The Last Princess (60 page)

David didn’t hear the rest of the introduction, he was so shocked that
this
was Birdie’s friend. Where did she come from? How long had she been here? Why had he never seen her on the street or in the neighborhood? Solly’s measure of beauty would be the movie queens he spent so much vicarious time with, but how, David asked himself, could Solly not have seen how exquisite this girl was? My God, couldn’t Solly see for himself how she stood out from the rest? He looked at the delicate face with the porcelain-like skin; her long hair, tied back simply with a narrow velvet ribbon, gently falling like heavy strands of silk to her shoulders. He had visualized her looking like another Birdie, with an overly red mouth that made her look like a kewpie, painted nails, short hair permanent-waved to match.

But Birdie was thinking, I should have insisted she use some lipstick, she looks so plain.

Katie stood back and just listened to the rapid conversation; she heard Solly saying, “How would you like for all of us to go to the movies?” Then Birdie was saying, “Gee, that sounds swell. We’d love it.” Then Solly was saying, “How about you, Dave, if we all go to the movies?” with Birdie interrupting, “Sure, why not?” and Solly echoing, “Sure, why not?” While David looked at Katie and said, “How would you like to take a boat ride, Miss Kovitz?”

Unprepared, Katie didn’t know what to say and looked to Birdie, who quickly said, “That’s a great idea, we’d love to go.”

But David gave Solly a quick look he understood, and taking the hint he said, “No, Birdie, I want to go to the movies tonight. I don’t want to go no place else.”

Birdie understood and looked at Katie. “You’ll have a swell time, but I’m going to go to the movies with the big shot general here, O.K.?”

Katie simply nodded. She was bewildered, all this had happened so fast.

As Birdie and Solly sat in their seats at the Bijou, Birdie thought, if that David touches Katie, I’ll kill Solly, so help me, I’ll kill him with my bare hands.

I
N AWKWARD SILENCE KATIE
stood at the boat rail and listened to the gentle sound of the waves as the boat seemed to glide along without effort. In the distance Manhattan looked majestic, the lights just beginning to go on.

“What are you thinking of?” David asked.

“How magnificent the different colors are between dusk and evening, and how beautiful New York looks from here.”

So far as he was concerned it looked beautiful neither from here nor from anywhere. “Really? Do you like it here?”

He expected her to say no, not really. “I adore it; I’ve never been so happy in all my life.”

“Happy?”

“Yes, very.”

They strolled around the deck. There was an Italian family en masse having a Sunday excursion.

“Hey, Tony, play
Sorrento
again,” the grandfather shouted. The young boy took up his concertina and the concert began.

“Oh, David, this is such fun, more than I’ve ever had.”

The more she spoke the more intrigued he became. Solly didn’t understand her, he thought she spoke with an accent? Never had he heard his name until she said it; she made it sound soft, and gentle. David, he repeated to himself slowly. Nobody called him David; his family called him by his Jewish name, Duvid, and his friends, Dave.

They found a bench and sat down.

“How do you happen to be living with the Greenbergs?”

“My mother and Mrs. Greenberg had known each other all their lives, and when my mother died I came here to live with them.”

“Tell me about yourself.” He was so curious about her—a rare thing for him.

“There’s nothing to tell, I’ve really had a very uninteresting life.”

“Tell me just the same.”

Uncertainly she said, “I was born in Poland but I lived in London all of my life until I came here.”

“How did you happen to be in London?”

“It’s really all so boring, David.”

“I don’t mind. If it gets too boring I’ll tell you all about mine, which is very exciting!” They both laughed.

“Are you sure you want to hear all this?”

“Yes.”

She thought for a while; where did he want her to begin? At the beginning.

