Too Jewish (15 page)

Still, I had to let Bernie explore New York. I hoped he would put it all together. We always found compromise, so maybe he could figure one out. I couldn't see one.

Axel gave excellent directions. Axel did everything right. He lived in a strange place. For instance, street numbers made no sense: his house number was 147-30. He owned his house. He wasn't married. He didn't even have a girlfriend, though he had a lot of women working for him, and I could tell they all wanted to marry him. I saw his whole life. His house. His neighborhood. His office. His factory. He wasn't selling though. I mean, he wasn't selling to us. He was always a salesman, but he wasn't pushing New York.

He even had a washing machine, and he'd rented a crib. Darby didn't have a crib at home. At home she slept in a playpen.

Axel and Bernie talked German most of the time while I rode in the back seat all of the time. Every now and then Axel would turn around at a red light. "We apologize," he said. As I said, he wasn't selling New York. But he wasn't trying to send me away, either.

He took us into Manhattan the first night. He wanted a babysitter. But I was nursing. "Give it a bottle," he said. I couldn't do that, I told him. We were traveling; we didn't have bottles. "You can't have a kid in the Oak Room," Axel said. "She hides her," Bernie said. "What if the kid wants to eat?" Axel said. "They'll go in the bathroom," Bernie said.

We went to the Automat instead. I thought the Automat was better than anywhere I'd ever been. "Please speak English," I said when we sat down at our table.

"I know you didn't come just to see my lovely face," Axel said.

Bernie gave him a good laugh, and even I smiled. Axel had a handsome face, but it could be cartoonish if he twisted it a certain way.

"You're my last resort," Bernie said. "I'm not making it down there. My wages barely cover our expenses."

Axel put his knife and fork down. He had a medium-rare t-bone steak. He gestured palms-up: it was very New York. "No problem. Move up here."

"You still have a place for me?" Bernie said.

Axel's New York hands fell. "Now?"

Bernie nodded; he didn't look at me. "We almost don't need to go back."

"Now?" Axel said again. "You're talking this very minute?" Bernie nodded. "Aw, Jesus, Bernie. Could your timing be worse?"

Bernie's own hands went to his lap. He wasn't going to eat this meal, and it was free food. "You said to move up here."

"Yeh," Axel said. "There're jobs all over the place. Bound to be better than whatever you're doing. You're, what, selling fabric to colored ladies or something?"

"It's cheap to live down there," Bernie said. "I can't make a lateral move."

"Think of the long run," Axel said. "You move to Forest Hills, good public schools, everybody's Jewish. That's not what I hear about the South. You can't get your father-in-law to front you a thousand bucks?"

"That's not a sales pitch that would fly with her father," Bernie said.

"Why'nt you call me last year? Or next year?" Axel said. "This is a bad time. I know I promised you, but this is the one and only time I absolutely can't."

Bernie shrugged. Bernie's shrugs always killed me. They probably did the same to Axel. "Aw, Bern, it's true. Family."

"Oh!" Bernie said. I'd heard about Axel's family, which was that it was a secret.

"Yeh, I told you I'd tell you face to face," Axel said. "But I didn't know I'd actually
know."
He sounded grim. Average would sound grim for Axel, and Axel sounded grimmer than average.

"You want to tell me in the Automat?" Bernie said.

Axel nodded. "Best place, huh."

"I'll bring Darby here one day," Bernie said to me. "Everything happens here."

"You remember Heinzie?" Axel said to Bernie.

Bernie nodded. He turned to me like a translator. "His big brother. It's no wonder Axel knew what he was doing. I was basically an only child."

Axel turned to me. "Heinzie was the good brother. Heinzie went to Palestine."

"That's good?" I said. It was an honest question, not a snotty Adler question.

"My parents said that going to Palestine was the only option," Axel said. "If we were going to leave, we had to go to Palestine. So when I said I was going to New York, my mother cursed me up and down. She barely told me goodbye."

"Oh, God," Bernie said.

"I never heard from them again," Axel said. His voice was even. He probably had told this story before. But not often, and not to anyone who'd understand.

"This isn't about to have a happy ending, is it," Bernie said.

