The Bend of the World: A Novel (29 page)

29

I thought I’d arrived early, but I was late. The sanctuary was already full, and the temple staff were folding back the rear wall and clanging folding chairs into rows and aisles in the big room beyond.

30

It occurred to me—it only then occurred to me—that I didn’t know these people. Oh, I mean, I knew some of the guests. I knew Arlene Arnovich, and I knew Tom, who was worming his way toward the front with a sheepish Julian in tow, and I recognized David Hoffman; I recognized some of Nana’s friends and peers; I recognized some people who knew my father; I recognized some Vandevoort and Global Solutions types; I recognized some people from the Warhol Museum and CMU; I saw David Ben David in a bespoke blue suit among the blacks and charcoals, who saw me and raised an eyebrow that said, How about this shit, huh? I saw some artists whom I’d seen around when I’d dated Lauren Sara, and I saw a lot of New York–looking fools looking very deliberately New York; I saw a party planner I knew and a florist everyone knew and I even recognized the rabbi—I do not mean Johnny’s rabbi, for the record—who’d been much in the news protesting transit cuts lately. What I mean is that I couldn’t have told you which of the expensive people in the front few rows were Helen’s relatives, her parents or brothers or sisters or cousins or college friends; I didn’t know if she had living parents or aunts and uncles or siblings or friends; I didn’t know where she’d been born; I’d always assumed New York, but what did I know? I hadn’t even known she was Jewish. I didn’t know how she’d grown up, in what sort of home, with what sort of food served on holidays; which relatives she was close to; which relatives her parents disdained at the dinner table; which real friends of the family; which social acquaintances; where she’d gone to school; where she’d gone to camp; or if not camp, what sports; or if not sports, what instrument; or when she’d learned to paint; or where she’d sold her first piece; or where she’d gotten her undergraduate degree; or what boyfriends she’d had before Mark; nothing; nothing at all. I found a folding chair and sat down. I wondered if I ought to be wearing a yarmulke. All the other men were. I couldn’t worry about it. A piano was playing. The rabbi was walking down the front row shaking hands, kissing a few women on the cheek. I saw Mark for the first time, leaning toward the rabbi, their right hands locked, their left hands on each other’s elbow, saying something into his ear, the rabbi nodding once, then nodding again. The distracting sound of more chairs being unstacked and set up behind me. A phone going off. A disapproving murmur. The piano playing again. The rabbi leading a song in Hebrew whose melody was sad and familiar. The rabbi saying, It is always deeply vexing to think that we must celebrate the life of someone who passed out of it with so much life left. The rabbi reading lines from a Galway Kinnell poem, the one about his dead brother. The sound of a sob. Another song or hymn or whatever. Someone—a relative?—saying a prayer. It was all quite lovely. Then the whole train went right the fuck off the goddamn rails and tumbled down the steep embankment into the river below.

31

My grandmother once told me that she’d stopped believing in the Church as soon as they started speaking English. I thought, she said,
that’s
what they’ve been saying all along? It was very disappointing. I remember saying, But Nana, you still go to church. Well, of course I
go
to church, she’d said. What’s that got to do with anything?

