Secret Anniversaries

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Secret Anniversaries Page 18

by Scott Spencer


  “I know,” said Joe. He was staring at the chained door. His hands were trembling but he seemed not to notice.

  “Thanks to you.”

  “I had nothing to do with it. Hirohito closed it. If Pearl Harbor hadn’t been bombed we wouldn’t be fighting in this war and you know it. You know it as well as I.”

  They continued uptown on Fourth Avenue. Caitlin noticed a bank clock. It was five-twenty; the party began at five. The idea of being late made her feel slightly ill; she had always been punctual, even to places she didn’t want to go. Betty used to say that punctuality came from a fear of not belonging, but it was one of those insights that, even if it was true, didn’t fully matter—being late still made Caitlin’s stomach turn.

  “You wrote a great book, Joe,” she said, quickening their pace.

  “It’s not even finished,” he said, half mumbling. He allowed her to pull him back onto the curb as a street-cleaning truck went by.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I never found John Coleman, did I? I never even proved it was he who killed Stowe and Betty Sinclair. I let you down, Caitlin. I really let you down.”

  “No matter what we do, we can’t bring them back,” she said.

  And then, to her immense surprise (and in this sense of surprise there was a measure of horror and in that horror was a small but undeniable tremor of disdain), Joe made a kind of strangulated cough and began to cry. People were everywhere but no one looked at Joe. It was as if a curtain had been drawn around him, the way a nurse will in a hospital when a patient’s condition will demoralize his roommate.

  “I never could have written this book without you,” he said, still crying, not quite seeming to realize that he was.

  “You were writing your book all along. You were born to write it, really you were,” said Caitlin. They crossed Fourteenth Street. Joe’s publisher’s house was on Gramercy Park; they’d be there in ten minutes and she hoped Joe would have composed himself by then.

  “Not only because you took the chance and gave me those files from Stowe’s office.”

  “I’m a good thief,” said Caitlin.

  “But that wasn’t all. Just knowing you were out there, in the real world, and that you — knew.”

  “Knew?”

  “Me.” He stopped and took Caitlin by the shoulders. He gazed at her with a look of panic and departure, as if over the bow of a ship that was taking him far away. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “You’re exhausted, Joe,” she said, hoping it would reassure him.

  “I’m supposed to go all over the country, speaking you know, selling my book. Philadelphia, D.C., Baltimore, St. Louis.” He named each city as if it were a nail in his coffin.

  “I’m going to miss you,” she said.

  “I couldn’t have written it without you, Caitlin. Without you and Sumner Welles. I keep having this feeling he’ll be at the party today.”

  “That would be nice,” said Caitlin, coolly. When she had read in Joe’s diary that he loved Welles she had felt bonded to Joe—even though the nature of his love for Welles seemed vague, disguised in the writing, disguised, perhaps, even from himself. She knew some small amount about how the heart can chase after the most remarkable creatures in some frightening steeplechase of desire, and it was a comfort to know that this was a secret she shared with Joe. But now she was alone, and hearing of Welles, even hearing his name, caused in Caitlin a feeling that is one of the saddest by-products of grief— she was jealous.

  Soon they were in front of the townhouse on Gramercy Park where Erroll Tate, Joe’s publisher, lived. Joe had kept his composure over the past several blocks but now he seemed rattled again. He looked up at the three-story red-brick building, with the reflections of sycamores in its tall windows.

  “Is this the house?” asked Caitlin.

  “Yes,” said Joe, very quietly.

  “Are you going to be all right, Joe?”

  “Let’s go,” he said, taking her arm.

  They were let in by a maid wearing a black uniform and a frilly white apron that was more a matter of symbol than function. Caitlin wondered if there was something in her own bearing that would tell the maid that Caitlin was the daughter of a servant, or perhaps even a servant herself. There were ways of telling; Annie could tell which of the Flemings’ guests had the wealth or position to back up their stratospheric airs. The ones who didn’t hold their sherry glasses too tightly or look at everything in the room as if they were taking a kind of inventory.

