Henry James and the Communists
1936–1939
1
When Myra Thorsten drove away from Gus Maloney’s cabin in the Adirondacks with Harold’s copy of The Portrait of a Lady, he was so upset he scared himself. He had thought about making love to Myra, but brooding on the porch after corn flakes for lunch, he imagined himself hitting her, though not in the uncontrolled, frightening way the policemen in his memory of the Union Square riot still beat women, all but smashing their faces to pulp. In his fantasy, Harold solemnly administered punishment to Myra in a decadent ritual in which she accepted her shame for borrowing a book without permission, and he pronounced sentence, then stepped toward her to carry it out, wielding a shadowy weapon—perhaps a thin cane—which he applied, not hard but firmly, to her shoulder as she bent her head, to her outstretched hands with their polished fingernails, and finally to her buttocks in its snug skirt, as she turned and bent humbly, her hands on her knees. What he imagined embarrassed and aroused him but made him less angry, and he began to notice the smell of the pine trees. Birds cried and a sound made him think a car was coming again, but it was the wind in the trees. He left the porch, stooping to gather brown pine needles and crush them in his hands.
The weather warmed up, and in the days that followed they sat reading at the edge of the lake, going into the water when they were hot. Artie learned to float. They hitchhiked into Schroon Lake. Harold made notes for something, maybe an essay.
Back in New York, he delayed getting in touch with Myra. He borrowed The Portrait of a Lady from the library and finished it, horrified but impressed when Isabel Archer, James’s bright, lively, innocent American heiress, returned to her evil husband at the end, though she could have gotten away. At last he wrote Myra a note. He wondered if the book would arrive in a package but discovered that he preferred a meeting.
Weeks passed. He decided she’d given him a false address. Then a postcard came, setting a time and place: a bar and grill near Grand Central Station, a Saturday night. Harold took the subway from East New York, where he and Artie still lived, and arrived early, but Myra was already in a booth, wearing black gloves and drinking what looked like bourbon, her red hair under a small black hat. Her purse, a black pouch with a metal clasp, was on top of the book. The table did not look clean, and it was difficult for Harold to refrain from snatching the book even before he sat down.
Myra raised her glass in greeting, flicking an ash from her cigarette, and he slid into the booth with its sticky table, opposite her. She wore bright red lipstick. She had on a stylish gray jacket. A white blouse gleamed from under open lapels.
—Aren’t you drinking? Myra asked. She’d dressed carefully; apparently she cared how he saw her. He reluctantly turned his back on his book, went to the bar, and bought a bourbon and water. Almost before he was seated and reaching for his own cigarettes, Myra lifted her glass again, touching his, and began to talk. I can’t stand it that she goes back to him, she said. What’s wrong with her?
Harold lit his cigarette. He put his hand on the book, moving her purse slightly. It had not occurred to him that Myra would read the book, much less have an opinion about it. He was charmed, though he disagreed. He tried to explain what he believed to be true about James’s ending: that in making Isabel Archer return to her husband after being away (she had turned down estimable suitors to enter a disastrous, imprisoning marriage), James considered her heroic, not weak—someone who had learned to confront evil.
He tried to explain. If James thinks she should stay away, what is the book about? Why would it end just there? What has she accomplished?
Myra scoffed. What does anyone accomplish? She should have stayed away. She could manage.
In college, they did not speak as if characters in books could have chosen to do something else. Harold couldn’t think how to explain that this wasn’t the proper way to read.
Now Myra took the book (Harold winced but didn’t stop her) and began flipping through it. She’d left bits of paper as bookmarks. At least she hadn’t written in it. He hoped she hadn’t written in it. She turned pages vigorously, weakening the binding. She asked questions, pulling her gloves off and putting them on again. What does he mean by this? How can you like an author who’d write something like this? At last she admitted she liked The Portrait of a Lady. She couldn’t stop reading it. What else do you recommend? she said.
Harold liked being an expert. The American?
—Can we talk about it after I read it? Myra said. He hadn’t had the chance to scold her for taking the book in the first place. Somehow that incident had become fixed and could not have taken place in any other way, although Isabel Archer, in the book, might have behaved differently if only Henry James had had Myra to consult.
As they stood to leave, Harold said, Do you have a job? Where do you work? Something about the way she picked up her bag and straightened her jacket made her seem like a working woman. He hadn’t thought of her working, as if she were a child who would naturally be cared for by others.
—Of course I have a job, Myra said. She was a commercial artist and worked for department stores. I’m good, she said. I’m in demand. With her long right hand, she swiftly drew a series of curves in the air. She smiled at him. He understood her stylish clothes. She was in the business—it had nothing to do with him.
Harold agreed to meet and talk about The American. As he made his way back to Brooklyn with his book—Myra refused to be escorted, and he wondered if she was meeting another man—he scolded himself for an assumption he’d made about her. He had believed that a woman who’d have an affair with a married man couldn’t be intelligent enough to argue, even erroneously, about Henry James. In the coming days, he stared at the elegant shapes of clothes in newspaper ads, the long sweeping skirts and narrow busts, wondering if he could detect Myra’s hand.
2
When Artie applied to teach in the WPA adult education program, he claimed proficiency in photography, journalism, and current events, and was hired, that September of 1936, to teach two afternoon classes in an elementary school in Queens: English conversation for the foreign born. Artie was of several minds as he traveled through Queens to meet his classes for the first time. Since the day in the mountains when he noticed what Virginia was doing, he’d been sure he should teach. At the same time he thought he might be a fraud, only pretending to be a teacher. In the camera store, people had walked away from his explanations. He had not made Virginia listen. In the third place, if he was a fraud, he was proud to be putting something over on the people who’d hired him. He took an elevated train, then a bus. He wore his only sports coat and a fedora, and he carried a briefcase his elder brother had lent him. Inside was nothing but a pad of paper and a few pencils.
