“He thought David would become a fine young man. He did not know you.”
“Nor did he like me,” I interject. “I could feel him staring at the back of my head while we walked. That’s why I kept my hands in my pockets.”
She tilts her head, evaluating me. “Is that why, even when we were walking, you said nothing to me?”
“I wanted him to know my intentions were honorable.”
“When I got home, he asked if you were mute. I had to remind him again that you were an excellent student in college, that your marks were very high, and that you would graduate in only three years. Whenever I spoke with your mother, she made sure I knew that.”
My mother. The matchmaker.
“It would have been different had your parents not been following us,” I say. “If they hadn’t been acting as chaperones, I would have swept you off your feet. I would have taken your hand and serenaded you. I would have picked you a bouquet of flowers. You would have swooned.”
“Yes, I know. The young Frank Sinatra again. You have said this already.”
“I’m just trying to keep the story accurate. There was a girl at school who had her eye on me, you know. Her name was Sarah.”
Ruth nods, looking unconcerned. “Your mother told me about her, too. She also said that you had not called or written to her since you had returned. I knew it was not serious.”
“How often did you talk to my mother?”
“In the beginning, not too much, and my mother was always there. But a few months before you came home, I asked your mother if she would help me with my English and we began to meet once or twice a week. There were still many words I did not know, and she could explain their meaning in a way that I could understand. I used to say that I became a teacher because of my father, and that was true, but I also became a teacher because of your mother. She was very patient with me. She would tell me stories, and that is another way she helped me with the language. She said I must learn to do this myself, because everyone in the South tells stories.”
I smile. “What stories did she tell?”
“She told stories about you.”
I know this, of course. There are few secrets left in any long marriage.
“Which was your favorite?”
She thinks for a moment. “The one from when you were a little boy,” she finally says. “Your mother told me that you found an injured squirrel, and despite the fact that your father refused to let you keep it in the store, you hid it in a box behind her sewing machine and nursed it back to health. Once it was better, you released it in the park, and even though it ran off, you returned every day to look for it, in case it needed your help again. She would tell me that it was a sign that your heart was pure, that you formed deep attachments, and that once you loved something – or someone – you would never stop.”
Like I said, the matchmaker.
It was only after we were married that my mother admitted to me that she’d been “teaching” Ruth by telling her stories about me. At the time, I felt ambivalent about this. I wanted to believe that I’d won Ruth’s heart on my own, and I said as much to her. My mother laughed and told me she was only doing what mothers have always done for their sons. Then she told me that it was my job to prove that she hadn’t been lying, because that’s what sons were supposed to do for their mothers.
“And here I thought I was charming.”
“You became charming, once you were no longer afraid of me. But that did not happen on that first walk. When we finally reached the factory where we lived, I said, ‘Thank you for walking with me, Ira,’ and all you said was, ‘You are welcome.’ Then you turned around, nodded at my parents, and left.”
“But I was better the next week.”
“Yes. You talked about the weather. You said, ‘It sure is cloudy,’ three times. Twice you added, ‘I wonder if it will rain later.’ Your conversational skills were dazzling. By the way, your mother taught me the meaning of that word.”
“And yet, you still wanted to walk with me.”
“Yes,” she says, looking right at me.
“And in early August, I asked if I could buy you a chocolate soda. Just like David Epstein used to do.”
She smooths an errant tendril of her hair, her eyes holding steady on my own. “And I remember telling you that the chocolate soda was the most delicious that I had ever tasted.”
That was our beginning. It’s not a thrilling tale of adventure or the kind of fairy-tale romance portrayed in movies, but it felt like divine intervention. That she saw something special in me made no sense at all, but I was bright enough to seize the opportunity. After that, we spent most of our free time together, although there wasn’t much left of it. By then, the end of summer was already approaching. Across the Atlantic, France had already surrendered and the Battle of Britain was under way, but even so, the war in those last few weeks seemed far away. We went for walks and talked endlessly in the park; as David once did, I continued to buy her chocolate sodas. Twice, I brought Ruth to a movie, and once, I took both her and her mother to lunch. And always, I would walk her home from the synagogue, her parents trailing ten paces behind, allowing us a bit more privacy.