  The maid led Caitlin and Joe through the small black-and-white entrance foyer and up a narrow staircase. The walls along the way were lined with framed dust jackets of Highland Press books, most of them geared toward outdoorsmen, books about fly fishing and preparation of wild-game casseroles, along with an occasional murder mystery. Joe’s book was called Home Front, though Caitlin would always think of it as American Reich, the original title, which Tate had persuaded Joe to change, saying it was too aggressive, too finger-pointing.

  As they ascended the staircase, Caitlin could hear the noise of the party. A woman’s high looping laugh rode herd over the general merriment like a clarinet over a Dixieland band. Caitlin walked behind Joe; she wondered what his face looked like at that moment. And then he reached back to take her hand—to give it, she imagined, a comradely, conspiratorial squeeze—but before their fingers touched Joe was on the top stair, in full view of the guests.

  Joe was almost as much a stranger at this party as was Caitlin. Even when he had worked at Fortune his contact with other writers and editors had been sporadic, and now coming off two years as Fred Hollander he felt even more out of place. Caitlin could sense him looking for a familiar face.

  Erroll Tate came to greet Joe. Tate was in his fifties, portly, contented-looking, with silver hair and a smoking jacket. He had a drinker’s regretful good humor. “So there you are,” he said, putting his arm around Joe. “Thought maybe you’d gone underground again.”

  He steered Joe into the party and Caitlin was left behind. Joe turned to look at her and Caitlin saw in his eyes that he was feeling three things at once—resistance to being taken over by Tate, a sudden rush of happiness over being the guest of honor, and regret over leaving Caitlin to fend for herself, and she knew as well that this last feeling was the faintest of the three but the one he chose to concentrate on, the one he felt best about experiencing.

  Caitlin looked out across the room and tried to appear absorbed. She hoped she didn’t seem like one of those pathetic people who stand around waiting for someone to rescue them from social starvation with a scrap of conversation. The room was salmon-colored, narrow, and filled with people. At the far end was a wall of windows beyond which a willow stood like an apparition in the fading light. The languid branches of the tree, with its feathery, silvery leaves, shuddered in the breeze for a moment, and Caitlin was suddenly plunged into an indistinct haze of memories of Betty Sinclair: twilight, a summer theater, the taste of butterscotch candy, the smell of Evening in Paris talcum powder. And then the memories were swallowed back into the vast interior darkness from which they had momentarily emerged and Caitlin was struck squarely by the moment she was actually living, struck squarely in the face as if she had been walking around in a daze and stepped on a rake.

  And it was then, just then, that she saw Gordon Jaffrey. He was looking across the room at her with a look of pure unadulterated friendliness on his large face, so delighted to see her that he called out her name.

  Caitlin was glad, even relieved, to see Gordon, but her happiness was adulterated. She had wondered to herself if Gordon would be at Joe’s party and had decided in all likelihood he would not. Joe and Gordon hadn’t spoken since Erroll Tate had insisted that Gordon’s photographs not be included in Home Front. In fact, Joe had tried to change Tate’s mind but he had failed and it wasn’t clear to Caitlin if Gordon knew Joe had argued strenuously in the photos’ behalf. “They are all so damn corny,” Tate had said. “Ever
yone has shadows going across their eyes to make them look evil. Anyhow, I don’t see why we need photographs in the first place.”

  Gordon looked flushed, exhausted, not quite organized within himself. He came bounding across the room toward Caitlin.

  “Oh, Gordon,” said Caitlin. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  “Catey,” he said. Her hand disappeared inside of his. He was breathing heavily; there was a dotted line of perspiration above his rosy lips. He had put on weight and he looked just a little silly in his shiny blue suit and red tie. “You’re the most beautiful woman in New York.” He looked away as soon as he said this, to make certain she wouldn’t mistake it for a flirtation.

  “Have you said hello to Joe yet?”

  “Well,” said Gordon. He looked back at her. “He’s occupied at the moment.”

  “Joe was hoping, really hoping, you’d be here.”

  “Really?” asked Gordon, not with any particular skepticism. He turned to look in Joe’s direction. Joe was being led by Tate toward a tall, elegant woman wearing a wide, white hat pulled down so it touched her right eyebrow. She extended her hand toward Joe in a pantomime of pleasure and humility.

