The Death of Pie (14 page)

When I look back on that moment, I am embarrassed to think that my first thought was: how lucky I am that I was not born into some nomadic tribal society that required hosts to be generous with their guests for three days. My second thought was: why is this self-styled Mother Superior not wearing her wimple? Had she finally seen the light and come back to the bright side? Those questions, however, could wait.

‘Look, dear,' I said. ‘You can't get away with calling my friend fat because she's not; she's horizontally-challenged with a pleasing spherical shape. You wouldn't like it if I called you short, when in fact you're merely squat and built like a bulldog on steroids – although you're a bit hairier and with a longer tail.'

Mother Malaise was not amused by my analogy. Quite possibly she would have huffed and puffed and blown my house down had not the Babester come to its defence, by first coming to hers. Oh, yes, my dear husband always picked his mother's side over mine in a squabble. When I told him that even Jesus said that a man should leave his mother to ‘join with his wife,' my Jewish husband had the
chutzpah
to remind me that
his
Bible didn't contain such an injunction!
Oy vey
, what's a Mennonite wife supposed to do?

‘Don't be giving Ma a hard time,' Gabe said. ‘She's just helping out. So please, Mags, don't start anything.'

‘“Don't
start
anything”? How is this
my
fault?'

‘You started by calling her a name.'

‘Mayonnaise? That was cute.'

‘Cute my patooty, you knew that would get her goat.'

‘I did? Are you sure? But speaking of goats, dear, I spent the afternoon over at Doc Shafer's house, turning the screws on his thumbs. Meanwhile, my bestie, you know, Agnes Miller, and old Doc fell head over heels in love with each other and started making the most pitiful, mewling sounds you ever did hear. They sounded like a box of newborn kittens—'

The more I embellished, the more I sensed Ida being drawn into my tale and the more I resented it. Well, if Ida wanted a tale, that's what she was going to get.

‘So Jack had no choice but to trade them to the man with the magic beans. But when Jack's mother saw the beans, she got so angry that she tossed them out the window. The very next day, when Jack woke up and looked out the window, he saw a new car—'

‘Stop it, Mags,' Gabe said sternly.

‘Yah,
shtop
,' said his precious ma.

How can I maintain a gentle, peaceful heart when I have to put up with a mother-in-law who grates on me more than a thousand chalk boards and ten thousand fingernails ever could? I try, believe me, I do. Ultimately I know that the problem is mine, but still, as I have already intimated, I still can't help but think that my Dearly Beloved, who was once a renowned New York City heart surgeon, is still tied to his mother by her apron strings.

‘Yah, so I
shtop
already,' I said.

‘You see?' Gabe said. ‘There you go again, making fun of her accent. That's just cruel; that's not the Magdalena I married.'

‘The Devil made me do it,' I said. ‘That's something you wouldn't know about, since you Progressive Jews don't believe in the Devil. But speaking of the Devil, the reason you shouldn't be sitting there, heaping coals of fire upon
my
head whilst shovelling peas into my baby's mouth is that I have reason to believe that the Devil incarnate may be back in town.'

‘Like I alvays said, dis von is meshuggeneh,' Ida said. She had the ‘noive' to say this without turning around, and while making circles next to her oversized head with a stubby finger.

‘Hey,' I said. ‘I just noticed; why isn't that one wearing a wimple?'

‘
That
one
is my mother, Magdalena. She deserves our respect.'

‘Zee vimple eez dare-tee,' Ida said. She paused to slurp whatever it was in the bowl in front of her. ‘I vas tinking dat you vould vash eet for me.'

I was about to make a perhaps not-so-helpful suggestion when my sweet baby's father came to his ma's rescue. ‘Mags, are you saying that your brother may be back in town?'

What a shame that it has taken me nearly half a century to learn that by gritting one's teeth, all that one truly accomplishes is wearing down the enamel, perhaps even piling grit on the floor which, of course, results in the need to vacuum. On the other hand, I would never truly say what was on my mind, seeing as how I really do struggle with what is right, and what is wrong, but even though I am wrong, more often than not I am right. At least I try to do right, and I don't judge others, like some people I know.

