by Belva Plain
“You have no religious belief, Dan, you always say so, then why should you care?” Aunt Florence had answered. He remembered it well. “At least we go regularly to temple services.”
“And you don’t see the contradiction?” his father had asked. “Don’t see the absurdity of what you’re doing?”
“It’s only a symbol of happiness!” Aunt Florence had insisted. “All America is on holiday, giving presents, having a good time. Why shouldn’t we? It has no other significance for us.”
Then his mother had given his father one of her “warning” looks, which he did not always heed, but that time he had, for which Freddy had been thankful. Usually when his father had something to say, he could not be stopped. He was like a dog with a bone; you didn’t dare take it away from him.
Of course, they should not have a tree. Even Paul said so, being a far more thoughtful Jew than his parents were. But the tree was beautiful.…
How lucky for Paul to live here! Everything in this house was perfect.
“How do you like the new portrait?” Grandma Angelique asked now.
Over the mantel sat Aunt Florence, looking as royal as the Princess of Wales. The ladies gasped.
“Oh, lovely! Don’t you love it, Florence?”
“Well, it’s not Boldini, but it’s not too bad either, I must say,” Florence responded modestly.
Leah spoke up. “I saw a lady like you in a magazine.”
“You did?” said Florence, turning kindly to the girl.
“Yes, she was wearing a tea gown, somewhere in Europe. France, I think. It certainly wasn’t Russia. She was drinking from a cup.”
The ladies smiled. Hennie’s little protégée was learning fast, though how she knew about tea gowns was a mystery, since most certainly Hennie never wore one!
“Leah is interested in fashion,” Hennie explained. “She has done some very fine sketches too.”
Hennie wanted to draw Leah out, to show how far she had come, but the other women had lost interest as they settled themselves around the fireplace.
“We are having the entire house electrified,” Florence announced, indicating the gas that flickered in the grate. “They’ll be starting work next week. Walter wants to leave the gas fixtures in place, though, in case the electricity should ever fail.”
“And you have a telephone too,” remarked one of the “poor” cousins, sounding wistful.
“It would certainly be nice to have one,” complained Angelique, “instead of having to go to the store every time I want to talk to my daughter. I am trying to talk my husband into it.”
Old Mrs. Werner told a joke on herself. “Imagine! When ours was put in, I was afraid to use it the first time. I thought something was going to jump out of the wall on me. But,” she added comfortably, “one gets used to modern ways very quickly.”
“A time of miracles,” another lady said. “Goodness knows what will come next. They say that we shall all go up in flying machines before long.”
“Impossible!” another cried scornfully.
They don’t read the newspapers, Freddy thought, with his own scorn. The Wright brothers have already stayed up in the air for almost half an hour, don’t they know that?
And he looked around for Paul, with whom he liked to talk about such things—although I should be afraid to fly, he thought again, and remembered that Paul had said he would give anything to do it—but Paul had found a chair at the opposite end of the room near the men, and since there was no more room for Freddy there, he was obliged to stay where he was.
The women’s talk was dull. But now the conversation turned to something interesting, as it always did when they lowered their voices to whisper and leaned together so that “the boy” would not hear. They were talking about Uncle Alfie and Aunt Emily, just as they had before their baby, Meg, was born.
“He couldn’t possibly have continued any longer in the business.” Grandma Angelique sighed.
Why was it that whatever she said was trouble, people arguing, one worry after another?
“Given the Hugheses’ opposition to their marriage, it’s been dreadful.”
Gloom, gloom! Her mouth lingered dolefully on the word dreadful Yet, Uncle Alfie and Aunt Emily were sitting together so happily; you could tell by the way his hand lay over hers on the arm of the chair.
“However, it’s an ill wind, as they say.” Grandma Angelique’s tone brightened. “He has always been interested in real estate, you know, and now he has bought, with a couple of partners, of course, a small building near Canal Street.”
“Well,” said old Mrs. Werner, “that must have been a sacrifice for his wife.”
