← Selected Shorts
Selected Shorts
With A Little Help
00:59:26
Host Meg Wolitzer presents four stories in which characters give, and get, a little assistance, from friends, strangers and family. A daughter copes with a cantankerous parent in “How to Take Dad to the Doctor” by Jenny Allen, performed by Jennifer Mudge. A woman moves to a new town and makes a strange new friend in Laura van den Berg’s “Friends,” performed by Roberta Colindrez. A Tyrolean café improbably situated in South America is home to mysterious strangers and new and old romances, in Isabel Allende’s “The Little Heidelberg.” It’s performed by Kathleen Turner. And a budding singer and socialist gets unwelcome help from Mom in Grace Paley’s “Injustice,” performed by Jackie Hoffman.
Loading summary
Transcript20 lines
- [00:02]
Lowe's Advertiser
Craftsman days are here at Lowe's with big savings on the tools you need right now. Get a free select tool when you buy the Craftsman V22 pack battery kit. Whether it's the backyard, the bathroom or beyond, Craftsman has the tools to help you power through and get the project done right because diying is unpredictable. But your tools shouldn't be. Shop Craftsman at Lowe's today. Valid through 618. Wall supplies last selection varies by location.
- [00:39]
Meg Wolitzer
On this week's selected shorts, we offer up a little help in all kinds of shapes, sizes and places. Families and friends are our usual support systems. But what about the stranger who returns your lost wallet? Or the sibling who keeps helping when you wish they wouldn't? I'm Meg Wolitzer. Is a friend in need. A friend indeed. Stay with me. We'll find out. You're listening to Selected Shorts, where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction one short story at a time. You know that song by that group that had those Moptop haircuts? The song that goes, I get by with a little help from my friends. Or if you don't know that group, maybe you do know that commercial where the woman says, I've fallen and I can't get up and help is on the way. Well, on this selected shorts, we're borrowing that idea and adding parents, siblings, or sometimes mysterious strangers to our own personal mixtape. The stories on this program look at what it means to be helped or to offer help. Is it an action in response to a need? An intuitive response to something unexpressed, A supportive atmosphere or an unwanted intrusion? Our quartet of writers helps us to find out. Coming up in this hour, a daughter tests the boundaries of elder care. A lonely woman connects in a new city. Dance partners change partners and lives, and Mom's got your back, whether you like it or not. Many of us are part of what's been dubbed the sandwich generation, often raising kids and caring for aging parents at the same time, and sometimes making sandwiches for them both. Because a good PBJ crosses generations, this can sometimes be a strain, but other times, the Reader's Digest is right. Laughter is the best medicine. Young listener. Reader's Digest Laughter is the best medicine. What is she talking about? To which I say, Google it. And while you're there, Google I am Joe's liver. It's worth it. Enter Jenny Allen's how to Take dad to the Doctor. Allen is a writer and performer whose works include the collection the Long Chalkboard and Other Stories, and most recently, Would Everybody Please Stop Her Writing has been featured in several anthologies, including the 50 Funniest American Writers, edited by Andy Borowitz, and selected shorts Own Small Odysseys how to Take dad to the Doctor is a little like a stand up routine as a daughter wills herself into patients. Reader Jennifer Mudge is well known on the New York theater scene for shows such as the Dutchman and Fault Lines. Television work includes Law and Order, natch, and the Good Wife. Here she is, letting us know how to Take dad to the Doctor.
- [03:24]
Jackie Hoffman
With.
- [03:24]
Jenny Allen
Dad, your adventure is sure to begin before it even starts. You pick him up at his retirement community condo. It's your job to drive dad places, as he has had his license revoked for nearly mowing down all the students in the local Montessori preschool and their teacher. In Dad's version, he confused the gas pedal with the brake because the children were distracting me. As you pull out of the driveway, dad will pretend not to hear the loud, insistent beep beep beep signaling that someone doesn't have a seatbelt on. You bring the car to a stop. What is it now? Dad says, as if this were the last in a string of calamities that have happened on your expedition, though it is only 8:15am and and you arrived at his condo three minutes ago and absolutely nothing has happened yet. In the interest of getting him to the doctor in a timely manner, you have made a point of not commenting on the opened package of Mint Milanos on his kitchen counter or the crumbs around his mouth indicating that he has once again eaten dessert for breakfast when a hot, hearty meal in the dining hall is available to him. Dad doesn't care for the other residents of the retirement community where you and your brother put me when your mother died, even though he found the place, bought an apartment there, and efficiently tossed out nearly everything from the house where you grew up. Goodbye, all traces of your existence. Without a word to you or your brother. Using your restrained, super patient voice, say, dad, we can go as soon as you put your seatbelt on. Good for you to not use a negative construction like we can't go until you put your seatbelt on, which dad would take as a criticism. Such turns of phrase invite him to say, then we won't go. I don't see why we're going anyway, and likely lead to him getting out of the car and slamming