Evergreen (54 page)

“I want another cookie,” he said, but his mother heard and said no, he wouldn’t eat any dinner and one is enough. At Nana’s house, he knew, he would have gotten another, but now Nana said, “Your mommy said no.”

Jimmy’s cookie was almost touching Steve’s arm. He couldn’t take his eyes away from it.

“Why don’t you eat the cookie, Jimmy?” Nana asked.

Jimmy didn’t answer. He laid it on the sand and picked up his shovel. Steve reached out and took the cookie. Jimmy howled and hit Steve with the shovel.

“No, no!” Nana cried.

Steve slid out of Nana’s lap and shoved Jimmy. He fell and hit his head on the umbrella pole. He screamed.

His father jumped up and grabbed Jimmy to examine his head. There was nothing wrong with it, but Jimmy kept crying. His father yelled at Steve, “If you hit Jimmy again you’re going to be sorry!”

“He hit me with the shovel!”

“That’s true,” Nana said.

“I don’t care, he’s the older one and he’s got to learn.”

“I want my cookie,” Jimmy sobbed.

“Did Steve take his cookie?” Mommy wanted to know.

“I think,” Nana said, “I think he thought Jimmy didn’t want it anymore.”

Joseph groaned in mock despair. “Good God! You need King Solomon to settle this.”

“Sibling rivalry,” Iris explained. “A pain in the neck and perfectly normal.”

Eric had just swum in from the float. “Come on, I’ll build you a sand castle,” he told the boys and drew them to the water’s edge. “I’ll build you a great big one, big as you are. I’ll show you a shell I found. I’ll put it to your ear and you can listen to it.”

“Have you seen his shell collection?” Joseph asked. “Tell him to show it to you when you come next Friday, Theo.
He’s got a cabinet full in his room, all classified and labeled. Very methodical.”

“He built the cabinet himself,” Anna interposed. “You know, he’s got golden hands. He can fix anything. Last week I wanted to call the plumber for the kitchen sink but Eric figured out what was wrong with it for me.”

“You think he’s content here, Theo?” Joseph asked anxiously.

“Yes, yes, he’s come a long way in two years. You can see it for yourself, can’t you?”

Joseph nodded happily. “Sure, but I wanted to hear somebody else tell me.”

The beach was given over to the young. They dove off the dock and raced to the floats where they could be seen, when you shaded your eyes and squinted in the lowering sun, prone and spread-eagled, rocking and tilting on the water. They paraded along the strip of sand at the water’s edge and gathered at the shed where ice cream was sold. The group of boys and girls formed and reformed in a ritual of watchful laughter and calculated ease, a ritual as carefully rehearsed and learned as fencing or ballet.

Three girls with new breasts and not one blemish sauntered casually toward Eric. Their perfect skin reminded Anna of a fresh white dress, just lifted out of tissue paper and not yet worn; it would never look quite like that again.

Eric said something to the girls and they saw him turn in their direction. Iris called to him and he walked over.

“Go along with your friends,” she said. “You didn’t come to baby-sit. And thanks for amusing the boys.

“Good!” she exclaimed when Eric had gone down the beach with the girls.

“What’s good?” asked Joseph, who had roused from a half nap.

“That he didn’t ask permission. He just went and didn’t say where he was going.” And when no one answered, Iris declared, “He’s fifteen, you know. It’s time.”

“Yes, you’re right,” Anna said. Iris had the true gift of understanding. She had established something easy and
trustful between herself and Eric. He dropped in often after school to visit; he was at home with Iris and Theo. That was as it should be. All the adults in his life had been too old, like Joseph and herself.

“Eric’s so patient with the boys,” Iris remarked. “He really loves them, you know?”

Anna observed, “Because he’s been an only child, I suppose.”

No, Theo thought, not so. Because, like me, he’s been an orphan of the storm and he’s grateful for the warmth. Grateful, that’s what we are, he and I.

The sun struck with a penetrating sweetness; at the same time a breeze moved over his flesh. It was so good drowsing here, good to do nothing, to think of nothing. He lay back on the blanket. Theo liked beach life. Having grown up in Austria, he had never had any, yet now that it was available he didn’t have much time for it.

But that was all right; he surely wasn’t about to complain that his practice had grown so large! Sometimes he couldn’t believe the changes in his life during these few years since he had emerged from disguise and taken part in the liberation of Paris. A friendless stranger only a few years ago, and now so—so established! A fine, gentle wife. Two and a half children. A beautiful house. He smiled inwardly. He really didn’t admire the house; it was too modern, too austere with its abstract paintings and bare floors. So Spartan. The food was Spartan too, for Iris was no cook and didn’t even know how to train a maid to cook. But all of that was unimportant, and plain food was better for you anyway. Besides, Anna kept sending things over to them, or inviting them. At her house one dined richly on sauces, wines and whipped-cream cakes. Afterward one relaxed on flowered chairs; Anna would bring out fruit and chocolates; Joseph would pour brandy. They were lavish givers and enjoyers of good things, his parents-in-law. They reminded him of Vienna. He closed his eyes …

And started up, his heart drumming, bruising itself against his ribs. Had he cried out in the agony of the dream? But no, no one was looking toward him. He shut his eyes again. It had been a few years now since this terror had last come over him, half waking, half sleeping. An explosion in slow motion, it was, like a movie montage: fragments of peaked Nazi caps and smart boots; his own garden wall; a tiled corner of his roof; the rose-carved bed where he slept with Liesel; the fuzzy head of their newborn baby; his father’s hands, pleading and chained; Liesel’s eyes, screaming; all rose roaring into the fiery air, splintered and crackled and broke, then settled into ash.

