Cheat and Charmer (80 page)

“No, it’s not hideous,” Mrs. Lasker said. “But it’s too soon for you to see it.”

“But who’s going to want me now?” Mrs. Albrecht said.

“Plenty of people,” Mrs. Lasker answered. “Everybody loves you.” And then she reeled off the names of all the people who had given blood and who had come to visit Mrs. Albrecht in the hospital when she was too doped up to know it. “Saul Landau comes all the time,” she said. “And I don’t think you were conscious yet, but Cliff Boatwright came, too, Vee. He flew out here just to see you, and he stood here and talked to you and told you he would love you forever. Said it right here in front of me. Cried, too, and came every day for three days. Both the Steiners have given blood. Everyone we know has given blood. Gussie’s given blood, and gotten her friends from church to give blood. Hell, the blood of half of Hollywood is flowing in your veins.”

“Even Republicans?” asked Veevi.

“Even R-R-R-Republicans,” said Dinah, with a laugh.

“Where’s Uncle J.?” Mrs. Albrecht asked.

“He’s coming soon,” Mrs. Lasker said. “He sent his love. He’s going to give blood, too.”

Then Kirsten heard Mrs. Albrecht say, “I’m so sorry, Dinah.”

“About what, dear?”

“Ohhhhh …” What came out was something between a sigh and a moan. “Everything.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for, sweetie.”

Kirsten was busy checking fluid levels, but she was also listening.

“Ina?” Mrs. Albrecht’s voice was small and weak, like a child’s.

“I’m here, Vee. What is it, dear?”

“You ended up me, and I ended up you.”

“We haven’t ‘ended up,’ lovey. There’s lots ahead, for both of us.”

Mrs. Albrecht seemed to do better when Mrs. Lasker was there, Kirsten observed. Talking about the skin grafts and the future and what she was going to do seemed to wake her up. She had more fight in her then. Her vitals improved. Mrs. Lasker held a cup up to her with a straw in it and got her to drink juice, and that was good, getting those fluids into her.

But there was always late afternoon, when Mrs. Lasker drove home to her family, and sometimes she didn’t come back. It was a long, tiring drive home to West Los Angeles, and Mrs. Lasker needed to see her kids. It was usually around seven, when Mrs. Lasker wasn’t there, that Kirsten found a
heavyset figure bending over Mrs. Albrecht. Mr. Cole was his name. He always came then, she supposed, because that was when Mrs. Lasker wouldn’t be there. He had said that he was Mrs. Albrecht’s fiancé and had told her to report any change in her condition to him, and had scolded her for not informing him of decisions about her care. “I’m not authorized to do that, sir,” she had replied. He always had a five o’clock shadow, and he smelled like liquor. “Our understanding is that Mrs. Lasker is Mrs. Albrecht’s next of kin.” He had scowled darkly and threatened to go to her superior, and she had invited him to do so. Of course, he hadn’t done it.

But something else had happened that Kirsten had reported to Mrs. Lasker right away. One evening she came in with fresh supplies of antibiotics and found him leaning over Mrs. Albrecht, holding up a pocket mirror so she could see her face. Another time Kirsten heard him saying, “Where’s the money, Veevi? Where’s the money?” He had grabbed her wrist very near the place where there was an IV line going in, and Kirsten had spoken to him sharply. Mrs. Albrecht had smiled at him, almost a baby smile, as if she didn’t understand what he was asking her. Kirsten decided she would tell Mrs. Lasker about it, and she did. “She can never be alone with him, Kirsten,” Dinah said. “What are we going to do? Should I hire a private nurse so that someone will be there whenever I’m not?” Kirsten had promised her that she would always be there when Mr. Cole came, and that she would tell Dinah if she heard him saying anything to Veevi about money again.

