Excerpt from "Torero"

We sipped our drinks in silence for a moment and that is when the atmosphere in the bar suddenly changed. There was a hush and Raquel caught her breath. I followed her gaze and saw that a new customer had arrived with a group of people. Judging by the way he carried himself and people’s reaction to him, he was someone important. He was about 5’10, with short, thick black hair, a square jaw and almost black eyes under surprisingly shapely eyebrows for a man. His movements had a quiet, graceful confidence about them that made it hard for me to take my eyes off him. He seemed to be having a similar affect on most of the people in the bar.

“Who is that?” I asked Raquel. I cleared my throat as the question had come out like a croak.

Raquel turned to me, shocked.

“You don’t know?”

I was surprised, although not very. Like I said, he seemed important.

“I should?”

“He’s only one of the top three matadors in the country!” Raquel scoffed. “His father was Nando, who was fatally gored about fifteen years ago. You know.”

Actually, I did. So this was Fernando Cortes Jimenez, the Spanish media’s darling. Due to my aforementioned lack of interest in bullfighting, his handsome face had passed me by. My loss, obviously; I saw that now. But it showed his extreme popularity with the Spanish people that even I had heard of him.

At this point I saw Raquel blush, which because of her dark coloring was only noticeable if you were sitting right next to her like I was.

“Hola. How are you?” she said.

I looked up. Fernando was standing at our table.

“Well, thank you. And you? How is Jaime?” he asked quietly. His voice was like treacle.

“He’s well. He has a novillada tomorrow in Cortes,” Raquel explained, having recovered herself admirably.

“That’s right,” Fernando nodded. “Maybe I will come and watch.”

“Really?” Raquel squeaked, unable to hide the surprise in her voice. “Don’t you have a fight tomorrow?”

“No, I have this weekend off,” he answered.

“Who is your friend?” he asked, turning to me.

“Miriam Herrero Arias,” I said, getting up and proffering my cheeks, which received two kisses from very soft, dry lips.

“Fernando Cortes Jimenez,” he introduced himself matter-of-factly. I liked that he did not assume that I knew who he was.

“A pleasure,” I said with a smile.

“The pleasure is all mine,” he answered courteously.

I noticed that we had not taken our eyes off each other.

“Will you be accompanying Raquel to Cortes tomorrow?” he asked.

“I was thinking about it,” I replied, sounding uncharacteristically coy.

“I will see you there, then.”

He bowed his head.

“Buenas noches, señoritas,” he said.

Fernando went back to the group of people he had come in with. I saw one of the men crane his neck to get a look at Raquel and me. He looked worried about something, on his dark face a deep frown. He caught my eyes for a second but looked away quickly. I did not look away, however, so I saw him whisper something in Fernando’s ear as soon as he rejoined the group. Fernando’s face clouded over for a moment and then he shrugged irritably, at the same time turning to someone else in his party.

“Who is that?” I asked Raquel, discreetly pointing out Fernando’s moody looking friend.

“Oh, that’s Luis, Fernando’s banderillero,” she said casually. “They’re practically inseparable.”

“I don’t really like the look of him,” I said, not knowing why I felt that way.

“He’s a strange one for sure,” Raquel agreed. “I’ve sometimes wondered if he’s manic depressive – you never know where he’s going to be coming from.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“I try not to have too much to do with him.”

I reluctantly took my eyes off Fernando and let my breath out in a quiet whoosh. Raquel looked at me out of the corner of her eye. Her lips twitched and she whispered:

“He’s pretty hot, isn’t he?”

I nodded, not really able to put in to words just how good-looking I found him. I realized that for a moment there I had not felt Abuela’s absence so acutely.

“I’m surprised he’s not surrounded by press,” Raquel went on. “Usually he has at least a few photographers trailing him. Although to be fair they seem to leave him alone quite a bit in Ronda. Unless he’s with one of those beauties he dates.”

I felt a unreasonable and unexpected stab of jealousy. Oblivious, Raquel informed me:

“He just stopped seeing Carmen Rodriguez, you know; a “mees”.”

She meant a Miss España.

“So tell me about a novillada,” I said, to change the subject and keep my mind occupied.

Oma as a young woman

Catharina Johanna Schmidt (nee Paardenkoper) 1919-2009

My grandmother died today, July 9^th, 2009. She would have been 90 on December 22^nd. I hadn’t seen her for many years and had only spoken to her once in the last year (her memory was failing so she wasn’t sure who I was) but I never thought this moment would come. I thought she would live forever. Apparently this is quite a common thought amongst people. Oma was a big presence in my life for many years. When I was a baby I spent a lot of time with her because my mother had only just turned twenty when she had me, and when Oscar and I first moved to the U.S and until fairly recently, she always helped us out with money. In fact, I’m not sure we would have made it if it had not been for her help.

