The Other Side of Love (12 page)

she said faintly. Not breaking into the judge’s optimistic monologue had made her feel uncomfortably as if she were agreeing with him. Yet she knew, had he spoken against the Reich, she would have felt equally awkward.

“Very much in power.”

Since the letter had arrived this morning she had been keyed up for some kind of rapprochement on the Leventhals”

part. She had decided that they had included her in the invitation to act as a buffer and make Wyatt less volatile, more amenable to the grandparental advances. How naively hopeful she had been. The old couple continued to call Wyatt

“Mr Kingsmith’, a form of address that Kathe - after all, a European and therefore accustomed to mandatory use of surnames - found grating and sad; this was America, and he, even though unacknowledged, their grandson. After the initial greetings, Mrs Leventhal had used her whispery voice only to enquire what they wished from the tea-cart. Judge Leventhal had dominated the conversation with his magisterial certitude about German politics. Wyatt hadn’t argued, but one glance at his set face and unpleasant little smile would have told anyone that he couldn’t have disagreed more.

“Precisely why the earlier toughness is no longer necessary,”

the judge responded.

“The country’s unified behind the government.”

“The opposition’s been stamped out,”

Kathe mumbled.

“Nobody says what they think any more. They’re afraid.”

“In any event, our newspapers haven’t reported any new … outbreaks.”

“And last summer, during the Games,”

murmured Mrs Leventhal,

“one read of politeness and order in Germany.”

“Politeness towards everyone,”

the judgeAmphasized.

“That’s Dr Goebbels for you.”

Wyatt baled his fists in the pockets of his flannel slacks.

“The Ministry of Propaganda decreed every German be friendly, honest, kind and good, especially to the Jews.”

Before this, nobody had voiced the word

“Jew’.

Mrs Leventhal stared down at her hands. In this gloomy light, the long bony fingers appeared an odd purple.

The judge asked:

“Did you see that in print?”

“Sure thing. Billboards on every corner.

“This is Be Kind to Jews Month.”

“

The judge frowned.

“I beg your indulgence, but perhaps it would be easier if Fraulein Kingsmith and I discuss the matter in our own language.”

He turned to Kathe, saying in German:

“You must believe me when I say it’s important that you tell me the truth. Have you any knowledge of the concentrationcamps?”

“Not much. A little.”

Kathe shivered. She, too, spoke in German.

“Our cousin Aubrey is English. He was commissioned to do a series of essays on the Olympic Games by a magazine that had a very

75

small circulation and was quite new. Before then he’d been published only in school papers and at Oxford. Still, an ex-prisoner tracked him down at the Hotel Adlon to give him a report. It was a tremendous risk for the man anyone who talks can be put back inside. The conditions are unbelievable. The cruelty, the privation.”

“Then, you read this … uhh … report?”

“No,”

she admitted.

“Aubrey read a few sentences out loud and summarized the rest. But it shocked him so much that he left Oxford to write a book. In February, when he came over to do research, he couldn’t get any more information.”

Through a German friend, Aubrey had been put in touch with several released prisoners. None would talk about the time spent behind barbed wire. The last interview was with a violinist who had been in the new camp in the village of Dachau near Munich. The musician, too, had refused to elaborate, but Aubrey had said the man’s hands told the story. They were all twisted. He’d been concert-master with a symphony orchestra and he couldn’t bend any of his fingers.

“So as far as we know, then, the report given to your cousin might well have been exaggerated?”

The judge’s tone held an impersonal contempt for hearsay evidence.

“I don’t believe so.”

Kathe’s hands were shaking, and she got to her feet to replace the delicate Dresden chinaware on the tea-cart.

“Judge Leventhal, have you heard about the racial laws?”

“The Nuremberg laws, yes. A terrible step backwards for German jurisprudence.”

He swallowed twice, then pulled at his lapels as if to readjust his robes.

“Believe me, I’d never be questioning you like this, but a few days ago I was visited by an emigrant from Germany. He came here to tell me that my cousin is in one of these places. My cousin was head of Leventhal’s - The Berliner, it’s been called since he stepped down. Perhaps you know of it?”

“Of course. Everybody shops there.”

Wyatt was watching them with a blank look, but he understood the entire conversation: this past year he had taken a course in German and, although he spoke with only fair fluency, his comprehension was remarkable.

“So, then, you realize how impossible the story is to believe. We’re talking about a man whose family for generations has been active in the cultural and philanthropic circles of Berlin, a man with a fine military record - he was wounded in the war and awarded the Iron Cross, First Class, for bravery. Yet, according to this … er, refugee, he has been detained in a prison-camp since May. Over two months.”

Though the judge’s jaw trembled, his magisterial tone did not falter.

“What kind of charges could have been brought against Heinrich my cousin?”

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I

“We now have something called

“preventive custody”.”

She sighed.

“I’m so ashamed of what’s happening. The police can take in anybody who might commit a crime, which means they can take in anybody.”

The judge drew a breath as if steeling himself.

“Fraulein Kingsmith, you are excellently connected, you are an Olympic champion”

“Leave Rathe out of this!”

In one swift elastic movement Wyatt was on his feet. The slightly doltish laxness had been replaced with taut anger.

Both Leventhals turned to him in surprise.

“You speak German,”

the judge reproached.

“You’ve been less than candid with us.”

“Candid?”

Wyatt’s fists were clenching and unclenching at his sides.

“That’s a laugh! You were using a language you figured I didn’t understand! You pried around to learn about Kathe! Me, of course, you already know about - no matter how much you pretend not to!”

“Our conversation was intended to be private.”

The judge’s erect spine seemed as brittle and friable as the antique cups.

“Please believe me, my husband had no intention of insulting you, or of using Miss Kingsmith.”

