The Immigrant’s Daughter

by Howard Fast

  “We’re going to have that tea,” Barbara said firmly. “I think it’s the first time in years anyone invited herself to this house for tea. And if you don’t think I’m flattered, I took myself down to Bonier’s for their special cookies.”

  They left the child sleeping on the couch and had their tea in the kitchen, no great distance in the tiny house. Meanwhile, Mary Lou had caught hold of herself, and she was able to say, very quietly, “I have been cast out, like in those silly old stories I used to read.”

  “No, those things don’t last,” Barbara assured her. “Your father will come around.”

  “They won’t come to a wedding. They won’t even admit it can be. Well, I am just as strong and hardheaded as they are, and I think Sam loves me, and I love him more than I can say.”

  “They will come,” Barbara assured her.

  “Oh, no. You don’t know Daddy. But Barbara, please, I want to be married right here. Right here in this house. And I want your permission and I want your blessing, and I want you to love me.” Now the tears came, and Mary Lou stood up and they embraced each other.

  “You thought I was horrible,” Mary Lou said.

  “Oh, no. No.”

  “I was horrible.”

  “Mary Lou,” Barbara said, “you need no one’s permission to marry my son. If you love each other, that should be enough. My son was married to a fine person and he divorced her. I think he has a penchant for fine people; I pray he has the same penchant for staying married. As for having a wedding in this house, it is impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “Have you spoken to Sam about it?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Mary Lou, my dear, even a very small wedding would bring too many people for this house to hold.”

  “Only people who love Sam.”

  “I don’t see how it’s possible.”

  “Will you try, will you think about it? Please?”

  Barbara had always written about things she had seen with her own eyes. She had not stopped seeing, but the writing would no longer come. After Boyd’s death, she had planned to write a book about him but had written nothing. At first, she had gone to the typewriter each day, as a religious primitive might go to his wooden god, always convinced that a time would come when the god would awaken and perform wonders. But the god did not awaken, and no wonders were performed. Time after time, she formed a sentence, a paragraph, now and then a page, and once almost forty pages; but it all ended up the same way, shredded and dropped into the wastepaper basket. When she sought for some answers inside herself, she found that she didn’t care. There were deeper reaches that she visited in the darkness of her sleepless nights, tearing at herself to discover why she should be cursed with the inability to write unless she cared.

  She roamed among the bookstores, buying books, loads of books, books by all the eager, bright, liberated young women, confessions of love life and loveless life. Orgasms detailed and counted, marriages installed and shattered, love and hate to a point where men and women harried each other like a pack of demented dogs. She had no scorn for this, none of the contempt she felt for the endless stream of books about spies, secret agents, supermen who saved the world, the killers and the killed; no, for the work of the young women she had only admiration, a certain degree of envy, and the frustration that came from trying to be one with a world so distant from the world she had known as her own young woman. But reading the books of others did not help.

  She brooded over these things as she tried to solve the wedding problems of Mary Lou, wondering whether this was her destiny, a housewife aged, helpful and cheerful. She was being helpful — or was she? She paced through the little clapboard house. A wedding here? Did she really care? She couldn’t write because she no longer cared. Did she care enough about a wedding to crowd all her family and friends into this place? The whole notion was ridiculous, and she felt a marvelous sense of relief because, ridiculous or not, it was obviously a delicious idea.

  “I think maybe I’ll make it,” she said to no one in particular, and not referring to the wedding at all.

  Tony Moretti died, and he was taken to his grave and buried on a cold, wet spring day. Freddie picked Barbara up, and they went to the funeral together. The church was packed.

  “They’re making sure he’s dead,” Freddie said bitterly. “There isn’t a California Democrat left in Washington. They’re all here to tell each other how great the old man was.”

  “Why so bitter?” Barbara asked him.

  “Because I bowed out. Because he wasn’t dead more than a few hours when good Al Ruddy informed me that a certain Nancy Kraft was having petitions signed in the Forty-eighth and that I’d have to go through a primary. It’s a joke — go up against a woman in the Forty-eighth. I wouldn’t get a hundred votes in a primary. So I told the little bastard to shove it and I bowed out.”

