Marjorie Morningstar (54 page)

Morris Sapersteen stood at bay in the middle of the living room, clutching the suitcase,
while Mildred attempted to quiet Neville, who was lying on his back, kicking the floor
with both heels, and yelling. Morris said, “I’ll just have to lock the lid, I guess.”

“No, no,” Neville screamed. “I want the box open!”

His mother said, “There’s only one answer. These kids are impossible. You’ll have
to hold the suitcase open on your lap.”

“Gosh, Millie, how will I eat?”

“Look, Morris, it wasn’t my idea to come to this thing, it was yours. I warned you.”
She led Neville off, and Morris stumbled back into his chair, and sat with the suitcase
on his lap.

Peace ensued; but not for long.

The next part of the seder was the reciting of the Four Questions. Essentially the
seder was a sort of pageant, or religious drama, performed at home. The youngest child
who could memorize Hebrew delivered four queries about the table symbols: the horseradish,
the matzo, the salt water, and so forth: and the adults in reply chanted the tale
of the Exodus from Egypt, explaining the symbols as the story unfolded. Marjorie had
scored great triumphs with the Four Questions from her fourth to her eighth year.
The Family had all said even then that she was a born little actress.

This year the Questions were admirably performed in a sweet piping voice, in flawless
parroted Hebrew, by Susan Morgenstern, a chubby six-year-old from the Newark branch
of the family. She retired to the children’s table, after curtsying to the applause.
The adults had hardly begun the concerted chant of the response when the most horrible
imaginable scream rang out from the living room, and Neville’s mother was heard exclaiming,
“Neville, that was cruel! You’re not supposed to be cruel!”

Neville, it developed, had sneaked up in back of Susan Morgenstern and bitten her
with all his might on the behind.

Again the seder stopped while the four parents hurriedly unscrambled the children;
for Susan was rolling with Neville on the floor, trying to strangle him, and making
fair headway.

It happened that there was bad blood anyway between the Newark branch and the Far
Rockaway branch, which was Neville’s, and a nasty argument sprang up when Neville’s
father tried to say that the bite had actually been a good thing. He said that Neville
had gotten rid of the hostility naturally created by Susan’s spell in the limelight,
and so in reality the bite had drawn the cousins closer. “Holy cow, Morris!” exclaimed
the father of Susan, a heavy good-natured young butcher named Harry. “If he bit her
he bit her. But I’ll be goddamned if I’ll let you say it was a good thing, too. Why,
for crying out loud, suppose all the other kids had—what’d you call it?—gotten rid
of their goddamn hostility like him? My girl would have been chewed to death.”

“Harry, please, don’t curse at the seder table,” said Mrs. Morgenstern, smiling pathetically
at the judge and his wife.

“Perfectly natural, nothing to get excited about,” the judge said, craning his neck
and watching the flailing Neville in the other room with some alarm.

“Neville’s exceptionally aggressive,” his father said. “It’s the normal pattern of
the only child, especially the insecure male.”

“It’s not that at all,” his mother shouted angrily. She was squatting, trying to hold
Neville still while she straightened his clothing. “It’s all this primitive magic
and symbolism and Hebrew he’s being exposed to. It upsets his nerves. He’s been brought
up rationally, and he’s at a stage where all this poppycock disturbs him deeply!”

Morris Sapersteen, fumbling at the open suitcase on his lap, glanced around at Mr.
and Mrs. Morgenstern. “All right, Millie, there are other people here besides us,
who think a little differently—”

“Oh, it’s all right. He’s got to be exposed to all these folkways sooner or later,
I guess, but we might have waited a couple of years, that’s all.”

The Family meantime, with all the excitement, had become a little livelier. There
was chatter around the table, instead of stiff gloom. Harry Morgenstern, Susan’s brawny
father, sneaked himself a couple of drinks of the Palestinian plum brandy to calm
his nerves. He immediately became very red in the face, and began to pound the table
with his fists. “What the hell, people, is this a seder or a funeral? Come on, put
some life into it! The judge here is going to think he’s in an old folks’ home!” And
he started to bawl a song, and several of the Family joined in.

Judge Ehrmann waved at him and laughed. “Don’t worry about me. I’m thoroughly enjoying
myself, I assure you.”

“This is nothing, Your Honor,” Harry shouted. “We warm up a little, we’ll show you
what a seder is all about! Come on, Dora, come on, Leon—sing!”

Mr. Morgenstern said, “That’s the spirit, Harry, that’s what we need. You sound like
the Uncle.” He beat time on a glass with a fork, and after a moment broke into the
song himself. Everybody sang. Mr. Morgenstern returned to the Hebrew chanting with
more zest and heart, and the Family’s responses became stronger, too.

