Family Secrets (13 page)

Poor me, Melissa was thinking. She looked at her little watch. Only eleven-thirty. Scott would be out of the theater now, makeup off, the show long over, and he would be celebrating New Year’s Eve with his friends. She wondered which girl he would kiss when the clock struck midnight, and she didn’t want to think about it. To some people kisses didn’t mean anything anyway. And to others they meant too much …

“I don’t believe I’ve met your daughter.” A tall, thin, older man was standing next to her seat at the table, talking to Papa but meaning her.

“This is my daughter Melissa,” Papa said. “Dr. Lazarus Bergman.”

“How do you do?” Dr. Bergman said.

“Pleased to meet you,” Melissa said politely, as she had to a hundred other strange faces passing through her life that night.

“Would you care to dance?” Dr. Bergman asked.

It was so funny, the way he talked in that old-fashioned way, so proper. She was rather flattered that a man of his age would ask her to dance; why, he must be almost forty! He wasn’t old enough to be those boring old married men who asked her to dance because they thought she was a cute little girl, while their fat wives looked on with amusement and no jealousy at all, and he was old enough to seem mysterious and sophisticated. She stood and glided into his arms. She knew she was the most graceful dancer in the room, and to her surprise he was pretty good himself.

“Which of these ladies is your wife?” Melissa asked.

“None of them. I’m a bachelor.”

A bachelor? Goodness, he must have a sick mother at home, the poor man. She tried to remember if she’d ever heard Dr. Bergman mentioned at home. No, the one with the sick mother was someone else, and there was someone with a sick sister, but he was a dentist and he was crazy anyway. Yes, yes, she remembered now; Dr. Lazarus Bergman was a German Jew and very rich, and both his parents were long since dead. She felt quite sophisticated, dancing there with that nearly-middle-aged bachelor.

When the music stopped, Dr. Bergman steered her expertly to her table, and then to her surprise he sat down next to her in the empty seat. “I understand you’re a music student,” he said.

“Yes, I am.”

“I’m very fond of opera,” he said. “Are you?”

“Yes,” Melissa said. “I once considered singing opera, but my voice isn’t strong enough. I’m afraid it’s more suited to less difficult work.”

“And who is your favorite composer?”

“All of them,” she said.

“Indeed? You have very catholic tastes.”

“Catholic?” she said in horror.

“Eclectic. ‘Catholic’ used in this sense means to enjoy all sorts of music in the broad sense. The word was not always used to mean the Church, you understand. Originally, the Church was all-embracing, thus the word ‘catholic’ means to embrace all.”

The man was taking her breath away!

“Oh,” Melissa said, at a loss to contribute anything more intelligent in the face of this man’s extraordinary knowledge.

“I am quite enamored of linguistics,” Dr. Bergman went on. “And I think it’s a shame the way so many useful and evocative words are allowed to lie dormant in our vocabularies.”

“Yes,” Melissa said. She felt like a fool.

“But then, this must be tedious for you,” he said, and smiled at her. “May I bring you some punch?”

“Oh, please.”

“I’ll be back in a nonce.”

When Dr. Bergman had gone to the punch bowl, Melissa poked Lavinia. “Did you hear that man talk? I couldn’t understand half of what he said.”

“Serves you right for falling asleep in school,” Lavinia said.

“Well, you may be smarter than I am, but he picked me.”

“Tut!”

“And tut to you!”

Melissa stuck her tongue out, and then popped it back into her mouth and composed an angelic expression on her face as Dr. Bergman returned carrying two glass cups of punch.

“Oh, thank you,” she said.

“You shouldn’t be drinking this stuff,” he said, settling himself back beside her. “It’s full of sugar, and sugar is bad for your teeth.”

“I eat tons of sugar,” Melissa said ruefully.

“You couldn’t eat a ton of sugar. Do you know how much a ton is?”

“It’s how much I eat,” she said, flashing him a grin. “You never saw me attack a candy box.”

“Only after meals, I hope.”

“Is that better?”

“Of course it’s better.”

“Oh. Then I will from now on. Thank you for your free medical advice.”

“It’s not exactly free,” he said. “I’m going to extract payment, in the form of your pleasant company at the opera next Tuesday night. It’s
Tosca
. I think you’ll enjoy it. Some people find it heavy going, but of course, they’re not aficionados.”

