A Choice of Enemies

by Mordecai Richler

  Budd Graves looked like a melon ready to burst.

  “Charlie’s right,” Landis said. “A few more lunches and all of Winkleman’s men will not be able to put Budd Graves together again.”

  “If things work out tomorrow,” Budd Graves began again, “I –”

  “Charlie,” Landis interrupted, pointing at Sally and Ernst, “what gives? I thought she was saving that creamy white body for Norman.”

  “So did Norman.”

  “There’s something not kosher about Norman,” Budd Graves said.

  “He sells plenty of scripts,” Charlie said, “doesn’t he?”

  “Ah, we’re all hacks,” Landis said. “Anybody can knock out the kind of crap we write and sell it. But Norman seems to be a kind of Jonah.”

  Sure, sure, Charlie thought. Anyone can sell hack work. Thank you very much. But the reason why I can’t sell so easily is because I’m not a hack and maybe another factor is my name never used to be Lipschitz.

  “Tell me something about Sally’s boy friend,” Landis asked.

  “He’s a German,” Charlie said. “From East Berlin. ‘He chose freedom’.”

  “Who brought him here?” Graves asked angrily, “Norman?”

  Ernst was everywhere. You took out a cigarette casually and a match held by Ernst flared under your nose. You had hardly finished your drink and Ernst was there again to seize your glass and get you another. You were interrupted once in the middle of an argument or flirtation when Ernst bobbed up yet again, cutting you off with a plate of unwanted hors d’oeuvres.

  The more hostile his reception, the harder Ernst tried to please, and the more obnoxious he appeared to others. Sally tried as gracefully as she could to get him to stop running the party like a race, but there was no stopping him. She overheard somebody say, “Isn’t his behaviour typically German,” and sat down forlorn in a chair, anticipating the collision to come.

  There were other curiosities at Winkleman’s tonight besides Horton. There was a captive Englishman and his wife. Sir James Digby was a film director of sorts, his wife was a starlet. The effect of their arrival at the party was much as if two sharecroppers had crashed a gathering of Southern planters.

  Norman overheard Winkleman tell Plotnick. “Take a look at the boobs on her,” and then he whispered something in Plotnick’s ear.

  “She doesn’t,” Plotnick said with appetite. “I don’t believe it.”

  Valerie Digby, her tight warm breasts half unpeeled, half trapped in the black lace of her gown, tossed her smile like a hat into the potbellied ring around her and fetched Bob Landis, tall, tweedy, a regular writing chap, to her. Bob drove her like a moth into the corner of the room, cutting off the others with his back. Norman watched enviously from afar.

  Norman had first met Bob in New York in 1939. The evening Norman had visited his flat, Bob and his girl, a bony blackhaired set designer, had quarrelled fiercely. Bob had been offered a summer job as a gag writer in the Catskills. His girl threatened to leave if he took it. But Bob was badly in debt, he had a mother to support, and as he had explained over and over again two months off the novel would do the book a world of good. As the quarrel flamed brighter more and more people had slipped into the cold-water flat until, at its burning best, a full-blown party was in progress and the quarrel, dampened by the wisecracks of outsiders, had been put out.

  Of the young people there that evening three had since become famous. The rest of them, like Bob, had been moderately successful. But that spring evening in 1939, what with two survivors of the defence of Madrid in their company, what with everyone young, talented, handsome or pretty, and with fame two or at the very most three years ahead, they had all been suffused with a warm glow. The girls, the girls, Norman remembered, had been so splendid, and the men so tall with promise. Somebody, at last somebody, had gone to the window and cried, “Look. Oh my God, look.” Dawn had come even to the East Side.

  The next time he had come across Bob Landis it had been in the shape of a cheque for five thousand dollars signed by him and payable to the American Labor Party. From the Catskills Bob had gone to Hollywood. The Rinky-Dinks, as Charlie called them, had been dispersed. For the third member of the group to make it – that night a dadaist and today a sophisticated Broadway playwright – had made the biggest splash of all by naming everyone who had, and a few who hadn’t, passed through the flat that night at a television session of the committee fifteen years later.

