by Howard Fast
“God willing.”
They sat in the rabbi’s study, a small room crowded with books; and now they sat in silence for a while, the rabbi, a short, bearded, tired man of seventy-one years, waiting for Mark to speak again, his blue eyes watching him thoughtfully, set in nests of wrinkles. He had been rabbi of the congregation ever since it came into being in 1880.
Finally, Mark took an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to the rabbi.
“What’s this?”
“Guilt, I suppose.”
The rabbi opened the envelope and stared at a check for two thousand dollars. “A princely gift. Are you that rich?”
“Yes.”
“How old are you, Moishe?”
“Almost forty, if you count the years.”
“And how long since you came to the synagogue? I’m not reproving you,” he added hastily. “I’m curious.”
“Ten years I suppose. We live in Sausalito now.”
“And is this for your son’s life?” the rabbi asked, holding up the check, smiling to take the sting out of his words.
“No, for my own guilt, like I said.”
“Well–most contributions are. We can use it, and I am very grateful.”
“I’m confused,” Mark said.
“It’s a normal state.” The rabbi shrugged. “When was life not confusing?”
“I don’t know who I am,” Mark said, forcing the words. “I have become rich out of this rotten war. I lie awake every night in tenor thinking about my son. I lost my wife somewhere–oh, she still loves me and I love her, but somewhere we lost each other, and I’m afraid of death.”
“We all are.”
“And my son is in love with a Christian.”
“Ah.”
“Otherwise, everything is fine.”
The rabbi smiled. “Of course. Tell me about the girl.”
“She’s a fine, beautiful girl.”
“And your son is determined to marry her?”
“My son is in France.”
“Yes, but the girl. How does she feel about your son?”
“She loves him.”
“She does not mind the fact that he is Jewish?”
“No.”
“Well, Moishe, I’m a rabbi. I don’t like to see our people many outside of the religion.”
“What should I do?”
“What does Sarah say you should do?”
“She says I should keep my nose out of their business.”
“Ah. Tell me, is there an Orthodox synagogue in Sausalito?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“If you can find ten Jewish families, you can start one, and then come to me and I’ll find you a rabbi. This won’t take away your confusions, but it will be very good for your guilts.”
“You still did not tell me what I should do about my son.”
“Love him. Help him. What else can you do with a son?”
“And the girl?”
“Listen to Sarah. I could tell you to trust in God, but unfortunately that’s not enough. He has given us too much free will. We have to do a little something on our own. You’re almost forty. That’s a good time to become Jewish.”
“I was born Jewish, rabbi.”
“So you were. And again, speaking for the synagogue, I thank you for this princely gift.”
The doctor was very specific about Stephan Cassala’s diet. He was discharged from the army hospital after Dan’s visit with his son to the Cassala place at San Mateo. His father drove him down the Peninsula in the Cassala limousine, somewhat in awe of this thin, pale wraith of a man, so unsmiling and depressed. Maria wept and embraced him and crooned over him. All of which troubled the family doctor who came to see him that same day.
“I know you will want to feed him and see some flesh on his bones,” the doctor said. “But his stomach has taken a terrible beating. Cream of wheat, warm milk, boiled eggs, soft, some well-cooked green vegetables, but no cheese, no spices, no sausage, no meat, no green pepper–” He was trying to remember what else came into the Italian diet.
“But he will die with such food,” Maria pleaded.
“No. He will get well with such food. Now mind what I say.”
In any case, Maria had to beg him to eat, and whatever he ate caused him pain. For the first few days that he was home, he said almost nothing. Stephan had always been gentle and soft-spoken; the gentleness remained but he was turned in on himself. When the weather was good, he would sit on the lawn, gazing into the distance; and once Rosa had seen him like that–herself out of sight–with tears rolling down his sallow cheeks. She told her mother and then regretted it, for Maria burst into tears herself and could not be consoled. She spent more and more hours in church at the altar rail, and when one day Stephan smiled at her and said, “Mama, I’m going to be all right. So stop worrying,” she was convinced that her prayers had overcome the hideous American food that was destroying her son.
Dan drove down to see Stephan, this time with May Ling and their ten-month-old child, called Joseph after Dan’s father. His relationship with May Ling was becoming increasingly complex. Neither of them had wanted to face the fact of abortion; both of them had wanted the child desperately, May Ling because it was Dan’s child and Dan out of his need to cement a relationship that had become in some strange way the bedrock of his existence. But to have the child in the secrecy that surrounded their lives together was impossible. May Ling had to have a place to go–and therefore over a year ago Dan had gone to Cassala and poured out his heart.
Having told his story, Dan was ready for anything–rage, disgust, contempt–anything but the long, thoughtful silence that followed. Finally, Cassala said, “Danny, I got two sons, you and Stevie. You love this Chinese woman?”
Dan nodded.
“Feng Wo, he knows this?”
“I think so. He must. We never said one word about it.”
“And when Jean finds out? What then?”
“I don’t know. Why should she find out?”
