by Belva Plain
I listen to the conversations of this traveling fraternity. They know the names of all the captains and pursers on the great ships. They talk about whom they met on this or that voyage and what cocktail parties they were invited to. One night all these people were asked to the captain’s table and Joseph and I had the table to ourselves. The hierarchy of the ship! I suppose we were put here because there were two seats left over; certainly we don’t belong here. Joseph is more quiet than ever and I know that he feels out of place. Naturally, I am just as out of place but it doesn’t brother me; I find it interesting. I watch the spectacle, the procession descending the stairs to dinner: sagging women in brocade and diamonds, tired-looking men, honeymoon couples. Turning heads, energetic smiles, the chirp of greeting: “How are you? I haven’t seen you in ages!”
I watch the food, the great fish carved in ice, the vegetables like a Dutch still life, the spun-sugar baskets, the little iced cakes arranged like a bouquet. What labor and art to cook like that! I look at the nice, fresh faces of the boys who wait on us. They seem so cheerful and respectful as they pull your chair out: “Good evening, madame, have you had a nice afternoon?” I wonder what they really think about all of us.
After dinner last night we went up to dance, and I was saying all this to Joseph. He was a little annoyed. “Can’t you ever just enjoy yourself, without all these serious thoughts?” he asked. I told him I was enjoying myself and I couldn’t help my thoughts. “Don’t you want me to tell you anything anymore?” I answered. And then he said, “Oh, come on, you can tell me anything you want, you know you can.” So then he was very good-humored, and we danced until after midnight. The music was splendid and Joseph dances very well. Really we ought to do it more often! It clears the head. One feels so light and easy, not thinking about anything at all. He’s right, I ponder too much.
June 8th
It rained today and the wind bends you double as you round the corner of the deck. Everyone is inside. Joseph has found a couple of kindred souls and they are playing cards. Some have gone down to the movie. But I don’t want to miss a minute of the sea. I went up alone on deck and stood in the blowing spray. How fierce the North Atlantic is, even in the summer! One has a sense of danger, something elemental, although of course on this great modern liner I am only fooling myself about elemental dangers! The day after tomorrow, when we wake up, they tell us we shall see Ireland. How will the Malones feel when they see it for the first time?
June 11
I think I must know all the streets in London. The first morning we went out for a walk. Our hotel is on Park Lane. We had planned to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, and Joseph wanted to see Hyde Park Corner where the radicals come and rant. When I told him to turn left he looked at me in amazement and said: “Are you sure you haven’t been here before?” And I said that I had been, in dozens of books, Dickens and Thackeray and all the books on the list Miss Thorne once gave me. That was eighteen years ago and I only finished the list last year. Of course I did read things in between besides all my courses in art and music history.
I wonder about Miss Mary Thorne. I suppose she must be retired now, back in Boston probably, making tea in a little room with shelves and shelves of books. How could she or I have guessed the things that would happen all these years?
June 13th
Joseph has a business appointment with some British investors who are interested in New York real estate. I was sorry that business had to interfere with sightseeing, but he didn’t mind at all. I think he really welcomed the interference. So I took the boat ride to Kew Gardens by myself. Have you been to Kew in lilac time?
I sat next to a very nice man on the boat, an American from New Hampshire. He teaches history at some famous school; I’ve forgotten the name. His wife died six months ago. He said they had been planning this trip abroad for quite a while and she had made him promise to go anyway after her death. She had said it would be good for him, that he mustn’t sit at home and mourn. What a wonderful, unselfish, large-minded woman!
He asked me where I came from. He thought, because of my accent, I suppose, that I might be French and seemed surprised when I told him the truth.
We got talking about England. He’d been hiking in the Lake District, Wordsworth country, and I said I was sorry we wouldn’t be going there. I think I should love a vacation like that, walking through the villages, seeing how people really live, instead of just staying in large hotels where you only see other tourists. He agreed with me. We had a very nice conversation, and by the time we got to Kew, it was only natural to walk around together. It’s a marvelous place! What a pity Joseph missed it! Maybe he would have enjoyed it after all, in spite of his saying he wouldn’t.
The man’s name was Jeffers. They had no children, which is too bad, since now he has nothing left of his wife at all. I told him about my children when he inquired, mostly about Maury, how he planned to go to Yale and was interested in literature. He mentioned some professors there who are especially fine and famous. All in all, it was a very pleasant time and we found ourselves talking as though we had known each other a long while. I seldom, or perhaps never, meet men who like to talk to women. I was thinking how warm it was, how consoling, although that’s really not the right word; perhaps cheerful would be more accurate.
On the way back, when we were almost at the end of the trip, Mr. Jeffers said he’d had an unexpectedly wonderful afternoon.
“I shall be so sorry not to see you again,” he said. He looked straight at me when he said it, and I saw something very serious and regretful in his face. He was not being a “smart aleck”; goodness knows I’ve seen enough of that to recognize it. He really meant it, and so I said, “I’m sorry too, and I hope you’ll be very happy again, someday.” And I really meant it. I think we had only begun to talk. There would have been so much more for us to say to each other if—a hundred ifs.
