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By Root 538 0

and he said it would have been easier to draw water from a stone than collect the rent from some of those types. They could do a flit in the middle of the night. Sue? There was no point. Uncle Fred adored me. I’m going to kidnap you, he used to say. The fraternity guys wanted Miriam Greenberg to be Winter Carnival Queen. God knows she’s not that attractive, those feet, but it would have been the first time for a Jewish girl. She said no. Miss America was good enough for Bess Myerson, but of course Bess wasn’t, ahem ahem, an intellectual. She didn’t shlep Partisan Review or the New Republic with her to classes, so that everybody could see what she was reading. Yeah, sure. I’ll bet if you checked out her room she also took Cosmopolitan. Some young pianist, nobody ever heard of him, would be making his debut at Moyse Hall, and she would stand there on stage in that same black dress, it couldn’t have cost more than $29.99 off the rack at Eaton’s, turning the pages for him. Big deal. Now she’s moved to Toronto to look for work in radio. Some hope with that voice. Your father’s back at the bar again. He’s talking to Dr. Mendelsohn. Do something.”

“Miriam Who, did you say?”

“Greenberg. You want me to introduce you?”

“No. Let’s dance.”

“The bartender is trying to catch your eye.”

“Oh, yeah, I told him if he had any problems to — Excuse me. I won’t be a minute.”

“First period’s over,” he said, “and we’re now up three–zip. Geoffrion46 and Johnson47 have both scored. Bower looks shaky in their nets.”

“Yeah, but now they’ll lay back and let the Leafs come to them. Mahovlich or Duff can still do a lot of damage.”

Wheeling my bride onto the floor, I contrived to lead her in the direction of Miriam, who was dancing with McIver. I came close enough to sniff her subtle scent, memorizing it. A soupçon of Joy applied to her temples, the backs of her knees, and the hem of her skirt, as I would eventually learn. Once, years later, lying in bed with Miriam, emptying my cognac snifter onto her breasts and lapping it up, I said, “You know if you had really, really been intent on entrapping me on my wedding night, you wicked woman, you would not have dabbed yourself with Joy, but in Essence of Smoked Meat. A maddening aphrodisiac, made from spices available in Schwartz’s delicatessen. I’d call it Nectar of Judea and copyright the name.” But on my wedding night, I said, “Excuse me,” to Miriam, having bumped against her, and then The Second Mrs. Panofsky said, “I don’t want to hear you’ve been checking out the latest hockey score with that bartender again. This is our wedding night. It’s insulting.”

“I won’t do it again,” I lied.

“Your father has moved to the rabbi’s table. Oh my God,” she said, thrusting me in that direction. But it was already too late. Including the rabbi and his wife, the Hubermans, Jenny Roth, Dr. and Mrs. Mendelsohn, and some others I didn’t know, there were twelve stunned people gathered at the long table, a sodden Izzy Panofsky in full flow. “It was when I was on morality,” he said, “that I learned to appreciate the madams. Parisian ladies some of them, and very nice. There was always from fifteen to twenty-five girls there, and as soon as you came in the madam would open a door and say, ‘Les dames au salon,’ see, and they’d all come in and you pick out who you want.”

“May I remind you there are ladies present at this table,” said the rabbi in his mellifluous voice.

“Yeah, so? They all look over twenty-one to me. At least. Only joking, girls. Nobody stayed the night, the turnover was too much, you know what I mean? Some of them whorehouses was elegantly furnished.”

“Daddy, I’d like to have a word with you.”

“Clean? Rabbi, you could eat off the floor. And, oh, they had beautiful beds and everything was systematically … you know what I mean? … You get a big pitcher in the room and as soon as you’d come in they wash it for you.”

“Daddy, my bride is waiting to dance with you.”

“You’re interrupting.”

“Excuse me,” said the rabbi’s wife, rising from the table, grudgingly followed by two more ladies.

“Well, in them