“If you’ll pardon an atrocious pun,” a voice behind him said, “I suppose it all shows we give a fig.”
Nim turned. The speaker was an elderly, gnomish man with a cherubic, cheerful face beneath a cloud of white hair. Nim remembered him as a doctor—an internist—who sometimes attended the Neubergers. He groped in memory for a name and found it.
“Good evening, Dr. Levin.” Raising his glass of wine, Nim offered the toast, “L’Chaim.”
“L’Chaim … how are you, Nim? Don’t see you often at these Jewish wingdings. I’m surprised at your interest in the Holy Land.”
“I’m not religious, Doctor.”
“Nor am I, Nim. Never have been. Know my way around a sanitarium a whole lot better than a synagogue.” The doctor finished the fig he had been eating and selected another. “But I like the forms and ceremonies, all the ancient history of our people. It isn’t religion, you know, that holds Jewish people together. It’s a sense of community going back five thousand years. A long, long time. Ever think about that, Nim?”
“Yes, since you ask. I’ve been thinking quite a lot about it.”
The older man regarded him shrewdly. “Troubles you sometimes, does it? Wondering how much of a Jew you can be? Or if you can be one at all without observing all that labyrinthine ritual stuff old Aaron does?”
Nim smiled at the reference to his father-in-law, who, across the room, had maneuvered a newly arrived guest into a corner and was earnestly describing Tu B’Shvat: “… has its roots in the Talmud …”
“Something like that,” Nim said.
“Then I’ll give you some advice, son: Don’t let it worry you worth a damn. Do what I do: Enjoy being a Jew, be proud of all the achievements of our people, but as to the rest—pick and choose. Observe the High Holy Days if you like—personally I take them off and go fishing—but if you don’t observe them, that’s allowable in my book too.”
Nim found himself warming toward the cheerful little doctor and told him, “My grandfather was a rabbi, a sweet old man I remember well. It was my father who broke away from religion.”
“And you wonder sometimes if you should go back?”
“In a vague way. Not too seriously.”
“In any way—forget it! It’s a mental impossibility for someone at your stage—or mine—to become a practicing Jew. Start going to synagogue, you’ll find that out in five minutes. What you feel, Nim, is nostalgia, an affection for things in the past. Nothing wrong with it, but that’s what it is.”
Nim said thoughtfully, “I suppose so.”
“Let me tell you something else. People like you and me have the same concern for Judaism that we might have for old friends—an occasional sense of guilt for not having seen them more often, plus emotional attachment. I felt that way when I went with a group to Israel.”
“A religious group?”
“Nope. Mostly businessmen, a few other doctors, couple of lawyers.” Dr. Levin chuckled. “Hardly any of us took a yarmulke. I didn’t. Had to borrow one when I went to the Wall in Jerusalem. Just the same, it was a deeply emotional experience, something I’ll never forget. Had a sense of belonging and pride. I felt Jewish then! Always will.”
Nim asked, “Do you have children, Doctor?”
The other shook his head. “Never did. My dear wife—she’s dead now, bless her memory! … she and I both regretted it. One of the few things I do regret.”
“We have two children,” Nim said. “A girl and a boy.”
“Yes, I know. And because of them you started thinking about religion?”
Nim smiled. “You seem to know all the questions as well as answers.”
“Heard ’em before, I guess. That, and I’ve been around a long time. Don’t worry about your kids, Nim. Teach them decent human instincts—I’m sure you have. Beyond that, they’ll find their own way.”
There was an obvious next question. Nim hesitated, then asked it, “Would a bar mitzvah help my son find his way?”
“Won’t harm him any, will it? You wouldn’t be exposing him to some social disease if you sent him to Hebrew school. Besides, a bar mitzvah’s always followed by a damn good party. You meet old friends, eat and drink more than you should, but everybody loves it.”
Nim grinned. “That’s more sense on the subject than I’ve heard anywhere else.”
