Memoir of The Wedding
Gold, Herbert
MEMOIR OF THE WEDDING HERBERT G0LD Back in America after her years in Israel, the daughter met a nice young doctor. The father made the head-tucked-in, double-chinned joke of a beaming and jovial...
...No, he knows everything...
...today, being a father summed up everything for him, he was a father...
...The father wished his daughter's wedding day could go on and on, and this garden might spin slowly as it was now spinning, with flute music playing and good wishes heavily banked against whatever bad wishes might be floating in the summer air...
...It was her business to live at a high pitch...
...The long war was ended...
...Mother, he knows everything...
...Greensleeves...
...She said to him, "I hope nobody around here brought herpes to the party...
...The day was, for the father, a graduation...
...He kissed his son-in-law...
...He kissed his daughter...
...Today the father believed God had intentions and good ones...
...He sank into sleep with the grateful sigh of a man for whom, despite everything, even despite himself, things turn out well in the end...
...About each other, they were curious...
...He kissed his second wife...
...But he's a nice refined boy...
...and she smiled and kissed him and said, Hello, old former lover...
...There was also the ghost of the future and the still possible, the conceivable, the intentional, the accidental, the blessings and bounty of dream...
...He proposed to himself the interesting question: should he be going to bed alone...
...He observed the delicate small person in antique lace, his eldest daughter, floating among her admirers...
...This was not a day for quibbles...
...She straightened her Sunburst Glory hair...
...For a time at a wedding, standing in groups with food and drink and smiles and garden smells, the celebrants were relieved of their ocean solitudes...
...She's the mother of the bride...
...But then he came to an interesting result when he examined how he felt about the question: today and tonight he didn't mind...
...He continued on his kissing rounds...
...That one over there, she says you take her to the movies...
...It went from listener to listener, careless and flirtatious and happy...
...He kissed his daughter...
...He winked at the father, his old friend...
...He heard insects buzzing, blood and music thrumming...
...Now there's someone who doesn't walk away in the middle of a discussion...
...The voice confided secrets and truths...
...He kissed his first wife...
...Congolationists, did they tell you...
...Of course, no one else saw Hilda, gone for more than half a century, and his vision of mother, grandmother, great grandmother, was nothing to be proud of, unless a father should be proud of drinking well at a feast in honor of his firstborn daughter...
...He accepted congratulations...
...They are believing in love and denying history...
...Her lips were pressed together and white...
...He kissed their children...
...He felt no grief...
...the ghost of his father, wandering in the hallway, alive and sick of being ninety years old in Cleveland...
...The bricje and groom disappeared...
...neither had a spouse...
...she asked...
...She's over there talking to some other boy, you better pay some attention...
...She had made forays of investigation and discussion...
...He tell you he's afraid of the dark now...
...Not okay, and the sadness did not give place to anything, it was merely pain and the end of hopes for an old man...
...What kind of snacks they got in a motor hotel you're staying in I suppose, if you get hungry in the night...
...He kissed his own mother...
...Just now, nearby, she was speakingHvith his first wife, whom she hadn't seen in many years...
...He explained to his mother how it was the custom to slip away...
...family can become a ward...
...She admitted persistent rumors of old age, but you know how people gossip...
...His second daughter took his mother off for further discussions...
...He even thought he saw Hilda, his mother's mother, in her Russian dress, the skirts spreading...
...They got a breakfast place, a brunch place...
...I suppose the caterer gets to take it home...
...My mother always liked parties, too...
...Didn't I say that...
...Take a look at that pretty one you take to the movies sometimes...
...Like them, even more than the others, the father beamed and beamed, and wanted to be nothing more than a father...
...Good food...
...Not in our city...
...We should have just insisted...
...A crushing seemed to bring forth, all at once, the sadness...
...The Humanist minister suggested he sit down and just preside awhile...
...The sun went down...
...You're a good and tactful observer," he said...
...He did so...
...He hoped she would remember he was the first of them...
...she asked...
...Of course, in her day, we kept to our own, we didn't have such big doings, we couldn't afford so much extra waste, for instance—the fruit salad alone...
...Like some very nice colored I met through my son the writer...
...The celebration in a garden contributed to this gliding vivid unreality...
...The Humanist minister shook his jowls, deepened his tones, portrayed an Elizabethan adept of victuals and strong drink as he performed the ritual of passing bride to husband...
