Part 12 (1/2)
”This must be the place,” said Allan wryly. He found a s.p.a.ce in the crowded parking lot. ”Simplicity itself.”
”I warned you, didn't I? We don't do things in a small way.”
Inside, all plate gla.s.s and draperies and potted plants, they were ushered past a chapel, a ballroom for the dinner and dancing to follow, and onto a terrace overlooking a bright green lawn. A bar was set up at one end; at the other a band played a waltz. Men in dark suits and women in long gaily colored dresses flecked the gra.s.s in the sunlight of the early June afternoon. A few couples danced on the terrace.
Lucy caught Allan's hand and pressed it. ”It's beautiful, though, isn't it? A garden party.”
”Very nice,” he admitted. ”All right, let's plunge in. Lead me to the slaughter.”
”I'll start you on the young ones-they're easier. Then you can work your way up.”
”Save me a dance.”
”What kind of dance do you want?”
”Oh, any kind,” said Allan. ”I can do them all.”
David rushed up to where they stood talking with a group of cousins. His walk had slowed lately, but just now he strode with the energy of his youth, reminding Lucy of the vigor of his absurd dances. He took her hand and held her away from him, appraising.
”You look lovely. What do they call that funny business up on top?”
”An Empire waist.”
”Very nice.” His eyes traveled the length of the dress, wine-colored, down to where it s.h.i.+mmered out in folds. ”Come, I want you to meet some people. Excuse us, Allan, just for a few minutes. I'll send her right back.” And he tugged her off by the hand excitedly, through the cl.u.s.ters of guests, the way she used to tug him in the zoo to show him some rare species she had found.
They stopped at a table where a few gray-haired people were gathered.
”This is my daughter, Lucy,” said David, pus.h.i.+ng her before him. ”My scientist,” he added, with his special blend of pride and mild mockery; she never could tell which was dominant.
There were a married couple, Victor and Edna Rickoff, with kind worn faces, and a tall man standing up, Sam Panofsky, broad and dapper, his thin white hair combed straight back from his forehead and stylishly long. Panofsky smiled all the time, leering beneath bushy white eyebrows. From the set of his jaw Lucy knew he thought well of himself and his appearance. In his navy-blue suit adorned with a wide orange tie, he moved rigidly, like a man much older than he looked. His body had a well-kept yet tenuous solidity, as though he stayed firm by artificial means, by laborious hours on machines in expensive health clubs. He watched Lucy; his lips closed, then opened, and he wet them with his tongue.
”A scientist?” he echoed.
”d.a.m.n right,” replied David. Then, turning to Lucy, ”We grew up together. Victor's house was right next door. We all went to school together.”
”Sure,” said Rickoff. ”Did he ever tell you, Lucy, the crazy things we used to do?”
She shook her head.
”Oh, did we have times!” Rickoff's milky eyes lit up behind thick gla.s.ses. ”Remember that back yard where we played bandits, how we dug in the dirt for bags of gold? And those poor chickens we chased?”
”You chased everything that moved.” Mrs. Rickoff was fair and frail, and smoked with a long black cigarette holder. ”Such wild boys. Like wild animals, bobcats.”
Lucy sat down with them. ”So you were childhood friends? This is amazing.”
”Friends!” cried Rickoff. ”More like family! At a wedding, like today, we used to sneak under the grownups' feet to get in the dance. You should have seen your father jump around. Some little dancer, that one, they used to say.”
”And what else?” said Lucy.
”Your father was some smart-alecky kid. Remember, David, one morning you broke the ruler the teacher used to smack us with?” Rickoff tossed his benign and balding head. ”So he smacked us with half! And sent us out to stand in the freezing cold for an hour!”
”Those winters were so bitter,” said Mrs. Rickoff. ”Snow up to your eyes. You had to melt ice to wash. But the summers.” She leaned towards Lucy in a sudden surge, her voice deepening. ”The summers were gorgeous. That sky, not like anything here. Very wide, with a funny yellow light on the trees. There was a certain time of day, four, five o'clock, when even those old houses had a golden look, from the light. We went around barefoot, jumping in puddles. The ground was hot under our feet.”