“The Metropolitan Opera?” Melissa said, excited. “I’ve never been!”

“Then you’ll allow me to escort you?”

“I’d be delighted.”

“Good. Then it’s settled. I’ll pick you up at seven, so that we won’t be late.”

People started ringing their little bells, clanking their toy clackers, and blowing on their noisemakers. Happy New Year! Happy New Year! Melissa looked at her watch: it was midnight.

People were kissing each other. She looked around in panic. Oh, gosh, she hoped nobody tried to kiss her!

“Happy New Year,” Dr. Bergman said. He extended his cool, dry hand, and Melissa took it. Solemnly, they shook hands. “May your wishes come true this year,” he said.

“Thank you, Dr. Bergman,” she said. “And yours.”

“Please call me Lazarus.”

“Lazarus.”

“You see, I’ve risen from the dead now that I’ve met you.”

Melissa giggled.

Papa stood up. “All right,” he said. “We go now.”

His children came running: Basil, Andrew, Rosemary, Hazel, and Lavinia. He took Mama’s arm.

“Oh, my goodness,” Melissa said to Lazarus, “do you know where I live, for Tuesday night?”

“Yes, indeed I do.”

“Then,
à bientôt,
” she said gaily.

Sitting in Papa’s car on the drive home Melissa thought about Dr. Lazarus Bergman. Lazarus. She had never known such a grown-up man who asked her to call him by his first name. It seemed almost impolite. She felt like the romantic heroine of a novel. An older man, brilliant, educated, a doctor, enamored of linguistics and an aficionado of opera, was smitten with her. It made her feel very glamorous. She wouldn’t tell Scott. After all, it would make him feel badly, and Dr. Lazarus Bergman really wasn’t a date; he was just an adventure. And an adventure was exactly what she needed to get her out of the dumps.

FOURTEEN

Dr. Lazarus Bergman appeared promptly at seven o’clock, in formal attire, to call for Melissa. He had a taxi waiting, because he did not drive. A taxi! She had never had a date who could afford to take her all the way from Brooklyn to New York in a taxi. She was glad that she had worn her sea green chiffon tea gown with the handkerchief hem, because it looked very formal and appropriate beside his tuxedo. Around her head was a matching sea green chiffon scarf, tied in the manner of The Divine Isadora, and floating down her back in a graceful streamer. Her golden hair was still worn long, which was not exactly à la mode, but then, The Divine Isadora wouldn’t cut hers, either.

“You look very lovely,” Lazarus said. “Like a muse.”

“Which muse?”

“The muse of terpsichore.”

“Well, that’s exactly who I am!” Melissa said gaily.

On the ride to New York he told her about his trip to Europe in 1903. It all sounded very glamorous: the big, elegant hotels and spas, the famous paintings in museums, the strange habits of the natives in France and Germany and England. Why, in 1903 she hadn’t even been born yet, and there he was, a young man of twenty-one, on a trip to Europe all alone. Melissa was wonderstruck. In 1903 her own Papa was still just an immigrant, and Europe wasn’t a glamorous place to visit on a big luxury ship, it was a sad place to run away from, in steerage.

The inside of the Metropolitan Opera House reminded her of a giant wedding cake, all in tiers, all lit up. She had never seen anything so grand in her life. Everyone looked so elegant, and so much older and more sophisticated than she was. She hoped she wouldn’t be bored by the opera; that would be a disgrace.

Lazarus had little mother-of-pearl-covered opera glasses, even though they had excellent seats. He handed the glasses to her and told her she could use them. The orchestra began the overture. Melissa felt her spine tingle. This was so different from the faraway music she played at home on her Gramophone. This was so loud and clear and … real! Oh, it was so lovely. The music was so beautiful it made her want to cry.

To her relief, she liked
Tosca
. It would have been difficult to lie to Lazarus, although she usually found it easy to fib to anyone else. But he was so wise. She was quite disappointed that the leading lady was so fat, but in a way she was also glad, because now she knew she could never have been an opera singer, no matter what Papa said. She simply wasn’t fat enough.

“I loved it,” she said to him when it was over.

“I knew you would. Are you hungry?”

Actually, she was ravenous. She had been too nervous to eat dinner before he came to call for her, and now it was so late. “Well, I suppose I could eat just a little something,” she said daintily.

