Gentleman's Agreement (32 page)

By ten-thirty, she was in bed and beginning at age one. She went slowly, as if she were prodding each phrase with an investigating finger, digging each sentence clean of all content. She came on no episode he had not already told her, no reaction she had not heard directly from him.

Yet there was something different about reading them, some intangible and heightened growth in this written version. These black words on white paper, moving on without wavering, held impact she’d not felt in the same words as he spoke them aloud to her.

Not until one o’clock did she come again to the fifth article, which she had already seen. This one was implicit with the final stretch of their own story together; the crushed feeling in her as she read these pages must come from the close personal meanings in them grinding against the impersonal.

For a long time after she’d come to the last line, she lay against her pillows. In the flat pottery ash tray beside her, a cigarette burned to the end, a two-inch mound of dirty gray ash. She looked from one to the other of the articles on the bedspread about her, five granite steppingstones to —what? Mechanical and precise, she collected the five in proper order, aligned them, and slid them into the big envelope. She turned the heavy package over; slowly she fastened the clasp.

No, there was nothing really new inside it. Only, the authority and candor of print had forced her to see each episode as he himself had seen it. For a while no rebuttal was possible. For a while she was defenseless and mute.

Minify looked out at the winter twilight and then at the electric clock on his desk. It was nearly five.

“Come on out to celebrate, Phil,” he said. “Let’s ask some of the gang. You’re nowhere near set up enough over this.”

“Sure I am.” The two men he’d just left had invited him to “have a drink on it” too, but he’d come back to the office instead. Kathy was the only one in the world he wanted to share this with; with her this moment would have had twice the meaning. Even with the people he’d come so close to here since the thing had started, any celebrating was a substitute thing.

Minify was already standing. “My party,” he said. “Tingler and Anne and Sam Goodman. Who else?”

“Jayson. That ought to do it.”

“Not McAnny, hm?” They both laughed, and John went to the corner closet for his overcoat. They started through the outer office.

“Mr. Green,” Mary Cresson said, and Phil stopped at her desk as John went on to Tingler’s office. “Did Mr. Minify remember to ask you?”

“What about?”

“That house in California—has your friend rented or sold it yet?”

“Lord, I don’t know. Why?”

“He has some business friend, Mr. Minify has, who’s being transferred there. He thought he’d wire ahead if it’s not gone already.”

“Here.” Phil scribbled Dave’s address on a scrap of her desk-paper.

“Thanks. And, Mr. Green,” she flushed—“could I congratulate you about your book?”

He winked and went off down the corridor. John and Anne were already going through the door of his own office.

Spread on his desk were three large tissue layouts of picture spreads. Leaning over them, pencil in hand, was Bert McAnny.

“Smith’s
has another book coming,” Minify said. “Phil’s just signed for September publication.” McAnny stood up. His light skin flushed. Tingler and Sam Goodman walked in, and the small office seemed suddenly stuffed to the walls.

“Great,” Bert said, “simply great.” He thumped Phil on the shoulder and let his hand rest there. Phil moved an inch, and the hand dropped. Jayson came in, his small mouth prissy as ever, but his eyes delighted.

“Take your layouts along, Bert,” Tingler said. He and Sam knew about Phil’s “stunt” by now, but neither of them had guessed the antagonism between him and Bert McAnny.

“I’ll just leave them here till morning,” Bert said. He put Phil’s desk calendar on them and started for the door. “Meet you at the elevator in a jiffy.”

“No.”

It was Phil, and they all turned to him. He had tilted his head downward so that his chin was nearly touching his tie. Looking at him, Anne thought of a butting animal. Phil was staring at McAnny. “We’re not drinking together, Bert,” he said. “And Christ, you can’t say I’m being touchy and sensitive now.”

Nobody spoke. Then Bert pulled the three tissues toward him. He began to roll them up. John and Anne, Jayson and Phil, watched him. Tingler and Sam looked from one face to another, seeking, finding nothing. The only motion in the room was in Bert’s hands rolling the tissues; the only sound, the thin crackle of the transparent sheets. Now all six watched him. He was nearly done. Now the only thing visible on the layouts was the blackly penciled-in title: “I Was Jewish for Eight Weeks.”

The thin roll was in his hand. Bert looked about, his lips parted for speech, his face deeply red under the fair hair. Then he left them.

