It wasn’t her habit to spend so much time gazing at herself—mirror, mirror on the wall—but she wanted to get it right. The party at which she would be introduced to Eduardo Ibarra was not until tomorrow night; but from what she had heard, he was worth the time. She wanted to be, to feel, very attractive in her own true style. So here I come, Señor Eduardo Ibarra—ready or not. And if you’re not ready, or won’t quite do, maybe Mr. Somebody Else!
Beth was more than ready for a new man. There had been nobody since Vinny’s death who could remotely be called a partner, which was what she was lonely for. She soon found out that good men were scarce, and not just because of the war. After she ended a period of isolation and mourning, friends went out of their way to introduce her to the few men they thought suitable. She’d had a couple of brief romantic experiments, but none had really panned out. There were certainly men more than happy to share her bed, and in fact that was part of the problem. She was beginning to feel that attached women didn’t really want her around their husbands and boyfriends. She was too good-looking and too available, they thought. A young woman who had been around was a magnet for straying men or those who liked to fancy themselves as straying. It was amazing how puritanical and fearful these open-minded, progressive, free-thinking women (and men) could be when there was a dangerous woman about. Beth Erlichman, femme fatale. What a laugh! She knew she was attractive to men, and she still savored her transformation from ugly duckling to swan, but as a dangerous woman she was a washout. She had none of the requisite wiles, subtlety, or heartlessness for that role.
There was another uncomfortable, less flattering aspect to her life these days. She had come to realize that her easy acceptance among Vinny’s highly political friends had come from being his girl. On her own, she wasn’t much to these same people. Oh, she had made a little stir when her “Pearls” painting had been hung in a small group show, but otherwise they seemed dismissive of her as an artist; and she was sure they considered her a lightweight as a thinker. There were fewer phone calls, fewer invitations. Social-political activities were mentioned casually after the fact: “Oh, I’m sorry, Beth. I thought you knew about that party,” or “We didn’t really think you’d be interested in that discussion.” She felt undervalued and didn’t like it. She was not truly chagrined, however, for the bare-bones honesty that surfaced in her at times told her she really wasn’t interested in most of this activity. She gladly donated whatever funds she could manage to fighting racism, supporting labor—and she still worked for the NMU, didn’t she? But that high wave of camaraderie in its biggest expression, the United Front, was dying now, she felt, with the end of the war.
What seemed to be left was all this talk. Factions and theoretical positions on everyone and everything: Stalin, Jimmy Hoffa, Ben-Gurion; every ism possible and, of course, the masses. The very word irritated her—so theoretical and abstract. Beth didn’t want to talk and she didn’t want theories. She wanted to paint and not be mutchered. That Yiddish-English word expressed it best, she thought: mutch’urhd, pronounced in two syllables, soft almost silent R. How to translate that? To be questioned, heckled, nagged at—all for your own good. Or something like that. Could she ever express this openly? There was, of course, that secret cabinet in her mind she could lock this waywardness in, but she didn’t want to. How wonderful to find a man as a companion and partner that she didn’t have to hide it from. Not bloody likely, she thought. She was also pretty sure another artist would not be the solution. Artists—serious ones—could make for pretty unsatisfying company as a steady thing. Not only were they in competition with each other for scarce resources and even scarcer recognition, most of them were too busy working at their day jobs and at their personal creative work, like she was. It made for a lonely life, unless you were attached to some really unusual person.
