Loving Liberty Levine

by Colin Falconer

  “This new War Production Board, what can you do? First they ban anything with cuffs, then the only cotton you can buy is black or brown, now they say a dress cannot be more than twenty-five inches here to here, like we will win this stupid war everyone wearing short brown dresses.”

  “Well, it’s worth a try,” Libby said, but Sarah didn’t even smile. “It’s called rationing, Mama. We have to preserve resources.”

  “What resource?”

  “Cotton, for example. You can make uniforms with it.”

  “If this you are wearing is the kind of uniform they make, let Japan win. This is our big chance. No more fancy-schmancy stuff from Paris in the shops anymore, now here in America at last we can have our own look.”

  “The war is not about fashion, Mama.”

  “Obviously,” Sarah said, and tugged at Libby’s collar. “Well, okay, if this is what Mr. Roosevelt wants, then Sarah Levine will be the greatest patriot type ever. Look, five dollars of this denim stuff; with this I will make a dress you can wear anywhere, either to make cake or make whoopee, whatever you call it. Libby. Liberty. You’re not listening.”

  “No, Mama, not really.”

  “What is wrong with you?”

  “I was wondering why you didn’t write to me.”

  “What are you saying? Of course I write to you.”

  “Birthdays and Pearl Harbor. Are you still angry at me?”

  “Why not angry, bubeleh? I should be happy with this life you are living, doing dirty stuff, cleaning bedpans, and wearing this uniform, clothes that don’t even fit?”

  “My job is about skill, kindness, and compassion. I don’t see any dirty stuff.”

  “You could have a good life here.”

  “I like my life just fine.”

  “You could die in the army! What then, what then if you die, bubeleh? How can I ever live?”

  Libby tried to hug her, but she pushed her away.

  “Bad enough to be a nurse, but the army, that you don’t have to do.”

  “It’s my life, Mama.”

  “Only some of it.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Enough. Enough. You want a manhattan?”

  “I guess.”

  “I’ll get Charlotte to make them,” she said, and hurried out of the studio, but not before Libby saw that she was crying.

  They sat in Sarah’s living room, staring out the French doors at the shadowed city. Under the army-ordered “dim-out,” the neon signs in Times Square had been turned off. There were hardly any lights above street level now. Even down there in the street, the restaurants and bars along the Park had just a few lights on, and the cars and taxicabs had hooded headlights.

  For the first time since she was a child, Libby could make out stars in the sky over the city. A dull sheen of ice glittered on the footpaths.

  Libby sipped her manhattan. “Are you okay, clunking around in this big apartment on your own?”

  “Once, I think I will have grandchildren to play with.”

  “Bessie has a boy now. You could play with him.”

  “I heard. You know what, I never even seen him.”

  “Whose fault is that? Go and see Etta, Mama, make amends with her. It’s been too long.”

  Sarah didn’t answer. Charlotte came in and said that dinner was ready.

  As they ate, Liberty told Sarah about Manila and the Sternberg Hospital and the friends she had made. Most of her old unit were still out there, she said. She hadn’t heard from them in months. One had got out on a hospital ship before the city fell. She had heard the others had escaped to other parts of the islands or been taken prisoner. “Only lucky I got sick when I did,” she said.

  Charlotte had brought them lobster bisque and exquisitely tender lamb cutlets cooked with thyme. Sarah listened to everything Libby said, but offered very little in return. For dessert there was coffee and handmade chocolates, and Libby ran out of things to say. She stared out the window, at the black rim of ice on the terrace, thought about another Upper West Side apartment, another terrace, and wondered what would have happened if Bill Dewey had not jumped off it.

  “You’re going to be twenty-nine years old this year,” Sarah said.

  “I know.”

  “Don’t you want to have a home, a husband, a family?”

  Not this again, Libby thought. Didn’t we just do this? “Perhaps you could arrange a husband for me.”

  “If you want me, I can.”

  “I was joking.”

  “Marriage is no joke, bubeleh.”

