Last Train to Paris (18 page)

“She took care of me when Mrs. Cheng was indisposed.”

“Yes, that's right, and she used to substitute for me at school when I had a long trial to illustrate in Reno. Then came Father Maloney at the end of the row. It seemed fitting to me. On the day your father was buried, all the field grasses were a shimmering whitish-gold, punctuated here and there with those lovely yellow flowers of sage. Do you remember, Rose? Or was it too long ago?”

“I remember, Ma, but they always made me sneeze.”

“Well,” she replied, “perhaps it was better that you weren't there. Walking to the grave, brushing up against the sage, released a wonderful aroma in the air. You would have been sneezing throughout the service, bothering everyone.”

“Boy, you don't change, do you?” I said. She went on.

“Anyway, I didn't want to cable you the news. I needed to tell you in person. And I've always wanted to return to Europe. So, I stopped to see my family in New York and just kept going.”

“Jeez, Ma, you came all this way just to tell me? And why didn't Aunt Clara tell me in her last letter?”

“I asked her not to say anything. I needed to tell you in person.”

There was a long silence. “Sorry to be so blunt,” I said, “but since when have I become so important? You've never even found time to write me, not even on my birthday.” Surprisingly, I choked up, and abruptly got up and yet again went to the toilet. It was only after reminding myself about how angry I was at her that I could face her again. Nothing's new, I thought. How depressing. We're both still the same.

 

I remember. That was an appalling moment for me. I realized that I wished she had come to tell me that she loved me. To say she was sorry for the violence she had hurled at me. To ask me to forgive her. Even today, I'm surprised at how much I still long for her love.

 

“I don't understand,” I said when I returned. “How did you get into Germany? And why come here when you could be arrested? Haven't you been reading the newspaper? Don't you know that Hitler has a racial purity program—which means you're scum?”

“Well, if that's so,” she shot back, “what are you doing here?”

“I'm a journalist. I can get away with it.”

“You mean, hiding behind ‘Manon.' Well, so can I!”

Oh, God, I thought, the same hair-trigger temper, the same bully. My mother was a professional at making me feel insignificant. The only difference I could discern now was that she wouldn't dare to hit or push me around. But as I was getting older, I had sadly learned how much like my mother I was. One of the reasons Leon had a hard time with me was my own temper. Leon needed comfort. I needed to have my way. Now, here with my mother, I needed comfort. But she needed to have her way.

“I sailed to France, having only your address,” she continued. “When I arrived I took a room at a hotel that Clara recommended. I don't know what to say, Rose, I'm just wandering, waiting for a flash of lightning to give me an idea for a future. Now that Paul's gone I can't imagine staying in Simon's Creek. I don't need to stay in America. I don't care about nationalism—I think it's narrow thinking, dumb. I've always been an outsider, and I feel more like one now than ever before.”

I was in an emotional eddy, feeling profound guilt for not seeing my father for so long. Now I wouldn't have the chance to say a final farewell. My mother seemed to need me, but the idea of having her around was deeply disturbing. I had assumed that I had severed my ties to both my family and my country. Becoming so involved in my work and my new life had left me rarely homesick. Most every day, I was shifting languages, from English to French to German, even to Mandarin; I assumed I had become a woman of a world larger than Simon's Creek, Nevada. Like my mother, I wasn't chained to any country; now I was hearing my mother say some of the same things, and this confused me.

 

She was looking around my room. “How nice you keep your room, Rose. Certainly different from when you lived at home—I'm impressed! You must have a boyfriend.”

I would not say a word. Leon was none of my mother's business.

“But I don't understand how you got here,” I said.

‘It wasn't so difficult,' she replied haughtily. ‘Clara wrote a letter to the American consul, Clancy, who instructed an attaché to issue me a visa.'

Now, I thought, here she is, sitting with her grown daughter in a tiny, cramped, dreary room in Berlin. There was silence.

She broke the stillness. ‘I can't believe what I've just seen. I took a tram down Kurfürstendamm. It was horrible. All those beautiful buildings are painted with terrifying graffiti. Ugly cartoons of men, hanging, maimed, tortured, beheaded–dripping in red paint, looking like blood. I couldn't figure out what it was all about and I couldn't ask anyone. The tram I was riding in was silent. People were looking out the windows with no change in their expressions. I got the feeling that they were blind.'

