by Daniel Stern
Halfway through her speech, Dasha had opened her eyes but kept them staring straight ahead, away from Jud. Then, he said, “Dasha, what was so terrible? Why couldn’t you call me?” thinking, as he spoke, that he knew the reason and had suffered for it, in past years. Still, her answer surprised him.
She turned her dark gaze on his face and said: “Because I was sitting in the phone booth and I couldn’t remember my brother’s face. Jud,” she said in drunken despair, “I couldn’t remember his face.”
They were all having coffee and more drinks in the living room when Jud and Dasha entered the apartment. He beckoned to Nancy to help him and they took Dasha into the kitchen and started pouring coffee into her. Just as he remembered, Dasha still wore no makeup. Her complexion had myriad dark shadings, and her lips, a winy coloring. Still drunk, as she was, she was blushing under Nancy’s inquiring gaze. But because of her “Biblical” darkness of skin, the blush simply lent a subtle rose flush to her cheeks—a gentle calling of attention to the unseen river of blood that flows beneath the flesh.
From the living room, Jud could hear that Walkowitz was holding the floor. They must all have been spellbound by what he was saying; no one seemed to have noticed Jud’s and Dasha’s entrance. Walkowitz had probably drunk a good deal; his voice was stronger, assured, amused at his own words.
He was telling a story about the lawyer who, in 1958, had gone to the German government, as the representative of a large group of Jewish people who had survived the concentration camps, in order to collect “reparations”—so much money per week spent in imprisonment for the crime of being a Jew.
“Pssst,” Nancy called softly to Jud. Dasha had fallen asleep between sips of coffee. Nancy had a pillow fetched, rather than disturb the sleeping stranger, and they leaned her back against the wall, pillowing her head and arranging her legs comfortably.
Inside, Walkowitz was on his feet, bulking imposingly, for the moment dominant and lighthearted. Jud heard the last trickle of laughter at something just said.
“It was in Paris,” Walkowitz said, “but my attorney was an American, and he graciously handed me the check from the German government. Eight hundred and fifty dollars. It’s more in marks but I forget the exchange. A weekly rate for every week spent imprisoned in a concentration camp. European plan—that includes meals.” His habitual shrug brought a laugh now; it was the identical movement but instead of suggesting pessimism, it was comic. Jud watched him interestedly in this new role, almost the clown now, leaning on the mantelpiece, his good eye glowing with humor.
“But I did some fast arithmetic and said, I’m afraid the government of Germany has shortchanged me. I was imprisoned for two-and-one-half years. That would be one thousand three hundred and seventy dollars, not eight hundred and fifty. I don’t mean to make any difficulty for the German people as represented by their government, just because of something done years ago by a handful of fanatics, which I’m sure most people did not know about—but it does seem a bit low. I do have to make a living, and as long as they’re paying off on Auschwitz et al, I’d like my money’s worth. Or, rather, my time’s worth, since I did put in quite a stretch.’
“My friend, the attorney, adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses, consulted his papers, and looked at me severely. ‘You’re forgetting, Mr. Walkowitz,’ he said. ‘You escaped from Buchenwald Prison’—that’s what he called it—‘and were in hiding for three months before you were caught and brought to another camp. Naturally, you would expect to receive less than some of the other people who were present for a long, uninterrupted period.’
“‘Oh-oh,’ I said, ‘naturally.’
“‘I mean, you wouldn’t expect payment for a period when you weren’t present?’
“‘No, no, of course not. Forgive me,’ I said. ‘Please give my gracious thanks to the German government. And tell them I’m terribly sorry about those three months.’” Walkowitz paused, then added: “‘You’re sure I don’t have to pay them for that period?’”
With this, after a final burst of amusement from everyone, Walkowitz gave up the center of the stage. Looking around the room, Jud saw that two people were not reacting in the general manner to Walkowitz’s tale. Joe Lear was looking straight ahead, unsmiling, an expression of irritation on his smooth features. And Marianne, who had been laughing with the rest, had a look of cloudy concern as she glanced from Walkowitz to Jud.
