We Were Strangers Once

by Betsy Carter

  Both of them had to laugh at their hunger, despite all the hours of lovemaking. Afterward, Catrina lay back. Her face was drenched with sweat. Hair stuck to her forehead like streaks of mud. “So what are we going to do?” she asked.

  “You are bored already?” he asked.

  “No, about Miss Lipstick and Nail Polish? What are we going to do about her? Rather, what are you going to do about her?”

  Liesl had become such a fact of Egon’s life, he hadn’t given much thought to what it would be like without her. Her struggle to get her parents out of Germany had become his struggle. He’d written imploring letters to them and even engaged Meyer’s help in trying to find someone in Frankfurt who could go talk to them in person. By now, his apartment was filled with the little presents she continued to bring him: a ceramic owl, sheets, a photo album. Her company was easy; their lovemaking pleasant, though nothing like what he’d felt with Catrina. He tucked Catrina’s hair behind her ear. “Perhaps this is a conversation for another time,” he said. “Let us not ruin what we have today.”

  “What we have today will never go away,” she said. “But it can’t happen again if there is someone else.”

  “I understand.”

  “Good,” said Catrina. She told him that after Walter died, she’d found out that he had been unfaithful through most of their marriage. “I’d rather be alone than always looking over my shoulder.”

  Egon was quiet. Catrina got out of bed and walked into the living room. He could hear the rustle of her chemise and the snap of her skirt fastener. “You think about it and let me know what you decide,” she said as she walked into the bedroom, combing her hair.

  “I wish you would not go,” said Egon. He lay naked under the sheet, feeling miserable and vulnerable.

  “Thank you for a lovely afternoon.” She headed toward the bedroom door. “And for the turtle.”

  Egon got up, draped the sheet around him, and came up behind her. “This was not merely something to fill an afternoon,” he said, kissing her neck. “Since I met you, you are in my mind all the time. I want to see you again. Give me some time to sort out my complications.”

  “I’ll give you all the time you need. I’d like to see you again as well. Call me when you have something to tell me.”

  He wanted to change the mood back to what it had been before. He almost said, “I love you,” but he knew what promise those words held. Instead, he tried to think what Meyer might say—something that would make her smile. “Do you really look into other people’s medicine cabinets?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Everyone does.”

  18.

  Here is a sanctuary and freedom from persecution. These are not small gifts, and they come with a price. Some of us put our heads down and carry on with the humility and gratitude this country expects of its immigrants. Others take what they can from anywhere they can get it, then cross their fingers, hoping no one will notice.

  —Meyer Leavitt, Aufbau, January 5, 1940

  In Germany, Liesl had believed the letters from America and the promise of riches. No one had told her she’d have to work with people who couldn’t pronounce her name, or that she’d be on her feet for nine or ten hours a day in a place that smelled of insect killer, or that her paycheck would barely cover her rent and food. It was humiliating enough that when she couldn’t afford a hairdresser, Carola had to cut her hair, but to have her boss—a woman, no less—order her to dust last year’s Christmas cards for this year’s Christmas, or tie ribbons around stacks of dishtowels so they’d look more expensive—this was unbearable. She knew that the candles and the underwear and the balls of twine and everything else sold here was worth one-tenth of what was charged, and that customers were seduced by aisle after aisle of choices. Why not a pair of socks, a new broom, some potholders? Item by item, they seemed cheap enough, but add them up at the checkout counter and customers were likely to stretch a dollar to two and tap the limit of their weekly budget. As her father’s daughter, Liesl understood money. She knew the difference between a good and a bad investment and had no doubt that this crummy five-and-ten-cent store owed her more than she owed it.

  She started with little objects: lipstick, a compact, Dr. Scholl’s foot plaster. It was easy. Her job was to keep the inventory stocked and clean, which meant her fingers were all over these items anyway. Tucking one or the other into the sleeves of a baggy sweater was simple. With time, she got bolder, rolling dresses and blouses into balls and shoving them into one of the store’s brown bags. It was amazing what one woman with a quick hand and a large bag could accomplish. Linens, dishes, pens, playing cards, ceramic animals. She didn’t take only for herself; Egon and his friends were so appreciative of the gifts she gave. Slippers, soap, hairbrushes. She told herself these were things her parents would need when they came to America, but mostly she stole because she could. It was her way of getting even with her boss, with her coworkers who never included her in their conversations, with the people who shoved her on the subway, with her father for being so intransigent. The gamesmanship of it made coming to work almost pleasant, and her secret victories reinstated the feelings of being indulged that she’d left at home.

