Tapestry

by Belva Plain

  Hennie reported with awe on the size of Leah’s personal benefactions to the refugee committee. The awe was not unmixed with irony, too, as one reflected on the previous generation of Jews descended from German immigrants who had helped, deplored, and condescended to the poor Russians. Here, now, were the despised poor Russians like Leah, no longer poor, opening their purses to a new wave of Germans fleeing persecution in their turn.

  Paul felt a quiet satisfaction, for this life was what Leah had wanted. She had worked hard for it and she deserved it. Often he wondered what a different turn her life and his would have taken had his meeting with Iris that night not thrown him into some sort of emotional chaos. Would he have stood fast against Marian’s pleading and gone ahead with the divorce? Having since come to a full understanding of his wife’s pitiable fragility, he thought not.

  Leah did not apparently question why she never heard from Marian. Very likely she was too busy in her new life to notice or care. To be sure, she rarely heard from Paul, either. When he appeared alone at the engagement party for Bill’s daughter, she accepted his casual excuse for Marian without comment. Very likely she was even relieved at Marian’s absence. She would have been even more relieved if she had been aware of what Marian now knew.

  As to Paul, he wasn’t sure whose presence made him more uncomfortable, Leah’s or her husband’s. He was well aware that there were plenty of men who wouldn’t be disconcerted in the slightest degree, and who would have found his sensitivity amusing, but he couldn’t help the way he was.

  Nineteen

  A quiet winter passed. People called it the time of the phony war, since no shots were fired and nothing happened. The French and the Germans faced each other across the Rhine, so close that the opposing armies were in sight of each other’s daily unremarkable routines.

  On this side of the ocean, extensive military preparations were being made, and they were good for business. The Depression at last was lifting and, as it had during that other war, the stock market prospered. “Disgusting war profits,” Dan would have said; he would have had plenty to say. At the end of the year, Paul cashed in his stock profits, gave the sum total away, and felt that he had cleansed himself. In passing, it occurred to him that Donal Powers must be making another fortune, and he felt doubly cleansed.

  Then abruptly, in the month when chestnuts bloom in Paris, the Germans struck. Their tanks and bombers came pouring over the frontiers that they had pledged not to violate. Belgium and Holland were overrun in hours, the British fled home from Dunkirk and pictures of refugee hordes appeared again in the newsreel theaters of New York.

  Paul sat in his office reading The New York Times. “All markets brake severely on possible end of the war soon,” ran the black headlines, “… a wave of speculative selling … if the current ‘Blitzkrieg’ settles down into a stationary war again … commodities may just as easily reflect this in a complete rebound.”

  He put the paper down angrily. After a moment, he picked it up again and read on. “Moreover, it is by no means certain that, even in the event of a complete revision of previous ideas regarding the war outlook, American business prospects would seriously be affected …”

  Anger gave way to a profound sadness, as again he laid the paper aside. Business prospects! And all the dead. Business prospects!

  The summer passed. It was a lovely summer, if one could stay away from the desperate nightly news on the radio. London was losing as many as six hundred lives a day as its homes were bombed into smoking rubble. Even the Houses of Parliament were struck. German submarines, like killer whales, were threatening the Atlantic sea-lanes. Germany invaded Russia. President Roosevelt proclaimed a state of national emergency.

  In Washington everyone knew that sooner more probably than later the country would be at war. Business and government began to stir with joint plans for tanks, planes, steel, coal, trucks, and railroad cars. This was all too familiar to Paul; two dozen years of peace had flown past and now those years were simply being rolled back. So he did not hesitate when he was asked to go to Washington as a semi-weekly volunteer to help draft methods for the financing of the enormous effort.

  On a Sunday afternoon in December, on the way back from the capital, he stopped off in Philadelphia to visit Meg. The little apartment seemed more crowded and cramped than it had in the beginning. Possessions had accumulated: more books, bicycles, and skis for the winter vacations that the children had been having with Donal in Colorado. And there was another addition to the family, an old English sheepdog. A huge, broad, friendly animal, she lay with seven newborn puppies on a bed between the stove and the refrigerator. If one had wanted to be charitable, one could have said that the apartment was in disarray; if one, on the other hand, wanted to be totally honest, one would have called it a mess.

