TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 115

[Tobie Shapiro]

January 9, 2000007


Dear My Friends in the Tree,

	It is three years ago, today, that my ex 
husband, AKA villainman, called from a remote 
location and said, "I can't come home.  I'll 
die."  And thus ended a 20 year relationship.  He 
disappeared from his children's lives, except to 
drive Feyna to school, and lecture her on why 
he'd done nothing wrong.  That eventually made 
her nuts.  She started avoiding his lectures. 
What she wanted, I think, was an apology.  A 
good, well meant, self-aware, apology.  But she 
never got one.  Now, it's been since June of 2004 
that he's spoken to them, or seen them.  He 
blames me for turning them against him, of 
course.  It's all my fault.  If this could have 
gone some other way.  But it didn't.

	Still, I wouldn't want him back.  I was 
miserable.  I was angry all the time, too.  I 
really didn't like the person I'd become, 
complaining, hectoring, on the verge of screaming 
from neglect.  Now all that subterranean anger is 
gone.  I like me again, although I sure wish I 
were happier.  But that will come.  I need to get 
my life, post divorce, settled, physically, 
financially.  I have to see that it can work. 
Then I'll relax a bit.  Maybe I'll even meet a 
nice man.  I hope he's rich.  I can't afford to 
take anybody else on.  I'm behind the ledger as 
it is.




                     ÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇ
                        ÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇ
 
¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡


The oil in Kuwait

	We were in Toronto at a scientific 
instrument convention.  LABINDUSTRIES had sent me 
and my mother to people the booth.  The 
convention hall was attached to the hotel, so 
there was pretty much no need to leave the 
protective environment and venture out into the 
cold Ontario climate.  We stood around the booth 
doing our usual games:  guess the profession, 
guess the specialty, make up stories about the 
strangers walking past our corner:

	See the man with the glasses and the 
V-neck sweater?  His name is Ogden Satcheloff. 
He's newly hired at the New College of Inner 
Toronto's outer Toronto campus.  He has a wife, 
Rachel, and two kids, Bella and Nausea, aged ten 
and seven.  He had a fight with Rachel this 
morning because he didn't polish the door knobs 
properly.  She has a thing about doorknobs.  He 
told her this morning that he'd polished the door 
knobs last week, and why did he have to polish 
them again so soon.  And she just exploded. 
After all, she's polishing his shoes and ties, 
every little hole in his wing tips is reamed and 
sweetened.  Why can't he simply polish the door 
knobs?  They got into a whole mess about brass 
polisher as opposed to chrome polisher and glass 
polisher, and they never made up.  So he's 
feeling lousy.  He probably won't come into the 
booth.  He's too unsettled.  Besides, they 
ordered two Repipets a week ago.  They just 
arrived in perfect condition and are doing their 
jobs nicely.  So he doesn't need our advice.

	We'd toss these stories around and giggle 
about our chosen chump for the biography.  We 
kept busy in the down times.

	This was in the days when I wore rings on 
every finger, two on some fingers, three on a 
couple.  And I wore layers and layers of Asian 
embroidered robes.  A long wrap around skirt with 
floral patterns on black.  I stood out in a 
crowd.  I think it was hormones and a love of the 
arts that made me do it.  An eccentric without 
the age to recommend her.  It certainly drew 
people into our booth.  And probably scared other 
people away.  But I was oblivious of all that.

	The convention floor was open from seven, 
a.m. to six, p.m., and we had to have someone in 
the booth at all times.  During the rush hours, 
we needed at least two people.  So we took shifts 
for lunch.  My mother went out to the hotel's 
restaurant first, while I stood at attention, and 
then she came back and relieved me so that I 
could go slurp down some soup.

	I was sitting at my table for one, 
buttering bread and dipping it into the clam 
chowder, when a man in a full Arab robe and 
burnoose came by my table and commented to me, 
pointing at my hands, "You should not to be 
wearing all of these rings."

	"Why?" I asked.

	"Because in my country where I come from, 
wearing all these rings, it means something.  And 
you should not to be wearing them."

