Portraits (42 page)

She sat for a long time reliving the moments they had shared. There would, she knew, be nothing for her when he left, and somehow she also knew that it would be soon. No one could ever come into her life again as he had. But the greatest gift of all was the child he had given her. It would be over soon, but the child would be hers forever.

She sat down at the writing table, calmly took out a piece of stationery and began to write.

My dearest darling,

I have loved you as I could never love again. There are so many memories I hold dear, and those no one can take away from me. Not even you. If I had my life to live over, I would do the same, just to have known what it was like to be held in your arms.

Please forgive me, my darling. There is no other choice. With all the love I possess, I give you back to yourself. Be happy, dearest…please, for your darling…

She folded the note, put it inside the envelope and placed it against the lamp. She paused for a moment and looked at the bed they had shared, then she slowly walked through the French doors and down the garden path to the sea.

Sandy picked up the phone as he was going through a file of papers on his desk. “Yes?”

“This is Captain Rodriguez of the Manila police. I’d like you to come down here, please.”

A peculiar chill went through him. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“It would be better for you to come in, sergeant.”

“All right, I’ll be there.” …

Now he sat apprehensively in a chair across from Captain Rodriguez. “Sergeant, did you know a Mrs. Monica Hill?”

He frowned. “
Did
I know? I know Mrs. Monica Hill.”

A pause. “Sergeant, Mrs. Hill…her body was washed up on the beach early this afternoon—”

The shock and the pain were too much. He went into a rage of grief, pounding his hands against the walls until his knuckles bled. He wanted to scream, to break the world to pieces. And then the tears came, and the life seemed to ebb from his body. He sat down.

Captain Rodriguez offered him a brandy. “Here, take this—”

He pushed the glass away, it shattered on the tile floor. He wiped his face, sat staring out the window. He did not see the lovely garden in bloom, nor the palms that swayed in the gentle breeze. All he was aware of was Monica’s face, the pain in her eyes, her voice whispering to him, “Shh, it doesn’t matter. You’ve given me more than you know.” Oh, he knew. He knew
now
…

“We need you to identify the body, sergeant…”

The body? Monica was a body? He closed his eyes. How many men had he killed? Except that was in war. Now they wanted him to see Monica laid out on a slab, lifeless. Last night
she
had consoled him…Dear God, he had done this to her…

“Sergeant, we need you to—”

But he had already gotten up and was walking to the door. They led him down the hall to the sterile white room. A sheet covered the outline of what remained of her. Rodriguez waited for a moment, then uncovered the face.

Somehow he’d known it when he’d picked up the phone…

“Is this Mrs. Hill?”

He couldn’t speak.

“Sergeant, is this—”

“Yes.”

The sheet was put over her face and he was led away.

“We’ll be in touch, sergeant. There’ll be an autopsy.”

He shook his head and walked out into the terrible sunlight…

For three days he stayed home, trying to drink away the truth. Juan came in from time to time, but he threw an empty whiskey bottle at him or roared at him to go away. Finally Juan came again and found him sprawled out on the bed. Juan undressed him and got him under the covers, and for the first time he slept…

The ringing of the phone finally got through to him. Fumbling, hand shaking, he picked it up. Twice he tried to speak, no sound would come. Swallowing hard, he heard his own raspy voice. “Yes?”

“Sergeant Sanders? This is Captain—”

“I know, what body do you want me to identify today?”

“Would you be kind enough to come—”

“No, I wouldn’t be kind enough to come down. Whatever you have to say you can say now.”

“I would suggest, sir, that you come in.”

“Damn it! How much more do you want?”

“Please, sir, we need you to sign some documents.”

He mumbled all right and hung up.

Hardly able to get out of bed, he called for Juan, who had been sleeping outside his room for the last four days. “Juan, I need a bath, you’ll have to shave me. My hands are so damned shaky I might cut my throat.” Which for a moment he thought might not be a bad idea.

He sat in the same chair, looking haggard but presentable. Just like a good marine should. A credit to the corps. Sharpshooter Sandy Sanders. He had a medal to prove it…Stick it up your ass, Uncle Sam. He almost laughed at the coincidence. In English that’s what his name was…the citizenship papers read Sam Sanders…The hell it was. His name was Shlomo Sandsonitsky, but that wasn’t American enough. Monica wasn’t American enough to live in the land of the brave and the home of the free. “What do you want me to sign?”

