“You moved away from your partner on the dance floor and took Diebel’s hand. Was it to identify him for the killer?”
“For a thrashing.”
Jay wiped her forehead. For several minutes they sat listening to the rhythmic pumping. Then he said, “The Friends eventually discovered what you’d done and put a price on your head, which explains why Longie wanted to find and protect you.” She nodded. “But what about Axel Kuppler?”
The painful look that possessed her face spoke volumes and yet nothing.
At one time, Arietta had been seeing him. He played around. Margie worked for him; he was her pimp.
“Was it one of Longie’s boys or a jealous lover who shot him?”
Jay waited. At last, she said, “Neither.”
That left only one person who knew about her secret life, the very man whose name Jay had refused to utter.
“Your father?”
Her eyes misted.
“Don’t . . . ask me . . . that question.”
Suddenly it all made sense. The Friends were chasing not only Arietta but also Mr. Magliocco, an experienced hand with autos, who may well have driven the getaway car for Diebel’s murder. Then Jay remembered the gauntlet gloves. Axel must have found out that Piero had abetted in the crime, and Axel must have shared this information with the Friends. Throw in the fact that Mr. M. did not approve of his wooing Arietta . . . curtains for Axel. By running away, she was loyally protecting her father. Of one thing Jay was sure: Arietta would never admit it.
“Can we talk about us—and what happened?”
She looked away and then back into the mirror, as if she had come to a decision. “In the other room . . . to the right side of the fireplace . . . you’ll see a bookcase.” Pause. “On the second shelf from the top . . . a black diary fringed in red.” She told him to read her comments during the period they dated and, if he wished, the other days as well. She stopped to catch her breath. “I find it . . . hard to talk.” She began to wheeze. “The passages touching on us . . . will make you understand better . . .”
Pressing his cheek to hers, he kissed her hair, and left the room with Arietta’s shimmering face peering out of that ghoulish-looking machine thumping like a disembodied heartbeat. In the den, he found the diary and sank into a leather chair, immediately turning pages.
Arietta had dated some entries and not others, but he located the first entry bearing on him.
March 7, 1934. When Rico dropped out of the marathon, it looked as if Longie’s plan was sunk. Luckily, I latched on to a handsome young fellow, Jay Klug. I thought him quite cute, a good dancer, a guy who had gone to college, someone I’d like to see again. But be careful, Arietta, that he, or anyone else, never finds out what you were doing at Dreamland.
March 13, 1934. Jay came to the studio. I was flattered and agreed to go out with him if father approved. Am I building sand castles again? Then, of course, there is father, who wants me to date Catholic boys, even though he left the church. I feel sorry for him. He once had a wife and a good job, and then . . . I love my dad dearly, but we have little in common. I listen to him talk about opera and rum-running and the Waterhouse and how he met mother and left the church. He tells the same stories over and over. It’s really become terribly boring.
I like Jay because I can be myself with him. A part of me wants to be an intellectual and a professional dancer. Jay talks about books and plays and FDR and the New Deal. I like his ideas. We go to movies and discuss Jean Harlow, whom he once met. (One night we saw Mary Astor and George Kaufman!) We play the piano and sing. And Jay’s open-minded. Although Jewish, he accepts me easily and without question.
Over the next several months, Arietta’s diary exhibited a soul in torment over her affair with Jay.
Finally! Jay asked me to come to dinner at his parents’ house. They live in a rented place that’s small but comfortable. His father, like my dad, is very old world, but that’s where the similarity ends. Dad’s years in the church made him unbending; Jay’s father is an open-minded socialist. I liked the passion of the man; he too cares about the welfare of people and the country. Jay’s mom, who is quite a beauty, has the gentlest disposition and brings to mind my own mother. She deeply loves her son, and I feel sure her influence will affect him in later years, just as memories of my mother’s kindness remain with me.
I do believe that Jay has fallen in love with me, and though I am not sure of my own feelings, I do enjoy being with him. He’s kind and he’s nice, and he does keep me on my toes, literally (when we go dancing) and figuratively (when we talk about “the world”). And then, of course, there’s Axel. . . . I still can’t believe that it’s over. Or is it? From time to time, he calls. He was my first, and I matured in his company, even though I was young.