the door. You're already running late and you'll be lucky to get the doctor with whom you made this appointment seven months ago to see him at all. Oh, all right, dad says. Take deep Cleansing breaths while dad treats the seatbelt like a thing he has never seen, some mystifying contraption invented to thwart him. First he has to grope around to find the shoulder strap. Where the hell do they put these things? And then he must violently yank and yank at the strap so that it keeps retracting and getting locked in its retracted position. Take more deep breaths as dad finally yanks it free and then grapples with the straps as if he were in a fight to the death with a furious cobra or a crocodile. Like Crocodile Dundee, only frail and flailing and losing. Painful as it is to witness this struggle, it is not yet time to say, dad, let me help you with your seatbelt. If you say this now, dad will take offense at your treating him like a 3 year old. For fuck's sake. Dad's language has gotten a lot saltier since your mom died, something you find both amusing and troubling. Sooner or later, miraculously, the seat belt will release smoothly long enough for dad to attempt to buckle it. He does this by stabbing the metal piece on the shoulder strap in the general area of the buckle without looking down. Looking down would be a concession to the capricious despot that is the seatbelt. Finally, dad inserts the metal piece into the buckle. But there's no click, dad. It has to click. Jesus fucking Christmas. Reach over and gently, calmly insert the metal piece into the buckle yourself, perhaps even graciously adding, they're so annoying. Right? Now, at last, you can begin your journey. You start down the road. Except that today dad complains that the shoulder strap is strangling me and that he can't breathe. Would you like to sit in the back, in the middle seat? That one doesn't have a shoulder strap, just the belt across your lap, you say. Surely you think he won't take you up on this offer, but dad is feeling extra cranky today, and he does pull into the shoulder of the road, help dad into the back seat, buckle his seatbelt for him, and return to driving the car. I can't see anything from back here, dad says. Aren't there windows back there, too? You say, because you just can't help it. I can't see where we're going. We're just going a few blocks to the doctor. Not my doctor. Who is this guy anyway? Tell him for the thousandth time that this doctor was highly recommended by three of your friends whose parents are experiencing the exact same ailment. What kind of doctor is he? Dad asks. He's a gerontologist. But that's for old people. You've been expecting this. Tell him lightheartedly that you are practically old enough to go to a gerontologist yourself. Well, then you go to him, says dad, how much is this costing anyway? Tell him not to worry. Tell him you're paying for it, as you've discussed, ad nauseam. What's the matter with you people? Dad says, no wonder you don't have any money. You wonder whether by you people, dad is referring to you or your brother or to your entire generation. Don't ask, don't ask, don't ask. Do you really want to know? Would that question lead anywhere except to one of those black hole conversations with dad, increasingly contentious and resulting in his demand that you return him home right now? More cleansing breaths, the way you learned to do in the meditation class you took. You should have gone to more classes, but you're pretty sure that a million meditation classes wouldn't prepare you for dealing with dad. Only large doses of drugs would do. And you, alas, have too many responsibilities, like driving dad to his appointments to take drugs. Why are we even going? There's nothing wrong with me. Remind dad that he has fallen five times in as many months. Those were accidents. As if a different category altogether. You probably shouldn't say, I just don't want you to fall and hit your head on the coffee table. But you do, in an effort to make a possible scenario seem more real. I don't have a coffee table. There's the black hole right there. You didn't see it coming. You never know which words or phrases will be the trigger, the utterance that will turn you both into actors in an absurdist play. Yes, technically, the low piece of furniture in front of his sofa is not a coffee table. It's a pine chest. But your parents used it as a coffee table in the house where you grew up for, like, 30 years. Don't get into it. Deep breaths.
- [10:49]
Jackie Hoffman
Mmm.
- [10:50]
Jenny Allen
Good for you. I don't know why they call coffee tables coffee tables anyway. Dad says to anyone uninitiated in dealing with dad, this remark will sound like more contentiousness, but it's not. It's Dad's way of changing the topic. It's his form of pleasantry.
- [11:10]
Roberta Kolindres
That's true.
- [11:10]
Jenny Allen
You say, no one really puts coffee on them, do they? Maybe sometimes, like after dinner, but hardly ever. Right?
- [11:18]
Roberta Kolindres
It's stupid.
- [11:19]
Jenny Allen
Very stupid. Like glove compartment. Who puts gloves in the glove compartment? I did, when I had a car, which I don't anymore because they took my license away. Fucking sons of bitches. Congratulations. You have arrived at the doctor's office only 45 minutes late, and the nurse says the doctor will see you shortly. While you wait, tell dad that after his appointment you'll take him to his favorite diner for coffee and a cheese omelette, your treat. You love their omelets, you say. This offer will be greeted as you expect you spend too much money. Your mother made much better omelets. The best Coffee is a McDonald's, and he already ate. You take him anyway. Deep breaths, deep breaths. Thank you.
