Israel

by Fred Lawrence Feldman

  “Pop—”

  “That’s what I thought, Danny, but I’ve got another chance.”

  “Don’t make yourself excited. I’m not going, okay? I’m staying here—”

  “Yes, you are going.”

  “Huh?”

  “In the ambulance I passed out. I had a—I don’t know—a dream or a memory of myself as a young man back in Russia. It was the eve of Haim’s departure to Palestine and we were arguing. I didn’t want him to go. I wanted him to come to America with me, but he wouldn’t listen. How stubborn he was!”

  “Haim? Stubborn?” Danny was incredulous. “I always thought that guy was perfect.”

  “In the dream, Danny, you were Haim, and our argument about Palestine became the argument about you becoming a flier. I realized then that Haim had insisted on living his own life, just as you have, but him I showered with love and understanding, so why not you?”

  Danny, his voice trembling, said, “It was Mother dying, I guess. You sorta always held that against me, huh?”

  Abe nodded. “But I had no right. Now that I almost died I realize that. I can’t go to my grave with that burden on my conscience.”

  “Cut out that talk,” Danny scolded. “You’re not dying so fast. You’re too mean.” He winked.

  Abe smiled. “The war could go on a long time, Danny. Who knows when you’ll come back?”

  “I told you I’m not going.”

  “And in the ambulance I urged you to go. I’m telling you now. I wish you wouldn’t because I’m afraid for you, but I want you to have your dream.”

  Danny was quiet for a moment, then said, “Okay, Pop. And thanks. I want you to know that I’d stay if it would make you happy.”

  “I know,” Abe replied. “All your life you’ve been forgiving me my shortcomings, and all my life I’ve been wishing you were more like Haim.” He paused. “Danny, you say you got the second highest score on the test? It must be difficult if it’s for pilots.”

  “A lot of college men failed that test. I guess I’m not so dumb after all.”

  “Nobody thought you were dumb, only that you never applied yourself. Never mind that now. I’m trying to say I’m proud of you.”

  “Okay. I’m glad you are.” Danny leaned over his father to kiss him on the forehead. “When I come back, I’ll take you for a ride, Pop. We’ll go high above the clouds and soar with the birds.”

  “Yeah,” Abe chuckled weakly. “So everything’s all right between us, yes?”

  “Sure it is.”

  “Like a father and a son should be, right?” Abe’s eyes fluttered closed and his voice faded away as he fell asleep.

  While her father slept Becky sat by his bedside, watching him and thinking. She’d told her brother everything Dr. Swerdlove said and Danny agreed that their father could no longer spend his days alone.

  Abe’s eyes blinked open. “Huh? Danny?”

  “He had to go back to work,” Becky said, “but he told me what went on between you.” She squeezed her father’s hand. “I’m so happy.”

  “If he wants to be a flier, let him be a good one,” Abe grunted. “You know, I’m proud of you too. We haven’t gotten along too good lately. It’s the drinking, I guess. I was impressed by how much Pickman must think of you for him to do so much for me. He got me a very fancy doctor, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, please be sure to thank him.”

  “Father, they think you’ll be out of here in a couple of weeks.”

  “Too long.”

  “A couple of weeks of observation,” Becky declared. “But we’ve got to discuss what’ll happen then.”

  “What do you mean? I’ll go home is what’ll happen then.”

  “You can’t stay alone anymore. You must realize that.”

  “Yeah,” Abe sighed. “I also know that Cherry Street is my home, where my friends are, what’s left of them. I can’t go somewhere new. You understand? Look, I’m old, I’m scared; I’m finished making trouble for my children—”

  “You are mean,” Becky laughed.

  Abe grinned wolfishly. “That’s what Danny said, that I was too mean to die.” He shook his head. “Let me think things over, Becky. If I’m gonna be here awhile, we can take our time deciding what to do.”

