Loving Liberty Levine

by Colin Falconer

  But today he wanted only to be alone.

  He saw a sign painted on a window: “Lager Bier.” He smelled the stale stink of hops. It looked so dark and cool inside. He went in. Let them all push and yell out there. He would go home in a little while, when he felt better.

  A boiling day to be in the kitchen. Oh, this New York! Never had she been so hot. Sura had her sleeves rolled up, her hair pinned so she could feel some coolness on her neck. She dropped the bones and tails and heads of the whitefish in the boiling water and started to slice the carrots. Libby clung to her leg, demanding to see.

  Sura bent down and lifted her up onto the wooden bench beside her. But first she pretended to drop her, and the little girl giggled and screamed. “You are such a big girl! I cannot believe your heaviness. How much you are grown!”

  She picked up the knife again. “You see what I’m doing? It’s your papa’s favorite. Next we throw in the onion and the carrot and the beets. Are you watching? Because this is my special recipe, one day you must learn.”

  “Why, Mama?”

  “You got to learn about your Jewishness so you never forget.”

  “Papa says I have to be all-American.”

  “Sure, you have to be that too, we can’t be all our lives just greenhorns. When you grow up, you will make for yourself a proper person, drive a motor car and live in a nice house, wash your blankets with Ivory soap and eat special food, like canned pineapple. Not live in an apartment like this, everything will be the bee’s pajamas for you.”

  Libby wanted to help her chop the carrots. Sura let her put her hand on top of hers as she did it, but then Libby yelled, “No, me do it, Mama,” and tried to grab the knife, and screamed when her finger got sliced along the blade.

  Sura dropped everything and held the little girl in her arms, gently sucking on the cut finger. “There, little bubeleh, there, it’s only a little cut, you’re all right, baby, you’re all right.”

  She danced her around the kitchen, pretending she was a prince and Libby was the princess, like in one of her stories, until she stopped crying. Oh, my little precious, she thought, you scare me so much. You are so much of what we have, and such happiness is like a paper scrap, any strong wind and it is gone.

  Tessie Fischer, she thought, she looks sideways at her husband, and she is pregnant. So many children she does not know what to do. Micha and me, we have only our little foundling, and if anything happens, just nothingness then.

  “Mama, you’re hurting,” Libby said, because she was squeezing her so tight.

  “I’m sorry, bubeleh,” she said. Together they examined the cut finger. “You see, it’s all better now.”

  “I been in the wars,” she said.

  By the time she had made the dinner, Micha still wasn’t home, so she changed out of her cooking things, put on the new shirtwaist she had made from a pattern in the Ladies’ Home Journal, and brushed out her long hair. She stared into the cracked mirror. So tired she looked these days.

  “One day when I grow up,” Libby said, “I want to be beautiful like you, Mama.”

  “You will be much more beautiful, my bubeleh.”

  “Promise me?”

  “I promise.”

  It was almost dark when Micha got home, and straightaway she could smell the drink on him. He said he didn’t want the gefilte fish she had made, even though it was his favorite. “I want to go out,” he said. “I don’t want to stay in here in this stinking hot.”

  So they went to Katz’s, and nothing would do but he ordered them all franks and beans to eat with napkins on their laps, like real Americans. For Libby he ordered a chocolate soda as a special treat. She started chattering about her day, how she made him gefilte fish all by herself, and how she cut her finger, and there was blood, and how she and her friend Etta went to visit Zayde and Bubbe in Russia.

  “Who is this Etta?”

  “It’s her little friend,” Sura said.

  “I didn’t know from such friends.”

  “Well, she is special make-up friend. She only comes when her mutti and vati aren’t around. Doesn’t she, bubeleh?”

  She thought she would see him smile. He always did when Libby told one of her stories; but no, he was staring out the window and chewing on a hangnail. The smell of drink was still strong on him.

  “What is it?” she said.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “You always say nothing.”

  “Because you never like what it is I say. So, what do I do? I tell you, you say don’t talk about it.”

  “Aren’t you happy with us?”

  The look he gave her, like a man trapped in a room with a debt collector.

  “What we did, Micha, it was a good thing.”

  He was about to say something, but then he shook his head and looked away.

  “Why is Daddy so cross?”

  “He’s not cross, baby. Drink your soda.”

  “I hurt my finger, Papa,” she said, and showed him where she had cut her finger.

  “My little bubeleh,” he said, and he kissed it and mussed her ginger curls. “There, it’s better now.”

  Libby sucked on her straw but kept the finger held out, the little cut her peace offering.

  “She thinks you’re mad at her.”

  “I’m not mad at her. Why would I be mad at her?”

  “Do you like my new hat? I made it myself. A dollar ninety was all it cost.” It was pale gray crepe with a rolled brim. She turned her head left, then right, so he should have a good look at it. “See how I get all gassied up for you.”

  “Gussied. You say ‘gussied,’ not ‘gassied.’” He closed his eyes. Why did he always close his eyes like that? What was there in the world he did not want to see? “I should have been a better man to you, Sura.”

  “How can you be a better man? You done everything for us.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I did everything for you.”

