by Betsy Carter
When Egon picked up the phone, Meyer blurted, “I have a confession to make.”
“I too have a confession,” said Egon.
“Mine is probably more important.”
“I don’t think so.” Egon sounded excited. “I’m going to invite Catrina to our next gathering at the Schnabels’. What do you think?”
Meyer sat up. “What I think is this may be the dumbest idea you’ve ever had.”
“I can’t keep her hidden forever.”
“This isn’t forever. You’ve only been friends with her for a few months.”
“Yes, but she did invite me to meet her family at Thanksgiving.”
“And may I remind you, she then uninvited you.”
“That was for a different reason.”
“Can you honestly imagine how it will be to say, ‘Kaethe and Georg, I’d like you to meet the woman who shares my bed, Catrina Harty. Her people are from County Mayo, Ireland?’”
“I grant you that, it could be awkward. Well, Carola and Max will be kind.”
“I wouldn’t count on that. Do you forget that Carola is Liesl’s best friend? Max will be silent. That leaves me and Liesl. Naturally, I will be my usual charming self, but Liesl will not warm to the next Mrs. Cheese Man. So you see what I mean, it will be more than awkward. It will be awful.”
“You were the one who wrote that we were ghettoizing ourselves and we should let in fresh air. Now it is time for the fresh air.”
“I applaud your optimism, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Meyer hung up, relieved that Egon had not asked about his confession and excited about entering into a new drama that didn’t involve him.
Kaethe and Georg’s table was set as it usually was for coffee and cake, only this time there was a lace doily under the platter and a smaller one under the cream pitcher. Meyer noticed that Kaethe had put on lipstick and pinned back her hair instead of knotting it in her usual bun, and that Georg had doused himself with an aftershave that smelled like fermented fruit. Max wore a brown tie with yellow squares, and Carola had powdered her face and rubbed two dots of rouge into her cheeks. He realized that they’d all gotten dolled up for Catrina, their first American.
The only one who had not arrived yet was Liesl. Meyer ran his hands through his hair and jiggled his foot. Would she snub him? Make some pointed remark about their shabby evening together? Liesl’s manners were proper, yet she was the least predictable of all of them. Egon was so taken with Catrina that the thought of seeing Liesl didn’t seem to unsettle him. Meyer envied his detachment.
The first thing he noticed when Liesl arrived was that she was wearing one strand of pearls. Idiot, he thought, remembering his promise to restring the other. She had on a pale blue suit that complemented her gray eyes and showed off her small waist and swimmer’s shoulders. She kissed Carola and Max on the cheek and handed Kaethe a package. “A little something I picked up,” she said. “Thank you for having me.”
Kaethe unwrapped the two bars of Lindt chocolate and said, “It is so thoughtful of you to remember us.” Meyer realized that she stressed the word thoughtful because none of the others had brought a gift. After Kaethe introduced the two women, Liesl nodded to Catrina and ignored Egon. She hugged Meyer and gave him a provocative smile that he knew was for Egon’s benefit.
Georg offered Catrina the seat of honor, a curvy wooden armchair, while the others arranged themselves around her. Liesl sat on the couch, close enough to Meyer that her thigh was touching his. When he crossed his legs, she moved even closer, until their shoulders were pressed together. He wondered if anyone noticed and hoped they did. They all stared at Catrina in silence until Egon announced that she lived in a nearby brownstone on 185th Street. Max speculated it had most likely been built around the turn of the century in the Renaissance style. His lips were red and chapped, and Meyer became distracted, imagining Max kissing Carola’s tender skin. Georg asked him a question, and Meyer asked him to repeat it.
“I am asking how you like your job at the Aufbau.”
It annoyed Meyer that Georg’s questions always sounded like commands, but in deference to Catrina, he held his tongue.
“I enjoy writing about our experience in America.”
“It’s obvious that you do,” said Georg, who had been cool to him ever since he’d referred to President George Washington Bridge in his column.
Egon clenched his jaw, expecting Meyer to respond, but Liesl intervened. “Meyer’s column is the most entertaining feature in the Aufbau, don’t you think?” She turned to Catrina, who had not yet said a word.
