Turn Us Again (8 page)

She thought him sweet and innocent, and these traits were most apparent during rhapsodies about his friend Philip. “It is like God put a disproportionate amount of positive attributes in one person when he created Philip. Not only is he bright, but also good-looking, a wonderful cricketer, and he has already published a book.”

Anne felt a growing desire to meet this divinity, even while she marvelled at Samuel's ability to praise another human being so generously. She would never talk about any of her girlfriends like that to Samuel, lest he imagine them greater paragons of virtue and beauty than herself!

At other times she felt pinpricks of unease. When he philosophized about some aspect of life she no longer listened with rapt attention to what he was saying, content to absorb his meaning and translate it into significance for herself. Instead, she wanted to impress him. She tried to come out with clever remarks, searching for cracks in his theory which she could point out, casting about for witty sentences which might astonish him. Often, by the time she had a good sentence ready, he had gone on to another subject, and it was no longer appropriate. Even when the sentence was produced in time, her efforts earned little response. Either Samuel ignored them, barely pausing in his flow of words to acknowledge her interjection, or he would pause just a fraction too long, smiling at her in a condescending way which infuriated her.

He was not always condescending. Once he knew she kept a diary he encouraged her to write as much as possible and praised her style and reading voice whenever she read bits out loud for him. She began to carry the diary around, so she could fish it out and start jotting things down at opportune moments, wishing to impress him with her dedication.

Anxious to unpick the lock of his mystery, she asked him questions about his background and his family. The more she learned about them, the more she was forced to rearrange her assumptions about the class system. Despite the fact that her father was an unemployed drunk, he was a gentleman and an officer in the navy, and his wife was the daughter of a gentleman farmer. This placed Anne in the middle class, no matter what she became or where she lived.

Even though she recognized that the Cambridge intelligentsia was in a class by itself, the majority of the students came from solid middle-class backgrounds, or higher. She could not help but feel shocked when she learned that Samuel's family came from nothing. His grandparents had emigrated from Poland, where the father had been a shoemaker. His mother, the first generation born in England, had worked in a cigarette factory until she was lucky enough to catch a rich husband who dealt with furs in Norway.

‘Samuel doesn't fit into the traditional Cambridge student background because he is Jewish,' Anne thought to herself. Was she getting involved with a man from a lower class background? Or did Jews not fit into the class system at all?

“I had no idea that the whole world wasn't Jewish till I was about ten years old,” Samuel told her. “I used to catch a ride on the milkman's cart on my way home from school. I could sit in warmth and comfort, and I liked the smell of the horses. Around Christmas time, the milkman turned to me and said, ‘I suppose you won't be celebrating Christmas next week.'

“‘Why?' I asked.

“‘Because you're Jewish,' the milkman replied. When he let me off I ran all the way home and burst into my mother's room, crying ‘Why didn't you tell me we were Jewish?' Of course, I knew we were Jewish. I really meant, ‘why didn't you tell me that the rest of the world
wasn't
Jewish?'

“I used to adore my mother. But at around fourteen years of age I started going to a different school where I mixed more with Christians. My mother used to come to speech days and family days wearing different, expensive dresses, while the other mothers adorned themselves in staid tweed outfits, out of respect for the war. I began to feel ashamed of my mother's ostentatiousness. For the first time, she embarrassed me.”

As Samuel described his disillusionment with his family, Anne felt relieved. His attitude seemed to corroborate her own assumptions and prejudices about Jews. His family seemed vulgar and money-loving — evidently common faults among Jews — but it did not matter because Samuel had escaped from all of that. He had come to Cambridge and mixed with a different sort, until he was hardly a Jew at all. This was satisfying to Anne, because she could wallow in her friends' surprise and admiration at her daring, while going out with a typical Cambridge student. If his language seemed virulent on occasion, she put it down to his individualism.

“My mother would never allow me to marry a Christian,” Sam told her.

Anne laughed and took his hand. They were walking along the river, and the sun peeked deliciously out from the clouds from time to time. “What's it got to do with her?”

“Everything,” he said morosely. “I care deeply for you, but do not have expectations of that nature. If I were a noble man I would not monopolize you. I would leave you to men who could give you their hands along with their hearts. But I cannot, I cannot!” And he caught her in his arms, pressing her tightly to him.

Anne placed her hands on his hard back. Such a strong, dominating man. Such a powerful character. He would marry whoever he chose, as would she. The idea of a mother controlling a choice like that, for a man like him! It was ludicrous.

At nighttime in her little bed she would snuggle under the covers and write page after delicious page.

Sam, moya dusha, I love you. Your thoughts are pure and the most beautiful I know. When you sit and look puzzled with a furrowed forehead and clear eyes, to me you are as Jesus Christ. Through your rare beauty you have made me thine. It is as if all my life I have been waiting for this strange lovely thing. But I wish you would not pee in the street or punt in your vest. It is simply not done
.

Despite the increasing demands Samuel made on Anne's time, her social life did not abate. She continued to dance and drink at Dorothy's, responding to the attentions of young men who pleased her, living in the present. Sometimes she managed to drag Louise along.

“Haven't you enjoyed yourself, Louise?” she asked, after a particularly delicious fish pie dinner at their favourite pub.

“I have and am. What are you doing with that coat?”

“I've got to meet Cyril. Come on, he's amusing and he's making a roast.”

“We've just eaten! Can't you stay still for a bit?”

“Chops and bacon and dry sherry, which begs to be topped off with champagne. There's an excellent chance that Cyril will have some champagne. But we can't stay more than an hour because there's a cocktail party at nine, and I must rush home to dress for it.”

