Illusions of Love (11 page)

Never again would Martin take his Judaism for granted. The lessons he had learned were bitter, but at last he knew who he was, what he was.

And for the first time in his entire life he felt like a Jew.

When he was finally ordered back to the States, he wasn’t sure he wanted to go. His work was not finished and he tried to extend his tour to help the refugees. But his commanding officer took one look at Martin’s ravaged face and sent him home. As his troop ship pulled into New York harbour, he took out his mother’s last letter.

“Thank God you’re whole and will be coming home to us soon … But that wasn’t quite what was going to happen. Martin wasn’t going home right away. And although it might not have shown, he wasn’t exactly whole. If there were lines on his face, they were a mere reflection of the scars on his soul.

As soon as he finished the paperwork at Fort Dix and was once again a civilian, he decided to take a room at the Gotham Hotel in Manhattan while he tried to sort out his life.

After the bellboy put his gear in the closet, Martin sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the silent black phone on the nightstand. He had gone over the dialogue many times. How best to tell his parents he wasn’t coming home for a while? It was going to be difficult, but the war had taught him the importance of living his own life. His parents would have to manage a little longer, without him. But when he had placed the call and heard his mother’s voice, he was tempted to take the first train West.

He heard himself saying, “Yes. Well, Mother, I’m going to stay in New York for just a little while and ” And what, Martin? I mean for how long? ” she said, unable to disguise the painful disappointment in her voice.

He swallowed hard and heard the echo of his deception as he said, “Maybe a week or so. I really hadn’t thought about it, Mother. Since I’m here in New York, I’d like to see Dominic.”

The tears rolled down her cheeks. She would never have believed that Martin could be so insensitive. Home should have been the only place on earth where he wanted to be. But it seemed he preferred to reach out to Dominic instead of to them, and that was something she could not understand. Drying her tears, she steadied her voice and said,

“I’m sure you know what is best for you, Martin. And I think you should do what pleases you, I’m disappointed, of course.”

“I’m terribly sorry about all of this, but please try to understand1 need this time alone.”

She didn’t understand at all. He wasn’t going to be alone, he was going to be with Dominic.

“Of course I understand. Take care, Martin . and, dear, we love you.”

“And I love you. May I speak to Dad?”

“He’s not here at the moment.”

“Oh? Well, give him my love. I’ll call you tomorrow, I’m staying at the Gotham.” He gave her the number, hung up, and placed two other calls: one to the bell captain to have a bottle of scotch and a bucket of ice sent up to his room, the other to Dominic.

The next day at’ll. 30 Martin joined the throngs of pedestrians on the streets as he made his way uptown to Dominic’s office. The crowds and the heavy flow of traffic overwhelmed him. He wasn’t used to such enormous structures of concrete, steel and glass that jutted upward, like modern towers of Babel obliterating the sky.

In spite of the crush he managed to find Dominic’s office. When he entered the building, he stopped at the cigarette counter to buy a package of Camels, and saw that his hand was trembling ever so slightly. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe it had something to do with the guilt he felt about not going home. Maybe it was because he was having a tough time getting back into the world. Maybe it was because he had just passed a soldier who had lost both legs. For one terrible moment he was back in Europe, bending over some poor German bastard in a burned-over field outside of Rome. The kid must have been all of sixteen. A typical Aryan, hair the colour of corn, eyes blue and open in death. Martin had stood in horrified fascination as blood spewed out of the boy’s mouth. For that moment Martin saw not a Nazi, but a human being lying on that blood-soaked earth.

The memory dissipated once the match burned down to Martin’s fingers.

He cursed under his breath and walked over to the elevator. He watched the dial as it paused at each floor coming down. Then the doors opened and he walked in. Suddenly all he saw was hands reaching out to push the buttons for the floors they desired. He started to reach for number 36, but it was already red. As he waited among the press of bodies, he felt a rush of claustrophobia.

Since he had seen the pictures of the Jews they had packed, without food or water, into cattle cars, small spaces made him anxious. He was relieved when they reached his floor.