The first class had twelve students, mostly mothers who were free while their children were in school. Some attended this very school, and when a child’s voice could be heard, the mothers sat up straighter. Current events seemed like a good reason for conversation, and Artie began talking about what he’d read in the newspaper on his way to the school—progress for the Spanish government against Franco and the rebels, a display of military might in Germany, a march by Father Divine. The young mothers were quiet. The school did not use this classroom, up on a dusty, warm third floor. Artie liked its smell. He stood at the front, his hat and briefcase on the teacher’s desk, and twirled chalk in his fingers, then dropped it. The windows were open, and fresh air stirred the hair of his twelve students, most clustered near the front. The desks were small, and some students stuck their legs into the aisle. A woman let a shoe fall from her foot and ran her stocking foot over the old wooden floor, as if feeling for splinters.
Artie asked questions. His students knew that FDR was running for reelection, and they considered him a good man but could not say why. Some were not sure who was fighting whom in the Spanish Civil War. They did know about King Edward VIII of England and Wallis Simpson, the divorced American he was in love with, as well as Bruno Richard Hauptmann, who had been executed for the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby. After Artie thought to ask about the king and his girlfriend, they became less shy.
The one man in the class, who reminded him of Harold’s father, was happy to talk. He spoke slowly, with a heavy Eastern European accent, explaining the fighting in Spain sadly and patiently, as if he described battles taking place outside the window while he watched.
When the class ended, Artie had an hour off. The classroom was lonely and he went to talk to his supervisor, a woman a little older than he, Beatrice London. Your name gave me the best idea I had, he said, walking in on her. It wasn’t true, but why not say it? She was a small woman with tight brown curls, sitting at a desk that filled the office, and she started when he spoke. He’d forgotten that he moved silently. He said, London made me think of England, and England made me think of King Edward and Wallis Simpson—my ladies knew more about that than anything else.
Beatrice London looked at him soberly under her hair, then smiled. I hope you can get them away from that kind of subject, she said.
On the contrary, said Artie, pleased with himself. Making students feel they already know something about the subject at hand is the best way to prepare them to be receptive to learning. He had not known he possessed an educational philosophy. Beatrice London bent forward a little, her chin protruding. He found himself whistling. I just thought you might have something you wanted to tell me, he said. Instructions.
—No, said Miss London.
The second class was full of talkers, some who barely understood English. The old man with the accent, unaccountably, was in this class too, so Artie didn’t feel that he could bring up exactly the same subjects. But after a while he ran out of others, and the man was again happy to tell the group about the rebels in Spain and how Hitler and Mussolini supported them and the Spanish loyalists opposed them. This group didn’t need to be told.
Another man stood and, with expansive gestures and little English, denounced Roosevelt—in the pay of the capitalists—while a man who seemed to be Italian shouted that Roosevelt was the only person who cared about him and his family. Others shouted. Artie clapped his hands, stamped his foot, and shouted, Gentlemen! The two men stopped, apologized. They sat down and faced front. One folded his hands on the desk.
—Why did you sign up for this class? Artie asked them. He said it with exasperation as well as curiosity, though he was pleased that this group was wide awake, but the students considered the question appropriate and the women raised their hands. So I can become citizen, they said. So I can talk grandchildren. The group resumed talking and arguing. Artie didn’t think their English would get better, since they didn’t listen, but he liked them. Each had come to a truce with the English language, and that was enough. They were all older than he.
Instead of going home when it was over, he went to Harold’s, though he didn’t have his camera with him. Harold was not home, but his mother gave Artie a glass of seltzer and then a bowl of soup. When Harold arrived, they ate again, and Harold said he’d walk Artie home. He was excited about a meeting he’d attended, a woman he’d talked to.
—You’re such a fraud, Artie said cheerfully. You don’t give a damn about suffering people.
—Just stop it, said Harold. His voice shook. Artie knew he had gone too far. Of course Harold cared. Artie wanted to talk about his classes, but in the right way. Being a teacher should seem significant, not just something he could get paid to do. But he said, Nah, you’re just looking for girls. What happened to what’s her name—Belle? Did you give her back to her husband?
Harold didn’t answer, and they walked in silence. It was dark. Darkness was interrupted by places where streetlights gleamed through rustling leaves. After passing under a light, they’d be back in darkness, as if the night itself encouraged them to pause and reflect privately. Artie began to whistle.
—What’s that? Harold said.
—What’s what?
—What you’re whistling.
—I think it’s Mozart, Artie said.
A block or so later, Harold said, Every few days there’s something in the paper about Jews in Germany.
—Not today, Artie said. Speech by Hitler. Women should stay home and make little German babies instead of going to work.
—If you’d looked closely enough, you’d have found the Jews, Harold said.
—Yeah, Artie said, what is it with us Jews? Anybody looking for somebody to kick around? Here we are! All set. Then he said, But what are your pals in Russia doing about it, huh?
—What’s Roosevelt doing, for that matter?
—Roosevelt has other things on his mind.
—Winning the election? said Harold. He doesn’t have much to worry about.
They came to Artie’s house. Sometimes they walked past it, circled through the neighborhood more than once, but now Harold seemed anxious to be by himself. As he turned back, he said, Remember that girl, Myra Thorsten?
—What girl? said Artie. The dame at the cabin?
—I saw her.
—You saw that girl? The one who took your book?
—Well, I had to get it back, Harold said. We had a drink.
—Stay away from that dame, Artie said. Harold was already moving away, and his wide, solid body was a dark shape, his face obscured by shadow but his pants and shoes easier to see in a puddle of light. Harold kept his shoes clean and polished. The laces were tied evenly.
—I can see she’s a handful, Harold said. But she had some ideas about the book. She’s no dummy.
—Stick to the smart little Reds, said Artie. Harold waved and started walking.
