The Golden Cup

by Belva Plain

  Paul stood for a long minute looking. Then, following Hennie back to the parlor, he said, “I wish I had one. I suppose going away like this makes you want one more than you ever thought you would.”

  They’ve been married four years, Hennie thought. Not since that day just before the wedding, when Paul had come to her in his despair and wild with pain—a bitter day, she recalled, with the cold rain flying—not since then had there been any mention between them of his marriage.

  She ventured it now. “Paul, tell me, is everything all right between you and Marian? Do you mind my asking?”

  “It’s all right. She’s a good girl, Mimi.”

  Hardly a full answer! And Hennie went on, “Oh, yes. Dependable. Responsible. She’ll never upset things, make you worry or doubt.”

  “No, not Mimi.”

  Now something drove Hennie—some queer, sudden need to reveal her own self—to the edge of caution. “It must be a wonderful feeling to be so safe with someone.”

  “Well, you know all about that, I’m sure.”

  This answer pulled her immediately back from the edge to firmer ground. What had she been thinking of! To reveal her foolish fears about her own husband, to betray the close and lovely life that was theirs, to admit even for an instant that it was less than perfect.…

  She said quickly, “Of course. I was thinking about you.”

  And indeed she was. Paul deserved the best. The beginning of that marriage had been so wrong. One could only hope that time had made a difference.

  “I don’t mean to pry,” she said, wanting through the tenderness of her tone to draw him toward her, so that he might speak out. But he did not answer. She could not even catch his eye. Worried now, she went further, pushing at his reluctance. After all, she had helped to bring him up! She could feel almost a mother’s rights.

  “That other—Anna?”

  He looked up sharply at that. “What about her?”

  “I meant only—you’ve never heard anything of her?”

  “No. Why should I?”

  “I don’t know.” Flustered now, Hennie made apology. “I meant nothing. Of course you wouldn’t have heard. Forgive me.”

  “That’s all right.”

  Clearly he didn’t want to talk about private things, any more than she herself did. And for the first time that she could recall, she felt clumsy in Paul’s presence. So she sought for something to say and, seeking it, said the first thing that came into her head.

  “I suppose Alfie’s told you about Dan’s turning down a fortune, a big War Department order?”

  “Yes, he thinks Dan’s very foolish.”

  “And do you too?”

  “I don’t know, Hennie. I suppose you have to do what your conscience compels. All I know is, the Allies are hard-pressed. Frankly, I haven’t wanted to see the Germans win, and so our firm from the very beginning has been financing Allied purchases on a large scale. Is that bad? War is bad, but we’re in it, and they have to buy supplies, so we make money.” He brightened and laughed. “All I do know is, my father’s old relatives had better stop speaking German on the streets, if they know what’s good for them.”

  “It’s not their fault. I’m sorry for them,” Hennie said. “Sorry for everyone. For Marian, and for your mother, seeing you go off like this. I think of your mother so much, Paul.”

  He was still for a moment. Then he said, “None of it makes any sense, not quarrels nor wars.… But they’ll be all right, those two. They do what’s expected of them. Mimi’s very much like my mother in many ways. I guess that’s why they get along so well.”

  “I’m glad they do,” Hennie told him, meaning it.

  Paul stood up. “Tell me, would you like to see the farewell parade? I’ll be in it, on the thirtieth. The Twenty-seventh Division will be marching away. You can stand anywhere and get a look. You might even see me! Think of that!” he said, mocking himself.

  “I’d rather see you almost anywhere else, but yes, I’ll come. God bless you, Paul,” Hennie said as he kissed her.

  At the top of the stairs, she stood and watched him running down. She had an uncanny feeling that she would never see him again. Strange, she thought, swallowing tears, I didn’t feel like that when Freddy went. I know I’ll see Freddy again. I know it.