Day after day, Dinah tried to pull Veevi up out of the ash pit. Nothing else was real to her, and nothing else mattered. Somehow, she drove home in the evenings and put her children to bed. Somehow, she did her chores every morning—went to the grocery store, wrote checks, talked with the business manager, reported Veevi’s condition to friends, comforted Dorshka and Claire. She did everything that needed to be done. She bought a Christmas tree at Wilshire and Beverly Glen, and trimmed it with the kids.

And she wrote a cordial and heartfelt response to Michael Albrecht’s equally cordial and heartfelt letter of a week before, announcing his shock and grief at what had happened to Veevi. He also congratulated Jake on the success of his Broadway show, news of which had traveled across the Atlantic via the Paris edition of the
New York Herald-Tribune
, and asked if Jake and Dinah would pay half of Veevi’s medical bills. He would be hearing from Veevi’s lawyer, Burt Unwin, Dinah pointed out in her reply. Surely, she said, he must remember the name, since it was the very same fellow
who had accompanied Veevi to Seymour Mandlin’s office at Palomar last summer. Thanks to Veevi, he could now make the picture with Willie Weil, Dinah reminded Mike, and, under the circumstances, she and Jake frankly considered Veevi’s medical bills to be entirely his responsibility.

She bought Christmas presents for Jake and the kids, and for Gussie and Grandma Rose, Dorshka and Claire and Coco and Claire’s boyfriend, Vernon. Jake came home from New York, and that night, before they went to bed, he gave her a small box, inside of which she found a ring from Buccellati. It was made of brushed gold, with a raised mound of ivory at the center of which lay a large emerald. She loved it, put it on at once, and felt that it gave her strength when she went to the hospital.

Christmas came and went, and Jake flew back to New York. Every day, Veevi was a little more lucid. The dressing changes remained agony for her, but when she came out of the anesthesia she talked about the future. The idea of starting her own literary agency became stronger. She wanted to edit books as well. She wanted to work with writers. That would make her happy. She was going to start a new life. “In
your
skin,” she said to Dinah.

S
aul Landau showed up one afternoon at the hospital. Veevi had been relatively clear that day, expressing pleasure in the red and yellow roses Dinah had brought with her from the garden, and shock at the things Dinah reported to her about the situation in Hungary. Whenever Saul encountered Dinah at the hospital, he said as little as possible. And just as he always perched himself on the arm of the sofa at her house, and never fully sat down, he stood on the opposite side of Veevi’s bed. His eyes above his hospital mask avoided Dinah’s above her mask. He was as determined as always, she knew, to preserve the moral distinction between them: he had refused to testify; she had not.

But, she had to admit to herself as she watched him stroking Veevi’s hand, he was certainly devoted to her sister; she had to give him credit for that.

“You know, Saul, with this disaster in Hungary you might as well look my sister in the eye,” Veevi said to him, her voice thick with sedation but still barbed. “Guess you’ve got nothing on her now, you old idiot.”

“How do you know about Hungary?” he asked her.

“Spies,” she said.

Dinah looked over at him and saw his eyes darting nervously between her and Veevi. “Genevieve,” he said, “I stand by every position I’ve ever taken.”

“God, Saul. It’s not 1935 anymore! Don’t you ever think?!” She laughed, and it was her familiar, choking laugh, full of gay contempt. But she hissed with pain. And then her eyes caught Dinah’s and drew her into the lovely,
irresistible cruelty of two conspiring against one. “Why do you always have to be such a bore?” Veevi groaned at him.

“At least I never betrayed my friends,” Saul said with dignity.

“You’re such a goody-goody,” Veevi countered. “We’re bad guys, aren’t we, Sister Ina?”

“Yes,” said Dinah. “We’re bad guys. We’re f-f-f-finks and stoolies and songbirds, Saul. I don’t think you want to spend too much time around us.”

“I wouldn’t ever put your sister on the same level as you,” he said.

Inspired by her children, Dinah said, “I d-d-d-d-dislike you intensely.” Then she laughed and shook her head.

“Look,” he said, “I didn’t drive all the way down here to talk politics or to be ridiculed. Would you let me have some time alone with her?”

