We Never Told Read online

  “Listen to her,” Grandma said. “Come in, come in. You’ll eat.”

  “No thank you, Grandma,” Joan said in a louder but polite voice, because she thought Grandma was deaf. “We just ate.”

  “I wouldn’t give it to you anyway.”

  The staircase behind us was so steep it was almost perpendicular. There was no bannister to hold for balance. Each stair was covered in speckled linoleum that had probably once covered the whole stair but now was frayed at the edges and stained from years of use. Lugging the suitcases, Seymour went up and Joan and I followed him down the upstairs hall, also covered in speckled linoleum, to the bedroom where he slept as a child. I never saw how my mother lived as a child. She didn’t grow up in that penthouse in Chicago. In Woodbridge, I got to see my father’s beginnings. A bare light bulb hung from the middle of the ceiling over twin beds with iron headboards and drooping mattresses. In the corner was a massive Empire dresser with drawers that stuck. Heat came up through an iron grate in the floor. The view from the window was the bar across the street where a curtain was always drawn across the window. Sometimes at night Joan and I would see some drunk staggering out, the only person on the sidewalk.

  Joan and I went, as we always did when we first arrived at Grandma Adler’s, to explore the exquisite horribleness of the bathroom. The toilet flushed with a pull chain, the bathtub stood on claw feet, and the shower was a rigged up pole in the middle of the bathtub with a shower curtain around it that closed you in like a shroud. Instead of toothpaste in the medicine cabinet we found tooth powder. On a shelf was a red enema bag. Corsets the color of Grandma’s flesh, contraptions made of stays and held together with laces, were draped over a drying rack. For as long as we could, Joan and I delighted in how repulsive everything was, including the smell, then went downstairs to face the music.

  The front parlor was also from bygone days. The speckled linoleum was covered with a braided rug. Lace doilies were pinned to the arms and backs of chairs to protect them from wear. Grandma’s radio was the size of a jukebox. Made of wood, it was a piece of furniture big enough to support framed sepia photographs of people in old-fashioned clothes. There was my father in an oval frame as a boy of eight in a ruffled shirt, knickers, high socks, his hair slicked down and parted in the middle. There were so many photos the top of the radio was like a gathering of ghosts. There was Uncle Norman sitting on a horse, and Uncle Donald standing as a groom with Aunt Harriet in her wedding dress. There was Grandpa Adler standing next to his horse and wagon. Each picture had a faded quality, the photo itself on its way to oblivion. Also on top of the radio was Grandma’s telephone, the stand up kind with a separate earpiece that hooked on the side. None of her things were picturesque to me. They were embarrassing. I didn’t want an old-fashioned grandma.

  Grandma Adler was waiting for us in the kitchen. “Sit,” she said, “you’ll eat.” She opened the door of her wood-burning stove exposing a hellish flame inside, tossed in a log, and latched the door closed. “Sit,” she said, indicating a Formica table next to windows covered with gauze curtains. There were pots and pans in her deep soapstone sink, and the icebox next to her pantry dripped into a pan underneath. Sometimes during our visits an iceman holding muscular tongs arrived at the back door with a huge cube of ice. None of Grandma’s supplies were behind cabinet doors but were in full display on the shelves in the pantry, cans and boxes and bottles of soda. The view from the kitchen window was the abandoned brick mill next door and the driveway full of sparrows pecking in the gravel for the crumbs Grandma threw out to them.

  Grandma set before each of us a bowl of soup the size of Lake Michigan. “Eat,” she said. “Eat.” The spoons were the size of shovels. I chewed the cooked celery and mushy carrot coins and the pieces of chicken the size of thumbs. Grandma turned from stirring at the stove and sat in a chair next to me. She dipped her fingers into my soup, plucked out a piece of chicken and stuffed it into my mouth. Mouth full of fingers, I gagged. She did the same to Joan. Our comfort meant nothing to her compared to the sin of wasting food. She couldn’t bear to throw away food any more than Grandma Greenstone could throw away a slip made of silk. The older generation echoed sadness and want. Because of their efforts and their bravery, I had escaped hunger and deprivation. I knew this and wished that I loved Grandma Adler more.

