A Choice of Enemies (6 page)

“How do you mean unlucky?”

“The price of survival came high in Karp’s case.” Norman twisted his glass round and round self-consciously. “But let’s not talk about him.”

“Why are you smiling?”

“Am I smiling?”

“You’ve been smiling without stop ever since we left Mr. Winkleman’s house.”

Norman put down his drink and started towards her. “No,” she said, “please don’t. There’s something so sordid about hotel rooms.” He sat down again. “You’ve been looking at me like I was a meal ever since we got here,” she added. But then she rose to fill his glass and Norman circled her waist with his arm. He did that almost absently, giving her a chance to withdraw without embarrassment. She looked at him severely.

“Your friends are so sharp and cruel and witty,” she said. “I don’t want them to make something dirty of us.”

“My friends,” he said thickly, “have nothing to do with us.”

“Don’t you see that I could do this just as well at home. Go to bed
with a man, I mean. This is Europe. I want things to happen to me here that could never happen to me at home.”

Norman noticed with pleasure that her hair was not blond in the dry refulgent way a movie bad girl’s hair is blond. Sally’s hair was thick, healthy, and streaked with brown. Her calm, sensitive face, however, was not yet fully formed. Absent were the hard lines that made Joey so attractive.

Sally, made uneasy by Norman’s stare, shifted her position on the bed. “Were you a pilot?” she asked.

He wished people wouldn’t ask that question with such amazement. Maybe it was because he wore glasses. No, he thought, there’s more to it than that. They expect that I would have been something behind the lines. An interpreter, perhaps.

“I was a fighter pilot. I didn’t wear glasses then.”

Sally noticed for the first time that there was something odd about the lower lid of his left eye. It was a Tiersch graft, Norman explained. A layer of skin as thin as cigarette paper taken from the inside of his left arm. Luckily, however, his face had only been slightly scarred. Luckily, he said, his crash had come after they had given up the use of tannic acid for burns. Then he told her in a constrained voice of Hornstein.

“He was a dark, intense man,” he said, “with all the unfortunate characteristics the anti-semite attributes to his people. Whether it was a room full of girls, a pub, or even if it was only the mess, Hornstein always played it the same, like a Hollywood air ace. He was always the guy on the spot when a Canadian correspondent wanted a story.

“Hornstein wasn’t a bad pilot – that much you had to give him. He had three 109s and two probables to his credit. But he was a fixer. He wangled the longest leaves and the best girls. If it was liquor, a week-end pass, a phone number, or money you wanted you went to Hornstein and hated him for it. I avoided him like the plague. But
Hornstein tried everything – he wanted to be accepted at any cost. One evening in the mess he read us a B’nai Brith pamphlet which proved that in proportion to the population of Canada there were more Jews than Gentiles in the armed forces. None of us gave a damn one way or another, really, but one by one we got up and left him alone at the table with his pamphlet.”

“I know the kind of man you mean,” Sally said.

“The next day – at the time, you know, the Germans were putting everything into knocking out our advance fighter bases – we ran into a formation of about twenty 109s at 20,000 feet. They had the height – the sun – everything. We were occupied with the twelve Dornier 215s below us. Hornstein was flying close to me. Before we peeled off to join the battle he winked and made a thumbs-up sign to me. That made my stomach turn.” Norman poured himself another drink. “The battle was brief, fierce, and explosive. Hornstein was hit. I watched as at a height of about two thousand feet he prepared to bail out of his blazing machine. Hornstein was over a thickly populated area. I saw him climb in again and crash his machine into the Thames.

“That takes courage, madness, or a Jew terrified of doing the wrong thing. At that moment I hated Hornstein more than I’ve ever hated anyone in my life.

“I would have bailed out, you see. There’s no doubt about it.”

“Come on,” Sally said, “how do you know what you would have done?”

“Because I had visualized just such a thing happening to me.”

“How can you tell for sure?”

“I had figured out that in rounder terms my life was worth more than any deaths or damage my crashed Spitfire might have caused. After all, I was a trained fighter pilot. So on top of everything else I hated Hornstein for being braver than I was.”

Norman paused, much as though he had given Sally something – a pill, perhaps – and he didn’t want to continue until it had had time to dissolve.

