Illusions of Love (35 page)

As she stood listening to Martin, something within her snapped. She remembered all the agony she had endured in her life: her father’s abandonment, the abuse she suffered

at the hands of a drunken mother, the years working for a paranoid woman who beat her, the months alone in Chicago, Cyrus’s endless brutality. As though she were avenging her whole past, she screamed, “No, Martin! I won’t be dragged off and hidden. If you want me, you’ll marry me here and acknowledge me publicly. I want everyone to know that I am now your wife. I want to shop where she shopped, get on committees she used to chair, be welcomed everywhere she was.”

“But, Jenny,” Martin said sadly, “Sylvia was part of that society long before I married her. You must understand that her grandparents helped build this city, were a part of its culture. Do you see what I’m saying, Jenny? I don’t want to be unkind, but your presence would drive her away from the only ties she has left. And besides, the women would snub you.”

“I don’t care!” Jenny shouted.

“I want her to suffer. I want you to make up to me for all I missed when you left me in New York. You owe me.” Martin flushed angrily.

“I don’t want to marry anyone because I owe.

Besides, Jenny, you and I are not the first couple in the world whose love affair broke up. What happened to you after that was not my fault. Look I’m sorry I left you alone when my father died. The day I met you in front of Shreve’s I knew I wanted to make it up to you.

But I can’t give you my soul. I don’t owe you that, Jenny. “

She screamed as though she had gone mad.

“You do! You owe me everything. If you had married me as you promised, I would never have gone through the hell I did when I lived with Cyrus. And in that thing you call a heart, you know you’re nothing but a lying Jew Oh, my God, she thought, the second the words left her mouth. / must be out of my mind. How could I have said that to him? With tears streaming down her cheeks, she cried, ” Martin, darling, you must forgive me. I’m so sorry . You must believe me . I’m so sorry. “

Martin felt as though he had been struck between the eyes; as though he were seeing Jenny for the first time. Swallowing hard he said, “I’m sorry too, Jenny for so, so many things.”

“Martin, let me make it up to you.”

“No, I don’t think that’s possible. Jenny. We’ve hurt each other enough.”

When he turned to leave, she stood in front of him and once again pleaded, “Martin, I beg you forget what I said. Forgive me. I love you.”

The Jenny of his youth was still dear to him. And it was for her that he had compassion. Taking out his handkerchief, he wiped her eyes.

“I’m afraid. Jenny, it just won’t work.”

“If we try, Martin, it will.”

“No, I don’t think so. Because a part of you hates me, Jenny. And that part has wanted to punish me ever since we broke up. I see that now.

But try to forgive me. Jenny. And more important, try to forgive yourself. “

He turned and walked down the hall as Jenny slumped to the floor, sobbing. When the doors of the elevator closed, Martin leaned against the wall, trembling.

Without thinking, he found his car and began driving aimlessly around the rain-swept streets. After a while he found himself at the top of Telegraph Hill. He turned off the ignition and looked out over the Bay. The lights of the Golden Gate Bridge seemed to wink at him through the mist as though they knew more about Martin Roth than he did himself. What had caused him to chase this image he had of Jenny, this illusion of love, which had all but destroyed him? Maybe in order to understand he would have to go back to the beginning after the war, when he was so uncertain about his life. He had been unable to figure out why he had survived the war, why he, a Jew, had been so privileged while six million had suffered and died in:,:

the camps.

Whatever the reason, Jenny had come along at a til when he was particularly vulnerable. She had fired&i passion so that he felt he couldn’t live without her;’;

today he knew that she excited him to a degree Sylvia never could. His need for Jenny had been obsessive. But somewhere down deep in his soul, he knew that she had spoken the truth: he never really intended to marry her. He knew that all those years ago he hadn’t asked Jenny to meet his parents because she would never have fitted into his life.

She was right he had lied to her, deliberately or not. And when he had seen her again last Christmas he had felt passion, but not love.

It had been the vision of lost youth that had kindled something within him he’d thought was dead. Finally, he realized that the Jenny who had haunted him all those years was a figment of his imagination. He remembered Dominic’s warning. The Jenny he lived with secretly never really existed. He had made her up. The only thing that had been real in his life was Sylvia Sylvia, who’d always been there. She had shared the best and the worst of times. She had been the greatest thing that had ever happened to him and he had taken her for granted. He shivered at the thought that he had almost lost her. Now he’d crawl if need be, beg for forgiveness, and at long last, love her as she deserved. He turned on the ignition and drove down the hill, towards home.

Sylvia had finished packing. She wiped her forehead and looked wearily at the luggage, all neatly stacked and snapped shut, and realized that all her hopes and dreams were buried within those small compartments.

She remembered that Martin had bought the suitcases for their honeymoon, in Florence. She sighed, walked to the French window, and looked out at the moonlit garden. It didn’t look quite as enchanting tonight.

Suddenly she felt her pulse race and her heart pound. Martin’s car was skidding to a halt on the cobblestone driveway. She hesitated, then shouted with joy. She had won. He had come home to her. She knew it.

Sylvia ran down the stairs from her bedroom, across the vast hall, and flung open the door. She stood for a moment framed in the entrance.

Then their eyes met and she ran to Martin’s waiting arms. In that extremely poignant moment of reunion no words were exchanged. There was no need for them, but their eyes were filled with tears of joy.