Irwin Shaw - Short Stories - Five Decades

T he telephone rang and rang through the silken room, tumbled with sleep, lit here and there by the morning sunlight that broke through the hangings in little bright patches. Helen sighed and wriggled in the bed, and, still with her eyes closed, reached out and picked up the phone. The ringing stopped and Helen sighed in relief and wearily put the phone to her ear.

The sound of weeping, deep and bitter, welled along the wires.

“Hello, Momma,” Helen said, still with her eyes closed.

“Helen,” Madam Rechevsky said. “How are you, Helen?”

“Fine, Momma.” Helen stretched desperately under the covers. “What time is it?”

“Nine o’clock.” Helen winced, closed her eyes more tightly. “Momma, darling,” she said gently, “why must you call so early?”

“When I was your age,” Madam Rechevsky said, weeping, “I was up at six in the morning. Working my fingers to the bone. A woman thirty-eight shouldn’t spend her whole life sleeping.”

“Why do you always say thirty-eight?” Helen protested. “Thirty-six. Why can’t you remember—thirty-six!”

“On this subject, Helen, darling,” Madam Rechevsky said coldly, through her tears, “I am absolutely definite.”

Helen finally opened her eyes, slowly, with effort, looked wearily up at the sun-streaked ceiling. “Why’re you crying, Momma?”

There was a pause over the wires, then the weeping started afresh, on a new high pitch, deep, despairing, full of sorrow.

“Tell me, Momma,” Helen said.

“I must go to Poppa’s grave. You must come right downtown and take me to Poppa’s grave.”

Helen sighed. “Momma, I have three different places I have to be today.”

“My own child!” Madam Rechevsky whispered. “My own daughter! Refuses to take her mother to the grave of her own father.”

“Tomorrow,” Helen pleaded. “Can’t you make it tomorrow?”

“Today!” Madam Rechevsky’s voice reached across Manhattan high and tragic, as in the old days, when she strode on the stage and discovered that her stepmother was wearing her dead mother’s jewels. “I woke up this morning and a voice spoke to me. ‘Go to Abraham’s grave! Immediately! Go to the grave of your husband!’”

“Momma,” Helen said gently. “Poppa’s been dead fifteen years. How much difference can one day make to him?”

“Never mind,” Madam Rechevsky said, with magnificent, resounding resignation. “Forgive me if I have troubled you on this trifling matter. Go. Go to your appointments. Go to the beauty parlor. Go to the cocktail parties. I will take the subway to your dead father’s grave.”

Helen closed her eyes. “I’ll pick you up in an hour, Momma.”

“Yes,” said Madam Rechevsky decisively. “And please don’t wear that red hat. For your father’s sake.”

“I won’t wear the red hat.” Helen lay back and wearily put the phone back on its pedestal.

“This is a fine car to be going to a cemetery in,” Madam Rechevsky was saying as they drove out through Brooklyn. She sat up straight as a little girl in school, savagely denying her seventy-three years with every line of her smart seal coat, every expert touch of rouge, every move of her silken legs. She looked around her contemptuously at the red leather and chromium of Helen’s roadster. “A sport model. A great man lies buried, his relatives come to visit him in a cream-colored convertible automobile.”

“It’s the only car I have, Momma.” Helen delicately twisted the wheel in her eloquent, finely gloved hands. “And I’m lucky they haven’t taken it away from me by now.”

“I told you that was the wrong man for you, in the first place, didn’t I?” Madam Rechevsky peered coldly at her daughter, her deep gray eyes flashing and brilliant, rimmed beautifully in mascara, with a touch of purple. “Many years ago I warned you against him, didn’t I?”

“Yes, Momma.”

“And now—now you are lucky when you collect alimony six months out of twelve.” Madam Rechevsky laughed bitterly. “Nobody ever listened to me, not my own children. Now they suffer.”

“Yes, Momma.”

“And the theater.” Madam Rechevsky waved her hands fiercely. “Why aren’t you on the stage this season?”

Helen shrugged. “The right part hasn’t come along this season.”

“The right part!” Madam Rechevsky laughed coldly. “In my day we did seven plays a year, right part or no right part.”

“Momma, darling …” Helen shook her head. “It’s different now. This isn’t the Yiddish Theater and this isn’t 1900.”

“That was a better theater,” Madam Rechevsky said loudly. “And that was a better time.”

“Yes, Momma.”

“Work!” Madam Rechevsky hit her thighs emphatically with her two hands. “We worked! The actor acted, the writer wrote, the audience came! Now—movies! Pah!”

“Yes, Momma.”

“Even so, you’re lazy.” Madam Rechevsky looked at herself in her handbag mirror to make sure that the violence of her opinions had not disarranged her face. “You sit back and wait for alimony and even so it doesn’t come. Also …” She examined her daughter critically. “The way you dress is very extreme.” She squinted to sharpen the image. “But you make a striking impression. I won’t deny that. Every one of my daughters makes a striking impression.” Madam Rechevsky shook her head. “But nothing like me, when I was a little younger …” She sat back and rode in silence. “Nothing like me …” she murmured. “Nothing like me, at all.…”

Helen walked briskly beside her mother through the marble-crowded cemetery, their feet making a busy scuffle along the well-kept gravel walks. Madam Rechevsky clutched a dozen yellow chrysanthemums in her hands and on her face was a look of anticipation, almost pleasure, as they approached the grave.

“Perhaps …” A bearded old man in holy black, all very clean and pink-faced, came up to them and touched Madam Rechevsky’s arm. “Perhaps you would like me to make a prayer for the dead, lady?”

“Go away!” Madam Rechevsky pulled her arm away impatiently. “Abraham Rechevsky does not need professional prayers!”

The old man bowed gently, spoke softly. “For Abraham Rechevsky I will pray for nothing.”

Madam Rechevsky stopped, looked at the man for a moment. Her cold gray eyes smiled a little. “Give the old man a dollar, Helen,” she said and touched the man’s arm with royal condescension.

Helen dug in her bag and produced a dollar and the old man bowed gravely again.

Helen hurried after her mother.

“See,” Madam Rechevsky was muttering as she charged along. “See. Dead fifteen years and still he is famous, all over the world. I bet that old man hasn’t offered to pray for anyone free for twenty-five years.” She turned on Helen. “And yet you didn’t want to come!” She strode on, muttering, “All over the world.”

“Don’t walk so fast, Momma,” Helen protested. “Your heart …”

“Don’t worry about my heart.” Madam Rechevsky stopped, put her arm out sharply to stop her daughter. “We are in sight. You stay here. I want to go to the grave alone.” She spoke without looking at Helen, her eyes on the massive gray granite tombstone thirty yards away, with her husband’s name on it and underneath his, space for her own. She spoke very softly. “Turn around, Helen, darling. I want this to be private. I’ll call you when I’m ready for you.”

She walked slowly toward the tombstone, holding the chrysanthemums before her like a gigantic bride’s bouquet. Helen sat on a marble bench near the grave of a man named Axelrod, and turned her head.