Jay is different from Axel. Axel dominated and taught me. He was the teacher and I the pupil. Jay’s formal education is better than mine (his four years of college show), but in matters of love I am no novice. I wonder: Am I falling for Jay? I’ve been through it all before with Axel, feeling the same way, the same emotions. How come? Does this happen to everyone who falls in love? And if Jay is Mr. Right, what does right mean? I worry that my head and my heart are driving me in opposite directions. What’s to be done?
I’ve come to realize that my indecision regarding Jay is because I don’t know my own mind or what I want. Like so many other girls my age, I wish to be free of my father’s house and start my own life. But I haven’t the nerve to do it without someone else, a loyal man who will stand by me through thick and thin. To live without a husband—I can’t bear to see Dad’s loneliness—would scare me and probably drive me to marry just for the sake of getting married. And that would be a mistake.
Showing the effects of her flight from Newark, Arietta’s diary became fragmentary—until Cape May.
May 12, 1936. Rolf Hahne, whom Axel and I had met at the boat, showed up in Cape May Township. I was shocked. Had Jay not appeared, things might have gone badly. Keeping my composure, I gave Jay a story that I think he believed. To put him off our track, I said I wanted to see my cousin in Chatsworth. Actually, I did want to go to the Pine Barrens, but I also knew that it would probably give me a chance to lose him. Though I had planned to seduce him, I didn’t count on being seduced myself. Climaxes such as I had never known! What rapture! I could feel my eyes rolling up into my head and thinking that I never wanted his hard, furious lovemaking to end. Unfamiliar sensations, skin-tingling ones, swept over me, and, had it not been for my father’s predicament, I would have returned to Newark with Jay. But whatever else happens, that day will always live in memory: the rivers of light, the dappled water, the golden pebbles, the shimmering trees and leaves. We were Eden’s children just as it must have been in God’s garden.
Hearing an altercation at the front door, Jay closed the diary and got up. Suddenly Rolf Hahne was standing in the room with a pistol in one hand, giving orders. “Show me the telephone!” Cauliflower cut the line with a knife and ordered Aunt Amalie to go to her room and stay there. A mistake!
Hahne pushed the gun into Jay’s ribs and demanded to be taken to Arietta, shoving Jay along in front of him. On seeing the iron lung, Hahne exclaimed, “What’s this?” The small lamp over Arietta’s iron lung lit Rolf’s face, making his grimaces all the more terrible.
“Polio,” Jay replied.
Hahne ordered him to sit on the floor with his hands behind his head, and then turned to Arietta. “Axel told me that you know who killed Heinz Diebel. Now don’t lie to me.” Placing the gun against Arietta’s head, Cauliflower virtually foamed at the mouth. “Heinz was a most important person in our movement. His death must not go unpunished!”
Arietta whispered, “I don’t know. The person’s face . . . was covered.”
Rolf straightened his back and paced, as though trying to decide how to proceed. “You see how far our hand extends, fr
om Germany to Los Angeles. Now you are in my hands.” Without any transition, his manner suddenly changed into that of a slighted child. “When you and Axel picked me up at the ship and we all went to dinner, I felt buoyant. Here, I thought, are real friends. Now, tell me,” Hahne pleaded, “who killed Heinz? And what about Axel?”
She shook her head to indicate ignorance.
Rolf went to the wall socket and pulled the electrical cord. The lung wheezed to a stop. The auxiliary pump started at once. Overcome with rage, Jay lunged at him, but Rolf, the stronger of the two, tossed Jay against the wall and struck him over the head with his gun. Rolf removed a knife, snarled, and disabled the auxiliary pump. “If you want me to restore the lung, tell me the names of the killers.”
When Arietta began to wheeze badly, Rolf said, “All you have to do is give me names, and I will return the plug to the socket.” Cauliflower laughed cruelly. “I would hate to see so beautiful a fräulein choke to death. But that need not happen. Just two words will save you.”
