by Irwin Shaw
“Only if you’re dying to tell me.”
“Because she wouldn’t let me. She doesn’t have affairs with married men.”
“Foolish girl,” Peggy said. “That’ll teach her.” She patted Benjamin’s arm. “You don’t want to have anything to do with girls who won’t have affairs with married men, do you, baby?” She chuckled. She looked mischievous and eighteen and wonderful. “‘I’m not going out to dinner looking like thith!’” she said, getting Joan’s voice and lisp exactly.
Benjamin stopped walking. He put back his head and laughed. He stood there on the open street roaring with laughter. Peggy joined him and they laughed uncontrollably, impolitely, conspiratorially, unbreakably, together. When they stopped laughing, he took her to dinner and they had a fine time, talking about a million things, like people who have just fallen in love and don’t have enough hours to get everything in.
He played tennis with Stafford on Tuesday and they split four sets and decided to have dinner together, all of them, Leah and Stafford and Benjamin and Peggy, that night. They all liked each other very much and, even before Stafford married Leah, they were seeing each other two or three times a week.
Peggy and he had gone to the quiet wedding. Neither of them had ever spoken of his affair with Leah, although he was sure Peggy finally knew about it. And when, after her honeymoon, Leah had hinted that she was prepared to continue with the affair, Federov had made it clear it was over. It wasn’t easy. He knew there were going to be times when he was going to regret his rectitude perhaps more than he had ever regretted any of his sins, but he was not going to make love to the wife of a man who had become his friend and whom he admired so completely.
Since then, the couples had become inseparable. There was no cynicism on either side because of the past. Friendships have been built on worse foundations. The four of them had gone on a trip to Europe together, with their children; Federov played tennis with Stafford two or three times a week; they were almost automatically on each other’s guest list at parties; the two women went to galleries and the theatre together in the afternoons and worried about their children together; and it was Stafford who, in 1950, had suggested that the Federovs buy the house in the town on Long Island in which Stafford’s ancestors had put up the first roof.
1964
A BATTER HIT A triple and there was a lot of shouting in front of Leah and Federov as the batter slid into third base in a cloud of dust.
“I guess I’ll see you tonight,” Federov said, leaning back against the plank above them and watching with admiration the long, exquisite feet, in their open blue sandals, of the woman beside him. “I’m sure Peggy will want to go.”
“Well,” Leah said, “you’ve been warned. It could be worse than two weeks ago.”
“It couldn’t be,” Federov said.
At the dinner party two Saturdays before, the subject of the German play The Deputy had come up. It was causing a sensation in New York, as it had wherever it had been shown, because of its attack on Pope Pius XII for not having publicly denounced the German massacre of the Jews. One of the guests was a woman of about forty, a neighbor of the Staffords. She was wearing a disastrous green dress, a thin, plain woman with hyperthyroid eyes, whose husband somehow managed not to be there on most weekends. She was rarely invited out by any of the regular group of the resort. After one evening in her company Federov had understood why. He also understood why her husband found it necessary to stay in town most weekends. Her name was Carol-Ann Humes, née Fredericks, from Charleston, South Carolina, and while she usually was quiet and tried to please, she moved in an atmosphere of boredom as solid and palpable as cement.
But Stafford, who could not bear to see anyone he knew neglected or hurt and who made a point of taking care of social cripples—ladies who were being divorced, rude men with unpopular political convictions, nouveau riche couples with gaudy clothes and objectionable children—always had Mrs. Humes to all gatherings in his house. He was not a born host. It would never have occurred to him, as it did to Leah, to speculate whether any given party in his home was a success or not. In fact, the flow of people through his living room and past his table was not really considered by him in terms of what others called parties. People were his medium, his instructors, his pupils, his concern. If he knew them, they were his responsibility. He was rich in spirit as well as in worldly goods, and his hospitality was general.
