Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler [95]
On a three-day junket to New York we stayed at the Algonquin, booked into separate bedrooms, which I insisted on, eager to play by what I took to be the rules. I could have happily passed that interlude wandering aimlessly, drifting in and out of bookshops and bars, but she was locked into a schedule that would have required a fortnight for a normal person to fill. Plays to be monitored afternoon and evening: Two for the Seesaw, Sunrise at Campobello, The World of Suzie Wong, The Entertainer. Between times her check-list included forced marches to out-of-the-way craft shops and jewellery designers recommended by Vogue. Footsore, she was still among the first through the doors of Bergdorf Goodman when it opened in the morning, hurrying on to Saks, and those places on Canal Street, known only to the cognoscenti, where Givenchy’s new “bag” dresses could be bought on the cheap. Flying down to New York, she wore an old outfit that could be dumped into her hotel-room wastepaper basket as soon as she acquired her first new one. Then, on the morning of our scheduled flight home, she tore up incriminating sales receipts, retaining only those that obliging salesladies had fabricated for her, say a bill for $39.99 for a $150 sweater. Boarding the plane, she wore only God knows how many sets of underwear, and one blouse over another, and then she clowned her passage past the Montreal customs inspector, flirting with him en français.
Yes, The Second Mrs. Panofsky was an exemplar of that much-maligned phenomenon, the Jewish-American Princess, but she succeeded in fanning my then-dying embers into something resembling life. When we met she had already served a season on a kibbutz and graduated from McGill, majoring in psychology, and was working with disturbed children at the Jewish General Hospital. They adored her. She made them laugh. The Second Mrs. Panofsky was not a bad person. Had she not fallen into my hands but instead married a real, rather than a pretend, straight arrow, she would be a model wife and mother today. She would not be an embittered, grossly overweight hag, given to diddling with New Age crystals and consulting trance-channellers. Miriam once said to me, Krishna was licensed to destroy, but not you, Barney. Okay, okay. The truth, then.
“You’re far too precious to me,” I gushed. “We’ll leave my car here and take a taxi.”
“Oh, Barney,” she said, “are you ever full of shit tonight.”
Oh, Barney, you bastard. When I try to reconstruct those days, failing memory is an enormous blessing. Vignettes wash over me. Embarrassing incidents. Twinges of regret. Boogie flew in from Las Vegas, moderately successful at the tables for once, to be my best man. He met my bride a couple of days before the ceremony was to take place and the two of us went out to dinner, on a night I should have been at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, watching the Canadiens beat the Leafs 3–2, taking a 3–1 lead in the Stanley Cup Finals. Some game I missed. Down one–zip going into the third period, the bleu, blanc, et rouge potted three goals in just over six minutes: Backstrom, McDonald, and Geoffrion.
“Don’t go through with it, Barney, please,” said Boogie. “We could drive to the airport as soon as we finish our cognacs and catch the first plane to Mexico or Spain or wherever.”
“Aw, come on,” I said.
“I can see that she’s attractive. A luscious lady. Have an affair. We could be in Madrid tomorrow. Tapas on those narrow streets running off the Plaza Mayor. Cochinillo asado at Casa Botín.”
“Goddamn it, Boogie, I can’t leave town during the Stanley Cup Finals.” And, with a heavy heart, I went on to show him my two tickets in the reds for the next game in Montreal. The game that was being played on my wedding night. If the Canadiens won, it would mean our fourth straight Stanley Cup, and, just this once, I was hoping that they