Bertrand Court (7 page)

Rabbi Katzen shushed the room in his New Jersey baritone. “People, welcome. We're here today to name the son of Margaret Stramm and Evan Solonsky.”

Eric, too polite to hang up on a telemarketer, debated for a second whether to correct the rabbi. This was a naming, for Christ's sake, Katzen had to get it right. “It's Eric,” he whispered into the rabbi's ear.

“Eric.” Rabbi Katzen placed his hand over his heart and smiled. “He looks like my own Evan, a good-looking guy, this one. Forgive me.” Muffled laughter filled the room as he patted Eric's cheek. “Today we'll perform a ritual that binds us as Jewish people.”

Eric heard these words through the Stramms' ears. He was beginning to feel dizzy, so he took a deep breath, as he instructed nervous interviewees to do while he was fiddling with their mics. It didn't work. Alec began whimpering in Maggie's arms just as the rabbi was explaining how they would swaddle him in Grandpa Hyman's prayer shawl.

Maggie swayed from side to side, trying to calm the baby as his whimpers turned into cries. Her neck sprouted red blotches.

“Precocious boy, he knows what's coming,” Rabbi Katzen joked.

Now Alec was wailing rhythmically, like an ambulance siren.

Maggie's blotches migrated to her cheeks. She leaned over to the rabbi and muttered, “I'm afraid we're going to need you to excuse us.”

“Give him to me.” Rabbi Katzen held out his arms.

Alec was screaming even louder now, and Maggie looked relieved to hand him over to someone who had more experience with babies. Rabbi Katzen bounced the baby up and down, and he stopped crying. Soft, relieved laughter filled the room. “What can I say? I do this every day.”

Again Alec's body tensed, and the wailing resumed.

“We're really going to need a second to regroup,” Maggie said firmly, pointing to the den. She grabbed Eric's arm, and they followed the rabbi out of the living room.

In the den, Rabbi Katzen turned and thrust Alec at Maggie. “What's his krotz?” he asked her accusingly.

Maggie just blinked.

“Krotz, problem. Does he have to make?”

“She just changed him. I saw her,” Eric said as if he were swearing to his dad that he'd done his math homework.

“Is he hungry?”

“He already ate.”

“This is what he did last night while you were out, Eric. Look at his body when he cries. He's in so much pain.” Maggie looked like she was about to cry.

“Maybe it's gas.” Hannah, who moved soundlessly, like a dancer or a cat, was standing in the doorway holding Goldie, while a helpless Amy hovered behind her. “That's what this one did when I ate something she didn't like.”

Eric and Maggie stared at Hannah, Amy, and Helene, who was standing behind the Solonsky sisters looking worried.

“Garlic always set her off. Chocolate was bad, too,” Hannah said.

Eric couldn't bring himself to meet Maggie's eyes. Drunken noodles. Mrs. Fields. Shit.

“What if he doesn't calm down?” Eric asked.

“I've never left a bris without a foreskin,” Rabbi Katzen said wryly.

Maggie sat down in an armchair and stuck Alec on her breast, but he was too fussy to nurse. Helene walked over to Maggie and put out her hands to hold Alec, who nuzzled his fuzzy head against the collar of her blouse. Babies adored Helene. She rocked him back and forth until he started to doze, grudgingly handing him to Eric's father, who would hold the baby during the circumcision according to custom. Simon rested Alec on a pillow on his lap and stroked his forehead. Rabbi Katzen moved through the ceremony with incredible speed, barely taking a breath between each blessing.

For a surgeon, Simon looked pretty green, which only made Eric more nervous. Alec was whimpering again and thrashing his tiny legs. Simon began humming a Yiddish melody that Eric recognized only vaguely, yet it claimed him. Simon held Alec's ankles, just as Great-Grandpa David had held Simon's and Grandpa Hyman had held Eric's, and on and on. This felt right. His father tightened his grip as the rabbi took a scalpel and a pacifier out of his pouch.

