The Girl With the Glass Heart: A Novel

by Daniel Stern

  Aside from a few pearls of moisture along her upper lip she appeared cool. She might have just returned from a stroll in the garden.

  Alec winced and touched his neck gingerly. “I’d better rub that with oil of wintergreen,” he said.

  They went inside and closed the door as a long, blue Cadillac rolled up the front driveway and into the garage. Max helped Rose out and stumbled over a watering can, catching his balance before he fell.

  “Damn!” he said. “Justin shouldn’t leave things like that lying around.”

  “This is where they belong. Where do you want he should put it?” Rose replied. “I’m tired. Let’s go right to sleep.”

  “You go. I have a little work to do,” Max said as they approached the house.

  “Work, shmirk. You mean you can’t sleep lately. That’s no way to live, Max. You work hard. You can’t live on four hours’ sleep a night.”

  Max shrugged. “What can I do? The doctor says nothing is wrong. And sleeping pills I will not take. Once you start with those you’re a dead duck.”

  “I don’t see why. Don’t I take bromides—triple, sometimes—for my head? And am I a dead duck?”

  Max patted her on her heavily rouged cheek. “No, Rose darling,” he said as he opened the door for her. “You’re a regular live kotchka.”

  “Well—” she laughed—“maybe not a kotchka. I’m forty-eight next year, but I’m nobody’s dead duck.”

  “That’s it,” he said earnestly. “Those headaches’ll go, you’ll see. It’s just change of life. My mother had them for ten years and then—” he snapped his fingers—“they went away, just like that.”

  “Your mother!” Rose said. “What are you comparing? Your mother was a neurosis. She had headaches from being a neurosis. Ask Elly.”

  “A neurotic, Rose, not neurosis.”

  “Who, Elly?”

  “No, my mother, and she wasn’t. But never mind. Just wait. They’ll go away.”

  “I’ve had them for four years. If I have to wait another six I’ll die before they go away.”

  “Don’t be in such a hurry to die. Just go to sleep. Where’re Mimi and Justin?”

  “Mimi went to the movies. Justin’s here somewhere. The kitchen, maybe. Whose coats are these, Max? Oh, Max, maybe Alec came!”

  “No, it’s too soon. Not for another three days I wouldn’t expect him.”

  Jay stepped out of the room, his sleeves rolled up, carrying a bottle of oil of wintergreen and some soiled cotton swabs. When he saw the Kaufmans standing there staring at him he stopped short.

  “Hello!” he said. “I’m Jay Gordon. I’m a friend of Alec’s.”

  “You see!” Rose exclaimed. “I told you he came. I’m sorry. I’m Alec’s sister-in-law, Rose Kaufman. This is my husband.”

  “I’m pleased to know you,” Jay said, and extended an arm, only then realizing that his hands were full.

  “Are you a doctor?” Max asked worriedly. “Is Alec sick? Or Elly?”

  “No, no—” the door to Elly’s room opened behind him and Elly emerged—“we were just rubbing Alec’s neck with this stuff. He—”

  “He hit his neck coming out of the car,” Elly interpolated swiftly.

  Jay turned, saw Elly and said nothing.

  “Let me take all that,” Rose said, removing the bottle and cotton from Jay’s hands. “Come in. I’m so surprised I’m giving you such a welcome. Come inside and sit down.” She hurried off to the kitchen.

  “Is Alec lying down?” Max asked. “Where is he? Of course, he’s in Elly’s room! Where else?” He turned to Jay and made a circular movement with one finger around Elly’s hair. “They’re so close, the two of them.” He opened the door.

  Alec was taking a shower in Elly’s adjoining bathroom and Max could hear him whistling. He felt his throat relax and only then realized how tense he had been since hearing Alec was home. If he was whistling, how upset or angry at Max could he be? Blood is thicker than water, Max thought. Brothers are brothers. The Rabbi was right. It was good to forbid the girl to come. She would have felt out of place, anyway. No matter how nice a person might be, in a family Jews and goyim just didn’t mix. In business is something else yet. You deal with everybody. And he could think of a few business people too who weren’t too happy at having to deal with a man named Kaufman. But they made adjustments. Mainly it was Rose. She would never make that adjustment.

