American Dreams (48 page)

Harry Poland sent a huge floral basket and an elaborately phrased letter explaining that he'd heard of the fire and her hospitalization. He wished her. a swift recovery, and apologized (two paragraphs) for failing to pay a visit to her bedside. He was wrapped up in rehearsals for the first Broadway show for which he'd written all the songs; something called Pink Ladies. The rehearsals were fraught with personnel and technical
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problems, he said. Each time he planned to break away during visiting hours, some crisis intervened. If she would accept his apology, he would make amends when things settled down.

The curiously intense, almost boyish tone of the letter brought a smile.

She felt warmly toward Harry, not so much because of his slightly scandalous attentions but because of the quick and decisive way he'd acted when Pearly stalked her in the subway. She was pleased for his success, of course; she recognized and admired his talent.

Eddie and Rita visited together, sharing their enthusiasm about a permanent move to Los Angeles. 'For me there's no choice,' Eddie said.

'Pictures are the future. Someday they may even be art.'

After four days Dr. Lilyveldt released her, sternly warning her to favor her sprained ankle for at least two weeks. He insisted she wrap the ankle in elastic bandage, and he wanted her to walk with a cane, something her vanity would never allow. She hobbled into her two-room suite at the Bleeker House and sat down in the glow of a summer twilight, staring at her hands, still unsure of everything except her eagerness to see Paul, whose ship would dock next week.

Paul brought snapshots in quantity: Julie, the two older children, little Lottie in her fancy toddler's dress, standing with her tiny hand on a velvet pedestal and a fixed, glazed look on her round face. 'The photographer put a clamp on the back of her head so she'd stay upright,' Paul laughed. 'Talk about medieval torture! Right after he got this shot, Lottie Decision

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started bawling and that was the end. She's a sweet child, but I think she's headstrong.'

The photos were spread on the starched white cloth of their table on the stern deck of the dinner boat. The boat was docked at west Houston Street, scheduled to leave at seven p.m. for a cruise around the harbor.

Harry, was due to join them but hadn't shown up yet.

The tables under the striped awning were rapidly filling. Middle-aged waiters wearing long white aprons glided among the guests, refilling champagne and wine glasses. A hot orange sky glared in the west; they were in the midst of a heat wave. Fritzi's ankle bandage itched unmercifully.

With the toe of her other shoe she scratched it under the table while Paul showed a photo of a dark-haired young man with a cheeky grin.

'Sammy Silverstone, my right hand. An absolute gem. Why I resisted help for so long, I'll never know. Sammy saves my back, and I like his
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company too.' '

'But you didn't bring him over from England.'

Paul shook his head, fanned himself with his straw boater; it looked new, but there was a ragged half-moon torn out of the brim, as though a dog had chewed it. 'I couldn't justify the expense. I'm working for Lord Yorke only part of the time on this trip.' He jumped up. 'Let's move a bit, it's stuffy here.'

He slipped the photos into a pocket of his summer jacket of tan linen, already badly wrinkled from the heat and grime of Manhattan. His round collar bore an ink smudge, and there was a blot on his striped necktie suspiciously like a catsup stain.

They walked to the stern rail, where the ensign of the cruise line drooped on its staff. In the harbor to the south, the great torch held aloft in Liberty's hand shone brightly against the deepening blue of the sky. The harbor itself had a rich green patina, like dark jade rippled with red highlights from the western sky.

Fritzi folded her hands and leaned on the rail. 'There's something I haven't told you.'

'You mean about California - whether you'll go or stay here?'

'No, it's something bad that happened to me when I was with Harry.'

'He didn't mention it.'

As quickly as she could, she described the horrible experience at City Hall station. 'I killed him, Paul. I killed another human being. I think it'll haunt me forever. Even now it's hard to talk about it.'

She started to shudder uncontrollably. He put his arm around her. 'I 300

California

understand. I've seen men die. No matter who they are, there's something profound and mysterious about it.' He held her until the shuddering worked itself out.

Someone hailed them from the pier. 'Harry!' Paul exclaimed as the composer bounded up the gangplank. Harry embraced Paul, kissed Fritzi's hand. His face had a sallow, fatigued look not typical of him. Long hours rehearsing, she supposed; success took its toll.