Artie continued teaching adult education classes, mostly at night, at the same school, paid by the WPA. Twice he taught a photography course. If you had ten students, you could run a class. More often it was English composition or conversation, and sometimes the same students came term after term. A young woman memorized verb tenses and vocabulary words, turning in pages of homework in pencil, making herself complete every exercise in the textbook. Artie sometimes corrected her errors. Sometimes he didn’t. The loose-leaf pages, heavy with pencil marks, made him sad. Miss Kowalski’s hands must have been damp with sweat as she clutched the pencil, and the pages were stiff, as if they’d been moist, then dry, more than once. Maybe she cried over them.
Beatrice London remained the supervisor. Artie got used to the sight of her moving quickly through the corridors, always with her curly head thrust slightly forward. She ground her heels into the floor. She was mildly attractive, with a conscientious look, and was careful not to be informal with the teachers she supervised. Artie decided she would like being encouraged to make friends, so he asked questions about lesson plans, and she frowned and answered, then sought him out again to give a fuller answer. She grew friendlier. One night he made a joke with her: he told her she should get ten cents less a week for wearing out the floor with her heels. Miss London ignored that and stayed away from him for a while.
One evening, a year after they’d begun working together, it was raining, and Miss London and Artie happened to meet on their way into the building. Her umbrella had broken and her hair was wet and hung over her face. Artie, wiping his glasses on his handkerchief, bent his knees so he’d seem short and pulled his own hair forward, then walked past her the way she walked, looking down at the floor and coming down hard with each foot. Hey, Bea! he called. She had a stiff way of holding her hands at her sides, and he imitated that as well. It was just a few steps in the corridor, and later Artie swore to Harold that he was the one who looked silly—nobody would even know he was teasing her.
—Teasing? Harold said. You can be rough.
—It was nothing, Artie said. After that, Beatrice London began complaining to Artie when his class made too much noise. He’d write a topic on the blackboard—The New Deal isn’t working, or Women should have jobs just like men, or Communists should be thrown in jail. He’d point to someone in the class, who had to start arguing for or against the proposition. Whatever opinion was expressed, Artie opposed it. If a second student disagreed with the first one, he might switch sides—something his students considered magical; they couldn’t do it—or he might point to the first student and make the two of them argue. Others would leap to their feet to join in. Teachers complained that shouting came from Artie’s classroom, and now and then a student went to Miss London to say Artie had taken some outrageous position in class. One evening, when a fistfight broke out between an Italian man and a Russian Jew, a woman rushed out and phoned the police. A cop appeared in the doorway, and Artie said, What the hell are you doing here? and would have been arrested if the teacher next door, an older guy, had not persuaded the cop to forget it. Beatrice London made Artie sign a long description of this incident.
She’d do anything to get me in trouble, Artie said, after telling Harold this story. It was another of their late walks, this time in the fall of 1937. Harold had recently moved to a small apartment in Manhattan. Tonight he’d somehow gotten free tickets to a play, and Artie had come into the city to meet him. Afterward they had coffee. But Artie got angry when Harold first mentioned Beatrice London, and Harold wouldn’t let him get away with it. They had been asked to quiet down, then to leave. Ridiculous! Artie said as they made their way out. They walked. When Artie was bored, he stopped to take a photograph, using the light of a street lamp, trying to pick up the shimmer of a puddle.
Now he had returned to the subject. She’d love to get rid of me, he went on. But she’s too timid to do anything.
—She might work up her courage, Harold said.
Artie said nothing for quite some time. Then he looked up at the sky, as if for approval, and recited:
A fella who taught for a living
From Labor Day right past Thanksgiving
One day went too far.
He’s as dead as the czar!
If only he’d had a misgiving!
—That’s not as bad as some, Harold said.
—And the joke is, said Artie, It’s all because she thinks I’m good-looking. She’s in love with me.
—That would make it worse, Harold said.
3
Harold would finally marry Myra Thorsten in 1943, and during the intervening years he considered himself someone women laughed at or pitied. Still, once he had his own place, he felt he should seduce them, making this decision all but grimly. One afternoon he invited a young woman he had met at the Forty-second Street library to have a sandwich with him. Working for the Federal Writers’ Project, he spent many days in the main reading room. The woman’s name was Mary, and she was an assistant to a historian. At a delicatessen they ate corned beef sandwiches and sour pickles. Mary told stories about her family; there were uncles younger than their nephews, and each story included two or three characters named my cousin. At first he listened, enjoying it. Then his impulse was to convince her that her opinions were wrong. Nobody had such simple motives as she ascribed to her relatives—but he stopped himself: what mattered was taking her to bed. Someone as muddled as Mary would forgive his awkwardness or would not even notice. He invited her to his apartment, a few blocks away.
She hesitated, then agreed. She had a habit of looking up at the ceiling when asked a question and then smiling before speaking. It might have been either annoying or adorable; Harold determined to consider it adorable. As he brought her into his apartment, he remembered that his bed was unmade, the room was cluttered, and he had nothing to offer but coffee. They talked, and he took her home.
The next time—having made the bed and bought a bottle of liquor—Harold stood, crossed the room, and laid his wide hands on Mary’s shoulders so heavily she flinched. He expected her to laugh or be offended, but she didn’t laugh, and they went to bed. It was clear to him that Mary had lost her virginity earlier, and he wondered if it was as obvious to her that he had not. Maybe one of the uncles or nephews had taken advantage of her. Maybe she was relieved to be approached by someone who bought her a sandwich and touched her gently.
Harold thought of himself not as a good lover but as an emergency lover: someone who could perform if preferable men were unavailable, a kind of understudy. Even if Mary didn’t laugh openly, he assumed she laughed when she got home, laughed when telling the story to her girl cousins. It was embarrassing, but he’d learned that to become the kind of man he wanted to be, he had to endure embarrassment. He spent another evening with Mary, this time including a movie in between the sandwich and the sex, and again Mary didn’t laugh. But Harold was bored with her, and since his purpose had been achieved, he couldn’t come up with the wish to see her again. Surely she wouldn’t mind: her interest in him was charitable. He was startled when he received a letter from her a month later, asking if she’d done anything wrong, apologizing. The letter confused him, and he didn’t answer it. He decided it was a kind gesture, designed to make him feel as if he’d dropped her instead of being dropped. Of course, in a sense he had dropped her, but only in a sense.
