The summer days were hot and long, and August with its envelope from Albany seemed years off. But she could walk through the white stale dust toward the factory and feel the campus in October, sparkling under the clear high skies on the hill. And whenever or wherever a church bell chimed, that whole hot summer, it was instantly the quiet old Libe Tower and her own room in the dorm late at night.
Then it was August, and at last there was the crisp white official envelope, with the Albany postmark. She stood on the porch steps a moment and held it. She shut her eyes tight.
“Look, even if it isn’t—even if you failed—it doesn’t mean your life is really over or anything, you know that. Now look at it.”
Yes, oh God, she had a state scholarship. She ran back into the house and explained the whole thing to Mamma, and Mamma kissed her and wept a little, because she was so proud of her girl.
“I don’t care what Pop says now, or how he yells,” Vee said, and laughed exultantly. “I’m going away to college, like other girls. David thinks it’s right. That’s why he promised to help me—”
“Does Grace agree? Vee, are you sure she—”
“I don’t know about Grace. But David said—he promised—oh, Mom, darling, I’ll have the most glorious life—”
Then she was off, running for the train. It was a cool, windy day, almost like fall. The office hours flew and at five-thirty she was on the way to Brooklyn. The lists would be in the papers tomorrow and she had to tell David herself first. She had to see his face, and the way his eyes lit up; she had stayed away from the telephone all day, just so she could see his face when she told him it was definite.
Grace was in the office. She was talking loudly, vigorous gestures and positive sentences. She was waving an afternoon paper as she talked, and Vee saw a long list of names on the open page. David was sitting down. He said only hello when he looked up and saw Vee there. Grace whirled toward her; she had a new fall polo coat, in the most heavenly creamy camel’s-hair color.
“I’ve just heard about this—this crackpot idea,” Grace exploded, waving the paper around. “Business is rotten this year and of course he doesn’t think of his own children and their education—let them go to public schools, anyway, but a public college isn’t good enough for Miss Vera.”
Vera sat down. She looked at David. She was just waiting to hear what he’d say, how he’d stand up to Grace. He couldn’t get a word in edgewise right now, of course, but in about one second—
But David put his head down and closed his eyes. He pressed on them with the thumb and third finger, working the lids gently.
She sat waiting. She no longer heard what Grace was saying, exactly; the same old nagging voice, nothing new or surprising about it. In a moment now, any second now, David would let her have it. “But I promised,” he would say, and he would be terrible to hear, so quiet, so unflinching. In a moment now, he would say it, and this would be over.
He would, he would. You couldn’t give a promise like that and then have any reason come up that was good enough to make you break it. In just one moment more—
Grace’s voice went on. Vee thought, way off in some distant corner of her somewhere, that she didn’t even hate Grace, because this was just what you could count on from her. You despised it, but you could endure it because there was no shock to it. The thing that made you hate, made you loathe, made you know that never in all the long years ahead would you ever trust again or forgive—that thing was counting on somebody dear, relying, believing in somebody, and then having him let you down.
Then you could hate, hate with a wild, implacable, crazy—oh, David, hurry, hurry and say something, my darling big brother, say it, say it…
From the open window, the seven-o’clock chimes from the Borough Hall floated in, sweet and clear. As they died away, Vera went blindly to the door and David didn’t stop her.
In the beautiful and expensive apartment, in the wide, luxurious bed soothed by the pale moonlight reaching in through the opened windows, Vera Marriner Stamford suddenly wept. Wept for that trusting sixteen-year-old in 1922. Wept for the pain-twisting into the dragging, weary months that followed; wept for the new hard core of lonely determination that formed through those months—“I will do it, anyway, I’ll do it myself, with no help from anybody.”
She had indeed done it. She had worked for a year, in an office during the day, as cashier in a restaurant until eleven each night. She had entered Cornell a year late, and worked there. She had worked summers, and in her third and fourth years, finally, Pop had relented and sent her thirty dollars a month. From the middle of her junior year onward, she had borrowed from the Student Loan, and then she’d been able to relax and have a happy period of carefree, easy college life. She’d been a top-rank student, and she’d been popular and well known, with beaus and parties and fun.
But there was a wariness about her planning and dreaming for the future. Always, always, her dreams were of what she would do herself; never was she quite able to believe that you could ever rely on any other human for help, for faith; you had forever to make your own way, lonely but not betrayed.
In her moonlit bed, in her delightful apartment, Vee’s weeping slowly stopped. That long-ago college girl could never have phrased her wary instincts with any such clarity. There was no proof now that they had even existed.
Yet, for some reason she didn’t understand, this evening’s sudden insight into Jasper’s being had sent her own thoughts flying backward through the tumbling years, backward to David’s fingers pressing on his closed eyelids.
The secret dynamo, whirring…
CHAPTER SIX
Erlenbach, Switzerland
20 Mai, 1938
I AM SORRY TO trouble you, particularly so since you had taken care of everything so precisely already. But the Consul in Zurich states that he must hold up our immigration visas until he should receive from you a notarized copy of your Federal and state income-tax returns. Perhaps the Consul in Zurich likes to make things more formal, for I understand from friends here that the Consul in Vienna has always considered the photostat copies of the canceled income-tax checks themselves adequate. In all logic they seem more conclusive than the tax return. But the Consul in Zurich seems of another mind.
