Joshua Then and Now

  “Get ’em, get ’em,” the Riderettes chanted. But the Riders were down 17–0 at half-time.

  “I’m freezing,” Joshua said to Seymour. “Let’s watch the rest of the game on TV back in my room.”

  As they moved past Izzy, only his owlish shell-framed glasses showing over his Hudson’s Bay blanket, he asked, “Do you have to pee?”

  “No,” Seymour barked. “We’re going to get you that girl now. A real wild one. Wow.”

  Rather than risk the hallelujah streets of Ottawa again that night, the boys decided to order food from Nate’s Delicatessen and to play poker in Seymour’s room, turning in early with tomorrow’s Memorial Day festivities in mind. Izzy pulled Joshua aside to say he couldn’t play. Relieved, Joshua still felt obliged to ask him why.

  “If I win, everybody will be angry with me, and if I lose, they’ll say so what, he can afford it.”

  “Don’t believe him,” Seymour said, overhearing. “He’s going back to his suite because he knows I’m sending the girl in there. She’s going to screw his head off.”

  Their Annual Day couldn’t begin with a champagne breakfast on the site of the “Abbey ruins.” Snowy Kingsmere was shut down for the winter. So they drank their champagne at the gates, Mickey Stein leading them in his Yiddish rendition of “Safe in the Arms of Jesus.”

  “What if somebody comes?” Izzy asked, embarrassed.

  Plump, good-natured Mickey Stein, to whom they had used to hurry with their jokes even back in FFHS days, just for the joy of seeing him heave with laughter, was a milkman’s son. He had been able to afford McGill only because he had won a scholarship. And now, a full professor at Harvard, he pronounced to the sons of the American rich on the nuclear family, male bonding, and cultural patterns among the Assyro-Babylonians in Persia during the Sassanian Dynasty. “Joshua,” he said, “you don’t understand what publication means. I don’t write for the masses. I compose a three-thousand-word argument for publication in a journal with a circulation of, say, fifteen hundred. The editorial committee broods for six months before they accept my piece, and then we write to and fro for another six months, quarreling over commas. A year later my reflections on the eschatology of the heretical dharmas is published, I Xerox two thousand copies for other professors, the Ford Foundation gives me a grant, and I’m able to take Sylvia to conferences in Tokyo, Stockholm, and Grenoble. Where we meet with other bores. And you want to know what? I’m beginning to suspect the delivery of milk is a more socially beneficial activity. Here’s to us, chaverim.”

  Their other academic, sweet Benny Zucker, a dean at UCLA, was not to be outdone. “Scratch Stein here and what will you find? A thwarted Socialist. A loser. Who has he backed in recent elections? Gene McCarthy. He’ll never learn to be a proper goniff. He’s mired in the wrong discipline. But me, I now own a wall of honorary degrees. My legendary services as an industrial consultant are fought over. I have an agent. And once a year he sends me down from the mountain with my tablets. To conventions for overachievers in Hawaii. Or orientation courses for top-level executives on an Arizona ranch. I am even known among the oilmen of Dallas. And wherever I go, standing at the podium, removing my reading glasses to emphasize a point, I tell the movers and shakers that our researches at UCLA, computer-programmed, tested in the field, indicate that there is more stress among executives than bartenders and, furthermore, that there is a definite correlation between energy loss and age. And they shake their heads, flabbergasted, delighted with me, thinking, boy those Jews are clever. You’ve really got to hand it to them.”

  “How much,” Izzy demanded, “do you get paid for such a lecture?”

  “Well,” Zucker said, elated, “not to brag, two grand, minimum.”

  “We had Elie Wiesel speak at our Bond Drive Dinner last summer, we paid him five thousand dollars.”

  “Oh, well,” Zucker allowed, retreating, “it was just a story to amuse the boys. I never suggested others weren’t being paid more.”

  Seymour looked ready to erupt. “Izzy,” he said, “I’ve decided you’re not getting fucked after all. Instead, I’m going to kill you.”

  “I don’t like you either,” Izzy protested, his cheek doing a jig, “but at least I know how to behave.”

  At Laurier House they marveled once more at the crystal ball on the piano and the painting of Wee Willie’s mum. “He wasn’t prime minister for nothing,” Izzy said, pointing out that Joshua’s father-in-law had been a member of King’s wartime cabinet. “I’ve had drinks with the senator. At the Rideau,” he said. “What a gentleman!”

