Lieberman's Father

Francois Camoin photo by Richard Schramm Francois Camoin was born in Nice, France, in 1939, and came to the United States in 1951. He was educated at Kenyon College, the University ofArizona, and the University of Massachusetts, where he received a Ph.D. in Jacobean Drama. "Lieberman's Father" is from the manuscript which won the 1981 AWP Fiction Award and is now forthcoming as The End of the World is Los Angeles (University of Missouri Press). Other publications include Benbow and Paradise (a novel: E.P. Dutton, 1975), and stories in Omni, Quarterly West, Western Humanities Review, Cimarron Review, California Quarterly, and elsewhere. He now teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Utah. Lieberman's Father LIEBERMANHAD HIS eyes on his chicken salad and so atfirst didn't see j the woman. She stopped short at his table and stood, swaying a little this way and that, looking like a person who has just bumped into something and is wonderingif she's hurtherself. To the people at the next table it was clear that what she'd bumped into was Lieberman. "Excuse me," she said. Lieberman looked up. He saw a thin woman who looked athletic, like a jogger, well-preserved. He thought she might be fifty years old, mightbe sixty. "Hello, Martin." "Do I know you?" Lieberman said. "No," she told him. She pulled out a chair and sat down across the table from him. "A little water? You don't mind? It's a shock." Lieberman poured for her. "What's a shock?" "Well," she said. "This isn't going to be easy for you." Lieberman laid down his fork. "What isn't?" She emptied her glass and set it back on the table. "That's better." She sat back and looked and looked Lieberman in the eye. Her face was attractive, he thought. Serious. "Tm your father," she said. Lieberman looked around. If anybody had heard the woman they didn't make a sign. No heads turned. "Did I understand you?" Lieberman said. "Tm your real father," the woman said. "I have a father. He's sixty-eight years old and lives in New Jersey. He's a retired carpenter." "I know," she said. "A religious man. He never had much time for his family." She coughed. "Would you mindif I had a little more water?" She drank it slowly, looking over the rim of the glass at Lieberman. "You followed me in here," he said. "To tell the truth, yes. Don't get mad. This is the first time I've seen you up close like this in fifteen years. This California weather doesn't agree with me. Not enough humidity—a person could dry out like a dead leaf if he doesn't drink water all the time." She studied Lieberman. "You don't look bad. A little heavy, maybe. But you have a good tan, good muscle tone. I can see you take care of yourself." "What's it all about?" Lieberman said. "What do you want from me?" "Forty-six years old. And you have your own discount store already: eighteen departments, though I understand cameras aren't doing so well. But at your age that's something. You should be proud." Francois Camoin The Missouri Review · 7 "I have a partner," Lieberman said. "Segal? I've seen Segal. Don't worry, I didn't tell him who I am—I don't want to cause you embarrassment. Segal's a money man; it's your ideas that make the place go, am I right?" Lieberman felt himself blush. "Maybe." "You've done all right. Two daughters, Ruth at UCLA and Laura married to a psychologist. And you have a beautiful wife, even if she is a shickse. " "She converted," Lieberman said. The woman shrugged. "To Reformed. Whatkind of aJew is that? Might as well be a Unitarian." "Excuse me," Lieberman said, "but whatbusiness is this ofyours? Why am I discussing my family with somebody who followed me into a restaurant?" "They're my family too," the woman said. "Enough is enough," Lieberman said. He signalled to the waitress for his check. "Don't believe me—it's still...