Portraits (70 page)

Jerry very much wished he could do the same thing, but he wasn’t as strong, wasn’t ready yet. Not yet…Also, he didn’t have any money put away, as Shlomo did.

Smitty had no such inhibition and gave it to Jacob with both guns, calling him, among other things, a cold-blooded son of a bitch.

As far as Nadine was concerned, there was no money in the world to compensate for the disgrace and injustice that her husband had been through. But at least he had endured it. When Sandy finished telling her what had happened in Jacob’s office, she sat quietly, then said to him, “For six months now, I haven’t been able to put this whole picture together. But now…Jacob sat in his ivory tower making the deals with the buyers, and you weren’t even aware that you were collecting blackmarket money when the receipts were handed to you. Why did you feel your brother should be protected? Why did you feel that his life was so much more important than yours? He was the one to blame for all of this, and he’s gotten away scot-free!”

“As much as I hate what he’s done,
I
couldn’t bring myself to throw my brother to the wolves. Look, Nadine, it does no good to go over this again and again. It’s over. As far as I’m concerned, Jacob is no longer my brother.”

“What are we going to do now?”

“Well, I’m going to talk to Neal and I think we can make some money in the salvage business. There’s a place we can buy in Los Angeles. That will mean selling the house and moving, but thank God we’ve saved a few thousand dollars…The truth is, no amount of money he could have given me would make up for this…he can rationalize it for himself, maybe…I can’t, won’t. Never. Something terrible has happened to Jacob. I don’t know how, or when, it happened, but it did.” …

The next day, Nadine called Doris and asked if she was free for lunch. Doris was happy to hear from her. Nadine and Sandy were the only ones in the family who kept in touch with her, but they hadn’t seen much of each other since Sandy had been in jail.

As they sat at lunch, Doris was saddened by the lines of bitterness around Nadine’s lovely eyes. There was an awkwardness between them, and making small talk was difficult. Finally Nadine looked searchingly at Doris. It was about time Doris knew the truth about her family…about time she shared the burden of the knowledge…

“You know, Doris, your uncle and I have the very deepest affection for you. That’s why I wanted to see you today. We’re moving to Los Angeles to make a new start. This has been a nightmare, the boys have suffered so…Perhaps I’m being vindictive, but I’ll live with that…Doris, if you’re under the impression your father isn’t speaking to you because you took your mother’s part during their separation, that isn’t quite the truth. She used you…” And Nadine proceeded to tell Doris everything.

By the time she was through, Doris was so shaken that Nadine had to take her home. She almost regretted having told Doris the truth, but maybe it was better that Doris at last be freed of her illusions…

Leaving a city where they had spent their whole lives wasn’t easy for the Blums. But in time of trouble, one put one’s own feelings aside, and Charles and Mildred knew they needed their children and grandchildren more than the comfort of a familiar place. Neal was going into business with Sandy and the family would be separated for the first time. The prospect of that was too painful, so Charles and Mildred picked up and moved to Los Angeles as well.

Sandy and Nadine found a large old Spanish house with five bedrooms, with a minimum down payment and a twenty-five-year FHA loan. During the twenties the neighborhood had changed to lower income families, but they ignored the surroundings and concentrated on the realities. They had all agreed to pool their resources and live together; it would be cheaper than paying for three separate homes.

Nadine and Jean found jobs in a dress shop. Mr. Blum went to work for Florsheim’s. Mildred assumed the responsibility of homemaking, and it was probably the most exciting and gratifying chore she’d ever done. She was already home when her grandsons returned after school, waiting for them with milk and freshly baked cookies.

Sandy and Neal found a salvage business to buy—it could hardly have been called a gold mine but the books showed it made a meager profit and Sandy felt that with hard work it could be developed. They bought the business for five thousand dollars, to be paid out over a period of a year. Neal took over the bookkeeping, Sandy the buying and selling. He worked almost beyond his endurance, and with the help of Jason, a strong young black man who had walked into the lot one day asking for a job, he sorted the scrap into piles so that they knew every nut and bolt in the yard. Sandy began to realize that one of the biggest demands was for old auto parts. Hot-rodding had become a national hobby. So he bought old mufflers, pistons, fenders, hubcaps, vintage wire wheels—anything and everything that a kid needed to build a jalopy. By underselling the competition the business grew rapidly and soon the lot became a hunting ground for enthusiastic collectors of these indispensable items.

