waiting for you to open the door.”
She took his cap from him and gave it to a maid, who seemed to appear from nowhere and disappeared as quickly as she had come. Jerry came running into the room.
The two men clasped hands, looking at each other, each reluctant to let go. They spoke, almost together, the foolish things that grown men say to each other when deeply moved.
“Marty, you old sawbones!”
“Jerry, you old ambulance chaser!”
Janet came up with some drinks. They raised their glasses.
“To reunion!” toasted Jerry with a smile, inclining his glass towards Martin. “To you two!” Martin returned.
“No, wait a minute,” interrupted Janet. The two men looked at her.
She looked back at them proudly, smiling. “To friendship,” she said, holding her glass high. “The durable kind.”
They drained their glasses.
Dinner was one of those things that Martin had dreamed about for a long time—a rich, white tablecloth, sparkling silver, impeccably clean china, candles on the table. And these were his friends—the friends of his childhood, with whom he could retrace the steps of time and live again those very young, exciting days when all the world was new and every day was different and every tomorrow had hope.
It was inevitable they should talk about Francis. They always did sooner or later. This time Janet started it and Martin picked up the thread. Memories flooded into his mind and spilled over his tongue—Francis, the first days they had met and spent together. It was as if it had happened yesterday.
“I remember the first time I saw him,” he heard himself saying. “We were only kids then. I was about thirteen and a bunch of boys ganged up on me as I was coming from school. He gave me a licking and then chased the others away.
“It was strange. I never could understand why he liked me, but, as far as I felt, he was wonderful.” He laughed a little. “He did the things that all boys wanted to do and did them well. At that time I had been interested in boxing but I wasn’t too good at it. He was good. I knew that as soon as I tried to hit him.
“But there were other things about him that drew me to him: an instinctive, almost reluctant, sense of fair play, of feeling for the other fellow; a certain quiet competence and surety in himself and in what he did. Older people didn’t faze him. He spoke to them as he did to me, as an equal, as if he were one of them.
“It was from him I drew a sense of equality. Before that I was always aware of the fact that I was a Jew. I had been reminded by obscenities scrawled on walls, by beatings in the streets, by sly sniggering remarks, and by being tripped up and having my books knocked out of my hand. I was in a fair way towards becoming twisted and bigoted myself, attributing every little incident that had happened to that fact. But he cured me in the way he took me into his little group without question, the way he had me meet his
friends without explanation.
“He accepted me and so did his friends. Maybe it was because of him that they did.
Maybe not. I don’t know. But I like to think that he helped.
“I remember many years later when I was going to med school that I thought of him and realized that it was as much due to him as anyone else that I was doing as I did. He once said something to me about a fellow I didn’t care very much for. ‘Oh, he’s all right. You just gotta understand him, that’s all.’
“And in those words I found an answer to almost everything that had been festering in the back of my mind. If you understand a man, if you know why he does things, you don’t have to be afraid of him, you don’t have to let your fear lead you to dislike him, you don’t have to let your dislike lead you to destroy him. I don’t know whether I thought it all out when I was young or when I was in school, but in some way I associated the two as if they happened together.
“It was in Germany in 1935 that I again thought of him. I was attending the university there, taking specialized courses. One day coming from lectures, I walked along the street reading a book I was very interested in at the time. I had to concentrate even more than usual because German was a tough language for me, and I bumped into a man. Without looking up I apologized and proceeded on my way.
“Then it happened. For a moment I was confused and a kid again back on Fifty-ninth Street being tormented by a group of ignorant kids. Then I heard the word ‘Jude’ used in that evil, nasty manner. I looked up and saw the man in a uniform which I recognized as a storm trooper’s. He struck at me, and I beat the living daylights out of him.
“Then I turned and went back to school and asked the professor, who incidentally wasn’t Jewish, why they permitted that to happen. ‘You don’t understand, my boy,’ he said, wagging his very grey head, ‘the people are sick and unhealthy and afraid and of their fear is born a hate….’