Dr. Levin nodded sagely. “Here’s some more. Your boy is entitled to make a choice—that’s his right, his heritage. Studying for a bar mitzvah gives him that. It’s like opening a door; let him decide if he wishes to go through it. Later on, he’ll either go Aaron’s way, or yours and mine, or maybe somewhere in between. Whichever he chooses, it’s not for us to worry.”
“I’m grateful to you,” Nim said. “You’ve helped my flunking.”
“Glad to. There’s no charge.”
While they had been talking, the number of guests had increased while the hubbub of other conversations swelled in volume. Nim’s cherubic companion glanced around, nodding and smiling; obviously he was acquainted with almost everyone who had come. His eyes stopped at Ruth Goldman, now chatting with another woman; Nim recognized her as a concert pianist who often performed for Israeli causes.
“Your wife looks beautiful tonight,” Dr. Levin observed.
“Yes,” Nim said, “I told her that as we came in.”
The doctor nodded. “She conceals her problem, and her anxiety, well.” He stopped, then added, “My anxiety, too.”
Nim regarded him, puzzled. “You’re speaking of Ruth?”
“Of course.” Levin sighed. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to treat patients I care about as much as I do your wife. I’ve known her since she was a little girl, Nim. I hope you realize that everything possible is being done. Everything.”
“Doctor,” Nim said; he had a sudden sense of alarm, a cold contraction in his stomach. “Doctor, I don’t have the slightest idea what you are talking about.”
“You don’t?” Now it was the older man’s turn to be startled; an expression of guilty confusion crossed his face. “Ruth hasn’t told you?”
“Told me what?”
“My friend,” Dr. Levin put a hand on Nim’s shoulder, “I just made a mistake. A patient, any patient, is entitled to have confidence respected, to be protected against a gabby doctor. But you’re Ruth’s husband. I assumed …”
Nim protested, “For God’s sake, what are we discussing. What’s the mystery?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t tell you.” Dr. Levin shook his head. “You’ll have to ask Ruth. When you do, tell her I regret my indiscretion. But tell her also—I think you ought to know.”
Still with some embarrassment, and before he could be subjected to more questioning, the doctor moved away.
For Nim, the next two hours were agony. He observed the social rituals, met guests whom he had not already talked with, joined in conversations, and answered questions from a few people who knew his role at GSP & L. But all of the time his thoughts were on Ruth. What in hell did Levin mean by: “She conceals her problem, and her anxiety, well.”? And: “Everything possible is being done. Everything.”?
Twice he eased his way through talkative groups to be beside Ruth, only to find that private conversation was impossible. “I want to talk to you,” he managed to say once, but that was all. Nim realized he would have to wait until they were on their way home.
At last the party began to wane, the number of guests to thin. The silver tray was piled high with money for more trees in Israel. Aaron and Rachel Neuberger were at the outer doorway, bidding good night as people left.
“Let’s go,” Nim said to Ruth. She retrieved her wrap from a bedroom and they joined the exodus.
They were almost the last to leave. As a result, the four had a moment of intimacy which had not been possible earlier.
As Ruth kissed her parents, her mother pleaded, “Couldn’t you stay a little longer?”
Ruth shook her head. “It’s late, Mother; we’re both tired.” She ad
ded, “Nim has been working very hard.”
“If he works so hard,” Rachel shot back, “then feed him better!”
Nim grinned. “What I ate tonight will hold me for a week.” He held out his hand to his father-in-law. “Before we go, there’s something I think you’d like to know. I’ve decided to enroll Benjy in Hebrew school so he can have a bar mitzvah.”
For brief seconds there was a silence. Then Aaron Neuberger raised his hand to the level of his head, palms outward, as if in prayer. “Praise be to the Master of the Universe! We should all live and be well until that glorious day!” Behind the thick-lensed glasses his eyes were wet with tears.
“Well talk about specifics …” Nim began, but failed to finish because both of Ruth’s parents, together, hugged him tightly in their arms.
Ruth said nothing. But a few minutes later when they were in the car, and as Nim pulled away, she turned toward him. “That was a beautiful thing you just did, even though it goes against your beliefs. So why?”