32

So anyway, it would have been fair to say that the spirit of the thing was already somewhat straining against its earthly form; in the pace and organization, I detected Mark’s influence. He was sitting alone in the front, separated from everyone by the sanctuary’s one conspicuously unoccupied seat. Through the first part of the proceedings, his chin had rested on his thumb, his fingers over his mouth, his elbow on the armrest, his face betraying no human emotion, being instead composed like one single lens behind which some fractal algorithm aggregated and interpreted an infinity of data. You could sense, I thought, in the officiants, a certain inclination toward the freewheeling or the holistic or the organic or what have you that I felt certain Mark would have, and must have, vetoed, and you could sense, or I could, in Mark, despite his preternatural composure, a certain impatience at, for instance, the poetry. So when the rabbi invited Helen’s stepmother up to speak—her stepmother?—I detected a palpable relief among some of the mourners and a twitch, a tremor, a slight quickening of his pulse that I swear to you I could detect from Mark from a hundred feet away. He moved his head from his left to his right hand. A rather florid woman with close black hair and a vaguely Etruscan necklace that sat like a piece of ancient armor on an operatically excessive chest wandered up to the microphone. Her torn black ribbon had been awkwardly pinned in precisely the spot one would expect to find her left nipple. Oh, Helen, she said, and she immediately began to weep. This in and of itself did not strike me as unusual; it’s unfair to generalize based on body type, but she looked like a crier, and the crying seemed natural; but then the crying went on. She stood up on the Bimah gripping the podium in both hands and cried and cried. There was something formulaic about it. She could have been speaking in a monotone with a PowerPoint going in the background. She looked out at the audience, eyes bubbling, chest heaving, and it was as if the crying were itself some form of speech, some otherworldly language like a whale call, a song in an ancient, indecipherable syntax. We all sat politely. If this was the fucking stepmother, I thought, just the stepmother, how many more were in store? She kept on crying. Several minutes had now passed. I glanced toward Mark. His hands now gripped each other, fingers intertwined; his lips were thinly drawn. The rabbi walked to the woman and put his hand on her back, a gentle shepherd’s crook, possibly, to draw her offstage, but she wouldn’t let go of the podium; she didn’t move. The crowd began to rustle. Then someone said, Oh, Jesus Christ, Janet. The voice was so like Helen’s you’d have thought it came from the casket. Janet froze. Blinked her big eyes. We all murmured. Another woman walked to the podium. Helen’s mother. Obviously. The same body. The same face. Her hair drawn severely away from her face. A narrow line of gold around her neck. Diamonds in her ears. Moved purposefully. Put a hand on Janet’s elbow. Go on, she said. Sit down.

33

They told me, the mother said, to be short, but Helen was my daughter, so I’ll say just as much as I want to. Her voice had slight tremor. It appeared to me that she might be slightly drunk. She had her daughter’s overage of control; her performance had the sound of being sight-read. Helen, she said again, was my daughter. Helen, she said, was
my
daughter. More movement among the mourners, a shifting in the chairs. None of you, she said, none of you really knew her. She was looking at Mark now. I was surprised to find that he was avoiding her gaze. You saw that she was beautiful, you saw that she was talented, you saw all of those things on the outside. But what did you know? A mother knows. She was never really happy. Even as a little girl. There was something unhappy about her. There was something that saw what a lot of
shit
it all is. What a lot of
shit
. She was cynical. We’re not supposed to be cynical. Women aren’t supposed to be cynical. We’re supposed to be, I don’t know. We’re supposed to be optimists. We’re supposed to see the bright side. We’re not supposed to see the shit. She was an artist because she saw the shit. She made such beautiful things, but she was never happy. What I wanted for her more than anything was to live long enough to be happy. It takes your whole life to be happy. I never figured it out, but I wanted for her to figure it out. You all, she said, but she was only talking to Mark, you all didn’t care about her soul. You wondered why she even had a soul. You looked at her and thought, Why would you put a soul in one of those? But she had a soul, and it was better than your soul.

34

Then the mother sat down. The rabbi looked like a dog-walker who finds he forgot the plastic bags as his dog squats at the edge of the neighbor’s yard. He was halfway between his seat by the ark and the podium. He looked toward Mark, and he looked toward the family. I thought, and felt badly for thinking, that the biggest tragedy was that I couldn’t text Johnny. I eased my phone from my pocket. I texted Lauren Sara: funeral is fucked. She replied right away: where’s tom? up front, I replied. LOL, she said: figurz.

