“As if you hadn’t noticed. You’re like me. We’re chipped all over. Like these dishes. Jewish dishes.” She smiled.