All Good Women

by Valerie Miner

  He brought her a second half pint and they discussed the new ideas being implemented by a woman at the Birmingham hostel. Then suddenly he offered, ‘Would you like to have dinner at my place? I went shopping this afternoon and Manny gave me the two steaks he won in a lottery.’

  She couldn’t disguise her amazement.

  ‘He owed me a favor.’ Reuben spoke rapidly, as if she were waiting for an explanation.

  This gave her time to say ‘why not’ to herself and ‘yes’ to him.

  The walk to Henrietta Street was blurred by the beer. A pint on an empty stomach — suddenly she remembered that she had been unable to eat all day because of Leah — made the yellow street lamps shine like haloes over the pavement. Now that the blackout restrictions had been eased, you could travel short distances safely at night. She concentrated on the elegance of this city. London, despite all the destruction and deprivation, was still London. You could still see St Paul’s in the distance, could still bicycle across bridges. A steak dinner, she repeated to herself. She hadn’t had steak in six months, not since Esther’s birthday when her parents had sent that generous check. Rare, she hoped, with mashed potatoes? This was almost enough to distract her from Reuben’s intentions. It would be a lovely evening, she told herself. She was safe. She was a big girl. He was an honorable man. Did she want him to be an honorable man?

  They climbed the stone steps to his flat, and she recalled the previous visit, one quick stop before they took the train to a meeting. So dark and spare. She remembered commenting on his asceticism and his consequent dismay. She loved these stone steps, worn in the middle from generations of tenants. She even liked the grimey stairwell. Sometimes wandering London at night, when the destruction wasn’t so imposing, was like roaming through history.

  He opened the door with a gallant flourish. She was startled by the brilliant ray of sunflowers on the wall opposite, a print of the Van Gogh painting they had admired at the National Gallery. Trying to conceal her surprise, she realized he had been studying her face the whole time. ‘Beautiful,’ she said, finally. ‘It brightens the entire flat.’

  He was a good cook, well-organized, proud of his menu, pleased to tend her. Taken aback that she also liked rare meat, he nodded with amused respect.

  Ann enjoyed every morsel of the thick, juicy meat and the mashed potatoes. The Brussels sprouts left a little to be desired, but what could you do with these puny cabbages? The Cabernet was perfect and she tried to ignore how much the wine had cost him and where he’d found it.

  ‘You’re quite a chef.’ She sat back from the table. ‘Hidden talents.’

  ‘There’s a lot you don’t see.’

  ‘I’ve begun to understand that.’ She laughed again. Why was she so happy? It had been a disastrous afternoon. In addition to Leah, Papa’s horrible letter from yesterday continued to haunt her. And she had to get up early tomorrow to finish tons of paperwork. Maybe her mood came from the wine. Or maybe from the first good meal she’d had in a month. Maybe it was the strangely beguiling company of this taciturn man.

  He pulled out a package of Old Golds and offered her a cigarette. She raised her eyebrow at the American label.

  ‘My cousin George. He’s stationed here with the American army. Aunt Rina’s son.’

  She nodded and wondered why she couldn’t remember anything about Aunt Rina or cousin George. Was Reuben particularly loquacious tonight — yes, there was that — but in addition, had she been closed to his intimacies before this? How much had she shut out or forgotten? Her scrutiny was interrupted by his hand on her arm.

  ‘Let’s go smoke in the living room,’ he said. ‘It’s more comfortable there.’

  ‘The dishes.’ She stood up, puffing furiously. ‘Let me help you with the dishes.’

  ‘Later.’ He calmed her. ‘There will be plenty of time for that.’

  She followed dumbly, noting that she had always felt more sophisticated than Reuben. But he was in control tonight. She had been caught off guard. What guard did she need? Hadn’t she been fantasizing about sleeping with him? But she had always imagined it taking place in her room. She had planned the lighting.

  His own choices weren’t bad. Candles on the table. The small reading lamp shining over orange Penguin novels and blue biographies. She sat on the couch opposite him and studied this room — the shelves of books in English, German and French; the neat bed with the brown cover; the two easy chairs that he had received from one of the foster parents last month: brown, beige, black. And the sunflowers. A blessing on this somber room, something like the light at the back of his eyes.

