Never Too Late for Love Page 9

  "I have always been a good and faithful wife, Helen," she told her daughter, who by then was impatient to get back to Chicago and her life there.

  "Sure, Ma."

  "Your father was a good man, a wonderful person."

  "You think I don't know that, Ma? He was lucky to have such a terrific woman."

  "I feel so bad for him," she said, but her meaning, she knew, was lost to her daughter. Their marriage bed had been as cold as ice. She hadn't even done her duty by him and she hoped in her heart that he had found someone to relieve his needs, some woman somewhere who could get rid of his tensions and send him back to her.

  "I was not a good wife, Helen," she said. Her daughter merely nodded. They had been sitting shiva for four days and it was boring Helen, she was sure, hearing all those reminiscences of a long marriage. What else was there to do but talk about the dead father, the dead husband, and their memories of him? She dared not say to her daughter that Herman was quickly slipping from her memory, and if it wasn't for the picture of him on the piano to remind her of his features, she might not have been able to assemble them in her mind.

  "Once, there was another man," she said.

  "You had another boyfriend?" Helen seemed interested as they sipped coffee.

  "He was absolutely gorgeous--a marvelous, brilliant boy."

  "You're kidding, Ma."

  "Heshy Feinstein."

  "Heshy?"

  "In Brownsville, in those days, the Yiddish and English was totally mixed up. His name was Harvey but no one called him Harvey except the teachers at school. He was six feet tall when he was seventeen years old and I was sixteen. He was going to Boys' High School and I was going to Girls' High School and we used to take the subway together. He lived behind us on Douglass Street, and I knew him since we were eight or nine. But it wasn't until I was sixteen that we discovered each other."

  "My God. My name could have been Feinstein," her daughter said.

  She ignored the remark. Her own name had been Goldberg. Frieda Goldberg. At least Herman brought her the name Smith, though God knew where that came from.

  "His father wanted him to be a doctor. He was excellent in science, always doing experiments on his back porch."

  "Did he become one?"

  "I never found out."

  "You haven't seen him since?"

  "Not once. We moved to Eastern Parkway. It was only a few miles away, maybe four, five subway stops. But I never saw him again."

  "Weird," Helen said.

  "Heshy's father owned a grocery store and he wanted him to be a doctor."

  "Do you ever wonder about him?"

  "Not often," she lied, knowing that it had been the single obsession of her life.

  Naturally, she left out all of the important parts, although she would have loved to confide in her daughter. But she worried that her daughter would hate her for what she did to her father. I feel so sorry for Herman, she told herself often. Even now, before the mirror, as her mind searched its secret screen for pictures of Frieda Goldberg and Heshy Feinstein.

  He was shaking the pear tree in his father's yard and gathering the pears in a bucket for Mrs. Feinstein to make stewed dessert. She watched him from the little rusty swing in her own yard, making fun of his efforts, especially when one of the pears hit him on the head.

  "It's not funny. It hurts like the blazes."

  "Poor Heshy."

  He walked over to her and nodded his head and she looked into the shiny curly sweet-smelling hair. He took her hand and put it on the lump that was growing there and she felt it gently.

  "That doesn't tickle," he said. Yet she knew, at that moment, as her finger touched the hard nub of that lump that something had passed between them, and nothing was ever the same from that time on. She opened the fingers of her hand and moved them like fish in the bulrushes of his curly hair, feeling goose flesh rise on her hands and legs and a strange feeling deep inside her and in that place between her legs. It was odd how that memory never dimmed the first signal that something was happening between them, and yet there were things that happened only yesterday that she had trouble remembering.

  Was it really Heshy Feinstein she had seen in the card room, or some apparition? It would not have been the first time that a stranger's face would loom out at her suddenly in a crowd and she would wonder if it was Heshy's face. Sometimes she would hide. Other times, she actually followed the person, until she discovered her error.

  She could also recall, dredge up from her memories, the first sensations, the feelings, the kisses, the delicious gropings, and, of course, that first time on the old couch on her own back porch in the middle of that hot summer. It was the great mystery of her life why she could never, after Heshy, experience such sensations, that joyous release of feelings that came from somewhere deep within her. Why had it disappeared so completely when she left Brownsville? It was as if a dark curtain came down on her life and she experienced all the physical joy of a lifetime in a single year.

  She could even remember the tension of their subterfuge, the ruses and, as they became more intimate, the agony of worry over the coming of her period. Heshy was as paranoid as she was, even though he was always sure to carry protection in his wallet. But even these anxieties would never interfere with the greed for each other, the joy-giving of their lovemaking. It was, of course, more than just the physical thing, and they could not hide their love from their parents, to whom it became a terrible source of concern and alienation. The harassment was bitterly frank, opening deep animosities between the families.

  "My Heshy's too young," his father would remonstrate as Frieda's parents sat together watching the man's growing anger and his wife's less articulate bitterness.

  "So is Frieda."

  "It's ridiculous. It makes no sense. It will ruin my son's medical career if he has to worry about supporting a wife and maybe children. There has got to be an end to this."

