‘What scene?’ I asked.
‘The scene where the two Feds were interviewing me in a conference room at Steele and Sherwood. The company’s lawyer was with me. The interview had gone on all morning. I kept ducking and diving the question of the Communists I knew. For three hours, I stuck to my guns - and just named the people who had already named me. Finally, the Feds got frustrated - and asked to see the company lawyer in private. They must have been gone around twenty minutes. He came back alone. And said, “Jack: if you don’t give them another name, you’re going to be called in front of the Committee as a hostile witness. And your career at Steele and Sherwood will be finished.”
‘All I had to do was say no. That’s all that was required. All right, I might have lost my job, but … I would have found a way of putting bread on the table. But they had me in a corner. And those Feds - they were so good at sniffing out your weaknesses. Jesus, did they play on mine. They knew all about us, of course - and they kept dropping hints about how, if I didn’t cooperate, not only would I be fired from Steele and Sherwood, but word would probably get around about my complicated domestic arrangements. Not only would I be branded a pinko sympathizer, but Mr Flexible Morality. I remember exactly what one of the Feds told me: “Pal, if you were running two households in Paris, no one would give a shit. But in America, we operate according to a slightly harsher moral code: get found out, get fucked over. You’ll be lucky to end up shining shoes somewhere.”
‘That’s when I gave them Eric’s name. As soon as it was out of my mouth, I knew I had killed everything. It was just a matter of time before you found out. And when Dorothy found out, she told me I was beneath contempt.’
‘But didn’t she understand that you did it for her and Charlie?’
‘Oh, she got that all right. But she still saw it as another of my betrayals. She kicked me out for a while after that. Told me that she’d give me the divorce I’d always wanted … that I’d now be free to be with you …’
It took me a moment or two to speak.
‘I didn’t know,’ I said.
‘If only you’d read my letters … if only you’d let me contact you … I kept thinking: this is the shittiest irony imaginable. And it’s my own fault …’
He broke off, reached into his overcoat pocket, and fumbled around until he found a cigarette. He screwed it into a corner of his mouth. He picked up a book of matches off the table. He lit his cigarette with shaking hands. The light of the match cast his face in a gaunt glow. He looked so shrunken, so denuded, so defeated by everything. I saw myself throwing out his box of letters. Letters which he must have spent hours writing. As I spent hours writing him throughout the winter of ‘46 … when I simply couldn’t believe the wonderfully delirious love I felt for him. For four years, his letters sat gathering dust in Joel’s office. Four years. I let them sit there. And then, on the day I returned to New York, I simply tossed them away - as a final act of reprisal. Why didn’t I read them when he first sent them? Why did I have this need to punish him? A punishment which would now haunt me. Because I would always wonder: had I read those letters in the months after Eric’s death, might I have understood? Might I have found a way of forgiving him? Might we have discovered a way back to each other?
‘What happened after Dorothy threw you out?’
‘I spent around six months on a fold-out couch in Meg’s apartment.’
Meg. Her letter to me in the winter of ‘53:
What can I say, Sara? Except this. I know how deeply you once loved him. I don’t ask for a miraculous reconciliation. All I ask is that, somehow, you find a way to forgive him - and to communicate your forgiveness to him. I think it would mean an enormous amount to him. He is now a deeply unhappy man. He needs your help to find his way back to himself.
But, oh no, I couldn’t be seen to weaken from my position. I had self-righteousness on my side. He had to be permanently condemned. He’d made his bed (as I so caustically wrote back to Meg). Now he could lie in it. Alone.
‘Eventually, Meg engaged in some delicate diplomacy with Dorothy,’ Jack said. ‘At heart, my wife has always been a complete pragmatist. And the reason she took me back was an utterly pragmatic one: living alone with a small child was difficult. “As far as I’m concerned,” she told me, “you’re a second pair of hands, nothing more. Except, of course, to Charlie. He needs a father. It might as well be you.’”
‘And you still went back after she said that?’ I asked.
‘Yes. I went back. To a loveless marriage. But I’d made a vow, a commitment. I tell you, Catholic guilt is something to behold. But the real reason I went back was Charlie. I couldn’t stand to be apart from Charlie.’
‘I’m sure he needs you very much.’
‘And I him. Without Charlie, I don’t think I would have made it through the last couple of years.’
He suddenly shook his head, with annoyance.
