The Girl With the Glass Heart: A Novel (35 page)

“Well, I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. Lightheaded, I’m not giving any concert tonight with this stuff going on.”

“The hell you’re not! Everybody’s been invited and besides, boy, I’ll feel that all this, everything that’s happened, was worth while, if you get started again; if you’ve really come to life the way you seem to have.”

Jay lighted a cigarette from the stub of his last one and smiled. “I sure have, Alec. I’m so in love I can’t see straight.”

“Glad to hear it. Then you’re playing tonight.”

“To tell you the truth I was most angry with you last night, because I felt you were lousing up my new start. That’s the kind of selfish bastard I am.”

“Glad to hear that too. Don’t you remember us in New York years ago? The Rover Boys of the arts. Nothing was going to stand in the way of our work. Sometimes I think that kid’s attitude was better than all the so-called maturity we developed later.”

“You mean when we discovered love and family life and all that crap?” Jay laughed.

“Yes. At least when it was we geniuses against the world we thought we knew where we were going. We burned with a hard gemlike flame.”

“All right, I’ll burn tonight. I’m glad I talked to you. I was worried. I don’t think I want a religious maniac for a brother-in-law.”

Alec sobered for a moment. “Is that how it is, Jay? With you and Elly?”

“You knew that?”

“I guess I did.
Mazeltov
.”

“Thanks. Now how about a bite of breakfast?”

“Get out of here, you spy! I have to finish dressing. Go downstairs and practice your Schumann. Oh, you can’t yet. Yom Kippur.”

“I’ve got news for you. Because of you Yom Kippur has been temporarily suspended in this house. Rose told me I could practice all day. Nobody’s going to Shule today and Rose is making breakfast for everyone.”

“Herself too?”

Jay nodded.

“Max will thank me someday.”

“Not today. He’s on the phone talking to Carl Warschauer now. I think you can expect a visit.” Alec nodded grimly,

Carl found Alec tinkering with his car an hour later, Justin having been called away to help with the preparations for the party. Seen from the bottom of the hill or some like distance, they would have seemed like two thin line drawings, these two tall men, one of them sure and certain, the other following a purpose not as surely. The unsure one was Carl, who saw, with his characteristic subtlety, his own hand in all the steps leading to this mission Max Kaufman had imposed on him, and which he probably would have imposed on himself in time had he not been called.

“Full of energy you seem to be,” Carl said as he entered the garage.

Alec straightened up and said, “Hello! I’ve been expecting you. I’ll have energy for quite a while yet.”

“Mr. Kaufman, what are you trying to do?”

“Fix my car. I think it’s the feed pipe, but I’m not sure.”

“You know what I mean, and it’s
your
feed pipe, not your car’s, I’m talking about. You’ve got your family good and worried.”

“Look, Dr. Warschauer, I appreciate your solicitude but none of this is really in your department. I have no religious problems.”

“Even if you had, the penalty for dropping the Torah for the most orthodox Jew would consist of one day’s fasting. And we do that on Yom Kippur anyway. But this crazy idea your brother told me about. Forty days! I think you’ve got it mixed up with the Flood somehow.”

“Perhaps,” Alec said. “But that’s what I’m going to try.”

“But why?” It was almost a call for help from Carl to Alec.

“Because I choose to,” Alec said. “You know free will. You’ve heard of it. Well, I haven’t
chosen
to do much lately, but this is what I choose to do. Or try to anyway. Now please go away.”

Could he know anything? Carl wondered. Could Elly have told him anything about it? He seems angry.

“I’m sorry,” Carl said. “Your brother asked me—”

“Thanks anyway. You tried,” Alec said.

As Carl left the garage an old Ford drove up and came to a stop outside of the house near the big apple tree. He nodded to the two men who disembarked carrying a tripod and large black boxes.

“Hey, Mac,” the young, balding one called out to Carl, “this the Kaufman house?”

Carl nodded.

“Thanks,” the man said, and helped his partner with the unloading.

Max was waiting anxiously in his den for Carl. Before he could ask what had happened Carl shrugged.

“It’s no use,” he said. “He wouldn’t listen to me. It’s some crazy idea of his own. I think it has very little to do with what happened in synagogue last night.”