Joseph was waiting on the embankment. He first asked how I had enjoyed the trip and then he wanted to know who the man was.
“You seemed to be having quite a conversation,” he said. “I was watching you while the boat drew in.”
“Oh, yes,” I said, “he’s an American, a schoolteacher. He gave me some very good advice about Maury.”
“You talked about Maury the whole time?”
“I didn’t spend the whole time talking to the man, Joseph!”
“Don’t you know that I’m jealous?” he said.
But he has no reason to be and never will. I am absolutely, I am completely, to be trusted. And I will stake my life on that.
June 26th
We are on the train, crossing the border into Austria. In a matter of hours I shall see Dan and Eli! Joseph is almost as excited as I am about it. He feels for me and for our long separation. “Families shouldn’t be torn apart like that,” he says, and he is right. But what can you do?
The scenery here reminds me of The Student Prince, which we saw a couple of years ago. First the fortress on the peak above Salzburg. Then an hour or more of lakes like big blue tears spilled on the earth. And a monastery, gloomy, powerful and secretive; “Melk,” it says in the guidebook. Now woods, the Wienerwald no doubt, the Vienna Woods. And in a few minutes more, the station where they will be waiting.
Joseph is watching me. “Don’t you ever get tired of scribbling?” he asks, and takes my hand and smiles. He knows I am like jelly inside, and strokes it to calm me. I put this book away.
June 26th, later
My brother Eli is called Eduard now. We were met on the platform by him and Tessa. I confess I would not have known him! Nineteen years, after all! But his hair is still red. We cried, both of us, and Joseph was very moved seeing us, but I think Tessa was embarrassed in front of their chauffeur. However, she was very sweet, kissed me and welcomed us. She is not an especially pretty woman but thin and graceful. One wants to look at her, although Joseph doesn’t agree. I think he disliked her at once, which is unusual for Joseph, who rarely
says much about people.
Eli-Eduard wanted us to stay at their house and was distressed when we told him we had a reservation at Sacher’s Hotel. But Joseph says no, we are staying two weeks and that is too long a time to stay in anyone’s house. We can see them every day, without getting in the way of their family. That too is like Joseph, very considerate. Or is it independent?
June 26th, later
We are back at the hotel to dress for dinner. Eduard will send the car for us. But first we went out to his house in the eighth district. It is rather far from the center of the city, almost a suburb, with large houses and grounds. They call them villas but, by American standards, I would call them miniature palaces! Eduard’s has gold plaster cherubs on the ceilings. I tried not to crane my head up all the time while Tessa was serving coffee and cake. We sat for a while in the garden, a lovely spot with high trees all around, making a private outdoor room, bright with mauve and scarlet flowers. I really ought to learn the names of flowers. I am completely ignorant of anything except a rose or a daisy! Oh, I forgot to say, all the rooms are heated in winter by huge stoves that look like high boxes made of porcelain tiles, with beautiful designs on them. Joseph was amused. On the way back he said, “To think of heating with a stove in the twentieth century! How far behind us Europe is!”
The children came in to meet us, a handsome little boy and two blond girls. Liesel is just Iris’ age. She played the piano very well, I thought, although I am no judge. What lovely manners the children have!
June 27th
Now that I have spent a day with Eduard I can clearly see the outline of the boy who parted from me: the same very charming smile, the prominent jaw, the eyes that crinkle. And yet he looks like an Austrian gentleman. I see that he cares about his clothes, or else it is Tessa who cares for him.
But I am saddened about Dan. He doesn’t look like his brother anymore, and they are identical twins! He is quite round-shouldered and his smile is almost apologetic. His wife Dena is rather pretty, although too plump. She doesn’t care about her figure; she took two helpings of whipped cream. Anyway, she’s nice and I liked her at once. I felt easy with her, as I did not with Tessa.
I can see that Tessa does not think much of Dena or Dan; it is obvious that they live in different worlds. Dena helps Dan in his fur shop, though it must be very hard on her. They have six children, and she whispered to me after dinner that she expects again!
I wish I could have had more children. I could have them still; perhaps it isn’t too late? I am only thirty-five. Joseph is terribly disappointed that we have only two, I know, although he never says a word. I suppose he thinks it would be a reproach, or perhaps that there’s no use discussing things that can’t be helped. He is supremely practical and doesn’t waste words, as surely I ought to have learned by now. It was rather an awkward evening. It is apparent to me that my brothers do not get together very often, although no one said so. But what really amazed me was that there should be a language problem between them! An entirely manufactured one, to be sure. Dan and Dena speak Yiddish at home. Dena is a poor girl with no education and she has lived among people like herself ever since coming to Vienna. Tessa naturally speaks no Yiddish, only German and French, as she took pains to let us know. However, Yiddish and German are really so closely related that, with a little effort, they would all be able to understand each other. Joseph swears that they do, that Tessa only pretends not to. He had very little difficulty understanding Tessa’s German, he said. I think she is an unbending woman. I wonder whether Eduard can be happy?
