Loving Liberty Levine

by Colin Falconer

  Dewey put the paper down.

  “Can I see?” she said.

  He passed her the newspaper, and she pointed to the picture of Hitler. “Should we be worried about this meshuggener?”

  “It’s nothing to do with us here in America. We have other things to worry about.”

  “What about my sisters in Tallinn?”

  “Estonia isn’t part of Russia or Germany anymore.”

  “What do Russia and Germany know from borders? They will just swat them away like they are nothing, like always.”

  “It is all Poincaré’s fault.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He was France’s prime minister until a few weeks ago. He wanted the Germans to pay back every cent of their war reparations debt.”

  “Why shouldn’t they pay?” Sarah asked him.

  “Whether they should or shouldn’t is irrelevant. But by keeping the Germans on their knees, they’re feeding the popularity of this Hitler and his National Socialists. When it comes to money, you have to be practical. Always. They don’t seem to understand that.” He glanced at the mail by her sleeve. “What have you got there?”

  She tore open the first one. “The Charltons, their oldest daughter, she is getting engaged at the Ritz. We are invited to the party.”

  He made a face.

  “Do we have to go?” she asked.

  “Afraid so.”

  “Was a time you said we’re not going, and that was that.”

  “Things are a bit different right now,” Dewey said. “It will give me a chance to . . . what do you call it?”

  “Schmooze.”

  “That’s it. Schmooze.”

  “What do you need from schmoozing? You told me once, your customers, they put their foot in your door.”

  “Times change.”

  “So, this summer, we are going out to Long Island?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “But every year we go in August. So hot in the city now.”

  “This isn’t every year. Usually, the market’s quiet and everyone’s away. But it’s still crazy right now. Have to make hay while the sun shines, as they say.”

  “We don’t have enough hay?”

  “You can never have enough hay, darling.”

  “But we don’t need to worry, yes?”

  “Worry? Whatever do you mean, worry?”

  “We got enough hay for when the summer ends.”

  “But that’s the whole point, sweetheart. In America, the summer never ends.”

  “No, Dewey, something I know for sure. Winter, it always comes.”

  She saw the look on his face, that flash of uncertainty, then it was gone. The old Dewey wasn’t like that, she thought. He never talked about hay and summer back in the old days.

  But what did she know from such things? All his life he had worked in this money business. He knew from dollars and cents like her papa used to know stitches. If he said not to worry, then there was nothing to worry.

  She could hear the muted chatter of the radio in the kitchen, the morning prayers finished, so time for the stock report. These days everyone listened to it, even their cook owned shares on the market. She heard her talking to Constance about AT&T prices when she was preparing dinner.

  Sarah said to Dewey: “Jane Pargetter told me their butcher’s boy came to see her the other day, wanted her to ask her husband if the latest turndown was the end of the bull market or readjustment only.”

  “Downturn not turndown. And I think she made that story up.”

  “She swears it is true.”

  “Because someone says something is true doesn’t mean it is true. A friend of mine told me yesterday that Saratoga was cutting out all races over five furlongs because the jockeys didn’t like spending so long away from the ticker in the clubhouse. Swore on his mother’s life. But it’s all nonsense. I’m sure our old friend Will Rogers will be having a lot of fun.”

  “So what do I say to the Charltons?”

  “We’ll have to go, we can’t avoid it.”

  “Do we take Libby?”

  “She’s of an age now. I don’t see why not.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “I’m late. I’d better go to work.” He drained his coffee cup and stood up, told Constance to call down for Nelson. He picked up his leather briefcase and hurried out the door.

  After he had gone, Constance came back in with the silver coffee pot and poured Sarah a second cup of coffee. Sarah idled through the newspaper, looking at the advertisements; that fancy-schmancy British woman Lady Grace Drummond Hay wanted her to know she smoked a Lucky instead of eating sweets; an Austrian baron smiled at her, insisting that a bond release she’d never heard of assured the future of all his estates in Salzburg; an Italian count was recommending a rival issue while he watched the sun rise over the Mediterranean from the terrace of his villa.

