Phoning Home: Essays

The Man Who Was Not My Grandfather

The Man Who Was Not My Grandfather In his early eighties, my grandfather—happily married for six decades and rendered impotent by prostate cancer—received a desperate letter from a woman he had dated while on military leave from the United States Army in 1943. All I knew of Blanche was that she’d once been trapped with Grandpa Leo for many hours atop an amusement park ride at Coney Island, that she’d been substantially overweight in her twenties, and that my grandparents exchanged cards with her and her husband every Jewish New Year. In short she wasn’t even a supporting actress in our family’s saga, but a mere extra, a woman who had strolled across the background of our past and vanished into the ether of time and memory. All that changed—at least momentarily—when her Rosh Hashanah missive arrived, The Man Who Was Not My Grandfather 45 penned in a caregiver’s hand, announcing that the unfortunate lady was recently widowed, newly blind, and consigned to a nursing home in a distant outer borough of New York City. “Will you please come visit me?” she asked. Her invitation pointedly included Grandma Lillian as well. My grandfather shared the contents of the letter with our family over our holiday dinner that weekend. He seemed surprised by the request and saddened at Blanche’s condition, but nothing in his tone or manner revealed even the remotest inkling of affection for a woman whom he hadn’t seen in sixtyone years. His greatest concern appeared to be the length of the bus trip to her facility. “I suppose we have to visit her, now that she’s asked,” said Grandpa Leo—his voice utterly devoid of romance. He turned to my young cousin and added, “Visiting the sick is a true mitzvah, but never stay with them too long.” That prompted my aunt to recount—for my cousin’s benefit—the comedic tale of my grandfather’s sojourn with Blanche atop the amusement-park ride during a lightning storm. Then my father and my aunt each offered to drive my grandparents to the widow’s nursing home. “We can even go next weekend,” suggested my aunt. “Whatever works best for you.” My grandmother had remained silent during this conversation . She’d always been an extraordinarily easygoing person, I should emphasize, certainly not one prone to jealousy or spite. She’d also never met Blanche, as far as I knew, and she had no reason to dislike the blind widow other than that the 46 Phoning Home woman had once dated my grandfather. So we were all dumbfounded to see my grandmother in tears. “If you visit that woman, Leo,” she warned between sobs, “I’m not going to let you back in our house. Am I making myself clear?” Grandma Lillian could not have been clearer. Nor, when pressed by my father, was she willing to explain herself. “I’m his wife and she’s not,” said my grandmother. “That’s the only explanation anyone needs.” So neither of them visited Blanche, and they received no more New Year’s cards. My grandparents’ marriage continued happily for another four years, until my grandfather succumbed to his cancer, and during that time none of us ever again dared to raise the subject of Blanche’s request. My aunt—maybe because her own marriage had been such an unhappy one—has always taken an interest in our family’s past. Her interest magnified after my grandfather’s death, and it was through her efforts to chart my grandmother’s genealogy that I first learned of the man who was not my grandfather . That is the best way I have to describe the handsome young Latvian Jew my grandmother didn’t marry—because even today I still do not know his name. My grandmother insists that she no longer remembers it, and although I do not believe her, I have stopped asking. We were seated in my grandmother’s kitchen, several months after my grandfather’s funeral, and my aunt spread The Man Who Was Not My Grandfather 47 across the tabletop a pair of faded photographs that she had acquired from our cousins. One was a group portrait: here frowned the portly, double-chinned sisters of Grandma Lillian ’s father and their phalanx of stone-faced adult children, three rows of Litman cousins decked out for a...