35

David Hoffman tried to save it. Tried to apply the brake. Tried to step into the breach. I didn’t imagine he was scheduled to speak, but he rose before anyone else could and made his broad-shouldered way to the microphone. He looked like an architect with that buzzed gray hair and those little glasses. He said, I did not know Helen Witold well, but I knew her work. She was that rare artist whose work remained personal even as it became more widely known and admired. Personal is a word that often damns with faint praise in our art world. I say our art world because it belonged to Helen as much as any of us. Personal is a word we use, often when describing a woman’s work, to imply that it lacks some essential ambition. Ambition is a word we use, often when describing a man’s work, that suggests we should forgive its weak grasp because of its broad reach. Don’t look too closely at the trees; we propose a forest. There is nothing wrong, perhaps, with ambition, but our art has become so intently focused on
saying
something that it has largely stopped
being
something. I found Helen’s work expressed a purity of being that is largely absent these days. I remember the first time I saw one of her paintings at Daniel’s gallery—he gestured toward a man who must have been the other Arnovich, who, Jesus Christ, raised his hand in reciprocation as if being introduced on a panel of speakers at some convention somewhere—and I said, Daniel, what is
that
? And Daniel replied,
That
, he said, is Helen Witold. And I said, Is it any good? (Relieved laughter in the audience. The first joke.) Because I couldn’t tell. It was like seeing poetry in a language you don’t understand. (Oh, come the fuck on, I heard someone mutter a row or two behind me.) And Daniel said, I don’t know, either, but she’s going to be a hit at the parties. (Laughter again, this time less comfortable.) That’s a joke. If there is a human soul—he gestured with an offhanded, patrician magnanimity in the general direction of Helen’s mother—then we need more poets who speak its untranslatable language. (For real? The same mutterer as before.) Yes. Poets of that ineffable dialect. (Throats clearing.) We have lost a poet of the soul, he said.

36

This all struck me as the purest horseshit, but as it was more within the tradition of an overchoreographed memorial service, it took a little edge off. I texted Lauren Sara: we have lost a poet of the soul. Haha, she said.

37

And yet it made me sad, the whole thing; it made me wish I could stand up and spout some horseshit myself, find a well of extemporaneous platitude to toss like a beach ball to the expectant, anxious crowd. Her poor, drunk mother had been right, mostly, if a bit, well, infelicitous in her expression of it.

38

Then Mark went up and recited the Ninety-first Psalm. He was wearing the same suit as the first day I’d met him and Helen, the same gray tie. No disaster will befall you; no calamity will come near your tent, he said. He was holding a copy of the psalm in his hands. His hands were shaking. I construed it as guilt. You will tread down lions and snakes, he said. Young lions and serpents, you will trample them underfoot. His voice was flat. He saw me. I saw him see me. I saw the corners of his mouth move. I tried to stare back at him, but, as had always been the case, I had to look away first. Because he loves me, I will rescue him, he said to me. Because he knows my name, I will protect him. He will call on me, and I will answer him. I will be with him when he is in trouble. I will extricate him and bring him honor. I will satisfy him with long life and show him my salvation.

39

Helen’s father said, When she was about ten, Helen decided that she was going to be a famous artist, and since most of you know me, you know I told her never take less than 60 percent on a painting. The New Yorkers laughed. Tom laughed loudly enough for them to notice him laughing. Well, my Helen was just getting started. She had a future. A real future. A real future. But it isn’t so real anymore. I wonder, if I could go back in time, would I have made that joke? Or would I have said, Honey, don’t be an artist. Artists die young. The good ones anyway. Oh, hell, I don’t know, he said. He shook his head. I just don’t know. He was short and fat and his hair exploded in every direction. I just don’t know, he said.

40

Then the rabbi said, O Lord, what is man that You recognize him, the son of a human that You think of him? Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow. In the morning it blossoms and grows, in the evening it fades and withers. Teach us to count our days, and we shall acquire a heart of wisdom. Guard the innocent and watch the upright, for the destiny of man is peace. But God will ransom my soul from the grave, for He will surely take me. My flesh and my heart yearn—rock of my heart and my portion is God, forever. The dust returns to the dust as it was, but the spirit returns to God who gave it. Then he said,
El male rachamim
. Then we all filed out gratefully to the cool evening to wait for the family, whom we would follow to the cemetery.

