Balancing Acts Read online

  ‘She was kind of a light thing. She had red hair. She flew on the trapeze.’ The words were coming out choppy, one at a time, like a speech breaking in pained fragments before an audience. ‘We didn’t talk about it at the beginning, we were working so hard. And you know how time goes. By the time we left the circus it was too late. I was selfish too. I didn’t want to be distracted. It’s funny’—he paused and caught her eye, luminous—‘that now, over at the school, I’m with them so much. They’re like another species to me. But interesting.’ The ache in his chest subsided, eased away. Fluency returned, and he smiled. ‘First they feel they have to act very respectful because you’re old. As if you’ve never felt the things they’re feeling. Then after a while it dawns on them that you’re human, so they become more themselves. Right now I’m hot stuff over there. They’ve decided I’m, oh, something exotic. But that illusion will pass, I trust. Fortunately I have only eight or so at a time. It’s very instructive, listening to them. You should try it.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Max. What could I teach? I didn’t go past tenth grade.’

  ‘I don’t know—sewing, cooking. You can read, can’t you?’

  Lettie drew back her broad shoulders and frowned. ‘What do you take me for? Tenth grade in those days was like college now. I’m a very literate person.’

  ‘I know, I know. I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean it that way. How about some coffee? I bought a rum cake also.’ He got up and went into the kitchen. ‘You see my new espresso pot?’ he called, and held it up. ‘Comes out black and thick like mud. Wonderful. Do you like it that way?’

  Lettie nodded. He filled the pot and set it on the stove. ‘For instance,’ he said, returning to her at the table, ‘there’s one girl who’s quite a pest. Skinny, stringy hair, she looks like no one inspects her before she leaves in the morning. Of course they all do manage to look pretty sloppy, I must say. They dress like a bunch of gypsies. Anyhow, this one is very bright, very original, and constantly after me—Mr Fried this, Mr Fried that. She sounds like she’s filling out a questionnaire. She wants enough data to get her through life. Where did I learn everything I know? How many employees in the circus? How many performances a week? How long to prepare each act? Did you ever notice, people who ask a lot of factual questions, especially how many and when and where—that’s never what they really want to find out. It’s a cover for something else.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Oh, they want to worm something out of you that they need for themselves. Some piece of you.’

  ‘She might just like you, Max.’

  ‘Certainly she likes me. But she wants a piece of me, besides. And I—I have nothing to spare, believe me. I’m hoarding whatever is left.’

  ‘Hoarding!’ Lettie tilted her head at him. ‘What is this hoarding business?’

  ‘I never spread myself around. I had to be that way. We grew up poor, I was the youngest, and I was the different one. I needed to keep my wits about me or I’d get sucked in. You know, you give an inch...But later, with my wife—I never held back from her. She was different, she didn’t...pull. And then that was gone. I lived alone. You fall into habits you can’t break. Especially after I got mugged in the city—then it hit me that I didn’t have much strength left. Not even for myself.’

  She looked at him hard as he took another gulp of wine. ‘You got mugged? How bad was it?’

  ‘Bad enough. That was the first heart attack, four years ago. I woke up in the hospital. Furious.’

  The pain he could have borne, but not the mortification. Half a block from his door, up on West Eighty-ninth Street, where he moved after he closed the bike shop he had come to hate without her in it. One boy held the knife to his throat while the other took the wallet from his pocket. As soon as the cold steel left his neck he shot out an arm that hadn’t tried its strength in years. It hit the boy in the chest with hardly enough force to make him stagger. The boy struck back and he fell to the pavement, out cold. Soon he heard voices. Where the hell had the voices been five minutes before? He passed out again and woke behind white curtains; men dressed in white asked if he had a history of heart attacks. When he held out his bare arm to look at it, betrayal rose like bitter gall in his throat. First grounded after years of soaring, and now, insult added to injury, hollowed out. The marrow scooped out secretly, while he slept. The bitterness had never left him.

  ‘Of course that wouldn’t happen here,’ he said to Lettie. ‘Never! That’s why we’re here, right? Put away, out of danger. Here the kids are rich, they don’t need what’s in my wallet.’