“Okay, Eric, put this in his mouth. He'll just cry for a few seconds.”

Eric parted Alec's lips and inserted the pacifier, studying the curves of his baby's ears so he wouldn't have to think too hard about what Rabbi Katzen was about to do to his penis. And then it happened, so fast and so very slowly.

The actual cutting took less than a minute, and then the rabbi, brow furrowed in the shape of a W, cleaned Alec's penis, dressed it in gauze, fastened his diaper, and swaddled him tightly.

Alec made a liar out of Rabbi Katzen; he did not stop crying after a few seconds. Or a few minutes. His face turned the color of a pomegranate; his screams grew louder and louder, and his flailing limbs strained against the taut fabric of the baby blanket.

A thin line of sweat formed on Rabbi Katzen's upper lip. “He's fine, he's fine,” he assured Eric.

Maggie snatched Alec from the rabbi's arms. “Then why is he screaming his head off? And why are you sweating?” she hissed, abandoning her diversity-training voice. “And why did we put him through this barbaric thing?”

The house went quiet. Not one of the thirty-plus guests made a peep. Eric's mother slipped out of the den, and he heard her say, “Please excuse us for a second, everyone. We've got a fussy little boy. Go ahead and eat. Enjoy. Make up for yesterday!” People resumed their conversations, but in hushed tones.

“Can you try to nurse him, Maggie?” Rabbi Katzen's voice had lost its authority.

Maggie unwrapped Alec and tossed Grandpa Hyman's tallis they'd used during the ceremony absently onto the carpet. Eric had never seen a tallis anywhere but draped over someone's shoulders or neatly folded inside a velvet case.

Rabbi Katzen picked up the tallis and handed it to Eric. “The procedure went fine. He'll be fine.”

Eric just nodded.

“I'll give you some privacy, but I won't leave the house until he's calm.” The rabbi exited the den.

Alec alternately nursed and cried into Maggie's bare breast while she caressed his head, a strand of hair escaping from her barrette, brushing against her nose. An hour before, Eric would have tucked it behind her ear.

When they got home, Maggie whisked Alec away to his room. Eric sat outside the nursery and rested his head against the cool plaster of the doorway. He listened to the baby glider click as it moved back and forth above the hardwood floor. He thought about the days that would follow. He would snap more photos of Alec and eat more casseroles and watch more infomercials while he rocked the baby back to sleep in the middle of the night. He would fast next Yom Kippur, not for his father or to prove anything to Maggie, but for Alec — and for himself. He would not deny Maggie Alec's baptism, he would hide painted eggs in the backyard, he would never point out that not once since he'd known his wife had she uttered the name Jesus or stepped foot in a church, not on Easter Sunday or Christmas Eve. A bris for a baptism. A transaction sealed with blood and water.

When he could no longer hear the glider, he peeked into Alec's room. Maggie didn't open her eyes as he lifted his little boy from her shoulder. He held Alec's warm body against his, breathing in the scent of breast milk and Neutrogena soap. He changed Alec's bandages; his penis looked like a piece of raw meat.

Alec could barely keep his eyes open, so Eric put him in his bassinet and went outside to assemble his new lawn mower. Still wearing his dress khakis and a sweat-stained button-down shirt Maggie had placed under their Christmas tree last December, he mowed every blade of grass surrounding the house. When he finished, he stood on his lawn as he had the day before, but he wasn't waiting. He wasn't waiting for Maggie to wake up, or for the fading sun to mark the end of a long day, or for his father to notice his grass, green from a wet September and perfectly cut.

YOU'RE NEXT

Helene Stramm and Maggie Stramm Solonsky, August 2001

I
keep mum when my daughter, Maggie, tells me that she's baking a sugar-free birthday cake for my five-year-old granddaughter. It's too easy to ruffle her feathers, and I don't want to muck up our weekend together. During the drive to the health food store in Bethesda, I tolerate her “I can't believe you smoked while you were pregnant” tone while she lectures me on how sweets wreak havoc on the immune system.

