I reached into my pocket and took out a waxed-paper parcel. "Steak tartare on rye," I said, "to tide you over."
"With onions?"
"With onions."
"You're an angel." She took off her necklace and began to eat. I had got into the habit of providing myself with these little packages when we were going to places where no food was available. If only in self-defense. Natasha could be pretty vitriolic when her blood-sugar level took a sudden drop. If there was nothing to eat, she lost control; it was a kind of momentary madness. She simply felt the pangs of hunger more acutely than other people.
I waited for Natasha to usher in the next season. Outside it was midwinter, but here it was May. Woolen suits in bright colors with the most seductive names: cobalt blue, Nile green, corn yellow, desert brown. May, I thought. They say the war will be over in May. What then? Kahn had asked. What then? I thought, and looked at Natasha, who had appeared in the background in a short two-piece suit, looking very slender and swaying a little, as though her legs were too long. Where would I be in May? Time seemed to be falling apart, like a bag of overripe tomatoes. We're spoiled for a normal life, Kahn had said; can you see me as a radio salesman, with a family, voting Democratic, putting money aside, and trying to become a leader in the community? We're spoiled for normal life. A lot of people have been hit by this explosion. Some have come off without grave injury, some have even profited by it, others have been crippled. The injured, and those are the ones who matter most, will never get their bearings again, and in the end they'll go to the wall. May 19451 Or June or July! Time, which had dragged on so painfully all these years, suddenly seemed to race. I watched Natasha, who was now on the platform, illumined from all sides. I saw her face in profile, bent slightly forward, and it passed through my mind that she must smell slightly of onions.
Suddenly the spotlights went out. Gray and diffuse, the regular lights seemed to fight their way through the fog. "That's all!" Horst called out "Pack up and go home."
Amid the rustling of tissue paper and the clatter of boxes, Natasha emerged. She was wearing the borrowed fur coat and the ruby earrings. "I couldn't resist it," she said. "I've kept them for this evening, m send them back tomorrow. I often do that. They're so lovely."
"But what if you lose them?"
She looked at me as if I had said something obscene. "They're insured," she said loftily.
"Well," I said, "that determines our strategy for the evening. Well go to the Pavilion."
"I won't have to eat much after that steak tartare."
"We'll get ourselves a meal fit for con men and counterfeiters," I said.
We went out. "Good God!" cried Natasha. "There's the Rolls! I'd completely forgotten."
I stood thunderstruck. "With Fraser inside?" I asked.
"Of course not. He left town today. He promised to send it because he thought it might be a late night I'd forgotten."
"Send it away."
"Be reasonable, Robert. As long as it's here. We've often used it It doesn't mean a thing."
"It was different then. Now I love you, and I'm a capitalist in a small way. I can afford a cab."
"But the Rolls is just the thing for con men and counterfeiters."
It's very tempting, but let's not. It's a pleasant evening, crackling with frost Tell the chauffeur we're going for a walk in the woods."
"If that's what you want" she said hesitantly, taking a step.
"Stop!" I said. "I've changed my mind. Forgive me, Natasha. Anything that gives you pleasure is more important than jealousy disguised as moral principles. Hop in."
She sat beside me like an exotic bird. "I haven't taken off my make-up," she said. "It would have taken too long and, besides, it's too hectic in the studio. They only give you time for a quick wipe with cold cream and you come out looking like a plucked chicken."
"You don't look like a plucked chicken," I said. "You look like a hungry "bird of paradise, lost in the big city. Or like a virgin decked out for the sacrifice in Haiti or Timbuctoo. I like women to look different. I'm an old-fashioned admirer of woman as a miraculous creature from the jungle or the northern forests. I can't see her as a comrade and business partner and equal."
"You mean you're a barbarian?"
"A hopeless romantic."
"Am I barbaric enough for you? With false eyelashes, movie make-up, jewels that don't belong to me, a borrowed fur coat and this new hairdo? Is that enough for my counterfeiter friend?"
"You haven't seen the last of my counterfeiting," I said. "Wait till I pay with counterfeit money."
"Don't we always?"
I took her hand. "Probably. But business practices should always be viewed with respect. In ancient times lying wasn't looked down on; it was regarded as a kind of wisdom. Think of the crafty Ulysses. How wonderful it is to be sitting here with you under all these lights, surrounded by waiters with venerable flat feet and to see you digging into a sirloin steak. I worship you, Natasha, for all sorts of reasons. A very important one is that you're such a good eater in an age where diet is king on this great glutted island separated by two oceans from the world's hunger. The women here eat like rabbits while whole continents starve; but you have the courage to eat. Other women make you spend a pile of money, they pick at their food for a while, and it all goes back to the kitchen. But you..."
"What other women?"
