by Belva Plain
“Who survived?”
“A few lucky ones, if you want to call them that. A few young men who slaved in the iron mines for the German war machine and managed to keep alive. A few mechanics, or doctors who were used in some way. Not many.”
“You remember the doctor I told you about … the woman in Italy with her son?”
“The one you rescued?”
“I wonder whether it’s possible that she’s still alive.”
Hennie threw out her hands in her old, typical gesture. “Anything’s possible, Paul, but not very likely. But write her name for me and on Monday I’ll see whether there’s any trace of her.”
Late on Monday afternoon, after a long day of working his way back into the world of banking, there came a call from Hennie. She sounded breathless.
“Paul! I sifted through file after file and finally I went to the resettlement lists—outside of New York, that means—and my God, I found her! Same name, a doctor, went from Italy to Auschwitz. It’s got to be your Ilse!”
He was stunned. “She’s here? In the United States?”
“Yes. She’s been here a year. They sent her first to Minneapolis for retraining and now she’s back in New York.”
“And Mario?”
“Nothing about him.”
“Have you got an address?”
“And a phone number. She works at a clinic downtown.”
He hung up, forgetting even to say thank you. Putting aside the papers that lay before him, he thought how accidental, how haphazard everything was. Millions, the six million dead, and somehow Ilse still lived. And he thought, remembering their few swift days, the wind in the mountain woods, and the porcelain stove in the corner, that in other circumstances, had they not been born on different continents, then Ilse might possibly have been the one for him. Who could say? Haphazard, accidental, all of it …
And he picked up the telephone. The same dread that he had felt before the meeting with Leah a few days ago, now chilled him again. To go back and back through the calendar of lost time …
There was a pause—he could almost hear how startled it was—when he gave his name.
“Oh!” she said. “I thought you were dead.”
“Why, whatever made you—”
“Because when I came last year, I called your office and they told me you had gone to the war and hadn’t come home, so I took it to mean that—”
“No, no. I stayed over there because, well, because I thought I could be useful, and because I just didn’t feel like coming home yet. But never mind me. I want to hear about you.”
“How do I begin? When I got out of the camp, there was a committee. They cleaned us, got rid of the lice, and gave us clothes. And after a while they helped with our papers, so my number came on the quota. After so many years, so many dreadful years, they reached my number.”
Afraid to ask because afraid of the answer, he managed to put the question. “Mario?”
“Dead. We were separated on the train. I never saw him again.”
The flat simplicity of these words was more awful than a torrent of tears would have been. Paul’s ears rang with the echo: Mario is dead. Dead. Dead.
“Oh,” he said, “I want to see you, Ilse. When may I? Where?”
“I get off early tomorrow afternoon. Can you come for coffee? I have a little place in Washington Heights.”
He felt a surge of something that was sad and also eager.
“I’ll be there. Four o’clock.”
There was a row of stores, a laundry, a butcher’s, a barber’s, and a tailor’s, with apartments above. Paul climbed a flight of dark stairs and rang the bell. She must have been waiting for him, because the door opened at once.
“So it’s you. So it’s really you,” she said, and put her arms around him.
He held her for a minute or two, comforting, stroking her hair. When she stepped back, her eyes were wet.
“You’re the only human being left from the world I knew! The only one!”
“Nobody else from Europe? There are so many living in this neighborhood!”
“But no one I knew. So you see, it has really been a whole new beginning …” She wiped her eyes. “But enough of that. I have coffee and I baked a streusel cake last night. Sit down. I’ll only be a minute.”
While she was in the kitchenette, he looked about. The room was sparsely furnished with pieces that were obviously secondhand, but there were green, healthy plants on the windowsill and rows of books on the shelves. In this short time she had already begun to collect books.
“I had a funny feeling when I poured the coffee just now,” she said, bringing in the tray. “I was remembering that the second time we met, you came to my house and had coffee. You looked around, the way you did just now, and you said something about Mario’s photograph. Do you know, I haven’t even got a picture of him anymore? Only what’s in here.” She touched her forehead.
What could he say? The young men. All the brave young men. Volumes would be written about what happened, but they would never be able to come anywhere near the truth.
“I have no words to offer you,” Paul said.
“Sometimes I try to tell myself that it’s better my son wasn’t left to live out a miserable life. They ruined him in that camp, the first time. I think they did something to his head, something physical, I mean. He was never quite right, never able to take care of himself.”
She had lived a thousand years to every ten of an ordinary life.… A fire engine clanged in the street below and children clattered up the stairs, recalling him to the present.
“You don’t look any older in spite of everything.”
Yet there were changes; it seemed to Paul that a certain something had been added to her face, something softer, less positive or sure of itself. Suffering, he thought. It chastens.
“How are things with you now, Paul?” she asked.
“The same.”
“And your wife?”
“The same.” And suddenly he blurted, “I can’t end it, you see. She needs me. She loves me, in her way.”
“Yes, we can love people who are wrong for us, and we for them.”
He had a need to speak, to say things he had never said to anyone else. “She’s weak … she has so many ailments … sinus and migraine and nerves.”
“She can’t help it. Believe me, people like that don’t enjoy being the way they are.”
“Spoken like a doctor.”
“Well, I am a doctor. No, you can’t destroy her. You harmed her enough when you married her without loving her.”
“I know that very well.”
“There’s been enough pain in this world without inflicting any more.”
“God knows that’s true.”
“Oh, Paul, I’ve thought about you so many times! There’s so much I want to ask. The other woman, Anna? You don’t mind that I ask?”
“I don’t mind. But there’s nothing to tell you. Nothing’s changed.”
