For once he had come without his wife and daughter. “We’re having a few friends over, maybe a little rummy, maybe dessert,” he announced.
“Yussie, why didn’t you phone? We sold out today. Not enough to feed a mouse. You can see I’m making a dairy borscht for Jack and Lil.”
Yussie’s eyes swept the kitchen table. “Not even one rugulach?”
“Yussie, for you I always have something even if I have to bake late. But not today. We were up half the night. Lil and Jack, they went to see Ethel Merman.”
Bubby was not speaking to Mrs. Feldman because of the incident about my writing on Saturday but the news about the play and the mink coat had swept through every apartment. No doubt Yussie would hear about it again from his mother. His regret at not reaping his usual harvest of baked goods showed on his pinched face. His thin lips resembled his mother’s and his eyes were cold marbles.
To overcome his disappointment, Yussie withdrew a printed sheet from his wallet. “Miss Sussman, Shirley’s elocution teacher, she’s putting on a performance. It’s a talent contest. We’re sure that Shirley will be in it. Come if you can.” Bubby read the flyer carefully and repeated, “Yussie, next time you have guests, call me and Willy will write it in the order book.” She folded the leaflet into small squares before slipping it into her apron pocket. Then Yussie visited briefly with his mother and drove away. My parents barely did justice to their evening meal and went to bed exhausted from the day’s labor and the lack of sleep the night before. It had been quite a weekend.
At seven the next morning, there was a loud knock at the door. It was too early for beggars, for peddlers, for a building inspector who showed up intermittently with an official note from the fire department. What we needed was a rat inspector, but if such a person existed, he would have recommended sliding the entire neighborhood into the East River even as the rats attempted to swim ashore.
Bubby, already dressed and heating water for our quick morning wash before school, asked with a tremor in her voice, “Who is it?” She held her hand to her heart, fearing a cablegram from Odessa with bad news. In bounded a young man in his midtwenties, dressed entirely in white—white buck shoes, pants and a doctor’s jacket. His eyes were bluer than May skies, his hair light brown and curly. The sight of him invoked all the things about summer that I had read about: the sun, summer breezes, lazy golden hours, sunflowers taller than sheaves of corn, buttery vanilla ice cream, everything creamy and smooth.
“I’m Scott Wolfson,” he said, his smile showing faultless white teeth. He pointed to a badge with a picture of himself with his name under it, followed by the letters
M.D.,
pinned to his white jacket. He extended his right hand. In his left he carried a doctor’s bag and a clipboard with a half dozen sheets of paper neatly typed.
“You must be the chef,” he said to Bubby. “I spoke to your son the other morning, on Saturday, I told him about my project. Dr. Koronovsky supplied me with the names of everyone in the family and your medical histories. I couldn’t wait to start. It’s tremendously exciting for me. I came early to see the children before they left for school.”
Something about Dr. Scott Wolfson’s easy manner won over my grandmother. “Come in, come in,” she said though he had already clasped her hand. “Yes, the children are up, but maybe you could tell me a little more, why Dr. Koronovsky spoke about us.”
“It’s a study about one particular family and the serious illnesses they cope with.”
“Serious? Other families have worse.”
“Yes, certainly. But four out of five of you are American-born, all are literate, can read and write, and all have some form of accomplishment.”
I hadn’t really bathed since Dr. Koronovsky’s wedding, or washed my hair, or changed my flannel nightgown. To most in the neighborhood that would have been considered clean enough. But something about this white-clad doctor with the golden voice and open face urged me to at least brush my teeth. I wondered whether the laundry would be delivered before I left for school. I longed for a clean if unironed middy blouse.
The young doctor found my page in his clipboard. “Ah, the reader, the articulate one. How’s the rheumatic fever? Any swelling in the joints lately?”
I shook my head.
“Good, good. But what do you do for it, for the condition?”
“After school I stay in bed and read. Sometimes I walk to the library first or go to the movies, and then I get into bed.” I edged toward the kitchen, anxious to brush my teeth, run a comb through my hair.
“Just rest? Any regime of exercise? Do you walk a great deal, bicycle, swim, play tennis?”
The last question was incredible. The only thing we knew about tennis was what we saw in the movies. Real tennis was uptown. Anyone could have told that to Dr. Wolfson.
I shook my head again and asked, “May I brush my teeth?”