“Ma, what's the matter with you? It's anti-Semitic graffiti—Stars of David—men with enormous noses. Don't you get it? The Germans hate us. Want us dead and gone. So now do you know how it feels to be Jewish?” I said. I could feel her anger rising. I couldn't resist adding, “You do know that your family considers you an anti-Semite?”

“How dare you!” she said. “What a terrible thing to say.” She stood up as if to leave and stared at me with a hard look. “You're just as cold—haven't changed a bit—always trying to kill my feelings, just like—”

“Oh, for Christ's sake,” I said as my anger won the battle. “You can posture all you want. You can march out of here—I really don't care. Your refusing to admit you're a Jew makes me ashamed of you. And I can say this with impunity, because I've also been ashamed of being Jewish—and I learned it from you! And now isn't it ironic, that you're in the best place in the world to find people who agree with you. You'll fit right in.”

She sat back down. “My anti-Semitism, as you call it, isn't any of your goddamned business. So try to take a little pity on me. After all, I am your mother.”

I began to put on my coat. “Forget it, Ma,” I said. “Right now our argument's not important. What's important is that you've got to get away from here. You're taking unnecessary risks. Which hotel are you in?”

“I don't have a reservation,” she said. “I thought I could stay with you.” She looked around. “Where's the bedroom, through that door?”

“No, that's the closet. I sleep on the couch. Come on, I'll take you to the Hotel Aldon. It's where a lot of journalists stay. You'll be safe there. We'll figure all this out over dinner. How does that sound to you?”

She gave a terse nod.

 

We couldn't find a cab, so we walked. I carried her suitcase and she followed. It began to rain just as we entered the hotel. Knowing that the Aldon's restaurant and bar were favorite places for reporters to meet, I didn't want to eat there. The idea of introducing my mother to my colleagues was intolerable.

Next door to the hotel was a beer hall that catered to the clerical workers at the embassies in the area. I often went there when I wanted to be alone. Now it was pouring rain as we carefully made our way down five steps into the cold and dingy space. The only sources of heat were a wood-burning stove, glasses of alcohol, layers of warm clothes, and human beings jammed together. Over the bar protruded a motley stuffed black bear, fangs bared—with a Nazi flag hanging from one of its eyeteeth. Written on the chalkboard menu was
Bratwurst und Kartoffel
—that was all.

“Do you know what the sign says, Ma?”

“Of course. Sausage and potatoes.”

“I didn't know you could read German.”

She ignored me.

The waiter, clad in a large, much-used white apron, came over. “Evening, R.B. Who's your friend?”

I disregarded his question. “We'll have two of those,” I said, pointing to the chalkboard, “and two beers—and please, George, don't forget the mustard. “You can only eat this food with large dollops of mustard,” I said, turning to my mother. “I have no idea what's in the bratwurst, and it's best not to ask.”

We talked. My mother was truly unmoored. She had no idea what she was doing. Yet, like a homing pigeon, she had taken herself across the sea—had put herself in harm's way—all with a tenaciousness that impressed but didn't surprise me.

‘A feather. That's what I feel like,' she said. ‘The only problem's that I'm not connected to a body. I feel that I've been plucked and thrown to the wind. I know what I don't want to do, but I don't know what I
do
want to do. I've enough money between our pensions, our savings, and the insurance settlement from the divorcée. I'm fine. Don't worry, I won't be a burden. But if I do stay in France, or–'

“Ma, you can't stay in Europe! There's going to be a war. Why would you want to do this? If France is invaded, and it looks as if it will be, you'll be identified as a Jew. You're crazy to be swimming against the tide—”

“I don't know. I thought that there was a lot of war-whooping, but that everything had quieted down.”

“Not at all,” I said, “not at all. Don't you read the papers? There are rumblings through the underground of a major move by Hitler in the next couple of days. Germany is infested with
agents provocateurs
. They're looking for people like you. Naïve–not used to the ways of the Reich. If they snag you in a roundup, they could push you across the frontier, send you to a camp, hold you for ransom. None of these actions is uncommon here. You must get out–now. Within days, you might not be able to leave legally. You watch. After next summer's harvest, this entire continent will explode.'