Dinah saw that he couldn’t quite look her in the eye.

“Sure.” She began to get up.

“No, Dinah, you stay. Go away, Saul,” said Veevi. “I’m tired of you. Go away and don’t come back. I hurt. I want a shot. Dinah, ring Kirsten, please. And stay with me. Tell me stories.” She closed her eyes, shutting out Landau and his injured adoration.

Dinah pressed the buzzer.

“I’ve got nothing to apologize to anyone for. Let me know if you need me,” he said to Veevi, as Kirsten came in carrying a tray with a long syringe and a needle.

“Oh, bless you,” Veevi said.

Landau lingered, waiting for Veevi to say something more to him. When she didn’t, he finally left.

Kirsten gave Veevi the shot in her foot, where there were areas of unburned skin, and Dinah, holding Veevi’s fingers, waited for her to relax.

“Was it Uncle J. who made you leave?”

“The Party? Mmm,” said Dinah. “You know that, dearie.”

“The real reason Stefan and I left Hollywood,” whispered Veevi, who was getting drowsy, “was that the French wanted him. PCF. French Party.” Her speech was becoming slurred now. “ ‘Future,’ ” she mumbled. “Wha’ funny word. Fu-shhhure. WherezuncleJ? WhycannahavncleJ?”

“Shh,” said Dinah. “Go to sleep. He sends his love. Shh.”

“Mirror. Wanna mirror. Face all gone. All over now.”

“Hush,” Dinah said softly. “You are beautiful. Now and always.”

Her sister drifted away from pain, and the hospital room went still.
Dinah, forgetting husband and children and house and roses, sat beside the bed of the sleeping, suffering woman and gazed out the window. Through her mask, she breathed calmly and fully. She no longer felt the need to protect herself against the smell of her sister’s burned flesh. Streaks of orange flamed in the darkening blue over the Pacific. She held her sister’s limp hand, and felt, without naming or questioning it, love.

P
eter Lasker reached over and plugged down the button of his alarm clock. It was five-forty-five on a dark February morning. He woke early on Fridays. That was because he was always picked up at six-thirty, a whole hour earlier than usual, by Joelly Rosen and his father, Dr. Rosen, for orchestra practice. It was fun. Dr. Rosen took them to a drive-in for breakfast and then dropped them off at school at seven-thirty. Joelly and Peter would each bring their issues of
Mad
, and go over the parts they loved, making jokes about Alfred E. Neuman and Smilin’ Melvin and all the other characters.

He put on jeans and a plaid flannel shirt, socks and black high-top sneakers. He opened a window and looked out at the pool. February mornings were dark and cold, but the air was fresh, without the smog that gave him a catch in his chest and made him cough when he practiced the clarinet. He waited and watched the sky, and loved it that as he stood there he could see the deep blue becoming lighter by the moment. He closed the window, carefully picked up his clarinet case and a manila envelope filled with music, and headed for the stairs. On the landing next to his parents’ room, he paused and listened. It was nice when his father was away in New York and there were no disgusting snoring sounds coming through the walls. It would be nice if his father stayed in New York indefinitely.

Halfway down the stairs, he stopped and his nostrils flared with the good smell of fresh coffee. Then he remembered something. Something was supposed to happen today. But what was it? Oh, he knew now: Mom
was going to have something done to her. She was going to go to the hospital and give skin for Veevi. He shuddered. It had been horrible, these past weeks, hearing about Veevi’s burns.

The coffee smell had to mean that someone was up, though, and he hurried down the stairs toward the breakfast room. At the doorway he stopped cold, for there, in the shadows, with the blue light fading to a grayish pink outside, he saw his mother leaning over the marble lazy Susan. She was holding her hand to her forehead, and she was perfectly still, like a statue. A cigarette in the ashtray sent up a ribbon of smoke. The telephone, black and heavy, stood on the table beside her left hand.