  “Alec!” Max called. “How’s your neck? And how are you?”

  Alec shouted over the din of the shower, “Be out in a minute!”

  As he scrubbed, Alec tried to work out the manner in which he wanted to behave toward his brother. There was no doubt in his mind that in this case Max was not just giving in to Rose’s pressures, but that he really felt strongly about Annette. He was fighting a taboo as strong as any that ever existed in any culture anywhere. He had neglected to add, when he had told Elly years before, “Find your own kind,” that “kind” had nothing to do with religion. He was sure she liked Annette and would help as much as she could. What had come over them to play an insane tennis game at night, ten minutes after he had arrived dead drunk? His neck still felt sore. Well, being stuck at home, Elly hadn’t lost any of that wild quality he loved in her.

  He decided to be a trifle aloof until Max declared himself. Paddling into the other room in bare feet he greeted his brother. “Hello, Max,” he said quietly. “It’s good to see you.” He sat down on the bed and proceeded to dry his feet.

  “Is that all you’ve got to say?” Max grabbed him by the shoulders and hugged him. “I haven’t seen you for three years, Alec. You look fine. Just fine.”

  “You should have seen me a half hour ago. I didn’t look so fine then.”

  “What was the matter?”

  “I was drunk.”

  “Drunk? Why drunk? What kind of a business is that when you’re coming home—to get drunk.”

  “Because I was stupid enough to come without Annette.”

  “But I thought when your wire arrived saying you were coming, I thought—”

  “That we were through? Huh-uh.”

  “All right, Alec. We’ll talk about it. And I wouldn’t mention to Rose about your being drunk and all that.”

  “There wasn’t any all that. I was just drunk, that’s all. So would anybody be if Annette had left them.”

  “She left you, Alec?”

  “She did.”

  “Because of us?”

  Alec nodded.

  “Maybe it’s for the best.”

  “That’s a lot of crap, Max, and I don’t want to talk about it now any more.”

  Max stood up. “All right. Get dressed. Have you eaten?”

  “No, and I’m starved. Oh, I almost forgot. I haven’t really seen it, but this is quite a house. Quite a house.”

  “We’re happy here. Rose and I are, anyway.”

  “And Elly isn’t.”

  “Who knows what will make her happy? I don’t. But I know she’s not. You know what she’s said to me a couple of times, Alec? Nothing will ever be enough. What does a young girl mean by that? Nothing will ever be enough. What kind of talk is that? She’s got a beautiful home and everything she could want. But nothing will ever be enough. Can you figure it out?”

  “I don’t know, Max. Elly’s an unusual girl. There are some people who reach and reach and don’t know and don’t care what they’re reaching for.”

  “Are you talking about Elly or about yourself, Alec?” Max smiled.

  “Who knows?” Alec returned the smile for the first time since Max had entered the room.

  “Get dressed,” Max said, “and come out. I’ll show you and your friend around the house. You didn’t tell us you were bringing anyone, but he’s welcome of course.”

  I handled that pretty well, Alec was thinking as he dressed swiftly. Let him feel guilty for a while. It will be fine for him. Good for the stomach.

  “And the terrace extends three-quarters of the way around the
house,” Elly was telling Jay.

  “You live in a wonderful house, Elizabeth.”

  “If you tell me I’m a lucky girl I’ll cut your throat.”

  “You seem to have a penchant for doing violence to throats tonight.”

  Elly turned and stared squarely at him. Her eyes are enormous, Jay thought.

  “That,” she said carefully, “was an accident.”

  “Of course it was,” Jay replied. “Those lights are pretty blinding out there.”

  “The court is new. That was the second or third game ever played on it.”

  “Everything around here is pretty new, isn’t it? The house can’t be very old.”

  “Two years. It’s not going to get old at all. Glass doesn’t grow old.”

  The kitchen door slammed.