  The 27th Division swung down Fifth Avenue under the August sun. Flags draped the windows and fluttered on sticks in the hands of the thousands who watched. Thousands of legs, wrapped in puttees, moved in time to “Stars and Stripes Forever” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” With guns slung over left shoulders and heads up, they went briskly, while the drums beat, the reverberating brasses clashed, and the cavalry pranced ahead. The crowds joined in: “Over there, over there … the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming … and we won’t get back till it’s over, over there.”

  Hennie didn’t catch sight of Paul, but she knew he must have passed her, so she said her silent farewell to him and the 27th as they marched out of sight down the sparkling avenue. Then, among the dispersing crowd, all whistling cheerfully, all thrilled by the might, the pomp, and the circumstance, she walked home, solitary and quite unable to sing.

  2

  The country settled down for the long, long haul. Factories not essential to the war effort were ordered shut to save coal. Daylight saving, wheatless Mondays, meatless Tuesdays, and days without gas all followed. Every blank wall was plastered with posters: ASK HIS MOTHER HOW MANY BONDS YOU SHOULD BUY.

  Hennie and Dan bought no bonds. They gave instead, more generously than they could afford, to the Red Cross, and even went to see President Wilson in top hat and tails march down Fifth Avenue as head of the Red Cross Fund Drive.

  “Contributing for bullets is one thing,” Dan said grimly. “Helping the wounded in the hospitals is another.”

  This he dared say only to a very few intimates who shared his beliefs. Otherwise, silence was the only prudent course. One didn’t dare say that there might be such a creature as a “good German.” The German was the “barbarous Hun,” vilified in the movies and the newspapers. Down the street from the Roth’s own house, meeting their sight as soon as they came out of their front door, was another enormous poster, this one of a powerful hand dripping blood: THE HUN, HIS MARK, it read; BLOT IT OUT WITH LIBERTY BONDS. The garrulous butcher, Schultz, who had provided chops and roasts to the neighborhood for the last thirty years, now called himself a Swede and changed his name to Svensen, even as the royal Battenbergs in England had become Mountbatten.

  Yes, the world has gone mad, Hennie thought again.

  Everything fell apart in less than a day. It would seem to her later that it began with the death of poor Strudel.

  Hank was in the stroller with a bag of groceries at his feet; the dog trotted on his short legs at Hennie’s side as they finished their daily errands. On the way back, a few blocks from the house, a cat came sauntering out of an areaway to confront Strudel, who, quite naturally furious at this temerity, pulled at the leash to go after it. He planted his feet, he yapped, he barked. The cat jumped up on a railing, arching its back, and hissed.

  “No, Strudel, no, come along … Strudel!” Hennie commanded, pulling the leash until he was forced to give in and turn his face toward home.

  But attention had been attracted. Four or five youths, of the sort that Hennie would characterize as “louts,” had been loitering at the curb.

  “ ‘Strudel! Strudel!’ ” one mocked. “What kind of a name is that?”

  Hennie, ignoring the question, pushed the stroller ahead.

  Four of the louts planted themselves in front of the stroller to block her.

  One challenged: “I said, lady, what kind of a name is that?”

  “A dog’s name,” she replied. “Let me pass, please.”

  One of the louts grabbed the leash. “It’s a German name, a Kraut name. What are you doing with a Kraut dog? You ought to be ashamed of yourself, lady,” he said, showing his bad teeth.

  “Let
go of that leash at once,” she said sharply.

  The fellow jerked it, and Strudel let out a yelp of pain.

  Hennie grappled with him. “Let go, I said. This is my dog. Leave it alone!”

  “Now, now, lady. Take it easy! We know it’s your dog, but an American shouldn’t have a lousy Kraut dog. What do you say, guys?”

  “No. An American should have an American dog!”

  They pulled the leash from Hennie’s hands; her other hand was needed to hold the stroller. She looked around for help. The street was empty.

  They raised the leash, so that Strudel dangled, choking in midair.

  Hennie screamed. “You’ll kill him! For God’s sake, what are you doing? You’re killing him!”

  “You think so, lady? Now ain’t that too bad. Listen to that, guys! We’re killing him!”

