Evergreen (21 page)
Authors: Belva Plain
“We have an appointment at three o’clock,” he said, and was so mysterious about it. But when I pressed it turned out not to be an appointment; it was just that he had made up his mind to take me to a couturier for some clothes. I told him they were far too expensive and really I didn’t need any. Nobody we know wears Paris clothes. But he insisted, and so we went. I think he learned about the place from a fashion magazine which someone had left in the lobby.
Anyway, I now own a fine navy suit which I shall get a lot of wear out of and a pale pink evening dress which is the most beautiful thing I have ever owned. When I move it floats, and when I stand still it stands in folds like the stone folds on a statue.
Joseph said he thought that red-haired women should never wear pink. The vendeuse, a rather haughty person in black, said, “On the contrary, red is very subtle for her. Madame is very striking. But,
vous permettez
, madame? Not so many bracelets. And never, never costume jewelry with real.” I knew it, Joseph always insists that I wear too much jewelry.
“It is like a room with too much furniture, too much jewelry,” she said.
Speaking of furniture, I should so much like to get rid of all that fancy stuff when we get home. Now that I have seen real French furniture I realize that ours is
an overblown, expensive imitation. I wonder whether Joseph would let me get rid of it.
On the way back to the hotel I thanked him for the clothes, which really cost far too much, and he said, “You can wear the pink when Solly’s boy gets married next winter. You’ll stand out from all the others in their fringe and beads!”
The wedding is to be at a hall in Brooklyn. She’s a sweet girl, I met her one afternoon at Ruth’s. The dress will be quite out of place there, but I know Joseph wants to show it off.
July 23d
I stand and listen to people speaking French in the stores and on the street. It’s such a pert, crisp language, elegant as rustling taffeta. I wish I could speak it. Another one of my many wishes!
August 4th
We are back from our tour of the château country. I have no time to describe it, and no words, except to say that it is a dream of enchantment. They have rushed my dresses through these past two weeks, and Joseph has made an appointment for a portrait of me. He got the name of the artist from an American man whom we met at one of the hotels. It seems that “everyone” is having his portrait done by this particular artist. I am to wear the pink dress. I feel silly but Joseph is so enthusiastic about the idea that I can’t say no. The picture is to be framed and completed after our departure and will be sent to us.
August 11th
The artist has finished the preliminaries of the portrait. The face is finished, the rest just outlined, but enough so that I can see what it will be like. Anyone can tell it’s me; it’s a good likeness. But the very idea
of myself being painted for posterity in that dress seems so ridiculous! My mind goes back to Me stitching pants at Ruth’s, Me rolling cloth and dusting the counters at Uncle Meyer’s. Me going for eggs across the river to Pretty Leah’s—although I don’t want to think about
that
.
August 12th
Tomorrow we take the boat train. Europe, good-by!
August 14th
The voyage home is different. There is a touch of sadness in it. I know it will be a long time before we can come back, if we ever do. And still I am in a hurry to get home. Maury has been growing so fast this past year, I wonder whether he is much taller? And even though Ruth has written that Iris is fine, I wonder whether she really has been. Ruth might have wanted not to worry us or spoil our vacation. Or else Iris might appear to be fine and happy; she has that way of concealing things, while inside she may be miserable. I feel sometimes that I know my daughter so well, and then at other times that I don’t know her at all. Maury is easy to understand, I think. Or do I delude myself? Joseph says I worry about them both too much.
August 15th
We have better people at our table going back, or should I say people who are more like ourselves, easier to get along with? One of the women, a Mrs. Quinn, reminds me of Mary Malone. She has the same fine white skin and those lovely round Irish eyes. Her husband is in the auto supply business. He and Joseph were talking about a piece of property for him. Later and as always I said to Joseph: “Don’t you ever leave business behind? You’ll be home soon enough.”
August 16 th
At the table next to ours there is the strangest couple. The women at our table keep watching them. He is an old, old man, finely dressed and slender, with white, well-groomed hair. But his skin is dry as paper; he must be eighty. And with him is a young girl, who looks like nineteen, although she is probably older. She has the light bones of a swallow. One would think she might be the granddaughter, traveling with him. But no, they are married!
After dinner we saw them again at the entertainment. They were listening to the singer, a young man who sang a romantic song in Spanish or perhaps Italian. It was quite beautiful, passionate music, probably filched from Schubert. I kept looking at that young girl and wondering what she might be feeling while the young man sang.
I mentioned it to Joseph and he said, “She’s a whore, what do you think! Some women will do anything for money.”
But I think there must be more to it than that. One needs to know the circumstances that make people do what they do. Joseph says I am too soft and always make excuses for people. I think he makes things too simple.
August 18th
One more day and we shall be in New York. I am standing at the prow facing into the wind. It is cold and so clean on the skin. Then I go to the stern and watch the wake fanning in a “V,” flat silver ripples in the green. Tomorrow I know, as we draw near land, the gulls will come to follow the ship as they did on the way over. I am told they are waiting for the garbage to be thrown out. I had preferred the poetic idea that they came to welcome us in. Oh, well, an incurable romantic, I!
I woke this morning to the thought that we are only
one day away from our children. I can’t wait. I could get out and push the ship. Then something else came flooding. I realized that all the time we were away I had forgotten, or not thought of—is it possible?—the thing that otherwise is with me every day. Even when I am not consciously aware of it, I know that it is there. Like someone standing behind a curtain, waiting. Now it has come back again, behind the curtain. The presence, waiting.
