Never Too Late for Love (8 page)

"Me?"

"You."

"I hadn't realized."

"What a wonderful man you were ... how handsome you
were when you were younger. Although I don't think you're so bad now." She
mumbled the compliment, as if imparting an important confidence. Did Sarah
really make such a reference, he wondered?

As the day wore on and the food diminished, a few of the
women lingered, tidying the apartment.

"Nothing like a good Jewish woman," Minnie
Schwartz said, as she folded a tabledoth and put it in a drawer.

"You said it," Lily Morganstern responded.

"They have a certain something," Ida Katz agreed.
She turned toward Murray, who was growing weary, contemplating sadly a future
without Sarah. He was beginning to slip back into self-pity.

"Sarah was the epitome of what it meant to be a good
Jewish woman," Minnie Schwartz said. "Knew her all her life. Didn't I
Murray?"

He lifted his head and looked at her. He had barely
exchanged two words with her throughout his married life, either in Brooklyn or
Sunset Village.

"We were very close," Minnie Schwartz said.

It was growing late. The women gathered what they could
carry and prepared to leave.

"There's herring, bread, some knishes and cakes
left," Lily Morganstern said. She came over to Murray and talked quietly.

"If you like, I'll come by in the morning and maybe
make some breakfast," she said. Murray nodded. Why not? Anything but being
left alone.

"I'll call you tomorrow," Minnie said. She
embraced Murray's head and kissed his cheek. "Time will heal everything.
Believe me, Murray. Respect time."

"I hope," he said, feeling the emptiness, the
panic of his impending loneliness.

"Maybe I'll be over tomorrow to keep you
company," Ida Katz said. "We're not going to play cards for the next
few days." Her eyes filled with tears. "Without Sarah, it just
wouldn't be the same."

"I can imagine," he said. Then the apartment was
empty, except for Milton, who had been packing in the bedroom. He came out with
his suitcase and looked at his watch.

"I can just make the last plane," he said.

"So soon?"

"Really, Pop. I can't take off more time. Two people
are out sick. You can't run a pharmacy today like you used to. Who can you
trust?" Murray nodded. Then he stood up and embraced his son.

"You sure you can manage alone, Pop?" Milton asked, his voice breaking.

"I'll manage." They disengaged and he looked for
a moment at his son, but he was thinking of Sarah. "She had so many
wonderful friends, your Mama. I never realized."

"She was a good mother, Pop." Milton said,
picking up his suitcase.

"And a wonderful wife."

His son kissed him again and went out into the court. In a
moment, he had gunned the motor of his rented car and was off.

Alone in the apartment, Murray felt his disorientation. He
could not believe that Sarah was gone. What happens now? he wondered.

He walked around the apartment, touched edges of chairs,
let his fingers linger over objects, trying to remember how they had been
acquired.

He opened the closets, looked at Sarah's clothes, still
hanging neatly, mute mourners. Touching the clothes, he started to cry, sinking
to the floor, seeing her shoes. It was too unbearable. He sat there on the
floor for a long time, then undressed and went to bed.

It seemed he had just been thinking that he could not sleep
when suddenly he was emerging out of a deep slumber, reaching beside him for
Sarah's body. There were noises from the kitchen, the sound of water pouring
into a pot, dishes clinking, the refrigerator door opening and closing. Oh, she
was in the kitchen, he thought, although it was he who was usually up first
making the coffee.

Then he remembered. Getting out of bed, his joints seemed
stiffer than usual and, in the mirror, he noted the redness of his eyes.
Putting on his robe and slippers, he shuffled into the kitchen.

"You like eggs?"

It was Minnie Schwartz, carefully groomed, dabs of rouge on
both cheeks and a discreet line of color on ill-defined lips. Her grey hair was
neatly combed with a thin white ribbon tucked under it and tied in a little bow
on top of her head. Her flowered housedress was neatly starched and crinkled as
she moved.

"I heard noises. I thought it was Sarah," Murray said. He felt odd, uncomfortable, seeing this strange woman potting around in
Sarah's kitchen.

She held up an egg. "Scrambled or bull's eye."

"Whatever."