July 1st
We have been so busy seeing the sights here that I haven’t had time to write. We have seen all the museums and the Hofburg, the great palace where the last Emperor lived up to a few years ago. Also the Spanish Riding School, a most glittering hall. Such courtly ceremony, such marvelous white horses, a true spectacle! Joseph enjoyed it, I’m sure, but he did remark to me later that such stuff is at best childish and at worst wrong, in that it perpetuates a useless way of life, catering to people who do not work. Of course, to Joseph that is the worst damnation of all, not to work. I did not think we would get him in to hear the Boys’ Choir in the chapel but to my surprise he went, and had to admit that the chapel is gorgeous in the original sense of the word: it glitters.
Oh, and we saw the Burgtheatre and the lovely Burggarten. Eduard has been so eager to show us everything and, since he has his own business, he can take all the free time he wants. We went to Schönbrunn and I was enthralled to think that this is where Maria Theresa lived, and in France at Versailles we shall see where her daughter lived and died. I want to reread Stefan Zweig’s Marie Antoinette when I get home. Now that I have seen all this she will seem much more alive to me. I am making so many good resolutions!
July 2d
Eduard has been so wonderful. I told him I am almost sorry to have had this time with him because now it will be so very hard to part. It’s funny how different he is when Tessa is not with us. And yet I’m sure he loves her; he looks at her with such pride.
This afternoon we were invited to Dan’s house and Eduard said he would take us there. (It is Sunday and all the church bells are ringing, there must be thousands of them. That’s another thing I shall remember about Europe, that sweet clamor that makes a vibration up the spine. Joseph doesn’t like the noise, he says, but I think it is simply that he doesn’t like churches.)
Anyway, we drove to Dan’s. He lives on a poor street where the stores are all open, in spite of it being Sunday. It is like the lower East Side. They sell dress goods, men’s suiting and other dry goods, wholesale and retail. The men sit in the doorways and coax you to come in and buy. Yes, it is like the lower East Side except more quiet and orderly, without pushcarts. But the people live upstairs above the shops in the same way.
Dan’s flat is dark and crowded. The furniture looks too big for the rooms. It must be a struggle for Dena to keep house there with all those children and her father, who lives with them. He is a little old, old man in a long black coat and side curls. He looks more like her grandfather.
Eduard stayed for more than an hour. Dena brought out coffee and cake. They seem to exist on coffee and cake in Vienna but I must say it is delicious, and so rich … (Eduard took us to Demel’s for pastry yesterday and it was superb). We got to talking, the three of us, about the things we remembered of home. It was very warm and good, not sad as I might have expected it to be. Joseph and Dena sat listening and seemed so happy for us. Joseph said he liked to enjoy my relationship with my brothers because he was an only child. Dena has three sisters but they all live in Germany and she hasn’t seen them in years.
“But it’s not far!” I said, and then was sorry I had said such a stupid thing because Dan explained, “It’s very expensive to travel, Anna.” And Dena added, “It’s not easy for us here, but in Germany it’s even worse. Many people there are starving.”
“Business is booming in America,” Joseph said. “Anybody can get ahead there. Have you ever thought of coming, Dan?”
Dan said he hadn’t thought of it; he was doing all right and this was home by now. He didn’t want to move and wander again. And then he added almost mischievously, “I notice you don’t invite my brother.”
Joseph looked flustered for a moment, but Eduard said, very simply, “No, I’ve been lucky.”
He was so different in that house, speaking in Yiddish to Dena’s father, telling jokes. And finally, when he said that he hated to leave but had to, we knew that he meant it.
Dan was different in his own house, too. We had a good supper, a bowl of rich soup, and chicken with dumplings on a platter in the center of the table.
“You can talk and be yourself without all those wooden statues standing around the way they do in Eduard’s house,” Dan remarked. There wasn’t any envy in the way he said it, but I didn’t tell him that we had maids at home too, although our Ellen and Margaret are hardly as stiff and formal as the people at Eduard’s.
> I asked Dan how Eduard had met his wife.
“Die Gräfin, the Countess?” he replied, and Dena scolded him: “Dan, that’s not nice!”
“Well,” Dan said, “I call her that, anyway. Oh, she’s not really bad, just different. How he met her? He became a hero during the war, you know, and there was a party at someone’s house—rich people were always giving parties—and that’s how they met. I know her father wasn’t so pleased at the beginning, but after a while he came to think the world of Eduard and he took him into the family businesses. They have so many connections, textiles, banking, government. So that’s the story.”
After supper it was still light and I helped Dena clear away while Dan and Joseph went for a walk. Dan said that since Joseph was in the construction business he wanted to show him something. They were gone more than an hour and were in great good humor when they came in. They had visited a schoolhouse from the seventeenth century with walls three feet thick, still in use.
We get along so well together. It is really a sad thing that we must live as strangers! When we left Dena hugged me and said those very words: “It is a sad thing that we must live apart like strangers.”
July 4th
Today is the Fourth of July. It seems queer not to be at the beach, going out on the porch to see the fireworks exploding over the water. Iris will be watching at Ruth’s this year. She always gets so excited. I remember the first fireworks I ever saw, that Fourth when we went to Coney Island just before Maury was born. I feel far from America, far from my home.