Conjugating
“Stanley Shliome, would you, would you believe it. Your uncle just got up and went to Winnipeg. I came home from the clinic at the hospital and there was a note. I knew right away something was up when I saw it on the kitchen counter. He never leaves no note.
‘You think I am crazy. You’re the crazy one. I told you I’m leaving. Send all my mail to Shloime’s address. And you told me I would never do it. Du bist meshugeh. You are the nut.’
Such a note to leave in the kitchen for all to see? Lucky the cleaning woman was not coming that day.
He hasn’t shown up. Yesterday I waited and waited. I didn’t know where his car was but I got a call this morning from a towing company. He left another note on the front windshield telling everyone where he was going. Who does he think he is, the prime minister? Is anyone interested? That meshuganer just went and parked his Buick in the police lot at Dorval.
But I’m not calling, Shloime. Not on your life.”
“Should I phone him?” I interrupted.
“No, don’t you dare. Let him go. We’ll see how long Bronia will put up with him. He’ll be back. He’ll be back!”
That was last spring. Even for the High Holidays he wouldn’t return. I defied Aunt Frances and phoned a few weeks ago. I got nowhere with my uncle. “Stanley, I know you always take her part. So look after her. She’s all yours,” he cackled. “There’s no way I am going back to live with her crazy shtick. Forty-six years is enough of a sentence. The jailbird flew the coop,” he burst out with another guffaw.
“And what about your clothes and all that fishing gear you meticulously bought and took care of for years?”
“Give it away, Stanley. I don’t care to whom. Have a yard sale. Let her make a few cents. That will get her busy and off your back for a while. Give her something to do. She needs something to keep her preoccupied, otherwise she’ll pick on you, Stanley. You are all she’s got now,” he finished with glee.
What had come over the old man? After forty-six years of warfare and armistices, I thought he would hold out to the end. He never liked going out. Home was where he spent all his winter days and nights, except for the shopping expeditions he went out on with Aunt Frances. Uncle Morris balked at it twice a week but still he chauffeured her around. If he had his way he would only step out to pick up the paper delivered daily to the front balcony. However, in spring and summer he was ready at a moment’s notice to check on his growing garden. Tomatoes and cucumbers were his favourites. A bumper crop meant that he would be preparing his famous pickles over which family and neighbours would vie for samples and sometimes gifts.
“Uncle Mo, think it over and reconsider. In any case, it is not the same here without you!”
“Listen, kiddy boy, I am not changing my mind. In fact, I am going further west. I always wanted to visit Vancouver. Well, now I am going to settle there. Have a good week, boychikle, phone me when I get my new number. Remember I still like you, even if you are on that meshuganeh’s side.”
“How will I know what it is?”
“I’ll phone you with the number as soon as I get it. How’s that for service, Stanley? Enjoy taking care of your auntie,” he closed with another cackle. He certainly enjoyed his own jokes. I remembered the first one he told me when I was starting high school Latin. Conjugating verbs was his specialty at Baron Byng, he boasted.
“Stanley, there’s a very important verb in Latin. One you will need to learn for the years ahead. Amo amas amat a mames a tates a kind,” he roared with self-satisfaction. “You know what it means? I love, you love, he loves, a mother, a father, a child! Basic stuff, Stanley. You’ll also learn all about that in good time.”
* * *
“West 36th Avenue near Oak,” I told the taxi driver at the airport. I hadn’t been to Vancouver in years and needed a bit of a break now that the income tax return season was over. Besides, my friends Margaret and Tibor had been urging me to visit for the last few years. But first things first. I had to check up on Uncle Mo. A family mission. Aunt Frances had given up expecting him but the rest of the family were concerned. It was now almost a year since he snuck out on her. Besides, he was sending everyone e-mail messages every few weeks, filling them with his jokes. What was e-mail for if not to share his jokes? Without his cronies in Montreal, who would give him the time of day? So the family was all for my investigative voyage.
“Listen here, Stanley, you have a mission to perform. We can’t go. We’re too old. You go and find out what’s doing with your Uncle Mo. It’s a mitzvah,” offered David, one of two surviving cousins of the elderly generation.
“Uncle, how are you?” I immediately asked as he came to the door in shorts, a t-shirt and beige New Balance walking shoes.
“Nu, look who’s here? The Mossad agent from Montreal. What brings you to these enlightened parts, nephew?”
“You, uncle.”
“Me? Why would anyone be interested in an A.K. like me. Come in, come in. It’s a bit of a mess. Next Thursday the cleaning lady is supposed to be here for her regular visit and Valerie has been out of town for a week. So why keep neat and clean if I can get away with it?”
“Valerie?” I inquired.
“Yes, my intended – well, can’t make an honest young woman of her since I still have the kvetch in Montreal in marital tow but there will come a day, Stanley, my boy, when I will be free! Free finally to do as I bid. I see you’re shlepping a suitcase. Are you arriving or leaving Shangri-la, B.C.?”
“Just arrived and thought I would visit you first. Everyone is worried about you, uncle. They wanted me to see you at the earliest.”
“Everyone is worried about me,” he mimicked. “Did they worry when I was pecked and pestered by crazy Frances? Now all of a sudden they’re worried. Is it my will they are concerned about?”
“Your will?” I inquired.
“Listen, Stanley, you haven’t grasped the essence of family relations until you master the conventions and customs of the yerusheh.”
“Yerusheh?”
“Yes, the Yiddish word for inheritance, my boy. What animates a family more – love and concern, or an inheritance?”
“Nobody said anything about a will, uncle.”
“Of course they didn’t. You’re too young. Why should they let you in on the secret? Simply put, boychikle, they want my wherewithal.”
“Wherewithal?”
“My yotzris. My treasures. Whatever form they take: bank accounts, bonds, stocks. After all, what’s family for if not interpersonal, as your generation puts it, raiding. Grab, grab, grab. Do you remember my sister Malka? Well, no sooner was she six-feet under at De La Savanne and the family were tearing at each other over her will. She left quite a bit behind, mind you, although she lived like a street person in that smelly old split level of hers in CÔte St. Luc. She didn’t have parts of it vacuumed since Diefenbaker was storming up and down the country on behalf of the Tories. What a shmutz! Just like her head. A cluttered mind she had; everything went in, nothing seemed to get thrown out until there was so much she couldn’t turn a thought this way or that way. And so that’s also why I am here, Stanley boy. I didn’t want it to happen to me. And I was also caged in with a meshuganeh animal. I am no saint or tzaddik. I am not easy to live with but Frances – she was such a bug. Such a complaining, whining, blaming, accusing person I have never met, and may I never meet another one in the days left to me on this fragrant earth!”
“So am I going to see you during my visit, uncle?”
“What are you doing now? Look at me in my glory!,” he laughed out loud. “Of course, I’ll see you, if you don’t nag me about going back and if you will promise you won’t betray me by giving out information to the enemy.”
“The enemy?”
“Frances, boychikle, my earnest enemy numero uno!”
* * *
“I love this place, Stanley. It so deliciously goyish, if you know what I mean. As long as I stay away from Oak Street and watch the young parade before each other with their good looks I figure my ears won’t ache from the voices of my past.”
“Uncle, are you firmly resolved never to return?”
“Never? I never thought of it. Maybe never is right. You’re a good boy so I will tell you the truth. Never. But to compensate you I am going to put you in the will. Of course, you had to put up with your aunty all these years. Danger pay. Family compensation. You were always on the front line, never knowing when the next barrage would hit. A brave soul you are but it’s time you got married, heh heh,” he added with a look of mock glee in his eyes.
“Frankly, uncle, you’re no model for the institution.”
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