Mennonite in a Little Black Dress Read online

  "And her hair looks very elegant now," said my mother. With the chicken in the oven, she was sitting at the kitchen table, working on the newspaper jumble. "Unscramble the following six letters: V-I-Y-T-L-E."

  "Good for Staci," I said. "She must feel terrific."

  "Their little Joon. She's a live wire, that one."

  "Does she still have a shine for gymnastics?"

  "She hops on one foot. A very athletic little girl," he said. "And smart. She sure likes being read to."

  Later that evening we pulled up to my brother's house, which demonstrated its sincere commitment to the Christmas season with a tornado of twinkle lights and a crèche on the lawn. Who wouldn't appreciate a Baby Jesus whose manger had been garlanded with self-wired ribbon and clusters of silk roses featuring, it looked like, baby's breath? Even the cow figurine was wearing a handsome floral lei. If I were a cow figurine, I too might don a respectful boutonniere to herald the Messiah.

  It's not that I'm opposed to the idea of a crèche. My mother has a very old, very beautiful paper crèche that was given to her parents just after they made it out of the Old Country in the troubled years following the Russian Revolution. Theirs was a hard story, as with so many of the émigrés. My own grandparents had almost starved to death; they had lost everything; their first children had died. When they finally received their clearance to board the train in Dolinsk, my grandparents had between them only the following: two babies spotted with measles, their precious Bible, and a tiny heirloom rose brooch. They had to wait a long time in England until the babies could pass the health inspections; the rickets from starvation were so bad that little Netha couldn't even lift her own head until she was four. They thought they'd have to throw Netha's body overboard on the voyage; but she, and they, stubbornly survived, frail but fierce. My great-aunt Helena Boldt, who had emigrated to Saskatoon five years earlier, presented the crèche to my grandparents in 1925. It was their first gift in Canada.

  I used to stare dreamily at the crèche every Christmas when I was growing up. I still love the lacy cutwork, the gorgeous colors, the Moroccan princes kneeling with their urns and bejeweled boxes. Atop the cardboard haymow are two plump curly angels, holding a banner that says in old German script PRAISE TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST. Inside the diorama a haloed Mary sits with a tiny iconic adult Jesus on her lap. He's raising one prophetic finger, as if about to speak. I imagined Oma nodding at that crèche, believing that the Infant King was commending her personally for having risked everything to start over in a new and barren land. "And well done on that heirloom rose brooch," Jesus would say. "Splendid work pinning it inside your drawers!"

  Three generations do their work, however. Gone are the days when a crèche was a family treasure to be cherished by lamplight in the parlor. In the span of less than a century, what was once a private celebration of faith has become a public assertion. Who am I to say that's all bad? True, I would no more construct a shrine on my front lawn than proselytize, but, hey, faith witnesses many forms.

  Deena's parents were semiretired Mennonite florists, and thus Aaron and Deena's decor revealed unlimited and enthusiastic access to Thiessens' Nora Flora. Deena could make decor magic out of anything, especially semitransparent fabric with metallic threads, wire bows, silk flowers, and shiny balls. She was also resourceful with toy trains, cookie jars, wallpaper borders, and shadowboxes. I prefer my flowers in water, my trains in Europe, and my wallpaper in the trash. Call me old-fashioned, but whenever I see those wire-fortified ribbons, I have a secret stab of nostalgia for old-timey ribbon, the kind whose ends flop like spaniel ears. I'm suspicious of unnaturally perky ribbon.

  Above the main Christmas tree in the great room was a display ledge on which Deena had arranged four lesser trees, festooned and frantically blinking. But the thing that really commanded attention, high up there on that ledge, was an oversize mechanical fur bear. It was raising a perpetual fake candle to its lips, as if to blow it out. What this bear and its need for darkness had to do with the spirit of Christmas I do not know. But over the audio stylings of ambient Mannheim Steamroller, I could hear the bear's motor. It emitted a tiny agonized silence-of-the-lambs bleat, not unlike the miniature scream of auto-flush toilets at the airport.

  "What a beyooootiful winter wonderland!" exclaimed my mother.

  "Festive!" interjected my father.