...There were weathered young couples who had come in from their forest refuges...
...They gave him to understand he was not a boy anymore, although he was still a son...
...It's a coincidence...
...Usually it did...
...Dooms of love, he thought...
...He kissed the mother of his daughter...
...Who will eat all this food...
...His head was filled with sunlight and rum and good feeling...
...he decided to be happy...
...Circling a garden, discussing and discussing, is hard work...
...We don't carry food with us on trips," the first wife said, holding the arm of her husband, softening the reproach in honor of the occasion: "Mother...
...At my age, which is seventy plus I won't tell you how many, maybe more, the memory gets overcrowded...
...What's that, some kind of goyim, I know, but what else...
...Just don't speak well of me to that lady...
...I wonder what Dad's thinking...
...she judged freely and robustly, needing little evidence, and before she left a conversation, she asked her interlocutor to repeat his or her name...
...We're staying at the Fairmont...
...He kissed his son-in-law...
...A friend and he put arms around each other's shoulders a moment, a heroes marching to battle gesture, into the sunset, grown children, the battle not yet over, and then separated as if by centrifugal force or the call of a spouse...
...Some goodbyes need no ceremony...
...The grandmother of the bride pinched the father and whispered, "He's nice, he's good, but they could have found a nice rabbi, too...
...Her name was Hilda— seems like a German name, I don't know why...
...One of the father's friends, pointing to the first wife, asked, "Why'd she walk away in the middle of my telling her what a fine fellow you are...
...She may not have been as tall as she imagined herself...
...Both had children...
...Then look...
...Say, you must be a pretty interesting fellow to raise a mother like that—" The party was dangerous fun, like a fruit salad soaked with bottles of kirsch...
...The photographer in a long gown took pictures of the new couple, and also of the father of the bride with his first wife, his second wife, his mother, his daughters and his women friends...
...He can't...
...She was a sociable person...
...There were ghosts, the ghosts of the living, of what they once were, darker and more haunting than the ghosts of the dead...
...Is that nice...
...They crunched fallen apples underfoot...
...She's right I'm sure, isn't she...
...and women these days," his mother said...
...Have you met my mother...
...A young woman said to him, Hello, old lover...
...It'll spoil unless you get it into a cooler...
...His mother's breasts, normally hidden, made themselves flirtatiously evident behind noisy blue taffeta...
...And then he went to bed alone...
...They drifted from group to group, hearty ones, giggly ones...
...While he suddenly felt weariness in his legs, his mother remained curious and tireless...
...Everyplace you look there's this intermarriage...
...Are you going to have a hangover tomorrow...
...The garden began to empty...
...He kissed the younger sister...
...Why don't you get less amazed...
...Which it goes without saying...
...Crushing makes the flowers give up their sweetness all at once...
...She turned to the former wife's husband, including him in a nostalgic moment of reconciliation...
...What will they do with all this extra California fruit salad...
...The father, former husband, former husband again, faced by all these women, made jokes and uttered comments...
...He kissed others...
...The lovely flautist was her own person, and had her own repertory...
...He wanted to explain to everyone that he now could understand why drink had come well-recommended through the centuries...
...On this sentimental occasion I deeply appreciate your friendship over the years...
...In our city of Cleveland we wouldn't do it like this...
...He telephoned to make sure his mother was comfortable...
...The day...
...I met her at the cheese, where she told me your life story...
...Ah...
...It was getting to be a habit...
...She got some nice friends," his mother reported...
...What're you going to do with all this food...
...We're making the best of it...
...The daughter's mother, his first wife, was there, and also his second wife, and also his own mother, taking the busy part of grandmother of the bride, and also several women friends of his...
...He admired the friends of his daughter and son-in-law...
...it's everything, and yet it confines...
...He was a son...
...Surely not, he thought...
...A person like you, always stayed home reading and ruining their eyes—" "Mother, I didn't go blind...
...her smile hilarious and secretly entertained, like his Aunt Anna's smile, like his mother's sometimes, like the smile on the face of his grandmother in old photographs— no, her mouth was severe in those photographs...
...The father made the head-tucked-in, double-chinned joke of a beaming and jovial parent: "She managed to find the only non-Jewish young doctor in town...
...The young doctor went to Temple with her, and they would visit her friends in Israel on their wedding trip, and he seemed to love her...