  “I know it isn’t, Mama. That’s why I’m not married. I take it very seriously. If you hadn’t interfered, perhaps I would have married Jack Seabrook.”

  Sarah worried her linen napkin between her fingers. Libby saw how pale she had gone.

  “Why did you put Etta out?”

  “I didn’t put her out, she put herself out.”

  “She misses you. She says you haven’t spoken to her in years.”

  “She hasn’t spoken to me either.”

  “Mama, it doesn’t matter anymore who was right, who was wrong. Etta said to tell you that her life without you is like a broken sled in the forest. You know what she means, right?”

  Sarah shook her head, as if she was trying to brush the memory aside. “You see Etta before you come to see your mother?”

  “Mama, never mind that. You have to mend this.”

  “Don’t have to do nothing.”

  “You’re so damned stubborn,” Libby said, and looked at her wristwatch. “I have to go. Good night, Mama.”

  “God keep you safe, bubeleh.”

  “Not even God can keep everyone safe. There’s too many of us, even for him.”

  They waited in the foyer while Charlotte fetched her coat and forage cap. Please hurry, Libby thought. I can’t stand this damned silence any longer. There was so much she wanted to say, but she had given up trying.

  “There’s something I have to tell you, bubeleh.”

  “Tell me, then.”

  But then her mother stepped back, shook her head. “One day, another time. This is not a good time.”

  “When is there going to be a better time? They’re probably sending me to Europe soon. Perhaps, you know, this will be the only time.”

  Sarah shook her head. “I can’t. Not yet.”

  “When, then?”

  Libby kissed her on the cheek. Sarah held on to her as if she was drowning. Libby felt a lump in her throat and that wouldn’t do. She had promised herself there would be no tears until all this war was over; not for herself and not for anyone else. She had to cope.

  Charlotte came back with her things, and Sarah broke away.

  “What if I never see you again?” Sarah said.

  “You will, Mama.”

  “Liberty, I’m sorry.”

  “What for?”

  “For everything.”

  “Sorry won’t bring Jack back.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “I did it for you.” She blinked away tears.

  To hell with it, Libby thought. Her mother had had all night to tell her why she had done it, instead they had talked about hemlines and the War Production Board. Well, it didn’t matter anymore.

  “Go and see Etta, at least,” Libby said. “Please.” She heard the elevator bell, and she kissed her mother on the cheek and stepped inside. The doors closed. That was it, she thought. Our last chance, gone.

  Jack saw his father sitting in the lobby bar, impeccable as always, the only serge blue suit in a forest of khaki. He was drinking Scotch and smoking a cigar. The other soldiers crowded into the bar had somehow formed a perimeter around him, like he was a five-star general. You had to admire the old boy, the way he managed it.

  “Drink?” George said when he saw him.

  “Too crowded in here. Let’s find someplace else.”

  “Suit yourself,” George said, and finished his Scotch. They walked down East Forty-Second, found
another bar with not quite as many uniforms, and took a table in the corner.

  George went to buy the round. Jack asked for a beer, but George came back with two Scotches and a tumbler of water, no ice.

  “So you joined up. Didn’t think about asking me first?”

  “For your permission?”

  “For my advice.”

  “Which would have been?”

  “I could have got you a better posting.”

  “You mean a safer one.”

  “Would that have been so bad?”

  “I’d rather do it my way for once and take my chances.” He touched his glass to George’s. “Bottoms up.”

  “May I ask what brought on this sudden rush of patriotism?”

  “All the posters said Uncle Sam needed me. It’s good to be needed.”

  George looked at the flash on Jack’s epaulette. “So which outfit are you with?”

  “Sixteenth Infantry. New York’s Own. They made me a captain on account I have an Ivy League education. They probably think that means I won’t swear in front of any five-star generals.”

  “Swear at them all you want. I don’t care if they put you in the stockade. Better than being blown to bits.”

  “You don’t have to wear a uniform to get blown to bits. Goering’s boys didn’t get me in London. I’m kinda hoping my luck will hold.”