He shrugged. “Some days I’m not sure what I believe. Besides, your friend Dr. Levin helped straighten my thinking.”
“Yes,” Ruth said quietly, “I saw you talking with him. For a long time.”
Nim’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”
“Such as?”
His pent-up frustration poured out. “Such as why you’ve been going to Dr. Levin, what it is you are anxious about, and why you’ve kept it from me. And, oh yes, your doctor asked me to say he was sorry for being indiscreet, but that I ought to know—whatever the hell that means.”
“Yes,” Ruth said, “I suppose it’s time you did.” Her voice was flat, the earlier cheerfulness gone. “But will you wait until we are home? I’ll tell you then.”
They drove the rest of the way in silence.
“I think I’d like a Bourbon and soda,” Ruth said. “Do you mind getting it for me?”
They were in the small, cozy living room of their house, the lights turned low. It was almost 1 A.M. Leah and Benjy, who had gone to bed several hours ago, were asleep upstairs.
“Sure,” Nim said. It was unusual for Ruth, who rarely drank anything stronger than wine, to ask for hard liquor. He crossed to a sideboard which did duty as a bar, mixed a Bourbon and soda, and poured a cognac for himself. Returning, he sat facing his wife while she gulped a third of her drink, then, with a grimace, put the glass down.
“All right,” he said. “Now give!”
Ruth took a deep breath, then began. “You remember that mole I had removed—six years ago?”
“Yes, I do.” Strangely, Nim had recalled it only recently—the night he had been alone in the house, with Ruth away, when he made the decision to visit Denver. He had noticed the mole in the oil painting of Ruth which hung in their living room, the portrait where she was wearing a strapless evening gown. Nim glanced at it now. There was the mole, just as he remembered it before it was removed: small and dark, on the left shoulder. He asked, “What about it?”
“It was a melanoma.”
“A what?”
“A melanoma is a mole which may have cancer cells. That’s why Dr. Mittelman—you remember, he was the one who took care of me then—advised me to have it removed. I agreed. Another doctor—a surgeon—did the cutting. It wasn’t a big deal, and afterward both of them said the mole came away cleanly; there was no sign of anything having spread.”
“Yes, I do remember Mittelman saying that.” Nim had been mildly concerned at the time, but the physician was reassuring, insisting the procedure was a long-shot precaution, nothing more. As Ruth had just pointed out, it all happened six years ago; Nim had forgotten the details until now.
“Both doctors were wrong,” Ruth said; the level of her voice dropped until it was barely a whisper. “There were cancer—melanoma—cells. They had spread. Now … they’ve spread still more … through my body.”
She barely managed to get the last words out. Then, as if a dam pent up too long had burst, her control dissolved totally. The breath went out of her in a wail, her body shook with violent sobbing.
For moments Nim sat helpless, numb, unable to comprehend, much less believe, what he had just heard. Then reality penetrated. With a whirlwind jumble of emotions—horror, guilt, anguish, pity, love—he went to Ruth and took her in his arms.
He tried to comfort her, holding her tightly, her face pressed hard against his own. “My darling, my dearest love, why have you never told me? In God’s name—why?”
Her voice came weakly, muffled by tears. “We weren’t close … not loving any more, the way it used to be … I didn’t want just pity … you had other interests … other women.”
A wave of shame and self-disgust swept over him. Instinctively, releasing Ruth, he fell to his knees before her and, taking her hands, he pleaded, “It’s late to ask forgiveness, but I do. I’ve been a goddam fool, blind, selfish …”
Ruth shook her head; characteristically, some of her control returned. “You don’t have to say all that!”
“I want to say it because it’s true. I didn’t see it before. I see it now.”
“I already told you I don’t want … only pity.”
He urged, “Look at me!” When she lifted her head he said softly, “I love you.”
“Are you sure you’re not just saying it because …?”
“I said I love you, and I mean it! I always have, I guess, except I got mixed up and stupid. It needed something like this to make me realize …” He stopped, then pleaded again, “Is it too late?”
“No.” Ruth gave the ghost of a smile. “I never did stop loving you, even though you’ve been a bastard.”
