Pulling Mussels from the Shell

By Raanan Geberer

Walking down Boylston Street, Josh and Minerva Rothman headed to a party to hear Marvin Stippleman speak in a rare Boston appearance. Marvin Stippleman was a former radical student leader who had a spiritual revelation, became a Conservative rabbi, and sought to balance prophetic Judaism with political liberalism. He was disliked by both Orthodox Jews and secular leftists, but his magazine Vay'hi Ohr, or "Let There be Light," was read by many influential people in the academic and social work communities. He was one of Minerva's heroes. While Josh was cynical about public figures in general, he nevertheless agreed with at least 80 percent of Stippleman's ideas.
The block they were walking down possessed one aristocratic old 1920s building after another. Mysterious buildings with castle-like turrets, courtyards, ornate lobbies, giant rooms with high ceilings. Suddenly, Josh flashed on another party he had gone to on another part of Boylston Street in another old building, equally mysterious and romantic. It was, of course, one of Celeste Bernstein's parties. He had thought that after all these years, he had finally put Celeste behind him. But he couldn't help becoming swept with emotion. He started crying.
"You're crying! What's wrong?"
"Oh, nothing. The air is bad--my allergies. I should take a Benadryl later on."
They kept walking, and she took his hand because of the cold. He remembered Celeste taking his arm as they crossed the bridge, kissing every few seconds, and he cried again. He visualized going up on that ancient elevator and seeing Celeste, her father and her younger brother. He remembered making love with her in a tent on that trip to New Mexico. She had talked with him about feminism, about visiting a commune, about how she might get a new diaphragm without her father finding out. He remembered her warm smile, her beautiful red hair, the big pots of spaghetti she used to cook, the way she played with her pet dachshund, the way her father scolded her in his Hungarian accent. He even remembered the nickname she made up for him, her boyfriend: "The Leopard."
He remembered all of these things. Yet, they were hidden through a mist, through a haze of 25 years, like the relics of some long-forgotten civilization.
"Oh, look, there's Mindy's car! Maybe she could drive us home!"
"Oh, come on, Minerva! Can't we take the "T"? Surely the meeting will end before the trains stop running!"
"I keep telling you, look how infrequently the trains run at night! You just can't face that fact because you're such a transit buff! Who else would have subway maps from 20 different cities?"
Celeste had seemed so supporting and caring. When Josh went to live in the dorms at U. Mass., she wrote him long letters in which she divulged her deepest thoughts and feelings. She opened up a new world for him, so unlike the one he grew up in. In Josh's neck of the woods, if you weren't into sports, mass-market culture or making money, or if you showed any vulnerability at all, you were considered a "weirdo." Celeste took him to things that he didn't know existed, like improvisational comedy workshops, avant-garde poetry readings, political puppet theater—and was still willing to go for ice cream sodas at Bailey's.
But even then, Celeste displayed a kind of mad restlessness. She tried to coax him into having three-way sex with another girl; she wanted to run through the halls naked to "freak everybody out" on July 4; during a quarrel, she furtively arranged with a friend to screw a total stranger. Josh didn't recall exactly why he broke up with her, but it's likely that no matter what he did, her self-destructive pattern would have continued, he told himself. She got into trouble at the University of Vermont for printing a cartoon in the school newspaper showing Kissinger screwing President Ford in the ass; she changed majors frequently; she went to several colleges, eventually dropping out. She bragged about seducing her film professor, a man who had directed several well-known movies before he succumbed to alcoholism.
Josh and Celeste's occasional encounters became more and more strained--to him, it seemed like everyone who didn't agree with her extreme left-wing anarchist ideology was a "fascist pig" in her eyes. That irritated Josh--hadn't he had signed anti-Vietnam War petitions, worn a McGovern button to his high school graduation? Just because he was thinking of opening a record store, did that really make him an "exploiter" on the order of David Rockefeller? Increasingly, Celeste was becoming part of Josh's past, an old joke between him and his sister...
"Oh no! I forgot to bring the address! Well, I've been here several times before. This looks like the building. Yeah, this must be it!"