In the quiet that followed, Walkowitz limped to the coffee table in front of the long, curved couch, for a cigarette, and he said—to himself, but loud enough to be heard—“And how much for an eye, or a leg … or a wife …”
Embarrassed silence hit the room. It was broken only by the sound of the telephone’s ring in the nearby study. Lear moved past Jud to answer the phone, his stony expression unchanged. Jud watched Walkowitz light his cigarette with the usual two matches, thinking, He always goes a little too far. Just enough to make sure that he’s still among the enemy.
To try and lighten the atmosphere, Jud said to Walkowitz: “I got my check from the German government, too, and Marianne’s mother, in a rare sentimental moment, suggested that I use it to set up a fund for Hungarian or Polish refugees. Marianne had just made her second picture and we didn’t need the money, really. But Paul had the courage to tell me: Screw that. You and Marianne go out and buy a new car and some clothes and have a ball. We did and I enjoyed every penny of it.”
“I kind of handled it the same way,” Walkowitz said. “Only being a bachelor, and in Paris, I spent it on a girl.”
“Jud,” Marianne said, “remember that woman in Hollywood? The old lady at the Chateau Crillon, who heard you’d been in a concentration camp and gave you a dollar tip because of it?”
Jud grinned. “She was a damned Peeping Tom of an old lady, but I respect her motives and her dollar more than the check from the Germans. By the way, will everybody please stay out of the kitchen for a while? My cousin Dasha is in there, sleeping off a binge.”
Walkowitz, the clown, had disappeared. He was himself again, and his big body was a little stooped, his eyes bleary and tired. He addressed himself to Nancy. “Might I lie down somewhere? I’d like to rest, just for a few moments.”
Characteristically, Nancy treated him as if he was an invalid in her care, and would have taken his arm to help him as she showed him to a bedroom, if Walkowitz had not held his distance.
Lear came back into the room; his vague grimness had flowered into clear anger. He held a piece of paper in his hand, and gesturing toward Paul, he said: “Paul … Larry … Jud. Could you come inside for a moment?” There was more command in his voice than Jud had ever heard.
9
THE BEDROOM WAS DIMLY lit by a single bedside lamp. Marianne was halfway to the phone when she saw Walkowitz lying on the bed, his body spread out on the silk spread like a large calligraphic figure expressing exhaustion. One leg curved naturally, in comfort; the bad one was stiff and straight. An arm was over his face, covering his eyes, and his breathing was regular.
Marianne hesitated. She knew the Lears’ apartment well. The only other phones were in the kitchen and the study, but there was a conference going on in the study and the kitchen was out of bounds because of the sleeping Dasha. She had no choice but to walk as softly as possible, dial her home number with thunderous clicks, and whisper to her mother:
“Is Sarah sleeping all right? … Any calls? … Yes, Jud found her. No, she wasn’t really drunk, Mother, just tired and nervous. … Any other calls? … Oh, well, it’s three hours earlier there. If he calls again, tell him I’m not feeling well and I may be delayed a few days … tell him to call the agency and speak to Charley for details. … Oh, Mother, please stay out of it. I’m not going to ruin my career. No, I don’t think we’ll be home too late. Good night.”
She hung up and stood, staring at nothing, for a moment. Then, as she turned to go, she heard Walkowitz say: “Hello, sleepwalker.”
“What did you say?”
“I sai
d, Hello, sleepwalker.”
He lay in the same position, except he’d removed his arm from his eyes.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Depends what you mean.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m all right, yes.”
She moved a step closer and looked down at him. “What did you mean, ‘Hello, sleepwalker’?”
“Haven’t you ever noticed, Marianne? Everywhere you look, sleepwalkers?”
“Why me?”
“Am I wrong?”