“This is ridiculous. This isn't even fun.”

“It's lovely! What's the matter with you? Okay, you don't have to come with me to Cyril's on condition that you come to the party.”

But that meant that Cyril sat too close to her on the sofa, and told her he loved her and that he wanted to live with her forever. When he began to sing tunelessly, Anne flung a last look at the champagne bottle to ensure it was empty and made her escape.

There was a lot of drinking and dancing at the cocktail party. Anne lost track of her partners. Different faces materialized opposite her while she whirled around. As time went on it became more difficult to dance fluidly, the floor seemed sticky, and she couldn't lift her feet up.

“Has someone spilled something on the floor?” she called to the room in general, “Can't someone wipe it up before I fall and hurt myself?”

Louise tugged at the sleeve of her dress.

“I'm going home now. Why don't you come with me? It's very late.”

“Oh no, how late? I'm meeting Samuel at eleven.”

Louise looked at her and started to laugh. Anne, struck with her mirth, abandoned her sticky dance and doubled over in silent hysterics, tears pouring down her face. The laugh seemed to go on and on for ages and was very pleasant, but when she looked up Louise had disappeared, which was a bit odd. Somebody must have wiped the floor because it was so slippery she could hardly keep her balance. A tall, blonde man was dancing too close, impeding her balancing efforts still further.

“I am half Polish and half Swiss, and I am studying romantic arts,” he whispered to her. “Are you having an affair with anyone?”

“Just Samuel,” Anne told him, and remembered that she had to get away.

“It's twelve o'clock,” someone shouted. “Bring on more champers!”

Oh God, twelve o'clock.

Anne pushed the Pole-Swiss away and stumbled towards the door. The cool night air revived her, and she stopped under a street lamp to peer into her pocket mirror and make sure her face didn't look too ghastly. Actually her flushed cheeks and disheveled hair looked rather nice, and she continued onto Trinity with more confidence.

Samuel had managed to cook a portion of duck on his hot plate. Now it was tough.

“Where were you for God's sake? I've been waiting for over an hour. Our meal is ruined.”

Anne hated it when people bellowed. It was so uncouth and unnecessary. And her head hurt. The main thing was to avoid further unpleasantness. It was hard to remember where she had been anyway, but she was sure that wherever it was it would infuriate Samuel.

“Louise wasn't feeling well. I read to her until she fell asleep.”

He calmed down then, though he continued to mutter in the direction of the ruined duck. Anne felt righteous at having been late for such a selfless reason and in consequence was annoyed with him. They ignored each other and sulked on separate chairs. When he didn't offer her anything in the shape of a drink or even a piece of duck, which she hadn't tasted since before the war, she fished out her diary and turned her back on him.

Oh this blind stupid heartache; the falsity of lovers! O God what cure is there for deceit and ruined pride and unutterable misery? How can I live in this sham, unbearable world? I am done with weeping (though I revel in it) and everything is finished, only my throat is dry. Perhaps if I remember how quickly your love has turned to hate they will
…
they are coming back, warm hot quenching tears. I know how stupid, how bourgeois it is to love; you have taught me so much. I thank you moya dusha. And indeed you have taught me to weep unrestrainedly. My fear — always I fear — is that we will again be together and laugh and you will gesticulate with furrowed brow and I will listen and smoke and smile, and you will tell me how beautiful I am and try to make love to me
.

Anne squinted at her diary and was tempted to read it to Samuel, she thought it so clever. But when she looked up from her diary he was leaning forward in his chair, staring at her and smiling a strange smile. Fear overwhelmed her. She got up and walked towards the bathroom, feeling those small, devilish eyes following her. She locked herself in and breathed deeply as she looked in the mirror. ‘Calm yourself,' she said, ‘you are drunk and susceptible to fancy.'

When she came out she complained to his back of feeling ill. He became solicitous, laying her down in his bed and stroking her brow. His movements became more deliberate and she turned on her side away from him, truly feeling ill now. He curled himself around her back like a fetus, and they slept.

She awoke in time to run groggily to the hospital in time for her shift. When she opened her bag to find her cigarettes, a note from Samuel fell out:

With all my happiness at your staying the night I feel a tinge of regret and frustration that we did not grasp the opportunity to become lovers. This I know is the right, true end for us
.

The note filled her with delight and an irrepressible excitement. She waved it in Louise's face as though he was the first man who had wanted to make love to her.

Louise snorted. “Thank God you didn't make love to him. Don't throw your virginity away on somebody who doesn't figure in your future.”

“How do you know he doesn't?”

“He's told you. He's been honest with you. You aren't busy convincing yourself that your attractions will win the day or something?”

“What, his Jewishness? What does that matter to me, I don't care.” Anne kissed the note passionately. “From the young Jew who loves me and whom I worship. Sometimes.”

“It's not whether you care or not about his Jewishness,” Louise said in an exasperated tone. “He's the one who has a problem with it.”

“I don't want to worry about that just now. I don't want to think unpleasant thoughts.”

“You never think unpleasant thoughts. Like your father.” Louise was privy to some of the harsher truths of Anne's home life. “But if you ever get the inclination, think about this. Sam is a complicated blend of insecurity and superiority. On the one hand he sets himself up as a moral, judgmental force and your intellectual leader, and on the other hand I can smell his overpowering need to be loved.”

“Smell it? What a skill. Can you smell how he deserves to be loved?”

“I'm sure he does, but it's hard to take on that type of need.”

Anne frowned at such inappropriate pragmatism during a romantic moment.