The Other Side of Love (11 page)

“too divine for words’. She drew Kathe - who seemed dazed by it all - into the whirl.

“It’s good on you.”

Araminta tilted her head appraisingly at Kathe.

“As a matter of fact, it’s quite marvellous.”

It was three days after they had landed, and they were in a large dressing-room with a dozen or so other women in various stages of deshabille a strong smell of perfume and sweat pervaded the hot air. Araminta had taken it upon herself to exchange the first-class tickets that Porteous had purchased for third-class accommodation, pocketing the considerable difference so she and Kathe could splurge on American clothes. Rossie had sent them here to Klein’s, where there was no service but the prices were

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far less dear than at the big shops on Fifth Avenue. Their initial selections from the racks outside hung on the rods protruding from the mirrored walls.

“But black?”

Kathe asked.

“How can you ask? Look at yourself. With that silvery-gold hair, black’s your colour.”

Araminta, shamelessly voluptuous in her stockings, panties and brassiere, was stepping into a white jersey dinnerdress.

“Katy, you simply have to take my word for it, German clothes are a disaster, and English aren’t much better. Only Americans know how to make smart things at low prices, so we both absolutely must stock up whilst we can.”

Moving in front of the stout matron next to her, she craned her neck to look at her rear.

“Tell me honestly. Does this sag every so slightly over my bottom?”

After three and a half hours of trying on and discarding, they carried armloads of their final selections to the long counter where gumchewing clerks expertly jangled cash-registers. The cousins silently translated dollar amounts into Reichmarks and pounds sterling.

Then Araminta led the way along 34th Street and up a staircase into a cut-rate beauty salon. After their shampoo and sets, they took off the smocks and put on new dresses. As they were cocking new little hats over their eyebrows, Araminta broached the subject that disturbed her: Kathe’s refusal to join in the fun of New York’s nightlife.

“This evening you’re coming with Charlie and me.”

Charlie, heir to a Chicago meat-packing fortune, had seen to it that Araminta and her quieter lovely German cousin spent all the waking hours of their transatlantic crossing in the purlieus of first-class passengers.

“He has a friend who went to universityAith him.”

“I can’t tonight. Wyatt’s taking me oriro ferry that goes to Staten Island.”

“You can’t mean you’re going to let that marvellous hairstyle be blown to bits by sea-wind?”

“There’s a poem by Edna St Vincent Millay about riding this ferry.”

Kathe turned away from the mirror, her cheeks very pink. It was in the book that Wyatt had slipped to her on Duchess of York.

“Well and good for the two of you to practise running around Central Park early in the morning. But can’t you see? He’s obligated to show us the town.”

She paused.

“Charlie tells me his friend looks rather a bit like Robert Taylor, and rumbas like an Argentinian.”

Kathe said nothing.

“That s your stubborn Kingsmith look, darling,”

Araminta said.

“Katy, do be sensible. Wyatt’s divine, but he’s our cousin. He is our cousin. And he had his own girlfriends. Explain to him that you’ll do the ferry some afternoon. Say that we’re going to the Colony for

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dinner - I’m positive I can wheedle the boys into taking us.”

There was a loud knocking on the changing-room door.

“People are waiting,”

Kathe said.

Outside on Lexington Avenue, the heat hit them like a blast from a hair-dryer.

“I can’t carry all these things another step,”

Araminta said, waving a hatbox at a yellow cab. She gave the address of Kingsmith’s in the Dejong Plaza.

Two days ago, when Kathe had first seen the Fifth Avenue Kingsmith’s, she had been astounded. Though she had known the New York branch was highly profitable, she had assumed it would be the American version of the branch on Unter den Linden. Instead, it was far larger and more posh than the main Bond Street shop; almost a department store.