  “He’s a former Hitler Youth leader,” Zelda Landis said.

  “If you ask me,” Charna Graves said, “sometimes Norman Price goes just a little bit too far.”

  “The trouble with Norman,” Joey said, “is that he expects people to accept one another on trust. That’s why …” That’s why I love him, she thought.

  “He shouldn’t have brought that boy here,” Zelda said.

  “Germans,” Molly Plotnick said, “give me the shivers.”

  “They’re talking about us,” Ernst said.

  “Take it easy, darling. You can hardly expect them to like you at first.”

  But she wished they hadn’t come. Norman must have been crazy to bring Ernst here.

  “Parlour-Bolshies,” Ernst said. “That one with the pipe. I know the type so well.”

  Norman loomed up drunkenly before them. “Enjoying yourselves?” he asked guiltily.

  “Loads,” Sally said.

  Karp hovered a little way off like a storm impending, waiting for Norman to go.

  “I’m sorry,” Norman said, “I should have realized.…”

  “Yes,” Sally said, “you should have.”

  “I wish they would speak to me,” Ernst said thickly. “I wish they would give me a chance.”

  “You’re both drunk,” Sally said. “It’s disgraceful.”

  Ernst rose, swaying a little. His cheeks reddened. “I would like to …”

  Sally was astonished. She had never seen Ernst genuinely humble before. She felt as though he were exhibiting all his separate selves to her one by one like scraps of evidence.

  “… would like to be your friend,” he said.

  “Sure.” Norman smiled as gracefully as he could. “Of course.”

  Then, as he went off to replenish his drink, Karp confronted Ernst and Sally with a swing of his cane. “There’s someone I want you to meet,” he said to Ernst. “Come.”

  Childish. Norman realized that it was childish. But once in the toilet he squeezed out the toothpaste tube and wrote it on the mirror.

  Horton banged his pipe on the mantelpiece, blew into it fiercely, and then reached for his drink. “Whatever happens,” he said, “we mustn’t lose our faith in the American working-class.”

  Karp broke through the circle around him. “Ah, Mr. Horton,” he said, “here is the boy I told you about.”

  Sally found Norman talking to Sid Drazin in the hall. “Quick,” she said, “I think Karp is going to get Ernst into trouble.”

  “One would think,” Karp said, “that you and Ernst would have much to talk about. Ernst used to be an official in the FDJ.”

  “Are you here on a visit?” Horton asked.

  “No,” Sally said, “he fled. He found conditions there intolerable.”

  Norman squeezed Sally’s arm.

  “Tell me,” Horton said, “were you a student?”

  “No.”

  “Because if you were a student, and a worker’s son, you would be able to get a scholarship in the East, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yeah. But I would have to study what they wanted me to study.”

  “Something useful, is that what you mean?”

  A rash of smiles broke out all around.

  “He used to be in the Hitler Youth,” Zelda Landis said. “What would you expect?”

  “Zelda,” Bob Landis said.

  “Everyone was in the Hitler Youth,” Ernst said.

  “You mean everyone who wasn’t gassed,” Horton said.

  “Norman,” Sally said. “Pleas
e Norman.”

  “Those who joined the Nazis to get privileges are now members of the SED for the same reason,” Ernst said. “You took off your Hitler Youth badge and put on an FDJ one.”

  “That sounds like the anti-communist line to me.”

  “I am not a Nazi.”

  “But you were a member of the Hitler Youth. Come, come, boy.”

  “But –”

  “You agree that if you were a worker’s son you could get a scholarship in the East. But you’re against useful studies. I take it, then, that you believe in the utmost freedom for the individual.”

  “Well, I.…”

  “Hitler held the freedom of the individual to be sacred.”

  More smiles.

  “People like him ought to be shot,” Charna Graves said.

  “Come on now, Ernst, don’t play games with me. You’d like to see East Germany ‘liberated,’ wouldn’t you?”

  “I’d like to see them free, but –”

  “Never mind. You’ve explained yourself.”

