‘I’m dreaming of a white Christmas,’ sang Bing Crosby on the radio.
‘Just like the ones I used to know,’ crooned Anne and Elizabeth.
Elizabeth took soprano and Anne the descant. Their cheeks were almost touching and their eyes were closed as they held the harmony on ‘know’ for as long as possible.
‘Sorry to interrupt you, angel voices,’ Dr Koekentapp said. Elizabeth and Anne looked at him gratefully. They were both going blue.
‘Don’t you just love Christmas?’ asked Elizabeth. ‘It’s so friendly and jolly, not to mention the food!’
‘It’s months to Christmas but, speaking of food, you’re in luck,’ Dr Koekentapp announced. ‘Since it’s our afternoon off I’m taking both of you out for lunch.’
‘Chinese?’ Anne asked, squinting her eyes hopefully.
‘Spanish?’ enquired Elizabeth, tapping a quick flamenco.
‘Nope. There is someone special I have invited and we’ll all go out Italian style,’ Dr Koekentapp replied.
‘Someone special?’ Elizabeth asked. ‘She wouldn’t happen to be a certain lady with bright blue eyes?’
‘The very one,’ Dr Koekentapp said. ‘She will be here in a minute. Can you be ready?’
Their preprandial cosmetic preparations took less than a minute and they had their menu planned by the time Sylvia arrived.
Dr Koekentapp met Sylvia at the door to his rooms. He smothered her cheerful hello with a kiss.
‘That’s the second time you’ve done that,’ Sylvia murmured after a while. ‘Are you always going to greet me like that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’ She held him close and nuzzled his cheek, so Dr Koekentapp kissed her again.
When he opened his eyes, Elizabeth and Anne were clapping.
‘Spaghetti alle vongole,’ said Anne.
‘Lasagna followed by tartufo,’ drooled Elizabeth.
‘I’ll have pizza quatro stagioni,’ enthused Sylvia.
They watched happily as Fidelio, sporting an immaculate red waistcoat and a giant moustache and smile, poured their wine.
‘Yoo hoo, dokter dear,’ called Mrs Ruth Cohen. Her giant breasts nestled like a pair of contented puppies on her white tablecloth. She was sitting next to her husband at the window and a neon sign behind them flashed FIDELIO’S in reverse. Mrs Cohen’s head hid the IF and the sign blinked a distorted SOILED-SOILED. She was smiling at them through a mouthful of green salad.
‘There goes my appetite,’ groaned Elizabeth.
‘Ignore her, maybe it’s a mirage,’ said Anne.
‘If it is, it’s getting bigger,’ replied Elizabeth.
Mrs Cohen was now standing and waving at them. One of her breasts knocked over the bottle of wine and Mr Cohen made a frantic save.
‘It’s our anniversary,’ cried Mrs Cohen. ‘Yankel and I have been married for forty-four years!’
Yankel acknowledged his endurance by grinning like a chipmunk. He had gnocchi in both cheeks. Sylvia smiled at him. Dr Koekentapp looked at Anne and Elizabeth and they all waved politely. Their faltering ‘Congratulations’ was drowned in a chorus of song.
Chanting loudly, Fidelio’s staff marched out of the kitchen. They were led by the cook, flushed with enthusiasm and proudly holding a cake. Lacking a miniature bride and groom for decoration, the cook had improvised with a left-over marzipan Christ child in a crib, a sugar ninja turtle and a little chocolate goblin. These surrounded bold script in red icing floridly announcing, ‘Cong rats Rut & Yank’. Not having a special song for anniversaries, Fidelio had decided on ‘Happy Birthday’ and the Cohens smiled proudly as the cake was placed before them. Leaning their heads together for a photograph, Yankel and Ruth lifted their glasses in a toast that hid their faces from the camera, blocked the S, and said, ‘Cheese.’
‘Appi birfday dear Rottenyank, appi birfday to you.’
OILED-OILED flashed the sign behind them.
While Yankel attacked a second helping of gnocchi, Mrs Cohen came over to Dr Koekentapp’s table.
‘Fancy meeting you here,’ she said. ‘Business must be good if you can afford dese prices.’
