A Complicated Marriage (10 page)

I thought about how alike we were in the ways that mattered: our
pace—whether walking, eating, or sleeping—our need for talk and silence, our humor, our takes on people . . . Early days, yet we felt comfortable with each other. One night, very late, as I lay waiting for sleep, Clem leaned over and kissed my shoulder. The next morning he mentioned the kiss—only then did I realize he thought I had been asleep—and said he'd never before had the impulse to do that with anyone. And then he said, “You're the best thing that ever happened to me.” I thought,
What a small gesture to carry such a magnitude of feeling
. But to Clem, these were breakthroughs. His words that morning made me admit to myself that, to some degree, I still felt like a guest in Clem's house and, by extension, in his life and in his heart. Now I allowed myself to think that just maybe I didn't have to feel that way anymore.

I once made a list of all the things I saw in him. At the top of the list I saw his love of me, which meant more than the world. I saw his appetite for life, for people, for fun, and for good conversation, all fed by his boundless curiosity about all things under heaven and on earth. I was astonished by his ability to immerse himself completely in whatever he did: books, opera, dancing, Schubert
lieder
, gossip, making art, zoos, birds . . . And, of course, the way he lost himself inside art, wherever and whenever, picture by picture, sculpture by sculpture. I loved watching him look at art—the way he would sometimes levitate with pleasure; the way he would annotate catalogs with his special code of checks and plus signs and minus signs and, often his highest praise, question marks. In Clem I saw an ethical, straight-arrow, truth-telling man, such as I had never known. I trusted him with my life. And the negatives? I would have liked him to be a little younger, a little taller, and a little richer.

And I imagined what Clem saw in me. Some things I knew for sure. Besides my eyes and my symmetry, he liked that I had no “culture awe.” Better, I had no awe at all. He liked that I wasn't in the art world. He liked that I was intelligent, rather than “bluestocking.” He saw a gentle, soft-spoken girl. “I love your presence,” he would say. I liked that. Although I wasn't sure what it really meant and whether, in time, it would be enough. On the negative side, I thought he would have liked me to be a little older, a little shorter, and a little richer. Also a bit bustier. And I was damn sure he didn't think marrying a shiksa was God's gift.

And then
Commentary
did a very nice thing—they threw a party for us. I was excited about what was the first, and only, official acknowledgment of our engagement. And I enjoyed seeing Clem at a loss, for a change, and a bit grumpy about the hoopla. The event gave a rather belated jump start to our wedding plans. Clem arranged for a State Supreme Court judge, Harvey Breitel, to marry us on May 4 at noon. I had no idea what their connection was, if any. The party that would follow that evening was in Gertrude's capable hands, and I gave her an invitation list of everyone we knew, or at least everyone we knew who we liked.

A few weeks to go. It was time to get serious. What to wear? Clouds of white tulle and a veil were obviously out, but something white would be nice, even for a shacked-up girl. And it had to be simple, everyday-ish. That, and our money constraints, limited the field drastically. I worked my way down Fifth Avenue from Bonwit's to Saks to Best's to Russeks and found nothing. Then, across from Lord & Taylor, I spotted Peck & Peck. I had gone to high school with the daughter of the owners and had liked her, and her clothes, a lot. A good omen. Besides, I knew it was a young-suburban-matron, Peter Pan–collar kind of store.

At first glance I struck out, but there in the back I saw a blur of white. Golf dresses. Just the thing. A white linen sleeveless sheath, straight skirt to just below the knee. And cheap. So cheap that I bought a white cardigan with “pearls” on the collar to wear over it. Next door I found a $6 pair of white flats to finish my “ensemble.” Only $32 poorer, I was set to go. And all without a fairy godmother.

