The Puzzle King (34 page)

“Well, I’m not the one who keeps the bank books and pays the bills around here, so no, I’d have to say I don’t.”

“All right then, let me tell you. We have more than one million dollars. One point seven to be precise. And what do we plan to do with all that money? We have no children. You know, I’d happily support Edith and any other members of your family if they were ever to come over here. And, God willing, mine. Even then, we’d have plenty left over. Does it not seem to you, as it does to me, that it is immoral for us to be hoarding all that money with all that’s going on around us? If now’s not the time to use it, then when is?”

“Oh … it’s the letter, isn’t it?”

Several weeks earlier, they had received a letter from Edith describing her wedding. The letter had a curious quality about it: smudged fingerprints too large to be Edith’s, wrinkles in the paper, and words blacked out with solid, impenetrable strokes. These were the kinds of things Simon noticed as he held the paper up to the light. Edith wrote about her dress and described the flowers she carried. The next part, about somebody—a rabbi, Simon guessed—saying something, was blacked out. He had underlined the part where Edith wrote, “It’s a good thing we all have our memories because there are no pictures of the wedding so we’ll have to cherish those,” and he scribbled this in his notebook: “Were there no pictures taken because everyone thought that to photograph a large Jewish wedding was as perilous as having one in the first place?”

But there was something else, a note he had written to himself underneath his question. “Exactly a week before the wedding, on September 15, 1935, the German government adopted the Nuremberg Laws. The laws distinguished Germans from German Jews and deprived the Jews of all their rights, including
the right to call themselves Germans.” After that, he’d added, “There’s no going back now.”

“It’s the letter and everything else,” said Simon. “I’m going to find it hard to sit around the table making chitchat with Aunt Hannah and Uncle Paul stuffing ourselves with turkey and sweet potatoes this Thanksgiving. Hard and frankly, outrageous.”

“Now wait a minute. We give a lot of money to a lot of charities. I think it’s safe to say that the Jewish Center of Yonkers wouldn’t be standing without the generous donation of a Mr. and Mrs. Simon Phelps. So we’re not that ridiculous.”

“It’s easy to write a check and give to charities,” he said. “I’m talking about something more than that.”

“And what would that be? Are you proposing we hire Al Capone to go over to Germany and shoot Mr. Hitler?”

“God, Flora, you can be such a …”

“Bitch. Go on and say it. I can be such a bitch. I know I can.” Her voice relaxed. “I’m sorry, I don’t see the world like you do. I like it here. I like our lives. I don’t want anything to change. It scares me, the way you talk sometimes. I feel like you’re going to go out and do something reckless and stupidly heroic just because you think it would be the right thing to do. You can’t change the world, Simon. Even you can’t do that.”

“I’m not that much of an egomaniac,” he said. “I know I can’t change the world. But I can’t sit by and do nothing.”

“You’re not doing nothing,” her voice rose again. “You put in all that time at the Jewish Committee. What more are you supposed to do?”

“I don’t know,” he shook his head. “I really don’t know. But we can’t let them stay there. Not Edith and Werner. Your family. We really can’t.”

She stared out the window searching for the right words. “It’s
funny,” she finally said. “Even though you’re the practical, down-to-earth businessman, sometimes I think that between us, you’re the romantic and I’m the pragmatist.”

“That’s not it,” he said. “The difference is that I see the consequences of things that are happening now and live with them. Don’t get me wrong, Flora, I’m not criticizing you, but you have your version of the world and you won’t be budged out of it. I envy you that.”

“I like my version of the world. At least it’s not filled with foreboding dark clouds.”

And so it went, all the way back to Yonkers. Even as they readied for bed, the argument continued. “Think of it this way,” he said after brushing his teeth. “They pass the Nuremberg Laws in America. Suddenly, we’re deprived of everything: jobs, schools, even walking in the park. We can’t even call ourselves Americans anymore. Picture that. Can you?”

Flora was exhausted from the drive, the constant bickering, the heavy meal. She lay back on the pillow and closed her eyes. “Please, can we take a break from this for just one night?”

“We can take a break from this forever if you promise me one thing.”

“Anything,” she answered.

“Promise me that we can go to Marseille and meet Edith and Werner.”

She could do that.

“Yes, I promise. Now can we get some sleep?”

