The Puzzle King (11 page)

No, Seema didn’t think he was a fine man. He was quiet. Moody. Unassertive. Not the kind of fellow who could walk into a room full of people and make himself known. He was one of those pale Jewish types who lived in their heads. Seema hated men like that. By now, she believed she could size them up right away: soft damp hands, indecisive, always measuring their words. And worst of all, she knew that they would love her in a tentative, trembling way.

Not like the man from last night, who smelled of fine leather and tobacco and called her “sugar.” Jewish men spoke a jagged English or, like Simon, used oddly formal language when they talked, which, in his case, was hardly ever. The men she liked had straight noses and wore suits that were hand tailored. They didn’t dress in clothes that were too big for them or chew with their mouths open and smell of onions. When the men she liked made fun of the Jews with their hooked noses and stooped shoulders, she laughed along with them and never told them that she was a Jew herself. Why should she? No one ever asked.

Aunt Hannah kept talking about the wedding: the leg of lamb for fifty; the bottles of French wine Uncle Paul had stored in the cellar; how beautiful the synagogue looked, particularly the chuppa, which was decorated with gardenias to match the ones in Flora’s hair. Seema smiled secretly, imagining the look on the faces of all those men if they could see her inside a synagogue.

As they drove up the circular driveway, Seema could see Uncle Paul standing on the front porch, already dressed in his black tuxedo pants. When the car stopped, he ran around to the passenger side of the car and opened the door. “CeCe,” he shouted. “Let me take a look at you.” He grabbed her bag and helped her out of the car. “You are a sight for sore eyes,” he said, standing back and taking in the full image of his niece. “Quite a sight indeed.”

If anyone would notice that she was drawn and slightly hung-over, it would be Uncle Paul. He’d keep it to himself at the time, and then, maybe months later, he’d drop it into a conversation. For now, he just asked, “You working hard, honeybunch?”

“No,” she answered flatly. “I’m fine. I’m excited about Flora’s wedding, that’s all. Really excited.”

“Yeah, well, no one’s as excited as Miss Chatterbug,” he said. “She’s had us going since early this morning. Honestly, Simon must be a very patient man. Either that, or he has no idea what he’s getting into and he’ll be dead within six months. C’mon inside. Your sister’s eager to see you.”

For the past ten months, Seema had barely tolerated Flora’s giddiness. Flora the scatterbrain, she thought, was always in a tizzy about something and now it was this. But today Seema would exclaim about her sister’s dress and the gardenias, and she’d embrace Simon. And who knows, maybe she’d even manage a couple of tears at the ceremony. So she was taken aback when she opened the door to Flora’s room and found her sitting on her bed, dressed in nothing but her chemise.

“Hey Mrs. Phelps,” said Seema, sounding as upbeat as she could. “
Finally
, the big day. You must be so excited.”

“I am, I really am,” said Flora, crossing her legs and resting her chin in the palm of her hand. But her voice was anything but excited.

“So why the long face?” asked Seema.

“I don’t know if I can do this. It’s just so much.”

Seema sat down on her sister’s bed and put her hand on her knee. “What do you mean, so much? You love him, don’t you?”

“Oh yes,” said Flora. “It’s just that … you’re the only one who will understand this. I’m nervous about the love part.”

Seema squeezed her sister’s knee. “Oh sweetie, I know a little something about that. Don’t worry, it’s surprisingly easy. There may be some awkward fumbling at first, but you’ll figure it out. Everybody does. And once you get the hang of it, it’s not bad.”

Flora looked at her sister as if she were seeing her for the first time. “Noooo,” she shook her head. “I’m not worried about that part. It’s the love part. I mean the real love part. The thing is, you don’t just wake up one day and know how to love somebody. You have to learn it somewhere. Look at Ruth and Lev. From the moment they were born, they knew that Aunt Hannah and Uncle Paul loved them the best, and every day they got to practice it. Simon’s been on his own since he was nine. I never really knew our father, and Mama is—well, I’m sure she loves us in her own way—but she sent us here when we were so young, she really didn’t have time to love us in that way. Uncle Paul and Aunt Hannah love us. But that’s almost like secondhand love, because they feel sorry for us, and they had to take care of us. And you and me, we love each other, but in a faraway kind of way. Neither of us has ever had someone who loves us the most and would do anything for us. What if Simon and I have children someday and we don’t know how to love them? It’s so awful, the thought of that.”