"What if it's not!"
"We'll just call, then."
"I just hope we can find a phone booth!"
When Josh was in his late twenties, Celeste invited him to her father's house for Thanksgiving, and they started dating casually again. He was ecstatic--he was sure he was going to marry her. He was so sure that he rejected the overtures of an overanxious temporary worker at the job who demanded to go to bed with him and promised that there would be no strings attached. He felt Celeste's problems would solve themselves. He still loved her, felt complete with her in a way that he didn't with anybody else. All the troubles he had with other girls seemed meaningless now.
She lived with a roommate on Chiswick Road then, near Brighton. On the second date, while they were walking down the street, she started shrieking, yelling nonsense syllables, and singing-off key at the top of her voice:
"We are in the halls of SHANGRI-LA! I am the EMPRESS! Ee-ee-ee-EE! I'm MARVELOUS! I'm TALL, I'm OFF THE WALL! Ee-ee-ee-EE! La la la, luh luh, luh..."
It reminded Josh of the time he was working at a summer job and some woman forgot to take her psychiatric medication. It frightened him--but he still loved Celeste.
On the third date, he timidly asked, in the most polite terms, whether they could spend the night together. She turned on him savagely. "How dare you ask him to sleep with you, just like that!" she screamed. "What do you think I am, a PIECE OF GARBAGE?" How could she say that to him, as if they had never had a relationship? Josh couldn't believe it. He cried and cried for days.
It was the right building. The apartment was packed; some people sat on the floor, others stood. Although this was nominally a Jewish function, there were many Christian clergymen in attendance--Josh found himself talking to a Rev. Darryl Washington from Roxbury, who was trying to organize some jazz fund-raisers for his church. Across the room, the Rev. Kim Chung Yee was conversing in a heavy Korean accent.
The room was lined with hundreds of books, serious works of literature, political science, philosophy, history, and its wall was decked with original oil paintings. Just so had been the Bernstein family's living room. Josh started crying again. Mindy, Minerva's friend with the car, came up to them.
"Hi, Minerva. What's new?"
"Oh, nothing, Josh had an argument with me here this morning because he erased one of my phone messages." She stroked my hair to reassure him that it wasn't serious.
"Josh, why are you crying?"
"My allergies are hitting me again. Must be the pollen."
Minerva suddenly flashed a wicked grin. "By the way, on the way here, he was talking about Celeste Bernstein. Can you believe it?"
"God, I haven't seen Celeste in ages," said Mindy. "The last time I saw her was in the supermarket--she lives somewhere in my neighborhood, in Brookline. She lost so much weight I thought she was anorexic! Her red hair had some gray showing! But she's still wearing those beautiful earrings, and those wonderful long skirts she made herself! Remember?"
Josh made up with Celeste a few years later, when they briefly found themselves both working for the Boston Housing Authority as management assistants. He didn't know what happened because he didn't work with her directly, but she pissed off a lot of people, both co-workers and tenants. They kept switching her from one unit to another, then fired her. Josh offered his sympathy, but she just mumbled about being the victim of a conspiracy. Over the next few years, Celeste switched jobs often. She fought with roommates and friends to such an extent that she, who used to have so many friends, now became a recluse.
After one roommate kicked her out because she was so messy, and also because she slept with the roommate's boyfriend, Celeste moved back with her father on Boylston Street. For a few months, she tried to live with her mother in North Adams, but that didn't work out either...
A third friend, Miriam Wexler, joined Josh and Minerva. "I overheard you talking about Celeste Bernstein," she said. "I know someone who knows her. She got into Scientology for a little while, but she's been away from that for a long time. She went back to school, to nursing school this time, and finished. She's been working at the same hospital for three years. She seems to have become a little more together, at least to some extent."
"Oh, I'm so glad," Mindy gushed. "Knowing Celeste Bernstein was always a trip, she used to get really furious at me for every little thing, but I never knew anyone with so much positive energy, so much of a life force, in spite of it all."
That was it! That was why she meant so much to him!
