The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (31 page)

“Are we not having dinner tonight?” he asked.

No answer.

“We’re not speaking, I see.”

Yvette turned her back to him and Duddy stuck out his tongue and made an obscene gesture. Turning around, she almost caught him. Duddy lifted his hand quickly to his mouth and coughed twice delicately.

“Did it ever occur to you,” Yvette asked, “that you’re still under age and all the deeds are made out in my name?”

“What is this? Traitor’s night on Tupper Street? I’m hungry. Make dinner.”

“Go to hell.”

“Now, is that a way to talk?”

“Are
you
going to teach
me
manners?”

“Listen, I just got an idea. Why don’t you move upstairs and Virgil move down here? Living this way is crazy.”

“Are you trying to cut expenses?”

“Are you ever in a mood. Boy! Did Friar write you little poemsy-woemsies?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

“You’re a real poet’s delight, aren’t you?”

“You don’t know how to treat a woman. That’s your trouble.”

“Aw, let’s eat, eh? I’m starved.”

“He was in love with me, you know. It was nice.”

“I’m tickled for you.”

“Wouldn’t you ever be surprised if I did get married one of these days?”

“Guys stop you on the street to propose left, right, and center. Oh Christ, I almost forgot. Get me a sleeper on the train to New York tomorrow night.”

“Why are you going to New York?”

Duddy told her about Uncle Benjy.

“Does it always have to be you?” she asked.

“That’s show biz, I guess.” Duddy stopped, his face went white. “He’s going to die, Yvette. Isn’t that terrible?”

H
IS MEMORIES OF AUNTIE IDA WERE JUMBLED, HE
recalled his lips touching one of the curly red locks when she held him tight for one of so many good-bys. Her ear had seemed enormous, with waxy hairs inside. But she had the whitest, most delicate skin, and the only time she had taken him down the street for an ice cream, men had stopped to smile. He remembered the dizzying smell of violets that lingered in his grandfather’s house after she’d gone. Taken to his uncle’s house once, he had stumbled on her in the soft pink bedroom. Ida had just emerged from her bath and she sat in a powder blue nothing before a mirror at a little table crammed with jars. The mirror had an elaborate white frame with armed cupids carved into each corner. The cupids, cheeks puffed, blew at Aunt Ida’s reflection. Humming a tune, Aunt Ida picked up a tiny bottle, spilt something on the palm of her hand, and rubbed it into her calves and wrists and neck. There were two packed suitcases on her bed and a trunk on the floor. The sticker on the trunk read
NOT WANTED ON VOYAGE
.

That, Duddy figured, must have been twelve years ago, and he had not seen her since. There had been rumors and reports, however. “She’s here again,” Max would say, sitting stiffly in his best dark suit. “I just come from there.” And turning to Lennie, he’d add, “Is-payed again, the two of them.”

But there were always gifts delivered via Max. Crazy ones, too. A seashell, perhaps, or an elaborately tooled leather book cover. For his bar-mitzvah she had sent Duddy a small handwoven carpet from Algiers. Rolling his eyes, he had said, “Come with me to the Casbah, Pepele.”

Duddy couldn’t remember what had happened to the carpet but he had made good use of another one of her gifts. This one had actually been sent to Lennie for his twenty-first birthday. It was an enormous scroll with lots of Chinese writing running down it and a faded drawing of a man and a house and a lake and some trees.

“You can hardly make it out any more,” Max had said. “She probably got it reduced.”

A certificate signed by somebody from the Louvre had come with the scroll. Lennie and Duddy, somewhat baffled, had taken the scroll to How Lee, the laundry man. “It’s an old prayer,” he told them. “It is a blessing on your house and everyone who visits there.”

Soon after he had moved into his own apartment Duddy had given Lennie twenty-five dollars for the scroll and had it cut up into place mats with bamboo frames.

She won’t even recognize me after all these years, Duddy thought. This is crazy.

Her hotel was a small junky-looking place not so far from where Dingleman had taken him to that party on his last trip to New York. Duddy was surprised, he had thought Uncle Benjy gave her a whopping allowance. A slender young man opened the door. He wore a T-shirt and blue jeans that seemed too small for him.

“I beg your pardon,” Duddy said. “I’m looking for a Mrs. Ida Kravitz.”

The man turned to a woman seated on a large sofa. “There you are,” he said. “I told you they’d send a boy over before three.”