"I'm generalizing. Look around. This fine restaurant is full of them. They eat salad and drink coffee. When they're through, they're so hungry that they kick up scenes with their husbands. That's the only passion they're capable of. In bed a fence post would put them to shame. But you . . ."
She laughed. "That'll do!"
"I had no intention of going into details. I was only intoning an ode to your magnificent appetite."
"I know, Robert. But I also know that you tend to strike up your odes and rhapsodies when there's something else on your mind. You may be a counterfeiter and double talker and double thinker, but you can't fool me. I don't ask you what's eating you and what you're trying to forget. But I know there's something." She stroked my hand tenderly. "We're living in crazy times. The only way we can get through is to make certain things bigger or smaller than they are. Is that it?"
"Maybe," I said cautiously. "But we don't have to do it ourselves. The lousy times do it for us."
She did not reply. We sat for a while in silence, and I wanted very much to be alone with her. "I talk a lot of nonsense," I said finally, "and I don't know anything about women. But I'm happy with you. Maybe I am hiding something, that has nothing to do with my feeling for you. They're two separate things. All I really wanted to say is that I'm happy with you. Forgive me for taking so long about it, but you've got to remember that for years words were my stock in trade. I used to be a journalist"
"And you're not any more?"
"No. I can speak English fairly well, but I can't write it Is it any wonder that my imagination sprouts like weeds and puts forth romantic blossoms? In normal times I wouldn't have been such an anachronistic false romantic."
"Do you really think so?"
"No, but there's something in it.
"There's no such thing as a false romantic, Robert."
"Oh yes there is. In politics. And in politics they're a disaster. There's one of them in a bunker under Berlin right now."
I took her home. I was glad to see that the Rolls was gone; she had sent the chauffeur away. "Are you surprised?" she asked.
"No," I said.
"Did you expect me to send it away?"
"No."
"What did you expect?"
"I expected you to come back to the hotel with me."
We were standing in her doorway. It was dark and Cold. "It's too bad we haven't got the apartment any more."
"Yes," I said, looking into the unfamiliar face with the long eyelashes.
"Come up with me," she whispered. "But well have to make silent love."
"No," I said. "Come back to the hotel wit
h me. Then we won't have to be silent."
"Why didn't you take me there straight from the Pavilion?"
"I don't know."
"Tell me why."
"Maybe because you looked so exotic—like a stranger. I don't know; Now I want you because you look so exotic."
"Is that the only reason?"
"No."
"Go. find a taxi. I'll wait here."
I ran to the corner. It was very cold, and it was exciting to know that Natasha was waiting in the doorway. I felt the little muscles in my chest quivering. I found a cab and rode back in it Natasha rushed out of the house. We didn't talk. We were both shivering. We tried in vain to warm each other's hands. We practically fell out of the cab. No one saw us. It was as though we had never been together before.
XXXI
Betty Stein died in January. The last German offensive dealt her the death blow. From day to day she had followed the advance of the Allied armies; her room was full of newspapers. When the Germans surprised the world by counterattacking, her coin-age failed her. The war would go on for years; the German people would never turn against the Nazis, as she had hoped. "They'll defend every town and village, every inch of ground," she said wearily. "They're all Nazis." Even when the German offensive collapsed, she did not rally. She grew weaker from day to day, and one morning Lissy found her dead.
She had insisted on being buried. Cremation reminded her of the German death camps. She had even refused to take German medicines. But to the end she had yearned to see Berlin—a Berlin that no longer existed. In spite of everything she had read in the papers, her image of it remained unchanged.
The day Betty was buried, the streets were deep in snow. The city was digging itself out Hundreds of trucks were hauling snow to the Hudson and the East River. The sky was very blue and a cold, bright sun was shining.
The funeral chapel was overcrowded; Many of those whom Betty had helped had half forgotten her, but now they remembered. The usual organ pipes were in evidence, and as usual the music issued from a hidden phonograph. The records chosen for this day's ceremony were vestiges of a Germany that no longer existed. German folk songs were sung by Richard Tauber, a Jew, one of the finest singers of the century, who had died of lung cancer in England after the barbarians had driven him out of his country. "Ach, wie ist's möglich dann," he sang,"dass ich dich lassen kann / Hab dich von Herzen lieb, Nur dich allein." It was almost unbearable; but that had been Betty's wish; she hadn't wanted to depart from this world in English. I heard a wheezing sob behind me and turned around. It was Tannenbaum. He looked gray and haggard and needed a shave. I guessed that he had just arrived from California. He owed his career to Betty's untiring efforts.
We gathered again in Betty's apartment—another of her wishes. She had left express orders for us to be gay. There were a few bottles of wine, and Iissy had brought cake from a Hungarian pastry shop.
