"Thank G.o.d," Mich.e.l.le said. "I"m afraid of flying."
"You were never afraid of flying before," I said. "And you weren"t scared when we dropping into the atmosphere in a cube at Mach 20."
"Welcome to the new me," Mich.e.l.le said. "And I trust Yherajk technology a lot more than I trust yours. Now get me the h.e.l.l off of this plane. I have to go kiss the ground."
A limo driver was waiting for us as we exited the plane. We went through the crowd rapidly, before anyone could recognize Mich.e.l.le, and were in the limo and on our way in a matter of minutes.
I rolled up the barrier between us and the driver almost immediately. "How flexible are you?" I asked.
"Why?" Mich.e.l.le asked. "You looking for excitement in the back of a limo?"
"No," I said. "What I mean to say is, can you generate any tendrils or tentacles?"
"Sure," Mich.e.l.le said. "It"s not like when I was in Ralph and I was stuck in his digestive system. I"ve got Mich.e.l.le"s whole head undergoing transformation. See, look." Mich.e.l.le"s eyes suddenly bulged, dropped out of her eye sockets, and began swinging around.
"That"s the most disgusting thing I think I"ve ever seen," I said.
"Now you know what I"m going to be doing for Halloween," Mich.e.l.le said.
"Can you make the tendrils any smaller?" I asked.
"Of course," Mich.e.l.le answered. "I can make them invisible, if you like."
"I would like," I said. "I think you may need them where we"re going."
"Where are we going?" Mich.e.l.le asked again.
"We"ll be there soon enough," I said.
Less than half hour later, we were there.
"The Beth Israel Retirement Home," Mich.e.l.le said, reading the stone sign out front of the facility. "Tom, I realize that Hollywood stops hiring actress after a certain age, but this is ridiculous."
"Hyuck, hyuck, hyuck," I said. "Come with me." We went inside.
The nurse at the reception desk wasted no time looking at me, preferring to look at Mich.e.l.le instead.
"Aren"t you Mich.e.l.le Beck?" She asked.
"I"m not Mich.e.l.le Beck," Mich.e.l.le said. "But I play her on TV."
"Excuse me," I said, drawing the nurse"s attention to me. "I made an appointment to see Sarah Rosenthal. I"m Tom Stein, her grandson."
"I"m sorry," The nurse said, snapping out of her celebrity stupor. "Of course. She"s just woken up from a nap, so she should be quite alert. It"s good of you to visit. We"ve heard a lot about you. Your mother comes in quite frequently, you know."
"I knew that," I said. "Since I was in town, I thought I might come for a visit as well."
"That"s very sweet of you," the nurse said. She glanced over at Mich.e.l.le. "Are you two together?"
"For the first 10%, yes," Mich.e.l.le said. The nurse looked slightly confused. Below the nurse"s view, I stepped onto Mich.e.l.le"s toes. Hard.
"Yes, we"re together," I said.
"Follow me," The nurse got up and motioned towards the corridor.
Sarah Rosenthal, my grandmother, was in her wheelchair, staring out her window. The nurse knocked on the open doorway to get her attention. My grandmother turned, recognized me, and broke into a wide grin. Her teeth were in. I went over to give her a hug; the nurse excused herself. Mich.e.l.le stood in the door, attentive but uncertain.
"I didn"t know your grandmother was still alive," Mich.e.l.le said.
"She is," I said, crouching down and holding my grandmother"s hand. "But I don"t see her very much. She retired down here while I was still in elementary school. We"d see each other at high holidays and during the summer, but not very much beyond that. Grandmama was a very independent soul. She had a stroke not long after my father died, which took away her power of speech; my mother came down to be closer to her."
My grandmother peered over at Mich.e.l.le and motioned her over. Mich.e.l.le came over; Grandmama held out her other hand, and Mich.e.l.le gave her hand. Grandmama shook it in welcome, and then turned it over. Then she looked at me.
"What is she doing?" Mich.e.l.le asked.