Hannah’s oldest brother Max had escaped the Polish army by fleeing to England. In London there was a benevolent society that secured jobs for these men, and among them was Max. Naturally, none of them could speak English, so the problem was they had to wait until they could be employed, mostly by Jewish firms. One such firm that absorbed many of these men was the Felix Block Company, manufacturers of leather goods from fine luggage and ladies’ handbags to gloves, and this is where Max Iscoff found work. He was a man of many qualities. One of the qualities that endeared him to Felix Block was his giving more than just a day’s work. He worked long after the others left, he was the first one waiting for the factory to open in the morning, and Mr. Block watched with a canny eye. Large as the factory was, he knew the prowess of every one of his workers. Within a year he promoted Max to superintendent and eventually to sales manager, while all the time Mr. Block had even bigger plans for Max. His English had become so good that after two years he spoke with only a slight trace of a Polish accent, having applied the same verve and tenacity to learning English that he did to his work. So the time had come for Mr. Felix Block to invite Max to dinner. The mistress of his home was his daughter, his wife having passed away four years ago. His life revolved around her; she was the reason for his whole existence, and it was her future which mainly concerned him now that Rosalind Block had just turned thirty-one with no prospects of marriage on the horizon.

Felix looked painfully at his one and only child and secretly had to admit that she looked just like him. On a man the large features didn’t seem too terribly out of place, but unfortunately she had inherited the worst of his looks as well as the worst that was in his nature, and none of her mother’s charm and beauty. Had it been the other way around, Felix would not now be unhappy over the fact that perhaps there might never be an heir to carry on the firm of Block, a firm whose lineage went back five generations. Felix Block wanted grandchildren. If fate had designed it differently there would be no need to have someone like Max to dinner, a mere peasant to sit at the table of Mr. Felix Block. But
c’est la vie,
and Mr. Felix Block, being a very practical man, began to evaluate the potential of Max, figuring that in him he just might be able to have his life-long ambition come true. This was not the man he would have chosen if the gods had been kinder to Rosalind; but Max had charm, and above all, obedience. He worked hard and diligently, and with him there would be no risk of the business falling out of Felix’ hands. After his demise it would still be Rosalind’s, because Felix realized that where Max was extremely bright, he was also soft and pliable. Felix knew that his daughter could never be married to a strong, dominating man such as, for example, himself. They were too much alike. So with all things considered, without his knowing it, Max had been chosen.

And they were married. Felix waited impatiently for that one year but there were no children. When Rosalind told her father there would likely be none because she had been unable to conceive, Felix laughed bitterly to himself at the games life played with him. He had accepted a man he felt was beneath him to live in his house, to sleep with his daughter and eat at his table—and all for nothing.

And then seeming miracle of miracles happened: Felix Block was told that his dream was going to be fulfilled—Rosalind was going to have a child. Max immediately was moved out of Rosalind’s bed chamber and given a small room down the hall. His task was completed, his function was done.

The nine months passed miserably for Rosalind. In the beginning she was terribly ill with morning sickness, which persisted for hours, adding to her irritability. Her enormous bulk toward the end became so cumbersome that she spent most of the time in bed, was unbearably moody, and promised herself that never again would she submit to anything as undignified as pregnancy.

When the moment of birth arrived she lay prostrate in her bed, hating Max for having subjected her to the tyrannies of childbirth. After forty-eight hours, Julian Iscoff was born. Almost immediately after being separated from the placenta of his mother he found himself in the arms of his doting grandfather, who looked upon the child from the moment of birth as the product of his own self-will and determination.

As Julian began to grow, so did Rosalind’s disdain for Max. He was never permitted to take the child out alone; Julian was either in the care of a nanny, his mother, or grandfather. Primarily Felix Block would direct Julian’s destiny.

One day out of desperation Max took the three-year-old from his nanny’s arms, disregarding her wild objections, took Julian out, sat him alongside him in the car, having decided to spend the day alone with the child in spite of them all. He bought him a ball, then took him to Hyde Park and frolicked with him in the grass, threw the ball back and forth. To Max’s great delight the child responded to him.

After several hours three-year-old Julian became tired, lay down on the grass and fell asleep while Max hovered over him. When the child awoke refreshed, Max picked him up in his arms, hugged and held him, and walked back to where the car was. For one moment Max looked into the window of the toy store, thinking perhaps he should have bought Julian another toy. As he did so the ball that Julian was holding dropped from his hand and rolled into the street; the child ran after it. In all the confusion after the screech of brakes a crowd gathered and Julian lay lifeless.

