Parishioners and Other Stories. Joseph Dylan
were talking about boyfriends,” she said.
“Oh, yes. About your boyfriends.” He chuckled.
“I don’t want to talk about them again tonight. They’re all ancient history. Besides, I don’t know you that well. Okay?”
“Okay, I’ll give you all the time in the world to know me better” he insisted, finishing his martini. “Would you ask the waitress to bring another one for me?” When Heng got the waitress’s attention, Rosenthal waved the empty martini glass in the air, as though he needed another one.
Moments passed. Heng watched couples come and go into the restaurant. She could feel the warm flush of the wine by now. Changing the subject, she said, “Tell me, what sort of things do you promote? All the expats I meet here, especially the ones at the clinic, say they promote one thing or another.” This, she thought, was safe territory. All the expats she had met in Shanghai, particularly in the clinic expounded on their exploits in the East to make money. To make money and obtain power.
“I suppose they do. I suppose they do...Like I told you in the clinic, I promote oil and gas leases here in Asia. Right now, I’ve been going to Kazakhstan, Turkestan, Uzbekistan...all the Stans. They’ve been discovering big gas fields all around China. I do a little business in China, but most of it is just outside the country. Most of the oil and gas isn’t in China, but China is in the middle of all the places I do business. Right now, business is hopping. Couldn’t be better...So where is it you’d like to go when you leave China?” This time, he managed to get out a couple of sentences without laughing. He managed to impress her with a certain amount of enthusiasm when he talked about his business. While he was expanding on his business ventures, the waitress had come out with plates of steaming food. He stopped talking long enough to ease the chopsticks into position in his left hand.
“Just about anywhere. Anywhere, but the Middle East.” She felt herself opening up to this odd man who seemed so optimistic and jovial, like a beloved uncle or a wily politician in the Party. “I’ve already been there. But I’ve told you that.” The few years working in Riyadh had consumed a lot of the conversation that she had had with him in the clinic. “I’d like to go to England,” she said, “but I’d prefer to go to the United States.”
“You think that that’s the land of milk and honey?”
“Yeah, the land of milk and honey” The land of all your dreams?” Levinson was fidgeted with his chopsticks. He ate with more grace than the average foreigner, but he still had not mastered the fine art of eating with chopsticks. The large pieces of chicken he managed to snare with his chopsticks, but he was hopeless with the smaller, greasier morsels of meat. Rosenthal was a finicky eater. Perhaps that was why he was so slender for a man his age.
“I don’t know. I do know it would be a damn sight better than here. I’m tired of being overworked and underpaid,” she added. What she just told him surprised her: she never swore and she had only told one or two of the nurses in the clinic of her desire to leave China. Rosenthal continued nodding; he continued listening attentively. Seemingly tired of struggling with his chopsticks trying to pick up some of the smaller pieces of chicken, he set them down on the table and returned to his martini.
“Could be as bad there as it is here,” Rosenthal replied. “Lot of people back home in Canada and the States are complaining about the wages and hours.” He took another drink from his martini and then spread his hands with his fingers splayed out on the table one more time. This was a man who couldn’t seem to talk without laughing or moving his hands in the most peculiar of gestures. “I think that if the economy continues on like it is in the States those same people will be grateful to just have jobs. That’s just me,” he said, smiling.
“Somehow, I doubt it.” Silences gathered as they ate. Despite Rosenthal’s difficulty with the chopsticks, they were soon through eating. Heng ordered a second glass of wine which she sipped listening to Rosenthal expand on his life. She put down her chopsticks and placed her dish aside. As the waitress collected their plates, he ordered another martini.
“Ever married?” she asked him.
“Twice married, twice divorced.” Laughing, he held up two fingers as though he was making a “V” for victory sign. “Made a lot of money for the attorneys. A lot of money.”
“That would seem to make you a two-time loser,” Zhang Heng said. Divorce seemed like such a casual matter to the Westerners she knew.
“Perhaps so,” Rosenthal said, shrugging his shoulders. “Perhaps not.”
“In China, divorce is a disgrace,” she exclaimed. “It represents a personal failure.”
“Well, it’s not quite that way we see it in the West. It’s not that way in Canada. It’s not that way in the States or in Europe. Not that it’s something to be proud of, no sir. It’s not something to be proud of, but it’s not a disgrace. It may be a failure, but it’s not a disgrace.”
“Maybe it should be.” Heng swirled what was left of the red wine in her goblet and then swallowed it. “You’re an odd man, Mr. Rosenthal. Maybe not odd, but just different.”
“My ex-wives would definitely say that.” Again, he guffawed. He brushed his hand across his forehead as though he was wiping away a sheen of perspiration. He beamed.
“Say that you’re odd.”
“Probably say that I’m different. I was twenty-two when I married my first wife. I was just a year out of college, trying to claw my way up the corporate ladder. She was a good Jewish girl, my first wife. Good in every sense of the word. I stayed with her for fifteen years. We had a boy and a girl.”
“What happened?”
“We drifted apart. I had my career. She had her family, our family” he said, spreading his arms apart. “I was working twelve hour days and she was home alone with the kids. I didn’t have the time for her. I didn’t have the time for them. As time wore on, we drifted further and further apart. It just wasn’t working out. At some point all the love in the marriage was just gone. It was as simple as that.”
“Was it worth it?” As she asked, she looked around the restaurant at the other couples. Which ones were married? Which ones weren’t? Which ones would eventually divorce?
“Was what worth it?” He acted as though he failed to understand the question.
“Getting the divorce from your first wife. Was it worth it?”
“Oh, my. Heavens yes.” He grinned, draining the second martini. “We’d be miserable if we were still together. She married a lawyer two years after we split up. A real mensch.”
“What’s a mensch?” She dabbed at a speck of rice resting on her chin.
“It’s Yiddish. A mensch is a stand-up guy. Someone who could be there for her. Be there for her the way I never could. The way I’d never wanted to be...No she traded up in the bargain. She got a good deal. I was pleased for her. I was happy she got what she wanted. I was even happier I got what I wanted.” A gracious smile played across his face. It was the gracious smile of a pastor greeting his flock as they passed through the doorway out of the church when services were over.
“I see...”
“No you don’t...you can’t possibly understand.” Suddenly Rosenthal seemed very serious, speaking with some vehemence. “You’re too young. You’ve never been married. You’ve never had kids. You’ve never had to deal with in-laws. You’ve never had to deal with in-laws that you couldn’t stand. You’ve never been up all night nursing one of your kid’s fevers. You’ve never had to make the rounds with the family on all the religious holidays. You’ve never started to grow old with anybody. You’ve never had to put up with the ups and downs of a relationship. You just don’t know.” Rosenthal stirred his martini with the plastic swizzle stick. Then he took the swizzle stick and swallowed the two olives that were still impaled on it.
“Maybe I