Florence Adler Swims Forever: A Novel

by Rachel Beanland

  “This didn’t come via post?” Stuart asked, already knowing it hadn’t.

  “A nice man in a fancy jacket dropped it off for you.”

  Wilson, probably. “Was the man bald, with a dark mustache?”

  “No,” she said. “Sandy-colored hair, a clean-shaven face. He was a very sharp dresser.”

  The description matched that of his father but that couldn’t be right. Stuart’s father was most definitely not in the business of delivering his own packages.

  “Well, thanks,” said Stuart, moving to close the door.

  “You’re not going to open it?” she asked, letting her curiosity get the better of her.

  Stuart felt bad for Mrs. Tate, bad for anyone who lived vicariously through people she barely knew. “It’s probably just a shirt.”

  Mrs. Tate didn’t move an inch. Stuart had no idea what was in the box, but it seemed he would have no choice but to open it with Mrs. Tate as witness. He tucked the box against his body so that he might use a free hand to wiggle the lid up and off. When he had freed it, he looked behind him for a place to put it but Mrs. Tate was quicker than that. “I’ll hold it for you,” she said, her hand already extended.

  Whatever it was was wrapped in a layer of The Covington’s custom-printed tissue paper—white with small interlocking Cs. A notecard, snug in its envelope, sat on top of the paper, and Stuart held it aside.

  “What’s the occasion?” Mrs. Tate asked as Stuart pulled aside the paper but he didn’t answer. He’d seen enough.

  “No occasion—just something being returned to me,” he said, grabbing the lid back from his landlady before she could argue. “Thanks so much for delivering it.”

  Mrs. Tate looked crestfallen, though how much was related to the fact that she would never know the contents of the box and how much was related to the fact that she now had two flights of stairs to travel to get back to her apartment, Stuart didn’t know.

  Stuart waited for her to turn toward the stairs before softly closing the door behind her. Alone in his room, he tossed the box onto his bed and tore open the note, which was written on his father’s stationery—John F. Williams engraved across the top.

  Stuart,

  Your friend left this behind yesterday evening. I thought she might want it back.

  As ever,

  Your Father

  P.S. Next time, I’d urge you to keep the covers on the chaise lounges. The frames are made of Teak, which doesn’t hold up well in the rain.

  Inside the box was Anna’s pink cardigan, professionally laundered, pressed, and folded. Stuart would have liked to have thrown the box against the bedroom’s far wall but he hated to return a wrinkled garment to her, so he contented himself with ripping his father’s note in half and then in quarters.

  The rain had never relented. Eventually, it had started to grow dark and Anna had had to get home, so Stuart darted out from the overhang and across the pool deck to retrieve her dress and his shirt and shorts. He must have missed the cardigan entirely. When he returned to Anna, their clothing in hand, she had already folded the canvas chair cover and placed it aside. The dress was soaked through, so Stuart had wrung it out for her, but even then, it was impossible for her to get into it on her own. The fabric stuck to her skin like seaweed. “Let me help you,” he offered, and she had held up her arms as he pulled the wet fabric over her head, across her breasts—her nipples hard against the bodice of her bathing suit—and down around her hips. Stuart didn’t know what irritated him more—that he hadn’t kissed her then or that his father had likely been watching the scene unfold.

  Anna

  It was obvious that Anna had done something to upset Esther, although Anna couldn’t be sure what that something was. In the last several weeks, Esther had turned quiet, except when she was ordering Anna around. This evening, after an early supper, she had handed a copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s new book to Anna and instructed her to go to the hospital and read to Fannie. Anna had tried her best to get out of it. “She hardly knows me,” said Anna. “Wouldn’t she prefer you?”

  “Probably,” said Esther, putting a hand on her back, “but I just can’t bear it today.”

  Anna wondered how she could bear it any day. On Sunday, Florence would have been dead two months. Anna tried to imagine what it would be like to lose a child and then to trudge over to the hospital each day, sit with Fannie, and pretend everything was fine. It had to be exhausting.