  “And how do you feel?”

  “Lousy.”

  “Poor Freddie — I’m so sorry.”

  But they both knew it was her doing. She had established the legitimacy of a woman in the Forty-eighth C.D. And she had given Ruddy good reason to hate people who were named Lavette.

  Seven

  The wedding was put off until February 1979, and then, as Mary Lou had insisted, it took place in Barbara’s house on Green Street. Forty-two people had crowded into the narrow parlor and downstairs dining room. The wedding ceremony was performed by Judge Albert Pelzer, and the only member of the Constable family who attended was Mary Lou’s brother Andrew, who was sixteen years old. The hatred and anger that had taken hold of the Constables after Mary Lou had announced her determination to go ahead with the wedding was at first beyond Barbara’s comprehension, but the matter was clarified somewhat when Barbara took Mary Lou’s mother, Jo Anne, to lunch. Barbara considered that she should take the matter in hand and refused to believe that a talk between two adult women, where common sense and low key prevailed, would not soften the situation.

  But Jo Anne Constable felt that nothing would be gained by sitting down with Mrs. Cohen. Since Barbara had behind her a decade of writing when she married her first husband, Bernie Cohen, she maintained her maiden name as a literary signature, and when, as a widow, she had married Carson Devron, she continued to write under the name of Barbara Lavette. Yet Jo Anne’s specification of the name was obviously intended to be offensive. Barbara, however, went on quietly to say that even if nothing was gained, each could at least make her views plain to the other. Finally, she persuaded Mrs. Constable to meet with her.

  Barbara reserved a table at the Fairmont. The Constables lived in San Mateo, and Barbara felt that her knowing the head waiter at the Fairmont would impress Mrs. Constable — even as the Fairmont itself would make an elegant and conservative setting. She tried to anticipate Mrs. Constable, having only a rather nasty telephone conversation to go by, yet found herself unprepared for the tall, well-dressed, dark-haired woman who was brought to her table. Barbara rose to greet her; they were of a height, both of them tall, good-looking women, but Mrs. Constable, in her forties, was taken aback confronting a woman in her middle sixties.

  “Please sit down,” Barbara said to her. “I’m glad you came.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t say the same thing. I changed my mind, but when I tried to reach you, you had apparently left your home.” Actually Barbara had not left her house; suspecting it was Mrs. Constable, she had not answered the telephone. “I tried to reach you,” Mrs. Constable continued, “because I knew that if we did meet, I would have to talk frankly, and I know that frank talk is never pleasant.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way. We must both talk frankly.”

  “Very well. My daughter, a very willful young woman, says that she is determined to marry your son. She has already made us quite unhappy by taking a job that amounts to no more than a cleaning woman, except that she deals with blood and with the offal of the human body. Now she has chosen a man who is totally unacceptable, and I have
warned her that if she persists, her father will cut her out of his will and I will cut her out of my life.”

  “Isn’t that terribly harsh?” Barbara asked. “I mean, today people look at things differently, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know what you mean by differently.”

  “And I don’t know why you are so opposed to my son. He is young, quite attractive, healthy, very well regarded in his profession, making a decent living, already on the board of the hospital and destined for success, as such things are measured.”

  “We have our reasons.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  The maître d’ came to the table, and Barbara asked whether Mrs. Constable would have a drink. She consented to a martini, and Barbara asked for a glass of white wine and sand dabs and salad. Mrs. Constable ordered the salade Niçoise. Barbara then reminded her of their discussion — namely, why she so objected to Sam.

  “You must know.”

  “I’m his mother,” Barbara said quietly, controlling her mounting annoyance. “So it’s not easy for me to imagine reasons why he might be unacceptable.”

  “Well, I don’t think we’ll have a comfortable lunch, but since you press me so — well, he’s Jewish.”

  “A good many people are,” Barbara said.

  “Not in our circle.”