  Her father regained his strength during the following week. Visiting hours lasted until eight o’clock, and Becky went to the hospital every evening directly from work. The family celebrated Danny’s birthday in Abe’s room. That morning Danny had been sworn into the Army. The next day he left by train for the Aviation Classification Center near San Antonio, Texas.

  During the second week Becky and her father began to spend their visits strolling the corridors with Abe leaning on his daughter’s arm.

  “Shumel came to visit me today. Davy Kaplan brought him. Shumel don’t see so good anymore. You know, Shumel’s wife died last year. He’s been living alone in that big railroad apartment on Ludlow Street, on the third floor. That’s too many steps for an old man like him. So—” Abe waited.

  “So what?”

  “So I asked him to move into Cherry Street with me. He’s nearly blind, but he’s spry. The only thing is, you’ll have to move out. Shumel ain’t your brother. You get a nice, respectable place near your work. You’re a good girl. You’ll be okay.”

  “Thanks,” Becky said dryly.

  “Since that bastard Benny Talkin you haven’t had a boyfriend. Am I right? I thought so. Well, if you ain’t getting married you’ll want a place of your own, and I know you’re too dutiful to say so.”

  “I see. All this is for my benefit.”

  “For everybody’s benefit—yours, Shumel’s, mine. He and I can take care of one another and I can stay home. I know the store is too much for me now. I figure to sell off the meat and dairy cases and just keep a few things on the shelves. More like a candy store, you know? All I want is to keep it open with some chairs so I can sit with my friends. I know it’s your building and I need your permission—”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  Abe stared at her. “What are you crying for?”

  “Maybe I’m homesick already.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Enough walking. Back to your room.”

  “Homesick,” Abe murmured in wonder. “I never figured about that.”

  “I’m willing to let you try it,” Becky said, “but you’ve got to promise me no more drinking—”

  “You don’t have to tell me. I made a vow, you know. I won’t take a drop while Danny’s in the war, and never again if he comes back safe and sound.”

  Chapter 44

  Carl Pickman liked a quiet morning. He awoke at six o’clock or a little after. He never overslept and he never relied upon an alarm clock. He bathed, shaved and dressed, then went downstairs to the dining room for breakfast. The morning papers kept him company. He spoke to no one, did not even say good morning to the maid. She understood; the first thing a new member of the house staff learned was that Carl Pickman enjoyed a quiet morning.

  Gertrude slept late. A midmorning brunch would be brought to her in bed while she made her telephone calls, confirming her calendar for the afternoon and evening.

  In their morning habits, as in so many things, Carl and Gertrude had very little in common, and their tacit understanding was that both preferred it that way. Accordingly, Carl was both surprised and displeased when his wife, puffy-eyed and wrapped in her morning robe, entered the dining room at seven on a suffocatingly humid August morning.

  “Carl, I’d like to talk to you about a very important matter.” Gertrude glanced at the maid. “That will be all,” she said as her coffee appeared before her.

  Carl sighed, folded away his newspaper and regarded his wife over the rim of his cup. “They call for thunderstorms,” he observed.

  “I detest the city in the summer,” Gertrude replied. “This horrid war has spoiled everything. I ask you, darling, what’s the point of a summer residence if there’s nothi
ng going on in the country?” Behind her the maid was wheeling out the breakfast cart. Gertrude heard the glass doors quietly close behind her.

  Carl watched his wife twist around to be sure they were alone. “She’s gone, Gertrude. What’s on your mind?”

  “That popsy you’re going around town with,” Gertrude spat. “It’s got to stop.”

  “What?” Carl tried to laugh. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Carl, you’ve been seen, don’t you understand? Skulking around those dark little hideaways has done you no good at all.”

  “Just a moment,” he protested. “Are you speaking of Miss Herodetsky? We have dinner occasionally, it’s true, but it’s strictly business.”

  “I want it to stop, Carl.”

  “Be reasonable, Trade.” He smiled. “She’s done a wonderful job at the store and she’s had some bad luck. Her father is an invalid and her brother is in the service—”

  “You’ve helped her enough, Carl. I know about the apartment.”