But I did have a real mother. She came to town a few days before the big day. On the few occasions when they had met, my mother had related to Clem through a fluttery fog of bewilderment mixed with flirtation. My mother was a consummate flirt, in her demure way. She would tilt her head down, then gaze up at the man from the bottom of her eyes. I'd seen the look—“bedroom eyes,” they called it—in the old Joan Crawford and Bette Davis movies that I had devoured on our first TV the summer before I went to college. Alone, with the twelve-inch screen on late summer nights, I'd sit in the sunroom and think I'd gone to heaven watching the glamorous thirties unreel on
Million Dollar Movie
, with its “Syncopated
Clock” theme song. She once asked me if I didn't think Harry looked like Herbert Marshall. I thought she had a point, though it wasn't saying much. She then leaned closer and in her hush-hush way confided that she had often been told she looked like Joan Crawford. There, I wasn't so sure. But whatever she had, she was one of those women whose whole body and voice would shift gears when a man entered the room. As mortified by her behavior as I had been growing up, I was sad that it had never paid off for her. Oh, she caught the men—it was just that she threw the good ones back.

Now, here she was, sitting on Clem's and my double bed in our puce bedroom, primed to give her daughter premarital advice. In brief, it covered three salient points: First, marrying someone older can work out very well; you'll be able to wrap him around your little finger. Second, Jews are very good to their wives, everyone says so. And third, don't forget, if things don't work out, you can always come home.

As she elaborated, my attention wandered. My mother always spoke at length, and always in the clichés of a bygone soap opera. The absurdity of the “finger-wrapping” bit made me think of Clem's caveat to our marriage—“as long as nothing changes”—with its postscript about an “open marriage.” Funny, on the one hand, it sounded so wholesome, while on the other so ominous. But Clem would never . . . Of course he would never . . . And just as I had suppressed his words before, I quickly suppressed them again. And where in hell had my mother gotten that bit about Jews? I hated to think. And why did everyone keep jamming Jews into a “they” box? As for running home to Mommy, I had heard that one before, when she had dropped me off at college. Except that day she had been crying. Today, she just looked foreboding.

For her finale, she presented me with her diamond and sapphire Tiffany bracelet. She repeated the oft-told story of how her father had given it to her right before he walked her down the aisle to David, all the while telling her all the reasons he disapproved of the match, summing it up with, “That man never has been, and never will be, good enough for my beautiful girl.” My mother loved that story. I didn't, for a moment, think she was sending a similar message to me. Not wittingly. Despite
her weakness for melodrama, she was an abundantly loving person and mother. Yes, she had let me down on Christmas Eve, but in a few days she would be standing up with me when I married, when it really counted. She wasn't a fighter, and I could well imagine what she had been putting up with from Harry and her family. I loved her for that. And I loved the bracelet. That night I stowed it, in its little suede pouch, behind De Quincey's
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
. I knew I'd never forget where it was.

The next day, the day before the wedding, more jewelry. Clem and I went to Cartier and bought a gold beveled ring. No engraving; I would always know it was mine and who had given it to me. I liked it. Right in line with my golf dress. Next stop: Tiffany's. I wanted to send out wedding announcements. The saleslady, very chignoned and high-toned, suggested that “at-home cards” should be included so people would know where to send gifts. I'd never thought about that. Presents! I couldn't tell her, “Oh, we don't know the kind of people who do that. Besides, they know where we are; we've been living in sin for four months.” And, wanting to do the right thing by the saleslady, I ordered the cards: “Mr. and Mrs. Greenberg will be at home at 90 Bank Street . . .” The absurdity of it made me cringe. Clem, as usual, said nothing.

That night, our wedding eve, was just as Clem had ordained, a night like any other. We went to the Blue Mill on Commerce Street, one of our favorites, which served martinis straight up with a “bonus” in a small carafe. Then to bed—books to be read, sleep to be slept, until it was time to roll out of bed and get married.

Me in my golf ensemble and pearls, too early in the day for diamonds. Clem in his only suit, his “funeral gray,” he called it, with white shirt, tie, gleaming shoes—he treasured his shoe-polishing gear—and gray hat. How fine we looked. How fine the day looked, sunny and warm. Amazing, considering that I hadn't been able to get anything right. The face that couldn't decide whether to be blotchy red or white as chalk. The ornery hair that couldn't decide whether it was straight or curly and that had sprouted a cowlick I had never seen before. And as the coffee pot boiled over, I burned the eggs. Omens everywhere—I was drowning
in omens. Clem kept to his day-as-usual schedule; reading at his desk, finishing his second half-cup of coffee, lighting up his first cigarette of the day . . . until I thought I would scream.

