The Secret of the Nightingale Palace (28 page)

Mayumi wrote: “I have taken up needlepoint. We can't get the prettiest thread here, really, but at least I can create my own designs. I'm making little pillows with tiny birds all over them. Hummingbirds, sparrows, redbirds, and, because of the war and everything, a lot of doves. Henry says I need some cuckoos, but he's just trying to annoy me. I'll make two matched sets, a pair for you and a pair for me. We'll keep them on our sofas, and then when we visit each other we'll say, ‘What darling little pillows! Wherever did you buy them?' ”

Eventually both Goldie and Mayumi found this kind of banter too difficult to maintain. Their correspondence became more and more sporadic until finally, like a stream in a drought, it dried up.

18

A Sweet Life

I
n her later years, Goldie liked to say that Marvin Feld asked her to marry him on their first date, but their courtship did not actually transpire that quickly. They had, of course, known each other for months, collaborated together on the successful Pioneer perfume Fourth of July promotion, and spent thirteen minutes alone behind the tie counter while Goldie suffered the rupture of an ectopic pregnancy that—though she was prone to exaggeration, she was correct on this one—nearly killed her. By the time she and Marvin spent their first evening alone together, her sense of his role in her life had progressed through a series of clearly defined but unpredictable mutations: handsome prince, friendly acquaintance, lifesaver, trusted friend. Even during his princely period, she never felt the mild tingles of excitement that she had once experienced around Alan Stevenson. Anyone who knew the sequence of events that took place in Goldie's life during that period might have tried to assess her feelings for Marvin in relation to Henry as well. Goldie, however, never compared the two. “Apples and oranges,” she might have said.

Anyway, it was sort of a stretch to call that meeting a date at all. Just after her lunch break one day, Marvin approached her in the hat department and asked if they could talk for a while after work. He looked both distracted and disturbed, which gave Goldie cause for concern. “Of course,” she told him. He had held her in his arms while she nearly bled to death. She would do anything in the world for Marvin Feld.

It was early May, warm and breezy, and they walked down Market Street toward the bay. Goldie had imagined that he would take her for a drink somewhere, but he was so focused on his thoughts that once they headed out of the store, he didn't seem to give another thought to a destination.

“You just talk when you're ready,” Goldie said. “I'm patient. I'll wait.”

He lifted his arm and patted her shoulder, but otherwise didn't respond. Goldie liked walking beside a well-dressed man on a pretty day. The events of the past year had rid her of her marital ambitions, which had not only proved useless but nearly destroyed her, emotionally and physically. Compared with all that, she felt comforted by the idea of spending the rest of her life unmarried, working as a saleslady at Feld's. The job was stable and secure, and she could imagine a future of promotions. Goldie's sister Louise had nearly killed herself cleaning houses, but Goldie had discovered that domestic work wasn't the only option for a smart girl with a sense of style. She could earn her own money, buy her own clothes, and cultivate friendships with respectable people. Before too long, she planned to find herself an apartment, too, and get away from Rochelle. She had come to believe in the possibility of building a satisfying and stable life independent of the whims of men.

None of that meant, however, that she didn't enjoy the occasional walk through the city with an elegant friend. And she also enjoyed the suspense of wondering what Marvin wanted to talk with her about. Though the two of them had never formally discussed what happened the day she collapsed behind the counter, she knew that he understood everything and didn't judge her for it. One morning, visiting her in the hospital, he had looked her in the eye and said, in the manner of a teacher offering instruction, “You had a burst appendix, Goldie. Appendicitis.” Two days hadn't even passed since she collapsed, and she was still absorbing the fact that a devastating episode in a private room with Alan Stevenson had resulted in swollen breasts, nausea, and ultimately, emergency surgery and a hospital stay. The realization that Marvin knew what had happened filled her with shame—it made her feel naked—but he didn't seem to regard her any differently. His concern seemed tender, almost brotherly, and nearly made her cry. A few days later, on another visit, he seemed angrier, though angry at the world in general, not at her. “Was it Henry?” he asked, out of the blue. “Was it Henry?” She reacted with heat. “No!” she screamed, and the tone of repulsion in her voice convinced Marvin that she had never thought of Henry in a romantic way at all. In truth, Goldie's passion came from a determination to exonerate the man she loved and also from the sense of regret that she had begun to experience on the night in Pescadero. As traumatized as she felt by her first experience of sexual intimacy, Goldie was perceptive enough to see that, in another context, it could offer joy. She felt it as an unspeakable loss that she and Henry would never experience that together.