Axel shook his head, no. "Heinzie's coming here, with his wife and four children." He paused, letting us fill in the blanks.

"Only one way he can do that," Bernie said finally.

"Yeh," Axel said. "It's okay to come to America now. No parents to get pissed off at him."

* * *

On the way home I rode in the front seat most of the time. We weren't in a hurry. It was easy to pull over so I could get in the back to change Darby. We had the same conversations over and over for the first day. Axel had said, Why not last year? But also, Why not next year? Bernie could hold on for a year. And what about Bernie's idea for expansion? Distribution in the South? I never mentioned Daddy's offer; what good would it have done? Mama already had made everyone hate mink-covered gifts, everyone in New Orleans anyway. What was Bernie going to do? Drive around Louisiana? Mississippi? Alabama? People shot furry animals to eat.

"Axel sure lives nicely," Bernie said. We were all the way into Virginia. It was a new topic.

"He has a lot of money," I said.

"Money isn't everything," Bernie said.

"My parents think it is," I said. "They worship money. It's the most powerful force in the world. They think they can control everybody with money. Me especially."

"I get the feeling they never could."

"That's what they think is wrong with me."

"There's nothing wrong with you that a little money couldn't fix," Bernie said, and we both laughed.

We rode in silence for a while.

"It was fun, us both being with Axel," Bernie said. "He knows so many people. And everyone likes him. You and I have separate friends in New Orleans."

"Because your friends all talk German." Bernie hadn't met anyone who spoke English, but I couldn't blame him. The people at work hated Jews, and they didn't even know he was one. So he went out and found a bunch of old people from Germany who'd been here since before he was born. But they played cards and talked to him. I went to a little card party once. I couldn't play bridge, and I couldn't speak German. I couldn't even eat the heavy pie. I watched Bernie be happy, which was fine for an evening. "I'll teach you German," he had said on the way home. "Repeat after me.
Guten abend."
I told him I couldn't do that. He already made me feel stupid.

In the car, Bernie said, "We would find all the same friends in New York." Darby was asleep in my arms. Darby was a little girl riding through the South. She was a Southern girl.

"You and Axel already talk German," I said.

"Only out of sentimentality," Bernie said. "It gets old fast."

"Are you trying to sell me New York?" I said.

"I guess not. I'm just thinking out loud."

I didn't quite believe him.

"He said next year he'd be in good shape," I said.

"So you might go to New York again?"

I was only thinking about Axel having money, thinking that he could send Bernie money. And Bernie could go into business in New Orleans. I wouldn't say that out loud. "Let's see what happens," I said, and I meant it.

I was in the front seat, so I could see Bernie. He cheered up. Good enough. "I can wait a year," he said. One of us might have a change of heart. I looked at little Darby. A year was a long time, at least in her life.

A year was a long time in Darby's life. It also was a long time in her grandfather's life. My father was marking an invisible calendar. Bernie was on some kind of tenure track. Or maybe I was. Daddy had been serious at our wedding. He didn't expect us to make it three years. I thought staying lovingly married was a triumph. That was such a foreign concept to my parents that they didn't notice.

Daddy was judging us by his own narrow standards. He was an investment broker. So of course he first would see a person in terms of portfolio and bank account. But Daddy's standards weren't just in terms of dollars. He shared my mother's system of measuring worth by showiness. On Daddy's calendar Bernie and I weren't moving toward showy.

I didn't know it, but Bernie had a calendar running, too. It wasn't as cloudy as my father's. It wasn't etched on the wall like a prison inmate's. But he knew when the anniversary of our trip to New York was coming. When he told me it was the anniversary, I was stunned. When he told me it mattered, I knew he'd been thinking for a year. And then he told me the person he'd decided to see wasn't Axel, it was my father. I knew I'd been wrong not to think about marking off this year. It hadn't gone away.

Bernie had been thinking. He wasn't reading my parents well. He saw silent impatience as acceptance. He saw acceptance as something close to affection. "I think your father will help me," he said. I asked what that meant. I hoped he wasn't asking for that thousand. Money to become good New York Jews had been Axel's big idea. And a very bad one. For starts, we needed to stay in New Orleans. Not
I
needed to stay.
We
needed to stay. Yes, I would be lost in New York, but that wasn't my biggest objection. And Darby already had a bit of New Orleans sassiness. That was worth keeping. But not an overriding reason to appeal to my parents.

