Fierce Pajamas: An Anthology of Humor Writing from The New Yorker (24 page)

“Hmm,” Persky said, scratching his head. He rapped again, but still no magic. “Something must be wrong,” he mumbled.

“Persky, you’re joking!” Kugelmass cried. “How can it not work?”

“Relax, relax. Are you still in the box, Emma?”

“Yes.”

Persky rapped again—harder this time.

“I’m still here, Persky.”

“I know, darling. Sit tight.”

“Persky, we
have
to get her back,” Kugelmass whispered. “I’m a married man, and I have a class in three hours. I’m not prepared for anything more than a cautious affair at this point.”

“I can’t understand it,” Persky muttered. “It’s such a reliable little trick.”

But he could do nothing. “It’s going to take a little while,” he said to Kugelmass. “I’m going to have to strip it down. I’ll call you later.”

Kugelmass bundled Emma into a cab and took her back to the Plaza. He barely made it to his class on time. He was on the phone all day, to Persky and to his mistress. The magician told him it might be several days before he got to the bottom of the trouble.

“How was the symposium?” Daphne asked him that night.

“Fine, fine,” he said, lighting the filter end of a cigarette.

“What’s wrong? You’re as tense as a cat.”

“Me? Ha, that’s a laugh. I’m as calm as a summer night. I’m just going to take a walk.” He eased out the door, hailed a cab, and flew to the Plaza.

“This is no good,” Emma said. “Charles will miss me.”

“Bear with me, sugar,” Kugelmass said. He was pale and sweaty. He kissed her again, raced to the elevators, yelled at Persky over a pay phone in the Plaza lobby, and just made it home before midnight.

“According to Popkin, barley prices in Kraków have not been this stable since 1971,” he said to Daphne, and smiled wanly as he climbed into bed.

THE whole week went by like that. On Friday night, Kugelmass told Daphne there was another symposium he had to catch, this one in Syracuse. He hurried back to the Plaza, but the second weekend there was nothing like the first. “Get me back into the novel or marry me,” Emma told Kugelmass. “Meanwhile, I want to get a job or go to class, because watching TV all day is the pits.”

“Fine. We can use the money,” Kugelmass said. “You consume twice your weight in room service.”

“I met an Off Broadway producer in Central Park yesterday, and he said I might be right for a project he’s doing,” Emma said.

“Who is this clown?” Kugelmass asked.

“He’s not a clown. He’s sensitive and kind and cute. His name’s Jeff Something-or-Other, and he’s up for a Tony.”

Later that afternoon, Kugelmass showed up at Persky’s drunk.

“Relax,” Persky told him. “You’ll get a coronary.”

“Relax. The man says relax. I’ve got a fictional character stashed in a hotel room, and I think my wife is having me tailed by a private shamus.”

“O.K., O.K. We know there’s a problem.” Persky crawled under the cabinet and started banging on something with a large wrench.

“I’m like a wild animal,” Kugelmass went on. “I’m sneaking around town, and Emma and I have had it up to here with each other. Not to mention a hotel tab that reads like the defense budget.”

“So what should I do? This is the world of magic,” Persky said. “It’s all nuance.”

“Nuance, my foot. I’m pouring Dom Pérignon and black eggs into this little mouse, plus her wardrobe, plus she’s enrolled at the Neighborhood Playhouse and suddenly needs professional photos. Also, Persky, Professor Fivish Kopkind, who teaches Comp Lit and who has always been jealous of me, has identified me as the sporadically appearing character in the Flaubert book. He’s threatened to go to Daphne. I see ruin and alimony jail. For adultery with Madame Bovary, my wife will reduce me to beggary.”

“What do you want me to say? I’m working on it night and day. As far as your personal anxiety goes, that I can’t help you with. I’m a magician, not an analyst.”

By Sunday afternoon, Emma had locked herself in the bathroom and refused to respond to Kugelmass’s entreaties. Kugelmass stared out the window at the Wollman Rink and contemplated suicide. Too bad this is a low floor, he thought, or I’d do it right now. Maybe if I ran away to Europe and started life over . . . Maybe I could sell the
International Herald Tribune,
like those young girls used to.

The phone rang. Kugelmass lifted it to his ear mechanically.

“Bring her over,” Persky said. “I think I got the bugs out of it.”

Kugelmass’s heart leaped. “You’re serious?” he said. “You got it licked?”

“It was something in the transmission. Go figure.”

“Persky, you’re a genius. We’ll be there in a minute. Less than a minute.”