- [12:25]
Meg Wolitzer
Jennifer Mudge performed How to Take dad to the Doctor By Jenny Allen I'm Meg Wolitzer. The story is not just funny, but touching. We sympathize not only with our frustrated narrator, but with dad, who is powerless in the face of widowhood, age, loss of dignity and independence. And the riff about seatbelts is pretty perfect. I often felt tense waiting for dad to buckle up. I live in New York City, where taxicab seatbelts are a thing. It's very hard to get that click far too much of the time. When you try and apply the metal part into the plastic part, you get nothing but a soft little sound signifying nothing, letting you know that if your taxi rams into the M104 bus, this seatbelt will not save you. Which is unlike this Dad's daughter, who, despite being driven quietly half mad by her situation, is is a source of invaluable help. Our second work, Friends, is a provocative caper story suggestive of famed, talented Mr. Ripley writer Patricia Highsmith. It's by Laura Vandenberg, who looks askew at personal relationships and delivers up surprises in works such as the Third Hotel and the deliciously titled I Hold a Wolf by the Ears. And for those of you who've been with me for a while on this show, no, I'm not going to make the joke about special wolf holding gloves again. Or stick around. I might. The narrator of Friends has moved to a new mid sized city but needs help making connections. Spoiler alert. The work was published in an anthology called Tiny Crimes. Our reader is Roberta Kolindres. Kolindres is an actor and writer known for originating the role of Joan in the musical Fun Home. Other credits include the TV shows I Love Dick and Amazon Prime's A League of Their Own. Here she is performing Friends.
- [14:18]
Jackie Hoffman
Sarah had moved to a city of medium size, the worst size for making friends. A place is a place, she told herself upon arriving, but she had never before lived in a city of medium size. People are moderately friendly the streets were moderately busy, the shops moderately expensive and moderately good looking. She lived near a park with cannons and an American flag, the most patriotic park she'd ever seen. Beyond the park lay train tracks and a river of moderate width slicing through the city like a silver vein. Sarah was not a friendless person. She had plenty of friends from cities large and small. In fact, some of these friends had offered to set her up with people they knew in this medium sized city. The site of her first friend date was a restaurant trying very hard to look like it belonged to someplace larger. Through a tall window, Sarah spotted the prospective friend sitting at the bar. She was sporty, beautiful, the kind of woman who could be glamorous in sweats because everything was of such fine quality. Sarah disliked her on site, on the street. She sent a text. Sorry, food poisoning. The prospective friend texted back right away with sympathy, and Sarah never replied. On her second attempted friend date, Sarah, after two beers, started talking about her mother. Her mother had visited recently and insisted on staying in a hotel. It did not matter that that Sarah, for the first time in her life, had rented an apartment with a guest room. It did not matter that she had promised to clean the bathroom and stock the fridge. Her mother had said that she did not feel safe staying with Sarah. Her own mother had said this. The bar was communist themed. The second prospective friend shredded a cocktail napkin as Sarah rambled on a mural of Lenin peering over her shoulder. Sarah went to the bathroom and when she returned, the friend made a hurried excuse about having forgotten to feed her cat, paid her share, and left. The third friend suggested meeting in a park, this one neutral on the subject of patriotism. Odd, since they were getting together after work and it was early spring and still cold. But then again, she hadn't had much luck in indoor spaces. Aided by the small flashlight on her keychain, Sarah found this woman, Holly, sitting on a bench in a black gabardine trench coat. You found me, holly said. That's a good sign. A sign of what, exactly? Sarah did not think to ask. Before long she was once again recounting the story about her mother's visit. She knew this was off putting to strangers but could not help herself, did not want to help herself. Perhaps Holly didn't leave or change the subject. Instead, she said, I can see your mother's side of things. You've never met my mother, sarah said. You don't know anything about us. All I need to know is what's right in front of me, holly said with a shrug. Sarah wanted to argue, but when she went to compile evidence to demonstrate that she was indeed a person others could feel safe with, she came up very short. She and Holly continued seeing each other, always outside and always at night. They played tennis at the courts by the library. They went for long runs along the river. By May, Sarah had lost five pounds. You're the perfect friend, holly said once in the moonlight. The statement struck Sarah as half finished, like there was another piece Holly was holding back. But compliments rarely befell her, and it felt ungracious to push for more. One Saturday morning, Holly sent a text asking if Sarah wanted to meet at the train station. Up for an adventure. Sarah was pleased. Spending time in the daylight seemed like a friend promotion. On platform six she found Holly leaning against a concrete pillar in her trench, holding a round case by its Lucite handle. Sarah realized that she had been mistaken about the color of the trench. In the daytime it was not black, and yet the exact color was hard to pin down, somewhere between eggplant and plum. I got us two tickets. She passed one to Sarah. The destination had been blotted out with black marker. Holly gave Sarah the window seat, and as the train chugged away from the medium sized city, she pressed her palms to the glass and thought of the tiny cacti lined up against her windowsill, the plants favored by people who did not know how to take care of things. They rolled past Trenton, Philadelphia, Baltimore. They drank watery coffee and ate baby bells. When Sarah asked after their destination, Holly just said, we have a ways to go. By the time they hit D.C. the sun was melting across the sky, bright and shapeless. Holly made another trip to the cafe car and returned carrying a cardboard tray packed with little