Imaginary Men (6 page)

Read Imaginary Men Online

Authors: Enid Shomer

Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Anthologies (Multiple Authors), #Literary Collections, #Literary Criticism, #test

BOOK: Imaginary Men
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Page 32
"How much will it cost?"
"Five thousand, give or take."
"That's a lot of money," Harry said. The exact amount he'd put aside for a down payment on that condo in West Palm Beach.
"I'm not asking for myself." Maury's voice dropped. "Damn it, the doctor told us it would be covered. She's scheduled for next Friday afternoon."
"What about a bank loan?"
"I'm willing to pay you interest, Dad," Maury said. "Why should the bank know Elaine's bust size?"
Elaine was such a nice girl. From Georgia, where they knew what good manners were. Hunchback. Harry remembered Charles Laughton's twisted face as he lurched around like a wild animal in the bell tower.
They agreed on 5 percent a year. "
Rachmones
," Harry mumbled as he hung up. Compassion.
Maury just couldn't seem to break in as a lawyer. Harry had thrown him customers over the years, but they drifted away. It wasn't personal, they assured Harry. Maury was such a nice guy, maybe even too nice. At least Elaine substitute-taught a couple days a week. They had two adorable sons. The kids were on diets, but when they visited Harry, they stuffed their pockets with bounty from his candy drawerSnickers bars, Milky Ways, caramels.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
When the doctor suggested he get psychotherapy for his hypertension, Harry had laughed, but now he regarded his Wednesday afternoon session as a small oasis in his week.
Dr. Toland's offices were dimly lit, like a bedroom. The layout reminded Harry of a series of check-valves. There were two waiting rooms and a separate entrance and exit so patients never saw each other. Even though he detested waiting, he always arrived early for appointments. Why was that?
It had taken Harry a while to relax with Dr. Toland. Bella and Velvel had ingrained in him the idea that he mustn't trust anyone who wasn't family. A few times Harry had gone home angry at not knowing anything about the doctor except what schools he had gradu-
 
Page 33
ated from, information Harry had gathered from the diplomas on the wall. Also, he had asked if the doctor happened to be Jewish. The doctor happened not to be.
During the first session, Dr. Toland had explained that high blood pressure was one of the ways Harry had developed to cope with the world, but there were other ways, and he could learn them. The doctor said it was a little like switching from being right-to left-handed.
"Ready to go to work?" Toland asked as Harry entered the office. Harry heard him click on the tape recorder.
It felt good to have his legs up, to stare at the dimpled ceiling while the doctor lavished attention on him in the form of simple questions. When Toland asked, How are you? he really meant it. Sometimes, though, Harry thought Dr. Toland was trying to trip him up, trying to get him to admit to something awful once his defenses were down. Harry was sure he wasn't hiding anything. He'd long ago decided that he wasn't a very deep person. He was conscientious, but his politics and philosophy were only about an inch thick. Under that lay strange questions and ideas not fit for conversation, such as: How many people worldwide still named their sons Adolf? Had there always been Jewish prostitutes, or were they a result of the establishment of Israel?
"You were saying you get along well with people."
"Sure, people like me," Harry said. "They can see I haven't got a mean bone in my body." Those were Mel's words, the family's words. His official description. Possibly, his epitaph.
"Why else do people like you?"
"I'm generousnot to brag, but I am. And I'm easy to please. You know," Harry lifted his head, "there's only one food I don't like. Beets. I hate beets."
"What exactly pleases you?"
"People please me," Harry said firmly.
"All the time?"
Harry scanned a portrait gallery of his family in his mind. Only Florence had ever really been angry with him. But that was natural. "Yes."
"You always get your way?"
"Who's talking about getting my way?"
"What animal are you this instant? Say it now."
 
Page 34
"I'm . . . a Budweiser Clydesdale. I've got big white shaggy feet."
"Where are you?"
Harry let the images flood his brain. "I'm pulling a wagon full of beer through a cobblestone street. Part of a team."
"Now you're going up a steep hill."
"My feet make a lot of noise. My big chest is pulling the wagon up."
"Feel your body," Dr. Toland ordered.
Harry became aware of his tight stomach muscles, his hands curled into fists, his forehead furrowed with effort.
"Hold that tension for a moment," Toland said. "Now the day's work is done. You're in a pasture, lying down with the other horses. Night is falling."
Harry felt his body begin to go limp. He sank deeper into the leather couch. His legs relaxed until his feet formed a V.
"Now you see your mother and brother, wife and children. All the members of your family are slowly walking into the pasture."
Harry could see them clearly. First was Bella, and holding her arm, Mel. They were dressed up like royalty, but they looked sad. "They're all crying," Harry told the doctor. He felt tension return to his body as his relatives filled the pasture, which had sand traps and rolling hills like a golf course. He watched the horde of people arrive until the pasture was tweeded with color like a football stadium on TV. And then his time was up.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
Harry and Mel were having lunch at Duke Zeibert's, a restaurant where people went to be seen and where the owner, Duke, circulated among the tables. Normally, Harry brought in deli and ate it one-handed as he presided over the office hustle-bustle. He liked to eat fast. He looked at the menu. What could he order that would take a long time? Something leafy. Maybe something with bones, tiny bones.
The waiter appeared. Mel ordered a soufflé. Harry ordered smoked whitefish with cucumbers and sour cream.
"I've been thinking we ought to talk to Mama together," Harry said.
"Hmmm," Mel said.
 