  ‘I learned to cook from my father,’ he said.

  ‘Your father?’ She was as much surprised by the way he was carrying the conversation as by the detail. Still, she never thought of old world men as cooks.

  ‘Yes, Mama was busy at the store, from 5 a.m. to late at night. Papa was not much good at making money. He was something of a dandy. Grand clothes, grand manner, lots of friends, adored by all the ladies, but completely loyal to Mama. He went into the store for a few hours a day to preside over the purchase of new cloth. He loved textiles.’

  Ann watched his intense face and listened to the casual urgency in his voice. It was more than the wine. He must have made a decision. Now that she was still for a moment, she realized he had made a resolution to open his life. She was very moved. Listening to his past tense, she thought about when her high school friend Carol died, how hard it was to refer to her as ‘was’. Occasionally she thought about Mama as a ‘was.’

  ‘Then he would go out to lunch with the other merchants. He had friends from all quarters — Jews, Catholics, immigrants. He was invited to all the parties. Quite a catch to have Herr Litman at your celebration, so easy was he with the jokes, so chivalrous with the ladies. Mama never went along. She considered this socializing Papa’s contribution to the trade. Anyway, when he wasn’t at parties or dinners, he often would give our cook the night off and prepare family feasts. Mama would come in after we had finished eating and Papa would fix a special plate for her in the parlor, away from the noisy children.’

  ‘There were six children?’ She thought she remembered accurately. How horrible that he was the only one to make it out of Austria alive.

  ‘Six.’

  ‘So all the kids learned to cook?’

  ‘I was most interested.’ He smiled. ‘The other boys thought it was sissy. And my sister Rebecca was too busy learning the violin. You should have heard her Chopin. It would make you cry.’

  Ann nodded. ‘Sounds like a remarkable, happy family.’ She thought of Teddy and wondered what it would be like to have a large family. Could Mama have coped? Would it have taken her out of herself more?

  ‘Happy, yes, well, in its own way,’ he sighed. ‘We didn’t see much of Mama unless we went to the shop. Still, we were all encouraged to do what we wanted. There was no question about my going to university. If that’s what I wanted, I would have it.’

  ‘And Rebecca?’ What did she look like, Ann wondered. Now that he had opened up, she didn’t know how far to go. She imagined Rebecca tall and dark like Reuben, with a slight frailty around the mouth.

  ‘She was auditioning professionally. They said she had a great career ahead of her.’ He stopped abruptly and looked down.

  Ann held her breath and cursed herself for pressing him.

  ‘She was the pride of the family.’ His voice grew stronger. ‘Strange in a way for a girl. Still, we had the example of Mama. No one could stop Mama. That’s why they didn’t leave in time, you see. She wasn’t going to let anything happen to her family. She would never have allowed me to take these courses in Britain if she thought the squeeze would come so soon. I mean if we were all there, holding up our home, it would be a fortress or something.’ He stubbed out his cigarette and lit another. ‘But here I have been chattering all evening. Tell me about
your family, Anna. What were your parents like when you were little?’

  ‘Anna.’ She sighed, in spite of herself. ‘Mama called me Anna sometimes.’

  ‘Oh, I apologize. It just slips out. I always think of you as Anna. Do you mind?’

  ‘No, I like “Anna”. It’s more lyrical. “Ann” sounds abrupt.’

  ‘And your parents?’

  She forced herself to talk. ‘Quite a contrast with yours. I’ve already told you some things about them. Mama stayed home, almost hid at home, and Papa went out and engaged in the world. A real entrepreneur, my father. And a little successful. He came over — rather went over — to the States destitute and then worked his way to being a foreman at his factory. We had the latest conveniences.’

  ‘But you got a strength from your mother, an integrity, didn’t you?’

  ‘I guess so.’ She was touched again by his scrutiny. ‘Part of Mama just refused to relinquish. Better to go crazy than to compromise.’