  “Who’s that?” Jay asked.

  “Probably Mimi, the maid, back from the movies. I don’t like her at all.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t really know. She … she doesn’t treat me the way I’d always thought maids treated one.”

  What a mixture of sensitivities and stereotypes she is, Jay thought. First, glass never grows old, and then this.

  “How are maids supposed to treat one?” He smiled.

  “Oh, I don’t know. A little more respectful, I guess. That’s what we’re paying for. My mother still does most of the work.”

  “Yes, I know what you mean. I can’t imagine my mother with a maid. Everybody’s mother is a natural-born maid.”

  “Jewish mothers, anyway,” Elly said.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “You keep saying I don’t know and maybe. You’re not very definite, are you?”

  “Not much, any more, I guess.”

  “That’s another thing you keep saying—I guess.”

  “I guess you’re right. I’m not very definite. Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Now you’re making fun of me.”

  “Definitely…. This is an awfully nice terrace.”

  “Yes. It’s turning warm. Tomorrow’s going to be an Indian summer day.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “The flowers begin to smell differently. Mostly in the evening. I spend a lot of time out here, when it’s warm enough.”

  “How old are you, Elly?” He was sorry instantly for asking.

  “Eighteen, two months ago.” She had no desire to lie to him. She couldn’t remember the last time she had given her right age to a stranger. “How old are you?” she returned.

  “Thirty-three. Is that definite enough?”

  “Much too definite.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “If you were a little younger there would be less trouble. As it is, Mother will make a fuss about us—an older man and her daughter.”

  “What do you mean—‘and her daughter’?”

  “Questions, questions!” Elly laughed. “Don’t you know? Why did you come here? Don’t you, know?”

  She kissed him. Standing as close as she was, there was almost no movement on her part, just a slight leaning forward and then the contact. Her lips parted for an instant and her tongue touched his lips swiftly like the answer to a question he had not yet formulated clearly enough to ask. Then she left the terrace before he could speak.

  Jay stood there for a few minutes leaning against the railing, trying to remember (as if it had happened a long time ago) whether or not he had returned the kiss. The question took on, in his mind, the aspect of an important legal problem. He didn’t think he had, having been too startled. Why was it important? Loyalty to Alec? That was foolish. She was Alec’s niece, not his girl. It frightened him, for some reason—her question, Why did you come here? His dream of leaving behind the world for a while was gone now. This might not be the old empty world, but it had its own quality, a disturbing, involved one—the insane tennis game, that kiss. He realized suddenly that it didn’t matter at all with this girl whether or not he had returned the kiss. If she made up her mind he had, then he had and that was that. God, what a puritan I am! I’ve been laid in every city from New York to Los Angeles (well, almost every one) and here I am with the screaming meemies because Alec’s kid niece kissed me.

  What kind of person, he wondered, knows that flowers smell differently the evening before an unseasonably warm day? He leaned his face into the breeze and inhaled. The sweetness was a little sickening, but it had a loveliness. Perhaps she wasn’t telling the truth. But he could never know. Flowers—in fact, anything outside of his city experience—were beyond him. She’s thirty-three, he thought, and I’m eighteen. He returned to the living room, where the couple, Mimi and Justin, were setting a small table for Alec.

  Rose was being magnanimous in what she felt was her victory, the proof of which was Alec arriving alone.

  “How do you like the house, Alec?” she asked, shooing Mimi back to the kitchen and pouring the coffee herself.

  Questions, Jay thought. How much of our conversation is questions? Why did you come here? Of course Mrs. Kaufman’s question was rhetorical.

  “It’s fabulous, Rose. You and Max have come a long way. Harry may have doubted it, but I always knew Max would make it.”

  “Max. Max didn’t make it. I forced him. We’d still be broke if I didn’t make him gamble.”

  Max laughed. “I owe it all to Rose. I should let her pay the taxes too.”

  “Drink your coffee, Alec,” Elly said. “It’s getting cold.”

  “Listen to the girl. She’s getting maternal, already,” Alec said, and could have bitten his tongue off immediately. But perhaps that business was forgotten by now. Anyway, Rose had never known.

