Second Generation

by Howard Fast

  She slept poorly that night, awakening each time the train stopped, and then lying awake, listening to the sound of the wheels. She was up and dressed with the first light of dawn, waiting eagerly with her single small suitcase as the train pulled into Toulouse. A taxi took her to the Hospital of the Sacred Heart, a cream-colored stucco building on the edge of the city, and, still carrying her suitcase, she told the nurse at the admissions desk that she wished to see Marcel Duboise. The woman regarded Barbara dubiously and then stared at the suitcase.

  “I’ve just come from the Paris train. I didn’t want to stop at a hotel. Can I put this somewhere?”

  “It will be safe enough right here. Are you Monsieur Duboise’s wife?”

  “I will be—when we marry.”

  Again the woman stared at her. In sympathy or annoyance? “What is your name?” she asked.

  “Barbara Lavette.”

  “Mademoiselle Lavette, the visits are restricted to members of Monsieur Duboise’s family. He’s a very sick man. Those are the doctor’s orders.”

  “I am as close as any member of his family,” Barbara said, her voice hardening. “I want to see him now.”

  The woman regarded her thoughtfully, then nodded. “Very well. Try not to tire him. The sister will take you there.” She motioned to another nurse, who stood nearby. “Take her to Monsieur Duboise.”

  Barbara followed the nurse down a corridor, up a staircase, and along another corridor. She had never been in a French hospital before. This place was cloisterlike in its stark white severity.

  “His father and mother are here,” the sister told Barbara.

  “Oh? Where are they? With him?”

  “There is a sitting room at the end of this corridor. I saw them there before. Shall I tell them you’re here?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “What is your name, mademoiselle?”

  “Barbara Lavette.”

  “Here.” She opened the door for her.

  Barbara went into the room, white counterpane on the bed, an arched window with sunlight trickling through the slats of the blind, making a pattern on the bed, and Marcel lying there, very still, his eyes closed, his face drawn, his skin white.

  She walked softly to the bed. Could such a change take place in a matter of weeks? His hands lay on the counterpane, thin, fleshless.

  Then he opened his eyes and saw her, closed his eyes again, opened them, and whispered, “I have been feverish. This is a hallucination?”

  “No, my dear darling.” She bent and kissed his lips.

  “Barbara?”

  “Yes, Barbara.”

  He reached up to touch her face. “You’re real. I am not delirious.”

  “Very real, my darling.”

  “You never were before.”

  “Always. Always real.”

  “Thank God. Everything is proper now.”

  “Everything.”

  “You won’t go away?”

  “From you? Never.” She laid her hand on his cheek. It was hot to her touch.

  “When did you get here?”

  “This morning, on the train from Paris.”

  “We’ll go to Hermes and I’ll pick out a purse for you. You never let me buy you things.”

  “Yes.”

  “After lunch. First, lunch. Then we take the afternoon off and cheat the monsters of Le Monde. That’s good, isn’t it? The monsters of the world.”

  “Marcel,” she whispered, “Marcel.”

  “We’ll find a new place and charge the paper. I’ll review them. The soufflé is noble but the traffic, the traffic—” He closed his eyes, and his voice dropped to a mumble of meaningless sound. The door opened. A small, bald man with a pince-nez entered the room, tapped Barbara on the shoulder, and nodded toward the door. She followed him out into the corridor, her heart sinking.

  “I am Dr. Lazaire,” he said to her. “And you are Barbara Lavette.”

  “Yes.”

  “I hope you are not a hysterical young woman.”

  “Not when it matters.”