As he walked over to the receptionist he experienced a moment of panic. Dominic had been 4F. He hadn’t experienced the war. Dominic . Jesus Christ, what the hell were they going to talk about? It was a million years since they’d said goodbye on graduation day.

Dominic had written to Martin about his experience with the draft board. After going through all the indignities of his physical, standing nude, legs spread, while being none-too-gently examined for haemorrhoids, the doctor found he had a heart murmur. Once he stopped reeling with happy delirium, he rushed to his own doctor, only to be told that the murmur was purely functional. He had every expectation of a long and healthy life. He had used the war years to build the successful advertising agency that Martin was now visiting.

“Martin,” said Dominic when his secretary brought Martin into his office.

“It’s so Goddamn great to see you.”

They went out for a quick lunch, but neither man was able to say much about what he was thinking. That would have to wait for later. As they finished coffee Dominic said, “We haven’t even scratched the surface.

Four years is a lot to catch up on. What are your plans for tonight?

“

“I don’t have any.”

“You do now. I’m taking you to dinner.”

They went to the Yale Club on Vanderbilt Avenue, just across from Grand Central. As Martin sipped the chablis, his mind kept drifting in a dozen different directions. He thought of college, of home, of Sylvia. He wondered how he would deal with her when he saw her. He was grateful

when Dominic called his attention to the menu.

“Well, what do you feel like ordering?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you choose. It all looks good.”

While Dominic placed the order, Martin glanced from table to table. He heard snips and bits of conversation. It all seemed like business as usual. Dammit, why couldn’t he feel at ease? He wasn’t the only one here tonight who had returned from the war.

“Like old times, huh, Martin?”

He looked at Dominic blankly.

“Sorry, Dominic. What were you saying?”

“You’re really out of it tonight, old buddy. I was saying it was a little like being back at Yale. Like old times.”

“Nothing will ever be like old times. We were so naive. We really thought we had the world by a string.”

“Boy, it really got to you, didn’t it? I’ve felt it since we met.”

“Well, dammit, Dominic. You can’t go through four years of hell and act like it was a John Wayne movie.”

Dominic picked up his wineglass.

“It really must have been tough,” he said with an unprecedented amount of guilt.

Martin nodded.

“You might say that.”

Dominic lit a cigarette, looked at Martin, and said, “You know, old buddy, you’re evoking all kinds of memories tonight.”

“Really? Such as … ?”

“Such as I used to walk down Madison Avenue during the war and see everyone in uniform. They looked handsome with those shiny brass buttons. But I’ve got to tell you, old pal, I was damned happy that I was in civvies. You can call me anything you damned well please, but I celebrated the night I learned I was 4F. You know what I did? I called a model, who unlike most is really stacked, brought five bottles of the best champagne I could buy, went to her apartment, got plastered, and screwed her until dawn’s early light. You have no idea how patriotic I felt the next day.”

Martin felt a flash of anger remembering the landing in Sicily, the fear that made his stomach hurt as he splashed from the landing craft to the beach, the icy water soaking him to the armpits. He had fallen on a boulder as he scrambled across the exposed sand and nearly knocked himself out. Somehow the pain had distracted him momentarily from the thought of mutilation or death . “So you really had a ball during the war?” Martin said with ill-concealed bitterness.

Dominic knew he had sounded more glib than he felt. Much of the time he’d been embarrassed not to be in uniform, but he didn’t know how to admit this to Martin. Instead he just said, “It wasn’t all that great, and I missed my friends. I thought about you a lot, buddy.”

Dominic began to cut his steak. They ate in silence for a few minutes.

Then Dominic seemed to shrug off the feelings of discomfort that the talk of the war engendered.

“Look, Martin, I didn’t plan to stay at home. But since the Lord saw fit to spare me, I made the best of the time that I had. I’ve established a thriving agency and it’s only the beginning. What I’d really like is to have you join me. I know you were never that happy at your father’s brokerage firm. But all that financial savvy would come in handy at the agency. I need you, Martin.

You have an incredible understanding of business. And an ability to make things work. I’m good with the ideas, and the clients love me, but I’d make a lot more money if the agency were properly run. Give it a try, Martin. Come in with me. “

Martin played with the crumbs on the table. Finally he said, “Thanks for the offer. Let me think it over.”