“I admit it.”
“Well,” she said, “maybe we owe Dr. Levin something.”
“Listen, dearest.” He groped for words, wanting to offer reassurance. “We’ll fight this thing together. We’ll do everything that’s medically possible. And there’ll be no more talk of separation or divorce.”
She said loudly, strongly, “I never wanted either. Oh, Nim darling, hold me! Kiss me!”
He did. Then, as if it had never been, the gulf between them disappeared.
He asked, “Are you too tired to tell me everything? Tonight? Now?”
Ruth shook her head. “I want to tell you.”
For another hour she talked while Nim listened, occasionally interjecting questions.
About eight months ago, he learned, Ruth became aware of a small lump on the left side of her neck. Dr. Mittelman had retired from practice the year before. She went to Dr. Levin.
The doctor was suspicious of the lump and ordered a series of tests, including chest X-ray, liver scan, and bone scan. The extensive tests explained Ruth’s daytime disappearances which Nim had noticed. Results showed that melanoma cells, after lying dormant for six years, had suddenly spread throughout Ruth’s body.
“The day I heard,” she said, “I didn’t know what to do or think.”
“Whatever else was wrong between us,” Nim protested, “you should have told me.”
“You seemed to have so much else on your mind. It was about the time that Walter was killed in that explosion at La Mission. Anyway, I decided to keep it to myself. Afterward, I took care of the insurance forms, all the rest.”
“Your parents don’t know?”
“No.”
After the test results, Ruth explained, she had begun attending a local hospital once a week, as an outpatient, for chemotherapy and immunotherapy treatments. That, too, explained more daytime absences.
She suffered occasional nausea and some weight loss because of the treatments, but managed to conceal both. Nim’s repeated absences from home had made it easier.
Nim put his head in his hands, his shame deepening. He had assumed Ruth was meeting another man, while all of the time …
Later, Ruth went on, Dr. Levin informed her of a new treatment being used at the Sloan-Kettering Institute in New York. He believed she s
hould go there to learn about it. Ruth went—for a two-week stay and another battery of tests.
That was the time of her prolonged absence from home which Nim had thought of with indifference, or as an inconvenience to himself.
He was bereft of words.
“What’s done is done,” Ruth told him. “You couldn’t possibly have known.”
Nim asked the question he had been dreading. “What do they say about the future—the prognosis?”
“First of all, there is no cure; second, it’s too late for surgery.” Ruth’s voice was steady; most of her normal poise was back. “But I could have a lot of years left, though well never know until they run out. Also I don’t know about the Sloan-Kettering Institute yet—whether I’ll be better off taking their treatment or not. The doctors there are working on a method which uses microwaves to raise the temperature of a tumor, followed by radiation which may—or may not—destroy the tumor tissue.” She smiled wanly. “As you might imagine, I’ve found out as much about it as I can.”
“I’d like to talk to Dr. Levin myself—tomorrow,” Nim said, then corrected himself. “That is, later today. Do you mind?”
“Mind?” Ruth sighed. “No, I don’t mind. It’s so wonderful to have someone to lean on. Oh, Nim, I’ve needed you so much!”
He held her again. Soon afterward, he turned out the lights and led the way upstairs.
For the flrst time in many months Nim and Ruth shared a bed and, in the early morning as dawn was breaking, they made love.
12
A knife blade flashed. Blood spurted. Watching the procedure of castration, Nim felt slightly sick.
Beside him, Mr. Justice Yale chuckled, “Be thankful you were destined to be a man, not a steer.”
The two were on a narrow catwalk above an animal pen, part of a cattle feedlot in California’s agricultural heartland—the San Joaquin Valley. The feedlot was one of the properties of the Yale Family Trust.
“The thought of any male being cut off from sex depresses me,” Nim said.
He had flown here early this morning, his purpose to brief Paul Yale on electric power as it related to agriculture. California farmers were enormous users of electricity; agriculture and associated industry consumed a tenth of everything GSP & L generated. Without electricity, farming—indispensable to the state’s well-being—would wither.