Freddy flushed.
“I think,” declared Leah, “it’s absolutely wonderful that Freddy knows Latin and Greek.”
“God knows I have no objection to scholarship! I’m the last person in the world to do that.”
Dan was off on one of his tears. This war in Europe is really affecting him, Paul thought.
The heavy atmosphere was becoming unbearable. When was the last time he’d felt light? Lighthearted, light-bodied? All this time, ever since he’d gotten home from Europe, and been engaged and … He resolved to get tickets one night this week for the Ziegfeld Follies. Girls with spangles and feathered hats; long dancing legs; Will Rogers’s jokes. He needed it.
“All right, study your damned languages if you will, but to spend a lifetime at it, I can’t understand!” Dan went on. “Devotion to a dead world, that’s what it is. Why not confront modern problems with your intelligence, instead of hiding from them?”
“It’s not a dead world,” Freddy answered. His face was violently red. “When we talk of the classics, classical architecture, music, anything, we’re talking of something that’s pure and basic.”
Dan waved his fork again, waving the argument aside.
“Yes, yes, yes, prattle! Quibbles. It’s escapism, when all is said and done, and that’s the way I see it.”
“Freddy is an idealist. He’s just like you, you know,” Leah said.
“Like me? I deal with realities, science and social betterment.”
“It’s turned toward other ends, that’s all,” the girl insisted.
She’s grown even more assertive, Paul thought, since she started to support herself. She sat straight. Her eyes snapped at Dan.
“I have often thought that myself, about Freddy and Dan,” Paul said, attempting to cut through the haze of hostility that seemed to be settling over his table. And he added mischievously, “At least, Dan, you must be thankful your son’s not a banker.”
The little remark brought the laugh he had wanted, even from Hennie, who, understandably weary, had said nothing during the last exchanges.
Mimi, whose diplomacy could always be depended on, turned her soothing smile upon Dan.
“Paul says you’re working on something very interesting. Will you tell us about it?”
“I’m working on a few things. But they’re technical, hard to describe. I don’t think you’d be interested.” Dan spoke reluctantly, yet one sensed that he wanted to be coaxed.
Mimi coaxed. “Oh, but we would be! Just make the language simple, give us a general idea.”
“Well, I’ve been doing things with the Gramme dynamo. It’s a generator, but when you reverse it, it becomes a motor. And then I’ve been working on some ideas about sound signals. Shortwave lengths reflect from solid objects, maybe you know that; and I was thinking about how it could be applied to rescue ships. So many fishing boats go down off Newfoundland, for instance.”
“You were right, I don’t understand the first thing about it,” Mimi said gaily. “Except the part about rescuing ships, that sounds marvelous. What do you think you will be able to do with it?”
“I? Nothing really. I get these ideas, but don’t have facilities to make them. I threw that one out to Alfie. Those people he works with have a factory, maybe they can use it. I don’t want anything for it. I just want to know whether it’s workable, and I’ll be happy if it is.”
“I don’t know why you always say that,” Leah challenged. “What’s wrong with making some money out of it? Somebody else will, if you don’t. I know I intend to make money. I’m not going to stay at this job. I’m going to open my own place one day when I’ve learned enough.”
“You do as you think best with your life,” Dan said shortly. “That’s your privilege.”
“Leah,” Hennie intervened, “you’ve brought your notebook. Show some of the sketches you showed me.”
Mimi stood up. “Yes, let’s. We’ll have our coffee in the parlor and Leah will show us her sketches.”
They were mostly pencil sketches, a few of them brightly crayoned, of graceful, attenuated ladies as portrayed in the more expensive, glossy fashion magazines.
“Very nice,” Paul murmured, surprised by the deftness and style of the work. “These are copies, I suppose?”
“Most of them, but I design my own too. This is mine.” Taking one out of the folder, Leah passed it around. “It’s a robe de style. I’d make it in blue moiré. I love the rippling pattern of moiré, like water.”