Goldie loved Marvin for his kindness, then, and for the fact that he could not only forgive a fallen woman but also invite her on a walk. To the extent that he himself seemed troubled now, she resolved to help him if she could.

They crossed Steuart Street, walked up the Embarcadero toward the Ferry Building, then stopped to look back toward the Bay Bridge, which towered above them now. Other than when she first arrived in California, and the train stopped at the Oakland station, Goldie had never actually crossed the bridge—what was there for her on the other side? She sometimes walked this way during her lunch hour, though, just to look at the way the bridge stretched, like a necklace, across the bay.

“It must be beautiful up in the Sierras now,” Marvin said. “We used to take the ferry, but now we can get there in a few hours just by crossing the bridge.”

Goldie was reasonably sure that the Sierras were mountains. “That's east, isn't it?” she asked. The sun set in the west, over the Pacific.

“Yes,” Marvin said. Then, after another moment of silence, he turned to her. “Listen, Goldie. I want to ask you something.” He still seemed bothered, but he was concentrating his attention entirely on her now.

“Ask me anything,” she said, and she really meant it.

“I need to get married. It's time. And you're a great gal. What do you think?”

“Me?” she asked. Her past lay so obviously between them that it wasn't necessary for her to say more than that.

“Yes, you.” He laughed. He had practical reasons for proposing to her, and he would not allow himself to believe that he was being altruistic. Still, even the best man in the world could not have seen Goldie's face at that moment without feeling, for an instant at least, like a knight in shining armor.

Marvin took her hand and led her to a bench. Her whole body was shaking now, but despite her shock, she remained composed enough to wonder if her sweaty hands might put him off. “What is going on here?” she asked.

“I'm going to be honest with you,” he said. “I'm not going to lie to you, ever.”

Goldie gazed at him, so completely confused about what was happening that she simply said, “I love you for that.”

He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, but kept his gaze turned toward the bay. “I'm a queer,” he said. When Goldie didn't respond, he turned to look at her, then added, “A homosexual.”

Goldie had grown used to working her way around the things she didn't know—the Sierras, mixed drinks, abstract art—but Marvin's revelation was a mystery that seemed fairly important. “A what?” she asked.

He sighed. “I was afraid of that.” For the next few minutes, and in as neutral a tone as possible, he did his best to explain the vagaries of sexual orientation. He refrained from specifics about the men he had known, focusing more on the idea that a man could love a man in the same way that another man could love a woman. He tried his best to make himself sound normal, but also emphasized the need to keep this information private. Most importantly, he offered the facts—I'm homosexual; will you marry me?—but let her draw her own conclusions about how they would actually navigate a marriage. Marvin had chosen Goldie based on practicalities and some degree of feeling, too. He needed to find someone attractive enough to make the marriage pleasant, convincing, and more or less acceptable to his parents, but also constrained enough that she would doubt her chances for finding a better mate. With those two issues in mind, Goldie seemed a perfect choice. It helped, too, that she was Jewish, though Marvin suspected that his parents, with their pretensions to aristocracy, might have regarded a marriage to a wealthy gentile as something of a coup. It also helped that Marvin loved her, in his way.

Goldie needed time to absorb all this new information. The world seemed so complicated! Did Rochelle have any idea about homosexuality? Had her mother known? “Is this just something that happens in California?” she asked. “Do you think there are men like that in Memphis, too?”

“I'm sure there are,” said Marvin. He was only twenty-six years old and could vividly remember the dawning realization he had had about himself. He began to sense it as a child. He was a tall boy, both strong and athletic, and he had never suffered from teasing for being “unmanly.” His sense of difference had come, instead, from the unexpected attractions he felt toward other boys—not all boys, but a series of them, beginning when he was eight or nine: a boisterous redheaded child in his third-grade class; a fellow member of the high school rowing club; and then, most significantly, the teaching assistant in his college philosophy class, who had tutored him, first, in Hegel's
Science of Logic,
and later in the wide variety of ways in which two enthusiastic men could give pleasure to each other. This philosophy tutor, a Swedish graduate student named Marcus, who went by Max, had insisted that their “queerness” gave them particular insight and an ability to appreciate beauty that other people lacked. Marvin, who was not especially aesthetic, never quite believed that sexual interests could influence one's understanding of the world, but his affair with Max—which lasted four months and was cut short by the tutor's return to Europe—had lessened his sense of shame, at least. Equally significant, by the time he graduated from college, Marvin had come to believe that he could live as he wished without sacrificing the family life and social standing to which, as a Feld, he felt entitled. He just had to make wise choices and be cautious. It helped, too, that he had money.