He could not get over his surprise. She placed a steaming
coffee cup on the little table. Not knowing what to do next, he sat down. She
was, after all, making him breakfast.

"Milton gave me a key," she said, breaking the
eggs into the frying pan. "I told him he shouldn't worry so much about his
father. Minnie Schwartz doesn't let down her friends."

"You're very kind." Murray said. It was the only
response he could think of. He gulped the coffee, scalding his mouth. Before
the eggs had a chance to fry, the telephone rang.

"Sit, I'll get it."

She picked up the telephone.

"Who? Mrs. Morganstern?" She grimaced and held a
hand over the mouth piece. "Mrs. Morganstern." But before he could
reply, she was talking into the mouthpiece again. "He'll call later. After
I make him breakfast." Her words seemed unusually curt and impolite.

"It was Mrs. Morganstern."

"What did she want?"

"How should I know?" Minnie Schwartz mumbled,
watching the eggs bubble. "A yenta," she said with obvious contempt.
Silently, he drank his coffee. "A pushy yenta," she said.

"My Sarah was not a yenta" he said aloud, knowing
in his heart that he was already beginning to idealize her. It was his own
private characterization.

"Sarah a yenta?" Minnie rebuked. "Who would
ever think such a thing? Mrs. Morganstern is a yenta." She put the egg
before him on the table and sat down beside him. He watched it continue to
bubble on the plate.

"Listen to me Murray. Was I Sarah's best friend? Be
careful of these yentas."

"Why careful?"

She hesitated a moment, putting a hand on the sleeve of his
robe.

"Just take Minnie's advice. Be careful."

The admonition confused him, and rather than contemplate
its meaning, he ate the egg. Minnie watched him as he ate, and he was getting
uncomfortable.

"Good?"

He nodded.

"You should taste my varnishkas. Someday I'll make you
varnishkas like you never tasted before. My Sam loved my varnishkas."

Actually, Murray liked varnishkas, but the idea of them
seemed incongruous with the breakfast.

"I also make good stuffed cabbage. Everybody loves my
stuffed cabbage. Even better than my pot roast." She nodded, moved her
hand from his sleeve and patted the back of his hand. "You'll see. You'll
judge for yourself which is better, my pot roast or my stuffed cabbage."

"Not as good as your varnishkas?"

"
Comme ci comme ça.
"

He ate his egg and finished the coffee, then stood up. He
wasn't quite sure what to do with the rest of his day. There were things to do,
he knew. He thought of Sarah's closet. All her clothes still hanging there.

Again the grief came and his heart felt leaden. He went
into the bedroom and shut his door, then sat on the edge of the bed, not
knowing what to do next. He heard the water running in the kitchen, then
someone was walking in the bedroom and he felt a hand on his back.

"Can I do anything more?" Minnie asked. She was
whispering and he felt her breath near his cheek as she stood above him, an
ample expanse of her bosom at eye-level. She grasped both his hands in her own
and pressed them to her. He felt an odd embarrassment.

"I'll look in later. You just rest. Don't worry about
a thing. Minnie's here." He felt his hands moving on her breasts as she
continued to hold them. An uncommon stirring began deep inside of him.

After she left, he felt totally immobile, unable to make a
single decision, emersed in a kind of mental paralysis. What should I do now,
Sarah? he asked himself.

By the time Ida Katz knocked at his door, he had managed to
dress, although he had not begun to tackle what he had established in his mind
as the main job he had before him, the removal of Sarah's things. It was not
that he wanted to abolish her memory, but he could not abide the idea of their
being there when Sarah was elsewhere, as if she might need them.

"I thought maybe you might want something," Ida
Katz said.

She was a tall woman and he had to look up to observe her
features. Before he could reply, she was in the apartment.

"I think maybe I should tidy up a bit." She was
holding a shopping bag that she put on the floor beside the couch as she bent
to puff the pillows. "Sarah was always as neat as a pin." She removed
a rag from the shopping bag and began to run it along the wooden parts of the
furniture.

"I was just looking at her clothes," he said. He
felt his throat catch. She straightened, watched his eyes mist, then understood
immediately.

"That's the worst part, Murray," she said,
shaking her head.