	I thought about my role as ambassador for 
the United States and decided to step down.  "I 
think I know what you mean to say, and it doesn't 
mean that where I come from.  So you better 
remember to forget it.  You're not in your 
country anymore."

	He fell all over himself apologizing. 
After all, he'd just called me a whore, 
essentially, and that's a big slander.

	"Allow me to buy you your lunch," he said, gallantly.

	"No."

	"Allow me to buy you dinner, then," he insisted.

	"No. No.  It won't be necessary.  Besides 
my mother and I eat our dinner together."

	"Oh, then allow me to buy you and your mother dinner."

	"No.  It's okay.  You don't have to buy us dinner."

	"Then, allow me to buy you the restaurant."

	He was serious.  He pulled up a chair. 
It turned out he was a Kuwaiti oil Sheik, on a 
business trip for his father, shopping.

	"What are you shopping for?"

	"Oh.  Hotels, country clubs, the chain 
store."  He was marinated in money.  Big money. 
Money that amazes and confounds.  Huge big 
astounding money from a million oil wells in 
Kuwait.

	As it turned out, he was a very 
interesting character.  He was the eldest son of 
the first wife.  And as such was supposed to take 
on the family business.  But he didn't like 
business.  What did he like?  He liked art. 
Western art.  He'd been educated in England and 
came home with a love of the arts and a resigned 
sigh of disappointment for business.  He was in 
his early forties, and not yet married, which was 
something like a crime, since he was supposed to 
get married before any of his thousands of 
siblings could get married.  They were all 
breathing down his neck.  He hadn't found the 
right one yet, and had refused the arranged 
offerings of his parents.

	We talked frequently while I was at the 
convention, and I gave him my phone number back 
home.  After that, I would get calls from him at 
odd hours.

	"I am sitting in my office looking out at 
the oil fields.  There are little fires.  It is 
very beautiful."

	"Allow me to send you a ticket to Kuwait. 
You will come and  meet my family."

	"Uh oh.  What's a nice Jewish girl going to do in Kuwait?"

	"Oh," he said, sotto voce, "I forgot that 
you were Jewish.  Tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk!  What will 
we do?"

	I'd be going about my business when two 
dozen long stemmed red roses with one white rose 
would be delivered to the door for me.  The card 
would read, "From your friend in Kuwait."  The 
next time he called, I told him, "Listen, Mahoud, 
maybe we should get our signals straight.  Two 
dozen long stemmed red roses with one white rose 
may be just a pittance to you.  It may mean 
nothing.  But in my world, this is important 
stuff.  It means a great deal.  There is a 
culture barrier here.  What do you mean by these 
flowers?"

	There was silence on the line.  Then, 
"Well, maybe I mean I want you to be my wife."

	"Oh no.  Oy veh!  We barely know each other."

	"We don't need to know each other.  I 
know you fine.  You know me enough."

	"That's not how I do this.  Please.  I'm 
touched by the flowers, but marriage is very 
serious business.  It requires a long courtship 
and mutuality."

	"Allow me to buy you a Mercedes Benz, to show you my appreciation."

	"I don't want a Mercedes Benz."

	"What do you like?" he asked.

	I thought, and answered him honestly.  "I like art."

	A week later, a de Kooning water colour 
was delivered to the door, an odd shape, tall and 
narrow, a portrait of a woman in gorgeous 
colours.  It was entirely authentic.  After the 
fire, in which it burned up, I had to get an 
estimate of its worth.  The appraiser said it was 
worth roughly a hundred thousand dollars.

	The calls and gifts thinned out after a 
while.  The last time I heard from him was after 
the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.  He called from 
somewhere in Europe.  He told me that anyone with 
half a brain in Kuwait saw the invasion coming, 
and vacated the premises with their fortunes in 
tact.  He asked me if I had gotten married.  I 
said I had, to a scientist."

	"I have married also, to a girl my 
parents selected.  I am not happy, but life may 
be not for happy.  Not always.  I will remember 
you."



                     ÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇ
                        ÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇÇ
 
¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡
-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net