Fidelio gave her a look that should have frazzled her but Mrs Cohen thought all Italians looked alike. She watched as Fidelio served Anne her spaghetti.
‘Vot are dose?’ Mrs Cohen asked, poking at the oysters in Anne’s food.
‘They are dead,’ said Anne.
‘Signora Rut, you are looking at ostrica, one of the specialties of the house!’ exclaimed Fidelio.
‘Ostriches? Really? I tought dey vere bigger. Are dey kosher?’ queried Mrs Cohen, sniffing cautiously at Anne’s plate.
‘Kosher? What is this kosher?’ asked Fidelio.
‘Food prepared in de proper vay so a person can eat it mitout getting sick.’
Fidelio’s incredulous reply faltered as Yankel violently lurched from his seat, knocking aside his table with a tremendous clatter and clutching frantically at his throat. ‘Hhhh,’ he wheezed.
‘Yankel! You’ve poisoned mein Yankel! You mit your dreck food!’ Mrs Cohen shrieked as she rushed to her husband. ‘Yankel, mein Yankel! Dreck you’ve eaten! Dreck!’
Dr Koekentapp easily beat her. Wrapping his arms around Yankel’s ample upper belly from behind, he clasped his hands together and jerked forcibly upwards towards Yankel’s chest.
‘Hhhh,’ wheezed Yankel. He was going blue.
‘Vot are you doing to mein Yankel?’ screamed Mrs Cohen.
‘Heimlich manoeuvre,’ gasped Dr Koekentapp as he pushed hard into Yankel’s belly again.
‘Vot do you mean a secret manoeuvre?’ screeched Mrs Cohen. ‘Leave him alone! He’s been poisoned! Just look at his face! Get a second opinion!’ Spreading her arms she yelled to the stunned patrons of Fidelio’s, ‘Is dere annuder dokter in der house?’
Dr Koekentapp snapped his fists even harder into Yankel’s belly. A lump of unchewed gnocchi flew from Yankel’s windpipe and shot out of his mouth. He drew a desperate whooping breath into his lungs and, slumping into a chair, began his heaving, gasping and gagging recovery from near-suffocation.
‘I’ll sue you, you poisoner!’ Mrs Cohen screamed as Fidelio rushed with a glass of water to Yankel. ‘I’ll make you vish you had never met me!’
Fidelio’s shoulder-slumping acceptance of an absolute truth was lost on Mrs Cohen. She was slapping Yankel’s cheeks.
‘Yankel, can you hear me, Yankel? It’s me. It’s Rut, your vife. Can you hear me? Answer me. Speak to me! Talk to me!’
‘I hear you, I hear you. Der whole vorld can hear you.’
His breathing had almost settled. Mrs Cohen snatched the glass from Fidelio and suspiciously sniffed it before giving it to Yankel. He gratefully sipped a little water. Yankel shakily stood up and took Fidelio’s hand. ‘I’m sorry for all der trouble.’
Fidelio warily eyed Mrs Cohen. ‘No problem, Signor Yank. Your gnocchi is on the house.’
‘You tink I vould pay for your poisonous ostriches?’ cried Mrs Cohen. She grabbed Yankel’s arm. ‘Come! Ve are going home!’
Her voice trailed behind them as they departed. ‘It vos your idea to come here. On our anniversary you decide to choke on dreck! Do you tink you are a crocodile? Ostriches are for vearing not for eating. Ve could have gone to Greenstein’s delicatessen for a proper kosher meal, vun a person could svallow, but no, der gentlemen vants fancy food. So, did you enjoy? Vot vould you like on our next anniversary? A nice pickled pig to choke on? Dreck!’
Following the raucous circumstances of Yankel’s gnocchi inhalation, eating lunch at Fidelio’s was a relatively subdued event. Having left Elizabeth and Anne slightly tipsy after several Don Pedros, Dr Koekentapp took Sylvia to his apartment, a one-bedroom flat on the third floor of a complex in Rosebank and within easy walking distance of his consulting rooms. Sylvia was pondering the fact that Yankel owed his life to Dr Koekentapp, who lay with his head on her lap while she sat on the lounge carpet with her back against the settee. Sylvia thoughtfully stroked Dr Koekentapp’s hair. His eyes closed with unreserved pleasure.