  ‘They’re not all that rich,’ she said. ‘Some of them—’

  ‘Oh, yes they are! I’ve walked around and seen the houses. Have you ever taken a good look? Plenty of money, but no taste whatsoever. Plastic boxes.’ Rage had sneaked up. He heard his voice rising. ‘At least in the city you could see a real building! People! Here no one is even out on the streets at night. No one walks. When I go out at night I get looks, like I’m a loiterer!’

  And there he was, swiftly stalking around the table and waving his arms in a fit of temper—just what Dr Small had said not to do. What a life, when a man couldn’t even rant freely. To top it off, the police sirens began screeching again. When the wail dwindled he wagged a finger at Lettie. ‘You can be sure that siren’s not for any bunch of kids taking an old man’s money. No. The kids here are only starving for a little real life. No wonder they get so screwed up later on. At school, you should see, I’m their drug! They get a high from me. A free trip. They can’t even tell I’m half dead myself.’ He stopped pacing to bang his fist on the table; the wineglasses shook. ‘They could have anything they want, and all they want is to look like bums! They don’t know what it’s all about. To them it’s a—an entertainment, to dress in rags!’

  ‘Oh, for Chrissakes, sit down already, Max. What are you all worked up for over nothing? I didn’t realize you were so bitter. These children haven’t hurt you. Their clothing bothers you? Styles change.’

  He sat down heavily, tired of himself. ‘All right, all right. I’m sorry again.’

  Lettie’s quiet hands broke off another piece of bread. ‘Maybe that particular girl doesn’t have a loving home. That’s very important.’

  ‘Oh, a loving home, come on.’ His arm sliced disparagingly through the cigar smoke. The bubbling roar of the espresso pot erupted inside and he stood up. ‘Overrated. I came from a loving home. It can kill you. Love, my friend, doesn’t live up to its reputation,’ he grumbled on his way to the kitchen.

  Liar, he thought, turning off the flame. Treacherous liar. But that was different. And that was dead. Any love he might have left was for the beautiful, not the needy. Not some needy kid. And there was no beauty left for him. Susie in blue poised in air like a solitary bold bird: that beauty had failed. And he, with all his vaunted love, had failed her too. She was hideous, so he hadn’t wanted to look. He had run his fingers gently over the line of her cheekbone and turned to look out the window, at vacant sky. But he still kept the curve of that line in his fingertips.

  Lettie cleared the plates and brought them to the kitchen. He took an orange from the refrigerator, tossed it in the air and caught it. ‘This is what I use at school. I’m teaching them to juggle. They bring oranges from home. You should see those oranges roll across the gym floor. It smells nice, at least.’ He took a deep breath. ‘As a matter of fact, it smells beautiful.’ He held it up to her nose for a second, then cut two strips off the peel and dropped them into the coffee cups. His heart quieted.

  ‘I come in, they rush over, they surround me with the smell of oranges. When the lesson is over we eat them together.’ She was very close. He smiled at her. ‘I’m not really as nasty as I sound.’

  There was a hush. Lettie’s face had a sudden suspended look, as though she were about to touch him. The instant passed. She stacked dishes in the sink while he cut the cake. It was crowded in the small space—he was bumping into an arm or a hip at every tur
n. The touch of her revived feelings he didn’t think he wanted. Lettie seized a sponge and began vigorously wiping the countertop.

  ‘You don’t have to do that.’

  ‘Why not? I’m not overworked.’

  ‘Come on inside. Let’s have the coffee hot.’ She followed him back to the table. ‘Why are you incarcerated here, Lettie?’

  ‘Heart condition.’

  ‘A fellow sufferer.’

  ‘It could be worse.’

  ‘Oh, I know that. One of my partners, a big hefty man by the name of Henry Cook, this man, Lettie, who would hold six of us on his shoulders, got muscular dystrophy and shrunk up like a prune. Sits all day in a wheelchair, if he’s not dead yet. I lost touch.’

  ‘That’s a pity.’

