Pushing Upward Read online

  It is only when we have the courage to face things exactly as they are, without any sort of self-deception or illusion, that a light will develop out of events, by which the path to success will be recognized.

  I closed the book. I needed a shower, but it was still very early and I didn’t want to wake Emma. Moving very quietly, I tiptoed out into the hall.

  I was reaching for the bathroom doorknob when I heard someone talking and, I thought—I wasn’t sure, because the sounds were muffled—crying. I stood there, listening, trying to decipher the words. It didn’t sound like Emma, but it was coming from her room. Her bedroom door was slightly ajar. I moved a little closer. Through the slim opening, I saw Emma standing there, alone, facing a painting on her wall, talking to it.

  “I’m so sorry, my Liebling.” I’d never heard that word before. It must have been German. “I wanted to save you,” she murmured to the painting. “I never wanted you to suffer. The sickness had a force. It took hold of you …” She sighed. And then touched the picture gently with her fingers.

  To give her some space, I slipped into the bathroom and took my shower. Clearly, Emma was still mourning Josef. She must really miss him. I dressed and came out looking for her. Her bedroom was open, and empty. She wasn’t sitting in her high-back, either. Instead, I found her in the kitchen, doubled over, in the middle of the floor. It scared the bejeezus out of me! I couldn’t tell what she was doing because her head was down and her buttocks were raised high in an absurd position that looked like some exotic hatha yoga posture. “Is everything all right, Emma?”

  She turned, sponge in hand. “There’s honey on the floor, and I’m tired of having my slippers stick to it.”

  “Allow me. I’m an expert at honey removal.” Relieved that she was okay, and glad to be useful, I took out a butter knife from the drawer, joined her kneeling on the floor, and began to scrape up the hardened honey. I felt somewhat ashamed, since I was the one who had dripped it in the first place and had forgotten to clean it up.

  “There you go. You just needed a little muscle.” I smiled, hesitantly. I helped her up from the floor, wanting to keep the conversation light. “How was your lunch with Zelda, by the way?” I had been so preoccupied that I hadn’t gotten a chance to ask her about it before.

  “Fine,” she said, pausing to think about how much she actually wanted to divulge from her schmooze with her friend. “Zelda found Max in bed with a young girl and nearly lost her mind. She’s not doing too well … Do you have any plans for the rest of the day?”

  “No,” I said, as I ran the sponge under soapy water until the stickiness was gone. “But it sounds like you do.”

  “What do you think about going to Santa Monica, to the beach?”

  “Well, I think you’re wasting a lot of time standing there when you could be getting ready.”

  Emma grinned, giddy as a seven-year-old. “I’ll pack some snacks for us and gather my things.”

  “Excellent. I’ll go clean my car so there’s room for you to sit.”

  It was a beautiful day. There were no smog alerts, the sun wasn’t blazing, and there weren’t millions of cars jostling bumper to bumper down Pacific Coast Highway.

  Ah-h-h-h, yes! This was the reason I’d left Michigan and moved to California. This was the reason I’d bought this dilapidated old Fiat convertible. To drive in the salty sea air, admire the ocean’s beauty, and hear the waves crashing against each other. As we drove up the highway along the beach, I looked over to see how Emma was doing. She was squinting into the wind as it caressed her face. She was somewhere else, as if I didn’t know where. Before I had a chance to ask her if she had sunglasses, she reached into her purse and pulled them out. Before I could ask her if she had a scarf for her hair, she pulled out a babushka and tried to tie it under her chin.

  The wind was fierce. Just before the scarf blew out of her hands and into the air, like a kite without a string, I caught it, pulled the car over, and stopped. And that’s when we had another moment. It was brief. But as I tied the bow under her chin, I felt her melt, let go, and open her heart … to me once again. It was another rare, delicate fraction of a moment, but it felt like an earthquake. After the bow was tied, we looked at each other, acknowledging the sweetness, the improbability of our relationship, and then we both smiled.