  He shook his head ruefully. “Calm down, now. She needed a place to live. With the war there’s a housing shortage. I merely phoned Charles and asked him if he had anything in any of his buildings, that’s all. Rebecca’s done so much for the store. Do you really mind that I used some pull to get her a modest walk-up on Riverside Drive?”

  “Is that where you go to sleep with your slut? Did you furnish her nest for her or do you two just roll around on a mattress on the floor?”

  Carl took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. He wanted to smack Gertrude silly. “How odd,” he said icily. “Jealousy on your part seems very peculiar after all these years. Nevertheless, I can assure you that Miss Herodetsky and I are not lovers.” He looked at his watch. In precisely three minutes his driver would bring the car. He stood up. “Good morning, Gertrude.”

  “I’m warning you, Carl, I won’t have it.”

  His fists clenched. “I don’t care what you think or what you want.” Carl stormed out of the dining room, shutting the glass doors behind him, cutting off his wife’s tirade.

  The car was waiting.

  Damn Trude! He would think about Miss Herodetsky instead. He wanted to believe she was fond of him, but was her warmth solely due to his wealth and power? Obviously his position made some difference to her, as it did to everyone. It had to, but was that all there was to their relationship?

  He knew very little about women. He’d always been shy, diffident; in his later years those traits had evolved into aloofness, and yet with Becky he had begun to feel more alive.

  It was a long time since he’d felt anything for anyone. He loved his daughters, he supposed, but he saw them so rarely that they were alien to him. Between their boarding schools and summer camps he couldn’t remember the last time the house rang with their laughter.

  His marriage was a joke. Had it always been so? Had Trude always viewed their union as a business merger? Had she and his father laughed at his naivete behind his back?

  I won’t have it. Come to think of it, his father often used that expression. Yes, his wife and his father were two of a kind.

  The sky darkened and there came a low rumble of thunder as the car cruised past the Plaza Hotel and its majestic fountain. A fat drop of rain splattered against the side window. A minute later it began to pour.

  Along Fifth Avenue pedestrians popped open their umbrellas. Those caught unprepared held newspapers and briefcases above their heads as they ran for shelter, reminding Carl of his own undignified flight from his wife. Well, he was through backing down. It was time for him to take charge of his life.

  He glanced out his window. Saks’ awnings were crowded with passersby waiting for the worst of the storm to be over. From the ink-stained clouds Carl guessed it would rain for quite some time. When the department stores opened today, business would be brisk as the public, trapped inside by the rain, lingered over the merchandise.

  Carl Pickman let the sound of the rain drumming on the roof wash away his anger. His wife had done him a favor. Not only had she crystallized his feelings about her, she had forced him to realize just how much Becky meant to him.

  I wish she were here beside me now, he thought. I wish—

  Well, there were many things he wished. This morning he had learned that there was really nothing standing in the way of those wishes coming true.

  But first things first. A man had to start somewhere.

  On that same humid August morning, as Carl Pickman’s car was rolling down Fifth Avenue, Becky was readying herself for the day. Her apartment was on the fifth floor of a brownstone on the corner of Seventy-ninth and Riverside. It was a small place consisting of a tiny kitchen, a bath, a bedroom and a living room. Her apartment faced the rear, so she had no view of Riverside Park, but there was a skylight in the bathroom and a spacious balcony off the little living room, overlooking a garden courtyard. Thanks to Carl’s influence the rent was reasonable, although the landlord could have charged what he wanted in the housing shortage brought on by the war.

  During her first weeks of tenancy she was deliriously happy, but as the novelty wore off, she began to miss her father and the old neighborhood. Everybody on Cherry Street knew her name and had a smile for her in passing. Without realizing it until she moved, she had come to rely on the warmth of that close-knit community to replenish her strength after a grueling day’s work. Now when she came home it was to a far posher neighborhood, but here she was just another New Yorker, a stranger to all, as all were strangers to her. She resigned herself to loneliness; it was just the way her life had turned out.