“It’s lovely,” Mimi cried. “Come, Freddy, have a look too.” For Freddy stood apart from the viewers’ semicircle.
“Oh, he’s seen them. I bore him to death with them,” Leah said.
Freddy’s smile, that of a parent exhibiting a precocious, darling child, said that he was not bored at all.
And Leah continued energetically. “I would have cream-colored lace. It’s finer than stark white, I always think.”
“Quite right,” agreed Mimi, all attention.
“And the ruffles would depend on who was to wear it. Now, for some, I would have double ruffles, elaborate and flounced. For people like—well, like Aunt Emily, for instance—I would make them much more discreet, maybe one around the back and another halfway down the waist. You have to judge the wearer, the house she lives in, lots of things.”
Mimi was amused. “You’re a clever girl, and I know exactly what you mean. Now, tell me, how would you trim this dress for me?”
“I would make it go three-quarters of the way.” Leah put her head to one side, narrowing her eyes in careful consideration of the subject. “No, I’d go halfway, neither as plain and prim as for Aunt Emily, nor as fancy as for some—some other types.”
“Clever,” Mimi said again. “So that’s how you see me! Tell me honestly now, what do you think of the way I generally look? What improvements would you make?”
“Shall I tell you honestly?” asked Leah.
“Of course, honestly.”
“All right, then. You’re elegant, you’re distinguished as you are. But I should like to see you a trifle more dashing.”
“Why, I shall have to be one of your first customers. I predict you’ll go far.” Mimi clapped her hands prettily. “I say, applause for Madame Leah!”
Dan inquired, “And what would you do for Hennie? What type is she?”
“No type. There’s nobody else like her,” Leah said very seriously. “She’s beautiful, even in that black outfit, as you can see.”
It was so; the height and breadth that in her younger years had seemed—at least to her family and to Hennie herself—unfortunate and awkward, were now, at forty, a dignity. She had an unconscious presence; the three parallel lines in her forehead spoke of thoughtfulness and concern, as did the shadows under her clear leaf-shaped eyes.
She said now, “The truth is, this black is beastly hot and what I’d love is to get home and take it off. I want to thank you all, though, for standing in the heat to support the parade.”
When she got up, Dan put his arm around her, and she made a little gesture almost like a blessing.
“Family … you’re all and everything.”
Not all, though, Paul regretted, thinking of his mother, who should have been there among them.
When they had gone, Mimi peered into the hall mirror.
“Paul, do I need to be more dashing, do you think?”
“You’re fine as you are. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“You’re very sweet. You always say that.”
“Well, and I always mean it.”
They settled down in the library, Paul at his desk, going over the papers that poured in as regularly as rain, and Mimi with a book. Presently, she looked up from the book.
“That doesn’t seem to be the sort of work Dan and Hennie would approve of.”
“What doesn’t?”
“Leah’s ambition. Making clothes for rich women. ‘Social parasites’ are what Dan calls them, doesn’t he?”
??
?It’s funny … Dan likes women to be well-dressed and, of course, Hennie defends her. Why not? It’s honest labor. Looks to me as though the girl really has a talent for it too.”
“I always wonder what it is about Leah that Dan doesn’t like. He can barely hide it. Just barely.”
“I suspect he sees that she’s got eyes for Freddy, though why she has is a puzzle, frankly. They’re as far apart as oil and water.”
“That’s easy! She’s in awe of his refinement and wants to possess it for herself. Besides, he is good-looking—in a frail way. He wouldn’t appeal to me in a million years,” Mimi finished complacently.
Paul had intended to be absorbed in rows of figures, and was accustomed to stifling his exasperation at interruptions, but something about this conversation, this subject of mysterious attraction, diverted him and he closed the ledger.
“So that’s your explanation for her side of the affair. What about his?”
“Oh, I’d guess she’s the only girl who’s ever pursued him and that’s pretty exciting, isn’t it? Besides, he’s used to her. He feels comfortable with her. Such an innocent, poor Freddy!”
