Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler [74]
“I’m an exporter.”
“He’s an exporter. But business can’t be so hot. To live like this. Five flights up and no elevator. No fridge. No dishwasher.”
“We managed.”
“You think I’m being unfair. But if your son, your own flesh and blood, alav ha-sholem, had lived and grown up and was ashamed of you, how would you feel?”
I got up, found the cognac, and poured some into my coffee. Mr. Charnofsky clacked his tongue. He sighed. “Is that schnapps I see?”
“Cognac.”
“Cognac. Honour thy father and thy mother. That’s a commandment. Do you do that at least?”
“My mother’s a problem.”
“And your father, what may I ask does he do for a living?”
“He’s a cop.”
“A cop. Oh ho. Where are you from, Mr. Panofsky?”
“Montreal.”
“Montreal. Ah. Then perhaps you know the Kramers? A fine family. Or Cantor Labish Zabitsky?”
“Sorry. No.”
“But Cantor Zabitsky is well known. We have performed in concerts together at Grossinger’s. People had to book early. Are you sure you never heard of him?”
“I don’t come from an observant family.”
“But you’re not ashamed of being Jewish,” he cried, a burst furuncle. “Like her. Like Clara.”
“Aleha ha-sholem,” I said, reaching for the cognac bottle again.
“She was twelve years old and she began to tear her hair out in clumps for a how-do-you-do. ‘Dr. Kaplan,’ I said, he’s an honoured member of our congregation, a big contributor, ‘what should I do?’ ‘Have her periods started yet?’ he asked. Feh! How should I know a thing like that? ‘Send her to see me,’ he said. So you think Clara was grateful, he didn’t even charge me. ‘He felt up my tits,’ she said. A twelve-year-old. Language like that. From the gutter. Mrs. Charnofsky held her down and I washed her mouth out with soap.
“Then it started. What am I talking? It had already started. The craziness. ‘You’re not my parents,’ she said. We should be so lucky. ‘I’m adopted,’ she said. ‘And I want to know who my real parents are.’ ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘You’re the daughter of Czar Nicholas. Or maybe it’s King George of England. I forget which.’ ‘I’m not Jewish,’ she said. ‘I know that much. So I want you to tell me who my real parents are.’ Until we told her she said she wouldn’t eat. So eventually we had to force open her mouth, and she was a biter let me tell you, pouring chicken soup into her mouth through a funnel. And then she would vomit all over me on purpose. My good suit. It was positively disgusting.
“Next I would find filthy books under her mattress. Translated from the French. Nina or Nana or some such. Poetry by that bastard Heine, he was also ashamed of being a Jew. Sholem Aleichem wasn’t good enough for Miss Hotzenklotz. And she started to go to Greenwich Village and could be gone for two days. That’s when I started locking her into her room at night. Too late, I found out. Because she was no longer a virgin. Going out on the street dressed like a whore. Our street. People were talking. I could lose my position in the synagogue, and then what? I’d have to sing on street corners. Listen here, that’s how Eddie Cantor got started, and look at him today, with such a thin voice and those popping eyes. I’ll bet he isn’t even five feet tall. But he’s a millionaire yet, so they look up to him, the goyim.
“It got to be too much. Her tantrums. The filth she talked. Sometimes not coming out of her room for ten days, sitting there, staring at nothing. Thank God for Dr. Kaplan, he arranged for a mental hospital. Expert care she got, never mind the expense. We did without. They gave her electro-shock therapy, the latest thing in modern medicine. She comes home, she slits her wrists in the bathtub for a thank-you. The ambulance sits outside. Everybody is peeking through their curtains. Mrs. Charnofsky was so ashamed she wouldn’t leave the apartment for a week. On top of all my other duties I have to do the shopping or come home to tuna sandwiches.
“I want you to know, Mr. Panofsky, you shouldn’t blame yourself, because it wasn’t the first time she tried suicide. Or the second. Dr. Kaplan tells me it