  They could hear their parents clearly through the vents in the cellar, where they had fitted themselves out a place among a suite of cast-off furniture. The cellar had a back door that led to the yard, and above them they could hear every movement and sound, every creak of danger in the house.

  "At it again," he said, but she was not listening. Instead, she was concentrating on the joy that was spilling over and trying to be silent as she bit her fist and felt the suffusion of her inner pleasure and his own climactic movement. Even in the afterglow, they could not escape the sounds of their parents' bitterness.

  "Somebody has to move away," Heshy's father shouted. "I can't. I have a business."

  "Well, I like it here," her father yelled.

  "Just keep your son away from my daughter!" her mother screamed. "She's too good for him anyway."

  Whereupon they would shut out the sounds with the palms of their hands and proceed again to reach out for this mysterious thing that had brought them together.

  They were, of course, being young, hardly interested in consequences. They felt they could continue to be clever in their subterfuge, and even her mother's hesitant probings about the state of her virginity were deflected, leaving her mother in little doubt that she was still intact.

  "Surely you trust your own daughter. You think I'm going to jeopardize my life?" In those days, an unwanted pregnancy was a stigma from which there was little recovery. Not even a lifetime could erase the damages it would cause, and this scared them the most, especially when they knew they had tempted fate.

  "I want you as close to me as is humanly possible," she cried more than once, slipping off his condom.

  "My sweet, beautiful, wonderful, darling love."

  But what might not have been seen was sensed, and her father soon announced that they were moving to Crown Heights, a neighborhood about ten miles away.

  "It just can't go on like this, Frieda. You're too young. He's too young. Mr. Feinstein might be a horrible person, but he's right. Maybe if we moved away and you saw him less often. Maybe then."

/>   "I won't go!" she cried.

  "You'll go."

  "I'll run away. We'll elope. I'll get pregnant."

  She could see her father's face flush a deep red, which frightened her because she truly loved him, a gentle man who, when risen to anger, could be irrational and sometimes violent.

  "I don't really mean that, Papa. Don't think what you're thinking." That calmed him. Heshy was far harder to placate.

  "When are you moving?"

  "Tomorrow."

  "The bastards. They wouldn't even give us time to prepare."

  "Prepare what?"

  "To get the hell away from them. To get married. You think I can possibly live without you?"

  "And me without you?" She remembered her shoulders suddenly shaking hysterically and his valiant efforts to soothe her until he too was crying, their tears mingling. Even now, she could taste the salt in them, a taste never to be duplicated in her lifetime. In the cellar, they clung to each other. They went so far to risk exposure that night--miraculously, or so she believed--they stayed together without discovery and were back in their respective rooms by morning. It was a night whose pain was to remain with her, a kind of symbol of the highlight of her life. In the aridity of her later years, she marveled at the sheer physical wonder of it, those hours together, intertwined, never uncoupling, as if a moment apart would destroy them both. They had long since explored the mysteries of themselves. No secrets of their bodies or minds escaped their mutual probings.

  "I will love you forever and forever and forever." She could still hear the sound, the rhythm and timbre of his voice, strong and assured, as it thrilled her, promised her.

  She had said, "They will never tear us apart. No one will ever tear us apart."

  And, in a way, they hadn't because the memory never disappeared nor lost its magic, even now, as she looked into the mirror detesting the sagging lines of her face, the drooping skin around her eyes, the jowls, though she liked to think that she looked ten years younger than her sixty-eight years.

  She got into her nightgown without a glance at her body, which also had run to sag and flesh, but because it was of little interest, except for the state of its basic health, she didn't care. She flicked on "The Tonight Show" and when she grew drowsy, she flicked it off again and slipped into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

  But the next morning, after she dressed, made her breakfast, and cleared away the dishes, she remembered her brief recognition. When the telephone rang, she knew it was Dotty, who was wondering when she would be ready to go to the pool, their daily ritual.

  "Not today, Dotty," Frieda said.

  "You don't feel good?"

  "I have a headache." Poor Herman, she suddenly thought, remembering the thousand times she used that excuse.

  "You always have a headache," he said angrily as he tossed in the bed, turning his back to her.

  You give me a headache, she wanted to say, but to her credit, she never said it. Not out loud, at least.

  When she was sure Dotty had left for the pool, she went outside and, taking her tricycle, pedaled to the management office to make the inquiry that she knew was inevitable. Might as well get it over with.

  "There are three Harvey Feinsteins," the middle-aged shiksa clerk with the blue-gray hair said. Her harlequin glasses hung on a jeweled chain around her neck.

  There were always more than a dozen Harvey Feinsteins whenever, in weak moments, she was tempted to find him again. But she had never wished to intrude on that vast forest of Harvey Feinsteins. She jotted down the addresses and cycled over to the nearest one, where she had a card-playing friend, Toby Schwartzman, another widow. The widows held the clear majority and were a constant source of humor among the marrieds and themselves, which they bore, but privately resented. She knocked at Toby's door, three doors down from the first Mr. Feinstein. Toby was eating pistachio nuts and listening to Oprah.

  "You didn't go to the pool?"