  She certainly wasn’t going to let Egon Schneider burst her little bubble.

  It was laughable, really, that he was the one who told her they had to break it off. He was an old man almost, no money, no future. He smelled garlicky, like the salami he sliced all day. His idea of a good time was a walk through the park looking at birds. The birds, everywhere the birds. And the sick animals. The way he pretended he was an animal doctor. The old furniture in his apartment. He snored. Even his dog was old and smelly.

  No, this man was a bad investment.

  She told herself that she was glad he was the one who broke it off, because sooner or later she would have had to tell him these things. This way, it was less cruel. She wanted a man with a future, with ambition. She didn’t think Egon was such a man.

  They were on one of their Sunday walks through the park when he told her. He’d been talking about the new year and had become unusually animated. “Nineteen forty! I cannot believe it. When I was a young boy, I went with my father to an automobile exposition in Berlin. They had a picture of the ‘Car of the Future,’ the car of 1940. It would be powered by gasoline and go as fast as sixty miles an hour. I remember thinking that 1940 was so far away and I would be an old man by the time it happened.” He’d laughed. “Now here I am, in America, in a new life. I could have never imagined…” He turned and looked at her. “Liesl, I have been thinking about us and how we are both starting out in a new country. Of course we shall always be available to help one another, but now we deserve the chance to find our own America.”

  She’d nodded.

  “Do you understand what I am saying?” he’d asked.

  “Yes, you want to be free to do what you want to do,” she’d said, conscious of keeping her voice steady. She didn’t ask him why, or whether there was another woman; it would sound too much like pleading. No man had ever called it quits with her, but she knew that to make a fuss would be unseemly, so she hid her feelings behind the polite rhetoric that came so easily: “The time with you has been delightful, thank you. I hope your work with the animals goes well.”

  “You are a wonderful girl,” he said with relief. “We shall always be friends.”

  “Of course,” she said. “But for now, I’d like to take some of the things I left at your apartment.”

  They walked back in silence. She gathered up her toiletries, then went home to do the thing she knew would vex him more than anything. She would call Meyer.

  Meyer. There was a man with ambition. He’d already written a book, and now he had a column in a newspaper. Egon and Meyer argued all the time, and Egon mocked Meyer behind his back. Liesl knew how competitive the two of them were, despite how they confided everything to each other. Meyer liked her, she could tell from the way he watched her and how he addressed her as “Lo
vely Liesl.” Surely Egon and Meyer had talked about her.

  How would she begin the call? She’d tell him about Egon, that he’d ended it. Egon had probably talked to him already. She’d sound wistful but not brokenhearted. She’d suggest maybe they go for a walk, or get some coffee at Nash’s. Then what? What if he said no? What if he said yes? Would she be smart enough to keep up with him? What if they had nothing to talk about? How hard would it be to seduce him?

  She needn’t have worried about any of it.

  “Lovely Liesl. What a cheerful surprise on such a dreary day,” said Meyer when he heard her voice. “To what do I owe the honor of this call? I hope this is nothing serious about your parents.”

  “No.”

  “Then you are calling about the Aufbau? Perhaps a story about the fine work you are doing at the five-and-ten-cent store?”

  Liesl could never tell if Meyer was making fun of her, but she had to laugh. “No, not that.”

  “Then it is a personal matter, a matter of the heart perhaps?”

  “Yes, I suppose.”

  “Aha, Egon. He has broken your heart.”

  “Oh no,” said Liesl, a lift in her voice. “But it’s what you call a breakup. We have made a breakup.”

  He became silent.

  “Meyer, are you still there?”

  “I’m here,” he said. “I’m cleaning my teeth with a toothpick. It helps me to think.”

