Evergreen (57 page)

Anna wanted him to have his portrait painted. He insisted that was too highfalutin for him. She reminded him that he hadn’t thought it was highfalutin for her to be painted years ago in Paris.

“Women are different,” he told her.

But Anna wanted it. She knew just where she wanted to hang it, over the mantel in the dining room, a fine portrait of him wearing a dark suit like a nineteenth-century diplomat. She’d have to talk to Eric. If Eric asked Joseph to do it, he’d do it. He’d do anything for Eric. So would we all.

She glanced down the table. Iris was leaning over to talk to Eric. She knew that Eric and Iris often had long talks, especially about Agatha and Maury. It had worried her one day that Iris might let slip some things about his parents that Eric shouldn’t know.

“I haven’t said a thing,” Iris had assured her. “But now that you bring it up, why shouldn’t he, at least someday, know the whole truth? Isn’t that what growing up is about, to face the truth?”

And Anna had answered, “Only when it will make a difference, when you need to know. Some truths can destroy, and then it’s kinder to lie.” Secrets. So many secrets around this table. And still everything holds together. Please God that it always will.

She remembered now that Iris had looked at her with surprise.

“Delicious, Anna,” Joseph said. And he proclaimed to the guests with pride, “No prepared or ready-made food in our house. My wife makes everything herself.”

At the far end of the table Anna was serving the little boys. The ring sparkled on her busy hands. Her sleeves fell back from her white wrists. He thought: We should have had a big family like Malone’s; she was meant to have one.

This was not the evening for regrets, yet emotions ran in currents and cross-currents. Under the joy he regretted. If only his achievements of the seven years since the war had come sooner! So many years of their lives had been drably wasted in keeping alive. (As with most of mankind.) Well, he had put away enough in tax exempts now so that none of them would ever have to be afraid, especially if anything should happen to him. He had seen to that. God forbid that there should be a repetition of the thirties. The economists all said there wouldn’t be; too many safeguards had been built into the system. But who knew?

If only Eric had come earlier, he thought, watching the boy accept a second helping. Nothing shy about his appetite! He wondered what Eric really felt about this ceremony, whether it moved him at all with any sense of family, if nothing more. Even a sense of history? Probably not. It was all too recent and too sudden. He had been thirteen already when he came to them. It had been hard enough to make Maury see it as he should. And Maury had been nurtured in their house.

No matter. Just let the boy be healthy. Let him be happy and never mind anything else. I never thought I’d hear myself saying that. He seems happy. He’s smart in school, talks like a professor sometimes! And the boys like him. He’s an athlete and that opens doors, always did, even in my day when they admired the guy who was fast at stickball, dodging the pushcarts. He’s good with his hands, too. Anna mentioned something in his hearing about a bird
house and didn’t he go and build one for her? With a front porch and a chimney?

Yes, Joseph thought, there’s so much to be glad about. He felt a surge, a bursting in his throat. He was afraid his eyes would tear in another minute. They often did when he was moved and it was embarrassing. He filled the cup of wine again.

“Let us say the third grace,” he said, and suddenly thought he heard his father’s voice issuing from his own mouth. “Praised be He of whose plenty we have partaken and through whose goodness we have lived.”

The new Home for Convalescents opened with fanfare, flourish and publicity in the papers. The architects, so it was said, had been inspired; they were young men with radical ideas about “the human dimension,” the use of light, curved space and greenery. The builders had done an admirable work of carrying out the design without cost overruns; quality had been adhered to; in short, there was a panegyric of compliments.

Joseph and Malone were photographed and interviewed. Joseph was shown bending over a spread of blueprints. He was asked about his personal history. “This modest man,” one reporter wrote, “spoke with gratitude of the good fortune that has come his way. It was learned that he began his rise with the purchase of a small apartment building on Washington Heights in 1919. He had to borrow two thousand dollars to do it.” He went on to say that the building’s official opening was to be celebrated with a dinner, at which the architects and builders would be honored along with the many benefactors of the Home.

Anna had always been of the opinion that clairvoyance, ESP and all that sort of thing were absolute nonsense. And yet she knew, she had a feeling—absurd!—that Paul Werner would be at the dinner.

So, shortly after they had finished the main course, when she saw him walking across the enormous dining room to
the table where Malone was sitting with his family, she was actually not surprised. She watched as Malone rose to shake hands, observed the introductions and Paul’s easy little bow, heard in her mind’s ear the throb of his voice, although he was too far away to be heard, and knew that in a few moments he would come to their table.

What shall I say? What will he say? Will my face flush? It gets so hot and red, and people will see. Surely too, they’ll hear my drumming heart.

Paul came directly to Joseph and held out his hand.

“Paul Werner,” he said. “I came to congratulate you and Mr. Malone on this magnificent building. I’ve just had the tour.”

For an instant Joseph was startled. Then he stood and answered with dignity, “Thank you. You’re very kind.” He turned to the others. “This is the man who first gave me my start. He—”

“Please,” Paul interrupted. “That’s not important. What you’ve done, you’ve done by your own efforts.”

“You know my wife, Anna,” Joseph said. “And this is our daughter, Iris. And our son-in-law, Theo Stern. Doctor Theodore Stern.”

He hadn’t looked at Anna; what should she do when he did turn to her?

Joseph drew up a chair. “Come join us, Mr. Werner.”

Paul sat down. Anna felt a lightness in her head. She mustn’t be sick here, she mustn’t.

