Greg's mom invited an old woman over for Christmas dinner. She had met her at some community event. "She'll be all alone, otherwise. She's an intellectual, so I thought she might like meeting Greg. She says she's lonely for people who understand her."
When the old woman arrived, and Greg's father was taking her coat, she said, "My own daughter and son-in-law refused to have me over. He's a no-good idiot. And she's an idiot for marrying him."
At the dinner table, she studied us one by one, frowning and pursing her lips as it seemingly sank in that we were to be her dinner companions. Then she focused on the father.
"What do you do?"
Greg's dad opened his mouth slowly, but before he could say anything, Greg's mom piped up, "He's a mechanic for Safeway. He'll be retiring in two years."
Greg's dad closed his mouth again, smiling shyly. It seemed like he and his wife had developed a ventriloquist act over their forty year marriage.
The old lady now stared at Greg. His mom said, "I forget if I mentioned Greg is getting his PhD at UCLA."
The old lady nodded slowly, as if she knew all about it. "By the time I was three, it was already clear I was a genius."
She was originally from Germany. Apparently, though, Hitler had a vendetta against her -- she made it sound like they concocted WWII just to annoy her and make life difficult. So she came to Boston at age seven, but "American kids picked on me because I was more intelligent than them." So she went to Argentina, where she wound up in charge of the top hospital in the country and oversaw five million patients a year (when I told my brother this, he suggested that perhaps she was suffering from senile dementia. She seemed pretty clear-headed in other respects).
For some reason, she had to leave Argentina and come back to America, where they wouldn't recognize her medical credentials. "Can you believe they had the gall to tell me I needed to pass a high school equivalency test?" Refusing this indignity, she became a travel agent. "I had to suffer the company of American tourists, who would ask for air conditioning in Alaska. Imagine, air conditioning in Alaska! Ah, there's nothing like an American tourist."
"Mom, show her your little black man," said Greg's sister. "You know, the little black man you got in Alaska."
I was picturing Sammy Davis Jr., but Mrs. H. got up and brought back a little Eskimo sculpture (obviously made of plastic).
The old woman looked at it down her long nose, like a jeweller appraising a diamond, and declared, "It's worthless. It's a fake, made of modern material."
"Oh, I expected that, but I know you know so much about art, so I was just curious."
"I have some Inupiat works, which I got in Alaska, where the only true Inupiat artists work. The real stuff can only be touched by a Inuipat or a half Inupiat."
Greg's dad, who was sitting next to me, asked softly, "Is it a spiritual thing?""
I whispered back, "More of a money thing."
She noticed me for the first time and shook her head, as if regretting that she couldn't have me executed right there and then.
"You don't know anything about it."
Even if I didn't, I wasn't going to admit it to her. "Well, my mom has a big collection of Eskimo statues. She got them in Manitoba, and they're all certified."
She paused, then said, "You are mistaken. Your mother could never afford it. One statue alone costs $50,000."
I shrugged and went back to my mashed potatoes (though later I called my mom to verify that her collection was all certified and done by a top "Inupiat" artist. She bought them more than 30 years ago).
But the lady wasn't finished with me. "What do you do?"
"I'm a database programmer."
"It must be hard for you."
"Not really."
"Where did you go to school?"
"Illinois Institute of Technology. My dad was a prof there, so I got free tuition."
"Well, I have never heard of it."
Greg's sister pointed out that my brother went to the same college (CalTech) as Greg, and I said, "Yes, he double-majored and now he's a professor at UCLA." I felt rather pitiful for saying this, as usually I prefer complaining about my brother, but at least it worked: she gave me one last dirty look and turned her attention back to Greg.
I fled soon afterwards. When I crept back downstairs twenty minutes later, she and Greg were alone at the table...everyone else had escaped. I paused at the bottom of the stairwell long enough to overhear:
"Young man, everything in your field has already been discovered." (Greg's field was theoretical plasma physics.) "You need to think forwards. I know what I'm talking about. I had tea with Albert Einstein."
Later on, another lady came by, a very nice woman, with her adult son. The son had lost his job, the mother mentioned.
"How does it feel making your mother work two jobs to support you?" asked the old lady, interrupting the introductions.
"But I don't support him. He lives on his own off his own money."
"Ah, he's nothing but a parasite."
I admired the young man's fortitude -- he didn't say a word in reply.
When everyone was getting ready to leave, it was discovered that the old lady and the young man lived in the same area (about 20 minutes away).
"I will follow you home," she said.
"Sure. No problem."
A couple hours later, the old woman called to say she had only just gotten home. Apparently, the young man led her into a strange neighbourhood and then sped off in his Firebird.
On the phone, the lady kept asking Greg's mom what Greg thought of her, saying over and over again, "I hope he didn't think I was strange.”