A Choice of Enemies (14 page)

When Ernst had met Sally all he had wanted was to get to America and to become rich. He had been realistic about his chances. On the one side were his intelligence, his good looks, his proficiency in bed, his knowledge of languages and, above all, his indifference to others. Against him were his lack of formal schooling, a tendency to cough that might be consumption, and the police. The one thing he had not counted on had been the possibility of his falling in love.

Ernst knew what lovers were reputed to feel about one another and so gradually he had realized that he was, so to speak, in love with Sally.

When he was with Sally he began to suspect that happiness was more than an old man’s tale, like peace. He began to feel that it was good to make love, be hungry, stay up all night, rub your face against the damp belly of your loved one, sing, and play the fool. He studied his songs, he learned to live with hope and appetite. But there were the times when he awoke at three a.m. from a nightmare
of Nicky and contemplated her plump and dead to him in their bed with such fear that he eventually poked her awake and back to him. There were also the times to be suffered alone. As he plastered a ceiling next door or mended a brick wall down the street or waxed the floor around the corner an especially beautiful posture of hers, a secret caress or taste, would come to him and suddenly his breath would falter, his legs would ache and, making one feeble excuse or another, he would run home to wait through the thirty-six hundred seconds of an hour for her when, at each tick of the clock, the police threatened to come to claim him first.

Ernst decided that he would like to give Sally a gift, so he took a photograph of her to an Australian painter who had exhibited a picture of a girl with a dog on her lap in the Hampstead Open Air Exhibition and, after some haggling, the Australian agreed to take the commission, his first, for twenty-five guineas. For ten days Ernst watched the man in his studio each afternoon, complaining, disputing the choice of colours, and criticizing where the likeness was untrue. They quarrelled over the frame. The Australian wanted another ten guineas for it, but Ernst, who was not satisfied with the likeness anyway, refused to pay a penny more. Not only that, but he insisted that the Australian paint a bowl of roses in the right hand corner which, otherwise, was sort of empty. A bowl of roses, the Australian said, would destroy the portrait’s balance, but Ernst came up with another five guineas and in it went. The next afternoon Ernst took the picture home and hung it above the bed before Sally came home from school.

The picture was so bad as to be beyond criticism. But Sally guessed correctly that this was the first time Ernst had ever given anyone a gift.

“It’s beautiful, darling. Absolutely beautiful.”

“You are being kind.”

“Really, darling, I think it’s superb.”

Ernst jumped up on the bed. “The likeness could be better, but the eyes, I think, are very good. We can give it back if you don’t like it. I don’t care.”

She wouldn’t hear of giving it back. That’s what she told him.

When Ernst came back, about an hour after he had walked out on her, Sally was sitting up in bed addressing a letter. Ernst had returned resolved to tell her the truth about Nicky. But as soon as he came in she rushed into his arms, she hugged him, she kissed him, and murmured words of endearment. “You must never walk out on me like that again,” she said. “I thought you’d never come back.”

Ernst sat down wearily on the bed. “That might be best,” he said.

“I’ve written to my father about you. A letter a mile long. I told him that you asked me to marry you.”

“But I haven’t.”

“I was anticipating.”

“Anticipating?”

“It means looking forward to. Aren’t you going to marry me?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“We’ll get married,” she said, “and go back to Montreal.”

That would mean applying for papers, he thought. If he applied for papers they would learn that he was here illegally. They might also find out about Nicky. There must be a police record.

“Your father,” he said, “would not be pleased.”

“All right,” she said. “We don’t have to go back. We can stay right here.”

“Yes,” he said heavily, “we can stay here.” Then, to her astonishment, he turned on her savagely. “If you see a dead man on the street in your Canada then you stop, a crowd collects, the police are called, but where I come from you hurry on. You don’t dare look.”

“Ernst. Ernst, love. All that is past. Why must you –”

“Your people will hate me before they have even met me.”

“We don’t have to go back. I told you that. As long as we’re together.”

“Stay here?”

“Yes.”

Sure, he thought. Stay here. With Norman downstairs.

“We’re in love, Ernst. The others can go to hell.”

