The Jew's Wife & Other Stories Read online

  “Did you have trouble with the Ford again?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Don’t you think it’s time you got a new car? A nice blue one? I saw a car the other day that would suit you just fine. They’re on sale now, you know, to get ready for the new models in the fall.”

  “You have a point there, Margaret. Were there no other messages?”

  “No, I don’t think ...Wait. Here’s one. Father George must have taken it. I’d recognize his chicken scrawl anywhere.”

  He could see her adjusting her bifocals to make out the second curate’s minuscule hand.

  “It’s from someone named Weeks.”

  “Charlie Weeks?”

  “There’s no first name. Just Weeks.”

  He hadn’t seen Charlie Weeks, a high school classmate since the night eight years ago they spent together when Charlie had been passing through. Charlie had promised to keep in touch, but didn’t.

  “What’s the message?”

  “No message. Just a telephone number. You’d better call him, don’t you think, Father?”

  “Yes, Margaret. I will.”

  “Charge it to the rectory. What the heck.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Shall I tell the man you’re interested?”

  “What man?”

  “The one who wants to sell you that lovely blue car.”

  “Sure, Margaret. Why don’t you do that.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The area code was for the southern part of the state.

  Charlie had a horror of big cities, New York in particular. He grew up near Paterson but attended the same high school with Richard Walther in Jersey City. Sometimes Charlie and some other St. Francis students took the PATH train into Greenwich Village. Young Richard joined them a couple times—a contingent of obvious out-of-towners come to ogle the big-city girls (mostly suburbanites like themselves) and snicker at the homosexuals on Christopher Street. He could not recall any of them—Charlie Weeks, Frank Willet and a few others—ever saying a word to any female; and they certainly didn’t badger the homosexuals. They merely wandered the narrow streets, frequently getting lost, and argued about which of them should ask a stranger how to get back to the train station.

  Charlie’s own interest in New York was limited to the legal beer he could order when he turned eighteen. His heart never left New Jersey. Even Paterson was too citified to suit him. He came into his own when his family moved to a big house on a lake near Morristown. Father Walther had spent a couple weekends there, fishing for carp and shooting at tin cans with Charlie’s .22. After graduation when, to no one’s surprise, Richard entered the diocesan seminary, Charlie headed for an engineering school in upstate New York. For a while they corresponded. He was invited to Charlie’s wedding but was unable to attend because he was receiving minor orders the same day. Later he sent Charlie an invitation to his final ordination. Other graduates of St. Francis showed up, but not Charlie. It was almost a year before Charlie brought his bride to meet him at his first parish assignment in Ridgefield Park. It was two more years before he turned up again, this time alone at Holy Name, to reminisce about old times. Both visits were unannounced.

  He decided to try his mother once more before returning Charlie’s call. He still could not believe she would change her plans without consulting him. Margaret might even have gotten the message backward: his mother might have returned home ahead of time. God knew he encouraged her often enough to get away from the senior citizen’s housing whenever she had the chance. But she always resisted, citing one or another of her fellow tenants who would not have anyone to go to the store or talk to if she left even for a few days. Her building, a modern tower planted between a shopping center and a horse farm, seemed more like a nursing home than a residence. Many of the tenants were too sick, alcoholic or depressed to properly care for themselves. His mother played nurse, go-fer, and father confessor to them—an admirable response on her part, but even a saint needed a break sometimes from the world’s misery.

  There was no answer. He would try again later. He dialed Charlie Weeks’ number.

  A woman answered. He identified himself, making every effort to sound cordial (he could not for the life of him remember Mrs. Weeks’ first name), but she cut him off to call Charlie to the phone. There was a long pause before someone picked up again.

  “Hello?”

  The voice was tentative, suspicious.

  “It’s Richard. Richard Walther.”

  Charlie’s tone immediately softened. He apologized for not keeping in touch, more so than was necessary. After all, the sum total of their relationship since high school amounted to just a few hours light conversation.

  “I should have sent you my new address. I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s alright. No harm done.”

  “Which brings us right to the point.” Charlie said he had bought a house at the shore and wanted Father Walther to spend some time there. “It’s only a couple hours from your parish. The gentleman who took my message told me you went to see your mother. How is your mother, by the way?”

  He felt he should be jumping at this invitation. But how was he to explain how he had ended up in Toms River? On the surface, his story was simple: a breakdown on the Turnpike, the demise of his car, his mother’s change of plans. But he could not admit to the crazy notion he had indulged of visiting Fords Pointe—not, at any rate, until Charlie and he became better reacquainted. A priest did not just wander off like that (not to mention—not to mention—his episode with Anne-Marie).

  “As it happens, I still have some vacation left.”

  “Great. Hop in your car.”

  “I’ll have to take a bus. My old Ford gave up the ghost.”

  “No problem. I’ll meet you at the bus stop. Just give me an ETA.”

  It was scarcely nine a.m. He figured he could probably get a bus by afternoon.

  “There’s a phone right next to the bus stop. We’ll expect you for supper.”

  “Sounds wonderful.”

  “Our pleasure, old man.”

