statue. In the three years since my retirement I had continued to live, modestly and quietly, on West Eighty-second Street; in the three years since her widowhood the Contessa had acquired an apartment in Flushing ("a toehold," she said, "in the Big Apple") and now spent only the winter months in Miami. She needed, she said, the stimulation of the city. Besides, she had been born here; New York would always be her home. It was pleasant to sit in the sunshine and hear her babble on. We agreed to meet again, weather permitting, on the following day. I found her plumply attractive, a welcome point of focus for otherwise indistinguishable days. In the weeks that followed we attended matinees, went to concerts, movies. She began to cook for me. I enjoyed being reintroduced to kosher food, seeing again the candles lit on Friday night. She said I provided what was missing from her life: culture and refinement. Of the
saintly Meurice she had nothing but good to say, though she was forced to admit that in the "culture and refinement department" he had rather fallen short. "Your experience is different," she would muse. "You're European." I had for her "Continental charm," which is to say, simple politeness. Occasionally, the hour being late, she would spend the night at West Eighty-second Street, on the couch, of course. It was during this period of what I suppose I should call our courtship that I gained most of my knowledge about her past.
By August she was calling me Otto and I was calling her Contessa. In September she pointed out how foolish it was for two elderly people to be traveling almost every day between Flushing and Manhattan. (In point of fact, I had been to her apartment in Flushing only once. How shall I describe her building? There fat young women in large pink hair curlers ascended and descended in the elevator at all hours, always in the company of large mounds of laundry.) We got on well together, she added. She liked me, very much; she was sure I liked her. These were our "twilight years." Why should we not get married? Life would be simpler then.
The thought had not occurred to me. Still, as an idea it seemed to have its merits. She would make all the arrangements. Whom would I like to invite? No fuss, I insisted. Just the two of us. We would slip into marriage as into an old, comfortable shoe. Accordingly, we were married quietly in the study of Rabbi Ted Kaplan, spiritual leader of the Congregation Bnei Akiva, on West Ninety-eighth Street. Under the marriage canopy the Contessa smiled dreamily; I placed the ring on her finger without qualms.
We left immediately for Miami and her apartment in the Versailles ("very tasteful, every luxury"). I had never been to Florida before and was curious. We were greeted at the airport by some of her friends. A woman whose apartment was next door to the Contessa's expressed the hope that we would not
keep her up too late; a man in houndstooth shorts and a horizontally striped shirt told me lugubriously that I would have a hard time filling the shoes of the dead Meurice—"A hard time, get it?"—giving me a wink and a sharp nudge in the ribs.
The embarrassing fact is that I had given no thought whatever to this aspect of married life. Yes, I had supposed we would share a bed, but we were, after all, already in our sixties, I the precise age of Meurice at his retirement. Certainly the Contessa had not aroused in me even a faint sexual stirring. But there was my new wife, blushing and simpering, holding on to me tightly and saying things like, "We'll see what we will see" and "I only hope I have the strength."
Accuse me of ungallantry if you will, but I am bound to the truth. Undressed, the Contessa was a piece of grotesquerie. Like her rich blond curls, her teeth were not her own. Her breasts, once full, depended flatly, wanly, from her pronounced clavicles. Flaps of flesh hung, pitted, from her upper arms. She wore her stomach around her middle like an apron, beneath
saintly Meurice she had nothing but good to say, though she was forced to admit that in the "culture and refinement department" he had rather fallen short. "Your experience is different," she would muse. "You're European." I had for her "Continental charm," which is to say, simple politeness. Occasionally, the hour being late, she would spend the night at West Eighty-second Street, on the couch, of course. It was during this period of what I suppose I should call our courtship that I gained most of my knowledge about her past.
By August she was calling me Otto and I was calling her Contessa. In September she pointed out how foolish it was for two elderly people to be traveling almost every day between Flushing and Manhattan. (In point of fact, I had been to her apartment in Flushing only once. How shall I describe her building? There fat young women in large pink hair curlers ascended and descended in the elevator at all hours, always in the company of large mounds of laundry.) We got on well together, she added. She liked me, very much; she was sure I liked her. These were our "twilight years." Why should we not get married? Life would be simpler then.
The thought had not occurred to me. Still, as an idea it seemed to have its merits. She would make all the arrangements. Whom would I like to invite? No fuss, I insisted. Just the two of us. We would slip into marriage as into an old, comfortable shoe. Accordingly, we were married quietly in the study of Rabbi Ted Kaplan, spiritual leader of the Congregation Bnei Akiva, on West Ninety-eighth Street. Under the marriage canopy the Contessa smiled dreamily; I placed the ring on her finger without qualms.
We left immediately for Miami and her apartment in the Versailles ("very tasteful, every luxury"). I had never been to Florida before and was curious. We were greeted at the airport by some of her friends. A woman whose apartment was next door to the Contessa's expressed the hope that we would not
keep her up too late; a man in houndstooth shorts and a horizontally striped shirt told me lugubriously that I would have a hard time filling the shoes of the dead Meurice—"A hard time, get it?"—giving me a wink and a sharp nudge in the ribs.
The embarrassing fact is that I had given no thought whatever to this aspect of married life. Yes, I had supposed we would share a bed, but we were, after all, already in our sixties, I the precise age of Meurice at his retirement. Certainly the Contessa had not aroused in me even a faint sexual stirring. But there was my new wife, blushing and simpering, holding on to me tightly and saying things like, "We'll see what we will see" and "I only hope I have the strength."
Accuse me of ungallantry if you will, but I am bound to the truth. Undressed, the Contessa was a piece of grotesquerie. Like her rich blond curls, her teeth were not her own. Her breasts, once full, depended flatly, wanly, from her pronounced clavicles. Flaps of flesh hung, pitted, from her upper arms. She wore her stomach around her middle like an apron, beneath
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