When Josh was in his mid-thirties she unexpectedly seduced him one night, and they began a new affair. What a grotesque parody of their first relationship it was! Her father had aged noticeably, had become silent and morose. Their living room, once vibrant with energy and full of interesting people, had become musty from years of neglect--to Josh, it seemed like a grave. Her father constantly yelled at her to clean up her bedroom, as if she were still 17.
Even the way Celeste initially came on to him appeared to Josh to be rehearsed, insincere. "I love you, Celeste Bernstein!" he exclaimed as he kissed her breasts, but she threw cold water on him by maintaining that romantic love was an "outdated concept"--to her, sex was merely "sensual pleasure." In the old days they had split everything; now, she insisted he pay all. She refused to even leave a tip. When they talked, it was mainly about the old days--anything else seemed pressured, contrived.
Josh wanted to marry her, but she just wanted to have children out of wedlock. He knew his conservative parents would never accept this. Indeed, his father threatened to disown him. Besides, with someone as volatile as Celeste, Josh reasoned, it would be best to have her tied down with a marriage certificate, to make sure she wouldn't run away at the first sign of any quarrel and take the kids with her. Maybe if they lived together Celeste's idea would be OK, but she refused to commit even to that.
When Josh told her some of his reservations, she became hostile, began to call him a jerk, an idiot's delight, a toad. In fifteen years, her conception of him had gone from "the artist who expresses my soul with his eyes" to a "toad."
Marvin Stippleman entered the room. He was tall, thin, soft spoken. The multicolored yarmulke he wore seemed out of place, his goatee was somewhat scraggly. But when he spoke, he emanated a kind of electricity that commanded everyone's attention--not unlike Celeste Bernstein--and everyone immediately stopped their conversation. He talked about his wife, a former Minnesota folk-rock singer, and her recent stay in the hospital. He talked about how distant the doctors were, how perfunctory the nurses were, how terrible the hospital food was. He talked about the lack of any activities for patients--no entertainment, no discussion groups, no yoga, meditation or prayer groups, no library of books or videos. He suggested that all medical students and hospital administrators be required to be play the part of patients for a week, so they could know what it's like....
Because of his devastating differences with Celeste, Josh decided to see her only once every two weekends, and maybe look for someone more compatible. Still, what he really hoped was that Celeste would change. He hoped "against all odds," as Phil Collins sang. She was like a wild horse, and he was going to tame her!
But he never did. The end for Josh Rothman and Celeste Bernstein came soon after she had another episode of wild, nonsensical shrieking and frenzied hilarity. Maybe he should have taken it as a warning, Josh would bitterly think years later. The week after her eruption, they were leaving a concert when he had an asthma attack. His acute symptoms soon went away, but he kept wheezing, having to take his inhaler every few minutes. He said as little as possible because his doctor told him not to talk in such circumstances. Josh was terrified that he would have to go to the emergency room like he had already gone a half-dozen times in the past year.
It was then that Celeste accused him of "going into hibernation," and declared that she was going home by herself. Josh couldn't believe she had so little attachment to him, so little consideration--this was worse than the "piece of garbage" episode! He finally lost his cool and started screaming: "FUCK YOU, CELESTE BERNSTEIN!"
He only saw her a few times after that, brief, uncomfortable encounters in the library, on a Green Line streetcar, at Filene's. For years, still obsessed with her and desperately hoping for a reconciliation, he sent her letters, cards, all unanswered.
Often, Josh would go over to his record player, put on old do-wopp ballads like the Dubs' "Don't Ask Me to Be Lonely," the Safaris' "Image of a Girl," the Jesters' "The Wind" and the Jive Five's "My True Story," think of Celeste, and, as the Jive Five sang, "cry, cry, cry." In view of their long-running quarrel over having children out of wedlock, it was interesting that neither Josh nor Celeste ended up having kids--in his case because Minerva was 10 years older than him. Poetic justice?
Now, Marvin Stippleman was talking about corporations. A corporation, he said, was kind of a public trust. Yet, corporations acted against the public interest when they polluted the environment, forced employees to work part-time or as temporaries without benefits, or manufactured products that were unsafe. What Stippleman was proposing was that the government review corporations' charters every 10 years or so, just like they reviewed the licenses of television stations. And irresponsible corporations could find their licenses revoked.
