Dreams Bigger Than the Night

by Levitt, Paul M.

  Upon moving out, he had promised that he would not lose touch and made it a point to have dinner at Goldsmith Avenue every Friday night. His mother would light Sabbath candles—his father dared not interfere with that custom because she associated it with burning a yahrzeit candle in honor of her dead parents—and would say a prayer in Hebrew before the meal. Actually, his father knew Hebrew far better than she, but always deferred to her in matters of worship. Even Jay knew, from his synagogue training, that her pronunciation often went awry, but neither of them ever corrected her.

  “So tell me,” his father continued, “what do you do for the vending company? I see your articles in the arts section of the News, but you never show us any examples of the publicity you write.”

  “It’s just internal stuff, like reminders to the salesmen of what points to make with prospective customers.”

  “You seem so sedulous,” his mother said.

  He knew without even seeing her how-to-improve-your-vocabulary book that “sedulous” was one of the words.

  To be playful he answered, “Actually I’m quite pococurante.”

  She asked him how to spell it, ran to her dictionary and returned to the table.

  “Indifferent. I would never think of you as insouciant,” she said with a satisfied smile.

  Her charming dedication to self-improvement didn’t provide the shortcut to learning that she longed for (she woefully lacked a grasp of history and logic), but it did make for some splendid word games and had put Jay leagues ahead of most English speakers.

  “You seeing anyone?” she asked tentatively.

  He knew what her tone meant: Was he dating Jewish girls? “Yes, I’ve been seeing an Italian girl who lives on Littleton Avenue.”

  His father chuckled as his mother repeated, “Italian?”

  “Yes, I know. If you marry your own kind, you have fewer problems, more in common. A better chance at happiness. Right?”

  “Since you know that, why then . . .”

  But she couldn’t finish the sentence. Her generosity forbade censure. He could, however, sense her disappointment.

  “Once you meet her, I’m sure you’ll feel different. She’s almost as beautiful as you, Mom.”

  “And her parents?”

  “Her mother died a long time ago and her father’s currently out of work.”

  From his mother’s expression and quick glance at his dad, he knew what to say next. “She supports him, as a dancer and . . . a government worker.”

  His father, who regarded FDR as too conservative, but very much believed in federal projects to keep the poor employed, asked what she did.

  “To be perfectly honest, I don’t know. I think she works in an office that keeps tabs on German immigrants.”

  “Germans!” his mother exclaimed.

  Again he knew what she thought. As far back as he could remember, he could discern her meanings. In her book of errors, “Catholic” held a prominent position, but “German” stood right at the top of the list because it meant anti-Semite. The first problem could be fudged, but not the second. Nevertheless he jumped into frigid waters, convinced that a quick immersion would cause less pain than a protracted one. “Her mother was German, and she speaks the language.”

  After an interminable pause, during which his mother studied the white linen tablecloth and drew lines in it with her fork, she began her set speech. “So many nice Jewish girls I see at the synagogue. Single ones. Why not them? They come from good families. Take the Bernstein girl, for example.”

  At this point, as often happened, his father came to the rescue. “Are we not all human beings . . . the same under the skin? Religion! Just a cloak for a lot of mishugunah beliefs that lead to hatred and wars.”

  His mother, unable to defend her religious feelings on empirical grounds, always retreated to cultural ones. “Our Bible is not theirs; our sacred values, not theirs; our habits, not theirs; our . . .”

  His father interrupted. “All decent human beings think alike, whatever their church or skin color. Look at socialist theory if you want to see what the world could be. All races, all religions . . .” His father typically broke off in the middle of a political statement, knowing that his wife shared neither his love for nor his knowledge of left-wing politics.

  “When do we get to meet her?”

  He knew that bringing her to the house for dinner would not be a problem. His mother, a model of courtesy, would treat any guest of his graciously. In private, she might noodge him or drop hints as subtle as cannon balls, but in public, she behaved like royalty. So too would his father, though he might be inclined to probe the guest’s political beliefs.

  “Perhaps you’d like to meet her father at the same time? I’m sure Mr. Magliocco would like to meet you.”

  Ever formal, his mother demurred. “I think that including her father would suggest a degree of seriousness that your friendship has not yet arrived at.”

  Little did she know, and he did not intend to enlighten her.

  His father, having no patience for parochial views, changed the subject. An earnest socialist, he couldn’t understand why Jay hadn’t joined the American labor movement or volunteered his services to the Soviet Union, which was advertising in the New York Times for field hands and industrial laborers. For the first time, he brought up the idea of Jay’s going to Spain.

  “According to the Daily Worker, German and Italian fascists are sneaking into Spain to help overthrow the democratic government.”

  His father’s dependence on the Daily Worker for his news had more than once led him astray. He tried gently to downplay the veracity of that organ.

  “Nonsense, they have reporters in the field. And you can’t deny that the church and the army would like nothing more than to repeal the reforms of the 1931 constitution.”

  Well aware that to plead ignorance about the constitution would have subjected him to a lecture, he said, “Dad, be reasonable. I don’t even speak the language.”

  “You could learn it.”