“Are you alone?” Joseph inquired. “Perhaps your—”

“My wife wasn’t able to come. Actually,” Paul explained, “this evening is in the line of business for me. I’m on the board of the Parsons Trust, you see, and since we contribute to the Home it’s my duty to see how some of our money’s being spent.” He smiled. “And I shall be happy to report that it seems to be spent very well. What I like, you know, is that here you’ve got the functionalism of the Bauhaus style but you’ve eliminated the bareness.”

One of the other men at the table addressed him. “As an architect I must say I’m gratified; that was our purpose
exactly: the surface decoration to take away that spare factory look. Are you an architect, Mr. Werner?”

“No, only a banker. But I dabble. Perhaps I’m a frustrated architect.”

How carefully he manages to turn in the other direction, Anna thought. How could he have done such a daring thing as this? She met Iris’ gaze and smiled back weakly. Why was Iris staring at her? But perhaps she wasn’t really. Suddenly conscious of playing nervously with her pearls, Anna put her hands in her lap. Then she was conscious of the pearls themselves, three fine, matched strands. Paul would see that Joseph treated her well. Vulgar thought! She flushed.

Paul saw her distress and felt contrition. This was a rotten thing to do to her. (I knew she would be here and I wanted to see her. And everyone has a right to be selfish once in a while. Lord, she’s beautiful! There was a time when a woman in her fifties was old. But Anna looks as if she’d never had a day’s worry or done a day’s work.)

“My wife is quite a fund raiser herself,” Joseph was saying. “She’s head of the hospital drive in our town, and head of their opera benefit in the spring too. Why, those women raised a small fortune this year! I wish I could get paid help in the office to work as hard as they do for nothing.”

Paul addressed Iris. “And are you one of those hardworking ladies, too?”

“I’m afraid not. We have three children and they don’t leave me much time for anything else,” Iris said, thinking, Mama is acting funny. She has two red spots on her cheeks. What’s the matter with her?

“But my wife used to teach school,” Theo put in with pride. “She has an outstanding talent for it. They keep calling her to come back.”

“Perhaps when the children grow older—” Iris began.

“Nonsense!” Joseph interrupted. “You’ve enough to do raising your family.”

“What did you teach?” Paul asked.

He is sounding her out, Anna thought. He wants to
know her, poor Paul. Surely people must see how alike they are! Fear dried her mouth and her palms were wet.

“I taught sixth grade, a gifted class. I would rather have taught at a slum school in the city, but Papa didn’t approve.” She smiled to Joseph.

“Listen,” Joseph said, “I’ve come up from the slums too recently to want to be reminded. Maybe that’s selfish. But a person who doesn’t come from there can’t know how a man feels when he’s reminded. I wouldn’t allow it, not while she was under my roof. Have a cigar?” And he offered a handful around the table, stopping at Paul.

“No, thank you. Cigarettes are my vice.” Paul’s long fingers unclasped the cigarette case.

I’m not ashamed to say where I come from, Joseph thought defensively. Not like some these days. Anyway, this man knows. And he sees where I am now, too. Hell, I know it’s small potatoes to be proud. But I’m only human, and he’d feel the same in my position. Anybody would.

“Did my partner happen to tell you what we’ve got on the fire in Florida?” he inquired of Paul.

“He mentioned something very briefly.”

“Well, it’s a huge thing, the biggest we’ve done yet. Condominiums, and single-family homes, all tied in with a first-class shopping center, a golf course, a marina—you name it. There’s our architect, right there across the table.”

The young architect, eager to be heard, said to Paul, “As a frustrated architect, Mr. Werner, you must be familiar with the Scandinavian new towns. We’re trying to reproduce some of their self-sufficiency; streets without automobile traffic, that sort of thing.”

“Now that’s really innovative,” Paul said.

And they launched into a conversation illustrated by drawings on the backs of the menus and little structures built of forks.

Anna watched Paul’s hands. She tried not to look at them but she was drawn back, under the pretense of interest in the subject, to his hands. They were strong and supple.
Joseph had strong hands, too, but they were blunt and different. Different.

Joseph wasn’t interested in the conversation. Theories were not for him. Give him the design and he would carry it out. Instead he observed Anna, who was listening so carefully. Anna knew and cared about things like that. She was so lovely in that dress, all iridescent gray and rose. Changeable taffeta, she’d said it was, tonight while they were dressing. “Do you like the rustle?” she’d asked, and flounced across the room, making the skirt swish. Wonder what that fellow thinks of her now? The scared girl going up the steps of their fine house. And now this. Only in America.

“…     the refreshing simplicity of Danish design,” someone concluded.

Anna saw that Paul was trying to extricate himself from the conversation. “And have you ever been in Denmark?” he inquired of Iris.

“I’ve never been in Europe,” she replied.

“Ah, haven’t you? You must try to go soon. There’s nothing like seeing it with young eyes. And young legs,” he added.

“Theo isn’t happy about seeing Europe again,” Iris said quietly.

“I keep promising Anna a trip,” Joseph interjected. “She’s dying to go back. Only, I get so darned busy, I keep putting it off.”

Paul returned to Iris and Anna understood that he was trying to draw her out. He simply wanted to hear her talk. He wasn’t aware that one had to know Iris a long time before she would talk. She wondered what had gone through his mind at first sight of Iris, grown-up. She wondered whether Joseph was puzzled over Paul’s staying so long at their table.