The Golden Willow

by Harry Bernstein

  It may not have been the best kind of way to discipline children, but it worked for me, and they were as quiet as two little mice for the rest of the trip. After that, however, we were careful to take along enough distractions to keep them occupied, and our trips were conducted for most of the time with two orderly passengers in the backseat.

  We went everywhere. Up in northern New York State we visited Fort Ticonderoga to see where the Revolutionary army had fought the British in a fierce battle, the cannons they used still there. We drove along the East Coast to Plymouth Rock to see where the Pilgrims had first landed, and down to Washington, D.C., to wander about the buildings and monuments of the capital, gazing up and down and all around, and getting so tired we could hardly wait to get into our hotel and into bed.

  There was one trip we made to visit Davy Crockett's birthplace that got us into a bit of trouble. Our map led us deep into the backwoods of Tennessee. Unfortunately, we had arrived the day after a heavy rainfall. A stream we had to cross by way of a low, wooden bridge was overflowing, and the bridge was partially covered with water. I was at the wheel and hesitated about attempting to cross over it. Yet there was no other way to get to our destination other than by a long circuitous route.

  I decided finally to chance it. I went very slowly. But the water kept getting deeper until I could no longer see the edges of the bridge. My passengers began to guide me, but their instructions soon became confusing.

  “To the right,” shouted Ruby.

  “No, Dad, to the left,” yelled Charlie.

  Adraenne chimed in too, siding with her brother. “To the left, Dad.”

  I zigzagged slowly, trying to follow all the mixed instructions, and then it happened. The car suddenly slid and halted. The front wheel had gone over the edge and there we were stuck in the middle of the bridge, perhaps forever. In a panic, we yanked off our shoes and stockings, scrambled out of the dangerously tilted car, and waded back to where we'd come from, to find a group of natives watching us. Obviously this was nothing new to them. It had been going on all day long, car after car, and there was only one place we could get help, they told us, pointing to a cabin not far away in the woods. In that cabin we'd find a man who would take care of everything.

  We found a heavyset man badly in need of a shave seated at a table eating his lunch. Hunched over a plate of beans, he did not glance at us as we came in, but said in a deep voice, “Be right with you.”

  He seemed to know already why we had come. He had been hauling cars off the bridge all day long and had been making a handsome sum of money out of it. And it happened after every rainfall. We stood with our wet feet waiting for him to eat his lunch. Soon he was done, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and got up from the chair.

  “All right, folks,” he said. “Follow me.”

  He hadn't asked anything. He knew it all. We followed him outside, and there was the truck he used, and he drove us in it back to the bridge and we watched as, expertly, he chained his truck to our car and hauled it safely to the other side of the bridge. We paid him the twenty-five dollars he asked for, an awful lot in those days for fifteen minutes of work, and we went on our way.

  On the whole, however, our trips went off smoothly, and as the children grew older we ventured still farther west to see the great beauty of America: the awesome Rocky Mountains, the equally awesome Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park with its snowcapped mountains and herds of wild animals and lakes and rivers—things our children, and Ruby and I too, had never seen before except in pictures in magazines. We drove as far west as California and stayed in San Francisco for two days, enjoying its hilly streets, the mists that came often, and the streetcar ride that was part of the sightseeing. We drove from there to a redwood forest, gasping in amazement at the enormous size of these huge trees.

  We felt a deep satisfaction at all of this, and we were glad to have been able to show our children part of the reason why America was such a great country. But there was one thing we did not show them, and that was the ugliness that existed in America also. There was a good opportunity to do this when Paul Robeson gave a concert in Peekskill, New York. Ruby and I were going with friends, and I am glad that we did not take Charlie and Adraenne with us because of what happened at that concert. I will tell you about this later.

