Always and Forever (27 page)

“Oh, you’re on the soapbox,” Frank chuckled as he approached them with Rhoda’s coat. “Nothing like a woman who’s been converted to spread the word.”

“I’ve never felt comfortable being a clotheshorse for Julius Kohn furs.” Kathy’s smile was rueful. “I keep telling myself, I don’t own a fur coat or jacket or cape or whatever—”

“No mink-lined bathrobe or car robe?” Frank twitted.

“That has nothing to do with my invitation to come up to the house with me for the weekend,” Kathy said resolutely. “Phil won’t be there. And if he was, we’d just avoid discussing the subject. Like I never fight with him or his father about the House Un-American Activities Committee and Joe McCarthy. They have their opinions, and I have mine. I always warn my father not to discuss politics with Phil. On those rare occasions when they spend more than two minutes together,” she added derisively.

“Then we’d love to go up with you,” Rhoda said. “Okay, Frank?”

“Sure, I’d love to slum for a weekend in Greenwich,” Frank joked, and kissed her. “Take care, Kathy.”

Again, the Kohn entourage prepared to settle at the Southampton house for the summer. Kathy promised herself she would go into Manhattan twice a week for summer classes, and she’d take advantage of this escape to visit in Borough Park and to meet Rhoda for lunch. Gail and Brenda were heading for Bar Harbor for the month of July, once the little girls were off to camp; and she anticipated a quiet time alone with Bella and Jesse.

At dinner at Kathy and Phil’s apartment shortly before the exodus to the Hamptons, Julius announced that he and Phil had just scheduled a business trip to London and Paris at the end of July.

“Good,” Bella said casually. “Kathy and I will go with you.”

“What do you mean, you’ll go with us?” Julius stared belligerently at her.

“Kathy and I will accompany our husbands to Paris. I think the words are self-explanatory.” Bella refused to be ruffled. Kathy tensed, dreading another ugly battle between them.

“We’ll talk about it later.” Julius turned to Phil. “Did you bring those reports from the real estate people in Atlanta?” Kathy knew an Atlanta store was under consideration.

“Yeah. We can go over them after dinner.”

At intervals Bella alluded to the forthcoming European jaunt. Julius was sullen but refrained from further argument. By the time the chocolate mousse was served he had capitulated.

“You’ll be on your own most of the time,” Julius warned. “We’ve got some difficult contracts to iron out in London and Paris. It’ll be business meetings day and night.”

“Fine,” Bella accepted. “Kathy and I will be able to entertain ourselves.”

“Bella, I can’t leave Jesse,” Kathy reminded anxiously when the men went off to the den, presumably to discuss Atlanta real estate, though she and Bella immediately heard the raucous sounds of the night baseball game being shown on local television.

“You can, but you won’t,” Bella corrected lovingly. “Jesse will come along with us. Alice adores traveling with you. We’ll be in Paris in time for the shows. We’ll buy like crazy.” Bella’s eyes glinted with satisfaction. Kathy knew that Bella had just discovered her husband’s long-time affair with his bookkeeper, which probably motivated his capitulation on the London-Paris trip, she surmised. “Julius will scream when he sees the bills. Phil will scream. But somehow, they’ll manage to write them off as business expenses. The rich find ways not to pay taxes, Kathy.”

After the ball game the two men joined Kathy and Bella in the living room for cups of espresso. Julius seemed more relaxed now. He figured Bella would not rock the boat—or bed—that he shared with his bookkeeper, Kathy assumed. Ever anxious to have Phil understand who was boss, Julius rejected his son’s suggestion that they stay at the Dorchester in London.

“We’ll stay at the Savoy,” he announced. “Their bathtubs are six feet long.”

“Julius, you’re five feet four,” Bella said drily. “Be careful you don’t drown.”

“During World War II General Eisenhower sent his laundry to the Savoy,” Julius told them. “It went there in special aluminum containers.”

“Make it the Ritz in Paris,” Phil urged. “Kathy and I stayed there last time. It was great.”

“Okay,” Julius conceded. “In Paris we stay at the Ritz.”

Would there be a reunion in Paris with David, Kathy wondered wistfully. It was a short flight from Berlin to Paris. Bella would never set foot on German soil, she’d been eloquent about that on several occasions.
“How could I go to a country where six million Jews were murdered?”
But maybe Bella would persuade David to join them in Paris for a day.

