Earth and High Heaven (33 page)

He said, “If you think God is going to hand you another Erica Drake on a platter, only tailored to measure according to a lot of cockeyed theories about ‘Jews' and ‘Gentiles' you're going to find that you're wrong. There isn't going to be another one.”

“I know that.” He had already made up his mind, but he had more faith in his brother's judgment than in the judgment of anyone else he knew, and he said, “Go on.”

“You're a queer mixture of a weak character and a strong one. I've always thought you'd be up against something like this sooner or later, so that you'd be forced to make a choice, and if you made the right one, then you'd be somebody, and if you didn't, then afterwards you'd just let yourself go, and say what's the use, and subside into complete mediocrity. If you allow a lot of other people to talk you out of doing something that you know is right
for you
, and talk you into letting yourself and someone else down as badly as this, then you'll never amount to even half the human being you ought to be. Maybe it's a question of sticking by your own principles, I don't know, but you don't think like they do. If you did, you might be able to get away with it, but you don't, and neither does Erica. The difference between you is that she seems to realize it and you don't ...”

“I do realize it.”

He glanced swiftly at Marc, and after scrutinizing him for a moment he said, “Yes, I guess you do, but I'm going to finish my speech anyhow.” He paused and then went on, “People have been trying to type us ever since we were born, Marc. I know it hasn't been easy, it's been tough as the devil a lot of the time, but we've stuck it out this far, and neither of us can afford to give up now.” He paused again and said finally, “You can't quit.”

They both got up and started down the road toward the town. The sun was setting over the bush and the Algoma Hills were slowly changing from burnished gold to deep purple, but Marc did not look back. He did not look back until they had passed the last farmhouse and were nearing the row of rundown cottages on the outskirts, and he heard the first whippoorwill calling from the bush. He turned and his eyes swept over the line of hills as they caught the last rays of light from the west, and then he began to walk faster, looking ahead of him again.

The Reisers were at dinner, his father at one end of the table and his mother at the other, and David sitting across from him, when the telephone rang in the hall, and Marc, who was nearest the door, got up to answer it.

It was the girl who worked in the telegraph office down on Main Street and because she had known Marc all her life, instead of going through the usual formalities, she said, “Marc, is that you?”

“Yes. Oh, hello ...” he began, and then realized that he had forgotten her name. “Hello,” he said again, more firmly.

“Where have you been all afternoon, for goodness' sake?”

“Well, I ...”

“There's a wire for you from Ottawa. You've got an extra week's leave.”

“What!” Gasped Marc. “What did you say?”

“Here, I'll read it to you. ‘Captain M. L. Reiser, 32 Elm St., Manchester ...”

“All right, you can skip that part of it. Read me the rest.”

She read him the rest and asked him if he would like a copy delivered. “We're pretty short handed now, but Tommy comes in after school, and he should be back from dinner in a minute.”

“All right,” said Marc dazedly. “Send Tommy along with it.”

He put down the phone and stared at the panelled wall above the telephone where he had once carved his initials, m.l.r., Marc Leopold Reiser.

“What is it?” asked David from the doorway.

“I've got an extra week's leave.” He said suddenly, “I'm going to phone Eric and ask her to marry me.”

He could hear his mother and father talking in the dining room and looking up at his brother he said, “Go and explain to them, Dave, please.”

“O.K.,” said David.

“Tell them ...”

“O.K.,” said David again. “I'll do my best.”

He disappeared, and into the phone Marc said to the long distance operator, “Montreal, please ...”

There was a wait while she was getting the number and he went on looking at the initials M.L.R., until finally a woman's voice said, “Hello.”

“Manchester calling, just a moment please.”

“Hello,” said Marc. “Hello, may I speak to Miss Drake, please — Miss Erica Drake.”

“Yes, I'll get her. Can you hold on a minute?”

“Is that you, Mrs. Drake?”

“Yes ...”

“This is Marc Reiser speaking.”

“Oh,” she said. “I'm sorry, I didn't recognize your voice.”

“Is Eric all right?”

“No, not exactly. She — she's badly overtired ...” The voice dropped into silence and then he heard her say, “I'm glad you telephoned, Mr. Reiser. I hope — I hope there's nothing wrong?”

“No, I've just been given some extra leave ...”

“I'm so glad! Just a minute, I'll get Erica.”

He heard Miriam's voice somewhere near the phone asking, “Mother, is that Marc?”

“Yes, thank goodness.”

“Marc!” said Miriam into the phone.

“Hello, Mimi.” He was beginning to be thoroughly frightened and he asked, “What's the matter with Eric?”

“She seems to have cracked up. She came home on Saturday night, after your brother left, and just sort of went to pieces. Mother's kept her in bed ever since. You are coming tomorrow, aren't you?” she asked anxiously.