In the middle of the discussion, already heated, about the German play, Mrs. Humes said that it was a shame that such a play could be put on the stage in New York. She wasn’t even a Catholic, but she felt that the Pope had been a fine man and that it was disgraceful that he could be attacked in public so many years later, when he was dead and could no longer defend himself.
Peggy, who had been in the thick of the argument, turned on Mrs. Humes. “Have you seen the play?” she demanded.
“No,” Mrs. Humes said. “I wouldn’t degrade myself. But I’ve read the critics and the articles in the newspapers.”
“Don’t you think it might be a good idea to see something like this before you talk about it?” Peggy asked, trying to sound friendly and reasonable and not succeeding.
“No,” Mrs. Humes said. “I wouldn’t even care if it was a good play. It’s the subject…” She waved her sunburned hands vaguely. “The world is weary of the subject, Peggy, you might as well face it.”
Peggy turned to a small, hunched man down the table from her. His name was Grauheim. He was married to a teacher in the local school and worked in the town pharmacy putting together prescriptions. He had come to America in 1949, and Europe still haunted his face and tinged his speech. “Mr. Grauheim,” Peggy said, “are you tired of the subject?”
Mr. Grauheim shrugged and smiled uncomfortably. “I am something of a special case, my dear lady,” he said. “I would not presume to advance my opinion—”
“Speak up, Jacques,” his wife said. She was a powerful wide woman with a shock of gray hair, and a face like an Indian, all bones and stoicism. “Say what you believe.”
“I am not tired of the subject, my dear lady,” Grauheim said.
“I’m sure there are people here and there who…,” Mrs. Humes began.
“Tell us why you are not tired of the subject, Mr. Grauheim,” Peggy said.
“Well…” Grauheim laughed apologetically, using only breath. “I was in a camp for three years.”
“Tell Mrs. Humes about the last days,” Peggy said.
Grauheim looked helplessly at his wife.
“Tell the lady,” his wife said.
“They started to move us out,” Grauheim said. “The Russians were approaching. We could hear the guns. They walked us for five days and five nights.”
“How many men started on the march?” Peggy said, tight-lipped. Federov sat back, not daring to get involved in the argument for fear of inflaming Peggy past all polite limits in this candlelit room on a summer’s evening in the peaceful seashore resort.
“There were five thousand men who started out,” Grauheim said.
“How many were alive at the end?” Peggy asked, relentless.
“Four,” Grauheim said tonelessly. With one syllable, the Atlantic Ocean was drained. A road in Germany led suddenly across a dining-room table in Long Island.
“Are you still weary of the subject?” Peggy said to Mrs. Humes.
“I think it should be forgotten,” Mrs. Humes said. She was flushed. She had probably drunk a little too much, to fortify herself against the evening, and for once she spoke freely, “It’s only painful. What good does it do to remember? I have no prejudice against the Jews. You all know how I adore Leah. I just want to warn you. I hear from so many of my friends, fine, liberal people, absolutely without prejudice, they get it from every side, that play is just stirring up old anti-Semitic feelings, feelings people didn’t even realize they had any more. You have to forget sometime.”
“You and your friends forget six million murders,” Peggy sai
d in the general, embarrassed hush. “Mr. Grauheim can’t.”
Peggy’s vehemence made Federov uncomfortable. He himself believed in argument only when some practical purpose could be served by it. Confounding poor Mrs. Humes was hardly worth all that emotion. Foolishly, he also felt a challenge to his masculinity in Peggy’s fighting for him what he considered was essentially his battle. He was surprised, too, that Stafford, as host, didn’t break it up, but Stafford sat back in his chair, listening, taking no part in the conversation, consciously allowing Mrs. Humes to be educated.
“Still,” Mrs. Humes went on stubbornly, “I assure you it would be the best for all concerned, and especially the Jews, if the play were taken off tonight.”
“What have the Jews got to do with it?” Peggy said. “The play was written by a German Lutheran.”