The papery wrinkles on either side of Mrs Leventhal’s mouth trembled as she leaned towards Wyatt.

“He and I are concerned about our cousin. We are old, and probably our ways seem peculiar to you. But that doesn’t mean …

“

Her voice wavered into inaudibility.

“Eleanor,”

the judge said,

“you mustn’t agitate yourself.”

“We care very much for …

“

Mrs Leventhal lifted her thin arm, extending the palm placatingly towards W)Att.

“For all of our family.”

“Wyatt,”

Kathe murmured,

“maybe I caff find out”

“No. You will not put yourself on the line. If anyone steps in here, I do.”

“Mr Kingsmith, stop making so much of my request. There is no reason either of you should be involved”

“Yes, let’s cut involvement out of our lives,”

Wyatt said.

“This German refugee guy who came to see you was obviously lying, and so was the man who risked his life to see Aubrey last summer. Let’s face it, the Nazis are right. The Jews are the snakes in the Teutonic Garden of Eden, inventing all these ugly lies about having their rights taken away and being beaten up by blackshirts.”

“Please,”

Mrs Leventhal whispered. She had gone yet more pale.

“Wyatt, please … don’t be angry.”

She raised a hand to her flat chest.

The judge rose to his feet with jerky arthritic haste.

“My wife has a heart condition. I must give her the medication. If you will forgive us.”

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Til see what I can discover”

Rathe started.

But Wyatt had yanked her from the drawingroom.

He propelled her past the handsome houses, across Riverside Drive and down the sloping yellow grass of the parkway that ran along the Hudson River, plonking her down on the first free bench. That caustic half-smile was gone, and he hunched forward, his face bleakly miserable. Rathe longed to comfort him. But he sat apart from her, fair warning that he wanted no consoling touch or words. Following his example, she stared across the heat-shimmery reddish surface of the Hudson River. There were no trees to shade their bench, and she could feel the slow trickle of sweat between her breasts.

“So how about that?”

Wyatt said with a shrug.

“She’d literally rather die than admit that I’m connected to her.”

“They looked so old, so defenceless.”

“You think I didn’t notice?”

He bent his head, burying his fingers in his thick tawny hair.

“Rathe, I’d convinced myself it didn’t matter whether or not they owned up to being my grandparents”

“Mrs Leventhal was trying to say they care about you.”

“Oh Christ. Rathe, I’m crazy, but do you know what I’d give to hear one of them say

“You’re our Myron’s son”?”

“You told me it was a religious thing for them. They can’t go back on it.”

“Yes, it’s a religious thing. But that doesn’t alter the fact that rejection hurts - hurts like hell.”

He shrugged.

“OR, so I tell myself I’m meant to be a logical law student - another big laugh, me going into the same profession as him. Logically, the Leventhals have it right. I didn’t even know they existed until last summer. And as far as they’re concerned I’m a biological accident committed by their late son after they’d officially declared him dead.”

“Uncle Humphrey’s your father.”

“Not the way we’re talking about.”

A sound came from Wyatt’s throat.

“So where do I belong?”

“Wyatt”

“I’m a half-Jew, which is fine as far as I’m concerned. But, if they say I’m not, where does that leave me?”

Wyatt was clenching and unclenching his fists the way he had in the Leventhals”

drawingroom.

“How can they make me feel like such garbage? And why was I all hot to jump into the fray for them?”

“I wanted to help them, too.”

He gripped her wrist.

“You are not to search out this Leventhal joker, Rathe.”

“But”

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‘You’re going to mind your own business.”

“Maybe I could”

“No ferreting around the concentrationcamps. Is that clear?”

After a couple of moments he released her. The marks of his grip faded.

“I didn’t mean? to blow my stack at you. I’m just so damn confused.”

He turned, letting her see the tears in his eyes.

“I care for you, Wyatt.”

“Yes?”

“So very, very much.”

He touched her cheek. At the light caress, the air seemed yet stiller and her breath caught. She shifted closer to him on the hot paint of the bench. He put his arm around her shoulder, drawing her to his damp side. He rested his forehead against hers, then kissed her nose.

A nasal Bronx accent intruded.

“Can you beat that, necking on a day like this?”

Two sweating women were shoving perambulators uphill along the parkway.

“Is there somewhere we could be alone?”

Kathe murmured.

“Alone?”

“Just us …

“

Her eyelashes fluttered, and she couldn’t look at him.

“Am I getting the message right?”

His voice was stretched out of shape.

“A room somewhere …

“.

He was silent so long that she felt as if the sun was focusing its entire heat upon her.

“Yes, there’s rooms available,”

he said finally.

They climbed the slope to Riverside Drive; he hailed a cab. As they lurched forward, he pulled her in(A a tight embrace. Reaching under her skirt, he urgently caresseR the smooth flesh of her thighs above her stockings. Until now, despite their long tremulous kisses, he hadn’t gone in for what Araminta described as

“the favourite masculine sport”

manoeuvres in which the man attempts to fondle the girl under her clothes - or to remove them - and the girl, while appearing equally ardent, gracefully fends him off. Kathe, shaking, opened her legs to Wyatt’s touch, and kissed him. Their kiss involved teeth and tongue, lasting endlessly. The cab stopped, started, horns honked. She had no idea of how long the journey took. When the motor was cut, Wyatt pulled away, digging the fare from his pocket. Flushed and dizzy, she stepped on to the sidewalk.

They were on East 30th Street.

A few mean-looking bars and shops were interspersed beneath tenements festooned with drying clothes. Old women sat fanning themselves on a rusty fire-escape. The half-dozen men in undershirts drinking beer on a nearby stoop shouted arguments about Roosevelt