So could I beg you to copy off the official returns, have them notarized, and send them to me here? We are assured that once they are in the Consul’s hands, the matter of visas will go easily. Again, we all thank you so sincerely for your help and collaboration, and hope to meet you soon.
Vera read the letter, in the spidery foreign script she had already seen twice in letters from Franz Vederle—once to thank her in advance for helping them in Mrs. Willis’ stead, and again to report the arrival of the registered letter with all the documents. She liked the way Dr. Vederle wrote, very simply, somehow touching in his almost but not quite perfect English and its slightly reserved gratitude to her, a stranger.
But this letter irritated her. So they weren’t en route by now, as she had imagined whenever she thought of them the past weeks. In all truth, she had thought little of them as specific persons; the rising, pitching crisis in the Sudetenland riveted the attention of everyone. Just this week, Nazi troops were marching on Czechoslovakia; reports were that Hitler had ten divisions mobilized along the Czech frontier. The Anschluss movie being run off again. Only the end might differ. War this time?
War or no war, one thing was sure: in still another country a new mass of humanity was already swirling along to the borders. Who would help these new ones? If there were indeed to be another world-enveloping war, then this would be one of the issues, perhaps buried beneath many other issues, but alive, burning with the roaring anger of decent people everywhere. This, the fact that men and women no longer could live where they chose, work as they chose, think and worship and study and sing as they chose. Yes, it would be one of the monstrous issues, and men would fight and men would die rather than sit forever disinterested and inert at the evil forc
e that could create it.
She rang for Miss Benson.
“Benny, get out the file copies of my income-tax statements for 1936 and 1937, please. Federal and state. See if you can get some fresh blanks for those years. Copy them off; I have to send notarized copies of the forms themselves. It is stupid nonsense, but let’s get it off right away.”
“Yes, Miss Marriner.”
“Get Mrs. Willis for me, would you?”
What could one do, how could one fight now? Affidavits for one family, one well-known family—it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t enough.
“Ann, the Vederles haven’t left yet. The Consul there wants more stuff about my income taxes. Have you run into this kind of thing?”
“Sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t. It depends on the Consulate—some places you get the quickest kind of response, other places you strangle in delay.” Her big voice sounded apologetic. “I’m sorry you’re being bothered, Vee.”
“It’s no bother. The red tape gets me mad, that’s all. If you want me for any new affidavits—you know, Czech ones or something—”
“Oh, Vee, I have some new cases. I’ve been racking my brains—”
“I’ll take on somebody. I know the ropes now. Who is it?”
“I’ve got three, actually. You don’t suppose Jasper would take on one or two? I’ve been wondering whether to ask him.”
Vee didn’t answer immediately. Jasper and affidavits? It would never occur to her to ask him.
“Why, look, darling,” she could almost hear his voice saying to her, so rational, so convincing. “I’m giving everything I’ve got—my mind, my ability, my future—to starting a thing that might make the world better and safer for millions of people. I just mustn’t get off the path for this individual or that. Don’t you see the danger of diverting your energies?”
“Oh, Ann, I don’t know about Jasper,” she said slowly into the phone. “I imagine he’d agree instantly if you did ask him, only he’s so taken up now with the network—”
“I know. I just got wondering, because I’m so desperate about whom to turn to all the time. I—oh, I guess I’ll- not try it. I hate getting a turndown.” She hesitated. When she spoke again, contempt edged her words. “Humanity in headlines is his dish, not just a couple of poor slobs in trouble. I’ve always thought that about Jasper Crown and now I’ve said it.”
Humanity in headlines. That was cruel. And perceptive? Her own doubts—“the little people”—these last weeks she thought and pondered over Jas only in the intimate realm of their shared, secret. Now Ann had led her back to that other impersonal realm, and the old doubts foamed in her mind. If she herself were to ask him—no, she couldn’t risk it.
“I think you have him wrong, Ann,” she said. “Anyway, to get back to what you’d like me to do—”
“This is a woman of about fifty-five, name’s Rosie Tupchik. She’s poor, and Jewish, and pretty sick by now. She makes brassieres.”
“Makes what?”
“Bras, to order, you know. Oh, and bathing suits with concealed bra and girdle-gadgets. She’d make a living here, if we could get her over. She’s got a daughter here, Bronya. She came over a year ago. The mother lives in Karlsbad, that’s in the Sudeten area.”
“Czechoslovakia? Oh, can the daughter …?”
“No. The daughter’s working as a scrubwoman in Gimbel’s. Couldn’t get anything else. She’s got a year-old infant that she boards out, while she’s scrubbing toilets. She used to teach science in a Berlin school.”
“Dear God.” An educated woman, a teacher of science, scrubbing toilets. “Well, that means passage money, too. O.K., Ann. Send me the dope, will you? I’ll start right away.”
