Vaguely restless, he walked to the window and looked out. A shaft of light from a lamp in the parlor below fell onto the lawn, where he could see two figures making a single shadow, so close was their embrace. When they broke apart to walk back to the house, he drew away from the window. In the depths of his body, he felt a surge of longing—powerful, and unfulfilled—as though their sexual passion had been contagious.
He undressed and went to the bed. His wife’s face was calm in sleep; beside it lay her hand; the gold band, symbolic of her union with him, gleamed on her delicate finger. Even her fingers are refined, he thought.
He lay down. He made himself think about the client with whom he was to confer about a very important matter in the morning. His mind clicked carefully from point to point, clarifying his plan of procedure. After a while he was able to fall asleep.
PART THREE
Freddy and Leah
1
There was something about pregnancy, thought Hennie, that softened angers and resentments; one could watch them melt, like hot water softening a block of ice.
Angelique’s first contempt for the marriage seemed to be forgotten at once as soon as Leah’s condition could no longer be hidden from her; she became all sympathy. She bought sheets and embroidered gowns for the layette. She began to knit. Some basic instinct for survival of the race? Hennie wondered. Or else her mother was simply mellowing with age?
As for Dan, once his first rage had, out of sheer exhaustion, come under control, he had reluctantly adjusted himself to Leah’s new position in the household.
The winter was severe. By the fifth month, Leah had stopped going to work, not because her condition was yet visible, but because by the sixth month streets were coated with ice. Now, in the seventh month, with her needlework on her lap and the little dog lying where the soft folds of her skirt touched the floor, she was a Renaissance portrait; her lively face wore a changed and peaceful expression; her hair was simply combed in the “madonna” style just recently made fashionable by Lady Diana Manners, Hennie thought, with affectionate amusement.
Leah, wearing a silver-gray blouse cut loose enough to fit her present state, explained, “It’s from Poiret, last year’s, and it has a spot, so they gave it to me. Look at the handwork! Only the French do work like this.”
“You’ve got good taste, my dear. Expensive, too,” added Angelique.
Hennie agreed and Leah looked up quickly.
“If you’re worried about Freddy and me, don’t be. I know he’ll never make money. He’s a scholar, a teacher like his father. I should like him to teach in a fine private school. Not a public, he’d hate that. And I’ll make plenty of money for us. One of the seamstresses—she’s a Russian Jew like me, except she’s actually from Russia—has worked in Paris, she’s very clever and wants to open a place with me. We know now what’s wanted and how to do it. What we need is capital to start.”
Hennie regarded the girl thoughtfully. She had learned a good deal since she’d gone to work. Even her English had a slight, attractive lilt, acquired no doubt from the Irishwoman who owned the establishment. And remembering Leah’s militant mother, that plainspoken radical, Hennie marveled at the world’s inconsistencies.
“You know, I think I saw your sister buying dresses at my place a while ago. She looked very well, very smart. I haven’t mentioned it because I thought maybe I shouldn’t, but then,” Leah said, “maybe you’d like to know?”
“You wouldn’t remember her.”
“Oh, yes! I remember everything, even about that night, the last time I saw her. I can even tell you what she was wearing.”
So could Hennie. In 1908 it had happened; eight years of grieving estrangement had gone by. Almost one eighth of the biblical life span! Too long to be undone, though; far too long. On both sides the resentment and the sense of injustice had hardened. It was accepted now, even by Alfie and Paul, that this was the way it would be. And Hennie could only mourn in silence.
But Angelique, from time to time, would lament: “It is the heaviest burden of my life, to see my daughters estranged from one another.”
“I was thinking,” Leah said abruptly, “that maybe Uncle Alfie would lend me the money to get started. Do you think he would? He’s so generous.” Then she paused. Her face hardened as she added, “Besides, unlike Dan, he happens to be fond of me.”
