Authors: Belva Plain
L
ORE
was very sick. Annie, before she went to work, telephoned their doctor and asked him to come. You could see that Annie was disturbed for Lore’s sake, while at the same time you could understand that she was thinking of the disturbance to her household. One sick woman and one pregnant one were a lot more than she had bargained for.
Joel and the doctor arrived almost simultaneously. The doctor wrote out a prescription for the latest medication, called an antibiotic, and Joel was to get it at the drugstore. The cost astounded Caroline
as she drew the green bills out of what she and Lore called their “bank.” The account was dwindling.…
“It doesn’t look as if you’ll be able to catch your train as you planned,” Joel remarked when the new week began.
“No, we’ll have to postpone it. This was a serious infection, and the doctor says she’ll need another week’s rest before we can travel.”
Lore was sitting up in bed by this time, and Joel had come by every day. He had run errands and sat with her while Caroline went out occasionally for air. Not once had there been any more personal talk between them, for which she was grateful.
But now he resumed it. “Annie thinks you should accept my offer, Caroline.”
She frowned, beginning to say, “What Annie thinks is really not—”
“I know you don’t care about me, but—”
“What do you mean? I do care about you. You’ve been a real friend, and even if you hadn’t done anything for us, I would still see what a good person you are.”
“Then why not take me for what I am? Can’t you see the advantage for all of us? I like a small town, which is where you’re going. I’ll find work. Lore won’t be able to do much after her operation and won’t earn much afterward for a while until she gets her license. As for you—”
“I know.”
“Well then, if we pool what we have, we’ll all be better off.”
“Joel, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You make it sound just too easy to be possible.”
“I’m not giving up, you know. I’ll try again.”
This business was a nuisance. Yet she could not very well show anger toward him. He had a right to try. She could not afford to be angry, either, at others who really had no right to try. Here in the Sandlers’ house, receiving their incredible charity, she had to listen with courtesy to their advice.
In the evening Jake said, “I haven’t spoken because Annie hasn’t wanted me to interfere. But I’m going to speak now. Listen, Caroline, your father isn’t here. I hope he will be soon, but in the meantime, you need to listen to a man. If I had a daughter and Joel Hirsch was interested in her, I would be glad. Glad. He’s the salt of the earth. And in your position, how many men would—well, I guess I don’t have to spell it out.”
“I know what you’re saying is true, but I don’t love him,” she said stoutly.
“All well and good, but love is a thing that grows. It’s like a plant. Romance is a luxury from the movies. You, especially, have to be practical, Caroline. I can picture your family. Can you picture how they’ll suffer, as if they haven’t already suffered enough, to see you, an unmarried mother whose child was the product of a Nazi’s rape? What will it do to them?”
If only they would let her alone with these dreadful
predictions that, unfortunately, God help us, rang so true!
“You need protection right now, and your child will need it.”
“Lore will see me through that.”
Jake lowered his voice. “Now let’s be sensible. Lore can’t earn what a man can until she gets her license, and that’s a couple of years away. And Lore can’t be a father to your child. You need, and the child needs, the respect that comes with a ring on your finger.”
Imprisoned here, sitting across the room from this responsible man as old as her father, she was unable to contradict what he had said. She was beside herself.
Annie put in quietly, “A marriage of convenience means ‘in name only,’ and it’s done every day, as I’ve told you.”
“You were talking in there a long time tonight,” said Lore, who had been reading in bed.
“They really want me to marry Joel. Why are they so eager? It makes you wonder.”
“I’m sure they have no ulterior motives, if that’s what you’re thinking. They’re good people, and they believe they’re giving sound advice. Besides, it’s only human to play God. It makes people feel important. Useful. Wise.”
“Well, I’m not going to do it.”
“So be it,” Lore said.
A few days passed. Joel did not come back. Lore got out of bed, went for a walk, returned, and began to repack the clothes. “We have six days and then we’re off again.”
Once more they were rushing against the calendar. Last time, it was six days to the sailing. This time, it was six days to the train. And another bedroom in another strange house would be left behind.