Noel turned to Marjorie, his eyes lively. “Well, I begin to get the idea.”

“Oh, this is nothing,” Marjorie said. Her spirits were rising. “This is a ghost of
what it used to be. We used to have Samson-Aaron.”

“I can imagine,” Noel said. “I’m really beginning to understand him, a little bit—and
you too, for that matter.”

The seder continued to pick up momentum and gaiety, and soon it was more or less in
the old swing. Harry the butcher showed some promise of leadership, bellowing and
pounding with energy equal to the Uncle’s, if with less charm and flavor. Marjorie
felt the familiar old warmth enveloping her. The sweet grape taste of the wine woke
childhood recollections. She began to care less what Noel and his parents were thinking,
and she joined in the songs with abandon. She noticed that both Noel and his father
had taken to reading the English translations in their Hagadas, watching the others
to see when pages were turned. Noel looked to her at one point and said, “Do you understand
all this Hebrew?”

“Well, fortunately, yes, we’ve gone over and over it for so many years—otherwise my
Hebrew is pretty rusty—”

Noel said, “The English is absolutely atrocious, at least this translation furnished
by the matzo company is. But I do get a dim idea of what it’s all about. It has terrific
charm and pathos, actually—and power, too. I rather envy you.”

The ritual had arrived at another song, and as the family burst into it with gusto,
Judge Ehrmann glanced up from the book, his high bald brow wrinkled. “Why, I believe
I know that one,” he said to Uncle Shmulka. He hummed a few bars with the others,
and Shmulka nodded with delight. “Well!” the judge said. “I guess that’s one that
percolated through to the German Jews. My mother used to hum it to me when I was a
baby. I remember it distinctly, though I haven’t heard it in fifty years.” Waving
a stiff extended finger high in the air, Judge Ehrmann joined in the song. The effect
on the Family was tremendous. When the song ended Harry bawled, “Three cheers for
the Judge!” And the Family cheered, and gave him a round of applause. He bowed here
and there with pleased dignity, his long face flushed, his gray fringe of hair a little
disordered, a pulse throbbing in his neck.

A crash of crockery from the living room now indicated that Neville Sapersteen was
emerging from his doldrums. Marjorie looked over her shoulder, and saw Mildred Sapersteen
on her hands and knees, picking up the pieces. Mildred caught her look and said angrily,
“Well, there’s just so much I can do. Susan is impossible. She keeps calling Neville
‘Neville the Devil.’ No child with any brains would stand for that—”

Harry Morgenstern shouted into the living room, “Susan, you stop that, do you hear?
No more calling Neville ‘Neville the Devil.’ Understand me?”

“Yes, Daddy,” piped Susan, and added, “Just one last time, all right, Daddy? Neville
the Devil!”

Now that it was officially forbidden, all the children took up the cry and bayed rhythmically,
“Ne-ville the De-vil! Ne-ville the De-vil! Ne-ville the De-vil!”

Neville left his chair and catapulted into the dining room, yelling, “Daddy, I want
my airplanes! Give me my airplanes!”

Morris jumped up, forgetting that the suitcase was open on his lap; the suitcase slipped,
he clutched at it and upset it, and the forty-seven airplanes went clanking and tinkling
all over the floor under the table. There was a moment of silence after the crash;
even Neville shut up, staring pop-eyed at his father.

“All right,” Mildred Sapersteen said in an icy tone. “Nice going, Morris. Now pick
them all up.”

“No, no,” screeched Neville, “I don’t want them picked up. Leave them there. I’ve
got to make a parade!” He dived under the table and could be heard crawling, and sliding
airplanes along the floor.

“What’s he going to make?” Mrs. Morgenstern said nervously to Mildred. “Get him out
from under the table, please.”

“A parade,” Mildred said. “He won’t harm anything. He just lines them up three abreast.
In perfect formation.”

“Mildred dear,” said Mrs. Morgenstern, “not under the table, please, with people’s
feet and everything—”

Morris said, “Aunt Rose, if you want some peace and quiet, believe me this is the
best idea. A parade absolutely absorbs him. You won’t know he’s there. Take my word
for it. Just ignore him and—”

At that moment Judge Ehrmann leaped to his feet with an incredibly loud snarl, upsetting
his chair, clutching at his leg. “Aaarh! MY GOD!”

“My parade! You kicked my parade!” Neville squealed from under the table.

“Good heavens,” the judge choked, “the little monster has really bitten my ankle to
the bone!” He pulled up his trouser leg, peering anxiously at his thin bluish shank.

Morris Sapersteen plunged under the table and pulled Neville out, thrashing and howling.
“My airplanes! My parade! I want my parade!”