  This was the America her Micha had told her about: gold on the footpath waiting to be shoveled up. He should be here to see all this, she thought. She looked through the entertainment guide and told Constance to book three seats for Eddie Cantor’s Whoopee for tomorrow night. Libby would enjoy that.

  Sarah lingered over her coffee. The day stretched out in front of her, endless, like when she came from Russia on the boat, nothing to do but look at forever-flat sea.

  She hoped Libby would get up soon. There was this nameless ache inside. What was this thing? She had done everything as she had promised Liberty she would. But having everything perfect should feel more perfect than this. She had thought Dewey would give her another baby to look after, but seven years now and nothing. She knew for certain now, there would be no more babies, not ever.

  All those years she had blamed Micha for no family. But maybe it wasn’t Micha, maybe it was her all along. Two husbands now, and still no babies. Maybe Micha falling off his horse when he was a boy, that was all just shtus. All that time she had wished herself a new husband, and what it was, poor Micha had got himself a barren wife. Maybe her vati was right: God had made a different plan for them, a no-baby plan, until Micha had decided to change it.

  She went into her study, took out her pen and her writing paper, and wrote a long letter to her vati and mutti in Tallinn, as she had done on the first of every month since she arrived in America. She worried about them all the time these days. The last she had heard, Mutti had been very sick. And this news from Germany, this Hitler person, it made her worry for all her sisters: Etta, now with two boys as well as young Bessie; Zlota with a real brood; Gutta, her own tribe (or that was Etta’s private joke to her). Sarah had tried to persuade them to leave, but no. Etta had written, “Everything is going to be all right. We are our own country now. Estonia they call us. No one will harm us here.”

  Everything is going to be all right. How many hundreds of years had Jews been saying that? She finished the letter, and before she licked the envelope closed, she folded a fifty-dollar note very tight, and slipped it inside the pages, like she always did. She hoped it would get there safe. So many hands it had to pass through before it arrived in the smoky little shtetl of Haapvinni.

  The captains at the Plaza had long red coats with brass buttons. They reminded Sarah of the footmen in the Cinderella story that Liberty had loved as a child. One of them blew a whistle to summon a horse-drawn carriage to the foyer for one of the guests, another saluted her as she climbed out of the car. A uniformed bellhop swung the revolving door for her.

  It was palatial chaos inside: guests checking in, their luggage and mistresses and pet poodles scattered among the potted palms, the sound of a string quartet played somewhere in the lobby hidden by the pink-and-gray-veined marble pillars. An enormous chandelier hung from the ceiling, bigger than the sled she used to ride to market on as a child. She never told anyone, but she never liked the Plaza, even though she came here almost every week. To a little girl from the shtetl, it looked only vain and vulgar.

  Like so many of my friends these days, she thought.

  Most of
the club members were already there: Jane Pargetter, smoking a Turkish cigarette from a long ivory holder; Beatrice Charlton, floating across the carpets in a fug of Chanel perfume, wearing one of the new high-low hems; and Diana Richmond, what was she wearing? Sleeveless, shapeless chiffon, and all that décolletage! So much gelt, and what did she know from elegance? With her, everything was about dollars. If it cost a lot, then she must have it.

  But, then, nobody cared about day wear, about evening wear anymore. There were frocks for everything: shopping frocks, traveling frocks, dancing frocks.

  Yes, why not stock frocks?

  One of the Plaza’s assistant managers, dressed in a herringbone morning suit, greeted them all good morning and escorted them into the elevator and up to the suite the hotel had reserved for them. Inside, there were ticker machines and bottles of champagne in ice buckets and canapés all laid out on a linen-covered table. Jane Pargetter had a waiter pour her a glass of Taittinger and lit another cigarette. Instead of a chocolate tartlet, Sarah thought. Watching her figure, like Lady La-di-da from England.