“By the way, I ran into Joel’s Tessie on the street. I have an idea from something she let drop that you might be hearing from her, although I may be wrong.”
“Good Lord, I hope you are. I’ve heard more than enough. Much more.”
They were folding clothes when the bell rang. “If it’s that woman, don’t leave me alone with her,” Caroline said before opening the door.
They sat down in the front room, Tessie upright and stiff in the middle of the sofa, clasping her big black handbag.
“I’m going to come right to the point,” she began. “There’s no sense wasting time in talking about the weather. It’s about Joel. He’s in love with you, as you probably know.”
Caroline sighed. “I’m sorry to hear it, because I am not in love with him.”
“But you like him. You respect him.”
“That’s true.”
“I should hope so. He’s an honest, hardworking
man from a respectable family, my husband’s family. No criminals, no beggars, no scandal, no disgrace.”
Disgrace
. Some unnamed organ in Caroline’s body seemed to wince. She straightened her back and said very low, “I, too, come from a good family.”
“All the more reason that you should do the right thing for the baby you’re carrying.”
Caroline looked toward Lore, who was examining her fingernails. So she, too, was feeling the humiliation. She looked at the old woman, of whom Jake had said, “You have to get up early in the morning to fool her.” You could believe that, when you looked carefully at the sharp, weathered face and the sharp, bright eyes. Jake had also said that she had a heart of gold.
“You’ve both suffered because of those maniacs in Europe. Joel understands the horror of what was done to you. Many men, perhaps even most men, would not.”
Tessie looked toward Lore. “You tell her. You’re older than she is, and in your work you’ve certainly seen much more of the world. Tell her.”
“She’s my sister. I’m too involved with her to think straight. I can only feel. And what I feel is that she must make her own decisions here.”
Caroline would have expected Lore to come down hard on her side. But instead, she had left the question hanging in the air, which only admitted the possibility of another answer.
“Well?” asked Tessie, turning back to Caroline.
“An arranged marriage—”
Tessie interrupted. “It’s been done for years, all over the world, from the royal families of Europe down to my own parents. They hardly knew each other. But they lived together afterward for forty-seven years, and let me tell you it was a good marriage, a lot better than many that you see around you today.”
The woman was pounding and pounding. Where has my strength gone, Caroline asked herself, that I do not stand up to her?
“You don’t have to sleep with him unless you want to. He’s ready to take you with that understanding. Oh, don’t be embarrassed. We’re all women here, old enough to know what we’re talking about, old enough to be pregnant.”
At this point, Lore did stand up. “Caroline’s heard enough, I think. All this—everything she’s gone through these past months has been very hard for her. Do you mind if we end this now?”
“Of course not.” The old woman, wrinkled, gnarled, and worldly, spoke with dignity. “Whatever you decide, I hope you will be happy, my dear. Only remember, Joel Hirsch is a good man and he loves you.”
The door closed. And to Caroline’s astonishment, Lore burst into tears.
“Lore! Don’t take this so hard. What’s the matter?”
“It’s not just this. Or rather, it is, because things
are all tied up together, twisted, so that I don’t know what to think anymore. Twisted!” she cried, demonstrating with her fingers.
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s me. I’m sick. I didn’t want to tell you how sick. The dentist’s nurse spoke German, and she told me first. My jaw, where I need the surgery, it’s cancerous, and—and I’m not as afraid for myself, Caroline, as I am for you. What are you going to do if it’s true? We’re all alone, you and I.”
“My God, are you sure?”
“The doctor said so. ‘A textbook case,’ he said.”
“Then why in heaven’s name are you waiting? I won’t let you wait. It must be taken care of right now!”
“No. I’m not having surgery until you’re settled someplace.”
“That’s crazy, Lore!”
“No, it’s sensible.”
“What have we done to be punished like this?”
“Don’t be silly.” Lore spoke sternly. “You’re too intelligent to talk such nonsense.”
Caroline had been struck in the chest, on her heart. And she stood there, shaking.
“I want you to go out and take a walk,” Lore said. “You need oxygen, fresh air. I can’t have you falling apart, Caroline.”
“Have you told Annie and Jake?”