  “That’s me,” Elly said. “I’m a born mother. You want to be my son?” And then seeing Max start to rise from his chair, she relented and said, “Have some coffee, Jay.” She poured a cup for him, thinking, If I want him I’d better take him soon. He kissed me back. I felt it. He looks frightened.

  “Don’t forget about the car,” Alec said. “Would it be safe there all night? Around the back is where it is.”

  Max shook his head. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable.”

  “I’ll get it.” Jay stood up. “I’ll put it in the garage.”

  “You don’t know how to bring it around the front way. I’ll show you,” Elly said.

  She was on her feet and moving toward the door when Rose called: “It’s getting late, Elly darling.”

  She turned, nearly at the door, feeling herself poised on their loving looks, like a queen held aloft on a palanquin by slaves—the image was quite clear in her mind—and she said “There’s no school tomorrow” very quietly and walked out, leaving the door open behind her.

  Feeling extremely awkward, Jay followed her, wondering at the manner in which she controlled situations which had so little to do with her at all. She was already standing at the point where the gardens ended and the plateau began to slope into the hill. They walked almost side by side, Elly leading by a few steps. Jay watched her feet, small in their red ballet slippers like little animated good-luck charms.

  “It should be tomorrow already.” He sighed. “It seems I’ve been here so long.”

  She glanced up at him. “It is tomorrow. It’s after midnight. You must feel at home here, then.”

  He stooped and picked up a broken tree branch and, finding it strong, he used it as a cane. “I’m always like that. Every town on tour became home so quickly that my wife sensed it and it used to annoy the hell out of her.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, I guess—there I go again, I guess—she felt it made me too independent of her. She hated my career. Wanted me to settle down, give up concerts. I did.”

  “That’s horrible. Is that why you wouldn’t play that night at Alec’s place?”

  “I did play.”

  “But you didn’t want to.”

  “No, I didn’t want to. I don’t particularly want to tell you all this about myself either, but I am.”
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  “We’re simpatico,” she said.

  “I guess so. What was your trouble—the trouble you were hinting about at the beach?”

  “I’d just been expelled from school.”

  “That is trouble.” He exhaled. “You go to school near home now, don’t you?”

  “Yes. I hate it. This damned desert. If I’d been your wife, I wouldn’t have hated your work. I’d love to travel the way a concert artist does.” (The capitals of the world, Jay thought wryly.) “You shouldn’t have given it up. Ever. I used to try to play the piano but I had a nasty experience and it sort of ruined playing for me. I had this teacher, quite an old man, and he tried to make love to me—I was only fifteen at the time—and it scared and sickened me so that I just can’t play.”

  “That’s quite a thing,” Jay said, feeling his words ineffectual. “You don’t try to play at all now?”

  She shook her head. “Wanna give me lessons?” she asked, smiling.

  “Sure, as long as I’m here.”

  For the first time in over a year Elly was truly aware that she had died. She was sorry for it, but to admit it now would make it much worse. They were walking along the rear road now and the car was a dim blue shape up ahead at the side of the road.

  “Alec was really drunk,” Elly remarked.

  “They don’t come much drunker.”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “So am I, but it’s not our fault. He’s in a spot with Annette and he doesn’t know what to do. I’ve been there myself and I know how he feels.”

  He paused to light a cigarette for Elly, feeling the tension mount in her as she puffed and wondering what it was. He lighted one for himself too, although he didn’t feel like smoking.

  “What do you mean, you’ve been there?” she said viciously. “Have you had Alec’s kind of trouble?”

  “No, I only meant I’ve had the kind of problem that paralyzed me so that I couldn’t do a thing except get roaring drunk.”

  “Well, he got himself into it,” she said. “Now he’s stuck. If he wants her back, that is.”

  “He wants her back.”

  “Then he can’t have us.”

  “Us?”

  “The family.”

  “I don’t believe Alec thinks of you and the family together that way. There’s you and there’s your mother and father.”