Catrina smiled and said, “Unfortunately, I can’t read the Aufbau, but I have no doubt that Meyer is very amusing.”
“Foolish me,” said Liesl, “of course, it’s not in your language.”
“Speaking of amusing,” Meyer said to Carola, “are you finding time to play the clarinet?” He’d been searching her face for signs of what she might know about him and Liesl, but Carola gave away nothing. “You used to love it so.”
Carola glanced at Max. “I haven’t in a long while, but soon I may have more time.”
Kaethe called everyone to the table and served coffee and crumb cake. Max complimented her on the cake. Georg struck his coffee cup with a spoon. He stood up and addressed the table as if he were delivering an argument in court. “I want to welcome you to our little gathering. Kaethe and I are delighted to have old friends to our home and to welcome new ones.” He nodded at Catrina. “So please, enjoy our modest repast and let us share many happy memories and good times together.”
Meyer caught the bewildered look on Catrina’s face and realized that Georg’s accent was so thick she hadn’t understood a word he’d said. Liesl scraped her chair closer to Meyer’s and whispered in his ear, “I drink to the good times.” No one heard what she said, but everyone noticed how Meyer, for a rare moment, was at a loss for words.
Egon asked if anyone had seen the new movie Gone with the Wind. No one had.
Meyer recovered enough to say, “I did see Modern Times.”
Max allowed as how that Chaplin fellow was a genius, and Meyer countered that apparently he was a genius in the bedroom too. “After all, he swept Paulette Goddard off her feet, and she’s half his age.”
“That’s what older men will do to you,” said Catrina, smiling at Egon.
Egon looked surprised, and Liesl looked straight at Meyer. “Some of them,” she said in a flirty voice.
Meyer could see how Liesl’s little game was beginning to bother Egon, and it gave him a prick of spiteful pleasure. He’d keep the game going: “So Catrina, Egon says you have a position at the ASPCA. What is the nature of your work?” He knew full well the nature of her work but couldn’t resist raising a subject that would make the Schnabels squirm.
“I can’t think of how to say this in a polite way. I help prepare dogs who will be killed.”
Kaethe waved her hand in front of her face as if she were slapping at a mosquito. “Phooy,” she said. “This is not a subject for the dining table.”
They fell into small talk about Fort Tryon Park. Egon said how much he enjoyed the tapestries at the Cloisters, and Max explained how the Cloisters, built on a bluff overlooking the Hudson, was a re-creation of a twelfth-century castle. Conversation bumped along like that until everyone finished eating. Catrina helped Kaethe clear the table. She wiped the crumbs off the plates and stacked them in the sink, putting all the forks in one glass and the spoons in another, exactly as they’d done at the Blue Moon, then rejoined the rest of them in the living room, where things had grown tense again.
Meyer was leaning across the table, shouting at Egon. “Roosevelt might as well have issued them all a death sentence right then and there!”
Catrina raised an eyebrow as if to ask what all the fuss was about. “They’re talking about the St. Louis,” Carola said in a low voice. “You must have read how America turned away a shipload of Jewish refugees after Cuba rejected them. Go
d knows what will happen to them now.” Catrina shook her head, even though she knew nothing about the St. Louis.
“Perhaps the people on the ship didn’t have their papers in order,” said Georg.
Meyer jerked around so fast, he knocked over the cream pitcher. “I swear, Georg, if you weren’t a Jew you’d be one of them, and you’d be a very good one.”
Georg wagged his finger at Meyer. “With you it is impossible to have a civil conversation.”
Catrina wiped up the cream with her napkin. Meyer nearly flew out of his skin. “With you, it is impossible to be in the same room.”
Uncomfortable with the tension, Catrina retreated to the kitchen, where she washed and dried the dishes and wiped down the counters. When she returned, they had fallen back to discussing old Frankfurt friends and the café in Berlin that Meyer and Egon used to frequent. No one paid her attention except Egon, who caught her eye and tapped his watch as if to say We’ll get out of here soon.