“May I? I’m very impressed.”
“That one speaks some English,” Lil offered. “It’s from constant reading. She can read from morning to night. She keeps this up, she’ll need glasses soon.”
My mother had slipped on her fancy nightie, the present from Orloff with the ruffle in the front. Her purse with a comb must have been in the bedroom because her hair was neatly combed.
“You must be the singer. The one with the heart condition.”
“My weak heart? It’s nothing. Only when I walk up a few flights of steps or carry something heavy.”
The young doctor asked, “Who’s first, the reader or the singer?” Quickly I brushed my teeth and washed my hands and face, aware of my nightgown’s sour smell. “May I change my clothes?” A semiclean
shtinik
hung from a nail on the bedroom door. For once my mother divined my embarrassment. “I’ll be first,” she said to Dr. Wolfson, and she handed me the slip.
The doctor placed his stethoscope into his ears and listened to my mother’s heart, his face grave. “How long have you had this condition?”
“Since I was a child, after diphtheria. I was very sick. My mother had eight children. She brought me to the clinic. They told her I should eat an egg once a week. But I ate the soft-boiled egg on the fire escape and it fell out of my hands. So that was that until I married and came to this house. My mother-in-law, she takes the best care of me. Also Dr. Koronovsky. If my throat is sore he tells me it’s bad for my heart. I’m his favorite patient,” she added, blushing girlishly. The young doctor timed my mother’s pulse. She enjoyed that, glad she had put Chanel No. 5 on her wrists on Saturday.
She did what she could to reassure him. “Doctor, don’t be nervous. I was turned down for an insurance policy years ago. But I’ll live out a full life. The insurance doctor said that, said he was sorry he had to say no to my application, but I could still live out a full life.”
“Do you take any medication, see a cardiologist? A heart specialist?”
“Isn’t that what you’re here for?” Lil gazed steadily into his blue eyes.
“You’re very beautiful,” he said.
“And my heart?”
“It’s . . . it’s very brave. You have a brave heart.” His hand trembled as he wrote on Lil’s sheet of paper.
My mother pushed me forward. Scott Wolfson listened to my heart. “Not too bad, not too bad. Small murmur, but with the right care you’ll outgrow it.”
“The whistler,” he said. “I must see the whistler next.” Fully dressed, Willy hung his head as he usually did in front of strangers. The doctor extended his hand to Willy, who after a second’s hesitation extended his.
“What’s your name?”
“Willy,” came the whisper.
Dr. Wolfson squatted on his knees to reach Willy at eye level. “Listen, son,” he said, “everyone is shy with strangers. It’s okay. Now I’d like to hear your full name.”
“William Michael,” his voice still softer than usual.
“He’s named for his grandfather,” my mother sang out.
The young doctor raised his hand. He still squatted, staying as close to Willy as possible. “Willy, I hear you’re a great whistler, can whistle any song. I bet if I took you to a concert you could whistle classical music.”
With his chin still scraping his chest, Willy said, “I can whistle Caruso. From an old record.” The doctor stood up. “Great, fantastic. A handsome family and everyone with talent.”
The laundry man opened the door and threw in two bundles wrapped in brown paper. One of linens: towels, sheets, tablecloths, napkins, the other our personal clothes. With experienced rapid movements, Bubby extracted a clean middy blouse. She smoothed it out with her hands. The hem of my skirt had unraveled. Pleated from men’s coat material, it resembled a crippled umbrella. The doctor asked, “May I walk these children to school?”
He glanced up at Bubby. “I’d like to take your blood pressure before I leave.” He placed five fingers across the left side of her neck, then quickly retrieved his blood pressure cuff from the black bag. He smiled into Bubby’s eyes as he pumped the blood pressure bulb hard. “Say, chef,” he laughed, “how many glasses of water do you drink a day?”
“Water? I hate water.”
“And salt. How much salt in your diet?”
“Like everybody else.”
He ran his hand over her beautiful soft cheek. “Eight in the morning and already a bloom in your cheeks. Any lower back pains?”
“From standing on my feet all day, from carrying food, of course.”
He said casually, as if we had been acquainted our entire lives. “You’re everything Dr. Koronovsky promised and more. So, tell me something, were those cats running from the building?”
“Doctor, you live in New York, you don’t know what a rat looks like?”
