His father was aging too fast. Men twenty years older than Simon often looked younger. Stubborn as ever, he held on to his little store and fretted that Adam’s check was too generous.
“Pa,” Adam said, “do you realize how long it is since I went west, and you’ve never come to see me, although I’ve kept asking you to, especially during this last year when I could take such good care of you? There’s a nice small hotel, brand-new, right nearby—”
Simon waved him away. “No, no, Adam. I don’t want to spend a couple of days and nights on any train. Besides, I can’t leave the store in Leo’s charge. And he doesn’t want to visit, either. Do I have to explain any more?”
No, he did not need to. Leo had even refused this evening’s dinner because the restaurant was on the same street as the Nishikawas’ house, and he had vowed never to walk on that street again.
As for the two lovers—well, they glowed as lovers do. They were sure of each other, and they had the same plans that Emma and he had been making. The difference was that they were about to be separated, while Emma and he were not going to be, unless the war should last long enough for him to be called up, too. In the meantime, in the circumstances, he certainly was not going to mention Emma to anybody here.
He could not help but make comparisons. Beauty, as the saying goes, is in the eye of the beholder. In Adam’s eye, Blanche was not beautiful, but she was interesting. She was tall, with gleaming black curls that escaped from her pompadour; she had searching, intelligent eyes and the thin, beaked nose of a Roman aristocrat. She had poise and the sophistication that Jonathan, in spite of his knowledge, had never had. In fact, Adam reflected, there was a certain innocence in him that he had never noticed before. But Blanche had had a hard life, and she was unafraid. She would make sure that nobody took advantage of Jonathan. It was not, as far as Adam knew, that anyone had ever done so, but who can foresee the future? Look at his own experience with Theo Brown! While a man like Jonathan was at work in his laboratory or the library, Brown would have walked away with the whole business.
“Leo is so upset,” Pa said. “It’s not that he’s eager to join the army, but the rejection insulted him. Too short, underweight, poor eyesight, and flatfeet. He’s still furious.”
“I admire your patience with Leo,” Blanche observed. “Many people would not have so much.”
“What would they do?” asked Jonathan.
“I can’t answer that. They just wouldn’t be as patient.”
“Well, we can’t turn him loose and forget about him.”
“Because he is ill, you’re saying?”
“I don’t know whether he’s ill. He’s certainly different. Difficult. But illness? I don’t know.”
“Freud would say he’s neurotic,” Blanche said. “When I lived in Vienna—”
“Not everybody agrees with Freud.” When Jonathan was earnest, as now, two parallel lines formed on his forehead. “With all that is unknown about human behavior, it could be anything. It might be something that some medicine, as yet undiscovered, can repair.”
“You will be a fine doctor,” Pa observed. “You have a heart along with your mind. Now I need to ask something of you, of both of you. If anything happens to me, I want you to take care of Leo. Remember that you are brothers, and he may need you.”
“You can depend upon us,” Adam said.
Blanche remarked that the subject was too sad for a night like this one. Adam was not sure whether she meant that the evening was still bright and fragrant, or whether she was thinking, as he was, of Jonathan’s departure to France.
“I’d like to take a walk after dinner,” he said. “I’d like to see what, if anything, is new in town. Who’ll come with me?”
Pa was not coming. “You young folks go ahead. After this big dinner, I’m going home to my chair and the morning paper. I haven’t read it yet.”
Blanche reminded him, “Your warm milk, Pa. Don’t forget it again. It makes him sleep well,” she explained to Adam.
Jonathan smiled. “I told you she’s already a part of the family.”
There were changes on the streets. More cars, and many more trucks, more doctors, dentists, lawyers, real estate offices, and every kind of shop. There were flags, and a band marching down Main Street to the sound of song: Over there, over there . . . the Yanks are coming—
“Do you know who gave all the flags? Your friend, Herman Shipper,” Jonathan said. “First thing we knew, right after April sixth, the whole crew was out putting up flags, a hundred of them, all over town. A remarkable man, Herman Shipper.”
