Dark Plums (22 page)

“Max, you're a kind man,” she said. “You're a good man.”

“Could you love me?” he asked, his eyes glittering as he leaned slightly forward.

“I … I don't know.”

“Perhaps you will think I am too bold, an old man like me. Perhaps I am crazy. You do not have to answer me now … only think about it. Would you marry me?”

She swallowed. “You're not crazy.”

“Will you think about it, Adrianne? I have money to retire. I offer you all my love and a good life. I spend so little on myself, but I have money invested to last the rest of my life, and for both of us to be comfortable, to buy you beautiful clothes. We could live in the country, a simple life. You will think over my proposal?”

“I will.”

Adrianne gripped a black wrought-iron railing to keep from falling. Everything around her spun. She vomited onto the sidewalk and it felt as if her guts were spewing out. Nine o'clock in the evening on March 23rd. A clock chimed from a church tower near where she stood on Park Avenue and 49th Street. People's electric currents swirled around her as their bodies passed by. Someone took her arm to keep her from falling again, but she brushed him off and kept on walking.

“Time to leave Alfredo. Leave him. Leave, leave, leave,” she chanted to herself as she walked past Grand Central Station downtown.

“What the
fuck
are you doing?” shouted Alfredo when he walked in the bedroom.

Adrianne stood there with her arms full of underwear. She was packing her suitcase, which lay on the unmade bed. Time slowed down. She took a deep breath. The light burned into her eyes as she blinked and lowered them, staring at a spot on the floor. “I'm through with this life.”

He knocked the underwear out of her arms. Panties, brassieres, stockings, lacy slips flew all over.

Stunned, she watched while he lit a cigarette. He blew the smoke right into her face. “If you leave, watch your step. You might get into an accident. A car might run you down.”

“I thought you loved me.” She could not believe he was saying this.

“You
belong
to me.”

“That's not love.”

“You can't change any more than a leopard can change its spots. You're a
puta
, a cunt. You'll always crave different men.”

He pulled the suitcase off the mattress and threw its contents on the floor along with her underwear. “Now put that shit away.”

In shock, she picked up her scattered belongings while he went out for liquor. She stuffed her things back in the suitcase and quickly filled two other suitcases, stacking them in the closet just before she heard his tread on the stairs.

Later she lay in his arms, scarcely daring to move. “Adrianne, don't leave me,” he whispered. “Stay with me. I love you. Stay,
mi amor
,” he breathed into her ear.

Towards dawn, Michelle came in.

At seven-thirty in the morning while Alfredo and Michelle were sleeping, Adrianne dragged her suitcases down the five flights of stairs and hailed a taxi.

The following Thursday as soon as they had received the results of their blood tests, Adrianne and Max were secretly married by a justice of the peace.

Afterwards, he took her to a furnished studio apartment on West 86th Street which he had rented the day before. “Is only for a short time,
meine liebchen
. I want to live in the country far away from all this dirt and noise and from city life, if that would please you. You would like that?”

“Where, Max?”

“Vermont.”

“Oh, yes,” she said.

Awkwardly, he kissed her, and then slowly he removed her clothing. How beautiful she was with her soft white skin, full thighs and hips, and breasts like cantaloupes. With her tiny rosebud nipples, she was as beautiful as he had imagined—even more so—and she was giving herself to him. Could she truly desire an old man? Was that a pitying smile he saw on her face? Her golden hair brushed his cheek, her soft body pressed against his, and, incredibly, her mouth sought out his lips and then her tongue parted them while she grasped him tightly to her by the buttocks. Ah, such softness. She smelled sweet like the springtime, like apple blossoms. He was getting hard, and they moved to the bed. She lay beneath, pinning him tightly to her, and helped guide him into her moist, soft crevice. Once more he kissed her. Adrianne wanted to scream, bite his fingers, whisper, “I do this all the time, baby. Ten, twenty times a day.”

What if he were to find out about her past?

She had screwed much older, much uglier men.

His fleshiness had something gentle, even feminine, about it, to which she began to respond. There was something soft and caring in his touch. She bit down on his lower lip. He began to thrust faster, climaxed, and in a little while it was all over. Afterwards he lay with his arms around her. To her surprise, when she felt the wetness on his cheeks she realized it was tears.

That night she dreamed of white clouds, sparkling streams and forests, and of searching for a house she used to live in. Finally, someone told her that she was standing in front of it, but it did not look familiar to her.

The next morning, Friday, Max went to work at the shop where he had repaired watches for so many years. Adrianne looked through the Want Ads in
The New York Times
. Perhaps she should get a job again. The cooking job hadn't been so bad. Besides, she would go mad inside these four walls.

Max had left her fifty dollars to buy a few groceries and to take care of anything else she needed. “Buy yourself something nice,” he said, and she realized that this was coming from a man who renounced pleasure and luxuries for himself.

Saturday they took a bus to Vermont, to an inn where he had reserved a room for three days and nights.

As she sat on the bus next to Max, she thought, “This is my husband.” It felt strange and unreal. The bus jolted on while she dozed.

Later, as the bus rolled along, she looked out the window at the countryside. She missed Alfredo intensely, but she was determined to be kind to Max.

“I am so much older than you,” he said suddenly, breaking the silence as though he could read her mind. “If you do not fall in love with me right away, it is all right. In Europe where marriages are arranged, often the couple do not love each other until they get to know each other after they are married. Only in America and only in this century are the marriages romantic.” Then his voice trembled. “Do you think you may grow to love me?”