  ‘I understand that. It’s hard to surrender the identity from where you were born, where you grew up.’

  ‘You’ve done that.’

  ‘Yes.’ He took a long drag on his cigarette and looked toward the window.

  ‘You won’t … go … back after the war?’ She tried to control her fear.

  He turned and rubbed her left shoulder. ‘Never. That Vienna is dead. No, after the war, I will finish university here, if I can find the money.’

  She shivered.

  ‘You are still determined to return to America.’ He considered her seriously.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but that’s different.’

  Now he stared at the window. ‘Not so different.’

  This relationship was truly impossible, she realized. He was so foreign — from a completely different class, with different aspirations, different nationality, different language. The only things holding them together were being Jewish and their temporary refuge in London. Plus their loneliness. And perhaps a mutual affection and admiration and … she saw he was watching her as if she were a clock with a delicate balance wheel.

  He finished the cigarette and stubbed it in the grey dish. She also killed her cigarette.

  ‘More wine?’ he inquired.

  ‘No, thank you.’ She looked down at her lap, aware of her torn cuticles. He had probably taken in her tattered hands as well as the rip in her coat. He was a careful observer. Why had she insisted on perceiving him as withdrawn and cool?

  ‘Anna?’ he asked. Of course he would ask. This was how she had imagined it.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes.’ He knotted his arms around her. His face grew near and, as it did, he softened. His lips were gentler than she had remembered and more eager. She lay back on the couch and felt him lie on top of her, the whole length. ‘Reuben, Reuben,’ she heard herself call, although she wanted him to do the wanting. ‘Reuben, tighter, Reuben.’ Her body loosened and she allowed herself to feel the tears and the hunger beyond the tears and the hope beyond the hunger and finally the still satisfaction of being held.

  She awoke at five the next morning, momentarily forgetting that they moved from the couch to the bed. She thought about last night’s passion and turned to him, savoring the odor of their sheets. She felt glad he had moved his legs off her body for he would feel her wakefulness if they were touching now. They had been so attuned making love. The sex had been lined with an undercurrent of melancholy. Deferred passion? Hopeless future? Was she conjuring the melancholy to mask her happiness? Surely she had never felt so full as she had at moments last night. The questions left her tense and restless. Her neck began to ache and she knew that if she didn’t get some tea and some exercise the headache would invade before she reached work.

  Quietly, she slipped from the bed. Could he feel it? Was he pretending she wasn’t leaving? No, he seemed genuinely asleep. This was one of the talents she admired, his ability to shut out the world. She had seen him do it during their walks and again last night. After he knew she was satisfied, he had fallen into an instant sleep. Gingerly, she made her way across the half-illumined room. It was sweet the way he had laid out her skirt and blouse so they wouldn’t wrinkle. Still, here were her stockings, coiled over his socks. And his shorts peeking from under the couch. Carefully, she laid his underclothes on a chair and left a note: ‘Dear Reuben. Must get to work. Thank you. Thank you. Your Anna.’ Should she have signed it, ‘love’? Should she have said thank you? There was no perfect note. She wished she had a dozen roses. She wished she could kiss him good-bye. Instead she stood at the door taking a quick, last look.

  Covent Garden was just opening. She could hear the lorries as she walked down the street. And she approached the market even though it was in the opposite direction from work. Something about the purposeful chaos soothed her anxiety. She watched a woman unload fruit from the back of her husband’s lorry. And over to the right, three men relayed large bouquets of flowers from a truck. Horns and screeching wheels and shouts back and forth across the stalls. One withered woman was laying out carrots and huge green cabbages and shiny apples. Ann watched two men gathering enough broccoli for a restaurant. ‘Tuppence more for pinching.’ The old woman winked. Ann moved closer, drawn to the bright red apples. ‘One of those, please.’

  ‘One?’

  Ann remembered this was a wholesale market. They didn’t do individual sales until the hospitals and hotels and restaurants were served.

  Registering Ann’s embarrassment, the woman softened. ‘Of course, luv.’ She reached down and considered several possibilities before picking one for Ann. ‘The very best apple for a sweet girl who rises so early in the day.’