“Lots of people are in love. So what?”

“The others can go to hell.”

“You are a child.”

“They can go to hell, I said. The others can go to hell.” Then, in a calmer voice, she added. “We’re in love. Isn’t that something fine?”

“We are in love,” he said wearily.

“Yes.”

“My father wanders from zone to zone. He will not stop until the day he dies.”

“We will take him with us.”

“Yes,” he said, “and my mother too. I think she is with a British sergeant now. He is from Blackpool.”

“And the sergeant from Blackpool.”

“Yes,” he said, “and we’ll take my Uncle Hans too. He’s an idiot, Hans is. The war lasted too long for him.”

“We’ll take him with us.”

“And the children,” he said. “We must bring the children. We’ll turn them loose in the fields. There’ll be no youth movements or self-criticism notebooks. Just jam-trees and carrot sticks. Carrots are excellent for children.”

“Excellent
for children? That’s the beginning, isn’t it?”

“You’re right, darling, no carrots. But where,” he said, “where are we all going?”

Sally made no reply.

“Where?”

She thought hard.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, “as long as you’re there.”

“As long as we’re together.”

“That’s it.”

“We can even stay right here,” he said cynically.

“Yes,” she said, “if you like.”

Ernst rose hastily and was sick in the sink. Sally held his head. He was sick twice more. She made him tea.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I may have to leave you.”

“Leave me,” she said. “What have I done to hurt you?”

Ernst rose once more. Sweat broke from every pore, then the shaking came. He tumbled on to the bed and brought his knees up to his chin and hugged himself tight. Sally held his cold shaking body close. “Shall I call a doctor?” she asked.

“A minute,” he said. “I’ll be
O.K.
 …”

An hour passed before he quietened down again.

“There is something … something I should tell you.…”

“Not now,” she said. “Tomorrow.”

She made more tea. “Come,” she said, “I’ll brush your hair.”

“I hate myself,” Ernst said vehemently. “Oh, if you only knew how much I hate myself.”

“Sleep,” she said. “Please sleep.”

Sally woke again at three a.m. when Ernst let out a wild scream. He had had a bad dream, he said. He was feverish with a tendency to tremble, but he gradually quietened down again. He fell asleep with his head on Sally’s breast.

When he woke the morning after Winkleman’s party Norman remembered enough to be deeply embarrassed. He phoned Bella and wrote letters of apology to Horton and Graves. Bella was happy to forget the whole incident, but neither of the men replied to his letters.

Norman was concerned. Although he hadn’t been a party member for several years he remained a Marxist yet. This gave him the benefit of a code, a system of responses, that was of singular value to him. Helping Ernst was contrary to that code. For the first time Norman began to feel the sands shift under him.

I’m getting involved, Norman thought, and for what? Ernst is possibly everything Horton says he is. Sally will never be mine.

Sally, he thought.

The day after the party Sally and Ernst invited Norman to their room for dinner. He ate with them three more times within ten days. That week Norman was working very hard putting the finishing touches to Charlie’s film script –
All About Mary –
but he was curious, glad for the diversion, and so he accepted their invitations. At first it was painful for him to see Sally and Ernst obviously making a go of it when he wanted her so much himself, but he reluctantly came to accept his position as a fellow conspirator. To begin with Ernst appeared to be uneasy in Norman’s company. He hardly ever spoke. But two weeks after the party he began to relax more.

One evening after the three of them had had far too much to drink Ernst picked up his guitar and, without being asked, sang for Norman. He had a remarkable voice. Norman, taken by surprise, demanded more and more songs and Ernst obliged with enthusiasm. Norman went out for another bottle of whisky and when he returned Sally made up outrageously and came through with some hilariously shameful dances. When Karp’s other tenants began to complain about the racket they were welcomed into the party. Even Karp himself, when he finally appeared at one a.m., failed to inject his customary chill into the gathering. He sang naughty German music hall songs using his cane nattily. Mr. O’Brien, an otherwise dour water-works clerk, enriched the party with his repertoire of filthy limericks. Miss Kennedy, her hair in curlers, danced the Charleston with Norman. Sally sat on Mr. O’Brien’s lap. But Ernst, a guitar on his lap and his back to the wall, was the soul of the party. He sang again and again.