Some women said no to Harold, but more than he expected said yes. They did not laugh in his presence. He reflected that there must be even worse lovers around than he, whom women did laugh at openly.
He noted that the women he approached were rarely Jewish. He felt more Jewish, himself, as years passed, and spent gloomy hours wondering exactly what he’d be doing at the present moment if he lived in Germany. The women he dated were surprised when he told them that Jews were no longer permitted to attend German universities or that their passports had been made invalid. One woman’s face took on an abstracted, spiritual look, like Joan of Arc’s, when he told her about a story he’d seen in the Times that week—it was March of 1938, just after Hitler had annexed Austria—reporting that in a few weeks Germans would vote in a plebiscite. Naturally, Jews would not be permitted to vote. Voters would be asked a question Harold had memorized: Are you German, do you belong to your Germany and its Adolf Hitler or have you nothing to do with us? He waited for a reaction, but his date seemed too stunned to reply.
Then she reached across the table; they were having coffee in a little place not far from the Metropolitan Museum. Harold felt a momentary triumph when she touched him, then was horrified to feel triumphant and pulled his hand back. Deriving personal benefit from her outrage at Hitler was a trick as contemptible as the tricks of the Nazis themselves. He would have nothing further to do with this woman; she was a decent person and he didn’t deserve her.
4
Unlike Harold’s girlfriends, Evelyn Shapiro truly didn’t count, according to Artie, who had been taking walks and eating ice cream with her for years. He’d never bought her more than a soda. Evelyn, whom he’d met in the neighborhood, had graduated from Hunter College at the worst of the Depression and could get a job only in her uncle’s shoe store. You’d be surprised how many people have ugly feet, she said to Artie. Bumps, corns, squashed toes.
—Don’t they wear socks?
—Not for fancy shoes.
The store sold good shoes and Evelyn got substantial discounts. Artie liked the way her legs looked in high heels with little straps, but he also liked taking long walks. When Evelyn said her feet hurt, he teased her, offering to buy her shoes just like his own. Except for her shoes, she was practical, with wavy hair and a round face. Her big breasts made Artie sick with longing, but that was late at night on the sofa he slept on in his parents’ crowded apartment, where his married brothers got the bedrooms. When he was with her, Evelyn’s breasts were under blouses and jackets. He’d often rest an arm on her shoulders and even stroke her neck, but that was all.
One summer night Artie and Evelyn walked all the way to the reservoir in Highland Park, past the tennis courts where Artie spent Saturdays and Sundays if possible. Then they walked around the reservoir and back home, stopping for ice cream cones. Artie began complaining. Beatrice London had threatened to give him fewer classes to teach in the fall. He couldn’t get away from her. The ice cream was spoiled by anger, and before he finished his cone, he dropped it.
—I don’t like it when you shout, Evelyn said, elaborately stepping around his cone on the sidewalk, continuing to lick hers. She always bought maple walnut.
—Who’s shouting? said Artie. I’m not shouting.
—You’ve been shouting for twenty minutes, said Evelyn. I’m not your supervisor.
—And it’s a good thing, too, Artie said.
She stood still and then turned toward him, suddenly looking younger. Now that her cone was gone, she stopped to lick her fingers, one at a time, between sentences, but it made what she said, for some reason, more serious. I’m tired of you and your yelling. I’m tired of you and your banging on tables.
—What tables? He was frightened. Was she tired of him, himself?
—Anywhere there’s a table, you bang on it. You banged on the table in my house last week. My father thought you were yelling at me. He almost threw you out.
—For Christ’s sake, I wasn’t yelling at you! Artie said. He’s got nothing to do but listen to us?
—I’m his daughter, Evelyn said. She was quiet and Artie whistled. They walked.
—So you’re tired of me, is that it? he said then. You want me to stop showing up? Is that what you have in mind?
—I’m not tired of you, Evelyn said. I’m tired of spending my time deciding whether the head of the WPA is the stupidest man in the world, or somebody in Washington, or the editor who wouldn’t buy your pictures.
—He should have taken them! said Artie. I’ve never heard anything so stupid in my life.
Evelyn stopped walking. She said slowly, Yes, I guess that editor is the stupidest. He’s been the stupidest man in the world three times in the last two weeks. That has to mean something.
Artie stood under a street lamp and looked at her. He looked down at the sidewalk and began to whistle. Come on, he said then. He stopped to pick up something he caught sight of in the dark. It glinted. It was a key, an old key, and he slipped it into his pocket, in case he wanted to take a picture of a key. When she started walking again, he put an arm on her shoulders, not squeezing but resting it there for a moment. She shook him off. She meant it. Other times when Evelyn had yelled like this and laughed at him, he had stopped calling or coming by for a while, and maybe he’d do that again. He didn’t need her.
5
Myra Thorsten grew tired of Henry James after making it all the way through The Wings of the Dove, annoyed when the lovers—who had deceived a rich, dying woman so she’d leave them her money—didn’t marry at the end. They did wrong, Myra said, but it won’t help to waste the rest of their lives feeling bad.
—Do you think they go to bed? Harold asked. James had included a scene that didn’t quite say it.
—Of course. It was the summer of 1938, and they were sitting on a park bench outside the Central Park Zoo, having a rare outdoor meeting.
He tried to argue that the betrothed couple couldn’t marry, explaining that for Henry James, moral questions took on life, that characters might spend their lives in response to what had happened earlier, living with an absence.
—You mean James thinks not doing something is something to do? said Myra. Just being good?
—Knowing what’s true, more than being good, I think, Harold said.
—Well, I don’t agree, Myra said. He was beginning to wonder, himself, whether knowing what’s true was something to do. Henry James would have been astonished to discover that Harold Abramovitz compared his own membership in the Communist Party to Lambert Strether’s renunciation of marriage and happiness at the end of The Ambassadors. The party had begun to seem like something required of him. He was quiet at meetings, though he argued vociferously for communism among his friends and relatives, who dismissed him with the same gesture: they flopped their right hands over and down, as if they flung off something slimy.
