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Authors: Isabel Vincent
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beef. He had already made the bordelaise sauce before I arrived, mixing a few spoonfuls of his demi-Âglace with wine, shallots, and butter. Now he piled the thin slices of meat on plates and spooned the sauce on top, finishing with slices of pan-Âfried potatoes coated in melted Gruyère.
We took our seats at the table, and Edward opened the Malbec. There was silence as he poured the wine. I knew that he wanted to ask me how things were going at home. It had been weeks since our sad cocktail hour, and I had put Edward off whenever he called to invite me for dinner. I was afraid to cause him any more concern than I already had.
But tonight, I had relatively good news to impartâmy husband had finally agreed to a separation. Now the problem was that we couldnât get out of our lease without severe financial penalties. Neither of us could afford to leave The Octagon right away.
In the following weeks we began to stake out territory in the apartment, and carve out separate kingdoms. I barricaded myself in a bedroom or took over a spot on the sofa in the living room while he stockpiled an arsenal of once-shared belongings in his home office. He had laid claim to a mountain of books, dishes and our imported French pots, the plasma TV, and even cans and boxes of non-Âperishable food. At first, I considered myself above such pettiness, but I eventually worked up the nerve to seize the coffeemaker and the toaster only after Melissa urged me to snag what I wanted.
We cooked separate meals and were never in the kitchen together. We somehow managed to work out a schedule for spending time with our daughter. When he left to visit relatives in Canada, I breathed a sigh of relief and dismounted from the tightrope that had become my marriage, as if an enormous weight had been lifted off my back.
During this period of domestic détente, I also became an outcast among our neighbors. I joked to Edward that I had become the Hester Prynne of Roosevelt Island, or at least among the community of mostly Serbian émigrés we had befriended.
Before the decision to separate and get a divorce, I was affectionately known as âthe foreignerâ at neighborhood soirees. These were stilted social affairs at which men sat separately from women, drinking Scotch and
rakija
and singing lugubrious songs about exile from their homeland. Many had arrived in New York as refugees during the conflicts that had splintered the former Yugoslavia. They went on to work at the United Nations or build small businesses in Manhattan and Queens. Moving into government-Âsubsidized apartments, they formed a community of some two hundred families. At first they welcomed us to their parties and barbecues because my husband was of Serbian origin and I had covered the Balkans as a foreign correspondent before we moved to New York.
After my husband informed them of our separation, I might as well have had a huge scarlet âDâ for divorcée affixed to my back. I no longer received invitations to parties and some of the men of the community even refused to acknowledge me when I bumped into them on Main Street. The coup de grâce came when one of the mothersâa fifty-Âsomething homemaker fond of track suitsârefused to allow her nine-Âyear-Âold to have a play Âdate with my daughter at our apartment.
It might not have been seventeenth-Âcentury Puritan Boston, but I had been formally expelled from the Serbian ghetto. Roosevelt Island became even more of a prison for me.
BACK IN THE 1980S, for Edward and Paula, Roosevelt Island represented freedom, a ticket out of a different prison. Well into their seventies, they found themselves alone in a neat suburban bungalow on Long Island. Their daughters had moved out years before and they missed old friends and the places they loved in Manhattan. Paula did not drive and the prospect of living out their retirement in a far-Âflung bedroom community didnât appeal to
We took our seats at the table, and Edward opened the Malbec. There was silence as he poured the wine. I knew that he wanted to ask me how things were going at home. It had been weeks since our sad cocktail hour, and I had put Edward off whenever he called to invite me for dinner. I was afraid to cause him any more concern than I already had.
But tonight, I had relatively good news to impartâmy husband had finally agreed to a separation. Now the problem was that we couldnât get out of our lease without severe financial penalties. Neither of us could afford to leave The Octagon right away.
In the following weeks we began to stake out territory in the apartment, and carve out separate kingdoms. I barricaded myself in a bedroom or took over a spot on the sofa in the living room while he stockpiled an arsenal of once-shared belongings in his home office. He had laid claim to a mountain of books, dishes and our imported French pots, the plasma TV, and even cans and boxes of non-Âperishable food. At first, I considered myself above such pettiness, but I eventually worked up the nerve to seize the coffeemaker and the toaster only after Melissa urged me to snag what I wanted.
We cooked separate meals and were never in the kitchen together. We somehow managed to work out a schedule for spending time with our daughter. When he left to visit relatives in Canada, I breathed a sigh of relief and dismounted from the tightrope that had become my marriage, as if an enormous weight had been lifted off my back.
During this period of domestic détente, I also became an outcast among our neighbors. I joked to Edward that I had become the Hester Prynne of Roosevelt Island, or at least among the community of mostly Serbian émigrés we had befriended.
Before the decision to separate and get a divorce, I was affectionately known as âthe foreignerâ at neighborhood soirees. These were stilted social affairs at which men sat separately from women, drinking Scotch and
rakija
and singing lugubrious songs about exile from their homeland. Many had arrived in New York as refugees during the conflicts that had splintered the former Yugoslavia. They went on to work at the United Nations or build small businesses in Manhattan and Queens. Moving into government-Âsubsidized apartments, they formed a community of some two hundred families. At first they welcomed us to their parties and barbecues because my husband was of Serbian origin and I had covered the Balkans as a foreign correspondent before we moved to New York.
After my husband informed them of our separation, I might as well have had a huge scarlet âDâ for divorcée affixed to my back. I no longer received invitations to parties and some of the men of the community even refused to acknowledge me when I bumped into them on Main Street. The coup de grâce came when one of the mothersâa fifty-Âsomething homemaker fond of track suitsârefused to allow her nine-Âyear-Âold to have a play Âdate with my daughter at our apartment.
It might not have been seventeenth-Âcentury Puritan Boston, but I had been formally expelled from the Serbian ghetto. Roosevelt Island became even more of a prison for me.
BACK IN THE 1980S, for Edward and Paula, Roosevelt Island represented freedom, a ticket out of a different prison. Well into their seventies, they found themselves alone in a neat suburban bungalow on Long Island. Their daughters had moved out years before and they missed old friends and the places they loved in Manhattan. Paula did not drive and the prospect of living out their retirement in a far-Âflung bedroom community didnât appeal to
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