Almost a Woman : A Memoir (9780306821110) (42 page)

Days later, as I leaned toward an approaching bus on Fifth Avenue, a man tapped my shoulder and asked for directions to Rockefeller Center. I turned and met the sea-green eyes of Jurgen, who was clearly not lost, but captivated by my own dark brown pupils.

“I know where it is,” he admitted. “There's a restaurant there. Will you join me for tea?”

I followed Jurgen to the restaurant on the lower level of
Rockefeller Center, which in winter looked out to a skating rink but in summer offered tables shaded by bright umbrellas.

Jurgen spoke excellent English with a charming accent. Whenever he made a mistake in grammar or pronunciation, he struck his lips with his index and middle fingers, as if the fault were in the mouth and not the brain. He was born in Hamburg but didn't live there. “Where, then?” I asked.

“All over,” he chuckled.

His skin was translucent, its planes smooth and even. His lips frequently curled into a roguish smile that showed small teeth, flat, as if filed along the bottom.

Like many people in New York, Jurgen was just passing through. He'd buy me tea at Rockefeller Center, then return to Germany, or wherever his next stop was.

“Los Angeles,” he said. “Then Egypt.”

“How wonderful,” I sighed, and he laughed.

As we talked, I slipped into the familiar, vague responses to the typical questions. But Jurgen was a careful listener, who asked for details no one else bothered to gather. Before the waiter refilled my glass of iced tea, I'd told Jurgen everything there was to know about me, including that I was a virgin, was not allowed to date until after I got married, and had recently been offered a position as the mistress of a Texan too ambitious to marry a “Spanish girl.” He listened, chuckled, softened his eyes with concern. When tears dribbled from my eyes, he fished out a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to my cheeks. As he wiped away my tears, I was ashamed to have said so much and excused myself, intending to slip out another door and into the subways. But first I had to go to the bathroom, wash my face, comb my hair, apply lip gloss. When I came out, Jurgen was in the hall leading to the rest rooms. “I thought you were lost,” he said.

He led me to the street, and we walked up Fifth Avenue toward Central Park. On 54th Street, he took my hand, and by the time we arrived in front of the Plaza at 59th and Fifth, his arm was around my shoulders and mine was around his waist. As we
strolled through Central Park, I told him that the last German to hold my hand had saved me from being run over by a truck. He joked that Germans had great timing.

I asked where he'd been born and he told me about his childhood in Hamburg. His mother and father still lived there, he said, but he hadn't seen them in a couple of years. He asked if I missed my father, and I nearly broke down again.

“You must think I'm a crybaby,” I apologized.

“No,” he stroked my hair, “it's sweet.”

It was easy to be with Jurgen, to talk to him about things I had never shared with anyone but Shoshana. Every once in a while I remembered we'd just met and wondered what it was about him that made me feel as if we'd known each other for ages.

We walked to a restaurant across the street from Lincoln Center. Jurgen introduced me to the bartender, Donny, at whose apartment he was staying.

“Where are you from?” I asked, upon hearing his accent.

“Ireland,” Donny chuckled. He had black hair and blue eyes, was shorter than Jurgen, stocky, somewhat older, although he claimed to be the same age, twenty-nine. He and Jurgen exchanged a few words in German. I could tell Donny said something about me because of the warm, proud look Jurgen gave me.

“Where did you learn to speak German?” I asked Donny, and the men exchanged a look.

“He speaks terrible German,” Jurgen laughed. “Like schoolboy.” Donny blushed. We chatted for a while, and then Donny invited us to come with him and his girlfriend to Jones Beach the next day. When I hesitated, Jurgen offered to call my mother and ask permission.

“No, that's okay,” I told him, certain he was laughing at me.

Jurgen said he had a meeting and asked me to come with him to Donny's apartment so that he could change.

“I can't,” I said, “I should go home.”

“It won't take long,” Jurgen insisted. “It's very close.”

Donny encouraged me from his post behind the bar. “Don't
worry, he's an honorable man. He won't bother you. You have my word.”

“I'll walk with you to the corner,” I offered. When we arrived there, Jurgen took my hand and led me down the street. “It's really time for me to go,” I protested. “My mother will worry.”