The sun had set by the time they all left. Liesl held out her coat for Meyer to help her with it. Together they walked out without saying good-bye to Egon or Catrina.
In the street, Egon took Catrina’s arm, helping her around the mounds of dirt-capped snow. “This was not so bad,” he said.
“Are you asking me or reassuring yourself?”
“I guess a little of both. You charmed them, as I knew you would.”
Catrina stopped walking. “Egon, they barely spoke to me. Little Miss Lipstick was horrible. She and your friend, Meyer, seemed very cozy. I don’t know why he had to ask what I did at work, and I must say, you weren’t much of a help either.”
“Yes, I noticed what you are saying about Liesl and Meyer. Whatever that was is news to me. But they all tried, Catrina. We all tried. You know, you are the first guest they’ve had here who is not one of us. I think they accepted you.”
“What you’re saying is I’m the first gentile they’ve had, and a Catholic no less.”
“I suppose I am.”
“Well, thank you very much, but my tiny world is quite enough, I don’t need to be accepted into yours.”
After the guests left, Kaethe walked into her kitchen expecting to find a sink full of dishes. Georg was already sitting in his chair tuning in the radio when he heard her cry out, “Georg, you must see this.” He came in and looked around. “What is it?”
“The dishes. They have been washed and dried and put away.”
Georg stared at the cupboard. “So they have.”
“Well, I didn’t do it,” said Kaethe. “Egon’s girl must have cleaned up while we were all talking.” She let a smile stretch across her lips. “Georg, do you think she really is his girl and not his girlfriend?”
In Germany, they’d all had maids who served their food and washed their floors. In America, they called them “girls,” and none of their circle could afford to have one.
“They’re good housekeepers, the Irish.” Georg smirked. “Maybe so.”
20.
We move awkwardly into the new country. We wear bow ties and Stetson hats and, you betcha, we talk the American slang whenever we can. In Frankfurt, my friend was a respected doctor. Here, he works in a grocery store and is known as the Cheese Man. To his surprise, he doesn’t mind this title. He says it gives him definition and an identity. We take our place in America anywhere we can get it. This newspaper, like the Cheese Man, is all about reconstructing oneself in a new country. In that spirit, we will add a subtitle to our logo and from here on we shall be known as Aufbau: Serving the Interests and the Americanization of the Immigrants.
—Meyer Leavitt, Aufbau, June 14, 1940
I never said I liked being called the Cheese Man!” Egon shouted into the phone when Meyer picked it up. “I believe I said that it has given me some recognition and that Art is the one who likes it.”
“Ach, Egon, who cares? So I took liberties. I’m an American journalist now, that’s what we do. Put your petty grievance aside for a moment, and I will tell you something that you will like. The Aufbau is looking to help its readers assimilate into America. Remember our old game, ‘The Worst Job of the Week’? Well, I had the idea that we make it a regular column and call it ‘Job of the Week.’ The editor loved it. He scheduled our first one for Labor Day in September, and guess who it’s going to feature?” He didn’t pause long enough for Egon to respond. “Never mind, you’ll never guess. You and Catrina! Your old friend, Norman Blum, has never gotten over how you both saved his daughter’s miserable turtle. He was the one who suggested the two of you. Everyone thought you’d be perfect. You’ll meet with Norman and a photographer—yours truly—at your apartment sometime over the summer. I’ll give you a date as soon as I know. We’d like it if you could also have one of the animals you’ve treated to pose with you in the photograph. So you’ll arrange that and tell Catrina, yes?”
“Interesting,” said Egon. “But one thing. Is this a good idea, to make public us treating the animals?”
“I don’t see why not,” said Meyer. “It’s a good advertisement for you.”
“But do I want to advertise about the animals?”
“Sure, why not? The authorities won’t care, if that’s what you’re worried about. They don’t come after people like you.”
“And what if Catrina says no?”
“Why would she say no?”
“She has her own opinion about things and may not want to be in your Aufbau.”
“Fine then, I’ll ask her. Though, honestly, must I do everything?”
“Never mind, I will do it.”