"She"s looking for an engagement ring," I said. "Grandmama"s been pushing me to get married since I was about thirteen." I turned back to my grandmother. "Mich.e.l.le"s just a client, grandmama," I said. "But you"ll be happy to know I have a nice girlfriend now. Very nice."
"She"s a little like me," Mich.e.l.le said, to my grandmother.
"I"ll bring her down next time," I said. "Okay?"
Grandmama nodded in agreement, and then patted Mich.e.l.le"s hand, as if to say, I"m sure you"re a very nice girl, anyway.
"Mich.e.l.le, would you close the door?" I said.
Mich.e.l.le went to close the door; then she came back over.
"Now will you tell me what we"re doing here?" she asked.
"My grandmother wasn"t born here in the U.S.," I said. "She was born and lived the first part of her life in Germany. She was a child when Germany lost the first world war and in her teens when Hitler came to power. She was in her twenties when she and most of her family were sent to the camps."
"My G.o.d," Mich.e.l.le said. "I"m terribly sorry."
"Grandmama came to the US after the war, married again, and had another child," I said. "My mother. And now we"ve come to the end of what I know of the story," I looked over to Mich.e.l.le. "Grandmama would never talk much about her life before the US to my mother, and of course my mother never did talk about it much with me. I"m hoping I can get her to share her experiences with you."
"Now I see," Mich.e.l.le said.
My grandmother looked over to me, confused.
"Grandmama," I said. "I haven"t gone over the bend. I know you can"t talk. This is hard to explain, but Mich.e.l.le has a way of talking without talking. I know your memories are painful, and that you don"t share about them for a reason. But Mich.e.l.le wants to know what your memories are, if you"ll share them. It will help her understand many things about our lives, and our history. It would mean a lot to me if you would share your memories with her."
Mich.e.l.le got down on her knee and took Grandmama"s other hand again. "See what I"m doing now?" Mich.e.l.le said, holding grandmama"s hand lightly. "This is all I"d have to do. Just sit with you for a little while. You wouldn"t even have to think about those things, if you didn"t want to, Sarah. All we"d have to do is sit together."
My grandmother looked at Mich.e.l.le, and then at me. She smiled, gently slid her hand out of mind, put it to her temple, and made a corkscrew motion.
I laughed. "I know. We both sound nuts. They"re going to be hauling us both off sometime soon. But in the meantime, will you help us?"
My grandmother looked me and at Mich.e.l.le. Mich.e.l.le she patted on hand. Then she lightly tapped my shoulder, and pointed at the door. I looked at her quizzically.
"I think she"s saying she"s willing to do it, but she doesn"t want you around," Mich.e.l.le said. "Maybe she had a reason for not telling the story to your mother or you, Tom. She doesn"t want to run the risk of you hearing it."
Grandmama nodded her head vigorously and patted Mich.e.l.le"s hand again.
"Out you go," Mich.e.l.le said.
I stood up. "How long will you need?" I asked Mich.e.l.le.
"An hour, maybe two," she said. "If you can manage it, I"d prefer that we weren"t disturbed. I want to get this all at one time."
"I"ll do what I can."
"Thanks, Tom," Mich.e.l.le looked up at me briefly, and then back to grandmama. "Now, shoo. Sarah and I are going to have a conversation."
Twice a nurse came by to check on things. Twice I sent her away, the second time bribing her with the promise of an autograph by Mich.e.l.le. The nurse left behind her clipboard and her pen as insurance. I hoped it didn"t contain serious information about any of the other folks in the retirement home.
Three hours after she began, Mich.e.l.le opened the door to my grandmother"s room and came out. She touched my arm distractedly, and then propped herself against the corridor wall. She looked exhausted.
"Here," I said, handing her the clipboard. "I promised the nurse an autograph if she would go away."
Mich.e.l.le took the clipboard and stared at it like it was some sort of strange animal.
"Mich.e.l.le," I said. "You okay?"
"I"m fine," she said, taking the pen from the top of the clipboard and scratching her name on the piece of paper it contained. "I"m just very tired."
"How is grandmama?" I asked.
"She"s nodded off in her chair," Mich.e.l.le said, handing the clipboard back to me. "You should have the nurse put her to bed."