  Finally, they assembled in their private dining room in the Chateau Laurier, all the society’s artifacts already in place.

  “Geez,” Izzy said, astonished, “aren’t you guys ever going to grow up?”

  Lennie Fisher enjoined them to get out of stocks and into commodity futures or gold. “I’ll bet even Izzy would agree with me.”

  “I no longer discuss the portfolios I control in public,” Izzy said, “because I always end up being quoted in the financial pages. Things move up or down, I’m blamed.”

  Everybody congratulated Larry Cohen on his appointment as a deputy minister.

  “What are you being paid?” Izzy asked.

  Reluctantly, Larry told him.

  “You could do a lot better in the private sector. You know how much tax I pay? Five thousand dollars a week.”

  Eli Seligson, whom Joshua had been avoiding, finally caught up with him and pulled out a scathing article about his work from the Detroit Jewish Press. “This is what the authorities on such matters think about the shit you write.”

  Sliding away from him, Joshua proposed the first toast. “Gentlemen,” he said, raising his glass, “I give you William Lyon Mackenzie King.”

  Then Seymour stood on his chair to propose the next toast. “Here’s to the kisses we snatched and vice versa.”

  “Feh,” Izzy said.

  Mickey Stein won the yo-yo contest once more, but then the hockey game turned nasty. “This year,” Seymour said, his smile innocent, “we’re going to allow checking,” and the next thing they knew, Izzy Singer was sprawled on the floor, whimpering, groping for his glasses.

  “God damn it, Seymour, that was hardly necessary.”

  Lennie Fisher began to circle around Seymour, bobbing and weaving.

  “Oh, go away,” Joshua said, “you little suck-hole.”

  “I’ll take him too,” Seymour said, struggling with his jacket.

  “I’ve got a disc problem,” Eli Seligson announced, retreating.

  Mickey Stein began to shake with laughter.

  “Get off the floor, you twitchy little snake,” Seymour yelled.

  “For all your big talk,” Izzy said, “what are you? A sweater manufacturer.”

  “I’m going to wipe him out,” Seymour said.

  Joshua drove Seymour into the bathroom, shutting the door behind them.

  “Go back to your friend,” Seymour said.

  “Oh, cool off, you prick.”

  They both began to laugh. Seymour lifted the seat, moving back further and further, pissing in a high arc, singing, “ ‘I’ll be with you in apple blossom time, I’ll be with you, to change your name to mine.’ … I’m afraid of dying,” he said. “You?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who needs it?”

  “Right.”

  “Did you have a good look at AI Roth?”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “His wife’s having an affair.”

  “How do you know?”

  Zipping up, Seymour winked. “How are the kids?”

  “Fine.”

  “I don’t even know that I like mine. I mean, really like them.” Seymour sighed. “Pauline doesn’t care for me.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “You’re lucky, Josh. Terrific wife. Great kids. Talent. I hate you. I hope you die first.”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “The most fun was the b
ookshop. All those nervy kids coming in, stealing, thinking I didn’t know. Izzy Singer’s a rat. He hurt Benny Zucker. That really burns me. Why did you bring him here?”

  Joshua told him about Izzy Singer being forced to play the violin by his mother, a stream of hot piss running down his leg.

  “Oh, yeah, I remember now. I was there. I don’t know, Josh. I don’t know. We’re going to be forty soon. We’ve got to start being more selective about our friends.”

  When they got back into the suite, Izzy was already into his topcoat. “I don’t feel well,” he said. And, looking imploringly at Joshua, he added, “There’s a plane leaving in forty-five minutes. I’m going to catch it.”

  “O.K.,” Joshua said. “I’ll come too.”

  “But we haven’t even played your Civil War album yet,” Seymour complained.

  “I invited him, I’ll see him home.”

  It was an uncharacteristically subdued, somewhat diminished Izzy who sat with Joshua on the airplane, twitching, as they skittered over wads of moonlit cloud. “What can you see in that animal?” he asked.

  “Seymour?”

  “Seymour.”

  “Appetite.”