“After I saw him crash like that I went temporarily out of my mind. I still had some ammunition left so I didn’t return to the aerodrome with the others. I moved up into the sun and saw four 109s heading for home. I must have chased them half way to France before bullets suddenly started appearing on my port wing. Two 109s had been flying even closer to the sun than me. I pulled up and away desperately, but black smoke was already pouring out of the engine. The fire spread inside – that’s how I crashed.”

Having told her about Hornstein, a grief he had not shared with anyone else, he felt, and she seemed to understand, that they were now free to make demands of each other. She was already in his debt.

“I think I’d better be going.”

Sally came close to Norman and kissed him on the mouth. But the kiss was affectionate; no more. Norman seemed resentful. And Sally, a little perplexed, said:

“Will you call me early tomorrow morning?”

“Sure.”

“Really, though. You’re not just saying that?”

“I’ll call you early. I promise.”

Sally stood by the window with her cheek and hands pressed against the cold pane and watched Norman get into a taxi. There were all those stars – she hated them for “twinkling” just the way they did in cheap novels – and below the endless noises of the night.

At home, in Montreal, right now her father would be seated at his desk steeply and severe,
The Lusiads
opened at one elbow and an exercise book at the other. Mother in the parlour with knitting and Mozart and below the 3a streetcars and next door Mr. O’Meara calling, “Hurry, Ros, hurry. Ed Sullivan’s just beginning.…” and in the park the boys in blazers called hi,
bee
-utiful and smoked meats and Frankie Laine at Ma Heller’s and boning for Psych 103 and Sheldon saying, “If you
insist
on going to London I guess that’s it.…”

But she missed them. Already she missed them.

Sally lay down in the dark with a cigarette. I’ll never get to sleep tonight, she thought.

“If you want a script that’s nifty,” Charlie sang, “I’ll write it in a jiffy, Lawson but does nuttin’ for ya ‘olesale.”

“Not so loud,” Joey called out from the bedroom.

Sure, Charlie thought. Not so loud. The Chairlady of the Bitchers’ Club will now say a few words. Charlie stuck out his tongue. “You made lots of women in ’22,” he sang
sotto voce
, “you let other hacks make more gold than you, why doncha do right, and make me a movie to-ooo?”

Charlie was going to get work. He had made a good impression. Invitations to dinners and parties from Winkleman, Landis, Jeremy, and Graves would soon come down on him like rain. They would please Joey so much. And once he was rich Charlie would be handsome with his money, not like some other guys he knew.

Money, Charlie thought. Charlie required lots of money. Money to support his in-laws, the Wallaces, and money to pay Selma’s tuition at drama school. Joey’s sister Selma was cute but a weirdie, too. There was still that nose operation of hers to be paid off. And what if the Wallaces took it into their sinus-soaked heads that they needed Arizona again next winter? (Perish the thought, Charles.)

“Maybe it’s because I’m a Torontonian,” Charlie sang, “that I love London so.” He raised his voice. “London’s going to be lucky-ducky. We’ve finally made it. I’ve got that certain feeling.”

Charlie could hardly wait for Norman to get back. Meanwhile, sifting through the top drawer of his desk he came upon a thick airmail letter addressed to Norman Price, Esq.

“As long as you can earn a living,” Joey said, entering the room, “I’ll be pleased. Remember what you said when you first came to New York?”

“New York was different.”

“Maybe, but all the same – What have you got there?”

“A letter from you to guess whom?”

“If I were you,” Joey said, “I wouldn’t read it.”

“I was looking for a pencil. I can wait until he leaves before I go through his personal papers.”

Joey took the letter into the kitchen, lit it, and then let the ashes fall into the sink.

“Why did you do that?” Charlie asked.

“Charlie, do you remember that Norman used to come round every night for weeks and then didn’t show up for months? You know why, don’t you?”

Charlie didn’t answer.

“Don’t you?”

“Sure. Joey, sure. I mean I know you could have.…”

“You should have seen the wild letters he wrote me, Charlie. But I wrote him no. Absolutely no. That was the letter I just burnt.”

“I love you,” Charlie said. “I trust you completely.” He hugged her. “You know what I’m going to be?” he asked, lifting her off the floor. “An Irish Sean O’Casey.”

Joey laughed. She kissed him.

The door opened. “Hello,” Norman said cheerfully. “Still up?”

