The Jew's Wife & Other Stories (10 page)

   
He said
mass on the dresser, then put on his khaki pants and the Hawaiian
print, which he had washed by hand in the motel. In deference to
his vacation mood he did not tuck it inside his pants. He also
spent extra time shaving and combing his hair, noting again the
gray strands interlaced with original black. He felt
extraordinarily well-rested—the result, he assumed, of the sea air.
He could hear noises in the kitchen below. He had a huge appetite,
so rather than start his office with his mind distracted by the
thought of food, he decided to have breakfast. Then he could begin
it on the terrace, in full view of the Atlantic and the morning
sun.

   “
Good
morning,” Rosalie greeted him. She was dressed in culottes and a
white top, the female equivalent of a golf shirt. She looked quite
a different person from the sulky feline he had confronted the
previous afternoon.

   “
How do you like
your coffee?”

   “
Black, please.
With sugar.”

   
She invited him
to sit down and brought him coffee in an earthenware mug. The brew
in it was infinitely better than the slop Margaret made. He emptied
the cup, burning his tongue, before attempting more
conversation.

   “
Are Charlie and
Sylvia up?” he asked.

   “
The day is half
gone before those two roll out of bed.”

   
She
scraped egg onto a plate and placed it on a woven mat in front of
him. “They’re not earlybirds like us. I hope you like
fried.”

   
He
assured her fried were fine and that she needn’t have troubled
herself on his account.

   “
No
trouble. Can’t accomplish much without a good breakfast. Although I
don’t eat eggs, when I have a choice.”

   “
What do
you eat?” he asked as she sat down in the place Sylvia occupied
last night.

   “
Whole
grains mostly. Wheat, oats. I’m not a health nut, but I try to eat
good stuff.”

   
He
wondered if Margaret had ever heard of health food. Not likely, if
the daily doses of bacon and sausages, not to mention the pork and
pot roasts that turned up regularly on the rectory’s dining table,
were any indication.

   “
Sleep well?”
she asked.

   “
Very well
indeed.”

   
He glanced at
the living room couch, which showed no sign of anyone having spent
the night there, and regretted his enthusiasm. She probably had a
backache herself.

   “
Sea air
does it every time. Gorgeous night. Best thing about the shore,
sleeping under the stars.”

   “You slept on the beach?”

   Her mouth full of toast, she
pointed at the light fixture on the ceiling.

   “
The
deck?”

   “
Best place to
catch the ocean breeze.”

   
He had heard
creaking sounds but presumed they were just the house adjusting to
the cooler night air. He and Charlie had spent about an hour
stargazing. Then he had gone to bed, leaving his hosts and Rosalie
chatting in the living room.

   “
You should give
it a try,” she suggested.

   “
I wouldn’t want
to deprive you of your spot. Besides, the bedroom’s quite
comfortable.”

   “
You wouldn’t be
depriving me. There’s plenty of room. Charlie has another sleeping
bag.”

   
It was
half an hour before their hosts appeared, still in their pajamas
and looking like sleepy children. Father Walther had spent the
interval on the balcony. Charlie and Sylvia mumbled a greeting and
sat down at the table. Rosalie served everyone coffee.

   “
Sleep
well?” the priest asked with the proprietary attitude of the first
up. Charlie groaned, moving his head from side to side not so much
in denial as to indicate he was not yet up to using his
brain.

   “
These
two bright-eyed creatures are off to Philadelphia, if they ever
come to,” Rosalie said.

   “
What time is
it?” Charlie asked. Rosalie told him.

   “
Jesus
Christ. Drink up, Sylve.”

   
This was
the first Father Walther had heard of the trip. But he had endured
bigger surprises than this from his old friend; why should he
suddenly act out of character and inform him in advance of an
excursion to the other side of the state?

   “
Shopping?”

   
Sylvia shook her
head. “Mother-in-law’s birthday. Duty fu-- ...family
obligation.”

