Legacy of Silence (11 page)

“I’ll get dressed quickly and take you there.”

Later Jake said, “I’ve got a job to do right near the dentist’s place. You can ride with me, Lore, and I’ll talk to him for you.”

The front room, where Caroline sat alone, faced west and was dark in the morning. She drank a cup of coffee and listened to a news reporter on the radio. There was nothing unusual: The French, behind the Maginot Line, were still doing nothing, and the Germans, because they were doing nothing, must surely be plotting something dreadful. Therefore, the news was still ominous.

Where were her parents? And where was Walter, the stranger in his uniform under the swastika flag? Shutting off the radio, she sat with the unread newspaper on her lap.

The doorbell startled her. “Who is it?” she called.

“It’s Joel.”

“But your lesson’s this afternoon,” she began as she opened the door. “And Lore—”

“I know. Lore’s gone to the dentist. Tessie told me.”

Did these people run an information service? If she wanted to be sarcastic, she might ask him whether he knew what kind of cereal she had just had for breakfast.

“Do sit down,” she said, for he was standing in the center of the room, holding his hat. And she thought again that he really did have manners.

When he sat down, he still held the hat, twirling it on his knees. He seemed about to say something, hesitated, and said, “I hope Lore will be all right.”

“She always has trouble with her teeth.”

He nodded knowingly, said “Ah” in sympathy, and then nothing more.

She wished he had not come. This was not the time for an English lesson, and as it seemed apparent that he had no other business, he ought to leave. The awkward silence was exasperating, and she broke it.

“It’s because of the war, the last one, I mean. They had no nourishment for their bones.”

“Ah,” he murmured again, and blinked hard.

He needs glasses, she thought.

“It was a fine thing for her when your parents took her in, a poor, twelve-year-old orphan. A very fine thing.”

“You seem to know all about us,” Caroline said, trying to conceal annoyance.

Apparently she had succeeded, or else he did not care either way, because he answered plainly, “Yes, they told Tessie, and Tessie told me.”

For a few moments she said nothing, but sat there feeling her resentment grow along with her awareness of his gaze. It went from her feet to the hand that lay on the arm of the chair, to the narrow gold chain around her neck, and stopped at her face.

“Well,” she said abruptly, “shall we begin the lesson? It’s the third chapter, past tenses.”

“I have to tell you I didn’t come for the afternoon lesson. I came this morning because I knew you were alone, and I wanted to talk to you.”

“Yes? What about?”

“I’ll get to that. First—well, you just said I seem to
know all about you, but—please excuse me—you see, I really do. I know about your trouble. Such a terrible thing. This Nazi, this animal, even to touch you … a terrible thing.”

“Who told you? Who dared?” she demanded.

“The Sandlers told Tessie. Don’t be angry. They only want to help you.”

As so often now, Caroline had the sense that this was all theater. And she did not know what answer to give, although he was evidently waiting for one.

“I was thinking,” he said, “that your child should have a name.” His brilliant flush covered his face up to the uneven fringe of his curls. “A name and a decent man’s protection. So I am willing to marry you.”

She was stunned.
Willing to marry you
. What? Doing me a favor? She could have cried with the shame of it. She could have thrown something at him or shown him the door.

But he was sitting there almost humbly, still twirling the hat, with a look of gentle concern in his blinking eyes. The man was an imbecile.

“Well,” she replied, “this is rather unusual, wouldn’t you say?” The words came snapping out of her mouth. “People usually know each other a bit longer than ten days, and there is usually some talk of love, I think. Don’t you think so, too?”

He considered the words as if they had been spoken in full sincerity. “This is not a usual situation, though,” he said earnestly. “It would be wonderful if
it were; if, for instance, I could say, ‘I am in love with you.’ If I say it now, you will say, as you just have, that people don’t fall in love so fast, and you’ll be right. Or perhaps you won’t be right. If I say that you’re so beautiful that I—but you surely know that already. So what is there left for me to tell you? Only that you have a need, and I have a need, too. I want to have somebody to belong to.” His flush had receded, but he was sweating, overcome with emotion. “It would not have to be marriage in the usual sense,” he said delicately, “only familial, a companionship. I think it would work out very well.”