Lately, Egon had been feeling on the side of luck, but he knew how luck could play a person both ways, and he wasn’t willing to tip the balance. He still worried about Catrina’s comment about his tiny world, and had taken care not to drag her into it too often, though she was not at all self-conscious about bringing him into hers. He had become a regular at the Hartys’ Friday-night dinners and would always bring a chocolate peach cake.
Egon was Rose’s first Jew. She’d met some at the hospital but never talked to them or shared a meal with them. She told Catrina that he wasn’t what she’d imagined a Jew to be. He wasn’t pushy or loud or fat. God knows he wasn’t rich. His fingers were slim, like a woman’s, and his nose was long but straight and flat, as if it had been pressed between the pages of a book. Because of his accent, she had to strain to understand what he was saying, but at least he wasn’t fawning in the way that Walter had been, always kissing her hand and calling her sweetie. Egon’s manners were curiously formal. He used his knife to push food onto his fork and always took her arm when they walked. Sometimes he brought fresh fruit or slices of rare roast beef for her, claiming they would make her stronger.
“When he asks about my health, he seems genuinely interested in my answers,” Rose told Kiefer. “Most men won’t give you the time of day.” She felt a kinship with anyone who’d suffered, and this man had suffered, she could see that. She told herself it didn’t matter that he was Jewish. In God’s eyes, a good man was a good man. Most of the time, she believed it, particularly when she saw how he was with Catrina, but each week she prayed for forgiveness for her daughter, who was living in sin with this very good man. Walter had had a way of grabbing at Catrina that made Rose uncomfortable. His touch had been rough and greedy, whereas Egon would stroke her hair as if she were a child, or slip his hand into hers as they sat on the couch. He called her liebchen and followed her everywhere with his eyes.
Kiefer called Egon Buddy, sometimes Bud, mostly because he didn’t like the foreignness of Egon. Conversations were easiest when Kiefer asked him questions about politics. Kiefer figured he was an old guy from the old country, so he probably knew stuff about Mussolini and Russia. Egon would answer as best he could—more often than not, he admitted to Catrina, by quoting Meyer. Sometimes Bud asked Kiefer about his work, and Kiefer would tell him about his precinct or some tough who’d been brought in on robbery charges. Kiefer told Catrina that Buddy wa
s an okay guy, a whole lot better than that lowlife she’d married. He didn’t tell Catrina how it gave him the creeps the way Bud always found a way to touch her. Even if she walked by, he’d stroke her shoulder and smile in a hungry kind of way. Guys were like that, but this one was old and a foreigner. No, it wasn’t that, really. What really made him uncomfortable was the thought of Bud’s Jew fingers all over his sister. Kiefer hated himself for thinking that, because it brought him back to who he was: his father’s son, exactly who he didn’t want to be.
Egon waited until the time felt right before asking Catrina about the column in the Aufbau. It came late on a Saturday afternoon in June as they left the Cloisters. A light wind blew off the river. Egon stopped walking. He took in a deep breath. “Mmm, smell that. What do you think is in that air that makes it smell so inviting?”
Catrina sniffed several times. “Water. Probably freshly cut grass, early summer.” She turned to him and smiled. “You ask funny questions.”
“If you think that is a funny question, will you believe this one?” He spelled out the facts of the Job of the Week column as quickly and monosyllabically as a child in a school play. “They also want to take our picture. Can you imagine?”
“I don’t know anyone who reads that paper.” She shrugged. “We can do it if you like.”
“Everyone I know reads that paper,” he said. “It would be a good way for us to let the word out that we care for the animals.”
Catrina and Egon rose early to prepare for the Aufbau interview. A typical August day, it was muggy and already eighty degrees. Catrina opened all the windows. She swept the dog hair from the floor, and, though he felt foolish doing so, Egon polished the brass plaque with Doktor Egon Schneider engraved on it and propped it up on his desk. They scrubbed Johnny, then washed and dressed themselves. He put on his only suit, a clean white shirt, and his father’s cuff links. “Very handsome,” said Catrina, stroking his cheek.