Tomorrow Is Forever (12 page)

In the meantime Jacoby had married a brilliant girl named Ricarda. Much younger than her husband, Ricarda was already showing a devotion to science equal to his, and after their marriage they worked together. She and Jacoby were passionately in love. Though sometimes the sight of their happy marriage made Kessler feel like a pauper standing in the snow to look through a lighted window, he tried not to let them suspect it. They had been his friends before their marriage, and afterwards they remained so.

They knew there was an Austrian fanatic named Hitler, but beyond laughing at his bad German when they heard it on the radio they had been too busy to pay much attention to him. None of them had ever been interested in politics. It was easy to see now that they should have been. But they were not, and when they heard Hitler's fantastic threats it did not occur to them to believe him. When Jacoby and Ricarda finally realized the persecution directed at them, it was already full-grown and too strong to be escaped.

They had tried to escape. But it was too late. They who had saved so many others could not save themselves. The force of evil closed around them so tight that at last it crushed even their gallant spirits. The Nazis succeeded in doing to Jacoby what the war had not been able to do: they destroyed his faith and with it his courage. So today the great Dr. Jacoby and his wife were only two more of Germany's uncounted Jewish suicides.

Kessler had not been able to save them, but through the connivance of some of Jacoby's friends who were risking their lives along with his to help him, he had managed to save their little girl. He got Margaret into France, her surname changed from Jacoby to Kessler on the passport, and a French representative of Vertex Studios met him at the frontier with tickets to Paris. Once in France, he discovered that the American studios were hiring writers, directors, actors and producers from Germany as fast as permits could be obtained in Washington, with a grimly gleeful “Thank you, Mr. Hitler!” as the finest cinema talent of the Old World poured into Hollywood. It was not difficult for him to get an American contract.

Two weeks after he left Ellis Island he was working in New York. A little while later he and Margaret came to California. As his own language returned to him, he taught her to speak English. She was a happy little girl now, going to school, though she had not forgotten Germany. He wished it had happened when she was younger. But he had learned not to look back. If a man was to keep any sanity in these times, the only view was forward. He did not know what was going to become of Margaret. It was scarcely possible that his own overtaxed strength could hold out as long as she would need him. But he had learned too that though one only looked ahead, one did not need to tax his powers with apprehension.

Through the windows of his office Kessler watched the late sun on the hills beyond, glowing on the slopes while the folds between filled with purple shadow. Dry odors of dust and sagebrush blew in toward him. Around his bungalow were the friendly noises of the day's end, doors closing, cars starting, voices, calling “See you tomorrow!” In a few minutes Spratt Herlong would come for him.

Surprising, how simple it was now, to be about to see Elizabeth. He had expected never to see her again. He had made another life for himself without her. But now that the Nazis had smashed that life, taking away his work and his friends, forcing his frail powers to the effort of still another beginning, it did not seem too much to ask that at least he might find Elizabeth in happy possession of all he had made possible for her. When he had seen her, tranquil and assured as she was meant to be, he would know that he had accomplished something in his lifetime. He could be satisfied that neither war nor Nazis had conquered him completely.

He wanted to see her now; for a long time he could not have said that. Even as lately as ten years ago he would not have cared to undertake it. But there was such a thing as having moved beyond resentment, beyond envy, beyond any demand of his own ego. There was a certain austere happiness in having mastered himself so completely. A cold happiness it was, to be sure, and a lonely one, but at least it did mean peace.

7

T
here's the car,” said Elizabeth. “Remember, both of you, not to take any notice of his misfortunes.”

Cherry laughed at her reproachfully. “Mother, we're not savages! We don't stare at cripples.”

“I know, dear, but sometimes the best of us give a little start when we see persons very different from ourselves. We don't mean to.”

Cherry and Dick promised to be models of good behavior. Elizabeth got up and went to the door opening from the living room into the entry. She hoped Mr. Kessler would have a comfortable evening. Entertaining Spratt's business associates was a duty they were all used to, and the older children adapted themselves to it well enough. Brian begged to be let off when there were strangers in to dine, so as usual he had had his dinner early and was now upstairs in his room pottering over his natural history collections. Spratt opened the front door, saying,

“Here we are, Kessler. And here's my wife. Elizabeth, my friend Erich Kessler that you've already heard so much about.”

Elizabeth looked up with the smile that Spratt characterized as the masterpiece of the accomplished hostess, “not bright enough to look insincere, but not strained enough to look dutiful. Just in between, gracious.”

Mr. Kessler's physical handicaps had threatened to make this occasion difficult, but Elizabeth's initial glance dispelled her apprehension. He was badly crippled, but he did not appear resentful; he faced the world before him with a grave acceptance, as though all the fault he had to find with destiny had been got over long ago. As their eyes met Elizabeth was struck with an impression that she had seen Mr. Kessler somewhere before.