Though Kathy had slept little on the overseas flight, she was delighted when Bella suggested on their arrival at the Savoy that the two of them shower, change into comfortable “tourist clothes” and begin to see London.

“Julius and Phil will conk out for a couple of hours’ sleep, then start their round of appointments. We may see them for dinner,” Bella said with mild sarcasm. “Do you know, Kathy, I haven’t been in London for twenty-four years. Oh, I’ve been to Paris a dozen times in that period,” she conceded. “Going to Paris means spending a fortune on new dresses, and driving Julius into a frenzy. My mother—may she rest in peace—used to call my troubles with Julius ‘silken troubles.’ She couldn’t understand why I was unable to sit back and enjoy all the things the Kohn money could buy for me. But in time I learned,” she said with a conviction Kathy didn’t entirely believe. “Do you know how many women in this world would sell their souls to be in our places?”

“I stay with Phil for Jesse’s sake.” Kathy was always candid with Bella. “If the day ever comes when I think it’s not good for Jesse, I’ll walk out.”

“I used to tell myself that once the children were grown, I’d sue Julius for a divorce and demand a big cash settlement plus fancy alimony. But by then I was too lazy to move out into a life of my own. Or maybe too afraid,” she acknowledged. “So I look the other way when I see Julius making an old fool of himself—and I shop. That’s survival for a lot of women in this world, Kathy. You might say,” Bella chuckled, “that we help keep the economy healthy.”

“I’ve made a list of places we must see.” Enthusiasm began to well in Kathy. “We’re only going to be here five days, so let’s don’t waste a minute.”

The next four days sped past. Kathy and Bella, with Jesse and Alice, visited the Tower of London. They were enthralled by the display of the Crown Jewels and by their climb up the Bloody Tower. Like other American tourists, they dallied at Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Trafalgar Square, the British Museum, the National Gallery. They were at Buckingham Palace to witness the Changing of the Guard.

Their first three evenings in London—exhausted from the miles they’d walked during the day—they dined with Jesse and Alice in the comfort of Bella and Julius’s suite. Both men dined with business associates, they claimed. Bella was dubious but philosophical. The fourth night Bella decreed that the men arrive at the Savoy in time to escort them to dinner. They dined in the elegant Main Restaurant, a jewel of the hotel and reached via an imposing double staircase.

Over dinner, which included fresh Beluga caviar, Bella suggested that Julius call David in Berlin and ask him to join them in Paris for a day or two.

“You’ve got nothing to do. You call David,” Julius ordered. “Tell him we’ll arrange for a room for him at the Ritz. I don’t think David’s bankroll is up to that.” His chuckle held a condescending note that infuriated Kathy.

The following morning Bella arrived as usual for breakfast with Kathy, Jesse, and Alice in their suite.

“How’s my precious this morning?” Bella crooned over Jesse.

“We’re going to fly a kite in the park,” Jesse reported happily. “And then Alice said I can feed the ducks in a pond there.”

“You’ll have a wonderful time, darling,” Bella promised. “God, at his age I thought the big treat was a day on the beach at Coney Island!”

“Did you call David?” Kathy asked. He wouldn’t let that encounter between them at the Greenwich house affect their relationship, would he? They’d promised themselves to pretend it never happened. Phil—the family—would never know. “Is he meeting us?”

“He’ll fly to Paris for the day,” Bella said. “I couldn’t persuade him to take more time off. I gather he and his lab assistant are involved in some important project. He says he just can’t be away for more than a day.”

“It’ll be great to see him.” Kathy’s heart was singing.
In four days she’d see David.

“He asked about you and Jesse. I told him both of you were here, too. Oh, it’s going to be wonderful to see him.” Bella’s eyes brightened with anticipation. “There were times when he seemed more my son than Phil. You know David. So warm and compassionate. He always remembered my birthday—even when the others forgot.”

Kathy was glad that today Bella had decreed they would shop. Little would be required of her other than to help make decisions about which blouse to buy, which purse would please “the girls.” Today she was obsessed by the knowledge that she would soon see David.

On the flight to Paris Phil talked to Julius about the business ahead. Bella dozed. Kathy encouraged Jesse to complete one of the puzzles they’d brought along for diversion while in a secret corner of her mind she recalled the first time she had seen Paris. With Phil. That was when he had asked her to marry him. The second time was when Jesse was two, and she was still able to convince herself that Phil and she had a real marriage.