Duddy looked at the woman and groped anxiously for a cigarette. There must be some mistake, he thought. He looked at the room number again.

“Ida thought you’d never get here,” the young man said.

The heavily made-up woman on the sofa was small and round and fat. She wore what he guessed from his experience of
MGM
musicals was a Mexican costume. A white embroidered blouse and a wide skirt of many colors. Beads dripped endlessly from her neck and when she rose with a small apprehensive smile there was a clack of bracelets. Her toenails were painted silver and the ring on her proffered hand swelled like a green sore. Her hair had been dyed black. Her eyebrows had been plucked and heightened, the eyes were smaller than he had remembered them, but he was sure now that it was she. There was the thick smell of roses and the luggage on the bed. A crust of torn labels obliterated the original
NOT WANTED ON VOYAGE
, but it was the same trunk.

“Auntie Ida?”

She held a hand to her throat.

“I’m Duddy. Your nephew like.”

The young man threw his hands up in the air.
“Ça, alors,”
he said.

“Uncle Benjy has cancer of the stomach. He’s going to die.”

There was a lot to do. Ship reservations to Cannes had to be canceled and sleepers reserved to Montreal. There were disputes over luggage and many anguished telephone calls and puzzling telegrams, deliveries from the cleaners were late, pills and creams not available in Montreal had to be procured quickly and in large quantities, and only an hour before train time Aunt Ida collapsed on the sofa and said she couldn’t go.

“Isn’t it just like Benjy,” she said, “to get cancer just after I’ve finally made the break. Don’t look so shocked. Psychology has proven that people can bring such diseases on themselves.”

“You mean he wants a cancer? That’s crazy but.”

“Benjy has suffered from an overpowering death wish all his life. He wants his death to be my fault though. That’s part of it.”

“Oh. Oh, I see.”

“But I’m no longer the guilt-ridden girl he used to know. If I go to him now I don’t want there to be any hypocrisy about it. I want to be clear in my mind about motives.”

“He’s your husband and he’s dying. So?”

“I try to look at all my relationships honestly. I’m not going to him because I’m afraid he’d cut me off without a penny. He’s too subde a sadist for that. He’d want me to suffer.”

“You mean if he left you his money it would only be to make it harder for you?”

“That’s right.”

“Jeez.”

“Your Uncle Benjy and I … Well, we never had a satisfactory horizontal relationship. I guess you know that?”

“Come again, please?”

“Our sex life was never satisfactory to either partner.”

“Listen, we don’t want to miss the train, do we?”

“Did you think he was impotent?”

“Well, I heard stories. You know how it is?”

“He was as capable as the next man. I can’t have children.”

“Wha’?”

“I used to think there was something noble about Benjy. That he told his father he was impotent because he loved and wanted to protect me.”

“You mean Uncle Benjy can have babies?”

“But his relationship with his father was never what it appeared to be. The father figure has dominated Benjy since he was a child. He was always afraid that if he did something wrong the old man’s love would be withdrawn and he grew to hate him for it. So he hurt him the worst way he could. He told him he was impotent.”

“Maybe I’m stupid, but –”

“At the same time,” Aunt Ida continued, “he was protecting himself. As long as he stayed with me there would be no children. Benjy never wanted a child. He wanted to be the child. (He always
slept in the fetal position, you know.) He was scared stiff that if he had a child your grandfather’s love would be projected onto it and he would be forced to cope for himself. Benjy has a castration complex.”

“Listen, he’s got cancer. I don’t know what complications there are, but – Please let’s go. Auntie Ida?”

“I bet you think he’s a socialist?”

“Who cares?”

“That’s his technique of winning attention. He doesn’t believe in it for a minute, but he’s always wanted to shine and that’s his way – If only he’d go to an analyst. I’d be so pleased if he’d learn to live with himself.”

“He’s dying,” Duddy said, “so what’s the point?”

“Are you sure? He could have all the symptoms of cancer and not have it, you know. It could be psychosomatic. There are lots of case histories …”

“Do you really think so? I mean there’s a chance he hasn’t got it?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me.”

Pretending to be fascinated by what she had to say and all the while coaxing her with drinks, Duddy somehow managed to get her downstairs and into a taxi and onto the train.

“The human personality is like an iceberg,” Aunt Ida said. “Nine tenths of it remains submerged.”