Whatever she said now would matter for a long time, so Seema thought hard before she spoke. Flora was right about one thing: Nobody had ever taught them to love. When their mother shipped them off to America, she told them it was because of how much
she cared about them that she was making this big sacrifice. But to them it felt like rejection and abandonment. They both understood about survival, about being polite in order to ingratiate themselves to strangers. Flora, more than she, was charming and shrewd about appearing more helpless than she was so that people would want to help her. For her part, she knew about letting herself be admired. She understood desire. But love? The kind of love that meant giving yourself completely to another without expecting anything in return? That’s what Flora was talking about. What did either of them know about that?

Seema bit her thumbnail as she thought about these things. “You’re right, we’re not like Ruth and Lev,” she said. “Every love is different, even though I think they all require a leap of faith. You have to let yourself trust somebody even when it feels like the scariest and least likely thing to do. This is something I think is easier for you to do than it is for me. You and Simon already know how to make each other happy. You tell each other what’s in your heart, and I’m assuming there aren’t many secrets between you. You’re creating your own kind of love. You’re already doing it. I think that’s the best two people can do.”

How long had it been since they’d talked about private things? Flora leaned against Seema’s back. It was the kind of cozy gesture that she wouldn’t have thought about twice when they were children in Germany. But since they’d come to America, their relationship had changed enough so that she wouldn’t presume such an intimacy.

“I know,” said Flora. “But what if we’re not good at it?”

“I didn’t know if I’d be able to take care of Lulu,” said Seema, “but now I don’t think twice about it.”

“Lulu?” laughed Flora. “Lulu’s a dog who slobbers all over you and leaves muddy paw prints on your bed. That’s kind of
different from a man who wears a coat and a tie and a tiepin to work everyday, wouldn’t you say?”

“That’s my point, you nitwit,” said Seema. “It doesn’t matter that Lulu’s a dog. I love her and I’ll do what I have to do to keep her safe. Maybe that’s the most love I’ll ever have for anybody, but it’s real and no one’s had to teach me how to do it. I know Simon’s not a dog, or at least I don’t think he is, but I guess that’s how it works.”

She raised her eyebrow and Flora elbowed her playfully in the ribs. Their faces were close enough together so that she could smell her hair. It smelled sweet and talcy, just as it did when she was a little girl.

Flora jerked away and studied Seema’s face from a distance. “What’s this?” she asked, running her fingers over the red marks on her face.

Seema covered her cheeks with the palms of her hand. “Oh these silly chicken scratches? They’re nothing. I was just playing around.”

“Playing around with what, some scissors and a knife?” asked Flora.

“You’re being a little overly dramatic, don’t you think?” she answered, the tartness back in her voice. She looked at her watch. “If we keep on blabbing like this, the wedding will be over before you even get there. Don’t you think you ought to get dressed?” Flora kept her eyes on her sister’s cheeks as she got up off the bed and went to her closet.

The dress was made of ivory lace over a satin floor-length sheath with a high collar and what must have been a hundred Jacquard buttons that ran from behind the neck to below the waist. The sleeves were long, with one little button at each wrist. Seema had not seen the dress before. “It’s beautiful,” she sighed. “I can’t wait
to see it on you. Just one thing, though. By the time Simon gets all those buttons undone, you could both be very old people.”

Flora giggled and put the dress back in the closet. She sat down on the bed and rested her head on Seema’s shoulder. “I wish Mama and Margot could see me,” she said.

“I know you do,” said Seema. “I wish Margot were here, too.”

F
LORA WAS A SHAKY BRIDE
. Aunt Hannah and Uncle Paul walked down the aisle on either side of her, but she was trembling so badly that the leaves from her gardenias cascaded dramatically to her shoulders. There was a wispy smile on her face. It looked as if at any moment she might burst into tears—or wild laughter. The piano player cranked out a lugubrious version of Mendelssohn’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, but people craned their necks and sighed nonetheless.