“It will only take a minute,” Jurgen said, “for me to put on my suit.”

The apartment was two blocks away, in a yellow brick building with no doorman but with two secure doors. Inside, the wide hall was dim and cool, the walls and floors covered with a mustard-colored tile that echoed the shash and click of our footsteps as we walked toward the elevator. We stood side by side as we rose to the fifth floor. My heart raced as I mentally reviewed every kick and strike my wrestling cousin Paco had taught me and my sisters in case we needed to defend ourselves.

The apartment was at the end of a long hall with a window that looked toward the Hudson. Inside there were two tidy, sparsely furnished rooms and a galley kitchen with no dishes, pots, or food anywhere in sight.

The minute we entered, Jurgen tried to kiss me. I resisted but then figured that if I gave in to the kiss, he'd relax, and I could make my getaway. He was gentle, didn't press himself against me, or place his hands where he shouldn't. He stepped back, took my hand, kissed it reverentially. “We are meant for each other,” he said.

“Huh?”

He looked into my eyes. “Marry me.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Marry
me
,” He struck his hand against his chest, as if he were saying, “Me Tarzan, you Jane.”

“You must be kidding!”

“I am very serious.”

I couldn't control the giggles. He stood before me, my hand in his, the roguish smile on his lips. It occurred to me then that he was a psycho and laughing at him wasn't smart.

“Yes?” he prompted.

“We met three hours ago,” I reminded him.

“Yes?”

I wanted to get out of there alive. “All right, let's get married.”

“Wonderful!” He hugged me, kissed my eyes, my forehead. “My wife.” Now, I thought, as he tries to get me to the bedroom, I'll kick him and run. Jurgen released me, stepped back. “I go dress now,” he said. “Wait one moment, please.” He dragged a straight chair from its place against the wall, held it for me as I sat. Not too smart, I thought. He's going to tie me to it. “Pardon me,” Jurgen said, and went into the bedroom. I sat on the edge of the chair, not ten feet from the half-open door, calculating the best moment to escape. He moved in and out of my vision as he changed his shirt, put on a tie, a jacket. Each time I was about to jump up and run, he turned toward me with a smile. He combed his hair, stepped to the hall door. “Let's go tell Donny,” he said.

I jumped from the chair into the hallway, confused but glad we'd soon be outside so that I could run. On the way down, Jurgen talked about how long he'd waited for the right girl and how lucky he was to have found me. He claimed to have fallen in love with me as I stood on the curb on Fifth near 48th. “I am not impulsive man,” he claimed, “but I follow my, how you say, instinct?”

We'd be married in the United States, Jurgen suggested, fly to Germany to meet his family, then settle in Egypt. It was the most surreal conversation I had ever had with anyone who didn't live inside my head. Every fantasy of princely men I'd ever dreamed up was coming true. As if there were such a thing as love at first sight, romance, intelligent, charming men with money willing to spend it on me—to marry me, even. “Can you dance?” I asked, certain there was a flaw in this too perfect plot. To prove he could, Jurgen tangoed me in the door of the restaurant where Donny still stood behind the bar serving tired businessmen.

“Married!” Donny's eyebrows rose so high they disappeared into his black hair. When he recovered, he congratulated Jurgen. “I told you he was an honorable man,” he winked. “Now I'll have to propose to Laryssa,” he grimaced, and we laughed.

Jurgen had to go to his meeting, but he asked me to wait with
Donny until his return, when we'd celebrate our engagement with dinner and champagne.

“Jurgen,” I began, about to tell him that the game had gone on long enough, that I didn't want to marry him—or anyone—I'd only known for, let's see, four hours? What came out was, “I have to call my mother.”

“Should I speak with her?” Jurgen offered, his eyes earnest. It was then I knew his proposal was no game.

Jurgen stood in front of me, waiting for an answer. He had Neftalí's green eyes and hushed voice, Otto's height, coloring, and accent, Mr. Grunwald's perfect physique. There was even a little of Avery Lee in him—the same roguish smile and confident air. In the second it took to transform Jurgen into the personification of all the men I'd ever loved, I surrendered.