“Oh,” Hennie said, “I can’t answer about the money, but about Dan, I’m sure he’s fond of you, why should you think—”
Leah gave a dry laugh. “Fond of me! Hennie, I’m not afraid of the truth, so why should you be? He never wanted me here, and we both know it.”
For a moment Hennie was silenced. The remark was so bitter, so unlike Leah! And she answered, stumbling a little, “It wasn’t that he didn’t like you, it was only that in the beginning he couldn’t get used to having another child in the house. There’d been just the three of us.”
Leah had such an odd expression! Had she, then, been so hurt that the wound was still not healed?
“It was nothing more than that, Leah dear, believe me. Not everyone wants to adopt a child. But he came to care for you—he’s especially good to you now, isn’t he? So I think you’re reading too much into it. I really do.”
“I’m not reading too much into it, Hennie.”
This was a queer conversation, Leah looked, with her brows drawn together, why, she looked positively angry! Her lips were pinched and she had turned away as if she were holding something inside that she wasn’t willing to release. Hennie felt bound to pursue the subject.
“I think you are,” she said calmly. “I think it’s you who don’t like Dan. It’s not fair of you not to like him, Leah. Or not to tell me why.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Leah retorted. “I know what I know, I feel what I feel. But we’re living here peacefully, aren’t we? So what does it matter?”
It matters, Hennie thought. You’re making me upset, suspicious. What did you mean by “I know what I know”?
“Are you trying to tell me something about my husband?” she asked.
Leah’s face melted, making her look like herself again. “Oh, Hennie, no!” she cried. “I didn’t mean—of course not! I shouldn’t even have mentioned those old, childish feelings. I’m sorry I dragged them out of the closet, I really am.”
There’s something else, Hennie thought still. Or is it my old fear coming up to the surface, my old, foolish fears about Dan, so that at the first hint of anything secret or hidden, that’s what I think about?
Yes, yes, of course it is! Absurd! And as for Leah, the girl is tense, worried to death about her own husband. Poor young thing!
All of us are living in terror, day after day, because of Freddy.
“Read Freddy’s last letter aloud again, do,” she said.
A sheaf of them lay on the table; Leah was in the habit of reading them aloud, skipping and, naturally, concealing intimacies. What was left were banalities, at least to Hennie’s worried ears. Now that the letters came no longer from England but from France, all that mattered was that they should keep coming to prove that he was alive.
“I’m in good spirits,” he wrote (shades of Gerald! Were they taught somewhere to say that?), “and very optimistic.” (How can anyone be optimistic with all those thousands dead? He must not yet be in the front lines.) “It’s a wonderful feeling to be part of this gallant army. The men are a staunch and plucky lot.”
“He sounds so British; we don’t even use those words,” Dan had remarked wonderingly.
Now Leah’s voice quavered, pulling Hennie’s attention back to the moment.
“Listen, Hennie. He says: ‘We underwent our first fire. It was pretty frightening, the noise alone could terrify you if you let it, but we got through all right and we’re all safe. I’m glad I’m not a coward.’ ”
Hennie bent her head over the stitches. No comment. A thick, silent snow had been falling all day out of the dark sky; now suddenly a veering storm-wind sent
a spurt of sleet crackling on the windowpanes. Cruel to be outdoors in weather on a day like this! Cruel to be in a hole in the ground, waiting and waiting.
Her eyes were dry; her mouth was dry with fear. The world was mad.
Here in this country, Wilson talked peace and yet supported the buildup of a mighty navy. In Congress they said that only preparedness could preserve neutrality. To arm was the best way to keep out of war. Madness!
The War Department had organized a training camp for volunteers at Plattsburgh.
“Paul’s going,” Angelique had informed her. “As an officer, of course.”
And when Hennie had expressed her shock, along with surprise that Paul hadn’t told her himself, Angelique had explained, “It’s not that he’s for war; it’s that he wants for his own good to have some training, if it should come. He’ll get around to telling you. I suppose he hesitates because of the way you feel about it.” And then she’d said, “Florence has gotten active in the Special Relief Society. They’re all for preparedness, as you know.”