  Now, from the rear of the threatening group, another came forward, holding a baseball bat. And with sudden clarity, in the shock of total terror, Hennie saw what these subhuman brutes were really going to do.… Should she not abandon the dog and flee with the child? But they barred her way. They wanted her to see what they were going to do.

  She pleaded then. “Come on, I haven’t done anything to you! You see I’m here with a baby. Please. Let me have my dog and go home. Please.”

  “You want your dog?”

  Strudel was wriggling, tortured and gasping for air. The fellow who had been holding him now dropped him—or smashed him, rather, to the pavement; the one with the bat raised it over his head and brought it down—

  One cry sounded. Such agony Hennie had never heard in her life or could have imagined.…

  “There’s your lousy Kraut dog! Here, take him and go home. Go home!” For Hennie stood frozen. “Go on! What are you waiting for? You said you wanted to go home!”

  She sank on her knees before the mess of oozing brain, crushed bone, and bloody flesh; only the little brown rear end, intact, still twitched.

  “Oh, oh, oh,” she moaned.

  And wept. And heard feet go pounding away down the street.

  Hank began to wail, making, with Hennie’s moans, the only sounds in the fallen silence.

  Then two women came running out of the house. “Jesus!” one said, and covered her eyes. A man walked past and turned away. Someone else came and put a hand on Hennie’s shoulder.

  “Get up, missus,” the voice said kindly. “There’s nothing you can do.… It’s a disgrace.”

  Where had all these people been when she needed them?

  “What can I do for him?” She wept. “He’s in pain. Poor thing, poor brown Strudel … I have to take the baby home … but I can’t go away and leave him lying here.” She turned her helpless weeping face to the sky.

  A minute later a policeman appeared.

  “Look, look,” she cried. “Oh, my God, what a world!”

  The policeman shook his head. “Yes. It’s a tough world, missus.”

  “Can we—can somebody carry him? Is there a veterinary, an animal hospital?”

  “Missus.” The man was very patient. “Missus. The dog is dead. Best get up and go home.”

  Indeed, the twitching had stopped. The un-smashed half of Strudel that was still recognizable lay quiet; two round neat paws and a long slender tail lay on the sidewalk in the middle of a spreading wet stain.

  The policeman knelt down. “Here, you want the collar and leash? I’ll take care of the rest. Get rid of this.”

  She shook her head numbly, but he pressed the green leather collar, after wiping it with his own handkerchief, into her hand.

  “Go home. Take the little boy home.”

  She bent to comfort Hank. How much had the baby understood? One would never know what memory might have been printed on his brain.

  Dan was home early, and she was thankful. Her legs trembled; she was so weak that she could hardly lift the child out of the stroller. When, with a few choked words, she told Dan what had happened, he took Hank from her and made her lie down; he himself would give the news to Leah; she must just rest. His face was dark with rage.

  All night she lay in his arms to be comforted.

  “You must think, my darling, that this is a disease, an epidemic. Thousands of men are dying as brutally as the poor little dog died.”

  “I know, but I haven’t had to see them,” she whispered.

  “You’d make a poor soldier, dear Hennie.”

  Then, with thoughts of their son in both their minds, they said no more. And Dan made tender love to her, and she thought, You are everything; you make everything whole; without you, it is all fragments and shards, all broken.

  After Hank’s nap the next afternoon, Dan took him out. Hank was the only lure that could keep him away from the loaded workbenches in his lab. He was a vigorous little boy, friendly even to strangers, who, amused by his hearty greeting, often stopped to talk to him. He loved to let Dan throw him up into the air and catch him; quite simply, he loved Dan more than anyone. And Dan returned his love, with none of the hovering, worrisome fretfulness he had shown to Freddy.

  Hennie stood at the window, smiling, and watched them go down the street for as long as she could see them. These were the joys of life that evened the scale.

  When she had prepared the vegetables for supper, she thought about what to do next. For a long time, she hadn’t gone to the settlement house, now that she had Hank to care for, and she missed it, but it was more important to care for the child so that Leah might support herself and prepare for a vocation.

