The Matzo Ball Heiress (15 page)

Back in the Big Apple I would roll my eyes at the ridiculous carryings-on of these ex-pat queens, and their wacky stories and theories, but here near the Amstel River I am free from the shackles of New York cynicism. Believing in protective animal spirits floating over my hardened twenty-first-century city is a very comforting thought.

I expand my confidence: I am looking for my father. I love him. I need him. His homosexuality is not a problem; I’m hip with it. The immediate problem is not having anyone at my seder who speaks Hebrew. But my long-term goal is to get to know my father again as a friend.

“What a wonderful daughter you are,” Charity née Larry says woozily with a pat of his fat, furry hand.

I sniffle.

Natasha, née Jacob, takes my other hand and gives it a small squeeze. “Listen, darling. My test for relationships is the same test I use for pure fibers. You burn a tiny bit. If the fiber turns to ash, it’s silk. If it isn’t, and it goes beady, it wasn’t worth pence to begin with.”

“Huh?” says Charity. “If her father burns and turns to ash, that’s good?”

Natasha shoos Charity out of her space with her free arm. She squeezes my hand harder. “Heather, find your father, and push him to his limit. He’ll be angry, but if he cares, he’ll take action.”

Alcohol has always given me funny dreams. Tonight, sometime after I pass out with my clothes on, I’m a hen. A hen who lays an egg that Hitler bursts out of, laughing manically and saying: “Jew hens to the left.” I wake up like a newbie soldier in sweaty sheets, and grope in the bathroom for my hotel glass to fill with water. Nude on the toilet seat, I sweat fear in a wet isolation. Eventually I brave it back to the bed, and pull a notebook out of my suitcase and a pen from the Bible drawer and begin to draw: snails, elephants, a whole zoo of animals until I’m groggy enough to fall back to sleep. Even then I stare at the ceiling for twenty minutes, my tongue sticking out like I’m an overheated dog.

I start to finally drift off to sleep, when the room phone rings.

“What time is it there?” Jake says when I pick it up and answer after a clumsy delay.

“It’s 4:00 a.m.”

“Oh, I thought it was 4:00 p.m.”

“It’s okay, I was having nightmares anyhow.”

“About what?”

“Chickens and Hitler.”

“You know what I dreamed about last night?”

I yawn. “Let me guess, Britney Spears doing the breaststroke in your swimming pool?”

“Ooh. So close. Christina Aguilera gave me a lap dance.”

“Jake, is there a reason you’re calling? I’m dead tired.”

“Just seeing if you had any luck finding Uncle Sol.”

“None.” I yawn again. “But I’ve found out the reason the Dutch are so tall. It’s the dairy.”

“Then how come the Jews aren’t taller? Look how short Grandpa Reuben was. I’d say he ate a vat of sour cream a year.”

“He also ate stuffed intestine.”

“That will set you back,” Jake concurs. “Look, I had an idea about how to find Uncle Sol. I called the bank to see where his ATM withdrawals come from in Amsterdam. We deposit his money in his New York City account, but he has to take the cash out somewhere in Amsterdam.”

“Any luck?”

“Well, all they can tell me is that he seems to take it out of the ABM-Amro branch in The Jordache.”

“The Jordaan. It’s not a jean, it’s a neighborhood.”

“Listen, Miss Condescending, I’m trying to help you.”

“No address?”

“None.”

“So what am I supposed to do—wait in that branch for him to show up?”

“Well, if you keep to the area, don’t forget about the supermarket there.”

I yawn again. “Yes, the Quacken guy.”

“You’re making me sleepy just listening to you.”

“Let me go then.”

Jake quacks like a duck before he hangs up.

After I find Vondra’s
stroopwafels
in the biscuits aisle, I seek out the foreign and specialty food section to ascertain the damage brought on by the change in owners by our biggest Dutch distributor. It’s odd to see American staples like Hellmann’s mayonnaise and Betty Crocker brownie mix classified as exotics, mixed in with cans of Chinese water chestnuts. I spot a jar of Manishewitz gefilte fish. And Manishewitz matzo meal. Oh boy. Every kosher item inside Albert Vroom Supermarkets is from our biggest competitor.

I ask a shop assistant unloading a case of Swiss-fondue fuel, “Do you know where I can find Jan Quacken?”

The assistant points to a metal door near the massive cheese section.

I knock, and a towering man with military-short hair answers the door.

“Hello, are you Mr. Quacken?”

