Rodney Whitaker: The Main

David glares at him in silence before saying, “That’s wonderful. That is just wonderful!” The tension in David’s voice causes Martin to look over at him, his breathing suspended. “Listen to the big scholar, will you? If my jack of hearts has its fly unbuttoned, he remembers! But when it comes to accounts, suddenly he’s a luftmensh, too busy with philosophical problems to worry about business! Oh, yes! Taking care of the business is too commonplace for a man who spends all his time debating does an ant have a pupik! For your information, Moishe, I was talking to the priest! So butt out for once! Just butt out!”

David jumps up, knocking the table with his knees, and slams out of the room.

In the ensuing silence, Father Martin looks from Moishe to LaPointe, upset, confused. LaPointe draws a deep breath and begins desultorily to collect the cards. The moment David began his abuse, Moishe froze in mid-action; and now he replaces his glasses, threading each wire temple over its ear.

“Ah… listen,” he says quietly. “You must forgive David. He is in pain. He is grieving. Yesterday was the anniversary of Hannah’s death. He’s been like a balled-up fist all day.”

The others understand. David and Hannah had been children together, and they had married young. So close, so happy were they that they dared express their affection only through constant light bickering and quarreling, as if it were unlucky to be blatantly happy and in love in a world where others were sad and suffering. After they immigrated to Montreal, Hannah’s world was focused almost totally on her husband. She never learned French or English and shopped only in Jewish markets.

During the pinochle games, David used to talk about Hannah constantly; complaining, of course. Bragging about her in his negative way. Saying that no woman in the world was so fussy about her cooking, such a nuisance about his health. She was driving him crazy! Why did he put up with it?

Then, six years ago, Hannah died of cancer. Sick less than a month, and she died.

For weeks afterward, the card games were quiet and uncomfortable; David was distant, uncharacteristically polite and withdrawn, and no one dared console him. His eyes were hollow, his face scoured with grief. Sometimes they would have to remind him that it was his play, and he would snap out of his reverie and apologize for delaying the game. David apologizing! Then, one evening, he mentioned Hannah in the course of conversation, grumbling that she was a nag and a pest. And moreover she was fat. Zaftig young is fat old! I should have married a skinny woman. They’re cheaper to feed.

That was how he would handle it. He would continue complaining about her. That way, she wouldn’t be gone completely. He could go on loving her, and being exasperated beyond bearing by her. Occasionally the sour void of grief returned to make him desperate and mean for a day or two, but in general he could handle it now.

The complicated double way he thought of his wife was expressed precisely one night when he happened to say, “Should Hannah, alshasholm, suddenly return, cholilleh, she would have a fit!”

“So just pretend nothing happened when he comes back,” Moishe says. “And whatever you do, don’t try to cheer him up. A man must be allowed to grieve once in a while. If he avoids the pain of grieving, the sadness never gets purged. It lumps up inside of him, poisoning his life. Tears are a solvent.”

Father Martin shakes his head. “But a friend should offer consolation.”

“No, Martin. That would be the easy, the comfortable thing to do. But not the kindest thing. Just as David is not grieving for Hannah—people only grieve for themselves, for their loss—so we wouldn’t be consoling him for his own sake. We would be consoling him because his grief is awkward for us.”

LaPointe feels uncomfortable with all this talk of grief and consolation. Men shouldn’t need that sort of thing. And he is about to say so, when David appears in the doorway.

“Hey!” he says gruffly. “I went out to make the sandwiches, and I can’t find anything. What a mess!”

Moishe smiles as he rises. David has never made the sandwiches in his life. “You find some glasses for the wine. I’ll make the sandwiches, for a change.”

As David rummages about grumpily for the glasses, Moishe steps to a narrow table against the wall on which are arranged cold cuts and a loaf of rye bread. He cuts the bread rapidly, one stroke of the knife for each thin, perfect slice.

“It’s amazing how you do that, Moishe,” Father Martin says, eager to get the conversation rolling.

“Agh, that’s nothing,” David pronounces proudly. “Have you ever seen him cut fabric?” He spreads two fingers like scissors and makes a rapid gesture that narrowly misses Father Martin’s ear. “Psh-sh-sht! It’s a marvel to watch!”

Moishe chuckles to himself as he continues slicing. “I would call that a pretty modest accomplishment in life. I can just see my epitaph: ‘Boy! Could he cut cloth!’ “

“Yeah, yeah,” David says, fanning his hand in dismissal of Moishe’s modesty. “Still, think what a surgeon you would have made.”

Father Martin has a funny idea. “Yes, he’d make a great surgeon, if my appendix were made of damask!”

David turns and looks at him with heavy eyes. “What? What’s this about your appendix being damask?”

“No… I was just saying that… well, if Moishe were a surgeon…” Confused, Martin shrugs and drops it.

“I still don’t get it,” David says flatly. He is embarrassed about his recent loss of control, and Father Martin is going to feel the brunt of it.

“Well… it was just a joke,” Martin explains, deflated.

“Father,” David says, “let’s make a deal. You listen to confessions from old ladies too feeble to make interesting sins. I’ll tell the jokes. To each according to his needs; from each according to his abilities.”

“Look who’s the communist,” Moishe says, trying to attract some of the fire away from Martin.

“Who said anything about being a communist?” David wants to know.

“Forget it. Did you manage to find the glasses?”

“What glasses? Oh. The glasses.”

Moishe puts a plate of sandwiches on the table, while David brings three thick-bottomed water glasses and a handleless coffee mug, which he gives to Father Martin. The wine is poured, and they toast life.

David drains his glass and pours another. “Tell me, Father, do you know the meaning of aroysgevorfeneh verter?”

Father Martin shakes his head.

“That’s Yiddish for ‘advice given to a priest about how to play pinochle.’ But that’s all right. I forgive you. I understand why you overbid.”

“I don’t believe I overbid…”

“The reason you overbid was because you had a marriage of hearts. And who can expect a priest to know the value of a marriage? Eh?”

Father Martin sighs. David always delights in little digs at celibacy.

“Now me!” David gestures broadly with his sandwich. “I know the value of a marriage. My wife Hannah was Ukrainian. Take my advice, Father. Never marry a Ukrainian. Nudzh, nudzh, nudzh! When she was born, she complained about the midwife slapping her on the ass, and she never got out of the habit. There is an old saying about Ukrainian women. It is said that they never die. Their bodies get smaller and smaller through wind erosion until there is nothing left but a complaining voice by the side of the fireplace. Me, I know the value of a marriage. I would have bid nothing!”

LaPointe laughs. “I’d like to see the hand you wouldn’t bid on.”

David laughs too. “Maybe so. Maybe so. Hey, tell me, Claude. How come you never married, eh?”