  "I had a little headache."

  They gossiped a little, talked about last night's canasta and "The Tonight Show."

  Then Frieda asked the question. "You know the Feinsteins?" She paused. "The ones in number six?"

  "I know them to say hello. Why?"

  It was always the "why" that she waited for, planning a strategy to deflect the skillful yenta probings.

  "My daughter's cousin by marriage, Phyllis, is named Feinstein and she says they're in Sunset Village."

  "She's from Chicago?"

  "No, Phyllis is from Boston."

  "These Feinsteins are from Pittsburgh. He's eighty years old, in a wheelchair."

  After some more small talk, she left, satisfied that she had made only the most casual inquiry, an important consideration in a world of yentas that had to know even the most minute detail of every personal transaction.

  It took her three hours to track down the second Feinstein, who lived in the fancy four-story elevator condominium. She actually parked herself on a bench in front of the elevator shaft watching for movement from number twelve, which was on the third floor just off the corner and clearly visible on the open balcony-corridor. She had, of course, checked the name plates on the mailboxes. "Harvey Feinstein" was clearly marked. Seeing it caused her heart to lurch. A widower, she thought, hoping that perhaps today was the day her horoscope predicted something of value in her life. The sun was hot and soon she could not bear it on the bench, nor could she bear the curiosity.

  She noticed a magazine addressed to H. Feinstein on the shelf for publications above the mailbox. Scooping it up, she proceeded to go up in the elevator and, without giving it much thought, pressed the buzzer of number twelve. She put her ear against the door, heard stirrings, and then her anxieties began because she had not really figured out a cover story. She heard the door click, then open, and a small man in bathing trunks stood before her. She towered over him and looked at him, perhaps with contempt for his smallness and his not being the Harvey Feinstein.

  "Mr. Feinstein?"

  "Yes."

  "I found this outside the door."

  "They didn't put it in the mailbox?"

  "How should I know?" she said. Then she went down the elevator, found her tricycle and peddled home.

  She was sticky from perspiration when she got into her condominium. She also felt silly and decided that was enough looking for one day. She took the addresses, put them on her dresser, changed into her bathing suit, and went off to the pool, where Dotty and their friends were sitting around squinting under big hats, talking about their children and grandchildren. She lay back and dozed. Their words floated repetitiously in the air.

  When she opened her eyes again, the sun had shifted, throwing long shadows across one half of the pool. Occasionally, an announcement of someone's name would blare over the loudspeaker system. They only allowed one announcement per person per day to cut down on the cacophony. Rising, she went to the edge of the pool and dipped her feet into the water, now warm from the intensity of the sun.

  Her eyesight was remarkable considering her years and, being slightly farsighted, she had a longer range of vision than most of her friends. That was why from her vantage point, she was able to see the faces across the pool with uncommon clarity. Again she imagined, since she dared not believe it was actually him, that she saw him, full-face now, squinting into the sun, which was coming over her shoulder. He was standing, flaying his arms, in some personal form of exercise, a common sight.

  She felt the blood surging in her heart, the beat amplified in her chest as she lifted her feet out of the water and circled to the edge of the shadows to observe the man more closely. He was bald, gray--where there was still hair. His skin was not quite tan enough to be the badge of the longtime resident, but in the way he moved, despite the thickness around his middle, she detected a familiarity, even an intimacy as she mentally stripped him of his bathing trunks and visualized the still-familiar outline of his rump and what hung in front of him. She looked around her to see if anyone had read her
thoughts, then walked slowly toward the pay telephone. She found the quarters she kept in the pocket of her bathing suit and dialed the Sunset Village Clubhouse.

  "Will you page Mr. Harvey Feinstein. He's out by the pool."

  In the pause that followed, she closed her eyes tightly, wishing, hoping it was him, trusting in the vividness of her memory. It was, after all, more than half a century since she had seen him last. Then the name blared over the speaker system with a grating, tremulous, unmistakable sound. She saw him stir suddenly, then look about him and upward in the direction of the sound.

  A woman who had been reclining near him also stirred, sitting up abruptly, a trace of fear in her face. At their stage of life, with their progeny spread all over the country, every telephone call brought a stab of anxiety. The man looked at the woman and shrugged, then searched, a hand over his eyes to shield the sun, for the phone box, which, coincidentally, was next to Frieda. She turned slightly, hiding her face, pressing downward to break the connection. Her knees shook as she felt his presence, so close that she imagined she could smell the scent of his body, another lingering memory.

  "This is Harvey Feinstein," he said into the phone, the intonation clear as it was in her memory.

  "Hung up, you say. Did they leave a message?"

  She turned only after he hung up, watching the familiar walk or the familiar walk that was encased in an older man's body. He once was slender, lithe, had youthful energy. But it was him, unmistakably--Harvey Feinstein. She felt a gasp in her throat as if deep within her she was hungering to reveal her presence.

  "It's me, Frieda," she wanted to cry out. When she got herself under control, she went back to where her friends were sitting.

  "Who did you call?" Dotty asked.

  "The dentist," she said, barely audible. "I've got a toothache."