“Sergeant Sanders, Mrs. Hill and you were—”

“Lovers. In love…”

“Yes. Well, could you tell us what religion she was?”

Jewish, he wanted to scream. “I don’t know, we never discussed it. Why…?”

“Well, I imagine she was a Christian.”

“I imagine that’s going to make a big difference in heaven. All right, I’m sorry, I guess she was—”

“I assume you will want to take care of the arrangements…” Captain Rodriguez cleared his throat. “I received the coroner’s report.”

Sandy closed his eyes. Suicide…

“Mrs. Hill was expecting a child.”

His shoulders slumped. Oh, my God, she was pregnant and he’d been busy moralizing about…how the hell could he…should he?…live with the knowledge that she had killed herself with their child inside her? Thanks to him…

Captain Rodriguez handed him a brandy and this time he took it, swallowing it down in a gulp. “Thanks,” he said, handing back the glass as he stood up to leave. “You’ve taken more from me than you had to.”

He walked out of the room and shut the door behind him…

He stood watching the coffin being lowered into the ground. Just himself and the minister. He wanted it to be private, and it was. Two wreaths had been ordered. One for her. One for the child.

“Shall we go now, sergeant?” the minister said.

“No, I’d like to stay for a little while. Thank you, thank you for everything.”

The minister nodded, then walked down the path among the graves.

Sergeant Sanders asked to be transferred to Mare Island as quickly as possible. It was time to go home.

S
IX MONTHS LATER HIS
reenlistment term was up, and this time he was going to stay a civilian. He’d had enough of the marines, the travel and seeing the world. Jacob was right; it wasn’t such a beautiful world.

Still, if one were to survive in it, one had to find an antidote to the pain of intolerable loss. Shlomo, gradually, opted for survival. And Nadine Blum of Oakland, California, a lovely Jewish girl, was the antidote.

Nadine was not what would be considered a great beauty—he could not, of course, have tolerated that. But her hair was the color of autumn leaves turning gold. She had a sweet face, with soft amber eyes and a nose that had been pleasantly sculpted by Dr. Friedman. Her figure was slim and sufficiently rounded at the hips. Indeed, she was rather voluptuous. Nadine’s greatest asset, however, was her ability to accept a situation that had been thrust upon her. As such, she was a healthy object lesson to Shlomo…

At the time of her birth the family had inherited a chain of twenty-seven shoe stores. It looked as if Nadine and her brother Neal would never be in want if they lived to be ninety, but in 1929 Charles Blum not only lost the stores but the mansion in Seacliff, which the Blums had enjoyed ever since the day Charles had carried Mildred over the threshold twenty-nine years earlier. Still, if they had lost a fortune, Charles and Mildred Blum were determined not to be bitter about it.

They took an apartment on Geary Street and Mildred fixed it up with the few pieces of furniture that had not been auctioned off. She also took a job at Gump’s in the china department, a place where she had frequently been a customer. Through a long, friendly association with the Leibes family Charles managed to land a job selling shoes, and Nadine through the same set of circumstances worked as a saleslady for Ranshoff’s.

Just before the Depression had hit, their son Neal had married his childhood sweetheart, Jean Morris, and they were now the parents of an eight-pound baby boy. As Charles and Mildred held their first grandchild after the
bris
, losing the stores suddenly seemed rather unimportant. They were very, very proud that little Freddy was a fifth-generation American.

As for Neal, he felt the joys of fatherhood so deeply that they almost made him forget the denial of what might have been. In fact, he was grateful that he could bring home a paycheck every week from his earnings at the Florsheim shoe store on Market Street. It kept them in a flat in the Richmond district and it fortified the dream that one day he and his father would somehow start again. After all, nothing lasted forever, the Depression would pass.

Meanwhile, democracy had at last come to America. The Depression was a great equalizer. There was no disgrace in being poor.