  “This matters. I know all about you. He has told me, and his mother and father have told me. Now listen to what I have to say. Your young man had the bone in his leg, the femur, splintered by a bullet. A very serious wound, and not properly attended to before he arrived here. He is suffering from what we call ‘spreading gangrene.’ Under the best conditions, such a wound is very serious, but in that ghastly situation in Spain, their medical services are primitive. Now, understand me. His leg must be amputated. It should have been done five days ago, immediately when he came here, but he refused permission. Now you must understand clearly. This is not an amputation at the knee but at the thigh. It may already be too late. I am not the surgeon but the Duboise family doctor. I brought this young man into the world, so it means something to me. If another night passes without the operation, he will almost certainly die, and even if we operate immediately, I can guarantee nothing. He is very weak, and he may not survive the amputation. He says he will not live in that condition, and we cannot amputate without his consent. His mother and father have pleaded with him, but to no avail. Now you are his beloved and pledged to him. I must ask you this. If the amputation takes place, will you still marry him?”

  Moments went by before Barbara could reply. She felt a hollow sickness, a hopelessness such as she had never known before. Curiously, she did not weep. She tried to make an image in her mind of the man without the leg.

  “That’s not the question,” she blurted out. “The operation must take place. You must not let him die.”

  “That is the question. You must know the answer, and he must know it.”

  “I love him. The answer is yes. Yes!”

  “Good. Now go back into the room. Don’t be tender with him. Part of the delirium is a matter of will. He can slide into it as a retreat from reality. I want you to shock him. Don’t be afraid to shout, to become angry, to make him angry. You will be fighting for his life. Can you do that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go ahead then. His mother and father want to meet you, but that can wait. This is more important.”

  Barbara went back into the room. Marcel lay there with his eyes closed. “Marcel!” she said. He opened his eyes and stared at her. “Marcel, we must talk.”

  He shook his head and closed his eyes.

  “Marcel!” She sat on the edge of the bed and laid her hand on his hot cheek. “Marcel, listen to me! When I say I love you, I am repeating an old cliché. But those are the only words I have. You are my flesh and my blood. You are the first man I ever loved, the only man. We know each other. You knew me before you ever spoke to me. Now if you die, a part of me dies. I don’t give a damn about your leg. I don’t love your leg. I love you.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Well, who do you think told me? Dr. Lazaire told me. And I want you to do it, now!”

  “No.”

  “Don’t say no to me. What gives you the right to say no?”

  He closed his eyes and shook his head tiredly.

  “No! Don’t go away from me! Damn it, we are going to talk about this. You’ve wasted enough time dreaming.”

  “All right. We’ll talk. Do you know what they want to do? They want to take my leg off at the thigh. Is that what you want—a monster with half a body?”

  “Yes, that’s what I want.”

  He was alive now, aware of her. “Then think about it! Reach down for my penis to fondle me, and think about what you’ll find there. Think of what it will look like. You’ll look at it every day of your life. You’ll watch me crawl around, like some rotten beetle.”

  “Is that it?” she snapped. “Is that your whole case?”

  “Don’t you understand that I love you?”

  “No. Such love is worthless, because y
ou’re putting yourself in my place, and you can’t stand the thought of looking at me with one of my legs gone.”

  “No, no,” he whimpered. “No.”

  “Yes. Don’t deny it. It’s not my love that frightens you. It’s yours. And because your love can’t stand the test, you’re ready to die. What a rotten, lousy thing that is!”

  “Oh, God, no. You don’t understand.”

  “I understand only too well.”

  “It’s because I love you. Barbara, believe me. How can I come to you with half of me gone? How can I ask you to give your life to a worthless, helpless cripple?”

  “You don’t have to ask me. Nothing you can do would stop me. I intend to marry you, and I intend to marry a man who is alive, not a corpse.”

  “No.”

  “Stop saying no like a broken record. What do you expect me to do, to agree with you, to kneel down and weep with you and say that you’re better off dead? We’re not living some stupid, romantic story. We’re two people of flesh and blood who love each other and who are tied together with that love. What have I ever asked of you? Now I’m asking for your life. How can you refuse me?”

  “Because I love you,” he said weakly.

