Second Generation

by Howard Fast

  “And now?”

  “Well, I’m out of the bloody British army, thank God. Got my discharge in the south of England five days ago.”

  “And you didn’t go back to Palestine?”

  “Not yet. I had to get back here. I had to see you first.”

  “Oh, no. I don’t believe that.”

  “It’s true. Hell, Barbara, you can say to me, ‘Cohen, be on your way. I don’t want any part of you.’ I’ll understand that, and I guess I’ll accept it. But I had to hear you say it.”

  “And for that you came six thousand miles?”

  “Well, mostly. I was born and raised here. It’s home, isn’t it? You get an awful ache to go home, touch base, feel something you haven’t felt in a long time. You don’t have to say it yet.”

  “Say what?”

  “‘Cohen, be on your way.’ Let’s have some lunch first.”

  “Shall I make something?”

  “No, let’s go out. Unless you have something better to do?”

  “I have nothing better to do.”

  “Then let’s walk. I want to smell the city and the bay.” He stepped back to look at her now and said, “The first time, when you opened the door, it was like looking at a memory. Now you’re real. You look wonderful. You look so beautiful.”

  She shook her head hopelessly. She was wearing an old plaid skirt, brown loafers, and a cardigan over her blouse.

  “Let me change. I don’t even have lipstick on.”

  “No, no, just as you are. You don’t need lipstick. God Almighty, don’t you ever look at yourself in the mirror?”

  “Only too often.”

  “Wait a minute,” he said in alarm, “you got a guy, a boyfriend?”

  “No, not a one.”

  “Well, why? Are they all crazy in this damn city?”

  “Only myself. The others are quite sane.”

  “We’ll go down to the wharf and eat crabmeat and sourdough bread. How does that hit you?”

  She nodded. “I think I’m going to cry again.”

  ***

  They sat on the edge of the dock, eating sourdough bread and throwing pieces of it to the gulls. “Go ahead,” she said to him. “You took eighteen watches from dead Germans. I think that’s pretty disgusting, just for the record.”

  “Not dead Germans. Prisoners of war. They were damn well alive.”

  “That’s even worse. Robbing prisoners of war.”

  “That’s one way to look at it,” he agreed amiably. “On the other hand, I was at that moment clean out of the milk of human kindness.”

  “And you sold them for ten dollars each.”

  “Two pounds—a little less. Then I ran it up to eighty-five pounds in a crap game. The British can’t shoot crap. They just don’t know the odds. I don’t know why, maybe it’s a national characteristic. I always did well in the crap games. The pay is rotten in the British army, but what with this and that, and after buying my airfare, I have thirty-two hundred dollars right here in my pocket Now that’s not too bad.”

  “For six years of being a British soldier? Five hundred and thirty dollars a year? That’s pretty dumb, if you ask me.”

  “You never used to be that hard on me.”

  “I never had a chance to. The one time I saw you, I felt sorry for you.”

  “And you don’t feel sorry for me now?”

  “It’s hard to feel sorry for a dumbbell. The reporter said you got a commission and then you hit an officer and they broke you back to sergeant.”

  “I’m not officer material,” he admitted. “Not in the British army.”

  “And you carry all that money around in your pocket?” Barbara asked in amazement.

  “So far.”

  “I’d put it in the bank.”

  “I’ve thought of that. I don’t know how long I’ll stay.”

  “How long do you want to stay?”

  “I don’t know. How long would you like me to stay?”

  “I decide it?” she asked.

  “No other reason to stay.”

  “And you’re still going back to Palestine?”

  He nodded. “Eventually, or maybe tomorrow. I’d like to stay and see you every day. But that might be boring as hell to you, because when you come right down to it, I’m no more than a faded memory. On the other hand, if I were walking down here and saw you sitting on the dock and eating bread, I think I’d try to pick you up and get to know you. I don’t imagine either of us is the way we were. We’ve been through too much. But maybe the part of us that reaches out toward each other is still there and unchanged. That’s the case with me. What about you?”

