Authors: Natalie Goldberg
And then I’d do a painting postcard just for myself. It would have the clear definition of New Mexico, one piñon standing on a vast mesa where the dry air let the piñon be a piñon and not get mixed up with anything else. Then one more painting for Gauguin of the petunias and zinnias that grew along the edge of the house, telling him how yesterday I sat on the cement stoop under the tremendous maples and watched leaf shadows move across my lap.
Just as I was about to get up off the couch to begin, the phone rang.
It was Gauguin. He was at work. “Nell, my dad wants to see you. He wants to go shopping with you, buy you a dress as a wedding present.
“Huh?” I replied. “Gauguin, I don’t want a dress.”
“Just come down. We can meet for lunch at noon. Take bus twenty-one on the corner.”
“But it’s 10:30 now—I was planning to paint,” I said.
“Paint later. You haven’t seen my father since Taos.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, and we hung up.
Just then, I heard a plunk. The mailman had dropped the mail through the slot in the front door. I went over to collect it. Discount coupons from Applebaum’s, a gas bill, a postcard of a monkey in a bib with a banana in his paw. I turned over the postcard slowly. I knew who it was from.
Dear Nell and Gauguin,
Best wishes on your wedding and congratulations. I wish I could be there. I’m happy for you.
All my best,
Eugene
I held the card in my hand, leaned against the cool wall, and then slid down it to a crouch at the bottom. Neon. My finger ran across his thick handwriting. Neon. I felt a terrible ache in my stomach. I could hear the trees rustle outside through the screens. “Neon,” I said it aloud this time, “I miss you.” And I bowed my head over my knees and just stayed there. No tears. I didn’t have time. I had to dress to meet my father-in-law.
We ate lunch in a dark green leather booth at the Silver Slipper with dim lights above us. Gauguin and I sat on one side, Rip on the other.
“Do you mind?” he asked, and held up a long thin cigar wrapped in cellophane.
“No, of course not.” I shook my head, and he unwrapped it.
“Gauguin tells me you applied to teach at Central High School. That’s very commendable. It’s a rough neighborhood.” He nodded toward me and lit his cigar.
“Yes, I like working with inner-city kids. I feel at home with them.” I wanted to say, It will be a relief to see someone who isn’t white. I was amazed how Scandinavian the city felt.
We ordered from the menu. I had a club sandwich, but I asked them to hold the bacon. Rip and Gauguin had hamburgers and fries. Gauguin had mentioned that he’d started to eat meat, but I hadn’t actually witnessed it yet. He was going to eat a burger in front of me! I wanted to say something, but I didn’t feel comfortable in front of Rip.
Rip also ordered a gin and tonic and encouraged us to do the same. We both declined.
“So, Nell, what can I get you for the wedding?” he asked, taking a sip of his drink.
“How about getting something for the two of us?” I asked.
“Well, I wanted to make up for blaming you for those mushrooms. Gauguin explained about the—what did you call it?—the gluck?” He turned to Gauguin and flicked his cigar in the ashtray.
“The glitch,” I said. “Yeah, everyone gets it the first time they visit. Don’t worry. It’s forgotten.”
“Well, how about a nice sundress? I bet you’d look pretty in one.” He smiled.
Just then the waiter served us our meal. Rip ordered another gin and tonic, and I bit into a potato chip from my plate.
“How’s business?” I asked. I wanted to change the subject, and Gauguin had told me they were designing some big complex. I took a sip of my water after I took a bite of sandwich. I didn’t like my sandwich. They put slices of pickle on it.
“Oh, great, great.” He nodded.
I could tell we weren’t going to get into a lively conversation about architecture. I decided to tell him about my painting; after all, Gauguin had told me Rip loved art. I explained the postcard idea. “I’ll think of an individual as I paint.” He ordered a third drink and nodded. Gauguin excused himself and went to the bathroom.
Just then, Rip leaned across the table and took my hand. His breath stank from alcohol. “You know, Nell, Gauguin doesn’t realize what he has,” he whispered in a heavy voice.
I pulled my hand away. “Yes, he does. He knows he has a lecherous father.”
Gauguin reappeared. “Gauguin, we were just talking about you.” His father beamed.
I looked from one to the other. No, they were not the same. If I weren’t sure of that right then, I’d have to walk out and leave this city.
“Nell, you’ll excuse us. We’re late.” Rip stood up, threw his linen napkin on his plate, and took the check to the cashier.
“Banana,” Gauguin whispered, “I’ll see you at home,” and he kissed me.