  Chapter Twelve

  I DON'T REALLY KNOW HOW LONG IT TOOK ME TO WRITE THE INVISIBLE Wall. It must have been about a year, but it was finally done, and the next thing was to try to get it published. But did I really want to go into that sort of thing again? I hesitated before sending it out to a publisher. I'd done this hundreds of times before and always met with failure, a polite rejection note, or nothing at all. Was there any reason to think that things had changed?

  For quite some time I kept the manuscript on my desk, satisfied with what I'd done, thinking I should leave well enough alone. The writing had done its job. I had been functioning normally. The grief was still there, but it was no longer as acute as it had been before. I could look at one of the photographs of Ruby on a wall or a table without crying. The loneliness and the terrible emptiness would always be there. I knew that would never pass. But why let myself in for the disappointments that I knew would inevitably come with submitting my manuscript to some editor who would have little interest in my life as a young boy in a Lancashire mill town?

  I could never forget those disappointments. They were like wounds inflicted on my body, leaving scars. I think the worst of them all was the time Clifton Fadiman, the editor of Simon and Schuster, had shown some interest in my work after reading one of my short stories in a little magazine and had written me a letter inviting me to submit a novel.

  Ruby and I had just been married, and writing and becoming a famous author were matters of life or death with me. I was thrilled by the letter, and I sat down immediately to write a novel that was doomed to failure because I didn't know how to write a novel. Nevertheless, I dashed one off in a few weeks, sent it off to Fadiman, and waited impatiently for the reply, rushing downstairs every time the mailman came to see if there was a letter for me from the publisher. Well, there was one day, and it was from Fadiman, and it asked me briefly to come in and see him about my novel.

  I was in seventh heaven that day, absolutely certain that he would not have asked to see me unless it was to tell me that he was going to publish my novel. If it had been turned down, I reasoned, it would have come back to me with the usual polite rejection slip. It was on that positive note I went out and bought a bottle of wine to celebrate the occasion. When Ruby came home and heard the news she was as delighted as I was, and when we sat down to dinner—a meatloaf I had thrown together at the last moment from her written instructions—we toasted my success.

  The following day I went to the office of Simon and Schuster filled with confidence. Fadiman, a bespectacled scholarly-looking man then in his early thirties, greeted me warmly, which heightened my assurance still more. But in a few moments all my expectations crumbled as I heard him tell me that he still had faith in me as a coming writer of talent, but the novel I'd submitted to him didn't fit his list. And where had I heard that before?

  I could never forget that letdown. It was the worst of all the rejections I had received, and there were plenty more of them after that. Nor could I forget the many others like me who I met during this troubled period in my life. The first apartment Ruby and I rented after graduating from furnished rooms was in Greenwich Village, and it was there I met so many like myself who were struggling to become famous writers but had not yet had anything published. We often gathered on an evening to read one another's manuscripts and criticize them or perhaps to sit and commiserate with one another over our failures.

  I can recall the greetings on these evenings when we met. They were generally the same each time.

  “Ah, how are you? How's the writing going?”

  “Oh, so-so.”

  “Any acceptance?” (A short laugh.) “Any interesting letters from
editors?”

  “No. How about you?”

  “Same.”

  “Well, I guess we've got to keep plugging away.”

  “I guess so.”

  Many of these gatherings—soirees, they were called—took place in the apartment of a man by the name of James Deutsch. He was an escapee from Hitler's Germany, but insisted he was not Jewish and spoke often of his Aryan background. He had changed his name from whatever it was in Germany to Deutsch when he came to the United States, not realizing that Deutsch was a fairly common Jewish name in America. Still, he had done well here. He had become comptroller of a large department store. But he was a dignified and quite respectable comptroller only by day; by night he became a bohemian and a playwright, author of several unproduced plays.

  Compared to the rest of us, who were either at low-paying jobs or jobless altogether in those Depression days, James was quite well off, and he was liberal with his expensive Scotch, which he himself consumed in great quantity without ever seeming drunk, smoking cigarettes incessantly at the same time. His place was also well stocked with forty-year-old cognac and liqueurs for the ladies, and so it was not surprising that his apartment—his studio, he preferred to call it—was always well filled.

