“I know, Steenie.”
“I wasn’t always an old reprobate. I might have been something, once. I had lots of energy. Lots and lots. Then it went. I frittered it away. Wexton might have stopped me, if I’d let him. But I didn’t. It’s too late now, of course.”
“Steenie, it isn’t. You’ve changed once—you can change again.”
“No, I can’t. I’m stuck. Never let that happen to you, Vicky. It’s terrible.” Steenie blew his nose in a silk handkerchief, noisily. He wiped his eyes.
“It was Vickers’s fault.” Steenie seemed somewhat recovered. He rose to his feet, clapped his hands very loudly, shouted an embarrassing “Hurrah.”
We went on to the formal reception and dinner, at which Steenie became quietly drunk.
“Tight as a tick,” he announced when we finally escaped the dinner. “Tight as a tick.”
He weaved about from side to side. Ahead of us Wexton ambled along, and Frank Gerhard, our host for what remained of the evening, walked at a fast and determined pace. We passed gray stone colleges, ivy-clad walls; Steenie, unimpressed by this close resemblance to Oxford or Cambridge, said it was all unnatural. “A stage set. No, I won’t be quiet, Victoria.”
Frank Gerhard’s rooms, overlooking a college courtyard, were untidy. They were full of books. There was a microscope on a chair. Wexton (it resembled one of his rooms) looked about him with pleasure. I stared at Steenie fearfully. His face was greenish; I was terrified he might be sick.
I did not dare to look at Frank Gerhard, who, having brought us this far, might well be regretting he had done so. When I had quelled Steenie, which I did by pushing him unceremoniously into a chair, I risked a glance. Frank Gerhard looked from face to face: a distinguished poet, an elderly roué much the worse for drink, and me. His face betrayed no reaction, though I think I saw a glint of amusement in his eyes when Steenie attempted to sing us all a brief song and I quelled him again.
Some conversation was attempted, but at that point Steenie fell asleep and at once began to snore. Perhaps sensing an undercurrent of tension in the room, perhaps taking pity on Frank Gerhard, who seemed to be finding coherent speech difficult, Wexton—spotting a chessboard with the pieces laid out—suggested he and Frank Gerhard might play chess.
Frank did not seem to hear this suggestion the first time it was made. The second time, he did. He asked if I would mind. When I said that no, I would not, he paced up and down the room, remembered no one had drinks, and then poured them. He did so in a distracted way. Wexton later said that his was neat gin. Mine tasted like whisky and tonic.
The game began. I sat across the room and watched them play. Silence; I was glad of that. The evening’s events would not lie still. I waited to be calmer; I also waited, I suppose, for Wexton to win.
Wexton played chess exceptionally well. I remembered the ease with which he used to beat my father—and my father was a very good chess player. Half an hour passed; an hour; if Wexton was winning, it was taking an unusually long time. I leaned over to examine the board. Wexton was playing his usual tight and defensive game; his pawns were well deployed but his queen looked precarious.
I am not good at chess, however, nor am I a good judge of the progress of a game. It was at this point, safely invisible to everyone in the room, that I began—as I had wanted to do from the first—to look at Frank Gerhard.
I rested my eyes upon his face. Either I had been blind or his face was translated. Where I had judged him brooding, preoccupied, and censorious before, I now saw a man whose face conveyed both gentleness and strength. Where I had recited defects, I now recited virtues: intelligence, loyalty, humor, resolve. Was he proud? Yes—but I was glad he was proud. Was he arrogant? Possibly, but I could forgive arrogance, once I saw it as a defense. Was he obstinate? Yes. I thought once or twice, when he glanced up at me, that he looked very obstinate indeed, almost fiercely obstinate—and at
that
type of obstinacy, I rejoiced.
The minutes ticked by. I heard them tick, for there was a clock above the fireplace; it was half an hour slow; I liked this. As I sat I began to experience a curious and heady sensation: that time both continued and stopped, that we were in this room, all four of us, and that at the same time we were somewhere else. In that place, wherever it was, the air was animate, busy; its molecules rushed back and forth. They whirled about. They made me giddy.