red wines and hummus cups. She handed the tray to Sarah and collected the round case. She said it was time to go to the roomette. This isn't overnight, sarah said, frowning. She was not prepared to spend the night on a train or anywhere else. We have a ways to go, holly said again. The roomette held bunk beds in the smallest toilet Sarah had ever seen. She sat on the bottom bunk. Holly joined her, unscrewed a little wine, and handed Sarah the bottle. That city was not of a good size, Holly said. The people who built it should have stopped sooner or made more. Sarah was troubled by the past tense, as though the city had ceased to exist upon their departure. She took a long drink. I was starting to get used to it, sarah said, her throat burning a little. The city seemed bigger at night. You won't miss it much, holly replied. The train swayed, Sarah felt the wine slosh in her stomach. Are you kidnapping me? Do you see a gun? Can a friend kidnap a friend? Hollywood. Holly laughed and slugged her in the shoulder. Seriously, though, I can't start over in a new place without a friend. Can you imagine? Yes, sarah said. I can. You, my dear, are a cautionary tale. Holly loosened the belt on her trench and opened the round case, which was much deeper than it had appeared from the outside. She passed Sarah a set of thin white cotton pajamas, a travel sized toothbrush, and toothpaste balanced on top of I should call my mother. By then the land around the tracks had gone dark and Sarah had killed the bottle. Forget about your mother, holly said. She doesn't want to hear from you. In Hamlet, North Carolina, they climbed into the bunk beds. Sarah took the top, the ceiling so close she felt as though she'd been sealed inside a carapace. A little while later, Holly's voice floated up from the floor. So what happened with your mother? I have my ideas, but I'd like to hear about it in your own words. That winter, Sarah had moved in with her mother to help her recover from an operation, serious and invasive, and this arrangement had brought out the worst in both of them. Her mother had a little silver bell she rang every two minutes. All the ways Sarah tried to help were wrong. She got the wrong things. At the grocery, she always forgot to refill the bedside water glass. She left the TV remote out of reach. One afternoon she locked her mother's door. From the outside she listened to the chiming bell. After 30 minutes, she unlocked the door. She claimed to have been out of earshot in the backyard, but they both knew. The next day she left a sandwich and a half glass of water at her mother's bedside, locked up, and went to see a movie. Let's just say things did not improve from there, Sarah thought. It was close to midnight, though she couldn't be sure because her watch had stopped ticking in Cary. Her phone had died, too, and none of the chargers in the roomette were working. Am I a terrible person? Sarah asked. Yes, holly said. That's what makes you perfect. Sarah asked Holly if she had brought a friend with her to the medium sized city, and if so, what had become of this person? In response, Holly began to snore loudly. Sarah supposed she would get her answer soon enough. Next door, a toilet flushed. Someone was having a sneezing fit. When she tried to remember the friend who had set her up with Holly, she failed to summon a name. But surely this person existed. Otherwise how would they have found each other? She imagined this friend in the roomette next door, whispering through the air vent. The next stop was called Denmark, South Carolina. Sarah rolled toward the wall. She listened for the voice of her friend, who she hoped would explain that while Holly had strange ideas about what constituted adventure, she was really quite harmless. But that was not the voice she heard. Instead, it was her mother saying something about a bell. Thank you.
- [24:00]
Meg Wolitzer
Roberta. Kalindra has performed Friends By Laura Vandenberg I'm Meg Wolitzer. It takes a confident author to create an unsympathetic character. As a writer, you have to be willing for readers and listeners to dislike the person you've invented, and for someone to raise their hand during a Q and A after a reading and ask, why did you have your protagonist act so selfishly? And then you have to be willing to give the correct, undefensive answer, which is because that's the way she acts when we return, singing and dancing. I'm Meg Wolitzer. You're listening to Selected Shorts recorded live in performance at Symphony Space in New York City and at other venues nationwide. Welcome back. This is Selected Shorts, where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction one short story at a time. I'm Meg Wolitzer. This show focuses on the notion of a little help from family, friends and strangers. What's more helpful than the perfect short story? You'll find many more in our podcast. You can subscribe on our website selectedshorts.org or wherever you get your podcasts you already know Selected Shorts is a radio show and podcast, but did you know it starts with a real live show? Join us at Symphony Space in New York City, on tour across the country or as part of our livestream audience. As an audience member, you will be part of what makes Selected Shorts, broadcasts and Podcasts so special, and you can listen to your favorite stories again on your local public radio station or on our podcast. To find out more about where to be part of the action, visit selectedshorts.org Our third work, a favorite from our archives, is from Isabel Allende's enchanting collection the Stories of Eva Luna. Allende's Fiction, which also includes the novels the House of the Spirits and A Long Petal of the Sea, often involves ordinary people caught up in the strange, marvelous, and possibly magical. In this case, Allende has peopled a Tyrolean cafe set improbably in the Caribbean, with odd characters worthy of Rick's Cafe American in Casablanca, glamorous women, mysterious men, and people fleeing the past who all help one another by honoring their partners and accepting other people as they wish to be known. If you want a hint of sultry magic, you get Kathleen Turner. Kathleen Turner, whose many credits include creating the memorable voice of animated bunny fatale Jessica Rabbit, the films Pretzi's Honor and Romancing the Stone, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Broadway. Now she reads Isabel Allende's the Little Huddle.
