Fortunately Joseph had gone with Eric to the city for dinner and a hockey game at the Garden. Eric always saved a day out of his vacation for his grandfather. Really, they ought to give him a great party for his twenty-first birthday, she thought, lying back against two pillows and warming her hands around the cup of tea. A beautiful party, with a little band, a group of youngsters to make live music.
We’ve come a long way since that day we drove home from Brewerstown with a terrified, brave little boy. Thank God for that. And pray that this trouble with Iris works out as well. But I don’t know, it’s so far gone. Theo’s awfully independent, not easy to handle, and she’s impossible.
I wonder when you can ever stop eating your heart out over a family? I hope the children haven’t overheard or sensed things. Stevie especially: he’s so bright, he sees everything. Sometimes I think he has a worried face, although probably that’s just because he’s the first child and the first child is supposedly more sensitive, more attuned to what’s going on among adults. Although Maury wasn’t—oh, yes, he was! You forget, you didn’t find out until much, much later what had been going on under the sunny manner. Still, it’s true he was never as complicated as Iris, I think.
Everybody’s difficult. I, too. My God, am I difficult!
I can’t agonize anymore. I want another cup of tea and haven’t the strength to get up for it. I’ve done what I could for everyone. What counts most now, what has to count most now, is Joseph and me. I wish once more that I had his absolute faith. Still, since I know he has it, why do I guard him from all this trouble? He ought to be stronger than I. And he is, in so many ways. Only not where Iris is concerned.
The front door opened. “Anna! I’m home!” Joseph called.
“I’m upstairs, in bed.”
She heard him coming up two steps at a time, like a young man. “In bed already? What’s the matter?”
“Just a chill. Start of a cold. I’ve taken an aspirin,” she fibbed.
“You’re always running around with your errands and charities! Why don’t you think of yourself and take it a little bit easy?” His voice was irritable and anxious.
“Don’t yell at me, Joseph. Besides, look who’s talking about running around. Did you have a good time?”
“Sure did. I dropped Eric off for a ‘late date.’ There’s a crowd over at some girl’s house near the Point.”
“That’s good. I was thinking, we ought to give him a party for his next birthday.”
“Great idea! Shall I get you another blanket? Are you cold?”
“No, I’m fine. Really. I’ll be perfect again in the morning,” she said cheerfully.
He drew the blanket around her shoulders. “Well, I hope so. I just hope you’ve caught it in time before it turns into anything worse. God forbid.”
“I think I have,” she said. “I think perhaps I’ve caught it in time.”
Theo came in and saw that the two narrow beds had been taken away. The old bed with the white and yellow spread was back in its place. Iris came out of the dressing room. She was wearing a robe of some sort, a hostess coat, they called it, or something like that. Anyway, it had a kind of pretty ruffled thing like daisy petals around the neck. She had been at the hairdresser’s.
“Good evening,” he said. A small laugh like a bubble rose in his throat. “I see there have been some changes in the furniture.”
“Are you pleased?” she asked, without looking at him.
“Very.” He waited a moment and when she looked up he moved and put her head on his shoulder. She didn’t come nearer, but she didn’t go away, either. They stood like that for a minute or two. He remembered the night not so long ago, when it was he who had rested his head upon her shoulder and she had tried to give comfort to him. Well, that was past.
His hands moved over her.
“Not yet,” she whispered. “Not just yet.”
“But soon?”
“Yes, all right. Soon. Quite soon.”
40
On a day in the early fall of Eric’s senior year at Dartmouth he met his cousin Chris Guthrie for lunch in New York. It was Chris’s first visit home from Venezuela in three years.
“I’ve saved all your letters,” he told Eric. “They’re real nostalgia for me. I feel I’m back on the campus, snow in the air. You write extremely well. You know that, don’t you?”
“They tell me I do.”
“What are you planning after graduation?”
“My grandfather has a place ready for me in the firm.”