“I don’t know—till I understand more …”
“The sleepwalkers remember—but not the important things. Their eyes seem open, but they’re only half open, because they see only what can be safely seen. They recall realities and call them dreams, and last night always darkens today, till it’s hard to know sleep from waking. Do you understand?”
“I’m not sure.” She stood over him, now, trying to see his expression more clearly as an aid to comprehension.
“I said it in a poem, once, to Josanne, the girl in Paris.”
“Yes, I remember. I reminded you of her.”
“Except I didn’t tell you the truth. She didn’t kill herself.”
“And what you said about your wife?”
“She did. She threw herself on the gates at Auschwitz.”
Quickly Marianne said, “Tell the poem about Josanne.” She sat down next to him and waited.
“It’s called ‘Josanne Waking’ …
“In all her darkness, tender still, she gleams;
Within her, many shadows soft converge.
Lighter laughter is swallowed by darker dreams,
Like a charming child who gently hums a dirge.
“Remembering night, she walks the waking day,
Half-opened eyes all readiness to see;
Ah, wake and wonder, Josanne, dark and gay,
All dreams are brief as thunder, brief as we.”
Marianne leaned forward to hear each word. Walkowitz reached up and took her face between his hands. He brought her to him and kissed her. To her surprise she responded, pressing hard against his mouth, keeping her eyes open all the while. His eyes were closed.
When the kiss was ended he moved to hold her still more closely, and she hit him, hard, on the right cheek. He remained as if frozen, in his half-sitting position, until she was gone from the room.
10
“READ IT,” JUD SAID coldly.
“I’ll pass it around …”
“No, read it aloud.”
“All right,” Lear said. “This may not be exactly the way it will be in tomorrow’s paper, but it’s pretty close. A business contact read the copy to me over the phone.”
Paul eased himself into an armchair and said: “Why read it? I don’t see what difference it can make. We knew Hendrix might print an item.”
“Please. Read it,” Jud repeated. “Let’s all hear it.”
Larry nervously busied himself stuffing a pipe with tobacco while Lear read: “… much talk going on about Jud Kramer, director of forthcoming Theater Workshop production At the Gates, European play about concentration camps. Rumor hath it that Kramer, a survivor himself of the Nazi persecution, has been cashing in on his background with sympathy-getting publicity about his past sufferings. Informed Broadwayites feel this barrage of ‘bad-taste’ publicity may be responsible for his current directorial assignment—a big one for such a young director. Memo to Jud Kramer: Try to remember—there were five million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine others in the same boat.’
“My God,” Larry said. “That’s almost half the column. I thought, at the most, a little item—”
“Exactly,” Lear said. “It sounds like a crusade.”
Jud’s face was pale. He said nothing.
“What kind of crusade?” Paul said dryly. “A crusade to keep what the play is about quiet.”
“I’m talking about a personal crusade against Jud,” Lear said impatiently. “Like—what did Fanny Lebow call it?”
“Emotional opportunism.”
Jud finally spoke. “Are those the words Fanny used?”
Paul nodded.
“I’m impressed.” Jud forced a smile. “I didn’t know her vocabulary was that good. I’d like to get one thing straight before we go any further. Do any of you share the feelings expressed in that column?”
Larry laughed. “Are you crazy? Look, I’m supposed to be in charge of publicity around here. There have been plenty of items in the paper about Jud’s experiences. When you get successful, you meet every newspaperman in the business. Some of them are genuinely moved and write pieces about it. Others just see good human interest copy. And a guy like, say, Manny Harris writes about the camps whenever he does a piece on Jud because Manny’s Jewish. But I do agree that we could do with less of it. I’ll try to control it, but there’s no guarantee.”
Lear was the only one standing. It was an old business habit: always command the high ground. “I wanted us in here now because I think Jud should be replaced as director before this goes any further. I didn’t want to do it behind your back, Jud. I have great personal admiration for you, but that’s the way I feel about it.”