He hailed another taxi and gave the driver an address. When the cab stopped in front of an unimposing-looking building, Melissa was confused. She had rather imagined that the restaurant he took her to would look like the Metropolitan Opera House.

“I was considering going to Sherry’s,” Lazarus said to her, “but I thought this might be more amusing for you. We could perhaps go to Sherry’s on another occasion, for dinner.”

He rapped on the front door and a little peephole opened. The man who looked out recognized him, and opened the locked door. Lazarus led Melissa in.

She had never been to a speakeasy, and she was overwhelmed and delighted. The music was so bright and cheery, and everyone was so gay, and so … so drunk. It was so funny to see drunk people. They were dancing wild dances and laughing and talking too loudly, and some of them were even kissing. There was a lot of smoke in the air, and Melissa noticed that some of the girls were smoking too. The head waiter led them to a small table at the edge of the dance floor, and Lazarus ordered champagne.

“Unless, of course, you would prefer whiskey?” he asked her.

“Whiskey? Oh, no thank you, I never drink whiskey. Champagne would be just lovely.” She had never had champagne either.

The champagne appeared, along with a silver bucket on a stand, filled with ice, and two champagne glasses. The waiter poured Melissa’s first glass of champagne.

She tasted it. It was rather good. It was certainly better than beer, and although it was different from the sweet holiday wine they had at home, which she liked very much, it was quite pleasant. Yes, quite pleasant. It was disloyal to have such a thought, but this was certainly a far cry from The Saloon with Scott, with all those mangily-dressed actors and sloppy girls, and that dreadful near-beer, and the perspiration smell you just couldn’t avoid. Here it smelled of perfume from all those sophisticated ladies, and of cigarette smoke, and Lazarus smelled faintly of tangy after-shave lotion and good hair pomade. Scott never smelled of perspiration. He smelled nice and clean, like a child. He was like a puppy; you wanted to hug and fondle him, but she had grown used to him and he was no longer someone to be in awe of. Lazarus really kind of scared her because he was so sophisticated and older, but not an
old
man, just someone way out of her league. The champagne was making her giddy and she felt her cheeks flush.

“I would suggest a white meat of chicken sandwich,” Lazarus was saying. “That’s light but nourishing. It isn’t good to ingest anything heavy just before retiring—it gives you indigestion and keeps you from sleeping well.”

“A chicken sandwich would be lovely,” Melissa said.

The waiter brought two small white meat of chicken sandwiches, on white bread with the crusts cut off. Melissa started to pour salt on hers.

“You don’t need salt,” Lazarus said. “If God had meant meat to have salt on it he would have made it that way.”

“Did God mean chickens to end up in sandwiches?” Melissa asked.

“God created the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the fish in the sea for man to eat,” Lazarus said. “The law of nature is the survival of the fittest. Man eats meat. He is a carnivore. Animals prey upon each other. If we choose to eat fowl in a sandwich or in a pot it is all the same in the law of nature.”

“Oh,” she said. She put the salt shaker down.

“Salt is bad for your health,” Lazarus said. “It raises the blood pressure and retains fluids, creating edema, or swelling, particularly in the lower limbs.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want that,” Melissa said. She could just imagine her pretty ankles swelled up like tree trunks, like some of those old fat ladies she knew.

Lazarus refilled her empty glass with champagne. She certainly wouldn’t want to get drunk in front of him and disgrace herself.

“I really shouldn’t have another,” she said tentatively.

“Alcohol in moderation is good for you,” he said. “It’s relaxing, and good for the circulation. It’s particularly beneficial for older people, for whom I always recommend a small glass of whiskey just before retiring.”

“Whiskey for medicinal purposes!” Melissa said. She had read that on the label of a bottle once, which belonged to Papa. Anyway, it had said something like that: a skull and crossbones and “For Medicinal Purposes Only” on it, and then it said “Scotch Whiskey.” Papa called it schnapps.

“Don’t worry, Melissa,” Lazarus said. “I won’t let you get drunk.”

“I know that. I can tell a gentleman when I see one.”

“I bet you tell that to all the fellows.”

“I do, and it always works.” She smiled at him. “If someone knows you trust him, how can he betray you?”

“Oh, how innocent and naïve you are!” Lazarus said. “The world is full of bums just waiting to take advantage of a beautiful young girl like you.”

“Just all lined up,” Melissa said, and giggled.