  She laughed. “So that’s your secret. I was thinking too. I thought maybe you’d like to have some coffee with me on the weekend.”

  Meyer picked some more. “Instead of coffee, I could cook us dinner at my place. It isn’t fancy, but I am a decent cook.”

  “Only if you let me bring something.”

  “I’ll tell you what, I’ll make the meal and you bring dessert.”

  “That sounds wonderful.”

  He gave her his address, and she promised to show up Friday at seven.

  He made spaghetti with cheese, minute steak, and niblet corn. She brought a box of Oreo Sandwiches, two Baby Ruth bars, and a bunch of toothpicks (all easy grabs). Together they drank nearly half a can of pineapple juice and a bottle of Chablis. They talked about old times, new friends, and how Liesl wanted to learn to jitterbug. When Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood” came on the radio, Meyer said he knew how to jitterbug and would teach her. He took her hands (“Such smooth skin, Lovely Liesl”) and rocked back and forth— heel-toe-heel-toe. Liesl knew that what he did bore no resemblance to the jitterbug but followed his steps nonetheless. He spun her around. She put her hands on her knees and kicked out her legs. He unbuttoned his shirt and waved his arms in the air like a man drowning. She picked up a dishrag and twirled it above her head. He clutched her around the waist and tried to dip her. She threw back her head the way she’d seen Marlene Dietrich do it. After all the wine, his hold was tenuous and her balance tippy. She might have fallen had he not grabbed her by the double strand of pearls and pulled her to standing, but not before one of the strands burst. The clopping sound of pearls hitting the linoleum was the closest to music they heard for the rest of the night.

  Liesl dropped to her hands and knees, and Meyer dropped down beside her. She crawled under the table and around the chairs, snatching up the wayward pearls and stuffing them into her pocket. “I’m so sorry,” said Meyer. “What an oaf I am.”

  She wanted to say it was nothing, that it was only a stupid necklace. But if she talked, she would cry, and if she cried, he might tell Egon, and Egon would know she was not crying about the pearls. Meyer crawled up beside her and put his hand on her shoulder. “Let me have the pearls. I will get them restrung, I promise.” He rubbed her back and she sidled up to him. Now or never, she thought, and nuzzled her head against his shoulder.

  He got on his haunches; she got on hers. When he wrapped his arms around her neck and kissed her, she didn’t pull away. (“You smell like vanilla.”) He kissed her again. What happened next was even more awkward than she had imagined it would be. She tried to slow him down, but Meyer pushed her to the floor, straddled her, pulled open the top of her dress, squeezed her breasts, then undid his pants and, with a lot of grunting and heaving, pushed himself inside of her. Just as quickly, he pulled out and rolled over. He lay beside her and closed his eyes. Maybe he’d passed out. Liesl was practiced at keeping the mood, no matter whether she’d been satisfied. But this was nothing close to sex. She sat up and checked her neck to make sure the other strand had not come undone. She waited as long as she could before she said, “I think I must go now. Please tell me when you get the necklace restrung.”

  Meyer grabbed her arm. “This is not what I intended,” he said. “It was the wine, then the pearls… I wanted to make love to you, real love; I hope you know that.”

  Liesl looked at him lying on the floor. What a miserable sight. His body was thick. With his shirt open, she could see his nearly hairless chest. There were orange spaghetti stains on his mouth, and his eyes were red. She thought about Egon: his thick chest hair, his elegant physique. Meyer was the brilliant one; he would succeed. But in the looks and bedroom department, Egon was master. She’d done what she came here to do, and hoped Meyer would tell Egon his version of this night. Wasn’t that the point?

  She mustered her tact. “Thank you for a wonderful night,” she said. “The food, the dancing, it was all so much fun. You can tell your friend that you swept me off my feet, and I won’t disagree.”

