As 1901 drew to a close and Jamie and Anne were about to move into their new home, the Italianate villa that was considered to be one of the most imposing houses in the entire City, Jamie couldn’t help but be impressed by his own achievement. He added up his score. He had been in America three and a half years in which time he had been brewery worker, foreman on the railroad, and was now half owner of Hess and Markson Enterprises, no longer just a junkyard in the business of collecting and selling metal scrap, old glass and rags. Buying a block-square lot adjacent to the yard, they had opened up their own glass recycling plant; Jamie estimated that within two years, or possibly three, the revenues would double. At the same time, they had bought many properties for future development. At the top of the list for projected plans was their own smelting plant.
At first Karl Hess had objected to the expansion plans. Being of an essentially conservative nature, he had been appalled by the enormous debt the company would have to assume. He decried the dangers of too-rapid expansion. But Jamie quickly shot him down. Since he had met Karl Hess, the older man had been proclaiming Galveston’s glittering future—how it would grow along with Texas even as Texas grew along with a burgeoning America, and how the astute business man would align himself with that golden future, more golden even than Houston’s, Hess’s bête noire. Jamie told him it was time to put his money where his mouth was.
Still, Jamie had anticipated more resistance than he actually received. He surmised that Hess wasn’t the same man he’d been before they became equal partners, before Hess had compromised his integrity by foisting his daughter on him by trickery.
In addition to Jamie’s success in business, there was also his standing in the community. With the completion of the seawall, he was hailed and applauded throughout the City as one of the prime moving forces in its execution. Already he was immersed in the development of the scenic boulevard that would run the length of the ten-mile wall. After that, there’d be the commercial development. Jamie had visions of shops and attractions that would be the wall’s final adornment. Never for a moment did he doubt that the wall would do its duty as a protector of Galveston City, a strong and stalwart guard against the onslaughts of nature.
He tried not to think of all the things he didn’t have. Or rather of those who were absent from his life, including a wife he could love—not even as his father had loved his mother, but one that he loved at all. Instead he tried to think of the child he would have, the child that wasn’t even conceived as yet. His mother used to say that a child was the future and he still believed many of the things his mother had told him. In many ways, he was still his mother’s son, a child himself. But he was still a few months away from being twenty-one and although in Slobodka he had been a man since the age of thirteen, in America, twenty-one was the age a boy became a man.
Jamie wanted the Villa completely decorated before they moved in; he wanted it to be perfect. He supervised everything himself, from the hanging of the draperies to the laying of the carpets; from the regilding of every cherub to the restoration of the gardens. Anne offered to help. Tearfully, she asked if she couldn’t at least choose some of the furnishings, but he ignored her offers as he ignored all her conversation, all her attempts at apologies, explanations and reconciliations. Her “I only did it because I love you” fell on deaf ears. As for the decorating of his house, he didn’t need her help. He had very definite ideas as to what he wanted and only scorn for her taste as he had only scorn for everything and everyone connected to her, except for her father’s assets which were paying for the house as well as its appointments.
Love? He loved his business and he loved his house. He would love his child.
Of all the rooms in his house, Jamie particularly liked the great entrance hall with its giallo antico marble floor and four giant bronze chandeliers with opaline globes and hanging crystal pendants. On one wall a della Robbia plaque hung over a gold-encrusted coffer, and on another wall a marble fountain adorned with dolphins, spilling silvery water into a rippled shell, fit into a soffit. Overhead, there was a stained-glass skylight that cast a subdued yellow glow over everything below. It was from this hall that the soaring staircase of Caen stone, wrought-iron and burnished bronze swept upward to the second-floor bedrooms. It was up this staircase that Jamie carried Anne, now his bride of some months, on their first night in the villa, to a bedroom with carved and gilded boiserie and a satin-covered bed heavily draped and swathed in hangings to match.
Anne couldn’t believe what was happening. Never, never in her sweetest dreams, before they were married and certainly not after, had she imagined that this night would come when Jamie would behave in this manner . . . like a man in love, like a man swept away by passion. She had been convinced that he would never love her, surely not as she loved him. She had been convinced that he would never forgive her her duplicity. And now this! This mad, impetuous, rapturous demonstration of a man desperately in love, carried away by the strength of his ardor.
Then unceremoniously he dumped her on the bed. She was bewildered, torn again by conflicting emotions. “What is it?” she cried out. “Are you going to make love to me?”
“Love? No. I’m going to do to you what you did to me. I’m going to fuck you!”
Her eyes grew big with fear, but in spite of herself she wanted him to do it—fuck her! He ripped her shirtwaist open from neck to waist, the little buttons flying. Then slowly and deliberately he removed the rest of her clothes, so deliberately she wasn’t sure whether he was raping her or not, and she didn’t care! She just wanted him!
She saw him ready to mount her and unconsciously she raised herself to meet him. “Don’t move!” he warned her. “If you move, I’ll strangle you!”
She believed him and she was both excited and terrified. “Why?” she gasped. “Why can’t I move?”