Chris stirred his coffee. Then he looked up acutely. Eric reflected that all “men of affairs” had that look. He’d been watching them at neighboring tables, in their dark suits and English shoes; they had a way of concentrating keenly, of making the moment move. Their eyes never dream, that’s what it is, he thought; they never rest on anything for more than a second or two. They don’t see that beyond the window the September haze is dusty amber and the city is waking to a brisker season—
“I asked you,” Chris said, “I asked you whether you’d like that?”
“Excuse me. I didn’t hear you. I hope to like it all right It’s an opportunity most people don’t have, isn’t it?”
“Starting at the top in a family business? I should think not!” Chris went on thoughtfully, “You know, when I drove you down from Brewerstown seven years ago—now I can tell it—I was as sorry for you as I think I’ve ever been for anyone in all my life. And now that my own kids are growing up and I look at them and think of what happened to you—well, I wouldn’t want them to have to face what you did.”
“On the scale of world suffering I rank pretty low, in spite of everything, Chris.”
“Well, if you mean hunger and want, that’s something else. But there are other kinds of suffering. You had an awful lot of courage, and—”
“Chris, I’m fine. I really am.”
“I can see you are. Tell me, when you think back, are things very different from when you lived with Gran and Gramp? No reason for asking, except curiosity.”
“Well, the personalities are different. Very. But as to feeling wanted and all that, it’s the same.”
“Good. Let’s see, what else can I ask you? Have you got a girl?”
Eric laughed. “ ‘A’ girl? No.”
“Good again. Don’t tie yourself down too young. But to get back to the work business: tell me, have you ever considered not going in with your grandfather?”
“Not really. I haven’t got any special ambitions. What makes you ask?”
“I’ll tell you. I’m being given a tremendous job. A promotion. It’ll mean four or five years in the Middle East, based in Iran.”
“Gosh! Cloak and dagger! Lawrence of Arabia!”
“You can kid, but there really is a helluva lot of that stuff going on. Anyway, I was thinking: I’m supposed to get a staff together, four or five bright, young eager beavers. So I thought of you. I’d have no trouble getting you approved, that’s sure.” He lit a cigarette and waited a moment. “How does it sound?”
“What would I have to do?”
“Sales. Contacts. Politicking. You name it.” Chris waited again, then added, “It’s a fantastic part of the world. Literally. I’ve been there and it really got to me. When you see your first Bedouin in his kaffiyeh, riding a camel—”
The restaurant, the dark suits, the table with its cloth and cutlery dissolved into a bazaar of burning colors and a gaudy sky. Eric had to smile at his own extravagance.
“It’s very tempting, very alluring and very sudden, Chris,” he said cautiously.
“Of course. You don’t think I expect a decision this minute, do you? I’m coming back around Christmas and we can talk some more then. But I do want to leave one thought with you, Eric. No, two. The first is obvious: that there’s a real future in a company like ours. The second ties in with your ambition to write.”
“In what way?”
“Well, in order to write you have to have someth
ing to write about, don’t you? You have to know people and cultures and conflict. Think of the memory bank you could establish on a job like this! Enough to draw against for the rest of your life! And I’d see that you had plenty of time for exploring.”
Again, that quick look of estimation. Eric answered it slowly.
“It would be such a—a defeat for my grandparents.”
“Yes, but they’ve had their lives and done what they wanted. Now it’s your turn, isn’t it? In time I’ll have to be moving over myself, to make room for my own boys. I’m almost forty-two, you know.” Chris summoned the waiter and took out his wallet. “I’ve got a train to make. Eric, it’s been great. Every time I see you I realize how much I’ve missed you. Think it over; there’s no rush, but I truly believe this could be the start of something great for you. I’ll get in touch. And oh, yes, remember me at home.”