  Two men came in, in uniform. She saw him look at them and wince.

  “We need you, bubeleh,” she said to him, because she knew what he was thinking. “Me and Libby, we need you.”

  Later, back in the apartment, she watched him read Libby a bedtime story, her favorite, the one where the little brown duck grows up with the wrong family, but one day it turns out she isn’t a duck, she is a big white swan. Lots of storybooks they had, but that was always the one she wanted.

  When she was asleep, instead of coming out and sitting in his favorite chair to read the newspaper, he went out on the fire escape. She waited awhile, and then she followed him.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  “It’s too hot in there.”

  It was true, the city was breathless, it was hard to get enough air. There were people out on their fire escapes up and down the street. Out here was better, never mind the stink of the street, the noise and shouting of kids on the stoops.

  “Maybe we should take the mattresses and sleep up on the roof tonight,” she said.

  “Maybe.”

  “What is it you’re not telling me, Micha? Is it another woman? Tell me it’s another woman. Another woman I can handle.”

  “As if there is any woman in all America better than you.” He started rolling a cigarette. In Russia he never smoked, now he smoked all the time. He licked the paper, tamped in a plug of tobacco from a tin. “I want to be on my own for a while.”

  She stared at the glow of his cigarette in the dark, wondering what to do. Then Libby started fussing, and she went in to quiet her, and when she came out, he was still out there. She wished he would tell her what it was. Or perhaps he was right, she never really wanted to know it all.

  When Micha finally went back inside, he found Sura asleep on Libby’s bed. They were curled around each other. Libby’s damp curls were stuck to her forehead, it was so breathless hot in the tiny room. He thought of waking them and taking them all up to the roof, but then he thought: Well, they are sleeping now. What is the point?


  He stared at the little girl’s face. How beautiful she was, but how different, with her green eyes and red-gold hair. How old would she be before she started looking in the mirror and asking questions? Already he was worn down by it, strangers staring at them in the street, in shops: “Is that your baby?”

  He went into the bedroom, turned on the light. He reached under the bed and took out his cardboard suitcase, unlocked it with a key he kept on a chain at his waistcoat, took out the old tin box inside, and opened it. There was a newspaper cutting, curling up at the edges now and yellowing with age. He unfolded it carefully and stared at the grainy photograph of George Seabrook. He read the words under the photograph, his lips moving silently, though he knew it by heart well enough by now.

  What was he going to do? He hated it now whenever Sura or Libby looked at him with so much adoring in their eyes, like he was such a good man. He couldn’t stand it, couldn’t abide how much they loved him. It made him think only how happy his life could have been, if only he deserved it.

  15

  Sura was in the kitchen—it was another sulfurous day—she was using tongs to push dirty sheets into a boiling tub. He held out the papers to her, and she looked over her shoulder at them, wondering what it was he was showing her.

  “What have you got there?”

  “Look.”

  Impatient, she dried her hands on her apron and took the piece of paper from him. She stared at it, not really understanding all the words. The blood drained from her face. This couldn’t be true.

  “I leave next Wednesday,” he said.

  “What?”

  “We go to Camp Dix in New Jersey for training first.”

  Sura sagged against the counter. “Oh, Micha, what have you done?”

  “It won’t be for long. I’ll be back before you know it.”

  “But . . . what about Libby?”

  “I’ve saved a little money. I’ll send you my pay. I won’t be needing it over there. You can take in a little sewing perhaps.”

  “You did this without even talking to me?”

  “I don’t need your permission, woman!”

  She screwed up the draft paper, threw it in his face. She tried to hit him, with both fists, but he caught her hands. She screamed and screamed in his face.

  “Mama, Mama!” Liberty ran into the room. Sura scooped her up in her arms, but the child would not stop crying.

  “Sura—”

  “Go back, tell them it is a mistake.”

  “It’s too late to change my mind. I have signed the papers.”

  She was shaking so hard she was making Libby scream all the more. She turned her back on him. “Get out.”

  “Sura—”

  “I’ll never forgive you for this,” she said. “Get out!”

  “You don’t understand. I have to do this.”

  “Get out!”

  Micha left, leaving the enlistment papers on the counter. When he came home, it was very late, and Sura and Libby were asleep. He stared at their silhouettes, thinking how once this was everything he ever wanted. But he couldn’t have it. It wasn’t his to have.

  Two months later Private Michael Levine, his khaki uniform freshly pressed, his duffel bag over his shoulder, marched up the gangplank of the cruiser anchored in the Brooklyn shipyard. When the whistle blew, they broke ranks and surged toward the railings to wave and blow kisses at their wives and sweethearts and mothers gathered on the quay below.

  Sura watched the ship’s four screws churn the murky East River, driving the massive gray hull toward the Liberty statue. Smoke from the three funnels trailed into a cloudless sky. Sura watched it, dry eyed, until it was out of sight, Libby clinging to her neck. Then she turned and headed for home.

  16

  The Valley of the Marne, near Reims, France, July 1918

  The captain knocked the ash out of his pipe and looked over. “Always writing, Levine. Always writing.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Who are you writing to?”

  “My wife, sir.”