Yes, remarkable. Not only the man in that office on the fourteenth floor with a view of the Woolworth Building, but the man who had once told a boy just out of high school that he had “a head for business,” and would go far.
“How about walking over to the beach?” he asked.
The grand houses, Shipper’s white one beside the neighbor’s Tudor, were the same; yet now he did not wonder about them as he had done then. He did not even desire one. Nor, as he regarded the Tudor that he had so easily, proudly been able to identify, did he long to be an architect.
Jonathan suggested that they sit down in one of the pavilions. “Might as well enjoy the ocean. I never get tired of it, whether it’s gray and angry, or olive green before rain, or sapphire. When summer comes, you can hardly get a seat here.”
Adam began a description. “In the summer, bathing huts look like sprinkled confetti on the beach. And in the winter, it’s deserted. All you see are gulls. These railings are covered with snow. A few kids and a few hardy old men have it all to themselves.”
Blanche smiled. “You’re forgetting that this is the start of my fourth year in this town. I am beginning to feel like a native. I know the ocean in all its moods. I might even feel more at home here than you do, Adam. You’ve been away so long.”
“But not as far away as you are from Vienna.”
“That’s true. The difference is that I have nobody there and not very much that’s nice to remember, as you have here.”
She had a lilting voice. Her voice was ever soft, gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman. Shakespeare said so in some play that Adam had forgotten.
“Tell me about Vienna,” he said. “I’ve only seen pictures of it.”
“You have seen pictures of the palace and parks, and the carriages driving along the Ringstrasse under the lime trees. To me, too, though, they were only pictures. I did alterations in a fine shop there, but I never drove there or walked there, except to walk home to the tenement where I lived. Two rooms for a big family, and always extra relatives, including me. No plumbing. A pump in the courtyard. In winter, the water froze. My father was killed in one of their foolish wars. When my mother died, she left me enough to pay my passage to America . . . Still, it was beautiful if you could afford it. The emperor rode out in his carriage behind white horses. We used to stand on the sidewalk on Sundays and watch. And now all the blood being shed because an angry man killed the archduke. They should get rid of them all!”
“We’ll do the job,” said Jonathan. “But still, it’s never that simple, is it? Of course Pa wants us to win. Yet even he said something the other day about the cousins he left behind. He rarely writes to them or hears from them, yet he’s thinking about their wearing our enemy’s uniform, while next week I’ll be putting on mine.”
There was a silence until Blanche broke it. “I can’t believe it’s only a week before you leave.”
“I’ll be back sooner than you think, my darling. It’ll be a short, quick war.”
“And after that, four years of medical school,” said Blanche. “It doesn’t seem fair that you have to work your whole youth away, poor man.”
“And after that, a few more years of being a student’s wife, while I go on into a specialty.”
“Have you any idea which one?” asked Adam.
“I don’t know. There’s so much that’s fascinating, surgery, neurology, or a combination
of them. But I’ve only just finished with college. I don’t have to decide right now.”
“It seems to take forever to become a doctor,” Blanche said. “You’re middle aged before you start living.”
Her tone was sad, trailing off like a note in a minor key. And why not? Faced with this parting that must be almost unbearable? While I, he thought, am going home to Emma. . . .
Jonathan laughed. “Oh, it’s not all that bad, darling. Remember, everybody can’t be a tycoon like my brother here. Have I shown you Pa’s sketches of the plans for the new shop?”
“You have,” said Blanche. “Very, very handsome, Adam. Do you handle many imports?”
“Yes, some. We’ve ordered some Paul Poiret a few times.”
“And Vionnet? And Lanvin? They’re not as fussy as he is. Not as formal.”
Jonathan laughed and said teasingly, “Ah, Adam, listen carefully! She’ll tell you everything you don’t know about fashion.”
“Then she’ll have a lot to tell me. I leave fashion to the buyers. I only supervise the hiring, and sometimes the firing.”