Before going, Norman took him aside. He told Ernst about the wood in the cupboard of his flat, reminded him of his offer, and asked if he would build him a bookcase.

“I’ll go first thing tomorrow morning,” Ernst said.

But alone with Sally again, rejecting her tired happy smile and her embrace, he felt as though he had been judged. You’ll come to hate me, he thought. Both of you will come to hate me.

“You sentimental people,” Ernst shouted. “You make me sick.”

Early the next morning, Ernst, saw and tool kit in hand, left for Norman’s Kensington Church Street flat. He was exhausted; he’d had enough. He decided, as he had before, to tell Sally the truth about Nicky when he got home. This time, though, he would go through with it. No matter what.

Sally stood on a chair and emptied the wardrobe. Clothes, old magazines, socks, suitcases, were dumped on the bed. When she reached the top Sally came across Ernst’s torn little black suitcase. She clutched it to her bosom affectionately. This, she remembered, had been his only possession when he had first come to stay.

Karp loomed smiling and obese in the doorway. “What goes on here?” he asked.

“Spring clean-up?”

“In September?” he asked.

“Come in, Mr. Karp. I’ll give you a cup of tea.”

Sally dumped the little black suitcase on the bed.

“That would be a pleasure,” Karp said, producing a little box of pastries.

Sunday morning tea had become something of a ritual for Karp and Sally. Karp came when Ernst was out and spoke to her of his flowers, the other tenants, and sometimes asked her advice on a choice of patterns for new wall paper. He was fond of Sally. Of his
other new friend, Charlie Lawson, he was not fond. With Charlie he played the tease. He delighted in telling him dreadful stories about Norman, most of them fantasies, just to arouse him. Charlie he found an amusing fool. Sally was a comfort.

“Oh, damn, I’m out of milk. Look,” she said, “the milkman just passed. You wait here and I’ll catch him.”

As soon as he heard the downstairs door slam Karp rose and licked the cream off a chocolate eclair. He began to poke at things with his cane. The little black suitcase, he saw immediately, was of a German make.

Ernst missed Charlie. A half hour earlier Charlie had driven off to pick up Winkleman’s two boys and, incidentally, a final copy of
All About Mary
. This morning Charlie was taking Winkleman’s boys, Jeremy’s little girl and Bob Landis’s boy and girl out for a trip to the zoo.

Charlie was worried.

Even though he had work, taking into consideration that if
All About Mary
was produced he would get his first screen credit, he still felt that he was not accepted by the group on the same level, say, as Bob Landis. He and Joey were only invited to the big parties. Charlie would have given almost anything to be able to say that he had been invited to all the more intimate dinner parties, get-togethers, and at homes. That, he thought, was a measure of your success.

Joey was worried too.

Although Charlie hadn’t enough cash for a second payment on his car, although Jeremy was far from pleased with Charlie’s work and Cameo had yet to accept one of his scripts, he had gone and bought a television set, a record player, and a tape recorder: all on hire purchase. His bank manager wanted to see him on Tuesday morning about his overdraft.

Joey, looking forward to a morning alone, had laid out a pattern for an autumn suit on the rug and, a pair of scissors in her hand, she sat cross-legged on the floor in her black lace slip. When the door bell rang she cursed. Wasn’t it just like Charlie to forget something? It was Ernst, tall and resolute. Joey brought her hand to her mouth and said, “Oh!”

Norman had phoned earlier to say that Ernst was coming and that he would be round for dinner himself, but she had forgotten. Ernst waited while she ran off and slipped into her pink, quilted dressing gown. Then he set down his saw and tool kit and took out his tape measure. “Where are the boards?” he asked.

“In the cupboard. But wouldn’t you like some coffee first?”

Ernst followed her into the kitchen and drank his coffee like a duty.

“Charlie’s taken the kids out for the day,” she said. Then, annoyingly aware of the implications of what she had said, she added, “Why didn’t you bring Sally with you? We could have gossiped while you worked.”

“I didn’t think of it.”