41

I waited with Tom and Julian. Well, I said. Well, Julian said. I thought that David Hoffman was amazing, said Tom. Tom, I said, you are one crass motherfucker. Whatever, said Tom. You didn’t even know her. Come on, Tom, said Julian. No, I said. That’s true. Are you going to the cemetery? asked Tom. I think so, I said. You? Yeah, he said. It’s impolite not to go. Really? I said. According to whom? It just is, said Tom. Well, I said, I’ll need a ride. You can ride with me, said Ben David, who was walking past. Come on. Catch you dudes later, I said, and I followed Ben David. So, he said, you never found your car. We were sitting in his, waiting for the procession. It was stolen, I said. How about all that shit? he said, meaning the funeral. Not precisely what I was expecting, I said. I thought the poor husband, or fiancé or whatever, was going to have a goddamn aneurism, said Ben David. Yeah, I said. Mark. He’s a little, uh, he can be controlling. Well, that sort of freak show will do it. So you knew her pretty well? he asked, and I could sense that he was asking something else, so I answered with a question: What are you doing here, anyway? Technically, he said, I’m part of the
chevra kaddisha
. Her relatives were all from out of town, and she wasn’t exactly
active
in the Jewish community. Rabbi Blum called and said, be a good boy, so here I am. As an attorney, I try to do whatever service to HaShem and the congregation that I can fit in around the billable hours. Hedging my bets, and so forth. Anyway, you feel bad for the poor thing. Look at that family! And that goon of a boyfriend. Yeah, I said. He probably killed her. Ben David arched an eyebrow. Oh yeah? he said. Not, like, literally, I said. I actually think she probably killed herself. But it was his fault. Say no more, said Ben David. I know the type.
Nifter-shmifter, a leben macht er?
my mother, may the Lord keep her away from the telephone, would say, but I never trust these squirrely corporate lawyer types. Hm, I said. How’d you know he’s a lawyer? Oh, hell, just look at him. Spot them a mile away. Corporations only hire lawyers when they want to do something illegal. Well—I smiled—like criminals. No, no, said Ben David. Criminals are charmingly naïve about the whole thing. They hire lawyers
after
they do something illegal. The corporate guys are the ones who use legal prophylaxis in the whorehouse. Assholes. Anyway, I’m sure that poor little rich girl got hooked up with him and thought he was just great, some young buck on the make. No old-money, fratboy simp; no probably-a-homosexual backslapping Whiffenpoof; a real, honest-to-God Fordham type. Made a bunch of money together, partied all through their twenties, then found herself in her thirties married or close enough to a soulless hatchet man who kept her around for social cred. Am I close here? Shockingly, I said. You can tell that just by looking? I can tell that just by looking, he said. So, what? he said. You took her up to that little shindig. You were fucking her, right? Don’t answer. I don’t need to know. He figures out she’s stepping out on him. It’s a goddamn inconvenience to him in some way or other. He says a bunch of nasty shit. She’s drunk enough or depressed enough to toss herself in the drink. Jesus, I said. Sorry, he said. I tend to look at these things with a clinical eye. Personally, it seems like a goddamn shame. Oh, okay, here we go. We pulled out into the procession of black cars. Anyway, he said, look, I don’t want to get into the sex part, but you’ve got to put her out of your mind. Listen, this is legal advice. Take a moment at the cemetery. Put some dirt on the coffin. Say whatever prayers you pagan Catholics say. Then forget about her. You’ve got a better, closer friend who’s going to go to jail, and you’re sure as rain in Pittsburgh going to get called to testify or at least get deposed at some point or other, and I do not need you showing up with a dead mistress around your neck—and neither does your pal Johnny.
Capiche?
Yes, I said. I understand.