  “I brought you back here to get you out of the war, not so you could walk straight back into it.”

  “I march these days. Walking is for civilians.” Jack took a swallow of the Scotch, watched his father over the rim of the glass. There was a diner across the street, and he realized it was the one where he and Liberty went for lunch that very first time she showed up at their office, brazenly begging for credit.

  “Why the long face?” Jack said.

  “I would have thought that was obvious. You’re all I have.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. You have a mistress, and the Harvard Club.”

  “Son, please.”

  “Look, Father, I know you think I’m ungrateful, that I’ve always had everything laid on a plate, and I guess you’re right. But the reason I’m not grateful is everything I got for free cost so damned much, end of the day. It cost me my self-respect and my ability to think for myself and to make my own mistakes. I stayed in London when you wanted me to come back because I was my own boss over there. I stayed when the war started because I was doing a damned good job for you and because I would have felt like a coward running away once the bombs started dropping. The people we employ over there, they couldn’t run away. Why should I?”

  “Anything else you want to add to my list of sins?”

  “Such as?”

  “The real reason you’re so goddamned sore is that you never forgave me for the Levine business.”

  A shrug. “Can’t really blame you. That wasn’t your fault. You’re just an old truth teller, right?”

  “I thought you’d get over her quicker than you did.”

  “So did I, I guess. We both got a nasty surprise.”

  Jack finished his Scotch. He thought he could use another one.

  “The worse thing,” Jack said, “was it took away my faith. I don’t trust women anymore. I look at them, I wonder what it is they really want, and I always come up with the same answer. I’ve wised up, I guess, but I’ve become a little remote, if you know what I mean. More like you. A chip off the old block. You should be happy about that.”

  George had a strange look on his face. He put his empty glass down on the table, so hard the ice rattled in the tumbler. “Let’s go out to dinner,” he said, “get a few drinks at the club. We’ll both get good and soused before you leave.”

  “Can’t, my train leaves at eight o’clock. I have a new commanding officer now. He even outranks you these days.”

  “Is that how you saw me? Your commanding officer?”

  “It’s not how I saw you, it’s how it was. You ran my life, and I guess I let you do it. I didn’t want to let go of all my privileges. I’m as much to blame.”

  The taproom smell and the heating in the bar were suddenly too much. Jack needed to go outside and get some air. They went out, stood on the sidewalk.

  “Do you know where they’re sending you?” George asked him.

  “There’s talk that after basic training, we’re headed back to England, fight the Germans for Mr. Churchill.”

  “Just don’t get yourself killed, all right?”

  “Is that an order?”

  “Look on it as an urgent request.”

  “I’ll send it through to my CO. I’m sure he’ll consider it.”

  Jack headed back down the block to his hotel. He looked back once, when he was turning the corner, was surprised to see the old man still standing there in the street watching him. Damn if he didn’t wave good-bye.

  60

  Sarah rehearsed her speech silently in the cab all the way to Brooklyn.

  “Etta, I’m sorry it came to this. You and me, we are sisters, and our vati and mutti would be turning in their graves if they knew we were not speaking. But you have to understand that none of this was my doing. I didn’t make you leave, was your idea only. But I’m prepared to forgive and forget if you are.”

  “Did you say something, ma’am?” the cabbie asked her.

  “Nothing, nothing. Just drive,” Sarah said.

  No, that wouldn’t do. “I didn’t make you leave, was your idea only.” That wasn’t right, she couldn’t say that. She tried again.

  “Etta, my darling sister. I think you owe me an apology. All that time not speaking, you were the one who left, so angry and puffed up, after I give you and your family food and shelter when first you come here. But it was all a long time ago. If you will apologize, so will I, and we can try and put this behind us.”

  Already they were on the Brooklyn Bridge. Sarah felt the panic rise. They would be there soon, and she still could not decide what it was she should say.

