I’m Losing You (47 page)

“You said…your husband was there?” She spoke as if reading a script from a radio show.
Your father was not murdered
—Orthodox film noir. “You said at the seder—”

“
Here
—the body was flown back. But you know that.”

“But your husband…”

“He performed the
taharah
.”

“May I talk to him?”

“He will not speak to you. He was opposed to me telling what I knew.”

“Was it
here
that he—” The old woman nodded, and Rachel thought she would faint; this is where the body had lain. She stood, as if to go. “You said those who do the…purification—are volunteers. Is that something I could do?”

“It's not for everyone.”

Rachel shook, flinching back tears. “But it's for
me
!” The words came savagely, humbling the
shomer
. Rachel composed herself and said again, softly: “It's for me.”

Birdie walked her to the sidewalk.

“You'll call?”

The old woman nodded. “I will.”

“There's just one other thing I wanted to know. My father's buried at Hillside. How is it—I thought if a Jew killed himself, he couldn't—”

“There are ways around that. It was simply said your father was not in his right mind. Which he was not.”

As she reached her car, Rachel imagined a string of women in the lobby, pending on Birdie—each with a revelation waiting, custom-made.

Sy Krohn was buried in the Mount of Olives on the outskirts of the park, across from a large apartment complex. On her way to the plot, Rachel tried remembering details—but that was thirty years ago. A
worker on a tractor respectfully cut his engine as she stood over the stone. She was certain it was park policy; he even seemed to hang his head.
BELOVED HUSBAND AND FATHER
was all it said.

Rachel wasn't ready to confront her mother, so she drove to the mansion overlooking the necropolis. That's where the rich were interred—far away from the syphed-out cantor-suicides. Al Jolson's sarcophagus adorned the entrance. “The Sweet Singer of Israel” knelt Mammy-style while a mosaic Moses held tablets in the canopy above. Mark Goodson, game show producer, was across the way, the outline of a television screen around his name.

No one was inside but the dead. Scaffolding stood here and there in the hallways, as if the artists painting the ceilings were on lunch break. Small rooms off the main drags were filled with stacks of thin green vases. A few employees loitered outside, tastefully—they seemed aware of her browsing, and again, she wondered if by policy they'd left their workaday posts, awaiting completion of her tour. She entered an elevator as if it were a tomb and rode to the second floor. More couches and vases and yarmulkes and emptiness. She took the stairs down, past the David Janssen crypt. There were flowers and a big birthday card signed Liverpool, England. “We cry ourselves to sleep at night,” it said. “We will never forget you.” She passed vaults of “non-pros” with strangely comic epitaphs:
HIS LIFE WAS A SUCCESS; SHE LIVED FOR OTHERS
. Then came Jack and Mary Benny, and Michael Landon. “Little Joe” had a room to himself, with a small marble bench. The entrance had a glass door, but it wasn't locked. Anyone could go in.

“Who told you this?”

They stood in the hot, bright kitchen. The psychiatrist was between clients.

“What
difference
does it make? Why didn't you
tell
me?”

“I planned to,” said Calliope. “At the time, there were so many other things…I was going to wait until you were a little older, but then—”

“Well, now I am!” A mocking kabuki mask, glazed with tears.

“Do you really think you would have wanted all the details, Rachel? Could you have
handled
them? Can you handle them now?”

“Don't insult me, Mother.”

“Is it any better now that you know?”

“I'm glad I know the
truth
.” A door opened outside. Mitch and a patient said goodbyes. “It's so…classically hypocritical! The old cliché, isn't it? The psychiatrist who tells her patients that secrets kill—and here we are, all these years, living a lie! Can't you see how
insane
that is?”

Calliope whitened, trembling. “Your
father
was the hypocrite, not I! What I did, I did for
you
, Rachel, to
protect
you, you and Simon. If we had stayed here,
believe me
you would have been hurt. So don't talk to me about hypocrisy.”