Again the lovers hurried to the magician’s apartment, and again Emma Bovary climbed into the cabinet with her boxes. This time there was no kiss. Persky shut the doors, took a deep breath, and tapped the box three times. There was the reassuring popping noise, and when Persky peered inside, the box was empty. Madame Bovary was back in her novel. Kugelmass heaved a great sigh of relief and pumped the magician’s hand.

“It’s over,” he said. “I learned my lesson. I’ll never cheat again, I swear it.” He pumped Persky’s hand again and made a mental note to send him a necktie.

THREE weeks later, at the end of a beautiful spring afternoon, Persky answered his doorbell. It was Kugelmass, with a sheepish expression on his face.

“O.K., Kugelmass,” the magician said. “Where to this time?”

“It’s just this once,” Kugelmass said. “The weather is so lovely, and I’m not getting any younger. Listen, you’ve read ‘Portnoy’s Complaint’? Remember The Monkey?”

“The price is now twenty-five dollars, because the cost of living is up, but I’ll start you off with one freebie, due to all the trouble I caused you.”

“You’re good people,” Kugelmass said, combing his few remaining hairs as he climbed into the cabinet again. “This’ll work all right?”

“I hope. But I haven’t tried it much since all that unpleasantness.”

“Sex and romance,” Kugelmass said from inside the box. “What we go through for a pretty face.”

Persky tossed in a copy of “Portnoy’s Complaint” and rapped three times on the box. This time, instead of a popping noise there was a dull explosion, followed by a series of crackling noises and a shower of sparks. Persky leaped back, was seized by a heart attack, and dropped dead. The cabinet burst into flames, and eventually the entire house burned down.

Kugelmass, unaware of this catastrophe, had his own problems. He had not been thrust into “Portnoy’s Complaint,” or into any other novel, for that matter. He had been projected into an old textbook, “Remedial Spanish,” and was running for his life over a barren, rocky terrain as the word
“tener”
(“to have”)—a large and hairy irregular verb—raced after him on its spindly legs.

1977

VERONICA GENG

PARTNERS

MISS TEAS
WEDS FIANCÉ
IN BRIDAL

The marriage of Nancy Creamer Teas, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Russell Ruckhyde Teas of Glen Frieburg, N.Y., and Point Pedro, Sri Lanka, to John Potomac Mining, son of Mr. Potomac B. Mining of Buffet Hills, Va., and the late Mrs. Mining, took place at the First Episcopal Church of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

The bride attended the Bodice School, the Earl Grey Seminary, Fence Academy, Railroad Country Day School, and the Credit School, and made her début at the Alexander Hamilton’s Birthday Cotillion at Lazard Frères. She is a student in the premedical program at M.I.T. and will spend her junior year at Cartier & Cie. in Paris.

The bridegroom recently graduated from Harvard College. He spent his junior year at the Pentagon, a military concern in Washington, D.C. He will join his father on the board of directors of the Municipal Choate Assistance Corporation. His previous marriage ended in divorce.

CABINET, DELOS
NUPTIALS SET

Ellen Frances Cabinet, a self-help student at Manifest Destiny Junior College, plans to be married in August to Wengdell Delos, a sculptor, of Tampa, Fla. The engagement was announced by the parents of the future bride, Mr. and Mrs. Crowe Cabinet of New York. Mr. Cabinet is a consultant to the New York Stock Exchange.

Mr. Delos’s previous marriage ended in an undisclosed settlement. His sculpture is on exhibition at the New York Stock Exchange. He received a B.F.A. degree from the Wen-El-Del Company, a real-estate-development concern with headquarters in Tampa.

MISS BURDETTE
WED TO MAN

Pews Chapel aboard the Concorde was the setting for the marriage of Bethpage Burdette to Jean-Claude LaGuardia Case, an account executive for the Junior Assemblies. Maspeth Burdette was maid of honor for her sister, who was also attended by Massapequa Burdette, Mrs. William O. Dose, and Mrs. Hodepohl Inks.

The parents of the bride, Dr. and Mrs. Morris Plains Burdette of New York, are partners in Conspicuous Conception, an art gallery and maternity-wear cartel.

The ceremony was performed by the Rev. Erasmus Tritt, a graduate of Skidmore Finishing and Divinity School and president of Our Lady of the Lake Commuter Airlines. The Rev. Tritt was attended by the flight crew. The previous marriages he has performed all ended in divorce.

DAISY LAUDERDALE
FEATURED AS BRIDE

Daisy Ciba Lauderdale of Boston was married at the Presbyterian Church and Trust to Gens Cosnotti, a professor of agribusiness at the Massachusetts State Legislature. There was a reception at the First Court of Appeals Club.

The bride, an alumna of the Royal Doulton School and Loot University, is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus Harvester Lauderdale. Her father is retired from the family consortium. She is also a descendant of Bergdorf Goodman of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Her previous marriage ended in pharmaceuticals.

