And then seeming miracle of miracles happened: Felix Block was told that his dream was going to be fulfilled—Rosalind was going to have a child. Max immediately was moved out of Rosalind’s bed chamber and given a small room down the hall. His task was completed, his function was done.
The nine months passed miserably for Rosalind. In the beginning she was terribly ill with morning sickness, which persisted for hours, adding to her irritability. Her enormous bulk toward the end became so cumbersome that she spent most of the time in bed, was unbearably moody, and promised herself that never again would she submit to anything as undignified as pregnancy.
When the moment of birth arrived she lay prostrate in her bed, hating Max for having subjected her to the tyrannies of childbirth. After forty-eight hours, Julian Iscoff was born. Almost immediately after being separated from the placenta of his mother he found himself in the arms of his doting grandfather, who looked upon the child from the moment of birth as the product of his own self-will and determination.
As Julian began to grow, so did Rosalind’s disdain for Max. He was never permitted to take the child out alone; Julian was either in the care of a nanny, his mother, or grandfather. Primarily Felix Block would direct Julian’s destiny.
One day out of desperation Max took the three-year-old from his nanny’s arms, disregarding her wild objections, took Julian out, sat him alongside him in the car, having decided to spend the day alone with the child in spite of them all. He bought him a ball, then took him to Hyde Park and frolicked with him in the grass, threw the ball back and forth. To Max’s great delight the child responded to him.
After several hours three-year-old Julian became tired, lay down on the grass and fell asleep while Max hovered over him. When the child awoke refreshed, Max picked him up in his arms, hugged and held him, and walked back to where the car was. For one moment Max looked into the window of the toy store, thinking perhaps he should have bought Julian another toy. As he did so the ball that Julian was holding dropped from his hand and rolled into the street; the child ran after it. In all the confusion after the screech of brakes a crowd gathered and Julian lay lifeless.
Rosalind was inconsolable. She beat Max with her fists until the blood ran from his mouth, screaming that he was a monster and had killed her child.
For the rest of his life Max was enslaved, beholden to her out of his guilt. Rosalind could now do with him absolutely what she would. From then on he was never to know another moment of tranquility. Rosalind never let him forget that it was he who was responsible for Julian’s death; she never let him forget that he lived on her bounty, that he was a nobody, a nothing without the Block name. Disregarding that he contributed to what she now regarded as his charity, no matter how much he produced he still received a relatively small salary despite being responsible for making thousands and thousands of pounds for the firm each year.
Max accepted all the indignities, until matters became so unbearable he felt he had to escape. But how? He could not divorce her, the laws forbade that, and so he stayed. He built an unbreachable wall between himself and her—the only way he could have gone on living with Rosalind without eventually killing her, which is what he would like to have done many times. He became deaf to her rantings and mute to her caprices. Only once did he really oppose her, when he received the letter from his sister.
Hannah had become widowed and was left penniless with a five-year-old child. There was no one left, now that Mama and Papa were gone and all the rest had scattered. So she wrote to Max. It was her dream to be near her brother, the person she loved the most from childhood. She had to get away from the ghosts of the past and the tragic memories that haunted her. She begged Max to rescue her.
Max, badly shaken by the news, sent two tickets and sufficient money to bring her to London. He would worry about Rosalind later….
As he waited at Victoria station for the train to arrive he looked back to a day so long ago and remembered that rosy-cheeked young girl with the long heavy silken braids, standing at the roadside dressed in a peasant blouse his mother had made, waving good-bye to him as he left on his life’s journey. Now when Hannah and her child stepped off the train he hardly recognized her; she was only in her late twenties but looked ten years older than himself.