Page 35
Unlike the rest of the family, Mel talked little. Harry figured this was the result of being in the War, of having seen things that words could not change.
The Goldring Boys
, that's how they were known. But the two of them were so different. Mel vacationed at a hacienda in Mexico; Harry went to Miami where his overeating was practically deemed a mitzvah. Mel had a future as an alcoholic. Harry imagined himself keeling over on the golf course. Heart. The big heart would just stop.
''You'd think an eighty-two-year-old woman would be starved for company," Mel finally said.
Harry tried to picture Bella in the retirement home, but her figure kept looming out of focus, an expression of terror on her face. "The only people she ever wanted around was the family."
Mel set his fork down. "Suppose I call her? Make it real casual?" He signaled the waiter to bring a phone.
"You're going to tell her on the phone?"
"Mama, how are you feeling?" Mel began. A long silence followed during which, Harry knew, Bella was reporting on the condition of her bowels. "Listen," Mel said. "I want to tell you a secret." Harry perked up. "Your apartment building is going for condominiums. So Harry and I have found you a new place." Long silence. "It's big, sure. Roomy. Harry will take you to see it''he looked over at Harry for a date"next Thursday morning."
Harry couldn't believe it. Snap. Just like that. He had more trouble tying his shoes.
Mel was purring into the phone again. "Oh, Mama, I love you, too." He hung up. "At least she's agreed to look at the place."
"What if she doesn't like it?"
"I'm not a magician."
"Think about it," Harry countered. They both reached for the check.
Moments later, Harry handed his ticket to the valet and watched him sprint into the parking lot. When was the last time Bella had told him she loved him? His car squealed to a halt in front of him. The day of the Japanese surrender. They were listening to the radiohe and Velvel and Bella and Florence. "My Mel is coming home!" Bella shouted. She wrapped herself around Harry. "I love you," she said. "Today I love the whole world."
 
Page 36
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"Mrs. Liberman has agreed to let us look in on her." The director of the Potomac Retirement Village punched the elevator button for the eighth floor. Bella gripped the railing and stared at the numbers. They had toured the card room, the pool deck, and the arts and crafts center. Bella hadn't said a word.
Harry tried to imagine his own old age. He'd be bald as a cue ball, like Velvel. Still fat. Maybe a cane. He'd live in a condo in Florida and eat snapper almondine. Once a year he'd go north to pay his respects to family, dead and alive. The rest of the year he'd play golf and lie in the sun.
The door of 804 opened before the bell stopped chiming. "Come in!" Mrs. Liberman sang, ushering them into the foyer as the director made the introductions. Harry noticed the doorway made extrawide for wheelchairs, the red emergency buzzer, and speaker on the wall. He steered Bella to the window. "What do you think of this?" he asked. He pointed to the gardens below. "Some nice view, huh?''
"View?" Bella said. "Who sits and looks out a window all day? You have children?" she asked, turning to Mrs. Liberman.
"Of course. Over here by the sofa." Harry and Bella followed the woman to the coffee table where she picked up two framed photographs. "My son, Alan, and his wife, Marian. He's in ski equipment. Three children. All smart as a whip."
They could have been Harry's niece and nephew. His own kids, even. He'd read somewhere that the entire human race consisted of fiftieth cousins. How many pictures of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren were there at the Village? The faces ran together in his mind, interchangeable. Weddings, bar mitzvahs, kids in braces. Pieces of paper. Pieces of paper.
"Your children visit you?" Bella pressed.
"They moved to Colorado." Mrs. Liberman gently returned the faces to their shrine. "They used to visit. Every Saturday. Now they drop me beautiful postcards."
"Terrible," Bella whispered.
Bella the nosy. Bella with her talent for going straight to the heartache.
Mrs. Liberman scooped a handful of glossy cards from the end-
 
Page 37
table drawer. "See? The Grand Canyon. Coulee Dam. A prairie dog. A coyote."
Bella took the woman aside by the elbow. "You like it here?"
"Mrs. Liberman has been a Villager for more than three years," the director said. "She's practically a founding member, aren't you?" Mrs. Liberman nodded uncertainly.
"You have good shopping nearby?" Bella continued her interrogation. "A&P? Shoe store? Dress shop?"
"They take us on a bus." Mrs. Liberman smiled. "Sometimes we sing on the way. You'll see."
"Me? A bus?" Bella laughed. "I haven't been on a bus since Roosevelt." Harry's heart sank. His temples began to throb. Bella continued. "But I wish you long life and
nachas
from your children." She started for the door. "I hope they move back from Colorado." She exited into the hallway and stood puzzling over which way to go.
During the car ride home, Bella called the retirement village a high-priced, high-rise shtetl. Harry pointed out that she'd have maid service, a doctor on call night and day, and planned social activities. Bella said Harry had taste in his mouth. In his rear end. She wasn't going to be buried on the eighth floor like poor Mrs. Liberman. Why couldn't she buy her apartment when the building went for condos?
"You can't afford it," Harry said.
Bella glared at him. "You'll have to drag me," she announced. "I'll lie down on the floor like a hippie before I'll move."
It'll be her last move, Harry thought to himself. He was sorry he hadn't allowed the director to show them the nursing home wing. Bella could use a little humility. She'd never once referred to her own death, unlike Velvel who planned for it the way other people plan for a vacation. Oh no, mustn't aggravate Bella. That was the first commandment at home.
I'm the complaint department
, Velvel would say, smiling.
"So I'll get old like everybody else," Bella said, back in her apartment. "But not in front of strangers."
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Harry and Florence agreed to watch their two grandsons the weekend after Elaine's breast surgery. Bella would join them for Friday dinner. Late that afternoon, Harry went around the den salting the

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