  It was filled the first time Ruby and I went there. We had been invited by James's wife, Hilda, who was a friend of Ruby's. It was on Waverly Place, in an ancient building that had an iron spiral stairway leading up to the top floor, where James and Hilda lived. We had arrived late, and we had to enter quietly, for James, wearing some sort of a blousy artist's smock and a large black bow tie, holding a glass of Scotch in one hand and a manuscript in the other, a cigarette burning in an ashtray on the floor beside him, was reading one of his plays in a voice that still had a strong German accent. All the lights in the room were off and candles burned here and there for illumination, so it was hard to see faces, and I could barely make out the circle of people surrounding James, seated or sprawled out on the floor.

  There were some seats still left, and Hilda, seeing us, put a finger to her lips and led us tiptoeing to empty spots on a sofa. I tried to listen to the play, but soon realized how bad it was, and gave up listening and wished I hadn't come.

  We stayed only because Ruby didn't want to offend Hilda, and with the Scotch and cognac flowing generously, the reading quickly degenerated into something else. Soon James, his flushed and sweating face the only telltale sign of his drinking, assumed another role: lover. It was, I was told later, the usual happening at these gatherings—a kissing binge that he alone indulged in.

  Seizing hold of an attractive woman, he would grip her tightly, swing her off her feet, and press his lips to hers, holding the kiss passionately before letting her down and going on to the next woman. While this was going on, the husbands of these women smiled tolerantly and feigned indifference. But when I saw him heading for Ruby I decided I wasn't going to be tolerant, and I got ready for him. As soon as he approached and reached out his hands for her, I sprang up from the sofa and put myself in between them, facing him.

  “You touch her,” I said, “and I'll kill you.”

  He stared at me openmouthed, as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. The whole room had grown silent. Nobody spoke like that to James, not with all that Scotch around. But James backed off. He gave a little bow, and for a moment I thought he was going to click his heels, but instead he turned on them and walked over to the table, where he poured himself another Scotch and lit another cigarette.

  Ruby and I left shortly afterward, and as soon as we got outside, Ruby bent forward and burst into hysterical laughter. I joined her, and we both had a good laugh out of the episode.

  But the results of some other literary endeavors weren't so funny. One in particular ended tragically. I'd tried not to think of this one because it was so painful, but it had clung to me all through the years, and now especially it came back in full force. His name was Jerry something or other. I have forgotten the last name, but that doesn't matter. He was about my age then, in his early twenties, and we had gone to high school together in Chicago, where I lived for a number of years before coming to New York. Jerry and I had scarcely known each other then. We weren't in any of the same classes, and only saw each other occasionally and nodded without ever speaking to each other. He always struck me as being morose and pretty much of a loner, and this had not changed when I met him by accident in New York as I was leaving the Fifth Avenue library and he was going in.

  We recognized each other immediately, and stopped to shake hands and talk briefly since he did not show any desire to prolong the meeting. But it was long enough for me to learn that he too was a writer, or rather that he was trying to become one and was working on a novel, and that he lived in the Bronx with his widowed mother not far from where I lived with my parents. This was another coincidence, and I took advantage of it because I was curious about him and wished I had gotten to know him better at school, aware now that he was a writer. I went to see him and I think he was glad to see me, though he did not show any great enthusiasm. But he did not have any friends and did not go anyplace other than libraries, and he must have been lonely, so he appreciated my visit.

  I met his mother too. She gave me a much warmer greeting and was obviously glad to see that he had made a friend. She was a tiny woman—petite is perhaps a better word to describe her—with snow-white hair and yet a clear, unwrinkled complexion. Her two sharp, bright eyes often gazed up worshipfully at her son, who was a giant in comparison. Clearly, she doted on him—her husband had died several years ago of a heart attack and Jerry was all she had, and she believed that he was a genius.

