by Joel Deutsch
Irina’s apartment looked like the photography galleries of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, with couches instead of padded resting benches and carpeting instead of the gleaming wood floors. Every one of its white walls, including those along the hallway to the bedrooms and bathroom, was covered with matted prints, some color, some black and white, some small, some large, some in between, a little too closely spaced for their own good, as if out of sheer prolific exuberance and desperation that they all be seen displayed, if only here and only imperfectly.
Daniel wasn’t that knowledgeable about fine photography, but he could see that this cluttered exhibition was evidence of real talent. Over the years, he and Sheila had purchased a few photographs for their home, and Sheila had tried to teach him something about the art, about its development and styles, about how to see, as she’d put it in a way that sounded to Daniel a little smug. Daniel had been the major breadwinner, his plate too full with professional obligations and stress for him to pay much mind to such things beyond his affectionate but dimming memories of an 8 A.M. Art History course at Berkeley that he’d usually either ditched completely or, if he managed to show up, often fell asleep at. So in their marriage, the arts and culture thing had fallen to Sheila, the psychotherapist and official humanities person. And if Daniel couldn’t tell a Dorothea Lange portrait of a ragged Depression-era farm family from a Walker Evans picture of some other ragged rural family, well, did Sheila care that it was only because of legislation Congress had passed in 1896 providing a way for the disabled railroad worker with a hand crushed between freight car couplings, or his widow if he’d bled to death right there beside the tracks, to sue for remedy in civil court without having to pay out of pocket for representation that he was able to earn a living taking personal injury cases on a contingency fee basis? Did she care anything, really, about depositions or pre-trial settlements or the process of jury selection? Well, actually, the last one had interested her, if only briefly, for its psychological ramifications. That he had to admit. But basically, their roles were as they were, a functional compartmentalization not so different from any other couple like themselves.
A few names were coming back to him. Cartier-Bresson, Diane Arbus (that grotesque brother and sister in the park, that pitiable giant dwarfing his normal-sized parents in their tacky suburban living room). Robert Frank, Danny Lyon, Lee Friedlander. And of course that famous Annie Leibowitz portrait of a languid, bare-chested Jim Morrison before the beard and the belly and the lonely junkie’s death in Paris, one of the iconic foreshadowing images of his and Daniel’s darker generational legacy.
The four of them– Daniel, Irina, Sasha and grandfather Aron– were seated around a circular, white linen-covered table that nearly filled the kitchenette’s dining cranny, which also had photographs hung everywhere.
Irina was gracious, hospitable, bustling between stove and table in a way that reminded him of his mother’s mother, Golda, although of course younger and a lot trimmer than the heavy-hipped, busty old bubbe from Kiev. In fact, she looked quite pretty this afternoon. For presenting herself to the police earlier, she’d worn a nondescript skirt and blouse and tied her hair back in a bland, severe way. But now she had on loose-fitting white cotton slacks and sandals with a cherry-red short-sleeved collarless shirt, untucked, and her hair was down, touching her shoulders.
. Sasha, sullen and reticent at first, had turned voluble telling the story of his overnight misadventure. And Aron (”dedushka” was the word for “grandpa,” Daniel learned that afternoon), white-haired and erect of posture, was a gently patriarchal presence, his faltering English belying what Daniel recognized as a quick, formidable and displaced-seeming intelligence.
There were bones in the fish and no lettuce in the salad. But the cold vegetable borscht, aromatic with a sprinkling of chopped fresh dill (just “borsch,” the grandfather, Aron, had corrected him) was as savory as any broth he had ever tasted, and the peppery cabbage and potato-filled piroshki dumplings were delicious.
“More?” offered Irina.
“Maybe just another piroshki or two,” said Daniel. I’m pretty full. This is more than I usually eat for lunch these days.”
Irina took his empty plate to the stove. “Piro-zhoak,” said Sasha, stressing the final syllable. “Singular piro-zhoak. plural piro-zhkee.”
“Okay,” said Daniel. “Pirozhok, pirozhki.” Right?”
“You said pee-RO-shkee again, like an American,” laughed Sasha, first time, Daniel realized, he had seen him even smile.
“Which I am,” Daniel reminded him.
“Me, too,” Sasha said. “But it’s cool, you know? Not a problem.” Maybe a little breakthrough there, Daniel thought. A glimmer of trust, a tiny opening of the wary teenage heart.
Irina returned Daniel’s plate to him covered with a bit of everything there was more of. “Just in case,” she explained with mock seriousness. Before taking her seat again she plunked his sodden tea bag back into his cup and poured hot water over it from a tall black electric kettle.
It was motherly treatment, Daniel noted, enjoying the indulgence. But his reaction to Irina wasn’t exactly filial. Let alone Oedipal.
Sure, compared to Jacqueline, she really wasn’t much to look at, well-preserved or not, jogging or no jogging. She had the crow’s feet, even when she was keeping a perfectly straight face. her throat was a little slack, the flesh of her hand and fingers had felt unexpectedly thick when she’d led him inside her apartment. But there were those big brown eyes, expressive as hell. There was that nose, a perfect marvel of Ashkenazik genetic sculpting that some Los Angeles Daddy’s girl would get someone to commit rhinoplasty upon as a 16th birthday present, these days. And that mouth, that broad,inviting mouth.
And what was he, anyway? Tom Cruise? Paul Newman? Even Tom Cruise probably wasn’t Tom Cruise anymore. And Newman, the lean, blue-eyed Newman of “The Hustler” and “HUD?” How old must Newman be now? 70-something? 80?
Daniel stuck a hand under the table and felt the modest but undeniable roll of lower belly fat bulging over his belt, that bulge he just couldn’t seemed to work off anymore regardless of how many hours he put in on the treadmills, the Nautilus machines and the free weight benches at the gym. In the memoir of the zaftig, saucy white House Intern, What had struck Daniel most poignantly was the young woman describing how self-consciously the President had sucked in his stomach the first time he took off his shirt in her presence. And he, Daniel, had had a home then, and a wife, and so the whole thing had been moot. Hypothetical, a mere matter of curiosity. Then.
And speaking of Jacqueline, what was up with that woman? Daniel hadn’t been anybody’s one-night stand, intentionally or not, for a long, long time, too long to remember the protocol when you’re the one who isn’t sure what’s happening. He’d have to think about that later. Sasha, after a hearty gulp of his tea, had resumed recounting the previous night’s events.
To be continued…