by Walter Blum
It was Max who first stirred, shattering the silence as if a glass of wine had dropped from his hand. His eyes seemed to have climbed deep inside him, looking out from a distance that was barely discernible.
“So it happened again,” he said.
“What happened?”
The room seemed to have taken on a life of its own. Adam became aware of all of its elements, one by one: the flowered blue and orange upholstery, the sofa, the fireplace with its hearth made of rough stone, the poker on the floor where he had dropped it, the 12-inch television set across from the fireplace which, when turned on, brought them the world in black-and-white, the crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling with bulbs shaped like candles, 60 watts on each, a lamp beside the easy chair, a teak table in the dining room with matching chairs that had been a wedding gift from another of the aunts and beyond that, through the swinging door, the kitchen where they ate most of their meals.
“What happened?” Adam asked.
Goldman’s mouth was pulled tight. “I’d hoped, when you and Susan were married, that would be the end of it,” he said. “I hoped it would just get shoved back in the box and stay there and none of it would have to be looked at again, but I was wrong.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I can’t…”
“Tell me! I’ve got to know.”
Goldman picked up the copy of Look magazine, flipped a couple of pages without actually seeing them and replaced it on the coffee table. He sat in the big flowered easy chair, almost motionless except for his hands weaving invisible threads across an unimaginable loom. Adam was reminded of a cardboard cutout, the kind movie studios used to put in theater lobbies to advertise coming attractions. The glass clock on the mantel was ticking louder than he had ever heard before; the bulbs in the chandelier overhead glowed almost preternaturally. It was not a night for good feelings.
“You were with her when she had the miscarriage?” Goldman said. At first, Adam thought he was changing the subject, and he resented what appeared to be a devious tactic. But then curiosity got the better of him. Obviously there was a connection.
“I got to the hospital just after it was over,” he said.
“She took it hard, didn’t she?”
“You know she did. It was like the end of the world. I didn’t think she’d ever come out of it.”
“Why do you think she took it so hard?”
Adam thought that should be obvious. “She’d just lost her baby, that’s why. You know as well as I do how devastating that must be for a woman. I tried to convince her there was nothing she could have done, that it was an act of God, but she blamed herself. I told her she was being unreasonable. She wouldn’t listen to me.”
“I know,” Goldman said.
“Do you?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes people do what may not seem reasonable in the eyes of those who love them. The head says one thing, the heart another.”
He stroked his pencil-thin moustache absent-mindedly, closed his eyes a second, reopened them and got to his feet. “I need a drink,” he said. There was a small wet bar on the other side of the room. Bottles of gin and vodka and bourbon and rye lined the back wall against a mirror that reflected the bottles, making it appear as though the stock was twice as large. Walking over, he untwisted the cap from a bottle of gin. “You want some?” Adam shook his head. Max poured a shot of gin into a glass, neat, replaced the cap and brought the glass back to his chair. He swallowed it in one gulp. His hand was shaking.
“I think it’s time you know the truth,” Goldman said.
20
“The truth?” he said, almost in a whisper.
Goldman nodded. “It happened before you two met,” he said. “She was barely eighteen. She had just graduated from high school and there was this long, warm summer that we spent at home before she was to go away—you know about the girls’ school in France, don’t you?”
“She told me, yes.”
“It was the summer before she went away. Ecole Biarritz, it was called, about fifty miles south of Paris. Highest recommendation. Very swanky, very expensive. I would have preferred that she stay here and go to college. There is no lack of schools in this area, but when Susan has her heart set on something, it’s impossible to deny her. You know how she is. You’ve seen it.”
“The Ferrari.”
“What I didn’t know—what I didn’t see because it never occurred to me to look—was how bored she’d become. These long summers we have here in Canelius can be hard on a girl. She was aching to go to France. I was busy at the store. We were expanding our stock into a new line, and I had to spend a lot of time downtown in the showroom. I should have kept track of what she was doing, but I didn’t. It would have been best if I’d sent her to France in June, but the school term didn’t start until September.”
“She fell in love?”
“Love is an understatement. It came like a wind, and it darkened the skies and it shook the trees. She fell in love, yes, but completely, totally in love, or at least so she told me afterwards. She became obsessed beyond belief with this man. For one terrible summer, that’s all she could think of. That’s all that mattered to her. But she hid it, she sealed it in a box and tied the box with rope and buried it in the ground—and that was my fault.”
“How could it be your fault if you didn’t know?”
“Because it wouldn’t have happened—at least, not like that—if I’d been there to help her. I share the guilt. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been there to advise her, to listen to her confidences the way Rachel would have if she were alive.”
“You can’t be a father and a mother at the same time.”
“You have to. It was my job to read the signs.” Goldman licked his lips. “It was my fault that I missed what was going on under my nose. She must have seen him a dozen times, maybe more, and I never knew. Of course, she would never have told me or let me see what was happening.”
“How far did they go?”
