The Last Princess (13 page)

“Lily,” Harry said, “I cannot tell you how dreadful I—”

“Please,” she interrupted. “I think what we have to talk about is far more important than this morning’s scene. You may think that I’m oblivious to your frustrations, but I’m not. The truth is that this house is not quite the haven that I thought it was going to be for your writing. I hadn’t considered the effect of four active children.”

“Even so, I know I should be more patient. Still, it’s hard when you feel like a total failure. Is that honest enough, Lily?”

“You’re not a failure, Harry. I don’t want to hear you say that.”

“Yes, I am,” he returned grimly. “I just don’t have what it takes, or I wouldn’t be in this position.”

Gesturing at the paper in the typewriter, he said, “I’ve been sitting here thinking about what I’m going to say to my father. I’m giving in, Lily. I can’t go on letting my family suffer because of my arrogance.”

“You mean that you would abandon your writing?”

“Writing? What writing?” With a cynical laugh, he got up and paced the floor. “That was a child’s dream. This is the real world, Lily. I’ll never be able to write that book.”

“How do you know you won’t?”

“What do you think I’ve been doing for the past six years? Sitting here, beating the hell out of this typewriter, and what do I earn? Five hundred dollars a month. As for the novel, when am I ever going to get to it?”

“Harry, please sit down and listen to me,” Lily said.

Reluctantly, he did as she asked.

“Darling, I’ve thought about this very carefully. I feel that the only way for you to get out of this trap is to be free to write your novel.” Harry began to protest, but Lily interrupted him. “No. Please hear me out. The only way we are going to be a happy family again is for you to finish that manuscript. That’s what’s creating the wall between you and me, and between you and the children.”

“Look, nobody has to tell me what I’ve turned into, and I’m terribly ashamed of it.”

“Forget about that. What’s holding you back are the pressures of having to support us.”

Harry rubbed his eyes. What alternative was there—he was the breadwinner. What good did it do to discuss it?

“I know that you worry about our finances,” Lily continued. “But worrying isn’t going to solve our problems. Let me ask you something: How long do you think it would take you to finish your novel if you were able to work on it constantly, without interruptions?”

“I don’t know, Lily. Maybe a year. I’ll never be able to do that.”

“That’s not true, Harry! I have a plan. I want you to go to New York, rent a room at the YMCA, and do nothing but write until that novel is finished.”

“Really? And what’s going to happen to you and the children in the meantime? How do you plan to eat? Or pay the taxes here, and feed the cow? The roof needs repairing again, and the car needs a new set of tires. There are a million expenses you’re probably not even aware of.”

There was a sting in his words, but Lily realized that this was a moment for truth.

“Darling, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but can you forget your ego for once?” she said gently. “The answer is for me to earn some money while you’re gone.”

“No—” he began, but Lily silenced him again.

“Will you just hear me out?”

“No, I won’t, Lily. Even if I did accept the idea that you were going to support me, what would you do? You don’t have a profession.”

“Strangely enough, Harry, I do.”

“And what is that, pray tell?”

“I’ve made every curtain in this house, and you’ve seen Melissa’s pinafores and dresses, and her rag dolls. And look at the pants and jackets I make for the boys. Do you realize that I made their entire wardrobes? We haven’t bought a thing. And wherever I go, people compliment me on their clothes.”

“So who do you think you are going to sell these clothes to, Lily? Bloomingdale’s?”

“There are all kinds of little shops that sell handmade things. And that’s what I plan to do—all I have to do is manage for a year until you finish that book. Don’t you see?”

Her faith in him was so touching that Harry was at a loss for words.

Finally, with tears in his eyes, he whispered, “Lily, how did I ever get so lucky?”

It was a last-minute reprieve. Here he had been ready to crawl back to his father when Lily offered him freedom to pursue his dream. His gratitude to her was inexpressible. Once again he realized that in spite of her fragile beauty she really was a woman of enormous strength.