“Hannah!” he called out as he ran to her. They went into each other’s arms. He kissed her cheeks, her eyes and her forehead; he stroked her hair, which was still shining and beautiful, placed her head on his shoulder as they swayed gently back and forth. For one fleeting moment as he held her in his arms he recalled another day in an orchard, when they lay on their backs under a tree eating sweet summer pears and gazing up at a so blue sky, watching white foamy clouds float by and in childish fantasy dreamed about wondrous things they would do when they grew up. A bittersweet memory now as he held the fragile body against him.
“Hannah,” he whispered, “Hannah, what have they done to you … Hannah, my Hannah …” They stood in silence now, each with their own thoughts. Finally Hannah separated herself from Max and held him at arm’s length.
“Max, dearest brother, let me look at you. Am I really seeing you? Is this a dream? Will I wake up?”
“It’s me, Hannala. It is real and you are here.”
Katie waited patiently with the rag doll in her hand. Max looked down at her; swooping her up in his arms, he kissed and hugged her.
“Katie, this is little Katie! Hannah, this could have been you when you were five. My precious child,” he said, and hugged her to him.
Max drove them through the cold London night to Rosalind’s house. Hannah looked around in awe as they entered the oak-paneled hall with its original paintings, the vibrant antique Persian rug which she was reluctant to walk on, and thought that in her wildest dreams never would she see such a house, much less her brother’s.
“Max,” she said, “Max, you never mentioned once in your letters you lived in such a palace. Oh, Max, I’m so proud of you, but I’m not surprised; you were always the smartest one of all. If only mama and papa could have seen this.”
Max could not meet the gaze of those lovely eyes full with admiration, love, and innocence. He just nodded his thanks and changed the subject.
“My wife would like to have been here to meet you,”—he listened to himself as he continued to lie—“but she’s not been too well lately and wishes to be forgiven for tonight; you’ll meet in the morning.” At least he had spared her the morbid details for this one evening, hoping through some divine intervention Rosalind might relent, though never really believing it for a moment. “Let me take you to your room; you must be exhausted, and the poor child is half asleep. Come to Uncle Max, my schöen kind.” He carried her up the stairs to the servants’ quarters on the third floor. Looking over his shoulder, he said, “Leave your suitcase, I’ll come down and get it later.” Hannah had started to pick it up and follow him.
“Now you’ll rest. I’ve had a little supper prepared.”
They reminisced about their childhood and their youth, about papa, such a scholar, the challehs, the strudel and the mandelbrot which mama made. They laughed when they thought about her, that she was the envy of every woman in the village. They tried to speak about the good things and the happy things and then, as happens with shared memories, they could not avoid the bad things. But for Hannah this was all behind them now. It would be a better life, a new life, and above all for her, no longer the loneliness. Now she had Max.
After supper he said, “It’s getting late, my dearest, get some rest; we’ll talk tomorrow.” He kissed her on the forehead. “Sleep well, Hannah, my little sister, sleep well.”
He left, walked down the stairs, then along the hall. Opening the door to his room, he found Rosalind waiting for him, silhouetted against the fireplace. “How dare you defy me?” She raged, and rushed over to Max, standing so close to him that when she spoke he felt the fine spray of saliva on his face. “I told you not to bring them into my house.”
Backing away from her—not out of fear but because he found her nearness repulsive—he said calmly, “I had no other choice but to bring them here. Besides, this is my house too. I believe I make my contribution toward bed and board.”
“Your house indeed, I want them out of here in the morning, do you hear me, in the morning! I have no intention of supporting three peasants!”
For the first time he laid hands on her, grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back. He wanted to kill her. He wished he had the courage to match his anger. “Now you listen to me and listen very carefully. I will not send my sister and her child out into the streets. She will go when I find a suitable place for her.” He released her arm, sickened by her and by his own violence. “I don’t know how long that will take. She will go to work, so take heart, she won’t be in your debt. However, Katie will remain in this house until such a time as my sister can provide a decent home for herself and the child. Do you understand what I say? Or if not, the three of us will leave, and you, my dear, and Mr. Felix Block, my benefactor, and the Felix Block Company can drop dead with my best wishes.” Opening the door and waiting for her to exit, he added, “Do I make myself clear?”