“Yes.”

“Hi, I’m Heather Greenblotz.”

“From the matzo?” says Quacken. A harp’s string of drool steadies between his lips when he says the letter
o
. It breaks as he continues, “We’re going with Manischewitz, cheaper to get from America. Bulk deal.”

“I’ve heard you dropped our line, but this isn’t an official business call. I’m on vacation, and I thought I’d drop in to say hello since you are such a valued buyer.”

“Were.”

“Yes, well, I can say this since I’m on our board—we’re willing to match the price and give you an ad spread wherever you want. My cousin who heads our factory heard there’s a Jewish paper here—”

“Yes, I’m Jewish. Nieuw Israelietisch Weekblad.”

I’m no Jewish scholar, but I’ve heard of Kahns and Rosens and Levines. And Portnoys and Rothschilds and Grossmans and Lipschitzes and Schecters. All
in the tribe
. But
Quacken
?

“Was your name shortened from Quackenberg?” A little quip, so sue me.

“No,” he says, drooling again, without a trace of a smile. So much for the Religion of Humor. He checks the hour on the promotional-cheese wall clock, and I’m escorted out in record time.

Earth is a hep place these days, home to two men who can kiss each other in a Dutch toothbrush store without fear of comment from the other customers: me and two Australian punk rockers (the kind with credit cards) deciding between Lucy and Charlie Brown brushes or ones shaped like a naked man and woman.

It takes a minute for the tree to fall on my toe. One of those nuzzling gay men is my father, Solomon David Greenblotz. Having spent the evening with Charity and her gang, I was now convinced Dad must also have a radical alter ego who loads on the mascara and sports a beehive wig and falsies. But other than his wavy hair succumbing to gray, Dad is dressed exactly as he would dress in Manhattan. Slobby. Unhip ethnic shirt, probably from Bali. Back home, my mother was constantly on my father’s case to update his stuck-in-the sixties fashion sense. She once told me that when she was at Ithaca College, where rich kids go to party in Cornell’s shadow, Ivy League Dad was well liked by her lively crowd, but apparently he was the standout in need of a wardrobe intervention.

The major physical difference I spot off the bat is that he’s lost the glasses and also heaps of weight since his last very brief trip to the United States three years ago. (We saw
Rent
together, and had a rushed latte at the Starbucks closest to the theater.)

In time to the backbeat of a dreadful Euro-pop song, I inch closer. Do I have enough iron in my soul?

“Daddy?”

Dad reels in my direction with a look another father might make if you caught him stuffing dollars in some stripper’s cleavage in a tittie bar.

Face paling, breath short, he says, “Heather, what are you doing here?”

“Buying a toothbrush.”

I’m surprised how natural Dad looks as a skinny man. He’s always seemed to me as if he should be as big as he was, that was just his luck of the bone-size draw, but a smaller frame has emerged. His whole torso is thinner, even his skull seems thinner. He should get some clothes that fit though. Now his cotton pants and appalling natural-fiber sweater just hang off his frame like the dingy clothes former tribal hunters wear when they’re doled out from a nearby missionary.

On the other hand, the object of my father’s affection is painfully groomed. Are those eyebrows plucked? I hate that look on men, gay or straight. Dad’s new love is also dressed head to toe in skintight rubbery dark purple leather that, stretched over his slender build and considerable height, makes him look like one of those long, hot dog–shaped balloons that hired clowns twist into flowers and giraffes at a children’s party. Dad’s lover is sizing me up too, I can tell. With arm on hip, a fey purple knight reaching for a sword in anvil, he stares at me as though I’m covered in some medieval pox. “And this is?” Leather Boy demands.

“My daughter, Heather, from New York.”

Dad’s lover hesitates, but offers a hand. I shake it politely as I give him an even more thorough once-over in return. This grape is who my father has chosen over his matzo career, Mom, me and fifty-four years of New York City living.

“Heather, this is Pieter Eicken.”

Pieter’s face is a definite ellipse, and his quick thin brush stroke of a mouth makes it that much more comic.

“Darling, you look terrific,” Dad says shakily. “A skinny
malink
. You always looked good, but you know, I think you could model now.”

“Hardly,” I say after a small smile. “I’ve been trying to finally check off some of my resolutions.” Flattery is all he has to offer me after three years? I should model?

“It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other,” Dad says.

“Yeah,” I say. “You’ve lost a lot of weight too. You got contacts?”