On the short walk to school, he spoke mostly to Willy, asking him casually, “About your asthma, does it start when you inhale something that irritates you? I mean when you smell certain things does it start up?”
Willy didn’t answer. The doctor bent down close to Willy’s face. “What brings on asthma?” I started to speak but the doctor said reassuringly, “Willy can answer.” At last: “Powder, perfume, dust.”
“Very good. Excellent. Anything else? I mean when you’re frightened.” Willy hung his head, casting his glance at me.
“A gang chased us,” I answered.
“We thought it was the Guineas,” Willy whispered.
We had reached the corner. “Don’t you have a safety guard at this street to keep the trucks away?”
Even Willy smiled at that. “I’ll see you soon,” Dr. Wolfson called out. “In a few days, we’ll talk again.”
At school, because of Dr. Wolfson I misspelled the word
receive,
though I had memorized the rule: “I before E except after C or when sounded like A as in neighbor or weigh.” My teacher, Mrs. Nash, didn’t let us cross out the words if we caught our mistakes. I wrote it carefully along the side of the misspelling, but she gave me a ninety-nine instead of one hundred.
I bemoaned my ninety-nine in spelling, my knowledge of Clayton’s sex with a man, mostly my meeting Dr. Wolfson. That day, when I came home from school at three o’clock, I didn’t find Bubby alone. A yeshiva boy came to be fed, a Yiddish writer waited to read his poetry, and Clayton showed up for a delivery that wasn’t quite ready. Not until we were in bed with the lights out did I unload my grief.
“Bubby, when I grow up, do you think I could marry someone like Dr. Wolfson?”
“Of course. You and a doctor would be perfect.”
“No, that’s not it. I don’t need a doctor. Just someone like Scott.” I couldn’t believe I called him by his first name. Bubby realized what this intimacy meant. She pulled me closer to her warm body. “So tell me slowly, not like a fire engine running through the streets, what do you like about him? The most important.”
“He’s very clean.”
“That’s his best? He’s clean?”
“Everything about him is clean. Not his clothes, his hands, but inside. He doesn’t know a rat from a cat. He talked to me about tennis. He laughs a lot. He wouldn’t dare sell blue for black or black for blue.” I paused, searching for the right words. “He’s not like Daddy, not like Rocco. He’s really worried about Willy. He wants to help him.”
“Didn’t Dr. Koronovsky want to help the whole family, the whole neighborhood?”
“Yes, but Dr. Koronovsky is from here; Dr. Wolfson is from someplace else, not our world. He trusts everyone.”
“How did you see this in a few minutes? How did you fall in love so quickly?”
My heart flip-flopped. She knew. I didn’t have to tell her.
She sat up on the lumpy mattress. “To love, it makes you years younger, makes you feel you can jump to the sky, play music on any instrument, lift up cars, trucks without feeling it. I haven’t forgotten one thing about falling in love. But there’s a sad part.”
“You mean if he dies or runs away like Mister Elkin?”
“No, it’s what you said before. Different worlds. For a little while Dr. Wolfson takes an interest in us. Then his clean heart takes him away to a clean place.”
I sat up. “Bubby, I was very embarrassed today when I saw this clean man. So I want you to help me be clean. In the summer, for our vacation, Mother buys me fresh underwear so Aunt Bea or Uncle Geoff won’t laugh at us. But I want you to buy me new underwear tomorrow and a new nightgown. I’ll wash my things every night. I won’t wear a nightgown for two weeks anymore. And I’ll iron my own middies, not like Clayton on the ironing board, but the way I see them doing it at the Chinese laundry when I walk with Daddy to Pell Street. They iron on a big table. I watched them and I can do it. And you’ll help me wash my hair. And those terrible skirts from that terrible material, you have to tell Mother I need a real skirt, for real money. You’ll buy me those things, won’t you? Bubby, I need them.”
She didn’t hesitate. “You’ll have everything. Tomorrow. After school, we’ll buy what you want. Lil and Jack, maybe they know more about clothes, but we’ll look carefully. People from everywhere come to shop here, we’ll shop, too.
“Thank you, Bubby.”
“For me, it’s not coming a thanks. My head was tsumished. We should have done this long ago.”
“And one more thing, Bubby. Clayton said he slept with a man. Is that true? Could such a thing happen?”