“Danny, Danny, you talk like a child. You marry a Protestant woman who has no love for you. God forgive me that I, a Catholic, should say this, but I must. For two people to live without love is no good. We can get an annulment. I have enough influence.”
“I can’t. It’s not being a Catholic. I’m a rotten Catholic.”
“Why? For what you must give her? Give it to her”
“Tony, I don’t know why.”
Cassala pressed it no further. Danny needed a home for a pregnant woman; that was enough. At the library, May Ling had already told them that she was married and expecting a child. For the last two months of her pregnancy, she was at San Mateo with the Cassalas. Curiously enough, both Maria and Rosa accepted her with warmth and affection, perhaps in part because of their loneliness in a community so alien to them and in part because no one could be with May Ling very long and resist her charm and openness.
Now, driving down the Peninsula, the baby asleep in May Ling’s arms, Dan asked May Ling not to mention to Cassala his plans to build the passenger vessel.
“Why not?” she wanted to know.
“Because I’m going to Seldon for the money.”
There was a long silence as they drove on. Dan glanced from the road to the sleeping child. He had his father’s curly black hair and his mother’s ivory skin–his own child, a child he had been permitted to name for his father.
“Why?” she asked at last.
“Why what?”
“Why do you go to Seldon? Why not Tony?”
“Because it’s too big for Tony. If I blow it, let Seldon bleed, not Tony.”
“If it’s that dangerous a gamble, why should the Seldon Bank back you? Or is Seldon buying you?”
“That’s a hell of a thing to say.”
“I suppose so. You know, Danny, Chinese women are acquiescent. I suppose it’s in our blood. I’m also a little frightened. I never was before.”
“Of what?”
“You’re my wife and that’s my child.”
“And Jean?”
“Let me do it in my own way, please, baby. I’ll leave her. You have to give me time.”
“Time or anything else,” she said sadly. “You know that I give you whatever you ask, Danny.”
At San Mateo, Maria and Rosa enveloped May Ling and the baby with affection. It took very little to bring Maria to tears, and almost as soon as she held little Joseph in her arms, she began to weep. May Ling smiled slightly as Dan fled. He couldn’t bear the sight of tears. Since it was a weekday, Cassala was at the bank. Dan walked out onto the lawn, where Stephan was sprawled in a lounge chair. He waved at Dan and got to his feet as Dan pulled a chair up to the lounge.
“Don’t get up. Take it easy, Steve.”
Stephan embraced him. “My God, it’s good to see.you, Danny.”
He was skin and bones. “How do you feel?” Dan asked him.
“Better, better. I’m going to be all right.”
“You’re damn right you are.”
“Last night I slept through. First time in months without pills. I still have some pain, but the doctor says it’s gas mostly.”
“Tony’s worried sick about you.”
“Pop’s worried, mama’s worried, Rosa’s worried–Dan, they’re driving me crazy. She looks at me and she cries. She talks to me about getting married. She found a nice Italian girl for me. I want to get an apartment in the city, and every time I mention it, mama begins to weep.” His eyes went past Dan to the house. May Ling was coming across the lawn.
“Look, let me explain–” Dan began.
“No need, Danny. I know.” He got to his feet. May Ling came to him and took his outstretched hand in both of hers.
“I am so glad to meet you, Steve. Your mother made me feel like her daughter, so I feel like your sister. If you heard Chinese prayers, they were mine. I am responsible for the most confused Catholic priest in the Peninsula, who twice a week would see a pregnant Chinese lady at the altar rail next to your mother. Now I am going to leave the two of you. I’ll see you later.”
When she had left, Stephan said, “She’s beautiful–and charming. What a delightful woman!”
“I know.”
“Look, it’s none of my business. The thing is, well, you’re both here and I’m here, and we’re alive. I never understood the virtue of simply being alive. I sit here and feel the sun and the wind, and I keep telling myself I’m alive.”
“Was it very bad?”
“You know, Danny, I don’t talk about it because there’s no sense talking about it. I had lots of time to read these past few months. I read War and Peace. Tolstoi says everything said about war is a lie. He’s right. I had five days of it before my gut was ripped open. I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t do anything except crawl in the mud and watch people die. And be afraid. Oh, shit–the hell with it. What about Jake Levy? Is he all right?”
“As far as I know. He got a field commission. I think they call it that. He’s a lieutenant.”
“Still there?”
“That’s right.”
“Poor bastard,” Steve said.
The Brockers had purchased some forty acres of land in what would someday be downtown San Francisco. The purchase price was five dollars an acre. Eventually, a single acre was sold by the son of the original Brocker, a placer miner, for seventy-two thousand dollars, and that was before the price truly began to rise. Alan Brocker was the third generation in California, and he had returned to San Francisco from Harvard College to find that Jean Seldon had married a fisherman called Daniel Lavette.
