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“You look great for a dead guy!”

ELIZABETH MAILER (DAUGHTER) AND NORMAN MAILER

On November 10, 2018, eleven years after my father’s death, Dad and I meet at Elephant & Castle, on Eleventh Street and Greenwich Avenue, in the West Village. It’s one of my favorite haunts.

As I enter the restaurant, I am hugged by its nurturing ambiance: an intimate, warm eatery—long and narrow like a railroad apartment. With cherrywood tables, chairs, floors, and walls. The all-wooden interior gives one that sense of hunkering down inside a treehouse on a cold autumn afternoon. On each end of the restaurant, a great, big white ceramic elephant holds court on a white-tiled window seat with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto Greenwich Avenue on one end of the restaurant and out onto West Eleventh on the other. I’ve always chuckled at the irony of the name, Elephant & Castle: as my own big person vs. the diminutive size of this eatery makes me feel more like an elephant in a teapot than an elephant in a castle.

I arrive right on the dot of 1:30, as instructed.

The place is bustling and the tables are mostly full. I look around to see if Dad is already there. He is sitting at the table opposite the espresso machine and coffee station, with the black-framed antique ink print of Freud hanging just above him.

It takes me about five seconds to spot him; and when I find him, I do a double-take. I expected to see an older man at the table; but instead, Dad has manifest as his younger self.

I race down the narrow aisle between the tables. I rush to greet him—so eager that I almost trip on the leg of someone else’s chair. Dad jumps up from the table to meet me halfway. We throw our arms around each other. Ah, there’s that bear hug I have missed so much. So invigorating and reassuring. His shirt smells faintly of cigarette smoke. (He smoked back in the early sixties.) I sit down opposite him.

“Wonderful to see you, darling! You look terrific.”

Okay, I’ll take “terrific,” I think to myself. “Terrific” sure beats the time he called me “a handsome woman” when I was in my twenties. At the time, I was mortified. I mean, what young woman in her twenties wants to be called handsome?

“And you look great for a dead guy!” I say.

He smiles. “How did you expect me to look?”

We sit. “Well, I expected to see an old man sitting here! Because right before you died, you looked ancient!”

He laughs. “Gee, thanks, kid.”

Weirdly, Dad appears today the way he looked when he was in his early forties. But without the boozy, scary, volatile demeanor he had back then. This time, he is sane, calm, and sweet.

He is handsome in his own way: five-eight with a husky physique, short, dark-brown curly hair, a strong chin, and Paul Newman eyes. He is wearing blue jeans and a navy-blue T-shirt under an orange-and-brown-checkered, tweed jacket, with sable-brown suede elbow patches. This is the jacket he wore often when I was about three years old.

“I hope you’ll enjoy the lunch here, Dad.”

“Well, seeing that so many of you in the family eat here so often, I’ve always wondered what all the fuss was about.” Dad grins. “I never joined you for lunch in all those years because I could not interrupt my workday.”

“Well, I’m glad you made it this time,” I say.

Mozart, Bach, and Haydn is the favorite background classical music here at Elephant & Castle. But today, appropriately, it is Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (the “Spring” and “Summer” movements). The latter is what was played as the actors come onstage at the start of my father’s play adaptation of The Deer Park, which was performed at the West Village Theater de Lys in the mid-1960s.

“So, Dad, tell me, what on earth is it like in the Hereafter?” I ask.

“Well, it’s essentially a blank slate. It’s tabula rasa. It’s very individual. It mirrors the nature of our own personal perceptions and beliefs.”

“Since you died, your granddaughter Christina has been wondering if you’ve been hangin’ out with Hemingway at a bar in the astral realm,” I say.

“Oh, yes! You can tell her that she is absolutely correct! And tell her I also hang out with Dostoyevsky, Karl Marx, and Picasso!” He laughs.

Just then, our waiter, Luis, appears at our table and fills our water glasses. He is a smart, congenial man in his early forties, from Ecuador. He has known me, my sisters and brothers, my cousin, and my aunt for many years. I introduce him to Dad, who chats with him in Spanish. Luis takes our order and heads for the kitchen.

“Dad, tell me more. What do you do with yourself, once you die and pass into eternity?”

“Well, from a timeless perspective—because there is no linear time in other dimensions—you have an opportunity, right after death, to review your whole life: You examine all the joys and all the sorrows; the triumphs and the failures; the gifts and the deficits; that which was settled and unsettled; completed and unfinished. You feel all the pain and suffering you ever caused anybody at any point in your life. And when you are ready, you embark on a ritual for purification. Like the ghost of Hamlet’s father, I chose to walk, for what felt like endless miles, along corridors of cleansing white fire—to transmute the psychic stain of my own iniquities.”

After so profound a mini dissertation on the afterlife, there was something very comical about the juxtaposition of purification rituals and today’s soup at Elephant & Castle: a black French lentil soup with andouille sausage and butternut squash, thyme and bay leaf. Gary, the chef, has managed to coax deep flavor from these simple ingredients. Over the years, Dad used to come up with his own soup concoctions in the kitchen of his Brooklyn Heights apartment. Inspired by his service in the army as short-order cook in the mess hall, he threw into the soup pot everything he could get his hands on.

“Well, enough about me and my soul!” Dad laughs. “How are you?”

“You know, Dad, I’m in a really good place. I’ve worked very hard on myself for the last thirty-five years—to face my demons, to face myself, to grow and to heal. I’ve opened my heart to love and abundance. I am committed to my truth.”