"I will," I said. "Did you get what you need?"
For the first time, Mich.e.l.le looked directly at me. Her eyes were startling; they were the eyes of someone who had walked through the coals of h.e.l.l and came through them, but not unscathed, not without wounds.
"Your grandmother is a remarkable woman, Tom," she said. "Remember that. Don"t ever forget it."
Then she lapsed into silence. We didn"t talk again that day.
"What the h.e.l.l is she doing here?" Avika Spiegelman said, referring to Mich.e.l.le.
Roland had taken my advice and surprised Avika, saying only that he found an "interesting" actress that he thought might pull off the role. The withering glare she was now carpetbombing Roland with made me understand why he had been reluctant to go along with my scheme to begin with.
"We never got a full reading the first time," Roland said, holding his ground with aplomb. "I felt Miss Beck deserved that much before we rejected her out of hand."
"Roland, she fainted at the last reading," Avika seethed. "And a good thing too, since she was clearly incapable of the reading to begin with. I can"t believe you would be wasting your time with her now, considering how little time you have left with this property."
Mich.e.l.le, who sat in front of the video camera, just as she had at the last reading, had a smirk on her face that did not indicate she was taking Avika"s insults seriously. Positioned as I was on the couch, I was getting the full panoramic view: Mich.e.l.le"s smirk, Roland"s aplomb, Avika"s seething. This was going to be a fun reading.
"Boy, it"s swell to see you again too, Ms. Spiegelman," Mich.e.l.le said.
Avika regarded Mich.e.l.le coolly. "Aren"t you supposed to be in a coma?" she said.
"I got over it," Mich.e.l.le said. "Which, apparently, is more than you can say."
"You planning to faint again?" Avika said.
"I won"t if you won"t," Mich.e.l.le said. "Do we have a deal?"
"Fat chance," Avika said, and turned to Roland. "I"m leaving now, Roland." She turned to leave.
"b.i.t.c.h," Mich.e.l.le said.
Avika froze. Very slowly, she turned around.
"What did you just say?" She spat at Mich.e.l.le.
"You heard me perfectly well," Mich.e.l.le said, leaning back in her chair with an air of supreme relaxation. "I called you a b.i.t.c.h. I was going to call you a raging b.i.t.c.h, but then I thought, why give you the courtesy of a modifier? You"re just a b.i.t.c.h, plain and simple."
Avika looked like the top of her head was going to pop off. She turned to me. "Tom, do you always let your clients insult the people who can give them the roles they want?"
"Hey," I said. "I"m just here for the show."
"I"m not calling anyone who will give me a role a b.i.t.c.h," Mich.e.l.le said. "Clearly, you have no intention of giving me the role. As far as I can see, the only reason I"m calling you a b.i.t.c.h is because that is what you so obviously are."
"I don"t need to be insulted by you," Avika said.
"Well, you need to be insulted by someone," Mich.e.l.le said. "And it looks like I"m the only one here with enough interest in you to do it. Sort of sad, really."
"Listen, you little s.h.i.t," Avika said. "You don"t even deserve to read for this part, much less play it."
"Well then, we"re equal," Mich.e.l.le said, "Since you don"t deserve to make that decision."
"I"m her niece," Avika said.
"You"re her third cousin, twice removed," Mich.e.l.le said. "I checked. And your only qualification is that you"re tangentially related. All you"re interested in is appearances. I don"t fit your notion of who your sainted aunt was, so I"m out."
"You"re nothing like my aunt," Avika said.
"I"d say I"m a lot like your aunt. Your aunt spent a lot of her time flying in the face of ignorant morons who decided the world was one way and there was no other way the world could be. As far as I can tell, I"m doing the same right now. I"m more like your aunt than you are."
"How dare you say that," Avika hissed. "You can"t even act."
Mich.e.l.le smiled. "Neither could your aunt, b.i.t.c.h."
Roland, who had been observing the exchange between Mich.e.l.le and Avika with an increasing expression of horror, glanced over at me with an expression that loosely translated to Get me out of here. I shrugged. There was nothing to do now but to ride this one out.