It is said that time is merciful and that is true. The first mad anguish fades to heavy sorrow and, after a long while, into a soft weakness of tears that can be blinked away before anyone sees. But not always.

In an old gesture he reached to twist the wedding band on his fourth finger, a habit of his when he was agitated. Then he remembered that in this marriage he wore no ring.

This marriage, this new life. He had been thinking before he drowsed that Anna and Joseph reminded him in some ways of Vienna. Of course they were not at all like Vienna in many other ways, or at least not like the Vienna he had known. He remembered his parents’ somewhat formal, somewhat rigid bearing, the modulated voices at the table, with never any argumentation, no bickering, friendly or otherwise.
That
part was surely not like the Friedmans’, where everybody talked at once, with such eagerness to be heard! When they had more than a few guests the confusion was dizzying. He smiled to himself. His heart had slowed to its normal beat. Calm and reality returned. This was
now
and he was
here
. These were his people. Such good people, such
home
people!

On Sunday mornings Joseph got up as early as on every other day and brought fresh lox and bagels to their door. On Friday nights when Iris and Theo arrived for dinner there was a package with two toys for them to take home to
Steve and Jimmy. No use protesting that the old man was spoiling the boys. It was his pleasure, and he wouldn’t have listened to the protest anyway.

Usually Theo went home after the dinner while Iris went with her parents to the synagogue. But now and then of late he had gone with them too, surprising himself by doing so, for he had hardly been half a dozen times in a synagogue during his entire life. He found it boring and meaningless, but it pleased Iris so much that he went, and pleased his in-laws too. Joseph especially was so proud, so bursting-proud, to be seen walking in with his son-in-law, the doctor.

He felt a true fondness for Joseph. You would have to be callous to return nothing to a man who so evidently loved you, even though you knew you were in part a substitute for his dead son. No matter. A kind, kind man, Joseph was. He liked to call himself a simple man; it was a favorite expression of his. And actually he was. His pleasures were simple, not counting his work, which was probably his greatest pleasure. Other than that, he liked to eat the food his wife prepared, to be honored among the prominent for his charities and to play pinochle with old friends who were simple, too. One of them still drove a taxi; he always arrived at the house in his yellow taxi.

Theo liked to think of his children growing up in this uncomplicated family. A warmth spread in his chest, thinking of it. The security, the safety! This broad peaceful country, this orderly town where his children slept in their clean beds. It was a miracle and there could be no other word for it. Out of the dregs and chaos of his own life, all this. This house, this family, these people. His.

A ripple of rising wind fell chill upon his shoulders. The sun was low in the sky. In small reluctant groups of threes and fours people were gathering their towels and bags and walking toward the parking lot.

He got up and helped his wife to her feet. She plodded heavily through the sand, holding Steve and Jimmy by the hand. The little boys were sleepy; they curled up on the
front seat between Theo and Iris, their legs interlaced with one another’s, for once not squirming or fighting. The grandparents sat in the back.

“A lovely day,” Anna sighed.

Quiet settled over the beach. Even the gulls were gone (where had they gone?) except for one who stood at the end of the dock, a dark, still shape against the light. The sun blazed its last fire, balanced on the rim of the sea, bleeding pink into the clouds.

“It’ll be a hot one tomorrow,” Joseph predicted, shaking his head.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Separate from the other unnamed billions who walk the earth, each of these little groups of three or five or twelve, brought together by the shuffle of chance, then welded by blood, sees in itself the whole of earth, or all that matters of it. What happens to one of the three or five or twelve will happen to them all. Whatever grief or triumph may touch
any
one will touch
every
one, as they are carried forward into the unknowable under the brilliant, terrifying sun which nourishes all.

In the beginning it was primeval forest, ash and hemlock, maple, elm and oak. Then came the settlers to level the woods, plant corn and graze cattle. Trees were planted again for summer shade. During long years, two hundred or more, the farms were given by father to son and the land flourished.

Toward the end of the last century came men of wealth from the cities, gentlemen farmers assembling their estates among the working farms, building their country mansions behind walls and wrought-iron gates. Still the trees flourished, for these men liked to play at rural living. On their terraces they sat and watched their fine blue-ribbon herds; their burnished horses hung their heads over the post-and-rail fences that kept them away from the gardens and the specimen shrubs.

After the Second World War the developers arrived, answering the pressure of population from the cities. Now, for a second time, the trees came down, not selectively, a few here where needed, a few there, but drastically and ruthlessly, in a total leveling. An oak stood tall against the sky, its leaves at the crest still tossing in the summer wind, while the saw screeched at its base. It stood, leaned very slightly for an instant, then plunged in a wide arc to the ground and lay there shuddering, prone on the earth out of which its first soft, timid finger had emerged a century and a half before.

So the trees came down; the meadows were divided and sub-divided and the bulldozers ripped the earth. Acre after acre, row after row of identical houses like checkers on a board lay flat in the glare of the sun. The streets were given the aristocratic English names of poets and admirals. The houses were sold as “manors” or “estates,” in spite of the fact that very often one could reach out of a window and shake the hand of a neighbor leaning out of his.

Like a stain on a tablecloth the tracts spread over the countryside, covering the land. Then came the shopping malls, the crisscross highways; great transit systems in which roads looped and turned back upon themselves to handle the enormous flow of cars, so that the traveler who wanted to go west had first to turn east, find an overpass and swing back in the opposite direction.

Growing, growing, spreading, with no end in sight.