Redemption (3 page)

“You're really afraid that I'll try to kill myself again. I died once on the bridge. No, not again, Ike.”

“Then dinner tonight? Later, after work? I want to see you again.”

A long hesitation—as she stood at the door, her eyes cast down. Then she looked at me, her gray eyes filled with need, and slowly nodded. I wrote down her phone number and address, and then she left.

I shaved, showered, changed my clothes, and then walked over to the university, wondering if I should have canceled my lunch date with Charlie Brown, a colleague and old friend, or whether I should have brought Elizabeth with me. Charlie, a dozen years younger than I, was still teaching. His field was psychology. We lunched together every few weeks or so. Charlie was a large, fleshy man, who loved anything that could be fried; he had never suffered a heart attack. He had an M.D., but he was too uneasy with the sight of blood to practice medicine. He had a wife and various children and was as close to contentment as you find these days. In the faculty dining room, he ordered a corned beef sandwich, and I had a salad.

“Ike,” he greeted me, “you look great—ten years younger. What's happened?”

“I slept in a chair from five in the morning until ten.”

“Oh? Then it's good for you. A lot of old folks sleep in chairs. Is this something new?”

I told him the story of the night before, and he listened without interrupting me. When I had finished, he swallowed the last of his deplorable sandwich, stared at me for a long moment, and then said, “God be praised, Ike, you're in love.”

“What!”

“You're taking her to dinner tonight. You opened your home to her. She could have walked off with the family jewels—if you have family jewels. Did you count the money in your wallet?”

“This was a suicidal woman,” I exclaimed indignantly. “What was I to do—have her death on my conscience?”

“That's bullshit,” Charlie said.

“No, telling me that I'm in love is bullshit.”

The waiter took away Charlie's plate, and replaced it with a piece of apple pie. “You could have taken her to the hospital. You could have called me. No, no—still and all, you did the right thing. You let her sleep, and then you fed her and showed compassion. Compassion is the best medicine we have for depression.”

“I feel guilty because I let her go.”

“Don't. She's not going to try it again. I do know something about depression and suicide. How long is it since Lena died?”

“Only three years.”

“Only three years. Have you looked at another woman since then? You could still be working—but no, you live like a hermit.”

“I'm seventy-eight, and I am not in love with Elizabeth Hopper. I know nothing about her. I crossed paths with her and it left me with an obligation.”

“What did you say her name is? Elizabeth Hopper? Recently divorced?”

“Yes. Does that ring a bell with you?”

“Do you read the financial section of the
New York Times
?”

“No. Why should I? What I have is in U.S. bonds and some IBM stock I bought a lifetime ago; and I have a decent pension.”

“Did she mention her husband's first name?”

“Yes—she did. William.”

“It's a small world, Ike. There's a William Sedgwick Hopper, one of the partners in the Wall Street firm of Garson, Weeds and Anderson. Neck deep in some kind of a scandal—millions of dollars. He was involved in one of those neat, complicated trading schemes. I don't know the ins and outs of the deal, but if you're interested, I can put you together with Harvey Goldberg in Business Administration. If you're going on with this affair, you should certainly know where the water's deep and where it's shallow.”

“There is no affair in the picture, and I have no great interest in William Sedgwick Hopper. I'd be better served, Charlie, if you kept this to yourself. In confidence.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Charlie said.

That evening, I set out to pick up Elizabeth Hopper for dinner. I had called her half an hour before, and she sounded, if not cheerful, at least more alert and alive than she had in the morning. She lived in one of those high-rises on West Ninety-sixth Street, a one-room studio with a tiny kitchen—more of a closet than a kitchen—for which she paid fourteen hundred dollars a month. It was spartanly furnished: a studio pullout bed, serving by day as a couch; a sort of Chinese rug; a wooden table and four chairs; and a bamboo easy chair. On the wall, there was only a large framed photo of an older woman, possibly her mother.

Elizabeth wore a simple black dress; the smile with which she greeted me made her quite pretty. As I looked around the place, she said, “No, don't—please. It's dreadful. I hate it. I hate high-rises, and I don't have a view of anything except other people's windows. Will you sit down and have a glass of wine?”

