Emily hovered outside the dining room, just around the door. She could see that everyone was inside already, all the old folks ready to start the Second Seder—Mackie, Blima and Moshe, all together, and then, off to one side, Sonja and Doran, standing close again. They looked the same, Emily thought vaguely, but it must just be the way the candlelight was flicking shadows in their hair. They were keeping secrets from her, all of them, it seemed. She’d find it out though, whatever was hidden.
“I noticed this before,” said Blima. “It’s a name at my spot at the table, but it’s not my name.”
Emily moved to walk inside, to correct her grandmother, explain the name cards, but Jonah touched her arm and she was moving behind the door. “I’m not ready to go in yet,” he said.
“This is a new game,” said Blima. “That must be what Emily intended when she made these cards.”
“I think this means that I have to pretend to be my sister,” said Sonja.
Jonah put his hand in the crook of her arm. “They know what the name tags mean.” He stepped closer, and suddenly Emily could feel his breath on her neck. It teased all the little hairs into standing.
“I sat down where I saw my name,” said Doran.
“That means that you play you,” said Blima. “That’s fine. There’s less research involved.”
“They’re killing me,” whispered Emily.
“That’s probably the point,” said Jonah.
“Now I have to think of what Blima would say,” Sonja said loudly, from the other room. “I think she would say, ‘I want to tell a story about the sister of Moses. She was a famous vaudeville star.’”
“I have to think of what Sonja would say,” said Blima.
“No,” said Sonja, “because you have the Moshe ticket.”
“Well,” said Moshe, “Moshunya would say, ‘let’s eat.’”
“Moshunya would say, ‘let me tell you the story of a cellar,’” said Sonja. “You’re every bit as bad as Blima. You always were, you know. I didn’t want to be the one to say it, but there it is.”
“I could tell the story of a cellar,” said Moshe. “That’s not a bad idea. It’s a story about my father.”
“It’s my story,” said Blima. “It’s about my father.”
“No it isn’t,” said Moshe. “I remember distinctly.”
Someone picked up a drink. Emily could hear the clinking of ice cubes. She didn’t know this one, couldn’t have said whose story it was.
“Where did you go, before?” Jonah whispered with sweet orange breath. “I heard you leave.”
“Harpo used to come here,” Emily breathed.
“Harpo Marx?”
“Why didn’t they say anything before? All my life, I’ve loved him.”
Jonah straightened. “I remember that,” he said, turning his head. “You were always in love with Harpo Marx.”
“No, you’re right,” said Moshe. “It’s Blima’s story. I know because it happened in Treasure Island when I was very young, but I grew up in Toronto, and my father didn’t own the Treasure Island Lodge, come to think of it. Oh well, I’ll tell it anyway. We just have to find Emily, because she’s been asking about the family, and I think she’d like this one.”
Emily shifted a little, to hear better, and abruptly Jonah was off, walking away, and she was stumbling, watching him disappear wordlessly into the kitchen. She’d been comfortable suddenly, and just as suddenly, she was shivering a little, walking into the dining room all alone. The world changed so fast.
“Let me tell the story,” said Moshe as Emily took her seat beside him. He filled Emily’s wineglass. “Emily, this isn’t my story. It’s your Bubbie Blima’s story, but I tell it better.”
“I tell it better than any of you,” said Sonja.
“I’m the one who was there!” said Blima.
“Nevertheless,” said Sonja.
“This is the story about the Treasure Island cellar,” said Moshe.
“I want to hear about Harpo Marx,” said Emily. “Did he really come here?”
“Harpo’s in this one, don’t you worry.”
“Seriously?”
“Emily, when your great-grandmother Ayala and your great-grandfather, Papa Sam, moved to Treasure Island, the lodgehouse wasn’t a lodge at all. It was a more like a shed. Even after they opened it to the public. They had very few rooms. Now, your Papa Sam had already added extensions to the house.”
“Wait,” said Emily. “Papa Sam did that himself?”