- [27:03]
Kathleen Turner
El Capitan and the woman Nina Eloisa, had danced together so many years that they had achieved perfection. Each could sense the other's next movement, divine the exact instant of the next turn, interpret the most subtle hand pressure or deviation of a foot. They had not missed a step once in 40 years. They moved with the precision of a couple used to making love and sleeping in a close embrace. This is what made it so difficult to believe that they had never exchanged a single word. The Little Heidelberg is a tavern a certain distance from the capital, located on a hill surrounded by banana groves. There, besides good music and invigorating air, they offer a unique aphrodisiac stew made heady with a combination of spices too heavy for the fiery climate of the region, but in perfect harmony with the traditions that activate the proprietor, Don Rupert. Before the oil crisis, when there was still an illusion of plenty and fruits were imported from other latitudes, the specialty of the house had been apple strudel. But now that nothing is left from the petroleum but a mountain of indestructible refuse and a memory of better times, they make the strudel with guavas and mangoes. The tables, arranged in a large circle that leaves an open space in the middle for dancing, are covered with green and white checked cloths. The walls display bucolic scenes of country life in the Alps. Shepherdesses with golden braids, strapping youths, immaculate bovines, the musicians, dressed in lederhosen, woolen knee socks, Tyrolean suspenders and felt hats that, with the sweat of the years have lost their dash and from a distance resemble greenish wigs, sit on a platform crowned by a stuffed eagle that, according to Don Rupert, sprouts new feathers. From time to time one plays the accordion, another the saxophone, and the third, through some feat of agility involving all his extremities, simultaneously manipulates the bass drum, snares and top hack. The accordion player is a master of his instrument, and he also sings in a warm tenor voice that suggests, vaguely Andalucia. Despite his foolish Swiss publican's garb, he is the favorite of the female faithful, and several of These senoras secretly nurture the fantasy of being trapped with him in some mortal adventure, a landslide, say, or a bombing in which they would happily draw their last breath, folded in the strong arms capable of tearing such heart, rendering sobs from the accordion. The fact that the medium age of these ladies is nearly 70 does not diminish the sensuality stirred by the tenor it merely adds the gentle breath of death to their enchantments. The orchestra begins playing shortly after sunset and ends at midnight, except on Sundays and Saturdays, when the place is filled with tourists and the trio must keep playing until near dawn, when the last customer leaves. They play only polkas, mazurkas, waltzes, and European folk dances, as if, instead of being firmly established in the Caribbean, the little Heidelberg were located on the shores of the Rhine. Dona Borgel, Don Rupert's wife, reigns in the kitchen, a formidable matron whom few know because she spends her days amid stew pots and mounds of vegetables, lost in the task of preparing foreign dishes with local ingredients. It was she who invented the strudel with tropical fruits and the aphrodisiac stew capable of restoring dash to the most disheartened. The landlord's two daughters wait on the tables, a pair of sturdy women smelling of cinnamon, clove, vanilla, lemon, along with a few local girls, all with rosy cheeks. The clientele is composed of European emigres who reach these shores escaping poverty or some war or other businessmen, farmers and tradesmen, a pleasant and uncomplicated group of people who may not always have been so but who, with the passing of time, have eased into the benevolent courtesy of healthy old people. The men wear bow ties and jackets, but as the exertion of the dancing and the abundance of beer warms their souls, they shed superfluous garments and end up in their shirt sleeves. The women wear bright colors and antiquated styles, as if their dresses had been rescued from bridal trunks brought with them from their homeland. From time to time a gang of aggressive teenagers stops by. Their presence is preceded by the thundering roar of motorcycles and the rattle of boots, keys, chains. They come with the sole purpose of making fun of the old people, but the event never goes any further than a skirmish, because the drummer and the saxophonist are prepared to roll up their sleeves and restore order. On Saturdays about nine, when all present have enjoyed their servings of the aphrodisiac stew, the and abandon themselves to the pleasures of the dance. La Mexicana arrives and sits alone. She is a provocative 50ish woman with the body of a galleon, proud Bow, rounded keel, ample stern, a face like a carved figurehead who displays a mature but still firm decolletage and a flower over one ear. She is not, of course, the only woman dressed like a flamenco dancer, but on her it looks more natural than on ladies with white hair and resigned waistlines who do not even speak proper Spanish. La Mexicana, dancing the polka, is a ship adrift on a storm tossed sea. But to the rhythms of the walls she seems to breast calm waters. This is how El Capitan sometimes espies her in his dreams and awakens with the nearly forgotten restiveness of adolescence. They say that this captain sailed with a Nordic line whose name no one could decipher. He was an expert on old ships and sea lanes, but all that knowledge lay buried in the depths of his mind with no possible application in a land where the sea is placid aquarium of green crystalline waters, unsuited to the intrepid vessels of the North Sea. El Capitan is a leafless tree, a tall, lean man with straight back and still firm neck muscles. A relic clothed in a gold button jacket and the tragic aura of retired sailors. No one has ever heard a word of Spanish from his lips, nor any other recognizable language. Thirty years ago, Don Rupert argued that El Capitan must be finished because of the icy color of his eyes and the unremitting justice of his gaze. As no one could contradict him, everyone came to accept his opinion anyway. Language is secondary at the Little Heidelberg, for no one comes there to talk. A few of the standard rules of conduct have been modified for the comfort and convenience of all. Anyone can go onto the dance floor alone or invite someone from another table if they wish to. The women can take the initiative and ask the men. This is a fair solution for unaccompanied widows. No one asks La Mexicana to dance because it is understood