“Yes. I had to tell somebody. I suppose I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t keep it all in.”
So that was the reason for the urgency.…
“Go. I’ll do some ironing and finish the trunks.”
It was cool under a fair sky, a day for everything alive to be glad of life. Birds flew southward toward summer, dogs strained at their leashes, and big boys chased balls. She passed the park, where the mothers still sat beside the carriages, passed the ice cream parlor where she had gone with Joel, and passed the house where Tessie might even now be telling him about her visit.
It seemed impossible that in a matter of days, so much had happened. Impossible, too, that so much had happened in just one year. No, it was not even a year since she had met Walter in that other park so many thousands of miles away.
Now here she was with a baby growing inside her and Lore perhaps about to die. Poor, good Lore, who longs for a man to love her, and very likely, if she lives, will never have one, while I, who do not want one, I—
Three thousand miles wide, this country was. To set out in it and walk with all the time in the world, just walk in a straight line across the plains, through the cities, over the mountains to that other sea, leaving everything and everyone behind, just freely going, without thoughts, memories, just free.
Never to love again with that whole, that perfect trust that ends in grief.
She turned around, arrived at the house, climbed
the dark stairs, went to Lore, who was at the ironing board, and kissed her cheek.
“I want you to be well,” she said. “And whatever happens, I will take care of you. Tonight I will tell everyone that I am going to marry Joel Hirsch. I will be satisfied with whatever plans are made. Now I am going inside to lie down. I am very tired.”
Behind the closed door, she sobbed and sobbed. After a while, she had no more strength, and lay still.
A
NNIE
and Lore arranged everything. Annie obtained a rabbi who would perform the ceremony in his study. She planned the dinner that she would cook. Lore chose Caroline’s dress and shoes from the store of clothing in the trunk. Through the refugee committee she arranged for larger living space in Ivy. Caroline was carried along as in a moving vehicle, riding with her eyes closed, conscious only that it was moving fast.
Suddenly she found herself standing next to Joel Hirsch in a musty brown room filled with old books, traffic sounds, and unctuous language about God and love. Under wine-colored silk, her skin tingled with heat. Was it the heat of terror, of despair, or of shame? Which?
Then she found herself at the Sandlers’ table staring at geraniums in the silver bowl that she had bought over Lore’s objections.
“It’s too expensive. It’s out of place in their house, anyway.”
“No. It’s a bread-and-butter present. Mama would be shocked to know that we took so much and gave nothing.”
“Mama was never in our circumstances. We can’t afford it.”
“We’ll do without something else.”
“We’ll do without a lot of things, the way money is evaporating. Unless you want to sell the ruby.”
“Never. It’s our only security in an emergency.”
Besides, Mama loved it. I’m keeping it for her
.
The dinner was brief. As if everyone realized the strangeness of the occasion, talk was subdued. Only Joel was ebullient; his eyes, which he kept on Caroline, were shining. But she scarcely saw him. She was far away in her fantasy of a house where a sundial stood in the center of a rose garden and piano music floated through the tall, grand windows. Far away and long ago, she thought, and looking up, beheld the particles of food that were lodged in Joel’s teeth. And then she was ashamed of herself for noticing or caring.
When the dinner ended, Joel returned to sleep in Tessie’s apartment. Then, in the morning, Caroline, Joel, and Lore, with all their baggage, crossed the city again to Grand Central Station and boarded a northbound train.
“A
delbert,” said Dr. Schulman, “is too German for America, so I changed it to
Alfred
, and that’s what I’m called. That, or
Al
. Only my wife, Emmy, calls me
Bert.”
He had met their train in Buffalo, and obviously trying to put everyone including himself at ease, had been chatting all the way since.
“I try to take as much time from my practice as I can to help settle refugees. Emmy and I came here in 1932, when it seemed inevitable that Hitler was going to come to power.”
“Inevitable? You knew it?” asked Joel.
“Yes, it was quite clear to both of us. So we came. It’s a nice place, Ivy. You might say it’s a big small town. You’ll like it. Look at the colors. Splendid, aren’t they? The leaves change early this far north.”