Arietta’s face was turning red, and she was now gasping loudly.
A ferocious barking and growling sounded in the hall behind Arietta’s closed bedroom door. Then scratching. Rolf turned a bilious green, and his eyes exuded hate. Arietta was growing paler as Rolf tiptoed to the bedroom door. With Rolf’s focus elsewhere, Jay removed his pistol from under his shirt. When Rolf swung the door open, three things occurred at once: a German shepherd sprang at Rolf’s gun hand, a shot issued from the hall, and Jay discharged his own pistol. Slumping to his knees, Rolf managed to turn his head sideways, revealing a bullet wound to the forehead and one to the neck, slumped forward, and fell dead at Jay’s feet.
Standing in the doorway, leashing the dog, and holstering her pistol was Francesca Bronzina. As much as Jay wanted to know about Francesca’s miraculous appearance, he first restored electricity to the lung and revitalized the auxiliary motor. Rubbing Arietta’s cheeks, he slowly restored her color. In the meantime, Aunt Amalie had gone next door to call the police and Mr. Magliocco, all of whom seemed to arrive at the same time. Two cops removed the body, and Mr. M. cried over his daughter. When the hubbub had subsided, Francesca answered their feverish questions.
“From wiretaps we knew that the Friends, fearing to appear weak, had directed Rolf not only to silence pro-boycotters, but also to avenge the murder of Heinz Diebel. Axel argued with Rolf once the latter discovered that his friend was a pimp. To save his own skin, Axel said that Arietta was involved in Diebel’s death. The shooting of Leonora Wells in Norma . . . a terrible thing. Once our agents located him in L.A., I became his shadow. Finally, I approached him to learn what I could. He was persuaded that I shared his feelings for fascism. The rest you know.”
Interrupting her explanation, Jay mentioned that he had seen a yellow car at the end of the street. Was it hers?
“Yes. Fortunately, I did not have to choose between following you or Rolf. He led me right to you. And from my several meetings with him, I knew he feared dogs. The rest was easy. A dog trainer let me work with his German shepherd for a few hours, and Aunt Amalie opened her bedroom window to admit me and Botsie.”
When the others left, Arietta and Jay were wordless. Running a hand through her hair, he kissed her lips.
“I read the diary.”
“You’re not angry?”
“No, I’m in love.”
Her words caught in her throat. But before he could fill the void, she pleaded, “Don’t say anything.”
Then they just sat and mutely stared at each other. How long that quiet lasted, two minutes, ten, more, he couldn’t measure. Finally, he ended the indecision that had been torturing his sleep. “I want you to marry me.”
It felt as if eons elapsed before she spoke.
“Is it because . . . of the polio?”
“No, it’s because I love you. I’ll pick out a ring tomorrow.”
“Let’s wait and see.”
Arietta wanted to hear about his attempts to find her and her father, taking pleasure, he surmised, in the thought that he might have been running after her not just to satisfy Longie’s wishes but also to ease his own heart’s pain. She was silent through his recital, her face expressing a range of emotions. When he finished, she said:
“I am sorry about your friend T. I feel partly responsible.”
Of what transpired between them after that, he had no memory. The language of fondness is fragmentary, a phrase, a word. When it came time for him to depart, he kissed Arietta’s forehead, promised to see her the next day, and cried all the way back to the Franklin.
At last, he slept well, rising late in the morning, and, fortified by his wish to marry Arietta, nerved himself to telephone Longie, knowing full well that he would have to deceive him. If his odyssey in Abe’s employ had taught him anything, it was the paradoxical truth of the Yiddish proverb, Men ken makhn dem kholem gresser vi di nakht. Abe had blown up a dream to be bigger than the night. Throwing caution to the winds, Longie had used his Third Ward Gang, ignoring the complaints of the ACLU, to break up Nazi meetings and to crack heads. The big guy had paid people to protest the Olympics and had sanctioned a murder or two. All for naught. The games were played, and Brundage profited.
“Did your boys ever find Arietta?” Jay asked disingenuously.
“No, the trail went cold. But we did discover that the day of Axel Kuppler’s murder, a call was made from his apartment to the Magliocco house.”