‘He would have died, you know,’ she said. ‘It’s so strange. If we hadn’t gone there for lunch the man would have died.’
Dr Koekentapp opened his eyes. Sylvia was looking with enormous tenderness at him.
‘All life is an if,’ he replied. ‘If your father hadn’t had a kidney stone I might never have met you.’
Sylvia sighed. ‘I suppose so but Mom feels that we were destined to meet, one way or the other.’ She moved her hand to his shirt and, slipping her fingers through the gap between two buttons, began playing idly with the hairs on his chest. ‘You know they never even thanked you,’ she said with sudden astonishment.
‘Who?’
‘The Cohens. They just left with her screaming like a fishwife.’
‘They’ll be in touch,’ Dr Koekentapp predicted. ‘They both were too shocked even to think of social niceties or customs.’ He paused. ‘Speaking of customs, I spoke to your aunt Naomi today.’
‘Is she still on to you? What did she want?’
‘She wanted to frighten the hell out of me and I actually let her succeed.’
Sylvia’s hand stopped its caressing. ‘How could she frighten you?’
‘She explained ritual circumcision in gory detail.’
Sylvia’s eyes widened. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Mom also mentioned the subject to me.’
‘I’m flattered that the women in your family take such interest in my genital well-being,’ Dr Koekentapp said.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve already been done?’ Sylvia asked. ‘You know, for health reasons and so on?’
Dr Koekentapp grinned evilly. Lying with his head on Sylvia’s lap while discussing his penis was an erotic experience. He felt himself hardening. ‘I think I’ll let you discover that for yourself,’ he said. He looked up from her lap at the twin mounds of her breasts. Sylvia’s hand recommenced its slow exploration of his chest. ‘You really are a swine you know.’
‘It’s rather like wondering whether Scotsmen wear underpants under their kilts,’ Dr Koekentapp mused aloud. ‘You’ll never know unless you look.’
He lifted his head and looked at Sylvia’s face. She was smiling. He reached up and began running his finger from side to side in the deep groove under Sylvia’s full breasts.
‘Would you like to have a wee peek then, lassie?’
Sylvia made her move. With one hand she grabbed his crotch and with the other yanked open his belt buckle.
‘Ow!’ yelled Dr Koekentapp.
Sylvia slipped her legs from under his head. Turning quickly she sat heavily on his chest and began a focussed dermatological investigation.
‘I’m impressed,’ she said after a while.
‘You nearly killed me!’ complained Dr Koekentapp.
Sylvia ignored him. She experimentally pulled his foreskin forward over the exposed head of his erect penis, then slowly retracted it again.
‘I am afraid that surgery is the only permanent cure for your present skin condition Dr Koekentapp,’ she said after repeating the experiment a few times.
‘So what do we do about my condition in the meantime, Dr Levy?’ Dr Koekentapp asked plaintively.
Sylvia turned to face him. ‘Well, I do happen to know of a palliative therapy we could try. I have two assistants I would like you to meet.’
‘Two assistants?’
Sylvia slipped off her blouse and undid her brassiere. Swiftly removing the rest of her clothing, she straddled his hips and slowly mounted him. Leaning forward she brushed her breasts against Dr Koekentapp’s face. ‘Say hello to them, Jerry,’ she whispered huskily.
When Dr Koekentapp took Sylvia home, Mrs Finkelstein was visiting, chatting excitedly to Mrs Levy.
‘You mean you haven’t heard? It’s all over town! Dr Koekentapp saved Yankel Cohen from certain death today!’
Mrs Levy clapped her hand to her mouth in horror. ‘Did Yankel have a heart attack or a stroke, God forbid? I kept telling Ruth he should lose some weight.’
‘No, it was nothing natural. He was eating dreck and it stuck in his throat.’
Mrs Levy grimaced in disgust. ‘Dreck? Has he seen a psychiatrist? He must have had a complete nervous breakdown to do such a filthy thing!’
‘I don’t mean actual dreck! I mean dreck food! He was eating at an Italian restaurant. Thank God Dr Koekentapp was there. He knows how to do a secret manoeuvre. Just as Yankel was taking his last breath Dr Koekentapp literally pulled him from the grave!’