  My father came into the fragrant kitchen, saw what probably looked like a cozy scene, little girls with curly hair being tended by a plump grandmother, and said, “I’m going up the store, Ma.”

  “Wait, Daddy! We’ll come with you!” He went without us.

  At last, Grandma let Joan and me get up from the table. I saw her pour what remained in our bowls back into the pot on the stove. We ran out of the house. The deserted mill next door was separated from Grandma Adler’s property by a moat filled with trash, someone’s shoe, a rusted fender, soggy newspapers, beer bottles. Joan and I paused at the edge of the driveway, picked up a stone, and hurled it across the moat in an attempt to break one of the mill windows. We looked around to see if anyone was watching then pitched more stones that hit the red bricks and fell to the ground. At last Joan’s pitch shattered the glass, and we ran for our lives all the way down the sidewalk past the wooden Indian standing in front of a cigar store. We caught our breath and continued in a lady-like manner under the railroad bridge and up onto Main Street. Red brick on both sides of the road, stores at street level, offices above with placards in the windows announcing lawyer, dentist, insurance broker. The pharmacy window displayed trusses and bedpans. At the end of the block was a cinema so small it seemed like a toy theater. The marque announced only one film and the letters weren’t straight. Not understanding film distribution, I thought the theater manager selected his obscure offerings because he had bad taste.

  Next to the Gift Shoppe was Adler Furniture. The store represented the crowning achievement of my father’s father, who began by selling dry goods from a wagon. My mother had nothing nice to say about any of her husband’s family except Grandpa Adler. “He was a saint,” she said. She told me that he gave credit to anyone in need, and that it was up to Grandma Adler to collect what was owed to them. When Grandpa died suddenly of a heart attack at sixty, the store passed on to Uncle Murray who was two years younger than my father. The store was a thriving business under Uncle Murray, customers trying out chairs and chatting with the salesmen. I loved Uncle Murray who was kind and gentle. He died suddenly from a heart attack.

  The store passed on to the youngest brother Norman. Now the windows that used to be fun to look at, miniature living rooms or bedrooms, arranged so customers could see how they might decorate their own rooms, were just a jumble of chairs, tables, and lamps. Joan and I opened the front door and a bell attached to the door clattered. Inside a dimly lit cavernous space there were no customers and no salespeople. Chairs and sofas and lamps were all over the place with narrow aisles between. Mattresses wrapped in plastic were leaning against the wall. It smelled of stale cigarette smoke.

  Uncle Norman emerged from his office at the far end of the store. He was a spectral figure at first then took on substance as he shuffled toward us dressed in a tan cardigan, wrinkled trousers and bedroom slippers. Stoop shouldered, he kept his chin close to his chest and looked at us from the top of his eyes. “Hi, Uncle Norman,” I said and hurried toward him forgetting as I always did the Adler family’s dislike of hugging. The instant my front touched his he turned rigid, put his hands on my shoulders, and set me back saying, “Hello, girls.” I got a whiff of the peppermint he was sucking to camouflage the smell of whiskey.

  “Norm,” my father called as he came from the office at the back of the store holding a ledger book, his spectacles low on his nose, “what’s this item here?” What a contrast he was with his younger brother! Seymour never slouched, his stomach was flat, shoulders squared, shirt starched, expensive shoes, and a fire inside that seemed to burn too hot. Uncle Norman was listless and sloppy. While I had nothing to say to Uncle Norman, who
seemed as if he couldn’t tell the difference between me and Joan, I did feel sorry for him because I knew he didn’t want this job. No one had ever imagined that the store would land on Norman. The store was supposed to support his wife, their three children, Grandma Adler, and Uncle Murray’s widow. “Norm,” my father said noticing the mattresses, “what are those mattresses doing up here? Why don’t you have the boy take them down cellar?”

  “He’s unwell, Seymour.”

  “Isn’t there anyone else? Put an ad in the high school paper. There must be some kid in town wanting to earn a dime.” His younger brother stood with bowed head like a shamed child. “Now what about the windows, Norm? Thought you were going to get some help arranging them.” I wondered at my father scolding his brother in front of us. Didn’t seem nice. But I understood his exasperation. It was Seymour who had to pick up the loose ends, Seymour’s paycheck that paid for Norman’s dental work, paid to get the store roof patched, paid his mother’s electric, phone, and doctor bills. I was proud of my father for stepping up and confused when my mother groused about it. How could she not want a husband who looked after his family?

