Belva Plain - Evergreen.txt

by Evergreen

  "You know," Iris said, "it does have a lot of charm, in spite of its faults."

  "Charm, charm. What kind of talk is that? You're not talking about a woman!"

  "All right, if you want another word, it has character."

  "Character! Oh, for God's sake! Now can you possibly tell me what you mean by that?"

  Iris had been patient. "It's original. As if the people who built it had done a good deal of thinking about what they wanted, so that it pleased them. It had meaning for them. It wasn't just a house stamped out by the hundreds to sell in a particular price range but to please nobody in particular."

  "Hmpp," Joseph said. He had never been able to win an argument with his daughter. Never wanted to, was more the truth.

  Anna cried, "Oh, Joseph, I love it!"

  The young man waited without comment. Inexperienced as he might be, he was clever enough to know when he was winning and not to spoil it.

  Joseph walked off by himself. He walked around examining the outside, the shaggy shrubbery, and the garage where horses had been stabled. He went down into the cellar. The coal furnace hovered in the corner like a gorilla. The vastness and the darkness reminded him of a dungeon in one of those castles through which Anna had dragged him when they were in France. He climbed back upstairs into the light with relief.

  The bathrooms would all have to be torn out and replaced. With these high ceilings it would take a lot of oil to heat the place. You could bet it wasn't insulated either. Heaven only knew what condition the plumbing was in! Probably corroded, and every time

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  you ran the bath water or flushed a toilet the pipes would groan and shudder through the house. But she loved it.

  She never asked for things, he thought for the hundredth time. Never spent any real money except on books; her few extra dollars went to Brentano's. Sometimes on Fifty-seventh Street she would bring him to a halt in front of a gallery window and say, not complaining, just musing, "Now, if I were rich that's what I'd have," and she'd point to some picture of a child or a meadow. "If it costs anything within reason I'll get it for you," he'd tell her. And she'd smile and say, "That's a Boudin," or some such foreign name, French probably, since she loved anything French—"It's at least twenty-five thousand," she'd say. She loved this house.

  The roof was slate and in good condition. That at least would last forever. The house was probably cool in the summer too; the walls were a foot thick. They didn't build that way anymore, that was certain! Nice piece of land for the money too. Someday you could even sell that stretch up the hill where the orchard was and turn a fine profit. Land here was bound to soar, it was so near New York. Actually, it was worth the price for the land alone.

  "Well, I'll think it over," he told the agent. "I'll call you in a couple of days."

  "Very good," the young man said, adding predictably, "There's another couple very much interested. I think I really ought to tell you, not that I'm rushing you into a decision or anything. But they'll be making up their minds this week."

  Naturally. Anna shouldn't have let him see her enthusiasm. A very poor way to do business.

  "Well, I'll let you know," he'd repeated, and gone home and lain long awake thinking.

  It did have a kind of elegance, something solid and real that belonged to another age. In a very small yet undeniable way it reminded him of those great stone houses on Fifth Avenue where he'd used to walk and gape and marvel at the beginning of the century. It would, he thought, it would make a setting for Iris. It was the kind of place that you saw in magazines, where old, distinguished families gave their daughters' weddings. Inherited wealth likes to be a little dowdy, out of fashion. He laughed at himself. Distinguished families! Inherited wealth! Still, perhaps it would do

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  something for Iris, enhance her, put an aura about her that a West End Avenue apartment couldn't give?

  His thoughts embarrassed him. They hurt him, too. As if his daughter were an item on sale! Yet, a girl needed to be married; who would take care of her through life, and when her father was gone?

  There was something about Iris, his lovely, lovely girl. He'd tried to talk about her to Anna, but for some reason, Anna was never able to talk about Iris without such visible pain that he would drop the subject. She could talk more easily about Maury! He wished sometimes that he himself could speak openly to Iris but he couldn't do that, either. He couldn't ask: "What are you like when you're out with fellows? Do you smile, do you laugh a little?" Hah! Out with fellows! There was less and less of that every year. She was getting older: twenty-six. And the men were mostly away. He tried. That young widower he'd brought to dinner last winter. His wife had died of pneumonia. Might he not be looking for a fine, steady wife to mother his baby? But nothing had come of it.

  So, maybe the house would make a difference.

  He'd gone back three times to look at it that week, wavering toward the thought that he had really wanted something newer and more impressive, and back again to the fact that Anna loved it. In the end he had signed the contract of sale. It was like putting his name to a written blessing. Words like 'dear home' and 'peace' floated through his unashamedly sentimental head while he wrote his name.

  He turned into his building and, waiting for the elevator, sought his name on the directory: Friedman-Malone, Real Estate and Construction. He put his shoulders back. Look forward.

  "There've been a couple of calls," Miss Donnelly said. "I've put the messages on your desk. None of them urgent except one. A Mr. Lovejoy wants to see you this afternoon."