  Cooler on the skin and darker in color than the beaches along the lake in Michigan, the sand near the Santa Monica pier was refreshing. Emma and I walked a bit before finding our spot, and then together we spread out the blanket. Emma placed her purse atop one corner. I placed the basket of food on another. She took off her babushka and folded it neatly inside her purse, slipped off her sandals, and opened her wobbly director’s chair. She straightened it out, making sure the legs were balanced, and then she slowly sat down.

  The woman from the newspaper ad reached inside her purse and pulled out a small plastic tube of sunblock. I tried not to be conspicuous, but I couldn’t help but stare as she carefully applied pressure to the cylinder so only the most minuscule amount of lotion squeezed out of the tiny hole. I observed how carefully she applied the few drops of cream to her wise, aged face and how her blue pastel sundress appeared lighter in the sun, like her eyes; how erect her back was, as she sat in the concave chair. She applied a few more drops to her legs, the tops of her feet and toes. How methodical she was. Merging her entire being into the smallest task. Never rushing. Steady as a sailboat in placid water. This was how she did things. Every move had a purpose. Every word had a charge. And yet, what I observed most about Emma was her ­silence—a powerful tool that I would come to know as her weapon.

  She handed me the tube, and I squirted out what was left into my palm. Only I turned my palm over too fast, and dropped most of the lotion on the blanket. I tried to salvage what I could, quickly smearing the remainder on my face and shoulders before it could melt and drip onto the sand. And while I made a mess, wasting the small amount of protection left, I asked myself: What was my hurry? What had happened to my patience?

  “Are you hungry?” Emma asked.

  “I’m going to jog soon to build up an appetite.”

  We sat there listening to the waves. And as I sat next to this woman, whom I had come to admire, I realized how little I knew of her past.

  “Emma, where did you grow up?”

  She edged out the answer. “Europe … in Germany mostly, during the Great War.”

  “What was your childhood like?”

  She became uncomfortable, shifted her posture, and paused. “Suffice it to say, I felt little hope. There was a war going on, and people were not themselves—even when they tried to be.”

  There were volumes in her words. I tried to imagine the thoughts she wasn’t sharing. Her life must have been hard during the Depression. Standing in breadlines for hours; welcoming back truckloads of wounded men from the war; observing antiwar demonstrations, Brownshirts looking for Jews in the streets as Nazism began to rise.

  “Did you have brothers or sisters?”

  “I was an only child.”

  Hungry for answers, I kept probing: “Where did you meet Josef?”

  “I met him in Berlin at an art gallery, where he was exhibiting. Zelda introduced us. We married there, in Berlin, and moved to Paris to avoid the tension. After a while, U.S. galleries became interested in his work, so we moved to the States. He was quite famous in New York circles.”

  “Did you have a career?”

  “I loved journalism, and I wanted to be a writer. But those plans changed when I married Josef.”

  “Why did they change?” I felt like the journalist now.

  “I worked as a news correspondent and supported Josef while he finished art school. I was going to be promoted, only the new job entailed quite a bit of traveling. I didn’t want to be living in hotel rooms, consumed by a career. I know women don’t think that way today, but I was fulfilled looking after Josef, and …”

  It seemed she had something else to say. I was curi
ous, but I wasn’t going to press her. “Why did you leave New York?”

  She thought for a moment. “The winters became too harsh for Josef. He loved painting outdoors.” She went on, looking out to the sea. “He used to paint on the beach for hours at Martha’s Vineyard. We’d go there in the summer. He’d only come in for a phone call and then return to his paints until dusk. At night we’d dance.”

  “Alone on the beach. How romantic! You’d watch him paint the whole time?”

  “There would be such stillness in the air, as if the birds and even the water stood still for his brush. They understood the perfection he wanted to capture on canvas … He told me once that he never could have painted a tree if I weren’t in his life.”

  “He was a lucky man.”

  “I was the lucky one, my dear.”

  The wind stilled and the waves subsided. I wanted to hear more. But before I had formed another question, she brought out the New York Times from under her director’s chair, shook out the pages, and began to read, as if the previous moment had never taken place.

