Heart of Stone (7 page)

We discussed everything from the fence the Soviets had thrown up in Berlin that week to Eichmann's trial in Israel to books we'd been reading. Simon had just finished
To Kill a Mockingbird
, which had made quite a splash the previous summer, and he pronounced it “a balm for white guilt.” Everyone else said they'd loved it.

We talked of the old days, with the men dominating the conversation. Miriam, Rachel, Ruth, and I nursed our drinks while the boys argued over exactly who had capsized Mr. Wasserman's dinghy on an unauthorized fishing expedition twenty years earlier. The boat sank and was never recovered. David said it had been one of the older boys, but Simon insisted it was young Isaac's rocking that had tipped the boat over.

My family had known the Arcadia bunch well, and I remembered my father having praised Simon's dad, a poet and novelist, for his vociferous support and fundraising for the Republicans in Spain. Isaac's mother had died a few years before, and his father, Jakob—the man who'd startled me at the door—was a painter of note. My mother, an art dealer, had admired his paintings, which were deeply rooted in German Expressionism. Jakob had grown up in Dresden, and, given the paucity of his work, his paintings were highly sought after by some collectors, who paid extraordinary sums to acquire them. Shortly after the Kristallnacht pogrom, during which his family's business was razed to the ground, Jakob was interned for a month at Buchenwald before he and his wife were forced to emigrate. Thanks to a wealthy patron's sponsorship, Jakob Eisenstadt managed to sneak under the quota and secure a visa to the United States. He arrived in New York with his wife, Lisa, their young son, Isaac, and daughter, Rachel, in February 1939.

“Whatever happened to those friends of yours?” I asked the group. “There was one named Andrew something. He was always very funny.”

“Andrew Kline,” said Isaac. “He served in the navy in the Pacific during the war. I heard he met a girl in the islands and stayed there.”

“That's not true,” said Simon. “He had psychological troubles after the war and is in a sanitarium somewhere in Oregon.”

“His parents passed away,” said Rachel, “and nobody knows for certain what happened to him.”

“Of course, poor Howie never made it back,” said Isaac. “Remember him? Howard Feingold?” I did but only vaguely. “He was the oldest of our generation. Killed in action in North Africa.”

The mood grew melancholy, and a long discussion of the scourge of the war ensued. It had touched everyone in the room, everyone across the country.

“What about the one named for Lenin?” I asked, trying to move the subject back to more pleasant memories. “I don't remember his name, but his mother used to call for him at suppertime.”

No one volunteered.

“You know, it was something like ‘Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov Lefkowitz, you come in for supper!'”

Isaac's smile dimmed ever so slightly, while Simon cleared his throat and frowned outright. Apparently I'd tripped over some old bones.

“I'm sorry,” I said, thinking he must have met some tragic end. “Have I said something wrong?”

Isaac made an effort to relight his smile and brushed off my apology. “Not at all, Ellie,” he said. “It's just that Karl—that's Karl Marx Merkleson— moved to California many years ago, and we haven't stayed in touch.”

I drew a sigh, relieved it wasn't a more woeful tale. But then Simon stood up and poured himself another drink.

“Karl betrayed his family, friends, and his faith,” he announced. “He converted to Christianity, for God's sake. As far as I'm concerned, he's dead. And good riddance.”

I stiffened in my seat. The story was a little bit woeful after all.

“Not with the faith again,” moaned Isaac. “Simon, we're all atheists here except for you.”

“That's right, Isaac. And you're all wrong. What are we doing here if no God exists?”

“Not now, Simon,” said Miriam, his weary wife. “No one wants to hear it again.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, old friend,” said Isaac, staking claim to the last word. “But there is no God.”

Then, perhaps realizing that he knew nothing of my beliefs, he turned to me and apologized if he'd offended me.

“It's all right,” I said, thinking he should apologize to Simon instead. “My father loved debating God with others. Jews and Christians alike. It didn't matter. He loved the exercise.”

“And what about you?”

“My mother used to say that arguing with a passionate believer of any tenet is a losing proposition. You'll never win the argument. But even if you do, you destroy something much more important in your opponent than his case.”

“Destroying the argument for atheism won't hurt anyone,” said Simon. “Quite the opposite. If I could convince you all to embrace God, you would lose nothing. You would win in the bargain and be enriched.”

“Enough,” snapped Miriam. “How do you reconcile your God and all his warts with socialism? You're such a hypocrite.”

“Socialism and God are not mutually exclusive. We Jews aren't like those crazy evangelicals in the village who preach love in Jesus's name, but in practice act more like bigots and fascists.”

The room fell silent after that. It seethed and hissed emotionally, especially between the married couple, but no one spoke for at least a minute. A long minute. I actually heard bullfrogs croaking outside the hall. As the silence wore on, I wondered if I could slip out without being noticed. That was impossible, of course. Adding to my discomfort was the knowledge that my question had provoked the fight in the first place.

I was about to excuse myself when Isaac's father wrestled himself out of his chair and, unhappy with the strife that had ruined the end of a fine evening, announced that he was turning in for the night. He stopped to grasp my hand in his bony, wrinkled grip. His eyes smiled at me, and he wished me good night.

“I hope to see you again tomorrow for supper, despite this ugliness,” he said.

Then he shuffled out of the Great Lodge. Rachel excused herself, saying she would see him to his cabin and be right back.

After several more minutes had passed with no conversation, Simon offered me a limp apology for having made such a fuss in front of a guest.

“I'm a passionate person,” he said. “I get a little excited sometimes. If I made you feel uncomfortable or unwelcome, I'm sorry.”

