Of Weddings, Concentration Camps and Death

[mallorys_camera]

"As a rule," said the mother of the groom, "I don't like weddings."

"No?"

"No. I know they're not going to last. So all the ceremony is, really, is a lot of posturing and pretense. For what? For greed."

"Oh, trust me," I said mildly. "There are easier ways to get a Black & Decker food processor."

____ laughed. "When _____" – the groom's older brother – "got married I knew it wouldn't last. He'd designed a ring for her. Put a lot of time into it really. A lot of time and a lot of love. And then when he proposed she accepted, of course, but she pouted. 'Oh, honey,' she said, 'all I've ever wanted is a measly little carat.' 'But I can't afford a carat,' he said. She cried."

I laughed. "She got her carat!"

"They were divorced within two years." ____ sighed. "But this one –" she nodded towards the beautiful bride and the beautiful groom – "this one I think is going to last."

Indeed. I don't think I've ever been to a lovelier wedding or seen two people more in love. It was awesome really. I felt humbled, blessed to be in their presence. There are so many downsides to being human – this is the upside.

All in all a really fabulous day.



Max showed up in the morning to pick up his laptop. The two boys and I toured some adobe gardens, stopped at the coffee house formerly known as Morgan's, grabbed a bite to eat at the Old Monterey Café. Talked.

Robin is studying World War II in school.

"Why do you tell your friends you're Sicilian?" Max asked Robin. "You're a quarter Sicilian."

"And half Irish!" I said. "Descended from an Irish saint! Though few would suspect it from your behavior."

The saint in question is the Irish Primate Oliver Plunkett, hanged, drawn and quartered by the English at the end of the seventeenth century. His crime? Why, standing up for the one true faith, of course. (I do love that Catholic Church officials used to be called "Primates." I always picture Tarzan's sidekick Cheetah dressed in cardinal's robes, making wild chimp noises during a Vatican Council.)

Robin shrugged. "It's cool to be Sicilian," he said.

"It's not cool to be Irish?"

"It's… okay. Not as cool as being Sicilian."

"You're also a quarter Jewish," I said. "One-eighth Russian/Polish Jew, one-eighth German Jew. Do you tell them that?"

Robin shook his head. "No way!"

"Why not?"

"It's not cool to be Jewish."

Oy gevalt. My kid, the anti-Semite.

"Why?"

"Well. Suppose Hitler rises from the dead like a zombie. Then I'd get sent to the camps! This way I won't."

"Oh, you'd get sent to the camps anyway," I said. "They'd know you're my son. The only one of us there's any hope for is Max. He's got blond hair and blue eyes, he can pass as an Aryan."

"Did you know Hitler was working on a master race of Aryans?" Robin asked.

"I did."

"And that he sent six million Jews and gypsies and homosexuals to these camps? And made them take showers only they weren't showers because when you turned on the thing, poison gas would come out of them?"

"I did," I said again, more softly.

"Sometimes they would shoot them."

"Not often," I said. "They didn't want to waste the bullets."

"My hair isn't that blond," said Max.

At the reception, I ran into Jeannie. Who I haven't seen in a long, long time.

The encounter carried some heavy freight for me.

"Jeannie Dee!" I chirped. We air-kissed. "So! Did you ever… ?"

"I got it," said Jeannie. "I knew what it was instantly. I couldn't open it."

I raised my eyebrows. "Still," I said.

"Still," she said. "Four years, Patrizia. I cry every time I think about her. I think about her a hundred times a day." Jeannie laughed. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

I knew what was wrong with her, of course.

The package in question was a volume of Elizabeth's diary which I'd run across while cleaning my office way back in June. I'd somehow strong-armed Jeannie into loaning it to me after Elizabeth died. When I speculated about why Jeannie had stopped talking to me – which I did, quite a bit – I thought maybe that was why. She'd resented my pushiness.

I couldn't help it. I'm fascinated by people's journals and Elizabeth was such a cipher, such an unknown. An artist, but one who belonged to a weird Nazarene Christian sect, like something out of Stephen King's Carrie. She spoke in tongues! I wanted to see if she'd written about the experience. I wanted to learn her secrets. I wanted to read her instruction manual.


Alas, the diary was very flat. Little more than a mundane recitation of how Elizabeth spent her days.

Dull, actually.

For forty years Elizabeth lived in her little brown shingle cottage in Pacific Grove. When real estate prices suddenly went through the roof in the early nineties, she became part of a class of people who were land rich and cash poor – there are a lot of them in these parts. For the last ten years of her life, Elizabeth lived in a 1.5 million dollar house on approximately $500 a month.

She'd had Alzheimer's for twice that long by that time. Jeannie made all her decisions.

Nobody asked Jeannie, "Why don't you just sell that house," because we all knew Elizabeth's soul was bound up in that house somehow. That the moment she left that house, she'd die.