  “Damn it, I will not accept that. We are beyond words. Words are for those who have nothing to give and nothing to lose. You have a life to give me, and I have a life to lose—and I will not accept no for an answer!”

  His face slowly breaking into a smile, he raised himself on one elbow, stared at her for a long moment, and then said, “You are splendid. I am so proud, so proud.”

  “Then you’ll do it?”

  “No.”

  Her control collapsed. She stood up, moved back from the bed, sat down in a chair, and began to cry.

  “Barbara.”

  “Leave me alone, damn you!” She leaped to her feet suddenly and shouted at him, “You’re killing the only thing I love, you bastard!”

  “Barbara, please, please—”

  “No!” she shouted. “No, damn you. If you say you love me again—”

  He began to laugh, shaking with laughter and wincing with the pain of it.

  “What are you laughing at?”

  “You. My God, I adore you. You are quite magnificent. I love you so, I’m not afraid of anything, even of death.”

  “Bullshit!” she snapped, using the English word, “You’re not afraid of death. Only of life.”

  He stopped laughing and stared at her. Then he sighed, closed his eyes, and fell back onto his pillow. Used up, Barbara sat and waited. Two, three minutes passed. Then Marcel said softly, “Over there, dear love, on the chest of drawers, is the form they want me to sign. There is a pen there too. Give it to me and help me sit up, and I’ll sign it, and then you can give it to Dr. Lazaire, who, I’m sure, is waiting outside the door. You win, God help us both.”

  ***

  It was an hour and a half since the operation had begun. Barbara sat in the little waiting room with Monsieur and Madame Duboise. As with so many French parents of that generation, their single child was born in their later years. Duboise was well past sixty, his wife in her mid-fifties. Duboise, a pharmacist, was very much like his son, slender and tall, but stooped and bald, with a fringe of gray hair around his head. His wife was a tiny, pretty woman with prematurely white hair, very neatly and correctly dressed, very prissy, even in her grief, out of a lifetime habit. Evidently Marcel had written to them in detail over the past year, for they knew a good deal about Barbara. Under other circumstances, they might have been distant and difficult, regarding her with the peculiar suspicion the French reserve for all foreigners and for Americans in particular. But in this case, she came to them as a sort of savior. What chance their son had for life was due to Barbara’s intercession. They embraced her and poured out their hearts to her. That their son should return to them this way, after so long, that he should have to endure this mutilation—that was almost too much. Yet at least they would have him for a while, and with him this lovely young American.

  Thus they sat for an hour and a half, while the day outside turned bleak and dark, the rain beginning, sometimes in silence, again with Barbara as the object of their attention and solicitude, Madame Duboise recalling some incident of Marcel’s childhood, clinging to his childhood now, or Monsieur Duboise gravely questioning Barbara about life and family in that half-mythical place called San Francisco. It came out that Marcel had written to them of the possibility of himself and Barbara making their life in the United States, testing himself as well as his parents, and they questioned Barbara about America. Was there any place on earth as beautiful, as civilized, as France? Of course they could not expect Marcel to live in Toulouse; it was much too provincial a place. But was there anything that could not be found in Paris?

  It was all a dream, all of it—all the fears, all the hopes: Barbara knew this the moment Dr. Lazaire entered the waiting room. His face spelled it out.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “But it was too late. The infection had taken over his body. Gangrene is a monster. Even yesterday it would have been too late.”

  “What is he saying?” Madame Duboise whispered.

  Her husband put his arm around her. “He is telling us that Marcel is dead.”

  “Is that what he’s telling us? That can’t be what he’s telling us.”

  Barbara rose and walked out, past the doctor, down the long white corridor, down the stairs, and out into the rain.