  Ann smiled, paid the woman and walked toward the embankment, almost blanketing the street noise with the crunch of her red apple.

  She loved the names of these roads: Long Acre, Floral Street, King Street, Maiden Lane. The Strand was beginning to draw traffic but it looked almost vacant compared to how it would be in an hour. Ann ran across the middle of the street, feeling a rare exhilaration about this city. Walking down Villiers Street, she contemplated the awkward elegance of Charing Cross Station. She followed the river toward Westminster Bridge. Then wandering past the Houses of Parliament, she was relieved to find the gate to the gardens open. She wished she had bought two apples.

  Aside from several sleeping figures, she was the only visitor in the garden this morning. She felt pleased by the soft dawn light. The statue of Emmeline Pankhurst guarded the entrance like an avenging angel. Rodin’s sculpture of the Burghers of Calais stood near the middle — simple and inspiring. Early sun struck a sharp sheen on the black bronze. She recalled the story of these men who, for the sake of their village, put themselves up for ransom. Reuben came to mind and she tried to suppress the image. He would do something like that. Just as suddenly his face disappeared replaced by Leah’s.

  Integrity, he had said. So what should she do? By all accounts, the child would be better off with the Goldmans. It made no sense to take her in, no sense at all. Was she mad enough to listen to a child? No.

  A young couple strolled by. The man wore a US navy uniform. Ann held her breath for the girl, hoping she would be careful. There were going to be an awful lot of war brides. ‘Would You Like To Swing On A Star?’ And a lot of broken hearts. Why did she think she was any different from this English girl? Why did she assume she would be the one to leave Reuben? Ann stretched. She would have to get to work if she were going to finish the reports in time for Esther’s meeting.

  Still, she had so much to think out. Reuben was fascinating, brilliant, passionate. But he was also controlled. His story was parceled out in such precise segments. Would he always be regulating the doses of information and affection. He was, like Papa, a self-created man.

  A worldly person like Reuben had made love before. And during the war things happened differently. People needed each other for s
olace and courage and distraction. Yet, even as she ran these notions through her mind, she rejected them.

  Ann recalled Reuben’s visit to her sick bed last winter and his strange encounter with Mark Speidel. Odd, how the two men had become friends, talking politics, attending football games. Also odd the affection she had developed for her fellow roomer. At first Mark seemed to have a crush on her. However his attentions flagged as soon as he recognized Reuben’s place. Occasionally he still looked at her as if, well, as if he could be quite attracted. For her own part, she found Mark great fun and, if he had been Jewish and if Reuben hadn’t been around, something might have developed. As it was, Mark played faithful friend to both of them, no doubt a tricky balance. He was one of the few people with whom she was able to discuss Reuben. Mark was much less sentimental than Esther. She recalled their last talk, as the two of them waited for Reuben outside a theater.

  ‘He’s got pluses and minuses,’ Mark shrugged. ‘He’s a man of principles. But a moody man of principles.’

  ‘He wants a family,’ she said.

  ‘Take it slowly. He’ll wait. Your problem is that your confuse the two of them. You can adopt the girl without making Reuben any promises.’

  ‘Sponsor. Not adopt. And even then, I’d have to get special permission.’

  ‘If you made it over here, you can break through the red tape about Leah.’

  ‘That’s hardly the point.’

  ‘What’s the point?’ he asked.

  ‘The child’s welfare,’ Ann stammered, ‘her …’ She was saved by Reuben’s approach.

  Now, Ann decided Mark was not the most responsible person with whom to discuss Leah. Besides she had made her decision. She reached into her bag for Papa’s letter.

  Dear Ann.

  Thank you for your last letter which arrived a couple of weeks ago. I think I mentioned this in my most recent letter, but perhaps one of yours got lost, so I thought I would repeat that I enjoyed your description of Southend. I remember Uncle Iz liked to go to the English resorts for holidays. I often think about Iz these days. I think he must have got out. But he was never much of a letter writer. He wouldn’t think about his poor brother worrying about him, coddled in America.