Apart From Love (2 page)

So mom ended up throwing her ring at him. It rolled away—perhaps under the sofa, perhaps elsewhere—and never recovered, because it reminded each one of us of that time, and of being hurt.
 

Not long after that, they divorced. I dropped out of school and travelled away. And that girl, so I was told by my aunts, moved in with my father right away. Incredibly, they reported, she looked like a younger version of mom—in every respect but one:
 

Anita was a simple girl, even vulgar, and with no high school diploma. In short, she was what my father must have needed at the time: a real change. Someone who would look up to him.
 

Nearly ten years down the road, Anita told him she was pregnant, which brings us to the time of the disaster, which can also be described—if you care to celebrate it—as a wedding.
 

I check my watch. Ten minutes past midnight.
 

Tired as I am, the closest I can come to sleep is tossing until the sheet gets all coiled around me like a rope, which makes something rustle there, in the back pocket of my bluejeans. I draw out the envelope, which my aunt handed me only an hour ago, on the way from the airport.
 

“Here, Ben, this here, it’s for you,” said my aunt in a low, secretive voice, which I took to mean that we should avoid talking right now about what was inside.
 

I nodded back in vague gratitude, hoping, really hoping it was money, and why not? I was nearly broke, because of buying the flight ticket to LA on such a short notice.
 

Meanwhile, aunt Hadassa pulled a small mirror from her purse and nudged her puffy, white hair. It was build up and tilted, somehow, over the eyebrows, which were painted in impossibly high arches.
 

The cab came to a stop. I got out.

“Oy, you look so much skinnier now,” she sighed, her bulging eyes afloat, suddenly, in tears. “No one to take care of you, I’m sure. Quick, give an old woman a hug! My, my, look at your cheeks! I cannot even bring myself to give you a good pinch! You know, in 1939, when I lived in Paris there was such a shortage of food—”

It was the wrong moment to tell her that I had heard that story before, so I just wrapped my arms around her, taking in the smell of bad teeth, hair spray and chicken soup. It was mildly nauseous, so I straightened my back, stuck the envelope in my back pocket, yanked out my suitcase and waved goodbye.
 

The cab, with aunt Hadassa blowing a kiss in it, trailed away into the night.

Twenty-one minutes past midnight.
 

The pencil of light has just turned charcoal. I find myself troubled by the fact that the envelope, which I feel between my fingers, seems too thin to contain what I hoped it did.
 

For a second I prick up my ears, thinking I have just heard Anita’s footfalls outside my door. She must be as restless here as I am. Then, all is quiet again, so I get up, fumble in the dark to turn the desk lamp on, then tear the thing open, only to find my hope dashed.
 

Inside, there is nothing but words.

Dear Ben,
 

I’m afraid you may see this letter as an exercise in spreading gossip, which I insist, is not my intent at all, but as rumors go, this woman, Anita, is known to be nothing but trouble, so I must warn you. Stay away from her. She’s a slut! I told your father the same thing, and much good has it done me.
 

I am saying all this not only because she disinvited me from that wedding. In my time, women were decent enough to think twice before taking someone else’s husband. Sex was far from being a necessity, and I can promise you one thing: becoming an old maid never killed anyone.

At any rate, you would be right to doubt some of what I am going to include here, because of course you cannot believe everything people tell you, but I suppose there is some truth in it anyway, which I strive to find as best I can.
 

My sources, whose names I am not going to divulge, were amazed at this woman right from the start, when they peeked through a half open door, expecting to find your mom there, even though it was a week after that ill-advised divorce. Instead, they took a glimpse of Anita. She was biting into an apple, and wearing not a stitch of clothing—with the possible exception of a little red bow in her piggy tail.
 

The same sources tell me now what an incredible amount of attention she gave, just a month ago, to shaping every detail of her crowning moment, when she, the new Mrs. Kaminsky, would make her grand entrance, appearing openly at long last—for all to see—with your father.
 

Mind you, there was to be no rabbi, no chuppah, no stomping of the glass, even. Instead, she came up with a what you might call a whimsical notion, the notion of flying with him in a hot air balloon, and then landing, somehow, in a clearing amidst the guests. Arrangements, I hear, were soon made—despite your father’s fear of heights which, for some reason, he neglected to mention.
 

Oy, the poor dear! He was saved, that fateful day, from boarding the craft; saved, thank God, on account of a blunder, an honest mistake by the owner of the hot air balloon, who—according to hearsay, which I usually disregard—ended up losing his license, due to the fact he had overloaded the basket, a week earlier, with thirty kids, more or less.
 

Mind you, that man may have miscounted them. The balloon had come dangerously close to tipping over when the wind whipped up, sending it adrift: first south, heading to San diego, and then across the border, past Tijuana, and farther down, deep into the inner parts of Mexico.
   

It was at the last minute, then, that Anita had to come up with something new, something splendid and sophisticated and stylish, and above all, suitable for a grand entrance. Your father tried, in vain, to suggest this idea and that; in response to which she said, No, this is not classy enough, and No, that is not classy enough either—until her eyes fell, of all things, on the piano: your mom’s piano!