  “No, I suppose not, and I must admit that you’re very forthright. A rare quality these days.”

  “Before you put me down as some outrageous anti-Semite, I must say there are other reasons. His first wife was a Mexican, an actress with a very unsavory reputation.”

  “And you feel that since he married a Mexican woman, it reveals a deplorable lack of character.”

  “I think you know exactly what I mean, Mrs. Cohen.”

  “I’ve lost touch,” Barbara said tiredly. “I didn’t think there were people like you still around. His first wife, whom you call a Mexican, Carla Truaz, was born in the Napa Valley, but the Truaz family came to California in the eighteenth century, long before the Seldons or the Constables or any other modern Americans.”

  “I don’t think there’s any point in listening to any more of your tirades,” Mrs. Constable said, rising and fumbling with her purse.

  “Please don’t bother about the bill,” Barbara said gently. “The maître d’ is Jewish, and we have a Zionist conspiracy about dinner checks. My meals here really cost nothing.”

  She stalked out in a fury, and the maître d’ came to the table and said, “Mrs. Lavette, has she gone to the powder room or shall I cancel the salade Niçoise?”

  “Better cancel.”

  “Yes, I thought so. She’s very angry.”

  “Arnaud, are you Spanish?”

  “I am not,” he replied sternly. “I am a Basque.”

  “Oh. Are there any Jewish Basques?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Oh. Ah, well, either a small white lie or an outrageous dark one. I’m not sure which.”

  It was after this aborted luncheon that Barbara agreed with Mary Lou that the wedding might be held in her house. Judge Pelzer performed very nicely, and Mary Lou was lovely in her white lace gown, a gift that Barbara had insisted on providing. Her brother stood by her side, and Freddie, somewhat bleak through the ceremony, stood with Sam. Young Dan had come in from college, and he stood with his father, Joe, his mother, Sally, and May Ling, his sister. Adam and Eloise, and Adam’s mother, Clair — the whole of the family, all that remained, except for May Ling’s small child, of the intermixed clan of Levy and Lavette. Death had clawed at them savagely. There were Seldons and Apthorns — her grandmother’s family — back east somewhere, perhaps alive, perhaps dead, but the parting was over a hundred years ago, and the last contacts had been in the 1930s. The continent had once been too wide, and as in so many California families, there were no deep, ancient roots.

  Barbara wept. But she was not weeping the customary and obligatory tears for a son’s departure. Sam had departed too long ago. She was weeping for herself, as all the shards and fragments of her life came together in her small house on Green Street. Enough of tears. She dried her eyes and tried to assess Sam’s colleagues. A half dozen of them were present, each with a proper and pretty wife, all of them between thirty and forty, handsome men and women, prosperous-looking men and women, the Mercedes and Cadillacs parked outside, the minks taken upstairs to a bedroom, the four-hundred-dollar three-piece suits bearing testimony to the urban and fashionable quality of San Francisco as compared, for instance, with Los Angeles. And all of these young, smart, distinguished surgeons delighted to meet her, the notorious or famous, as you will, Barbara Lavette, or Miss Lavette or Mrs. Cohen, since she was Sam’s mother, or Mrs. Lavette, and there was even one man present who called her Mrs. Devron. Well, fair enough; she had been married to Carson Devron — only, only, who was she? Confused suddenly, she was filled with doubt and fear.

  “Please, stay with me for a little while after this is over,” she begged Eloise. “Don’t run off.”

  Eloise agreed, concerned for Barbara, who was not taking it well at all. But Barbara knew something about fighting for composure, and most of the wedding party thought that she had comported herself, as always, with dignity and grace.

  “Except,” as one of the doctors’ wives remarked to her husband, “that she would look ten years younger if she would only dye her hair and have a face lift.”

  The guests had gone. The caterer’s people were lugging out the empty champagne bottles and boxes of glasses and dishes. Barbara, slumped in a chair, watched the cleaning process without any particular interest.

  “I think we ought to get out of here,” Eloise said. “Nothing is worse than the aftermath.”