  Then there was the issue of Fannie’s room, which was so dark and depressing it would make anyone want to avoid visiting. When Anna arrived, she dragged the chair close to the window and pulled the blinds up six inches so she’d have enough late afternoon sun to read the book’s fine print.

  Fannie looked as if she were dozing but the moment Anna raised the blinds, she heard a quiet voice from the bed say, “You’re going to get us in trouble.”

  “Am I?” Anna asked. “Should I lower them?”

  “God no. It’s nice to get a little light.”

  “What does your mother do when she reads to you?”

  “She doesn’t.”

  Anna looked at the book in her hand. The way Esther had talked, Anna assumed Fannie couldn’t go a single day without being read to.

  “Well, I’m just here to keep you company, so I’m happy to do either.”

  “What did you bring?”

  “Tender Is the Night.”

  “I haven’t read it.”

  “Neither have I.”

  The book might as well have been set in Atlantic City, Anna realized as she began to read, “ ‘On the pleasant shore of the French Riviera, about half way between Marseilles and the Italian border, stands a large, proud, rose-colored hotel. Deferential palms cool its flushed façade, and before it stretches a short dazzling beach. Lately it has become a summer resort of notable and fashionable people—’ ”

  Anna read until the sun sank in the sky, until Rosemary Hoyt had been drawn into the Divers’ circle of friends and Dick Diver had acknowledged the girl’s attraction to him. Rosemary wasn’t just attracted to Dick Diver—she was completely infatuated with him. And Anna found herself wondering if the feeling was so different from the buzzy sensation she got when she looked at Stuart.

  Once, when she thought Fannie had fallen asleep, she folded down the page and placed the book on her bedside table. “Don’t stop, please,” Fannie had whispered, so Anna picked up the book and continued, squinting her eyes to make out the words in the evening’s fading light.

  “Isn’t it interesting that Rosemary’s mother wouldn’t be a proponent of marriage?” said Fannie, at one point, when Anna paused to pour herself a glass of water.

  “I guess marriage didn’t work for her. Remember, she’s got two dead husbands.”

  Fannie leaned on her elbows in bed. “But I don’t think Rosemary’s mother is referencing her own experiences. It’s bigger than that.”

  “Lie down.” Anna went back and skimmed the pages she’d just read. “I suppose Mrs. Speers believes Rosemary is special, deserving of the chance to earn a living and stand on her own two feet.”

  “Do you think that’s a better kind of life?” asked Fannie. “Not being beholden to anyone?”

  Anna thought of Joseph and the money he’d deposited in the bank account at the Boardwalk National Bank. “We’re all beholden to someone.”

  “You know what I mean,” said Fannie. “A husband. Someone you’ll never please.”

  Anna tilted her head and looked at Fannie. Was Fannie’s marriage so imperfect? She couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Is Isaac hard to please?”

  Fannie just nodded and stared at the ceiling. Suddenly, she seemed very far away. Anna didn’t know what to say to her, found it hard to defend a man whose company she did not enjoy. Eventually, Fannie was the one to speak: “Sometimes I feel as though I’ve spent the last eight years holding my breath.”

  Anna understood the sentiment—what it felt like to lose control of one’s own destin
y. “I think most women make some sacrifices for their own security, or the security of the people they love.” She looked at Fannie’s round belly.

  “Not Rosemary Hoyt,” said Fannie with a short laugh.

  Anna flipped the book over and studied the photograph of Fitzgerald on the dust jacket. He was a handsome man, with features that weren’t unlike Stuart’s. “I think it’s possible that Mr. Fitzgerald wrote a woman who doesn’t exist.”

  * * *

  Anna arrived home from the hospital to find a familiar airmail envelope waiting for her on the dresser in the Adlers’ front hall. The front was littered with stamps, most of which had Hitler’s face on them.

  The contents of the letter, written in her mother’s native Hungarian, were brief.

