That Said (17 page)

as Charlotte and I described

photographs and artifacts, or read

quickly, in monotones, as if reciting

selections from a menu.

Something had to break me down—

the cattle car, crematorium door,

 

the confiscated valises of Jews

piled high, dramatically lit

like a department store display.

It was a small snapshot of a girl—

shot dead, lying beside her parents

on the cobbled street, her hair

 

as long as my eight-year-old's,

her coat, about my daughter's size.

People detoured around our little

traffic jam slowing down

the line, as Topper strained

against his leash and metal

 

harness. They smiled when he

flopped down, sighing, nodding off

at Andy's feet. A man

asked permission to pet him.

After all those photographs

of snarling, muzzled, killer dogs,

 

what a relief to see an ordinary one.

He struck up a conversation with Andy.

“I see you're blind,” he said politely.

“Do you understand this

any better than I do?” And Andy

shook his head and told him no.

After dinner, while the coffee perked

and my mother cleared the dishes,

my father would take from the shelf

the Scrabble box and the dictionary,

its black leatherette jacket as battered

as some
other
family's heirloom Bible,

its red ribbon bookmark frayed to arterial threads.

 

I'd sprawl on the floor a few feet away

and start my homework.

My father unfolded the game board

onto the lazy Susan's wooden turntable,

and shuffled the wood Scrabble tiles

face-down in the box.

 

They'd be seated in their usual places

at the dining table—husband opposite wife.

Aunt Flossie would select seven tiles from the box,

her hand skimming them like a clairvoyant's.

Then Uncle Al, to her left, would draw.

He was used to arguing cases in court,

and always winning, like Perry Mason.

 

Waiting his turn,

he'd bully my father about his tie,

insult my mother's coffee,

comment about my beatnik-long hair.

Then, he'd start an argument with my aunt,

adjusting his black pirate-patch

over his missing right eye, a dead ringer

for the Hathaway Shirt Man in
Life
.

 

I'd get up and circle the table.

Standing behind my mother's back,

I studied the letters on her rack,

her ever-changing cache of luck—

syllables, stutters, false starts,

the game's only
Z
or
X,
or
Q
—useless without a
U

unless you were spelling
IRAQ,
and then

no foreign words or proper nouns allowed.

 

She added an
S
to the board, going across,

and
ROSE
grew into a bouquet.

Under the
S,
she put
T-A-R,

and it spawned a
STAR,
going down.

My mother held in reserve her secret weapon,

a blank tile, that could substitute

for any letter in the alphabet.

They groused as she announced her score

and rotated the lazy Susan a quarter turn.

 

A ten-minute limit—that was their rule—

ten minutes to come up with a word.

Ten minutes. Ten minutes. Ten minutes.

Another half hour passed.

Ashtrays filled up, were emptied,

ashes drifting over the vinyl tablecloth

as, week after month after year,

the lazy Susan turned under the chandelier.

They'd play until ten or eleven, or until Al blew up

and Flossie tried to smooth things over,

my mother muttering “some things will never change.”

 

But once, before I went off to college,

I saw them actually finish a game.

 

Uncle Al stared at his letters.

Aunt Flossie lit a cigarette,

and asked, “What's with Milton Marx?”

My mother said, “I saw him in the grocery.

Two days out of the hospital, he looks terrible.”

My father said, “He stopped by the store.

To me, he looked okay.”

My uncle said, “Milton called me on the phone.

He could barely even talk, he was so hoarse.”

My aunt glanced at her rack of letters.

“Thank you thank you!” Aunt Flossie said,

and quickly put
HOARSE
down on the board.

 

With the flat of his hand,

my father swept the letters back into the box

and folded the board.

Uncle Al tallied the final scores,

the fingernails on his elegant hands

buffed and polished from his weekly manicure.

He was
ambidextrous
—

a talent he was proud of,

a word that would make a killing.

I carried it in my wallet,

the way teenage boys used to carry

a single condom—just in case.

 

On my visits home, after dessert,

my father would nod to my mother,

my sister, my aunts, my uncle,

and, catching my eye, he'd give me the signal—a wink.

He'd stand up, excusing the two of us

from the coffee drinkers at the table.

We'd go downstairs,

unlock the store, deactivate the alarm,

and lock the door behind us.

 

I'd follow him past the dress racks

into the last fitting room in the back.

He'd draw the curtain,

unlatch the door disguised by a mirror,

and then he'd point to the family safe

hidden under a green drape,

always prefacing his apology

with, “It's only just in case,

in case something should happen.

I'm no spring chicken, let's face it.”

And then he'd shrug.

 

I'd kneel before the squat steel box.

While he shone the flashlight on my hands,

nervous, I practiced the routine

I'd rehearsed for the last twenty years,

ever since he'd had his heart attack.

Every time the heavy door swung open,

I'd close my eyes, not wanting to look inside.

 

When my aunt called,

I drove north all day, checking my wallet,

checking the numbers he'd jotted down,

still legible on the torn pink slip.

 

Behind the faded
GOING OUT OF BUSINESS
sign

he placed in the window

a month before my mother died,

the empty store was a tomb,

the upstairs apartment was a tomb,

the safe had been moved to his closet.

Underneath the chorus line of laundered shirts,

the green drape shrouded the safe.

 

I got down on my knees.

I started with the dial turned to 0.

I turned the dial to the left two whole turns

and stopped at 79.

I turned the dial to the right one whole turn

and stopped at 35.

I turned the dial to the left

and stopped at 10.

I heard a click, turned the handle,

and pulled the heavy door.

 

Sliding metal drawers and shelves,

sets of keys and stacked envelopes

stuffed with green, with gold

cuff links, his gold wedding ring

and gold Jewish star, his dog tags,

expired membership cards—

musicians' union, driver's license,

smeary photocopies of birth certificates,

and the key to the safe-deposit box

(the duplicate key was locked in mine),

 

everything on the up-and-up,

no mistresses, no skeletons, a life

apparently as orderly

as the inside of this safe.

All those years of spinning the numbers,

rehearsing the combination—

father, mother, daughter, daughter—

until I got it right.

All of them are gone
Except for me; and for me nothing is gone.

—Randall Jarrell, “Thinking of the Lost World”

 

For Howard and Emma
and Florence Abramowitz

 

In Chinatown, we order Happy Family,

the Specialty of the House.

The table set; red paper placemats

inscribed with the Chinese zodiac.

My husband's an ox; my daughter's

a dragon, hungry and cranky; I'm a pig.

The stars will tell us whether

we at this table are compatible.

 

The waiter vanishes into the kitchen.

Tea steeps in the metal teapot.

My husband plays with his napkin.

In the booth behind him sits a couple

necking, apparently in love.

 

Every Saturday night after work,

my mother ordered takeout from the Hong Kong,

the only Chinese restaurant in town.