We stood by the phone at the back of the restaurant getting our story together. We'd known each other a year, were introduced on the set of
Up
the Down Staircase
by Sandy Dennis herself, had dinner a few times, recently met again, and decided we couldn't live without each other. “She'll want to meet you,” I warned, and he offered to pick me up on Sunday when we went to the beach with Donny and Laryssa.

When I called Mami and told her I was engaged, she was suspicious, asked all the expected questions, and listened carefully to my answers. Jurgen got on the phone and told her, “I
mucho
love your daughter. Very
mucho.”
When he returned the phone to me, she allowed that he sounded nice.

“Are you bringing him home now?”

“No, Mami, tomorrow. We're going to the beach. He'll come get me, and then you can meet him.”

The minute I hung up, I was sorry I'd called. Before 1 had called Mami, I could have changed my mind, could have said goodbye to Jurgen, could have given him the wrong phone number and avoided midtown for a few days until he'd flown away. Jurgen noticed my mood.

“Come with me,” he said. It seemed strange that he'd bring
me to a business meeting, but by now it was all so unreal that nothing surprised me.

We took a taxi to a luxury car dealership on Tenth Avenue. Sport cars and sedans glimmered behind the huge plate-glass windows, some with their doors open to show the interior. As we walked in, a florid man approached us. He towered over Jurgen, and I had trouble envisioning him behind the wheel of the Porsche toward which he led us. From their exchange it was clear that Jurgen was interested in a Porsche just like the blue one in the window. He was there for a test drive, and after introducing me as his “fiance,” Jurgen took a Porsche out for a spin in the crowded streets of Manhattan, where it could go no faster than a Ford. The florid man waited at the door of the dealership when we returned, fawned over Jurgen, who talked about horsepower and torque while I wondered how it was that nine hours earlier I had left Brooklyn still mourning Avery Lee's rejection and was now sitting in a Porsche dealership with my future husband.

We had an early dinner, and then Jurgen took me to see the all-black production of
Hello Dolly,
with Pearl Bailey. After the theater, he wanted to take me home, but I convinced him that wasn't necessary. He walked me to the train station, gave me Donny's phone number, and insisted I call as soon as I got home so that he'd know I'd arrived safely.

On the train home I marveled at what a strange day it had been. According to the papers, half my generation was supposedly high on LSD or other hallucinogenics. I had had nothing stronger than coffee and a couple of glasses of wine at dinner, but it felt as if I were “tripping.” Any moment, I'd wake up in my bed in the back room of our house on Glenmore Street in the East New York section of Brooklyn, and the whole day would have been a dream. Or maybe I'd died, and this was Paradise. Or maybe it was hell, and my punishment for not being religious was to spend eternity having a good time in the afternoon as the fiancé of a rich, good-looking man who could afford to buy Porsches and then having to go home to Brooklyn.

As soon as I walked in the door, I called Jurgen, to make sure that he existed and that the entire afternoon had not been an extended fantasy. He sounded relieved that I had called, told me he loved me, asked for directions to my house the next day. I fabricated a history about me and Jurgen for Mami, Tata, Don Carlos, Don Julio, and those siblings who had waited up. When I finally crawled into bed, I believed every word of every lie I'd told them Jurgen and I were in love, would marry, travel to Germany and then Egypt, where we'd live happily ever after in the shadow of the pyramids.

At the exact time when Jurgen promised to pick me up, the roar of a sports car drew my brothers to the cement yard that divided our house from the sidewalk. The family had been up for hours, cleaning and straightening up for the imminent arrival of my fiance. He pulled up in a black Porsche, not the same one that had been on the sales floor, nor the one he had test-driven. I fretted that I might not recognize him when next I saw him, but there was no mistaking the clear complexion and rakish grin. Donny was in the passenger seat. They both kissed me on each cheek, and I introduced them to the family. I hadn't brought any men home since Otto, and I watched Mami's face for her reaction. She was taken by Jurgen's gallantry, his easy charm, the bunch of flowers he handed me, the box of chocolate-covered cherries he gave her, which endeared him to my sisters and brothers. The only one with a scowl on her face was Tata, who had been forced to change from her comfortable cotton housedress into the black lace dress she had worn to pick us up at the airport seven years earlier.