Second Generation

by Howard Fast

  “Will you be all right?” she asked woefully. “They won’t punish you for this?”

  He shrugged. “I am still useful, I think. I am fifty-two years old, Barbara. I don’t find life very enchanting. So it doesn’t matter too much.”

  “It matters to me.”

  “Thank you for that. Now, get on the train.”

  He did not try to kiss her, and she could not bring herself to kiss him. She boarded the train and went to her compartment. Through the window, she saw him standing pensively, watching the train as it pulled out.

  PART FOUR

  Reunion

  Sitting in his office on Terminal Island, staring out of the window at the almost-completed hull of the third yacht he had built for film moguls who were searching for new ways to spend their money, Dan Lavette contemplated his fiftieth year. He had lived half a century, he had been rich and he had been poor, and once or twice he had experienced a sense of comprehending why he was alive. The moments of self-revelation, however, had been ephemeral; discontent was deeper and more lasting. His health was good; he had not put on weight since he had given up mackerel fishing to sit at the desk of an enterprise that was at best modestly profitable and at worst utterly senseless. His wife was the one woman who had ever managed to give him a sense of his own worth or importance, yet he had reached the point where he took her for granted, and lately he found himself thinking more and more often of Jean, who had divorced him ten years before.

  He had fathered three children. There was his son Thomas, lost to him. Ten years had gone by since he had seen Thomas. The boy—well, not really a boy anymore, a man now—would be twenty-seven, or was it twenty-eight? Even the birthday had gone out of his mind. Who was he and what was he like, this stranger who was his first child by Jean? What a stupid, hopeless thing that was! The two of them building a wall that became thicker and more impenetrable year by year. May Ling had lectured him on that, on the difference between the hurt pride of a man and a boy, but his own pride or sensitivity or fear was something that eluded him and was beyond his own understanding. He had once tried to explain to May Ling how the mind of a hoodlum, a roughneck, a brawler—as he saw himself—worked, but he had bogged down in the contradictions of his attempt at self-analysis and had given up the effort to make her or himself understand.

  By what miracle Barbara had come to love him, he did not know, but she did love him, and she was comfortable with him and May Ling. Since her return from Europe, she had spent most of her time in Los Angeles. They had put a bed in Feng Wo’s tiny study, and there, for the past three months, Barbara had been working on her book, spending most of the hours of each day toiling over the typewriter. She had been to San Francisco twice to see her mother, and from all Dan had been able to get from her, the visits were pleasant, although she refused to set foot in John Whittier’s house. She too was something of a stranger to Dan, for the girl who had gone away five years before was in many respects very different from the woman who returned. She was still direct and warm and open, and even lovelier than she had been as a college girl, but underneath Dan felt a profound difference, a sense of deep sadness, of unapproachable tragedy that created a wall around her inner self.

  “Give it time,” May Ling said to him. “She has been through a great deal, and she has suffered. It’s not easy for the children of the rich to deal with suffering. For the children of the poor, it’s a matter of fact and life. So don’t press Barbara. There will come a time when she’ll let it out.”

  The time came. It was Joe who brought it about, during a weekend he was able to spend at home. Joe was the mystery, the reward, the enigma of Dan’s life. Dan fought him, resisted him, and worshipped him. They had a terrible battle over what Dan regarded as a wasted summer, when Joe had worked as a laborer at Higate Winery. They fought over the movie people, whom Joe despised, and who, he insisted, used Dan, exhibiting him and his Chinese wife at their homes. Joe resented it that the shipyard had come into being as a way of supporting him through medical school; he was never totally free from Dan’s past, the past of a millionaire tycoon, and he was also never entirely free from his guilt at having a father who worked twelve and fourteen hours a day as a mackerel fisherman. He surely did not want him to be a fisherman again, but Dan felt his resentment toward the possibility that he might once again become a man armed with power. Joe was protective of May Ling. Thus they fought and embraced and fought again, with May Ling pleading with Dan to recognize that his son was a man with a will as strong as his own, and to deal with him as a man.

  How do I deal with that? he wondered now. They’re all strangers. Not to each other; it was he who had sat quiet, inarticulate, that evening when Joe was at home, listening to him tell how a Mexican woman had died in the hospital while the students stood there, being instructed in the symptoms, listening, learning, while a human being died—and then Joe’s woeful plaint of hopelessness and helplessness. Why had he resented that? Why had something inside of him said, “God damn it, it’s his business to know why and how people die! Why is he whimpering?” And then his anger washed away into mute understanding as Barbara opened up and poured out her heart. She was connected with Joe. She told them the story of what had happened in Toulouse when Marcel died, and for the first time she told them why she had gone to Germany.

  “You know,” she said, “I heard about all the monstrous things they have done—but nothing was as awful as the sight of that old man, lying with his bleeding face in the sewage, while that brute kicked him and cursed him.”

  Dan remembered how he had glanced at May Ling. Her face had not changed, but tears were slowly running down her cheeks, and he himself had felt an overwhelming impulse to take Joe and Barbara in his arms, to hold them both and protect them.