A
T LILY’S INSISTENCE, HARRY
made his preparations quickly. No delays, no procrastinations. Yet when the morning came for his departure, he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving his family. The memory of his cruelty to Jeremy and harshness with the other children tortured him. He prayed that his intolerance would leave no lasting scars. If he did nothing else in his life, he promised himself, from now on he was going to be a loving, patient, and doting father.

He was brought out of his reverie when Jeremy said, “Daddy, can I carry your suitcases out to the car?”

He looked down at the small handsome face. “Sure—come on, kids. We’ll do it together.”

It was painful to kiss them good-bye and then watch them wave from the platform, Lily standing like a fortress while the children clung to her.

“Take off those frowns and smile at Daddy, boys,” she directed, “and Melissa, throw Daddy a kiss.”

She started wailing, “Dada, Dada!” and stretched her hands toward the train.

The boys tried valiantly to smile. Daddy was going away for a long time, Mama had said so.

A tear rolled down Jeremy’s cheek and Lily put her arm around him. He was the sensitive one. “Darling, Daddy’s coming back. Throw him a kiss.”

He did so, and Harry saw it through gathering tears. Now, as the train rolled out into the distance and picked up speed, they grew smaller and then were lost from sight.

An enormous stab of loneliness assailed Harry; he felt as though he were abandoning them.

Yet this period of exile was so important. It was his last chance to become a writer. So much was riding on it. The only comfort he had was knowing that Lily did have the remainder of the little nest egg to draw on. But what it meant was that they were putting all their eggs in one basket—in Harry. If he didn’t make it, then what? He shuddered to think.

In spite of his guilty feelings and fear of inadequacy, he felt a strange sense of rising excitement at the prospect of New York. As the train neared Grand Central Terminal, another feeling superseded all his conflicting thoughts. He was a stranger, alone and alien in the very place where he had been born. After having been all but disowned by his family, he no longer felt that he had a home or roots.

He had seen his parents only a few times in the last six years. Once for the naming ceremony of each of the four children. But it was always stiff, formal, and awkward. Had it not been for the children, he doubted that they would have even met.

He allowed no hint of his longing to be revealed, but in his heart of hearts he kept hoping that they would embrace him as their son. Wouldn’t one think that they would admire him, if for no other reason than that he had never turned to them for any kind of financial assistance?

Hearing the screech of brakes as the train came to a halt, he came back to the moment. But it wasn’t until he walked off the train and into the swirling crowds that his spirits rose.

He picked up his suitcase and strode buoyantly out of the station into the July sun. He had planned to save the money and walk to the Y, but the noonday heat and the distance led him to the extravagance of hailing a cab.

Arriving at the 92nd Street Y, he looked around in dismay. Although the aroma of chlorine and Lysol permeated the atmosphere, the place certainly did not give one the impression of being anything but moderately sanitary. He missed the homey charm of Lily’s antiques and bright chintzes. And the heat. God, it was stifling! He had forgotten how humid and sticky July in New York City could be. His shirt clung to him like a second skin. He willed himself to remember those winters on the farm when the snow spread out like a soft fleecy blanket….

That night he had dinner at a small café on the corner of 87th and Lexington, which he remembered from his student days. How strange it was—he had been richer then than he was now as a grown man. He had had a generous allowance; his Stutz Bearcat was always parked in front of Delmonico’s, where Benjamin Kohle’s son was always given a good table.

“What will you have, sir?” asked the waitress.

Harry was grateful to her for interrupting his train of thought.

A half-hour later he stood on the curb outside, feeling the hot night embrace him. He turned and began walking. After a while, he realized that he was on Fifth Avenue, aware of an urgent desire to see his old home, just to touch something real and familiar out of his past. It was strange, he was a grown man with a family of his own, yet he still had a great longing for the roots of his own childhood, to feel a sense of belonging.

His steps slowed as he came to the Frick mansion and he stopped in front of the wrought-iron railing enclosing the gardens. Smiling slightly, he recalled how more than once as a small boy he had been chased out of those gardens.

Then he walked up the broad stone stairs to the Kohles’ and rang the bell. Life was a barter, he thought. The day he had first brought Lily here, he had forfeited his right to a privileged life. The door was opened by the butler, Collins, who had been with the family for more years than anyone could remember.