For the last year he had been feeling that his life was sliding steadily toward the unknown. Except for the few who knew that they were fated for something definite like law or medicine or engineering, this feeling was common, Eric knew. It wasn’t strong enough to be called panic; it was just there, a kind of scary drift into a world in which perhaps one would never be entirely at home. He tried to imagine himself sitting in the office every morning of his life, conferring with bankers and mortgage brokers, then driving out to an enormous tangle of construction out of which would emerge another grid of look-alike, boxy houses. Not that it wasn’t a decent product and therefore a productive life, but as far as he was beginning to understand, it wasn’t something to which he could look forward with any exhilaration. When a man has completed a thing he had wanted with all his heart to do, he sits down to rest and says, “There, that’s over. I wanted to do it and I’ve done it!” It wasn’t like that at all, at least as far as he could see.
So he kept thinking about what Chris had offered.
He certainly hadn’t intended to mention it to anyone, yet one day when he was home over Thanksgiving he found himself telling Aunt Iris.
“Maybe I’m rationalizing the whole thing because I want the adventure,” he concluded.
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting adventure, is there?”
“I suppose not. And ever since Chris planted this seed the building business has looked duller and duller.”
Iris said slowly, “Without actually thinking it over, I’ve sort of assumed you would write. I don’t know how or in what form, but I’ve just thought of you that way. Perhaps because your father and I both had vague desires to do something with words … only, neither of us had any true gift and I believe you have.”
“One doesn’t just rent a room, buy a typewriter and begin to write,” Eric argued and, paraphrasing Chris, “you have to live first and have something to write about.”
“True. And writing isn’t what you’re asking about right now anyway, although it might well tie in, as your cousin says.”
“You’re avoiding an answer. What I want to know is, should I consider the offer?”
“Should you hurt my parents, you mean. That’s what you’re asking me, isn’t it?”
“I’m sorry. It’s not fair of me to expect you to be neutral, is it?”
“No, it isn’t. Because I know what it will do to them. And still I know that you’ve a right to be somebody yourself, not just somebody’s beloved grandson.” Iris sighed. “So I guess I’ll just have to throw the decision back in your lap.”
Eric nodded soberly. “Only don’t mention it, please? Not even to Uncle Theo. I need time to sweat this out myself.”
“Not a word. I promise.”
Just before Christmas he and Chris met again at the same place.
“I haven’t made up my mind,” Eric told him.
Chris was surprised. “What’s the obstacle?”
“I keep thinking about Grandpa and Nana. He’s had me down at the office telling everybody I’ll be working there next year; he’s even got my room set aside. She’s bought Early American prints for the walls.” And when Chris began a gesture, he went on hurriedly, “I know, you’ll say it’s my life and that’s true, but it’s a big decision and I can’t make it in such a hurry.”
“Listen,” Chris said, “I want you to come in later this week. I’ll get an appointment with the people here in New York for an interview. Then whatever questions you have they can answer and you won’t be making the big decision just on my say-so. Only one thing—” he lowered his voice and glanced at the adjoining table, “when you give your name, spell it the way you used to, will you? Freeman? It’s more American that way. I’ve told them that’s your name.”
“Why did you do that? What difference does it make?”
“It makes a difference. Take my word for it. Particularly in the Middle East, everything heating up between the Arabs and Israel.”
“You mean that I shouldn’t appear to be Jewish.”
“Well, you aren’t, are you? You were brought up an Episcopalian and you’re my cousin. Who would think of asking whether you were Jewish?”
“I’m also Joseph Friedman’s grandson.”
“Of course, of course. But listen, Eric, it’s a chilly, practical world and you’ve got to be practical to survive in it. I strongly advise you to play that side down for business purposes. Especially this business.”
Eric grimaced. “Lousy. Dishonest. And worse than that, cruel.”
“Why cruel? You aren’t doing or saying anything hurtful. It’s just a case of not saying something, a case of omission.” And when Eric didn’t answer, he added urgently, “Besides, aren’t you forgetting the other side of yourself? Gran and Gramp and all the life you had with them?”
“Chris! You think I could forget them?”