“I can see,” observed Blanche, “why Leo resents you so. It’s envy, pure and simple.”
“Not simple,” Jonathan said quietly. “Very far from simple.”
“Very complicated,” Adam agreed.
What relationship isn’t complicated? he thought. What of Pa’s guilt about my birth? I often think he favors me because of it; I often think Leo reads the family relationships that way. I’ve taken the place as eldest son that rightly belongs to him. Ah, my God, it’s all too complicated . . . Emma and I began with enough complications, but, thank heaven, they’re over. I’d like to tell Jonathan about us, but—not just yet. Now’s not the time.
“When are you leaving us, Adam?” asked Blanche.
“Tomorrow. I’d like to stay longer, but I need to get back.”
“Of course you must. You need to watch your investment. There’s always a schemer of some sort who’s ready to nibble away at it.”
Adam laughed. “It’s not quite as bad as that, although I can’t say you’re entirely wrong.”
“That’s one thing I don’t ever expect to worry about,” Jonathan said. “If I make a decent, modest living as a doctor, I’ll be completely satisfied.”
He had moved and was sitting now with his arm around Blanche and his hand clasped over hers. They made a romantic picture against the surf and the pink light.
“It’s getting chilly,” Jonathan said to Blanche, “and you have no coat. Take my jacket.”
“Absolutely not. My dress is heavier than your shirt. He’s so good to me,” she told Adam. “Your father calls him ‘the salt of the earth.’ ”
“That’s Pa’s favorite saying. But he exaggerates,” Jonathan said. “Come on. The wind’s churning the ocean. Besides, it’s Adam who’s the salt of the earth.” And he turned to Adam. “I know I’ve said this often before, but you have to hear it again. Going away, leaving you all, I need to say it. So hear me out. I thank you with all my heart for everything you’ve done for me, and for everything you are. And I’m so glad about all your success. When I get back after this war, we’ll go out to visit you and see it for ourselves.”
For a moment the three stood, listening to the crash, murmur, and crash of the incoming tide. The sun was about to sink, leaving just enough pink in the sky to light the way home.
At the corner of her street, Blanche and Jonathan left Adam.
It’s a good match, he thought as he watched them walk away. They’ll do well together. God bless them both.
When Sabine had wanted a huge, glamorous wedding at her house, Emma had pointed out that they did not know a huge number of people to invite. But Sabine had assured her that now, with all of Adam’s new contacts, it would be easy to have at least two hundred fifty guests.
“I’ll have a dance floor laid on the back lawn with a tent if it rains, or then we could easily move indoors. Goodness knows, the house is large enough.”
“Do you like the idea?” Adam had asked Emma in private.
“No. And I wouldn’t like it any time, but especially now with the country at war. It doesn’t seem fit. Let’s have a small wedding and invite only the people who mean something to us.”
Adam telephoned to his father. “By now you must have my letter,” he said, “so you know all about Emma and me. And you understand why I didn’t mention her in front of Jon and Blanche that evening. But we want to get married very soon and have some time together before I may have to go where Jon is. Do you want to tell Blanche? Tell her she’s invited if she wants to come. I don’t know her as you do, so I can’t decide what’s best. I don’t even know whether you and Leo want to come to the wedding, Pa. I’m saying this because I want you to tell me truly. You won’t hurt us if you say no.”
“I’ve been looking at Emma’s picture. I hope she is as good to you as she is beautiful. And I can’t tell you how glad I am. But I guess you know. You didn’t have a great start in life. I still think about it, God forgive me. Surely I want to be there to see you married, but it just doesn’t seem possible to work out. I can’t bring myself to mention the subject to Blanche. She is so miserable, poor thing, so lonesome for Jon. She worries me. And you know Leo would never go to a wedding, not yours or anybody’s, or to any other social event. He only likes to come home from the store and hide with his books.”