It also seemed to her that Mr. Kessler was looking at her with an unusual interest. His eyes went over her swiftly and inclusively, taking in her hair, her face, her dress, every detail of her as though it were important that he should know all about her as soon as possible. It was the way a man might have looked at a famous personage he had long been eager to meet, or a woman so astoundingly beautiful that he wanted to impress her forever upon his memory. Elizabeth was not famous, and while she was not ugly she was no ravishing beauty either. She thought it might mean that they really had seen each other somewhere, and he like herself was trying to identify the recollection. If her own sense of familiarity persisted she could ask him about it later on.

All this was only a quick flutter in her mind, pushed aside in an instant while her attention turned itself to its immediate concerns. She took in his appearance quickly: a big man of more powerful build than she had expected, bent over a heavy cane with a dependence that told her instantly that she should not expect him to shake hands; iron-gray hair receding at the temples, a thick beard, a scar that rippled up his right cheek, dark eyes with a line of concentration between the eyebrows and crinkles of kindness at the outer corners, and a pleasant smile—what she could see of it between the whiskers—a very pleasant smile indeed. If he had any idea that this was not their first meeting he gave no evidence of it, for all he said to her was, “How do you do, Mrs. Herlong,” with the stateliness she had learned to expect from Europeans. Elizabeth indicated the room beyond.

“Come in by the fire, Mr. Kessler. These are my children.”

Dick was standing, with that mixture of assurance and awkwardness that made her find boys in their teens so eminently kissable just when they most resisted being kissed by their mothers. Cherry, with fewer years but more social graces than Dick would acquire for another decade, sat smiling a welcome to the newcomer. Elizabeth introduced them, and again it seemed to her that Kessler was regarding them with an attention extraordinary in a man who could hardly be supposed to have any interest in them. There was an alertness in the way he spoke to Dick and Cherry, as though he had decided in advance that he was going to be fond of them and hoped they would respond. He said, “Your father has told me a great deal about you, and has shown me your pictures. I am so glad to see you.”

Dick, who had already said “How do you do,” tried to look pleasant without knowing what else to say, while Cherry, a shade too adept at social fibs, answered, “He has told us
lots
about you too, Mr. Kessler,” with such a bright smile that Elizabeth privately reminded herself, “I've got to warn Cherry about that sort of thing, if she isn't careful she's going to be an intolerable gusher before she's twenty.” Kessler appeared to be finding them the most attractive youngsters on earth. While she was offering him the chair she had intended for him, arranged with a little table at its side so he could set down his glass when the hors d'oeuvres appeared, she added to herself, “Spratt must have led him to expect a most remarkable pair of children, he really shouldn't—or is Mr. Kessler as charming as this with everybody?” Spratt, evidently pleased at the good impression his offspring were making, crossed the room to the door leading upstairs, explaining that Kessler had had time to wash up in his bungalow before leaving the lot, but he himself had not, and if they'd forgive him he'd go up and make himself presentable. “I'll leave you with the family, Kessler,” he concluded.

Kessler gave him a smile and a slight formal bow. Elizabeth returned to the fire. “Now we'll have a cocktail. Dick, will you bartend?”

Dick would; he was always glad of this to occupy him during his first minutes of encounter with a stranger. Everything became quite as usual. Dick mixed the Martinis, and as the war had reduced the number of their servants Cherry brought in the hors d'oeuvres. “These are liver-paste, Mr. Kessler, and these are smoked salmon, and these thingumbobs on toothpicks—I don't know what they are, something she made out of an old lampshade.” But as Elizabeth and Kessler picked up their glasses and their eyes met across them, she felt another twinge of familiarity. “I have met this man before, I know I have, and he knows it too. Or doesn't he? If he doesn't, why is he looking at me like that? Maybe it's just because I keep looking at him—for pity's sake, I do believe I'm staring. Behave yourself, Elizabeth.” She was relieved to hear Cherry say,

“Have you ever been to the United States before, Mr. Kessler?”

He turned to her at once, and Elizabeth thought, “He's as relieved as I am to have that look between us broken, or if he's not, then I'm letting my imagination go haywire.” He was answering Cherry.

“Yes, Miss Herlong, but that was many years ago, long before this country was brightened by your existence.”

“Say, that's very good!” Dick exclaimed with a grin.

Elizabeth flashed him a teasing glance. “You will, Oscar.” They all laughed, and Dick said to Kessler,

“You speak awfully well for a man who's just been here once, and that so long ago.”

“It has been three years since I left Germany. Besides, I have visited England and Scotland. We have more chance to practice foreign languages in Europe than you have here.”

“Oh yes, of course you do,” said Cherry. “We don't have any. We take French, and learn to say, ‘Have you seen the garden of my grandmother's cousin?' and then school is out for the summer and we forget it. At least, I always did.”

Kessler continued talking with Dick and Cherry. He asked them what they liked to study at school, and what they wanted to do when they had finished, so that they loosened up their company manners and began to talk readily. Their experience with representatives of the picture business had been that most of them were so engrossed by their work that they rarely attempted any conversation about anything but the picture they were working on now or the one they had just finished, and they had been prepared to sit in polite boredom. They were surprised and delighted to have a guest who took an interest in their affairs. At first Elizabeth thought it was very good of him to do so, and she wished more of their visitors were like this; then it occurred to her that Kessler was concentrating on the children in order to avoid talking with her.