“Even so,” Mrs. Humes said, “I am just warning you about what’s happening. I have sources of information that are denied to the rest of you. I haven’t the faintest idea who’s a Jew here and who’s not, except for dear Leah, of course, but you all live in New York and you don’t know what’s happening in the rest of the country.”
“Carol-Ann,” Stafford said politely, rising, “I think we’re finished here.”
But, at the center of attention and unleashed for the first time since her wedding day, Mrs. Humes rushed on. “You people,” she said, including Stafford and all the guests, “admire all the wrong people. You scorn Pope Pius, who saved us all from Communism, and you approve of Pope John, who was a Communist…”
“Carol-Ann, stop being a fool,” Leah said sharply.
“I know you would like me to shut up,” Mrs. Humes said, “but I’m speaking for your own good. And all your woolly ideas about the Negroes.” Naturally, Federov thought. Here it comes. Auschwitz to Mississippi in one easy lesson.
“I’ve heard, I’ve heard. Every summer,” Mrs. Humes said. “I’m from the South and I really know about Negroes. They don’t really want to live next door to you. They don’t like you. They don’t like to be near you. They think we have a different smell from them, just the way I know they have a different smell from us.”
“Carol-Ann, darling,” Stafford said. He went over and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “You smell divine.” Then he said with mock seriousness to the rest of the company, “But I know several Negroes who also smell divine. Lena Home, Diahann Carroll, Josephine Baker.”
“Now you’re making fun of me, John,” Mrs. Humes said. She turned to the other guests, who were standing, a little embarrassedly, unhappy about the scene. “I love you all,” she said. “You are wonderfully interesting. You make my summers here fascinating. But I don’t want to see you get hurt, any of you. No, John,” she said with dignity. “I am going to bed. I’m afraid I’m too emotional for arguments. Good night, my dear, good friends.” She went out of the dining room with tears in her eyes. Stafford’s mother, robust and pretty, sighed heavily. She looked to her son for a sign. Stafford nodded, and his mother, with a little helpless wave of good-night to her son’s guests, left the table to cross the lawn with Mrs. Humes and see her safely to bed.
There was silence for a moment and then Stafford said, “There’s coffee and brandy in the living room.”
In the living room people began to talk about the upcoming election, and the incident of Mrs. Humes and The Deputy would probably have ended there, an unpleasant few minutes in the history of a long summer, if it hadn’t been for Louis. He hadn’t said anything while the argument had been going on, but had sat back indolently, fixing Mrs. Humes with a quizzical, lazy look all through her performance, as though he didn’t quite believe that he was hearing what he was hearing and was waiting for her to laugh or to explain it was all a joke. His usual soft manners deserted him when he was confronted by unattractive women, and he could be brusque and mocking with them, especially if they combined brainlessness with lack of charm. He was staying at the Federov’s that weekend, and when he and Benjamin and Peggy got home that night, he took a drink and remained downstairs when the others went up to bed.
As Federov dropped off to sleep, he heard the tapping of a typewriter downstairs and he wondered what on earth Louis could be working on at that hour of the night.
Federov found out the next morning. At his place at the breakfast table, when he came down early to eat with the children, there was an envelope beside his plate. He tore it open. There was one sheet of paper in it, neatly typed.
“From Fort Sumter to Carol-Ann Humes and Back,” he read.
There was a young lady named Humes
Who was a great expert on fumes.
With one simple sniff
She could tell you the diff
Between Baptists, Frenchmen, and coons.
Federov chuckled. His children stopped talking and looked questioningly across the table at him.
“What’s so funny, Dad?” Michael asked.
“A note your Uncle Louis left for me,” Federov said.
“Can I read it?” Michael asked.
Federov hesitated. “It’s private,” he said.
“I could use a laugh or two myself,” Michael said.
“It’s an inside joke,” Federov said firmly.
“I’m on the inside,” Michael said.
“Me, too,” said his daughter, spooning up cornflakes.
“Not this much, boys and girls,” Federov said. He folded the page neatly and put it into his pocket. He didn’t want it to fall into anybody else’s hands. The sooner last night was forgotten, the better it would be for everybody.
