On Being a Guest, and Dumpling Evenings

I was in her company only once, twice if you count

the time she came over to Ed’s. That visit was brief; we

talked about The Makioka Sisters, the occasional merits

of Bizet over Mozart, the high price of flowers at the corner

market. There was not time to like her or not like her: she

was “sweet”.

Ed is Edmund White, literary lion and gay cultural and

social icon. He and Marilyn have lived in each others’ pockets

for sixty-one years. Their affection for each other was as

sturdy and tantalizing as a slice of good pie. Marilyn is the

only female Ed ever had sex with.

One October evening, Ed brought me over to Marilyn’s

home on the Upper West Side. I was his “date” and this was

to be my introduction to Marilyn’s “dumpling evenings”, calm,

unpretentious gatherings of the great, the near-great, the

soon-to-be great, the never-will-be-great. Quiet, intimate

dinner parties, a tradition begun back when both were kids.

I have never forgotten that evening, and I know I never

shall, held at Elizabeth Bishop’s “sun and crumb” time, that

hour between day and night that summons us to table

and to each other.

Rounding off our tiny foursome was Francis Polizio, a

gentleman and a gentle man, a retired French teacher and

dealer in antiques. Our gathering — Marilyn, Ed, Fran and me —

certainly was companionable. I still enjoy divine friendships

with Ed and Fran. But it is Marilyn I can’t forget.

I didn’t know her but I knew her — her face had a wise,

porcelain finish, almost Eurasian, though, in truth, it was

Germanic. Her skin, birthday pink and flower petal-gentle,

and her demeanor, equally soft, belied a searing intellect;

her mind was a wide avenue of tolerance, of carnal acceptance,

of ideas, an unapologetic Socialist back when it was traitorous,

anathema to be so.

She was wearing just the right clothes — her skirt made a

reassuring sound when she moved. She had a Sunday look.

Marilyn had, maybe yes, the look of a nun minus totally,

of course, the antiseptic patina that ends any

further interest you might have meeting most religious —

a sensuous nun, that’s it!

Her hostess radar honed in on my nervousness and she

sat down so close beside me, I could taste her perfume. She

was your silent confidante, an instant chum; an expansive

nature lent her an instant familiarity. She and her home and

her place in the world made everyone, everything near her

cozy. Ed says “Marilyn radiated warmth”. Slender as a

thread of saffron, she covered you in quilt-y comfort; you

didn’t want to budge from it. Not ever. It was that palpable.

Her home radiated the same — there was about Marilyn

and her apartment a fragrance of gentility, that essence almost

impossible to find now. Have you ever seen the Panorama

Easter Eggs so popular in the ‘60s? Delicately ornate, flowered,

candied ceramic eggs. When your eyes peered into the little

window, they were treated to the most shimmering scenes:

miniature seed gardens, poppy-colored ducklings, thatched

cottages, opalescent fields where horses trotted and rabbits

ran. Marilyn’s place made me remember those bagatelles

of my boyhood — to enter was to be greeted by an absolute

wonderland of objects and odors and sounds — the loveliest,

most meaningful of all, being Marilyn herself.

Over yonder, the stove popped and percolated with

food — rich promises of tastes soon to be unwrapped

and enjoyed, the Christmas Eve excitement that seizes

you wondering what the morning will bring. You could hardly

stand the waiting so intoxicating was it — and when our

meal finally was revealed — a great table of scallops

with the roe still attached, the sweetest roasted yams,

the best asparagus, the endless supply of wine, Marilyn

served it up Nana-style and we — the self-dubbed Four

Francophiles — feasted and were at peace…

* * * *

I have been thinking a great deal lately about guests,

and about being a guest, a guest in someone else’s house

or — their guest at a restaurant but that is not quite the same,

is it? I mean, dining at the house of someone I have not

met before, the feelings that develop when strangers get

together to share food and drink and conversation. If you

stop to think about it, it is such a common occurrence

but is, in fact, really odd. Do you agree with me, or do you?

The ways in which communal eating and drinking become

instruments that draw people who don’t know each other

together in harmony. Think of this as miracle — think of

this and be amazed — that in a world of seven billion people —

billion! — we have been given the blessing of eating with

another person, or a small party of others, for an hour, an

evening, a weekend, an afternoon. For a brief period of

time, we are company for each other, share a special moment

and then we never see each other again. We mean to. We

say we will, we must. We offer the unspoken, intimate

whisper that next time, “It will be ‘just us’. Then someone

moves away, or finishes college, or marries, enters the

seminary, stops speaking to us without warning or

explanation.. Life and Death intervene.

Marilyn got very sick very fast. Our time together was

brief, an evening really. There followed cards at birthdays

and holidays, “hellos” conveyed through Ed. But illness

became her constant companion and she grew self-conscious

of her deterioration. She closed her door to even lifelong

friends. She made a valiant attempt to get to Ed’s to see

us for his annual Christmas feast but phoned to say she

was too weak to even make it to the corner to hail a cab.

In May, I was listening to Joni Mitchell singing, “Nothing

lasts for long…” when Ed’s email came saying “Marilyn

died”.

I fell in love with Marilyn Schaefer in one breath. There

was something indelible about her, about “there”, there being

where she was and lived. I still see her. I feel her. I keep

thinking about being a guest, about what that means. about

why some people will take a stranger into their home and

nourish them and love them, without question. I keep

remembering that evening in that Upper West Side apartment.

Outside — the mad, Manhattan circus. Inside — Marilyn and cozy repose.

You are equally loved, if not more loved, eating with

one friend, or a couple of friends, as you would have been

feasting among the multitudes in Great, Old Babylon or

being one of The Twelve seated at Our Lord’s Last Meal.

* * * *