My Pic 'n Save back home looks pretty gosh-darned good compared to this dump. I bite my tongue instead of asking Maggie why organic produce looks so mangy, or if all the employees are required to pierce their nostrils, or why she chooses to shop in a store that smells like a scented bathroom candle. Little Kaya and I follow her up and down the aisles in search of some magical artificial sweetener her acupuncturist recommended.

“Found it.” Maggie reaches for a rectangular box decorated with a drawing of a mint leaf. “This is it, Say-Lo. I remember the name because it sounds like J. Lo.”

“The Italian singer with the round derrière?”

“She's Puerto Rican, Mom.” Maggie laughs, and then Kaya and I join in. The joke's on me, and that's okay, as long as we're all laughing together.

A bearded clerk gives Maggie the once-over while he rings up the Say-Lo. And why not? My Maggie's pretty again, in a bohemian kind of way. She doesn't have to resort to the bottle (L'Oréal No. 12) like I did once I hit my mid-thirties. A natural honey color tints her long braid, and she keeps herself real slim and trim. Thank the good Lord, she's over the phase where she dyed her hair black and ate junk and made herself as unappealing as possible. This was right before she flitted off to London, and we didn't speak for a year. But then one day out of the blue, she called to tell me that she was getting married. Eric's a Jewish fellow, which took a little getting used to, odd customs and all. It's true what they say about the Jewish people though, they certainly know the meaning of family, and Eric's been good for her.

The clerk gestures to us. “No question you three apples fell from the same tree.” He points his index finger at me but looks at Kaya. “Now, is this your mom's twin sister?” With that twinkle in his eyes, he's starting to remind me of a scruffy Cary Grant.

“She's my grandma, silly.” Kaya giggles and points to my ash-blond hair (L'Oréal No. 30).

I cup her cheek, the perfect half of a peach, and gush, “You're very kind, young man.” Good golly, it's been a long while since anyone's noticed my looks. But here I am, the source of both Maggie's and Kaya's dimples and light hair, a sharp contrast to our olive skin. A striking combination, if I do say so myself. Now, Kaya's older brother Alec is all Solonsky — dark hair, doughy body, and gentle eyes, albeit a little too close together. Real Jewish-looking, like his father.

Kaya waves goodbye to the clerk, and I reach for her hand as we exit the store. I squeeze her chubby fingers, which will one day be long and tapered like mine. It's hot outside, and the humidity is downright uncivilized for a Midwestern girl like me. I take a handkerchief out of my pocketbook and dab my upper lip.

“Doesn't that clerk remind you of Cary Grant a little?” I ask Maggie.

She rolls her eyes. “He's a big flirt.”

“What's a flirt?” Kaya asks as she hops into the back of Maggie's wagon and buckles her car seat.

“A person who makes people feel good about themselves so they'll like him,” Maggie says, starting the car.

“People are going to flirt with you like crazy, Kaya. You're such a pretty little thing.” I smile at her in the rearview mirror.

Maggie's jaw tenses. She's so fussy about this topic. Can't I appreciate my granddaughter's beauty?

“Kaya and I have big discussions about
inner
beauty, about the importance of kindness and respect.” Maggie's doing that thing she does with her husband, where they pretend that they're talking to each other: “Kaya cleaned up her room today, Eric. All by herself.” But this time I can't tell if her intended audience is Kaya or me.

“And inclusion, Mommy. That means you let everyone play with you.” Kaya has rehearsed this line.

“That's right, sweetie.” Maggie shoots me a look, the remnants of a familiar anger that I still don't understand. I never worked so hard at anything in my life as I did raising my daughter, devoting myself to her, helping her strive for perfection. If my mother had paid attention to me like that when I was a girl, I would have luxuriated in her love like a kitten basking in a warm patch of sunshine. I thought when Maggie became a mother she would understand the sacrifices I made for her, the hours I spent learning her cheerleading routine so I could help her make the squad. Which she did.

