The Jew's Wife & Other Stories by Thomas J. Hubschman Page B

Rosalie
chatting in the living room.
       “ You should give
it a try,” she suggested.
       “ I wouldn’t want
to deprive you of your spot. Besides, the bedroom’s quite
comfortable.”
       “ You wouldn’t be
depriving me. There’s plenty of room. Charlie has another sleeping
bag.”
        It was
half an hour before their hosts appeared, still in their pajamas
and looking like sleepy children. Father Walther had spent the
interval on the balcony. Charlie and Sylvia mumbled a greeting and
sat down at the table. Rosalie served everyone coffee.
       “ Sleep
well?” the priest asked with the proprietary attitude of the first
up. Charlie groaned, moving his head from side to side not so much
in denial as to indicate he was not yet up to using his
brain.
       “ These
two bright-eyed creatures are off to Philadelphia, if they ever
come to,” Rosalie said.
       “ What time is
it?” Charlie asked. Rosalie told him.
       “ Jesus
Christ. Drink up, Sylve.”
        This was
the first Father Walther had heard of the trip. But he had endured
bigger surprises than this from his old friend; why should he
suddenly act out of character and inform him in advance of an
excursion to the other side of the state?
       “ Shopping?”
        Sylvia shook her
head. “Mother-in-law’s birthday. Duty fu-- ...family
obligation.”
        Father Walther
nodded, not comprehending.
       “ Sylvia and my
mother don’t exactly get along,” Charlie explained.
       “ How old
is your mother?”
    Father Walther hadn’t seen Mrs. Weeks in
twenty years. He remembered her as a tall, angular woman. For a
while she was active in a campaign to eliminate pornography from
stores in the Paterson area. He wondered what she would make of the
hard-core stuff that was now so easily available to anyone with a
computer. Charlie once told him he wished his mother would not
leave her smutty spoils lying around the house. To her they may
have represented a moral victory over Satan, but to her son they
were a constant temptation.
       “Seventy-something.”
       “She’s seventy-three,” Sylvia
said. “And full of piss and vinegar. Oops. Sorry, Father,” she
said, clapping her hand to her mouth.
       “’ Richie,’” he replied automatically, more concerned with the
flush that had come over Charlie.
       “ Well,
I’m off to the links,” Rosalie announced, taking off the short
apron she had put on to protect her culottes.
       “ Golf?” he
asked.
       “ Sure. Do you
play?”
       “ Well...”
       “Great. I won’t have to play
alone.”
       “I’m afraid I don’t own a set of
clubs.” His parishioners would have bought him a set, but he kept
his hobby secret from them: there were more important things to
spend money on. Besides, he only played on vacations and the odd
weekend.
       “ You can
rent,” she said. “It’s settled. You two are off to Philadelphia,
and Richie and I are for the links.”
       
        It was a
warm morning, but not humid. He liked to be out on the first tee as
early as possible; either that or wait until the sun’s strongest
rays were spent. He liked the smell of grass when it was still dewy
and enjoyed the deepening shades of twilight—gold, amber, and final
rust. He hadn’t yet mastered the basics of the game, but the wide
fairways reminded him of the yard of the house where he had grown
up. That entire lot could have fit easily into some greens he had
played, but when he was still a boy its green lawn seemed an
immense expanse. It took him an entire afternoon to mow it with the
rusty hand mower his father kept beneath the front porch. His
mother made pitchers of lemonade to quench the ferocious thirst he
worked up. But even the lemonade was not as good as the heady sense
of manhood he felt. After the family moved from that house they
never again owned a home of their own, and consequently there were
no more lawns for him to mow. But to