  Dearest Anna (and Joseph),

  We provided the bank deposit slip, along with the letter indicating that the account had been established in our name and that we had permission to draw a hundred dollars monthly in the first year. The consul-general laughed and asked what we’d do in the second year. He is demanding that some amount of money be put in an irrevocable trust in our name and wants us to show evidence that we have permission to draw from its earnings. We tried to ask how much money would be enough—to which he replied, “I’ll tell you when it’s enough.” Not very helpful. We know people who have gotten visas with nothing more than an affidavit from a distant cousin, so this new development is particularly disheartening.

  Joseph, I know there’s not much more you can do. You have your own family to consider. I remain grateful that Anna is safely in the United States and look forward to learning how she is settling in at school.

  As for us, there’s a rumor that the American consulate in Vienna is friendlier to Jews. Leaving Germany and waiting for a visa in Austria might be a prudent decision, particularly since we are now considered stateless in the eyes of the German Reich. My worry is that if we go and the consul there needs us to present additional documents, they will be more difficult to obtain from outside the country. The U.S. consulate here keeps urging Jews to wait it out in Germany. Apparently, the Americans think Hitler’s government will soon be toppled. I wish I could believe this but everything we see, in the streets and in the newspapers, seems to indicate otherwise.

  My love to you, Anna. And my sincere thanks to you, Joseph.

  Inez

  Anna pictured her mother, a coat tightly cinched around her waist, a folio of papers clutched to her chest, standing before the consul general, making a case for herself. She could picture the little room where the interviews were conducted, the way the people waiting in the lobby—almost all German Jews seeking visas—refused to so much as whisper to one another, lest they say or do anything that might ruin their chances of being granted a visa. The officials who had conducted Anna’s interview had sneered at her documents—more than fifty in total—and asked a series of questions that in any other circumstance would have been considered impertinent. When had Paul met her mother? When had they married? Was Anna illegitimate? At every turn, Inez had produced the right document—Anna’s father’s military records, his death certificate, her mother and Paul’s marriage certificate. By the time Anna received her student visa, she or her parents had passed through the doors of more than twenty-five government agencies.

  Anna would show the letter to Joseph but she suspected her mother was right and that there was not much more he could do. It had been one thing to plead for his help when what she needed was an affidavit, even several of them. Everyone knew that affidavits were of no real consequence; no American who signed one for Jewish relatives, friends, or even acquaintances actually expected to have to provide financial support to them forever. But this was different.

  Anna folded the letter and carefully placed it back in the envelope. She hurried to her bedroom, grabbed her handbag, and tucked the envelope inside it. Then she shouted down the hallway, toward the kitchen, “Esther?”

  Esther was at the sink, scouring a pan. She didn’t look up.

  “Where does Eli Hirsch work? Is his position with the American Jewish Committee full-time?”

  Esther looked surprised to have been asked about Mr. Hirsch, and also slightly curious. But asking Anna why she wanted to know would have meant engaging her in a real conversation—something Esther hadn’t done in weeks. So instead she answered Anna’s question in as few syllables as possible: “The office is on Vermont Avenue. Near the lighthouse.”

  “Thanks.”

  “If you’re heading out, could you take Gussie with you?”

  Anna had already turned to go, so she merely waved a hand over her shoulder and called behind her, “Sorry, not now. I can’t.” It was, she realized, the first time she’d ever told Esther no.

  * * *

  At least some of the money Eli Hirsch raised for the American Jewish Committee had to have been poured into its offices, which were large and lavishly appointed. A secretary greeted Anna, asked if she had an appointment, and when Anna admitted she didn’t, took her name and hurried down the hall, no doubt planning to tell Mr. Hirsch about his unannounced visitor in person so she couldn’t be overheard speaking into the telephone. When the secretary returned a few moments later, she looked vaguely disappointed to tell Anna that Mr. Hirsch would, in fact, see her.