Rosalind was inconsolable. She beat Max with her fists until the blood ran from his mouth, screaming that he was a monster and had killed her child.

For the rest of his life Max was enslaved, beholden to her out of his guilt. Rosalind could now do with him absolutely what she would. From then on he was never to know another moment of tranquility. Rosalind never let him forget that it was he who was responsible for Julian’s death; she never let him forget that he lived on her bounty, that he was a nobody, a nothing without the Block name. Disregarding that he contributed to what she now regarded as his charity, no matter how much he produced he still received a relatively small salary despite being responsible for making thousands and thousands of pounds for the firm each year.

Max accepted all the indignities, until matters became so unbearable he felt he had to escape. But how? He could not divorce her, the laws forbade that, and so he stayed. He built an unbreachable wall between himself and her—the only way he could have gone on living with Rosalind without eventually killing her, which is what he would like to have done many times. He became deaf to her rantings and mute to her caprices. Only once did he really oppose her, when he received the letter from his sister.

Hannah had become widowed and was left penniless with a five-year-old child. There was no one left, now that Mama and Papa were gone and all the rest had scattered. So she wrote to Max. It was her dream to be near her brother, the person she loved the most from childhood. She had to get away from the ghosts of the past and the tragic memories that haunted her. She begged Max to rescue her.

Max, badly shaken by the news, sent two tickets and sufficient money to bring her to London. He would worry about Rosalind later….

As he waited at Victoria station for the train to arrive he looked back to a day so long ago and remembered that rosy-cheeked young girl with the long heavy silken braids, standing at the roadside dressed in a peasant blouse his mother had made, waving good-bye to him as he left on his life’s journey. Now when Hannah and her child stepped off the train he hardly recognized her; she was only in her late twenties but looked ten years older than himself.

“Hannah!” he called out as he ran to her. They went into each other’s arms. He kissed her cheeks, her eyes and her forehead; he stroked her hair, which was still shining and beautiful, placed her head on his shoulder as they swayed gently back and forth. For one fleeting moment as he held her in his arms he recalled another day in an orchard, when they lay on their backs under a tree eating sweet summer pears and gazing up at a so blue sky, watching white foamy clouds float by and in childish fantasy dreamed about wondrous things they would do when they grew up. A bittersweet memory now as he held the fragile body against him.

“Hannah,” he whispered, “Hannah, what have they done to you … Hannah, my Hannah …” They stood in silence now, each with their own thoughts. Finally Hannah separated herself from Max and held him at arm’s length.

“Max, dearest brother, let me look at you. Am I really seeing you? Is this a dream? Will I wake up?”

“It’s me, Hannala. It is real and you are here.”

Katie waited patiently with the rag doll in her hand. Max looked down at her; swooping her up in his arms, he kissed and hugged her.

“Katie, this is little Katie! Hannah, this could have been you when you were five. My precious child,” he said, and hugged her to him.

Max drove them through the cold London night to Rosalind’s house. Hannah looked around in awe as they entered the oak-paneled hall with its original paintings, the vibrant antique Persian rug which she was reluctant to walk on, and thought that in her wildest dreams never would she see such a house, much less her brother’s.

“Max,” she said, “Max, you never mentioned once in your letters you lived in such a palace. Oh, Max, I’m so proud of you, but I’m not surprised; you were always the smartest one of all. If only mama and papa could have seen this.”

Max could not meet the gaze of those lovely eyes full with admiration, love, and innocence. He just nodded his thanks and changed the subject.

“My wife would like to have been here to meet you,”—he listened to himself as he continued to lie—“but she’s not been too well lately and wishes to be forgiven for tonight; you’ll meet in the morning.” At least he had spared her the morbid details for this one evening, hoping through some divine intervention Rosalind might relent, though never really believing it for a moment. “Let me take you to your room; you must be exhausted, and the poor child is half asleep. Come to Uncle Max, my
schöen kind
.” He carried her up the stairs to the servants’ quarters on the third floor. Looking over his shoulder, he said, “Leave your suitcase, I’ll come down and get it later.” Hannah had started to pick it up and follow him.