Abruptly, Stippleman stood up. He asked the people in the room to hold hands and join him in a nigun, a traditional, wordless Hasidic melody. He accompanied himself on an acoustic guitar; Miriam Wexler joined in on flute. Josh found myself holding hands with Minerva on one side and the Rev. Kim Chung Yee on the other.
When they first met, Minerva would ask Josh: why did he constantly write to Celeste after the breakup, since she never responded? The answer was that he couldn't help himself. He'd walk around for days, thinking of Celeste, and then would get some new idea that he felt a burning need to express to her. Maybe this, he felt each time, would be the one thing that would move her. Every time he dropped the letter into the mailbox, he felt a sense of dread. Why she didn't have him arrested, he would never know! He called her a handful of times, but he made sure to call at times when he knew that no one would be home, then left a message. He didn't want to hear her screaming vile insults at him. That would have destroyed him totally.
Marvin Stippleman was talking again, making a joke about the old Kevin Costner movie, "A Perfect World," which Josh had seen during a brief stay in Israel years ago. A perfect world, he said, won't be here until the Messianic prophecies in the Bible are fulfilled. But until then, he continued, we are charged with trying to make this world better by good deeds and by righting injustice. In doing so, he said, we elevate ourselves to a higher level. The real sin of the men of Sodom, he said, was their inhospitality and lack of concern for the stranger, and for that they were destroyed. This concept that we can improve the world we find ourselves in and by doing so improve ourselves, he said, is what separated the ancient people of Israel from the other Mediterranean nations that surrounded them.
Listening, Josh wasn't sure he agreed with him. Didn't the ancient Greek philosophers go on and on about the ideal nation-state and how to achieve it? Anyway, what Stippleman said sounded interesting. Josh was particularly attentive to the fact that he mentioned, however briefly, the ancient Jewish concept of the Messiah. He was only half-kosher, didn't observe the Sabbath, but that was one thing he wholeheartedly believed in.
It wouldn't be until the Messianic era, Josh told himself, that Celeste Bernstein would once again be the young, beautiful and wonderful Celeste that he met so many years ago. Then, also, outdated concepts like jealousy and monogamy would be a thing of the past. That day might not come for thousands of years, and until then there was nothing he could do about it. Perhaps the purpose of this world is a challenge, to see how much as we do can given the severe limitations that are imposed on most of us.
After Stippelman's talk, someone put on a tape, and Josh heard the old Squeeze song, "Pulling Mussels from the Shell." The last time he and Minerva saw Stippleman, three years ago, the rabbi had talkedg about the ancient Kabbalistic doctrine of the shells, how the task of the holy person is to break down the "shells" of suspicion, insensitivity and hatred that cause people to commit harmful acts. Hadn't he, Josh, tried to free Celeste from her shell, to free her from her self-destructive lifestyle because he loved her? But he had failed. It must have been, he thought, because he himself was so imperfect, so full of selfish habits, of prejudices, of inconsistencies, of short-sightedness...
"Josh! Your shirt is out in the back!"
"God damn it! First you tell me my jacket has a stain on it, then you tell me I forgot to wash the dishes, then you tell me I forgot to save the phone message, then you tell me my shirt is out in the back! When will it stop?"
"But your shirt's still out in the back! You know, you remind me of my father, who was always reading his books and talking about philosophy. When my mother asked him about buying a new chair, he said he didn't want to be bothered with `mundane matters',"
"Yeah, you're right. I am a lot like that!" Josh laughed to himself.
Josh and Minerva left the apartment and took the "T" home. She began complaining about her back--she suffered from scoliosis to the extent that she wasn't able to work full-time any more.
"Listen," Josh said, "you know how you always complain that the mattress doesn't give you any support, how old it is? I'll buy a new extra-firm mattress tomorrow. That'll really help your back."
"Oh," she replied, "you're so nice." They turned off the light and went to sleep.