  “And what would I do?”

  “Whatever was needed.”

  “Their needs and my skills are unlikely to match up.”

  His dad looked dismayed. “Why can’t you do something socially useful?”

  He nearly asked him if making powder puffs qualified, but refrained from hurting the feelings of this tall, gangly man, whose political passion he admired but did not share.

  “At least I’m not on the dole.”

  “Don’t ever disparage welfare. Those who seek it, do so reluctantly. The measure of a great country is not how well it treats the rich but how well it treats the poor. Just think of the Nolans in the attic space.”

  Jay and his parents lived at 172 Goldsmith Avenue on the first floor of a two-story house with a small room at the top, home to the Nolans, dependent on government handouts for survival. The owner, Mrs. Denholtz, who occupied the second floor and fashioned herself a capitalist, tormented his mother with small indignities, like taking their window screens, which his father had himself repaired, and substituting her own broken ones, and refusing to give their dealer’s coal truck access to the basement chute as she did for her own deliveries, requiring the truckman to carry the coal on his back in canvas bags and to double the cost. Unlike the Nolans, they owned a few furnishings worth mentioning: a piano and a china closet that held his mother’s Shabbas dishes. The piano was her prized possession, perhaps because it had come down to her from a beloved uncle. Convinced that no piano should remain unused, his mother arranged for him to take lessons. He started at seven and quit at fourteen, the lure of shouting kids at their street sports proving a greater attraction than the keyboard. And yes, he had since come to regret his decision. After seven years, he was actually pretty good. His mother, in particular, rued his refusal to practice; his father, preoccupied with work, seemed less co
ncerned.

  His mother, who kept the books for the Jeanette Powder Puff Company, had herself at fifteen been forced to leave school—and discontinue piano lessons—to help support her family when her father died from mercury poisoning, the result of working in a hat factory. That death, which his dad often cited as an example of the evils of American capitalism, had cheated his mother of an education. A kind and generous woman as well as a strikingly beautiful one, she was ill equipped to face the world of ideas, even though she had been raised in New York City and had a great deal of street savvy. Limited by her truncated schooling, she coped by reading vocabulary-building books and by subscribing to optimistic platitudes and clichés.

  His Russian-born dad presented another story, one that he thought of as an impermeable membrane separating memory from meaning. Although his dad could recall numerous childhood events, how they had affected his life he never said, leading Jay to conclude that motives were inscrutable, born of the protean moment. A learned man, his father had undoubtedly married his mother for her loveliness and gentleness. Intellectually, they had nothing in common, except the dream of building a successful business. His fluency in six languages, including English, set him apart from so many immigrants who spoke with heavy accents. On arriving in this country as a teenager, his father studied opera to perfect his speech. Result: impeccable enunciation; and after two bars, his father could identify the composer and relate the libretto. His mother never shared her husband’s taste for classical music; popular dance tunes captured her fancy. He supposed his love of dancing came from them both. Having taken ballroom dancing lessons for many years, they could cut a rug with the best professional hoofers. He learned from them. They also tried to teach him the rudiments of business, but he had no head for commerce, only books and writing. Since grade school, he had kept notebooks with sketches of people, places, and plots. His mother knew that he stored these scribbles in his closet and encouraged his writing, though she agreed with his dad that education and making a living came first.

  “Jay, what kind of life is it . . . this dancing?” his dad had lamented upon hearing the story of the shooting at Dreamland.

  “Everything will turn out for the best,” said his mother, trying to defend him. “You’ll see.”

  His father scowled.

  “Who knows,” he quipped, “maybe I’ll end up dancing in Hollywood.”

  “Jay,” his father reproved, “there is a dignity to honest labor, no matter how slight. Don’t demean it.”

  “Come,” his mother said, taking his arm and extricating him from his domestic discomfort. “I need you to quiz me on the L’s: languor, lassitude, lethargy.”

  As he and his mother disappeared into the next room, his father called out, “Factories are the heartbeat of the country. The sight of honest people at work is the realization of the Golden Medina, marred at the moment by the absence of good jobs.”

  How well Jay knew the sights and smells: the sewing machines, the circular dies, the mixing machine, the long cutting tables for the bolts of velour, the Negro cutter, and the aromas of perfumed powder and eye rouge blending with the chemical odors of the mascara vat.

  At one time his father had employed thirty-five women as sewing machine operators and a dozen men, a workforce that had shrunk to two gals and four guys. The business had prospered until the Depression. Unable to obtain a loan, he sold it to a Russian émigré, Helena Rubinstein. But that event occurred after Jay had enrolled in law school on a scholarship made possible by a person the FBI regarded as one of the most dangerous men in America.