  Uncle Norman took a crumpled pack of Lucky Strikes from his breast pocket, lit a cigarette with his lighter, inhaled and swallowed the smoke. Some of it leaked out his nose. My father pointed at the office with a raise of his chin and Uncle Norman followed him to the back of the store.

  While Seymour went over the books with Uncle Norman, Joan and I tried out all the chairs and beds and whispered too hard, too soft, just right until our father finished and came out of the office with his lips pinched together in disgust. Angered by what I had heard him describe as his brother’s laziness, he strode out of the store, the bell clattered behind him, and Joan and I hurried to catch up with him on the sidewalk. It was evening now and lights had come on in the bars, one on every corner.

  When we came to the wooden Indian on the sidewalk, my father paused, adjusted his expression to something more pleasant, and went inside the cigar store, a small odiferous place with boxes of cigars lining the walls. “Sy!” the owner said. “I didn’t know you were in town!” O’Brian came from behind the counter and clapped my father on the back. He was a thin red-faced man with freckles on his arms. I wondered if he was one of the boys in elementary school who threw stones at Seymour shouting, “Dirty Jew!” I wondered if he was part of the gang that chased Seymour shouting, “Christ killer!” We heard about this from our mother who said that the boys learned their ideas from their priest. My father could not say the word Catholic in a normal voice. He whispered it as if it was obscene. Catholic.

  “You closing up, O’Brian?”

  “No, no. Not a bit of it. Not atall. My you girls have grown. Getting to be regular young ladies.” He showed my father various cigars, rolled them between his fingers, sniffed them, brought out others. “Took the wife to Worcester, Sy, saw Pat and Mike. Enjoyed it. That Spencer Tracy is some fine actor. You ever meet him in person?”

  “Yes, a fine chap. Made a test of him.”

  “You discovered Spencer Tracy?”

  “It’s a group effort, O’Brian.”

  “What about Lana Turner? Oh, my goodness. When she walks across the screen, Sy, I’m telling you …” then he remembered Joan and me and put the lid on his lust.

  “A lovely girl,” my father said. “Very down to earth. Heart of gold.”

  “And how’s the missus?”

  “Fine, fine.”

  “I still can’t believe she got her hooks into you, Sy. We all thought you’d never get married. Why get married with that life you lead? But she caught you. We couldn’t believe it.” He lifted another box of cigars from the shelf, set it on the counter, and said, “Zero blemishes. And look at the size of the leaf. Look at the sheen. Almost has a chocolate hue.” He handed one of the cigars to my father. “Sy, I want to thank you for what you did for Darleen.”

  “I told her what I tell all of them,” my father said sniffing the cigar then nodding approval. “It’s no business for a lady.”

  “It’s a double whammy, Sy. They tell her she needs experience then she doesn’t get the part because she has no experience. What’s she supposed to do?”

  “If she follows my advice, she’ll be all right. Start locally, amateur theater here in town.”

  “Should I encourage her? Do you think she has what it takes?”

  “Who’s to say? We don’t make stars. The public does.”

  New cigars in his pocket, we continued on our way along the sidewalk. Coming in the other direction was the woman who rented the third floor of Grandma’s house. “Seymour Adler!” she said. “As I live and breathe! I thought that was your car in the driveway.” She shook his hand. “Look at you girls. Tsk! You should put them in the movies, Seymour.” Then, “Tell me. Did you ever meet James Cagney in person?”

  “Yes, many times. Started as a hoofer, you know. Very talented.”

  “And what about Hedy Lamar?”

  “Yes, yes indeed. She’s really something special, Mrs. O’Malley.”

  “Isn’t she from some foreign country, Seymour?”

  “She is indeed. We had to work on her accent. She’s got a perfect profile.”

  The woman put her hand over her heart. “Holy Mary mother of God I don’t know how you do it. I’d faint dead away if any of them got so much as close to me!”

  Grandma’s house was now full of the smells of cooking. She was standing in front of the stove on the bald patch where the linoleum had worn away over the years. Seymour went upstairs without a word, and Joan and I could hear his footsteps above us walking down the hall to the small bedroom that used to belong to his now dead brother.