But just before she fell asleep, she thought about the Nuremberg Laws. What must that mean to a man like Frederick, so proud of his service in the war, so German in the way he carried himself and thought about himself? She really couldn’t imagine.

No one could imagine how the news affected Frederick. Every day something else. The signs: jews not wanted. The rules: “Jews forbidden to perform works by Aryan writers and composers.” Old friends turned their heads and ignored him when he walked down the street. He and Margot were running out of money. He held himself in check when he talked about these things with Margot and told her, “Who we are is who we are and no one can change that with a bunch of laws.” He would search her face for a reaction, but she would elude his glance and rush off to repot some geraniums or hang out some laundry. He envied how she could retreat into her flowers, her domestic chores, or even those silly glass owls, fussing over them as if they were her only world.

He had nowhere to go with his feelings. Even if Margot were up to hearing what was on his mind, whatever he would say would come out mawkish and foolish:

Yesterday I had two arms and two legs, now I have none
.
The place that I have loved and cherished has thrown me out
the door and put chains on the lock to make sure I never come back
.

There once stood a man named Frederick Ehrlich. One day, a large boulder fell from the sky and crushed everything that was inside of him. Now, Frederick Ehrlich is like a character drawn on paper and the part of him that was a man is gone
.

Part of him expected these Nuremberg Laws to be revoked. Expected any day he would receive a handwritten apology:
Frederick Ehrlich, devoted patriot, and veteran of war, you will always be cherished and beloved by the fatherland. Please disregard any news to the contrary
. And life, as it had been, would resume.

Round and round these thoughts went. Every day the same ones.

Lately, he’d wondered if he was the one with the nervous condition. Common sense told him that if ever there was a time not to call attention to oneself, this was it. Did no one else agree? Certainly not Mrs. Cohn, showing up at her son’s wedding in that gaudy diamond-and-emerald necklace sprawled across her chest like a traffic jam. Or Werner’s father, throwing that shindig of a reception, even after his arrest and his removal from the store. Or Seema and Karl, still unmarried but obviously sleeping in the same bed and riding around in that flashy car of his. And Edith. Over-the-moon Edith, who couldn’t give a thought to anything but her Werner.

He was happy for her. Werner was a good man and would take care of her. But what kind of a future did this country hold for them? They would go on their honeymoon in January and when they came back, he would tell them they had to think about leaving. He and Margot were too old to go anywhere else, but
Edith had her whole life ahead of her. If she left, it would break Margot’s heart. The strain might be too much for her. Maybe things would be better by the time they came back from their honeymoon. But what if they weren’t?
I worry too much
, he told himself.
I have too much idle time on my hands. Edith told me I was becoming an old fusspot. When I worked at the store, my thoughts were simpler, less fraught. I miss the people I worked with. I miss working. I miss making money. I miss my old life
.

A boutonniere for you, sir? A bouquet for the lady?” The offer was extravagant, and Simon and Flora exchanged puzzled looks. The ship’s steward wouldn’t be put off. “It is customary, when we pull into Marseilles, for the captain to give flowers to his first-class passengers, to show his appreciation,” he said, making a slight bow while shoving the flowers in front of them. “Come now, you wouldn’t want to insult the captain, would you?”

“No thank you for the boutonniere,” said Simon. “Roses aren’t my cup of tea, but I’m sure the lady would be honored to accept your bouquet.”

Flora lowered her eyes, ashamed that Simon could see how they darted with excitement. Yellow roses in March: they were as lavish as the lobsters, the gilded headboards on the double beds, and the linen napkins folded to look like mountain peaks that had populated their world over the past two weeks.

Flora reveled in these luxuries and Simon took his pleasure by indulging her. That night, their last at sea, Flora and Simon were scheduled for the second seating at dinner. As he waited for
her at the bar, he pulled a pen out of his vest pocket and began sketching on the paper napkin beneath his glass of champagne. He drew a picture of a ship filled with rotund ladies weighted down with fur and diamonds and pot-bellied men smoking cigars and sporting oversized pinky rings. The ship was forging ahead through the flames of hell that surrounded it. On its bow he’d written in large capital letters:
THE SS
DECADENT
.