  “Anna,” Mr. Hirsch said, standing, when the secretary led her into his office at the end of the hall. “What a pleasure.”

  “Thank you for seeing me.”

  “Of course,” he said, leading her away from his desk and over to an arrangement of furniture by the window—a small sofa and two club chairs, all expertly upholstered. “What can I do for you?”

  “It’s my parents,” said Anna, pulling her mother’s letter out of her purse. If Mr. Hirsch had been able to read Hungarian, she’d have handed it to him and saved them both the trouble but, instead, she summarized the letter’s contents.

  As Anna spoke, he pressed the pads of his fingers together and closed his eyes. Was he listening? It was hard to tell. When she finished, she didn’t give him time to say a word. “What she doesn’t tell me—ever—is how bad things must be getting. My father’s been out of work for over a year, and I read enough in the papers to know Jews aren’t just being let go from their jobs. Before I left, that tourist couple was beaten nearly to death, and Kalterborn’s son, too.”

  Mr. Hirsch had opened his eyes and was now staring at Anna intently. “Parents will always try, I’ve found, to protect their children.”

  “Yes, well, I’d like to be in a position to protect my parents,” Anna said. “At lunch last month, you made a joke, or at least I thought it was a joke—about marriage being the surest way to get my parents out of Germany.”

  Mr. Hirsch threaded his fingers together and gave her a sad smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “Things would be much easier if you were an American citizen.”

  “What would change?”

  “Your parents would qualify for a preference visa. Spouses of U.S. citizens get first preference, and parents get second preference.”

  “So, they’d skip to the front of the line?”

  “Not exactly. The consul might still give them the runaround. But candidates for preference visas don’t have to worry about proving that they won’t be a public charge.”

  “What about converting a student visa to a permanent visa? Applying for citizenship through the regular channels?”

  “It’s all such a mess right now. It might take years. Or never happen at all. My understanding is that you’d have to leave the U.S. and wait out the application process somewhere else—maybe Canada, or Cuba.”

  “And if I married?”

  “It’s relatively simple. You wouldn’t have to worry about the visas, just apply for citizenship. You—or rather, your husband—would file a petition with the commissioner general of immigration at the Department of Labor, requesting that your parents’ visa application be classified as nonquota, or preference. They’d look at your marriage license
, maybe do a little additional digging, and then inform the State Department of your request. The result would be that the consul would move your parents’ visa application from the quota pile to the nonquota pile, and as you know, the nonquota pile moves much faster.”

  Anna thought of Stuart. In the pool the other night, and later when he helped her pull her wet dress over her head, she could have sworn he wanted to kiss her. She had wanted it, too, in a different way than she’d wanted Florence’s kiss, the night she received the letter. With Stuart, she had felt a quiet thumping in her chest that made it difficult to focus on anything he said. It was as if a gong had been struck somewhere in her center, the sound and its accompanying vibrations reverberating outward, toward her face, her hands, her feet.

  “Do you have children, Mr. Hirsch?”

  “Yes, four daughters and a son.”

  “And if one of your daughters did what you’re proposing—turned down college to marry instead—would you be angry?”

  “If her husband could support her and she thought he would make her happy, no.”

  “What if he was a gentile?”

  Mr. Hirsch squeezed his lips together. The room was so quiet Anna could hear the ticking of the clock that sat across the room, on the corner of his desk.

  “We live in trying times, Miss Epstein.”

  “So, you might forgive her?”

  “I might.”

  * * *

  Anna returned to the apartment for just long enough to retrieve her copy of The Magic Mountain and remove a five-dollar bill from its pages. She tucked the money in her purse and took it to the Block Bathing Suit Co. on the corner of Pacific Avenue and St. James Place, where she placed it on the counter.

  One of the saleswomen, a girl who couldn’t have been much older than Anna, asked if she could help her, and Anna tried not to think of how she’d explain such frivolity to her mother, when she said, “I want to buy the most beautiful bathing suit you’ve got.”