Dinner At The Homesick Restaurant Part 9

"Oh, Jenny. Oh, my G.o.d," Pearl said. Her eyes were no longer gray; they were black, and she gripped her shiny black purse. "Well, I understand it all now," she said.

"No, wait," Jenny said. Her heart was beating so fast, it seemed she was vibrating where she stood.

"Visiting for no apparent reason," said Pearl, "and slipping away this morning to meet him like a tramp, some cheap little tramp-"

"Mother, you've got it wrong!" Jenny told her. "It's nothing, don't you see?" She felt she had run out of breath. Gasping for air, she gestured toward Josiah, who merely stood there with his mouth agape. "He just...we just met in the hall and...it's not that way at all, he's nothing nothing to me, don't you see?" to me, don't you see?"

But she had to say this to Pearl's back, hurrying after her through the dining room. Pearl reached their table and said, "Ezra, I cannot stay here."

Ezra stood up. "Mother?"

"I simply cannot," she said. She gathered up her coat and walked away.

"But what happened?" Ezra asked, turning to Jenny. "What's bothering her?"

Cody said, "That lukewarm soup, no doubt," and he rocked back comfortably in his chair with a cigar between his teeth.

"I wish just once," Ezra said, "we could eat a meal from start to finish."

"I don't feel well," Jenny told him.

In fact, her lips were numb. It was a symptom she seemed to remember from before, from some long-forgotten moment, or maybe from a nightmare.

She left her coat behind, and she rushed through the dining room and out to the street. At first, she thought her mother had disappeared. Then she found her, half a block ahead-a militant figure walking briskly. Oh, what if she wouldn't even turn around? Or worse, would turn and lash out, slap, snap, her clawed pearl ring, her knowing face...But Jenny ran to catch up with her, anyway. "Mother," she said.

In the light from the liquor store window, she saw her mother rea.s.semble her expression-take on a cool, unperturbed look.

"You've got it all wrong," Jenny told her. "I'm not a tramp! I'm not cheap! Mother, listen to me."

"It doesn't matter," Pearl said politely.

"Of course it matters!"

"You're over twenty-one. If you don't know good from bad by now, there's nothing more I can do about it."

"I felt sorry for him," Jenny said.

They crossed a street and started up the next block.

"He told me his mother had died," Jenny said.

They veered around a gang of teen-aged boys.

"She was all he had-his father's dead too. She was the center of his life."

"Well," said Pearl, "I suppose it can't have been easy for her."

"I don't know how he's going to manage now she's gone."

"I believe I saw her in the grocery once," said Pearl. "A brown-haired woman?"

"Plumpish, sort of."

"Full in the face?"

"Like a wood thrush," Jenny said.

"Oh, Jenny," said her mother, and she gave a little laugh. "The things you come up with, sometimes!"

They pa.s.sed the candy store, and then the pharmacy. Jenny and her mother fell into step. They pa.s.sed the fortune-teller's window. The same dusty lamp glowed on the table. Jenny, looking in, thought that Mrs. Parkins had not been much of a prophet. Why, she had even had to listen to the radio for tomorrow's weather! And she should have guessed from the very first instant, from the briefest, most cursory glance, that Jenny was not capable of being destroyed by love.

4.

Heart Rumors.

The first few times that Mrs. Scarlatti stayed in the hospital, Ezra had no trouble getting in to visit her. But the last time was harder. "Relative?" the nurse would ask.

"No, ah, I'm her business partner."

"Sorry, relatives only."

"But she doesn't have any relatives. I'm all she's got. See, she and I own this restaurant together."

"And what's that in the jar?"

"Her soup."

"Soup," said the nurse.

"I make this soup she likes."

"Mrs. Scarlatti isn't keeping things down."

"I know that, but I wanted to give her something."

This would earn him a slantwise glance, before he was led brusquely into Mrs. Scarlatti's room.