‘Sylvia must have been there too!’ squeaked Mrs Levy. ‘I know they were having lunch together.’
‘You let Sylvia eat Italian food?’ asked Mrs Finkelstein.
Mrs Levy hung her head in shame. ‘I have pleaded, I have begged, I have even threatened her. But you know how it is with the modern generation. Kosher at home and fancy dreck food on special occasions. It would never have happened in my day.’
Mrs Finkelstein grabbed her opportunity. ‘Speaking of days, oy, have I had a day! You’d think I was a taxi driver the way I had to schlep my maid all over trying to find a doctor. Doctors! You can keep them!’
Mrs Levy shifted warningly in her chair and Mrs Finkelstein changed the subject.
‘Then Sheldon’s Hebrew teacher Gilda Smelkin phoned to say that Sheldon had been caught cheating in his test. Did I give her what for! My Sheldon cheating? With a brain like Einstein, who needs to cheat?’
‘Sheldon would. Einstein’s dead,’ said Sylvia cheerfully, as she walked into the room.
Taken aback by Sylvia’s insinuation that her son was a brain-dead cheat, Mrs Finkelstein regarded her silently.
‘Sylvia!’ Mrs Levy cried, ‘I hear there was a near tragedy. I was so worried about you. Are you alright?’ She stopped as she realised that Cohen’s brush with death wasn’t infectious and that Sylvia was obviously alright. She was utterly and wonderfully alright. Sylvia was radiant. Her skin was glowing. Her eyes were sparkling. ‘But you’re looking beautiful!’ Mrs Levy exclaimed. ‘You’ve done something different. I can tell. Mothers always know these things. It’s a natural instinct. Please God will you feel it one day. Turn around so I can look.’
Mrs Finkelstein watched with bitter envy. She recognised the bloom of primal sexual satisfaction in a woman when she saw it. With the blinkered innocence of parenthood Mrs Levy carefully examined her daughter.
‘It’s not your make-up and it’s not a new dress . . .’ She looked at Sylvia’s tousled hair. ‘I know!’ Mrs Levy squealed delightedly, ‘It’s your hair. You have a new hairstyle and it’s so natural! You’ve gone to Gerard’s, haven’t you? You must have paid a fortune! He’s so expensive but he’s worth every penny. It’s exactly you! It’s absolutely beautiful!’
Sylvia laughed delightedly. ‘Gerard Mouton didn’t touch my hair. It was someone much nicer.’
‘Oh? Who?’
Dr Koekentapp appeared in the doorway. Mrs Finkelstein noticed the hungry glint in his eye as he watched Sylvia twirl before her mother.
‘The goy at Salon Shtup,’ Mrs Finkelstein muttered sourly.
A few blocks away, Mrs Cohen was also considering her hair. She was thinking about her wig. It would have to be restyled to suit her temporary image as a near-widow. She needed a style that epitomised life and her narrow escape from lonely solitude. She wanted to make an impression. Everybody would be looking at her and talking about how her husband nearly choked on Italian dreck.
‘Ruth, I am going to shul now,’ Yankel said emotionally. ‘Today I nearly died and today I vos saved. In thirteen years’ time it is mein bar mitzvah.’
‘Mit your eating habits you should live so long,’ replied Mrs Cohen caustically. She decided to take her wig for restyling the very next day.
The next day Doctor Koekentapp’s rooms were packed. Cohen’s escape from the valley of death had sparked a spate of emergency check-ups with his saviour to ensure that nothing equally life-threatening was in the immediate offing. Like a concert pianist Elizabeth’s fingers flew from button to button on her switchboard while she fended off repeated appeals for a few very urgent words with the doctor about a major crisis.
‘Doctor doesn’t have a minute, Mrs Kindel. He’s running nearly an hour late and, anyway, people can’t get biliary from dog bites. No, Mrs Horowitz, it’s not true that spaghetti causes high blood pressure. Yes, I’m sure. Now, don’t worry, Mrs Chaimowitz. I’m positive your granddaughter won’t become pregnant while she’s on the pill. Yes, even if her boyfriend ate raw oysters. Yes, I agree, one can’t be too careful. And no, I promise, I won’t tell her you called.’