Still, lonely as she was sometimes, she felt offended rather than wounded by the slights of Vinny’s social–political crowd, and she really didn’t want to be in any other environment than where she was. She was going to hold on to that expanded hopeful vision, the humane, progressive attitudes that she had discovered from living with Vinny, as well as the quirky, still shaky independence he had helped her forge. So, some of the lefties were doctrinaire, rigid, disappointingly conventional. Well, what else was new? At least they strove for something decent. Where else could she find a reasonably compatible partner? Certainly, she couldn’t go up to a Catskills resort this summer to hunt for a man. She had neither the money, the time, nor the inclination. Besides, who would she meet there? Another Alphie Pie, another Arthur Midland? Another Vinny? She didn’t want another anyone. Someone new was what she longed for. Tomorrow night was an opportunity that sounded quite promising, and she intended to take full advantage of it. Margo, a painter she knew, was married to a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, and he had a friend who had also fought in Spain. He was a Spaniard, actually, who had been living in Mexico and had moved to New York a few years ago. He was a journalist, unattached, very interesting. This was not a blind date, Margo had assured Beth. And, she informed her, more than a few women were interested in Eduardo. Still, Margo was ready to give her a leg up. Why didn’t Beth come to this Brigade reunion? Eduardo would be sitting at their table, and so would Beth. Margo or Phil would introduce them and she could take it from there.
Knowing that Eduardo Ibarra was a Spaniard and had fought for the Republic, Beth, ever the movie fan, had amused herself envisioning several romantic screen types. Would he be a tall, dark, impassioned Henry Fonda in Blockade or a tall, dark, quietly courageous Gary Cooper in For Whom the Bell Tolls? Perhaps an earthier peasant type with a beard and beret. The man who materialized was nothing like any of these. He was attractive, all right, smooth-shaven, kind of bony-faced with wire-rimmed glasses; sexy–intellectual, Beth decided. He appeared to be a quiet, well-mannered, thoughtful man who spoke excellent if rather formal English. He was dressed casually but in understated good taste. Expensive clothes, she noted with some surprise (Beth had an eye for these), but no beret, not even a neck scarf, to be seen; just a blameless tie that he soon loosened as it got warmer inside. She was pleased with what she saw. Just be yourself; don’t try to impress him too much. He was obviously pleased with what he saw also. Easy does it. A little vino, now, that would help.
They were hitting it off. Eduardo declared that he was no dancer, but if she wasn’t embarrassed to stand up with him, he would venture a foxtrot. Beth meltingly assented. He was not bad, actually. He was a lean, kind of loose-jointed man (not the compact, stalwart teddy bear Vinny had been). She had this fleeting vision of a marionette; if he were strung together more tightly, he might have been shorter than she was. Short-shmort! She didn’t care; she liked the way they fitted together. A couple of dances later, they were still together when Beth, silently cursing her bladder, had to excuse herself. She had a long, irritating wait for the bathroom, during which she worried that Eduardo would be swept away. When she emerged she found him sitting at a table chatting with a couple of men and quietly smoking a cigarette. He stood up and excused himself as soon as he saw her.
“All this inspiring talk about fighting fascists and bourgeois reactionaries,” she commented sotto voce. “The Left needs nothing but their bathrooms to defeat them. Never have I been to a meeting, rally, or even a dance where there were adequate restroom facilities.” She felt she’d either charm him or lose him with her irreverence.
Eduardo laughed. “Try Mexico, gringa,” he retorted, taking her hand. “But if you’re willing to get out of here and have a drink with me, I promise to find you a place with the finest facilities available.”
Success!
Of course, there were hurdles to overcome. Like the fact that Eduardo had a wife and son. He was quite candid about this, telling her that first night.
Beth stifled a howl. “And just where are your wife and child this evening?” she asked evenly.
“In Mexico. We are legally separated, and we would
be divorced if her priests allowed this. She has received a good settlement, and she now lives with my son and another man, whom I understand is very good to both of them. I am grateful for that, and I continue to support them. I write to Manuel often, but I can see him only infrequently. It’s not a pretty story, and it stems from an episode in my life that I regret deeply. My only excuse is that I was rash and idiotic at the time. We were both still in our teens.” Eduardo took a sip of his drink. “Strange, isn’t it? I regret that whole episode in my history, but I can’t regret my boy. I’m happy he exists and is thriving. The marriage, well, that’s another thing. I only tell you this because I hope that we will be seeing more of each other, and I find it is wise to be honest about one’s entanglements.”