I sat in the dim light for a while after they left and wondered whether I should tell Gauguin about his father. I decided not to.
I
’D BEEN IN
M
INNEAPOLIS
now for three weeks. An easel was set up in our living room and paints and thick paper were spread out on the floor. After working hard for four hours straight, I took a break one afternoon and walked the three blocks to Shur’s market to purchase some chocolate chips. I thought I’d bake cookies. When the owner rang up $1.95 on the cash register, I said, “These were on sale for $1.69.”
“Oh, you’re right! Thought I was trying to jew you, didn’t you?” He laughed.
He put the yellow bag of chips in a brown paper sack and placed one quarter, one nickel with a buffalo’s head, and one penny in my open palm. I closed my hand quickly around the change, picked up the bag, and pushed open the screen door. It slammed behind me as I walked out into the June heat.
Standing on the sidewalk, I thought, What did he mean by that? Does he know I’m a Jew? I blinked, waiting for the light to change. I was about to cry.
That evening, Gauguin and I walked to the local pizza parlor for a late dinner. We ordered a mushroom pizza with extra cheese. Gauguin drank a Löwenbräu from the bottle, and I sucked on ice from my Coke while we waited for our order.
“You know, Gauguin, I don’t know why people don’t get smart and sell chicken pizza. They could drop whole legs, wings, and breasts on top of the sauce and pour cheese over it. They could call it Italian Chicken. Someone could make a fortune.” I was only half joking.
Then I changed the subject. “Gauguin, you know in the grocery today the owner said, ‘Did you think I was trying to jew you?’ when I pointed out he was about to overcharge me for a bag of chocolate chips. What did he mean? How did he know I was Jewish?”
“Oh, Nell, haven’t you ever heard that expression? It doesn’t mean anything—he probably doesn’t even know that it has anything to do with Jews. It just means ‘cheating.’ You know, ‘jew me down.’ ” Gauguin tossed his head as though to brush it off.
My right hand went into a fist around my paper napkin. They served us the pizza. The air conditioning was too cold, and I didn’t want to eat.
Suddenly I wished Minneapolis were Brooklyn, full of Jewish neighborhoods, brick buildings, and garbage cans with their lids chained to spindly trees so they wouldn’t be stolen. I wanted to be able to drop in at my father’s luncheonette, the Empress Deli, and see his thick hands reaching for the green canisters of cole slaw, his face reflected in the mirror behind the blinking “Kosher” sign. He’d be wearing a long white apron, his white shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and every once in a while he would shift the cigar in his mouth from the right side to the left.
The Empress was down the avenue from my junior high school. Sometimes on the way home I’d stop in to see my father and to sit on the high red stools and do my geometry homework. I’d glance up at him every once in a while when I stopped to sip the ginger ale he had poured into a tall glass and decorated with a maraschino cherry.
He’d yell at me, “Nell, you’re a silly girl. Quit looking at me and get back to your homework. Do you want me to turn on the TV? But we can’t watch
The Mickey Mouse Show.
This isn’t a kids’ store.” He then flicked a white linen towel around the water glass he held, giving it a shine.
“Dad, can I have a pastrami sandwich? And don’t make it so thick that I can’t put my mouth around it all.” He got rye bread from the kosher baker down the block.
“Well, the parts you can’t eat”—my father took the cigar from his mouth and placed it in a glass ashtray—“you can hang from your hair.”
I became convulsed with laughter and almost fell off the stool. “You’re a silly girl, Nell,” he repeated for the hundredth time.
I loved my father. I didn’t want to feel weird about being Jewish. I longed for a pastrami sandwich and asked Gauguin where we could get a good one in Minneapolis.
He took a bite from his slice of pizza and said he didn’t know but that he’d ask around.
The next week, he took me to The Sandwich, the only deli in the Twin Cities. I watched a woman in the next booth eat corned beef with mayonnaise on white bread, and I could tell by the way she was eating it that she thought it was actually good. I grimaced when I saw a young man in another booth pick the lox off his bagel before he ate it. Gauguin saw the grimace and asked what was wrong. He was poised to bite into a pickle. His mouth was full of cole slaw.
“They’re eating corned beef with mayonnaise! They’re picking the lox off their bagels!”
“Who’s they?” he asked.
“Everyone,” I said. I looked around. Suddenly, the Nazi army occupied The Sandwich. There were six Nazis crammed into each booth. They were throwing the lox and pastrami at their snapping German shepherds and Dobermans. “Please, let’s get out of here,” I said. “This isn’t a real deli. I’m not hungry.”