He had drawn them out skillfully. Dick was telling him the rules of football, and Kessler had nothing to do but listen with the interested appearance of a foreigner who wanted to learn about a native institution. “Am I just seeing things that aren't here,” Elizabeth asked herself, “or is it on purpose that he hasn't looked at me once since that curious tense moment across the cocktails?” It seemed to her now that when their eyes had met and held each other so strangely it had been as though Kessler was about to say something, and at the last instant had caught himself back from saying it, grasping at Cherry's question as a means of saving himself. She did not understand what it was all about, but at any rate the dissertation on football had given him time to recover his equilibrium, and he now turned to her with a calmness that made her almost believe all this was merely an exaggeration of her fancy, saying,

“Haven't you three children, Mrs. Herlong?”

“Why yes,” said Elizabeth, “but Brian is only eleven, so he had his dinner early.” But she could not help asking, “How did you know there were three?”

“Mr. Herlong told me, and showed me a picture of you all. Brian isn't asleep yet, is he?”

“I'm sure he isn't. Do you want to meet him too?”

“I should like to very much, if it's quite convenient.”

Elizabeth laughed a little. “Mr. Kessler, you should know it's never inconvenient for a mother to display her jewels. Dick, will you run up and get Brian?”

“Sure, but you'd better warn Mr. Kessler that he'll be all smeared with glue and bugs. Brian's mounting butterflies, does it all day and night, and he'll talk your ear off about them if you let him.”

“I should like that. Tell him to bring his specimens down and show them to me.”

“There are thousands,” Cherry warned, but Kessler showed no dismay. He only said,

“Then tell him to bring a few, and don't make him brush his hair, or he'll dislike me before he sees me.” He and Dick exchanged a look of understanding. As Dick went out Kessler turned to Elizabeth. “I hope I'm not upsetting a domestic arrangement, Mrs. Herlong, in asking that he come in. But your two older children are so entertaining that I couldn't help wanting to see the other.”

“Aren't you nice!” exclaimed Cherry.

“Thank you for saying so,” answered Elizabeth. “Of course, their father and I think they are, but we love having other people agree with us.”

“I'm sure other people do. You should be very proud, Mrs. Herlong.” He glanced around him. “When one sees a home like this, one knows who is responsible for it. I don't mean the physical furnishings of your house, attractive as they are—I mean its atmosphere. It's not by chance one achieves such confidence and vitality.”

He spoke sincerely, obviously meaning what he said. Elizabeth felt a glow of pleasure. It was like what she had felt when she sat on the balcony yesterday afternoon, before she heard the children talking in the den. She wondered what Kessler would say of them now if he had heard that conversation.

She said, “I hardly know how to answer such a compliment, Mr. Kessler. Has it occurred to you that perhaps we have too much confidence, a good deal more than is justified by the world we live in?”

“Oh yes,” he replied instantly. “That's true of nearly all Americans—at least, it seems true to anyone who comes to the United States from Europe. But surely,” he added smiling, “you can't hold yourself guilty when a man long surrounded by terror comes into your home and feels encouraged at the thought that this, and not the other, is the normal state of living?”

His words made her feel better than she had felt all day. Now that the two of them seemed to be back on a normal basis from which a friendship could be started, it occurred to Elizabeth that perhaps, Kessler, fresh from Nazi Germany but evidently not part of it, could tell Dick more clearly than she ever could something about the issues at stake in this war he was going to be asked to fight. Much as she loved Dick she could not disguise from herself the fact that he was more superficial than she would have liked him to be, so occupied with girls and football that he was glad to accept clichés that relieved him from being occupied with more troublesome matters. Dick was a nice boy, but mentally he was a rather lazy one, and neither she nor his father was quite capable of coping with him. Spratt was inclined to believe he would begin to take life seriously when the time came; Elizabeth thought the time had come for it. Sometimes it happened that a friend was better at this than the parents who had spent so many years being more indulgent than they should have been, or who at least had emphasized details of socially acceptable behavior at the expense of the much harder job of making a boy think for himself.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the opening of the door from the hall. Spratt and Dick came in with Brian, who had a glass-topped box of specimens under his arm. “This is Mr. Kessler, Brian,” Spratt said. “He wanted to meet you so he could know the whole Herlong family.”

“How do you do sir,” said Brian, all in one word, and held out his hand. Fortunately Kessler was sitting down instead of leaning on his cane, and so could give him a handshake. Brian stood uncertainly, one foot curled around the opposite ankle.

“Your brother tells me you are interested in natural history,” said Kessler, “and I asked him to tell you I should like to see some of your specimens. Is that what's in the case?”

Brian nodded. “Butterflies. Want to see them?”

“Look out,” warned Dick, and Cherry said simultaneously, “You don't know what you're getting into, Mr. Kessler.” Paying no attention to them, their guest already had his head close to Brian's as they bent over the butterflies together. Dick poured a cocktail for his father, and saying, “You'll need another one too, Mr. Kessler, if you let him get started,” he refilled Kessler's glass. Kessler appeared to be deeply interested in Brian's butterflies. Brian was chattering.