When Hennie hadn’t answered, Angelique had added, “It’s a woman’s counter-action to your group.”
Hennie said aloud now, startling Leah, “They’ll drag the whole world down, that’s what they’ll do.”
Leah was puzzled. “Who will?”
“I was only thinking aloud. The preparedness people, I meant. They’re growing louder and louder by the minute. Haven’t you noticed how we ‘pacifists’ are being attacked now in the papers?”
“Hennie … Freddy’s over there. How can one be a pacifist? He may need our help before it’s over.”
Again Hennie had no answer.
Leah’s boy was born on a sunny morning during a February thaw. Icicles dripped on the windowsill in the room where the baby lay in his bassinet, a magnificent affair, draped in embroidered white organdy and blue satin bows. Mimi had brought it when the baby was two hours old.
“From Paul and me, with all our love,” she had said. She had stood for a time bent over the baby, with a wistful expression, then straightened up, straightening her face as well, lest it reveal too much.
“Take care of yourself, Leah. Rest and don’t catch cold,” she had counseled before she left.
But Leah, to Hennie’s dismay, had gotten out of bed on the third day, and now, flat of stomach and nicely dressed in a flowered wrapper, sat in a chair by the bassinet.
“It’s my peasant blood,” she proclaimed. “I can’t lie in bed when I feel this good. As soon as I can stop nursing, I’m going back to work, since you said you’ll take care of him, Hennie.”
Indeed she would take care of him! The boy was already the household king.
“Look at him, he’s smiling,” Dan said.
“Gas,” Leah told him. “Only gas.”
“He looks like you, Dan,” said Alfie, who had come with Emily and Meg to see the new arrival.
Really he looked like no one, except that he did have Dan’s black hair and plenty of it. His eyes were large, he had a sharp little nose, and his chin was strong: a handsome baby.
“What are you going to name him?” Meg wanted to know.
“Henry, after my father. And we’ll call him Hank. I like that, it’s a good thing to call a boy. Of course, my father’s real name was Herschel,” Leah said.
“Then why not call him Herschel?” Meg asked.
“Oh, because it’s not American. It wouldn’t be fair to give him a name like that, when other boys in school will be called Bob and Ed. Would you like to hold him when he wakes up?”
“Oh, yes!”
Leah had a nice way with children, Hennie saw.
And Leah went on, happy with the boy’s being the object of attention, for after all, Hennie thought, it’s hard to have no one of your own family to praise and marvel over your baby.
“His Hebrew name is my father’s too: Avram. My father was named after his grandfather and so it goes, way way back.”
Meg was interested. “What is a Hebrew name?”
Hennie answered promptly, “All Jews have a Hebrew name, because we are originally from Israel. We are Israel, one people, that’s what it means. Your father has a Hebrew name, ‘Jochanan.’ ”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me about it?” Meg asked Alfie.
He blushed and glanced at Emily; there was something almost guilty and ashamed in his quick glance.
“It never came up. It wasn’t that important.”
Alfie’s blush mounted; even his earlobes flamed. He coughed.
And Hennie was instantly sorry for him. If he wanted to send his daughter to an Episcopal academy, that was his business, wasn’t it? She didn’t know what had made her do that to Alfie, unless it was some need to reprimand him, along with her feeling that his child oughtn’t to be kept in the dark about the family, deceived, or confused. Still, it was none of her business.
Meg, however, was making it her own business. She accused.
“You always hide things about yourself. You never want me to know about anything Jewish. I almost think you don’t like being Jewish.”
Sharply, Emily intervened. “That’s an insulting thing to say to your father! I think you owe him an apology for that.”
She didn’t insult him, Hennie thought; she only made an honest observation.
Emily was breathless, embarrassed before the others in the room. “Really, I don’t know what to make of children these days. They think nothing at all of insulting their parents. In my time, we wouldn’t have dared.”
