Pictures of the Past

by Deby Eisenberg

  Initially, Taylor had been intrigued watching his granddaughter and this little boy, first tracing their climb up the stairs, and then briefly spying on their nursery play, but once on the upper landing, he was drawn instead to the dialogue of the young adults. He heard his son, Court, who had been resting in the game room (resting from what he was used to thinking) and responding to his visitor.

  “Yeah,” Court said, eyeing Rachel approvingly, yet cautiously. “I—remember you—great summer of fun—I was still in school then—as brief as that was. Name? Place?—It’s not coming to me.”

  She was shocked at his appearance; it was as if he was in a time warp. What in the year 1968 was the accepted mode of dress for a college student, now had deteriorated into the appearance of a disheveled miscreant.

  She almost whispered her name, “Rachel.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” he returned with the constantly nodding head of a person with a slow pattern of word retrieval.

  In a sense, his disappointing demeanor and attitude actually made it easier for her. If he seemed receptive, she was going to tell him the truth about Rusty, tell him that she knew he would be proud once he met his little boy…tell him that she actually bore no grudge because her little boy was a blessing to her.

  She had come prepared to tell him that she had not taken his money for an abortion, but used it to travel to New York to stay with her Aunt Ida during her pregnancy. That she knew he had been unprepared for fatherhood at the time and she grew to understand that his harsh words were just immaturity speaking. That how could she have hated him if she nicknamed her son “Rusty,” as a term of endearment, reminding her of the rusty-colored hair of him, her first love?

  She had planned to make sure he understood that she wanted nothing from him. Her life had taken an unexpected turn—but as it turned out—not an unwelcomed one. She just felt she owed it to herself and to Rusty to call on Court and have some sort of closure with the past before she ventured any further into the future, before she accepted Richard Stone’s proposal.

  But now, seeing Court again, she felt sickened. He did not know that she had his baby—and now he never would. She simply shook her head while looking at him, her mouth forming the involuntary downturn of a frown acknowledging his pathetic deportment, and only his words brought her back to reality.

  “So what’s the story? How come you looked me up?” Court spoke finally and approached her, as she was actually backing up toward the door.

  “Well, to be honest…no reason, a mistake. Sorry, I have to go.” She had made a split-second decision, but immediately felt it an empowering and easy choice. And then as quickly as she entered the room, she exited. She looked down the stairs and did not see her young son in the foyer, but before she could become frantic, she heard his voice in the playroom on the same level.

  “Rusty—we’re leaving—now,” she said. And as her son peeked out from the room, she grasped his hand firmly, and quickly, but carefully, retraced her steps down the stairs and out the door.

  Taylor Woodmere and his houseman Reed were as intrigued by these events as was Court, who actually emerged from his lounge and looked over the railing after she had disappeared. “Hey, did she really leave already?” he called down to Reed.

  But his father answered him, “Yes, they went. (Court never picked up on the ‘they’). Who was she?”

  “Oh just some girl I knew some summers ago. Rachel, I think it was Rachel Gold. She was pretty, but, well…never mind, it ended badly.”

  The story of his life, thought Taylor about his son. And then it was as if a light went on in his head. The conversation he had overheard the summer before Court left school and eventually married the pregnant Lilly. Way before Sylvie, before the accident. Taylor had once again overheard Court—but this time he was asking his mother Emily for money—"a problem with a girl—-Jewish.” That was all he heard. And now this little boy in his home. It was not hard to figure out this scenario. Taylor would make it his business to understand what had happened.

  Occasionally in the past, Taylor had used the services of a private detective agency. Business investigative needs, especially when dealing with large government contracts, usually entailed guarding against industrial espionage. They most often involved installing security devices, which was much less dramatic than catching masterminds. And more and more he was finding the need to facilitate background checks on employees, as there had been a disturbing surge in false representations of educational records and work experience due to the competitiveness of the marketplace.

  In the movies, there would always be the weathered-looking, gray-suited, gun-toting detective nosing around for the task. And his experiences had borne out the stereotype, although if there was gun toting, it was well hidden.

  So now, as he overheard this unsettling interaction between Court and the young woman, as he saw her almost run from the house with this precious auburn-haired boy who reminded him of a young Court, he was thinking to call upon the services of Metropolitan Security once again.

  It was more than a desire to protect his family or to skirt trouble. It was, surprisingly, that when he saw the little boy, he had that renewed feeling of optimism and joy for the future that he held when Court was small and innocent like him.

  Three weeks later, retired police lieutenant Phil Roberts, now with Metropolitan Security, reported his finding.

  Rachel Gold, originally from Chicago, left the University of Illinois after her first year. She moved to New York City where she lives with Ida Lieber, a relative or family friend, a Jewish immigrant following World War II. Rachel, a single woman, had a child, a boy, in 1969. She completed her education at NYU, funded partially by scholarship, and she graduated with honors. She works at Young Miss Magazine. She appears to be in a serious relationship with a man, Richard Stone, also Jewish and an MBA graduate from NYU, now with the Goldman Brown Trust firm. There is no confirmation of an engagement at this point.