Ver gerharget
, Duddy thought, slumping beside her on the train at last, and ordering more drinks.

“You think he’s been wonderful, don’t you, when all these years have really been a torture to me. Doctor after doctor after doctor he sent me to, and afterwards he’d always say it’s all right, dear, never mind, it’s not your fault. Why wouldn’t he leave me if he wanted a child so badly? He hasn’t got a mistress either. He never had one. He couldn’t do that to me, he said, and then he’d forgive me all my little affairs. I understand, he’d say, it’s all right, darling, and he’d send me to still another doctor … 
He was trying to murder me with guilt
. Your Uncle Benjy is the next thing to a psychopath.”

Duddy patted her hand. “Aw, you’re only saying that,” he said. “Deep down you love him. In your heart of hearts I’m sure –”

“We could have adopted a child and been happy together. But no, he wouldn’t have it. He knew of another doctor.” She began to weep. “He won’t be happy until I’m a raving lunatic and he’ll make me one yet.”

“Look,” Duddy said, “we’re passing the Hudson River!”

“The few times I came home and tried to make a fresh start he wouldn’t let me do a thing around the house. At first,” she said, blowing her nose, “when we were still happy together, I thought it was because he was so kind. He used to kiss my hands and tell me how pretty and white they were and how he didn’t want them soiled.”

“No kidding,” Duddy said, grinning. “Uncle Benjy said that?”

“While all the time he was already plotting my mental destruction.”

“Oh. Oh, I see.”

“He wouldn’t let me cook or wash the floors or do the laundry because he wanted me to feel inadequate. He succeeded too.”

“Hey,” Duddy asked, “did you see
Gaslight?”

“The more he martyred himself the happier he was.”

“Joseph Cotten was in it. I forget who played the wife.”

“What?”

“Skip it. Never mind.”

Nothing surprised him, so that when after a few more drinks the conversation turned dirty he was not shocked. Aunt Ida confessed that if their horizontal relationship had been a failure then she was not blameless. There had been her own problem of penis envy, for instance, and this she illustrated with some smutty stories about her childhood. Uncle Benjy, she said, was an oral fetishist, and when she explained that for him he blushed and quickly ordered another drink. Then she turned her attentions on Duddy and, hoping to distract her, he talked about Yvette.

“The Oedipus,” Aunt Ida said.

“Wha’?”

“Your mother was taken from you when you were young and all your life you will be searching for a woman to replace her. All boys want to have sexual relations with their mothers,” she said.

“Hey,” Duddy said, “enough’s enough.”

“Don’t tell me you’re a prude.”

“My mother’s been dead for years. I don’t want her talked about like that.”

“You see. I hit a vulnerable spot. That’s why you lost your temper.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake!”

Eventually she fell asleep and began to snore. Tears had wrecked her makeup. Duddy lifted her glass gently out of her hand and stared at her and thought, what can Uncle Benjy see in her? But the more he reflected on it the smaller was his comprehension. Imagine, he thought, she’s the one who can’t have kids and now he’s dying.

Breakfast together was trying. Her hands shook, she looked very old – silly, even, with all the fresh makeup – and Duddy understood that she was afraid. “Listen,” he said, “there’s one thing. Uncle Benjy doesn’t know he’s got cancer. He’s got to think you came back because you wanted to.”

“Come with me to the house.”

“Are you crazy? He doesn’t even know I went to New York to get you.”

“I can’t go. He knows about Larry and he’ll make fun of me. An old woman with a gigolo.”

“You’re not old. Why, one man on the train asked me if you were my sister.”

“I’m afraid of him. I’m afraid of how he’ll look at me. You have no idea how pretty I used to be.”

“He’s dying, Auntie Ida. Please …”

Uncle Benjy summoned Duddy to his house three days later. He lived on Mount Royal Boulevard, above Park Avenue and overlooking the mountain. The house, built according to Uncle Benjy’s specifications,
represented his idea of how an English gentleman lived. The dominant room,
his
room, was the library and this was severely furnished. There was also an enormous glassed-in sunporch looking out on the garden and the central feature of the living room was a fireplace of immense proportions. His basement was “unfinished,” and here he kept his stores of hard liquor and wines. There were four bedrooms and a nursery. On the living room walls Uncle Benjy had hung prints and engravings and maps of nineteenth century England. His collected edition of Dickens he had had bound in morocco leather and kept on a special shelf handy to his bed.