She stood looking at him. This was a new Max, not the mild lamb she had led to the altar. Still—she wasn’t Felix Block’s daughter for nothing—she quickly pulled herself together. Her father was getting older and soon he would have to go into complete retirement. In fact, he had never recovered from the loss of Julian. She needed Max to run that business. He knew it now as well as Felix did. So she said to herself that this was not too much to negotiate for an employee as valuable as Max.
“All right, she can stay, on one condition: that she keep out of my sight and that I have no responsibilities toward her.” Not wanting to linger in her moment of relative defeat, she turned smartly and like a proud general momentarily unhorsed, strode from the room, slamming the door behind her.
Who better than Max understood the problems that confronted Hannah? She spoke not a word of English, only Yiddish. What was she qualified for? Nothing, really, except to be a servant, and for Max this was simply unacceptable. He wanted to support her, but she refused, grateful enough that Katie could remain. Max regretfully agreed there seemed to be no other answer. Hannah got a job as a cook for a lovely family in Kensington by the name of Goldsmith with four growing children who maintained a kosher kitchen and spoke Yiddish in a most delightful way, with traces of a cockney accent.
Katie lived from one Saturday to the other; being the sabbath, that was the only day her mother did not work. Impatiently she would wait downstairs at the side entrance. When Hannah approached, Katie would run to her, kissing and hugging her around the legs. Proud of the way she had dressed herself, she would look up and ask, “Do you like the way I look, Mama?”
“Yes, like the most beautiful Shabbas queen,” and off the two of them would go to synagogue.
Hannah was a very religious woman, but she realized how impossible it would be to adhere to the old ways. If she didn’t ride or spend money on the sabbath it would mean depriving Katie of the one, all too short day they spent together. She decided that the Lord would have to forgive her this one transgression.
After synagogue she would take Katie to lunch. On some Saturdays they would go to Hyde Park for a picnic, which Hannah brought with the compliments of the Goldsmiths; or to the cinema, which neither of them understood, but Katie loved the movies and she began to learn from them. When the day was over and Hannah brought her home, Katie would run up the back stairs to her room, take out the present she brought home each week—a lovely hair ribbon, a box of biscuits, a small doll, a coloring book—and then cry inconsolably.
Max spent an hour every evening with Katie, trying to teach her English. He would love to have indulged her, to have done great and wonderful things for her, but he was grateful that if this were not really a home, it was at least a roof over her head. From time to time he protested, but not too insistently, when she was not permitted to take her meals in the dining room with them, instead eating with the servants. It crushed Max, but this after all was Rosalind’s house. He despised the room on the third floor in the servants’ quarters where Katie slept when there were five bedrooms that were unused. The room had a large, round dormer window where the roof sloped and when the moon shone brightly it terrified Katie so that she slept with the covers over her head. In winter the rain pounded on the pane making sounds that frightened her so that she would lie shivering, holding tight to her doll.
With the purse strings held fast by Rosalind, what could Max really do for Katie? Knowing that he would not be able to endow her with anything, he decided the most he could do was provide her with a fine education. He enrolled her at Greycoats School for Girls, where eventually she learned not only impeccable English but French as well. Katie had expressed a great desire to play the piano, and Max found a teacher at whose home she could practice every day. When she played at her first recital he bought her a lovely dress appropriate for just such an occasion, a white starched organdy with a wide pink satin sash tied in the back with an enormous bow, long white cotton stockings, and black patent leather party pumps.
She sat at the piano playing a simple Chopin waltz, her black curls bouncing up and down as she arpeggioed back and forth. When Katie finished and curtsied, Hannah took Max’s hand in hers and looked at him. Her quiet eyes spoke what no lips could have said; no words were needed to speak of the pride and the gratitude she felt toward Max for making all this possible.
