The Other Side of Love (23 page)

I

Wyatt had graduated second in his class; he had been an editor on the Law Review and written articles for it; he had been offered a prestigious clerkship by a district court judge; he was being interviewed by the most eminent Manhattan law firms. Humphrey, flushed and excited, was circling the crush at the flat informing his and Rossie’s friends of these facts. Waitresses passed trays of champagne, the dining-table had been Attended to its full fifteen feet and the buffet was in full swing. Tire stoutest butler sliced the enormous golden-brown turkey while another separated pink slabs from the pair of cold poached salmon and a third ladled shrimp curry from the outsize silver chafing-dish. Guests in evening clothes pressed around helping themselves to the assorted condiments, the salads, the tiny beaten biscuits.

The younger group were carrying their plates to the jammed living-room where a black pianist was playing Trenesi’. The older guests chose to eat at the round tables set up in Wyatt’s bedroom and the guestroom - for tonight the furniture was being stored in the basement. Wyatt had just finished circling both rooms, laughing and chatting a minute with each couple, accepting their congratulations.

In the calm of the corridor, he met Rossie.

“Terrific party, Mom.”

“You deserve it,”

she said, patting his cheek. For a moment her smile was sad, and he wondered if she were thinking of Myron Leventhal,

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who had never finished Harvard med school.

“Wyatt, I don’t think it’s smart for you to go to England before you take the Bar.”

“Nothing to worry about. I’ve got a reasonably supple mind, and I’ve crammed enough to pass two Bar exams.”

A plumply pretty woman with white hair came towards them with a laden plate. After applauding Wyatt and praising the food to Rossie, she continued into the guestroom.

“Mom, I’m bringing Kathe back with me.”

“There’s no need to sound so defiant, dear. You’re ready to practise law; that’s all I wanted.”

“So we have your blessing?”

Rossie twisted her diamond wedding band.

“It’s quite clear that this year’s separation was hard on you.”

“Why the equivocation?”

She looked directly at him, and after a moment said in her most practical tone;

“All right, dear, I’ll tell you. The circumstances being what they are, you’d be better off with an American girl.”

“Kathe’ll take out her citizenship papers.”

“How did she convince Alfred and Clothilde to change their mind?”

“She didn’t. She couldn’t inveigle them. Talk about the Rock of Gibraltar! I decided to try my persuasive powers, and applied for a visa. The German passport-control turned thumbs down.”

They exchanged glances, and Rossie said softly:

“That exactly proves my point. An American girl would be so much better for you.”

“Kathe’s not like that.”

Rossie looked startled.

“Who ever thought she was? Good heavens, Wyatt, she’s the most darling girl. Very fine and honourable. But she is a German. And that makes so many problems because of … Myron. You’ll never be able to visit her country. They have those disgusting laws that make my blood boil and must do the same to you-”

“OK, OK, I get the drift.”

“I don’t want to see you hurt, that’s all.”

Rossie glanced towards the noisy living-room and the bedroom doors before murmuring:

“Dear, you’ve been marvellous. I know it would have been way easier if you could’ve told them there’s no problem about being related.”

“Hey, come on,”

he said in an equally low tone.

“There’s no way I could tell Uncle Alfred and Aunt Clothilde without destroying Dad. Besides, they have other objections. Kathe’s too young, et cetera. But my mind’s made up.”

“Your mind? What about Katy?”

“God, it’s lousy being apart like this! She feels the same, but I’ll have to convince her.”

Rossie surveyed her tall son in his white dinner-jacket, his tie pulled

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askew, his streaked hair as usual looking attractively unkempt.

“If anyone could convince a girl, it’s you,”

she said.

“Now, get on back to your friends.”

Wyatt walked slowly down the corridor, halting at the entry of the hot living-room where the laughter and voices all but drowned out the pianist’s jazz version of’I Didn’t Know What Time It Was’.

Rossie was right about the separation being rough on him. This past year had been the worst of his life. Some days he had been too absorbed in his misery of impatience to pay attention to the life around him; other days he’d been so acutely conscious of people - his family, his classmates and professors - that their every action, every word had grated on him and he would flare with sarcasm. He had got into a fight with an old friend who had made a mildly anti-Semitic joke. For the first time he’d had headaches. He’d played such vicious squash that he had strained his left Achilles tendon. He had studied as if demons were on his tail. Maybe demons were chasing him. Could there be any other explanation for the doubts that had razored into his brain cells? Had Kathe refused to elope with him the previous summer because of Myron Leventhal? Had she kept that promise to her parents out of her own hidden psychological urge to avoid a lasting tie with him? In his bitterest moments he was incapable of visualizing her without the word

“Nazi”

superimposed across her chest like those place-name ribbons worn by beauty-pageant contestants. Her letters, loving and tender, ameliorated the doubts, but never cured them completely.

He was constitutionally incapable of another year and a half of separation. It would be torment to break up, but a clean prophylactic torment. Like amputating a gangrenous aitn so the rest of him might survive. The group at the piano were wawig and calling to him. He went towards them thinking: meant exactly what I told Mom. Either Kathe comes back with me or that’s it for us.

II

Kathe halted. Heaving and gasping, she held a hand to her side. Totally out of shape, she told herself. She and Wyatt were in London. It was just after six-thirty on a soft cool morning, and they had been running parallel to Rotten Row.

“Wyatt, wait,”

she panted, and flung herself on the clumpy grass. She could feel the reverberations of hoofbeats from a solitary earlymorning rider.

Wyatt jogged back to her.

“Hey, we don’t want you cramping up,”

he said.

“Upsy-daisy, lady.”

“I can’t move.”

