The Rendezvous (25 page)

‘Because of me? When we should have gone on and not wasted time? Oh, Karl, Karl, you fool – why can't you trust me? Why take a stupid risk? I can sleep in the car! Listen, sweetheart, we can go tonight. We can start off as soon as it's dark.'

‘Tomorrow morning,' he said. ‘I've told the manager. And whether it's a risk or not, you needed the break, and we'll travel differently from now on.'

‘How? How differently?'

‘We'll take it more easily, get along as far as we feel like during the day, and rest up each night. I've worked out a route that will get us to the Canadian border within the next week. Here, I'll show you.' He spread the map out on the bed; he had marked their way with a pencil.

‘We go back on to Interstate Highway 94, just here, about seventy miles from where we are. We get on that and we stay on it as far as Forsyth; then we branch off on to U.S. 12 and go right through to Spokane; then due north and over the Canadian border at Cascade or Grand Forks. There are motels all along the highway; we can spend the nights there until we get to Spokane. We should do the journey from Spokane up to Kokanee Glacier Park in one day. After that, my love, we can breathe a little.'

‘How about money? Will we have enough?'

‘More than enough,' he said. ‘But I think we should do one thing; I think we should trade in your car now, and get another.'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘Robert must know I've gone by now. It's safer to change cars. When we get to Canada what will we do?'

‘I'm not sure. Stay around the tourist centre at the Glacier. We can find somewhere to stay for a few weeks. I can get work. And you, my darling, will have to get a passport. That may take a few days, but it should be simple enough, you're an American citizen.'

‘And then where? Where do we go after that?'

‘I've been thinking,' he said. ‘I think we should go somewhere completely different. Not the South Americas; I don't want to go back to that part of the world again; and anyway, it's not safe any more. This is going to be my last run, Terese. Our last run. I think we'll go to Portugal. I know there are one or two people – Germans like myself – who have settled there, and nobody's come after them. I think we'll go to Portugal. Would you like that?'

‘I'd love it,' she said, and she smiled. ‘I was planning to go there anyway, don't you remember? We can sell my jewellery there too.'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘If we have to.…'

‘The ring would fetch – oh, probably forty, fifty thousand dollars. Robert bought it from Tiffany's for me. I believe it's very good. And I have my emerald clips and a pearl necklace and another brooch with diamonds. We won't be poor, my love. We can buy a house, you can open an office and start again. It will be a new life.'

She reached over and kissed him. ‘Don't say you're sorry you took me with you. It hurts me when you say that.'

‘It's because I love you,' he said. ‘Don't you understand that? Don't you understand that I can't bear for you to be in discomfort or think of you in danger. I lose my own courage when I think like that. I've taken you away from your husband, away from security and wealth, and given you – what? The chance to run like a hunted dog, to have no security, no settled future, just a map route with a question mark at the end instead of a destination.'

‘It's what I want,' she said. ‘You won't understand because you're a man, my love, and you don't like me in a situation which you can't control. You see it in terms of a night's sleep for me. I see it as my whole life. In your way, you see it too, or you wouldn't have let me come with you. It wasn't weakness, Karl, because you're not weak. It was what you knew was right for us too.'

He smiled at her and held her gently in his arms. ‘I am very lucky, as I've said. So often I've said this to you. I'm so lucky to have you. I'll make you another confession and you can laugh at me if you want. I don't like selling your jewellery and living off the money.'

‘I know,' she said. ‘I could see it in your face when I mentioned it. When we're in Portugal you can buy me another ring.'

‘For fifty thousand dollars? It may take a long time.'

‘I'll wait,' she said. ‘Don't you think we ought to go down to dinner, Mr. Hudson?'

‘I think we might. We have an early start tomorrow.'