“Oh sure,” said Blima. “Your Papa Sam had never even been trained. He just got up one morning, and decided to teach himself. People did that sort of thing in those days.”
“That’s true,” said Sonja, “you could teach yourself anything back then. Want to be an architector? Well, sure. Get some books from the library and off you go.”
Emily shifted in her chair, and felt a slight give in the floorboards. Had that always been there? “Is this place even safe?”
“Sure,” said Blima. “We’ve had inspectors in and they all say the same thing. The lodge is flawlessly built.”
“So Papa Sam had already added extensions so that more guests could stay,” said Moshe, “but what Ayala really wanted was a cellar. She wanted to store things, like in the old country, and make root beer and sauerkraut. So Sam, and Papa William and Harpo Marx, they all got together one morning, and went out and bought some dynamite.”
“Harpo?” asked Emily.
“Although Harpo was nervous,” said Sonja.
“You were too young to remember any of this,” said Blima.
“Oh, I remember that,” said Sonja. “Harpo kept asking me whether this was a good idea. Me. I was four years old. Nobody has to remind me of that. He made his brother take me for a walk. He wanted the kids nowhere near the lodge when it happened.”
“Wait,” said Emily. “Which of Harpo’s brothers? I didn’t know his brothers were here.”
“We should make sauerkraut again,” said Blima.
“We couldn’t do it like our mother,” said Sonja. “Although how she ever did it is still a mystery to me. She refused to walk into the cellar. That sauerkraut is yet another miracle of childhood.”
“I thought she wanted the cellar,” said Emily.
“She did,” said Sonja, “but she thought your Papa Sam was stupid to dynamite on his own. She wanted him to bring in a professional.”
“Did he clear the house at least?” asked Emily.
“God no,” said Blima. “All of the things were still inside, probably the guests too, I don’t remember. Dad dug a hole in the ground in the back and filled it with gunpowder. Then he and Papa William sat on lawn chairs and watched the whole thing happen. Harpo didn’t sit with them. He paced and paced and made me promise not to let him tell Dad another single idea. Then there was the explosion. And then there was dust everywhere and we were weak in the knees and thought for a moment that the island might sink. But it didn’t, so that was that.”
“They did other things too,” said Sonja. “They broke open the room of doors. They put holes in the walls, that later become windows. They did it so that you could see windows in the next room over. They unclogged the pipes with boric acid that Papa Sam sucked through a hose.”
“Boric acid?” asked Emily
“The cellar, though,” said Sonja, “that was the best. Our mother was so mad.”
“No,” said Blima. “Our mother wasn’t angry, not then. She laughed. I remember distinctly. That was one of the moments when I thought this is what I want to be. I want to be the kind of lady who can laugh as the whole world is exploding out from under me. After, though. I’ll admit. That night, she got mad. I heard it all the way in our bedroom.”
“I didn’t even know that Great-grandma Ayala and Papa Sam fought,” said Emily.
“Only very rarely,” said Blima.
“Oh, all the time,” said Sonja, at the same time.
Then Doran’s were the only eyes that would meet hers. “Doran,” said Emily, “do you remember anything from your childhood?”
“Yes.” Doran nodded slowly. “I remember everything.”
Blima held up her glass. “I think we should skip the ceremony tonight,” she said. “I think we’ve remembered quite enough.”
“Tell me more about Harpo,” said Emily. “Please. I need to know. What did he do on his next visit?”
“That was the last one,” said Blima.
“What?” Everyone always came back. That was the point. “How many times did he come?”
“Twice,” said Blima. “Once in the summer, then once the next fall. Never again.”
Emily sat back. Something was wrong. Harpo Marx had visited the lodge. But he’d come twice and then never again and that wasn’t normal: the lodge prided itself on lifelong guests. Some visitors even mentioned this place in their obits. The old folks didn’t tell the story of his coming here when they told stories about everything else, when most of the stories they told weren’t even true? Why hadn’t they mentioned this before? What had happened in the time of Harpo’s visit that they didn’t want to talk about?
But nobody would make eye contact with her, not even Doran.