I soon learned that backgammon was a real hot pastime with the rich. The craze was in its infancy when Gaby and I first met. Two years later, when I started law school, it had become a full-tilt mania. Bars and clubs everywhere had at least one or two tables. Some clubs devoted themselves exclusively to it. The most popular of these was Pips, in Beverly Hills. Pips catered to the rich and famous. The name of the club was inlaid discreetly in brass to the right of the large double-doored entrance. Muted lighting, thick carpets, and dark, paneled walls lent the place an air of understated opulence. The room devoted to backgammon was right off the foyer. It had ten tables and its own bar. I liked Pips more than other places on the backgammon circuit because it was relatively quiet and had cushiony, well-upholstered chairs. There, I could park myself and study while Gaby played.
Gaby and I would drop into Pips every other night or so while he tried to hustle up a “pigeon,” the pro’s term for a novice who played for high stakes. It wasn’t easy to get a game at Pips. The fashionable set usually played with their friends and were understandably leery of a flashy stranger with an Israeli accent. So if he failed to score, we’d move along to the Cavendish.
The Cavendish, located on the border between West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, was a private club that had been devoted largely to bridge and gin rummy. Gambling, of course, was illegal, and I’d heard that the Cavendish had been raided a couple of times-but as far as I could tell that hadn’t slowed down the action. During the early seventies, the entire back room was given over to backgammon. The Cavendish was not the plush playground that Pips was. It was located in an office building, two flights up. There was no elevator that serviced the club. Nor was there any sign visible from the street to announce its existence.
The first thing you saw when you came in was a long counter where club personnel would check to make sure you were a member in good standing. To the left of that counter was a lounge with a couple of sofas and coffee tables. If you passed through the lounge, you’d walk into a large room filled with bridge tables. To the back was a partition of wood and glass; beyond that, backgammon.
Gaby never had trouble finding a game here. In fact, he made a lot of money. The tabloids later portrayed Gaby as a chronic cheat. I should tell you that backgammon is a game of cutthroats, and it was very common for players to accuse one another of cheating. So you have to take those stories with a grain of salt. All I can say is, I never saw him cheat.
At the beginning, I loved doing the clubs with Gaby. The nightlife reminded me a little of my time in Greenwich Village-which I still think of as the happiest, most carefree part of my life. But looking back on it, I can see that my life with Gaby was a weird existence by any standard. Gaby would play all night; then we’d hit a twenty-four-hour diner. By the time we got home, it would be four in the morning. We’d be too keyed up to sleep, so we’d watch TV until at least five or six A.M. Of course, then we slept until one or two in the afternoon. We’d start out again at seven or eight. It was common for us to see the sun only as it was setting or rising.
I skipped classes. Actually, I’d never gone much, to begin with. I’d check in for a few sessions at the beginning of the semester and then spend the rest of the term reading on my own. That suited me better. My grades stayed high. Everything worked out fine.
After the first year, however, I found the charm of the nightclub circuit wearing a little thin. Nocturnal living left me isolated, dependent almost solely upon Gaby for love and companionship. That wouldn’t have been so bad, except that he and I fought a lot. Sometimes the conflicts were subtle-he’d get sarcastic over something as small as my not making dinner the way he liked it. But that was usually a pretext for deeper irritation, like the fact that I’d come home from dance class later than I was supposed to. He didn’t like being alone. He couldn’t stand not knowing where I was. He’d say he was afraid that whenever I wasn’t with him, I was seeing other men.
We’d scream at each other in Hebrew. Once he barricaded the front door with chairs and sat down on one of them, arms folded, refusing to let me out. I’d lock myself in the bathroom to get away from him; once, he literally kicked the door in. I tried to leave him so many times. One time in particular, we’d been fighting about God knows what, and I decided I’d had enough. I threw some clothes in my dance bag and ran out of the apartment. Gaby ran after me and caught me just as I reached my car. He grabbed me by the arm and tried to pull me back with him across the street. He yanked me so hard the he knocked me off my feet. As he dragged me over the ground, I screamed “Let me go!” over and over. Finally, a neighbor opened a window and shouted, “If you don’t knock it off, I’m calling the police!” That sobered us up real fast.
But the brawls continued. I’d try to leave; he’d try to stop me. Once as I was headed for the door, he pushed me onto the bed. I got up and pushed him back. As I tried to make for the door again, he grabbed hold of me. The next thing I knew I was flat on my back on the floor and he was standing behind me. I wasn’t thinking. I was just reacting. I swung my foot up behind me to ward him off and I felt it connect with his body. For one startled second I waited in dread for the retaliation. It didn’t come. I leaped to my feet and, without so much as looking at him, I ran to the balcony, climbed over the railing, jumped, and hit the ground running. Thank God, we lived on the first floor. I ran hard, convinced I’d hear him gaining on me. After about five minutes, I realized that he wasn’t following. Winded, chest heaving, I stopped and looked back. He wasn’t there.
I was puzzled. This was a first. I’d never run out the door without Gaby hot on my heels. Maybe I was mistaken. Maybe I hadn’t kicked him. After about an hour, I figured it would be safe to test the waters. I entered the apartment warily and found Gaby sitting in a chair in the bedroom, slumped over, ashen-faced. What had I done?
“Are you okay?” I asked him timidly.
“You kicked me in the balls, damn you,” he managed weakly.
I started to apologize, but he waved me away and limped over to the bed.
“Just leave me alone.”
I felt so guilty that I stayed. Things went back to our peculiar idea of normal. That meant rolling from the heat of battle to the unnatural quiet that settled over us after we’d wrung ourselves dry. Then we’d drift for a while into a loving period when we’d actually laugh and have fun together. And then it would all start up again.
Gaby never slapped or punched me. Things never escalated past the shoving stage, which was almost always the result of my trying to leave and his trying to restrain me. Once, during an argument, he pushed me against the wall, pinned my shoulder back with one hand, and tapped my cheek in a mock slap. Then he grabbed my chin. I asked him tearfully to let me go. He looked in my eyes and said, “I hold you like this because I love you. You make me act this way. I’d never get this way if I didn’t love you so much.”
And I accepted that. Somehow, we’d both come to equate a display of physical aggression with a demonstration of love. When our fights escalated to the point that I tried to walk out the door, his efforts to restrain me were actually a form of reassurance for us both. It was the way we proved to each other that we were still in love.
I spent half the time wishing I could get away from him; the other half of the time I felt that all I wanted to do was be with him. I hated myself for being so weak. I seemed to have no real personality of my own. Gaby was the mirror in which I saw myself. I’d changed my habits to fit his convenience. I’d pegged my expectations to his. I had never had a job other than waitressing or salesclerking. I knew that those menial jobs paid barely enough to live. I felt like a hamster on a wheel, unable to see a route out.