...The family, the friends, the garden smells trampled by crowd...
...He was happy enough...
...They got parking, too...
...Don't be shy...
...He told her about her big sister's folding the napkins on her kibbutz during the October war, because people deserve a nice table, and the child replied gravely, "I do that, too...
...He brushed his teeth, put his suit on hangers (his second wife, who liked to tease, suggested he give this suit to Goodwill), put away his tie, telephoned to make sure his mother was comfortable, and wondered if he was doing things in the proper order...
...Yes, here," he said to the groom, and gave away a last part of his youth...
...regret performs no useful labor...
...Neither did the father expect more than a comment or a joke in answer to his sincere comments and jokes...
...Those who stayed late gazed with the purposeless liquid beauty of eyes at a wedding, that brimming feeling that is empty of content and filled with all meanings...
...Public festivals suited her...
...It'll spoil in the sun...
...He kissed his first wife...
...She said: "I just talked to you already...
...No wonder everyone looks fascinating and healthy...
...But she got a lot of friends, all kinds, I think it's very interesting...
...His daughter often liked his women friends, made friends with them, teased them about her veteran father's funny habits, and asked him to marry again...
...In our city of Cleveland you can tell whose friend is whose...
...Today...
...Also the in-laws are lovely people...
...I'm in the memory business, he explained, and the father said, It's mutual...
...Of course, in our city of Cleveland we do a lot with family...
...My turn next, Dad," she said...
...Was this professional union catering...
...It was Saturday afternoon and a Druidess in a filmy costume played a flute, picking up blossoms and leaves in the ends of her robe...
...Her eyes laughed and appealed to everyone, and nearly everyone here responded to her need—loved her...
...Maybe," she said, smiling, intending to declare peace between parts of a family, "maybe you could take some in a few jars and containers, would you like that, dear...
...Of course he's afraid of the dark...
...She had many questions, many answers, and knew better than anyone how to make a question serve as an answer...
...There were lanterns swinging from the branches of fruit trees, there was music, there was a long day washing into a California sunset...
...One of those accidents that happens...
...There's all this intermarriage between men...
...Take two aspirin right now and drink some Vee-eight...
...He almost believed there were none...
...It told her life story, her mother Hilda, her sister Anna, her husband, our city of Cleveland, her children, her grandchildren to come,'her sick husband, who had become older than either of them wanted him to be...
...He kissed all his children...
...By mistake he kissed his oldest friend, who had introduced him to his first wife...
...He can't anymore...
...People can't eat all this...
...She didn't expect an answer...
...He kissed his second wife.She said to him, "I hope nobody around here brought herpes to the party...
...Some very good people, I'm sure...
...The old mother, mother to the father, kept saying, "Bee-yootiful, but who can eat so much all this food on a warm day like this...
...The happiness...
...Her son said to her: "I wish Dad could have come out for this...
...As a tribute to him, because he had expressed strong desire in the matter, the radiant Druid flautist with leafy hems did not play "Greensleeves...
...many nights are bitterly uneasy for a man curled up around no one...
...At his daughter's wedding there were stately skinny persons who This story is excerpted from Herbert Gold's forthcoming novel Family...
...The former communard, now in software at Ampex, was trailing after her, offering Memory Bank and Recall Discs and Miniaturization as he once offered psylo-cibin and Owsley Blues...
...There was still love in the universe, that wedding garden had been drenched with it, and he could wait his turn again...
...Spell it...
...Stop me before I kiss more," he said to his mother...
...she offered advice, based, as she said, on a little bit of experience that cannot be denied...
...You're getting there...
...Beats me," he said...
...He's not thinking at all, maybe just when to take his pills...
...He kissed his mother...
...You see old people on planes all the time...
...Now you see, you got a nice daughter and son-in-law and pretty soon, whenl I want a grandchild for you...
...In a kissing mood, he kissed his second wife...
...They turned at the celebration like fish slowly making the warm rounds of a pond...
...One was short, slight and angry despite her sociable smiles and cigarettes...
...That's a nice name—Catholic...
...Oh there it goes...
...For a bachelor any order seems to do...
...Her activity on its behalf transmitted an interest in love that never gave up...
...He kissed his mother...
...The light bones he hugged felt unfamiliar but friendly...
...He kissed all his children...
...And I'm the father...
...Good friend, " he said, "I'm sorry you learned smartass from me...