  Snow was falling when she left Meyer’s, tiny pricks of it that burned her eyes and made them tear. The icy wind blew through her thin coat, and her lips were chattering by the time she reached the subway. A few men said things to her under their breath; women looked her up and down. She knew what they saw: a young girl with lipstick smeared, hair disheveled, wine on her breath. Had she even remembered to button the top of her dress? In Frankfurt, had she seen a woman who looked like this, she’d have thought whore and turned away. She let herself imagine coming home and sitting in front of a warm fire. The maid would bring her hot tea and ask if perhaps on such a cold night she’d like some schnapps. Yes, that would be lovely; she’d like that very much. Soon, she’d change into her flannel nightclothes and get into bed under the thick goose-down covers. She would have a warm and trouble-free sleep.

  Tonight, this fantasy felt more poignant than it usually did. She couldn’t go home, not alone to her dreadful apartment, one room, not enough heat, the fire escape that looked like a cage. She’d go to Carola’s and sleep on the couch. She checked her watch: 10:12. Too late. Carola worked early on Saturdays. Maybe better that way. She wouldn’t have to say where she’d been or why she looked the way she did.

  The subway was empty. Old newspapers curled around her feet and empty coffee cups rolled back and forth. As she neared her stop, Liesl took out her keys and turned up the collar of her coat. She walked quickly down the dark street, staring ahead in the way New Yorkers did to make themselves feel invisible.

  That same evening, Egon phoned Catrina. “Can you come here tomorrow morning and help me with the animals?”

  “And your complications?” she asked after a brief silence. “Will they be there too?”

  “Come and find out,” he said.

  When Catrina got to Egon’s apartment that Saturday morning, he took her coat and asked if she’d like to use his bathroom. “I’m fine, thank you,” she said.

  “But perhaps you would like to wash your hands,” he insisted.

  “My hands are fine.”

  “Then maybe you would like to look inside my medicine cabinet.”

  Catrina went into the bathroom and opened the cabinet. Egon followed. The shelves were empty save for a bottle of Kreml, some shaving equipment, one toothbrush, and a tube of toothpaste.

  She looked around the rest of the bathroom. “What happened to the lipstick and nail polish?”

  “That is finished,” said Egon.

  “Finished? Just like that?” Catrina snapped her fingers.

  �
�No. Just finished.”

  19.

  America is a land of refugees and immigrants. Everyone was once a stranger here.

  —Meyer Leavitt, Aufbau, February 9, 1940

  Meyer had never learned to ride a bicycle. He’d tried. There had been an old one at the farm that had rusty spokes and one handlebar that bent skyward. He’d roll a few feet, shift his hips to the left or lean his shoulders to the right, and hoppla, he’d be on the ground. His father had said that a boy with his head in the clouds should keep his feet on the ground, and his brothers had taunted him, saying that he was too fat for the bike’s rickety frame. Neither was true. Balance was Meyer’s problem, all kinds of balance. He’d say too much, laugh too loud, go too far. Look at what happened with Liesl Kessler.

  So typical, he thought.

  Despite his arrogance, Meyer paid dearly for his insecurities. One self-doubt would beget another, until he’d nearly suffocate in a loop of what ifs and how could I’s. How could I have started with Liesl? She’s beautiful and young, and Egon was right, so far out of my league. Why would she want an old fatty like me? How could I have served that disgusting gummy spaghetti? What if I had roasted a chicken or boiled some bratwurst instead? What if I hadn’t drunk all that wine? I’m clumsy enough to begin with; how could I have dreamed that I could dance with her? I can barely walk like a decent person. I shuffle. I have an uneven gait. I’m sloppy. I can’t even keep my shirt tucked in. What if I hadn’t kissed her? How could I have attacked her like an animal?

  Meyer buried his face in his hands. As if I’m not humiliated enough, she’ll no doubt tell Carola. Egon will figure out that the real reason I sent Norman’s turtle to Catrina was so he’d get involved with her and Liesl would be fair game for me. Fair game, ha. That was no game; that was a horror show. Did I get what I deserved? Yes sirree bob, as they say, I certainly did.

  Meyer let his head fall onto the kitchen table. When he was young, his father had beaten him. A few times, he’d cried, but that had only incited his father to hit him harder. Tears would be as pointless now as they were then. He’d call Egon and tell him everything, and Egon would most likely say, “You make everything into a drama. Save it for your column,” and they’d go on as always.