  “There are still big parades,” Ernst yelled. “Still uniforms. We marched for Hitler once and now we march for –”

  “For peace,” Horton said.

  “Peace.” Ernst shook his fist at Horton. “If I ever hear that word again I will scream.”

  “I don’t think,” Horton said, “that there’s any need for us to go on with this discussion.”

  Norman stepped between Horton and Ernst. “How dare you judge this boy so glibly,” he said.

  “Aren’t you Norman Price?” Horton asked.

  Norman nodded.

  “I wonder what your father would think if he saw you defending a little Nazi –”

  “I think you’re a bully, Horton. I think you stink.”

  “Now we know where he stands,” Budd Graves said.

  “Oh,” Bob Landis asked drunkenly. “Where?”

  “When someone’s argument is indefensible they usually resort to adolescent abuse,” Horton said. “You’ve been drinking.…”

  “That’s the most sensible suggestion I’ve heard so far,” Bob Landis said. “Let’s all have another drink.”

  “Norman,” Bella said gently, “please.…”

  “Look,” Norman said, “you’re all my friends here –”

  “That’s news to me,” Budd Graves said.

  “– but I’m sorry to say that I’m disappointed in the lot of you. All evening I’ve been hearing second and third hand stories about Ernst. Most of them untrue. Of course he was in the Hitler Youth, but they all were. Sure he talks a lot of nonsense, but why hasn’t one of you – just one of you taken the trouble to treat him like another human being?”

  “Everybody,” Bob Landis called, “everybody choose your partner for a Paul Jones.”

  “Maybe he is a little bastard,” Norman said. “I’m not sure. But at least I’m willing to take the trouble to find out.”

  “Now that Billy Graham has spoken,” Budd Graves said, “I –”

  “Look,” Norman said, “most of us were on the hot seat at home. Don’t you recognize Horton’s technique of questioning?”

  “Really,” Horton said, “this is too much. Are you accusing me of being a McCarthyite?”

  “That’s just what I mean. Remarks like that,” Norman said. “Twisting my words to his own purpose.”

  “You want us to go around kissing Nazis,” Budd Graves said. “Is that it?”

  “No,” Norman said, “and I want them to stop locking up communists. But if I don’t want to see any more Rosenberg cases neither do I want to see any more Slansky trials.”

  “That’s a very revealing remark,” Horton said.

  “Maybe it is.”

  “Excuse me,” Horton said, “I’ll be right back. Tell me if I miss anything.”

  “After all he’s suffered from the witch-hunters,” Budd Graves said, “you had no right –”

  “Oh, hell,” Norman said, “what’s the use?”

  “Take it easy, Norman.” Bob Landis clapped him on the back. “Don’t get so worked up.”

  That’s when Horton burst into the room and grabbed Norman by the collar.

  “You-you –”

  Norman struggled to break free.

  “Are you responsible for that foul slander on the toilet mirror?”

  Oh, hell, Norman thought. I forgot. “I’m sorry,” he said feebly, “I only meant it as a joke.”

  “A joke? FBI agents. Is that what you find funny?” Horton turned triumphantly to the others. “He wrote ‘COLIN HORTON IS A SPY FOR THE FBI’ on the toilet mirror.”

  Bob Landis howled with laughter, but, responding to a kick in the shins from Zelda, he broke off abruptly.

  “Oh, Norman,” Joey said, “how could you have been so childish?”

  “How old did you say you were?” Budd Graves asked.

  “O.K., Budd,” Bob Landis said, “stop pushing him.”

  Norman pulled back and swung wild and blind at Horton, Horton crashed to the floor.

  “Fascist,” Horton said. “Dirty little fascist.”

  Norman stooped to retrieve his glasses. “This is crazy,” he said. “I don’t hit people.” He tried to help Horton up, but Horton shoved him away. “I’m sorry,” Norman said.

  The others turned away from him. Norman took Ernst and Sally home.

  “I’m sorry, Ernst. My friends behaved abominably.”

  “You weren’t to blame,” Sally said.

  “I was, you know. I mean – Come on into my room for a nightcap.”