The door opened, and Lore, having been given a key, came in. Her cheek was painfully swollen.

“So you’re here, Joel. Have you started the lesson?”

He stood up. “Not today. I have to leave. I hope you’ll feel better, Lore.” At the door he turned back toward Caroline, saying, “Please think it over,” and went out.

She stared after him. “Can you imagine?” she cried to Lore. “He’s asked me to marry him. He must be out of his mind. If he isn’t out of his mind, he has more gall than any man alive. Who and what does he think I am?”

“I wouldn’t take it as an insult,” Lore said.

From the window, Caroline watched him go down the street. He was not much taller than she. He lodes bulky, she thought with distaste. Then abruptly, amusement followed. It was really silly of her to be
angry because the thing was—it was ludicrous!
Someone to belong to
. And he actually thinks that I, that I—

“Is that what he wants you to think over?” asked Lore.

“Yes, of course. But what’s more important is you. Was it an abscess?”

“Two of them. He had to extract both teeth. Too far gone. I’ll have to go back again tomorrow. Then I’ll need crowns. He promised to have them ready in time for us to leave.” Lore sighed. “And I have other teeth in terrible shape. My whole mouth is wrecked. Money. Nothing but money. You see how far it doesn’t go? Already there’s a nice hole in our great wealth.” She sighed again. “I’ll go get some ice and a towel.”

“I’ll do it. Sit down.”

When she came back, Lore said anxiously, “Tell me everything he said.”

“It’s too fantastic, too stupid.”

“No, tell me.”

So she told. And at the end Lore made a comment. “It’s fantastic, all right, but I wouldn’t say it’s stupid of him.”

“What? You can’t be serious. You can’t think I would—”

“No, no, I’m not saying anything about you. I’m talking about him. He’s not a fool. His idea is not so far-fetched. These marriages of convenience are being made all the time—”

Caroline interrupted her. “Lore, I don’t believe you. Is that what you want for me? Is it?”

“You aren’t listening to me. Did I say I wanted it for you? I only said that they happen. Why, Annie was just telling me about a young woman, a doctor, who was in this country on a visitor’s visa last year when Austria was invaded. She would have been killed if she had gone home, so she married a doctor here and was able to stay.”

“That doesn’t apply to me. I’m not here on a visitor’s visa.”

“Good Lord, I know that, Caroline. I’m only talking. Forget it.”

She would have liked to forget it, and had intended to, when in the evening after Lore had gone to bed with her aching jaw, the Sandlers brought up the subject.

“I hear Joel came today,” Annie said.

“Yes, for a few minutes.”

And Caroline waited for what was bound to come next, for surely Joel had gone back and reported to Tessie. Some men were like that; Father called them “old women.”

In the evening, the Sandlers’ routine often went this way: Jake, who stood on his feet all day, might go to bed early, while Annie would have another cup of coffee and a cigarette at the kitchen table. Now, with a cup in one hand, she exhaled a thin stream of smoke and said hesitantly, “I always believe in being open. What is the use of hiding things? He likes you.
In fact, he’s in awe of you, Caroline. Let’s admit, you’re a beautiful young woman.”

“Thank you, but I don’t feel beautiful.”

“Of course. You’re worried to death, and with good reason.”

“You said you believe in being open. He made a proposal that shocked me. Marriage! You’d think, the way he put it, that it was like buying something you see in a shop.”

“And you don’t like Joel.”

“Annie, I don’t even know him.”

“Stay with us here a few more weeks and get to know him better.”

“It’s so wonderful of you to have us here as long as this. Now we have to get out on our own. Anyway, Annie, I don’t want to know him better.”

“There are plenty of girls who would be happy to give him a chance. He’s a really decent young man.”

“I believe you, but I’m not interested in men. Not at all.”

It was true. Why should she trust any man again?

“Let’s drop the subject for now,” Annie said gently. “You’re very tired, and I am, too. And it’s ten o’clock.”

Caroline was wrought up. For too long had her worries been milling around in her head, and now this pointless conversation with Annie Sandler, the generous, well-meaning, meddlesome stranger, had aggravated her beyond endurance. She lay down with another long night of troubled sleep before her.