I thought that as long as he was saying he was sorry, he might as well apologize for the “Twist” crack he'd made earlier, but I let that sleeping dog lie.

The general mood started to improve after that, until David Levine outdid my faux pas by asking me apropos of nothing what Elijah was up to these days. That was a haymaker. Miriam actually gasped. I caught my breath.

“What? What did I say?” he asked.

No one answered him, perhaps in deference to me. Maybe they thought it was my place to respond. I tried to put on a brave smile, but it must have looked as stiff as cement.

“Didn't you know?” I asked, trying to swallow the lump in my throat. “Elijah died four years ago. A motorcycle accident.”

David rose from his chair and limped to my side. He took my hand, apologizing for his gaffe and expressing his shock and condolences all in one breath. I told him it was all right, that he couldn't have known. Besides the tightness in my throat, there were tears welling in my eyes, but I willed myself not to weep, convinced that a breakdown at a party was not the way to mourn my brother.

The evening devolved further into Grand Guignol, with my family as the tragic subject. Everyone present seemed to know of my mother's death from cancer four years earlier, and they mumbled their sympathies. The girls reminisced about how sweet and kind she had been to them, how she used to offer them a lemonade on a hot day. Rachel said my mother had accompanied her to the dock one day for a swim when the other adults were too busy to do so.

“She was a wonderful soul,” she said.

The boys echoed her thoughts, and I just sat there, not sure what to say in return. Then, just as the awkwardness was abating, Simon decided it was the right moment to express his condolences for my father's death. I should have expected it, of course. It was only natural after the discussions of Elijah and my mother to move on to my father. Yet it took me by surprise. I stifled my emotions, pushed them down, promising myself I would let them out later, when I was alone. I somehow managed to maintain my composure, but I felt my cheeks flush and a vein throb in my forehead. I thanked Simon but gave no details of the attack on my father in his New York apartment or the coma from which he never emerged.

I cleared my throat and waved my hands before me, feigning good humor, as if to clear the sad tidings still hanging in the air. They were all staring at me with eyes full of pity. Thankfully Isaac leaned forward and touched my wrist. He took my hand in his and smiled into my eyes. He whispered to me.

“Do you remember when Elijah slid down that embankment and cut his ass on a rock?”

I blinked at him, startled by the sudden change of tone and the unvarnished vocabulary. Then I found myself smiling back at him.

“He was too embarrassed to tell my mother,” I said. “The blood dripped down his leg for hours and soaked the insole of his sneaker.”

“And when your father finally took him to Dr. Newcomb for stitches, Elijah insisted on wearing his swim trunks so the nurse wouldn't see his bare rear end.”

“I'd forgotten that part,” I said. And I laughed.

Isaac gazed into my eyes, still holding my hand, and let loose a good chuckle himself. Then the others joined in, not without a few tears mixed in, but the worst was behind me.

“Your glass is empty,” said Isaac, snatching it away and refilling it in a trice. “Now let's sing the ‘Brindisi' again.”

“That sounds grand,” I said, my eyes surely sparkling at him, but not with tears. “‘
Libiamo nei lieti calici
.'”

Isaac did a double take, and his expression betrayed a doubt. Perhaps he'd underestimated me?

“You . . . You know the words? In Italian?”

“Her father was a famous professor of Italian,” drawled Miriam, already sitting at the piano, poised to begin.

In that moment, after the story of Elijah's stitches, it was hard to resist the urge to throw my arms around him and kiss him. But I restrained myself. He extended a hand to help me out of my seat. I took it and, holding his gaze with mine, thought, “
Più caldi baci avrà.
”

I earned a small measure of respect and surprise from the gang during the evening's second round of musical numbers. Not only had my upbringing exposed me to a fair amount of Italian, I knew more arias, in both German and Italian, than my linguistic talents might have suggested. My memory for words—even foreign words—qualified as remarkable, and years of listening to grand opera in my father's study had prepared me well for the game. Rachel complimented my Italian after we'd sung “Ritorna vincitor” from
Aida
. My accent was much better in song than in speech; I'm not sure how that was possible, but it was true.

“We'll have to find a more challenging game for tomorrow evening,” said Isaac with a wink, and he wrapped a warm arm around my shoulder. It must have looked like an innocent brotherly hug to the others, but I felt the gentle squeeze and received the message loud and clear.

It was after 1:00 a.m. One by one, the assembled faded and began retiring for the night. Simon called to Miriam to follow him to bed, but she shook her head and said she wanted to stay up. He scowled and told her to suit herself and not to wake him when she came in. He trudged back to their cabin alone.

Soon only Isaac, Miriam, and I remained in the Great Lodge.

“You're not tired, Miriam?” asked Isaac a few minutes later.

She ignored his question and stared at the buck's head over the huge fireplace. Isaac nudged me and raised his eyebrows in what looked like a silent invitation to follow him. But I'd surely caused enough gossip for one evening and didn't want to set any records.

“It's late,” I said. “I should be going now.”

Isaac tried to dissuade me, insisting that the night was young. Miriam just stared at the stag on the wall. I thanked them both and headed for the exit. Isaac followed me, offering to accompany me back to Cedar Haven. Once we were outside the lodge, out of Miriam's line of sight, he grabbed me around the waist and pulled me close, pressing our hips together with great insistence. Then he kissed me, long and hard. A mite too rough, I thought, given our brief acquaintance, but not so hard that I didn't enjoy it. Or reciprocate.

“Come with me to my cabin,” he whispered.

“I can't,” I said, nearly breathless. “My aunt will worry.”

Isaac persisted. “I'll sneak you back before sunrise. You don't want to leave, I know it.”