  Norman poured three stiff drinks, but he didn’t talk. He felt miserable and ashamed. “Everything happened so quickly,” he said.

  Restless, upset, her bosom rising and falling quickly, Sally paced up and down the room. She stopped at the mantelpiece and took down a photograph of Nicky. The photograph showed Nicky feeding peanuts to the pigeons of Trafalgar Square. “Is this your brother?” Sally asked.

  “Yes.” Norman turned to Ernst. “I’d like to help you.”

  “I have come between you and your friends,” Ernst said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Maybe I can get you some work translating. I’ll see.”

  “You are very kind.”

  Suddenly Norman burst out laughing. “I’ve been meaning to hit Horton for years,” he said.

  Ernst grinned. “Next time,” he said, “we’ll take them all on together.”

  “That suits me fine,” Norman said.

  “Hard as nails,” Sally said, sitting down beside Ernst, the photograph of Nicky still in her hand, “the both of you.”

  Norman exploded with laughter again. He slapped his knees. “Jesus,” he said, “did you see the expression on Horton’s face when he hit the floor?”

  “Fascist,” Sally said, mimicking Horton, “dirty little fascist.”

  Ernst leaped up and, adopting the posture of an inquisitor, shook his finger at Norman. “Are you responsible for that foul slander on the toilet mirror?” he demanded.

  Sally began to sway drunkenly. “Everybody,” she said, “everybody choose your partner for a Paul Jones.”

  All three began to laugh helplessly. Ernst doubled over, holding his sides. Sally collapsed on the bed. Norman slapped his knees; he rubbed his eyes. As they quietened down again Norman attempted to drink his whisky, laughed as he swallowed, coughed, wiped his mouth, and started them off on another paroxysm of laughter.

  When they recovered again at last Sally wiped her eyes and, discovering that she still held Nicky’s photograph in her hand, passed it to Ernst. “Look,” she said, “Norman’s brother.”

  All at once Ernst looked as though the blood had been sucked out of his face. “How did he die,” he asked, “exactly?”

  “On manoeuvres, I think,” Norman said more soberly. “There were no details.”

  Ernst got up, his body soaked in sweat, and put the photograph down on the desk. “I think we ought to go to bed,” he said to Sally.

  “Come,” Norman sai
d, “stay for another drink.”

  “I don’t mind,” Sally said.

  “No,” Ernst said, “I am too tired.”

  Sally rose, displeased, and a little embarrassed. “Maybe it would be best,” she said.

  Ernst took her arm.

  “Good night,” Norman said.

  At the door Sally kissed Norman on the cheek, held him tightly for an instant, and then broke free. “Good night,” she said, “and thanks.”

  VII

  “All right,” Sally said, as soon as they were in their own room again, “now will you please tell me why we couldn’t stay for another drink?”

  “I was too tired.”

  “You were very rude to Norman.”

  “I don’t need Norman to defend me.”

  “He put himself out for you before his friends. I think you should be grateful.”

  “I don’t want his favours.”

  “He’s already done you an awfully big one. I thought you wanted to be his friend.”

  “You don’t understand. We could never be friends.”

  “Why?”

  “Norman is dangerous, he – I’ve had dealings with his kind before. They are the first to crack up. They are –”

  “Good?”

  “Yes,” he said. “How I hate a good man.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I didn’t expect you to. But Karp would understand. Karp knows.”

  “I don’t have to ask Karp. It’s good enough for me to know that you hate a good man. That’s what you said, isn’t it?”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I don’t understand. You said that too. If I don’t understand I don’t understand. Are you satisfied?”

  Ernst struck her with the flat of his hand, knocking her back on the bed.

  “Sally …?”

  She crouched silently there, her head drooping, her face splashed with hair.

  “Did I hurt you, Sally?”

  She hid her face with her hands.

  “I’m sorry if I hurt you,” he said.

  Her eyes, when she took her hands away, were not tear-filled. They were dry with shock.

  “I forgot myself,” he said.

  Sally got up, cleared the table, and began to undress, folding her clothes with fantastic care.