Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler [156]
“What about your Wednesday-night poker game?”
“They can do without me for once. And if anybody needs me at the office, they can phone me here.”
Miriam, so naturally graceful, was adorably unaware of her spellbinding presence. I could have happily spent the rest of my life watching her, amazed at such beauty in my presence, not that I ever told her as much. And now, closing my eyes, fighting back tears of remorse, I can remember her nursing Saul, her eyes lowered, one hand cupping that throbbing vulnerable head. I can see her teaching Mike how to read, making a game of it, the two of them giggling. I can summon up a picture of her and Kate splashing each other in the bath. I can visualize her busy in the kitchen on a Saturday afternoon, listening to the Metropolitan Opera broadcast on the radio. Or asleep in our bed. Or seated in an armchair, reading, her long legs crossed just so. In our halcyon days if she was to meet me in the Ritz bar, the two of us bound for an evening out, I would choose to wait for her at a table all but hidden in a far corner, so that I could watch her drifting into the room, elegantly dressed, serene, commanding everybody’s eye, and then blessing me with a tender smile and a kiss. Miriam, Miriam, my heart’s desire.
Miriam was a demure dresser, indifferent to prevailing swank. She, who had no need to advertise, would never be seen in a miniskirt, or a dress with a plunging neckline. But in our summer cottage on the lake she went native. Her long charcoal black hair caught in a bauble, she eschewed even minimal make-up, and favoured loose T-shirts embossed with caricatures of Mozart or Proust, cut-off jeans, and bare feet, which was okay with me as long as we weren’t entertaining a horny young draft-dodger with whom she had things in common. Neither of them, for instance, was old enough to remember the Second World War, and on Monday night, sparked by a newspaper story about Bomber Harris of British Bomber Command, they got into condemning the saturation bombing of German cities, the needless slaughter of innocent civilians. Naturally this put me in mind of the young Hymie Mintzbaum flying over the Ruhr. “One minute,” I said, “what about Coventry?”
“I do understand,” said Blair, “that it is different for your generation, but how can you justify the fire-bombing of Dresden?”
Later that night I caught Blair eyeing Miriam as she stooped to gather up the children’s toys from the living-room floor. Tuesday afternoon, I woke from my snooze to find the cottage empty. No wife. No kids. No Übersturmführer Blair Hopper né Hauptman. They were all in the vegetable garden. Blair, wearing a T-shirt with a Picasso dove emblazoned on it, was helping Miriam turn over the compost heap, another chore I had scheduled to attend to in the far future. From my vantage point, on our wraparound balcony, I saw Blair peeking down her loose T-shirt as she leaned over her spade. Bastard. Sauntering down to the vegetable garden, I asked, “Can I help?”
“Oh, go read a book,” said Miriam. “Or pour yourself a drink, darling. You’ll only be in the way.”
But before leaving the vegetable garden, I pulled my wife to me, clasping her bottom with both hands, and kissed her hard. “Oh, my,” she said, blushing.
Later that afternoon I caught up with that Peeping Tom in the garage, where he was sharpening our lawn-mower blades. I had brought along a couple of beers and handed him one. “Care for a cigar as well?” I asked.
“No, thank you, sir.”
“But you don’t mind if I light up?” I asked, sitting down on an overturned rain barrel.
“Certainly not, sir.”
“Drop the ‘sir,’ will you, for Christ’s sake?”
“Sorry about that.”
“Blair, I worry about you. Maybe you made a mistake running away to Canada. Why didn’t you simply tell your draft board that you were queer?”
“But I’m not.”
“Exactly what I told Miriam.”
“You mean to say she thinks —”
“Of course not. Even I wasn’t suggesting for a minute that you were. I guess it’s just the way you walk.”
“What’s the matter with the way I walk?”
“Look here, the last