that she considers it offensive. The men must wait, trembling with anticipation, until she makes her request. She deposits her cigarette in an ashtray, uncrosses the daunting columns of her legs, tugs at her bodice, marches toward the Chosen one and stops before him without a glance. She changes partners every dance, but always reserves at least four numbers for El Capitan. He places a firm helmsman's hand at her waist and pilots her about the floor without allowing his years to curtail his inspiration. The oldest client of the Little Heidelberg one, who in half a century has never missed a Saturday, is Nina Eloisa, a tiny lady, meek and gentle, with rice paper skin and a corona of baby fine hair. She has earned a living for so many years making bonbons in her kitchen. She is permeated with the scent of chocolate and always smells of birthday parties. Despite her age, she has retained some of her girlish mannerisms, and she still has the strength to spend the entire evening whirling around the dance floor without disturbing a curl of her top knot or skipping a heartbeat. She came to this country at the turn of the century from a village in the south of Russia, accompanied by her mother, who was then a raving beauty. They lived together for years, making their chocolates completely indifferent to the rigors of the climate, the century or loneliness without husbands, family, or major alarms. Their sole diversion, the little Heidelberg. Every weekend when her mother died, Nina Eloise came alone. Don Rupert always received her at the door with great deference and showed her to her table as the orchestra welcomed her with the first chords of her favorite waltz. At some tables, mugs of beer were raised to greet her because she was the oldest person there and undoubtedly the most beloved. She was shy. She never dared invite a man to dance, but in all those years she had never needed to do so. Everyone considered it a privilege to take her hand, place his arm delicately so as not to break a crystal bone around her waist and lead her to the dance floor. She was a graceful dancer, and besides, she had that sweet fragrance that recalled to any who smelled it his happiest childhood memories. El Capitan always sat alone and always at the same table. He drank in moderation and showed no enthusiasm for Dona Brugal's aphrodisiac Stewart. He tapped his toe in time for the music, and when Nina Luisa was unengaged, he would invite her to dance, stopping smartly before her with a discreet click of his heels and a slight bow. They never spoke. They merely looked at each other and smiled between the gallops, skips, and obliques of some old time dance. One December Saturday, less humid than others, a tourist couple came into the little Heidelberg. These were not the disciplined Japanese they had been seeing recently, but tall Scandinavians with tanned skin and pale eyes. They took a table and watched the dancers with fascination. They were merry and noisy. They clinked their mugs of beer. They laughed heartily and chattered in loud voices. The stranger's words reached the ear of El Capitan at his table, and from long way away, from another time and another world, came the sound of his own language, as whole and fresh as if it had just been invented, words that he had not heard for several decades but retained intact in his memory. An unfamiliar expression softened the features of this ancient mariner. He wavered several minutes before, between the absolute reserve in which he felt comfortable and the almost forgotten delight of losing himself in conversation. Finally, he rose and walked toward the strangers behind the bar. Don Rupert observed El Capitan as he leaned forward slightly, hands clasped behind his back, and spoke to the new arrivals. Soon the other customers, the waitresses, the musicians, realized the man was speaking for the first time since they had known him, and they too fell silent in order to hear him better. He had a voice like a great grandfather, ready and deliberate, but he uttered each phrase with clear determination. When he had poured out the contents of his heart, the room was so silent that Dona Borgel hurried from the kitchen to find out whether someone had died. Finally, after a long pause, one of the tourists emerged from his astonishment, summoned Don Rupert, and asked him in rudimentary English to help translate the captain's words. The Nordic couple followed the elderly seaman to the table where Nina Eloisa sat, and Don Rupert trailed along, removing his apron on the way. With the intuition that this solemn event was about to occur, El Capitan spoke a few words in his language. One of the strangers translated it into English, and Don Rupert, his ears pink and his mustache trembling, repeated it in his hand to for Spanish. Nina Eloisa asks El Capitan, will you marry him? The fragile old lady sat there, her eyes round with surprise and her mouth hidden behind her batista handkerchief, while all waited, holding their breath until she was able to find her voice. Don't you think this is a little sudden? She whispered. Her words were repeated by the tavern keeper and then the tourist, and the answer traveled the same route in reverse. El Capitan says He has waited 40 years to ask you, and that he could not wait again until someone come who speak his language. He says please to do him the favor of answering now. All right, Nina Eloisa whispered faintly, and it was not necessary to translate her answer because everyone understood. A euphoric Don Rupert threw his arms in the air and announced the engagement. The capitan kissed the cheeks of his fiance. The tourists shook everyone's hands. The musicians struck up a ringing triumphal march, and the guests formed a circle around the couple. The women wiped away tears, and the men offered sentimental toasts. Don Rupert sat down at the bar and buried his head in his arms, shaken with emotion, while Dona Virgeil and her two daughters uncorked bottles of their best rum. The trio began to play the Blue Danube Waltz, and the dance floor emptied. El Capitan took the hand of the gentle lady he, he had wordlessly loved for so many years, and walked with her to the center of the room where they began to dance with the grace of two herons. In their courtship dance, El Capitan held Nina Eloise in his arms with the same loving care with which in his youth he had caught the winds in the sails of an ethereal sailing ship, gliding with her around the floor as if they were skimming the calm waves of a bay, while he told her in the language of blizzards and forests all the things his heart had held silent until that moment. Dancing, dancing. El Capitan felt as if time were flowing