  First to arrive was Uncle Donald and his wife, Aunt Harriet, my father’s only sister. She was carefully groomed, her hair a helmet dyed the color of pee on snow. She never hid her shapely legs under trousers but always wore skirts, and when I kissed her hello, I got a whiff of pleasant-smelling face powder. She and her husband owned a hardware store in Framingham. Uncle Donald, always chuckling like Santa Claus, round as Twiddle Dee, sat down immediately on one of the armchairs and took up his position as watcher of whatever happened. I went to the bottom of the stairs and called up, “Daddy! Aunt Harriet’s here!” then heard Harriet say on the way to the kitchen, “Ma, put me to work.”

  “Seymour,” said Uncle Donald when my father came into the front parlor from the steep staircase, “Did you take 95 or 127?” From the kitchen, Aunt Harriet called, “Did you run into that construction on 302?”

  “I think that’s completed, Wifey,” Uncle Donald called to her. Aunt Harriet came to the kitchen door wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “Did you take route 9 through Lancaster, Seymour?” My father and his sister didn’t greet each other with hugs and kisses. “You didn’t get caught in that hospital construction on 302 did you, Seymour?”

  Joan and I went upstairs, got our sketchpads and colored pencils, returned to the parlor, and lay down on the large braided rug that covered most of the floor. Uncle Donald was saying, “The DeSoto is a reliable vehicle. They’ve increased the engine size from 291 cubic inches to 330. Has enormous fins.” Seymour was only half listening. He was standing in the corner turned away from Donald and practicing some sleight of hand movement with a deck of cards. Joan and I flipped our sketchpads to a blank page, selected a pencil from our extensive set, and began to draw. Seymour turned from the wall and said to Donald, “Take a look at this, Don” He fanned the deck in front of his brother-in-law. “Pick a card. Any card. Don’t show it to me. No, Don, don’t show it to me. Let’s start again.” He shuffled the deck in his expert way and fanned the cards again. “Any card. Don’t show it to me.” Seymour closed the fan while saying, “Did I make you choose that card?”

  “No, Seymour. You did not.”

  “Did I influence you in any way?”

  “No, you did not.”

  “Now I want you to put that card back in the deck. Anywhere. There? Fine
. Good.”

  I was drawing a meadow with a red barn in the background and a yellow horse looking at the viewer as it galloped by. In a cartoon bubble coming from its mouth I wrote, Wild And Free I Will Always Be. Joan paused, lifted her pencil off her sketchpad, and said, “That’s good. Maybe put some crows in the sky.” I put several black Vs in the sky above the barn.

  “Now, Don,” my father said, “cut the cards. Good. Just like that. Now I believe your card has risen to the top of the deck. Let’s see.” I glanced over and saw him turn over the top card. “Here it is, the ace of spades. Was that your card?” Uncle Donald exclaimed, “No! That wasn’t it at all!” My father said, “It wasn’t? What was your card?” Triumphant, Uncle Donald said, “The seven of diamonds.”

  “The seven of diamonds?” said Seymour. “Let’s see.” He riffled though the deck whispering, “The seven of diamonds.” Then he said, “I can’t find it. Wait a minute. What’s that in your pocket?” Uncle Donald reached into the breast pocket of his shirt and pulled out the seven of diamonds. His mouth hung open as Seymour put the card back in the deck, smiling in an apologetic way that I saw him practice in the mirror on the back of his bedroom door. I wondered why he couldn’t just sit down and talk to his brother-in-law, why he felt he had to entertain him. I couldn’t figure out why he and his fellow magicians thought people liked to be fooled. I hated being fooled and was always trying to figure out how my father did his tricks. When I asked he said, “A good magician never tells his tricks.” This hurt my feelings. Shouldn’t the daughter be exempt from that rule?

  Aunt Harriet came from the kitchen. “Where’s Violet?” No one answered. She said, “Girls, go up and get your mother. She probably doesn’t know we’re here.”

  Seymour said, “She’s a bit under the weather, Harriet.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad. I’ll bring some soup up to her.”

  “No, no. Thought it best if she stayed home.”