  Sarah read the latest ticker tape, by now she knew all the symbols as well as any of the other ladies: ATT was American Telephone and Telegraph; SAL was Seaboard Airlines. She had made almost fifty thousand dollars since she’d joined the club and started trading, almost a year ago. Not bad for a girl from Delancey Street.

  Jane Pargetter plumped down in the leather chesterfield beside her. “Did you hear on the radio?” she said to Sarah. “The Graf Zeppelin is taking off from Lakehurst today. It goes back to Germany first, then flies all the way to Tokyo nonstop. Imagine.”

  “Over Russia?”

  “Yes, over Russia. If you were on board, you could be waving to all your old friends out the window this time next week.”

  Sarah smiled and thought about putting Jane’s ivory cigarette holder where the sun didn’t shine.

  “They say in ten years, you’ll be able to fly from London to New York like taking a train to Boston.”

  Sarah remembered what Dewey had said about the Saratoga races and decided this was just another of Jane’s fancy stories.

  “Oh look, it’s Katya,” Jane said. “That’s Henry Garret’s new wife. Katya!”

  Sarah thought she saw a look of dismay on Katya’s pretty face, but perhaps she was imagining only. Whatever it was she saw, the look was quickly replaced with a smile. She came over.

  Katya was young, early twenties, a pretty little thing in a trompe l’oeil bow sweater and a pleated skirt.

  “Love what you’re wearing,” Jane said.

  “It’s Elsa Schiaparelli.”

  “Bee’s knees! Katya, do you know Sarah Dewey? Sarah’s from Russia too. Came here to get away from those dreadful Bolsheviks. Lost all her estates, like you did. Where was it you lived, Katya?”

  Sarah recognized a look of panic on the young woman’s face; this time she was not imagining.

  “Just outside Saint Petersburg. Well, they call it Petrograd now.”

  “Sarah is from there. Aren’t you, Sarah? What was your Russian name, Katya? Perhaps you two knew each other!”

  “I don’t think so,” Katya said.

  “Annenkov. That was it!” Jane lowered her voice, as if she was imparting a secret. “Katya told me her maternal great-grandfather was Pyotr Zavadovsky. He was secretary to Catherine the Great. Katya says he provided other services as well.” She gave Sarah an exaggerated wink. “Were you often at court, Katya?”

  “No, not often. Our estates were some distance away.”

  “Wait a moment,” Sarah said. “I remember as a child my father talked about Annenkovs. They are a very famous family in Russia, Jane.”

  “Isn’t that nice,” Jane said, and drew on her cigarette, “to be remembered. Even after you’ve lost everything.”

  “Yes,” Katya said. “It is.”

  Sarah excused herself and went to the ladies’ powder room. To her surprise Katya followed her. They studied each other in the mirror.

  “Thank you,” Katya said.

  “For what?”

  “For what you just did,” Katya said, and Sarah thought: So she’s just another girl from the Lower East Side like me. But I’m better at faking it than she is.

  “We former countesses must stick together,” Sarah said. She checked her reflection a second time to make sure her makeup was flawless. She turned to go, but before she left, she said to Katya, “What do they all say about me?”

  “Only good things,” Katya said, but by the look on the girl’s face, Sarah could see the truth right there. She really was a hopeless liar. She wasn’t going to last five minutes in this crowd.

  33

  Sarah had Nelson swing past Arlington Apartments after the Plaza, to fetch Libby. What is she wearing? Sarah thought as she came out. Could her hemline be any shorter? And what has she done with her hair? She must have gone out this morning as soon as I left, the little minx.

  Libby climbed in the back. Sarah was hoping for a sign of contrition, but no, nothing.

  “You’ve been with your stock lady friends,” Liberty said.

  Sarah saw Nelson glance at her in the rearview mirror. “Saks,” she said to him, then slid the glass across so he couldn’t hear any more of the exchange.