  PART THREE

  Into Egypt

  In April of 1939, late in the afternoon, the doorbell rang in Barbara’s apartment in Paris. She had been expecting no one, and she opened the door to find the hall filled with an enormous hulk of a man, at least six feet two inches in height, broad, sloping shoulders, thick hair, a round, moon-like face, large nose, and pale blue eyes. He wore a leather jacket over a turtleneck sweater and shapeless corduroy trousers. He smiled at her tentatively and wanted to know whether she was Miss Barbara Lavette.

  “Yes?”

  “Good. I’m glad to meet you finally, miss. My name is Bernie Cohen.”

  “You?” She was astonished, speechless, dislocated in time and space. A year that had begun in misery and hopelessness backed up and jarred her mind, and then she grasped one of his oversized hands and pulled him into the apartment. “Forgive me, please, but my mind wouldn’t work. It’s yesterday, and it’s also an eternity ago. But you’re blessed in my memory, believe me. Come in, please.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I can understand the way you feel. It’s been one hell of a year, hasn’t it? It’s all over in Spain, all done and finished. I’m just passing through, and I thought I owed it to Marcel to just stop by and at least have a word with you.”

  “More than a word. Oh, I’m so glad to see you. Sit down, please. I’ll get some wine.”

  He eased his bulk into a chair while Barbara brought wine and glasses.

  “You know about Marcel?” she asked him.

  “I stopped in at Le Monde. They told me. They gave me your address. I’m sorry, believe me. I liked him.”

  “You saved his life.”

  “I wish I could have saved his life. It was a lousy, rotten bloodbath. So many good boys died there, and for what? To be sold down the river by those bastards in England and here.”

  “Still, you saved his life. You sent him back to me—at least for the little time I had with him. I’m so grateful. How many times I said to myself, I’ll meet you one day and tell you how truly grateful I am.”

  Obviously embarrassed, he raised his glass. “What shall we drink to, Miss Lavette?”

  “We’ll drink to peace, and a little human decency. And call me Barbara. We’re old friends.”

  “O.K., Barbara. A little human decency. Only, I don’t look for it in my time.”

  “When did you leave Spain?”

  “Two we
eks ago, after Madrid fell to the fascists. It was all over then. Most of the Internationals had left already. I walked over the Pyrenees, same way I came in. Funny thing, I’m pretty big, but I was never hit, never even scratched. Ah, it was a nightmare, first to last. But I don’t know why I’m talking to you about Spain—”

  “Please, do, yes.”

  “Well, what’s to say? Now the Nazis have it their own way. France will be next. I hope to God you get out of here.”

  “The magazine wants me to stay, but I don’t think I can. I’m homesick and lonely, and without Marcel, Paris is empty. Suddenly, I look at it and it’s a city without a soul. And my mother and father give me no peace. They’re very upset at what is happening in Europe.”

  “They should be.”

  “Then you think there’ll be war?”

  “There’ll be war, no doubt about it. Spain, Czechoslovakia, Poland next—and then England and France, maybe America.”

  “I hope not. I hope you’re wrong,” Barbara said earnestly. “It’s such madness, such insanity, a whole world gone insane and thinking of nothing else but to kill.”

  “Or be killed.”

  “That’s such an ancient excuse, isn’t it? Thank God I’m a woman.”

  “I can say amen to that.”

  They sat and drank and talked and finished a bottle of wine between them. Cohen was an easy man to talk to. He was from San Francisco; they had common ground. Barbara was overcome with nostalgia. How good it was to talk in her own tongue! Cohen told her how he had worked at Higate when the Levys were filling their first order for sacramental wine. The federal agents had staged a raid, and he, Cohen, had faced them with an old, rusty shotgun.

  “Real stupid,” he said. “They could have shot me. Life was so damn simple then. No Hitler, no Nazis, no war, just the feds to cuss out and hate. I was just a kid then. First time I ever held a gun in my hands. And now—”

  “What now, Bernie?” Barbara was a little drunk, warm, almost content, her eyes wet with the memory of a lost love, not with tears, only moist with the remembering.

  “Marcel said you were beautiful—but damn it, I think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”