Suddenly Max looked very little and tired. “Thanks, Carl, thanks. What can you do? We’ll see. He’s not crazy. He’ll give in.”

“I hope so, Max.
Gut YomTov
.”

“
Gut YomTov
, Carl.”

There was a knock on the door and Justin entered. “There are two men here, Mr. Kaufman. They want to see you.”

“All right, Justin. Bring them in.”

Max took Carl to the door and said good-by while the two men, having left their equipment outside, came in.

“I’m Soames, Mr. Kaufman, and this is Mr. Green. Did Mr. Lang tell you about us? We’re here about the article in
The American Architect.
I’m a photographer and Green here is a writer.”

“No, I’m afraid no one tells me anything. Only the other day we had a young lady stay here and we hadn’t been told a word about her coming. But—”

“Oh, we’re not staying. Just today. We’ll get our pictures and story and clear out of here by tonight.”

“Well, you’re certainly welcome to take all the pictures you like. We’re proud of our house. Why don’t you take all your stuff into the kitchen? Mr. Lang is coming tonight. I invited him to the concert and party tonight. Is he supposed to meet you here?”

“No. We didn’t know about him coming at all,” Green put in. “That’s fine though, that’s just fine.”

Justin showed the men into the kitchen. Max went into the living room to tell Rose about them and how odd it was that everything happened at once. She was not there. Jay was alone practicing scales and arpeggios, playing lightly and cleanly. Max went off in search of Rose.

Alec was putting away his tools when Elly came into the garage, like a criminal, carrying a tray covered with a large white napkin.

“Well, baby,” he said, smiling, “what’s this?”

She whisked off the napkin. “Presto!” she said. “Let’s have an end to all this business.”

His smile vanished. “Cut it out, baby,” he said.

She wilted. “I just thought I’d try. I didn’t think you would eat.”

“I’m just trying to get into
Life
magazine.” He laughed. “You know—actor starves himself
purposefully
. It’s like man bites dog.”

“It’s more like a nightmare. God, it’s cold out here! We’re all going to be in a magazine. A photographer is here.”

“Is that who those guys were? Fine, fine! Be good for Max’s business…. Is Jay practicing hard?”

“Yes. It’s amazing the way he can concentrate with all this going on.”

“It wouldn’t amaze you if you’d known him years ago. That guy was the most single-minded musician you could imagine. Nothing was going to stop him. Until his wife did. Meeting you was a real shot in the arm for him.”

Elly perched on the fender of the car and crossed her legs in a flurry of skirts. “That’s me,” she said, “old Adrenalin Elizabeth…. I could kill him sometimes,” she said with sudden fury.

“Why?”

“For stealing me. Away from myself. You remember what I told you the other night—how it frightened me?”

“Maybe that’s being in love.”

“And maybe it’s not for me. No, I don’t mean that. When he held me and we—”

“I think we ought to go inside, baby. There are things even a loving uncle isn’t supposed to hear. Elly—” he paused—“do you suppose you’re over stuff like—well, like that guy in New York? The stealing and all.”

“I’m not a thief, Alec. It was just a crazy impulse.”

“Did you ever tell Jay?”

“No, I didn’t. Should I?”

Alec dropped it immediately. “No, no. Not necessarily. With a guy like Jay you’ll never do anything like that again.”

They walked out together, leaving the untouched food tray like a common enemy, forgotten on the hood of the car. A wind had come up and was blowing powerfully from behind the hill toward the garden, agitating the leaves and detaching some of the more withered ones from their vestigial clutch and floating them to the ground. It was not a clear wind, but was sour and tart with the smell of burning leaves. Elly was aware of the fact that she was out of contact, or that Alec was out of contact with her. Could he be jealous of Jay? she wondered. He’s never known me to love anyone like this. Or has Carl told him about what we did? One was never safe. Only if everyone else in the world was dead but one’s lover and oneself: all of them—mother, father, Professor Lanner, Lang, all the leaders of nations, the chance acquaintances. The only safe human being is a dead human being.

“Alec.” She turned to him suddenly. “How about that job in the movie that you were so excited about? How about that?”

“I’m improvising, honey. If this is all cleared up by then, okay. If not, I’ll let it go by the board. This is hardly the time to get my bowels in an uproar over a job, no matter how good. You see, I’ve got security with this goddamned glass house behind me. I haven’t got Annette but I’ve got security. That was the choice.”

