![]() He’d known her friends and relatives, and he didn’t mind their playing a role in her imaginative life. After the initial shock wore off, Henry became used to her chatter and resigned himself to this new quirk of hers. They had many photographs of departed friends and family around the apartment, and Ida began to go from one to another, telling aunts and cousins whatever she happened to be thinking about. Then one day, Henry came home to find Ida speaking to a framed photograph on the mantelpiece. She experienced the usual memory loss and attendant confusion, but life went on pretty much as before. In her mid-70s, Ida began showing signs of Alzheimer’s. She wanted, she said, to carve out something of her own, but nothing ever came of it. She wanted to be a writer, then a photographer, then a decorator. And while Henry joined a mid-level architectural firm and embarked on a career, Ida struggled to find her identity. While Henry took to American culture right away, Ida continued to miss the Viennese world she had known as a child. There isn’t a CD in the house because, as Henry explained, they couldn’t bear to betray their beloved vinyl. Their apartment is lined with books and a large collection of Deutsche Grammophon LPs. They liked the same novels and films and shared a love of chamber music. Allowing for the usual ups and downs, their marriage was a good one. They met at the City College of New York, and in 1948, two years to the day after graduation, they married. Henry’s and Ida’s families moved to New York from Austria in 1935, when both were 10 years old. Whenever he tries to cut her nails, give her a bath or change her clothes, Ida’s small face contorts into something unrecognisable she becomes like a fierce, cornered animal. Although she is usually smartly turned out, smelling of powder and lavender, only Henry knows how much effort this entails. Ida is even shorter, with fine white hair coiled in a bun. Henry, a softly spoken retired architect of 85, is a short, handsome man with a bald head and small ears. ![]() H enry and Ida Frankel live in a cosy three-bedroom apartment in New York’s Washington Heights. ![]()
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