  “I need time. The trouble with a memory is that one adjusts it. There are no checkpoints. It’s all inside the head, isn’t it? When I opened the door and saw you, I didn’t see the man who made love to me in Paris. I was seeing the person Mike Kendell told me about in Karachi.”

  “Mike Kendell?”

  “The Washington Post correspondent. I told you about him. Why did you go away, Bernie? That Don Quixote syndrome is the male sickness. It wasn’t that you needed me. I needed you. My God, how I needed you at that moment in my life!”

  “I was broke,” he said desperately. “I had nothing, nothing. How could I stay there and sponge off you?”

  “That kind of talk makes me ill. You men have destroyed millions of women by making it legal and proper and admirable, as you see it, for a woman to live as a man’s property. Nothing is shared. We’re owned, and if you don’t have the means of ownership, you don’t play.”

  “I don’t think that’s fair. You’re a Lavette of San Francisco. This is your turf. The Lavettes, the Whittiers, the Seldons—they own this place. I’m Bernie Cohen. I was raised in a Jewish orphanage—”

  “Oh, I weep for you!” Barbara said angrily.

  They sat in silence for a while, then she broke off a piece of the bread and handed it to him.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He chewed the bread and stared at her. “You’re the finest, the most wonderful woman I’ve ever known.”

  “How do you know that?” she demanded petulantly. “You don’t even know me. You don’t know the first thing about me.”

  “I know the first thing, God damn it! You’re a millionaire.”

  “Then you’re making a case for the rich. I happen not to admire the rich as much as you do. Anyway, I’m not a millionaire. I came into a very large inheritance, and I gave it away. I have a little money, and I earn my own living. I was earning my own living when we met in Paris, and I still earn it today. I don’t know what kind of virtue that is, but just for the record, I am not a millionaire.”

  Again the silence. They sat side by side. Then he reached out and put his arm around her, and she leaned against him.

  “I read your first book,” he said. “I bought it in New York. I heard about it in London and tried to get it there, but then we shipped out. And in New York I couldn’t find it in any of the regular bookstores.”

  “Books have a short life.”

  “I found it in a secondhand store on Fourth Avenue. I have your new book, but I wanted to read the other one first. I read it on the plane coming out here.”

  “Did you like it?”

  “Most of it. Was it true?”

  “The part about you, about Marcel—who knows? Do any of us know what was true and what wasn’t true over the past years?”

  “And you went into Germany?”

  “Yes.”

  “That was a damn fool thing to do.”

  “I suppose so. I did a lot of damn fool things.”

  “I guess you couldn’t find two people in the world as different as you and me.”

  “Do you want any more of this bread?” she asked him.
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  “No, I’ve had enough.”

  “We’re not so different,” Barbara said. “We’re both of us sentimental and arrogant and pigheaded and opinionated—and the funny part is that I’ve never liked sentimental people, I guess because that’s a part of me I don’t like too much—and we both live with nasty worms eating away at our guts. By the way, how old are you, Bernie?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “Forty?”

  “That’s right. I’m forty, you’re thirty-two.”

  “And for nine years you’ve been a soldier. It makes no sense, Bernie.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “And you were never wounded?”

  “Never. I was with the British Second Army in the invasion, straight through to the Rhine. Never even scratched.”

  “And how do you feel about the whole thing?”

  “I don’t feel very much yet. I haven’t had time. Or else I’ve pushed it aside. I have bad dreams, but who doesn’t?”

  “I have bad dreams,” Barbara said. “I’m going to stay. Until you tell me to go away.” “And if I don’t tell you to go away?” He was crumbling the remains of the bread into the water. Barbara watched his hands, strong, long-fingered, broad hands. This man, she thought, has only one profession. He has a competence in death. Why on God’s earth am I sitting here like this, my body touching his? Why am I at peace with myself?