In the past, she had chosen to stay in a ward. (She was an extremely social woman.) She'd sit up straight in her dramatic black robe, a batik scarf hiding her hair, and "Sweetie!" she'd say as he entered. For a moment the other women would grow all sly and alert, till they realized how young he was-way too young for Mrs. Scarlatti. But now she had a private room, and the most she could do when he arrived was open her eyes and then wearily close them. He wasn't even sure that he was welcome any more.

He knew that after he left, someone would discard his soup. But this was his special gizzard soup that she had always loved. There were twenty cloves of garlic in it. Mrs. Scarlatti used to claim it settled her stomach, soothed her nerves-changed her whole perception of the day, she said. (However, it wasn't on the restaurant's menu because it was a bit "hearty"-her word-and Scarlatti's Restaurant was very fine and formal. This hurt Ezra's feelings, a little.) When she was well enough to be home, he had often brewed single portions in the restaurant kitchen and carried them upstairs to her apartment. Even in the hospital, those first few times, she could manage a small-sized bowl of it. But now she was beyond that. He only brought the soup out of helplessness; he would have preferred to kneel by her bed and rest his head on her sheets, to take her hands in his and tell her, "Mrs. Scarlatti, come back." But she was such a no-nonsense woman; she would have looked shocked. All he could do was offer this soup.

He sat in a corner of the room in a green vinyl chair with steel arms. It was October and the steam heat had come on; the air felt sharp and dry. Mrs. Scarlatti's bed was cranked upward slightly to help her breathe. From time to time, without opening her eyes, she said, "Oh, G.o.d." Then Ezra would ask, "What? What is it?" and she would sigh. (Or maybe that was the radiator.) Ezra never brought anything to read, and he never made conversation with the nurses who squeaked in and out on their rubber soles. He only sat, looking down at his pale, oversized hands, which lay loosely on his knees.

Previously, he had put on weight. He'd been nowhere near fat, but he'd softened and spread in that mild way that fair-haired men often do. Now the weight fell off. Like Mrs. Scarlatti, he was having trouble keeping things down. His large, floppy clothes covered a large, floppy frame that seemed oddly two-dimensional. Wide in front and wide behind, he was flat as paper when viewed from the side. His hair fell forward in a sheaf, like wheat. He didn't bother pushing it back.

He and Mrs. Scarlatti had been through a lot together, he would have said, if asked-but what, exactly? She had had a bad husband (a matter of luck, she made it seem, like a bad bottle of wine) and ditched him; she had lost her only son, Ezra's age, during the Korean War. But both these events she had suffered alone, before her partnership with Ezra began. And Ezra himself: well, he had not actually been through anything yet. He was twenty-five years old and still without wife or children, still living at home with his mother. What he and Mrs. Scarlatti had survived, it appeared, was year after year of standing still. Her life that had slid off somewhere in the past, his that kept delaying its arrival-they'd combined, they held each other up in empty s.p.a.ce. Ezra was grateful to Mrs. Scarlatti for rescuing him from an aimless, careerless existence and teaching him all she knew; but more than that, for the fact that she depended on him. If not for her, whom would he have? His brother and sister were out in the world; he loved his mother dearly but there was something overemotional about her that kept him eternally wary. By other people's standards, even he and Mrs. Scarlatti would not have seemed particularly close. He always called her "Mrs. Scarlatti." She called Ezra her boy, her angel, but was otherwise remarkably distant, and asked no questions at all about his life outside the restaurant.

He knew the restaurant would be fully his when she died. She had told him so, just before this last hospital stay. "I don't want it," he had said. She was silent. She must have understood that it was only his manner of speaking. Of course he didn't want want it, in the sense of coveting it (he never thought much about money), but what would he do otherwise? Anyway, she had no one else to leave it to. She lifted a hand and let it drop. They didn't mention the subject again. it, in the sense of coveting it (he never thought much about money), but what would he do otherwise? Anyway, she had no one else to leave it to. She lifted a hand and let it drop. They didn't mention the subject again.