  They sat silent for a while. It was good that she knew how to be quiet. He had always kept the impression that big women talked too much and too loud, because his mother had been big and vocal—her words drove him out to the roof of the tenement, where he perfected walking the ledge. She never knew, so busy scrubbing and cooking, what he did up there. High in blissful escape from his loving home, he juggled soda bottles left by teen-aged neckers; when he dropped them they bounced neatly on the sun-baked tar. He loved it up there alone in the sunshine, above the daily stench and absorbed grime of the building, and close to the sky. But you couldn’t make a life’s work of fooling around on rooftops. After high school his mother had wanted to ensure his future by installing him behind the counter of his uncle’s delicatessen, where his two older brothers were already sinking into a rut of tedium. His father was another warning example: a faded man, thankful for small decencies like the roof over his head, he had never dared expect life to yield much joy, and so never exerted himself to procure any. Max had no intention of aging and dying before his time. Spoiled by books and dreams and sky-gazing, he wanted transcendence. The roof was his jumping-off point. A reticent son, he never quarreled with their plans for him, merely disappeared one day when he was seventeen. With fifty dollars in his pocket earned making sandwiches on Delancey Street, he boarded a train west. Second-generation American, he became upwardly mobile, up and up, till he was scaling a rope to a metal bar hung in cavernous space, swinging wild and exalted like primitive man. He knew he was Urban Jew at play like Tarzan; but defying the social odds, he stayed up there half a life. Now there was no more escaping.

  He should have gone back to see them more. He had sent letters, photos, and money. Flimsy paper things. When it was too late, he came to understand that it had been no inspiring business, raising kids in a cramped apartment in an alien country, on a garment worker’s wages; if they gave too much anxious love and too little joy it was because the one was all they had to spare, the other a luxury they could never afford. Still, it left him with no taste for family life. He found joy in suspended moments, high above the tug of the world. He would do any amount of labor, training his body to cheat gravity, for those keen solitary moments. He had his transcendence. But once that appetite is awakened, he found, enough is never enough. Even now, the blood raced as hungrily as before, while the muscles atrophied. He lived on, throbbing but motionless.

  For an odd instant he looked at Lettie, pouring more coffee for both of them, and wondered if he might embrace that body and find there some remnant of elation. The thought alone made him weak. No, if you need to ponder it first, better forget it.

  After the coffee she said, ‘By the way, Max, you shouldn’t be so hard on Vicky Cameron. She means well.’

  ‘Meaning well doesn’t count in my book. Oh, what the hell. Let me clear this up.’

  ‘I’ll help you.’ She insisted on washing the dishes. He stood next to her in the tight space and dried them.

  ‘What did you do after your husband was killed?’

  Her chest rose and fell as she rested her hands briefly on the edge of the sink. ‘For a year or so, nothing. And I mean nothing. I had money, compensation, so I was able to stay in and stare at the walls. It was a pretty bad time. I swore later I would never let that happen to me again—it’s like a living death. I ate like there was no tomorrow. Finally I tried to pull myself together. I got a job as a cashier in an ice cream parlor. I tried every one of the twenty-six flavors—I’m sure they lost money on me. After that I did alterations in a fancy ladies’ dress shop. The work was not bad; I like to sew—I used to help with the costumes in the old days. But the fittings were hard, all that crawling around on the floor with a mouthful of pins. And they were always in a rush. I’m not a fast worker. I have to concentrate and take my time. One morning at the machine I had a heart attack,’ and when I came out of the hospital they didn’t want to take me back. They were scared I’d drop dead on them, I suppose. I might’ve, who knows? The doctors said I ought to be someplace with no pressures, so here I am.’

  ‘No pressures here, eh?’

  ‘Ah, let’s not get ourselves depressed.’ She handed him the last plate and swished the sponge expertly around the sink. ‘Do you want to watch something on TV?’

  ‘Why not?’

  He settled in the armchair with his feet on the ottoman as she switched the dials. His eyelids drooped. His head was heavy with red wine. He caught a glimpse of a fellow getting hit in the head by a circle of pizza dough. The next thing he knew, Lettie was shaking him gently by the shoulder.

  ‘I’m going home, Max. Why don’t you get up and sleep in bed? This way your neck will be stiff.’

  ‘I’m so sorry! How rude of me. Did I sleep long?’ His neck was stiff already.

  ‘It’s nothing at all. Thank you for a lovely evening. Next time I’ll cook for you.’