“Well, that is a mighty powerful declaration, my dear. I’m very moved by that,” Dad says.

Luis brings us our soup, and we both dive right in. Suddenly I’m starving.

“Wow, Bets, this is extraordinary! I’m so happy for you! You’ve worked so hard over the years and you deserve all of it.”

In my enthusiasm at seeing Dad again, a spoonful of soup misses my mouth; and bits of butternut squash and lentils land on the front of my red chiffon button-down blouse. I wipe up the spill with my napkin.

Following our soup, our entrées arrive. I’m having the guacamole burger on a brioche bun, with Stilton cheddar, sliced tomato, red onion, and pickle. E&C’s burger is to die for. The burger pairs well with a cup of E&C’s house coffee with half-and-half. A medium Peruvian roast, rich but smooth with caramel notes and no smokiness (which I hate).

Luis graciously handles Dad’s special order of tuna salad—hold the guacamole—on top of an iceberg wedge with sliced tomatoes and rye bread with butter pats on the side. E&C’s tuna salad is prepared with chopped onion, celery, capers, housemade mayo, and a schmear of guacamole on lightly toasted seven-grain.

Our lunch today reminds me of the many meals Dad, Norris, my siblings, and I relished at our favorite restaurants over the many years. There was so much going on in our lives all the time. But no matter what upheaval or crisis we faced as a family, when we all went out to dinner—for sushi at Tanpopo, or Veal Parmigiana at Nicola, or grilled swordfish at Pepe’s, Dad was at his best. We all came alive in his presence; all was right with our world, and we could forget our troubles.

Dessert arrives. Pecan pie for Dad and Indian pudding for me. I take a big forkful of his pecan pie. It’s a little bit of heaven. Meanwhile, E&C’s Indian pudding takes me back to a week-long school trip I took with my classmates to a farm in Otis, Massachusetts, in the fall of my fourth-grade year—when we were learning all about Colonial times. We learned how to make Indian pudding, how to milk cows, how to weave on a loom, and how to write on the bark of pine trees. Now, the pudding, served with freshly whipped cream, is comfort food at its best. I am warm inside and full of nostalgia.

“Dad, speaking of the Hereafter, do you ever see Mom there?”

“Yes, I see her all the time. We get along famously!” he says, winking at me.

“I found an old diary of Mom’s, going back fifty-nine years ago. I want to read you an excerpt.”

“I’d love to hear it,” Dad says while chewing.

I pull from my bag a tablet of unlined paper, with the Woolworth’s logo on the cardboard cover. The corners of the pages are yellowed with age. I open the tablet where I bookmarked it with a Post-it note, and I read the following out loud to Dad:

Saturday night, November 19, 1960

Tonight, Norman took me and the girls out for a little spin in the Chevy. We drove up as far as the Palisades (about an hour north of the city); and then headed back down to our apartment on West 94th.

We had decided after all not to host a cocktail party tonight at our place. It would have been a big party and so unwieldy, right before Thanksgiving, and all.

I’m just glad we had a quiet evening instead.

It’s just what we needed.

Sunday morning, November 20, 1960.¹

This morning, Norman and I were up before the girls. He and I were cuddling on the couch, having our coffee. We were talking about my painting class with Hans Hoffmann. And Norman was excited about getting started on his next book.

Suddenly, I put my finger to my lips. “Shhh! Listen, Darling!” I said to Norman.

He and I were quiet for a minute. Then we both faintly heard the sweet voices and laughter of our two little girls, playing together down the hall.

“Well, I guess the girls are awake! Let’s go see what they’re up to!” Norman said, smiling. This moment brings all the mellow sweetness of a leisurely Sunday morning.

Then we head to the kitchen to make banana pancakes on the griddle, with melted butter and Log Cabin maple syrup.

I finish reading the diary entry. I set down the tablet and look up at Dad. He has tears in his eyes.

Our empty dessert plates are cleared, and lunch is about over.

I don’t want this lunch with Dad to end.

I don’t want to say goodbye.

Dad takes care of the check with cash. We put on our coats and walk outside. It’s already after 4:00 p.m. It is that magical hour when shadows are purple and the autumn sunlight of a late afternoon turns everything golden.

Dad gives me his great big bear hug. I’m guessing that this is the last time I’ll be seeing him for a good long while.

“Ah, Bets, my Bets . . . I see in you the best of me and the best of your mother. I’m so proud of who you are.”

Dad hails a yellow cab and gets in.

I’m all choked up.

He rolls down his window and gives me that Bogie “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid” look.

The cab makes a left onto Seventh Avenue and heads south. Like something out of a 1960s Jetsons cartoon, the whole cab (with Dad and driver inside) lifts up several feet and hovers high above the street, then it suddenly accelerates upward and disappears into thin air.

Elizabeth Mailer has published nonfiction pieces in Provincetown Arts Magazine and the Mailer Review. She is currently writing a memoir about her relationship with her father. Also in progress: a darkly comic novel about a middle-aged woman’s sexual odyssey. Elizabeth holds a BA degree in English from Princeton University (1981). She lives in New York City with her husband, Frank; their daughter, Christina; and their cat, Shea.

¹ In the wee hours of Sunday, November 20, 1960, my father stabbed my mother with a pen knife at a cocktail party they were hosting at their Upper West Side apartment. My version (in this piece) of events on that date represents my fantasy of how things might have been, had the incident never occurred.