   
Father Walther
nodded, not comprehending.

   “
Sylvia and my
mother don’t exactly get along,” Charlie explained.

   “
How old
is your mother?”

Father Walther hadn’t seen Mrs. Weeks in
twenty years. He remembered her as a tall, angular woman. For a
while she was active in a campaign to eliminate pornography from
stores in the Paterson area. He wondered what she would make of the
hard-core stuff that was now so easily available to anyone with a
computer. Charlie once told him he wished his mother would not
leave her smutty spoils lying around the house. To her they may
have represented a moral victory over Satan, but to her son they
were a constant temptation.

   “Seventy-something.”

   “She’s seventy-three,” Sylvia
said. “And full of piss and vinegar. Oops. Sorry, Father,” she
said, clapping her hand to her mouth.

   “’
Richie,’” he replied automatically, more concerned with the
flush that had come over Charlie.

   “
Well,
I’m off to the links,” Rosalie announced, taking off the short
apron she had put on to protect her culottes.

   “
Golf?” he
asked.

   “
Sure. Do you
play?”

   “
Well...”

   “Great. I won’t have to play
alone.”

   “I’m afraid I don’t own a set of
clubs.” His parishioners would have bought him a set, but he kept
his hobby secret from them: there were more important things to
spend money on. Besides, he only played on vacations and the odd
weekend.

   “
You can
rent,” she said. “It’s settled. You two are off to Philadelphia,
and Richie and I are for the links.”

   
It was a
warm morning, but not humid. He liked to be out on the first tee as
early as possible; either that or wait until the sun’s strongest
rays were spent. He liked the smell of grass when it was still dewy
and enjoyed the deepening shades of twilight—gold, amber, and final
rust. He hadn’t yet mastered the basics of the game, but the wide
fairways reminded him of the yard of the house where he had grown
up. That entire lot could have fit easily into some greens he had
played, but when he was still a boy its green lawn seemed an
immense expanse. It took him an entire afternoon to mow it with the
rusty hand mower his father kept beneath the front porch. His
mother made pitchers of lemonade to quench the ferocious thirst he
worked up. But even the lemonade was not as good as the heady sense
of manhood he felt. After the family moved from that house they
never again owned a home of their own, and consequently there were
no more lawns for him to mow. But to this day he could not
understand why anyone would shirk the task of pushing a mower
around a green yard on a summer afternoon.

   “
I guess
you know the difference between a links and an ordinary course,”
Rosalie said, hauling a lavender golf bag out of her Toyota. He
wanted to lend a hand but was afraid she would take offense. “A
links is a genuine Scottish course, more or less flat and usually
located near the sea. Golf architects try to imitate them in the
most unlikely places. I prefer links courses. There’s no nonsense
about them—just plain golf. Shows what sort of game you’re capable
of.”

   
This
wasn’t encouraging. He already knew what sort of game he
was—wasn’t—capable of.

   
She set
her heavy bag down outside the clubhouse, a white bunker no larger
than a concession stand. A few handcarts were scattered about. He
was used to a grander arrangement. When he played in the Catskills
or on one of the private courses in Bergen County, the clubhouse
offered lockers and showers as well as a full-service restaurant
where you could enjoy a leisurely lunch before playing the back
nine.

   
The “pro,” as
the man inside the bunker was designated by a hand-lettered sign,
eyed them as if he expected someone to produce a gun. Rosalie
bought some balls and asked to see a white glove on display. While
she tried it on, the proprietor kept one eye on the priest, like a
candy-store owner watching a couple of chocolate thieves. Father
Walther turned his attention to an empty lunch counter. A sign in
plastic lettering gave the bill of fare. Some of the letters were
missing. Ham and ch s. $3. 5.

   “What do you think?”

   She held her hand up to catch the
feeble daylight from the high cellar-style windows. Her hands were
small, but the fingers were long and delicate.

   “
Looks okay,” he
said.

