Evergreen (45 page)

Anna spoke for the first time as they climbed the stairs. “It’s like something in a book. Feel the banister,” she said.

The dark old wood was worn as sleek as silk; they’d had the best materials in those days. But all these angles, nooks and crannies!

“Look here!” Anna cried. “This round room in the turret! This could be the most wonderful office for you, Joseph. You could spread your maps and—come, look at the view!”

On the lawn below, the hyacinths—or so Anna said they were—had come into bloom, rising out of a bed of last year’s wet leaves. “A south terrace! It would catch the sun way into the winter, Joseph. You could wrap up in a steamer rug, the way we did on the ship, remember, and read—”

He noted that the cement was crumbling and the bricks were rotted away.

“…     up there on the hillside, those are apple trees. When they bloom it will be all white. Imagine opening your eyes and seeing that, the very first thing in the morning!”

He followed her downstairs. The agent and Iris, who had come along this day, followed him. The kitchen was in sorry shape. There was an old black monster of a stove. The icebox was in the entry, an enormous brown, scarred relic. The cabinets were so high that a woman would need a ladder to reach them. But the cabinets would all have to be ripped out, anyway. Hell, the whole kitchen would have to be ripped out.

“See,” Anna cried. “They’ve a separate room with its own sink: I do believe it’s meant for a place to arrange flowers! Yes, it is! Here are some old vases left on the shelf. Imagine having a separate room for flowers!”

She was talking like a not-too-bright child instead of a woman fifty years old. He’d never seen her like this before.

“Any house can have a separate sink for flowers, Anna,” he said irritably.

“Any house can, but none of them do,” she answered.

“It’s got a thousand things wrong with it,” he burst out. Ordinarily he would have had more tact in front of the agent; he’d been harassed often enough himself in this business
to know how it felt. And, wanting some support, some confirmation, he turned to Iris. “What do you think?” Certainly Iris would be more practical, more cool in judgment than her mother was.

“You know,” Iris said, “it does have a lot of charm, in spite of its faults.”

“Charm, charm. What kind of talk is that? You’re not talking about a woman!”

“All right, if you want another word, it has
character.”

“Character! Oh, for God’s sake! Now can you possibly tell me what you mean by that?”

Iris had been patient. “It’s original. As if the people who built it had done a good deal of thinking about what they wanted, so that it pleased
them
. It had meaning for
them
. It wasn’t just a house stamped out by the hundreds to sell in a particular price range but to please nobody in particular.”

“Hmpp,” Joseph said. He had never been able to win an argument with his daughter. Never wanted to, was more the truth.

Anna cried, “Oh, Joseph, I love it!”

The young man waited without comment. Inexperienced as he might be, he was clever enough to know when he was winning and not to spoil it.

Joseph walked off by himself. He walked around examining the outside, the shaggy shrubbery, and the garage where horses had been stabled. He went down into the cellar. The coal furnace hovered in the corner like a gorilla. The vastness and the darkness reminded him of a dungeon in one of those castles through which Anna had dragged him when they were in France. He climbed back upstairs into the light with relief.

The bathrooms would all have to be torn out and replaced. With these high ceilings it would take a lot of oil to heat the place. You could bet it wasn’t insulated either. Heaven only knew what condition the plumbing was in! Probably corroded, and every time you ran the bath water
or flushed a toilet the pipes would groan and shudder through the house.

But she loved it.

She never asked for things, he thought for the hundredth time. Never spent any real money except on books; her few extra dollars went to Brentano’s. Sometimes on Fifty-seventh Street she would bring him to a halt in front of a gallery window and say, not complaining, just musing, “Now, if I were rich that’s what I’d have,” and she’d point to some picture of a child or a meadow. “If it costs anything within reason I’ll get it for you,” he’d tell her. And she’d smile and say, “That’s a Boudin,” or some such foreign name, French probably, since she loved anything French—“It’s at least twenty-five thousand,” she’d say.

She loved this house.

The roof was slate and in good condition. That at least would last forever. The house was probably cool in the summer too; the walls were a foot thick. They didn’t build that way anymore, that was certain! Nice piece of land for the money too. Someday you could even sell that stretch up the hill where the orchard was and turn a fine profit. Land here was bound to soar, it was so near New York. Actually, it was worth the price for the land alone.

