Earth and High Heaven (15 page)

She scrutinized Erica in silence for a while, absently brushing her dark hair, and then asked suddenly, “Would it make any difference if I came along some night? After all, I'm family — sort of,” she added, qualifying it.

“Thanks, Mimi!”

“You don't have to start crying all over again. Have a drink instead. And how about a cigarette?” She tossed one to Erica, lit one for herself, and observed, “I suppose you've heard the latest ...”

“No, what?”

“The latest is that Mother and Charles are not going to take any holidays this summer because they're so worried about you that they wouldn't get any real rest anyhow, and they might just as well stay in town and go on working.”

She inhaled deeply, blew out a long, thin stream of smoke and added, shrugging, “Well, it's probably true, but it's still blackmail. This whole business is so damn silly, all they do is stay at home brooding over a man they don't even know.”

“It isn't just that,” said Erica. “Even if they knew him and liked him, he'd still be impossible.”

“Yes, but not so impossible as he is now. People are funny,” said Miriam, gazing thoughtfully into space. “You'd think one problem would be enough, without going out of your way to invent a couple of extra ones. Most of what Charles says about Marc comes under the heading of pure invention, doesn't it?”

“I guess so.”

“He reminds me of someone erecting an ogre to frighten himself with.”

A moment later she said idly, “Do you know what I'd do if I were you?”

Erica was sitting on the edge of her bed, completely discouraged, with her head and her shoulders down, and as she raised her eyes inquiringly but without much interest, Miriam said, “If I were you I'd get out.”

“Why?” asked Erica, startled.

“Not for your own sake, but for Marc's. I don't know much about him, and maybe he's so tough he can go on taking it, but there are other ways of knocking a man down than just hauling off and socking him!”

“What are you getting at?”

“Every time he meets you somewhere and every time he brings you home and leaves you on the doorstep, it must get him down that much further, whether he realizes it or not. I think that is what Charles is counting on,” she went on reflectively. “He's banking on the probability that some day, Marc will get so far down that he'll just quit.”

“How did you know that?” demanded Erica.

“Oh,” said Miriam, raising her eyebrows. “So I'm not the only one.”

“I didn't mean about Charles. He can't be doing it deliberately ...”

“Why can't he?”

“He thinks Marc is the aggressive type with a skin six inches thick.”

“Oh, nuts,” said Miriam.

“But Mimi, he doesn't know what Marc is like. You've heard him on the subject of Marc often enough.”

“A lot of that is eyewash put on for your benefit. Charles doesn't really believe it; he did in the beginning but he doesn't now. The only person who does is Mother. You see, Eric, the great thing about being temperamental, like Charles, is that when ninety-nine times in a row your outbursts against someone are genuine, nobody is likely to spot the hundredth as partly faked. I don't mean that Charles isn't sincere — just say that he's letting himself be carried away by his own arguments. He may end up where he started by believing that Marc is just a ‘cheap Jewish lawyer,' as he so charmingly expresses it, but he doesn't at the moment.”

“Why not?”

“He's been making a few judicial inquiries about Marc downtown and over at Divisional Headquarters ...”

“But, Mimi, that makes all the difference,” said Erica eagerly.

“Does it?”

“Of course it does. Good heavens, it means that ...”

Miriam interrupted. She said flatly, “It means nothing. What good does it do Charles to hear Marc described as quite exceptional — for a Jewish lawyer? Or first-rate — for a Jewish officer? You don't imagine any of them left out the word ‘Jew,' do you? Nobody ever does.”

Erica sank back again. She said listlessly, “I suppose that was what Mother meant.”

“Mother doesn't know even that much. He hasn't told her.”

“Why?”

Miriam regarded her quizzically for a moment and said finally, “What's the use of getting Mother all confused?”

She smoked for a while in silence and then remarked, “However, that's not the point. If you think this atmosphere of concentrated disapproval is all you're going to have to contend with, you're crazy. Charles hasn't finished with you yet, he has-n't even started, and he'll put up the fight of his life before he'll hand you over to a Jewish lawyer — even if he is exceptional. And though you may be able to stand it, some of it is bound to get through to Marc sooner or later. Since he must have been getting it in one form or another all his life, my advice to you is to make up your mind whether you want Marc or Charles, because Charles isn't going to allow you to have both of them, and if it's Marc, then clear out where Charles can't get at him and where you don't have to leave him standing on the doorstep.”