  “I suppose not. Where shall we go?”

  “It’s still sunny outside. Let’s walk down to the Embarcadero.”

  “D.H. doesn’t bother you?” Barbara asked. D.H. was downhill, a specific San Francisco foot and knee affliction that resulted from downhill walking with bad shoes.

  “Not yet. And you?”

  “Let’s walk. When I can’t walk, I shall quietly get rid of myself.”

  Beyond the Golden Gate, the sun was dropping to the sea, and the Bay was a wild tangle of golden flags, a million golden flags riding the surface, tipping the water and dancing a mad celebration of their short existence. Twilight had driven the tourists back to their hotels. The crab boats were tied up and the seafood stands were dropping their shutters. Both women had wrapped themselves in woollen coats, and they walked quickly with long, firm strides. Thank God for Eloise. She had been absolutely right, and a brisk walk in the cold afternoon air was just what Barbara had needed. “Like some men,” Barbara said, “this is what you love and hate and cannot break from. It’s a magic city.”

  “I’m turned sixty-one,” Eloise said. “Today’s my birthday.”

  “I wish I had known.”

  “Do you reach a point where nothing makes sense? The madness in Vietnam and my son’s death. Do other mothers feel this way? I would give them Vietnam and Korea and anything else they wanted if I could have Josh back. Oh — God damn them for their wars. All this beauty, all this awful beauty, and he is gone. Forever. No more sunsets — Barbara, tell me to shut up! This is a wedding day. This is a birthday.”

  “Let’s walk,” Barbara said.

  They reached Jones Street, and now they swung around to walk in the other direction.

  “Did Adam take the car?” she asked Eloise.

  “Yes. Freddie and May Ling are having dinner with Sam and Mary Lou. I should think they’d want to be alone. I can call them at the restaurant for a ride back.”

  “They’ve been alone,” Barbara assured her. “They’ve been living together for over two years. Marriage is after the fact these days. Anyway, Sam’s operating tomorrow at ten. No honeymoon. Look, let me call Sally and invite both of us to dinner. I’ll drive you out to Napa.”

  “And leave Adam alone? He doesn’t age well, poor d
ear. Men are afraid to die.”

  “We’re all afraid to die, aren’t we? But include Adam. Sally won’t mind.”

  “I’ve stopped caring. Why Sally’s house?”

  “I have a need for a brother,” Barbara said. She had a need for someone of her own flesh and blood. Someone to fill the emptiness that came when she had said goodbye to Sam.

  Eloise agreed. “I’ll telephone Adam and tell him to meet us at Sally’s, and you call Sally and tell her she’s having three unexpected guests for dinner.”

  Barbara’s birthday was in November. In the old days, when on the West Coast astrology was becoming a sort of nuthouse religion, people would look at Barbara strangely when she told them her birth date. “Oh, Scorpio.” As if she were an unwelcome visitor to earth. Little of it remained now in 1979. Barbara felt that America had no memory for anything — much less such nonsense as astrology. A nation that had forgotten its birth ten years after it happened and that fell victim to an endless succession of crazes and cults.

  It was three days before Barbara’s birthday that her brother Tom died, a victim of the same kind of massive coronary that had struck down his father. He was older than Barbara, and while the accumulated bitterness of years had made them less than loving brother and sister, they had never wholly lost contact with each other. Tom’s wife, Lucy Sommers, was seventy-one, a stringy, vinegary woman, who hated everything named Lavette, including her husband, from whom she had been separated for ten years. She would not grant him a divorce, and such was the corporate complexity of Tom’s empire, a tangled web of ownership, that he could not afford — according to his lights — to force a divorce. Barbara, who had avoided Lucy since long before her brother’s separation, hardly recognized the skinny, thin-lipped old woman who came to the funeral but shed no tears. When he had first heard of his father’s death, Freddie feigned indifference, but Barbara telephoned him and said firmly, “We’ll go together, Freddie. And you must go. There can be no argument about this.”