Not for Nadine’s family, and not for Shlomo, who ended up going to work for his brother, and not in the capacity he might have assumed he was coming home to. Before he had reenlisted Jacob had pleaded with him to be a partner. But now that Jacob was the sole owner of the meat packing company he no longer wanted to give up his title or power. Shlomo was only momentarily disappointed. He couldn’t really blame his brother. Jacob had established the business on his own and he had never shown any real interest in it. So Sandy Sanders, ex-marine top kick, became a truck driver for thirty-five dollars a week; which was still more than most people made at the time. He even rented a room, though against Jacob’s protest.

“Why spend the money when we have a room, now that Rachel’s married?”

“I don’t feel it would be right, it would only disrupt your household—”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, I’m not exactly a homebody. I tend to stay out late; you know how it is…I’m grateful, but believe me, it’s better this way.”

Jacob shrugged his shoulders. Shlomo always was stubborn.

Sandy was often lonely now, but he did his best to keep occupied. Women were no longer the panacea—that had been buried in a small cemetery in Manila. So he joined a gym in San Francisco and he worked out four nights a week. He welcomed the routine of getting cleaned up, having an early dinner, crossing the bay. And the physical effort invigorated him, helped dull the painful thoughts. He would work out on the bars, do a hundred push-ups, then wait his turn at the handball court.

Which was how he met Neal Blum. They were a good match. Neal never returned the volley with the same intensity of Shlomo’s serve, but he was very fast and very agile.

After their first game the two men sat on a wooden bench to rest.

Mopping the sweat from his forehead, Neal said, “Boy, you’re a real gung-ho character.”

“Thanks, and you’re no pushover yourself.”

“Maybe, but how come you beat the hell out of me?”

Sandy laughed. “I got a scholarship in handball. That’s how I worked my way through the marines.”

“You were in the marines?”

“Yeah. I enlisted during the war and when Uncle Sam said, ‘I want you,’ I took it seriously and reenlisted. I just reverted to civilian a little while ago.”

“What do you do now, Sanders?”

“Work for my brother, driving a truck. He has a meat packing plant.”

“Oh? Well, I guess that’s a pretty good business even in a depression. Better than the business we used to be in—”

“What was that?”

“Shoes. People can do with one pair, put paper into the soles if there’s a hole or have them repaired for a buck, but you got to eat.”

Neal already knew he liked this Sandy Sanders. There was a quality to him…not that Neal was a snob, but he sure as hell didn’t think Sanders seemed like a truck driver, even if he did have the build for it. “Where do you live?”

“In Oakland.”

“Married?”

He took his time answering. “No and you?”

“I sure am. I’d better be.” He smiled. “I have a little boy.”

Would his child have been a boy…? “That’s great, congratulations. Well, hey, I’d better be going. Have to catch the ferry. See you Thursday.”

Watching Sandy walk off, Neal wondered whether Nadine would like him. Not that she needed anyone to fix her up, but something had happened to Nadine. The guys she used to date no longer seemed interested in her…

On Thursday night after the game the two sat talking as usual. “Sanders? What nationality is that?”

“How about Swedish.”

“Is that what you are?”

Sandy laughed. “Me? My friend, I’m Jewish. My mother inherited that all-American name when she arrived on Ellis Island. It used to be Sandsonitsky, but the processing agent couldn’t pronounce it so she became Esther Sanders. She walked around with the name tag pinned to her coat for a week before she knew she’d been rechristened by the U.S.A.”

Being a fourth-generation American, Neal had no personal knowledge of such experiences, but he’d heard these immigrant stories. “That’s fascinating—”

“You think so? Well, I suppose our family is pretty colorful. Can you imagine joining the marines with a name like Shlomo Sandsonitsky? Fall in, men. This is your new sergeant, Sergeant Shlomo Sandsonitsky. And my brother, a regular Jewish cowboy,” Sandy went on. “Yankel or Jacob Sandsonitsky doing business with the Wyoming cattlemen. My brother-in-law from Cleveland became a Harold. Pretty fancy from Hershel, right? Well, it’s still a good country, but it will be a better one when we get rid of the illusion that everybody melts into the melting pot. The Negroes haven’t and neither have the Chinese or the Jews. The only difference is that Jews are white and names can be changed, but colors don’t change and eyes don’t lose their slant…”