‘Please do not call
him
my brother,' I said. ‘We weren't raised together, and for his entire miserable life – ever since he was hatched from his mantis egg sac – he has been my nemesis. Besides, if you insist on a family connection, then remember that Melvin the Monster is also our son's biological uncle.'

‘No vay!' Ida shouted. She still had not given me the courtesy of looking in my direction.

‘Yes, Ma, it's true,' Gabriel said. ‘I told you that fact before Mags and I got married.'

‘Nu? I shlept since den.'

‘Good for you, dear,' I said. ‘I've been schlepping around all day; what does that have to do with anything?'

‘
Dumkoph
,' Ida muttered. ‘I
shleep
at night; I dun't
schlep
at night. I shlept since I herd dat you vas dee sister of Melvin zee killer.'

‘Whatever,' I said charitably, as I hardly rolled my eyes. ‘The point is that Ramat Sreym, the gorgeous, voluptuous, if somewhat vacuous beauty from a breakaway nation of the former USSR – or so I am guessing – stood a more than fifty-fifty chance of having met Her Maker at the hands of repugnant, repelling, rapacious—'

‘Rat?' Ida said.

‘Please, dear, I'm on a roll,' I said. I paused and counted to three. ‘Rat,' I said. ‘Ramat's book maligned Melvin's birth mother, his religion and, above all, his own sweetheart, my adoptive sister, Susannah.'

Gabe set down the silver baby spoon. ‘What you say makes a great deal of sense. But tell me, hon, what were
you
doing across the road at the convent this morning, interrogating Ma? You scared her half to death.'

A faint snicker may have escaped my tightly sealed lips. Erring on the side of justice, I slapped my own face – albeit lightly. Surely, somewhere, someone gives me credit for being just about the only person on earth who lightly slaps their own face in chastisement.

‘Puh-leeeze,' I said, ‘Attila the Hun in drag couldn't scare your ma. For your information, dearest, I was merely observing formalities. Police Chief Toy gave me a list of individuals who he wanted eliminated as suspects right out of the gate, and your mother's name was one of them.'

The foregoing statement wasn't a lie; it was a ‘shadow truth.' A ‘shadow truth,' by the way, is a very clever invention of mine in which one is free to embellish a subject, just as long as the essence of that subject has not been fundamentally altered. Just think how much dimmer the fires of Hell would burn if we didn't try to force our politicians and teenage children to consistently tell the truth. Accepting a ‘shadow truth' now and then from each other would make for a more peaceful planet. Oh, don't get me wrong; a ‘shadow truth' and a white lie are not the same. The former is yellow at best, tinged as it is with a bit of cowardice.

Gabriel seemed to have bought my version of things, as well as the left-handed compliment of his precious mother –
if
that's how he chose to view it. ‘So,' he said, ‘who is next on this list of suspects? Am I?'

‘Would you be disappointed if I said “no,” darling?'

My Dearly Beloved can be very sexy when he wants to be, and much to my surprise things took a sudden turn in that direction. There I was, dressed in a long-sleeved white blouse, navy skirts that reached down beneath my calves, thick opaque stockings and the sort of clodhopper shoes that a farm girl of yesteryear would wear to, uh, break up the clods of earth turned up by her plough. Nonetheless, this very handsome, toned and tanned physician, in the sky-blue Lacrosse shirt and the sandstone Chinos, was lobbing pheromones at me with the accuracy of a Wimbledon champ.

‘I'd be very disappointed if you said “no,''' he purred. ‘If you say “yes,” I can have the proof of our love bathed and in bed in half an hour. That should give you enough time to eat.'

‘My, how romantic you are,' I squealed, barely able to contain myself. Trust me, after I gave birth to a baby whose head was the size of Kim Jong Il's aspirations, our foreplay has often been reduced to just three words: ‘Brace yourself, Mags.'

Had I not been so tired, however, I might have predicted what happened next. The intruder with the broad back, topped by the cabbage head, pushed herself off her chair with her doll-sized limbs. Her mood was as dark as the black apron covering her habit; even without a cowl, Ida's scowl was truly formidable. Between the furrows in her brow I could see lightning flash, and when she opened her mouth to speak I was pelted with hail and brimstone simultaneously.

