Smell No Evil

From the cramped kitchen, Mom disappointed, shouted like Alice on The Honeymooners, “Oh, Herman, honey, you didn’t get any sable from the deli.” Our Sunday morning extravaganza was her labor of love.

Then Mom called us to assemble, “Come and get it everyone.” Her summons was a ritual. Even Rex ran in and lapped at his water bowl. She signaled us, “Wash your hands before you sit down.” As Mom was getting the meal all set, she pointed to the essential powder room gateway. Clean hands were her passport to sit down to eat. Daddy lifted me to the pink sink to wash with the heavenly, sweet-scented, semi-mushy Ivory bar; its imprinted logo script still intact. I thought, “U-m-m, smooth, 99 and 44/100 % pure.”

Humming like the powder room fan, Mom prepared the Jewish treats. She orchestrated the delicacies in an orderly fashion on big, white ceramic platters. The mixed smoked-fish scents welcomed us to take a seat in the yellow vinyl chairs at our sumptuous Sunday brunch table, a 50s classic Formica and chrome set. A single cut daffodil from the front yard stood on the window sill.

In their socks, Nelson and Donnie pretended to skate on the linoleum floor, rushing in. Mom still scurried, patshking, (busy getting everything ready); Mom always called us in prematurely. “Hold your horses, you Hooligans.” Rex snapped at my brothers’ heels. They neighed.

Near the sink, very carefully, Grandma finished cutting slender slices of beefsteak tomatoes and white onions. She wiped the tears away with her Kleenex, stored in her apron pocket. ”Vey iz mer.” Woe is me. Cleaning the cutting board, suspended over the sink, she continued her tasks. With a long serrated knife, she sawed the bagels back and forth and tore the big boulkie rolls in half. Cut and torn, the baked goods fresh aroma escaped into the room again.

We sniffed like dogs, smiled and laughed with our tongues hanging out, like Goofy, the cartoon hound dog.

Mom arranged the savory, briny, pink, belly-lox, smoked salmon slices in overlapping layers. The edges of each paper thin, grainy, hand-sliced piece were delicate and transparent. On the rim of the platter, she added some decorative radishes, with four cuts on top simulating blooming rosebuds.

As an added extra, she emulated Weinstein’s relish tray; displayed with a single ribbed celery heart, like a chilled baby palm tree, leaves quivering, some sliced Kosher pickles, puckery with warty bumps, with a few seeds, and some dill hairs clinging on, plus big, black olives with the pits still in. Nelson snatched the celery heart. Donnie settled for a tidbit of a single juicy olive, nibbling round the pit. Daddy gobbled a pickle piece. I crunched on a carrot stick. I offered it to my new toy, a stuffed bunny I named Esmerelda; she was fluffy, soft, whiskered, and shocking, neon-bright chartreuse. We occupied ourselves in anticipation.

We inhaled the overpowering odor of the delicatessen’s smelliest, oiliest, smokiest, strongest delicacies. “Holy Mackerel,” Nelson shouted. He wafted his hand through the air as Mom placed the platters on the table.

Mom scolded Donnie, “Take off that Davy Crockett raccoon skunk thing on your head. Mind your manners.”

Donnie responded, “I’ll take it to Beaver Falls. He mocked, “With his friends.” Beaver Falls was the small town Grandma lived in. He pitched away his hat, far away through the doorway into the formal dining room. Rex ran after it. Nelson snickered. Grandma shook her head like a sparrow and chirped.

I moved positions, from kneeling to sitting down, coyly hiding Esmerelda on my lap.



Then, it was Daddy’s turn for the family’s attention. With surgical precision, he prepared the smoked whitefish chubs. We watched with quiet intent and squealed speechlessly. The task required an artistry of exactness like DaVinci’s anatomical dissecting studies. Daddy curled his tongue down to squeeze his lower lip in concentration. Peering above his thick glasses with half circle bi-focal magnification, he inspected his specimens. The nine inch cured fishes’ nickel-sized eyes stared back at us, glazed and flat. Then the deadly blow descended. I gasped. Swiftly, with a saber sharp knife, Daddy chopped off an innocent fish head. It was one of three decapitations, just below the gaping gills. Its head pushed aside to the edge of the platter. The stare was unchanged, still lifeless. I squirmed.

Daddy’s fingers were getting greasier and messier. He dismembered further. Unpeeling the golden, gilded thin, sequined, scaled skins, parting the crisp film from the delicate segmented fattiness, the sweet fish flesh lay beneath. He stripped the skin as far back as the fan-shaped tail, ridged, stiff and amber dark from the smoking process. Daddy put the skin aside on the parchment paper. He concentrated on separating the fish at just the right spot, filleting the thousands of teeniest transparent bones from the wee chub. He extracted the spine skeleton out, held it up; miraculously, it was still intact, like the sea creature fossils in the Carnegie Museum. “Voila. Chevrolet Coupe, et tu-tu vay,(a Jewish expression meaning where does it hurt?)” he laughed, pretending to speak French with an added Jackie Mason touch. To me, Daddy was a magician.

“Who wants what?” Daddy asked.

I pointed, salivating. He piled some bits of fish on my small plate. In anticipation, I curled my upper body in, shoulders to my ears and clapped quickly. Phew-ee-y, the fish smelled bad; I held my nose, like I did under water. I was moving from tadpole to minnow status at camp. The morsels were delectable. I licked my lips. I waited for someone to smear the cream cheese on my bagel.

“A bisel more?” Grandma queried. Abundant food was in our DNA. “Esse, Esse, mamele.”

I picked out the scallions. I licked my fingers. I widened my eyes at Grandma, batting my eyelashes like Esmerelda, with her big, round, plastic eyeballs bulged out.

Grandma pinched my cheek. “What a ponem(face.)” I thought of the beheaded fish’s face.

“See no evil. Speak no evil. Hear No evil.”

What a fate!