  Charlie looked much the same as he had a decade earlier. His short hair (when everyone else was long-haired he wore a crew cut) was the same sandy brown Father Walther remembered from their school days. His face seemed more angular, at least it did in profile as they sped up the decrepit highway from the bus stop. But everything else about him looked remarkably unchanged.

  “Nice car,” Father Walther offered. Charlie had never been much of a talker. The confidences they shared in adolescence were always highlighted by long periods of silence. But that was a long time ago. “Rides well.” Actually, it was a sumptuous vehicle, and in comparison with his Ford, rode like a dream. The seats were upholstered with real fabric instead of vinyl. The windshield was tinted, and a symphony orchestra seemed to be concealed behind the padded dashboard.

  “Costs an arm and a leg to keep up.”

  Father Walther would have liked to relate his car problems, but was afraid that if he mentioned the breakdown he would be drawn into telling everything that followed—or worse, attempting to cover it up. There was time for all that later. He asked about Charlie’s house.

  “Bought it last year. Got tired of wondering every year where to spend my vacation,” he said, straight-arming the steering wheel. “We still take a little trip out of state now and then. But I do enough traveling for my job. When I get a couple weeks off, I like to know there’s a place waiting where all I have to do is open the door and step out on the beach.”

  “You’re an engineer, but I don’t remember what kind.”

  “Civil,” he said, grinning sheepishly. “Just like my daddy.”

  He shifted to a lower gear, though the priest saw no crossroad to turn onto. The car braked suddenly, locking the restraining belts across their chests, then turned sharply onto a dirt—it looked more like sand—road. Unlike the path Anne-Marie had turned down, this one was free of any confining vegetation.
It was sand and sand dune all around. A few hundred yards further in—east, if his sense of direction was working—stood a scattering of houses, not single-level bungalows like those in Fords Pointe, but customized structures the like of which he had seen only in magazines. The road ended at a clearing behind one of them.

  “Not this one,” Charlie said, turning off the engine. “I wish. This baby’s solar-heated, finished basement...the works.”

  They climbed to the top of a big dune, then descended into a valley of sand, keeping to an almost submerged boardwalk. Father Walther had read somewhere that dunes “wandered,” sometimes covering entire houses. He wondered if parked cars ever suffered the same fate.

  At the top of a second rise the sea came into view. The priest paused, his black vinyl suitcase in hand. He had seen the ocean during a bus outing just the previous Saturday. But that was Asbury Park, and he had been too busy keeping an eye on his altar boys to admire it. Besides, this was a different stretch of water entirely, almost a different ocean—a free, untamed Atlantic, not just the backdrop to a crowded boardwalk and badly littered beach. He stood admiring the play of sunlight on waves and the darkening sky to the east.

  “This is it,” Charlie said when Father Walther joined him on the next set of dunes, his shoes now full of sand. To his eye the structure ahead looked no less grand than the one Charlie had just coveted. It stood three stories high if you counted the substructure anchoring it to the sand, and the front had an unobstructed view of the ocean. As he followed Charlie up a narrow wooden staircase, his friend’s diffidence reminded him of the pose the Willets used to strike, always insisting they were struggling just to get by, while their neighbors were all rolling in money. Even in those days, people assumed a moral pose in his presence, making him feel already set apart.

  They entered by way of a large kitchen outfitted with the latest model stove, refrigerator, and—it was open and full of clean china—dishwasher, all enameled in the same rust color. A young woman (thirty had begun to look young) was removing plates from the dishwasher. She did not turn to greet them, but because of the energy with which she was working he suspected her lack of hospitality was due not to bad manners but nerves.

  “This is Sylvia.”

  The woman dried her hands hurriedly on the apron she was wearing over a pair of shorts.

  “Do I call you Father...or what?”

  “Richie will do.”

  She blushed and looked to Charlie as if hoping to catch a cue. But her husband was already headed toward the other side of the house.

  “I’d better finish the tour,” Father Walther said.

  Sylvia managed a smile, but her eyes were full.

  “That’s about it,” Charlie said, indicating a well-furnished living room—Scandinavian, as best the priest could tell. “There’s two bedrooms upstairs. Plus a deck. That’s where I set up my scopes.”

  Charlie had been president of St. Francis’ astronomy and radio clubs. He used to drag Richard off regularly to glimpse a new comet or view the conjunction of two planets. Richard had enjoyed looking at the mountains of the moon and sometimes even shared Charlie’s enthusiasm when he caught an impressive star cluster in his lens. The young priest-to-be had no interest in building telescopes himself or standing around in the cold waiting for Venus to rise, but those stargazing expeditions provided a context for their adolescent gabfests. They discussed everything from the structure of the atom (Charlie’s purview) to proofs for the existence of God. Charlie also talked about his love life— always tempestuous. They even discussed Richard’s vocation, or at least the peripheral subjects relating to it, like celibacy (unnatural, according to Charlie). But, for all the lengthy talks they had, Father Walther could not recall one in which he ever bared his heart the way Charlie did. His role even then was that of listener, counselor.

  Charlie opened a set of sliding glass doors, and they stepped out onto a balcony. There was nothing between the house and water but beach.

