Any Woman's Blues_ A Novel of Obsession - Erica Jong [17]
“I love you,” Dart mouthed at me across the table.
“I love you,” I silently mouthed back.
“Well, lad, what have you been doing?” Mr. Donegal asked his son. “Other than keeping Leila happy?” It was said rather as an accusation. Mr. Donegal was accusing his son of being a gigolo, the pot calling the kettle black. Dart looked as discomfited and defensive as he was meant to do.
“I’ve been trying to put Leila’s business affairs in order,” he said. “We’re thinking of building a gallery on Greene Street.”
“What a splendid idea,” said Mr. Donegal. “Excellent, excellent. For an artist to have her own gallery is really to be in control.”
“I wasn’t thinking of it for my work,” I said. “I have a gallery that sells my work—the McCrae Gallery. But for Trick’s, and other young artists’—to get them started.”
“How splendid,” said Mr. Donegal. “You sound like a real businesswoman, Leila—an admirable quality, especially in an artist.” (Mr. Donegal often said things as if he were the final arbiter.) “What would you say if I told you I have a very interesting business proposition to make you?”
“Oh, no,” said Mrs. Donegal. But Mr. Donegal went blithely on.
“If you would entrust me with a mere fifty thousand between now and January, I believe I could triple your money.”
Dart groaned and looked at his mother. Mrs. Donegal now seemed even paler than usual.
“Another harebrained scheme to put us in the poor-house,” she said.
“Nonsense, m’dear. This is my way of preserving your capital. If you sincerely want to be rich, you have to take a chance every now and then. Mrs. Donegal believes that those stuffed shirts at the Morgan Bank know what to do with money. Why, they barely keep up with the rate of inflation.” (I loved the way Mr. Donegal pronounced the word “shirts”; he gave it an extra syllable, so it became “shhh-ehrts.” He had a voice full of money—the sort of voice Gatsby wanted and could never buy.)
“What would you do with the money?” I asked.
“Why, I could triple it in a mere three months by investing it in heating oil futures, as I am doing with my own money. . . .”
“Over my dead body,” whispered Mrs. Donegal just audibly. “You’ve lost enough of my money already.”
“Do we have to discuss money at Thanksgiving dinner?” Dart pleaded. “I, for one, think it’s in execrable taste.”
“Jews never got rich worrying about good taste,” said Mr. Donegal. He looked at me. “I mean,” he said, “Hebrews.”
“ ‘Jews’ is not a dirty word, Mr. Donegal,” I said, my dinner suddenly sticking in my craw like vomit about to come up. I wanted to tell Mr. Donegal that his immediate association of Jews with bad taste and moneygrubbing was not only anti-Semitic but a cliché unworthy of his intellect, but I simply could not get the words out. I felt dizzy and faint. I wished I were elsewhere. It was a familiar dilemma: when people made anti-Semitic cracks, I felt pompous correcting them and sick to my stomach if I failed to. What was the answer? I ran my toe along Dart’s leg under the table.
Mrs. Donegal picked up the crystal dinner bell and rang for Ms. Reform School. Thanksgiving dinner was off and running.
Following the melon balls, an enormous turkey was rolled out. The evening stretched before us like the vast Sahara. Mr. Donegal carved the turkey as if he were doing a live sex show. There was something pornographic about the way he manipulated the drumsticks, making them move at the joints and then severing them swiftly with a sharp knife.
Not happy with what was going on in the present tense, Mrs. Donegal dropped back in time to the forties, the last decade in which she had felt comfortable, and began telling us how she had been a poster girl for the USO during the war.
“Yes,” said Mr. Donegal, “while I was risking my life for our country in the Pacific theater, Mrs. Donegal was posing nude for lascivious artists.” The thought of Mrs. Donegal posing nude did not seem to accord with lasciviousness of any sort.
“He only wanted me to pose nude,” Mrs. Donegal said. “I didn’t actually do it.