Hennie thought again, She’s not a child, she’s thirteen, a very sensitive thirteen with a good mind, and you can’t fool her, don’t you both see that?
“As close to his family as your father is,” Emily reproached, and glanced about. “I really expect you to apologize, Margaretta.”
The two faced each other as if they were preparing for battle. Alfie frowned and examined a bunch of keys, removing himself from humiliation. Leah was busy folding a pile of diapers. Dan and Hennie glanced at each other and glanced away.
Then Meg spoke. “All right, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be nasty. It’s just that I do wish you would talk to me about things.” Her tone was level and quiet; yet Hennie heard a new and unfamiliar firmness in it. “At school,” she said, speaking not to anyone individually but to the listeners at large, “at school, Episcopal or not, I am called Jewish, while the Levy girls in the next apartment tell me I am not. It seems as if nobody wants me, doesn’t it? I’m neither here nor there. It’s fine for all of you. Everyone in this room knows what he is except me,” she concluded.
“Now, now,” said Alfie.
“And there’s another thing. You always say that everyone’s the same and it’s wrong to be prejudiced, Mother, but you don’t say anything when your friends tell mean jokes about Jews—”
“That’s preposterous, Meg! And you know it is!”
“No, I don’t. I heard that Mrs. Leghorn when you were playing bridge.”
“Eavesdropping?”
“I wasn’t. I was getting the dictionary from the shelf in the next room and I heard her say—”
Emily flared. “Never mind repeating what an ignorant woman said! We don’t want to hear it. That’s enough, Meg. Enough.”
At this, Alfie spoke. “You’re oversensitive, Meg,” he told her, not unkindly. “Always have been. You need to grow out of it, not think so much about yourself. Just do your schoolwork, you’re a good student, forge ahead and pay less attention to what people say. You’ll get along better. That’s always been my way and that’s my best advice.”
Hennie was outraged. Fools! A perplexed and lonely human being stands before you asking for truthful help, and you don’t even see her loneliness. Yes, you’re a fool, Alfie, and so are you, Emily, for all your gentle and genteel ways.
Meg had walked over to the bassinet. She was pretending to look at the baby, Hennie knew; she only wanted to turn away from them all. Her narrow back in the somber school uniform was rigid. No d
oubt she was controlling tears, preserving her dignity. Hennie knew all about that.
Alfie followed her to the bassinet. “Let’s talk of happy things.” He waved his hand in dismissal of life’s little worries. “I’ve brought a present for this fine fellow, Leah.”
“Aunt Emily’s had it sent!” Leah cried. “The most beautiful quilt. It’s so good of you.”
“No, this is something else.” Alfie reached into his pocket. A check for you, Dan. You earned it. It’s only a couple of hundred dollars, but I thought you might want to start a bank account for the boy.”
“You surprise me. What’s it for?”
“You remember one of those diagrams you handed me last year? Something to do with—what was that word? A coheard—”
“Coherer. It’s a detector. When you apply voltage to the tube—”
“Never mind. I wouldn’t understand. Whatever it is, these people of mine are interested. They haven’t done anything with your stuff yet, but somebody happened to ask whether I’d seen you lately and I said yes, and mentioned the baby, and they said, well, send this over. He deserves it, even if it turns out we can’t do anything with his stuff.”
“That’s very decent, overly generous. I’ll take it for the baby, because it does at least cover what I laid out to have my diagrams printed. Thanks, Alfie.”
“They’re very interested in your work, Dan. And the more I see of them, the more I see this is a growing concern. They’ve moved, taken four floors just off Canal Street. They’re big business and no mistake. I know what I’m talking about.” And Alfie jingled coins in his English-tweed jacket pocket.
“You generally do, Alfie.”
“What do you hear from Freddy?”
“Not very much. Often, that is, but he doesn’t say anything. The mail’s all censored, naturally.”
“You ought to be very proud of him, Dan.” Alfie’s voice was lowered in respect.
“Proud? He’s a goddamned fool!”