“No, I think I'll probably leave tonight. Mimi,” he said quickly, “is there any news of Tony?”

“No,” said Miriam.

“But there's still a chance, isn't there?”

“I don't think so,” she answered after a pause.

“Where was it?”

“The Mediterranean. He'd been transferred to Malta.” She said, “I'm glad about your leave, Marc.”

“Thanks, Mimi.”

“Here's Eric ...”

And then he heard Erica's voice saying, “Marc — Marc, is that you?”

“Hello, darling. Eric,” he whispered, swallowing. “Eric, darling ...”

“Is it true about your leave?”

“I've got another week.”

“Marc!”

He said in agony, “Don't cry, darling — you mustn't cry any more.”

“It's getting to be a habit, isn't it? I'm sorry.” There was a brief silence and then she said, “There, that's better. When are you coming?”

“I'm going to try to make the train tonight. It's the Vancouver train and it's due in at Windsor Station at 11:15 tomorrow morning. Do you think you can meet me?”

“Yes, of course ...”

“Are you sure you're well enough?” he asked anxiously.

“There's nothing the matter with me, really, I just ...” She stopped and then said, “I'm just a fake.”

“Eric ...”

“Yes?”

“Eric,” he said. He suddenly got to his feet, kicking away the telephone stool, and gripping the phone with one hand and the frame of the door leading into the back hall with the other, he said, “Eric, will you marry me?”

Her voice was suddenly very faint as she asked, “Do you mean now or afterwards?”

“I mean now — tomorrow, or the next day, as soon as we can get a license.” He drew in his breath and said with a great effort, “Of course, if you like you can — well, you can think about it and tell me when I ...”

“I don't have to think about it, except that I guess — I guess I can't quite believe it!”

“Neither can I,” he said rather unsteadily.

After a pause he heard her asking, “Marc, are you ...”

“Am I what?”

“Are you
sure
, darling?”

“Yes,” said Marc. “I'm quite sure now.”

There was a long silence and finally he said still more unsteadily, “I'm going to hang up now because I ...”

“It must be catching. Goodbye darling.”

“Goodbye, Eric.”

“And give my love to David!”

He put down the phone and after a while he turned and found his mother and father standing in the door leading to the dining room. Whatever it was they had intended to say to him, when they saw his face, they did not say it.

He looked from one to the other and finally the words came out, wrung from his heart, “Please ... give us a break!”

His father was the first to answer. He said, “Don't worry, Marc. We'll give you a break.”

Later, as he was standing on the steps of the train looking down at the three of them, his mother and father and brother, his father said, “Tell Erica to come and see us sometime, Marc.”

“I'll tell her,” said Marc. “If it doesn't take us too long to get a license, we might come and see you together, after we're married.”

“No,” said his mother, shaking her head. “We don't want you spending most of your last week on trains.”

The train began to move and David said, smiling up at him, “Good luck, laddie.”

His father raised one hand in a little gesture of farewell, and then his mother cried out suddenly, “Marc, come back!”

“I'll come back, Mother.”

And the last he saw of his family, they were still standing together under a lamp and a sign which they had first seen thirty-five years before, when the three of them, a mother and father and a little boy of five, had come from Austria.

It is five hundred miles from the little town of Manchester, on the edge of the mining country in northern Ontario, to the city of Montreal in Quebec, but Marc had been over the line so often since he had first left home to go to university seventeen years before, that lying awake in his berth he could call off the name of every town and every village through which they passed, and he knew the look of every lake and river, every forest and every stretch of field and pasture, invisible in the darkness.

When the train crossed the river at St. Anne's, he was already standing on the platform, looking out. Also standing on the platform was a middle-aged naval officer who told Marc that he had not seen his home in Montreal since the beginning of the war, and that the train was twenty-six hours late.

“We're running on time now, aren't we?” asked Marc.

“Depends on what you call ‘on time.' We're still twenty-six hours late so far as I'm concerned. Got stuck in Alberta. Alberta,” he repeated in disgust. “What a place to be stuck.” He took out his pipe, put it away again, and went on staring out the window. He got off at Montreal West.

After Montreal West, Westmount, then six minutes to Windsor Station.

“What track are we on?” Marc asked the porter who was piling luggage on the rear platform.

“I don't know, sir.”

“Never mind, it doesn't matter.”

They were in the railway yards now, passing a row of freight cars, then a dining car standing by itself, and finally they were there.

The porter opened the door and said, “Stand back, please sir.”

“I'm not going to fall off,” said Marc from the bottom step. Just before the train stopped he jumped. The platform was clear for a few moments, then people began streaming form all the cars ahead and he had to slow down. Sleeping cars, coaches, two baggage cars, then the coal car, and just as he came up to the engine, he saw Erica standing by the barrier waiting for him. The moment he caught sight of her, he began to run.