The main reason Bernie would be wrong to ask my father for money was that my father's "no" would be so unkind. There would be no respect.

"Why now?" I said instead of telling him.

"I said I would give it a year," Bernie said. "I was hoping I would do better at Krauss's. Mr. Kern may be a nice guy in his own circle, but I'm not in his circle." His boss knew he was Jewish. He even knew who I was. It hadn't helped.

I was afraid of what Bernie would ask my father. He promised it was not for money to go to Queens. "I wasn't born yesterday," he said. He used that phrase whenever he could.

"Are you going to tell me?" I said.

"It's better to keep it inside my head."

It was a Monday morning. Monday wasn't a good day for my father. He was a stock broker, so Mondays were busy. He always came home frazzled on Mondays. I never understood the money markets. I figured they were made up of men like my father. They were all frazzled on Mondays. Probably drank and ate too much on weekends, then went in to work and made each other crazy. "I think you should wait at least until tomorrow," I said to Bernie.

"But I'm very ready."

I had to admit he looked his best. Monday morning was good for Bernie. I ironed on Saturdays. Even in one room, I ironed. His shirt was bleached and starched, starched enough to last until the market closed. Louise had raised me well. "Wait until the market closes," I said.

"I wasn't born yesterday," Bernie said.

Bernie went to work in the suit he was married in. "I'll tell them the truth," he said. "I'm having lunch with my father-in-law. It's not as if I'm having a job interview." He couldn't phone afterwards. The pay phone was on the first floor, so I would have to wait until he came home. It also meant my father couldn't call. Of course, I could call my father to tell him not to mention our wedding-day talk. But I knew my father. That would tempt him to bring it up when he never had any intention of doing so. I'd just have to trust Bernie.

I always took Darby out in her Taylor Tot. Unless it rained or froze. Froze meant it went below forty-five. Otherwise we were out. That Taylor Tot was impossible, probably fifty pounds, definitely too big for the apartment. My mother wanted us to have it because it was important to look good out in public. I accepted it, because it was a gift. All babies got gifts. The neighbors didn't mind it in the hall; they said they hoped to have one themselves someday. I carried it up and down stairs every day with Darby in it, but I had to admit it was worth it. She and I talked. I pushed her to Canal Street. I counted cars. I told her colors. I sat on a low stone wall and read to her. I gave her flowers. Her daddy was smart, and he needed a smart girl. He said English was her mother tongue, and she should have no accent, so I was giving her as much English as possible. A streetcar passed with a 7-Up ad on the side. "Seven-Up!" she said. She was going to be a reader.

With spring, impatiens showed up behind our wall. It was a warm day. "Bees!" I said. "Butterflies!" I said. Darby screamed. I'd been too busy watching her face, so I saw the bee a second too late. It had lighted on her plump little thigh, and she'd reached for it. Skin senses even that small a presence. It stung her.

I lifted her out of the Taylor Tot, but she kept screaming, and she didn't look right. The bee sting was all red, worse than a shot, swelling up. Her screams started sounding funny. I threw her over my shoulder. I almost forgot the stroller. I pulled it behind me and ran back to the apartment. My neighbor Joycelyn was walking out the front door. I was lucky I'd only gone two blocks. Darby was still crying, but she was fighting to cry.

Wherever Joycelyn was going, it didn't matter now. I told her about the bee. "Oh, baby," she said, "that happen to my cousin. He was way allergic to bees. First time, he got real sick. Second time, he near died." Joycelyn was a real New Orleans girl. Everything already had happened to real New Orleans girls. Or their cousins. I needed to get Darby to Hotel Dieu. That was the nearest hospital. I always went to Touro, but that didn't matter. "I can't afford a hospital," I said.

"Good thing," Joycelyn said. "You better off poor. You got a' emergency, you want to go to Charity."

I'd never heard of a white person going to Charity. "Oh, yeah, don't worry. They got a separate entrance," Joycelyn said. That wasn't what worried me. I just didn't know they took white people. I was the first poor white person I'd ever met.