Miriam drank some rye, lit a cigarette and as Erica glanced at her clock and got up, Miriam said, “I guess I sound pretty hardboiled but compared to Charles, I'm not even coddled.”

“He's only trying to do what he thinks is best for me,” said Erica, running a comb through her hair and then taking her bag and gloves from the dressing table.

“Nobody can really tell what's ‘best' for anyone else.” Looking up at Erica who had paused in the center of the room on her way to the door, she said, “If you don't clear out, what are you going to do?”

“Nothing. I'm just going to hang on. Charles can't break this thing up if I don't let him, and provided I just hang on long enough, he'll come around sooner or later.”

“I hope you're right,” said Miriam.

Marc was waiting for Erica in the main dining room at Charcot's, sitting at a table in the back of the room underneath a great golden cock painted on the smooth light wall over his head. He did not notice Erica until she was within a few feet of him; he was looking fixedly at the big menu in front of him. The menu was actually just a trick, a form of protection against his own nerves and the glances of the people around him, for he hated waiting alone in a crowd. Usually he bought a paper and took refuge behind the war news, but today he must have forgotten.

“Hello, Marc ...”

“Eric!” He got up so quickly that he almost upset the table. When he first caught sight of her, his face always lit up as though he had not seen her for weeks.

“Have you been waiting long?”

“No, only about five minutes.”

“I'm sorry,” said Erica, smiling at him.

They sat side by side on the white leather banquette facing down the room, Erica in a green and white print dress and Marc in uniform.

“What's ris de veau à la bonne femme?” Marc wanted to know.

“Haven't you read
Young Man of Caracas
?”

“I've just started it.”

“Well, when you get a little further you'll find out that it means ‘Laugh of the sheep at the good woman.'”

“Really,” said Marc. “It sounded more like an hors d'oeuvre than an entrée.”

“What else is there?” asked Erica, looking at the menu over his shoulder.

“Poulet, filet mignon, escaloppe de veau, filet de sole à la something and something grenouilles. Why do they always have to write these menus in purple ink?” He paused and then asked, “What does that remind me of, Eric?”

“
This Above All
?”

“Right. Cultured, aren't we? Well, which do you want?”

“Let's have poulet.”

“Poulet frit, poulet grille, or poulet roti?”

“Grille. They do it well here.”

“Poulet grille, s'il vous plait,” he said to the waiter. “Des hors d'oeuvres — do you want soup?” Erica shook her head. “Moi non plus. Fish?”

“No, thanks.”

“Pas de poisson. We'll choose our dessert later. How about a cocktail?”

“Yes, Manhattan, please.”

“Two Manhattans — non, je prendrai un martini.”

“Un Manhattan, un martini,” said the waiter.

“Merci.” He turned to Erica and said, “You look beautiful tonight, darling. Don't ever cut your hair, will you?”

He remembered that it was the combination of fine, almost delicate features and that look of emotional strength which came through from underneath, which had so struck him the first time he had met her. It was not only in her face but in the lines of her slender, almost boneless body, a blending of sensitivity and passion which disturbed him so profoundly whenever he was with her, close to her, that afterwards he forgot what they talked about and almost forgot where they had gone — what remained chiefly in his mind was his own sense of strain at always holding back, sitting on the opposite side of a table or if they were in a restaurant like this with seats along the wall, of keeping a foot of space between them, and when they were driving, staying on his own side of the car.

Erica was something that had never happened to him before. With all the others, an essential part of him had remained detached and isolated from the rest of his consciousness, out of reach of everyone, including himself. He could do nothing about it but try to confine it and fight it off as long as possible. His detachment had set a time limit to all his relationships, and since he was always aware of it, he had never been able to fool himself into believing that any of them would be permanent. Sooner or later and against his will, because he had no liking for short-lived affairs and wanted permanence, the old withdrawal process would begin again, until eventually he would find himself back where he had started, having completed another circle and got nowhere.