  Almost as if he had read her mind, he reached out and touched her arm very gently with one of his fingers, tracing a line down to the back of her hand. She turned to him, and his eyes filled with tears. He closed his eyes and shook his head.

  “I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to feel any way about it. And I don’t want to forget, either. You don’t forget. That’s an illusion, and I don’t need any damn illusions. We liberated a concentration camp. There was an open mass grave that they hadn’t had time to cover. Their last killing. There were eight or nine hundred bodies in that grave—skinny, emaciated bodies, men, women, small children. When I was a kid, I caught a butterfly and handled it, and when it died, I cried. The other kids laughed at me. I’m trying to keep from crying now. That’s what you were talking about before, isn’t it? Men don’t sponge off women, and men don’t cry. Only you’d be surprised how many men cry. I watched them cry in Africa and in France and in Germany. It was a big killing, and the whole world was crying. Oh, Jesus, I don’t even know what I’m saying. If I had a brain in my head, I’d get up and walk away and leave you here.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Barbara said coldly. The rejoinder was so unexpected that he simply stared at her.

  “Let’s just sit here quietly for a little while,” Barbara said, “and look at the water. We’re here, and it’s today, and it’s nineteen forty-six. It’s only four o’clock. We’ve had a strange few hours. I was correcting some proofs when you rang my doorbell. I have to finish that later and get them in the mail tonight. You can come home with me. It won’t take more than another hour. Then, if you wish, we’ll go out and have some dinner. Or I can cook something at home. But let’s not push this anymore.”

  “O.K. Then are you going to tell me to go?”

  “Bernie, shut up for a while.”

  “O.K.”

  They sat there in silence for about fifteen minutes; then they walked back on the Embarcadero and took the cable car up the hill. It was a process of getting used to him. He wore his clothes well. He stood very straight, and he walked with ease. I suppose, Barbara said to herself, that if he weren’t so tall, you wouldn’t think of him as a good-looking man. If he were short, that huge nose would be ugly. It’s amazing what height does. She found herself thinking of his body, trying to remember it.

  He sat in her living room, reading newspapers and magazines while she finished correcting the proofs. Then she mixed a batch of martinis.

  “First drink,” she said, after she had filled the glasses. “What do we drink to?”

  “Shalom.”

  “Oh?”

  “Peace. Hebrew.”

  “All right. Shalom.”

  “You know, Barbara,” he said, “I figured to wait until we got to know each other a little better. But either people know each other or they don’t.”

  “You can’t argue with that.”

  “In one way. In another way, I don’t know whether I’ll ever really know you. I don’t know if it matters. Myself, I’m a fairly simple character.”

  “Heaven help us.” She began to laugh.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “No.”

  “Well, perhaps you’re right.”

  “Don’t give in to me,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “I keep thinking about the way Mike Kendell described you, very cold, very tough, blue eyes cold as ice.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not tough. I’m not very bright, either. My word, Barbara, I really don’t have one bloody thing to recommend me. That’s why I don’t see much sense in waiting. I mean waiting around until we got to know one another better. I thought maybe a week or two, and then I’d ask you whether you’d marry me.”

  “You thought that a week or two would do it?” she said, smiling.

  “Well, you know what I mean.”

  “Yes. You put it to me now, and if I say no, you haven’t wasted any time, and you can bug off to wherever you’re bound for.”

  “Oh, no. Come on, that’s not what I meant at all. Does that mean no?”

  “Bernie, are you asking me to marry you?”

  “Yes.”

  She sighed and filled their glasses again. Then she sat quietly, watching him.

  “Let’s give it some time.”

  “You’re not saying no?”

  “Let’s give it that week or two,” Barbara decided.

  “Can I ask you one question?”

  She nodded.

  “Did you ever think about marrying me?”

  “I thought about it.”