Perhaps Frank Gerhard felt this too. If he did, it did not seem to affect his ability at chess; he continued to make his moves with speed and decisiveness. Nevertheless, he was affected, as I was. I knew this, first, through my nerve endings, then through an action—a strange action—of his.
He did not look up from the chessboard; in the game, it was his turn to move. He was playing white. I thought he would probably move his knight, or possibly his castle. Whichever piece he chose, Wexton’s position looked perilous. Without turning his head or, apparently, breaking his concentration in any way, Frank held out his hand to me. I rose and clasped it. His grip tightened. I looked down at his hand. I considered past years, past meetings, past words, past sentences. Goodbye and hello: the sentences were immaterial.
Frank Gerhard moved his bishop in a deep diagonal, the width of the board. Wexton parried, but was fenced in. Frank Gerhard continued to hold my hand. I continued to hold his. Some five minutes later Wexton resigned. An ingenious checkmate. The game was over.
I think Wexton left the table at that point and went to rouse Steenie. I remember that he disappeared. I remember Steenie’s protesting that it was too soon to return to the hotel, and I suppose Wexton must have insisted, because both of them certainly left, and on his way out Uncle Steenie managed to knock over the microscope.
I suppose that more must have been said; it must have been agreed, for instance, that I would follow them later. I have a vague recollection of Frank Gerhard’s saying he would walk me back. But it was all very brief. My uncle Steenie was too drunk to see what was happening; if Wexton saw (and I am sure he did) he was too wise to interfere or comment.
I remember the door closing. I remember Steenie, in the courtyard outside, caroling. But such things were peripheral. I continued to hold Frank Gerhard’s hand; I continued to look at him.
He had risen—I think when the others left. Despite my height, he was considerably taller. I looked up at him; he looked down. He looked at my face in a strange way, as if he quantified the features there, perhaps measured the length of my nose or the space between my eyes. I felt quite blind. Happiness stole upon me; it made his face a haze. I remember wondering what the source of this happiness might be, and deciding it was the grasp of his hand.
I continued to stare. The clock continued to tick. The features of this face were delightful to me. He frowned. I thought that frown a marvelous thing. I intended to look at that frown forever.
“Seventy-two,” Frank Gerhard said.
I was concentrating so deeply on the frown that speech was unexpected. I jumped.
“Seventy-two,” he said again, in a stern way. The frown deepened. “You used to have seventy-two. Now you have seventy-five. There are three more, all on the same side, under your left eye. Freckles, that is.”
I suppose I must have said something; perhaps I just made another startled and incoherent sound. Whatever it was that I did, it appeared to make him impatient, and joyful. An expression that was familiar to me came upon his face.
“It’s perfectly simple,” he continued, and I could see the effort it cost him to speak in this reasonable way:
“You had seventy-two freckles. Now, you have seventy-five. I didn’t mind them then, and I don’t mind them now.” He paused; the frown deepened. “No, this is wrong. The truth is: I
love
them very much. Your freckles, and your hair and your skin and your eyes. Especially your eyes—”
He stopped. I said:
“Franz-Jacob.”
“You see, when I look at your eyes …” He hesitated; he was struggling. “When I look at your eyes—it has been hard, so very hard, not to tell you. Not to say, and to do, so many things. I—What did you say?”
“I said: Distance is of no object between the hearts of friends.”
There was a silence. Color came and went in his face. His hand lifted, then fell. He said:
“It mattered to you? You do remember?”
I began to tell him, then, how much it had mattered, and how many things I remembered. Such a strange list: greyhounds and algebra, Morse code and waltzes, Winterscombe and Westchester, the children we had been and the adults we were now.
I did not progress very far with that list. When I had reached greyhounds, or perhaps algebra, Frank said:
“I think I have to kiss you. Yes, I have to do it now, at once—”
“No algebra?”
“No algebra, no geometry, no trigonometry, no calculus. Another time, perhaps—”
“Another time?”
“Possibly.” A determined look had come into his eyes, tempered by amusement. He put his arms around me. I knew I would not finish that list.
“Possibly. On the other hand, maybe I won’t care very much if your mathematics goes to the dogs. Maybe I am indifferent to your progress, or lack of it, in mathematics—”
“You’re sure?”