“I certainly don’t. And after all, it isn’t as if you were a religious Jew. You haven’t gone over to the religion, have you, Eric?” Chris asked abruptly.
“To tell the truth, I haven’t any religion at all,” Eric said. His voice sounded somber to his own ears.
“Well, that’s the fashion these days, isn’t it? So shall I make the appointment for this week or do you want to put it off till my next trip?”
“Put it off,” Eric said. “As long as there’s no hurry.”
After leaving Chris he walked down Fifth Avenue toward Grand Central. Christmas lights in shop windows and out of doors rippled and streamed like moving water. “Adeste Fideles” clanged from a loudspeaker above the entrance to a department store. The citadel of Christmas, emporium of glitter, cathedral of twentieth-century America. The department store. He felt unusually depressed.
A bank advertised its loan service under the smiling photograph of a young couple admiring an expensive sports car. Was that the measure of contentment, the measure of a man, his ability to provide a sports car? Or a motorboat, a diamond, or any of the things for which people put themselves in hock? Worth his weight in gadgets, a man was.
Climb, forge ahead, acquire, be smart, even if you have to lie a little, even if you have to deny the truth about yourself to do it. Why not?
He began to walk faster, to breathe more deeply of the icy air. Morbid today, misanthropic. The world really isn’t all that awful. Just my own personal riddle, needing to be solved. That’s all it is.
If this offer had come, not from one of his mother’s people, but from one of Grandpa’s cronies, Mr. Duberman, let’s say, or some other of the pinochle group, would it be much less of a problem?
He tried to imagine the scene, a party perhaps, everyone around a table crowded with crystal, with flowers, with silver platters and bowls of meats, half a dozen kinds of meats, half a dozen kinds of smoked fish, salads, molds and puddings, spicy condiments and pungent sauces, glossy, twisted loaves, fruit, cakes—
“Eat, here, pass the salad to Jenny, she eats like a bird—”
“If you don’t taste that pudding you’ll insult my wife,” Grandpa would roar, and pile a ladleful of steaming noodle pudding on someone’s plate.
Nana’s bracelets would clash; she’d smile with pleasure and pride, diamond pinpoints flashing in her ears.
“Did you know that Eric will be going abroad next year?” Grandpa would inquire of the table at large. But everyone would be talking: on this side two of the men having a vigorous political argument; on the other side someone telling jokes, people crying with laughter. Grandpa would clink on a goblet with his knife and call above the noise.
“You’ve heard about our Eric? You haven’t heard?”
With amusement and tenderness he constructed the scene in his mind: the sudden silence, his grandfather’s announcement, the cries of congratulation; his grandmother getting up to hug him, squeezing his head against perfume and warm silk; an old man gripping his hand.
“What a smart boy! A treasure! Joseph, Anna, a treasure of a boy—”
Of course they would shed tears because he would be going away; of course his great opportunity would have to be anywhere else but in the Middle East, where now, at the end of a second millennium, people of this blood were again being threatened with slaughter. Granting all that, he knew it would still not be such unacceptable pain as this return to his mother’s people, reminding them again of their losses. He wondered suddenly how it must have been for his father, making the decision which was to take him from them for good.
Pain. How do you measure it? Doctors measure it in dois: much pain, middling pain, less pain.…
He went back to Dartmouth the following week, with graduation only five months distant, with no decision made and sure of nothing.
Great-uncle Wendell died in early April and was buried from the home which had been in his family since the first Guthrie had come to Massachusetts three centuries before.
Eric drove down from New Hampshire, meeting as he went the first uncertain gusts of spring that blew warm whenever the sun struck through the clouds. In spite of his errand he felt exhilaration as the car rolled between stonewalled fields, down aisles of elms on old main streets, past the white, square, ample houses of his childhood. He knew exactly how these houses would look inside, the corner cupboards flanking the fireplace in the dining room, the tall clock on the landing midway between floors. The shapes and patterns of Brewerstown.