  “That’s enough. I’m not going to push. Let me go back to my hotel and shower and change clothes. That’s a touchy point with me.”

  She found herself giggling.

  “And then I’ll call for you properly. What would you like to do tonight?”

  “Suppose I have a date tonight?”

  “But you said—”

  “No date. I’m teasing you, Bernie. I think that tonight I’d like to get a little drunk.”

  “Eight o’clock?”

  “Eight o’clock,” she agreed.

  ***

  The Great Cal Building was the first of the great postwar skyscrapers to loom up over San Francisco. Built in record time, it defied earth faults and the threat of earthquakes, and while there were those who complained that it broke the symmetry of the flow of buildings over the hills, most commentators welcomed it as the beginning of a new era. Jean made her first visit there about a week after Tom had opened the new offices of the Great Cal Corporation, informing Tom that she would arrive early in the afternoon and would require only a few minutes of his time.

  “I realize how busy you are,” Jean said. “But this is important.”

  Tom had lunched with Whittier that day, in the private dining room on the floor above their offices, and Whittier guessed that Jean’s business concerned Barbara. “Just who is this Jewish feller she’s been seeing?” he asked.

  “God only knows,” Tom replied. “Someone from overseas. Apparently she met him during the war.”

  “On the other hand, Jean might just be here with your father’s blessing.”

  “And what does that mean?” Tom asked.

  “He’s operating three tankers out of Oakland. I don’t like that. I don’t like him being on the bay at all. I don’t like your father, Thomas. I don’t like him one bit.”

  John Whitti
er was aging rapidly. He had become nervous and petulant, and he had developed a habit of whining. He made frequent visits to his physician, and his loss of weight made Tom suspect a malignancy of some kind. More and more, Tom felt it would be a relief to have Whittier out of the way. Illness had made him super cautious. He complained endlessly about the cost of the new building, and he had become obsessed with overspending and waste. Now, with a seamen’s strike looming over the shipping industry and with cargo falling off, he was worse than ever.

  “Don’t worry about my father,” Tom said soothingly. “He’s a very small potato. And if the seamen strike, he might just go under.”

  “That’s it with you youngsters. Don’t know the meaning of a strike. Don’t remember the last big one. That sister of yours—she played a cute game with me.” He went on and on while Tom said to himself, Old man, I’m tired to death of you.

  For his part, he felt quite certain that his mother did want to talk about Barbara. He had no strong feelings about her, one way or another. They met very infrequently, and when they did, their exchange was polite and impersonal, as were his increasingly rare exchanges with his mother. Her relationship with Dan Lavette was embarrassing to him. It made him uncomfortable and uneasy, and the circumstances that had brought it about were beyond his understanding. His growing dislike for his natural father had increased over the years; his mind had altered the memories to suit his needs, and his distaste had turned into loathing. He had never spoken of it to Jean, and he was determined that this time, too, the subject would remain undiscussed.

  However, he welcomed the tall, handsome, meticulously dressed woman who entered his office that afternoon with enthusiasm. It was a point of pride with him that Jean remained attractive at an age when so many women surrendered to dowdiness. “Do you like the offices?” he asked her eagerly. “Lionel Smith decorated them. I don’t suppose it’s entirely to your taste, Mother, but it’s the wave of the future. Clean, simple lines—well, you’ve been waving the flag for modern art. You should like it.”

  “Perhaps it’s too antiseptic for my taste, but very nice. Tom, can we be alone? I don’t want to see John Whittier.”

  “You won’t. I’ve arranged that.”

  “Good.” She looked around the office—the marble slab that served as a desk, the contour chairs, the couch of leather slung on chrome, the fake Mondrian wall—thinking that it was quite tasteless and uninspiring. On the other hand, she had not offered to help, but then, neither was she an interior decorator. “Please don’t sit behind that enormous desk, Tom.” She seated herself on the couch and pointed to one of the contour chairs. “That would be better. This is rather intimate.”