For a couple of days after I think how I would have liked it to turn out. I wouldn’t show any signs I disliked her, was annoyed or irritated by her. If I did and it was evident to her I’d quickly apologize, saying it was something in me, personal, being away from my work maybe, maybe worried about my kids, too much of that good lemon vodka last night or bad sturgeon, other excuses, but nothing she’d done. If she apologized for being such a chatterbox, as she said of herself once, covering her mouth with her hand, I’d say “Great, chatter away, don’t hold back for my sake, because most of what you’re saying is interesting and new to me, and better someone who talks and makes sense than keeps sullen and still.” We’d go here, there, lunch, dinner with Marguerite, stop for coffee, tea for her, bulki, torte or whatever the plural for them, which I’d ask her for, I’d suggest she take me inside the Kremlin, the Tolstoi and Chekhov museums, whatever church and monastery she wants me to see in the city and outside it. At lunch I’d give her some of the plastic sandwich bags I brought from New York and would say “Butter all the bread you want and stick them in the bags and the bags into your pocketbook. Less messy, and the food’s only going to go to waste or be taken home by the kitchen staff. I’d take some myself but we do all that kind of buttering and cheese-taking and other secret hoarding at the hotel’s breakfast buffet every day.” Children’s toy store, Pushkin museum again, where I might say maybe she has a point about the Van Goghs and I’ve been duped as much as the next guy about his work, since I’m no art expert, exhibition hall of contemporary Russian painting she spoke about and I’d wanted to see but begged off because I didn’t want her lecturing me. I’d take her up on teaching me ten Russian words and a couple of phrases and one complete sentence a day and testing me occasionally on the Russian alphabet till I could read or at least sound out all the stores’ names and street signs. We’d talk about books and stories we’ve read, plays we’ve seen, she here, I in the States. Farewell dinner at a Czech restaurant Marguerite and I had talked weeks ago about ending our trip with. We’d toast to one another, to good literature, to Tolstoi and Chekhov and Babel, Ahkmatova and Tsvetaieva and the endurance of all great art, to the success of Marguerite’s project, to my work at home, to Svetlana and everything she does and for being such a fine interpreter and companion and friend and showing and teaching me things I never would have seen or known, to our two girls and all our families and friends, to returning to Moscow soon, to her visiting America and our being her sponsors and me her guide for a day or two, to continuing good relations between our countries, democracy in hers, to eternal peace between them, peace and disarmament everywhere and good health and happiness and cooperation everywhere too and more dinners for the three of us like this one, future toasts. Then we’d ask the restaurant to order a taxi and we’d drop her off at a metro station, kiss each other’s cheeks, give her her five days’ salary and a twenty-dollar tip and some kind of present — one of the scarves Marguerite brought as presents from America, cologne from America or probably both if she hasn’t given them away yet. Or I’d get out of the cab and help her out and then kiss her, or we’d drive her home no matter how far out of the way and wait in the cab till she got in her building. Or I’d walk her to her first-floor hallway and stay there till she was upstairs and in her apartment or had enough time to get inside. Or we’d cab straight to our hotel and give our presents and enough extra fare in dollars for the cab to take her home.
Back in New York Marguerite says “It’s so strange to think the last day you see some person, very active and energetic and seemingly healthy, is the last day of that person’s life, or the last night.” “Very odd,” I say, “very.” “And I forgot to tell you. That Katya — you remember her, Svetlana’s friend who went over there with the police? Well she said Svetlana was planning to give us a little party at her place after her last workday, or really not so little. After dinner, that she would invite some of her friends-interpreters and people in teaching and editing — and ask me for names of people I’d seen who might want to come, or anyone I wanted. I doubt many of them would have come, unless they lived close by. And I would have done what I could, without hurting her in any way, to dissuade her. But that’s something for her to want to do, since she was short of money and you’d think she’d be too tired that day to give it. I’m thinking now though. I’m having this very bad thought, without wanting to sound as if I don’t appreciate what she wanted to do, but that her stroke saved us from it. It would have been the last thing I wanted, at her place or any place but, to be honest, less at her place. Her friends were probably bright and nice but a bit dull. Or maybe not, but you know, I just wouldn’t see the reason for the party. I don’t know how we could have refused it though, do you?” “Too tired and busy. We were leaving in a day and a half and you needed to see some more people or do research or go over your notes or something. And we also had to pack and were almost too tired for even that.”