On the Day of Atonement you ask God to forgive you for sins against Him. Sins against men can be forgiven only by the person who has been sinned against. But here is my dilemma: how can a person forgive another for a sin against him that he doesn’t even know about? Yet to tell him would be another sin because it would bring such useless suffering. And anyway, if this particular person did know, this particular person would never forgive. Never, never, never.
My head aches. That man, the priest of another religion, was right when he said: “Do you think you will not pay, every day of your life?”
August 19 th
We have just come through the Narrows. Our luggage is on Main Deck and I have run down to check the stateroom to make sure we have left nothing behind. Joseph is standing at the rail because he doesn’t want to miss the Statue of Liberty. When I was up there with him just now he put his arm around me and asked me whether I was glad to be home and whether it had been as good a time as I had hoped for. The answer to both is yes, and I said so. “Life has been very good to us,” he said, and it is true. I don’t deserve the goodness it has given me.
In the first week of September, 1929, New York roused from its summer siesta. The balmy, gilded streets were crammed with back-to-school and back-to-the-city shoppers. Fifth Avenue windows drew crowds of ladies to see the latest news from Paris: waistlines had risen from the hip and skirts were definitely dropping to the middle of the calf. The color of the year was
bois-de-rose
and brocade would be favored for theatregoing. Theatre-ticket brokers were rushed, the musical spectaculars being sold out months ahead. The rattle of riveting was heard on the avenues and the towers rose in set-backs and terraces, glittering with glass in the new style of Le Corbusier. The stock market, which was the cause and also the effect of these things, stood at its all-time peak.
On the third of September a single share of Montgomery Ward, bought for one hundred thirty-two dollars in the previous year, was worth four hundred sixty-six dollars. Radio Corporation of America, bought at ninety-four and a half, sold at five hundred five. Many individuals owned thousands of shares like these. One could buy them, after all, for only ten percent down and owe the broker for the rest.
On the fourth of September a little dip occurred, not worth noticing. On September fifth the
New York Times
index reported a drop of ten points, still not worth noticing, although Roger Babson, the financial writer, said that the
ride was over and a depression was on the way. But he was some sort of nutty alarmist; everybody knew that nothing went straight up without a break; there were bound to be small, inconsequential dips from time to time before the rise resumed.
But early in the week of October twenty-first the slide had gone too far and brokers began to send out margin calls. When the money was not forthcoming—and how could it be?—the dumping began. And on Thursday, October twenty-fourth, the structure of the market cracked like a rotten nut. Millions of shares were pitched into a screaming chaos on the floor of the exchange, while outside on this Black Thursday, at the corner of Broad and Wall, the crowds stood stunned and curious, talking in quiet voices. They couldn’t believe it. Surely something would happen to retrieve it? Something?
For five days it went like that until full panic struck on the twenty-ninth of the month and the slide hit bottom, like a stone crashing to the pit of a well. On one of those days alone General Electric, one of the soundest stocks in the country, lost forty-eight points. There was a still lower level to be reached, although people didn’t know that then. They didn’t know that by 1932 United States Steel would be down to twenty-one and General Motors to seven.
But if they had known it wouldn’t have made any difference. They were already ruined.
Within the next few months the towers stopped rising, and it became apparent that their stone had rested on the foundation of Wall Street’s paper. The riveting was stilled, that confident
rat-tat-tat
, that proclamation to the future. Children born in the city that year would finish high school without once hearing the sound.
Everything seemed to be standing still, waiting for Joseph. In his nightly dreams and waking visions he saw a cluster of white faces all turned up to him, questioning and waiting.
It began with poor Malone, the week of October twenty-first.
He hadn’t known that Malone had put everything into stocks. He himself had never owned many; he believed in land. What he had owned he had sold before leaving for Europe, on the theory that nobody can look after a man’s affairs as well as he can himself.
When the broker telephoned, Malone was still spending the fall in Ireland. He needed at least a hundred thousand dollars, or he would have to sell him out.
“Give me until the day after tomorrow,” Joseph pleaded. “I’ll reach him somehow.” And he wondered where Malone would find cash like that.
He tried to transatlantic telephone and after hours got a tinny voice, fading in and out, from a hotel in Wexford: Mr. and Mrs. Malone had rented a car to go visiting relatives out in the country.
No, they had left no address and no, they wouldn’t be coming back. The ship wasn’t due to sail for another week and by the time he could reach them there it would be too late.
He went to bed haunted by his friend’s disaster.
In the morning he was awakened by the telephone. Solly excused himself for calling so early, but he hadn’t slept all night and he was calling Joseph only as a very last resort: would Joseph get him forty-five thousand dollars today?
Well, that was an awful lot of money.
Yes, he knew it was, but the bottom had dropped out of his stocks and he’d had a margin call for eleven this morning.
My God, what a terrible thing.
Yes, it was terrible. That was all he had in the world except for his life insurance.
Joseph had thought by the way they lived that Solly would have had more than that, which just went to show, you never could tell.
But this was only temporary, Solly assured him; he had a hunch the market would rebound in a month or two. So if Joseph could just tide him over, as soon as the stocks went up again Solly would sell and pay him back.
That was a lot of money, Joseph said again, not knowing what else to say, not knowing how else to tell him that he wouldn’t risk money like that on Solly’s hunch, or that if he had been going to take any risk it would have been for Malone.