Paul could have said: You amaze me, you’re such an innocent yourself. He said, instead, “That’s a rather shrewd insight.”
“I like Leah, you know. I really do.”
“I’m surprised. She’s hardly your sort.”
“She isn’t my ‘sort,’ as you put it. But she’s real. She’s strong and honest. I think you could always depend upon her for the truth. She doesn’t hide her feelings.”
He felt himself flinching, felt a hot twinge down the back of his neck, and returned to the ledger.
“I’ve really got to buckle down to these.”
But it was impossible to buckle down. His mind had gone off into another region, and the figures lay before him in rows of squiggles without meaning; he could scarcely put two and two together. Sighing, he closed the heavy ledger with a small slap.
Then he heard Mimi put her book down and rustle out of her chair. She came to kneel on the floor beside him.
“Paul … I can’t concentrate. If we do get into the war, will you have to go?”
“We won’t be in it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Are we ever sure of anything? But I really don’t think so. Public sentiment’s all against it, as you saw this afternoon.”
“But if we should get in, you would have to go, wouldn’t you?”
He didn’t answer, only looked at her, and saw that her eyes were filmed with tears. She raised her arms to him and put her head on his shoulder; drawing her close, he stroked her back, in a gesture meant to comfort.
His lovely wife! His intelligent, considerate Mimi, who went to the Philharmonic every Friday afternoon with the ladies, who did good works in the temple sisterhood, who respected his parents and his friends, who gave gracious hospitality in his candle-lit dining room and furthered his career, and loved him …
How she loved him!
“Don’t worry,” he said gently. “Go on back to your book and enjoy it.”
She stood up. “And you—you work too hard, Paul. You should relax in the evening at least. Shall I get your book from the night table?”
“No, no, I’ll get it.”
If only she wouldn’t be so good to him!
This time he sat back in the leather chair by the lamp, half turned away from her. She couldn’t tell that he wasn’t even turning the pages.
Curious, whenever he saw Leah, how she could lead—in some oblique way—to that other! Little Agnes, one day when he’d gone into the kitchen of his parents’ house, had told him that she’d heard from Anna, and that she was married.
Oh, really?
Yes, to the man she’d been keeping company with.
Mrs. Monaghan had shushed the girl. Why? Had he imagined that that sardonic, sharp-tongued old woman had given him a queer look? So he’d said, in his best “dignified employer” manner, that he was happy to hear it and wished Anna the best luck; she was a very fine young woman.
The family had sent her a wedding gift, a clock from Tiffany’s. Had he imagined that his mother also had looked queerly at him when she told him?
“She didn’t give proper notice, it was quite unforgivable. Your father agrees with me. We treated her very well, she had a good home here. But it’s not right to hold a grudge, and she is all alone in the world, poor thing.”
So they’d sent a clock, expensive and handsome, no doubt, a mantel clock for a place that probably had no mantel. A timepiece to tell the passing of drab hours. For what else could he provide than drabness, that poor fellow he had seen that day in the areaway with Anna? And she, with all the bright life in her, all the sweetness and heart and—It was wrong, all wrong!
Once, a month or two ago, he’d been crossing the park and seen a woman walking ahead of him, seen a tall, slender back, with a twist of red hair; and he’d felt his heart knock, racing in his chest. He’d speeded his steps to pass her, and, of course, it hadn’t been she. She would hardly be living in this neighborhood now.
He guessed he would always be half looking for her, wanting to see her and also dreading to, wherever he went in this vast city. Was it not inevitable, though, that, vast as the city was, by the laws of coincidence they would somehow, someday, somewhere encounter each other?
And what would they say? How would it be to face each other again?
Strange, how his memory faded in and out. Sometimes it was so sharp and clear that he could see the gold wings of her eyebrows; then at other times it almost seemed as though he had imagined the whole business, or as if imagination were embellishing it, keeping alive a thing that had in actuality not been the tender, passionate marvelous thing he thought he remembered.
Oh, but he knew what he remembered!