Once, Ezra persuaded his mother to come and visit too. He liked for the various people in his life to get along, although he knew that would be difficult in his mother's case. She spoke of Mrs. Scarlatti distrustfully, even jealously. "What you see in such a person I can't imagine. She's downright...tough, is what she is, in spite of her high-fashion clothes. It looks like her face is not trying. Know what I mean? Like she can't be bothered putting out the effort. Not a bit of lipstick, and those crayony black lines around her eyes...and she hardly ever smiles at people."

But now that Mrs. Scarlatti was so sick, his mother kept her thoughts to herself. She dressed carefully for her visit and wore her netted hat, which made Ezra happy. He a.s.sociated that hat with important family occasions. He was pleased that she'd chosen her Sunday black coat, even though it wasn't as warm as her everyday maroon.

In the hospital, she told Mrs. Scarlatti, "Why, you look the picture of health! No one would ever guess."

This was not true. But it was nice of her to say it.

"After I die," Mrs. Scarlatti said in her grainy voice, "Ezra must move to my apartment."

His mother said, "Now, let's have none of that silly talk."

"Which is silly?" Mrs. Scarlatti asked, but then she was overtaken by exhaustion, and she closed her eyes. Ezra's mother misunderstood. She must have thought she'd asked what what was silly, a rhetorical question, and she blithely smoothed her skirt around her and said, "Total foolishness, I never heard such rot." Only Ezra grasped Mrs. Scarlatti's meaning. Which was silly, she was asking-her dying, or Ezra's moving? But he didn't bother explaining that to his mother. was silly, a rhetorical question, and she blithely smoothed her skirt around her and said, "Total foolishness, I never heard such rot." Only Ezra grasped Mrs. Scarlatti's meaning. Which was silly, she was asking-her dying, or Ezra's moving? But he didn't bother explaining that to his mother.

Another time, he got special permission from the nurses' office to bring a few men from the restaurant-Todd Duckett, Josiah Payson, and Raymond the sauce maker. He could tell that Mrs. Scarlatti was glad to see them, although it was an awkward visit. The men stood around the outer edges of the room and cleared their throats repeatedly and would not take seats. "Well?" said Mrs. Scarlatti. "Are you still buying everything fresh?" From the inappropriateness of the question (none of them was remotely involved with the purchasing), Ezra realized how out of touch she had grown. But these people, too, were tactful. Todd Duckett gave a mumbled cough and then said, "Yes, ma'am, just how you would've liked it."

"I'm tired now," Mrs. Scarlatti said.

Down the hall lay an emaciated woman in a coma, and an old, old man with a tiny wife who was allowed to sleep on a cot in his room, and a dark-skinned foreigner whose ma.s.ses of visiting relatives gave the place the look of a gypsy circus. Ezra knew that the comatose woman had cancer, the old man a rare type of blood disease, and the foreigner some cardiac problem-it wasn't clear what. "Heart rumor," he was told by a dusky, exotic child who was surely too young to be visiting hospitals. She was standing outside the foreigner's door, delicately reeling in a yo-yo.

"Heart murmur murmur, maybe?"

"No, rumor."

Ezra was starting to feel lonely here and would have liked to make a friend. The nurses were always sending him away while they did something mysterious to Mrs. Scarlatti, and much of any visit he spent leaning dejectedly against the wall outside her room or gazing from the windows of the conservatory at the end of the corridor. But no one seemed approachable. This wing was different from the others-more hushed-and all the people he encountered wore a withdrawn, forbidding look. Only the foreign child spoke to him. "I think he's going to die," she said. But then she went back to her yo-yo. Ezra hung around a while longer, but it was obvious she didn't find him very interesting.