A series of curved alcoves formed bays to browse tranquilly over shelves of silver, china, crystal. A deep inset held three bridal-registry tables presided over by handsomely dressed Social Register matrons forced by the Depression into the genteel job-market. Beyond the pair of small elevators which carried customers upstairs to buy less formal dinnerware, linens and stationery, a half-dozen steps led down into a subtly lit area that resembled a drawingroom. Here reproductions of Georgian breakfronts held antique silver, ivory and jade. The finest pieces, however, were kept in Humphrey’s luxurious office, giving buyers the sense that they were purchasing a unique item from Mr Kingsmith’s personal collection.

Rossie’s office was seen only by the staff and manufacturers”

representatives. Tear-sheets of recent advertisements were taped to the walls; the battered desk was piled with catalogues and ledgers. The pair of sagging armchairs had been discarded from the flat.

Wyatt was lounging in one. As Araminta and Kathe came in, he rose with an approving whistle.

“Wow!”

Rossie was also enthusiastic.

“You girls have a real eye.”

“It’s all Araminta,”

Kathe said. The doorman was bearing in the rest of their packages.

“Wait until you see the gorgeous bargains she fished from the racks.”

“Later.”

Rossie glanced at her wristwatch.

“I have to get out on the floor. Mrs Van Vliet is here from the coast. A very good customer. Her secretary telephoned ahead to make an appointment.”

She hurried away, and Humphrey appeared.

“You girls have to take a closer look at the bridal registry,”

he said.

“There’s nothing like it in the world.”

“Wyatt,”

Araminta said, taking Wyatt’s arm, holding him back.

“I need a word with you.”

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When the two of them caught up with Humphrey and Kathe in the bridal registry, Wyatt cocked an eyebrow, moving his head in the direction of the traffic on Fifth Avenue.

“Kathe, want to take in the view from the top of the Empire State Building? It’s really something when the sun’s setting.”

Araminta darted him an angry look.

IV

“Why was

“Minta upset?”

Kathe asked.

“She says I’m toying with you.”

He put his arm around her waist.

“In that dress, with your hair done up on top of your head, you look terrifyingly spectacular. Mind if I toy just a little bit?”

The Fifth Avenue sidewalk glittered beneath Kathe’s new black patent sandals, and the crowd moved in a haze of sunlit motes. The only uniforms in sight were worn by doormen, children were merrily disorderly, nobody darted nervous glances, and Wyatt seemed to have completely forgotten that she came from Germany. His fingers were playing a little tune above and below her waist. She leaned closer, wishing they were alone and could kiss.

“Oh Christ,”

he muttered. His hand fell, and he moved away from her.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s them.”

“Them?”

“The Leventhals.”

The elderly couple coming towards them must have witnessed the by-play. Their faces were long with disapproval before recognition dawned. Then the thin woman stumble a little and the straightbacked grey-haired gentleman gripped”er elbow.

The four of them made an island in the thronging crowd of pedestrians.

“Good afternoon, Mr Kingsmith.”

Judge Leventhal raised his hat.

“So we meet again.”

“Always swell to bump into you, Judge.”

Wyatt spoke with a trace of sarcasm.

“Mrs Leventhal, allow me to present my cousin, Miss Kingsmith.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,”

Kathe said automatically.

“You are from England, Miss Kingsmith?”

asked the judge.

“Our grandfather is.”

She flushed. Our? This elderly man looking down his narrow nose at her was Wyatt’s grandfather.

“But I was born in Berlin.”

“Berlin?”

The judge’s expression showed a fraction more cordiality.

“My father is in business there. My mother comes from near Potsdam.”

“I know the Potsdam area quite well. What was her maiden name?”

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‘Von Graetz.”

“Are you by any chance connected to the late Graf Walther von Graetz?”

“He was my grandfather.”

“Is that so! I had the honour of his acquaintance. Yes, you do resemble him.”

The oval silver frame on Clothilde’s bureau showed the grandfather whom Kathe had never met to have been a bald old man with a white Kaiser Wilhelm moustache that extended over his pendulous jowls.