Simon had meant to crumple up the napkin before Flora came, but she had snuck up behind him. “It’s that bad, huh?” she’d said, pulling up the stool next to him and draping her arm around his shoulder. “Sorry you’ve had to suffer so.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. She smelled like licorice and soap and a child fresh from its bath. “Oh, you know how I like to scribble.” He tried to take in more of her smell. He could never get enough of that smell.

“Lucky for you, this hell will be over tomorrow morning,” she said, “and then …” They stared at each other quizzically.

That night, they sat at the captain’s table. When the waiter placed a small white plate with gold-leaf trim and a thistly artichoke in front of him, Simon looked to Flora to see how she was managing it. Simon disliked food that was complicated or messy and had managed to keep away from the unruly artichoke. Now he watched as Flora dipped the leaf in the butter sauce, scraped out the meat from the inside of the leaf with her teeth, and dropped the remainder into a small soup bowl. Simon only half-listened to the conversation she was having with the gentleman on her left. Conquering the artichoke took all of his attention. Only when Flora answered one of her dinner partner’s questions did he look up from the spiky mound of leaves in front of him.

“Oh, our people are Jewish. My sister and I came from Germany
almost thirty years ago,” she’d said, dabbing some butter from her lips. Simon raised his eyebrows and stared at the stranger with the gold watch chain dangling from his pocket. Why, he’d wondered, had he asked Flora if she was Jewish. That was the kind of question no one asked unless there was trouble behind it.

Flora was never calculating in that way and answered every question put to her. “Every question deserves an honest answer,” she’d say. As reserved as usual, in these times Simon was especially suspicious. But despite his reticence and odd formality, passengers on this crossing finagled a way to be seated next to him at dinner, and he was the one who got photographed for the ship’s newsletter, “In the Same Boat.” The caption read:

Dapper Simon Phelps enjoyed a round of shuffle-board on deck yesterday afternoon with his lovely wife, Flora. When asked why they were traveling from New York to Marseilles, Mr. Phelps answered, “There is so much to see and so many family and friends to visit.”

These days, few people—particularly Jewish people—were taking pleasure cruises to Europe. Yet none of the first-class passengers wanted to talk about the unpleasantness, not when they’d paid nearly five hundred dollars to wash down their foie gras with French champagne. So on that night, they wrapped their arms around their partners and stared through half-closed eyes at the moonlight spilling into the black water while the orchestra played “The Way You Look Tonight.” For those few moments they could believe that life was as sweet and rich as the music they were hearing, and they had already started to yearn with nostalgia for the time that was passing. The orchestra broke into
a brisk version of “All of Me.” Simon and Flora were dancing close enough to Flora’s dinner partner, the man with the gold watch chain, to overhear him say to his wife: “The führer frowns on this kind of Negroized music.” The wife nodded and said something that made him jerk his head back and make a disapproving tsking sound. As the two of them stopped dancing and headed back toward the table, Simon hugged Flora closer to him.

“What was that all about?” she asked. Simon hummed in her ear. “Keep dancing,” he whispered, “and smile like you’re having the time of your life.”

T
HE FOG BLURRED
the Marseille coastline as the ship pulled close to shore. Flora stuck one of the steward’s roses into her lapel, another into the brim of her hat. The rest she held in both hands. “You don’t think me frivolous for accepting the flowers?”

Simon put his hand around her waist and squeezed it. “If it were up to me, I would cover you in rose petals every morning and bathe you in them every night.”

The early morning mist carried with it the briny air and burning fuel from the ship’s engine. Even with the smell of roses wafting under his nose, Simon was mostly aware of the black smoke that huffed out of the funnels and settled heavy over them.

Whatever dread he was feeling, he kept it in check behind his steady gray-blue eyes and his wire-rim glasses. As she packed up the last of their shampoo and aftershave, Flora stared at the bunch of yellow roses that she had stuck into a water cup in the bathroom. “I wouldn’t mind staying here a few more days, or forever,” she said, rubbing her fingers across the polished mahogany
shelf in the bathroom. “Who can blame you?” he asked, careful to keep the crease as he folded one of his shirts. He glanced up to see if she caught the falseness in his voice. But Flora was watching his fingers, surprisingly long for a man of his height. She still loved the way his hands were always busy—and usually ink stained. “Let’s put all the necessary documents in the small valise,” he said, picking up a white case with tan stripes and placing it on the bed.