  "I'm seeing the accountant at four. What Lovejoy? The man who owns the house? What does he want?"

  "I've no idea. I told him you had a four o'clock appointment, but he said he'd come over at half past. He'd wait for you to see him at your convenience."

  A gray-haired, quiet-voiced, Brooks Brothers type. "I don't want to waste your time or my own, Mr. Friedman. We're both

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  busy men. So I'll get to the point. I've come to ask you to withdraw your offer for the house."

  "I don't understand."

  "The agent made an unpardonable error. He was supposed to have given preference to another couple, very dear old friends of ours, as a matter of fact. ... He actually sold it right out from under them."

  "I still don't understand. I gave my check and your agent signed the contract of sale."

  "I've been in Caracas, just docked this noon and went home, but as soon as I learned what had happened I came right back to the city. I'd given the agent a power of attorney to sell the house, with the understanding that if my friends should decide they wanted it, it was to go to them, you see."

  "Apparently they didn't want it, or he wouldn't have sold it to me, would he?"

  "He was an inexperienced young fellow, substituting for his uncle who was in the hospital. I'm afraid he's been severely reprimanded for the mistake. I'm truly sorry."

  Maybe this was an omen, a sign that the house was wrong for them. They could go out looking again, now that the weather was fine, and come up with something much more to his liking.

  "I'm prepared to return your check with two thousand dollars' profit to you," Mr. Lovejoy said.

  Joseph picked up his pen and tapped it on the blotter. Why should the man be so eager? There was something odd here. It was like feeling a presence in a dark room: you can't see it or hear it but you know something is there.

  He fenced. "My wife likes the house."

  "Ah, yes. These other people—the wife went to boarding school with my wife and it would mean a very great deal to them both if they could be neighbors."

  Mr. Lovejoy leaned forward a little. There was a certain pressure in his voice and his eyes were anxious. His forehead was gathered into a small lump ovsr each eye. For a moment Joseph had some fleeting thought of a criminal conspiracy: Mafia, perhaps, who needed the house? But that was absurd. This man was of a definite class, in banking, brokerage or shipping. Something like that. His dress
, his face, his accent all belonged in that category.

  "You know how women are ... old family friendship, going

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  back for three or four generations ... it would mean a very great deal to us, I assure you, if you'd withdraw. And I'm certain this very same agent could find you another house which you'd like as well or better. After all," he smiled deprecatingly, "the house is awfully old and quite run-down too, as you no doubt saw."

  "Oh, I saw," Joseph said. "It's run-down, all right. But as I told you, my,wife loves it." The man was pushing him, ever so delicately, but pushing all the same, and he didn't like it.

  Mr. Lovejoy sighed. "Perhaps there are a few things you haven't considered. I mean, you don't really know the area very well . . . you're strangers to the town, aren't you?"

  "We're strangers."

  "Ah, yes. Well, then, you see, we're a very old community, very close knit. We even have an association on our side of town: the Stone Spring Association, you may have heard of it? It's a kind of improvement group and social club of people with mutual concerns: our gardens and tennis courts, maintenance of the roadside shade trees, protection of our general interests in the town. Things of that sort."

  "Go on," Joseph said.

  "You know how it is, when people have lived together most of their lives, their attachments are formed. It's very difficult for a newcomer to move in. Difficult for them and for the newcomer. . . . Just human nature, after all, isn't it?"

  A flash bulb flared and went out in Joseph's head, illuminating everything.

  "I see," he said. "I see what you've been trying to tell me. No Jews!"

  A flush spread up from Mr. Lovejoy's collar; it was the pink of • rare roast beef. "I wouldn't put it that way exactly, Mr. Friedman. We're not bigoted people. We don't hate anyone. But people are always more comfortable with their own kind."

  It was a statement, but it had been presented like a question, as if the man expected Joseph to answer. He didn't answer.

  "A good many people of your faith are buying over toward the Sound. They're even building a handsome new synagogue, I'm told. Actually, it's better over there, much breezier in the summer . . ."

  "Usurping the better part of town, are they?"

  Mr. Lovejoy ignored that. "The agent should have told you all this, as a service to you. He really did a very poor job."

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  "I wouldn't say so. I didn't ask him to do anything but show me the house, which he did, and take my money, which he did. As simple as that."

  Mr. Lovejoy shook his head. "Not simple. There's a great deal more to buying a home than four walls. There's a whole neighborhood to be taken into consideration. All kinds of social events. People give parties—I should think you wouldn't want to live someplace and be left out."

  The man is absolutely right. But to retreat now? It's unthinkable. For myself I don't give a damn. Whether he wants me there or he doesn't, it's all the same to me. I could do a lot better than that old heap of a house. In fact, some people will think I'm out of my mind to buy it, and me in the building business. . . . That stuff about people wanting to stay with their own kind: fine, I'm the first to say so myself. Except that it should be by choice, not by being told you must.