—You know, we could go to the lake, Myra said now.
—What lake?
—Gus’s cabin.
—Oh! he said. Myra read not minds but the edge of minds. She knew he had not stopped thinking about the cabin in the mountains. Harold had known her now for two years but had not been to bed with her. Myra was too scary. She’d know too well what he was thinking. Myra would laugh.
—Do you still know Gus? Harold said. The thought was distressing, but the thought of the cabin was exciting. He stood up and she stood too. They entered the park and began walking.
—Of course I know him, said Myra.
—But how is that possible? Harold said. You’re not still . . . you know?
—What do you mean, how is it possible? said Myra. There are lots of ways to know people. Maybe he’ll let us go there. I can ask, at least.
He wondered whether she meant she spent her time with him differently—having renounced him, perhaps, imitating the characters in James despite her protestations. He wanted to go. He didn’t want to quarrel.
—He’d lend it to us? he said. Or he’d be there?
—I’ll find out.
Harold didn’t want to be the guest of the man who had had an affair with Myra—of the man and his wife. But the cabin was too small for guests, as they’d proved when they’d been there. He couldn’t stop asking questions. You mean you’re friends? Does his wife know about you and Gus?
—I’m tired, Myra said. They sat down on a bench near the boat pond. Children brought toy boats to float in the pond, and nursemaids looked after the children—even now, even in the Depression, people had nursemaids or might be nursemaids. He speculated on whether nursemaids would favor a revolution.
—I don’t know if she knows, Myra said. It’s not a thing we discuss.
—But how can you be her friend?
Myra ignored his question. Look, I’ll ask him, she said. Then she added, I wonder what she gets paid—tilting her head toward a uniformed woman. She could be mean to the kid and nobody would know.
Her mind went from topic to topic, sometimes responding to something he hadn’t yet said. Myra seemed to have no preconceptions, and she hadn’t worked out a set of ideas or ideals in advance, so she might think anything about anything—Gus, Henry James, the women in the park, who might be oppressed working people and might be Cinderella’s stepsisters. She didn’t think in categories and didn’t seem to have an inward list of ideas she believed. Harold had made up his mind about so much: he envied her freedom of thought. He felt old. What would it be like to read a newspaper with that kind of freshness, without ready opinions about Roosevelt, about Hitler and the Jews, about the threat of war? Surely Myra knew she was against Hitler. The Germans had gone from harassing Jews and depriving them of rights to dispossessing them, settling them in concentration camps. Wouldn’t Myra know right away that this was wrong? She didn’t look at each story about Hitler with an open mind, surely, curious to see if this time, perhaps, he’d make sense? Of course, her feelings weren’t just the same as his—she wasn’t Jewish. And sometimes—was there a thrill to this or only the curiosity that arises from repulsion?—sometimes there was the tiniest hint that, long ago and out of earshot of Harold or anyone like him, she might have been part of some nasty conversations about Jews. No, Myra was no more anti-Semitic than any other gentile, but surely they all—well.
The point, though, had nothing to do with Hitler and the Jews. It had to do with sex. The point was that if Myra saw a man and wanted to sleep with him, she did not flip open a book of personal rules that included Stay away from married men, or any other kind of men, because she had no book of personal rules. And everyone else seemed to have one—tattered, thin, half-forgotten, but available.
—Do you do that often? Harold said.
—Do what? The sun was warm here and she sounded sleepy.
He hesitated. Do you take many lovers? he asked.
—Well, what business is that of yours! said Myra, jumping to her feet. She sounded more playful than angry, but as they continued to walk, she said, more quietly and slowly than usual, You think I’m a slut, don’t you? And suddenly her tone was ugly. All you think about is the suffering masses. Contemplating my disgusting little life makes you feel pure! It gives you a thrill to think about people like me—well, that’s pretty despicable, don’t you think? You don’t have the nerve to live your own life, you just like scaring yourself with mine!
Her words wouldn’t stop. Harold was strangely elated, then troubled. He thought she might be right. He was stodgy and stupid, and of course women—he’d known this forever—laughed at him.
—Myra!
—I don’t know why I waste time with you and your stupid books. You’re so superior, but what you know isn’t everything!
—I know that. I’m not superior. The path they were on had taken them out to Fifth Avenue again. As she spoke, he felt thick—physically thick—muffled in his clothes and his fleshy body, kept from thinking or acting. How could someone like him presume even to think about people who worked with their hands, people like his father—to think about what they needed, what society should do for them? He stared at Myra. He had not looked at her, not really, in all this time they’d been sitting and walking side by side. Her hair was cut shorter lately. She wore a brooch at the neck of her white blouse. She squinted because it was late afternoon and she faced west, toward the park. Her squint made her face seem childlike.
—You’re good. You’re serious, he faltered.
—Serious? You’re damned right I’m serious, Myra said. She glanced at her wristwatch. Late, she said. So long.
—Wait, said Harold.
—I have to go, she said. She touched his arm as if to get a faster start, crossed Fifth Avenue against the light, and hurried down the cross street. Harold watched her go, then walked north for no reason, turned, turned again.
6
One night Artie said, Enough already.
—Enough of what? It was November, still 1938, and he and Harold were walking fast after a quick supper at an automat, walking to the next subway stop because they were in the middle of an argument.
—Enough of this women laughing stuff.
—But I just told you, Harold said. She ran away.
—Who cares? The meshuggeneh shikse! Let her run, Artie said. First you take advantage of a girl, then you dump her, and finally you figure out that everybody should feel sorry for you. It’s disgusting.
—That’s not the way it is, honestly, Harold said.
—Yeah, I know, I know. They were quiet for a block or so, as often happened when they disagreed.