  Even though it was late, Izzy insisted that Joshua join him at his mansion for a nightcap. Becky, fortunately, was in bed. So was the butler. Izzy had to fetch the cognac himself. “It’s forty years old,” he said. Surrounded by his possessions, high in Westmount, he seemed reassured. Everything opulent, everything in conflict. A Riopelle. A Chagall. A high modern marble fireplace, its inner frame bronze, surrounded by eighteenth-century English antiques. Round tables dressed in full skirts. Silk embroidered sofas. Velvet cushions. A collection of jade lying on glass shelves. An Aubusson rug. Picture window looking out on the pool. It seemed, at first glance, not so much a home as Izzy’s notion of the ultimate hotel suite. Automatically, you looked around for a check-in desk. Izzy felt it was a pity that Joshua couldn’t see the bathroom off the master bedroom, with its large circular bath and sauna, where the Empress Becky could powder and oil herself before retiring to her atelier. But he did take Joshua into the kitchen. Farmhouse beams. Copper pots of all sizes suspended from the ceiling. Butcher’s block. Commodious counter. Gourmet gas stove. “I had everything ripped out when we moved in,” he said. “Sixty grand, just for the kitchen.”

  “Does Becky know how to cook?”

  “She doesn’t have to.”

  Wearily, Joshua agreed to one more cognac before leaving. Izzy sipped camomile tea.

  “You want to see my library? Two thousand eight hundred books. First editions. The complete Oxford Dictionary. Lots of Judaica. I belong to the Book-of-the-Month. The Literary Guild. The Fortune Book Club. The History Book Club. You name it.”

  Joshua didn’t find out how badly the night had ended for Izzy until some years later, after he had got to know McMaster.

  Before turning in, Izzy had freed his Alsatians from the basement, and then set up his photoelectric cell detector and vibration detector, and ultrasonic alarm system. But he couldn’t sleep. He was consumed with hunger. There was smoked meat in the massive fridge. Bagels. Potato salad. Lox. Chopped liver. He knew that, and just thinking about it fed his hunger pangs. But Izzy also had a problem. His alarms were all locked into a time-set, they couldn’t be switched off manually and would not run down until 6:30 a.m., when staff rose. In order to get at the succulence that awaited in the kitchen, Izzy would have to pass below the photoelectric cell signal, careful not to break its hidden light pattern, which would activate the alarm. He would have to move softly, lest he trip the sensitive vibration detector. It would also be necessary to evade the sound-wave pattern of the ultrasonic system. This called for guile. Cunning Izzy, advancing along the floor of the upstairs hall like an infantry veteran, propelling himself on his elbows, passed below the first light beams. Then he slithered successfully down the stairs. Here, happily, the beams and detectors were all hip-high, allowing for free movement of the dogs. Izzy was able to crawl as far as the kitchen on his hands and knees, one Alsatian sniffing at his asshole, probing with his wet snout, the other lapping at his ear. Carrying God knows how many diseases on that slobbery tongue. Shit. Fuck.

  In the kitchen, still on his knees, Izzy skillfully managed to pry open the fridge and reach up slowly for the smoked meat platter. The chopped liver. Rye bread. Potato salad. Lacking a plate (dishes too high, damn it) or a knife (out of reach too), he spread the stuff on the terracotta floor and triumphantly began to fix himself a sandwich. Then the dogs, agreeably surprised, began to move in on him, tearing the best slices of meat from the platter and lapping up gobs of chopped liver. Shit. Fuck. Cunt. Fending one dog off with his arm, Izzy was just in time to notice the other attacking his sandwich. Enraged, crying, “Bad. Bad,” Izzy began to flail away at the dogs. This they interpreted as play and one of them leaped to his hind legs, breaking a light beam. Which set off the photoelectric cell detector.

  “You putz,” Izzy shouted, leaping up to defend himself.

  Which set off the vibration detector and ultrasonic alarm system.

  Bells rang. Alarms whirred. Spotlights were ignited in the garden. Lights lit up a monitor board in Westmount Police Station. Staff came on the trot. Becky, screaming, locked herself in the bedroom.

  Izzy, struggling with the dogs on the kitchen floor, began to sob. Sirens wailed.

  And, within minutes, two policemen were charging into the house, guns drawn.

  “Please, please. It’s only me. Izzy Singer. There’s been a horrible mistake. A false alarm.”