There was an awkward pause. Tipping his Homburg, Judge Leventhal bowed and repeated his pleasure at seeing Wyatt, meeting Kathe. As the elderly couple moved on, Mrs Leventhal said something inaudible to her husband, he put his hand under her arm again, and they moved at a slow, laboured pace in the direction of Central Park. Wyatt watched them disappear into the crowd. His mouth was twisted into the acid unhappy smile that Kathe had seen so often during the Games.

V

The first two weeks of their holiday melted away. As far as Araminta was concerned, Kathe’s continued turndown of dates with Charlie’s friends was the only flaw amid Manhattan’s shops, nightclubs and theatres.

Finally, after one refusal too many, Araminta said:

“It’s high time you faced the facts.”

“

“Minta, I don’t want to go to the 21.”

“You’re evading the point. Wyatt’s having a bit of a summer romance with you.”

Araminta formed an odd gritted little smile. While it was only too clear to her that Wyatt, a lady’s man, had no idea of the havoc he was wreaking on their highly sheltered cousin’s impressionable heart, at the same time she was honest enough to accept that a strong hint of jealousy was mixed in with her concern.

“Americans do love to lead a girl on.”

Kathe looked down at the rose-patterned carpet of the guestroom.

“I know he’s not any more serious than you are with Charlie.”

“As I said, a summer romance. Well, at least I’ve warned you.”

After that Araminta refused to let anything deter her pleasure.

Humphrey and Rossie owned a roomy, ugly grey clapboard house on Cape Cod, and here they spent every August. This year, though, they had decided to forgo their quiet relaxation and treat their nieces to a tour of the Eastern Seaboard in the big Packard. Wyatt had volunteered to drive.

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At nine on the last morning before their trip, Kathe and Wyatt, having run in Central Park, were showered, dressed and drinking orange juice. Araminta, who seldom got home from dancing before three, would be asleep for hours; Rossie and Humphrey had already left for the shop. Martha, the cheerful coloured cook, set the morning mail on the table.

Wyatt sharply slit open a creamy envelope, reading it, then silently handing Kathe the deckled stationery.

Dear Mr Kingsmith,

Would you and Fraulein Kingsmith give us the pleasure of your company for tea this afternoon, July the thirty-first, at half after four?

ELEANOR LEVENTHAL

“We aren’t busy,”

Kathe said.

“Are you nuts?”

He snatched the note from her fingers, ripping the heavy paper in half, then in quarters.

“You saw how clear they made it that I’m nothing to them. Well, as far as I’m concerned, they can go drown in their damn tea!”

I

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The fringed brown velvet curtains in the Leventhals”

high-ceilinged living-room had been partially drawn against the brassy heat, thrusting deep shadows into the corners. The looming Italianate furniture was set formally apart; and Kathe, unable to reach any of the tables, balanced her half-empty cup and the plate with the remnants of a small pink-iced petit four on her lap. Wyatt, who had refused refreshments, sat in a stiff-looking sofa with his long legs thrust out. His face was expressionless except for a slight sardonic grin that Kathe knew by now hid his hurt and bitterness.

Mrs Leventhal, behind an antique Dresden coffee service, appeared yet frailer and older. On Fifth Avenue, her hat had hidden the sparseness of her neatly drawn back white hair, and her coat had disguised her spinal osteoporosis as well as how flat her chest was. The mournfully webbed wrinkles around her mouth looked like crumpled tissue paper.

The judge was winding up his opinions on the improved conditions in Germany.

“The Ruhr is producing at full blast.”

His earnestly sombre voice, although cadenced like a German’s, had no accent.

“Employment is at an all-time high. The currency is stable - quite a dramatic change for the better since I was last there, in nineteen twenty-nine. Though one can never be certain of the future, I personally find myself optimistic. There is every reason to believe that the … repressions … are at an end.”

He looked at Kathe for verification.

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‘The Nazi Party’s in power,”