Isabel Vincent - Dinner with Edward: A Story of an Unexpected Friendship

A STORY OF AN UNEXPECTED FRIENDSHIP

Isabel Vincent

ALGONQUIN BOOKS

OF CHAPEL HILL 2016

Also by Isabel Vincent

Gilded Lily: Lily Safra: The Making of One of the Worlds Wealthiest Widows

Bodies and Souls: The Tragic Plight of Three Jewish Women Forced into Prostitution in the Americas

Hitlers Silent Partners: Swiss Banks, Nazi Gold, and the Pursuit of Justice

See No Evil: The Strange Case of Christine Lamont and David Spencer

For Hannah

It was one of the best meals we ever ate... the fact that we remember it with such queer clarity must mean that it had other reasons for being important. I suppose that happens at least once to every human. I hope so.

M. F. K. FISHER, The Gastronomical Me

Contents

Christmas Eve Dinner

I heard about the promise Edward made to his dying wife long before I met him.

Valerie, Edwards daughter and one of my oldest friends, related the story when I saw her shortly after her mothers death. Paula, who was just shy of her ninety-fifth birthday and had been bedridden and drifting in and out of consciousness for days, sat up in bed specifically to address her beloved husband.

Listen to me, Eddie. Paula spoke firmly, emphatically. You cant come with me now. It would be the end of our little family.

Paula knew that Edward had already made the decision that he wanted to die rather than face life without her. That was wrong, she said, and exhorted him now to keep on living. When he finally agreed, she serenaded the man she had been married to for sixty-nine years. She began with My Funny Valentine and segued into half-remembered lyrics of Broadway show tunes and ballads that topped the charts in the 1940s and 1950s, when they were young and still believed that they could break into show business. Paula sang with a clear voice, unfettered by the congestion that had gurgled in her chest just days earlier and had made it impossible for her to talk. She ended with All of You, mangling the lyrics as she went: I love the north of you, the east, the west, and the south of you, but best of all I love all of you.

She died twenty-four hours later. It was October 2009. Overcome with grief in the days and weeks after her death, Edward found it almost impossible to keep his promise to Paula. He sat alone in a silent apartment, at the dining room table, which had been the scene of so many animated dinners. Eventually, Edward checked himself into Lenox Hill Hospital, where doctors performed a battery of tests. They couldnt find anything physically wrong with him and would be sending him home the next day.

Im afraid hes giving up, said Valerie, taking a seat beside me in the hospital waiting room. It was Christmas Eve and we had planned to meet for dinner. Valerie had suggested a restaurant around the corner from the hospital, where she was spending time with her father.

Settling into a table at a nondescript Third Avenue bistro, we picked at our lackluster red snapper and both of us cried. It was the day before what would have been Paulas birthday, and Valerie was still mourning her loss. Now she was also deeply worried about her fathers ability to keep on living.

Im not sure why I broke down when Valerie described Paulas serenade. I had never met Edward and, though it was a poignant scene, I cant help but think that it was also a stark reminder of my own unhappiness. I had recently moved to New York to work as a newspaper reporter and I would be spending Christmas on assignment. My marriage was unraveling, despite my best efforts to pretend that nothing was wrong. And I was more than a little concerned about the impact on my young daughter. When I hinted at my own predicamentI did not want to burden Valerie with my own problems when her father was illshe suggested I have dinner with Edward.

Hes a great cook, Valerie said through tears, perhaps hoping that this in itself would spark my curiosity, and I would volunteer to look in on Edward after she returned to her home in Canada. Her sister Laura, an artist, lived in Greece with her husband.

I dont know if the temptation of a good meal did it for me, or if I was just so lonely that even the prospect of spending time with a depressed nonagenarian seemed appealing. It was probably a combination of loyalty to Valerie and curiosity about her father that propelled me to Edwards door a couple of months later. Whatever it was, I could never have imagined that meeting Edward would change my life.

For our very first dinner deux, I arrived wearing a black linen shift and sandals. I knocked quietly, then rang the doorbell, and moments later a tall, elderly gentleman abruptly opened the door, his eyes smiling as he took my hand and kissed me on both cheeks.

Darling! he said. Ive been expecting you.

Grilled Sirloin Steak, Sauce Bourguignonne

New Potatoes

Chocolate Souffl

Malbec

I n the beginning I would invariably arrive at Edwards apartment with a bottle of wine.

No need to bring anything, baby, he said, although I often ignored the advice, finding it difficult to show up for dinner empty-handed.

And there was no need to knock on the door or ring the doorbell, Edward told me. He always knew when I was coming because the doorman would call up to his apartment when I walked through the front doors of his building. Besides, he usually kept his door unlocked. Still, soon after we met he insisted that I have my own key, just in case the door was locked and I wanted to drop by when he was taking his morning or afternoon nap on the couch. He gave me the key attached to a purple plastic fob. EDWARD and his telephone number were written in bold, block letters on the white insert in the key ring. We both knew I would never actually use the key to get into his apartment but I accepted it graciouslya gesture of friendship, a daily reminder that Edward was now part of my life.

Whenever I did bring wine, Edward would write my name on the label, then tuck it into his makeshift cellar in the hall closet, where he kept winter coats. By the time I got there, he had already chosen his wines carefully for the meal and would save my offering for a more appropriate pairing.

At one early dinner I had made the mistake of bringing Edward some of the salted cod croquettes that I had cooked from my mothers recipe. I should never have expected him to serve them with our meal. I sprung the food on him without any warning. In those early days of our friendship I never imagined the amount of thought and effort that Edward put into each dinner. I knew it was a faux pas as soon as I handed over the lumpy tinfoil-wrapped bundle of croquettes, and I could see Edward was momentarily confused. But he graciously accepted my offering, inviting me to dinner later in the week so that we could enjoy them together.

Edward was neither a snob nor an insufferable foodie. He just liked to do things properly. He cared deeply about everything he createdwhether it was the furniture in his living room or his writing. He had built and upholstered all of the furniture himself and wrote out his poems and short stories in longhand, patiently rewriting each draft on unlined white paper until he felt it was good enough to be typed by one of his daughters. He treated cooking much the same way, even though he had started doing it late in life, in his seventies. Paula cooked for fifty-two years, and one day I just told her shed done enough work, and now it was my turn, he said.