“Sure,” I agreed.

She had set out on the table a bowl of nuts and some crackers and cheese. She poured two glasses of white wine, and then she handed me an envelope, unsealed. “It's for you, Professor Ike. I lost my nerve, and I couldn't face thanking you anymore—”

“No, no, no,” I said. “I can't have dinner with someone who calls me Professor Ike. Just Ike. That may be hard for you, but you'll get used to it.”

“All right, Ike. In the letter I call you Ike. I'm much better, Ike. After I wrote the letter, I went out and bought the nuts and other stuff; and when I came back here, I was going to tear up the letter. But then I realized that I could never say to you, face-to-face, the same thing, and I think it ought to be said. So will you read it?”

“Of course,” I agreed. I rose and went to the easy chair, where the light was better, and took the letter out of the envelope. Her handwriting was small but cursive and clear.

Dear Ike
,

I was unable to thank you properly, because I am not good with words, especially when it comes to gratitude. You saved my life, for whatever it is worth. How do you thank someone for saving your life? What have they saved? I grew up in Boston. I majored in art at St. Mary's College. I know a little about depression. When I woke up in the morning in your son's bedroom and looked out of the window at the Hudson River, I suddenly understood something I had never understood before. I saw what God had given me as a reward for being alive. I don't know if that makes any sense to you, but I was raised in a convent school, and suddenly I understood what the Sisters meant when they drove home the fact that suicide was a sin against God. I don't think I'm clinically depressed, but this is for you, not me. I think you are the kindest man I ever met and may God bless you for it. If I should do something terribly foolish, please forgive me. But now that I have written this, I don't think I will
.

With gratitude and affection
,

Elizabeth Hopper

I don't cry easily, even at dog films, but I was close to it now. “May I keep this?” I asked her.

“If you wish.”

I thanked her and folded the letter into my pocket. “I made a reservation for seven-thirty at Romer's. Have you eaten there?”

“Yes. I like it.”

“It's quiet. We can talk.”

She was hungry, and she ate well. She had not eaten since breakfast at my apartment. She said something about paying for the dinner herself, but when I insisted that she was my guest, she put the effort aside. As I discovered, she did not have enough money in her purse to pay for the dinner, and her ex-husband had managed to cancel her charge cards. She had lamb chops, baked potato, and green beans, and she ate everything. I was pleased with that; suicidal intentions do not thrive on a full stomach. I watched her as she ate. With the grief quieted, she was a good-looking woman with regular features and large, deep gray eyes. Her figure was tight and strong. I must confess that I felt attracted to her, and it had been a long time since I felt attracted to any woman.

Over our coffee, I said to her, “Tell me about the wine goblets.”

She shrugged. “You'll laugh at me.”

“I'll never laugh at you,” I promised.

“He's a very rich man, a millionaire many times over. The agreement was that he would pay me two thousand dollars a month—but that's complicated. I was in utter misery when he made the agreement, and I simply signed anything his lawyers brought to me. I would have signed my own death warrant to get away from him. That was in Manhattan, where he bought an expensive apartment after we left Boston.”

I wanted to ask her a number of questions: How could a millionaire divorce her with a payment of twenty-four thousand a year? Did she have a lawyer of her own? But I didn't want to interrupt her.

“When I refused to give up the gold bracelet, he brought up the question of the wineglasses. It was a very expensive set, a wedding present. When we separated, I took nothing except a few dishes. Don't ask me to explain that tonight, Ike, not tonight. I can't explain why he hated me and how much he hated me. Tonight is my first hour of happiness in a long time, and I treasure it. But I will tell you about the goblets. They were a wedding gift from my mother. My father had gone long before. She spent a great deal more than she could afford. When I moved to my apartment in New York I counted twelve crystal goblets, which I thought was half, and took them. He was not at home then, and I didn't count the whole set, and didn't know that one goblet had been broken. And after that awful quarrel the other night about the bracelet, he accused me of stealing twelve of the set and leaving only eleven for him. I was half hysterical by then—it doesn't seem possible, but it was only yesterday—and I went into the kitchen and took a goblet of the set and handed it to him. Do you know what he said?”