"With Harry, it took me weeks before I could even look
in the closet. That's the worst part." She hesitated. "You show me,
and I'll do it."

"What do you do?"

"I can only say what I did with Harry's. I gave them
away to charity. The Salvation Army. Better that poor people have the use of
it."

He thought for a moment. Yes, that was a fine idea. He
followed her into his bedroom, where she opened Sarah's closet.

"You got a carton?"

He rummaged in the storage closet in the kitchen and found
a folded carton, which he opened and put on the bedroom floor. Ida Katz removed
each article of clothing, gently, as if to treat them roughly might be a
sacrilege against Sarah's memory. She took them off the hangers and folded them
into the carton.

He stood aside and watched her work, unable to bring
himself to touch Sarah's clothing. "She was a lovely person," Ida
Katz said as she worked. "She had wonderful taste."

The telephone rang and Murray went into the kitchen to
answer it. Lifting the receiver, he stood in such a way as to continue to
observe Ida Katz at work through the reflection in the mirror. It was Mrs.
Morganstern. "Minnie Schwartz has left?"

"Yes, Mrs. Morganstern."

"Lily."

"Lily," he repeated.

"I thought maybe you needed something. I'm going
shopping."

"I'm not sure."

"Milk, coffee, bread? Some meat?"

He did not want to seem ungrateful. Through the reflection,
he noted that Ida Katz had taken an article of Sarah's and had wrapped it
around her figure, viewing herself in the bedroom mirror. She stood
contemplating it a moment, then refolded it and put it into the carton.

"All right. Maybe some coffee ... and bread."

"That's all?"

"Well, Sarah used to make these decisions."

"I know." She hesitated.

"When you're used to a good Jewish woman..." She
let the thought linger with the incomplete sentence.

"You're very kind," he said. What more could he
say?

"Don't mention it," But she did not hang up,
instead pausing as if she was forming an additional thought. "You know, Murray," she began. In her tone he could detect a coming confidence. "You
shouldn't get too friendly with Minnie Schwartz."

Looking into the receiver, he tried to visualize Lily
Morganstern's face, but it seemed to have fled his consciousness. What did she
mean?

"Minnie Schwartz?" he said. It was inconceivable
that she could be vested with anything less than the purest of motives. She
was, after all, as she herself had said, Sarah's best friend.

"Have you ever heard me say a bad word about anybody,
Murray?" Lily Morganstern protested, as if his response had actually been
accusatory.

"No," he replied. Indeed, had he ever remembered
any word she uttered before Sarah died?

"So what I say is for your own good, Murray. For your
own good." There was a long pause, as if in the silence, dark forebodings
might be gathering. "She's too pushy. A little too possessive. You'll see.
You should only be careful."

Be careful of what, he wondered, letting her ramble on
without a response.

"A word to the wise." She seemed to clear her
throat and with it the wire unburdened its sudden animosity. "All you want
is coffee and bread?"

"I think that's it," he said, scratching his
head.

"I'll bring it later."

He hung up and went back into the bedroom, feeling the
compulsion to mention the call, as if Ida Katz might have been listening which,
he knew, instinctively to be the case.

"That was Lily Morganstern. She's going shopping for
me."

Ida Katz paused midway in her folding duties, looking
upward from her bent form.

"Her?" she said contemptuously, the word
ejaculating with such obvious malice that Murray was startled.

"She's not your friend?"

He recalled that Ida Katz and Lily Morganstern had seemed
inseparable. They were part of Sarah's canasta game, her constant companions
around the pool, sister yentas. It was inconceivable that Ida Katz could harbor
ill feelings for Lily Morganstern.

"That one's a barracuda."

"A barracuda?"

"A barracuda. You know a fish that grabs on and stays
there."

"She's getting me some coffee and bread."

"Make sure that's all she gets."

He seemed genuinely confused, wondering, perhaps, if she
were referring to some dishonesty on Lily's part. He decided not to pursue the
subject. Sarah could have explained it, he was certain, but Sarah was gone. Ida
Katz continued to fold the clothes.

"I'm very grateful," he said later, as she
prepared to leave.