  “He seems good, Caitlin. I hope he doesn’t think I’m sore about the pictures. It was an education working with him. And that book doesn’t need any pictures. Tate was dead right about that, he really was.” He put his hand on Caitlin’s shoulder. “Will you tell him that for me, please?”

  “No, I won’t,” said Caitlin. “Joe would never forgive me if I let you leave without saying hello.” She felt she was way out of line here: Joe hadn’t shared any hope whatsoever that Gordon would be at this party and he might be, for all Caitlin knew, relieved if Gordon just slipped out unnoticed.

  Gordon smiled. He lowered his square jaw, with its patina of coppery razor stubble, and looked at Caitlin through the tops of his eyes. “I wonder if I should butt in while he’s meeting all these people.” He looked at Joe and rubbed his massive hands together, as if to prepare them for the moment they would touch his great good friend.

  Joe and Tate were talking to the woman with the white hat. A small circle had formed around them, and whatever the woman was saying to Joe captivated them all. She was enumerating conversational points on her long fingers. Joe was nodding but Caitlin couldn’t see his face.

  Then Gordon tapped Joe’s shoulder, and when Joe turned his expression was startled, evasive. But Gordon’s own emotional state was a stone rolling down a hill, crushing everything small in its path. Joe’s embarrassment and its aftershock of annoyance disappeared inside Gordon’s embrace.

  “Will you look at this guy?” Gordon said, as he pounded Joe on the back.

  Caitlin cringed within herself. It was painful hearing the false heartiness and the implied need in Gordon’s voice. In the most fundamental, unconscious, and selfless ways, Gordon was attached to Joe, and Caitlin had an inkling that, in all probability, Joe would never find anyone who would love him as much as Gordon.

  “Is that the author over there?” a voice asked her.

  She turned to see a small man in his thirties, with a dark birthmark at the corner of his mouth. He wore a wool suit and looked resigned to his discomfort in this crowded summer room.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “The dark-haired one?” the man asked. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket but did not mop his perspiring brow. Caitlin didn’t answer, which the man took for assent. He leaned forward and seemed to be taking Joe’s measure.

  “Do you know him?” he asked Caitlin. He had a dingy pallor and an overall sense of dishevelment about him, except for his brown hair, which was as carefully combed as a child’s on the first day of school.

  “Yes. Very well.”

  “Russian-Polish Jewish, I’d say. Am I right?”

  “I don’t believe we’ve met before,” said Caitlin. She said her name and put out her hand.

  “Ah, Dutch and Irish. Am I right? Henry Lehman.” He took her hand. His grip was fierce. “I work with the Combined Emergency European Relief Committee. Have you heard of us?”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t.” She glanced toward the center of the room. Tate was leading Joe toward the piano, where a knot of people seemed to be awaiting him. Gordon walked uncertainly behind.

  “Well, don’t feel bad about that. We’re a nickel-and-dime outfit, no money for publicity. I read your friend’s book, by the way. Hell of a job. I mean, you know, as far as it goes. Who you here with, by the way?”

  “I happen to be here with Joe Rose.”

  “Then tell him he forgot to talk about the most important way this country’s in league with the Nazis.

  “We’re at war with them now, anyhow.”

  “Sure. Thank God, too. But all through the last decade and up till now what the hell were we doing about people trying to escape Nazism? Not a goddamned thing, is what. No one knows how many Jews have already been killed by Hitler. Thousands, at least. Maybe we’ll never know. It could be more, it could be hundreds of thousands. Think of it. The mind boggles. And we do nothing. We say there’s no room. It’s like sitting in your room with the door locked while someone is pounding at the door to get in and someone else is stabbing that person in the back, over and over. What do you do? Have a drink, turn up the radio? It’s a disgrace, is what it is, and something we’re going to have to live with for the rest of our lives.”

  Suddenly Erroll Tate’s voice rose like a balloon from the front of the room. “If I could just have your attention for a moment, mesdames et monsieurs.”

  “Gentlemen dilettantes shouldn’t own publishing companies,” Henry Lehman muttered to Caitlin. But she was looking for Joe and she refused to acknowledge the remark.