It was a bright, windy evening, and the sidewalk along the water was full of people strolling along the Embarcadero, enjoying the fine weather. Goldie's eyes, following each of them, were filled with new curiosity and wonder. “I had no idea,” she said.

Marvin found her ignorance charming. It was at moments like this one, when she demonstrated both her inexperience and her desire to learn, that he most vividly anticipated the life that they could lead together. They would have adventures. They would have fun. She would look wonderful on his arm making grand entrances at society dinners. Marvin didn't feel it impossible, either, that they could sleep together occasionally and have a child or two. He felt so optimistic that he was tempted to explain to Goldie that there were women who loved women, too (if Goldie were one of those women, he thought, with some regret, they might really have a perfect union), but he sensed that too much information might merely confuse her. “It's a subject,” he told her, “that people don't talk about much.”

“So you like men,” Goldie finally said.

“That's a simple way to put it,” Marvin responded, “but yes.”

Goldie grinned broadly. “Well, I like men, too. I can't deny you the right to that.”

Her statement seemed so reasonable that they both laughed. Marvin leaned closer and kissed her cheek. Though the thought of anything more intimate made him slightly squeamish, he adored playing the role of gallant lover to Goldie's bewitching girl. Had he not had a strong sense of decorum, he might have pulled her off the bench, taken her in his arms, and swung her around in a waltz (Marvin was deeply fond of Fred Astaire). Instead, he merely told her, “You're a great gal, Goldie.”

And what exactly was Goldie thinking then? Throughout the conversation, she concentrated completely. She took in every word he said, considered it carefully, reevaluated what she knew of the world, and responded. She had learned that human intimacy can include not only girl loves boy and boy loves girl, but also boy loves boy. That revelation demanded a fairly comprehensive reassessment of the nature of companionship, and Goldie reshuffled her sense of the world accordingly. It was a huge thing to take in during a single afternoon, but still, this new knowledge had a minor impact in comparison to the great and simple thought that was coursing through her mind at that moment. “I'm saved,” she told herself, full of unbounded relief. “I'm saved. I'm saved. I'm saved.”

 

For the first few months of their marriage, Goldie didn't care at all that Marvin was a homosexual. Life was sweet. She moved into his apartment near the top of Nob Hill, and together they redecorated to give the bachelor lodgings more of a domesticated, honeymoon feel. They also went shopping for clothes. Marvin wanted Goldie to have a wardrobe befitting her new status as a Feld, and Goldie didn't argue. While she had gleaned a great deal about manners already through keen observation, under Marvin's careful tutelage she learned how to use all the different forks, the distinction between a dinner and a supper, and that if you weren't sure whether it was appropriate to order dessert, you should follow your hostess's lead. In short, Goldie began to learn to live like a lady. All of it thrilled her. She could drink as much orange juice as she liked. She could sleep in her own bed one night and, if she chose to, sleep in the guest bedroom the next. She could buy shoes to match her outfits, take baths every night, put lotion on her hands ten times a day. Sometimes she rolled around on the carpeted floor just for the fun of it.

Marvin's parents weren't thrilled that he had married a poor girl from Memphis, but they had picked up enough worrisome clues about his lifestyle—the lack of girlfriends, the travels with “buddies” through Mexico—that they seemed relieved, if still somewhat suspicious, about the fact that he had finally settled on a bride. Mrs. Feld, though, showed little warmth. She did her duty by inviting Goldie out for occasional lunches, having the couple over for dinner, and visiting the apartment every few weeks to offer her opinion on the new sofa or the bedroom drapes, but she never seemed to enjoy these interactions. Mr. Feld made fewer appearances than his wife, but he was warmer, in his half-attentive way, and his memory of the Pioneer perfume campaign led him to conclude that even if his son had married a shopgirl, at least he had married a smart one. The infrequency of engagements between the older and younger Felds suited everyone perfectly. Marvin found his mother suffocating and his father dull. Goldie felt nervous and awkward around both of them, and if not for propriety, would probably have avoided them altogether.