Jon wrote:
On the fourth of July we marched down the Champs-Elysées, our bands playing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” crowds on either side cheering, women throwing kisses. It touched our hearts and our pride. These people believe we will save the day for them, and we will save it. I’m sure you get the cable news and all the papers, so you know what’s going on over here. It won’t be long. After a couple of battles, we’ll wipe out the Boches and probably be home before winter comes.
Save some time for my wedding. I cannot begin to describe how I miss Blanche, but I guess you can imagine. She is with me every hour of the day. Please take good care of her, in spite of the distance between you. Keep in touch.
On a rainy fall afternoon, promptly at half after four because Sabine had looked up the proper hour in a book of etiquette, a group was assembled in her long drawing room under the glowering stare of the late Rothirsch. The guests were mostly those who had sat at Adam’s first grand dinner in this house: two each of Sabine’s old ladies and Emma’s college friends, Jeff Horace, who would report the occasion in glamorous terms, although Adam had already begged him to “keep it simple,” Reilly and Archer with their wives, Rudy and Rea, who had known Emma since she was two years old, and the Spencer Lawrences, who had procured a judge to perform the ceremony that would satisfy Sabine—more or less—and completely satisfy the pair who were to be married.
Adam was thoughtful as he waited for the bride. A sense of unreality came and went while he looked around at the guests, the small table before which they were to stand, and the wall of white chrysanthemums in the background. Rea, perhaps remembering the bicycles hidden down the street, caught his gaze, smiled, and winked. Archer’s unhappy wife Edna, a plain woman drably dressed, looked wistful. There was no mistaking that Reilly’s wife Bridget, standing with his arm around her shoulders, was happily dressed up in pink for a grand occasion. Mrs. Lawrence was attractive and impeccable in dark blue with a single narrow diamond bracelet on her wrist. Now and then, he reflected, whenever he caught a glimpse of her with her two young daughters at the store, he would have another swift mental glimpse of Francine’s place and wonder how and why a man with such a family, an otherwise honorable, decent man, could bring himself to such a place. He would never be tempted to do the same now that he had Emma.
There she was, walking in from the hall with Sabine at her side, for Sabine was to give her away. Dressed all in white as she had wanted to be, her expression was grave. A penny for your thoughts, darling Emma.
Sabine, decked with bracelets and necklaces, was teary, smiling
, and happy. Surely this must be the crowning event of her life in this house.
The judge, looking properly solemn, stepped forward and began to speak. His words, which Adam barely absorbed, were solemn, requiring only brief and solemn responses, just one answer really: I do. Adam had forgotten that he had a ring in his pocket until he was asked to produce it. He could not take his eyes away from Emma’s. Then it was over. You may kiss your wife, the judge said, so they kissed and went out among hearty smiles and hearty good wishes into the dining room.
Laughing, Reilly said, “You’re in a fog, Adam.”
“I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I don’t seem to know where I am. It’s not real.”
“It’ll be real tonight. You’ll know where you are and what to do,” Reilly said, still laughing.
“Oh, stop,” his wife chided, “don’t embarrass them!” But she was laughing, too.
Sabine had summoned a quartet to play during dinner. The music, which had no doubt been selected by Emma, was airy and joyous, so that between it and some very good champagne, all gravity faded.
Pa sent a telegram, a long one unlike his usual few frugal words. “Make merry,” it ended.
Make merry. So they did, and the champagne flowed.
Then Emma went upstairs to change into a traveling suit. And in a rain of rice, they went down the steps to the car that was to take them away.
“I’ve waited so long for a bed together,” Adam whispered.
“Oh,” said Emma, “I have, too. We could have done it long before this wedding, darling Adam, if you weren’t such a cautious, proper gentleman.”
Two weeks later, Adam and Emma were met at the railroad station by Rudy in the Pierce-Arrow, without Sabine.
“Where’s my aunt?” asked Emma.
“She’s coming by to your house later.”
“You know something,” Adam said when they were alone in the backseat, “I hate this car. It’s so stupid to be sheltered here while the driver’s outside in the weather.”