   “
It’s not
cheap.” She examined her hand some more, this time for no other
reason, he suspected, than to draw attention to its
symmetry.

   “
Genuine
leather,” the pro put in, pronouncing “genuine” so that its final
syllable rhymed with “fine.”

   “
I
really could use a new one,” she said. The priest was starting to
feel like any husband on a shopping trip. “Why don’t you see what
sort of clubs the man has for rent?”

   
The
proprietor led him to a dark room at the back of the shop. A number
of dilapidated or obviously broken golf clubs stood propped against
the cinder-block walls like veteran inmates of a dungeon. He seized
a dusty bag containing half a dozen mismatched and badly scuffed
clubs and yanked it forward.

   “
This
here’ll do you,” he said, giving the bag a shake. “You got your
woods”—he ran knobby knuckles over a dented driver and
three-wood—“and your basic irons. Here you go,” he said, reaching
for a rusty shaft beside a bent sand wedge, “I’ll throw in this
here putter.”

   
There
was no one waiting to tee off. In fact, there was no one else on
the course. Father Walther was used to pairing up with whoever was
waiting at the first tee. He had assumed Rosalie and he would do
the same.

   
She
screwed her tee into the sunbaked ground. She had added a white
visor to her pinned-back hairdo, while her partner had to squint
hatless against the sun. She seemed oblivious to the heat and
glare. When she had the tee secured she began surveying the first
fairway, a straight-forward par-four with low rough on either side.
Then she set herself beside the ball, her head tilted to one side.
She held that position for a few seconds, her small bottom jutting
out, her knees slightly bent. Then she began her swing. He heard a
smart click and watched the ball climb into the sky at a perfect
angle, heading straight down the middle of the fairway.

   
He tried
to insert his own tee into the ground, but the baked dirt refused
to accept it. He tried another spot, also without success. He
finally settled for the same hole Rosalie had drilled. It had been
widened by her hit, causing his tee to wobble when it took the
weight of the ball, but it would have to do.

   
He set
himself in orthodox fashion, the ball on a line with his left heel,
left arm straight, head steady. Usually he didn’t think twice about
how he addressed the ball; he just stepped up and hit. Sometimes it
went down the fairway, and sometimes it went into some other
fairway, into the rough or merely dribbled off the tee. As long as
he got off a few decent hits each round and didn’t lose too many
balls, he was happy. The people he played with were generally of
the same mind.

   
This
time his ball took off in a straight line, rose hopefully for a
while, then as if under remote control veered sharply to the right
and into the next fairway.

   “Got a bit of a slice there.”

   He took an eight on the first
hole. Rosalie notched a five. She entered her score on the card,
her tongue lubricating her bottom lip like a schoolgirl. He never
kept score himself unless he was playing with someone who insisted
on doing so.

   
His
second drive did not bend as badly as the first, but it carried
scarcely a hundred yards. Rosalie waited while he pulled a
three-wood out of the bag for his second shot. He might just as
well have chosen an iron—his fairway hits usually traveled only a
few yards—the turf taking the major impact of his swing.

   “
You’re
setting up wrong,” she said. “You’ll make better contact if you
move the ball back. Swing down. Try to bury it.”

   
The idea
was absurd. The clubface was angled back so as to cause the ball to
rise. Why should he frustrate the design by hitting down on the
ball?

   “
If it doesn’t
work, you can hit another.”

   
He set up as she
suggested and drew the club back slowly, determined to hit the ball
just as she said, leaving no excuse for the consequence of her
silly advice.

   
He was
so careful not to move his head that he didn’t see the ball until
it was sailing down the fairway high above its normal parallel with
the ground. At first he thought she had played some kind of
trick—hit a ball herself while his own shot angled into the rough.
It was only after he saw the ball drop in a graceful arc, then
observed Rosalie standing exactly where she had been a few moments
ago, one hip jutting out sportily, that he was convinced of what he
had done.