In contrast to her cousin, Harry was sartorial perfection. His three button suit was pale gray linen, single-breasted, with rakishly slanted
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flap pockets. A blue and white polka-dot tie matched the hanky flowing from his breast pocket. Every crease was sharp; there wasn't a single wrinkle, smudge, or stain to be seen.

'Sorry to be late. Problems with orchestrations.'

The engines started, crewmen lifted mooring lines off bollards, and with a toot of its whistle and clang of its bell, the dinner boat put out into the Hudson. Fritzi remembered her manners: 'How is your wife, Harry?'

'Thank you for asking. I'm afraid she no longer recognizes me. A stroke victim who doesn't recover strongly often experiences a decline, I'm told.

Every organ weakens from disuse until the most important organ of all, the heart - I'm sorry, I'm being far too grim. Waiter? Some wine here.'

A three-piece band on the upper observation deck struck up Alexander's Ragtime Band,' the hit of the hour. Harry perked up. 'Isn't that a swell song? Berlin's a friend of mine. He used to be Izzy Baline; he changed his name the same way I did. I told him that if he never wrote another note, Alexander' would guarantee him immortality.'

i'd second that,' Paul nodded. 'They play and sing it all over London.'

Fritzi noticed their waiter hovering. He was a tall man with silver hair and imperial good looks. He set the soup course before each of them, hesitated, then addressed Fritzi in a rush:

'May I be so bold as to speak to you, miss? Zoltan Cizmaryk is my name. I am a great admirer of yours.'

'Of mine? We've never met.'

'Oh but we have, many times. I have seen you in every picture about the Lone Indian, and several others too. My wife and I are from Budapest, ten years now.' So that was the source of the juicy accent. 'Might I beg you to sign a menu for my wife before the cruise is over?'

'Of course,' Fritzi said, pleased by the recognition but amazed again that silly little pictures could produce such a reaction in strangers.

A tail-coated captain snapped" his fingers at Zoltan, who bowed and Decision

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rushed off to his duties. 'Quite the star you're becoming,' Paul said with a smile.

'Yes, it's wonderful,' Harry agreed. 'I think it's only the beginning.'

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Basking in the flattery, Fritzi turned her attention to the excellent dinner served by Zoltan Cizmaryk and his colleagues. The dinner boat chugged slowly down past Battery Park, over to the East River, and north for a view of the Brooklyn Bridge. Then it backed around and chugged in the direction of the Statue of Liberty and the vast ocean beyond. Stars speckled the deep blue sky. The lifted torch blazed its message of hope and welcome, but Fritzi noticed that Paul's attention was fixed on lighted buildings on an island to their right.

'That's where Harry and I arrived after a hellish trip in steerage,' he said in a hushed voice.

Harry said, 'When my mother was turned back for eye disease and we were forced to go back to Europe, I knew I would see Ellis Island a second time or die in the attempt.' His tone was light, casual, belying the emotion Fritzi saw in his eyes.

A few minutes later, finished with the meal, they strolled up to the observation deck, where couples and families gazed at the panorama of the harbor by night. Slowly, grandly, the copper-sheathed statue on its mighty pedestal passed on their right. Fritzi felt a lump in her throat. The statue hadn't been there when her father had come to New York in the 1850s, but, like Harry and Paul, the General revered everything she symbolized.

'Bartholdi

was a genius,' Harry murmured. 'She says so much, that great lady. She says, "Welcome, whoever you are. You needn't be rich, or renowned, there is a place for you anyway." To me especially, she says,

"This is the land where you can realize your wildest dream if you work hard. So go forward, for that's where the future lies' -- Harry pointed 'ahead of you. You will never find it by going back."'

Conscious of Fritzi's silence, Paul's thoughtful puffing of a cigar whose fiery end glowed bright, Harry laughed self-consciously. 'I don't mean to dampen the evening with philosophy. Forgive me.'

Impulsively, Fritzi put her hand on top of his on the starboard rail.

'What you said was beautiful.' Paul uttered a terse agreement; Fritzi thought there was a sudden, misty shine in his eyes.