It is at reading that last sentence that my chin drops in alarm. Mom’s piano is dear to me. It is an exquisite grand piano, with ornately carved decorations, designed for some royal palace. My father bought it for her just after their honeymoon. That was the time she still entertained hope, a great hope to become a distinguished concert pianist, because after all, she came from a long line of musicians. Her great grandfather was the famous Abraham Horowitz, who graduated from the Kiev Conservatory at the turn of the century. He rose to stardom rapidly, and toured every large city in Russia, where he was often paid with bread, butter and chocolate, rather than money, because these were tough times.
 

Of his three sons, only one survived. Joseph Horowitz aspired to become a violin player, but his hand was damaged for life during the pogrom in Odessa. So instead he became a music teacher, and developed a method, a unique method to memorize long passages of music, by practicing it back to front.
 

His son Benjamin Horowitz, who became a conductor, took that method one step further. Instead of the traditional way of playing through the passage repeatedly, you would commit it to memory, or rather to your subconscious mind, by means of performing it every night before falling asleep—without holding the instrument in your hands. He was a notorious spendthrift, and the only inheritance he left his daughter Natasha was his impossible dream, the dream of rising to stardom.

So mom prepared herself for a promising career of a struggling musician. Dad supported her in every way. He had to attend recordings and rehearsal sessions and to watch her practice, plan programs, and cope with acoustics, conductors, and orchestras. For him this was no easy task, because mom had great ambitions, and
 
being on the verge of success, they were matched by equally great disappointments.

And then, then I was born.
 

Mom gave up her recitals, and instead started giving piano lessons. Slowly, her dreams started to fade. The family moved to a small apartment, where the piano, as I remember it, occupied half the space of the living room.
 

The other half turned, eventually, into clutter. It housed my clunky baby stroller and my rusty tricycle—because who knows, maybe we would need it someday—as well as an out-of-date encyclopedia, which was incomplete because one of the volumes was missing, and disorderly stacks of notebooks and sheet music, which leaned against the walls.
 

The piano towered over everything. It seemed so massive, so out of place that you had to squeeze around it, or else crawl underneath the belly of the thing.
 

But when mom played it, all that did not matter. The walls vanished and so did the clutter, because it was so riveting to watch her. You could see her long, delicate fingers as they went flying over the keys, to the point of turning, magically, into a blur. Her hands became transparent, and her ring, I remember, turned into a glow. She was air, she was music! Even when she stopped playing, those strings inside were still reverberating.
 

Twenty-two minutes to one.
 

At this instant, standing here over the pages of the letter, I remember that sound, and it can—even now, so many years later—take my breath away: the sweet, intricate sound of harmony. It was with this sound playing softly in the back of my mind that I went back to reading:

As I told you, Ben, tongues are wagging all over town, saying that the last thing Anita was interested in was music, nor was it harmony. No, dear. What impressed her was the polished surface, the ebony color, the ivory white keys and the brushed black keys, all of which could serve her (or so she thought) as the classiest, most perfect backdrop for the grand entrance at her wedding.
 

This was the most perfect instrument she could imagine, by which she could finally beat her enemy: your mother. By a strange reversal, your mom’s own signature piece would now be used against her.

And so the piano was transported, at great pain and, so they tell me, at great expense. It was placed on a special platform, and the whole apparatus prepared to be wheeled, at exactly the right moment, from behind a curtain.
 

It would go right onto the center stage of the wedding hall. Everything was rehearsed that day, and carefully timed. Fog machines were placed discretely between the white, tapered legs, ready to emit clouds of dense vapors, so the scene could become mysterious.
 

The top was polished to perfection. And as the right moment approached, Anita mounted it, striking this pose, then that—until finally relaxing into one that she must have considered graceful, yet seductive.

To avoid distractions, this woman wore no ornament other than her cleavage. Leaning back on her elbow, she let the strap fall away to reveal the full curve of her shoulder. There she laid, one leg crossed over the other with the knee bent, right in front of the plump, rosy breast.
 

She examined the view in her hand mirror, from here, from there, and enhanced the pose even further, by scooping up her gown, draping the folds—just so—and then, pointing the high heel directly at the surface.
 

Your father who—as you know—had never played an instrument in his life, was made to sit on the bench next to the piano, facing her. I had warned him against playing the fool, but then who can blame him. My, my, the poor dear must have been in the stupor of love. Men are liable to make mistakes at such moments.

He was instructed to play—or at least, pretend to do so—by throwing his hands dramatically into the air, in accordance with a song, which would be played by a hired musician, somewhere in the back, behind the scenes. The song would open with the unforgettable words, “Look into my eyes,” and would go on to promise, “You will see, what you mean to me...”
   

From what I hear, a hush fell among the guests when, emerging from a cloud of smoke, the piano became visible on stage. There was only a slight squeal, escaping from the wheels under the platform—but that was covered, tactfully, by the song. “Search your heart,” it pleaded. “Search your soul. And when you find me there, you will search no more...”