  Now, in his office at Terminal Island, he came out of his reverie, muttered, “The hell with it. They’re good kids. I did the best I could,” and then yelled for his secretary. “Bertha!”

  She came running in. Her name was Bertha Mendoza, and she was short, stout, and middle-aged. He had hired her as a bookkeeper after Feng Wo’s death, with the understanding that she would also serve as his secretary, constituting his entire office force. She was an excellent bookkeeper, a fair typist, and a pretender at shorthand. And she was a Chicano with a violent temper and four children to worry about.

  “You yell like I was in San Pedro!” she exclaimed.

  “Where the devil’s the admiral? You said he’d be here at ten o’clock.”

  “He’s an admiral, Mr. Lavette. You think you push around such a man like you push me? Oh, no. No, sir.”

  “You’re sure this admiral said he’d be here?”

  “You think I make up such stories?”

  “O.K., O.K.,” Dan said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Always you yell, and then you’re sorry.”

  “No lectures. Just bring him in here when he comes.”

  It made him nervous to sit in his office and do nothing. In the old days, there had always been others to sit in the offices and do whatever had to be done there. He had an almost irresistible craving to be out in the open, on the ways where the work was being done, to see and supervise every step of it, to see things made, to see the miracle of a ship arising out of naked ribs and raw planks.

  But he was sitting here, wasting the morning, because a call from Washington, D.C., had told him to expect a visit from one Admiral Emory Scott Land at ten o’clock today. It was already after eleven. When he sat alone and brooded, he chewed the bone of his discontent down to its very marrow.

  It was half past eleven before the admiral arrived, a tall, spare, white-haired man in his early sixties. Mrs. Mendoza brought him into the office with a triumphant look, as if to say, “Here, I have produced him.”

  He wore civilian clothes, and he pulled a chair over to Dan’s desk and sat down without apology, facing Dan’s bleak look with a slight smile. “I’m Emory La
nd,” he said. “You know who I am?”

  Dan nodded.

  “What are you building out there?” he asked, pointing through the window.

  “A hundred-and-ten-foot yacht for some damn fool who has nothing but money.”

  “That’s one damn big yacht.”

  “As long as they pay for it. There’s no Depression in Hollywood.”

  “You don’t enjoy building yachts?”

  “They’re toys. I don’t enjoy building million-dollar toys while San Pedro and Wilmington are filled with men who are starving because they don’t have jobs.”

  “There’s an answer for that.”

  “Tell me,” Dan said flatly.

  “Tell them to go to hell with their toys.”

  Dan grinned and shook his head. “I’d like to.” He opened his cigar box, but the admiral shook his head. “You mind if I do?”

  “Go ahead. You know who I am, don’t you, Lavette?”

  Dan bit off the end of his cigar and lit it. “I’d like to, Admiral. I sure as hell would. But I got eleven men working on that toy out there. It keeps them eating, and it keeps my kid in medical school.” He paused, blew smoke, and studied his cigar. “Do I know who you are? I sure as hell do. You’re chief of the Maritime Commission. But what brings you to me, I don’t know. I have a lousy little shipyard that hangs on by the skin of its teeth. What I don’t shell out for material and payroll goes to meet the payments on my bank loan. I build toys and kid myself into thinking that I serve some useful purpose on this earth.”

  “I’ll be damned,” the admiral said softly.

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t expect a shipbuilder to want to serve some useful purpose on this earth. To make money, to build ships, that’s something else.”

  “I’m no shipbuilder.”

  “Who is, Lavette?” he asked, nettled. “You think you’re unique, don’t you? Let me tell you something. There’s nothing in these whole damn forty-eight states but lousy little shipyards, and you’re a jump ahead. At least you build toys. The rest of them build nothing. Nothing. And their bleeding, bleating hearts turn my ass red.”

  “I’m not bleeding.”

  “Like hell you’re not! You’re so goddamn sorry for yourself it stinks up the place. Worse than that cigar of yours.”

  “Is that what you came here to tell me?” Dan demanded angrily.

  “Sure. Why not? And I’m not going. I’m at least ten years older than you, but I don’t think you could throw me out. Do you want to try?”

  Dan burst into laughter. “Hell, no, I don’t want to try. What can I do for you, Admiral? You didn’t come all the way from Washington to see me.”

  “Why not. Sure, I’m going to talk to all of you—here, San Pedro, Long Beach, Oakland, Sausalito, right up and down the coast. I spoke to a few already. You call that a lousy little shipyard,” he said, pointing out the window. “It’s not. It’s a damn fine shipyard, rotting away, like every other shipyard in America. Do you know how many ships we’re operating in our merchant marine?”

  “I could guess. Maybe a thousand.”

  “Just about that. Ten and a half million deadweight tons. Why, a tiny country like Holland floats more tonnage than that. And how many merchant ships do you think we built last year?”

  “None?”

  “You’re not far from wrong. Tell me something, Lavette, what do you think of this war in Europe? Do you think it’s a joke? That’s what they’re saying.”

  “No war’s a joke. My daughter was in Germany five months ago. Not for long, but it was a nightmare while it lasted. No, I don’t think it’s a joke.”