“Well, I’ll think it over,” he told the agent. “I’ll call you in a couple of days.”

“Very good,” the young man said, adding predictably, “There’s another couple very much interested. I think I really ought to tell you, not that I’m rushing you into a decision or anything. But they’ll be making up their minds this week.”

Naturally. Anna shouldn’t have let him see her enthusiasm. A very poor way to do business.

“Well, I’ll let you know,” he’d repeated, and gone home and lain long awake thinking.

It did have a kind of elegance, something solid and real that belonged to another age. In a very small yet undeniable way it reminded him of those great stone houses on Fifth Avenue where he’d used to walk and gape and marvel
at the beginning of the century. It would, he thought, it would make a setting for Iris. It was the kind of place that you saw in magazines, where old, distinguished families gave their daughters’ weddings. Inherited wealth likes to be a little dowdy, out of fashion. He laughed at himself. Distinguished families! Inherited wealth! Still, perhaps it would do something for Iris, enhance her, put an aura about her that a West End Avenue apartment couldn’t give?

His thoughts embarrassed him. They hurt him, too. As if his daughter were an item on sale! Yet, a girl needed to be married; who would take care of her through life, and when her father was gone?

There was something about Iris, his lovely, lovely girl. He’d tried to talk about her to Anna, but for some reason, Anna was never able to talk about Iris without such visible pain that he would drop the subject. She could talk more easily about Maury! He wished sometimes that he himself could speak openly to Iris but he couldn’t do that, either. He couldn’t ask: “What are you like when you’re out with fellows? Do you smile, do you laugh a little?” Hah! Out with fellows! There was less and less of that every year. She was getting older: twenty-six. And the men were mostly away. He tried. That young widower he’d brought to dinner last winter. His wife had died of pneumonia. Might he not be looking for a fine, steady wife to mother his baby? But nothing had come of it.

So, maybe the house would make a difference.

He’d gone back three times to look at it that week, wavering toward the thought that he had really wanted something newer and more impressive, and back again to the fact that Anna loved it. In the end he had signed the contract of sale. It was like putting his name to a written blessing. Words like “dear home” and “peace” floated through his unashamedly sentimental head while he wrote his name.

He turned into his building and, waiting for the elevator, sought his name on the directory: Friedman-Malone, Real Estate and Construction. He put his shoulders back. Look forward.

“There’ve been a couple of calls,” Miss Donnelly said. “I’ve put the messages on your desk. None of them urgent except one. A Mr. Lovejoy wants to see you this afternoon.”

“I’m seeing the accountant at four. What Lovejoy? The man who owns the house? What does he want?”

“I’ve no idea. I told him you had a four o’clock appointment, but he said he’d come over at half past. He’d wait for you to see him at your convenience.”

A gray-haired, quiet-voiced, Brooks Brothers type. “I don’t want to waste your time or my own, Mr. Friedman. We’re both busy men. So I’ll get to the point. I’ve come to ask you to withdraw your offer for the house.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The agent made an unpardonable error. He was supposed to have given preference to another couple, very dear old friends of ours, as a matter of fact … He actually sold it right out from under them.”

“I still don’t understand. I gave my check and your agent signed the contract of sale.”

“I’ve been in Caracas, just docked this noon and went home, but as soon as I learned what had happened I came right back to the city. I’d given the agent a power of attorney to sell the house, with the understanding that if my friends should decide they wanted it, it was to go to them, you see.”

“Apparently they didn’t want it, or he wouldn’t have sold it to me, would he?”

“He was an inexperienced young fellow, substituting for his uncle who was in the hospital. I’m afraid he’s been severely reprimanded for the mistake. I’m truly sorry.”

Maybe this was an omen, a sign that the house was wrong for them. They could go out looking again, now that the weather was fine, and come up with something much more to his liking.

“I’m prepared to return your check with two thousand dollars’ profit to you,” Mr. Lovejoy said.

Joseph picked up his pen and tapped it on the blotter. Why should the man be so eager? There was something odd here. It was like feeling a presence in a dark room: you can’t see it or hear it but you know something is there.

