So Much To Learn
By Harry Buschman
“And so you are going abroad; and when
do you return?
But that’s a useless question.
You hardly know when you are coming back,
You will find so much to learn.”*
She loved visiting New York. She loved the
Waldorf, the city seemed like a
wonderland to her when Fred was alive. They lived up-state in Tuxedo then and
when he brought her with him to New York City she found it a place of magic
-- a
living metropolis with a heartbeat of its own. Excitement waited at every street
corner.
Now, she wasn’t so sure. Light people. Dark people. Strange languages heard on strange streets. Strange food in strange restaurants. It was different now.
Well, she wasn’t going to stay long.
From her window on the twentieth floor she
looked down at the cold gray street. Gray people, hands thrust deep into their
coat pockets slouched along Park Avenue, each of them leaned into the wind and
occasionally withdrew a hand to
pull a hat down tighter -- then quickly put the hand back in their pocket again.
She closed her eyes to bring back the vision of the warm days in Ibiza where
people walked, not to get somewhere, but for the joy of walking in the sun.
She thought of the warm nights too; but that was another story.
Then she called Myra. She hadn’t seen Myra since Fred’s funeral -- that was ... she had to think a bit ... four years, wasn’t it. Yes, precisely four years. Myra’s divorce and Fred’s death almost coincided. Was it easier for Myra going through a divorce than going through the death of a husband? They were essentially the same thing; there are more bad feelings in a divorce, more things left unfinished -- and the nagging thought that the bastard was having a better time with someone else than he did with you. In either case you can’t have them back -- somebody else has them now.
She wanted to tell all her friends about Rosario, especially Myra. Myra knew what it was like. Three months after her divorce she was dating -- and bragging about it. No sitting at home in the dark for Myra -- no telephone calls in the night just to hear the sound of a human voice. Bernice knew what that was all about. If there was a difference between a widow and a divorcee it was the solitary imprisonment of loneliness. Her son Tommy was away at school with 3,000 kids to keep him company; she’d call him for no reason. Then she’d apologize because there was no reason for her to call. He’d be patient, but he’d also be anxious to say goodbye. “I was just on my way to the library, Ma -- what’s up ...”
“So intimate, this Chopin, that I think his soul Should be resurrected only among friends Some two or three, who will not touch the bloom*
Myra looked as though she had been to Ibiza. Her tan was deeper than Bernice’s. She looked as though she’d been to the hairdresser too. “Tell me all about it,” she asked. “There’s a sparkle in your eye -- what’s Ibiza like anyway?”
“Simply wonderful.”
“People don’t usually say, ‘simply wonderful’ about vacations, Bernice. They say that about honeymoons.”
“Well they’d say that about the beaches in Ibiza. They’re wonderful.”
“I suppose you went native in the middle of all those hairy Spaniards.”
“Naked on the beach? But of course.”
“But, I mean -- you know, weren’t you the least bit ...?”
“Myra, it’s a question of anonymity. They didn’t know it was me and I didn’t know them. You just don’t register. Of course, if you’re with someone you tend to notice things.”
“I don’t know about that,” Myra bristled. “You’re there, they’re there. You’re both bare ass. How can you be anonymous?”
Bernice sighed. “I brought the pictures with me. Would you like to see them?”
“Of course!”
Bernice opened the first page of the album, cleared her throat, and with a gloating coolness, began a monologue that started with her arrival at the airport in Barcelona and detailed every moment of her stay. There were some parts left out, not for reasons of forgetfulness, but for reasons only she was privy to.
“I could have flown there from Barcelona, but Rosario talked me into taking the ferry. It’s only 9 hours.”
“Rosario?”
“What?”
“Rosario. You said Rosario conned you
into taking the ferry. Who the hell is
Rosario.”
“Oh ... I met him in Barcelona. That’s he in the picture. Standing at the rail ... I met him in Barcelona.”
“That’s him, huh,” Myra said with an innocent smile. “Somewhat younger isn’t he?”
Bernice ignored the smile and turned to the next page in the album. “We met at an art exhibit in Barcelona just off the Ramblas, it was Velasquez -- you know -- the great Spanish painter.”
“What were you wearing?”
“A blouse and slacks. White slacks. The blouse was a flowered silk -- oh, and shoes -- espadrilles. Why? What difference does it make?”
“Oh nothing, I guess. I just remembered how we used to go to exhibitions in the Village -- when we were both on the make -- slacks that looked painted on. Clown make-up.”
“I was not on the make, Myra. I just happen to adore Velasquez. It’s so different when you see him in Spain.”
“Why was he going to Ibiza?”
“Who, Velasquez?”
“Come on, Bernice -- Velasquez is dead. Why was your caballero going to Ibiza.”
“Oh, Rosario you mean. He’s a painter too you see ... his exhibition was opening in Ibiza ... at a place called Eulalia.” She sighed. “Isn’t that a lovely name for a town, Eulalia? He had his paintings with him ... that’s why he took the ferry.”
“Well,” Myra sat back with the photo album in her lap ... “you seem to have set this thing up before you ever left for the island, Bernice. Why was it so important you go with him? What went on in Barcelona?”
“I told you. I met him at the Velasquez exhibition.”
"Admire the monuments,
Discuss the late events,
Correct our watches by the public clocks.
Then sit for half an hour and drink our bocks."*
To her annoyance Bernice suddenly felt the
need to explain. “Myra, I know you
can see he’s younger than I. I know that -- I found it out the hard way.”
Myra closed the album and looked at Bernice
with a touch of compassion. “The
hard way?”
“He’s seven years older than Tommy.
I knew that too, before we started out for Ibiza. I’m Tommy’s mother,
and that’s something I didn’t want to remember -- not then.”
Bernice took the album from Myra and walked to the window. She
looked again at the hunkered down people tacking into the wind along Park
Avenue. The light was fading fast, some of the cars had turned their lights
on.
The flags jutting from the second floor windows along the avenue were being
pulled back inside for the night.
Suddenly she couldn’t remember why she
asked Myra to come over -- she thought
it must be something about accepting the passing of her years, giving up finally
and watching Tommy grow. Being a grandmother before too long. What happened
back there in Ibiza? Something had gotten the better of her, something in the
air, maybe the water. Whatever it was, it wasn’t with her now, she left
it
there.
"Well! and what if she should die some
afternoon,
Afternoon grey and smoky, evening yellow and rose
Should die and leave me sitting pen in hand,"*
*from T.S. Eliot, “Portrait of a Lady”
© Harry Buschman 2003
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