~ by Anna Rajagopal
It all started the day that Richart dropped a silver coin with his face on it into the street.
That’s my husband for you. Too humble for his own good, he disliked the fact that his winning of the Nobel Peace Prize had been made into a commemorative quarter. Even though his best friend and deputy, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Ronald Gardiner, gave him one out of the first batch, Richart entertained no qualms about removing it from his pocket and dropping it on the sidewalk, during our outing in Alexandria.
It was a free afternoon for him, with no meetings or paperwork at the capital, and so we had grabbed the chance of a rare (these days) date. You may ask why we chose to spend it in a suburb outside of D.C., it is because we have a two-year-old who dislikes his nanny and whose behaviour is not conducive to being seen in polite society – in other words, in a D.C. restaurant.
It is a beautiful day, the sky is woven in a pattern of blue and white, and we find an appealing, shaded place to sit beneath a prosperous-looking oak tree. Alexandria is a nice, upper-middle-class community of pretty white houses and white-fenced, well-kept yards. The houses here go for around 30,000 dollars. Our brownstone mansion in Plynhurst is valued near a hundred thousand – not that money comes up in conversation often between us.
I lay out an attractive orange-and-red plaid blanket for us to sit on, and begin taking Richie’s toys out of his baby bag. Our son – who is many years away from growing into his full name of Richart Sabastian Pancratius von Kruse II – pushes them all away, kicking his plump, yet perfectly molded, legs in their white booties.
Both to my satisfaction and disappointment, he looks exactly like his father – the same light coffee complexion, sculpted (though albeit presently babyishly chubby) face, even nose, and dark, wavy hair, that sixteen years hence, will make the girls swoon for him. He is far from making anyone swoon for him now, particularly his mother. He refuses to sit still and play with his ridiculously expensive toys. On the way over, he tried to grab every single dog that we passed: his latest craze.
“It’s just like we’re young parents again,” I say, a bit breathlessly, with an attempt at breeziness. “Who would think we have three grown-up children?”
“Yes, except we’re a lot older, and Richie isn’t remotely as quiet as Adam was,” Richart responds, helpfully. I look at him, seated languorously, with one knee up, on the short grass – leisurely elegant in his tan sports jacket and pants from Brooks Brothers. With the same trim figure and dark hair, at thirty-six he doesn’t seem to me to be all that different from that first-time father of seventeen years ago.* Maybe a bit more mature.
Richie squirms and squeals again.
“Can’t you sit still and be quiet like a well-bred child?” I ask him crossly.
“He’s still fixated on those dogs,” Richart remarks.
I grimace, holding the back of my toddler’s sailboat romper. “He really needs to be taught the basics of property possession.”
Richart smirks.
“Doggie!” Richie cries.
“No, you can’t have the doggies,” I tell him decisively.
“No, he means that dog,” Richart explains. I glance over to where he’s pointing and see a boy approaching us down the sidewalk, an Airedale terrier at his heels. We watch him curiously as he crosses the street in our direction and walks up to our tree.
“You dropped this, sir,” he tells Richart, holding out his hand. I notice a faint glimmer of chagrin pass Richart’s dark-brown eyes when he sees the silver coin with his head on it. Ever polite, he accepts it and thanks the lad, putting the quarter in his pocket.
I can tell that the boy is looking wonderingly, with a faint expression of horror, at my husband’s hand, where the last two fingers are missing. I get the feeling that he is too polite to ask about it. It’s a lovely blue-and-white day, and I don’t want to spoil the atmosphere with the story of what happened so long ago, in a German concentration camp.
“And what’s your name?” Richart asks the boy, starting a conversation with him as he always does with children.
“Israel,” the boy answers. He is dressed in an orange-and-red plaid shirt – the colours of our blanket – and tan pants. His face is open and attractive, under wavy brown hair. His dog is docked and clipped according to show regulations. Richie is in love.
“Doggie!” he cries, halfway between a squeal and a scream, effectively foaming at the mouth, dribble coming out of the corners of his lips, as he strains against my grip on his romper. Israel smiles at him.
“You can pet the doggie,” he tells our wild infant, gesturing for the terrier to come closer to Richie.
“His name is Judah, like for ‘Lion of Judah.’ He’s very safe,” he assures Richart, who had been wearing a dubious look. Delirious at having this large fuzzy dog so close to him, Richie throws both chubby arms around Judah.
“I adwore doggies!” he declares.
Caught off guard, Israel, Richart, and I share a look of tickled amazement. “There’s your precocious son,” my eyes tell Richart. Adam would say, “Me love Papi,” or “Me love cookies,” but with Richie, it had to be “I adwore.”
“Maybe you should get him a dog,” Israel suggests, grinning as he watches our baby stroking his pet.
“We have two,” Richart replies wearily. “A shepherd and a Shetland sheepdog, but that doesn’t keep him from wanting to grab every dog that he sees.”
“Maybe he needs a puppy of his own?” Israel says.
“A baby and a puppy? Never!” I object, shuddering at the thought. “Richie is enough to handle on his own.”
Israel smiles. “He’s a cute baby. He looks like the Baby Jesus in the Nativity scene that they set out every Christmas.”
“Far from it!” I respond with feeling.
Israel scans the toys spread across the blanket, a baby-safe miniature automobile that exactly resembles Richart’s luxury Mercedes, a realistically-dappled, downscaled rocking horse with felt skin and leather tack, and a prodigious, stuffed Jack Russell terrier from F.A.O. Schwarz.
“He has nice toys,” he compliments. “You must be rich.”
Richart gives a modest shrug.
“We live comfortably. That’s a handsome dog,” he turns the compliment back on Israel before I can reprove him with my eyes for making the understatement of the year.
“Yes!” I agree. “He looks like the sort of dog you would see on a magazine cover or something.”
“Thanks.” Israel is obviously pleased, patting his dog on the head. “Well, I guess I better be going,” he observes politely.
“Judah has to go, Richie,” I tell my baby son, extricating him from the terrier. True to form, Richie sets up a howl of protest. I am so preoccupied and ashamed by him that I leave Richart to handle the farewells.
“Stop being insufferable,” I reprove Richie after he has quieted a little, and Israel and his terrier have moved a distance up the street. “What a despicable impression you made on that nice boy. It’s about time you started to learn that you can’t have everything you want.” Richart smiles. Richie curls his chubby brown hand into a fist and studies it dubiously, his short, even nose wrinkling a little in displeasure.
“You better not be thinking of socking me with that, young man,” I tell him warningly.
His father chuckles, and I consider to myself that Richie isn’t the only insufferable one. I balance him on my skirt-draped leg, as I rummage around in the baby bag for a treat to pacify him. He continues to make small protestations, reaching his arms out for the now-absent dog.
“You want a doggie; here’s a doggie,” I say, handing him a lollipop in the shape of a Labrador. I ignore Richart’s grin at my inconstancy. Richie is blissfully quiet. I see that Richart is staring after the retreating figure of the boy.
“Surely God is good to Israel… the faithfulness of Judah,” he murmurs. I realise that he is reciting a psalm.
* The three von Kruse children who came before Richie; Adam, Freya, and Konstanze, were engaged and married young in the German tradition, at 17, 16, and 15 and a half, and so are considered grown-up.