“This is the opposite number to the Vederle kind of case. Might be tough going.”
“I don’t care.”
The full copies of her income-tax returns were mailed the next day. And before they were well out to sea, another letter came from Dr. Vederle.
I am embarrassed to bother you even again. But at the American Consul today, they added still more requests.
They say they must also have answers to the points on the enclosed, and in particular to paragraphs a, b, and d. I know this will put you to great trouble, dear Mrs. Stamford, and my wife, with me, we thank you in advance. It seems to us such an unaccustomed role to have to rely so on others. Everyone here in Zurich, and it was also so in Basel, also is so dependent now on some good friend in another country.
He signed it, “In deep gratitude, most cordially yours,” on two separate lines. An unexpected lump jammed Vera’s throat. Here was a renowned, respected doctor now become an embarrassed supplicant. She felt embarrassed herself, as though she had impertinently snooped into a private unhappiness.
The enclosure was yet another mimeographed form, probably used by all American Consulates everywhere.
Each affidavit of support will be accompanied by independent evidence of the truth of the statements made concerning financial resources of the affiant as follows:
a. Letter from the affiant’s employers stating specifically how the affiant is employed, how long he has been in his present employment and what wages or salary he receives;
b. Letters from the affiant’s bankers certifying to the amount of his savings and current funds;
c. Evidence as to the ownership and present market value of bonds and securities held by the affiant;
d. Letters from life-insurance companies stating the present cash surrender value of life-insurance policies held by the affiant…
It went on to e, which wanted evidences of real property claimed, appraisals of its value by some “readily identifiable person,” and then on to f , suggesting to any affiant with a business of his own that he “present an analysis and statement of his net worth from a public auditor…”
She slapped the sheet away from her. A moment later she reached for it in meek defeat. All right, all right. She’d send these statements, too. Redundancies did not seem to embarrass the consulate mind. Was this going on in all the consulates of all the countries—this repetitiveness, this carping piling up of still new requirements? It was maddening to anybody with a tidy mind.
But apart from that, the delay—the weeks of needless, pointless delay. The human beings back of each such delay, families waiting, unable to continue their voyage to their new beginnings; children asking “When will we get there?” Men and women greeting each day with new hope, ending it with the shoulder sag of disappointment.
From Ann’s many descriptions, she could visualize Dr. Vederle’s tall figure turning away from some crisp young clerk in the Consulate at Zurich; could see his dark, fine eyes suddenly deepen in rage at this procession of new requests and demands; could see, apology tighten his lips as he sat down at some strange desk in a strange house, to ask still another favor of her.
Impulsively, she wrote:
Dear Dr. and Mrs. Vederle,
You must be getting exasperated. As fast as possible I’ll send still more documents for you to present to our fine Consular officials. They sound absurdly foolish and it’s dreadful that any American representative abroad should give you so bad an impression of your new country-to-be. We’re not all like that.
Do not ever feel guilty about bothering me. It is a privilege to be able to help you, for I begin to feel as though we really know each other already.
That very hour she put in motion the task of collecting the new evidence as per a, b, and d. For good measure, she threw in testimony on c.
By the time she had the proper documents from her bank, her broker, her insurance companies, and the store, and had sent them off to Switzerland, June was half done. The crisis over the Sudetenland had blown over after all, the fear of war drifted gratefully out of men’s minds, and from thirty-two nations, delegates were converging to the great international conference on refugees. It was to be in Evian-les-Bains in France; Switzerland, fearing German displeasure, had refused to allow it within her bor
ders. Of all the countries invited by President Roosevelt, Italy alone had refused to attend. But three of the British Dominions had been added and the conference would represent virtually the whole of the civilized world.
Vera watched the New York papers for news of it, and knew that the Vederles and all their unknown comrades in flight were watching even more eagerly the Swiss and French and English papers. “The refugee problem” was a problem indeed. It seemed, each uneasy month, to be spreading, widening like the endless waters of a flooding river laughing at its puny shores.
But it was a man-made problem, not a natural scourge like flood or famine or hurricane which left one futile and helpless. Evil and brutal men had created this disaster; generous and decent men could solve it. There was nothing insurmountable about it.
It was a man-made problem. In Austria, less than two months after Anschluss, the men who wrote, edited, and published the Vienna edition of the Völkisscher Beobachter celebrated in their news columns the cleansing of Austria’s universities, her literary world, her press, her music, and her scientific laboratories.
They were not too specific in their celebration, these joyful men. News of suicides and arrests were proscribed by the new laws. No triumphant story appeared to tell that already, in Vienna alone, nearly 50,000 people had been imprisoned, of whom 26,000 were Jews and the rest Protestants and Catholics. No news story told how many executions had taken place, how many Gestapo inquisitions, how many Austrians had already fled or tried to flee. But here and there, in this police dossier, in that small obituary, from this mourning relative, one could piece out the tale, not perhaps of the obscure, but at least of the famous.
Dr. Sigmund Freud, eighty-two years old, left Vienna for London in early June. His family, his manuscripts and scientific papers, migrated with him, expatriates all.
The Trespassers Page 12