Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler [59]
“You’re joking. The cheese business. It’s too embarrassing. Clara, you were married in Paris, weren’t you? Yes. To a writer or a painter? No, a cheese fucking salesman.”
“It’s money.”
“You would think of that. I’ll go crazy all alone here. I want you to get me a padlock for the door. What if there’s a fire?”
“Or an earthquake?”
“Maybe you’ll do so well with the cheese that you’ll send for me in Canada and we could join a golf club, if they have them there yet, and invite people in to play bridge. Or mah-jongg. I’m not becoming a member of any synagogue ladies fucking auxiliary and Ariel’s not going to be circumcised. I won’t allow it.”
I managed to register a company in Montreal, open an office, and hire an old school friend, Arnie Rosenbaum, to run it, all within three febrile weeks. And Clara grew accustomed, even seemed to look forward to, my flying to Montreal every six weeks, providing I returned laden with jars of peanut butter, some Oreos, and at least two dozen packs of Lowney’s Glosette Raisins. It was during my absences that she wrote, and illustrated with ink drawings, most of The Virago’s Verse Book, now in its twenty-eighth printing. It includes the poem dedicated to “Barnabus P.” That touching tribute which begins,
he peeled my orange and more often me,
Calibanovitch,
my keeper.
I was in Montreal, hustling, and Clara was into her seventh month, when Boogie tracked me down in my room at the Mount Royal Hotel early one morning.
“I think you had better answer it,” said Abigail, the wife of my old school friend who managed our Montreal office.
“Yes.”
Boogie said, “You better grab the first flight back.”
I landed at oh whatever in the hell that airport was called before it became de Gaulle26 at seven a.m. the following morning, and made right for The American Hospital. “I’m here to see Mrs. Panofsky.”
“Are you a relative?”
“Her husband.”
A young intern, contemplating his clipboard, looked up and regarded me with sudden interest.
“Dr. Mallory would like to have a word with you first,” said the receptionist.
I took an instant dislike to Dr. Mallory, a portly man with a fringe of grey hair who radiated self-regard and had obviously never treated a patient worthy of his skills. He invited me to sit down and told me that the baby had been stillborn, but Mrs. Panofsky, a healthy young woman, would certainly be able to bear other children. His smile facetious, he added, “Of course I’m telling you this because I take it you are the father.”
He seemed to wait on my response.
“Yes.”
“In that case,” said Dr. Mallory, flipping his colourful braces, his riposte obviously rehearsed, “you must be an albino.”
Taking in the news, my heart thudding, I delivered Dr. Mallory what I hoped was my most menacing look. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
I found Clara in a maternity ward with seven other women, several of whom were nursing newly born babes. She must have lost a good deal of blood. Pale as chalk she was. “Every four hours,” she said, “they attach clamps to my nipples and squeeze out the milk like I was a cow. Have you seen Dr. Mallory?”
“Yes.”
“ ‘You people,’ he said to me. ‘You people.’ Brandishing that poor, wizened dead thing at me as if it had slid out of a sewer.”
“He told me I could take you home tomorrow morning,” I said, surprised at how steady my voice was. “I’ll come by early.”
“I didn’t trick you. I swear, Barney. I was sure the baby was yours.”
“How in the hell could you be so sure?”
“It was just once and we were both stoned.”
“Clara, we seem to have an attentive audience here. I’ll come for you tomorrow morning.”
“I won’t be here.”
Dr. Mallory was not in his office. But two first-class airplane tickets to Venice and a confirmation slip for reservations at the Gritti Palace sat on his desk. I copied the number of the hotel reservation slip, hurried over to the nearest Bureau de Poste, and booked a call to the Gritti Palace. “This is Dr. Vincent Mallory speaking. I wish to cancel tomorrow night’s reservations.”
There was a pause while the desk clerk flipped through his