  When he had worked for his dad as a shipping clerk, his Uncle Al, his Mom’s younger brother, whom his father kept on as a favor to her, provided an unusual education for which he would always be grateful. Having apprenticed as a locksmith, his uncle had taught him how to pick locks and break into cars, a skill that he exercised more than once. Also a ladies man, his uncle arranged for a condom dealer to show up regularly on the street below. They would then lower a basket with money and haul up the goods for their use with the young office girls in the building. It was his uncle who explained how to satisfy a woman. Contemptuous of screw-and-bolt men, Al lectured him in how to delay ejaculation and prolong the pleasure. His uncle also taught him positions other than the missionary and different ways to effect a climax in a woman. Had Jay’s mother known the lessons her brother was transmitting to her son, he guessed that for all her sisterly love she would have disowned him. But except for the sexual initiation he owed to his uncle, he resented both factory work and marketing. To sell their products to F. W. Woolworth, their principal buyer, required meretricious rhetoric on a grand scale. So the evening he had run into Puddy at the Tavern, he was ripe for the picking.

  Arietta and Jay now saw each other regularly on weekends. When work permitted, he even dropped into the dance parlor, though she usually had only a few minutes to spare between lessons. Having heard her occasionally play on the academy piano, he decided to buy an upright for his apartment. On Prince Street, at the Bodian Pawn Shop, for only twenty bucks, he found what he wanted: a Sears-Roebuck Beckwith. Although bearing the imprint “Concert Grand Chicago,” it belonged in a dive. While she played, he sang in his best countertenor. At home, his father had often observed that his son’s voice was sadly wanting. Wonderful at harmonizing, Arietta would let him get a good start and then come in under his line. They had a thousand laughs, and he thought the piano—almost as much as dancing—bridged their cultural differences.

  And yet in the midst of his bliss, he entertained doubts; he felt that Arietta had a secret life. Twice when he called on her at home, he could hear her on the Ma Bell speaking in German; and once at the Riviera, she excused herself to use his phone, closing the door behind her. Even so, he caught the occasional ja or nein. When he asked her to whom she had spoken, she replied, “Oh, just a friend.” But she never took him into her confidence, and her lack of openness gnawed at him. He presumed that the calls had to do with the work she couldn’t disclose, but he refrained from asking her directly. He did, however, hear her distinctly say on the phone “Friends of the New Germany,” as he waited in her living room to take her to a movie.

  To put his suspicions to rest, he decided to visit one of these German meetings, normally held in Irvington. On a Wednesday evening, he dressed in a black suit and dark tie, took a bus that dropped him off two blocks from Montgomery Hall in Irvington, and walked the rest of the way. When he tried to enter the building, a young man with a red armband held up his hand and asked to see a membership card.

  “I’ve never been here before. I want to join.”

  The man directed him to a table just inside the front door, where a husky, blond guy, with a crew cut and a fascist uniform including a Sam Browne belt and swastika armband, asked for some identification. Since he had deliberately left his driver’s license at home, he could open his wallet and plead insufficiency. The Teutonic avatar seemed none too pleased.

  “Why do you want to join?”

  “To promote the ideals of the homeland.”

  “And what are those?”

  Good question. From all reports they involved race hatred, anti-intellectualism, a celebration of militarism, and a gagging sentimentality in things having to do with the volk.

  “Blood purity, honesty, strength, honor . . .”

  Prepared to continue, he stopped when asked his name. Klug might mark him as a Jew, so he gave him the name of the composer his father liked least, Richard Wagner.

  “The Führer’s favorite! A glorious name.”

  Jay added, “His music makes my father cry,” not mentioning why.

  Told he’d have to swear an oath, he took the paper, raised his right hand, and recited:

  I hereby declare my entry into the association of the Friends of the New Germany. The purpose and aims of the association are known to me, and I pledge myself to support them unequivoca
lly. I recognize the principle of leadership according to which the association is conducted. I am not a member of any secret organization of any kind, Freemasons and so forth. I am of Aryan extraction, free from Jewish or colored racial admixture.

  Scribbling his “name” on the bottom of the page, he asked what else was required.

  “Ten cents, please.”

  He gave him a dime and received a membership card; then both men saluted. The meeting began with a song in English that included the line “Our greatest joy will come when Jewish blood flows through the streets.” What he’d failed to anticipate was that the speakers would address the audience mostly in German, a language he could partially comprehend owing to his knowledge of Yiddish. When they lapsed into English, he faithfully made notes, as if drinking at the fount of Germanic wisdom.

  One man said that the anti-German propaganda of World War I and its aftermath had led to the loss of German-American identity. Children growing up after 1914 had come to doubt and suspect the Fatherland. They had grown to distrust their parents and accept as fact the vile propaganda that Germans had crucified Canadian soldiers and cut off the hands of Belgian babies, and that Germans had introduced poison gas into the war.

  The audience, for the most part silent and sullen, would rise in tumultuous salute when the speakers periodically shouted, “Heil, Hitler.” Toward the end of the meeting, a familiar face took the stage: the man from the restaurant, the one with the dueling scar, who warned, in English,

  Without proper instruction in the ways of the Fatherland, German-American children will drift into pool halls, learn bad language, read obscene literature, see evil movies, smoke cigarettes, and drink alcoholic beverages. They will, like so many American adolescents, become swarms of human parasites. Just look at American society now. It is overrun with depraved Orientals, Blacks, and Jewish scum from southern and eastern Europe. In their place we need Aryans, German-Americans to shape the course of U.S. history.