Through the drinks and the easy talking, one recurring notion sent bursts of feeling secretly through Phil. It had never been a Jewish problem, for the Jews alone could never solve it. It was a nonsectarian problem. And because of the simple thing of majority, it was mostly a Christian problem. He’d always known that. But now he was a different sort of Christian. Now he was one of the Christians able and ready to act. On whatever front the thing showed itself.

It was a big difference. The difference.

“For heaven’s sake, John,” Anne was objecting. “You don’t have to dish it to my department just because the DAR’s in Washington are women.” John was not disturbed. She looked about for support. As she came to Phil, her tone became mischievous. “Give it to Phil for his next assignment.”

“I was a woman for eight weeks?” Phil asked, and they all shouted.

Because it was a holiday, Phil was at home all day. At ten tonight Dave and his family were due, and he was going to LaGuardia to meet them.
Smith’s
advertising manager had wangled two rooms at the Roosevelt for them. Dave hadn’t asked him to arrange it, but till their furniture arrived, they could scarcely eat and sleep on the floor, Village informality or no.

In the afternoon he’d taken Tom to a double feature, and now they were doing the dishes together. Of all the chores in the house, this was the one Phil most detested. He glanced into the living room, and his rebellion died. Under the tall lamp, his mother was reading the newspaper. Perhaps it was only the direct harsh light, but she was wan and her mouth faintly pulled aside again. The slight distortion gave her a wistful look, as though she might cry. She was in no danger, but she was so old. “September, Phil?” she’d said quickly when he’d told her last week about the book being accepted.

“The summer’s no good, they said, and it still takes ages to manufacture.”

Anxiously she’d added, “There’ll be actual books long before September, though, won’t there?”

All he answered was, “Oh, sure, probably late June. They send them out way ahead to book dealers and reviewers.”

When Tom had heard the news, he’d been unimpressed. But now, with his agonizing efficiency, he wiped another dish and looked up at Phil.

“When the book comes, Dad, will the game stop?”

“I’ve stopped it already. About three weeks ago.” He’d never thought to tell Tom.

“Why did you? You get tired of it?”

“No, it just ended.”

“Are you ever going to play it again?”

“Not really.” Detailed explanation was beyond him. “Maybe in a different sort of way, though.”

“If you just skip a game for a while,” Tom said as if to comfort him, “and then play it again, it’s just as good as if it was brand-new.”

“I guess that’s right with ordinary games.”

“But not with this one?”

“No. If everybody knows it’s a game, you can’t go on with it because then they know you’re just imagining it and they stop playing.”

Tom looked sympathetic.

“Matter, of fact,” Phil added, “if you want to know, sometimes I sort of miss this special game. It was awfully interesting.”

“What’s this game called, Dad?”

Phil searched his mind. This was a matter of childhood protocol, too. Everything had to have a name, a label.

“ ‘Identification,’ I guess,” Phil said. Tom nodded.

“Gee, Dad, there’s an interesting game we’re starting in the gym. Foot soccer. You have two teams of—”

As he’d long since learned to do, Phil followed only the key words of the detailed exposition which followed, limiting himself to appropriate remarks at decent intervals.

In a tenuous way he did “miss” it. During the eight weeks, he had faced up to, headed into, a new, unexplored set of emotions. Any life he’d ever heard of, his own included, was burdened with emotions—love, loss, jobs, jealousy, money, death, pain. But if you were Jewish, always there was this extra one, the added pull at your endurance, the one more thing. There was that line in Thoreau about “quiet desperation”—that was indeed true of most men. But for some men and women, for some fathers and mothers and children, the world still contrived that one extra test, endless and unrelenting.

“Fair play,” he said half aloud. Tom took it as a comment on whatever point he’d just made about foot soccer. Perhaps, Phil thought, it was an unconscious reply at that.

“The British say ‘cricket’ instead,” Tom informed him, proud of his worldliness.

“Yeah. Say, look, let’s get through with this. I ought to get going for the airport.”

Watching the airliner circle the field for its landing, Phil wrenched his mind back to the present. He’d arrived much too early, and the waiting time—as all inactive time still did—had turned it back to Kathy, given one more tug to the tight knot still bulked in his chest. Minutely he concentrated on the plane’s bumping progress along the runway, saw it check to the brakes, watched the movable stairs shoved up to its wide door. The passengers began to drift out, singly and in pairs, with the vague, uncertain look of people returning from remoteness to reality. Dave appeared, stooping for the door frame. From the top step he saw Phil, straightened, and saluted sharply. Dave was in civilian clothes again and he was alone.