Bibb lettuce, Boston lettuce, chicory, escarole, dripping on the counter in the center of the kitchen. While other restaurants' vegetables were delivered by anonymous, dank, garbage-smelling trucks, Scarlatti's had a man named Mr. Purdy, who shopped personally for them each morning before the sun came up. He brought everything to the kitchen in splintery bushel baskets, along about eight a.m., and Ezra made a point of being there so that he would know what foods he had to deal with that day. Sometimes there were no eggplants, sometimes twice as many as planned. In periods like this-dead November, now-nothing grew locally, and Mr. Purdy had to resort to vegetables raised elsewhere, limp carrots and waxy cuc.u.mbers shipped in from out of state. And the tomatoes! They were a crime. "Just look," said Mr. Purdy, picking one up. "Vine-grown, the fellow tells me. Vine-grown, yes. I'd like to see them grown on anything else. 'But ripened?' I say. 'However was they ripened?' 'Vine-ripened, too,' fellow a.s.sures me. Well, maybe so. But nowadays, I don't know, all them taste anyhow like they spent six weeks on a windowsill. Like they was made made of windowsill, or celluloid, or pencil erasers. Well, I tell you, Ezra: I apologize. It breaks my heart to bring you such rubbage as this here; I'd sooner not show up at all." of windowsill, or celluloid, or pencil erasers. Well, I tell you, Ezra: I apologize. It breaks my heart to bring you such rubbage as this here; I'd sooner not show up at all."

Mr. Purdy was a pinched and prunish man in overalls, a white shirt, and a shiny black suit coat. He had a narrow face that seemed eternally disapproving, even during the growing season. Only Ezra knew that inwardly, there was something nourishing and generous about him. Mr. Purdy rejoiced in food as much as Ezra did, and for the same reasons-less for eating himself than for serving to others. He had once invited Ezra to his home, a silver-colored trailer out on Ritchie Highway, and given him a meal consisting solely of new asparagus, which both he and Ezra agreed had the haunting taste of oysters. Mrs. Purdy, a smiling, round-faced woman in a wheelchair, had claimed they talked like lunatics, but she finished two large helpings while both men tenderly watched. It was a satisfaction to see how she polished her b.u.t.tery plate.

"If this restaurant was just mine," Ezra said now, "I wouldn't serve tomatoes in the winter. People would ask for tomatoes and I'd say, 'What can you be thinking of, this is not the season.' I'd give them something better."

"They'd stomp out directly," Mr. Purdy said.

"No, they might surprise you. And I'd put up a blackboard, write on it every day just two or three good dishes. Of course! In France, they do that all the time. Or I'd offer no choice at all; examine people and say, 'You look a little tired. I'll bring you an oxtail stew.'"

"Mrs. Scarlatti would just die," said Mr. Purdy.

There was a silence. He rubbed his bristly chin, and then corrected himself: "She'd rotate in her grave."

They stood around a while.

"I don't really want a restaurant anyhow," Ezra said.

"Sure," Mr. Purdy said. "I know that."

Then he put his black felt hat on, and thought a moment, and left.

The foreign child slept in the conservatory, her head resting on the stainless steel arm of a chair like the one in Mrs. Scarlatti's room. It made Ezra wince. He wanted to fold his coat and slide it beneath her cheek, but he worried that would wake her. He kept his distance, therefore, and stood at one of the windows gazing down on pedestrians far below. How small and determined their feet looked, emerging from their foreshortened figures! The perseverance of human beings suddenly amazed him.

A woman entered the room-one of the foreigners. She was lighter skinned than the others, but he knew she was foreign because of her slippers, which contrasted with her expensive wool dress. The whole family, he had noticed, changed into slippers as soon as they arrived each morning. They made themselves at home in every possible way-setting out bags of seeds and nuts and spicy-smelling foods, once even brewing a quart of yogurt on the conservatory radiator. The men smoked cigarettes in the hall, and the women murmured together while knitting brightly colored sweaters.

Now the woman approached the child, bent over her, and tucked her hair back. Then she lifted her in her arms and settled in the chair. The child didn't wake. She only nestled closer and sighed. So after all, Ezra could have put his coat beneath her head. He had missed an opportunity. It was like missing a train-or something more important, something that would never come again. There was no explanation for the grief that suddenly filled him.