“Wait, let me finish eating.” Gauguin held up his hand. “Nell, don’t you want your chopped liver sandwich?”
“No, I don’t want any of it. I’ll meet you in the car.” I was sure my sandwich was ground pork hemorrhoids passing as chopped chicken liver. I dashed out of The Sandwich. Though it was hot and humid out, I rolled up the car windows and waited for Gauguin with the doors locked.
T
HE DAY BEFORE
the wedding, my parents flew in from New York. This was the first time my father had met Gauguin, and he was determined to like him. After all, he would be family soon, and family was everything to my father. He had animal blood loyalty.
He gave Gauguin a strong handshake in the airport and then pulled him close and engulfed him in a big hug. “My son-in-law,” he said emotionally. “Now there will be another man in the family.”
When Gauguin was released, he said, “Why, hello, sir,” and his clothes fell back in place on his body.
“Nell, I’m starving.” My father turned to me. “Where’s a great restaurant?”
We went to the Lilac Room, the restaurant in my parent’s hotel in downtown Minneapolis.
“This is real fiddledeedee,” my mother said when the waiter served her a very small portion of salmon on a large white plate surrounded by eight peas and two small roasted potatoes.
Fiddledeedee
was a term my grandmother used. It meant acting fancy but serving so little food, you walked out starving. The walls of the Lilac Room were wood-paneled, and crystal water glasses sparkled on the table.
“Boy, does he fonfer,” my father said when the waiter walked away. This was another one of my grandmother’s expressions. It meant talking through your nose or putting on the dog.
My father looked down at his roast beef, shaved so thin you could see through it. “Nell, after we leave here, let’s stop someplace to eat.”
After we dropped my parents off, Gauguin said, “What was your parents’ problem? My family has always gone to the Lilac Room for birthdays and special occasions. I love that place.”
“Well, they’re used to Brooklyn. They like a lot of food. They like to eat,” I explained.
“We ate. I still don’t understand.”
“I think it’s cultural, that’s all.” I opened my window and breathed in the summer air. We stopped at the light. “Gauguin, tomorrow we’ll be married.” It felt like some completely unknown adventure. I could easily have said, “Tomorrow we’re going deep-sea diving.”
“Yeah,” Gauguin said, and reached across the car seat to take my hand.
The wedding was on a Sunday afternoon in Gauguin’s father’s back yard. Rita arrived that morning I hardly knew anyone at it except my parents and my sister. Anna couldn’t make it. Neither could Blue. My friends from the Elephant House sent us a photo of everyone standing in front of the house. The old lady from Boulder sent us a vase with a painting of a cat on it.
There were about thirty-five of us, including Gauguin’s parents and friends of Gauguin and his family. Camille, Rip’s mother, sent a telegram. We all stood in a circle outside in front of the judge.
I didn’t change my name. I figured I was born Nell Schwartz and should die Nell Schwartz. I ignored the fact that I had once been Banana Rose. Gauguin said it was fine with him that I didn’t take his last name. Gauguin planned to stay Gauguin, though it wasn’t his legal name.
He’d gotten the name Gauguin when he took an acid trip in the woods in northern Minnesota. For three hours he could not remember who he was. He’d stumbled past hundreds of birches. All of them were the same. He finally found the cabin where he was staying and bent down in the rearview mirror of his red truck. He thought he’d know his name if he saw his reflection, but there was no one in the mirror. He touched his face. He could feel it. He looked in the mirror again. There was no image; it was as though he didn’t exist. He jerked up frightened, and in the moment his head snapped back he realized he was everything. He looked around him: “I’m the pines, the bark, the needles, the sun on the needles. I’m this truck, this wheel—” He put his hand on the black rubber tread. Then he walked to the cabin porch and lifted his right foot to put it on the bottom step. He was the foot, the step, the screen door, the hand that pushed the screen door open. He felt the coolness of the cabin air inside; he was that, too, and he began to cry. He went to the sink and ran the cold water. He noticed, as though for the first time, that water was transparent. “I put my hand under it and opened my fingers and just looked at how my fingers moved.” He stared out the window over the sink, turned off the water, walked into the living room, and flopped on the big red chair in front of the fireplace. “There was nothing I wasn’t, and everything was magnificent.” He picked up a book of twentieth-century art on the coffee table and flipped the pages. The book fell open on page 212. There was a picture of a painting of Tahitian women. He took the leap from the artist to himself and spoke the words, “I-am-Gauguin.” It resonated. He said it again. “I am Gauguin.” That day he found his name.