Ironically, Katie’s love of music was really due to Rosalind, without Rosalind’s realizing it. She had become a patron of the arts, introducing and encouraging young musicians. To fill the void in her life since her son’s death, she pursued this with as much fervor as she indulged her loathing for Max and now for Katie, who lived in her home that should have been for Julian.
On Sunday evenings she presided over soirées to which she would invite important people in the music world to listen to her newest protégé. The music and excitement would find its way to Katie’s room and she would listen, enchanted.
One evening, barefooted, she tip-toed down to the second floor and peeked between the banister railing, listening for a long time, then crept down the stairs, careful not to be noticed. When she got to the bottom she saw the beautifully gowned women and distinguished gentlemen sitting in their gilt chairs facing the pianist. Impulsively Katie walked quietly into the dining room. The sight enthralled her. The table was set with the gleaming Sheffield silver service which had belonged to Rosalind’s great-grandmother; there were deep red roses in a silver and crystal epergne that had belonged to her grandmother. The table was laden with small canapés, tiny petits-fours, and exquisitely frosted French pastries in different colors. She stood in wonder at the beauty of all she saw, and without thinking of the consequences, she reached for one. As she did so, one of Rosalind’s finest Minton plates came crashing to the floor, breaking into a dozen pieces. Terrified, she bent down to pick up the fragments. As she got up, Rosalind was standing there, the doors closed behind her so that no one could hear.
She pulled Katie to her feet and slapped her so hard across the face that Katie staggered. Rosalind’s face was fury itself, but Katie was too stunned to cry. Rosalind’s anger still not exhausted; she shook her again, this time harder. “I’ve told you never to come, into this room, you bad, bad girl! Now go upstairs. I’ll deal with you and your uncle about this in the morning.”
Katie ran hysterically from the room, through the kitchen, and out into the street in her bare feet. She had to find her mother or Aunt Rosalind would do something dreadful to her in the morning—she had said so. She ran for blocks, tears streaming down her face, her nose running, her feet bleeding, not knowing where she was going. Finally she went back to Rosalind’s house, crouched under the door stoop, cried until there were no more tears, and finally fell asleep.
The next morning Ellen, the cook, going out to gather up the m
orning paper and milk, found Katie feverish and half-conscious. Picking up the frozen girl in her arms, she carried her to her room, put her under the covers, and then went to summon Max. Frantic with grief, Max couldn’t understand what had happened. He had looked in at her last night when she had gone to bed at her regular bedtime, which was eight in the evening. Bewildered he called the doctor, who after he had examined Katie, told Max, “We have a very sick little girl on our hands. I’m afraid it’s pneumonia. I’ll make all the arrangements to have her put in the hospital.”
The next forty-eight hours were a nightmare. Unshaven, exhausted from lack of sleep. Max remained with his sister, consoling her, begging her to rest in the small room next to Katie’s that he had arranged for. He ordered meals to be brought to them, which neither of them touched, and they prayed as never before. It was four o’clock in the afternoon on Tuesday when the doctor said, “We have a great deal to be grateful for; our little lady has passed the crisis.”
The next two weeks were the happiest Katie had ever known. She was showered with loving attention from both her mother and uncle. Each day Uncle Max brought her a new toy, a box of chocolates, a coloring book; but best of all he brought her a bunch of pink baby roses in a pink-and-white container that looked like a precious lamb. She adored it and was sure she would keep it forever.
The Goldsmiths were very understanding when they learned about Hannah’s girl being ill. They insisted that she not work for the time that Katie was in the hospital. Mrs. Goldsmith sent a large tin of Danish cookies and some toys her children no longer played with.
When Katie finally was released from the hospital, Max spent as much time as he could with her, which of course brought on an outbreak of Rosalind’s hostility; but by now it mattered not at all to Max. When Hannah would have her holiday for one week away from the Goldsmiths, he would take Katie and her to Brighton.
The Last Princess Page 48