  I got up. “I think I’ll go for a run. Are you going to be all right?”

  “I’ll be fine, dear.”

  I ran down to the edge of the ocean to feel the cool, clear liquid wrap around my ankles. I cupped some water and poured it over my head. Then I took off, the wind blowing my wet face dry, synchronizing my breath with the weight of each foot pressing its image into the sand. I increased my speed, lifted my knees higher. Just like Emma had commanded. As I ran, I realized how much I loved it. How free and liberated I felt. As I ran closer to the water, feeling the cold liquid between my toes, I felt like a colt, unrestrained, galloping in the wind, propelled by streamlined legs. I could feel the muscles in my thighs tightening with each stride, my spine lengthening and straightening, vertebra by vertebra. Back straight, chest expanded. I imagined being the consummate athlete, focused on honing every joint and muscle for the ultimate competition. Not only because it felt good physically, but as an actor it strengthened my physical and mental instrument for any character I might portray.

  As I sprinted along the hard-packed sand, watching the waves rush in, I had to remind myself how lucky I was to have someone in my life rooting for me, wanting me to succeed as much as I did. The only other person who had ever had faith in me was Bella.

  Bella was our housekeeper in Michigan. Her room was in the basement, between the Ping-Pong table and the washer and dryer. She was tough and old and thick around the waist, her skin the color of dark espresso. My love for that woman went way deeper than color, deeper than blood. She was the rock that stabilized my life, the glue that held my spirit together.

  Bella was always there, rescuing me from everything I tried to avoid but couldn’t. Like the time Steven stole my diorama for the science fair, and turned it in as his own! Oh man, I wanted to really kill him that time. I’d worked so hard on that project, and he knew how much I wanted to win. When I found out he had won with my project, I went straight to Daddy.

  Steven got whipped really bad that night; I knew he’d try to get back at me. The next night when our parents were out, I hid under my bed. But he found me—and chased me around the house until he caught hold of my hair and dragged me into his dark room, literally nailed me and my sweater to the door, and then left me there for what seemed like hours. He thought we were even, but I finally tore my sweater loose, ran after him kicking and screaming, pinching and clawing, and trying to gouge out as much skin from his arm as I could. To even the score, he locked me in the bathroom with his ball python. I busted the door off its hinges and ran around the house screaming profanities, grabbed the heaviest table lamp in the house so I could kill him.

  He screamed back, “You’ll never get me! And one day, you’ll wish you never squealed a day in your life!”

  I kept after him with the lamp. Bella came up from the basement to intervene. She took hold of me; led me downstairs to her room; and let me weep on her big, cushy breasts. She read the Bible to me and told me stories about her dead husband: How much abuse he’d taken from white co-workers at the factory. How they would throw beer cans at him from their cars after work and make fun of the way he walked. He’d had had polio when he was younger, which caused him to limp.

  “You don’t never have to worry about revenge,” she told me. “God does a much better job than you ever could. A few weeks after those men harassed my husband,” she explained, “they got drunk and slid off the road. Their truck lit up like a matchstick the minute they crashed in the ditch.

  “Now, I don’t wish no harm to nobody,” she said. “But we all get comin’ to us what we put out. God takes care of everybody in His time, not our time. And you know what else?” She could go on and on about God. “He always provides signs along the path, if we listen with the right ears and see with the right eyes. Sometimes He shows ’em to us real fast”—she snapped her broad black fingers—“and sometimes He waits, sees how much faith you got. And if you think you’re too busy or too good to listen to what He’s tellin’ you, believe me, child, the good Lord will find a way to remind you. You never know how God’s signs are gonna come, neither. Sometimes He’s real sneaky and speaks through the lips of strangers. Sometimes He speaks through you.”

  Bella had died from a heart attack a year ago. I couldn’t afford to go back for the funeral, but I thought about her a lot, prayed her soul would go to heaven and that God would take care of her when she got there. I’m sure He did. Since her death, I’d always prayed that someday an angel would fall from the sky and care for me like she did. Now I couldn’t help but think, I believe I’ve met that angel.