“I’m sorry,” Ilse said.
The little reply was enigmatic, and he let it go.
“Are we going to see each other?” she asked.
“Of course!”
“Whenever you’re free. I understand that there are complications.”
“Not at all. We both come and go pretty much as we please. So I’ll call you in a day or two.”
Some weeks later there came an afternoon of cool June sparkle. An organ-grinder played a Neapolitan song, people were buying potted geraniums, and ice-cream vendors tinkled their bells. All in all, it was a joyous day for a wedding, Paul thought, as he turned the last corner before the temple.
Nevertheless, he was a trifle anxious. “Are you sure you want to go?” he asked Ilse for the third time.
“Of course I am.”
He looked down at her with approval. She was handsome in pearl-gray silk and a yellow-flowered hat. Her hair, still worn as she always had worn it, was drawn smoothly back from a forehead that had begun to r
egain some of its old serenity. And her dark eyes, slightly tilted, faintly Oriental, were cheerful.
He had recommended Leah’s place for clothes. “But I don’t need anything,” she had protested. “I wear a white coat five and a half days a week.” Her first glance around Leah’s establishment had shocked her. “This is no place for me. These things cost a fortune.”
He had soothed her. “Leave it to me. The owner is a relative of mine.”
He had hardly needed to say a word to Leah, who, knowing Ilse’s story and with characteristic generosity, had already intended to provide her with a wardrobe at cost.
“Now, there’s quality for you,” she had reported to Paul by telephone. “Oh, I liked her, Paul, I really did.”
And Paul had assented, with some amusement. Quality indeed. Marian would say you could always tell an upper-class person, especially one with a European education.
He said now, “I wonder how long they’re going to take inside?”
Ilse’s fingers felt his wrist. “Your pulse is wild. But why shouldn’t it be?”
He had no intention of going in to watch the ceremony, although he could have slipped in unnoticed at the rear of the temple. But he did not want to run even the slightest risk of disconcerting either Anna or Iris on this day. He would simply stand on the sidewalk until the bride and groom had left in the limousine that was already waiting for them at the curb.
The doors of the square stone building where they stood were now firmly shut. He could only imagine the scene, the two young people before the open Ark, the beautiful old words, the groom’s foot breaking the glass, the lifted veil and the kiss.
He was shut out. Clearly he understood that no matter what else might happen, there could never be truth between his daughter and himself. The man who had nurtured Iris and led her up the aisle this day was her father.
Glancing down when Ilse withdrew her hand, he saw, as her sleeve fell back, the numbers stamped on her white arm. And he was reminded.… It was she who had really lost a child. In the presence of such loss he felt, almost, a little ashamed.
An instant later the doors opened, releasing a surge of exultant music from the great organ. And the bride appeared with a slender man in a tailcoat—Paul scarcely saw him, for what did he matter?—and she was laughing, her voice had a pure, high ring, the veil blew back over her head, she gathered her full skirts, they got into the long, black car and were gone.
God bless you, Iris. May you know peace and love as long as you live, he said, without making a sound.
The curious little crowd that always collects from nowhere to see a bride now mingled with the crowd that was coming out of the building. Among them Paul hid, waiting until Anna should come in sight.
Ah, there, there! She was following with her eyes the car that had taken Iris away. Once again she wore pink, with a twist of flowers in her bright hair. She looked like a girl, as young as her daughter.
Then he became aware of the man who stood next to her. He had his arm around her waist. And Anna looked up at him; even as far away as they were, Paul could see that they were smiling at each other. This is the first time I’ve ever seen them together, he thought queerly, but abruptly there came a sharp recall: It was not the first time, it was the second.… Years before, when Marian was not yet pregnant and Anna was, although he had not known she was, yes, yes, he had sat in his car and watched this man and this woman walk together toward the house where they lived when they were poor.… How he had trembled then, his heart staggering in his chest, with the discovery that he could not—because it was not in him to do such cruelty—could not tear down the man’s roof … even if Anna had been willing … which she had not been!
He should have let her alone, really alone, since then. God knew he had meant to.…
Now they were saying something to each other. The man’s head inclined toward hers, his very posture revealing his possession, his whole possession. They had a life, those two, a history of their own! What right had he to intervene, if only in his most extravagant, wasteful thoughts?
And something happened inside Paul’s head, in his heart, something that darted like pain, and receded quickly with exquisite relief. Yes, yes. First love she had been and, in her most special way, perhaps the only one? But there were other ways, many ways. And he must wait no more.
“That’s Anna, isn’t it?” Ilse whispered and, answering his nod, “Charming, Paul. How charming!”
For a long moment he watched Anna and her husband get into their car. “Now,” he said aloud.
Surprised, Ilse asked, “What, now?”
“Oh, a walk, and maybe dinner with me if you’ve nothing else you want to do, or no one else to see.”
“There is nothing, and there is no one I’d like better.”
When are you going to start living? asked Leah.
Now, he repeated to himself. It’s time, and past time.
And they walked on hand in hand through the lowering summer day toward the avenue. It was a most ordinary thoroughfare, crowded with traffic, noisy with pushing, pulsing life and suddenly very, very beautiful.
To my grandchildren
BOOKS BY BELVA PLAIN
LOOKING BACK
AFTER THE FIRE
FORTUNE’S HAND
LEGACY OF SILENCE
HOMECOMING
SECRECY
PROMISES
THE CAROUSEL
DAYBREAK
WHISPERS
TREASURES
HARVEST
BLESSINGS
TAPESTRY
THE GOLDEN CUP
CRESCENT CITY
EDEN BURNING
RANDOM WINDS
EVERGREEN