Now, in late September, the heat still held on to the city and filled the stuffy room. Lore, not wanting to trouble her, was only pretending to sleep; she moved gingerly and was in pain. They were both waiting for morning.

This time, Caroline went along to the dentist’s office, where she listened and translated for Lore.

“The doctor will take care of this problem. The X rays, however, show that there is another problem on the other side of your jaw. For this you will need oral surgery, and he is not an oral surgeon. It is nothing to be frightened of, he says, but you must not neglect it. As soon as we move—I explained to him that we are leaving the city—you must have it taken care of.”

Once more, the bills were drawn out of the wallet and an appointment made for two days hence. Once more, in the taxicab, Lore groaned.

“Money. You see how fast it disappears?”

Yes, she saw. And the thought of going back to that dismal flat only to repeat the same theme was just too much on this bright morning. She suggested a little walk in the park instead.

“You go. I need ice on my face. I have the key and I’ll let myself in,” Lore said.

The park, not much more than a sizable playground, was not far from the apartment. It was crowded with mothers and baby carriages. Children played in the sandboxes or rode their small three-wheelers. Sitting there watching them, it seemed unreal
that in a few months—so few and so rapidly passing—a child like these would belong to her. Anger and fear beset her.

She thought again: What if she were to hate it when it came? She wasn’t ready for it, she had no place for it, no father for it that she would ever want it or anyone else to know about. Or about her disgrace.

A little boy dragging a pull toy stopped in front of her and stared. He evidently had some thoughts about her, or some curiosity. But what?

“Hello,” he said, and she answered, “Hello.” At his smile and his tiny white teeth, pity lumped in her throat. He knew nothing, nothing at all of why he was here in the sun, wearing his little blue jacket and cap. How could he know whether he had been wanted or not? Every child should be wanted.

What have I done? she thought.

Her mind went blank. The sun poured down, and she sat there on the bench in the strange city, feeling the wind as it moved through the trees and over her face.

After a while, someone asked her the time, and she had to look at her watch. It was half past two, the hour for the English lesson. She got up, hoping against hope that Joel would not have come.

But he had. They were both waiting for her, Lore holding an ice bag to her cheek, and Joel neat as always in shirt and tie.

“Lore is running a fever,” he reported. “You can
feel it with your bare hand. Now that you’re here, I’ll go to the store for some medicine.”

“We should phone the doctor,” Caroline said.

“I know what to take. We don’t need a prescription.”

“Go in and lie down, anyway.”

“I guess I will.”

Lore had never been ill. She was always the strong one, a machine that didn’t break down, so the sight of her giving in to sickness was especially alarming. Caroline stood at the foot of the bed until Joel brought the medicine and Lore swallowed it, declaring that “Joel is as good a nurse as I am.” Then they went out and closed the door so that no noise would disturb her.

Yesterday’s resentments faded now in comparison with this new trouble. “I wish we were in a place of our own,” Caroline said. “If Lore has to get up at night, I’ll feel we’re disturbing these people. They’re doing so much for us as it is. They must be tired of us. It’s so uncomfortable, being in somebody else’s house.”

“I know what you mean. I feel the same way. That’s part of the reason I roam around the city, not to be underfoot in Tessie’s house. I’ve even done baby-sitting. Besides, I can earn a few dollars that way.”

“How can you when you can’t speak to the children?”

He grinned. “Infants only.” Then, taking his hat,
he prepared to leave. “I’ll come back in the morning and see how she is. If you need anything, you can ask me. That way you won’t have to feel you’re imposing on your hosts.”

“I’ll do that,” she said, almost humbly. “And thank you, thank you so much.”

He understood her fears. They were both refugees, after all, on an equal footing, both insecure. And she stood in a kind of daze. In no consecutive order, her thoughts crisscrossed. Surgery. Equipment for the baby. You were admitted to this country on condition that you were not to become a public charge. So if you couldn’t earn enough to support yourself, you would have to ask for private charity. But that was no disgrace, no, not at all. It would kill me all the same, she thought. Rightly or wrongly, it would, and I can’t help it.