  “Have you been drinking?” Libby said. “It’s not even lunchtime.”

  “Made a killing on RCA.”

  “Well, good for you, Mama.”

  “What you done with your hair?”

  “Do you like it?”

  “You should ask me first if you can wear your hair like that.”

  “I’m sixteen years old, Mama.”

  “That is what I am saying. You are only sixteen!”

  “It’s a Dutch bob cut. All the girls at school have them.”

  “At Westover they will let you wear your hair like this? Is this a kiss curl?”

  “It’s the Louise Brooks pageboy look.”

  “You are too young to have a look. When I was your age, I did not have any look.”

  “You were never my age, Mama. Why are we going to Saks?”

  “You must have something to wear for the Charlton party. Their eldest daughter is getting engaged.”

  A sigh. “If we must.”

  The main floor of Saks was themed to the Graf Zeppelin flight. A huge papier-mâché zeppelin was suspended from the ceiling, and each department was styled on countries the aircraft would pass over on its way around the world: there were models costumed as German beer hall waitresses; metal gongs and red paper cherry blossoms coiled around the marble pillars in the Tokyo section; there were palm leaves to represent Los Angeles and cotton wool snow for Siberia.

  The manageress of the fashion department recognized Sarah immediately. She invited her into her office to see the new season’s catalog.

  She turned around and saw Liberty. “Is this your daughter?”

  Sarah saw the look on the woman’s face, had seen that same look a hundred times before. “Yes.”

  The manageress gave her a tight little smile. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. She’s quite lovely.”

  And it was true, she was. When she was growing up, she had been all angles, all bones, but now she had bumps and curves in all the right places. Sarah’s little caterpillar had turned into a beautiful butterfly with such flaming red hair and green eyes and looked not even a little bit like her.

  Libby was oblivious, was staring at a sleeveless dress by Chanel in black crepe de chine. “What are you doing?” Sarah said.

  “Can I have that?”

  “This is not a dress for sixteen years old.”

  “Chanel says it’s the frock that all the world will wear.”

  “All the world except you, bubeleh,” Sarah said, and led her away.

  In the end, she bought Libby a dress of shot silk taffeta, sleeveless, with a square collar and a two-tone taffeta flower at the hips. And a Lido cloche. Liberty acted like she had bought her a brown sack and a paper hat.
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  So, their first shopping expedition since Libby had gotten home from Westover for the summer. This was not how Sarah expected it would be. What a spoiled brat they had made of her at that school. She didn’t appreciate nothing. Had she forgotten what it was like living on Cannon Street?

  “Try not sleep so long tomorrow,” Sarah said to her as they drove back through Manhattan and up Fifth. In her mind Sarah ticked off the stores she knew as they passed: Tiffany, where Dewey had bought her the engagement ring; Saks Fifth Avenue, where he had got the necklace she had asked for on their first anniversary; and just down there, on Madison, the Abercrombie & Fitch store, where she and all the stock market wives bought their mah-jongg sets. What a Wasp she had become.

  “I thought maybe we will do something tomorrow,” she said to Liberty.

  “I don’t want to go drinking shampoo with all your old face stretchers.”

  Sarah stared at her, didn’t know what to say. Never would she have spoken to Mutti or her vati this way. It hadn’t been like this before Libby went to Westover. What were they teaching her at this fancy school?

  Or perhaps the trouble was something else. Before Sarah got remarried, it had been just her and Libby; no matter the poorness, she was still her mama, good and bad. But now, it didn’t matter how many millionaire things they had, it wasn’t the same.

  Sarah even wished sometimes they could sit at the cluttered kitchen table in Cannon Street again, eating potato latkes and practicing her numbers on butcher paper, no bell to ring, no maid to bring coffee, no Nelson to drive them wherever in the shiny black Bentley.

  Bit by bit, she was losing her bubeleh. Soon she would be all gone.

  “I’ve arranged to see Frankie tomorrow,” Libby said. “You know her mama’s sick?”