The Sunset Gang Read Online Free PDF Page B

breasts.
    "If we allow ourselves to get emotional," Larry
said, glaring at Mimi, "then we might as well adjourn this meeting. We are
here as mature adults discussing what could become a complicated problem, one
that will give us all, everyone in this room, the kind of grief that none of us
have a stomach for. We've all taken time out of our lives to see if we can
solve this problem." He looked at Velvil. "Now, Pop, my understanding
is that you wish to divorce Mom and marry this woman."
    "I'd appreciate it if you didn't refer to my mother in
those terms," Genendel's son said.
    "I hadn't intended anything disparaging," Larry
said quickly.
    "I wish you wouldn't interrupt," Genendel's
daughter said to her brother.
    "You realize, of course, Mrs. Goldfarb," Larry
said, looking at Genendel, "that you are encouraging an action that will
result not only in humiliation for your husband and my mother-in-law but
ostracism for yourself and my father-in-law."
    "Now you're trying to fix blame," Genendel's son
said. He was thin like his mother, with his mother's gentle face. Velvil
wondered if he was sympathetic, a thought quickly dispelled. "I don't
agree with what they're doing, but I don't think you can fix blame."
    "She's a woman," one of Velvil's daughters
interjected. "She knows that it's the woman who controls the situation.
She encouraged him."
    "I resent that," Genendel's son said. "Your
father is not exactly innocent in this matter."
    "They should both rot in hell," Mimi said, her
voice booming in the room. "I still say he needs a psychiatrist."
    "That's for sure," one of Velvil's daughters said
huffily.
    "It's that Yiddish Club," Mimi shouted.
"They should close that Yiddish Club."
    "This is getting out of hand," Larry shouted and
banged on the table. He waited until they settled down again.
    "You're all acting like a bunch of children."
    "I think Mother's right," Larry's wife said.
"Dad needs some help."
    But Velvil listened calmly, surveying, in turn, each of the
people around the table allegedly debating their fate. He looked at Genendel
again, observing her calm, which gave him courage. David Goldfarb wore a long
face, the embodiment of gloom.
    "You must realize, Pop," Larry said, "that
you're being cruel to all of us. You're breaking up two families. Both of you
are. Really--" His arguments seemed to have disintegrated, his appeals
repetitive.
    "Are you all right?" Velvil said suddenly to
Genendel in Yiddish.
    "I'm not exactly comfortable, but I think I can bear
it."
    "You see," Mimi cried, "they're talking
gibberish again."
    "Please speak English, Pop," Larry said in
exasperation.
    "They are all idiots, Genendel," Velvil said,
sure that his courage had returned. "Nothing they say will matter to
me."
    "I feel better now too, Velvil," she said.
    He imagined he could see the gray cast to her skin lift and
a new color begin.
    "They're sick. It's obvious," one of Velvil's
daughters said. She looked at him, glaring. "Will you please speak
English?"
    "I'll speak whatever I feel like," he said in
Yiddish.
    "See! Was I right?" Mimi asked, posing it as a
general question to the group.
    "In order to solve this," Larry said,
"you've got to communicate in a language we can all understand."
    "I didn't call this meeting," Velvil said in
Yiddish. He could see Genendel smiling. "I don't think it's any of your
business. Who are you to preside in judgment over my life? What do you know of
my life?"
    "Of course," Genendel said in Yiddish. "They
have no right." She looked around the room. "None of you have any
right."
    "What are they saying?" Larry said and stood up.
"Is there anyone here who knows what they're saying?"
    "I know what we're saying," Velvil said, feeling
the joy in his strength, in his freedom.
    "And I know what we're saying," Genendel said.
    "This is impossible," Genendel's daughter
shouted, turning to her mother.
    "I didn't ask you to come," Genendel said,
continuing in Yiddish.
    "I can't stand this," Mimi shouted, standing