  He said, "We don't expect you to invite us to your parties and we don't expect to invite you. We only want to live in the house. And that's what we intend to do."

  "That's all you have to say?"

  "All."

  "I could take this to court, you know. It would be a long, complicated legal tangle and would cost us both a good deal of money and time."

  He was thinking: She's never had anything except for those first few hectic years before the crash. A trip to Europe. A diamond ring which I had to pawn and only got back now. (I knew she didn't even want the ring, but I want her to have it; it's for me.) And a fur coat which she wore for fifteen years. He could see her creamy face above the rusty old fur which she had kept on wearing because they couldn't afford a new cloth coat. If she knew about this business today she wouldn't want the house. She'd make me back down. So she'll never know. I'll never let her know.

  "Mr. Friedman, I don't want to wrangle this out in court. I'm too busy, and I'm sure you are too."

  Yes, and it's too ugly to be brought out in the open, Joseph

  thought, still not speaking. He was very, very tired and angry with

  himself for being hurt. What, after all, was new or surprising about

  this conversation? He ought to have known better.

  Mr. Lovejoy, too, was struggling with anger. His voice rose ever

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  so slightly. "If you're not satisfied with two thousand we can talk it over."

  Joseph looked up from his vision of faces: first Anna's, then Iris', even Maury's and lastly, strangely, Eric's: a face he could only imagine, which had been taken from him by just such a man, very likely, as this one: this thin man, gaunt almost, wearing the ascetic expression of some figure in an engraved historical tableau, wearing that and a blue silk foulard tie.

  "I'm not to be bought off," he said softly. "I want the house."

  Mr. Lovejoy rose and loomed above the desk. Joseph looked up at him. He was the tallest man he had ever seen.

  "Is that your final word, then, Mr. Friedman?"

  "It is."

  Mr. Lovejoy walked to the door and turned back. "You ought to know," he said, "that in all my dealings with your people, all my life, I have found them baffling, difficult and stubborn. You're no exception."

  "And for two thousand years in our dealings with your people we have found you the same, and worse." Z shall go home and tell Anna that the tension between us could have been cut with a knife. No, of course not; I shan't tell Anna anything at all.

  Mr. Lovejoy's hand was on the doorknob. Such cold eyes he had, gray as the North Atlantic in the winter: deep, deep, cold and gray. He bowed slightly, then turned and went out, shutting the door without sound behind him, as a gentleman should.

  Joseph was still at his desk when Miss Donnelly came in with her hat on.

  "Is it all right for me to go home, Mr. Friedman? It's after five."

  "Yes, yes, go ahead."

  "Is there anything the matter? I thought perhaps—"

  He waved his hand. "Nothing. Nothing at all. I was just thinking."

  Anna's eyes. When she didn't know he was watching her, he could catch a look in them, as if she were seeing things other people didn't see. Mourning eyes, and wondering; eyes that could lighten so quickly into laughter. Quality, his father used to say. You can always tell quality. And this man says he doesn't want her living on his street. His fury mounted.

  I'm going to have that house if it's the last thing I do.

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  Painters and masons were still working when, in early September, they moved in so that Iris could start the school year. She had been fortunate to get a position as a fourth-grade teacher in what they later learned was the best school in the area. It was not what she had wanted. She wanted, she said, to teach poorer children whose need was greater. If she could have had her way she would have liked to teach on the lower East Side, or even Harlem.

  Joseph groaned. "It's taken most of my life to get away to a place where there was no chance of being pulled back down there. I could take all the bathrooms out of this house so you'd get the feel of Ludlow Street, if you want."

  He was the first to admit that his humor wasn't humorous, although Anna laughed. But Iris looked exasperated, and Anna's laugh turned to a sigh.

  Oh, Iris was so earnest! She had no real joy in anything, just seemed to stand apart, watching and making her skeptical, acerbic comments. She thought the neighborhood too polished, too selfconsciously expensive, and the children she taught reflected the houses they lived in. She disapproved of the things Anna was having done to the house.

  "I liked it the way it was," she said, as the kitchen took new form with stainless steel, white porcelain and dark red tile.r />
  "You can't mean that!"

  "Naturally I don't mean the dirt. But what you're making is like something in a magazine."

  "That's what I'm taking it from. A magazine," Anna said firmly.

  It was the first time in her life that she could really have what she wanted. The costly pseudo-French furniture which they had been living with all these years had been Joseph's choice. The odd thing was that when at last she had gotten rid of it and the secondhand men had carried it out of sight with its gilded curlicues, painted flowers and bulbous legs (as if it had rheumatoid arthritis, Anna had used to think) she had felt a pang. They had gone through so much living with these tables and chairs! And when they took the sideboard which Maury had once gouged with his toy hammer she had turned away. (Only the little white bed from Iris' childhood room had gone with them and was wrapped now in the attic of this house, although Iris didn't know it. She would have understood what Anna was still hoping for.)