backwards, as if they were growing younger, as if with every step they were happier and lighter on their feet. Turn after turn, the chords of the music grew more vibrant, their feet more rapid, her waist more slender, the weight of her tiny hand fainter in his, her presence less substantial. El Capitan danced on as Nina Luisa turned to lace, to froth, to mistake, until she was but a shadow and then finally, nothing but air. And he found himself whirling, whirling with empty arms, his only companion. A faint aroma of chocolates. The tenor indicated to the musicians that they should continue playing the waltz because he realized that with the last note the Capitan would awake from his reverie and the memory of Nina Eloisa would disappear forever. Deeply moved, the elderly customers of the Little Heidelberg sat motionless in their chairs, until finally La Mexicana, her arrogance transformed into affection and tenderness, stood and walked quietly toward the trembling hands of El Capitan to dance with him.
- [47:36]
Meg Wolitzer
Kathleen Turner performed the Little Heidelberg by Isabel Allende. I'm Meg Wolitzer. This is a deeply atmospheric story which relies on the senses to make us feel that we're right there in that distinctive hideaway. I want to go to that place where someone is described as smelling of birthday parties. I'm getting a drift of it right now. The icing with a little bit of burned candle and the tastes that are summoned guava and mango strudel. Not to mention the sights and textures. It's as if Allende has fashioned a world, a little world to be sure, out of irresistible and sometimes ephemeral elements, and has invited us in to experience it all. And maybe, if we're lucky, to be asked, to dance. Our final story is a small comic masterpiece by the late Grace Paley. Injustice Paley's family and Paley herself were often characters in her pieces. And this little gem introduces us to a youthful Gracie. She's our narrator and a budding socialist and performer but then she gets a little help. Paley could write from almost any perspective, but many of her tales are influenced by the New York Jewish immigrant community in which she was raised. So to read Injustice, we got Jackie Hoffman, who is known for her one woman shows reflecting Jewish themes in song and story. She's also an Obie winner for her many roles in Amy and David Sedaris, the Book of Liz. Other credits include Only Murders in the Building and Feud.
- [49:07]
Roberta Kolindres
When I was about nine years old, I was a member of an organization called the Falcons. We were socialist youths under 12. We wore blue shirts and red kerchiefs. We met once a week, or was it once a month? To the tune of Maryland, my Maryland, we sang the Workers flag is deepest red. It shrouded oft our martyred dead. With the socialist ending, not the communist one, we sang the Internationale. We were warned that we would be tempted to sing the communist ending because at our occasional common demonstrations they were more of them singing. They would try, with their sneaky politics to drown us out. At our meetings we learned about real suffering, which was due to the Great Depression through which we were living that very year. Of course, many of my friends already had this information. Their fathers weren't working. Their mothers had become so grouchy you couldn't ask them for the least little thing. Every day in our neighborhood there were whole apartments, beds, bureaus, kitchen tables out on the street. We understood that this was because of capitalism, which didn't care that working people had no work and no money for rent. We also studied prejudice, now known as racism. Prejudice was particularly sad since it meant not liking people for no reason at all except for the color of their skin. That color could happen to anyone if they'd been born to some other parents on another street. We ourselves had known prejudice. Well, not us exactly. In Europe, that godforsaken place, our parents and grandparents had known it well. From a photograph over my grandmother's bed, my handsome uncle, killed at 17 because of prejudice, looked calmly at me when I sought him for reminder satisfaction. Despite its adherence to capitalism, prejudice and lynching, my father said we were lucky to be here in this America. We sometimes sang America the Beautiful at our meetings. Parents were divided on that. At each meeting we paid 5 cents or 10 cents, not so much to advance socialism as to be able to eat cookies. At 4 o' clock one day, at cookie eating time, our comrade counselor teacher, a young woman about 18 years old, announced that we were going to do a play. There would be a party too. It would include singing and maybe dancing. We began to rehearse immediately. She had been thinking about all this for a couple of weeks. The idea had matured into practical action. Our play was simple, a kind of agit prop in which a father comes home. He says, well, Sarah, the shop closed down today. No more work. And without warning, the mother is in despair. How to feed the children. The children's breakfast bowls are empty. Some boys carry the furniture, lots of chairs, from the meeting room out into the hall. Eviction. In the second act, the neighbors meet to drag the furniture back. Proving working class solidarity. They then held a rally and marched to city hall at the back of the room singing the Internationale all the way. The event would have to take place in the evening after supper, in case some father or mother still had a job. I was one of the little empty bowl children. Every day after school I worked in the bathroom mirror at the creation of a variety of heart rending expressions. But my sweetest kind contribution would be the song. One dark night when we were all in bed Old Mother Leary took a candle to the shed and when the crow tipped it over she winked her eye and said There'll be a hot time in the old town tonight. This song had been chosen to show we had fun too. Our childhood was being respected. Before supper that important night, I decided to say, sing it for my mother. When I finished, she said gently, lovingly, gracie, darling, you can't sing. You know you can't hold the tune. The teacher in school, she even said you were a listener. Try again, a little softer. I can so sing, I said. I was picked. I wouldn't have been picked if I couldn't sing. I sang the song once more. No, no, my mother said, that girl, Sophie. Mrs. Greenberg. Sophie. She has no idea. She has no ear. Maybe deaf even. No, no, you can't sing. You'll make a fool of yourself. People will laugh. For Sophie, maybe the more laughing the better. I don't care. I have to go. I have to go. In a half hour. I have two parts.