...There was summer in their hair and summer in their faces, summer smells when they breathed closely and laughingly upon each other...
...I always told you be nice...
...The kirsch, the rum, the heat of the afternoon...
...The part he now took could not be justified by thoughts of evening, of gentleness, of inexorability...
...it seemed that God intended them to nourish themselves and others, talking and laughing and looking into the light of another happy eye...
...1981 by Herbert Gold...
...they were no longer shipwrecked in the world...
...It led to warm-hearted results...
...another was rangy, bony, and handsome and moderately indifferent to him...
...You don't have to worry, Mother...
...He saw his daughter coming to lead the life she deserved, a fine and fruitful one...
...In the end, of course is only an expression...
...He had grown unfamiliar with such prospects...
...Or maybe the People had made a request...
...Times had changed again...
...Tonight...
...others were fond...
...The women he had sometimes lived with or traveled with shunned the man they had in common, but smiled shyly at each other, like sisters...
...Love that fruit salad...
...seemed to have been washed up onto bourgeois shores when the flower children went out to sea...
...That colored in the white suit—says his father's a doctor, okay, but his mother, also...
...His mother rustled her taffeta...
...Finally the sun was gone, the paper lanterns were lit, and his mother sighed blissfully, "Aah...
...That's because he knows...
...only now was she smiling...
...The day ended...
...Like her son, she wanted the day never to end...
...and he answered, You mean former lover...
...Also did he tell you that...
...Mother," he answered, "I don't think shyness is the problem here...
...Look at them here...
...She wanted to stay till dark, when the lanterns would be lit...
...the apples, too...
...One of the communards from Mountain View days, 1969, was telling about Ampex, expanding his consciousness by selling recording tape, discs and computer software to the People...
...You're right I suppose," said the former mother-in-law...
...Oh, man—lively...
...Nevertheless, the father of the bride was happy for his daughter...
...Some of them your friends, some of them her friends, it's tttt mixed up in California...
...Family doesn't always accept this overflow...
...It wasn't a time to blush...
...Occasionally they were sped on their way by his mother, asking questions and making statements...
...The father felt he too had fulfilled these good intentions today, and regret seized him only as his glance fell on his former wives—then he realized he had loved them and it was okay, for the moment it was okay—and then the sadness insisted its way back on a traveled path because his own father was alive and alone thousands of miles away, unable to take his part in the spiral of generations...
...It don't hurt to be nice...
...And now his mother too, sniffing around, asking questions, her wig on straight, rustling her fancy new blue taffeta, was making declarations in a clear voice: "Nice girls, some of them...
...The guests were wearing the goofy smiles of a celebration—true love once more...
...We stick to our own more...
...Even a king doesn't waste so much...
...Spell it, please...
...Which will be a great grandchild for you, Mother...
...his daughter replied...
...Within the heat radiating out from his cheeks and temples, there was also the visible and invisible aura of the past...
...Not yet, not yet, too early, I'm still too amazed, he said...
...But her husband is a nice steady fellow anyway, won't they be happy, I'll have a great grandchild soon, won't I? When, do you think...
...Each end is the beginning of something else...
...Even in our city of Cleveland there's nothing so beautiful...
...the ghost of love sometimes felt, not felt any longer, and still aching, as amputated limbs are said to ache...
...It doesn't make any difference," he said...
...not like sisters, since real sisters don't do so much shy inquiring smiling at each other...
...We don't get hungry in the night...
...He borrowed his youngest daughter for company—a bridesmaid she was, and still holding mashed posies in her fist...
...Occasional errors of calibration occurred when guests stood toe to toe for civilities with these women...
...She turned red, besides...
...In America we don't need to go hungry very much, unless we're always on a diet...
...Hah...
...Since he combined careers as minister and actor, he slid his voice down to an impressive bass for pronouncing the familiar words, using enough vibrato to pop corn, plus enough ooze to butter it...
...On the day of the wedding the father, who had been happy in love but then had been unhappy, felt a gliding sensation of unreality...
...They drove back to the city together and he delivered her to her mother, the one who liked jokes...
...Can't you see...
...the ghostly histories of loved women and friends and children in this garden, the aura of the past...
...He was also an admirer of this lady...
...She loved a wedding...
...Youth was lovely and age was good and the complicated company here present was at peace...
Vol. 6 • July 1981 • No. 7
