I wasn’t about to contradict him. “Why didn’t you mention it to me the other day?” I asked. “You said you’d had lunch with him; that wasn’t exactly true.”
“I didn’t think it necessary to tell you; it was a misunderstanding on your father’s part.”
“Can you tell me what it was about?”
He fidgeted. “I’d rather not discuss it,” he said. “It has to do with the camps; I try to forget it.”
“Were you in a concentration camp?” I asked.
He nodded. “Auschwitz. But I told your father this. For some reason he believed that I had manufactured the story of my deportation, but I can prove it.”
He disappeared into the bedroom, rummaged through some drawers, then strode back to the dining table where I was sitting. He said nothing at first; he simply thrust a fading yellow Star of David under my nose. The edges were frayed, threads dangling from all sides, and in the center the word Jude was stitched in black.
“They made us all wear this star on our clothes before we arrived in the camp. And then there is this,” and he produced a tattered gray card, printed with heavy black German characters.
I tried to read it, but couldn’t make out much; only that it was an identification card of some kind from a work camp.
“Do you see my name here?” he asked, indicating a preprinted line with Bruchner, Gualt. in handwritten script. I nodded, and he took back the papers. “What else can I show you? I have the papers and the yellow star. And finally there’s this,” he said, voice trembling as he rolled up his left sleeve to show me the blue ink numbers tattooed into his wrist. They looked identical to ones I’d seen on Karen Bruchner’s arm. “This, they gave us to mark us forever, even if we escaped.
“Why did my father think you were lying about your experience at Auschwitz? And why should he care?”
Bruchner took a seat at the table before his coffee. “I don’t know,” he sighed. “It began one day last October when we met at the gymnasium. He had just finished his swim, and I was in the sauna. Your father joined me, and we chatted for a while. Then, after my shower, I saw him again. He looked at me strangely, and since then he has been unfriendly to me.”
“Did he ever explain why?”
“No, but I learned from colleagues that he was making inquiries into my past. You can imagine my alarm. My reputation, questioned before people whose respect is essential if I am to continue in this field: the only field I have, Miss Stone. Surely you understand my distress.”
“Absolutely,” I said. “I’m impressed by your restraint. From what you’re telling me, I would expect you to bear him a bitter grudge.”
Bruchner slammed a hand down on the table. “Are you implying that I hit him on the head? That I stole his possessions? Because of a grudge? A grudge I do not bear?”
“In your place, I would have wanted some satisfaction for the injury to my reputation.”
“You and your father are of the same cloth,” he said, barely containing his scorn. “He offended me, Miss Stone, but I did not wish him harm. Now you come to my home and make more accusations.”
“I’d like to see your tattoo.”
The professor was unnerved. “I showed you my tattoo,” he stammered.
“Not the one on your wrist. I want to see the one on your chest.”
“Young lady, this is preposterous!”
“Did you attack my father in his study last Friday evening?” I asked, leaning toward him.
Bruchner’s panic grew. “Of course not! Do not come into my house and accuse me of such a crime.”
“If you didn’t try to kill him, you shouldn’t be afraid to show me the tattoo.”
He stood up abruptly, took a step back, and stared me in the eye. “All right, then. You want to humiliate me? I’ve suffered much worse at the hands of animals,” and he ripped his pajama shirt open at the collar, sending mother-of-pearl buttons spraying like buckshot.
He flipped the torn fabric back over his sinewy white shoulders, thrusting out his bony chest.
I came closer to examine the two marks on his torso. They looked like bars of some kind—sticks, tattooed in dark blue.
“Are you satisfied?” he bristled.
“What are they?” I asked.
He hitched the shirt back over his shoulders, his ears burning red from embarrassment. “It is a tattoo, Miss Stone, to mask an error of my youth. I once tattooed the name of a girl into my chest. This ugly thing was the only way to cover it.”