  10

  ALTHOUGH JOSHUA ESPIED MONIQUE AND HER MOTHER at breakfast the morning after their arrival, seated only two tables away from him on the terrace of the Casa del Sol, he made no attempt to introduce himself. Pretending to read, he fed on surreptitious glances at her mouth, her bosom, her legs. He also contrived to stroll in the vicinity as she lay languorously on the sands in her maddening black bikini, but he pretended to be self-absorbed as he passed. He would never have approached her directly, risking rejection, if not for Dr. Dr. Mueller.

  One evening, just before he parted the beaded door to Don Pedro’s Bodega, he heard the sound of Monique’s laughter coming from inside. A dark, throaty call. She would be standing at the bar, and when one of the officers insulted her, questioning her virtue, he would send him flying across the room with a smartly delivered uppercut. Monique would melt, moaning, into his arms and he would carry her off to his place.

  But did thee feel the earth move?

  Yes. As I died. Put thy arms around me, please.

  Monique was seated at a corner table, sipping wine with Dr. Dr. Mueller, the first three buttons of her blouse undone. They were speaking English together, Mueller carrying on in his most worldly manner. The usual bunch of officers were lounging about, chatting in groups, mindful of Mueller’s seductive intent and respecting his need for privacy. Gentlemen, the lot.

  Provoked by Dr. Dr. Mueller’s presence, Joshua picked up the lie dice from the bar, turned to their table, and asked, “Are you a man or a mouse?”

  The officers appeared to be distressed, if hardly surprised, by his boorish intrusion, but Dr. Dr. Mueller seemed amused. He beckoned to Joshua with a smile tolerant of awkward boys. So he and Monique were finally introduced. They shook hands, French-style. Then he and Dr. Dr. Mueller began to throw dice, ostensibly for drinks. Dr. Dr. Mueller won and, according to the rules of the game, Joshua paid for the poron but they had to drink it at Mueller’s table.

  “I have seen you so often,” Monique said, “but I thought you would never say hello.”

  “Hello.”

  “He calls himself a writer,” Dr. Dr. Mueller said.

  “I could tell you were an artist.”

  “I’m a reporter.”

  “I suspect,” Dr. Dr. Mueller said with a wink, “that our young friend is writing a report about whores. Or why would he be at Casa Rosita so often?”

  But Monique, far from being of
fended, seemed enthralled. “You frequent a brothel here?”

  Trapped between the need to drink quickly and the realization that once he finished his share of the poron he would be obliged to quit the table, Joshua sat there, briefly paralyzed, a stupid grin on his face.

  “The lovely lady is waiting for an answer,” Dr. Dr. Mueller said.

  “I’ve been there with the fishermen on occasion.”

  “Would you take me there once? I have never been to a brothel.”

  “I do not think your mother would approve,” Dr. Dr. Mueller said. “I believe you would be better off going horseback-riding with me tomorrow. My friend Captain González will make the arrangements.”

  “I love horses.”

  “Why don’t you speak French, Dr. Dr. Mueller, as a courtesy to a visitor from Paris?”

  “Do you speak French?” she asked.

  “He picked it up during the war, with the army of occupation.”

  “I see,” she said, her voice gratifyingly icy.

  “Anybody who was not a mouse or, forgive me, a child at the time, fought in the war. I fought for my country. The French fought for theirs. But it’s all over for me now, a closed book. I respect a man for what he is,” he said, thrusting the lie dice at Joshua.

  “You wish to roll again?” Joshua asked, astonished.

  “I think one of the officers would like to have a turn with you. We will excuse you.”

  “Wait,” Monique said. “Do you write in the manner of the avant-garde?”

  Venturing a guess, Joshua said, “Yes.”

  “Have you read Ubu Roi?”

  “Oh, yes, and I enjoyed it enormously.”

  To the indignation of Dr. Dr. Mueller, Monique leaped up, with a perceptible bounce of her marvelous bosom, and took him by the hand. “This has been very pleasant, Gunther. I thank you for inviting me to a drink.”

  “You are going?”

  “My mother is waiting for me.”

  Dr. Dr. Mueller grabbed Joshua by the arm, holding him down in his chair. “Then we will have another game of lie dice after all.”