He decided to start serving his gizzard soup in the restaurant. He had the waiters announce it to patrons when they handed over the menu. "In addition to the soups you see here, we are pleased to offer tonight..." One of the waiters had failed to show up and Ezra hired a woman to replace him-strictly against Mrs. Scarlatti's policy. (Waitresses, she said, belonged in truck stops.) The woman did much better than the men with Ezra's soup. "Try our gizzard soup," she would say. "It's really hot and garlicky and it's made with love." Outside it was bitter cold, and the woman was so warm and helpful, more and more people followed her suggestion. Ezra thought that the next time a waiter left, he would hire a second woman, and maybe another after that, and so on.

He experimented the following week with a spiced crab ca.s.serole of his own invention, and then with a spinach bisque, and when the waiters complained about all they had to memorize he finally went ahead and bought a blackboard, SPECIALS SPECIALS, he wrote at the top. But in the hospital, when Mrs. Scarlatti asked how things were going, he didn't mention any of this. Instead, he sat forward and clasped his hands tight and said, "Fine. Um...fine." If she noticed anything strange in his voice, she didn't comment on it.

Mrs. Scarlatti had always been a lean, dark, slouching woman, with a faintly scornful manner. It was true, as Ezra's mother said, that she gave the impression of not caring what people thought of her. But that had been part of her charm-her sleepy eyes, hardly troubling to stay open, and her indifferent tone of voice. Now, she went too far. Her skin took on the pallid look of stone, and her face began to seem sphinxlike, all flat planes and straight lines. Even her hair was sphinxlike-a short, black wedge, a clump clump of hair, dulled and rough. Sometimes Ezra believed that she was not dying but petrifying. He had trouble remembering her low laugh, her casual arrogance. ("Sweetie," she used to say, ordering him off to some task, trilling languid fingers. "Angel boy...") He had never felt more than twelve years old around her, but now he was ancient, her parent or grandparent. He soothed and humored her. Not all she said was quite clear these days. "At least," she whispered once, "I never made myself ridiculous, Ezra, did I?" of hair, dulled and rough. Sometimes Ezra believed that she was not dying but petrifying. He had trouble remembering her low laugh, her casual arrogance. ("Sweetie," she used to say, ordering him off to some task, trilling languid fingers. "Angel boy...") He had never felt more than twelve years old around her, but now he was ancient, her parent or grandparent. He soothed and humored her. Not all she said was quite clear these days. "At least," she whispered once, "I never made myself ridiculous, Ezra, did I?"

"Ridiculous?" he asked.

"With you."

"With me? Of course not."

He was puzzled, and must have shown it; she smiled and rocked her head on the pillow. "Oh, you always were a much-loved child," she told him. It must have been a momentary wandering of the brain. (She hadn't known him as a child.) "You take it all for granted," she said. Maybe she was confusing him with Billy, her son. She turned her face away from him and closed her eyes. He felt suddenly anxious. He was reminded of that time his mother had nearly died, wounded by a misfired arrow-entirely Ezra's fault; Ezra, the family stumbler. "I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he had cried, but the apology had never been accepted because his brother had been blamed instead, and his father, who had purchased the archery set. Ezra, his mother's favorite, had got off scot-free. He'd been left unforgiven-not relieved, as you might expect, but forever burdened. "You're mistaken," he said now, and Mrs. Scarlatti's eyelids fluttered into crepe but failed to open. "I wish you'd get me straight. See who I am am, I'm Ezra," he said, and then (for no logical reason) he bent close and said, "Mrs. Scarlatti. Remember when I left the army? Discharged for sleepwalking? Sent home? Mrs. Scarlatti, I wasn't really all the way asleep. I mean, I knew what I was doing. I didn't plan plan to sleepwalk, but part of me was conscious, and observed what was going on, and could have wakened the rest of me if I'd tried. I had this feeling like watching a dream, where you know you can break it off at any moment. But I didn't; I wanted to go home. I just wanted to leave that army, Mrs. Scarlatti. So I didn't stop myself." to sleepwalk, but part of me was conscious, and observed what was going on, and could have wakened the rest of me if I'd tried. I had this feeling like watching a dream, where you know you can break it off at any moment. But I didn't; I wanted to go home. I just wanted to leave that army, Mrs. Scarlatti. So I didn't stop myself."