  My other sister-in-law, Staci, made a beeline for me.

  Staci and I live three thousand miles apart, and we interact only on the occasional holiday when I am in town. Staci is one of those brisk, efficient, gets-it-done gals who raise children, sell Pampered Chef products, head up the PTA, and plan fund-raisers for victims of house fires. Staci is a no-bullshit person; she tells it like it is. One of the things I like about her is that she doesn't bother pretending we're close when we obviously aren't. I am sometimes away for years at a time, and during the interim Staci does not phone, does not send birthday cards depicting realistic kittens, does not ask me to proofread her annual Christmas newsletter. Between holidays we have no relationship whatsoever.

  Yet when circumstances throw us together, she rolls up her sleeves and goes for it. If family holidays involved a relay, she'd be the one up front to grab the baton. Staci, who attended a Mennonite college but who is not an ethnic Mennonite, has always assumed an easy intimacy that came as a surprise to our household. Aside from my mother, Mennonites do not usually discuss their bodies, especially at dinner. They do not confide secrets, or talk about controversial topics, or provide updates on the state of their libido. Staci, however, might make an eloquent argument against her church's Easter pageant, in which she is playing the guide to Jesus's donkey. Or she might disclose that she has been dying her hair since age twenty-three. She might share highs and lows from her recent weight loss of seventy-five pounds. This relaxed bonhomie declared itself the very evening my brother brought her home to dinner some twenty years ago. On that occasion Staci confided in front of us all, somewhere between the Pluma Moos and Pereshki, that she had a painful rash, and would my mother mind taking a look at it? My mother did not mind in the least, and tripped off down the hall to inspect her future daughter-in-law's private itchy region.

  "Staci," I said now, returning her hug, "what a gorgeous new look for you!"

  "Can I just ask what you do about bread?" Staci asked, as if continuing a conversation we had started moments earlier. We hadn't spoken in five years. "Because I've gained back six pounds in the last two weeks. Bread is so my downfall."

  The last time I had seen her, we had all been playing a Password-type game in which I was trying to get Staci to guess the word Dracula. Deploying the hushed intensity of a game-show contestant, I offered what I thought was a reasonable clue:

  "Bram Stoker's-"

  "Lean Cuisine!" she shouted.

  Through my head flashed the sassy headline VAMPIRE COUNTS CARBS! Truly, Bram Stoker's Lean Cuisine was a splendid marketing idea. New taste sensation from Bram Stoker! All of the protein, none of the fat! Maybe we could expand the line with a lo-cal Mummy Wrap.

  Now Staci went on, "Also potatoes. I just can't do potatoes. They go straight to my"-she patted her heinie significantly. "How do you do it? Do you cook for yourself now that Nick has left you? Is it hard to cook just for one? Or do you eat out of a can in front of the kitchen sink?"

  In the dining room we all gathered to pay homage to Deena's imaginative decor, where no surface had escaped yuletide festivity. Its attractions included a wreath made of prodigious shiny balls, and a preponderance of more free-rolling balls the size of grape tomatoes that Deena had scattered, carelessly, among the plates and goblets. She had also affixed a tiny silver ball to the stem of every wineglass-not that we would be drinking wine. Mennonites tend toward militant sobriety. But there was always sparkling apple juice for holiday celebrations.

  "Wine?" asked Staci, reaching behind her to the sideboard. Bless her, she had brought some in gentle defiance of Mennonite tradition. Alas, it was a sweet rosé,
served ice-cold, like beer. Ah well. I nodded, pushing my goblet toward her as she said, "I don't think there's anything wrong with drinking the occasional glass of wine now and then, as long as you don't get drunk. 'Be ye not drunk with wine'"-she quoted the Bible, throwing this challenge at my father. His expression at the head of the table did not change. He looked like a peaceful Buddha. "If Christ drank wine, that's good enough for me!" she added defiantly.

  "Me too," I said.

  "A toast," said my brother Aaron, "to family celebrations!"

  My siblings and I raised our rosé; my parents saluted with sparkling apple cider.