“You can’t say yes because you’re worried about upsetting your parents. You’ve slogged your way across Europe, but you never cut the umbilical cord. You’ve got to try making it on your own sometime, old buddy.”

Martin remembered his earlier debate with himself, his obligation to his parents and his desire to stay East and choose his own career. The more he thought about it, the more he saw that his whole life had been spent fulfilling

obligations to his family, his religion, his country. But then he thought of the future. If he had sons wouldn’t he want them to carry on the legacy Ephraim had fought so valiantly to bequeath?

Martin looked across the table at his friend.

“Most of what you say is right, Dom. But I think it’s more involved. My great-grandfather fled the ghettos of Europe so his descendants could live in freedom. If he had stayed in France my parents and I might well have been shipped to one of the camps. I saw some of the survivors. Their faces will haunt me till I die. It’s not just my parents I feel I can’t let down. It’s all those tortured men and women. Butchered by the Nazis. Right now it would be very hard for me to turn my back on my great-grandfather’s legacy. Can you understand that?”

Remembering his own parents’ tales of hardships suffered during the First World War, and the economic break down that followed, and their hopes for a better life in America, Dominic could not brush Martin’s argument aside.

“Well, sure I can understand,” he said.

“I’m not going to say that what the Italians endured was as horrendous as the Holocaust, but dead is dead, and Italian mothers shed their tears.”

They both were silent. Finally Dominic said, “I suppose this means you’re going home.”

Martin nodded.

“Yes. I really don’t have any choice. We owe them something, Dominic. We really do.” He paused for a long moment and thought about the house and the gardens bathing in the golden summer light. He could see himself silhouetted against the sky, that blue, languid California sky, as he dived off the board.

“And,” he added with a laugh born out of love and nostalgia, “I can think of worse fates.”

In spite of his disappointment at not having persuaded his friend to stay, Dominic nodded.

“Touche.”

The first face Martin saw as he walked across the airfield was Sylvia’s. She ran to him, her hair flying in the wind as she threw herself into his arms. She’d waited for this moment for so long. The pain of those four years was erased as she felt his arms around her.

“Oh, darling, Martin,” she said, kissing him.

“Dearest Martin. Thank God you’re home.”

He was too filled with emotion to speak. Instead he took her hand and silently let her walk him back to Bess and Julian. As he held his mother close, he knew how hard the years had been on her and that he had done the right thing coming home.

“God must have heard my prayers,” she said.

“You’re home. I can’t believe it, but you’re home.” She took his face in her hands and kissed him tenderly. Then she held him at arms’ length. Smiling through her tears she said, “I’m afraid you’ve lost weight.”

“Oh, stop fussing over him,” Julian said.

“Welcome home, dear boy.”

Martin embraced his father, saying, “This is the only place in the world I want to be. I know that now.”

They walked out of the airport into the warm September afternoon.

Martin looked up into the California sun and thanked God that he had had the sense to recognize his birthright. When he looked down he saw Edward bringing the silver-grey Rolls-Royce to a halt in front of them. The chauffeur got out and opened the back door.

“We’ve missed you, Martin. Welcome home.” Edward had been with the family since Martin had been very young. He remembered it was Edward who had taken him to the circus every year.

When they reached the Woodside Estate, Martin could scarcely believe he was there. He went from room to room with a strange sense of disbelief. It was as though he was seeing the house for the first time. The paintings seemed more brilliant, the flowers more beautiful.

Martin walked upstairs to his room and closed the door. He looked at the snapshots still pinned to the bulletin board, the pictures of himself as a small boy. There was one of him standing at the rail of the Matsonia with his mother and father in the background. He remembered that day so well. It was the ship’s maiden voyage to Honolulu. As he reached the edge of the bay that opened into the Pacific, Martin saw the horizon. He felt as if they were going to fall off the edge. He had been frightened until his mother spotted his pale face and reassured him that the world was round. His eyes wandered to the other pictures of happy events, picnics, tennis games, shots of himself and Sylvia. Suddenly he experienced a moment of fear. That Martin no longer existed. He had endured too much; the scars of his experience were deep.