He fenced. “My wife likes the house.”

“Ah, yes. These other people—the wife went to boarding school with my wife and it would mean a very great deal to them both if they could be neighbors.”

Mr. Lovejoy leaned forward a little. There was a certain
pressure
in his voice and his eyes were anxious. His forehead was gathered into a small lump over each eye. For a moment Joseph had some fleeting thought of a criminal conspiracy: Mafia, perhaps, who needed the house? But that was absurd. This man was of a definite class, in banking, brokerage or shipping. Something like that. His dress, his face, his accent, all belonged in that category.

“You know how women are … old family friendship, going back for three or four generations … it would mean a very great deal to us, I assure you, if you’d withdraw. And I’m certain this very same agent could find you another house which you’d like as well or better. After all,” he smiled deprecatingly, “the house is awfully old and quite run-down too, as you no doubt saw.”

“Oh, I saw,” Joseph said. “It’s run-down, all right. But as I told you, my wife loves it.” The man was pushing him, ever so delicately, but pushing all the same, and he didn’t like it.

Mr. Lovejoy sighed. “Perhaps there are a few things you haven’t considered. I mean, you don’t really know the area very well … you’re strangers to the town, aren’t you?”

“We’re strangers.”

“Ah, yes. Well, then, you see, we’re a very old community, very close knit. We even have an association on our side of town: the Stone Spring Association, you may have heard of it? It’s a kind of improvement group and social club of people with mutual concerns: our gardens and tennis courts, maintenance of the roadside shade trees, protection
of our general interests in the town. Things of that sort.”

“Go on,” Joseph said.

“You know how it is, when people have lived together most of their lives, their attachments are formed. It’s very difficult for a newcorner to move in. Difficult for them and for the newcorner.… Just human nature, after all, isn’t it?”

A flash bulb flared and went out in Joseph’s head, illuminating everything.

“I see,” he said. “I see what you’ve been trying to tell me. No Jews!”

A flush spread up from Mr. Lovejoy’s collar; it was the pink of rare roast beef. “I wouldn’t put it that way exactly, Mr. Friedman. We’re not bigoted people. We don’t hate anyone. But people
are
always more comfortable with their own kind.”

It was a statement, but it had been presented like a question, as if the man expected Joseph to answer. He didn’t answer.

“A good many people of your faith are buying over toward the Sound. They’re even building a handsome new synagogue, I’m told. Actually, it’s better over there, much breezier in the summer …”

“Usurping the better part of town, are they?”

Mr. Lovejoy ignored that. “The agent should have told you all this, as a service to you. He really did a very poor job.”

“I wouldn’t say so. I didn’t ask him to do anything but show me the house, which he did, and take my money, which he did. As simple as that.”

Mr. Lovejoy shook his head. “Not simple. There’s a great deal more to buying a home than four walls. There’s a whole neighborhood to be taken into consideration. All kinds of social events. People give parties—I should think you wouldn’t want to live someplace and be left out.”

The man is absolutely right. But to retreat now? It’s unthinkable. For myself I don’t give a damn. Whether he
wants me there or he doesn’t, it’s all the same to me. I could do a lot better than that old heap of a house. In fact, some people will think I’m out of my mind to buy it, and me in the building business.… That stuff about people wanting to stay with their own kind: fine, I’m the first to say so myself. Except that it should be by choice, not by being told you must.

He said, “We don’t expect you to invite us to your parties and we don’t expect to invite you. We only want to live in the house. And that’s what we intend to do.”

“That’s all you have to say?”

“All.”

“I could take this to court, you know. It would be a long, complicated legal tangle and would cost us both a good deal of money and time.”

He was thinking: She’s never had anything except for those first few hectic years before the crash. A trip to Europe. A diamond ring which I had to pawn and only got back now. (I knew she didn’t even want the ring, but I want her to have it; it’s for me.) And a fur coat which she wore for fifteen years. He could see her creamy face above the rusty old fur which she had kept on wearing because they couldn’t afford a new cloth coat. If she knew about this business today she wouldn’t want the house. She’d make me back down. So she’ll never know. I’ll never let her know.