‘Sorry, sorry - that sounds melodramatic.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Never better,’ he said, taking a nervous drag on his cigarette.
‘You look a little … wan.’
‘No. I look like shit.’
‘You’re not well, are you?’
His fingers closed around the coffee cup again. He continued to avoid looking at me.
‘I wasn’t well. A bad bout of hepatitis. Word of advice: never eat cherrystones at City Island.’
‘It was just hepatitis?’ I asked, trying not to sound overtly sceptical.
Another fast drag of his cigarette.
‘Do I look that bad?’
‘Well …’
‘Don’t answer that. But yeah - hepatitis can really kick the crap out of you.’
‘You’ve been off work?’
‘For six months.’
‘Good God …’
‘Steele and Sherwood have been pretty understanding. Full pay for the first three months, half pay since then. It’s meant things have been a little tight, especially with the beautiful Kate now in our lives. But we’ve managed.’
‘Are things now better between you and Dorothy?’
‘Kate’s made a difference. It’s given us something to talk about. Other than Charlie, that is.’
‘There must have been some sort of thaw between the two of you before then,’ I said, nodding towards the baby carriage.
‘Not really. Just a night when we both had four Scotches too many, and Dorothy momentarily forgot that, at heart, she didn’t like me.’
‘I hope Kate makes you both very …’
He cut me off. His tone was suddenly harsh.
‘Yeah, thanks for the Hallmark Cards sentiment.’
‘I mean that, Jack. I don’t wish you any ill.’
‘You sure?’
‘I never did.’
‘But you didn’t forgive me either.’
‘You’re right. For a long time, I found it very hard to forgive what you’d done.’
‘And now?’
‘The past is the past.’
‘I can’t undo what happened.’
‘I know.’
He reached over to where my right hand was resting on the table. He covered it with his own. As soon as he touched me, I felt something akin to a small electrical charge course up my arm … the same charge I’d felt on that first night in 1945. After a moment, I moved my left hand on top of his.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said.
‘It’s okay,’ I said.
‘No,’ he said quietly, ‘it will never be okay.’
I suddenly heard myself say, ‘I forgive you.’
Silence. We said nothing for a very long time. Then Kate began to stir - some quiet burbling sounds quickly escalating into a full-scale lament. Jack stood up and hunted around the baby carriage until he found the pacifier she had spit out. As soon as it was back between her lips, she ejected it again and continued crying.
‘She’s in the market for a bottle, I’m afraid,’ Jack said. ‘I’d better
get home.’
‘Okay,’ I said.
He sat down quickly again opposite me.
‘Can I see you again?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘I understand …’
‘There’s no one else.’
‘That’s not what I was implying.’
‘It’s just … well … I guess I don’t know what I think right now.’
‘No rush,’ he said. ‘Anyway, I have to go out of town for a week or so. It’s a business thing. Up in Boston. Some account Steele and Sherwood wants me to handle when I go back to work next month.’
‘Are you well enough to travel?’
‘I look worse than I am.’
Kate’s crying now escalated.
‘You’d better go,’ I said.
He squeezed my hand one last time.
‘I’ll call you from Boston,’ he said.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Call me.’
He stood up. He rearranged the blanket around Kate. He turned towards me again. I stood up. Suddenly he pulled me towards him - and kissed me. I met his kiss. And held it. It only lasted a moment. When he ended it, he whispered:
‘Goodbye.’
Then he put both hands on the baby carriage and pushed it forward.
I sat down in the booth. I crossed my arms on the table. I laid my head atop them. I sat that way for a very long time.
For the next week, the shock lingered. I did my work. I saw movies. I saw friends. I kept replaying that kiss in my head. I didn’t know what to make of it. I didn’t know anything anymore.
He said he would call. He didn’t call. But he did write. A short card, with a Boston postmark. It was scribbled in a shaky hand.
I’m still here. It should be over soon.
I love you.
Jack
I read that card over and over, trying to decipher its underlying meaning. Eventually I decided there was no underlying meaning. He was still in Boston. Whatever he was doing would end shortly. He loved me.
And I still loved him.
But I expected nothing. Because - as I had learned - if you expect nothing, then anything is a surprise.