“Where’s the gang?” Phil asked.

“They’re on the train, didn’t I wire you?”

“No, you jack.” He himself might have known they’d have to, with all the trunks and things. “You’ve got two rooms at a hotel all for yourself.”

“Take one over and get a rest cure—you look rotten.”

“I’m all right,” Phil said shortly. On the drive to town they caught up with each other’s news. Except about himself and Kathy. About that, Dave asked nothing; Phil told nothing. When Dave had checked in, Phil suggested the bar, but instead they went up to the rooms.

“Phew, I’m bushed,” Dave said. “Twelve hours from coast to coast is a miracle, but it’s still twelve hours in a row on your can. Let’s call for something and stay here.”

“How’s Anne?” Dave said when he’d phoned downstairs.

“Same as ever.”

“She’s one swell girl, all right.”

“Sure is.” They gazed at each other with blank, laconic eyes. Phil said, “We had dinner one night and the movies. I’ve had to stay pretty close to the house.”

“She know I was due tonight?”

Phil thought back. “I don’t think I said anything about the date—just the nine grateful Martinis.”

Dave laughed. “I promoted it to twelve in the letter I wrote her next day.” He took off his coat and tie. There was a knock, and a waiter brought in their drinks. After he left, Dave stretched out on one of the twin beds. “As long as you didn’t,” he said carelessly, “I think I’ll use the next couple nights to get some sleep. It’s just been a dizzy round of visiting and receiving out there.” Phil nodded. “Then when the gang gets here,” Dave added, “Carol and you and Anne and I can all get to work on them together.”

“Does Carol know what a railroad flat’s like?”

“Sure.”

“Will she mind?”

Dave sat up. He took a large swallow of his drink and put the glass on the bedside table. “The railroad flat?”

“Horatio Street, New York 14. Your palatial new dwelling.”

Dave picked up his glass once more. He looked at Phil; between his teeth he whistled, “the caissons go rolling along.” Phil looked down at his own tie and vest.

“Spot of gravy or something?” he asked. “Why the going over?”

For another minute Dave said nothing. “Kathy—” he said, and his voice was careful. “Didn’t she get it from you?”

“What from me?”

“My address out home?”

“Your—why, no.” The equivocal look of Dave was getting under his skin. Dave was feeling his way along; there was something he knew which Phil didn’t know.

“Minify needed it for some friend—” Phil said, and then saw it. “You mean that was a dodge. Kathy’d asked him not to say she—” Of course. “What about, Dave? Or is it on the QT?”

Dave shook his head slowly. “No reason it should be. She needed it to phone me long distance. Just a couple nights ago.”

Phil waited.

“She wants to sublease us her house in the country for as long as we want it,” Dave said. “She talked to me straight about the whole setup there, so we’d know what we’d be heading into.”

Phil got up from his chair. He began to walk up and down the small room. Dave watched him.

“She hadn’t even heard about the railroad flat,” Dave went on, “but when I told her, she said we could unload it overnight if we wanted. Even use it for our furniture, so’s not to need storage, and rent it furnished. She’d thought the whole thing through all right.”

“Yes. She must have.”

“Matter of fact, it wasn’t any flash call, anyway. She’d gone around to all the neighbors and told them. That took time. She didn’t say much about that part, but I kind of pieced it together afterward. Looks like some were O.K. and others gave her the old one-two.”

“I bet.”

“She’s going to live up there all summer, at her sister’s. If they dish anything out, she’ll be right there to take it.”

They fell silent. She was through with him, Phil was thinking, but she’d done this. She’d gone to them all, one by one, neighbors and acquaintances and friends for years, and repudiated the unwritten contract.

Dave was saying something. “Hold it a minute, Dave.” He had to sort this out a bit, see it, listen to it beat. It was only a beginning—people weren’t ever all of a piece overnight. But it was proof that she was beginning to change over from disapproval to action. Like everybody else in the slow process of change, she’d probably back and fill, see it clear and then lose it. He had gone in to John that day, ready to abandon the whole idea for the series—and that had been only an idea for some articles, while this thing of Kathy’s was an idea for a life.