It was not gay. We stood awkwardly about, all of us with the feeling that not only Betty, but many more were absent.
I was standing with Ravic and Tannenbaum. We were joined by a stocky, dark-haired man I had never seen before.
"What's happening with the apartment?" he asked.
"Betty left it to Lissy, Mr. Meyer," said Ravic. "The apartment and everything in it."
Lissy, who was serving wine, came up to us. Meyer turned to her. "You won't be keeping it, will you?" he asked. "It's too big for you. There are three of us, and we're desperately in need of a place."
"The rent's been paid till the end of the month," said Lissy, fighting back her tears.
Meyer took a sip of wine. "But you'll let us have it, won't you? We're friends of Betty's, after all. You Wouldn't give it to strangers."
"Mr. Meyer," said Tannenbaum angrily, "do we have to discuss this right now?"
"Why not? Apartments are hard to find. We've been waiting a long time."
"Then wait a few days more."
"I can't," said Meyer. "I'm leaving town tomorrow and I won't be back until next week."
"Then wait until next week. Haven't you heard of piety?"
"Exactly," said Meyer. "Shouldn't piety toward Betty make you want friends of hers to get her apartment before some stranger snaps it up?"
Tannenbaum was boiling. Because of the other twin he regarded himself as Lissy's protector. "You expect to get it for nothing, don't you?"
"For nothing? Of course not We could contribute something for the moving, or buy some of the furniture. How can you think of business details at a time like this?"
Tannenbaum's face had gone purple. "Lissy took care of Betty for months. For nothing. Betty couldn't pay her but. she left her apartment. We're not giving it away to any small-time chiseler."
"I must ask you to show respect for the dead."
"Mr. Meyer," said Ravic, "kindly shut up."
"What!"
"Shut up! You can make Miss Koller a written offer. But right now shut up!"
"A written offer? Are we Nazis? Isn't my word . . ."
He beat a retreat in midsentence.
"That scavenger," said Tannenbaum. "He never even came to see Betty when she was sick. And now he wants to get the apartment away from Lissy before she can find out what it's worth."
"Are you staying on here?" I asked.
"No, I've got to go back. A small part in a Western. Very interesting. Did you know that Carmen was married?"
"Since when?"
"A week ago. To a farmer in the San Fernando Valley. Wasn't she Kahn's girl?"
"I don't know. Are you sure she's married?"
"I was at the wedding. A witness, in fact. The husband's a big friendly guy who never says anything. They say he used to be a great baseball player. They've got a chicken farm, and they raise flowers and vegetables."
"Chickens," I said. "I see it all. How did she meet this man?"
"He's her landlady's brother."
I had been surprised not to see Kahn at the funeral. Now I understood. I decided to go and see him.
I found him with Hölzer and Frank. Holzer was an actor, Frank had been a successful German writer before Hitler.
"How was it?" Kahn asked me. "I hate funerals in America, that's why I didn't go. Did the inevitable Rosenbaum make a speech?"
"They couldn't stop him. First in German, then in English with a Leipzig accent"
"That man is a refugee's nemesis," Kahn explained. "He used to be a lawyer. He can't practice here, so he delivers an oration whenever he gets a chance, especially at funerals. No refugee can be buried without his words of unction. If I were about to die, I'd try to do it on the high seas, to get away from him; but he'd probably stow away on the same ship or swoop down in a helicopter."
I watched him. He seemed to have himself under control.
"When they bury me in liberated Vienna," said Holzer darkly, "he can speak at the grave of an unemployed bald-headed juvenile lead."
"Bald heads can be covered with wigs," I said.
In 1932 Holzer had been a matinee idol—young, handsome, and talented. Since then he had put on fifteen pounds and lost his hair. He was sullen and embittered. In America he hadn't even been able to find work as an extra.
"Look at me," he said. "I could never face my audience."
"Your audience is also twelve years older," I said.
"But we haven't grown old together. They haven't seen me grow old. They remember me as I was in 1932."
"You make me laugh with your problems," said Frank. "Why can't you do character parts?"
"I'm not a character actor. I've always been the young lead."
"Then you can be a middle-aged lead," said Frank impatiently. "Caesar was as bald as a billiard ball. Or you can wear a shaggy wig and do King Lear."
"I'm not old enough. "I've got to feel my part."
"I wish I had your troubles," said Frank. "In 1933, when they burned my books, I was sixty-four, at the height of my creativepowers, as they say. Now I'm going on seventy-seven, I'm an old man; I can't work any m
ore. I have eighty-seven dollars to my name."
Frank was so German that, all attempts to publish him in translation had been a total failure. And he was also too German to learn English.
"Your books will be published after the war," I said.
"In Germany? After twelve years of National Socialist education?"
"All the more reason," I said, but I didn't believe it