  Rachel

  New York, 1975

  Sunday evening Rachel returned to New York with Jason, consciously deciding that she would no longer enable his nickname “Rusty” to surface. She was actually as eager to see Richard as he was to meet with her. But with a late arrival and a potentially sleeping boy to contend with, she knew it was only prudent to postpone the reunion until dinner the next day.

  She phoned Richard from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport before her plane took off—and his heart raced and stomach tossed with anxiety when he heard her voice.

  “No, don’t meet me at the gate,” she said, “I can’t really talk in the car. Tomorrow evening. Alone, without Jason.”

  Everything he feared was materializing. He was thinking that no one needs to sit down for good news. And he was further confused by her use of the name Jason, instead of Rusty.

  “I know what I want to do for the rest of my life,” she was saying, “and I found it from visiting the Woodmere home. But I will tell you everything tomorrow.”

  Now he was sure he could not continue breathing. He was not sure that he wished to live until tomorrow.

  When he met her at Mario’s Little Italy, one of their favorite intimate eateries, not pricey, but with a chic candlelit look, he seemed as white as the tablecloth, like he hadn’t slept and barely shaved.

  “Richard, what is wrong with you? You’re scaring me.”

  He looked at her eyes across the table and gently took her hands, fearful that she might pull away. “It’s because you’re scaring me. I couldn’t sleep. Just say quickly what you have to say. And if my heart stops suddenly after you dump me—please respect my Do Not Resuscitate order.”

  “Richard, you are so overly dramatic. I only wanted to tell you that I know what I want to do with the rest of my life.”

  “Oh, just that, you’re right—no big deal—doesn’t affect me.”

  “Richard, please,” she said, becoming exasperated by him. “Not my love life—my professional life—well, in a way, my love life. I am go
ing to combine my two professional loves—writing and interior design—and try to write for interior design magazines. I want to gain access to the most beautiful homes of the world. And I want to share their grandeur and excitement with middle-class America.”

  “I don’t understand,” answered Richard. “You said you came to a decision after visiting the Woodmeres; I thought you were returning to Court Woodmere, father of your child. Are you telling me you’re not? Are you telling me that my last will and testament will not be read by week’s end?”

  “Richard, my God, I had no idea you were even thinking something like that. I told you I went to see Court to decide if I would tell him about Jason. This didn’t have to do with you and me—I love you—you nut.

  “It’s just that when we do marry, I want to be a real family, and I know you do too. I wanted one chance to see if Court had changed, had matured, had become someone Jason could identify with for a dad and be proud of.”

  “And what did you find? I bet he went insane when he saw how beautiful you were and you told him the truth.”

  She took time to consider her response. “Let’s just say he seemed insane and he will never know the truth.” She began the sentence with a disgusted, annoyed tone and ended with a slight laugh and satisfied smile. And then she sat back in her chair, finally realizing that she was not disappointed, but thoroughly relieved to have that chapter closed. She knew she would no longer look back at Court, and so with her full attention, she looked directly at Richard. “I know now for sure—I can totally move on from that part of my life now. I hope one day you will want to adopt Jason as you have intimated.”

  “Rachel, I would adopt Rusty…ah, Jason, tomorrow, even before you agree to marry me.” Richard was no longer sitting across the table from her, but had moved next to her on the booth bench seat to sit side by side and put his arm around her. He was starting to breathe normally and his appetite had returned. And now he was not just concentrating on the wondrous smell of her hair, but on the flavorful aromas of the Italian cuisine.

  “I’m starved,” he said. “Ready to order?”

  “You order for me,” she answered, because she knew he would get it just right.

  Working at Young Miss Magazine had been an extraordinary experience. Any of her contemporaries would have considered it a dream job. But, of course, though the experience was great, the pay was low. And just looking around it was understood that just as with real dreams, eventually you wake up. Everyone in the office, except the small number of senior editors, was around her age. In other words, this type of job had a limited run; it could only be a resume builder for all but a few of the staff. You were not just marketing to the society of youth, but you were working in an environment that valued youth excessively.

  Unlike most of her young colleagues at work who were eyeing future positions at Vogue, carrying around copies, like bibles, at lunch breaks, she set her sights on Architecture Today. She loved immersing herself in the glossy feel of its pages. And the ads were as attractive as the articles. She especially loved the fabric manufacturers’ spreads of prints and patterns in complementary shades. She had begun to envision a career shift— thought about being a decorator. She was drawn much more to the form and textures of furniture, than of fashion. It wasn’t that she felt fashion was just fluff, but the very essence of the fashion business was counterintuitive to her own values. The point of fashion, what made clothing designers continue to thrive and magazines to sell, was that each season brought new trends and discarded old ones. No—she loved the timelessness of decorating. Certainly, there were trends in the field, but they lasted years, even decades, even centuries.

