Epstein - Ice fire water: a Leib Goldkorn cocktail

a Leib Goldkorn Cocktail

W. W. NORTON & COMPANY
NEW YORK LONDON

Copyright 1999 by Leslie Epstein

All rights reserved

Portions of this work have appeared in somewhat different form in Harpers Magazine and TriQuarterly .

This is a work of fiction. Although some characters may bear some resemblance to historical and living figures, the narrative is not intended in any way to be a depiction of any real events.

Part title illustrations: Pablo Picasso, LAubode (details) 1999 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

For information to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Epstein, Leslie.
Ice fire water: a Leib Goldkorn cocktail / by Leslie Epstein.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-0-393-04804-9
1. JewsNew York (State)New York Fiction. 2. Miranda, Carmen, 19091955 Fiction. 3. Henie, Sonja, 1912- 1969 Fiction. I. Title.
PS3555.P655 128 1999
813'.54dc 21 99-30719
CIP

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110

www.wwnorton.com

W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., 10 Coptic Street, London WC1A IPU

For Fred Busch,
Leibs friend

IN EUROPE

The Family Goldkorn

Leib Goldkorn, Graduate of the Akademie

Mutter, his mother

Vater, his father

Yakhne, his manly sister

Minkche, his beautiful sister

at the akademie

Hans Maltz, Second-Place Finisher, flute

Willi Wimpfeling, young violist

Pepi Pechler, young woodwinder

Professor Pergam, Instructor in Classics

Professor Lajpunger, Instructor on Woodwinds

Rabbi Goldiamond, a childhood religious advisor

Dr. R. von Krafft-Ebing, a noted author

S. Umin, American ambassador to France

Jacques Warner, American cinema producer

A. Hitler, German Reichschancellor, Olympic enthusiast

Esther, a heroine of Jewish folklore

IN NEW YORK CITY

At 130 West 80th Street

Clara Goldkorn (formerly Litwack), L. Goldkorns spouse

Martha Goldkorn, 6/7/43-6/7/43, their daughter

F. Fingerhut, pre , his former landlord, friend to Madam Goldkorn

F. Fingerhut, fils , his current landlord

Madam Schnabel, an eager neighbor

Bowser, a boxer

Miss Crystal Knight, a model

IN HOLLYWOOD

Miss Candace Kane, a producers assistant

Miss Sonja Henie, Norwegian skating champion

D. F. Zanuck, chief of production, Twentieth Century-Fox

Irving Cummings (also Karz-Cummings), a cinema director

Jack Warner (see Jacques Warner)

E. W. Korngold, cinema melodist

Others: A chauffeur, a French telegraph boy, Austrian sharpshooters, studio personnel, crowds, etc.

H APPY B IRTHDAY TO YOU ! Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday, Leib Goldkorn! The words to this famous melody I sing in my basso profundo. Happy Birthday to you! Music has charms, so speaks the poet, to calm the savage beastand there lies the boxer dog, once so fierce, with a smile on his liverish lips. Such an animal has been known to eat small children and tear the seat from the postmans pants. There once was a time when to appease this hellish hound I had to perform a complete Tannhuser overture, with multiple selections from Der fliegende Hollnder . A Wagnerite, this watchdog. But victory is mine. I have outlived him! Not in the literal meaning of the word, since, behold, the stump of his tail still wigwags: but if I am this day turned ninety-four, poor Bowser is nowhere we must multiply by seven the number of years, fifteen, since he was a pupone hundred and five. No teeth. No eyes. No problem. There he lies, under the spell of this folkish tune, in what Americans call a dogs daze.

Therefore the way to the cabinetto is clear. I speak of the public necessary just down the hallway from the door of my own apartment, 5-D. Hello? Hello? Anyone there? Madam Schnabel? Mr. Fingerhut , fils? Empty! Inside, the small bulb casts no more light than that of a Frigidaire. Nor is this closet any larger than the inside of such a machine. Nor warmer! A chill breezewe are now in the month of Novemberblows through the crack in the window and under the crack in the door. Heavens! There is a frozen film upon the water of the johnny! Overhead, on the wall, the tank for water has frozen into a solid cube of ice. Not even Scott, not Admiral Peary, would in such conditions have dropped their pantaloons. Time now for the first of my birthday treats, permitted on an annual basis by Dr. Goloshes. TWA bottle of potato vodka. Salud , Akademie Graduate Goldkorn! Ninety-four years young. Ah, in my throat such a burning, like the man in the Roumanian Circus who swallows fire.

Have we reached the moment for the second treat? No, no, a treatment , prescribed, like the schnapps, as a tonic for the system. Here it is, the happy holiday issue, behind the clouded cellophane. How was I to obtain it? This was the thought I faced upon waking this morning at dawn.

W aking? I had not once through the long night of anticipation closed my eyes. I heard, from my corner of the Posturepedic, the snores of my wife. In a glass, formerly containing seedless jelly, her dentures lay like a mollusk under inches of water. On the pillow, her wig. From her nightdress a breast protruded. This was reminiscent of the Zeppelin IV I had seen in my youth: length 140 meters, filled with inflammable gas. Even if this exposure had provoked in me a modicum of libertinism, the fact that Clara and I had not exchanged any but the most essential of words insulin, sweetheart? A potty perhaps? since the debacle with Father Fingerhut, would have driven from my mind any entertainment of erotics.