Oma was very particular. She liked the best of everything, a trait she has passed on both to her daughter (my mother) and me. She also passed on to us her love of organization, neatness and cleanliness, and I almost have a phobia about touching money, especially change, because she drilled into me how thoroughly dirty and disgusting it is, after “all those people having touched it.”

Oma was a snob too, but she was very well informed, reading the paper every day well into her seventies. And I also remember her being very open compared to a lot of my friends’ grandmothers. She liked dirty jokes and was known to swear like a trooper on occasion. But she didn’t like us to swear so she would tell us, without a trace of irony: “Don’t fucking swear.” I remember feeling perfectly comfortable discussing my period and certain aspects of sex with her. I remember how we’d watch the Jerry Springer show and roar with laughter together. I don’t remember exactly when I stopped staying with her regularly, but I do know that she would always prepare for me, in the evening, an open-faced peanut-butter sandwich cut up into bit-size cubes. I loved that – it made me feel so coddled. I would never prepare it like that for myself. Food was always a big pleasure at her house. I loved her cooking and we always had “snoep” (candy). The other big joy (which I still love to this day) was shopping. We would literally shop till we dropped and I can’t imagine a better place for it than Den Haag. Although of course I’m sure there are better places, but that is of no consequence.

Until I was well into my teens I would share her double bed when I stayed with her. I would wake up in the morning to the sound of her little radio, which she would be holding on her chest. A pinky inserted in the corner of her mouth and a frown of concentration on her face, she listened to the morning news. When I was a small child I loved watching her morning ritual of “putting her face on.” She had endless amounts of little bottles of make-up and perfume which were utterly fascinating to me. People would often mistake her for my mother.

Oma was married to a prominent figure in Dutch politics and in the United Nations. He was twenty-three years her senior; her father’s best-friend. My grandfather, Petrus Johannes Schmidt, died when my grandmother thirty-three (my mother was five) . He co-wrote the Declaration of Human Rights at the UN and they were frequent house-guests at the Roosevelts’. After his death my grandmother never re-married and she brought up her two children, my mother Petra and my uncle Edo, by herself.

Helping in the Kitchen

Happy 4th July

A quiet 4th of July, taking care of the horses at Harvest Hill Farm and grilling a few hamburgers and hotdogs in true 4th of July style. We were going to eat outside but everything was soaking wet from the thunderstorm we had earlier. Luckily Raquel had a great idea: she suggested that we pretend that inside was outside! So we lit some cintronella candles inside, she got Baby Moses, her doll's, high chair so he could join us and we had a delicious and cozy meal indoors.

Last night Raquel and I went to Temple Israel in Dover for the Family Service and potluck dinner. The gathereing was small but everyone was very nice. Most people came up to introduce themselves and thank me for coming. At one point I mentioned how important I feel it is to have Judaism in our children's lives, and how wonderful the preschool at Temple Israel in Portsmouth is for this. Because, I said, it just gets harder and harder to keep Judaism relevant once they start going to regular public school. Someone else said yes, especially here (meaning NH). Compared to Boston or NYC, this is true, but compared to Spain, it is like Israel here (so to speak) in how open you can be about being Jewish. I have an Israeli flag hanging from my rear-view mirror, and on my former car I had a pro-Israel bumper sticker, something my brother Jov couldn't believe when he saw it (we went to see him when he was on a business trip in NJ). He said I'd be in real trouble with a bumper sticker like that in Europe. It goes to show how easy it is to get used to a good thing.

Raquel, dinner outside

No news is good news unless it's raining

Not much news on the home front. Raquel is very excited that her school's summer camp will be starting next week, on Tuesday. Every Wednesday they are going to go on an outing. On the first Wednesday they will be going to an ice cream parlor and they will be allowed to see the big freezers and build their own ice creams, with toppings! The following week they are going somewhere where they can touch crabs and other sea creatures. Raquel is going to LOVE that. I hope she won't be disappointed, though, when she sees that "camp" is not "camping". She has her backpack ready to go, with gloves, a compass and all sorts of other goodies that she will need out camping...She also told me that I will have to bring my own tent if I plan to spend any time there. She and I are also really looking forward to going to the family service at Temple Israel, Dover, on Friday after our play date with Ruth and Zachary. On Monday we will go to the preschool's open house. Hopefully this weekend it will NOT rain so that we can grill and eat outside on Saturday, July 4th. I am seriously beginning to worry about Vitamin D deficiency; we have hardly seen the sun in a month and July is apparently going to bring more of the same.