  "Because," Staci continued unfazed, "the real test of wisdom comes when you can show non-Christians that you're responsible. It's more impressive to non-Christians if they see us partaking responsibly than if they see us just condemning alcohol willy-nilly. I don't think there's anything wrong with keeping a pack of Heineken in the fridge. Sometimes Caleb comes home from a long day at work and he has two beers." Her expression dared someone, anyone, to protest.

  Caleb apologized, "It takes the edge off."

  "Why not?" asked Staci fiercely. "I mean, why not? You're not hurting anyone. And it certainly isn't as if you're drinking and driving!"

  Alas, my father was still not in the mood to bite. He was in the mood to eat soup. So Staci returned to her former line of questioning. If she couldn't rouse my father to defend the Mennonite position on teetotaling, she would revert to asking me intensely personal questions during Christmas Eve dinner.

  I knew it was just a matter of time before Staci would bring up the subject of HIV testing, since my husband had left me for a man named Bob. At some point she would want to follow the AIDS thread. I believe that she would have preferred to inquire after my genital health there on the spot, in front of my brothers. Given her willingness to discuss genitals, I suspect that the only reason she did not broach this subject during Christmas Eve dinner was that my parents were present.

  Therefore Staci moved on to another compelling dinner topic: Plan B, Personal Finance and Failed Marriage. "So, Rhoda. Can I ask what your house payment is? What on earth are you going to do with that house? Can you even afford it on your salary?"

  "I like this bean soup," said Caleb.

  "I haven't made any decisions yet," I told Staci.

  "Does everybody at the college know that your husband left you for a man? Do you think they're judging you? Are you worried that they're gossiping about you and Nick and his gay lover?"

  "Maybe she doesn't want to talk about it," Caleb said. "Great curry squash, by the way."

  "I taste curry in this soup," my father said.

  "That's because it's a curry squash soup," I said. "Don't you like curry?"

  "I like it," he affirmed, "as long as it doesn't make the house smell like curry." He sniffed, suspicious.

  "Oh, Si," said my mother. "She made it at our house. Not here. It's our house that smells like curry." She took a sip of sparkling apple cider before adding, "I liked curry much more before we went to Calcutta. In Calcutta they prepared meals down in the courtyard. They sat on the ground and cut up meat right there with the flies and chickens. In Calcutta, when you blew your nose, the mucus was so thick and black-"

  "Mom!" This appalled protest was shouted by everyone present, except my father. My siblings and I may have our differences, but we were united in our determination not to visualize the black mucus of Christmas past.

  From the kids' table in the other room came the sound of one of my many nephews whining. There was a slap and an impatient reprimand from the oldest granddaughter, Phoebe, who was now old enough for Uggs and eye-rolling.

  Her cousin Jacob nonetheless shouted, "Mommy, Zach called me a goob again! He doesn't like this soup! He says it tastes"-stifled giggles all around-"like a dirty Pop-Tart!"

  "Dirty in your diaper!" shouted Danny.

  Staci looked exasperated. "That's curry!" she called over her shoulder. "It's a flavor. It's supposed to taste like that!"

  "Boys," said Caleb in a stern voice that sounded exactly like my own father's thirty-five years earlier. "Do you want me to come over there?"

  Little Joon suddenly materialized, tugging her daddy's arm. "Knock knock," she whispered shyly.

  "Who's there?" said Caleb tenderly, bending way down to her ear.

  "Boo."

  "Boo hoo?"

  "Baby stop crying," she mouthed ecstatically, and ducked her head into Caleb's armpit.

  "What do you think of the broccoli cheese?" Staci asked me. "Because I didn't even taste it. I can't eat my own cooking. I don't eat cheese. It bloats me like you wouldn't believe. How did you manage to not gain weight when you were recuperating from your accident? Because you can't be back at the gym yet, can you?"

  "Not yet," I said.

  "She can't even reach around to do up her own zipper," said my mother. To my father she added, "Try some of this bacon-potato."

  He did so with preacherly gravitas. "I can taste some kind of pepper in it," he said. "It has a kick."

  "That's cayenne pepper," my mother affirmed joyously.

  "Rhoda," said Staci, "I hear you've been dating again. Do you mind if I ask if it's serious? Because maybe you should think about waiting a while before you start dating again."