The business of Sanders and Blum was not only making ends meet but also made it unnecessary for Nadine and Jean to work. They joined the temple, Nadine became involved with the sisterhood and even became president. The boys were thriving too. Neal’s and Jean’s son Freddy became captain of the Little League baseball team, and Sandy’s son Mark showed the makings of a rabbi—he had decided he wanted to be one almost from the first day he attended Sunday School. The scholar of the family, after school he attended Hebrew classes and, in fact, was most helpful when it came time for Freddy to be
bar-mitzvahed
.

Sandy never spoke of Jacob, but he did think of him occasionally…had Jacob shown more remorse—
any
remorse, in fact—the chances were he’d have forgiven him, never mind what he’d said at the time. In a perverse sense he had Jacob to thank for his new life. He could face the world and hold up his head without shame. His sleep was never disturbed with guilt or nightmares. He wondered if Jacob, for all his money, was so fortunate, and knew the answer…

Life did not resolve itself quite so satisfactorily for Jerry. He was not only angry over Jacob’s betrayal but he felt he had considerably more coming to him. Jacob had slept peacefully in his mansion while he had been unjustly suffering in jail. Five thousand dollars hardly made up for that. He demanded that Jacob establish him in a butcher shop, Jacob told him that he didn’t feel he was qualified and that he wasn’t going to allow him to intimidate him, to blackmail him…The antagonism between them grew to such a proportion that Jerry left his job with Jacob and went to work as a butcher.

Lillian found the arguments and pressures almost more than she could bear. Her parents went so far as to say that Jerry gambled and they even questioned his fidelity as a husband (Jerry, after all, had committed the cardinal sin—had declared his independence). At first, Lillian refused to believe any of it. She had no reason to question Jerry’s faithfulness to her, but Sara and Jacob especially kept up a barrage about Jerry’s inadequacies as a man, saying that he would never provide for her, that she could expect nothing in her life with him, that he was a failure, and in spite of herself she did finally have some doubts…She found herself questioning Jerry about why he stayed out late. Because, he said, there were nights he just couldn’t go home and face seeing Sara and Jacob, so he sometimes met with his friends to have a few drinks and a little dinner…And then one night he came home drunk. A dreadful scene built and Lillian actually accused him of being unfaithful. Jerry accused her of finally having become her parents’ daughter in every way, told her he had no intention of listening to Jacob talk through his daughter…she snapped back that he was protesting too much…The next thing Lillian knew Jerry had packed his suitcase and left the household…

The following night, Jacob and Sara were once again at Lillian’s house.

“I’ve been trying to warn you,” Jacob said. “Your husband is no good, he’ll never amount to anything. He thinks I should hand over the whole business to him…let me tell you, Lillian, the best thing that could happen to you is to get rid of him. He’s not a good father or a good husband…”

Each time Lillian tried to defend Jerry the condemnations became more overpowering, more convincing…the awful doubts kept creeping back into her mind. Eventually the tension and pressure unraveled the marriage. Unbelievably…inevitably…they were getting a divorce, something that they had never thought possible took on an internal momentum that overwhelmed them. Jerry was miserable, Lillian was stricken…

After the final decree, Jerry took himself to the house one evening. Lillian was alone. He was shocked at how thin and withdrawn she’d become, and his heart went out to her as they sat quietly in the livingroom.

“Jerry, I still can’t believe this has happened to us.”

“Neither can I. The whole thing is a nightmare. I do know one thing…we made a terrible mistake, you and I. We should have gotten away from them, the way Sandy did. You and I shouldn’t be divorced, but there was just too much against us. You can’t battle people like them, we were never left alone…that’s really why we’re divorced. I was never unfaithful to you, Lillian. I’ve always loved you, I think I still do…”

“Jerry, do you think there’s a possibility we could go back, even now?”