  “I want to thank you all for coming to my home,” said Tate, rubbing his hands together, “and helping to celebrate the publication of what we think will be a truly important book. Home Front is by Joseph Rose, a former writer for Fortune, who went underground and now has come back to us to tell about the really quite alarming activities of groups who operate outside the law and often in direct opposition to American interests. I’m referring to various Nazi groups here at home, and the story of their recruitment techniques and their outmoded beliefs is detailed with chilling authenticity in Joe’s fine book.

  “I’ve twisted Joe’s arm and gotten him to agree to say a few words to us, but before I bring him up here may I please remind you that Highland Press is going to be making these intimate, by-invitation-only publication parties a kind of tradition. With the newspapers and airwaves increasingly dominated by war news, it’s gotten more and more difficult to bring quality books to the public’s attention. As a way of combatting this frustrating situation—” Tate paused and fished in his pocket for a slip of paper. The branches of the willow tree blew close to the window and the leaves scratched across the pane. “Next month we’ll be introducing Miss Cynthia MacGregor, who has written a charming book called Summer in Calgary and we hope to see you here on October third, which is a Monday. And now, everybody, let’s say hello to Joe Rose.”

  “Well? Do you? Do you know anything about the Combined Emergency European Relief Committee?” Lehman was asking Caitlin, as if Tate’s words and Joe’s coming to speak next meant nothing.

  “It’s not only Jews we’re trying to get out of Europe,” Lehman was saying. “Anyone who’s in Hitler’s path. Anyone.”

  “Please,” Caitlin said, tensing with impatience—his voice was like someone stepping on your heel on a crowded street. “I’d like to hear.”

  Caitlin moved away from him, closer to the center of the room, closer to Joe. There was a ripple of welcoming applause, and she pressed her hands together and kept them clasped, like a girl in a fresco.

  “We’ll talk later,” he whispered, retreating.

  Joe began his speech with a few pleasantries, thanking the Highland Press, Mr. Tate, the guests. His manner, to Caitlin’s astonishment, was polished, glib. His voice, which all day ha
d been porous and unsteady, was now firm, round, just so. He barely gestured as he spoke and his lips were turned up in a small, rather melancholy smile that made him look mysterious and dashing.

  “One day this war will be over,” Joe was saying, “and Hitler and the Axis powers will have been crushed.” A few of the guests cheered this sentiment, and Joe was silent for a moment, as if waiting for the noise of a train to pass. “But can any army defeat the forces from which Hitlerism emerged and upon which Hitler feeds? I spent two years of my life as a man named Frederick Hollander, and as Mr. Hollander I got to know many of our own fellow Americans, some of whom would have liked to see a swastika flying in front of the White House, and others who would have been content with a Nazi-U.S. alliance, as we swept through the world and butchered Jews, Communists, Gypsies, and anyone else who did not fit in with the master plan.”

  Caitlin had never heard Joe so eloquent, so assured. She was one of those women from the recent past who could have her heart moved by oratory. Her face flushed. It felt as if she were allergic to joy, that the happiness had harvested up from the hive of her secret self some nectar that was too sweet for her to digest. She wanted to move closer to Joe but doubted her legs’ ability to carry her gracefully, so she contented herself with looking around the room to see how the others were hearing Joe’s speech.

  “Because of paper rationing,” Joe was saying, “I was dissuaded from putting in an introduction to Home Front. But I want to take this opportunity to point out that I had the help of my good friend Gordon Jaffrey, who was with me on some of the more ticklish assignments, and I also want to acknowledge my friend Caitlin Van Fleet, who kept her faith in this book and helped me keep mine, and who herself had an inside look at some of the pro-Nazi elements my book describes.”

  Caitlin felt her face burn. This brief recognition from Joe in public scalded her, she felt weak from it. She felt someone touch her arm and she turned to her side and there was Henry Lehman, nodding at her, smiling.

  And then Joe said, “But I most particularly want to thank Mr. Sumner Welles. The Under Secretary of State was helpful and generous to me from the very beginning. And as he waged his fight against the appeasers and isolationists inside the government, he always had time not only to encourage me but to guide me, and most importantly, for me, to remind me that the defense of American democracy is truly a fight worth fighting. If it was not for Mr. Welles—”

 

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