“That moment I thought of Frankie and what he said. ‘Why don’t you people who do understand explain it to them?’ I asked.
“‘We are only a few and they won’t listen to us,’ was his answer.
“I left Germany the next day without finishing the semester. I had something to tell the folks back home, but they didn’t understand what I was saying. Only a few did—you both, and Ruth, and others that I could count on the fingers of my hands. The rest just didn’t believe—or didn’t care.
“Many were the times when I was tired and discouraged with the progress I had been making with a patient that I felt like saying to him, ‘Oh, the hell with it! Get out of here. I can’t do anything for you,’ and I’d remember what Frankie said and I’d say to myself: ‘It’s not the patient’s fault, it’s mine. I don’t understand, don’t know what’s wrong. And if I don’t know, how can I help?’
“I would have another whack at it. Sometimes it would work—maybe more times than less. I know there were some cases I couldn’t do anything for, but it wasn’t for the lack of trying. It was because I didn’t understand them, was too stupid to see what was wrong. It was my ignorance that was to blame, not theirs.”
He laughed a little and raised a glass of wine to his lips. “There speaks Martin Cabell,
the greatest psychiatrist in die world, explaining his failures in the light of reason. Or maybe it’s because I have a feeling of inferiority myself.”
He took another sip of the wine and looked at them. As he spoke, his face had lost its intensity, had relaxed and grown soft, younger. Suddenly he smiled. It was the same old smile—warm and fresh and young. “Old friends,” he thought contentedly. “The same as before. They haven’t changed. You can still talk and they will listen.” The world seemed right again, and for the first time since he had come back, he felt at home.
D
URING
the days that followed at the hospital I learned a great deal about my uncle and his family. He had a job as a salesman for a dress house downtown, and they had been living in New York for the past ten years. They had a fairly comfortable five-room apartment on Washington Heights.
His wife was a quiet, gentle woman whom I worshipped almost on sight. She would never by word or action ever show herself to be thinking unkindly of me. She would come to the hospital every day bearing a little gift of fruit or cookies or a book to while away the time. She would stay as long as she could and then leave. Sometimes she would bring my cousins with her. They were two little girls about eight and ten years old.
At first the girls were prone to regard me with awe and a certain mixture of friendliness and shyness. Later, as they became more accustomed to me, they would kiss my cheek as they came in and left.
Morris and Bertha Cain and their children, Esther and Irene, were the first real family I had ever had, and if I felt strange to them or they to me, it was easily understandable. Family relations that seemed normal to most people were only strangely intricate to me. I could never figure out the problem of who was whose cousin, and second and first cousins had me completely licked. But we got along.
I left the hospital near the end of September and stepped right into a new world. Uncle Morris had a small Buick car and he drove me home. He had called for me alone. Upon arriving in the apartment, I found out they were planning a little party for for me. Aunt Bertha had baked a cake, and I met lots of other relatives of ours. When they had all gone I was shown to the room that would be mine. It used to be Irene’s room (she was the elder of the two) but she now shared the room with Esther or Essie, as they called the younger. My clothes were already hung in the closet, and the place seemed very warm and friendly to me.
I remember Uncle Morris saying: “This is your room, Frankie.” And opening the door, he motioned to me and I crossed the threshold, he and Aunt Bertha following me. The children had already been put to bed. I looked around it. The first thing I noticed was a small framed picture of a young woman on the dresser.
Aunt Bertha saw me looking at it. “That’s your mother, Frankie. It’s the only picture we have of her and I thought you would like to have it.”
I went over to look at it. She was about nineteen when the picture was taken. Her hair was combed down with a bun tied in back as was the fashion in the days when the picture was taken. Her lips were half smiling and a reflection of hidden laughter seemed to dance in her eyes. Her chin was firm, rounded but strong—too strong perhaps for eyes and lips like hers. I looked at it for a few minutes.