—Did you see, Holland may take some of the refugees? Even more predictably these days, after silences Harold talked about Germany and the Nazis. Before he’d begun worrying about the Jews, it had been Spain, and Harold’s shame that he didn’t want to enlist. My mother would die if I enlisted, he had often said. But that’s no excuse. Half the Abraham Lincoln brigade is guys whose mothers feel just the same way. The truth is I don’t want to.
Artie hadn’t wanted to either, but he didn’t feel ashamed of not wanting to.
They came to the station. Artie had to go to Brooklyn, and Harold lived a few stops downtown. It’s late, Artie said.
—I’m going to keep walking, said Harold. Talking about women, Artie had gotten nowhere with him, as usual. Everything came back to the Jews in Europe. As Harold turned away, his shoulders sagged and he looked older than he was, and for a moment Artie wanted to run after him. For a man who hadn’t put a prayer shawl around his shoulders since his bar mitzvah, Harold was obsessed with being Jewish. Harold—and his whole family—could think about frightening subjects longer than Artie or any of his brothers or his parents. Enough, his father would say, if someone began talking about Hitler. His mother would weep and run from the room, and his father would say, You have to upset her? But when Hitler’s speeches were on the radio, the whole family listened.
As he rode over the river to Brooklyn, Artie’s mind returned to the subject of women. Harold thought Artie attracted women without trying, while he had no success. But Harold’s life was full of women, while Artie had—well, he sort of had Evelyn, but that never went anywhere. If his supervisor had once liked him, the feeling had turned to hatred. Staring at his own reflection in the train’s dark window, the lights of the city behind his own narrow, bespectacled face, Artie understood for a moment that he’d caused Beatrice London to hate him. He should stop teasing and challenging her, if it wasn’t too late. He knew he wouldn’t stop, just as he knew that his various brothers wouldn’t change in one way or another, and the thought made him sad.
It was Beatrice London’s fault, anyway. He had to get away from her, even if that meant being alone in a classroom with kids all day. He had no idea what you did with children, though he’d gone back to City College and daydreamed his way through some ed courses so he’d be qualified for a regular teaching job if he could get one. He was twenty-eight: he should get a real job, find a real girl, get out of his parents’ apartment. But that was another sad thought. He liked slouching around with a camera, playing a little handball in the park on weekends, listening to music or walking the streets with Evelyn—or alone, whistling and daydreaming. Women in daydreams were easier to manage, and he hadn’t seen Evelyn since their argument about—whatever it had been about.
But a few weeks later she called him and they walked. The weather was cool, and they followed their cold-weather routine; the walk would lead, eventually, not to ice cream but to tea in the kitchen of Evelyn’s parents. Excited to see her, Artie had much to tell: at the last minute—right at the start of the new school year—he’d been called to teach seventh-grade social studies. The classroom maps were from before the world war, and the principal didn’t like him, but the kids were funny and he was done with Beatrice London forever. I can’t learn all those kids’ names, he said. I call them all Johnny or Sadie.
They reached the two-family house where she lived, but instead of leading him inside, Evelyn dropped to the porch steps. She ran her hands through her hair and said, Do you think you might want to get married?
Artie sat down. Something went through his body as if he’d swallowed a fishing line with a hook attached, but it was not exactly painful. A hook made of metal so bright it seemed sharp, though it was not sharp. He began to whistle. After a while, he said, Why do you ask?
—Somebody wants to marry me. I’m twenty-seven. There comes a point. But if you want me to, I’ll say no.
She wiggled her shoulders as if to say six of this, half a dozen of that, but her voice betrayed that the question was not casual.
—Say no, Artie said. Who is he?
—A nice person. He’s becoming a pharmacist.
—A pharmacist, Artie said, somehow expelling the syllable through his nose. A pha-ah-ah-ah-armacist.
—Artie!
—So you’re proposing? he said. He stuck his finger in her side. Her blouse felt stiff to his finger, but under it her body was soft. Sometimes when he put his arm around her, steering her or agreeing with her, he moved it from her neck to her back. He knew Evelyn’s back, even the bump where he could feel underwear, better than her side or her front. Now she pulled away, ticklish. He poked her again. You’re proposing? he said again. I have to tell my children their mother proposed to me? That’s the sort of woman you are? Why didn’t you tell me? All these years I’ve wasted on a woman who proposes!
She stood up, leaned over him, and placed her hands around his neck. I strangle people, too, she said.
What came to Artie was the song from the WPA protest, which he often sang for no reason at all. As he sang it this time—gasping, as if being choked—he found he could alter it for the occasion:
Here’s your answer, Mr. Ridder,
You had better reconsider,
Stop the strangling, Mr. Ridder,
Or I won’t marry you!
They were both virgins. Every touch was exquisite.
7
Harold didn’t see Myra for four months after she ran away from him. He knew that Myra didn’t quite believe other people’s feelings mattered, but he had liked trying to become the exception. He missed her. She read the books he proposed. They had moved on from Henry James to Edith Wharton and newer authors—W. Somerset Maugham, Aldous Huxley. Myra read childishly but eagerly and passionately. But she was unprincipled, Harold reminded himself, not truly serious. His comrades at party meetings would disapprove of her.
Harold had always been unsure as a Communist Party member—unsure before he joined, no less unsure now. But he could prove to those who were confused why the Soviet stand on some issue was correct, why as Americans they should support it. He could argue forcefully for positions he didn’t quite believe in. He resisted handing out leaflets or ringing doorbells to recruit new members, but he wasn’t the only one. What his heart had told him in the first place, though, it continued to tell him. It might not make sense to sit in meeting halls so long his backside hurt from the wooden chairs, or in somebody’s living room until late at night, trying to make a distinction among positions that seemed all but identical. But the Communists were right about the struggle of the workers, and though his socialist parents scorned the party, Harold thought it might well be true that only the discipline and theory of communism could free people like them. The Communists were right about his father, and even if they were wrong about the revolution—Harold was never certain that a revolution was imminent in the United States, never even sure that what had been accomplished in the Soviet Union was as good as people said—they were right about what the right sort of revolution would lead to.