Professor Cosnotti’s previous marriage ended in a subsequent marriage. His father, the late Artaud Cosnotti, was a partner in the Vietnam War. The bridegroom is also related somehow to Mrs. Bethlehem de Steel of Newport, R.I., and Vichy, Costa Rica; Brenda Frazier, who was a senior partner with Delta, Kappa & Epsilon and later general manager of marketing for the U.S. Department of State; I. G. Farben, the former King of England; and Otto von Bismarck, vice-president of the Frigidaire Division of General Motors, now a division of The Hotchkiss School.

AFFIANCEMENT
FOR MISS CONVAIR

Archbishop and Mrs. Marquis Convair of Citibank, N.Y., have made known the engagement of their daughter, Bulova East Hampton Convair, to the Joint Chiefs of Staff of Arlington County, Va. Miss Convair is a holding company in the Bahamas.

All four grandparents of the bride-to-be were shepherds and shepherdesses.

1980

MARK SINGER

MY MARRIED LIFE: THE WHOLE TRUTH THUS FAR

I
T
is true. I have been married quite a few times. There have been more marriages than, at certain moments, I can remember. Concentrating, however, I recall them all. Damn near half a million. The entire fleet heaves into view on the warm ocean of my memory. I am proud of all my marriages. I have gulped so often from the deep cup of life’s pleasures. And each time I have come away stumbling drunk. Women, I have discovered, find my marrying moods irresistible. Frankly, I think I am a pretty good catch.

My first wife was Eos, goddess of the dawn. I have never been certain how long our union lasted. This was before the Greeks could agree upon the number of days in a month. Keeping track of time was difficult. Sustaining a marriage was difficult, too. Her career got in the way. Eos, her hair the red of turning maples, was a child of the sun and the wind and the pale pink velvet morn. I, on the other hand, am basically a night person. Often, I felt like a Tuesday or a Thursday evening out on the town. “Come, Eos,” I would say. “Let us go eat Chinese and riot in Athens till the wee hours.” But she would protest: Tomorrow was a workday. How could I expect her to carouse all night? How, on little or no sleep, could she possibly usher the pristine dawn across the metallic firmament? She had a point. Inevitably, other conflicts arose between us. Fortunately, there were no children. We parted amicably and then, as can happen, lost track of each other.

I remarried almost immediately. Repeatedly, in fact, I have remarried almost immediately. Some of my wives wore black mesh stockings. Several wore heavy eye makeup. Some drank. One carried a small firearm. Two studied
tae kwon do,
the Korean art of self-defense. Two were Korean but defenseless. A dozen—maybe fifteen at tops—lacked conspicuous physical beauty. Their hidden beauties, however, made them ravishing. I have always taken marriage seriously and have concentrated upon the one I am involved in at the moment. I have always discovered the hidden beauties.

I married no men—only women. Men, I believe, do not make decent wives. Men make good fishing buddies. Once, I was offered a lot of money to marry Judge Crater, in the hope that this would bring him back into public view. Of course, I declined. The people who were offering this money had about them an air of being up to no good.

In addition to my own marriage ceremonies, I have attended many others. I was with Tommy Manville all thirteen times he took the leap. I witnessed three of Barbara Hutton’s nuptials. Mickey Rooney and I go back a long way together. To my regret, I had to miss Norman Mailer’s fifth wedding, the one that took place recently and was followed by a quick divorce so that he could marry someone else. I would have been there but I was getting married that day.

I believe that all of my wives were faithful. I believe that all of my wives were faithful despite the rumors I heard about Susan and Doreen, of Provo. This was during the six-year period when I was busy marrying all of the women in Utah. The rumors about Susan and Doreen—first Susan and then, somewhat later, Doreen—made no sense to me. I made it a policy to be totally up-front with my wives. I hid nothing from them. A marriage to me was always an eyes-open proposition. It must have been a different Susan and a different Doreen, or perhaps Susan and Doreen when they had already become ex-wives.

I was married to many movie stars. Although I loved them all, I know that in a way some of these marriages were tainted by cynicism. Some of these actresses had careers that had stalled. They needed a little ink in the columns. I married them for that reason. But that was not the reason I married Ingrid Bergman. I married her for pure, unalloyed love. This was while she was married to Roberto Rossellini, the Italian filmmaker. So great was my love of Ingrid Bergman that I was willing to become Rossellini for two years. I was willing to interrupt my own important work to direct the films “Open City” and “Paisan.” I perfected my Italian. I spoke English with a convincing inflection. Ingrid Bergman was shocked when, at last, I confessed to her that I was not, technically speaking, Rossellini. He seemed not to notice.