If she had heard (with her only son, Billy, blown to bits in Korea), she would have risen up, sick as she was, and shouted, "Out! Out of my life!" So she must have missed it, for she only rocked her head again and smiled and went on sleeping.

Just after Thanksgiving the woman who'd been in a coma died, and the tiny old man either died or went home, but the foreigner stayed on and his relatives continued to visit. Now that they knew Ezra by sight, they hailed him as he pa.s.sed. "Come!" they would call, and he would step in, shy and pleased, and stand around for several minutes with his fists locked in his armpits. The sick man was yellow and sunken, hooked to a number of tubes, but he always tried to smile at Ezra's entrance. Ezra had the impression that he knew no English. The others spoke English according to their ages-the child perfectly, the young adults with a strong, attractive accent, the old ones in ragged segments. Eventually, though, even the most fluent forgot themselves and drifted into their native language-a musical one, with rounded vowels that gave their lips a muscled, pouched, commiserative shape, as if they were perpetually tut-tutting. Ezra loved to listen. When you couldn't understand what people said, he thought, how clearly the links and joints in their relationships stood out! A woman's face lit and bloomed as she turned to a certain man; a barbed sound of pain leapt from the patient and his wife doubled over. The child, when upset, stroked her mother's gold wrist.w.a.tch band for solace.

Once a young girl in braids sang a song with almost no tune. It wandered from note to note as if by accident. Then a man with a heavy black mustache recited what must have been a poem. He spoke so grandly and unselfconsciously that pa.s.sersby glanced in, and when he had finished he translated it for Ezra. "O dead one, why did you die in the springtime? You haven't yet tasted the squash, or the cuc.u.mber salad."

Why, even their poetry touched matters close to Ezra's heart.

By December he had replaced three of the somber-suited waiters with cheery, motherly waitresses, and he'd sc.r.a.pped the thick beige menus and started listing each day's dishes on the blackboard. This meant, of course, that the cooks all left (none of the dishes were theirs, or even their type), so he did most of the cooking himself, with the help of a woman from New Orleans and a Mexican. These two had recipes of their own as well, some of which Ezra had never tasted before; he was entranced. It was true that the customers seemed surprised, but they adjusted, Ezra thought. Or most of them did.

Now he grew feverish with new ideas, and woke in the night longing to share them with someone. Why not a restaurant full of refrigerators, where people came and chose the food they wanted? They could fix it themselves on a long, long stove lining one wall of the dining room. Or maybe he could install a giant fireplace, with a whole steer turning slowly on a spit. You'd slice what you liked onto your plate and sit around in armchairs eating and talking with the guests at large. Then again, maybe he would start serving only street food. Of course! He'd cook what people felt homesick for-tacos like those from vendor's carts in California, which the Mexican was always pining after; and that wonderful vinegary North Carolina barbecue that Todd Duckett had to have brought by his mother several times a year in cardboard cups. He would call it the Homesick Restaurant. He'd take down the old black and gilt sign...

But then he saw the sign, SCARLATTI'S, and he groaned and pressed his fingers to his eyes and turned over in his bed.

"You have a beautiful country," the light-skinned woman said.

"Thank you," said Ezra.

"All that green! And so many birds. Last summer, before my father-in-law fell ill, we were renting a house in New Jersey. The Garden State, they call it. There were roses everywhere. We could sit on the lawn after supper and listen to the nightingales."

"The what?" said Ezra.

"The nightingales."

"Nightingales? In New Jersey?"