He knows, she thought. Or even if he doesn’t he’s treating me like an enemy. She felt tremulous and unreal, remembering the afternoons in the pine forest. When had those days been? She was a little dizzy, but she could not let Alec see that she was. She was afraid to enter the house but saw with relief that the draperies were drawn and she could not be faced with the possibility of a glass grown suddenly opaque.

Jay was still practicing. Elly couldn’t bear the sound any more and ran toward him, a shout in her throat, which emerged as a softer cry, a cry whose intensity lay not in its volume but its tense brittle quality, so odd for Elly that it brought Jay swinging around as she called: “Enough, for God’s sake, enough! Take a rest.”

He saw her and, not perceiving her hysteria, turned back, saving: “As soon as I finish this passage.”

Elly shouted, “Stop already!”

The silence was instantaneous and furious.

“I’m sorry,” Jay said.

“Well, I’m not!” Elly screamed and ran from the room. She ran back to her room and into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. She could hear the sound of the air-conditioner painfully clear and wondered how it was that it had never disturbed her before with its steady
h-m-m-m
. She sat on the closed seat. The room was well heated and the feel of the cool tile against her face was pleasant. She was still dizzy, and when she closed her eyes it was as if she was leaving a safe mooring, visual reality, and embarking on this red-yellow-blue-black sea of imbalance. Why did Uncle Alec have to die? Why couldn’t he eat? Was it because of Jay and the feel of her tongue between Jay’s teeth waiting for the final spasm for him to bite her tongue? Was the final spasm of death like that? She was breathing heavily. How was it with all the contact she had been making lately—with Jay, before with Alec—that she was still alone in the bathroom, leading the same private, secret life that no one could ever know about, like the feel of cold tile on your cheek when you’d been crying, and the glass clouding up on you and frightening you? Wasn’t it what they called love that was supposed to change all that? She rubbed her thumb gently against her cheek, feeling the little lump to make sure it was still there. It was like a friend who could be relied on. “You’re there, aren’t you?” she whispered. “I can always count on you. You’re always yourself and I don’t even know what you are—but you’re safe. When I love you I have more of myself, not less. Even if they want me to take you to a doctor I won’t go.” She was shivering, feeling the cool of the tiles and the heated air of the bathroom.

She wouldn’t let Jay touch her again, she knew that. Alec would be pleased. She couldn’t bear to have Alec distant to her as he was. She rubbed her thumb along her thigh and jumped up quickly from the seat. No more of that, ever. “Ever,” she said aloud. The sounding of her voice was reassuring.

Downstairs it was as if she had left a theater and gone backstage. There was turmoil everywhere. Max and Rose were supervising the unloading of food and cases of beverages for the party. Justin was stacking them along the wall. The photographer was taking snapshots of areas which were small but had caught his interest, like the indoor tree just outside of the living room and the Swedish chandelier whose height could be adjusted. Elly wandered into the living room, aware that she had a mission to perform which was still undefined in her mind.

Alec was asking Mr. Green to stay to lunch. “Thanks a lot,” Green replied. “The way it looks, we stay all day and perhaps for the party. Soames likes the idea of some shots of the pianist who’s going to play tonight.”

Alec introduced Jay to Green. “I’ve never had my picture in an architect’s magazine before.” Jay smiled.

Green shrugged. “I’m told it has a large circulation. I wouldn’t know. We’re free lance.”

Elly stood in the doorway a moment and waited for Jay to catch sight of her. As soon as he did she vanished. Jay thought of following her but in a moment thought better of it.

“Dad,” Elly said, “I want to talk to you.”

Max was busy directing Justin in his storage activities. “So talk,” he said.

“Not here. There’s too much commotion. Let’s go to your study.”

“It’s a den, darling, a den. All right.”

As they passed Soames he looked up; he watched Elly until the door closed behind her. She had noticed him staring and had slowed her walk deliberately. Then she had quickened her pace, feeling a little ashamed of herself. It was not lust, however, that Soames had felt on seeing her, but a sort of awe. Do they still make them like that? he thought. I ought to wash my hands with that kid in the house. That hair and those eyes. She’d make Joan of Arc look like a whore.