  At the Woodmere home, it was like everything came together for her. Realistically, she knew that she did not have the training or talent to create the vision of elegance and taste she had been briefly introduced to. But she did have the training and talent to describe what she had seen. She would feel so much more fulfilled writing about this exquisite eighteenth-century carpet or that marble fireplace imported from a chateau neighboring the Palace of Versailles. Of course, she was not naïve. She understood there would be a whole new field to learn about, knew that she would need some classes in the history of furniture, would need to spend time roaming antique shops instead of Bloomingdale’s or Macy’s. But now she would have direction.

  Her high school district had many pockets of upscale neighborhoods, and she had grown up exposed to the plastic-covered sofas of the forbidden-from-use living rooms. Wealthy people that she knew were what “old money” would call “nouveau riche,” and their homes would have beautiful interiors from local furniture stores or Chicago’s Merchandise Mart. But even the most elegant homes that she had been to had what was referred to as “sofa art,” pictures that matched the décor, often very lovely and pricey originals, but not on the scale she glimpsed briefly in Kenilworth, not works of art that would weather the time test of fads and generations—museum-quality art.

  Stepping inside the foyer only at the Woodmere Estate, she was struck that the decorating was like no house that she had ever visited, except on a tour. She remembered the summer homes, the “cottages” of Newport, Rhode Island, which had amazed her on a family trip years ago. These were the mansions of the Vanderbilts and their crowd during the Gilded Age, built in the late 1800s, when the scions of industry were true multimillionaires, before tax structures. And visiting them, no one would say they needed redecorating, that they were too traditional and old-fashioned.

  Within weeks of her self-discovery, Rachel had approached a senior editor at her magazine for a letter of introduction to Architecture Today. Elliot Willis had taken an interest in Rachel from her first day on the job, and eventually Rachel understood that she reminded him of a daughter lost to the Hari Krishnas for the past few years. Elliot was always seeking her out, in a fatherly manner, to compliment her work, offer encouragement, and help to see that her editors were giving her prime assignments.

  As he also served as a vice president of the publishing firm that held both magazines, he was in a position to authorize her freelancing for Architecture Today. And he had actually been conducting business in the staffing office the week following Rachel’s return to New York, when a representative of Taylor Woodmere called to make inquiries regarding the career of Rachel Gold.

  This had set into motion what would appear to be just a series of coincidences and incredible good luck for Rachel, the true definition of “luck” being “when preparation meets opportunity.” Within weeks, Mrs. Regina Palmer, of the esteemed Chicago family, would call to tell Architecture Today that she would open her home for their cameras if they used a local Chicago-born writer, not a New Yorker. Her experience with Eastern writers was that they had appeared condescending to Midwesterners in the final copy. And this call occurred as the features editor of the design magazine had on his desk at that very time the resume of one, Rachel Gold, from Chicago.

  Sarah

  Germany, 1939

  Contrary to her usual demeanor, Sarah had become depressed in her new situation. Her time with Taylor had taken on a dreamlike quality and occasionally she questioned if it had, literally, been a dream. Between their separation, the imprisonment and disappearance of her beloved father, and the many months she and her mother had already spent in the countryside, she had not felt safe and coveted and loved in what seemed like an eternity. While she marveled at her mother’s resilience and optimism under their present conditions, Sarah had a harder time. Day by day, she was losing the innocent and youthful glow to her skin—skin that had now taken on an ashen pallor. Her personality, once so vibrant and self-confident, became insecure and subdued.

  Though in the past she had never acted spoiled and entitied, she had been privileged, and she had been complacent in that privileged world. A generous and sweet soul, at their Berlin residence she had befriended each housemaid and loved helping with the folded corners in the bedrooms; the cook was forever worried she would chop off a fi
nger or overturn a boiling pot in her insistence to be of assistance.

  So she was incredulous at first, and then sad, and then resentful, and finally fearful, when valued employees started turning on the family. It began with missing items of value. Questions to the staff, not even accusations, were turned back on the Berger family. “Yes, it would be like Jews to count every piece of silver. But maybe your counting is not as precise as you imagine.” She was horrified when one of her favorites of the domestics, Bella, who always took tremendous pride in the perfection of her ironed linens, told her that she would be leaving, as “the Fuhrer” thought it unnatural that pure Aryans would work for Jews. Even hearing that word “Fuhrer” in her home, with the accompanying idolization present in Bella’s delivery, was like a slap to Sarah’s face.

  And now months later, Sarah, who was the domestic, making beds, cleaning toilets, and preparing food, understood that she had taken her status for granted. She was reevaluating her past relationships with her “friends” on the household staff. How they must have resented her behind her back—and even if they began as being just moderately jealous of her good fortune of birth—the rhetoric of a man such as Hitler would feed that jealousy until it became a diseased growth that would swell and spread. And her home was just a microcosm for the current German homeland. Hitler had made a scapegoat of the Jews, blaming them for the depressed economic situation and the diminished German status in the world following the Great War. And people in droves were nodding their heads in agreement that yes, the Jews were responsible for all ills of their once glorious society, and so they were signing on to this philosophy of hate.