“She slept with him.”
“She admitted it to you?”
“Not in so many words—good God, there are some things a daughter simply can’t confide to her father. But I know it was her first time.”
“How often did they—?”
“Often enough.” Goldman was visibly nervous. Adam thought of his own obsession with Susan, and it was as though they were playing back a scene he instantly recognized. “Please don’t ask any more. The point is, by the time I learned the truth, it was too late. The deed was done, and I was too busy to see what had been happening right under my nose. All that summer they met, they were lovers and I let it go on.”
“But it couldn’t be your fault if you didn’t know.”
“Yes it was. Don’t you see? I should have known. You can call it a sin of omission, but people have been punished for a lot less. Maybe you don’t see. Maybe you don’t realize that when a daughter is involved, your responsibility as a father goes up—way up. You can’t pat yourself on the back and let it pass. Daughters are a blessing, but they’re also a curse. For all the joy they bring, for all the fascinating ways they have to entertain and charm and dazzle and beguile, they can break your heart in a second. I hope to God, Adam, that when you have children they’re sons, not daughters.”
“And this man was her first?”
“Yes.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“She would never give herself to someone she knew just casually—she wasn’t promiscuous, or anything like that. She was always a good girl; she always respected herself and believed in her own virtue. Unfortunately, they took no precautions—they were both too young to understand the danger—and the inevitable happened.”
“When did you find out?”
“Not until it was too late.”
“Then it wasn’t your fault.”
“Damn it! You keep saying that, but you don’t understand. She didn’t trust me. She went away to France at the end of t
he summer—I put her on the plane, with her carry-on bag and her teddy bear—without saying a word, although I saw on her face this look, this look of melancholy that she was trying so hard to hide, but I thought she was just uneasy. She’d always been frightened of flying. I thought that must be what was wrong. After that we wrote—regularly, every other day. We talked on the phone Sunday mornings, every week. I assumed everything was going well.”
“And all this time she was pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“Did she tell you his name?”
“Who?”
“The fellow she had the affair with.”
“It doesn’t matter. George something. It’s not anyone you would know. We aren’t in the same universe; we don’t move in the same circles. One summer, that’s how long it lasted, and then she never saw him again.”
“What about the baby?”
Goldman stiffened. His eyes went rigid and Adam could see his hands knotting into a ball. “Well, she couldn’t very well have it, could she?”
“What—?”
“There was no other way.”
Goldman’s hands, which during all this kept weaving in and out, suddenly became deathly still. Adam realized how difficult it must be for him to talk about something so intimate, so painful. “It cost her a lot of grief, keeping a thing like that from me,” Max said. “I know she wanted to tell me, and she would have, believe me, but she was afraid I’d be hurt. Or maybe she was afraid it might drive us apart. She was wrong, if that’s what she thought.”
“Where was it done?”
“In France.”
“Without your knowing?”
“You don’t tell a father something like that, not about something that everyone in the world looks upon as shameful. If I’d only had a chance, I would have reassured her, I would have been there for her.”
“But an abortion. I mean, women have been known to have children out of wedlock.”
“Not in respectable families they don’t. Not in a town like Canelius. She knew what people would say, how they would treat her if she came back with a baby in her arms. She’d be shunned, ostracized. Her life would be ruined. Unfortunately, she waited until almost the last minute, until she went abroad.”
“Why?”
“Have you ever tried to find a doctor in the United States to do a procedure like that? In France it’s legal, you see. Here it’s against the law, so if you can’t persuade a doctor to—” He bit his lip. “I’m sure you must have heard the stories about girls sneaking around back alleys or using coat hangars to make it happen. There’s none of that over there. They’re much more civilized about such things. Of course, someone at the school must have arranged it. I never found out who.”
“You must have been shocked.”
“What do you think?”
“When did she tell you?”
“Not until months later, when she came home for spring break. We were in her bedroom. She was getting ready for sleep. I’d forgotten how soft and almost childish she looks at that time of night. She was holding her teddy bear in her arms. It was as if the years had rolled back, and she’d become a little girl again. I talked, and she talked, and suddenly it all came out—the affair, the young man, the clinic…We cried, both of us. She knew how hard it was for me. She knew I couldn’t possibly accept this young man into our lives.”
Adam stared at him fixedly. “They could have gotten married.”
“Not a chance,” Goldman said quietly. “You have to understand…”
He should have realized it from the start. “This guy, you said he didn’t move in the same circles. He wasn’t Jewish. Am I right?”
“No, no—“
“Of course I’m right. Damn it, don’t you see how that makes you look.”
“Adam, it had nothing to do with religion.”
“What? He was crippled, he was mentally retarded?”
“No.”
“He was a murderer?”
“No.”
Max stared straight ahead, his eyes in a place where no one could join him. Adam waited and waited, positive that an answer had to be forthcoming. And it was, but when Max spoke again, his head was sunk into his chest, his hands were folded on the table, his voice was barely audible.