Pissboy stood in the back of the synagogue, where a draft of cold air seeped through the spaces between the two old wooden doors. The women hugged their shawls tighter around their shoulders, but rivulets of sweat collected in the creases of fat around Pissboy’s neck. He eyed the sapphire ring on Mrs. Futterman’s finger and the fox stole around Mrs. O’Mara’s neck.
Easy pickings
, he thought to himself, then forced his attention back to the front of the synagogue, where his friend stood, looking scared and more serious than ever in his long black waistcoat and black embroidered yarmulke.

Pissboy saw marriage as a dead end. He’d done well for himself on the street, and a wife and children would only cramp his style. He shoved his hand in his pocket and wrapped his fingers around the silver and ebony cigarette case he had just acquired. It felt cool and substantial, which comforted Pissboy and reassured
him that the life he had chosen for himself was the right one. He rubbed his thumb around the smooth ebony inlay. Simon was an odd duck, he thought. He’d probably like being married.

Seema stood at the front of the synagogue holding the gold band that Flora would slip onto Simon’s finger. Little Flora was all dressed up in her gown and her rouge and white gloves. She looked older than her nineteen years, yet she still had the sweetness of a child about her. Seema used to think that Flora was her mother’s reward for having endured her. Whenever their mother would reprimand Seema for some unkind act or word, she would add, “Why can’t you be more like Flora?” Despite that, Seema adored her younger sister. She remembered baby Flora’s feet. They were so tiny, her toes all one size. When she’d take a little foot into her mouth and pretend to chew it up and swallow it, Flora would writhe and giggle. The foot was sweet and squishy in her mouth, like an éclair.

Simon was watching Flora behind his spectacles with a look Seema had never seen in a man’s eyes before. It wasn’t lust. It was more raw and agitated than that. Whatever it was, Flora seemed to tame it as she came closer. His lips were parted slightly and he kept taking deep gulps of air. Flora stopped shaking, and as she got closer to Simon, his breathing steadied. Her face relaxed into a genuine smile and their eyes hooked into each other’s. A kind of peace fell over the synagogue. Even the piano player must have felt it as she released the final chord of the “Wedding March” into its natural, exhilarating crescendo. It wasn’t any one thing that made Seema start to cry, but when she did, the salt from her tears stung the marks on her cheek, which reminded her of the man from the night before, which for some reason only made her cry harder.

“T
AKE OFF YOUR GLASSES.
”

“I see badly without them.”

“Take them off anyway.”

Simon slipped the glasses from behind his ears. All he could make out was a blur of pink and the exquisite roundness of the woman who stood before him. The candle on the dressing table was sending flickered shadows across the bed, and the floorboards creaked every time he shifted his weight. Flora ran her fingers through his hair, making concentric circles on the base of his skull with her forefingers.

“Your hands feel so soft,” he said.

She pulled his head toward her and he rested it on her bosom. He could feel her heart beating underneath the lace. Neither of them was breathing.

“Come, let’s sit down,” Simon said, taking her by one hand and sliding his glasses back on with the other.

A blue chenille spread with pink and yellow flowers covered the bed. Aunt Hannah and Uncle Paul had paid for their honeymoon at this New Rochelle inn called the Lavender House. Uncle Paul said it was the place where all the “lovebirds” went after they were married. Simon tried to ignore the smell of stale perfume drifting up from the pillows, choosing to believe that he and Flora were the only lovebirds ever to stay in this little room. But there was evidence to the contrary: the framed needlepoint on the wall, which said, “Love Makes a House a Home,” and the freshly cut white roses that the owners had discreetly placed in a silver vase on the dressing table.

Flora and Simon sat down on the bed and laughed uneasily as their knees bumped together. Simon stared up at the needle-point then took off his glasses for a second time before putting
his arms around Flora. “
You
are my home,” he said. “I am so very happy.”

She leaned her body into his until their hips were touching. He began to unbutton the one hundred Jacquard buttons on the back of her dress. “You’re locked in here,” he said, putting his glasses back on. “So unlock me,” she answered, shimmying out of the dress. That left only her chemise, which was far more forgiving and less protective of the parts it was meant to hide. He kissed her in places he had never been before. She tasted like licorice.