  However, Paul thought as he surveyed the place with affectionate amusement, it was unmistakably a happy mess. The twins were out, as they usually were, while Agnes was painting in her room and Meg was cleaning the kitchen floor.

  She looked up, smiling. “You’re thinking how sloppy I am. Well, Donal’s not around anymore to inspect, so I can be myself.”

  “How are you doing? I needn’t ask, you look wonderful.”

  “I’m doing fine. I’m making good grades and loving it. I haven’t made a mistake, Paul, in case you’re wondering.”

  “I’m glad. You’re never lonesome?” he asked, meaning: a woman as young as you, without a man …

  She understood. “I might be—yes, I would be—if I weren’t so darn busy. I honestly don’t have a second to think about myself.”

  “You’ll be coming down the homestretch before you know it.”

  “Yes, and I can’t wait to finish, to get back into the country somewhere and start earning money.” She laughed. “I hope you’re not in too much hurry to be repaid.”

  “Right now, the only repayment I want is some lunch. Whatever you’ve got. I’m not particular.”

  “Chicken sandwiches. Pull that card table over by the window. That’s where we eat.”

  Arranging the thick plates and tin cutlery, Paul was humorously reminded of Donal’s ornate Danish silver. A burly tomcat, jumping from a shelf, just missed his shoulder and landed on the table among the dishes. Agnes came, wearing a streaked smock and a blob of green paint on her chin. He was to remember it all quite clearly, even the way the child said to him, “Oh, it’s you, Cousin Paul! I didn’t hear you come in,” and then saying, “I’ll just go help Mom with the sandwiches.”

  Everything’s changed, he thought. Meg has surely, and now Agnes has too.

  He reached up to the shelf and turned on the little portable radio. His other hand held a coffee mug, which he almost dropped because of what he heard.

  The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. The damage was almost total, the disaster almost complete. The loud voice was agitated, almost hysterical, as the words tumbled, and Meg came running in from the kitchen with Agnes following.

  In the little room the three stood for a minute quite still, staring into each other’s faces. Meg spoke first.

  “Tim’s only sixteen, thank God for that.”

  “So this is it” was all Paul could think to say.

  The moment was different, the feeling different, from the way he had imagined they might be when war finally came. And he saw himself, years hence, standing among people who were all talking about where they had been when the news arrived, the news that once again would alter each individual in ways then unforeseen.

  “I was setting the table,” he would say, “and my cousin came running in with a puppy in one hand and a head of lettuce in the other.”

  Late that winter, Hank Roth joined the service as a first lieutenant. The farewell was at Leah’s house. With her customary fortitude, she affected a business-is-business approach; the country’s business right now was to get it all over as fast as possible, and one had to be sensible about it. But Paul understood her feelings about Hank’s father, who ha
d gone off so heroically the last time, and now about Hank, who was going so soberly.

  The single remotely cheerful person in the gathering was Alfie. He had begun work on a housing project for an aircraft factory, and was in good spirits.

  “My partner doesn’t know a thing about building, but he’s got cash. So he’s putting up the cash, I’m doing the work, and we split fifty-fifty. Not bad, eh? I had to tell Donal I’m resigning.”

  Strangely enough, it felt good to hear Alfie boasting in the old way.

  Hennie worried. “Do you think he’ll be going overseas soon? One hears so much about U-boat warfare.”

  “It’s ironic,” Paul answered, “that Dan’s invention, his original work, will make the voyage safer. They’ve got radar now. All the detection instruments are based on his work.”

  He wished he could feel as sure as he had made himself sound. With an ache in his heart, he watched Hank, looking older and larger in uniform, go around the room making his individual farewells.