Then Erica had come along and for the first time in his life, he had found himself wholly involved. He did not know how or why it had happened, or, more important, since under the circumstances a lot of people were going to take a lot of convincing, how to explain to anyone else that, this time, he knew he was not going to get over it. So far he had only tried explaining it to one person, his brother David, having run into him accidentally at the Rosenbergs' when both of them had been in Toronto on business the week before, and David had remained quite unconvinced. Apparently the more you talk about being in love, the more you sound like a dime novel. At one point he had even heard himself protesting that this time it was different and that he and Erica belonged together!

They had been sitting in some ghastly Toronto beer parlor, having left the Rosenbergs' with an hour still to spare before both of them had to catch their trains. He would probably not have mentioned Erica to his brother if he had not been thoroughly depressed, partially by things in general and partly by the Rosenbergs. Betty Rosenberg was not Jewish, and she was a Montrealer with much the same background as Erica. In order to get away from the apparently inevitable family complications, when they had been married two years they had moved to Toronto where Max had had to start all over again. They had two children, there was another due soon, and Marc had been heartsick at the way in which life was obviously wearing them down. He had not known Betty Rosenberg before her marriage, but she was fair-haired, and he supposed that she had once looked like Erica.

“Is that what happens?” he had asked David as they were walking away from the house.

His brother was shorter than Marc, with black hair and dark eyes; he glanced up sideways at Marc and said briefly, “I guess all married couples have their off nights.”

He had forgotten what they had talked about after that, until they were sitting at a corner table in the beer parlor and his brother had asked suddenly, “What's the matter with you?”

“I don't know,” he answered after a pause. “I guess it was just the Rosenberg atmosphere.”

“Why? Are you thinking of doing what Max did?” After waiting for a while, David said resignedly, “You might just as well tell me all about it, laddie. You will sooner or later anyhow. What's her name?”

“Erica Drake.”

His brother finished his beer and then asked, “What's she like?”

He tried to tell David what Erica was like but that came out all wrong too. The more he said, the less it sounded like Erica. Finally his brother cut him short with, “All right, all right ... so you think you're in love with her.”

“I don't just think so.”

“It wouldn't be the first time if you did.”

“I know,” said Marc impatiently, “but this time it's different.”

“Not really.”

“I can't remember ever having wanted to marry anyone before.”

His brother was sitting hunched over his glass with his pipe between his teeth. He removed the pipe, glanced at Marc and with his eyes back on the table again he said, “You haven't shown much talent for sticking so far, and if you're really serious about marrying her, you'll need a lot. I wouldn't make it too tough for myself if I were you.”

“I'm not worried about myself. I'm really in love with her; I've never felt this way about anyone before in my life. We just belong together, that's all. Oh, hell,” he said, exasperated, grinding out his cigarette. “You can't explain these things.”

There was a brief silence and then Marc asked, “Are you just against it on principle?”

“No,” said David. “I haven't got any of those particular principles. How long have you known her?”

“About a month. It hasn't anything to do with that. I knew Eric better after I'd been talking to her for half an hour than I know René de Sevigny after ten years.”

“That's not what I'm talking about.” David glanced at his watch, signaled the waiter for their bill and got up. Looking down at Marc, he said, “The trouble with you is, laddie, you've never really grown up. You haven't found yourself yet. I'm sorry if I sound like a copybook but I can't think of any other way of putting it. And until you have, and really know what you want, you'd better stay clear of complicated situations. After all, it isn't just a question of messing up your own life.”

You haven't found yourself yet.

He still did not know exactly what his brother had meant by that. And he certainly did not want to mess up Erica's life, or even run the risk of hurting her. It was because he was afraid for her and for himself, but particularly for Erica, that he had sat on the opposite side of the car and kept on driving, or had gone from one public place to another, for what had once begun in the car or on the mountain or in a park — the only places in which they were ever alone — would inevitably end in a hotel in the Laurentians for a weekend. The idea of leaving Erica to pick up the pieces in Montreal when he himself went overseas, after one or several weekends in the Laurentians, did not appeal to Marc particularly.

And along with everything else, he had himself to cope with.

The cocktails had arrived. He drank his all at once, then said to Erica who was staring at the cherry in the bottom of her glass, “Spear it with a match.”

“I wonder what's become of the toothpick?”

“It's probably a war measure.”