“Tell me.”

“He said, ‘Slut, I'm going to teach you a lesson in equity.' Slut was his favorite name for me. Then he took the Lalique wineglass and broke it against the kitchen sink. He put half the pieces in his pocket and left the rest in the sink, and told me he would get the bracelet, too. Then he left. Does it make any sense, Ike, that I should want to take my life over a wine goblet?”

There were tears in her eyes now. “Does it make any sense, Ike?” she pleaded.

I nodded.

“How does it make sense?” she whispered.

“It makes sense because you didn't take your life.”

“Because you saved me.”

“Perhaps—perhaps not. Very little in this life we live today makes sense.”

I called the waiter and paid the check. We left the restaurant and walked north on Broadway. At this time, a quarter to eleven in the evening, upper Broadway was alive with the kind of human presence and excitement one finds on the West Side. When we came to Zabar's, I asked whether she had ever been inside the store. She shook her head.

“Then we'll go inside.”

“Now? It's so crowded.”

“It's always crowded,” I assured her. “Don't worry. Just push your way through. I'll buy some smoked salmon for breakfast. It's Saturday night, and smoked salmon for Sunday breakfast is an article of faith with Jews. And if you enjoy food, Zabar's is like a museum of esoteric foods.”

We joined the throng. I took a ticket, which would entitle me to be served from the smoked-fish counter, but not in less than fifteen minutes. I was thinking that she would not be having breakfast with me tomorrow, unless I asked her to, then recalling Charlie's quick decision that I was in love with her. The thought made me smile—Ike Goldman in love at age seventy-eight. Old Ike Goldman. What an absolutely ridiculous proposition.

“Your whole face changes when you smile. You smile like a small boy.”

“Thank you. Bless you.”

“This place is wonderful, Ike. Tell me about it. What is all that stuff?”

“There, sturgeon.” We slipped in front of the waiting crowd, and I explained to nettled people that it was education, not bad manners. “Herring, pickled herring, matches herring, schmaltz herring.” Everyone became good natured and appreciative. “Chopped herring and chopped liver. Lox—smoked salmon. Smoked trout, smoked whitefish, smoked carp.”

“Smoked carp. Wonderful,” a tall blond woman said. “I never knew what that was.”

A man I knew from the college, but whose name I could not recall, said, “Professor, I didn't know you were into food.”

“Olives,” I told Elizabeth, “green large, green small, black—they're the best. Brown and long, Greek.”

“Italian,” someone said.

“If you wish.”

We finished the fish counter, and Elizabeth whispered, “They're not all Jewish. That woman who thanked you for the carp isn't. And look at all the black people, and those two with their collars turned, they're priests.”

“Oh yes, Elizabeth, the word gets around.” I steered her to the prepared-food counter, where I pointed out the barbecued chicken, boiled tongue, corned beef, lasagna, prepared pastas of three kinds, kasha-varanakas, egg rolls—to the amusement of the waiting customers as well as Elizabeth, who appeared to have lost her shyness and was actually enjoying my professorial lecture. Our tour continued, and finally we emerged with a bag of rolls, half a pound of smoked salmon, and a lump of cream cheese.

She was laughing. “I haven't laughed in weeks. Oh, I was so embarrassed. Weren't you embarrassed, Ike?”

“You spend a lifetime lecturing and nothing embarrasses you.”

“That small Oriental man who was slicing the salmon—did you see the way he looked at you?”

“Ocho—old friend. He probably thought I had gone crazy.”

We walked on uptown, and I asked her whether I should stop a cab and take her home.

For a long moment, she did not answer. Then she said, “I'd rather walk, if you don't mind?”

“No, I like to walk. It's my only exercise, if you can call it that. I like walking but I hate exercise.” For a few blocks she was silent, and I accepted her silence. Something was happening to both of us. Finally, she said, “Ike, I think this is the best evening in my whole life.”