  “Well, Paul,” Hank said, “you always told us America would have to get into this.” The boy—Paul supposed he would always think of Hank as a boy—looked almost accusing.

  And Paul could hardly speak. “Just take care of yourself,” he said.

  They shook hands, and Hank turned away. They heard him hurrying down the stairs and heard the door make a thud in the silence.

  Faster than anyone might have thought possible, life was transformed. Meat, gasoline, shoes, and sugar were rationed. Women learned to wear cotton lisle stockings. Marian rolled bandages for the Red Cross. Leah presided at fashion shows in which movie stars modeled for the benefit of War Bonds. Hank went overseas and arrived safely in England. And Paul grew restless. As the months went by, he tired of merely shuttling back and forth between New York and Washington to sit on a committee and juggle figures. This was all important to the war effort, but still it was too far away from the real thing and not what he wanted.

  Then the president appointed a civilian commission to go along into action with the troops as soon as the invasion of the continent should take place. They were to observe and report on the effectiveness of air support. The prospect was appealing. It meant being in the heart of things. It was not difficult for Paul to get himself appointed to the commission.

  Marian was aghast. They went through a week of lamentation. “I should think you’d have had enough of risking your life in one war!”

  “I won’t be in the trenches this time. Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

  “You can’t know that. Anything can happen.” Her lips quivered.

  “I have to go,” he said gently.

  “Why? Because of your cousins, I suppose.”

  He thought, yes, and Ilse, and Mario …

  “You always feel obligated, even though they’re almost surely dead.”

  “All the more reason.”

  “You go too far. You always do.”

  “It’s the way I am, then. You should be used to me by now.”

  “Oh,” she said, “the only thing I’m used to is knowing I can’t change your mind when it’s made up.”

  “Sometimes you do, Marian. More than you know. But not this time.”

  He couldn’t really explain why he had to go, because explanation would have sounded childish, as if he had some misplaced conception of heroism or else a desire born out of boredom. The truth was far deeper: It was a wish to do something real, not to be a bystander in this cataclysm.

  He was in high excitement, getting his gear together: foul-weather clothing, a new camera, writing materials and binoculars.

  Walking up Madison Avenue, he realized he wasn’t far from Leah’s place. He had intended to telephone, but then thought better of it and went there instead. In her private office, she showed him a letter from Hank, a cheerful report written with obvious intent to keep his mother’s spirits up. They spoke a few words about Hennie, who was still occupied with refugees, and after that Leah arrived at the personal.

  “I suppose everyone asks you why you’re doing this, so I won’t ask.”

  “Thanks.” Paul grinned. “I appreciate that.”

  “No, I’ll not ask. I’ll tell you.” She pointed a pencil at him from across her little desk. “You’re running away, Paul Werner. No, don’t look as if you’d like to shoot me. I know there’s real good, real purpose in what you’re doing. I understand that you’re going toward something. But you’re also going away from something, or rather somebody. Do you want to talk about it?”

  She had put her finger directly on the sore place that he hadn’t wanted to think of in this connection. Now, suddenly, it felt very sore.

  “No, you don’t. You’re thinking it’s none of my damn business, and it probably isn’t, except that I’ve known you pretty well, Paul, and maybe that makes me think I can take liberties.” She got up and laid her hand on his shoulder.

  “You want your privacy. Okay, I won’t say any more. Except one thing, and that’ll be the end of it. I know you’re thinking of your daughter and of—of her. How long are you going to go on like this?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Look at yourself! You could have the world at your feet. When are you going to find somebody to love?”

  “How do you find somebody?” He heard mockery in his voice. “Do you turn love on like a faucet?”

  “Well, you found me, didn’t you? You just didn’t keep me.”

  He stood up and put his arms around her. He could hear her muffled against his chest, “Don’t misunderstand, I’m Bill’s wife and it’s Bill I love. Don’t misunderstand.”

  “I won’t.” He dropped a kiss on top of her head. Strange, he thought, remembering the canopied bed and the room in Paris, where the very sight of Leah had so inflamed him; all that was gone and only this tenderness remained.