“Alfie has been very good to her,” said Angelique, biting the words.
She grew louder; she wanted to be heard at the other end of the room where the men were. But they, drinking brandy, paid no attention.
“Alfie says New York will be bigger than London, the capital of the world. He is putting everything into property.”
She wants my father to hear, Freddy knew.
“Tenements, slum dwellings,” Dan always said, whenever Uncle Alfie’s ventures were mentioned.
“Your son never went to college, did he?” asked Mrs. Werner.
Freddy knew that Mrs. Werner knew perfectly well that Alfie had not. She was a nasty old woman. Paul said so, and she was his own grandmother.
Angelique answered stiffly, “He was never interested in anything but business. He has a head for it.”
“You can do a lot worse than have a head for business,” pronounced Walter Werner, who had moved toward the women. “Work hard and do some good on earth, that’s all that counts.”
“Yes, work hard,” repeated his father.
The men brought up their chairs to form a semicircle.
“I myself went to the college of hard knocks,” the old man went on. “My son went to Yale. How was he able to go to Yale? Because I first went to the college of hard knocks! My own father was a peddler, you know. He brought me to this country when I was a child. Yes, he was a peddler. I remember it well. I do not hide it, I am proud of it.”
His wife, having heard too much about her husband’s peddler father, and preferring not to be reminded of these origins, interrupted him.
“Play something for us, Paul.”
Paul laughed. “I don’t play! I stopped lessons at least ten years ago.”
Florence intervened. “We should really hear Freddy play, Mother. He’s the gifted one.”
Freddy shrank. His horror of being conspicuous was visible in the eyes that he turned toward his mother.
“Yes,” Dan said, “he is gifted, more than he knows or will admit to. Why not play the new Mozart, Freddy?”
Still Freddy’s eyes implored. Was it only the old, familiar shyness, or was there now, had there been lately, something new? Hennie wondered. Something sullen, even hostile, when he looked at Dan? Especially when Dan asked him to play? But why should that be? Hennie felt impatience; some time or other life ought to stop being so complicated!
She answered the boy in the wordless language that they spoke between themselves: Play, Freddy, your father wants you to. Your father hates to see you so shy. Play.
“Do I have to?” he whispered.
“I’ll tell you what,” Florence proposed. “While Freddy thinks about it, maybe Mimi will play something. A little German song for Grandmother. ‘Röslein auf der Heide,’ Mimi?” And with her fine tact that Hennie so admired, she explained for the benefit of Emily, who knew no German, “It means ‘Little Rose in the Meadow.’ ”
Mimi sat down cheerfully and played the simple piece poorly. The contrast to what Freddy could have done was absurd. And Dan looked into space, avoiding his son. The boy’s delicacy both angered and hurt him.…
But Freddy is like me, Hennie thought, remembering herself as a child. A sickening sense of guilt overcame her, although it was foolish to feel guilt over something she could not help. Still, she thought, at fourteen th
ere’s time to change; in the same moment she knew he would not change, and felt for the boy a soft, shielding love quite different from what she would have felt for him if he had been like Paul … like Leah …
There was applause when Mimi had finished. The girl made a smiling, self-deprecating gesture, as if she were aware of the foolishness of the applause but didn’t object to it.
“That was lovely,” said Florence.
The girl shook her head. “Oh, I am all thumbs, really stupid at the piano.”
“Not as stupid as I am,” Paul declared.
Mrs. Mayer shook her finger at Paul. “Now, now, we know all about you, Paul. You were one of the brightest scholars at your school. My nephew goes there now and he told me you left quite a reputation behind you.”
One of the cousins asked what school it was.
Walter Werner answered promptly. “Sachs Collegiate Institute. Very fine,” with emphasis. He turned to Dan. “You should really consider sending Freddy. He’s an unusual boy, one can see that already. His vocabulary is amazing, always has been.”
“I wouldn’t send him there if I could afford to, which I can’t.” Dan was in a “mood.” “I don’t approve of private schools.”