‘The season's picking up,' the hotel manager said. He was sitting opposite his wife and his sister and brother-in-law, and they had just eaten dinner. ‘That was good, Hilda,' he said to his wife; he wiped his mouth with a checked table napkin and gave everyone round the table a big smile. She was a very good cook; she was a good woman in so many ways, and whatever people said about them, Jews were hard workers. It was just a pity that she wasn't a little more – soft – sentimental. He chased the criticism away because it came too soon after his appreciation of her cooking. Her sister and her brother-in-law owned a garage outside of town and ran a second-hand-car business. They saw quite a lot of each other, and Hilda and her sister were very close. The brother-in-law, Leo, was too much of a hardhead, but he didn't mind him really; it was important to keep the women happy. In fact, he often tried to put business in Leo's way if he could. If anyone at the hotel wanted a car checked, or repairs, he always called Leo's garage. That reminded him of something.

‘Leo, did you get a couple come to you to trade in a Ford convertible a couple of days ago?'

‘No,' Leo Hyman shook his head. ‘Nobody's traded anything in a week. I was going to say the season ain't picked up as far as I'm concerned! How come – you recommend them to come to me?'

‘Yeah,' Hilda said. ‘He did, Leo, I heard him. They were paying the bill and the fella asked where he could buy a car around here. George told him, go to Hyman's garage out on the fourth boulevard; they have a good stock and he'll give you good terms. Ask for Mr. Hyman himself and say I sent you. That's what George told him. I was there, right behind the desk, I heard him.'

Leo Hyman finished a glass of beer, and his wife answered. ‘They didn't come to us then,' she said. ‘Like Leo says, we haven't sold a car in a week and nobody's come in with any Ford convertibles. Was it a nice car, Hilda?'

‘Very nice; big and no marks I could see. Looked almost new, too. What a shame, Leo. But then George couldn't do more than give your name and tell them to go there, could he?' She spoke defensively and her brother-in-law said quickly, ‘Sure, sure, George, it was real good of you to try.'

‘Funny,' the manager said. ‘I even wrote the address for them. They were foreigners, anyhow he was, and I thought maybe they wouldn't find it, so I wrote it on a piece of paper and gave it to him. I couldn't figure why they'd want to trade in a beautiful car like that, anyhow.'

‘There was something funny about them,' his wife said. ‘I knew it the first time I saw them, but old hearts and flowers over there wouldn't listen to me!'

‘I only said they were crazy about each other,' her husband said. ‘And you said. Ah, they're not married. Right away, Hilda says they can't be married or they wouldn't be so happy. I ask you, why not?'

‘They weren't married,' Hilda said flatly. ‘You just don't see further than the nose on your face, George, but I do. I saw her luggage and the initials weren't right. She was no Mrs. Hudson, that's for sure.'

‘What were the initials,' Leo Hyman said.

‘T.B. Large and clear on her suitcase. I saw the boy bringing it downstairs, and I thought to myself, married my fanny! And they were rich too. I know clothes when I see them, and what she was wearing didn't come from any chain store. You know money when you see it, honey.…' She spoke to her sister. ‘Like alligator shoes and matching purse, and everything personal in gold. Little things, like a cigarette lighter and a lipstick case – that sort of detail. They were loaded. And they were having it on the side, that's all. George believes it all, of course; Mr. and Mrs. Hudson. Funny name for a Norwegian, Hudson.'

‘How do you knew he was Norwegian?' Leo asked her. He had been picking his teeth with a split match during most of the conversation. Now he stopped and put the match in his vest pocket.

‘I don't,' George answered. ‘But he was no American; he had some kind of an accent, like Norwegian or German or something, and he looked kind of blond and a big guy. I guess he was Norwegian. Maybe they just decided not to trade the car in after all. Maybe that's why they didn't go to you, Leo.'

‘Sure, most likely. What was the dame like – what were her initials again, Hilda?'

‘T.B. Pretty, blonde. Around thirty something, but you can't tell the age on those women; they spend all the time in the beauty parlour. How's your mother, Leo? Is her leg all right now?'

‘She's fine,' he said. ‘They're made of tough material, the old people. Ruby and I went up the weekend and she was great. She sent her best to you and George.'

The conversation drifted between the four of them, eddying between business and family topics in two streams that sometimes met and interflowed before they separated again. Not long after, the Hymans left. It was well past midnight, when the call came through to the number Joe Kaplan had spoken to in Detroit. Hyman's wife was in bed and fast asleep in the next room.