For three years Harold had been a bad Communist. He was not personally bringing about any sort of revolution. He could no more do that than he could make women love him. But he attended meetings, he wrote leaflets—even if he didn’t distribute many of those he stuffed into his briefcase at the end of the meeting—he marched on picket lines and appeared at rallies and protests, aware at all times of his body, which was too dignified, unable to recede into a group. After a meeting he might even go out somewhere for late-night coffee and more talk. Eventually he forgot himself in the pleasure of using his brain.
One winter day Harold received a square envelope in the mail with Myra’s name on the flap in back, and he waited a bit before opening it. It was an invitation—in an Art Deco design he liked—to a cocktail party. For a moment he thought he wouldn’t go, but only for a moment. The good design reminded him of the ways in which Myra was reliably smart. She had a telephone, and he had to go to a candy store to phone and say he was coming.
On the day of the party he dressed carefully and arrived on time. Myra’s black dress was tight at the waist, with a wide skirt and a swoosh of shiny fabric at the neckline. She brought Harold a martini and introduced him to her friends. He had known her for three years but had met only Virginia, who wasn’t at the party and had never been mentioned after their encounter in the mountains. But here was a crowd: older than Myra, substantial, managing cigarettes and drinks while talking.
As always, Harold was conspicuous, and a man and woman began asking him questions. They were skeptical but intrigued to learn he worked for the Writers’ Project. Harold had written part of the section on Negro Harlem in the New York City guidebook, and the man wanted to know whether Negroes answered his questions. When they moved on, Harold thought he’d go home rather than try to start another conversation, but Myra came over and linked her arm in his. I can’t do this, she whispered, smiling falsely but sounding frightened.
—Do what?
—Have this party.
—It’s fine.
—I’m going to start crying, she said. Get rid of them.
—Get rid of them? How could I do that?
—Do something or I’ll start screaming, and they’ll think I’m crazy, Myra said.
—All right, Harold said. Give me a chance. Go get more ice cubes.
Myra obeyed. He walked to the drinks table and poured something into his glass. He couldn’t think how to make people leave unless he walked up to each of them and quietly asked them to do so, which would be unpleasant, might not work—and would make them think Myra was crazy. He sensed that she was really just trying to make him do what she asked, and he couldn’t help liking that.
—What did she say? said a woman’s voice at his elbow. She was fast-moving and small, with sharp elbows. You’ve never been to one of her parties before, have you?
Harold introduced himself.
—I’m her cousin, said the woman. She needs to eat.
—What? said Harold, but he was grateful. He followed Myra into the kitchen, where she was already weeping. Is there food? he said.
—People don’t care about food at a party like this.
—I care, said Harold. Myra had no food. Let’s go buy some, he said. Where’s your coat?
—If I put on my coat and leave, said Myra, they’ll all leave.
—Isn’t that what you want? He persuaded her to get her coat, and he put on his own.
—Are you going? said a man standing near the door.
—Shopping for food, Harold said. Back in a minute. He held Myra’s coat for her and they left.
—Let’s not go back, she said.
—I think we’d better, Harold said. Where’s a delicatessen? She lived in Greenwich Village, a few windy blocks west of Washington Square.
—Oh, who cares about those people? she said. I don’t even like them. At this point Harold became so confused that he had to stop walking, stand still, take long breaths, and try to know what he thought.
—Come home with me, he said then. Myra had never been in his apartment. It was dirty and messy. I’m going to cook some eggs, he said when they got there. They ate eggs and went to bed for the first time. It felt right to take her under the rumpled sheets, to stroke and kiss her limbs, her neck, and the back of her head where the hair began. They made love and he turned aside, then turned back and began stroking and touching her again. He’d never felt such tenderness toward another person. The bones stood out on the nape of Myra’s neck, and it seemed as if he could snap them. He was ashamed to have such a thought, and he kissed her generous breasts and her flat belly. She stayed all night.
After that, every week or so, Harold took Myra to dinner (he remembered the lesson of the party and tried to make sure she ate, but often she scarcely touched food), and sometimes to a play or a concert at Lewisohn Stadium or the City Center. Then they went to his messy apartment and spent the night. Harold didn’t tell his friends he was seeing her again—not his friends in the party, not Artie. In Harold’s imagination Artie told him that Myra was spoiled and selfish, giving him one of his quick, thick-browed glances, his mouth moving as he whistled. Harold preferred Artie’s other look, a still, surprised searching look from behind his glasses. It came when he wanted to photograph something but hadn’t yet seen how, or couldn’t return a shot in tennis he had been sure of, or hadn’t yet thought of a joke or a limerick. But he and Artie didn’t see each other much during the winter of 1939—Artie was busy—and when they did, he didn’t mention Myra.
In the spring, she offered again to ask Gus to let them use the cabin. He didn’t like thinking of Myra and Gus in those bunk beds or maybe on blankets on the floor. But he wanted to go back there, as if he’d left an idea under a rock between the cabin and the lake, almost three years ago, and might find it again. He had lost the essay he’d started that week. When he thought of going to the cabin with Myra, she wasn’t exactly present—maybe driving around looking for steaks and liquor again.
In July, they went. Harold couldn’t yet drive, but Myra borrowed a car, and Harold liked watching her drive, with the window open and a scarf blowing across her face. She promised to teach him how. They stopped for groceries and arrived in the dark. As before, Harold was entranced by the smell of the woods, the quiet. He was surprised to see changes in the cabin: there was a double bed in the main room now. Fully dressed, they tumbled onto it, grappling and kissing. He was freer than in his apartment. They pulled off their clothes, and he grasped her buttocks, her arms, squeezing her flesh, reveling in the touch of her. They were children in a make-believe house. To his surprise, the thought of Gus—the hint of the presence of Gus—made it better, as if Harold had won some sort of contest, just being here with Myra, and Gus had lost. Harold scolded himself for his usual belief that everything was complicated and hard.