He had asked himself the same question…and regretfully answered it…“Eventually the same thing would happen…they’d never leave us alone. They’ve lost Rachel, driven Doris away. You’re all they’ve got left. They can’t live with—or without—each other, you’re going to become their answer, their target, their bail-out…I love you, Lillian, and I feel very sorry as hell for you because you’ll never be able to leave them behind you. We might have had a chance if you’d been able to keep them from having so much power over you. I don’t blame you…I just hope you find a little happiness.”

She tried to hold back the tears…“What’s going to happen to you, Jerry?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t thought that far ahead. The Sanderses aren’t easy to get over…”

Jacob sold the house in Row Hampton for twenty-five thousand dollars and took over all of Lillian’s affairs. She felt it was only right that Jerry should get half of the money, but Jerry refused it since he wasn’t in a position to pay alimony. When the furniture was moved out, she realized that Jerry was—really—out of her life now. It was a reality that she’d still not been convinced of—or willing to accept—until that very moment.

That first night she slept at her parents’ house she asked herself, as she had before, how she could have allowed them to so dominate her life, how she could have sacrificed even her marriage for them. Of course she’d known what was going on, but it was as though it was happening to someone else…not to her. Life wasn’t perfect with Jerry, but compared to
before
Jerry…and now that’s where she was right back to…feeling powerless to reach out for the one thing she wanted—just as she always had…

The next long three years brought no changes for Lillian. She and her mother warred as before. Her father kept promising that he would send her to Europe, where she’d meet a man who was worthy of her, but somehow he never got around to it. She knew that she was too necessary as a focus for her parents. Her presence was the only thing that made their marriage tolerable to them, except the specter of the absence of it…

Each Sunday Jerry came to pick up the children, and from time to time he would ask if she’d like to join them, and their day would be spent so pleasurably that it was difficult for her to believe he was no longer her husband. In fact, she was just beginning to hope that she’d have the courage to leave her parents for him again when he said uneasily to her one day…“Lillian…I’ve met somebody…I’m going to be married…I’ll never feel about anybody the way I felt about you, Lillian. In fact, I want you to know that I still love you—”

“Jerry, please, don’t you think it might be possible for us to start again? We did have so much that was good between us. More good memories than bad…”

“How many times do you think I’ve thought about that? And what do you imagine it’s been like for me these last three years? But it still gets back to the same old story. You just can’t fight them…I’ll never completely understand why, but then I’m not a psychiatrist. I just hope something good happens for you in your life. God knows, you deserve it…”

L
ILLIAN MADE UP HER
mind she at least had to do
something
with her life. All right…it wasn’t exactly the route to social eminence, but never mind that…she’d take a secretarial course…

One day after class she was walking to her car when she happened to see a fetching coat in a store window. The one thing she didn’t need was a coat, but maybe it would at least help bolster her morale…

Lillian went in and tried it on. It didn’t really achieve what she’d hoped, hadn’t brought the lift she’d anticipated. But still, it was pretty, jaunty—red with brass buttons.

When she got out her checkbook, she found that the balance in her account was rather low. Since she wasn’t going to make a deposit till Thursday, she said, “Why don’t I open an account?”

“We’d be delighted. Here, let me take you into the credit office and introduce you.”

After filling out the application she handed it to the credit manager. Woodside, Hayward Meat Packing Company, Mrs. Gerald Gould…When he finished reading it and took a look at the way Lillian was dressed, he decided there would be no need to check on her credit. “If you’d like to take the coat today, Mrs. Gould, you’re more than welcome—”

“Thank you, how nice of you.”

“Not at all. I hope we’ll be seeing you more often.” …

Two days later she was sitting at the counter of Liggett’s drugstore having a cup of coffee after her class.

“Mrs. Gould, how nice to see you.”

She turned around and smiled. It was the credit manager from the store. “Thank you…”

“Do you mind if I join you?”

“Not at all, if I can charge it.”

He laughed. “Your credit is very good with us, Mrs. Gould. Incidentally, my name is Dan Fuller.”