During the seven years since that event, from which Alan Brocker emerged with his heart unbroken, he had been married long enough to produce a child, avoid the draft, and get divorced, had inherited eleven million dollars, give or take a few hundred thousand, upon the death of his father, and had done Europe–as it was put–and with the approach of the war had returned to San Francisco. He purchased a small but luxurious house on Jones Street, kept a sloop on the bay, played tennis, and kept two saddle horses. If not the most sought-after single man in Jean’s set, he was certainly one of them, perhaps too tarnished by divorce and reputation for some of the best families but nevertheless eagerly welcomed where a single man was required at a dinner party. In that capacity, he and Jean had been paired off a number of times–on occasions where Dan could not or would not be present. Twice, he had taken Jean home, the second time venturing a kiss on her lips which had turned into a passionate embrace.
During the months that followed, they met surreptitiously at least once or twice a week. He kept his horses at a stable in Marin County, and on occasion they would meet there and ride together. When they lunched alone, it would be in some out-of-the-way restaurant where they would not be recognized. For weeks, Jean brushed aside any serious advances on his part, but they were old friends who had known each other as children, and when he finally suggested an afternoon at his house, she accepted with full knowledge of what might follow. In her mind, she had turned over and over the question of an affair with him. He was a good-looking man, perpetually sunburned, with bright blue eyes, set off by dark skin, and a high, thin nose; he was of medium height and dedicated to keeping himself trim. The question in her mind was whether she desired to have sex with any man; and when at last she allowed him to take her to bed, she was far more amazed than he by the passion it unleashed in her.
Lying naked next to her, touching and caressing her beautiful white body with almost professional skill, Brocker said to her, “You’ve been starved, my love. What is that oversized fisherman of yours–a gelding?”
“Let us say a disinterested stallion.”
“Disinterested? Shit.”
“I love it when you’re foul.”
“Women like you always do.”
“That is truly foul. What a disgusting thing to say.”
“You don’t look horrified.”
“You’re the second man in my life, Alan. I’ve been with no one else.”
“Indeed.”
“Believe it or not–I don’t really care.”
“Do you care for me?”
“As what?”
“You’re a bitch, you know. You’re a thoroughgoing bitch.”
“No end to your compliments.”
“I’ll amend it. The loveliest bitch in California.”
“That limits it.”
“Do you want the world? Let me tell you something, Jean. I’ve never known another woman like you. Do you realize how long I’ve looked at you and wanted you?”
“And now that you have me?”
“I don’t have you. The fisherman has you.”
“He doesn’t think so,” she said. “Alan, stop petting me. Your hands don’t stop and your mind is a thousand miles away.”
“Not a thousand miles. I was only wondering how we could be together for a few days.”
“Don’t be pushy. Suppose I divorced him. Would you marry me?”
“No,” he said flatly.
“You really thought about that. Why?”
“I would never marry again, not you, not any woman. I have all the money I need and I have you.”
“Don’t be so goddamn sure about that!”
“Ah, the fangs show. I’ll bet you’re something when you lose that temper of yours.”
“Perhaps.”
“You’d like me to say I love you?”
“No. Because I’m not a bit sure that I care very much about you.”
“But you do, even if the fisherman still has a foot in the door.”
“Now you begin to bore me, Alan.”
But the excitement of the affair overrode the fact that he was indeed a boring man. Dan talked about everything, the war, his ships, his dreams–at least he did when she permitted a conversation to take place. Alan talked only of the people he met and the food
he ate–and horses. Jean was interested in neither food nor horses. Yet he made love to her, and that did not bore her.
A few weeks after they had been to bed together, Jean said to him at lunch one day, “I want something, and I don’t know how to get it. Perhaps you could help me.”
“Perhaps I could. What do you want?”
“I want to know who my husband has been sleeping with.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Reasons.”
“How do you know he’s been sleeping with anyone? You tell me he’s your willing slave when you want a slave. Could be the beast is satisfied with beauty and his gonads are quiescent.”
“Don’t be disgusting.”
“You like it in bed.”
“We’re not in bed. Whatever else Dan is, he’s very much a man. Now can you help me or not?”
“You want to open a can of worms. My dear Pandora, let it lie. Right at this moment, we have a very good thing going, and if your fisherman is banging a filly, why it’s simple justice. Quid pro quo, as the lawyers say.”
“I told you not to be foul. And don’t call me Pandora. I can’t abide your wretched metaphors.”
“The hell with my metaphors. If you do find out in the affirmative, what will you do? Divorce him?”
“No. Seldons do not divorce.”
“Well, there’s a statement of principle.”
“Will you help me or won’t you?”
“All right. Your husband has a secret liaison, and you want to know. The only thing I can suggest is that you hire a detective.”
“Do they do that kind of thing?”
“Their bread and butter, my dear.”
“I can’t be involved in this,” she said uncertainly. “I can’t go to a detective agency. You do understand that, don’t you, Alan?”
“I suppose you can’t.”
“Will you do it for me, please?”
“All right. Be it on your head. I’ll go to the Pinkertons. They’re very good at this kind of thing.”
“How do you know?”
“My wife hired them. You’re not the first one to think of this, bless you.”