“And?”
“If the call was made before he was killed, he probably made it. If after . . .”
“Arietta or her father,” Jay volunteered.
“You said it, I didn’t.”
Trying desperately to think like a cop, Jay said, “What if someone forced Axel to make the call . . . or the Maglioccos hired a hit man, who telephoned them once the job was done? You have to admit, there could be other explanations.”
“It’s all academic now, as they say. We’re in the clear.”
“Maybe someday I’ll run into her.”
“If you do, give her my best. By the way, you know a dame who calls herself Margie the Bop? The boys tell me she’s been asking for you. She’s dancing at Minsky’s.”
Her stage name amused Jay. “We used to be pals. I’ll write her.”
“My advice, kid, is buy a train ticket and come home. I’m sure your parents would love it.”
The conclusion of Mary Astor’s trial had brought an end to Jay’s contract. Unless he wanted to return to Sierra Powder Puffs, he had no means to remain in California and see Arietta. The work that he most cared for, journalism, was in Newark.
“I’d really like to see Los Angeles before returning back east. Do you have any contacts who could fix me up with newspaper work in the city?”
“Listen, kid, I owe you a favor for sending you on a wild-goose chase. Come back east and I’ll pay for you to go to law school.”
The generosity of Longie’s proposal overwhelmed him. He said thanks a million, but given his commitment to Arietta, he felt obliged to decline. “I know I’ve mentioned law school before, but I don’t think I’m ready.”
“Jay, you’re older now, and wiser, at least I hope so. Think over my offer. It’s good any time.”
Jay repeated how much he appreciated Abe’s kindness, asked him to give his regards to Puddy and the others, and said that he just might try to find work at the movie studios. Longie asked about T, but Jay decided to relate that story another time. They wished each other good luck and concluded the conversation warmly. The next time that he and Arietta were alone, he told her about Longie’s generous offer.
“Did you mention . . . father and me?”
“He brought it up,” Jay answered, fudging the truth.
“What did he say?”
“They found Axel’s phone records. The day of the murder a call was made to your house. Th
e cops don’t think Axel made it.” Screwing up his courage and risking all, he asked, “Who made it, Arietta?”
She looked away, but finally spoke, admitting that she had made the call. “I had gone to his trollop’s apartment . . . to condemn his pimping.” She explained that the door was partially open. “Axel was still alive, unconscious, lying on the floor, bleeding. I panicked, guessing who had killed him. Wildly searching his apartment . . . to find any incriminating evidence about me and Axel . . . I failed to call the police . . . or an ambulance.” Her eyes pooled with tears. “I left him to die . . . unattended. Wasn’t that hateful?”
“That’s when you called your father?”
“Just before I left the apartment—to tell him what I suspected. He didn’t deny it.”
They sat in silent contemplation for a while, each of them no doubt trying to imagine the thoughts of the other. Whether out of genuine concern or simply to seek safe ground, Arietta changed the subject, though her voice quivered with fright.
“Will you really go to law school?”
“Arietta, you needn’t worry. I’m not leaving, certainly not now . . . in fact, not ever.”
Her anxiety seemed to melt away, and for a few minutes they chatted fondly. After less than an hour, Aunt Amalie came into the room, said it was time for Arietta’s sponge bath, and sent Jay home.
The next day, Amalie called to say that Arietta did not feel up to a visit. Could he come tomorrow instead? She assured him that nothing was seriously wrong and that occasionally Arietta suffered from extreme fatigue, which made talking difficult. He spent the afternoon looking for an engagement ring but could find nothing tasteful. Most of them looked obscenely loud or painfully poor. He decided to heed Arietta’s advice and wait.
Again he slept well and lazed about in the morning, fussing with his summer suit so that when he saw Arietta his clothes would bespeak his intentions. While he was admiring himself in the mirror, one of the hotel staff knocked at the door and handed him an envelope stamped special delivery. Arietta’s name was on the return address. But before savoring her words, he finished adjusting his tie, a token gesture of his desire to hold her presence dear.
Dreams Bigger Than the Night Page 27