  “The sunrise must be magnificent.”

  There was nothing apologetic about Charlie now. If anything, his look was proprietary, as if his friend had just guessed the real reason for his latching on to this particular piece of real estate—the house was just a shelter; a tent would serve as well.

  The guest room was not large, not by comparison with the motel where he had spent the previous night. But it managed to contain a double bed, dresser, night table and two straight-back chairs. Everything was new. Best of all, when he parted the orange curtains, there was an ocean view.

  Charlie had suggested a swim, so he changed into his trunks. They were old-fashioned, dark blue and full-cut—baggy, really, the same kind his father wore thirty years ago. No seminary mentor ever told him not to wear tight-fitting or flashy trunks (some of the younger clergy did), just as no one ever had to tell him to wear pants beneath his cassock despite all the jokes on that subject. You knew such things by instinct, or should.

  Sylvia told him Charlie had already gone down to the beach.

  “Don’t you ever take time out yourself to play?” the priest asked.

  She laughed nervously and went on painting raw spare ribs with a concoction out of a steel bowl. She was not an unattractive woman. Her brown hair, which she wore hastily pinned up, had a pretty sheen, and her eyes were a gentle shade of blue. The rest of her face was just irregular enough to give it character. But she seemed oddly negligent of her charms, as if any beauty she had was accidental, having nothing to do with the person she knew to be her real self.

  “Well, I’d better see if I can find your husband.”

  The beach was deserted except for a young mother and toddler. There were no lifeguards. At first he thought Charlie had changed his mind about the swim. But then he spotted his close-cropped head bobbing up and down beyond the breakers. Swimming in rough, unguarded surf seemed a risky business to a cleric who had never mastered the sidestroke. But then he recalled that in addition to presiding over the radio and astronomy clubs, Charlie had been one of their school’s star swimmers. Charlie yelled for him to come in. Father Walther waved back but had no intention of venturing that far out.

  He tested the water with his toes. It seemed colder that it did last Saturday in Asbury Park. For a while he played tag with the waves, only allowing them to reach his ankles, then reached down and wet himself across the chest and shoulders. There was pink on his forearms and the tops of his thighs, but otherwise he was cadaverously white. He rarely looked at his body. He was vain enough to worry about his weight (his housekeeper would turn him into a blimp, given half a chance). But his concern was limited to how he looked in clothes—in a roman collar and suit or in a cassock or chasuable. What the nude body beneath those garments looked like did not ordinarily enter his mind. He was surprised now to see how pale his skin was and how far along he was toward having a spare tire. You didn’t notice such things when you were shepherding a bunch of rambunctious altar boys around a crowded beach.

  “It’s not bad once you’re in,” Charlie said, emerging from the surf dripping like a fish. His body was a healthy brown, and despite a tendency to carry excess weight in the same area where Father Walther’s own flesh was expanding, his muscles showed plainly, no doubt from regular use.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Father Walther replied, taking a half step back from the water. The backstep was a conditioned reflex: one of the more popular activities on class outings was to throw non-athletic types like himself into the water. Charlie laughed, perhaps recalling those same dunkings, and proposed they take a walk.

  Until now, he hadn’t given much thought to why Charlie had chosen to invite him to his summer home. Charlie must have known well in advance when his own vacation would fall due, and it was only by pure chance that their times off happened to coincide. But Charlie had always been impetuous. His two unannounced visits of the last decade proved that, but even in high school he was given to sudden urges for a breath of mountain air or a midnight cruise thr
ough an old girlfriend’s neighborhood. If his friend Richard happened to be with him when those inspirations struck, he was enlisted to go along for the ride. The nature of their friendship was such that Charlie played the role of doer—the volatile, impetuous fool-rushing-in—while Richard Walther even then played the role of passive adviser.

  Thinking back now on that relationship, he felt a sense of embarrassment. What business did he have acting as father confessor to a young man whose experience of the world even then exceeded his own? And yet, Charlie had been his closest friend. For all the years Frank Willett and he spent in the same schools, they never confided in one another. Nor did he make close friendships in the seminary. His vocation seemed to preclude sharing his real self with anyone but God. But now, he thought, he would welcome the friendship of someone who would treat him as an equal. And who better to look to for such a friendship than Charlie Weeks?

  “Well, what do you think of her?”

  Charlie couldn’t be referring to anyone but Sylvia, but the question—rather, the eagerness he put into it—seemed odd.

  “You’re a lucky man.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  Charlie’s pleasure was obvious and, considering the longevity of his union, touching. He began taking little half-steps, skips actually. Except for his slight paunch and bit of gray hair, he might have been the same sixteen-year-old who exulted at the first buds of spring or, alternatively, flew into a rage when Richard Walther questioned one of his scientific canons.

  “The trouble with me and Sharon,” he went on, “we were too much alike. I’m the moody type, and so was she.”

  He took a few more steps before realizing his friend had come to a halt.

  “This isn’t the same woman you married seven years ago?”

  Charlie regarded him with amazement.

  “I thought I told you, Sharon and I broke up.”

  “You never said a word,” the priest replied, trying not to show his irritation. “You and Sylvia, then, are...?”