The dinner boat described a long arc to port, ready to return slowly to the pier. Full darkness had fallen. Voices were softer, accented by the throb of the engines. New York City rose up glittering ahead of them. Fritzi 302

California

heard the men discussing something, but she was far away, in a private place where she listened to Harry's voice.

Go forward, for that's where the future lies. Ahead of you. You will never
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find it by going back.

West Twenty-second Street was dark and empty. Their shadows moved on the pavement as they approached and passed under street lamps. A plodding horse hitched to a hansom came along, clop-clopping; the driver alternately dozed and started as the cab went by. A fire siren wailed across town. The air was cooler.

On the stoop of her building, Fritzi hugged her cousin. Paul stepped back, fanned himself with his boater with the bite out of the brim.

'You love this town, don't you?'

'Parts of it,' she said, with a fleeting memory of Pearly.

'So what about California?'

'I haven't made up my mind.'

'I expect Marry hopes you'll stay here. 1 don't think you have a bigger admirer in the whole world.' Fritzi laughed, to brush it aside. 'But you're the one who must decide. I was impressed when that waiter recognized you. You've made a mark in the movies. Is there anything for you here that's just as good?'

She was ready to give him a pat answer about the Broadway theater until she realized he was exactly right: in pictures she'd achieved something she'd never achieved in months and years of frustrating auditions, menial jobs, poverty - all for the sake of an occasional appearance in a flop.

She felt a cooler wind blowing over the Hudson from the west. Her head came up, and she seemed to hear a ghostly sound, like a key turning to unlock a door.

'No, Paul, nothing. Absolutely nothing. 1 won't be in New York when you catch your ship. I'm going back to California.'

During that last July of the old order only the most sophisticated students of European affairs had any inkling of the rancors and hatreds and murderous lusts fermenting behind those picturesque facades. . . . The summer months of 1914 saw the prosperous European order turn into all the abominations of the Apocalypse.

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- John Dos Passos, Mr. Wilsons War

If the iron dice roll, may God help us.

- Theobald BethmannHollweg,

Chancellor of Germany,

August 1,1914

The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.

- Sir Edward Grey,

British Foreign Secretary,

August 3,1914

58 Loyal

A few days back in Los Angeles reminded Fritzi of all the things she'd missed: the smell of wet sage, the sunburst color of poppies on the hillsides, the clean and fragrant air, so different from the befouled skies of Manhattan.

Now and again she daydreamed of I larry Poland, his charm, his adoring looks -- which ought to be reserved for his wife, she thought, bringing herself up short whenever she recalled him too fondly. She understood Harry's situation, but she also understood that it made him unavailable.

Then, in March 1912, something happened to banish memories of Paul's friend and fill her with happiness. It started, ironically enough, on a day when the papers were full of tragedy: the great White Star liner Titanic, termed unsinkable by her builders, had struck an iceberg on her

maiden crossing to New York and carried almost 1,600 people to their deaths.

Fritzi and Owen's replacement were filming The Lone Indian's Squaw at .Daisy Dell, the remote glen off North Highland. During the first hour

Eddie found it difficult to get cast and crew to concentrate; nearly all of
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them, including Fritzi, had their noses in copies of the Times.

Jock Ferguson's assistant craned over Fritzi's shoulder. 'How many'd they save?'

'Seven hundred and forty-five. That's not very--'

'Let's go, let's go,' Eddie stormed, clapping his hands. Sighing, Fritzi folded her paper. He was beginning to sound a bit like Kelly.

For the first time she noticed the two extra players hired to play outlaws in the picture. One was short, bowlegged, and forgettable, but the other caught her eye. He was tall, thin as a stick, with a mahogany sunburn, 306

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gaunt cheeks, and a bold nose. Veins in his forehead stood out, giving him an air of suppressed tension even when he smiled. Whether facing the light or turned away from it, he squinted, as though he'd stared into a thousand burning prairie suns.

His weathered jeans and shirt and blue bandanna fit him naturally and comfortably. Long brown hair hung down to his collar. A six-inch scar disfigured the back of his wrist and left hand. He struck Fritzi as dangerous, a strange, inexplicable reaction that mingled delicious excitement and puritan guilt.