What he didn’t know was that Louis had made two carbons of the limerick. And it wasn’t until later in the week that he found out that Louis had sent one of the carbons to Stafford and the other one, incomprehensibly, to Mrs. Humes.
The week that followed was one of scandal. Everybody heard about the limerick by Tuesday, and phones rang constantly in the city and out on the Island. Mr. Humes called Louis in the office and, when he heard that Louis was not in, asked to speak to Benjamin.
“You tell your goddam brother,” Humes said, “that unless he apologizes to my wife, I’m going to punch him in the nose the next time I see him.”
Benjamin knew Louis too well to expect that Louis would apologize. He told Humes as much, then added, for Humes’s sake, “The next time you describe my brother, leave out the goddams. And let me advise you that it would be unwise to try to punch him in the nose. He’ll kill you.” He hung up, refraining from pointing out that if Humes could only tolerate spending the weekends with his wife, he might be able to keep her mouth shut with happy results for them all.
“What the hell did you do it for?” he asked Louis when Louis came into the office and listened, grinning, to the report of the conversation with Humes.
Louis shrugged. “She’s so all-out ugly,” Louis said, “and she made poor old Grauheim so unhappy. A little lesson like this might do her some good. Wouldn’t it be marvelous if the sonofabitch tried to hit me?”
Humes didn’t try to hit Louis, but he did make a formal call on Stafford and told Stafford that he would not come to the Stafford house when Louis Federov was invited.
All in all, it was a banner week on the Island, and one that would be long remembered.
Leah, sitting on the bench beside him, winced as she watched her son strike out on three straight balls.
“Louis shouldn’t have sent that thing to the poor woman,” Federov said. “I hope he called you and John, at least, and apologized to you.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Leah said. “John lapped it up. He had it mimeographed in the office and he’s sending copies out all over the country. He’s crazy about Louis.” She looked maliciously at Federov. “Maybe I picked the wrong member of the family,” she said.
“Maybe you did, lady,” Federov said. “Maybe you did.”
1936
IT WAS WHEN HE was going to visit Leah and her new husband, Franklin Ross, who was a friend of Federov’s that Federov sa
iled on the Fall River Line for the last time. He was going to Truro, on Cape Cod, to stay with the Rosses, who had rented a house there for the summer, and he went on board the steamer Priscilla, with a secondhand Ford he had just bought, the first automobile he had ever owned. He was working as an engineer for a construction company, and this was his first holiday since his graduation from college.
After he had put his bag into his stateroom (he had a baseball glove packed in, he remembered Eddie Roush and the smell of neat’s-foot oil and New York passing by the open porthole) he went up on deck, just as the ship was pulling away from the pier. Two children, aged about four and seven, in identical navy-blue suits with knee pants, passed him on the steps. The older one looked very much as Louis had looked at the same age.
Federov was glancing back at them and nearly bumped into a young woman as he went through a doorway.
“Excuse me,” he said, standing back to let her pass. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
“It’s nothing,” the woman said. “There is no harm done.” She spoke with a bit of an accent. For the moment he couldn’t place it. Middle Europe. She held the door open for him, smiling. There was a hint of coquetry in the smile and the excessively polite moment at the door. She was blond and pretty, buxom, dressed simply in a navy-blue skirt and lighter blue sweater. When he went through the door he turned to examine her. She was slowly going down the stairs, looking back at him. They both laughed.
Later, lady, Federov thought, liking the idea.
He saw her again after dinner. She was still wearing the same clothes. Federov was standing against the rail, enjoying the summer wind of the ship’s passage and the lights of the Connecticut coast across the dark water. The girl was walking along the deck. She stopped a few feet away from him and leaned against the rail, too, and looked across at Connecticut, her blond hair blowing gently around the soft fair face that was going to be fat and gross later on, but was pretty and desirable now.
“Good evening,” Federov said.