  "I've tried all four soups!" my father said.

  "When you have a broken tooth," said my mother, "soup is exactly the right thing to eat. There's a space in your mouth that your tongue keeps feeling for, and it's so tender that the best thing for it is soup."

  "Cures what ails you," agreed Caleb.

  "Well, I hope nobody at this table is ailing," said Staci, looking at me pointedly. "I hope nobody has anything contagious."

  "It's the cold and flu season," said Aaron. "At school they were dropping like flies. There was a Group A streptococci going around."

  "Your immune system is probably really vulnerable right now," Staci told me, "because of the amount of stress you're under. Are you feeling the stress? Because you look kind of stressed and run-down. Going through a divorce is supposed to be one of the biggest stressors, and it's probably worse when you find out that your husband has been cheating on you with a guy. I like your hair color, though. Are those highlights?"

  "And while all four kinds of soup are tasty," continued my father, as if no one else had been speaking, "the best part is this Zwiebach. Mary, send the Zwiebach around again."

  For one golden moment no one spoke. We were all too busy helping ourselves to Zwiebach, breaking bread together.

  THREE

  Fear of Mosquitoes

  My parents and I had been on the road since 7:40 a.m., having spent the night in a two-bed, one-room Travelodge accommodation. The room had been distinctly inferior. Thirteen years prior my husband had been hospitalized in a crisis unit on a 5150-"Detention of Mentally Disordered Persons for Danger to Self and Others"-while I suffered the helplessness that comes from loving a man who takes a fistful of pills. Even if his doctors managed to turn him around with medication, who would make him take antidepressants one at a time once he was out of the hospital? And how was I going to manage the medical bills on my tiny grad student's stipend? "That's terrible," my mother had said on the phone. There was an infinitesimal pause while I waited for the bounce-back. It came right on cue: "You are hurting. But at least with Nick in the hospital you'll have some peace and quiet to work on your dissertation!" I therefore recognized her signature style when she observed, on entering the shabby motel room, "It's not elegant. But at least there are towels!"

  Whenever my parents used a coupon to procure something, they felt 100 percent committed to liking it.

  We three were en route to Bend, Oregon, to visit my sister. The car trip was a little over a thousand miles, half of which we drove on Christmas Day. I had spent the morning drifting in and out of uncomfortable sleep. The night before, my father's snoring had kept me up-that and the fact that I had packed my prescription sleeping pills in a suitcase th
at was wedged in the trunk of the car. Because the backseat of the Camry was overflowing with beribboned presents for my niece, I didn't have much room to negotiate my legs. I lay with my head on my father's shaving kit, legs crossed Indian-style, but with the crossed legs up in the air against the window.

  Around noon my father asked us if we would prefer Burger King or McDonald's. It had been at least a decade since I had visited either of these establishments, so I was unable to offer much input. Mom elected McDonald's, on the grounds of better coffee. "You could use your senior discount to order Rhoda a cup of decaf," she suggested.

  My father liked this idea. He did not drink coffee himself, but he had no objection to my drinking it, especially if he could save forty cents.

  "See there, Mary," said my father, pointing to a sign in the McDonald's window. "It says here that you can get a McChicken Sandwich for a dollar."

  "Okay!" My mother accepted this hint.

  Fast food is always a hurdle for cooks, and I admit I blanched at the thought of a sucrotic chicken patty injected with flavorlike chemicals and breaded into the dimensions of a crunchy McSand-dollar. I therefore announced that I would have a burger instead. The burger was a full three dollars, so I offered to get the lunch tab, which for the three of us, after the senior discount, came to $6.20.

  "No, no!" My father waved my wallet away. "I've got it, I've got it."

  Then, as we sat down, he added, "You could have had three chicken sandwiches for the price of that one burger."

  "Yes, but I like this better."

  "You like that burger?"

  "I wouldn't exactly say that I like it," I said. "But I like it better than the chicken sandwich."

  My mother set down her sandwich and busily applied ketchup from a squeeze pouch. "It's a little bland," she admitted, "but some ketchup will perk this right up!" She tested a bite. "Much better!"