Another week went by. No calls. No cards. I remained calm. On Monday morning, April fifteenth, I was running out the door, en route to a press screening of some film. I was late, the traffic on Broadway was grim, so I decided to skip the bus and grab the subway downtown. I walked briskly to the 79th Street station, buying a New York Times from the newsie who was always out in front. I climbed aboard the downtown train. I did my usual quick scan of the paper. When I reached the Obituary page, I noticed that the lead death of the day was a Hartford insurance executive who once worked with my father. I quickly read his obituary, and was about to move on to the opposite page when my gaze stumbled on a short listing amidst the page-wide columns of Deaths:
MALONE, John Joseph, age 33, at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, on April 14th. Husband of Dorothy, father of Charles and Katherine. Formerly of Steele and Sherwood Public Relations Inc., New York. Will be much mourned by family and friends. Funeral Mass, Wednesday, April 17th, Holy Trinity Church, West 82nd Street, Manhattan. House private. No flowers please.
I only read it once. Then I lowered the paper on to my lap. I stared ahead of me. I saw nothing. I heard nothing. I didn’t notice the passage of time. Until a man in a uniform came over to me and said, ‘You okay, lady?’
I now realized that the train had stopped. The carriage was empty.
‘Where are we?’ I managed to ask.
‘The end of the line.’
Fifteen
TWO DAYS LATER, I went to the funeral. The church - Holy Trinity - wasn’t large, but it still seemed cavernous. There were only twenty or so mourners in attendance. They all sat in the front two pews - directly facing the casket. It was surrounded by four lit candles, and draped in an American flag - because, as befitting any veteran of the Armed Forces, Jack was entitled to a funeral with full military honors. Two soldiers in dress uniform stood at attention on either side of the coffin. The service began with the tolling of a bell. A priest and two altar boys marched down the aisle. One of the boys held a smoking censer of incense. The other carried a large gold cross. The priest - a short, greying man with a hard face - walked around the coffin, sprinkling it with holy water. Then he mounted the pulpit and began the Latin Mass. His voice was tough, no-nonsense. Like the man he was burying, the priest was a Brooklyn boy. I kept wondering if he had ever heard Jack’s confession.
A baby began to cry in the front row. It was Kate. She was being held by her mother. Dorothy’s face was drawn and tired. Next to her sat Charlie - in a blazer and a pair of flannel pants. He was the image of his father. So much so that I found it hard to look at him.
The priest moved briskly through the Latin prayers of the Mass. Whenever he reverted back to English and spoke about ‘our dear departed brother, Jack’, I felt my eyes sting. There were a few muffled sobs - largely from Meg, who sat on the other side of Charlie, her arm around his shoulders. I didn’t recognize any of the other mourners. I sat in the back row of the church, far away from the assembled crowd. I mixed in with a few local parishioners who had wandered in to say prayers, or simply seek shelter from the wet April day.
I had to be here. I had to say goodbye. But I also knew that I belonged in the back of the church - away from Dorothy and the children; away from Meg. I had caused enough grief within this family. I didn’t want to cause more by making an appearance. So I arrived at the church fifteen minutes before the funeral, and waited in a doorway on the opposite side of 82nd Street. I watched as two limousines pulled up out front, and the family entered the church. I loitered opposite for another five minutes - until I was certain that all the other mourners had entered. Then, wrapping a scarf tightly around my head, I crossed the street, climbed the church stairs and - with my head lowered - slipped quickly into the back row. The sight of the coffin was like a kick in the stomach. Up until this moment, the idea that Jack was dead seemed absurd, inconceivable. After reading his obituary in the New York Times, I forgot all about the screening I was supposed to attend, and instead found myself wandering aimlessly around the city for the balance of the day. At some juncture, I made my way home. It was dark. I opened the door. I let myself inside. I took off my coat. I sat down in an armchair. I remained in that armchair for a very long time. Only after an hour or so did I notice that I had failed to turn a light on in the apartment; that I was sitting alone in the dark. The phone started to ring. I ignored it. I went into my bedroom. I undressed and got into bed. I pulled the covers tight over me. I stared up at the ceiling. I kept expecting to fall apart, to come asunder and weep uncontrollably. But I was too concussed to cry. The enormity of it all - the terrible realization that I would never talk to him again - rendered me insensible. I couldn’t fathom his loss. Nor could I now fathom why I had spent four years being so stubborn, so intractable, so unforgiving. Four years separated from the man I loved - a separation sparked by his dire mistake … but then fueled by my inability to be understanding, to show mercy. By punishing him I had punished myself. Four years. How could I have squandered those four years?
The Pursuit of Happiness (2001) Page 69