  “I’m sorry, Paul. I shouldn’t talk this way. I suppose it’s because I’m so afraid you won’t come back.”

  “I’ll be back,” he said. “I’ll fool you, I’ll be back.”

  The Queen Elizabeth lay in total darkness with its portholes blacked out. He walked through the cavernous pier on the way to the gangplank, pausing to let a long column of infantry, young men, baby boys, shuffle past under the weight of their packs, leaving their country. Then he went up the gangplank after them.

  The engines vibrated, no whistles blew, and in silence the great ship, with its young human freight, moved slowly down the river. Like a great shadow on the water, it gathered speed and slid out to sea.

  Twenty

  June 2, 1944

  Why am I, Hank Roth, keeping a diary? I’m putting down things that I probably won’t want anyone else to read when I get home. So maybe it will end up being thrown away. I know Paul always said he didn’t want to remember his war, and probably I won’t want to remember this one either. Maybe I’m writing because I need something to do with my hands in the times we spend waiting. There’s so much waiting, as we’re doing right now. The invasion has got to be coming soon. We all feel it.

  I try to imagine what it will be like across the Channel. Times here have been awful enough, especially when I’ve been up in London. I’ll never be able to describe what it was like the night I met that girl, when we had the thousand-plane raid. We ran to the shelter in her garden, what we call a yard, and sat there for hours holding our ears against the roar. It sounded like a freight train going through your living room. We held hands, not talking, too terrified to talk. She was a nice girl. I’d just gotten to know her. When the all-clear sounded, we crawled out. They’d missed her house, but the ones on either side were crushed and they were pulling bodies out onto the sidewalk.

  Can it be much worse in France?

  June 10, 1944

  We’re here. The sixth was the day, a day that will go down in history like Appomattox, that my great-grandmother used to tell about.

  So many were seasick on the crossing that they couldn’t save themselves, if saving had been possi
ble, against the gunfire from the hills above the beach. They didn’t even get as far as the beach, just died in the water as they waded in.

  But I got through. I’m in a little village now, where we’ve set up a tent. Pure luck. So far.

  June 16, 1944

  We’re on the way to Cherbourg, still a long way from Paris. I met my first Germans, very young, some only fifteen years old and scared to death. Pitiable. Poor kids.

  The public should see this. It should know how tanks are blown up and bodies are smashed. It should smell the stench, and see blasted trees and houses and dead farm horses on the roads.

  Oh, I thank God I’m a doctor and don’t have to kill! Paul said once that you think you couldn’t possibly kill, and are astonished to find that when you have to, you can. Maybe that’s true. I’m glad I don’t have to find that out about myself.

  July 2, 1944

  I haven’t had a chance to write a word for the last two weeks. We’ve been moving forward, inch by inch, every day. We set up a hospital for three or four hundred beds and as the troops gain ground, set up another behind them, so we’re building a string of hospitals as we move. Heaven help us, we need them all.

  Whenever a man is sent back to the rear for amputation, I try to imagine what thoughts are going through those poor young heads as they lie on the litter, knowing what’s ahead. Surely they must know. And I think about my father.

  We’re supposed to work twelve-hour shifts, which is a mighty long shift when you think of what we’re doing through all those hours. It’s not like a twelve-hour shift in a civilian hospital back home. Actually, there have been so many wounded that I’ve often kept going for twenty-four hours without sleep. It’s incredible that you can still keep on your feet and think clearly, but you can. I guess it’s like what Paul said about killing: If you have to, you can.

  We’re getting a lot of prisoners now, some top ranking Nazi officers, S.S. and others. They’re entirely different from the poor kids in the ranks. They’re still incredibly arrogant, still talking about how they are going to win, even though they see our continual advance. I must say I hate them. Hate them, as I never knew I could hate. We treat them well, of course; they get antibiotics and blood and all the rest, but Americans do get first call and that’s as it should be.