- [54:10]
Kathleen Turner
What?
- [54:11]
Roberta Kolindres
And I'm supposed to sit in the audience and see how your feelings are hurt when they laugh at you? When Papa hears. Well, he wouldn't go anyway. That's Sophie. She's just a kid herself. But Mama, I have to go. No, no. She said, no, you're not going. Just to be a fool. They'll have to figure out what to do. Guiltless, but full of shame, I never returned to the Falcons. In fact, in sheer spite, I gave up my work for socialism for at least three years, 50 years later, I told my sister this story. She said, I can't believe that of Mama, that she would prevent you from singing, especially if you had an obligation. She wasn't like that. Well, I had developed a kind of class analysis, an explanation which I think is pretty accurate. Our parents, remarkable people, were also a couple of ghetto Jews struggling with hard work and intensive education up the famous American ladder. At a certain rung in that ladder during my childhood, they appeared to have climbed right into the professional middle class. At that comfortable rung, probably upholstered, embarrassed, panic would be the response to possible express exposure. Exposure to what? What are you talking about? My sister asked. You forget, really. Mama had absolutely perfect pitch for a person like that. Your wandering all over the scale must have been torture. I mean, real physical pain. To her, you were just screeching. In fact, my sister said, although you've improved, you still sound that way to me. My sister has continued to be 14 years older than I. Neither of us have recovered from that hierarchical fact. So I said, okay, Jean. But she had not, when she was 9, been a political person, and she had never been a listener. She took singing lessons, then sang. She and my brother practiced the piano like sensible children. In fact, in their 80s, they have as much musical happiness in their fingertips as in their heads. As for my mother, though I had no ear and clearly could not sing, she thought I might try the piano. After all, we had one. There were notes on paper inside a nice yellow book that said Inventions by Bach on its cover. Since I was a big reader, I might be able to accomplish something. I had no gift. That didn't mean I must be a deprived person. Besides, why had the Enlightenment poured its seductive light all across the European continent, right into the poor, endangered households of Ukrainian Jews? Probably, my mother thought so that a child, any child, even a tone deaf one, could be given a chance, despite genetic deficiency, to become, in my mother's embarrassed, hopeful world, a whole person.
- [57:32]
Meg Wolitzer
Jackie Hoffman gave us a piece of Grace Paley's mind in Injustice. I'm Meg Wolitzer. I love the way a tiny tale folds so much into it. Youthful ambition, fractious siblings, the dreams of parents who've come from the old world to the new. Grace Paley is such a voice based writer. Never affected, always as real on the page as she was in her life, telling things the way she saw them. And it's a gift to get a chance to see a nonfiction version of Grace Paley as a child, to catch a glimpse of her as she started out in the Bronx and in the world, already sounding and feeling like the self we would come to know from her fiction. When I heard that the great Jackie Hoffman was our reader, I thought perfection, and I wasn't disappointed. So four stories about the ways in which family, friends and strangers, some comic, some mysterious, may or may not offer up help. When you think about it, help is often an evergreen theme for stories, whether that help is being given or being denied. Because when you put people together in a situation, someone often needs something that the other person can or can't give. The tensions lie in that need and whether it will be met, as we heard, in such different and distinctive ways in today's show. I'm glad you helped me out here in the best possible way by joining me for Selected Shorts. I'm Meg Wolitzer and thanks. Selected Shorts is produced by Jennifer Brennan and Sarah Montague. Our team includes Matthew Love, Drew Richardson, Mary Shimkin, Vivienne Woodward, and Magdalene Wrobleski. The readings are recorded by Myles B. Smith. Our programs, presented at the Getty center in Los Angeles, are recorded by Phil Richards. Selected Shorts is supported by the Dungannon Foundation. This program is also made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature. Selected Shorts is produced and distributed by Symphony Space.
- [59:32]
Jackie Hoffman
Sam.