“What the hell are you saying?” Paul said. “You know Jud is directing because he worked this project out at the Workshop, from start to finish. He found the play.”
“Don’t excite yourself, Paul—” Lear began.
“Don’t you start that. I don’t want my heart used as a business gambit.” Paul stood and walked up to Lear. “Are you sorry we picked this play to do, Joe?”
“No. It’s a fine play and I think it can have a great impact. But it seems to be kind of running wild. Even this man, Walkowitz, that Jud’s brought in. He’s an odd bird, with a one-track mind. And now this item. Fanny’s attitude shows what we’re up against with the theater parties that can mean the difference between running or folding. What I mean is, it’s one thing to do a serious play because we believe in it and another to go out and deliberately get slaughtered.”
“God damn it,” Paul said. “You’re doing the same thing everyone has done for the last fifteen years.” Paul’s voice was as full of anger as Jud had ever heard it.
“Now wait a minute, Paul—”
“The hell with that—just listen to me, now. We’re presenting a work of art that takes place in a milieu most people can know nothing about, no matter how much they think they know. I’m not naïve enough to think that only a man who has lived in hell can direct a play about it. But I’ll tell you this. We can’t pussyfoot about it. We can’t make the so-called publicity ‘pleasant’ any more than we’re going to pretty up the set or the action of the play. Our only chance is to act with strength all the way down the line—as if we believe in ourselves, and what we’re doing.” He paused for breath. Then he said, with his more usual quietness, but firmly: “Either Jud directs the play or count me out.”
Lear looked at Paul, then at Jud and Larry for a moment. It was clear he was making a quick decision, knowing he had gone too far to back out or compromise.
“If those are the terms, then of course Jud directs the play. I still think we can act with honesty and be realistic too. But that can be worked out.”
“Thank you,” Paul said simply.
“One last compromise request,” Lear said, addressing himself directly to Jud. “I don’t like the look or the feel of the fellow Walkowitz. Now this is a request, not an order. Will you get somebody else instead?”
Still white-faced, silent, Jud shook his head in the negative. Lear grinned weakly. “Okay, count tonight as a complete rout for Joe Lear. If it turns out to be a victory for the production, I’ll recall it with pleasure. No hard feelings, Jud?”
Jud’s voice returned, along with his instinctive sense of diplomacy. “Let’s forget it and get back to work. Tomorrow—final casting, lighting man, and more work on the set.”
Jud and Paul wer
e the last to leave the study. At the door Jud put his arms around the older man and pressed a cheek to his forehead in an awkward, impulsive embrace. Paul’s forehead was covered with perspiration and Jud’s skin was moist from the contact.
Going home, Walkowitz helped them with Dasha. In the cab, with the still-sleeping girl slumped between him and Marianne, Jud told them what had happened at the conference and described Paul’s stand.
At their house, Dasha woke and Walkowitz kept the cab to continue to his hotel. Before he went on, though, he expressed concern over the incident, and Jud said, as much for Marianne as for Walkowitz: “Doesn’t mean a thing. The main talent any producer needs is the ability to get frightened. Now, at least we know Joe Lear is a real producer.”
Before going to sleep, Jud and Marianne showed the sleeping Sarah to Dasha. Marianne gazed at her child with an absent expression, automatically straightening the blankets on the bed. All Dasha could say as she stared at Sarah was, “Jud, you’re really a father. Isn’t that something to think? You’re really a father and this is your daughter.”
“I helped a little, Dasha,” Marianne said. “Come on, I’ll show you where you sleep.”
Jud stood alone for a while in the darkened nursery. He was thinking: A father … Dasha was right. It was an amazing and difficult concept to hold to. Yet there was his daughter, with the special reality of existence that only a child has. And he thought, remembering Paul standing up for him in anger and loyalty, I’m a son again, too. We can create a son or a daughter, but who can create a father?