They heard footsteps. Mitch returned to his office. The women caught their breath, and Rachel resumed in subdued tones.

“Do you—do you know who the woman was? Is she still…”

“Serena Ribkin. She died last year. She happened to be the mother of a client, strangely enough.” She sat in the banquette, limp. “There: now you even have a name.”

“Was…was my father in love with her?”

“I imagine. Such as love is—though I doubt it would have lasted. But what the hell do I know? Maybe they were Tracy and Hep.” She stood, energized again; her mother was always a quick recovery. “Rachel, I have to get back. Why don't we have a nice dinner over the weekend—we need that. We can go to that fabulous sushi place on Sawtelle.”

“All right, Mama.”

She fell into Calliope's arms and wept. Mitch was suddenly at the back door, but the psychiatrist sent him away with a shake of the head.

“That was a terrible, terrible time—you'll never know, darling, you don't
want
to. You and Simon were away, remember? I was glad of that. I used to literally thank God for Camp Hillel.”

She stroked her daughter's head and kissed it. And then she cried and Rachel couldn't remember seeing that, ever. Her hair was thick and gray; at sixty-seven, she was still a beautiful woman. They strolled to the front door, arm in arm.

“Who was it that told you about your father?”

“A woman I met at a seder.”

“You went to a seder?” She smiled, genuinely surprised.

“At my boss's.” Rachel wasn't sure why she lied. “I had to, for business.”

“And who was this woman?” Calliope asked, a paranoid glint in her eye. “Is she talking to people about Sy?”

“Not at all—Mother, it's nothing like that. It was an isolated event, a weird thing. She didn't even know who I was.”

“She didn't know who you were yet ends up telling you your father killed himself.
Very
mysterious.” Calliope smiled indulgently. There would be no more interrogations, at least not today. “Well,” she said, kissing her daughter again, “you go home and soak—take a bubble bath. I'll call and we'll make a time.”

Severin Welch

ESCUELA
Rochester is singing “Oh My Papa”—sounds like a buzz saw dying—Benny walks in from rehearsal. Benny keeps saying, “It's going to be a great show tonight! I think it's gonna be a great show!” In comes Don Wilson, asks if Hope's still mad that he makes a late entrance. Benny says Hope's a little hot under the collar but he'll get over it. Wilson leaves and Rochester gives Benny a shave. He's shaving and then he jumps back. “Uh oh, I think I cut you!” Benny says, “What do you mean, you
think
, can't you
tell
?” Rochester says, “It would help if you'd
bleed
a little!” Benny hears the orchestra play his theme, but he can't find his pants. Hope walks onstage—he's holding Benny's pants! Looks at the pants and says he's about to introduce a great entertainer: Gypsy Rose Benny. Says how strange it is working over at CBS—“that stands for Crosby & Benny's Strong-box”—feels out of place as Zsa Zsa at a PTA meeting. But CBS is right next to the Farmer's Market, so “you can lay 'em here and sell 'em there.” Holds up the pants again. “Look at that material, ain't it wonderful? They call it ‘unfinished payments.'” Unfinished payments—that was Severin's. The whole premise about swiping the pants so Jack couldn't go on was Severin's. And the “Road to Nairobi” sketch, with Benny and Hope in a cauldron surrounded by Zulus. There's a tiger hanging upside-down on a spit. When Hope swivels it around, there's leopard spots on the other side. Benny says, “The cat must have seen a vet—in Denmark.” Hope says, “I wondered why it had its hand on its hip when I shot it.” All Severin. Hope laughing so hard Severin didn't think he'd be able to finish. Martin and Lewis lit the cauldron bonfire at the end of the show. Must have been on ten seconds, tops.
i'm gonna fuck you up! take you to the

cloisters, CUNT MOTHERFUCKER!

jerome, you didn't let me explain

explain! you cn explain.
xplain it to th mother fkng emergency room
how there's a bullet through your mothrfucked