“Not quite. I am, however, very sure”—he drew me closer—“very sure
indeed,
about this.” He paused one last time before he kissed me. He looked into my eyes; he touched my face; when he spoke, he did so very gently:
“
Versteht du,
Victoria?”
“
Ich verstehe,
Franz,” I said.
That was how it was. There you are. I felt: all the equations came out. Q.E.D.—in my life, this was the arithmetic.
I stayed with him all night; we talked all night—or most of it. Frank said:
“Two of Rosa’s children are adopted. Daniel came out from Poland. I came out from Germany. We never speak of this. It would hurt Rosa if we did. Rosa never speaks of it, to anyone—well, you know this. We are all … her children. That was her choice. I had to decide …” His face became closed.
“Either I could be Franz-Jacob, with no family, or I could be Frank Gerhard. I decided to be Frank Gerhard. I admired her husband, Max. I came to love them both. It was a way of thanking them for what they had done.”
“And now, which are you? Frank Gerhard or Franz-Jacob?”
“Both, of course. I never tell Rosa that.”
“And which shall I call you?”
“Whichever you choose. You see, it does not matter. As long as you are there, nothing else matters. Names least of all.”
He had turned away from me as he said this. Turning back, he took my hands and held them tightly.
“Do you know how many letters I sent you? I wrote once a week, every week, for three
years.
To begin with they were short letters, very dry, full of sums—that was the kind of boy I was. I didn’t find it easy to express what I felt. I still don’t, even now. I can want, so much, to speak from the heart—and then, I don’t. I fail. A scientist, you see.” He shrugged, in an angry way. “Poor with words. English words, anyway.” He paused. “I can be a little more eloquent, occasionally, in German.”
“I find you very eloquent. You are eloquent—to me. Words don’t matter, not when I look at you.” I stopped. “Frank, tell me about your letters.”
“Very well. They were … boy’s letters, to begin with. What was happening then, when I went back to Germany—I couldn’t describe it. So I wrote about other things. I was twelve then. I imagine, if you’d ever had those letters, you would have found them very dull. You might have said: ‘This friend Franz writes like a timetable, a textbook….’ Those letters, anyway. Not the later ones.”
“The later ones were different?”
“Very different. Very … desperate. I was fourteen, fifteen by then. I poured out my heart to you. I had never done that before. I have never done it since. I said … Well, it doesn’t matter now what I said.”
“It matters to me. It will always matter to me.”
“It was a long time ago. I was a boy still—”
“I want to
know,
Frank.”
“Very well.” He rose and turned away from me. “I said that I loved you. As a friend—but also not just as a friend. I said that.”
The admission was made with the greatest reluctance, in a stiff way. I said gently:
“You sound ashamed. Why sound ashamed? Is that such a terrible thing to have said?”
“I am
not
ashamed,” he replied fiercely. “I won’t let you think this. It is just—”
“I said it, too, you know. I expect, if I could read now what I wrote then, I’d find it embarrassing. Does that matter? I meant what I said.”
“You said that?” He stared at me.
“Of course. In very bad prose. Too many adjectives. Adverbs everywhere.”
Frank had begun to smile. He crossed back to me. He said, “Tell me some of these adjectives. And these adverbs …”
I began on some of them. Like my earlier list, it was a brief one. I might have reached
dearly,
or perhaps
passionately
or maybe (I’m afraid)
eternally
before I was silenced.
Some while later, Frank took my hand. I was too dazed with happiness to think very clearly, but I could see that despite everything, he was still troubled.
“I still cannot understand. All these letters—your letters, my letters. Where could they have gone?”
I think that even then, at the very beginning, it was that question above all which I wanted to avoid. I said, the letters were gone; I said, now it need not matter.
“But it
does
matter. The logic of it matters—you must see that. You wrote throughout the war. How many letters was that?”
“I don’t know.”
“I know how many I wrote. Once a week, every week, for three years. Work it out! That is one hundred and fifty-six letters. To the correct address. In war, maybe one letter might be lost, five, ten—but one hundred and fifty-six? That is against all laws of probability.”
“We know now, what we said—”
“That’s not the point! Don’t you see the consequences? You might have believed
your
letters went astray, but what about mine? What did you think, when I had promised to write and I never did?”