  ‘To think that I could fall asleep with a lady. Nothing personal, I assure you. It only shows how—’

  ‘Ah, come on, Max, cut the crap.’ She bent down to kiss his forehead lightly, and shut the door noiselessly behind her.

  As he was undressing, the phone rang: Ted Collins. Would he consider giving an hour of gymnastics instruction, two mornings a week, to a group of six teachers, including himself and Frank Fox? The question was no surprise—a couple of them had approached him the other day; he had told them to get a group together and make a definite proposition.

  ‘Gladly,’ he said. ‘Eight sharp, the kids start at nine-ten. Five dollars each per hour. That’s a bargain compared to Jack LaLanne.’

  He folded back the multicolored bedspread. There were other prospects. Yoga was a big thing. He could read up on it, and in nearby Hastings, reputedly populated with Yoga-loving artists and psychotherapists, take a few classes (or—okay, okay, Dr Small—observe them). Before he knew it, he would be in business. He grunted and plumped up the pillows. Already he was a success, taking the innocent town by storm. And he knew why too. With no good reason, they presumed beneath the ceremonious exterior a heart of pure gold. A curious error, since the heart was not pure at all but an alloy, a heart of steel.

  He maneuvered his crackling bones into bed but couldn’t settle down; he had slept too long in front of the TV. Frustration coiled his muscles. Everything that infuriated him, that he had expressed so imperfectly and incompletely to Lettie—above all, the vicissitudes of the flesh—streaked through him again with a vengeance. There was no recourse. He twisted and battled with the sheets. At last something occurred to him. Sinking into the pillows, he picked up the phone at his bedside and pressed a button.

  ‘Mrs Cameron? Max Fried here. I had a feeling this was one of your late nights.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Fried. Is everything all right?’

  ‘Hunky-dory, as we used to say in school. As a matter of fact, you remind me a little bit of my sixth-grade teacher, Miss Eustace. Did I ever tell you that? Her favorite motto was “Discretion is the better part of valor.” She used to say it when she broke up fights in the schoolyard between the Italians and the Jews. I never knew what that meant until many years later, and then I decided it wasn’t. Discretion, that is. Valor is the better part of valor. Only that’s a—what do you call it
?—a tautology. What do you think?’

  ‘Mr Fried,’ she said with a trained patience, ‘is there something we can do for you?’

  ‘I very much doubt it, alas. I called merely to bid you good night. I know it’s hectic down there, I know the joint is jumping, as it were, but still I wouldn’t want your anxieties over me to give you insomnia when you go home. I want you to know I’ve eaten well, put on clean pajamas, brushed some of my teeth and put the rest in a glass of Polident. I’m ready to be tucked in.’

  There was a heavy clatter at the other end, then a bleak emptiness. Dammit. Again a siren wailed. An action-packed night. He was left holding the phone, a sinewy old man with a crick in his neck. Feeling ancient and stupid, he pushed another button and the light went mercifully out.

  CHAPTER 4

  ‘CATHERINE WAS STRUCK WITH confusion and dismay when she learned of her mother the Queen’s pregnancy.’ Alison shut the door tight and tossed the three oranges over to her bed. ‘Needless to say,’ the words continued, ‘life in the castle would undergo some drastic changes. There would be servants wheeling a perambulator around the palace gardens. And if it was a boy, she pondered as she removed her royal garments, he might interfere with her...’ With her getting the crown—but there was an exact word for that and she couldn’t remember it. There ought to be a dictionary that worked backwards: if you knew the meaning it would tell you the word.

  She was too old to do fairy tales anyway. She threw her clothes to the floor, where the jeans, socks, and underpants clung together like a crumpled-up, inside-out body. The blue T-shirt with the anti-nuke slogan hung limply over the back of her desk chair, its sleeves half folded in on themselves. She stood in front of the mirror. Her breasts had not grown much lately; she was almost used to them now—at least till the next spurt of growth. Bodies did things that way, in spurts. They did gross and unpredictable things all by themselves. There were things her body did in bed at night that she didn’t decide to do at all. They happened against her will. Wanda’s body, with a baby inside, had spread out and opened up for him. But that they had done on purpose. She herself had been in there once too, wet and sticky.