She was relieved, of course, that he seemed to have no current romantic or domestic involvements she needed to worry about. Fearful of marriage and motherhood as she was, it was probably a very good thing that it was out of the question for the time being. She was a little wary, however. His words bespoke considerable experience, and he was so convincing, so articulate about this history, she was suspicious that it might be a well-rehearsed explanation—a set piece for the new woman, whoever she was.
She would discover soon enough that she had misjudged him. Eduardo turned out to be rather quiet and private by nature. When he did talk, he was articulate, persuasive. He was a journalist, after all, so he was adroit with words, but he had little patience for fakery, and in their personal life, he demanded a core honesty.
One thing surely was easy and open between them—their physical comfort and pleasure in each other. She would have been quite ready to bring him home that first night but for strategy and caution, and it was clear he felt the same. She couldn’t say why she felt so bone-of-my-bone, flesh-of-my-flesh about him, but there it was, and she loved it.
Eduardo had heard tell of Vinny but had never met him. He was interested in her relationship with him, though careful not to be overcurious. Beth wanted him to see the “Pearls” painting. She didn’t know why, exactly, but it was very important that he see it. He was genuinely interested and spent some time studying it.
“You know, I’m sorry I never met him. I would have liked this guy,” he said.
Beth was delighted. “He was extremely likable, and quite charming, really.” She was quiet for some moments; then she took the plunge. “Of, course, it wasn’t all peaches and cream. It’s very possible we would have gone our separate ways after the war, if he hadn’t died.”
“And why is that, do you think?”
“How can I put it? He was someone who painted within the lines. He had a broad vision, but still. . . .” She was amazed at how easily she had said this and at how accurate her words were.
Eduardo gave a quiet laugh. “He was a Communist—with a capital C?”
“You know, I believe it was only a small C, but that was only because he was a labor organizer and a political coalition builder and it was probably a tactical thing. His hero and mentor was Harry Bridges, who would always mean more to him than Marx or Lenin.”
“Ah, the Nose!”
“You know him?”
“Only indirectly. Your Vinny was fortunate. He was tutored by the genuine article, I think.”
“Meaning?”
“He had his eye on the ball, as you people say; I think Bridges is a great organizer and negotiator for labor.”
“And so was Vinny. But I have to say I had some trouble with some of the people around him. So doctrinaire, some of them—small minded—for all that they think of themselves as the vanguard who sees the bigger picture. Not Vinny—he was too generous and good-hearted—but there were some I could really do without. And they could clearly do without me. None of them ever tried to recruit me to do or be anything.”
“You sound indignant. Do you want to be recruited into the Communist Party?”
“Well, no.”
“I’m glad to hear it, because you wouldn’t be here with me if you did.”
“But you’re a Brigade veteran.”
“I certainly am, but that doesn’t mean I’m a party member. I’m afraid I cannot be a dependably loyal member of any political party. You see, I was brought up as a Roman Catholic, Spanish variety, and that has been tough enough to recover from. I don’t need another orthodoxy—or hierarchy.”
“Vinny was brought up as a Roman Catholic, Italian variety, but to be honest I don’t believe he was entirely free of it, though he claimed he was. He wasn’t a believer or churchgoer, but the mentality of staying within the lines, well, that was still with him. I mean, I hate to say he was dogmatic or doctrinaire—he was so genuinely nice and easy to be with.”
“Perhaps he was just principled.”
Beth grinned at him. “You are so right. You do him justice. And you? Are you principled?”
Eduardo, sighed and put his arm around her. “I hope so, preciosa, I hope so. A good part of the time, at least.”
This was love, the genuine article. Beth was sure of it. Nevertheless, both she and Eduardo were determined to act rationally. She had learned something of the dangers of her own impetuousness and her emotional need for male guidance. She knew now she’d had more luck than brains when she’d flung herself into Vinny’s life. It could have been a disaster, if he hadn’t been such an essentially good person. Whatever independence she’d made for herself in the three years since his death had been hard won and shaky. But it was precious to her.