“Yes.”

The Euro-pop CD is over, and silence fills the toothbrush store.

“Would you like to come over to my place?” Dad finally tacks on.

“I think so.”

“Would you like me to leave you some time with your daughter?” Pieter says. I’ve heard enough clipped English words from him now to pick up that he is Dutch, and not one of Amsterdam’s many expatriates.

“That would probably be best,” Dad says. My father glances at me and I can see him struggling with a decision. He leans over to give Pieter another peck. “About an hour would be good.”

“Very well.”

As Dad and I walk to his place in The Jordaan, a block from Prisengracht Canal, we confine our conversation to inoffensive comments like how picturesque the canals are and how bumpy my flight was.

“It’s not large,” Dad says after endless steps up the centuries-old building toward their loft. “But then nothing in Amsterdam is. The government used to charge taxes by the inch.”

The interior of his place looks like a trendy spread ripped from
Wallpaper
magazine. Chrome and black leather everywhere. Not at all what I expect from the home of the man, who in one of his rare e-mails from Bali, wrote that he was learning to design his own
ikat
, Indonesian textiles. The furnishing in this new home is not too dissimilar from my mother’s hypermodern taste Dad and I always made fun of back in New York City. Perhaps it’s even a bit edgier. There wasn’t an ounce of Dad’s style in our Park Avenue residence—and there isn’t here, either.

Like Mom, Pieter must also be on top, so to speak, when it comes to decorating. Eeesh. Would my father sexually be a bottom or a top? This disturbing thought catches me by surprise, and I immediately will it out of my mind.

“Do you want a cup of tea or coffee?” he asks.

“Coffee would be great.”

“It looks like you’ve been dieting, but I have a package of
stroopwafels
too, they’re Dutch—”

“Cookies, I know. I guess I should try one. My business partner loves them. I have a package of them in my bag from the Albert Vroom Supermarket.”

“That’s funny. That’s the chain that stocks our products.”

“Not so coincidental. Jake knew I was coming here and asked me to drop in. All the shelf space has gone to Manischewitz. I tried to make a pitch for our brand. The manager wouldn’t hear a word I had to say.”

“That’s kind of surprising. Who did you talk to? Quacken?”

“You know him?”

“Yes. Sort of. I’ll talk to him. He’s…how do I put this?”

“Mean? Jewish?”

“No, um—gay. He used to be involved with Pieter. But I was talking to him for years when I ran the factory. I didn’t think he’d go that far. He dropped the whole line?”

“The whole line.”

“Incredible.”

“Do you think he’ll out you to the matzo world?”

“Jan Quacken? Not a chance.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“He is happily married and has three kids.”

“So, Dad, you know from my math grades that I’ve never been too good at pattern recognition, but is every Jewish man living in Amsterdam gay?”

Dad laughs. “The ones I know.”

“Is Pieter Jewish?”

“No. His parents are very active in their church.”

“Does Pieter have a Jewish fetish?”

Dad laughs. “I never thought of that before. I guess he does.” As Dad puts the kettle up, I go to get a better look at the framed erotic photos on the wall. I can handle this, I sell myself. Sold too fast. On one half of the first photo I examine is my father’s face, eyes shut in what appears to be ecstasy. A black man’s erection frames the other side like a tree branch. Dad comes out of the kitchen with a coffeepot and a plate of crisscrossed sugary
stroopwafels
.

“Pieter’s photographs. He’s quite respected in the Dutch gallery circuit. Nudity is no big deal in Europe.” I’ve heard that preemptive voice before. Dad used it when I came home from school in third grade and the budgie my parents had given me (in lieu of a sibling) had escaped her cage and flown out the window.

Still I try to be nonchalant. “Just checking them out.” It gets harder: the next jaw-dropper I spot is an enormous close-up of an asshole over the fireplace. “Is that yours?” I ask for lack of anything more appropriate to say.

“No,” Dad says quickly. “That’s Pieter’s—he used a timer.”

“Oh,” I say in a teeny voice, mildly relieved.

“Mine’s in the kitchen.”

“I think I need to sit,” I say.

“You’ve got the right house,” Dad says dryly to my extended silence. “This is who I am now.”

“It’s just that, well, I kind of thought you were a newbie to this. You know, bi-curious, like you see in the personals.” Averting my gaze now to the only clothed artwork I see, a sculpture of a Roman warrior with a prominent codpiece, I add, “I thought you have to creep before you walk.”