In the morning he woke up first, dressed, and went outside, tense with excitement. He began walking. He always had paper and pencil in his pocket, and before long he was resting one foot on a rock, leaning on his thigh while making notes. He had more to write about than what his various assignments—book reviews, essays for the guidebooks he worked on—gave him a chance to say. What he wanted to write had something to do with his father, something to do with books. The moment when characters in literature saw something larger than themselves thrilled him (the same moment that still, despite everything, excited him at party meetings). He returned with a little plan for an essay. He’d seen this coming and had brought some books: Hawthorne, Stephen Crane. Myra was still asleep.
When they went swimming, Harold was surprised to see two cabins across the lake under the trees. A long dock stretched into the water. He saw no cars or people. Myra nodded when he pointed. Did she already know? Harold wanted the cabin and lake to be his secret. Myra returned to the book she was reading, by Pearl Buck. As he had imagined, she was not quite present at the cabin. She slept, or stared at the lake with a book in her lap, or read. Now and then she became needy and weepy, but Harold was used to that and he liked cheering her up, coaxing her to eat. It was a game, if a slightly embarrassing game. By the end of their few days, he had a draft of an essay, written at the table in the main room.
8
Artie and Evelyn were married in August 1939. It took them a while because they both lived with their parents and couldn’t afford an apartment. Twice during those months, Evelyn broke it off. You tire me out, she said. Both times, he waited a few days and called, and they went to the movies, or took yet another walk, or found a time when they could be alone in her parents’ place or his, where they kissed and groped. Meanwhile, Artie took the exam and got a regular teaching job, not just a WPA job, and with the extra money they were able to rent an apartment. By then Hitler was threatening Poland, playing with the French, defying the British.
Artie and Evelyn arranged to be married in a rabbi’s study. Artie borrowed a suit from one of his brothers, and it was too large. His head looked small between broad gabardine shoulders, and his rumpled hair and wild eyes, behind his glasses, added to the impression that he’d spent some time lost inside the jacket and had only just managed to emerge with his face at the front.
Only their families were at the ceremony, but Evelyn had sisters, and they put together a nice spread at her parents’ house, so friends could come too. To Artie’s surprise, Harold brought Myra Thorsten. He hadn’t mentioned her in a long time, and at first Artie didn’t recognize her. He was additionally confused when Myra took his face in her hands and squeezed it, shaking her head in disbelief, as if she knew him well and could scarcely credit their present situation. Artie, Artie, you were the one I liked first, she said.
—What’s this Artie, Artie? he asked Harold when they found themselves alone in the kitchen.
—She’s good for me, Harold said. I think too much.
—What’s wrong with thinking?
—Do you know what just happened? Harold said.
—Sure. I got married. Artie leaned back against the windowsill in his in-laws’ kitchen. He liked that sill: it was higher than some, and he could rest his behind on it, stick his legs out, and perch, half-standing, dancing his feet in time with his whistling. He’d done it many times, but now he did it married, and that was amazing.
—Stop whistling, Harold said. You haven’t heard a radio. I know—you didn’t have a chance.
—What’s going on?
—Hitler and Stalin, said Harold, and his voice cracked, then got oddly high, almost a falsetto. He was enunciating carefully, like someone who knows he’s too drunk to speak. One of Artie’s brothers had poured Harold a glass of schnapps, but that wasn’t why. Hitler, Harold said, and Stalin . . . have signed a non-aggression pact.
—What are you telling me? said Artie. What?
—My friend. Don’t, Harold said. His voice was stronger. Von Ribbentrop is in Moscow. He flew there—his car, with the swastika, passed under the red flag. They agreed to divide up Poland.
—Well, well, said Artie. Well, well.
—Don’t, Harold said.
—What’s going on? Evelyn came into the room. She wore a light gray suit. Artie had stopped by in the morning to walk her and her family to the synagogue. Not a long white dress and a veil? he’d said, when he saw Evelyn. I don’t rate a long white dress?
—You rate anything, Evelyn said seriously. She had looked straight at him and kissed him. No joking, Artie, no joking.
And Artie had teared up, kissed her back. No joking, he said. That was all the wedding they needed, but they’d gone through with the rest of it.
The suit was pretty and showed off her breasts. Evelyn put one hand on Artie’s arm and one on Harold’s. They’d met a few times. Is something wrong?
Artie said, It sounds like Harold’s Soviet friends may have let him down. It sounds like things aren’t quite what we thought over there in Europe. It sounds like our highminded Communist brethren . . .
—Stop it, Harold said. I’ve already had an argument with my neighbor. I see him at meetings. He says it’s a trick, nothing to worry about. But I’m finished. I’m finished. He began to sob, and for the second time that day, Artie had to point out to himself that sometimes foolery and whistling and teasing aren’t enough. He said awkwardly, You want to bring Myra to dinner, come. We’re married—we’ll have a kitchen, a table. Just a couple of blocks from here. We bought a table, right, Evvie? Right? We can make dinner for my old friend?
—Of course, Evelyn said. Come soon.
Artie couldn’t resist. My formerly Red friend. My sadder but wiser friend. Evelyn put her hand over his mouth, and Harold looked her full in the face, Artie noted, as if he’d never seen her before.
—Your friend Myra, Evelyn said, using her head to point to the living room, is talking to my sister. She might be feeling shy. Go stand with her. Harold left the kitchen, not saying anything more.
—And you—you go talk to my father, Evelyn said to Artie. Tell him . . . what? Tell him I’m beautiful. Artie didn’t think she was beautiful at that moment. He thought that despite the suit she was a little funny-looking but in a way that delighted him. She was the funny answer to a secret riddle. Whistling, he walked up to Evelyn’s father and said, You raised a bossy woman.
—You never noticed? said his new father-in-law. You maybe blind or something?
—Stalin made a pact with Hitler, Artie said. They’re going to divide up Poland.
—And throw away the Jews, said Evelyn’s father. Throw them away.