The Delight of Being Ordinary by Roland Merullo

Author:Roland Merullo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2017-04-10T16:00:00+00:00

26

Somewhat shaky in the knees, for different but related reasons, the young Buddhist and I stepped out of the wreckage of the moment and into the hot noonday sun. We turned in the direction of the city center, went along a little way in an uneasy mood, and then he practically wailed this sentence: “I can’t believe I said that in front of the Dalai Lama!”

“I don’t think he minded much.”

“You can’t tell with him.”

“Exactly. Equanimity.”

“Still, I feel horrible.”

“I’d let it go. I am richly experienced in the art of putting my foot in my mouth, as you might have noticed. The best strategy is to let it go. Forget it. Don’t replay the moment in your mind,” I said, even as I was doing exactly that with my baptism remark.

“Va bene, grazie,” he said. “Fine. Thanks,” and then: “I would like to ask you for your daughter’s hand in marriage.”

“No,” I said, and for a minute I didn’t say anything else. My mind was mainly on other things—my stupidity, being a grandfather, the wrath of the Catholic and Buddhist worlds, having my daughter and grandchild visit me in jail, the look on my wife’s face when she’d heard Anna Lisa’s news. Our kiss. Equanimity. The divine sense of humor.

“I think that’s unfair,” Piero was saying, but I heard those words as if they were being mumbled in the next province. “I don’t think religious differences—not that Anna Lisa and I have those differences—but I don’t think they should interfere with you giving me permission to—”

“No, no, no!” I said. “I meant no, don’t worry about it. Anna Lisa’s my daughter, not my property. You don’t have to ask me. She’s the most precious thing in the world to me and I want her to be happy, that’s all. Make her happy, or keep her happy, or at least try to break her of the habit of talking all the time…but don’t worry about me.”

He went quiet. I glanced over at him. A nice-looking young man. Sincere. On the gentle side, but in a sufficiently manly way. His English rough, his Italian eloquent. I was old enough to wish that he and my daughter had put things in a different order: marriage first, then parenthood. But Rosa and I had put things in that order and look where we’d ended up…so I didn’t say anything.

“My family’s Jewish,” he said. “Dad’s a rabbi, in fact. In Venice.”

“What happened to you, then?”

He made a noise like a laugh, a small, gentle laugh. I was forming and re-forming my opinion of him as we walked, and the laugh made me see that he had a sense of humor about himself. He wouldn’t always need to be right, the way I did, the way Rosa sometimes did. In the tumultuous sea of marital life, the hour-by-hour mix of storm and calm, their little vessel of love might actually have a chance to stay afloat. Plus, the Pope’s closest childhood friend had become a rabbi, so we had that going for us.

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