There was a moment’s pause, until Florence said agreeably, “Oh, I think you must admit, Dan, even if you do teach in a public school—and I’m all in favor of public education—that there still are certain advantages, smaller classes, more personal attention. Even for girls. Our daughters did so well at Brearley and loved it—”
“To say nothing of the fact,” interrupted Grandmother Werner, “that the right young people meet each other there. The same girls have their coming out at Sherry’s together. They marry each other’s brothers and they go through life together. It’s a beautiful way to live. A community of friends.”
The elder Werner smoothed gold chains between finger and thumb. “Yes, friends. Last winter when Randolph Guggenheimer gave his dinner at the Waldorf, I knew every man there. What a spectacle! Unforgettable. The whole place made into a garden. Tulips and canaries singing in the bushes. What a display!”
“A display indeed,” Dan muttered.
Paul snickered. Uncle Dan didn’t care what he said.
Florence said hurriedly, “But it was nothing compared with some that you read about. The Four Hundred giving that party where the whole ground floor of the hotel was turned into Versailles, and guests wore costumes trimmed with real jewels. Of course,” she said, prudently lowering her voice, although Emily was still standing on the other side of the room, “that was for the gentiles. We can only read about such things.”
“And don’t you find it disgusting, even to read about?” asked Dan. He came around from behind Hennie; his eyes were dark and serious.
“Oh,” Walter said, “most of those people, after all—”
And Paul mentally finished the sentence: Have earned it fairly, and they do give employment—
But Dan interrupted, “They have earned it, I know. Just like Horatio Alger.”
“Stupid books,” said Paul. “Foisted on me almost as soon as I learned to read.”
His father gave mild rebuke. “My son is supercritical. There is a deal of truth in those simple stories, Paul. They wouldn’t be printed or so popular otherwise.”
“Oh, there are plenty of popular lies on the printed page,” Dan cried out, “look at the Hearst newspapers!”
Freddy cringed. He was so ashamed: his father was too urgent—he sought the word—too emphatic, so that everybody in a room, as in this one now, would turn to look at him.
Hennie worried: He’s had too much to drink. His face is bright pink. He can’t drink; he hardly ever does, and now he’s had wine at dinner and brandy, too, on top of it.
And she tried to meet his eyes but could not; avoiding her appeal, he stood tall above her. He wanted to arouse these men in their black-and-white clothes, in what he called their penguin suits. He despised their suits and them.
“Mark my words, there will have to be a tax on income. It may not be this year, it won’t be this year, but some year soon, you may be sure of it.”
“A tax on income!” Walter was indignant. “The concept is outrageous. Besides, we are already taxed; men of substance tax themselves voluntarily to give to charity, following their conscience.”
“Their conscience?” Dan repeated.
The discussion was now limited to these two men; the rest had withdrawn. As uneasy, silent spectators, they waited for the outcome of the contest. Alfie’s amiable forehead contracted in a worried scowl, while Emily, at the window, drew the curtain aside and stared out to the empty black street.
“Certainly by conscience! Fortunes are given away every year. My father—it is possibly not becoming to say so, but my father must forgive me—gives thousands. There’s the Children’s Aid Society and the Foundling Asylum; there are hospitals, old age homes, settlement houses—” Walter looked toward Hennie. “Your own wife’s the one to tell you about settlement houses. Ask her.”
“I don’t have to ask her. I know, and I’m not impressed. These vast sums are hardly missed by their donors, isn’t that so? They’re a pittance out of those fortunes.” Dan, standing up, leaned forward, resting his hands on the back of his chair. “There are things in this city, I tell you, that would shock you if you heard they were happening in Calcutta or Borneo!”
Mr. and Mrs. Mayer rose abruptly, making a dual murmur. “Good heavens, we’ve quite lost track of the time … so late … but such a lovely evening.” So they talked their way toward the door, with Florence behind them.