Without a minute to spare, we were in a taxi heading up Eighth Avenue. We weren't going far, just to Madison Square and the chambers of Judge Breitel. I flashed on the Emerald City, the Wizard who was to marry us at noon emerging from behind a curtain of smoke and mirrors, if the tornado didn't hit before then. Suddenly Clem had the driver pull over, and he dashed into a florist. I leaned out of the window and yelled, “Wrist!” Regular corsages were what wallflowers wore as they hovered in cloak rooms, gardenias staining their bedraggled taffeta. With any luck, today I would break the curse. Back Clem came with an orchid, which he tied to my wrist. Lovely.

Our small wedding party had gathered: my mother; Clem's father, Joe, and brothers, Marty and Sol; Sidney and Gertrude; Friedel Dzubas and his two young children, Hanni and Morgan; and my friend Nancy Spraker. The groom was well attended, the bride's side of the church rather sparse. The judge was forgettable, the ceremony forgettable, though the large corner room with the sun pouring in was extravagantly leathered and carpeted, as befitted his State Supreme Court almightiness. The words were said and the ring slipped on, before I even had time to think,
Oh my God, I'm getting married
! Before I had the time to press the moment into my memory book.

We all taxied up to the Vanderbilt Hotel, where Clem's father was taking us to lunch. I had met Joe only once in the preceding months. Clem saw him rarely, but it had seemed fitting that we should drop by for introductions. He and Clem's stepmother, Fan—Clem's mother had died when he was sixteen—lived at Ninety-sixth Street and Central Park West. Clem never talked much about the past. I knew only that he disliked Fan, that he had been “on the outs” with his father for some time, and that I could expect Joe to turn on the charm, as was his wont when it came to the ladies.

Our brief visit was stiff and uncomfortable on everybody's part. Father and son exchanged a few jibes that were meant to be good-natured but weren't. I could tell I wasn't making much of an impression. I was a shiksa
without even a notable family or money to recommend me. I wasn't too surprised. Clem had told me that his father still couldn't figure out why he hadn't married Helen, who had been blessed with all of life's advantages and, to ice the cake, came from a German Jewish family. Clem had shrugged it off, adding that this was also the man who had never stopped telling him it was time he made something of himself and got a real job. Joe would live to ninety-six and never did change his tune.

The visit ended none too soon for all concerned, and though Joe had been cordial, his reputed charm never did beam my way. But here he was, standing up with us, as were Clem's brothers, and, more, he was hosting a lunch. I recognized clearly that day that the Greenbergs, unlike the feckless bunch I sprang from, did the right thing. More than recognize it, I marveled at it.

The Vanderbilt was at Thirty-fourth Street and Park Avenue. As we left the bright warmth of the spring day behind us, I could feel the chill of a place whose grandeur was a thing of the past. We made our way into the bowels of the hotel, where we gathered around a long table, Clem at one end, I at the other, marooned in a decor that was more a bastion than a restaurant. Vast and stone and echoing, a space whose dimensions had outlived their function. Only a few tables were occupied.

Drinks and food were ordered. Toasts were made. Later, more drinks as some split off to go back to their jobs. I went to the ladies' room. I stared into the gilded full-length mirror. I thought I would see that I was more, or at least different, like the girl who looks in the mirror after having sex for the first time. I hadn't done that, but this was the big deal, the life-altering, life-determining moment. I said my new name out loud for the first time: “Jenny Greenberg. Mrs. Clement Greenberg.” I liked the sound of it. My name had changed, but all I saw in the mirror was a young girl, as pale as her dress, with a big bite taken out of her. The attrition had started. I wondered what would fill up the emptying spaces.

After lunch, my “husband” and I ambled uptown to Radio City, where from the smoking section in the loge we looked down across the plush red fields of near-empty seats at
The Swan
, with Grace Kelly, Louis Jourdan, and Alec Guinness, all about royalty and marriage. Vaguely apt, but god-awful and as romantic as a chewed-up bone. The Rockettes were the
Rockettes. But I had been drawn there by the memory of
National Velvet
and Christmas shows past. No déjà vu that day, though. Poor Grace Kelly—even her luminous beauty could barely reach the first row.