‘Shtop mit der sexy-wexy!' she commanded, her stubby index finger pointed straight out in front of her or, in other words, about waist-high on Yours Truly.

That did it! That hiked my hackles up to my armpits. Who did she think that she was? The Almighty?

‘My
sexy-wexy
, as you call it, is none of your ding-dong business.'

‘Mags,' Gabe gasped. ‘Don't swear at Ma!'

‘Swear, schmare,' I practically screeched, and right in front of my baby too! ‘She's trying to interfere in our love life.'

‘No, she's not –
are
you, Ma?'

‘Yah, of course I am,' she said, nodding that cabbage every which way but loose. ‘Dis von eez no gut for you. Gabeleh, how many times do I tell you dis? Much better dat you marry Shoshanna Silverman, the goil mit zee face of an angel, and whose faddeh eez also single. Vee could haf a two-for-von vedding, yah?'

‘Ma,
no
!' My husband might be slow to develop in the familial relationship department but, unlike his mother, his gray cells are human in origin, and not cruciferous. ‘I'm so sorry, Mags, I had no idea – I mean, I forgot just how meddling Ma can be. Of course, my Little Vixen, my Little Minx, I want the sexy-wexy with you!'

‘Judge not,' the Bible says. Amen to that. I am five foot ten inches tall and shaped like a hitching post. When a handsome, worldly doctor calls me his ‘Little Vixen,' and his ‘Little Minx,' the past is instantly forgiven; I am on him like white on a peeled banana.

Having uttered those erotic words, Dr Gabriel Rosen rose seductively from his genuine faux leather-covered dinette chair to approach me with his arms extended. What exactly occurred next, I will never know. Both Ida and Gabe deny any knowledge of the matter, other than that Ida stumbled on an untied shoelace. For a few aggravating seconds, Gabe looked like a human/octopus hybrid, his eight arms flailing about, as he tried to balance his top-heavy ma back on her undersized feet.

Somehow
– which I'm betting only God and Ida can explain – in the ensuing fracas, their two sets of apron strings became inextricably intertwined. One might think that a thin-gauge knitting needle, or a greased nail, or
something
could have been slipped into one of the plethora of knots that had suddenly materialized, but
au contraire
. Either Ida, or Her Maker, had managed to pull off a good magician's trick in reverse, stumping at least two of us, and in the process bringing a sly smile to the liver-colored lips of the third.

‘
Oy gvalt
,' the third party said. ‘Look vhat happen! Eez wary funny, yah?'

‘And about to get funnier, dear,' I said. While I may be built like a broomstick, my barge-sized feet render me anything but graceful, ergo I clomped over to the all-purpose drawer, which are found in kitchens everywhere, and extracted a pair of large, extremely sharp scissors. Then, humming a happy little ditty, I clomped over to the entangled pair, and with a couple of snips cut the apron strings that bound mum to son. At that moment a choir of angels filled the room, and I went from humming a simple tune to singing a rousing, operatic version of
Hallelujah
by Leonard Cohen.

Unfortunately, the mighty do not have far to fall, if they are unreasonably short. Hence Ida recovered in no time. By the end of the evening she had convinced my Dearly Beloved that it was unsafe even for him to drive her back to the Convent of Perpetual Apathy, because Melvin Stoltzfus could be hiding in the bushes by the entrance. When I countered with the notion that fear and apathy were incompatible emotions, she became angry; what did I know about apathy? she yelled.

Fortunately for me, my Dearly Beloved is never more amorous than when his precious ma and I are housed under the same roof. After we
finally
got her to sleep in one of the paying guest rooms upstairs in the inn, I gave Ida's son a night that he would never forget, and one that she would never have approved of – not in a million years. Enough said.

Karma is not a good Christian term, thus not a word to be used lightly, if at all. However, the longer I live, the more it would appear that good intentions attract good things into my life, and negativity begets unpleasant situations. The morning following my
Hallelujah
(in more ways than one) moment, I was in for a real letdown.

Serves 8 normal people, but sufficient for only 6 people of Amish-Mennonite ancestry