I wondered what my father could have found so scandalous about the innocuous little bars. Had I seen the tattoo in a steam bath, I never would have given it a second thought. Should I ignore it, then? I wasn’t sure; my father had seen something there. Or was he wrong?
Whitlock Avenue rims the edge of the Hunts Point section of the Bronx. Rows of dreary houses on dreary streets huddled together as if for protection. The smell of industry and automobile exhaust thickened the morning air, and I remember being thankful I didn’t have to live there. Gangs of jackhammers and backhoes were working nearby, even on a Saturday morning, making way for the future Bruckner Expressway. A pack of construction workers whistled at me and made lewd propositions as I passed. One lone wolf followed me for a block entreating me to reconsider. I was frightened. Finally he gave up when the foreman called him back and read him the riot act.
“Is Anthony Petronella in?” I asked the little old woman standing behind the chained door.
“He no here,” she said. “What you want?”
“I need to find him. Io voglio trovare Anthony. È molto importante.” I hated speaking Italian.
“Non c’è. È in città. Va sempre in città the weekend.”
“I’m a friend from school,” I said. “I work with your son at PS 52. PS Cinquantadue,” I added, feeling like an idiot.
This seemed to please her, and she was about to invite me in. I declined, explaining that I needed to contact Anthony about a teachers’ strike. She didn’t understand. I changed my lie.
“Anthony asked me to bring him this,” I said, reaching for the only thing in my purse worth offering: a ten dollar bill.
Her eyes sparkled. “Un minuto,” and she returned with a slip of paper. Now, she threw the door open wide and handed it to me. It was a phone number: PArkview 4-1919.
I found a pay phone on the subway platform in the Grand Concourse Station and dialed the number Petronella’s mother had given me. I had rehearsed what I wanted to say, but never got the chance. The voice that answered the phone dripped with the haughty arrogance I had encountered more than once in recent days. I hung up the phone without saying a word, and jumped aboard the express train that had just pulled into the station.
I returned to the public library to consult the Manhattan phonebook. If the number Mrs. Petronella had given me matched the one of the person I was looking for, the ins and outs of Columbia’s Italian Department were murkier than I had thought. I slid my finger down the names, passing Pierce, Porter, Pugh, Purdy. Roger Purdy, 56 East Eighty-Second Street, PArkview 4-1919.
The brownstone was one of the quietly dignified residences that you find off the avenues of the Upper East Side. A far cry from Hunts Point. A wrought-iron gate enclosed a small garden with a ginkgo tree and dormant flower beds. Atop the stoop, I peered into the foyer, spotted Purdy’s mailbox—3-A—and tried the front door. Locked. Resorting to the simplest of Indian tricks, I rang a different apartment and waited. Nothing. The second choice produced the desired result, a dull buzz, and I was inside.
“Who is it?” called a woman’s voice down the stairway. “Who’s there?”
“Sorry, I pressed the wrong button,” I answered. “Just going to 3-A.”
A middle-aged woman in a dark sweater and slacks waited until I had reached the second floor landing, watching me with a sharp nose, as if I smelled.
“Are you a friend of his?” she asked.
“Of whose?”
“That young man in 3-A. Purdy.”
“A summons?” she snorted. “What’s he done? You can tell me.”
“Nothing, ma’am. He’s being called to give evidence in a lawsuit. He’s not directly involved.”
She seemed disappointed. “Well, I can tell you we don’t approve of him around here.”
There was some fumbling behind the door of 3-A and a long moment of waiting after I’d knocked. Finally a man called through the door, asking who I was and what I wanted.
“Meter reader,” I said.
“I don’t have a meter in here,” answered the voice.
I thought it might work; I wasn’t good at this kind of thing. “Avon calling?”
The door jerked open and Roger Purdy towered over me in a bathrobe, his hair still mussed from a late Saturday sleep-in. It was only eleven. His eyes focused on my features for several seconds before he recognized me.
“You’re Stone’s daughter!” he accused. “What the hell do you want?”
I smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. I thought you might not open if you knew it was me.”
“You were right about that,” he said, closing the door.
I managed to insert a foot between the door and the jamb before he could shut me out.
“You’d better let me in,” I grunted through the pain; Purdy intended to close the door whether my foot liked it or not.
“Go away or I’ll call the police,” he said, throwing his full weight behind the door.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ve come to speak to Anthony Petronella.”
The pressure on my foot eased a touch, then Purdy released the door. He opened it slowly, staring at me with a look halfway between terror and fury.
“What do you want?”
“I want to speak to Anthony Petronella,” I said. “And I suppose you might be able to help, too.”
“I have nothing to say to you. And Professor Petronella is not here. He’s never been here.”
“Don’t let’s be naive,” I said. “I know he’s here, and if you don’t want anyone else to know, you’ll let me in.”
Purdy stared at me for another few seconds. I could see in his eyes that he was beaten. In the end, he stood aside, though he never actually invited me in.
“What’s she doing here?” asked Petronella, emerging from the bedroom in a robe that matched Purdy’s exactly. His and His.
“I can’t take the credit for this one,” said my host. “She’s come to see you, Anthony.”
“How did you find me?”
“Your mother helped me out.”
“I hate your father and I hate you, too,” said Petronella.
“Excuse us for a moment,” said Purdy, leading Petronella into the bedroom. About five minutes later they came out, dressed, hair neatly slicked down with Brylcreem.
“All right, Miss Stone,” began Purdy, taking a seat opposite me. “You know that we would like nothing better than to throw you out of here on your ear. But we’re also painfully aware of our own delicate situation. So, let’s just get it over with. What do you want to know?”
“I’d like to ask Dr. Petronella about his tenure case,” I said.
Petronella gave an ironic snicker. “What’s to tell? Your father derailed my bid for tenure. He ruined my career.”
“How did he do it?”
“He fought against me tooth and nail in committee. He ridiculed my scholarship, assailed my character, and exerted his influence on the others to vote me down. I’ll hate him for the rest of my life.”
“If not his,” I added.
“What are you implying?” he asked.
“Someone’s tried to kill him twice, after all.”
“If you’re suggesting that I had anything to do with it, you’re not only as odious as your father, you’re an idiot. Do you think I would sit here and tell you how much I hate your father if I had anything to do with the attack on him?”
“What makes you so sure my father convinced the others to blackball you?”
“I have my sources.”
“Could you tell me who?”
He looked at Roger, mulling it over. “Victor Chalmers,” he said finally. “When he called me in to explain the department’s decision, he told me how the final meeting had gone.”
“And how was that?”
“Your father announced that he would fight my tenure all the way to President Kirk’s office. Victor and Franco were nervous about that, since your father and Kirk had known each other for years; his wife had bought some paintings from your mother, it seems, and they met at social functions. So, they all felt compelled to buckle under to make it unanimous.”
Not quite the version I’d read in Miss Little’s minutes.
“What about you, Mr. Purdy?” I asked, turning to Roger.
“I have nothing nice to say about your father, because of what he did to Anthony and what he did to me.”
“The B?” I asked.
He seemed surprised that I knew. “Well, yes. But only because I deserved an A. A-plus, really.”
“You pursued the matter vigorously.”
“As well I should have,” he said. “Your father was bent on ruining my future, so I’m fighting him on it.”
“It’s not over yet?”
Purdy looked surprised. “Of course not. What makes you think that?”
“I just assumed that my father was unwilling to budge.”
“He was. But who knows what will happen now?”
I was stunned by his question and found it difficult to believe he’d said it to me, the man’s daughter. I knew my father was at times insufferable, opinionated, and harsh, with a vindictive streak to make Stalin shudder, but he was principled. To him, weakness was a blight on the human spirit. He was arrogant because he knew he was brilliant. These paradoxes had helped to drive a wedge between him and me, ever deeper since the death of my brother. My nature, too, contributed to the estrangement of affection, but before Roger Purdy, I felt the urge to defend him.