It had been frightening to hear Bella say that when her children were grown she was “too lazy” to move out on her own. Too afraid of the outside world, Kathy thought compassionately. Feeling—as she sometimes felt—that
she
had in some way been lacking because her husband sought out other women.

Kathy sensed a fresh serenity in Bella as they began their Paris stay. Here—with her liberal spending at the couturiers—she was treated with all the charm and solicitude and pampering accorded rich American women. For a little while Bella felt coddled and important.

In Paris Bella was concerned mainly with shopping. Remembering Kathy’s success with their designer, Phil arranged for the two women
to be
included in the dinner party with the designer on their second evening in the capital. The designer insisted that in Paris
he
would be the host and sent his chauffeured Rolls to bring them to his newly acquired château at the edge of the city.

Impressed by the grandeur of the eighteenth-century château set on magnificently landscaped grounds, Julius seemed less arrogant than normal, Kathy thought. She sensed that Phil was nervous that his father’s vulgarity—though always masked by Savile Row suits and custom-made shirts—would offend their host. But the evening was a huge success. At intervals her mind escaped from the casual conversation to dwell on the fact that in the morning David would be heading for the airport for his flight to Paris.

In high spirits over the cordial meeting with the designer, Julius insisted on their return to the hotel that they go into the Ritz Bar for a drink.

“This is one town I’ve always liked,” he said expansively, the short, thick fingers of one hand wrapped around his Scotch-and-soda glass. “What about you two?” he turned from Kathy to Bella. “Been seeing all the museums?”

“My favorite museum is the House of Dior,” Bella said with a taunting smile.

“Hey, Phil, you think maybe your friends here might come up with some more old masterpieces like those two hanging in the Greenwich house?” Julius asked.

“I doubt it.” Phil smiled self-consciously. “That was a wartime deal.”

“I thought you bought those from a German refugee.” Bella lifted one eyebrow in surprise.

“That’s the story I figured sounded safest,” Julius admitted. “Phil bought them from a couple of old Frenchmen here in Paris. That photography assignment was a cover for him to make the deal. You took long enough,” he ribbed Phil. Kathy froze, her mind hurtling back in time. Phil had acquired the paintings when they were in Paris?
When?
“Then he brought them in—without the frames—disguised as a batch of film. They’re worth close to a million. Phil got them for thirty thousand.”

Kathy was cold with shock, Julius’s words echoing in her mind. Phil’s story about having been billeted in that house with his wartime buddy had been a lie. The paintings had been hidden somewhere in that house.
By Phil.

“Julius, were you crazy?” Bella stared at him in disbelief and rage. “You allowed Phil to smuggle museum paintings out of Europe? He could have gone to jail!”
She could have gone to jail, Kathy told herself.
“I think you were both insane to take such a chance!”

“It was a snap.” Phil smiled as though in amusement, but Kathy saw his furtive glance in her direction. “I’d worked out all the little details, took my time.”

The whole point of the trip to Paris was to recover the paintings he’d hidden at that little house. Kathy was stunned by the realization. He’d brought them out of France, but
she
had brought them out of Germany and across the Atlantic and into New York.
How could he have exposed her to such chances?

“Let’s call it a night,” Bella said, her face again its usual inscrutable mask. “I’m tired.”

Conscious only of the pleasure of being in David’s company, Kathy was relieved that there had been no awkwardness between them. She sat with Bella and David in the Ritz dining room—where the lighting is ingenuously designed to flatter feminine diners—and listened to their reminiscences about his first year in New York. At intervals his eyes met hers in mutual pleasure at this brief reunion.

“David, do you ever think of coming back to New York?” Bella asked. “I mean, to live?”

“I feel more American than German,” he confessed after a moment. “I’m an American citizen,” he reminded them with pride. “At times I’ve thought about returning to New York. If ever my research would benefit by the move, then I’d go like a shot. But for now my work is in Berlin.”

“Is life easier in Berlin now?” Kathy asked softly.

“It’ll be a long time before West Berliners enjoy the luxuries Americans take for granted,” he conceded with a wry smile. “Central heating and central hot water are not for the average family. And elevators are still only in luxury buildings.”