But I'm not going to let any of that spoil my weekend. You could have knocked me over with a feather when Maggie called last month and asked me to fly to Washington to help out with Kaya's party. Sure, we see each other fairly often — Christmas, birthdays, and whatnot — but this is the first time she's really invited me into her life since Alec's circumcision ceremony, the first time she hasn't pawned me off on her kooky sister-in-law Amy, who lives in a cute little apartment in a Spanish neighborhood near the zoo. Amy insists that the neighborhood is safe, but I send her bottles of mace from time to time. Eric and Alec are off at some father-son soccer camp in Pennsylvania — neither one has an athletic bone in his body, something I'd never dare mention. So here I am, ready to roll up my sleeves.

My mother thinks that baking a sugar-free carrot cake for a five-year-old's birthday party is moronic, as she's been screaming at me by her deliberate silences since I took her to the Bethesda Natural Food Co-op this afternoon. I'm not going to let it get to me; our parenting styles are just completely opposite — thank God — and she's going to have to accept that eliminating sugar from our diet is an important choice I'm making for our family.

I prepare a farro and cilantro dish I clipped from
Organic Weekly
, steam some kale, and broil a nice piece of salmon for us. After dinner, I bathe Kaya, whose little body hums with excitement over the party; it takes three chapters of
Charlotte's Web
for her to drift off to sleep.

My mother is scouring the salmon pan with an S.O.S. pad when I join her in the kitchen. “Thank goodness she finally went down. I don't want her to be pooped out for her party,” she says, and she smiles at me, which incites a fresh wave of guilt over my anger with her this afternoon at the co-op. I ruined her moment with Stephen, or the Compliment Man, as Eric and I've nicknamed him. I pick up a bag of carrots, and we grate them until our fingers turn orange.

“Look.” I point to our stained hands.

“That's carotene.” She rubs her fingers together. “Your father loved carrots. Remember that ginger-carrot ring I used to serve on Christmas Eve?” Her voice softens, as it always does when she remembers my father, who died last summer.

“Yes, and I remember our baking adventures too.”

My mother's the most fun when she's baking. We used to make batches of M&M oatmeal cookies to sell at high school football games when I cheered, and I bet if I put on some Captain & Tennille she'd start dancing, despite her recent hip replacement.

Maybe Eric's idea of inviting her to help with Kaya's party wasn't so bad. “Birthday parties are Helene's thing, Maggie. Besides, she's so lonely without your dad,” he said last month as we drove home from picking strawberries. Things are much better with my mom; I mean, I don't hate her anymore. She was so invested in my looks that I felt like she was breathing through my lungs. Now that I'm a mom myself, I can't imagine taking that kind of pleasure in my daughter's appearance. I want to show my mother that raising children is about instilling values and building self-esteem, not pushing them so hard to be on top of the heap that they grow fat, pimply, and miserable out of spite. I can't imagine what it would take for her to get that.

I invited both of Eric's sisters to the party, and the next morning Hannah and her younger daughter, Jane, arrive at ten-thirty on the nose. I also invited Robin and Sydney, but they're in Rochester visiting Marcus's family.

Kaya bounces downstairs wearing her favorite pair of overalls and a dingy Snow White T-shirt Eric bought her at the Orlando airport two years ago. My mother examines Kaya, and I know she's thinking,
Couldn't she have put on a party dress?
When Kaya learned how to dress herself, I made a silent promise that I would let her choose her own clothes, regardless of how unattractive they were.

Thank God, Hannah brought Jane, because only six children show up for the party. Two of them are twin girls from across the street. I've tried to befriend their mother, Nikki, but she's aloof. Their father, Tad, walks them over, and I can practically hear my mother wishing I'd married a man like him, the kind who wears expensive suits, whitens his teeth, and greets you with both polite attention and the suggestion that someone or someplace more important awaits him. A son-in-law her cronies at the club would covet. Tad's the polar opposite of Eric, not my type, but I do wish he'd stay, just to fill out the room.