“What were you thinking about?”

“You,” he said. “Us.”

His life had been run largely by his intelligence so far; his emotions had never threatened to run away with him until now — the only thing which could be said ever to have run away with him was his lack of emotion. He had never got either himself or anyone else into trouble through feeling too much, only through his having felt too little.

And now, Erica. She was wearing some kind of green and white summer dress, sitting beside him with her fair hair almost down to her shoulders, spearing the cherry at the bottom of her glass with a match.

“Don't look like that!” said Marc.

Erica raised her head and asked, startled, “Like what?”

But he did not know what he wanted her to look like, except that it would have been a help if she had looked less like herself. He moved a few inches away from her and ordered another cocktail.

There was a radio playing out in the hall. Erica ate the cherry and listened above the murmur of voices and the soft clatter of dishes, and asked finally, “What is it?”

“Schubert No. 5. I think he stole most of the last movement from Mozart.”

Charles would have liked that, even if he had considered that Marc was slandering Schubert. The utterly lunatic part of it was that there was nothing about Marc that either Charles or her mother would
not
have liked.

“What did you say?” she asked a moment later.

“I said, you should have had a martini too.”

“Why?”

“Because all I've got in my room is half a bottle of gin.”

“Are we going to your room?” Erica asked, looking at a woman out in the middle of the long, light room who was wearing a very large black hat and eating lobster.

“Don't you think it's about time you learned something about my background?”

She felt that he was smiling at her, but the next moment the amusement died out of his oblique, greenish eyes. He took her hand suddenly for the first time, and held it with a pressure which went on steadily increasing until the waiter appeared on the other side of the table with his wagon of hors d'oeuvres, and he released it.

“Everything except onions, beets, herring, and that pink stuff,” said Erica, after the waiter had waited patiently for one of them to pay some attention to him. “What's your room like?” she asked Marc.

“Depressing.”

Some time later, as she was struggling with her chicken, Erica remarked, “When I eat hors d'oeuvres I never have any appetite left for the rest of the meal.”

“You never have any appetite anyhow.”

He was watching her with an anxious expression and an angry look in the tight muscles around his mouth. “What was it today?” he demanded without warning. “More trouble?”

Erica glanced at him quickly and then answered matter-offactly, “No, of course not. I'm just not hungry.”

He picked up the basket of bread and when she shook her head, he put a slice on her plate anyhow. “You've got to eat, Eric.” He gave her some butter and then asked, “Do you really think I'm worth it?”

“Yes,” said Erica under her breath. Her eyes met his, and she said involuntarily, “Darling, don't look at me like that!”

“I can't help it. I've behaved very well so far but I don't think it's going to last much longer. In the meantime, you'd better go on eating. No woman looks romantic with her mouth full.”

“Do I have to eat all of it?”

“There isn't much, Eric, it's mostly bones.”

He was talking about something else and she thought that once again she had succeeded in heading him off, when he asked suddenly, as they were waiting for their dessert, “Do they go on at you about me all the time, or is it just intermittent?”

Evidently some of it had got through to him anyhow, in spite of the way she had worked to keep him from finding out, having realized from the beginning that the most dangerous aspect of the whole situation was not her father's attitude toward Marc but Marc's reaction to that attitude once he became fully aware of it. He would take it as final, because it was confirmed by so much in his own experience if for no other reason, when in fact it was not. Erica's conviction that sooner or later Charles Drake would come round was not based on hope so much as on a fairly complete knowledge of Charles Drake. If, at some future date, he should be faced with the choice of accepting Marc Reiser or losing his daughter, then Miriam to the contrary, Charles would accept Marc Reiser, but whether she could succeed in convincing Marc of that fact was a different matter. Marc did not know her father. And in any case, to ask Marc simply to wait and put up with the attitude until her father was forced into a position where he had to change it, and with nothing to look forward to, so far as Marc could see, but a grudging “acceptance” under due pressure, was to ask altogether too much of anyone with as much pride as Marc Reiser. He could not be expected to realize that the word “acceptance” had a different meaning for her father than it had for most people. You had actually to have seen Charles Drake do one of his
voltes-faces
before you could believe it was possible. He did not put his prejudices behind him and go on from there; he went back to the beginning and started all over again.