  “We’re going to be in that war.”

  “I hope not.”

  The admiral shook his head. “Nobody wants to believe it. Nobody wants to deal with it. I have to deal with it. We have one thousand, one hundred and fifty merchant vessels, and that includes the junk—rusty tramps, the old hulls tied up in the Hudson River, anything that floats and can be called up to make a statistic. I hate to think of what the number would be if we considered the condition of the ships. Now what will happen if we try to send an expeditionary force overseas? We have no army, we have sort of a navy, thank God, but we have no merchant marine. Six months of submarine warfare could just about put us out of business.”

  “I suppose so,” Dan agreed.

  “It doesn’t bother you?”

  “I don’t think about it. I operated a fleet of ships in the last war and I became a millionaire. I lost it all. I don’t regret that kind of money.”

  “What in hell are you, Lavette, some kind of damn pacifist?”

  Dan puffed his cigar and considered it. “I don’t know. I never thought about it that way. I watched the shipping prices in the last war. Every dollar of cargo became thirty dollars. We got fat on the blood of the kids who died. If you’re looking for a patriot, you came to the wrong stall, Admiral.”

  “I’m looking for a man with some guts.”

  “That doesn’t impress me or flatter me,” Dan said.

  “What in hell gives with you, Lavette? They told me you were some kind of legend here on the Coast. You’re one lousy legend, if I may say so.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Roosevelt.”

  “I never met him.”

  “He got it from Al Smith. I gather you met him.”

  “I met him. All right, Admiral, I gather you’re not taken with me. That’s all right. Just what do you want?”

  “I want you to build ships, not toys. Merchant ships. Steel ships.”

  “With what?”

  “With that shipyard you have out there. You could lay six keels and build something that matters instead of that silly yacht.”

  “Maybe I could. I don’t know. I never tried to build a real ship. Everything I built has been wood. Suppose I did. Who’d buy them? Who’d finance me? Who’d operate them?”

  “We’ll guarantee the financing and the price and the operator.”

  “We?”

  “My commission, the government. We’ll get you the loans, and we’ll guarantee the sale.”

  “You’re kidding—God Almighty, you don’t mean that?”

  “Why don’t you try me, Lavette?”

  “How many ships do you want?”

  “As many as you can build. Put on three shifts. Put that whole yard of yours to work. Enlarge it. I know your situation here. You bought one of the finest shipyards on the Coast for a song because the bank couldn’t give it away. I don’t give two damns what in hell you believe in. My own belief is that unless we build ships, this whole stinking world is going up in flames. I know about the last war. To hell with that! It’s done.”

  “I told you,” Dan said after a long moment, “I never built an iron ship.” Then he sat and stared at the admiral, who stared back, his blue eyes cold and unwinking. “I’d need architects, engineers, designers, welders, and specifications.”

  “We’ll help you find the architects and engineers. There’s one thing, Lavette, you’re short on bullshit. That impresses me—if nothing else about you does. So tell me straight out—if we supply what I said we would, can you build the ships?”

  “I can build them,” Dan said. “When do I start?”

  “Start now. Show me your yard, and we’ll get down to facts.”

  ***

  Since she had returned from Europe, Barbara felt unmoored, displaced, as if her being had lost its substance. She had a repetitious dream in which she was old, unloved, lonely, and childless in a strange land. One night she awakened from this dream and fell into a fit of half-hysterical sobbing that went on for hours. When at last she sat down to write her book, the dreams ceased.

  On her way back from Europe to California, she stopped for a few days in New York. Frank Bradley had arranged a press con
ference, and in spite of her unwillingness and protests, he insisted that she go through with it. She had become a sort of celebrity, the American heiress who had been arrested and subjected to various indignities by the Gestapo. When she insisted that she had not been arrested by the Gestapo but by the Berlin police and only held in the police station for a few hours, Bradley begged her to allow the story to stand. “For all you know,” he said, “the thugs who picked you up were Gestapo. In any case, the publishers are eating it up. I can get you an advance of ten thousand dollars on the book. I put together twenty stories, your best. All we need is the conclusion.”

  “No,” Barbara told him. “I’m not going to publish those articles, Frank.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m not the person who wrote them. Because they consist of silly, pointless gossip, and I’m ashamed of them.”

  “You’re crazy. They’re damn good writing, and nothing to apologize for. At this point in your career, getting a book published is very important. It’s good for you, and it’s good for the magazine. I know the money doesn’t mean anything to you. That’s the curse of being rich. But you’ve had experiences that should be shared.”

  “That’s just it, Frank. If I write, I want to write about what I felt and what I saw. It’s not in those silly stories.”

  The argument went on, but Barbara remained unmoved. However, since the press conference had been arranged, she agreed to go through with it. It took place at the Hotel Algonquin, in the sitting room of a suite Bradley had provided for her, and the first question, thrown at her by a reporter from the New York Daily News, demanded to know “whether it is true, Miss Lavette, that your lover was killed fighting for the communists in Spain?”

  Barbara stared at the reporter without replying, and Frank Bradley, standing beside her, whispered, “Don’t answer that, Barbara.”