  She let me know that soon enough that first time I went to see them in their top-floor apartment in one of the big apartment houses that are packed into the Bronx. She served coffee and cake, and as she did so she said in a voice that rarely rose above a whisper, “He is not just a writer but a great writer, and when his book is published he will be known as the genius that he is. I read a great deal myself. I used to be an English teacher, and reading books was part of my work, but I have never come upon an author who could compare to Jerry. He has been working on his book now for over six years. He started it when he was still in high school, and I knew from the first moment that it was going to be a great book. And it is. He is almost finished with it, and I am looking over the publishers to find who is the best one for him. He should have only the best. He rates it, and the whole world will agree. I am sure of it.”

  Jerry was sitting opposite me at the table, and he was taking this in with his eyes cast down gloomily to the floor. I don't know how he was feeling about all this praise, but it certainly aroused my curiosity, and I asked if I could read some of his book.

  I think the mother was about to say “Certainly,” but Jerry interrupted, bellowing, “No!”

  Later on, when we were alone for a few moments, Jerry having gone to the bathroom, she apologized to me, saying Jerry never let anyone read his manuscript, not even her, and she had only been taking its greatness for granted because she had been convinced of his genius from the time he was a child and whatever he did or wrote had to be exceptional.

  I only saw him a few times after that. Except for the writing we had little in common, and he was always so morose and gloomy he was not particularly pleasant to be with. I had friends in the Village and I introduced him to some of them, but these meetings did not go off so well because of his disagreeable manner and his antisocial behavior, so I soon put an end to that and began to see less and less of him.

  Then one day, having nothing to do, I decided to go and visit him. If I had read the newspapers a few days before I would have been better prepared for what I was going to learn after I'd climbed those endless steps and reached the top floor, breathless. I knocked on the door and Jerry's mother opened it, and the moment I saw her I knew something was wrong. She was wearing a kimono and her white hair was in disarray, as if she had just gotten out of bed, and she had bee
n crying.

  “Is Jerry in?” I asked.

  She stood looking at me for a moment, clutching the edges of the kimono together, and her eyes were watery. Then she said brokenly, “Come in, please.” And after I had done so and she had closed the door behind me, she said in the same voice, “Jerry's dead.”

  It was a shock. I stared at her, and said, “I'm sorry. When did it happen?”

  “A week ago,” she said, and seemed to have difficulty talking. She wiped her eyes with a tissue she was holding in her hand. “I came into his room and he was hanging.”

  This stunned me. At first I didn't quite understand. “What do you mean,” I asked, “you found him hanging?”

  “He hanged himself,” she said, and began crying.

  I went up to her and put an arm around her, and said, “I can't believe this. Tell me what happened.”

  I got her to sit down, and she wept more, telling me how it had happened, and why. It was because of his novel. He had finally finished it, and she chose a publisher for him and mailed it off for him.

  “And I was so happy,” she said. “I think he was too, though, you know, he never showed happiness. But he'd spent all these years writing it, and it was finally over, and now he was going to get the rewards that he deserved. It would be a big success. I was sure of it. It would be acclaimed by all the critics. He would be recognized as one of America's greatest writers. I told him that, and I think he believed me and felt that way himself. You know, you couldn't tell much by looking at his face, and he never talked much about what he was thinking, but a mother's instinct told me everything about him. I knew that he couldn't wait to hear from the publisher. He knew when the mailman came and he'd always find some excuse to be downstairs at that time. And then one day he came back upstairs with a package in his hand. He was walking very slowly. I asked him what it was. He didn't answer. He just threw his package onto the table and went into his bedroom and closed the door. He knew what it was. I did too when I looked at the return address on the label. It was from the publisher I had sent it to. I opened it. I had to. Yes, it was the manuscript, and there was a slip of paper with it that said it had been rejected as unsuitable for their list.”