THE CALLER
My wife answers and says “It’s for you,” and hands me the cordless and I go into the kitchen with it because she’s working in the living room and shut the door and say hello and a woman says “Jack, hi, it’s Ramona Bauer,” and I shout “What, Ramona Bauer? — not my old friend Ramona,” and she says “That’s right, and my old friend Jack, how are you?” and I say “God, how are you, I’m fine, but how are you and what have you been doing?” and she says she’s still in New Haven, different house though, and has two children, girl in college, boy graduating high school, girl has been a delight her entire life and at the very top of her class since kindergarten and is already a fantastic scientist, boy has some emotional problems but nothing that won’t be solved, she and her husband are divorcing after being married close to nineteen years and together for twenty-two, and I say “Sorry to hear that, it must be a very difficult thing to go through, especially for the children,” and she says “Not as much as it’s been for everyone enduring the two of us living together the last five years, and if you’re saying part of my son’s problem is because of the breakup, that’s true but a small part of it and will also be worked out,” and I say “Well good, I’m glad. I remember your husband. He has an unusual Slavic name I could never pronounce or spell,” and she says “Kaczmarek,” and I say “Kaczmarek, I still wouldn’t know how to spell it without seeing it, but he liked to climb mountains and jump from airplanes, and was a radio producer or assistant to one last time I saw you, which was when I drove to New Haven when you were living together,” and she says “Now he’s a TV and movie producer — documentaries mostly,” and I say “Good for him. I also read the obituary of your mother and sent you a note about it through their old address,” and she says “You did? I never got it though my father was still living there till about five years ago,” and I say “He’s all right, I hope,” and she says “Ninety-one and still, last I heard, never a health problem and barely a checkup, knock wood,” and she raps something twice, and I say “Anyway, I sent the note,” though now I remember I wanted to and maybe even wrote it but never sent it out, and she says “If he got it he never told me — did you address it directly to me?” and I say “Yes, with probably something about my condolences to your whole family,” and she says “That was sweet of you — believe me, if I’d received it I would have replied,” and I say “That’s okay, it happens. How is your brother, by the way — still in films? Because I haven’t seen his name on one for it must be fifteen years, but then there’s few American films I go to though I think I would have caught his name in the ads if he had any billing,” and she says “Listen, less we say about him or any of my family, the better. I’ve sort of cut myself off from all of them, even my father — imagine,” and she laughs, “their little pip-squeak Ramona, the one who could always be bossed around and whom they treated as if she never and could never grow up. Well, they still treat me that way and I’m fifty-three, so I just said — this was in relation to my divorce when I told them—‘Fuck you, gang,’ and I don’t hear from them anymore, not even my oldest and closest sister and certainly not my wacko brother,” and I say “She — but you don’t want to talk about it,” and she says “No, what?” and I say “The oldest one, Denise or Diana, lived in Mount Kisco, didn’t she?” and she says “What a memory you have about things I like to forget. Dina still does — Ms. Stability — hasn’t moved or been upset by anything in forty years,” and I say “On Elderberry Street, number one-o-four or six,” and she says “Eight, but still, that’s fantastic and you even got the berries right this time,” and I say “I didn’t use to?” and she says “I don’t know, didn’t you? For I was only kidding, but what about your family — your mother?” and I say “She’s old and ailing and not altogether there sometimes — her memory of what you just tell her goes pretty quickly but she’s still good with the distant past — she’s living in the same apartment where you first knew me, though with a full-time companion,” and she says “What a dear woman — I’m sorry she’s not well — please mention we spoke and give her an extra big hug from me next time you see her,” and I say “Will do,” and she says “I’m serious — tell her I still think of her fondly and give her that hug,” and I say “I’ll probably see her later today — I do almost every day for at least an hour, so I’ll do what you say,” and I will tell her though more likely tomorrow but won’t give the hug — it would seem too silly: “Here’s a hug from Ramona Bauer, woman I was engaged to almost thirty years ago, remember her?” and passing on kisses and hugs even to my own children isn’t something I like to do, and she says “What about the rest of your family — your brothers and sisters, they all well?” and I tell her one died in a bicycle accident twelve years ago last week, one’s a fully recovered alcoholic now a social worker in alcohol abuse, another moved to Texas to open a macrobiotic restaurant and we hardly hear from her anymore, the fourth has been married four times in the last twelve years and has seven children and now seems to have taken up with the future number five—“I don’t know what she’s got but it’s something that hasn’t slackened,” and she says “Wow, some rundown and such woe, and your father? — because you didn’t mention him,” and I say “Yes, seventeen — no, eighteen years ago this January,” and she says “I’m sorry, but I’m glad your mom’s still around — she was a doll, treated me wonderfully, comfortably, one of the family.” “And my father didn’t, I know — well, mixed marriage and all, which we almost had with almost mixed children. Not that it meant anything to us but he sure wasn’t keen on it — he was from a very religious family and was observant himself till just a year before I was born when both his parents died,” and she says “I understand, I’m not saying that — anyway, all in the past,” and I say “Right, in the past, but you have to know that much as he protested, you won him over without even trying,” and she says “Oh, I tried all right — that guy was tough to crack.” “What I meant was your high spirits, brains, good looks and humor and stuff and that you were an acting success so fast,” and she says “Oh yeah, a big big success,” and she laughs and I say “What’s funny?” and she says “Nothing, or success — just nothing,” and I say “Okay…and how’s Leonard What’s-his-name — Stimmell, because I’ve a funny story about him,” and she says “Good ole Lenny, one of my other dearest old friends — I see him whenever I come to town, practically — he’s such a gas, and talk about spirit? Nothing’s gonna stop him but everything will,” and I say “You mean he’s still plugging away at acting without much success?” and she says “Thirty-plus years of the best bit roles in TV commercials and walk-ons in soaps and occasionally small to fairly good roles in hole-in-the-wall theaters and summer stock, and same wife, no kids — they’d interfere with his constant auditions and he said they also couldn’t afford them, Laurie still doing temporary office work while pursuing her opera career,” and I say “My story about him touches on that — his commercials,” and she says “You saw him in a waiter’s uniform at a restaurant and asked him for a menu when he was actually performing in a commercial?” and I say “It was at the Belvedere Fountain Café in Central Park — eight years and a few months ago, and he was resting between shoots; I remember it distinctly. My oldest boy was still in that little carrying sack over my chest — a Snugli — and probably snoozing,” and she says “Oh, that’s lovely, precious, and I can just see it, and we never even talked about your own family — are there any others?” and I say “My wife, a younger boy,” and she says “Two — you got your hands full,” and I say “Not so far, and yours turned out okay, or will — but Leonard…he told you he saw me with my baby?” and she says “Someone else I know had the same experience with him in a Soho restaurant — it’s hilarious how he’s typecast,” and she laughs. “But he’s such a sweetie — they should have had children when they could.” “And Myron Rock?” and she says “Three kids, two divorces, slew of groupies.” “I meant — but anyway, so you see him,” and she says “When I come in sometimes — he in fact said he got a nice letter from you regarding his last book,” and I say “I saw it advertised and wrote him care of his publisher something like ‘Glad you hung in there, I couldn’t.’” “So you haven’t?” and I say “Gave it up for good some fifteen years ago, though I’m always reading it.” “Any success?” and I say “A few times at reading it.” “Ho-ho, but the one you wrote him about was his best, didn’t you think?” and I say “Flat, forced, fake and familiar and with a stupid commercial title—