Lucy was transported. It was just such privacies she had craved, like something out of a book, alien, exotic, transcendent. If only the Rickoffs had been her parents, she might have tasted that vanished spicy air. ... Then turning to David, who was lighting up an olive cigar, his face bland and impenetrable, she felt a traitor.
”Barefoot, sure,” Rickoff said to his wife. ”Who had shoes?”
”Yes, you're leaving out the best parts,” said Panofsky. ”Sky, puddles! Why don't you tell her about the czars? Tell her what fun our boys had in the army.” Panofsky moved stiffly towards Lucy and laid a hand on her shoulder. ”But a pretty girl like you isn't interested in such things. Would you care to dance?”
She hesitated and looked at David again, foolishly, as though he could tell her what to say.
”Well, maybe a little later. I just got here.” She gave a diffident laugh. ”I want to hear some more.” And then she felt embarra.s.sed for wanting so obviously to possess it the easy way, the way she had taken possession of the old novels, reveling in the abrasive names that exercised her tongue, and in the improbable l.u.s.ts and sufferings.
”You like this old stuff, eh? Sounds like a TV special, from this end. Right, David?” Panofsky snorted. ”But she's lucky. Nice straight nose, good face. No one would ever take her for ...”
”What do you mean? Take me for what?”
”You could be right off the Mayflower. ... You know you have a few gray hairs already? Why don't you cover them up? A young woman like you with gray hair-no need, in this day and age. In this country, especially, you can change yourself into anything you want. Let me see, I bet you're not a day over ... twenty-three?”
”Twenty-six.”
”And not married yet? What's the matter?” He laughed and turned again to her father. ”The young boys not good enough for her, David? You spoiled her?”
David stood up. ”I'm going to go and see how your mother's doing.” He paused a moment by her side.
”Go on. I'll be right over.” She turned away from Panofsky and towards the others. ”Is it so foolish to want to know something about your own history? I mean-” Then she stopped and thought once more how hopelessly naive she must sound. She saw her past as swaddled in secrecy, infused with a vast nostalgia for something she had never known, something which perhaps had never even existed, except as a mystery she herself had created and nourished. From the corner of her eye she noticed David walk briskly away; she felt both abandoned and yet finally free to unearth what she wanted. She gazed at the Rickoffs as though they were artifacts, archaeologists' finds, and then dropped her eyes, reproaching herself: they were ordinary people, and she was tongue-tied.
Mrs. Rickoff must have sensed her discomfort. ”Tell me something, Lucy. Did you ever see your father eat a banana?” she asked with a grin.
”A banana? I don't know. I don't remember.”
”Fifty-five years in this country,” she said, nodding towards her husband, ”and still he won't eat a banana. Because they didn't have bananas where we came from. He eats only what he ate as a child. That's how it sticks.”
Everyone laughed, and Lucy relaxed. ”Caviar,” she said. ”That's what my father pa.s.sed on to me. Caviar every Sunday morning.”
David went to sit with Anna, but over his shoulder he kept glancing at Lucy, still with the Rickoffs. A beautiful girl, it was undeniable, and the maroon dress suited her. She had turned out well. At school, first she had studied languages, then unexpectedly changed to biochemistry, more practical anyway, he decided. Now she had a job in a laboratory, working on an epilepsy research project and making good money, for a girl. Only the business with the boyfriend grated on his heart. Not Allan himself-he was a fine young man with a future, exactly the type he would have picked out for her himself. The beard was not worth making an issue of. When she had first brought him home to meet them David was pleased, and a.s.sumed it was only a matter of time.
”So,” he teased the next day over the phone, ”will we be seeing more of him?”
”I imagine so,” she replied in the same tone.
”Good. I presume you see a lot of him?”
”Oh yes. As a matter of fact he's sharing the apartment. I was going to tell you, soon.”
He hung up. In the kitchen he found Anna and shouted at her in a rage made worse because she went on quietly chopping onions while he flung his arms about and ranted.