The whole table was in an uproar. The judge said to Morris, “Good Lord, man, forgive
me for being blunt, but what that child needs is the whipping of his life. He needs
it desperately.”

“Morris!” shrilled Mildred, glaring at the judge. “Let’s go home.”

“Take it easy, Mildred, for God’s sake,” Morris said.

“We’re going home, I say! Pick up the airplanes!”

“I’ve got
him
, Millie,” Morris panted, still struggling with Neville, as with a large live salmon.

Uncle Shmulka said, “Mildred, dolling, don’t go home, it’s a seder. You didn’t eat
nothing yet.” He held out his arms to Neville. “Come to Grandpa, sveetheart.” Neville
with astonishing readiness stopped writhing, slid from his father’s arms into little
Shmulka’s lap, and nestled. The judge edged slightly away. “There, Mildred, everything’s
fine,” Shmulka said. “He’ll sit vit me and be good. For Grandpa, he’s alvays good.”

“Oh no, I’m not going to have that again.” Mildred’s mouth was a black line, her brows
were pulled in a scowl. “That lulling is all wrong, and that grandfather-fixation
business is really sick, and I’m not having it in my family.
Get
the airplanes, Morris, and let’s go.” She folded her arms and leaned in the doorway.
The children behind her were still.

Morris looked around with a smile, his eyes big and sad. “Sorry, folks, I think it’s
best, maybe.” He dropped on his hands and knees, and knocked and shuffled under the
table.

Mildred was standing almost directly behind Marjorie. Impulsively getting out of her
chair, Marjorie put her arm around Mildred’s waist. “Millie, you’re right to be upset.
But I think you’ll be more upset, and Morris certainly will be, if you walk out now.
It’s only another hour—” she faltered. Mildred Sapersteen’s eyes, curiously flat and
shiny as they looked into hers, horrified her.

Mildred said, “Marjorie dear, you’re very sweet and pretty, and you’ve got everything
in the world, I know, but I’ve just got a son, and I’ve got to do what’s best for
him.”

Harry said to Marjorie, “Give up. She’s just a goddamned pill. She’s enjoying this.”

Mildred whirled, glared at Harry, then looked around at the table. “Well! Thank God
we live in a time when you can pick and choose your own culture. Nobody can say I
haven’t tried to cooperate, but this mumbo-jumbo is impossible, and Neville senses
it, and I’ve always said so. If I have anything to say, we’ll wind up joining the
Unitarian Church. They have all the answers, anyway.” There was a horrid silence.
“All right, Morris. Get the baby and let’s go.”

Uncle Shmulka said in a small tired voice, “He fell asleep.” Neville indeed, the storm
center of the wrangle, was curled in a ball in his grandfather’s lap, eyes closed,
breathing peacefully.

The last thing Morris said after fumbling goodbyes, as he carried the slumbering boy
out of the room, was, “Papa, she didn’t mean that about the church. We’re not joining
any church.”

“I know, Morris, I know you’re not. She’s a good girl, she’s upset. Be vell,” said
Uncle Shmulka.

As Morris trudged out of sight one of the children called out half-heartedly, “Neville
the Devil.”

Mrs. Morgenstern said to the Ehrmanns, “I don’t know what you must think of us.”

Judge Ehrmann smiled, and his voice was deep and soothing. “You should see our family
get-togethers, Rose. When blood doesn’t flow, it’s considered dull. Now I know you’ve
got a big happy family.”

He had not used her first name before. Mrs. Morgenstern glowed, and the drawn countenances
all around the table relaxed. Harry Morgenstern said, “By God, Judge, you’re right.
We do have a big happy family. There’s one of those in every family, and to hell with
her. Come on, Aunt Rose, we’re through with the Hagada, aren’t we? Where’s the eats?”

It was a heavy delicious feast: chopped chicken liver, stuffed fish, fat beet soup,
matzo balls, chicken fricassee, potato pancakes, fried chicken and fried steaks. Judge
Ehrmann went at the food with startling enthusiasm, saying there was nothing in the
world that he loved like Jewish cooking. The relatives, who had been fearing that
they would have to eat daintily in the judge’s presence, fell to joyously. Soon everybody
was very merry except Aunt Dvosha, who sat nibbling at a platter of dry chopped-up
carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, raw potatoes, and apples. She had recently given up cooked
vegetables, on the grounds that vitamins were destroyed by heat. As she looked around
at seventeen people stuffing themselves with vast quantities of fried meat, her face
became long and gloomy, and she grumbled to herself, and to whoever would listen to
her, about stomach linings, amino acids, protein poisoning, and sudden death.