One day Elizabeth started to cook. A minute later, she forgot she was hungry and wandered out to her art studio.

The house almost burned down.

After that, of course, she couldn't stay in the house. Jeannie found her a wonderful assisted care facility only a mile and a half away.

But Elizabeth died almost immediately after Jeannie moved her. of course.

Jeannie is overwhelmed with guilt. She believes on the most primal, subconscious level that she killed her mother. And Jeannie isn't the type to go to a therapist.

Diana snapped this picture of us:



She looks beautiful still. But tired, very tired.

I look like a hideous old crone, of course, but that's because I am one. In my heart, I always look like this:

Comments

[pageeater.livejournal.com]

1) You are more beautiful now. A crone yes - but your experiences of a life fully lived radiate from your eyes. I think you're gorgeous, Ms M. Stunning.

2) Alzheimer's - how can family "do right?" It's a losing battle and I'm so very sorry for your friend Jeannie.

3) When my grandmother died (I was twenty-two and estranged from my family) I attended her funeral. Family was sitting shiva... and at that gathering I asked a few if they considered themselves Jewish and if so, what made them a Jew? They weren't a religious bunch, except for one orthodox aunt and uncle. I remember still my brother's (atheist) answer. He said "Yes" and to the question of 'why' he responded, "because no matter what I say I am or am not, if a fascist regime came into power again, I would be a Jew." This made me sad. I left the gathering soon after that - and never saw many of those relatives again.

4) I find it oddly redeeming that some children are still being taught the horrifying aspects of a fascist regime. Too many are not.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Well, you know, the minute I posted this, I thoughtMy God! It's come to this. I'm fishing for compliments on the Internet! but you know actually, I don't think that's it.

Beauty is really interesting to me as a phenomenon -- so much of it is culturally determined -- and of course, it was my professsion for six or so months when I modeled long ago.

I watch the crumbling of my own face with a kind of fascination. It's not vanity. But I couldn't tell you why.

The other thing about being a Jew is the great lingua franca of sarcasm, as my friend Abe used to say. There's a certain gesture -- I do it quite often -- palms up, shrugging, eyebrows quirked, "Nu?" that I've never seen a Gentile do. I don't know. I'd be more Jewish, would go to synagoge even, except the heart of Judaism is the Jewish home, and I can't keep a Jewish home. Maybe after Robin moves out...

[lethe1]

Even with blond hair and blue eyes, Max looks so much like the young you!

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

You think? If you saw his father, you'd see he looks like both his parents. But he does have an expression I used to have when I was his age, a kind of inward brooding look. It's funny because I don't use that expression very much anymore.

[lethe1]

Yes, it's the expression, and also the shape of the face, I think.

[quiet-life.livejournal.com]

i'm in agreement with mz. pageater- quite striking photo- dazzling smile, really you're gorgeous. a keeper recipe in your personal genetic melting pot.
nope, i'm not just blowing cigarette smoke up your tush.
s'all true.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Well, thank you my dear. Of course, when you post pictures of yourself, I fall over backwards exclaiming over your total gorgeosity and babe-itude!

[wailaki.livejournal.com]

IMHO, you are more beautiful now than you were then. Like that younger version wasn't quite finished.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Liking the Nano postings! Need more.

[banocrates.livejournal.com]

my god - you look spectacular!

I love reading personal journals as well and find it always a temptation when I'm staying with a friend.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Harriet the Spy is my personal savior! :-)

[banocrates.livejournal.com]

YES!

[eleanor.livejournal.com]

Two things:

1. 11.5 million people were extermined in the camps, 6 million of whom were Jews.

2. I don't think we've ever met in the flesh (although it's possible that I simply don't remember) but I'm assuming that you're on the left? You're stunning.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm on the left and thank you. We haven't met -- I hope we do some day. There's certainly intersection on the outer edges of our social groups.

Yes, I thought that "six million" figure was off when Robin said it.

[a1icey.livejournal.com]

a cool trick that seems to work for almost everyone that i think you might try is this one: wear your hair up or down, whichever, but use pins/clips/etc to pull a two inch wide section of hair into a poofy shape so it adds about an inch of height towards the front of your head...

i do it in two ways - by putting on a headband while my hair is parted to the side and then pulling it forward so in front of the headband my hair is bunched up. or i take that 2 inch wide strip, pull it straight back and twist it gently, then push the twisted piece forward and use two hair pins to clip it to the top of my head (then i put my hair up or style it or whatever).

i don't know if you're interested in trying this but my friends mother uses it to great effect.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you have that high forehead too, don't you? Bangs look ridiculous on women over forty (in my humble opinion) so I thank you for this tip!

[nokomisjeff.livejournal.com]

You look great. Like a fine wine, you get better with age.

I tell my lovely wife that and she always chortles, "Wine always turns to vinegar."

Not in your case:)

Aloha,

Jeff

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

You are very nice. Thank you!