  Some of Leah’s handiwork lay now on a chair in the parlor. Often she brought work home to earn something extra: nothing too complicated, only a hem, perhaps, to be finished with careful, tiny stitches, or a lace collar to be attached. An evening jacket of lime-colored brocade was on her sewing basket now, and Hennie picked it up to stroke the crisp, thick silk, admiring it without having any wish to own it. She straightened it out, lest it wrinkle. Leah was not the most tidy young woman!

  Hank’s toys were strewn on Dan’s big chair. She put them back on the toy shelf, then thought of something else that she had long put off; Dan’s hall closet, filled with the accumulation of years, was a space that could no doubt be better organized to make room for some of the toys.

  She got a step stool and began with the top shelf, on which there were half a dozen grocery cartons stacked with papers. The dust flew as she lifted them down. Where to begin? Old miser, she thought, he never throws anything away! Receipted bills, twelve years old, check stubs, a department store’s advertisement for a child’s roller skates from—can you believe it? she laughed—from Freddy’s time!

  Her eyes caught something as she rummaged, and held there; a sheet of bright pink letter paper turned up among the nondescript rubbish.

  “Darling Dan,” she read.

  Something happened: It was the startled thump of her heart.

  In the upper right-hand corner was a date: three years ago.

  She closed her eyes. Put it back on the top shelf. It’s not yours. It must be from one of his pupils, a child. Don’t be stupid; of course it isn’t. Put it back! Don’t look for trouble. You don’t want to know. You’ve no right. It’s not yours.

  She fled with it to the sofa. Now her heart really raced; it skipped and staggered; she heard its frantic pulse in her ears. Her eyes flew down the page.

  “Darling Dan, for in my heart, even though your letter broke it, you will always be my darling … you told me this year was the best year in your life, you told me a hundred times, and now you write that we can’t go on together … you told me you’ve never known a woman like me … I know you’ve had many, not being happy with your wife … I’m broken up, I’m getting a job upstate where I won’t have to see you every day at work … I understand you can’t get a divorce, I know you said you wished you could, but these women hang on so and make a scandal … I would never make a scandal … why couldn’t we have gone on as we were on our beautiful Saturdays … I don’t understand why …”


  Hennie went mad. The first thing at hand was the glass dome containing the violets in a paper frill that had been her wedding bouquet, and that Florence had had pressed for her. She smashed it. She hurled it against the wall so that it scattered and flew. Wicked pointed splinters fell over the teddy bear. She sobbed and went to clean them up, weeping and strangling.

  She beat the wall with her fists. She went to the mirror and scratched her wild face, tearing one cheek so that two beads of blood seeped out.

  “I’m going insane,” she said aloud.

  The mirrored face begged for pity. “Insane,” said the mirrored mouth.

  She rushed back to the scattered letters and scooped them up. Words jumped on the page. “I understand you can’t get a divorce. I know you said you wished you could … I know you’ve had many, not being happy with your wife …”

  “I don’t believe it,” she said loudly and clearly.

  You do believe it. If you hadn’t been pregnant, he wouldn’t have married you; he can’t keep away from women. You told yourself it was ridiculous to be jealous, that you were a fool to imagine things that weren’t there.

  But they were there.

  Cold seeped into the apartment. Outside, the day was bright and looked warm, yet the cold seemed to be coming from the poles to freeze her blood. She got a coat from the closet and, huddling in it, lay down on the floor.

  “I ought to die,” she said.

  For a long time she lay with her head on her arms, listening as the silence thrummed. Then the telephone rang, and automatically she got up to answer it. The world collapsed, but one answered the telephone.

  “I was wondering,” said Angelique, “whether you and Dan might want to come to dinner tonight. I have a beautiful roast and the girl baked a cake …”

  Tears clouded Hennie’s eyes, so that the walls swam before her; nevertheless, she steadied her voice.

  “Thanks, Mama, another time. Our dinner’s all prepared.”

  “Well, leave it to Leah! You never get out of that house, it seems to me, stuck in with the baby.”