“August is a tough month to host anything in Washington. The city just clears out,” Hannah explains to my mother, and I resent her kindness.

My mother's eyes dart around the room. “Go get me one of your scarves, Maggie, and I'll lead the girls in a game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey.”

“This is a choose-your-own-theme birthday party, Mom.” I try to keep the annoyance out of my voice. I've explained this to her about a dozen times, but she refuses to hear me. “It's empowering for the girls to make this experience what they want it to be for themselves.”

As per usual, Amy, whom Kaya has deemed “the fun aunt,” arrives late. She sneaks Kaya a kiss and heads to the sunroom to join my mother and Hannah, who are rocking back and forth in their wicker chairs. They pepper Amy with questions about her boyfriend, Leon. None of us have met him yet. I notice that Hannah keeps a watchful eye on the kids, the way I did when my sweet, pudgy Alec was playing T-ball with a team of rough boys.

As I'm putting the finishing touches on the goodie bags in the kitchen, my attention slides toward the living room, where I can see Kaya's reflection in the glass cabinet.

She stands with her hands on her hips and points to Jane and two other girls. “You three go draw, and when I say time's up, then Sophie and Emma will switch and two of you can come play house with me,” she orders. “I'll decide which two.” During a parent conference last winter, her teacher had described this bossy behavior, which I initially chalked up to her classmate Daphne Silverberg's bad influence. After Daphne moved to Toronto, I attributed the bossiness to Kaya's burgeoning leadership abilities.

The three girls dutifully march off to color on a small table, and Kaya turns her attention to Sophie and Emma, the anointed guests. “Okay, so I'm the mommy. Emma, you're the daddy.”

Emma grins.

“What am I?” Sophie asks.

Kaya pauses as Sophie waits in silence. “You're their dog. And you have bad breath.”

Sophie's shoulders slump, and her chin quivers.

“Here, put this in your mouth.” Kaya gives her a ratty old tennis ball she must have found in the yard.

Emma giggles nervously and doesn't stick up for her twin sister.

“In your mouth, Sophie,” Kaya says sweetly.

It feels like red heat is smoking off my chest. I hope to God that Hannah, Amy, and my mother are so deep in
conversation, now about mace, that they're not catching this. Should I step in? Reprimand Kaya on her birthday? Tell Sophie not to put the ball in her mouth? I wish Eric were here, even though he rarely takes on his little princess, or his big princess either, come to think of it.

“You're next, Emma. Go get the tennis ball.” Kaya hugs her redheaded friend.

Emma purrs at Kaya's affection and picks up the ball. Holy shit, my daughter is cult leader material.

Jane, shy yet self-assured, has dealt herself out of this game; she's looking through a stack of Kaya's puzzles in the corner of the den. I feign oblivion to the goings-on in the sunroom. “So, Hannah, did you tell my mom about your trip to the Dells?” I try to drown Kaya out, because I'm hearing her through their ears. This is a train wreck. But something about Kaya's control over these little girls tugs at the borders of my consciousness. Although I'm not exactly proud of her behavior, I'm a little in awe of her power.

“Girls, time to serve the cake!” I finally interrupt Kaya's game.

The girls gather around a card table my mother has decorated with pink balloons and streamers. My mother places the round layer cake in front of Kaya while I hunt down our camera. A halo of candlelight bathes Kaya's face and hair, and she's my angel again. I snap a shot of her blowing out all five candles on the first try. My mother plucks out the slender candles, covered in a gummy orange substance and white frosting. The cake's a big hit, and when Sophie asks for seconds, my mother nods at me with approval. I've spent the better part of my life pissed off at her, but right now I feel prouder than the day I ran home breathless with the news that I'd been voted captain of the cheerleading squad.