Oh, why, thought Hennie, why must he do this? What he says is true, of course, but not here, not now.
“Last month,” Dan said, “it was not in the newspapers, too frightful, I suppose, for the public prints, or perhaps not something that the powers want the public to know.”
He lowered his voice. There was an expectant stir and rustle as people shifted in their chairs.
“Last month a family froze to death; they had no money to buy coal or wood. Well, that’s hardly news, it happens often enough. This time, though, the mother was ill of pneumonia, and died, and lay dead for a week decaying, while her children, too young or too stunned and frightened to go for help, just lay and waited. It was on the top floor of a half-abandoned building, so no one heard the baby crying. And the baby died … and there was evidence that the older children—” Dan swallowed. “Evidence of cannibalism … perhaps I shouldn’t tell you.”
The room became completely still, without a rustle, almost without a breath. Then old Mr. Werner raised himself from his great chair and cried out. His fist shook as he raised it. His voice shook.
“Indeed you should not! This is a disgrace! I’ve never heard anything like it! In front of these ladies and these young people—your own son! It’s disgusting, sir, and I consider it unforgivable!”
“It is only reality,” Dan replied evenly. “It is the world they live in. They might as well know what it is.”
“Oh, please, Dan,” Hennie said softly.
Florence fluttered. “Has anyone tried this marzipan? I always have it when Hennie is coming.” She beamed a piteous smile to the room. “Once on Hennie’s birthday, she was six or seven, she ate a whole box of it, stole it out of the pantry, it was so funny. Don’t you remember, Hennie?” she asked, the smile dying into a wordless plea: Don’t spoil everything; can’t someone stop this? And she began to cry.
Angelique put her arm around her daughter. “Don’t, don’t. It’s not worth it. You,” she said. “You, Dan, you’re not civilized.”
Dan made a slight bow. “I’m sorry. It’s hard to be civilized when you see the uncivilized things that I’ve seen. These wretched homes, the dispossessed, five thousand this last year alone—you can’t imagine.”
“Oh,” Florence said, “we can imagine! Why do you suppose we give what we do? Oh, we have always been generous, if not as you say, generous enough.”
T
o Florence, Dan spoke more gently. “Charity’s not the whole answer, anyway. What’s needed is a radical cleanup of the tenements. Men like Jacob Riis and Lawrence Veiller are still fighting, and so am I, in my small way.”
“Still?” said Walter. “In spite of the Tenement House Act? I should think you’d all be satisfied now.”
“Oh, it looked good enough on paper! But the old-law houses are still standing—you know that. Rotting away, and the tenants with them.”
Walter opened his mouth to speak, closed it, and opened it again.
“It would seem to me you’d do better to use that spare time providing for your son’s future. Charity begins at home.”
“My son is fine. He’s fed, clothed, warm, and loved, which is more than can be said for the children who live in the Montgomery Flats, where I went the other day with Veiller.”
Paul drew in his breath, released a little gasp, and looked questioningly at his father. This affair was no longer amusing.
Walter took off his glasses, wiped them, and replaced them.
“What in particular took you there, may I ask?”
“Because the Montgomery is one of the worst in the city. Sure the dumbbell flat’s been outlawed since 1901, but that thing was built in 1889! It should be torn down or blown up. You ought to go look at it, stumble up the dark, broken stairs and breathe in the smells! One dirty toilet, out of order, in a cold hall, for six families, when there’s supposed to be one for each flat. Nine dollars a month rent on the first floor, eight on the fifth floor. Rent free to the rats, of course.”
Dan breathed hard, as if he had been running. “That’s the sort of place from which we took that child.” He motioned toward Leah. “That beautiful little girl, condemned to filth.”
“Very commendable of you. But let’s return to the subject of the Montgomery, which you’ve brought up. I happen to know,” Walter said deliberately, “it was built according to current regulations, when the railroad flat was outlawed. It’s a dumbbell flat, built to the letter of the law at that time, and modified since according to the new law. There’s a window now in every room—”
