History on a Personal Note: Stories

187 Pages·2004·0.55 MB·English

by  Binnie Kirshenbaum

h i s t o r y
o n a p e r s o n a l
n o t e
s t o r i e s
b i n n i e
k i r s h e n b a u m
c
h
a
p
t
e
r

t
i
t
l
e
•
v
In memory of my mother, and Newton
contents
History on a Personal Note • 1
For Widgit Stands • 14
Money Honey • 25
Faith Is a Girl's Name • 38
In the Beginning • 45
Carlotta • 48
Halfway to Farmville • 56
White Houses • 72
Courtship • 89
Jewish but Not Really • 101
The Zen ofDriving • 104
Viewing Stacy from Above • 119
Exclusive Pleasures • 137
A Full Life ofa Different Nature • 140
The Cape Man • 154
Rural Delivery • 162
Acknowledgments • 176
About the Author
Praise
Other Books by Binnie Kirshenbaum
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher

histor y on a
personal note
A LEGENDARY YEAR: 1984
Whatever Happens, We Ought to See It Coming
D
espite the theoretical knowledge that history repeats
itself, Lorraine was devastated by a second Ronald
Reagan landslide victory.In response,she declared herself a
Communist,as ifthat would fix something or someone.This
was Lorraine’s take on Communism: Donald Trump would
have to buy every woman in New York a gold and diamond
tennis bracelet.
Me, I saw Reagan’s second term as an inevitability. Not
that the foresight made it any more palatable.It’s just that I
was prepared to be miserable.
Another thing Lorraine didn’t see coming down the pike
was her falling in love with Peter.Lorraine was a corporate
travel agent, a career she chose for the benefits. Lorraine
liked to fly in planes and stay in complimentary hotel
rooms. Peter was one of her clients, a middleman who
arranged jaunts for German tourists to places like Niagara
Falls and Busch Gardens. Peter was also a German, and
Lorraine referred to him as “that pain-in-the-butt Kraut
who always wants discount rates and special favors.” Often
Lorraine responded to his requests by saying,“Hey,remem-
ber who won the war.” Yet, one day she called me up and
said, “Would you believe I’ve fallen in love with that pain-
in-the-butt Kraut?”
Lorraine and Peter went mad for each other, but as
Goethe once said, “The Germans are trouble to themselves
and everybody else.” This romance came with predicaments.
Peter’s stint in New York was temporary. He could, at any
time, be transferred to some other country. He prayed it
would not be Romania, where he was last, or anywhere in
Africa because he had a fear of snakes.Another stone to trip
them up along the path to bliss was the cross-eyed girl in the
e
t
o
n fox fur coat.Although he was not legally married to her,she

l
a and Peter had been living together for the past seventeen
n
o
s years. Their families were old friends residing in the same
r
e
p German gingerbread village,and that cheap-o tour company

a
n Peter worked for shipped them offto foreign lands,as ifthey
o

y were married,together.
r
o
t Lorraine,hailing from south of the Mason-Dixon Line,
s
i
h
would think about such things tomorrow. For now, she
•
was in love, and she told me—although she never used
2
such a word—that she and Peter were soul mates.
“Southerners and Germans are one and the same,” she
said. “Both set out to enslave other peoples. We lost the
wars we started. As a group, we’re stupid as shit. And no
matter where we go to,we have a strong attachment to our
own soil,our land.”
I, a Jewess, didn’t know from such things. My people
jumped like fleas from one place to another,never allowed to
stay put long enough to form an attachment to the neighbor-
hood. Even later, when history was kinder to my families,
offering us haven in America, we moved a lot, upwardly
mobile,until we wound up in a brand-new house,built just
for us,in a suburb freshly developed.Raised up in one clip,it
wasn’t the sort ofhouse that harbored ghosts.It had no past,
no roots.Rather,one day we were there,and the next day we
could be gone without a trace.My house could’ve been in the
town that Hitler built for the Jews.
Lorraine tried to bake a Flammkuchenbut didn’t have the
knack, and Peter couldn’t develop a taste for peanut butter
h
i
s
pie. But still, love flourished because, Lorraine explained, t
o
r
“The cross-eyed girl flatly refuses to give him a start-to-finish y

o
n
blow job. She won’t swallow. Why do you think that is?”
a

Lorraine asked me. p
e
r
How could I possibly understand a people who consider s
o
n
swallowing a gob ofjizz to be filthy,but found it conscionably a
l

n
clean to wash up with soap made from Jews, Gypsies, and o
t
e
priests? I shrugged,and Lorraine guessed,“It’s one of those
•
German peculiarities,isn’t it?”
3
WILLKOMMEN: 1985–86
Reagan Honored SS Dead at Bitburg/
Peter Transferred Back to Frankfurt
Lorraine and Peter wrote long letters to each other.Lorraine
lamented that his English was slipping fast. “Sniks, he
writes,” she told me.“He wrote that at least there are not sniks
in Frankfurt.He meant snakes.”
At work,Lorraine spent most ofher days trying to finagle
free airfare to Frankfurt.In December of 1986 she scored a
pair of tickets from Lufthansa, and so I went with her to
Germany.
While Peter and Lorraine made up for lost time in our
freebie room at the Intercontinental Hotel, I went sight-
seeing. I did not go to museums and cathedrals. Rather, I
went sight-seeing for Nazis.I sat around cafés clocking any-
one old enough to have been one and tried to guess in which
bit ofnastiness they partook.Later,after Peter returned home
to the cross-eyed girl, Lorraine and I went out for dinner.
“Like that one there,” I said,pointing to a table across from
e
t
o
n ours, indicating an old woman wearing one of those queer

l
a Tyrolean hats.“She either worked at a camp sorting clothes,
n
o
s pocketing whatever she could,or else she indoctrinated chil-
r
e
p dren,gathering them around her to read them that version of

a
n ‘Hansel and Gretel’ where the Jew tries to bake the little
o

y German children into matzo.”
r
o
t Lorraine nodded and remarked,“And where is the justice
s
i
h
in this world that she sits here now eating that sausage like
•
nothing ever happened?”
4
THE FOLLOWING DAY: 1986
Giving You a Number and Taking Away Your Name
Even after getting trapped on the Geisenerring, driving
around and around it as ifit were a maypole,as ifthere were
no exit,and then having to stop for gas at the last-chance-
for-gas station where the attendant stank from stale beer and
looked like a serial killer, we managed to reach the border
before nightfall.
Well-versed as to the ins and outs of travel restrictions,
Lorraine outlined the plan for me. “We’re allowed to go to
West Berlin,” she said.“So that’s what we say.When they ask
where we’re going,we say Berlin.West Berlin.”
Berlin was a good eight-hour drive from the border.We
hadn’t any luggage or enough money with us to make the trip.
Also,Lorraine had a date with Peter for ten the next morning.
Nonetheless,at each ofthe three checkpoints we handed over
our passports and said,“West Berlin,ja?”
The guard in the third box directed us to the autobahn’s
far right lane.“You must stay on zis road.Zis is the road to
h
i
s
Vest Berlin.Do not get offzis road.” t
o
r
Lorraine and I exchanged a glance.Then,she peered into y

o
the rearview mirror and hung a quick left.I played with the n
a

radio and picked up Radio Free Europe, or else it was the p
e
r
Armed Services Station. Whichever, we snuck into East s
o
n
Germany bopping to “Secret Agent Man,” who gave you a a
l

n
number and took away your name.“Secret Agent Man,” we o
t
e
sang along.
•
At a town called Eisenach,we stopped at a tacky roadside
5