  She grabbed her purse and hurried down the stairs and out the front door of her building, only to stop short as she caught a glimpse of the darkening sky over the Hudson River. It sure looked like rain; she hadn’t bothered to listen to the radio weather report, and she’d left her umbrella four flights up.

  She was already running late. She’d called a staff meeting for nine o’clock, and she had an enormous amount of paperwork to do before then.

  The subway was two blocks east. She’d gamble on making it before the storm broke. She was just reaching West End Avenue when she heard a thunderous peal, saw morning turn to dusk and felt the first hard drops of rain.

  A man wearing a trench coat and a fedora pulled low was approaching the corner. She impatiently waited for the traffic light to change so she could dash across the avenue. She was preoccupied with her soaked hair and clothing and how her whole stinking day was being ruined because she forgot to bring her stinking umbrella.

  The man in the trench coat got his umbrella over her head just as the downpour began in earnest. She turned to look at him, startled, and her stomach churned and her knees weakened.

  “Hi, Becky,” Benny Talkin said. “Been a long time.”

  Four years, three months, one week, three days, she found herself effortlessly calculating. “Uh, yeah. It has been. Hi, Benny.”

  “Gee, you look great.”

  “You too,” she said, and he did. He’d grown a handsome mustache. In his trench coat and fedora he looked like Humphrey Bogart in the movies—better. Humphrey Bogart probably wanted to look like Benny Talkin when he chose his costume. “What are you doing here?” she demanded. It came out like an accusation, not that Becky cared. It was all she could do to keep from crying, so great was the shock of seeing him. “You don’t still live at the Dorilton?”

  “Hell, no. I gave up that crib a long time ago.”

  “‘Crib?’” Becky smiled. “You still lurking around those Fifty-second Street swing clubs and picking up the musicians’ slang?” There! The intervening years had taught her a thing or two about disdainful superiority!

  Benny didn’t seem to hear the sarcasm. “No more time for music, I’m afraid. I’m partners with my father-in-law and I’ve got three kids.”

  “Gee, that’s great.”

  “Yeah,” Benny grinned. “Twin boys and a girl. We live on West End and Ninety-fifth.”

/>   This handsome bastard still had the power to turn her into jelly. “I see that your eye healed up all right.” She hated herself for digging up the past that way, but she’d forgotten Benny’s ability to tune out what he didn’t want to hear.

  “You must live around here.” She nodded and he said, “That makes us neighbors.”

  She smiled weakly. The traffic light had gone through three cycles. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Let me walk you down to Seventy-second,” Benny said. “You’ll save time by catching the express to Pickman’s.”

  He began to head along West End and Becky walked with him.

  “How’d you know I work at Pickman’s?”

  He shrugged. “Word gets around, I guess. Anyway, I know you’re doing real well. I’m proud of you, Becky. You know, I feel like I got you your start.”

  You almost finished me, as well. “What are you doing so far downtown if you live on Ninety-fifth?” she asked, taking his arm.

  “I was heading for midtown. I got an appointment with a restaurant owner.”

  “No more maroon Cadillac convertible?”

  “Oh, sure,” Benny laughed, “a new one every year, up until the war, of course. Anyway, I like to walk. You remember that, don’t you?”

  Right then she was trying desperately not to remember things about him. “About the war—I see you didn’t feel the need to enlist.”

  “That kinda thing is for chumps, honey. Anyhow, it isn’t like I’m not doing my part. Stefano and I are engaged in some secret work for the Navy—”

  “What?” Becky exclaimed, incredulous.

  “It’s true. These Navy guys came to Stefano to ask for his help . . .”

  “Help for what?” Becky persisted.

  Benny glanced around. “It isn’t the kinda thing you’re supposed to talk about on the street,” he told her quietly. Then he brightened. “Say, why don’t you and me get together for a drink? I could tell you all about it.”