Dear God, let him be rid of the memory, once and for all!
3
In the Roth household, a truce had at last been called: there was no talk, except when Hennie and Dan were alone together, of the European war. Decent living would have been impossible otherwise.
Freddy’s face had blazed with aroused blood, as he enumerated German outrages.
“The most vicious and atrocious criminals since Genghis Khan! Taking hostages, killing children, using poison gas, wrecking the most splendid monuments of Western culture for the pure joy of wrecking! Savages, that’s all they are!”
To which his father would retort, “They’re no more savages than the others are! They’re all the same; can’t you recognize propaganda when you read it? Better save all that energy to work for social justice at home, rather than waste it on the Germans.”
So a truce had had to be called.
Freddy came and went with the college vacations, carrying books, tennis racquet, and sheet music, while all over Europe young men his age had discarded these for rifles and hand grenades. Clashing in battle, they went on to battle again; each clash was to be a turning point for one side or the other, but there was never a turning point. There were the Marne, and Ypres, and Neuve-Chapelle … At Neuve-Chapelle, the British, taking the offensive, met disaster. Hundreds of thousands perished under German fire. Those who survived went on to battle again.…
When Freddy came home for the midwinter recess, a letter with a British postmark had just arrived and was waiting for him. He went into his room to read it. The supper was already on the table. From where she sat, Hennie could see down the hall to his room at the end. Something about the finality of his shut door disturbed her, and she got up to knock at it.
“Freddy, we’re waiting. The dinner will get cold.”
He didn’t answer.
“Freddy! Don’t you hear me?”
Then the door crashed open and he came out with reddened eyes and choking voice.
“They’ve killed him! The goddamned Huns have killed him!”
The sight of his grief—they had never seen him weep—was in itself more awful than the fact of that other boy’
s death. Hennie, appalled, felt herself retreating from the sight of her son’s grief.
He waved the letter. “It’s Gerald’s mother. She says in his last letter he told them not to worry about him; he was well, in fine spirits. Yes, he would say that … she writes that his commanding officer says he died bravely. At Neuve-Chapelle, it was.”
Freddy sat down with his head in his hands. Hennie looked over at Dan; his answering look said silently, I don’t know what to say. Perhaps nothing is best. So the parents stood without words, but Leah laid her hand on Freddy’s head, caressing it softly, also without words.
After a moment or two, he spoke.
“I’m sorry to make a fuss. But we were awfully close in that short time, he and I. He was so wonderful. And this is such a waste.”
Dan sighed. “Yes, all of it. A waste.”
“Do you still deny that they’re savages?” Freddy cried out. “Have you read their ‘Hymn of Hate’ against England? And Kipling’s answer, ‘What stands if Freedom fall?’ Can you still say they’re all the same?”
“You’ve lost your friend … it’s a terrible thing,” Dan said quietly. “But come with us. Drink a cup of tea, if nothing else. Talk to us.”
They went back to the kitchen table and Hennie served the meal. Freddy could not even swallow tea. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot; his voice quivered, going up almost as high as it had when he was fourteen and it was changing.
“But he was ready for sacrifice. I have to remind myself of that,” he said.
Dan cried, “Sacrifice for what?” throwing up his hands. “Of all the sentimental, revolting hogwash! Mental garbage.… Have you ever seen blood, a man wounded or bleeding to death? I saw a workman once, fallen from a scaffold, with his guts spilled out: slimy gray guts. Christ!” he said.
Freddy spoke stiffly. “There are those, not unintelligent, who would disagree with you.”
“Yes, I know about the fools who’ve gone off to enlist in the British army. You’ve told us about them, and you think they have my respect? No, they have my disgust. Imbeciles, poor children, still wet behind the ears! Give them drums, brass buttons, some bad poetry, and off they go, while”—here Dan’s glance fell on Leah, then quickly skimmed away—“while a bunch of equally stupid females clap and sigh over the brass buttons, and watch them march away to be slaughtered.”