“Yes, Max.” She kissed his thin old man's lips, pitying him because he had known so many years of self-denial.

He dozed now, snoring slightly. In his lap lay a copy of
Der Zeitung
from West Berlin and beneath it a copy of
The Jerusalem Post
.

The bus droned on. Towns of old brick houses gave way to tall budding trees and green pasture land. It was April and the sky was blue. Lulled by the steady jolting rhythm of the bus, Adrianne again dozed off.

When they came to a stop, she awakened. They had reached Burlington. A fair-haired man in an old green Packard met them at the station and drove them to an inn far out in the country.

Adrianne and Max spent three calm and restful days.

“
Meine liebchen
, do you think you would be happy here?” They were walking through a meadow of fresh, green grass surrounded by forest. Max plucked a violet and handed it to her. Patches of snow still lay on the slopes of distant mountains.

“Maybe,” she said. “I'd like to try living in the country.”

Far away from Alfredo, she thought. Far, far away.

In the synagogue on West Ninety-Third Street, Max glanced about anxiously. Adrianne was upstairs in the Women's Section, so he couldn't see her.

“God forgives,” the rabbi had said. “God forgives, or else the souls he created would be totally destroyed.” Perhaps Adrianne was a sign that he was at last forgiven, thought Max. Perhaps she was a sign like the twig brought back to Noah between the dove's beak after the flood.

Max put his hands on his thighs, feeling the shiny brown gabardine with distaste. Now that he was a married man, to please Adrianne he must buy himself nicer clothes. His left knee itched and he scratched it. His stomach felt heavy. The men around him were rising to their feet. He stood, too, and chanted the familiar Hebrew words. “
Adonai Israel … Adonai Eluhenu … Adonai ya Israel
.” Usually he looked forward to the the weekly service, which had helped to sustain him all these years. But tonight, with the tumultuous emotions caused by his marriage, he could scarcely breathe. His longing to be in bed again with Adrianne was intense, and he could feel his heart pounding too fast.

The congregation sat down, and Rabbi Zimmerman, a frail, bearded man, began to speak. The pounding in Max's heart slowed, but his chest felt tight.

Dr. Goldfarb had advised him that he could retire early because of his heart condition. The doctor would sign documents enabling Max to begin drawing Social Security benefits, as well as his employer's pension now, so that he would not have to wait until he was sixty-five. Despite the manner in which he had been living, Max was not a poor man. Over the years, he had invested wisely and had built up a portfolio of stocks and bonds.

He wished right now that he could lean over and touch Adrianne. He would like to feel her soft cheek against his and luxuriate in her warmth. For so many years he had not held another human being.

What had her life been like with Alfredo, he wondered, and what had she done for a living. He did not want to pry, nor did he really care what she had done. He would simply love and cherish her, as he had promised in the marriage vows. Like a rose she would blossom, and in time she might grow to love him. How strange this service must seem to her.

Rabbi Zimmerman had begun to read from the Torah. The men near Max swayed slightly as they chanted under their breaths.

Giving into the moment, he was flooded with hope. God forgives. After all these years of atonement for his wife, no, his
former
wife, and children, God had brought Adrianne into his life as a precious gift. The lovemaking had gone even better than he dared hope, but he had a foreboding that things would not continue like this for long.

Upstairs in the balcony, surrounded by other women, Adrianne opened her prayer book to the page that her neighbor pointed out. The rabbi's speech sounded harsh, as if he were accusing her of something. She knew that her father's ancestors had been Jewish. Perhaps the memory of this service was in her genes.

She read the first two verses of the chapter on the side of the page that was printed in English.

“
And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron
…
offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not
.

“
And there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them
.”

She glanced at the mysterious marks in Hebrew on the other side of the page. This was the language of her ancestors.

What kind of god would kill men for offering strange fire? Such a god must be cruel. Perhaps God and the Devil merged into a huge shadowy force. Had the gypsies really exorcised what was inside her? All these questions went through her head, making her conclude that perhaps Alfredo was right in his beliefs.

The new golden wedding ring on her finger gleamed. She twisted the other ring, the silver ring that Alfredo had bought her on Bleecker Street long ago. Against all reason, she still hungered for him. But she vowed to make Max happy, if she could.

Around her, the women whispered among themselves as they turned pages. Sometimes they chanted.

The cantor's deep voice rang through the hall. He was half-chanting and half-singing, unaccompanied by any instruments. The music resonated with a strange familiarity, although she had never heard it before.

An ache rose in her throat. She wanted to cry out, “I am one of you. My father's family was of your tribe.” But she had lost the key. She would never belong to these people. Besides, her mother's family was Catholic.

She felt outside of everything.

“Papá, can you hear me?” she prayed. She sensed Julio's spirit hovering over her. She could almost see his face. His thin brows and the set of his eyes were like hers. “Adriana, you are my daughter, and no other man can have you,” Julio seemed to whisper. Even though he had paid her little attention during his life, he had been silently possessive.

What would her mother say if she knew that Adrianne was here at the synagogue? Elena did not like Jews and always had held that part of her father's ancestry against him.

“God, love me,” Adrianne prayed. But she could not sense God's love. She felt the sadness and longing of the people here.

Beneath her sat the men, their heads covered with
yarmulkahs
. When she looked for Max, he was not visible. She had a sudden urge to run out of the synagogue and back to Alfredo. Despite how he had treated her, she ached to be with him again. He connected with her in a way that no one else ever had. He knew her desires, her fears, her vulnerablities. She couldn't con him, as she could poor Max.