“He was black.”
***
He suggested they have a cup of coffee. Max agreed, and they went into the kitchen and stood at the counter, side by side, Max only a few feet away from him but miles away in thought. The pot was kept on a shelf, always neatly scrubbed after it had been used. Adam took it down, filled it with water, set it on the burner, turned on the gas. Usually, he and Susan had their coffee from a percolator, but when he was alone it was simpler to heat water and dump a spoonful of Nescafe in the cup. Max watched, his hands held behind him in rabbinical fashion.
“One cup,” he said.
“You’re sure?” Adam asked tonelessly.
“Can’t drink anything with caffeine this late. Keeps me up. Can’t sleep worth a damn if I have coffee at this hour.”
The water was bubbling now. Adam poured two cups. Max took cream and two lumps of sugar with his coffee. Adam drank his black. The bitterness of the drink matched his mood. It stung going down, but at the moment that was the only sensation he could tolerate. They carried the cups back into the living room. Adam set his cup on the floor, Max cradled his as though that might keep the heat in. For a while, they just sat looking at each other. It was Adam who broke the silence.
“This boy she—” He couldn’t say the words, but Goldman understood what he meant. “Did he come from that place—?”
“Jigtown?”
“It’s a terrible word.”
Max shook his head. “No, as a matter of fact, the family was quite well off. Mother was a schoolteacher, father a Baptist minister. I don’t know how he and Susan happened to meet, but of course, being colored—I mean, there was no chance that—”
Max reached into his pocket, took out a wallet, extracted a small black-and-white photograph from the wallet and handed it to Adam. “I don’t think you’ve ever seen this one before,” he said. The picture was of a child, maybe seven years old, not much more, in a frilly white dress with a skirt held firm with a stiff petticoat. The blond hair was shorter and a little lighter in tone, but there was no question who it was.
“She was beautiful even then,” Adam murmured.
“You see now why I wanted to protect her?” Goldman said.
“You didn’t do a very good job, did you?” Adam said.
“No.” Goldman took back the photograph and replaced it in his wallet. “I did a rotten job, but at least learned my lesson.”
“What did you learn?”
“That you can never afford to let down your vigilance. After what happened to her that summer, I knew I couldn’t let it happen again. I can tell you here and now—there are dangers everywhere, and if you’re not careful, the one person you love most in the world can be hurt, or taken away from you, or her reputation can be destroyed for all time.”
Adam stared at Max, and it suddenly dawned on him the role his father-in-law must have played in this. “You set me up, didn’t you?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“She needed a husband. She needed to be married, to gain some respectability, and I was the first one in your sights.”
“No, no. You don’t understand.”
“But I do. I understand perfectly.” Adam could feel the heat rising to his face. “She was damaged goods. She needed a man to make her respectable again, preferably someone who was a good catch. That’s what people here would expect, but by the time she got back from France all the best prospects in town were probably taken. There aren’t that many single Jewish men in Canelius, are there?”
“A few old bachelors, yes.”
Yes, and Bernard Silverman, who was more or less married to the store, as it turned out. And then the perfect prospect appeared, an outsider, someone outside the community, tu
cked up in that tower of his, so if there was any gossip—and in a town like this, there was always gossip—he wouldn’t hear it. It was Max who arranged the meetings, Max who saw to it that their paths crossed, who put his daughter up for sale, and when a customer came into the store, that was the perfect time for him to take a good look at the merchandise.
“So then it’s true, isn’t it?”
Goldman said nothing. He didn’t even have to open his mouth. The look on his face was all the response he needed to make.
“You’re not a bad sort,” Goldman admitted. “In any other circumstances, you might have been an excellent choice, but we were out of options at this point. I told her it was for her own good. I told her I had to be certain her future wasn’t in danger, and you were the only threat. She knew what had to be done.”
“Do you have any idea how much you hurt her?”
“I don’t think I hurt her. I was protecting my daughter. I was only doing what I thought best, and she understood.”
“What about me?”
Adam looked back on the past six months and tried to see the pattern emerging. He could understand how one step led to another, how in this strange, deceptive puzzle one piece fitted with all the rest. He’d been so proud of himself, to think that Susan would fall for him—just like that, out of a clear blue sky. A guy like him—no hero, no football star, no ladies’ man, just a klutz who made a practice of falling over his own feet—and then suddenly this fantastic person—so beautiful she took your breath away—comes along and seems on the verge of throwing herself at your feet. “I’m sorry if you got hurt in the process,” Max said. “But if you’d known, would it have changed anything?”
“I should have been told.”
“Would it have changed anything?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe.”
There was a stirring just outside the room, like leaves blown by the wind on an autumn day. The house had been built with an extra six feet of inside wall. The wall was there to block the living room from the foyer, so cold air wouldn’t infiltrate the house when the front door was opened.
So intense was their conversation, so deep were they in what was being said that neither realized she was there until it was too late.