“But what about you, Rose? What are you going to do?”

“Listen, Ma, I'm taking it one day at a time. I'm a reporter. It's my job to write about trouble.”

“Aren't you afraid?” she asked. “I would be.”

“No, you wouldn't,” I said, smiling. “You'd be just as interested as I am if you lived in the midst of this craziness. Listen—I think Hitler's planning to swallow France. He's been building nests of traitors throughout the country, using the Paris Exposition as a front. You saw it, I'm sure. The German Pavilion's grim, menacing bronze eagle perching on the plinth, trying to overwhelm that meaty, stalwart Russian bronze couple marching toward glory. And—”

“You sound just like your father, Rose. I always knew you got your love of words from him. But I didn't understand, until now, that the way you put them together is like his too.”

“Thanks, that's a compliment, Ma. It's so hard for me to imagine him gone. Now I understand why I didn't get a letter these last two months. I had just assumed it was the postal system.”

 

I felt awful. My father gone. Even with his bouts of drinking, he was the parent I loved. I looked up from my beer and saw that it was still raining outside. God, Berlin's gloomy in the winter, I thought. Perhaps I should ask to be sent to southern Spain. There, at least, I could cover Franco's despicable war in a warmer climate.

“What are you going to do?” my mother asked.

“Stay here and cover this insanity,” I said.

“Why don't they assign you somewhere safer?”

“Because I know the politics here. It's amusing that I've become invaluable in a country that's trying to get rid of every one of my kind.”

Why, I thought, do I have to prove anything to my mother? I felt like a kid again.

“Don't worry,” she said, as if she were reading my mind. “I won't be staying with you. As your friend Freud says, it wouldn't be healthy.”

“How did you know I've been reading Freud?” I asked. “Oh, yeah, Papa read you my letters.” And I smiled at the image of my father sitting at the kitchen table reading aloud my news-filled, often boastful letters.

The food arrived. It looked gruesome but we were both so hungry that it didn't matter. We watched the rain and were silent as we ate and drank.

“How's Mrs. Cheng?” I asked, trying to be polite.

“She's dead,” my mother said bluntly. “Too much opium, over too long a time.”

This news made my eyes well up with tears. “Oh, I'm so sorry to hear this—she was such an important part of my life.”

“Maybe she was,” my mother said, “but it was a long time ago. I can't imagine why you have tears for her.”

“You don't sound like you care, Ma.”

“Once a life is over, it's over. It doesn't help anyone to mourn. It causes too much unhappiness. Look at this,” she said, and she gestured to the room. “People are just eating or staring. No one's speaking to each other. We're all sitting in a bucket of gloom. How do you stand this city? There's no light. No light in the sky. Nothing but grim blue lights in the houses. Everything's so dark.”

I had to smile. “Well, remember, you come from Nevada and its big blue sky. You're spoiled. Even now in Paris, the city of light, it's been dark since three in the afternoon. For half the year, Europe's dark; it's the newest metaphor for the mood of the people. Ma, I want to ask you about Aunt Clara.”

“Oh, okay,” she replied as if being imposed upon. “Since Stella's death, she's closeted herself away from the family.”

“Why?” I asked. “It wasn't her fault.”

“Well, she thinks it is. And she's changed. Leah told me that she no longer attends Friday night dinners. Children have stopped coming to her shop to help with sorting the buttons—she thinks they're terrified of her face. She's become an old woman. Her hair's a startling white. Clara's vitality,” my mother said, “seeped out of her as she waited in that hotel room for Stella. ‘Why didn't I see that he was evil?' she said to me. ‘Why wasn't I suspicious of a dapper man hanging around a hotel lobby? I knew better. After all, I wasn't born yesterday.' But I also know,” my mother said, “that although she's a spinster, Clara's a genuine, honest-to-goodness romantic. She admitted that she thought Bobby Hunter was charming, and could see that Stella was attracted to him. But she also admitted to me, horrified, that she was attracted to him too. She said, ‘Miriam, I know it's ridiculous, but I made up a fanciful story in my head about running away with him. I think this is why I didn't step in and follow my protective instincts. And this is what makes my guilt so hard to tolerate.'”