  “Etta, I have had a long talk with Liberty. She said I should come and see you about what has happened. It is still difficult between us, as you know. I still cannot forgive what you did, but at least you and I should be like sisters again. She says you have missed me, and I have missed you a lot also. I still think that none of this was my fault, but can we at least be friends again?”

  Yes, that was it. She rehearsed it over and over until she was sure she had it right, word perfect. Soon, too soon, they pulled up outside a two-story brownstone just off the parkway, a proper alrightnik neighborhood. She paid the cabbie his fare and got out.

  A cold day, ice in the wind, a paper scrap tossed and bounced along the street, the sky gray as a winding-sheet. She pulled up the collar of her coat and repeated her lines one more time.

  She stood on the sidewalk, got herself ready, staring up at the stoop and the black-painted front door, then took a deep breath and went up, rapped three times with the brass knocker. A part of her hoped Etta would not be home, that she could go home, come back another day when she was feeling better, stronger, about this.

  She waited. No one came. She turned to go.

  The door swung open.

  “Sura,” Etta said.

  Oh, the look on her face. Mein Gott, she is going to cry. Sarah lurched forward and threw herself into her sister’s arms. What was it, the speech she had? She didn’t remember a word. “Oh, Etta,” she said, “I’m so sorry. I’ve been such a fool. This is all my fault. Please forgive me.”

  61

  Sarah sat in Etta’s parlor, her head down, staring at the green carpet with the big pink roses, listening to the ticking of the big clock on the mantel. Etta had made black sweet tea, just as she liked it, but she had not touched it, left it there on the table to grow cold. More important things to do today than drink tea.

  Sarah looked around the room, saw a photograph of Etta and her family on the mantel: Yaakov; the boys, so grown now; Bessie.

  “Bessie is having the bris for her baby thi
s weekend,” Etta said.

  “She is married now? A nice boy?”

  “A nice Irish boy.”

  “She married a goy? Etta, how could you let such a thing happen?”

  “That I should get in the way of what makes her happy?”

  “But Etta . . .”

  “She was never like your Libby, not a Rembrandt. I figured she wouldn’t get that many chances. She liked him, he liked her. It took a long time to persuade my Yaakov, but in the end he saw the sense of it.” She brought another photograph from the mantel to show her. “Look you, how happy they are.” She sat down, took her sister’s hands in hers. “You will come?”

  “She won’t want me there.”

  “Of course she wants her aunt Sura there. If not for you, Bessie will not have a life to make a life. Remember?”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so, Sura.”

  Sarah brushed the back of her hand impatiently across her face. This was a good thing, what was there to cry for? She thought about that day in the snow, when Bessie was born. That Sura, she was so different. She was brave, and she had no secrets from anyone, least of all her favorite sister. It was plain to her, the only answer was to get her back, if she only could.

  Only you got to do it now, Sarah, before you got time to think, got time to be scared. A deep breath. “Etta, before you decide if you want me at the bris, maybe there is something I should tell you first. Something I never told another soul.”

  “Well, I am your sister. You can tell me. Whatever can be so bad?”

  “What can be so bad? I will tell you. Imagine the worst thing a person can ever do. The worst. Now imagine ten times that.”

  “You have murdered someone?”

  “Worse,” Sarah said. “I stole their baby.”

  Etta looked confused. “What baby?”

  “What baby you think, Etta?”

  “You stole Libby?”

  “I didn’t know I was stealing. I swear it. When I come to America, Micha has this little baby, gives her to me. He says, Sura, this is ours. He says she is a foundling; someone has left her in the street. Well, you know, I think, this is America, it happens. We bring her up. We love her to bits and pieces. Then just when everything is nice, my crazy husband, he joins the war, says he wants to fight Germans. What does he know from fighting Germans? Nothing, it turns out. He gets himself killed. And that’s when I find in his stuff, this thing he has torn from the newspapers. It is from after we arrive in America, this man is looking for a baby that everyone thinks is killed in a fire. A fire at the hotel where Micha is working.”