Little Holocausts
by
Susan Tepper
Harry is late picking me up at the train. Everyone else whisked into taxis or
already collected. I stand outside the
old station house looking toward the frozen fields surrounding Cambridge. It took some doing to pry loose from London
but I got here. It feels much colder. Windy. I’m thinking Where the hell can he be, when a brown Rolls of some ancient
vintage lumbers slowly in my direction.
Leaving the car running Harry
emerges, stiff-looking, pale; corpse-like. Coming toward me without actually taking
me in. Typical Harry. Kissing my cheeks European-style yet still managing to
maintain distance. He was always a big phony. The type to put people down when
he and Jack were in Med school. With his tweeds, peaked cap and rakish scarf,
he’s playing his ex-pat status to the hilt. More than a touch of British in his
Hallo darling.
Inside the old car feels stuffy. Tight. Seems
hardly able to move over 30 mph. But, Cambridge. A breathless stone place full
of history; though I have to crane my neck to actually see it. He’s skirting
the old city, driving its perimeters.
As if reading my mind, he announces,
“Paula, I’m giving you the full sightseeing tour.”
Of the fields and open areas?
So far he hasn’t said a word about
Jack not being along. Instead rambling on about Maggie and the kids, mindless
stuff. Finally he pops his first question. “How was the train?”
“Good.”
They do have a Cambridge address – though
not Cambridge. Not the Cambridge I
have come to wander. I wave goodbye to the stone as it flattens into pure
countryside. Harry ignores my hand flapping at the window.
*
In their ample house they keep me occupied with this meal or that, high tea,
discussions of films and books, plus a showing of every piece of jewelry Maggie
has ever designed. Even the garden must be toured – though it’s winter. As if
they’re afraid that once out of reach I’ll run away. I will. I’ll run like
hell! I know in the first twenty minutes.
It’s a strange mix – their home. Large,
sparsely furnished rooms with traditional thick moldings, a rickety antique
chair placed here and there, small lamp tables, the velvet loveseat in a salmon
color, threadbare Oriental rugs scattered haphazardly. Yet the kitchen has been
entirely redone contemporary Milan style; a wrap of stainless steel and granite.
Last time I visited, with Jack, they owned a townhouse in Maida Vale. It may
have held this same furniture. In the narrow up and down of that place this
furniture would have looked appropriate. Here, in the high ceilinged rooms,
everything seems miniaturized. Scaled down; brought to its knees. Passing their
giant Christmas tree I touch a branch as if to confirm its authenticity among
the living. When I pass through the rooms my footsteps on the wood floors
echo.
Maggie is still lovely but much
heavier. Her blonde signature blunt cut, flirty and swingy, has been replaced
by a severe bun. A flowing black tunic top doesn’t hide her hips. “Paula you
are still thin,” she said immediately upon seeing me.
They have set me up in the guest
room. It was Lauren’s before she went to college and then on her own. A few
pieces of girl clothing remain in the closet. I touch them, but can’t feel
Lauren in the fabric which is blank, anonymous. I remember a sweet freckled girl
with a ponytail. She and Maggie didn’t get along. Around them always felt
prickly, Harry jumping in to smooth things over. Lauren was Daddy’s girl. While
Cody, our son, is part me and part Jack. If he were still a little boy, and we
had to divide him, neither of us could live. It’s one of the few things about
our marriage that I still believe. Jack believes he loves Cody more. What an
insane idea! Who can decide they love better than someone else? After all, I am
his mother. Every dark-haired beautiful boy on a skateboard flying past brings
me back to Cody.
*
In the twin-sized bed I can’t relax. I’ve gotten used to the London luxury of
king bed and six down pillows, fluffy white duvet. Though perfectly adequate, this
feels a bit like camping out. At night Harry shuts the heat way down.
“It’s pure cheapness,” Maggie tells
me in the morning. She rushes out of the kitchen returning with a thick wool
sweater. “Here, put this on.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shivering.” She bundles me
into the sweater hugging me tight. Dear Maggie. Sister I never had.
“Harry’s got more money than God,”
she whispers. “We’ll turn it up while he’s in the shower.”
“Harry won’t let you turn up the
heat?”
She’s moved to the stove unwrapping
bacon, placing slices in an iron skillet. I watch as they start to sizzle. “A
nice hot breakfast to help warm you,” she says.
It’s been decades since she left
Germany. First to Cambridge in the States where she met Harry, now to Cambridge
here. Her voice still carries that dark, throaty hush that makes me think of
the Black Forest. I’m second generation Jewish on my father’s side. Jewish will
always be Jewish, he used to say; and that you can’t be a little Jewish. Of Maggie’s childhood I don’t know much, other
than her parents starved after the war. All of Europe starved after the war,
Jack would say – whenever I relayed her
stories about them having no milk or bread. I don’t know whether he actually
likes Maggie. The jewelry she creates are little holocausts – twisted metals that turn in on themselves. Blood
colors in the enamels and the stones she sets perfectly. I’m imagining Jack’s caustic
remarks about the tiny oven she’s so proud of; where she bakes the enamel
brooches and earrings. Maggie, my friend. Magda. I want to take her away.
“Are you sure you want to stay here,
Maggie?” Perched on a stool at the center island I study the gray granite. Icy
under my hands. She looks up from cooking, her china-blue eyes clouding
over.
“Paula, they don’t like me here. The
English still despise the Germans. You know I had them all over for high tea,
once, the women from my book group. They never reciprocated. No one ever
invited me back. I wasn’t even born during that war.”
“How terrible for you.”
She’s turning the bacon slices
carefully. “I get so lonely. But Harry adores it here. Says he’s finally come
home. He makes believe he’s English, takes all the classes, does the pub thing,
the cocktail parties. Can you imagine? He was adopted, you know. His adoptive
father was British but from generations back. So cold to Harry growing up.” I
watch her draining the bacon on a paper towel.
“That smells good,” I say.
“Yes.” She makes a short laugh.
“Harry always had one woman or another. When he was hopping over to the
continent for those medical conferences. Now he’s older. Tired. It’s harder
these days to just hop a plane with so much increased security.”
Not really, I’m thinking. I just
hop planes. Trains. Change where I live in an instant. It’s not hard at all,
taking off your shoes and submitting to a pat-down – no big deal if you are
intent on a fuck.
“Maggie, those women – didn’t it bother
you?”
She shrugs cracking eggs into a
steel bowl.
How damned European of her. Most
American women don’t play by those rules. They leave, kill, or cheat back with
a vengeance.
“We don’t have screens on these
windows,” she’s saying. “It’s impossible to find screens here.”
“Hm?” I gaze toward where she’s
pointing. “What about flies in the summer?”
“We don’t get them.” She’s whisking
the eggs furiously. “Harry said you left Jack.”
No flies in Cambridge.
“Really?” It’s all I can think of
to say.
END
* * * *
*
"Little Holocausts" is part of a new novel in progress by Susan
Tepper.
More about Susan Tepper's widely published work can be found at
www.susantepper.com.