  “Married, are you? You look too young.”

  “Sura and I, we have been married eight years now. It was arranged for us, but we are very happy. She is the perfect wife.”

  “The perfect wife? You’re a lucky man. I wish I had the perfect wife. Where are you from, Levine?”

  “Russia, sir. We’ve been fighting Germans all our lives over there.”

  The captain tamped tobacco into his pipe and lit it. The crackle of the tobacco sounded somehow soothing over the distant rumble of the artillery. Every now and then a shell would land very close; Micha felt it rather than heard it—it shuddered through the earth and into the bones.

  They were resting up in a vaulted cellar in what the captain told them used to be a seminary. They had been caught in the open on the road from Château Thierry, and several of the men had been hit by shrapnel and now lay on the floor covered in bloodied bandages, smoking cigarettes. Only one of them, a sergeant, was badly hurt; he lay on a stretcher, turning gray, making grunting noises in the back of his throat.

  Micha took a dog-eared photograph from his shirt pocket and handed it to the captain. He held it under the nub of a candle and peered at it. “Not only perfect, she is also very pretty.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Let’s hope we can get you back to her in one piece.”

  Micha took back the photograph and returned it to his pocket. “We have a little girl.”

  “How old is she?”

  “She was five years old in March.”

  The captain sucked on the pipe. “I’ve always wanted a family. Before all this, I always assumed I would have one, one day.”

  Micha folded the letter he was writing, slipped it into an envelope, and pressed it into the captain’s palm.

  “What’s this?”

  “If I don’t get back, if something happens, can you make sure my wife gets that?”

  “I’m sure she’d rather have you than a letter. Best thing is to try and look after yourself tomorrow.”

  “I’ll do my best. But it’s a war, who knows what will happen? And there’s things . . . she should know.”

  The captain frowned. “If it’s another woman . . .”

  “No, it’s nothing like that. Since I married Sura, I never looked at another woman. But all the same, it’s important. Very important.”

  “All right, Levine,” the captain said, and slipped the envelope inside his coat.

  In that moment, Micha felt like he had when he’d finished a shift at the docks. There, no more loads to shift. He was done. He fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette, his hands shook as he lit it from the candle flame. He peered out at the street through a broken window. He heard the muffled voices of the sentries, saw shadows moving along the walls, the moonlight frosted by the mist.

  Some men had hauled down a huge wax candle from the chapel above them; it was the size and shape of an artillery shell. When they lit it, it was like when he put another nickel in the gas meter in Delancey Street.

  They could see the room better now. It was clear the Germans had been there before them. There were vile pictures drawn on the walls next to the pictures of Catholic saints, and a pair of muddy and worn-out German boots protruded from a pile of green vestments. A torn missal lay next to a piece of black rye bread, hard as a brick.

  Micha found a postcard on the floor, the king of Saxony peered out between two draped flags in one corner of it. The king looked a lot like Uncle Max.

  “What’s going to happen tomorrow, sir? Will we see action?”

  “Looks that way.”

  Micha couldn’t stop his hands from shaking. That was the worst thing, he thought, not the dying, but having all these other men see him piss himself, or cry, or hide. That was what he was really afraid of.

  “Can I ask you something, sir?”

  “It depends what it is, Lance Corporal Levine.”

  “What’s the worst thing you ever did?”
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br />   “What a strange question. I’m not sure I could answer that.” He puffed out his cheeks and thought about it. “I stole two dollars from my mother’s purse once. I wanted to take a girl to a dance.”

  “That doesn’t seem so bad.”

  “Thing is, if I’d asked her, she probably would have given it to me. What about you, Levine?”

  “Same. I stole something.”

  “What did you steal?”

  “Someone’s whole life.”

  A hiss, as the captain took a deep breath. “Goddammit, Levine. What did you do, kill someone?”

  “I wish it was that simple.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, son?”

  “I didn’t set out to steal, sir. You think at the time that there is no choice, and you think of all sorts of reasons and excuses, but then this thing, it keeps turning over in your mind night after night, day after day, year after year. In the end, you just want to forget. But you can’t.”

  “Look here, Levine, I don’t think you should tell me any more. I’m going to turn in. Try and get some sleep. You’ll need your wits about you tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The captain moved away, and Micha lay down, huddled inside his greatcoat, and tried to sleep, like the captain said, but he couldn’t.

  Cold for summer. He couldn’t stop this shivering.

  The barrage began just before dawn. Micha woke with the cellar floor shaking underneath him, the whine of shells overhead. They sounded like a train going over on the Elevated right when you were underneath and then collapsing right on top of you. Men screamed, thinking that the cellar was going to collapse.

  The captain shouted to one of the sergeants to close the iron door at the top of the stairs to keep out shell fragments. The earth lurched again, and dust fell from the cracks between the stones. Some men put hands over their ears and shrieked with terror. Micha was surprised how calm he felt. He had supposed he would be shaking and yelling along with the rest of them.

  He even raised his head long enough to peer through the shattered window, saw houses along the street collapse in clouds of dust. The smell of gas and explosives made him choke. He fumbled to put on his rubber mask.