“I wish you’d remember that you’re speaking to his daughter,” I said.
“I am aware of the fact,” said Purdy, eyes narrowing with scorn, “and I chose my words with care.”
I returned to 26 Fifth Avenue for a bath and a change of clothes. Rodney was sitting on his usual stool near the elevator. He returned my hello with a nod to the sofa across the lobby. Bernie Sanger was waiting for me.
We stepped into the elevator, and Rodney whispered to me that Bernie was the young man who’d accompanied my father home the night of the attack. Bernie couldn’t help but overhear. He seemed miffed but said nothing.
“Thank you, Rodney,” I whispered back.
“Would you like me to wait here?” asked Rodney, once we’d reached the fifteenth floor. I told him I was fine.
“I don’t think he trusts me,” said Bernie, indignant, as the elevator doors rolled shut.
“He’s just protective of me,” I said. “Now, what’s so urgent, Bernie?”
“This arrived on my doorstep this morning,” he said, handing me a small package.
I looked at it: a box wrapped in kraft paper—opened—with his name scrawled across the front. No postage, no return address. The handwriting was ambiguous, and I figured it could have been written by a man or a woman.
“Go ahead,” said Bernie. “Open it.”
What I found inside was a photograph of Adolf Hitler, torn from a book, with a caption written in large block letters across the front: STAY AWAY FROM HER, YOU DIRTY JEW. IF YOU SOIL HER, I’LL KILL YOU!
After the shock had dissipated, my attention came to rest on one word, perhaps more telling than the threats and diatribe: SOIL. Inconsistent with the tone of the note, SOIL was about as home on that page as Utica Club beer in a crystal flute. But what truly gave me pause was the certainty that I had heard the word recently. Helen Chalmers had pulled the evocative term from her bag of
contempt for Bernie Sanger. He had “soiled” Hildy Jaspers, and would “soil” her daughter, Ruth, if given the chance.
“Do you have any idea who might have sent this?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Bernie. “I got a telephone call yesterday, threatening me to stay away from her. I think it was Billy Chalmers.”
“He said to stay away from Ruth?”
“Actually, I thought he meant Hildy Jaspers.”
“Really?” I asked. I had never imagined Hildy was the her. “Why would Billy Chalmers care about Hildy Jaspers?”
Bernie shrugged. “I think he’s sweet on her, but why he would threaten me, I don’t get. He should call Gigi Lucchesi instead.”
That stung me unexpectedly. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“Just that Gigi and Hildy are the cozy ones, not Hildy and me.”
I flushed red, wanted to ask him for details, but I didn’t dare.
“What’s wrong, Ellie?”
“Nothing,” I said, still fixated on Gigi and Hildy.
“You know, now that you mention it, I was talking to Ruth the other night at the reception,” he said. “Billy was there too. Maybe he did mean Ruth after all.”
“What?” I hadn’t been paying attention.
Victor Chalmers and family lived in one of the brand-new, white-brick high rises that had sprouted up along Third Avenue when the El came down about five years earlier. He had given up his Carnegie Hill apartment and moved into the battleship building docked on Third Avenue and Eighty-Fourth Street. I remember my father speculating on several occasions why Chalmers had moved to the Upper East Side. He was fond of laying the blame at Helen Chalmers’s feet.
“She wanted a doorman in a green blazer to walk that ugly little lapdog of hers.”
A doorman in a green blazer met me in the lobby, and I asked for the Chalmers’s apartment. He called upstairs to announce me, then dispensed directions on how to get to where I was going; the building sprawled from the southwest corner of Eighty-Fourth Street halfway to Lexington Avenue. The wrong elevator bank would take you to a different postal zone.
“Ellie, please come in,” said Chalmers, greeting me at the door. “Can I fix you a drink?”
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