“Mr. Harry,” he said formally, without visible surprise. “Good evening.”

“Thank you, Collins. You look as spry as ever.”

The butler’s face remained impassive. He was well aware of Benjamin Kohle’s attitude toward his youngest son. “Your parents are out for the evening, Mr. Harry. I will inform them that you called.”

Harry had no intention of stopping if everyone was out, but he was taken aback by Collins’s attitude. The butler had no intention of inviting him in. Was it so clear, even to the servants, that he was persona non grata?

Looking past Collins through the door, he glimpsed the wide circular staircase. It looked exactly the same and suddenly he remembered long-forgotten images of the past. One day he had slid all the way down, only to be reprimanded by Elise as she watched him with fright.

“No message,” he said curtly. “Good night.”

Standing in the doorway of his tiny room at the Y, Harry took a look around. Then, suddenly, he slammed his fist against the door frame. God damn it, he would succeed! By the time his novel was published, not only Lily but all the Kohles would be proud of him.

The next morning, Harry awoke galvanized with a new strength. Wasting no time, he dressed quickly, went to the cafeteria and wolfed down a roll and a cup of coffee. His eagerness spurring him on, he hurried over to Third Avenue to buy a secondhand typewriter. He had left the old black Royal at the farm. Not only was it cumbersome to transport, but after years of pounding, it was on its last legs. He and Lily had agreed that Harry needed a new machine.

The first pawnshop he passed sported a Royal in the window. It looked to be in pretty good condition and Harry tried the door, but it was still locked. He had to wait until nine when the proprietor, Mr. Garfinkel, arrived to open up. “What can I do for you, young man?” he asked.

“How much is the black Royal in the window?”

“For you, I’ll make it thirty.”

Harry smiled. Garfinkel would have sold it to anyone for that price. “I’ll give you fifteen.”

“Eighteen I wouldn’t take.”

“Eighteen and that’s it, Mr. Garfinkel.”

He thought he had driven a hard bargain, but when he peeled off the precious bills from the small roll in his pocket, he wasn’t quite so amused. That two hundred dollars had to last until Christmas. He wasn’t going to ask Lily for a dime more, even if it meant starving. He hated the idea of her picking fruit for hours in the hot sun and then standing over a steaming kettle in the little kitchen, making jelly to sell to Swanson’s general store down the road.

Fueled with resolve to get to work, he went back to the Y to set up his typewriter, and pulled his partially finished manuscript out of his suitcase. He suspected that most of what was written would have to be redone, but for the time being he was going to push on with the story.

He rolled the first piece of paper into the machine, nervously feeling his sweaty palms. The prospect was so overwhelming that his breathing became labored. He had never felt quite like this before, but unmistakably he felt that at last he was about to come face to face with his destiny.

Swallowing hard, he poised his index fingers over the “f” and the “j.” Next to him lay the yellowed manuscript that had lived in his mind and haunted his thoughts for so many years.

He thought he knew his story, understood his characters so well, but suddenly in this instant, for the first time, he realized that he was not at all the same person as the boy who had started this novel as a freshman at Columbia years before. No longer was he a callow youth, but a man greatly matured by life. He looked down at the first page, where the date read “February 27, 1926” … such a long time ago. His fingers trembled as he experienced mingled feelings of trepidation and daring. Harry felt it was like the pause at the crest of the roller coaster just before it begins to gather speed for the long plunge. His breathing was staccato as he struck the keys.

July 22, 1939 Second Draft

THE WARS OF ARCHIE SANGER

by

Harry Kohle

Chapter One

Archie lay looking up at the cloudless sky, aware of an immense silence after the screaming fury of the cannons, the acrid scent of smoke still burning his nostrils. Then, somewhere in the distance, he heard a single mournful dove … or was it the sound of God weeping?

Taking a deep breath, Harry plunged himself into the nineteenth century. His fingers touched the keys, images of tired, hungry men in blue trudging down hot southern roads materialized before his eyes. Soon he was with them, breathing the choking red dust.