  I was miles down the beach before I turned around and jogged back to Emma. I found her sleeping, snoring quite loudly, with her babushka pushed back on her head. Newspaper pages were scattered all around her chair. I picked up the papers and looked tenderly at her. The woman with her own secrets looked so vulnerable. I shook off the sand from my towel and gently laid it across her knees so her legs wouldn’t burn. Then I took her towel and wrapped it around her pink shoulders. I was about to pull down her babushka to protect her nose, when her eyes opened.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “It’s close to seven. We should get going.”

  Her mouth opened wide in a yawn. “How far did you run today?”

  I yawned, too. “Five miles. But I wasn’t as tired as last week.”

  “By next week, you’ll be running six miles.”

  We ate some grapes, and packed up our things. I bundled our picnic supplies into the trunk while Emma settled herself into the car with her sunglasses and her babushka. I climbed into my seat, and as I put the key in the ignition, she turned and smiled at me. “Thank you for our day at the beach. It was a lovely way to spend my birthday.”

  I looked at her in shock. Emma just smiled. Without another word, she waved dismissively and settled more deeply into her seat. I made a mental note: Buy Emma a card or make her a special meal. It was the least I could do. We drove home in silence, happily exhausted from the ride, the sun, and the wind.

  Over the weeks that followed, I used Emma’s membership at the Y, swam laps, used the stationary bike and the treadmill. I lifted weights to build the muscles in my arms, and took many, many saunas to sweat out the toxicity from a lifetime of sugar consumption. I made my mandatory appearances at the unemployment office and hung out in coffee shops where other unemployed actors also lurked looking for leads to auditions.

  Emma seemed pleased with all of my efforts. At the same time, without her saying anything, I could feel her always egging me on, urging me forward. And every night, as I crawled into bed, I felt strangely content in the acceptance that my efforts were never enough for this tiny enforcer. The fact was, I seemed to thrive on the challenge.

  Chapter 12

  … it is just when the Creative is coming to dominance

  that the dark yin force is most powerful in its external effects.

 
“Emma, where are you?” I called out, as I searched the apartment, exhausted from a run. But she wasn’t in the kitchen, the living room, her bedroom, or the bathroom. She was nowhere to be found.

  Did she go for a walk? Did someone pick her up? She would have left a note. Hmm. I’ll wait an hour and then call the police. To keep myself busy, I started to organize my room, make sure the socks were in the sock drawer, the bras in the bra drawer. I hadn’t spent five minutes arranging anything in this room since I’d moved in. While I sorted through my slightly worn-out slips and undies, I noticed a tiny drawer between the two larger ones that I hadn’t opened yet. It was only three inches wide, big enough for a few pieces of jewelry. Maybe, I thought, I could place a few bracelets and rings inside. I tried pulling the drawer out, but it kept sticking along the edges. Finally it unstuck, and inside was a clear plastic bag, with a lace-edged handkerchief. The name ALEXANDRA was embroidered in blue script, neatly sewn on one corner. If I don’t forget, I’ll ask Emma about this when she comes back … whenever that might be. In the meantime, I decided to use another drawer for my jewelry and went on with my chores.

  I was getting edgy wondering where Emma was, so I grabbed an apple from the fridge and called Rachel. I hadn’t seen her for a month. But just a recording greeted me: “The number you have reached is no longer in service. The party has requested no forwarding number.”

  What? I dialed the number again to be sure. Same recording. Has she moved? Did she quit her job and take off for an extended vacation to Bali or Nigeria? Maybe she went to visit her cousin, Cannoli. Or she’s taking some space. She did that—a lot. We’d get really close and all of a sudden, poof! She’d disappear for weeks. I wouldn’t know if she had the flu or if she’d been kidnapped. Then, just like that, she’d call, as if no time had passed. It was never a big deal for her. But it drove me nuts … and she knew it. If I didn’t hear from her soon, I told myself, I was going to leave her a note saying, “I had a skydiving accident, and if you don’t call soon, amnesia will have set in and I won’t remember who you are.”