Uncle Morris said: “You look very much like her, Frankie. Your eyes are the same colour, and the shape of your mouth is so much like hers it almost isn’t a boy’s mouth at all.” He went over to it, picked it up, looked at it, and then put it down. “Would you like
to hear about her?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Supposing you undress,” he said, “and we’ll talk while you’re changing.”
Aunt Bertha came into the room and, opening one of the drawers in the dresser, took out a new pair or pyjamas and gave them to me. “We thought you could use some new things,” she said and smiled.
“Thank you,” I said, taking them from her, feeling strangely about it. I had yet to learn how to accept a gift. I began to unbutton my shirt.
“You need never feel ashamed of your mother, Frankie,” my uncle began. “She was an unusual girl. You see, a long time ago we all lived in Chicago. That’s where we came from. Your mother was the pride of the family. When she was twenty she had already graduated from college and was going to work. That was about when that picture was taken, a few months after she had graduated. Fran was a high-strung girl, an active one. She used to be a suffragette and always spoke about equal rights. The family took an odd pride in her. At that time women didn’t have the right to vote they have today, and she was always going about and making speeches about it. She was a very good book- keeper, and once at Marshall Field’s (that’s a big department store in Chicago where she used to work) she was the only one that could find a mistake in the inventory that they used to take every month. About that time I came to New York. A little while after that she fell in love with a man who used to work down there. She wanted to marry him but my mother and father would not consent. You see, he wasn’t Jewish and our family was very strict. To make the story short, she ran away with him. I got a letter from her saying she was going to look me up in New York as soon as she got here. That was the last anyone ever heard from her. We tried to find her but couldn’t. There wasn’t a trace of her anywhere. Shortly after that my mother died and my father came to New York to live with us. He always used to say to me: ‘If we hadn’t been such fools and tried to make Faigele do what we wanted, we all still would be together.’ He died soon after my mother. He was never very happy when she had gone.”
He picked up the picture again and held it in his hand.
“But that was what happened yesterday,” Aunt Bertha said. “Today is what matters most. I feel somehow they all know that you are with us and they are happy—just as happy as we are to have you here. We want you to love us as we love you, Frankie.” She took the picture from my uncle’s hand and put it back on the dresser.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said putting on the bottom part of my pyjamas and laying my pants on the chair. I sat down on the edge of the bed, took off my shoes and stockings, and slid between the sheets.
“Good night,” they said. Aunt Bertha bent over me and kissed my cheek. “Good night,” I said.
They went out the door. Aunt Bertha paused with her hand on the light switch before she turned it out. “Frankie,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am?” I answered.
“Don’t say ‘Yes ma’am’ to me. Call me Aunt Bertha.” She flicked the light and went out.
“Yes—Aunt Bertha,” I half-whispered to myself, putting my hand on my cheek. It was still warm where she kissed me. I fell asleep with the moonlight on my mother’s picture, and it seemed to me in the dark that she was smiling.
I
AWOKE
early the next morning. The apartment was quiet and everyone seemed to be still asleep. I got out of bed and walked over to the dresser and looked at my watch. It was half past six. I walked over to the window and looked out.
The morning was still greyish; the sun hadn’t come up yet. My room faced a courtyard and around it were two other houses Through the open windows came an occasional ring of an alarm clock and the smell of early-morning coffee. The sides of the courtyard were painted white to better reflect the light. I turned back from the window and slipped on my underwear and trousers and walked quietly to the bathroom to wash.
When I had finished washing I went back to my room and sat down. I had to get used to this. It was strange not to be sleeping in a room with a bunch of boys in it, and I missed the morning horseplay and jokes. I heard someone walking in the hall outside my door. I walked over and opened it. It was my aunt.
“Good morning, Frankie. You’re up early.” She smiled. “Yes’m,” I said, “I’m used to it.”
“Did you wash already?” she asked. “Un-hunh.” I replied, “I’m all dressed.”
“Then would you mind running down to the baker for some rolls?” she asked. “It will save me the trouble.”