Joey broke away from Charlie.

“Ah,” Charlie said, “the satyr of Church Street returns. He’s abandoned his
soubrette
at last.”

Norman grinned.

“We didn’t expect you back until morning,” Joey said. “Wait, I’ll get you a drink.”

“Thanks,” Norman said.

“Feel free.” Charlie filled his glass again. “We want you to treat this place like your own home.”

“Do you think you’ll like it here?” Norman asked.

“We’ll adore it,” Joey said.

“Wait till I tell you about Rinky-Dinky Winkleman. A few days in London and I’ve as good as got a film contract in the bag. Not bad, huh?”

“Please, darling. He hasn’t even taken an option yet.”

“Am I or am I not seeing him first thing tomorrow morning?”

“Charlie’s right. Sonny likes his script a lot. He told me so himself.”

“I’ll believe it when I see the cheque. Not before.”

“Thank you, Madame Defarge.” Charlie turned to Norman. “You didn’t have to go to her hotel, old chap. You could have brought Sally here. We’re very liberal-minded.”

Norman slept on the sofa in his little study, and there, he remembered Sally’s freshly washed smell. He recalled her wild blond hair – the creamy smile – and all at once he felt foolish. He had made an unsuccessful pass at the sweetheart of the Sigma Something. No more. That kind of stuff was
O.K
. for Nicky, but not for a man of his age.

I shouldn’t have told her about Hornstein, he thought, just before he fell asleep.

But the next morning at nine-thirty, Norman, feeling uncomfortably like a college boy again, was waiting for Sally in her hotel lobby. They ate breakfast together.

Sally was small, no more than five feet four, and she was cursed with a plump figure and the most useless big feet. Her blessings – Sally considered them few – were her streaky blond hair and slender ankles. But what attracted Norman most were her warm, quizzical blue eyes, and the absence of hardness about her. They were extremely polite with each other. Norman intimidated Sally.
His long narrow face was solemn; his manner was exacting. She felt that she was being examined like a potential sexual belligerent, and this she found disquieting.

After breakfast they walked through Soho, down Charing Cross Road, and to the Strand. They ate an enormous lunch at Simpson’s. Then, because Sally was momentarily panicked by the strangeness of it all – the streets of little black cars and sexless black men and old blackened buildings – they hurried back to Leicester Square and went to see an American film. Inside, Sally pretended she was in Montreal again. Norman fell asleep half-way through the film and that, oddly enough, made her like him much better.

From there they went to the Arts Theatre Club bar for drinks and, her assurances regained, Sally was very cheerful indeed. They exchanged old and tested anecdotes that were, all the same, fresh to each other, and whenever Sally laughed – and she laughed spontaneously and often – her head fell against his shoulder. They were so happy together that they did not realize they were being loud and conspicuous. As the crowd in the bar thickened they reached that point of intimacy where a nod of the head for a foolish face discovered, a nudge for a pompous snatch of conversation overheard, was enough to send them off into further fits of laughter. At dinner Norman squeezed her knee under the table and Sally leaned over and kissed him once.

Later, at the Theatre, East Stratford, they joined the Winklemans and Charlie and Joey to see a new play by a left-wing theatre group. Norman began to sober up. A fuzzy-haired Jewess with a wide red mouth sat beside him. Her boy friend, a skinny boy with a little sandpaper face, chewed his nails endlessly. The play, a political comedy, was spiked with puerile jokes about Eden, Rhee, Dulles, and the rest of them, but the audience responded with laughter wild and febrile. Tense, thick faces. Partisans. A kinky West Indian with a flash of pink tongue. A hunchback in a corduroy cap with a smile like a clenched
fist. Young girls in rumpled clothes hand in hand with boys who required beards just as older, sunnier men needed desks before them. The virtuous failures; the good people. A middle-aged woman made in Bethnal Green of headlines and mashed brussels sprouts and unuseful memories. They laughed, they applauded, and their laughter was so sad, so savage, that Norman was immensely relieved when it was time to leave the theatre.

Sally held on to his arm, just like she was his girl, and that made him feel better. They were joined by the Winklemans and Charlie and Joey, and together they piled into Winkleman’s car and drove to his house in Hampstead. Winkleman was in one of his more expansive moods. He told them how he had settled his accounts with the Home Office.