‘I might have a lead for you,' Leo Hyman said. ‘It's one in a million but I guess it's worth passing on. A guy stayed at my brother-in-law's place two days ago. Big, blond, foreign guy; had a dame with him, small and blonde. Called themselves Hudson, but the dame's suitcase had the initials T.B. on it. They weren't married, my sister-in-law said. They wanted to trade in a new car, or near new, and they didn't come to me with it. Ford convertible. Could be, yeah. Jewish name put them off, maybe. Okay, glad I called you. Yeah, sounds as if it could be the bastard. The descriptions check. Okay. Any time. Bye.'

Joe Kaplan let himself into the apartment; it was past seven-thirty again and he was tired. His days at the hospital always left him feeling drained and often depressed; so many people were beyond help, and he suffered with them and blamed himself for not being able to do more, help more. His temperament inclined towards the failures in his estimate of himself; the cures gave him a sense of personal fulfilment which had taken the place of the religion he hadn't practised since he was a boy. It had been a long day and not rewarding; he had given everything of himself in the medium of attention and involvement, and he felt empty. The apartment he came back to was empty too, because Vera had packed up and left him. It was odd how little he missed her as a person. There were traces of her in drawers and the medicine chest; she had left a pair of gloves behind and some personal laundry, which the maid had asked him what do to with – she had left debris, rather than traces of the years they had been together, eight of them in that apartment. Joe hadn't argued; she hadn't given him the opportunity. She had just packed and left, and sent him a letter saying she would like a divorce. He had known it was going to happen because she had moved out of the bedroom after he had told her about his connection with the Israelis. She couldn't bear him to sleep near her or touch her. She had gone over to the other side with a completeness that only proved how hard she had found it staying on his for so long. He didn't blame her; he just waited for her to make up her mind when to go.

He came in and went to the dressing room she had introduced into his life, and changed his shoes and took off his coat. It was all over; the rows and the reconciliations and the patching of the threadbare marriage with sex and gestures of affection, which weren't strong enough to overcome the resentments and the secret hates. He remembered the night they had driven to the Bradfords for dinner – how many months ago now? – it seemed a lifespan. They had quarrelled before they left because she was jealous of Terese, and then they had made a joke in the car and stitched up another tear in their relationship. But the tears were too many and the thread of love was rotten; it snapped at the first strain. She had been jealous of his work, and jealous of Terese Bradford because she symbolised the war which had been waged against his race, and Terese was all the more important because she didn't belong to that race.

That was the real reason behind Vera's suspicion; everything she objected to had the Semitic slant hidden beneath it, and hidden so well that she couldn't see it herself. It had been easier for her to say, ‘You're in love with her …' and turn it into a sexual misdemeanour on his part, when what she really meant was, ‘She fought the Germans and you feel so strongly about her because the Germans killed the Jews and you're a Jew, and I can't take it. And I can't forgive you for making me such a miserable social coward that I'm ashamed of my own husband.'

He had accepted the failure and told her she could have a divorce, if she went to Reno and got the thing through. He felt nothing but emptiness; he was more unhappy about Robert Bradford than he was about himself and Vera. Their friendship was finished now; they kept in touch but there was a hostility which Bradford didn't bother to conceal. Kaplan had failed his wife; he didn't care about Alfred Brunnerman or what he had done; all he cared for was his wife's safety and this was in jeopardy because of Kaplan. And he clung to the illusion that she was ill and not responsible, like a climber stuck on the cliff face with only one good rock to hold on to; if he let go, he fell and Joe had given up trying to make him face the truth. He hadn't seen it himself, and he was trained in the study of the human mind and emotions. He had guided Terese out of the morass of horror and pain which had engulfed so many people in that old, boring war of twenty years ago. He had re-made her and allowed himself a lot of pride when he saw her and his great friend, Bob, together. He had played God, and sat back to contemplete his own wisdom and success in solving one complicated human problem. He had been closer to her than anyone, even the man she married, and it turned out he hadn't known her at all. She had defeated him and all he stood for; she had gone with Brunnerman because she loved him. There was no medical cure for that complaint. He was having a drink and reading the paper when the phone rang. It was Julia.