But he took her hands, hauling her to her feet. An arm around her waist, he started her into a slow jog to cool off. Her breathing grew

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more normal, and the brushing of their sides sent filaments of happiness through her. This pleasure faded as they neared the clump of trees beyond which they had left their warm-up clothes. Where an hour earlier a pair of Canada geese had pecked in the grass, a sergeant paced up and down, overseeing maybe a dozen khakiuniformed men as they dug up the park. A gnarled little private caught her expression of dismay.

“Anti-aircraft gun-emplacements, miss,”

he called.

“That

“Itler!

“E’s got another think coming if

“e tries the same game with the Poles as with the Czechs.”

Kathe had written to Aubrey about the jubilant crowds sieg-heiling outside the beige marble Chancellery after Hitler had junked the Munich Agreement and marched into what remained of Czechoslovakia. Now the Fiihrer was once again screaming a mandate. Poland must surrender the former German port of Danzig. The Poles were refusing. Once again Europe gnawed fingernails.

Wyatt and Kathe rounded the copse to the bench where they’d left their warm-up clothes. He pulled on his old Olympic sweatshirt and tapped a cigarette from the pack.

“Kathe, listen,”

he said.

“Ever since I landed I’ve been hashing and rehashing how to put this. You know me, Mr Spur-of-the-Moment. Waiting this long proves I’m dead serious.”

“Yes?”

“It’s time to take the plunge.”

The sweat had cooled on her skin.

“There’s only a year left.”

“A year and a half before we’re engaged,”

he corrected.

She pulled on her top, feeling an ostrich-like security in the brief darkness.

“You mean everything to me, you know that.”

“Before we go any further, you might as well know that I decided to persuade Uncle Alfred personally.”

Striking a match with his thumbnail, he lit his cigarette.

“It seems I’m not wanted in Naziland.”

“Sigi told me you might have problems,”

Kathe mumbled.

“Sigi? What’s Sigi got to do with my visa?”

“After that fight in Garmisch a friend of his, somebody in the Gestapo, noticed his name on the report. He had lunch with Sigi and told him that they’d looked into your background.”

“Swell crowd your brother hangs around with,”

Wyatt said bitterly.

“How come you never mentioned this?”

“We’d only have started an argument.”

“Stupid of me. I should’ve guessed.”

He smoked his cigarette while she ran a comb through her hair. The roots were wet with perspiration. After she had put away the comb, she said quietly:

“The visa doesn’t really matter, Wyatt. We’ll meet here next year.”

“One trivial complication. Those guys weren’t digging up Hyde Park for their health. There’s going to be a war.”

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‘Hitler and his ultimatums.”

“The salient point here is I am making an ultimatum of my own.”

The moment of truth was upon him; he couldn’t put it off. His mouth was dry. He had feared he might actually break down and weep, grovel and plead with tears running down his cheeks. Instead he sounded quite rational.

“OK, I’m not cut out to be a monk eleven months out of twelve. OK, I miss you until I think I’m going to pop like a balloon. It goes way beyond that. Kathe, the questions, the questions. It’s the questions I can’t take. When I should’ve been cramming for exams, I’d find myself pulling mental daisy petals. My girl is German. Does my girl love me? Does she love me not?”

“Wyatt”

“No, hear me out. I’m not saying this is your fault. It’s me. I’d rather cut off my right arm than lose you, but I can’t take another day of this craziness. So it’s up to you. Are you coming back to New York? Or are we finished?”

“You can’t mean today”

“Don’t look like that, Kathe. None of this is coming out of the blue.”

Tremors ran along his thighs and calves, as if from a neurological disease, and he had to force himself to continue.

“Tell me yes or tell me no.”

“I’ve tried and tried to get them to move up the date. But Mother never changes her mind. And Father’s not much more flexible.”

He took a long puff on his cigarette, and smoke burned deep in his lungs.

“This isn’t their decision. It’s yours.”

“I love you more than anything in the world,”

she said.

“One syllable. Yes. No.”

“It’s my promise, Wyatt.”

A

He stubbed out his cigarette. His facewad drained to the frightening Atabrin yellow of malaria patients.

“So it’s negative?”

“Sometimes you’re frozen,”

she flared.

They walked along the broad path, he keeping apart from her, she reminding herself of his notorious hot temper and trying not to take this argument to heart.

When they reached the Bayswater Road, he said:

“So long.”

He prided himself on his voice. It was neither conciliatory nor bellicose. He jogged back to the Dorchester, waiting until he was in his room before he allowed himself to cry.

After Kathe bathed, she brushed her hair until electricity crackled, sparking, and her arm ached. She left the pale gleaming strands loose over her shoulders the way he liked, she put on the new blue-andgreen flowered Liberty blouse that he had said matched her eyes. She sat at the drawingroom window. Every few minutes, she would get

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up to touch the aspidistra plant, the Paul do Lamerie candelabrum, the Ming jar, as if these relics of a bygone era were magic amulets to draw him to her. Oh, Wyatt, don’t put me through this.

At last, a few minutes before one, he trotted up the freshly washed steps. She ran to open the door.

He touched her hair, smiling.

“Rapunzel.”

Unglued by relief, she leaned against him. He held her tight, then released her.

“Spent the morning at Thomas Cook’s on the Strand. What a zoo! People lined up everywhere and pleading for berths. Queen Mary sails the day after tomorrow. As I got to the counter a First-class cabin opened up. First-class being out of my range, I signed all my traveller’s cheques as a deposit and cabled the folks for the rest.”

“You what?”

she asked, incredulous.

“No choice. Everybody and his brother is heading home.”

“Wyatt, be reasonable”

“Love, I’m in total control of my reason. After lunch we’ll head over to the embassy and start the paperwork for a marriage licence. Lucky you you picked yourself a lawyer who can cut through the clauses.”

“At least wait until I get home and can try one more time to get them to change their minds.”