As for Eduardo, he too was careful about commitment. He had a wife and child who were the offspring of his adolescent rebellious youth. It was a union that had made both husband and wife unhappy, to say nothing of their son and extended family. He shouldered the blame for this, for he realized that his insistence on solitude, privacy, and intellectual freedom was difficult for any family to live with but was necessary to him, possibly more necessary than the comforts of domesticity and of one particular woman’s love. To Beth, Eduardo was quite complex, not easy to know. He was honest but, nevertheless, reserved. Confession, of any kind, he said, was an activity to treat with suspicion.
This much he readily revealed about himself. He was the youngest and only son among four children of a wealthy Madrid family. Conservative Catholics, his parents had nothing good to say about the formation of the Spanish Republic and even less about their teenage son’s enthusiasm for it. They had left Spain and settled comfortably, fortune intact, in Mexico City, where they had both business and family connections. There they meant to sit out the Republic—they were confident it would not last—and support Franco and his insurgents from a safe distance. The angry, rebellious Eduardo had soon attached himself to this girl, sufficiently poor, uneducated, and mestiza to be a slap in the face to his prosperous rightwing family. They were apoplectic. It was one thing for a young man to experiment; another thing for this young idiot to marry his experiment. Divorce was impossible. The girl, obviously pregnant, was also a devout Catholic. His family arranged for the couple’s legal separation and a settlement for the mother and child, and they shipped Eduardo off to England for an expensive education. There he studied history and economics and repaid their prudence and generosity by joining the British division of the International Brigades as soon as it was formed. He was welcomed because of his knowledge of Spain and its languages and regional cultures, and he promptly landed back in Madrid to fight for the Republic.
Eduardo returned to Mexico after the defeat and resumed university studies in Mexico City, but his proximity to his parental family made them all miserable. He remained basically socialistic and passionately anti-fascist; his family celebrated Franco’s triumph. Within a year, he had migrated to New York City and made his home in Greenwich Village. He had discovered during his recent time in Spain that he had a facility with language and could become conversant in Western European tongues fairly easily. He was, needless to say, completely at home in Spanish and English, and he was also fluent in Catalan and French. He saw a path for himself as a
n independent journalist who could write for both the English-speaking and foreign press, and he concentrated on refining his skills and making a respected name for himself in left-leaning circles.
“My God, you’ve done so much—been to so many places. I’ve done practically nothing.” Beth mused.
“So how come I find you fascinating?”
“I don’t know—you tell me.”
“You are fishing for compliments, Beth. Seriously, except for my time fighting for the Republic, I’ve been a child of privilege, and that’s the only reason I have been able to travel and explore the world. I have independent means, an inheritance from my mother’s side of the family. My father would disown me if he didn’t fear being murdered in his bed by all the doting women who brought me up.”
“Funny, my father would disown me also, if he had anything worth withholding. As it is, he won’t be in the same room with me.”
Eduardo smiled and took her arm. “So, querida, we have some things in common after all.”
So here I am, again, Beth thought. How ironic. My stock in these parts has gone way up, because I’m on the arm of a man with a lot of status. All veterans of the International Brigades were honored and respected for fighting the good fight. She could bask in his reflection.
But Eduardo didn’t see himself as a hero, and he didn’t enjoy the role. It was not just Beth’s charms that had made him rush her out of that Brigade reunion to be alone with her. He didn’t want to stay for the speeches and singing, he confessed. He had no regrets about fighting for the Republic, but war was a dirty stinking thing that made either side capable of atrocities. You didn’t emerge with your hands clean. No one did. He seldom spoke of Spain or of his war experiences, though he dreamt of them, restlessly tossing and mumbling in a rapid slangy Spanish Beth could make nothing of. She began to see how painful the experience was for him when she discovered an album of dusty black records in his music collection, covered in jackets with no labels on them. They evidently had not been moved for years. When she asked him about these he explained what they were, but he was reluctant to speak at length.
Bess and Frima Page 22