“I told you why,” he said, sitting astride her, pushing himself into her. She screamed from the force of his thrust. “Because you’re not fucking me! I’m doing the fucking this time!”
She moaned, not sure herself what kind of a moan it was—one of passion, or one of anguish. He shoved and thrust and pounded, riding her as if she were a wild mare on the plains, not weak, timid, deceitful, plain Anne Hess. The blood roared in his ears, throbbed in his temples, and for a few seconds, in his fury and rage, he wasn’t sure at all who it was lying under him, impaled, motionless, trying not to tremble, trying not to groan.
He didn’t go near Anne for the next three or four weeks, taking a separate bedroom for himself. He waited to see if he had been successful in impregnating her, waiting to see if it would be necessary to fornicate with her again. It wasn’t. Approximately nine months later, in the fall of 1902, his child was born.
The doctor, who had anticipated a long, difficult birth, was astonished when the period of labor lasted only four hours from start to finish. He flung open the door to shout his good news to the waiting family—Karl Hess, pacing to and fro in the upstairs hall; his wife, sitting stiffly in a high-backed chair outside the bedroom door; the new father, reading in his rose and cream drawing room. “It’s all over! It’s a girl!”
Jamie put down his book and made for the staircase, taking the steps two at a time. The Hesses had already gone into the bedroom and he was furious with himself for having allowed them to wait in his house for his baby to be born, to see it first.
The doctor was saying, “Under the circumstances, a first child, four hours . . . Remarkable! It was as if she had a rage to be born!”
A rage to be born? But of course! She’s a Markoff! He threw back his head and laughed, but then he remembered he himself was no longer a Markoff and his laugh faded away.
He rushed past the doctor and brushed by the woman who had assisted him, to get to the bed where Anne was holding his daughter in her arms, where the Hesses stood gaping in wonder. He looked at the baby and gasped! Anne’s eyes darted from her child to her husband, sharing his astonishment. She herself couldn’t believe that from her own undistinguished body she had managed to bring forth this girl-child of such exquisite beauty.
“Never saw anything like it!” the doctor’s assistant marveled. “So much hair, and that color! Like the Texas sun setting over the Gulf! And those eyes! Who ever heard of a baby not having blue eyes at birth? Just look at them—green as emeralds!”
“And that skin! Most newborns are red and wrinkled but not this one! It’s because she was born so quickly,” the doctor exclaimed, wanting now to take some credit for this particular miracle of birth.
“And she’s not even crying,” Karl Hess said in awe. “I thought all babies cried. Anne did . . . for six months after she was born.”
Mrs. Hess tore her eyes away from the child to say to its father, “I’m sure you’re pleased to see that Anne is well too.” These were more words than she had ever spoken to him at any one time, a reproof to remind him of Anne’s existence as Jamie stood transfixed with eyes only for his daughter. She was the image of his mother! And beautiful without compare!
Anne herself was incapable of directing her gaze anywhere but toward her husband. She wanted to shout at him: Aren’t you satisfied? Aren’t you pleased with me? Haven’t I done well? In the name of God, look at me and tell me you’re happy with me for growing this extraordinary child inside me for you, just for you! Love me! Kiss me!
Jamie bent down and for a moment she thought he was going to do just that—kiss her, whisper that he loved her, if not for herself at least for this supremely lovely gift of life. But his only intention was to take this bundle of flesh and swaddling from her arms into his own.
Entranced, he carried the infant to the window the better to study her every feature, the tiny but perfect fingers, every wisp of the red-gold hair. A thrill coursed through him as the baby appeared to look directly into his eyes with her own green ones, clear as glass. The nurse rushed over, clucking, “The eyes are too delicate yet for this light. They don’t see for weeks, you know.”
Jamie ignored her; he knew better.
The doctor came over to stand by Jamie, looking over his shoulder at the baby. He shook his head. “That coloring sure beats me. With the two of you so blond and blue-eyed, I could have sworn that’s what the baby would be. But you never know for sure. Most likely the hair will fallout before the real hair comes in and the eyes will change color. Wouldn’t be a bit surprised if she ends up with big blue eyes and hair the color of corn.”
But Jamie ignored the doctor’s words as he had the nurse’s. Again, he knew better.
An overwhelming surge of love poured through him for this—he searched for a word large enough to encompass his feelings—this treasure, this jewel, this gem among jewels. She was flawless. She was regal. She was a princess. And that’s exactly how he would raise her, as an aristocratic American princess, even as if she were really of noble birth. As for the past it was done, gone. There was only his daughter and her royal future.
It was actually painful for him to relinquish the infant so that she could be put to her mother’s breast. “The baby has to nurse so that the milk can start flowing,” the nurse explained.
The Hesses went home but he himself was unable to leave the room. Rather, he sat and watched as the baby’s rosebud of a mouth searched out her mother’s nipple, and then fell asleep.
Twilight fell and the room darkened. The baby slept in her cradle now. Anne, watching him watching their daughter, thought that it was possible things might work out for the three of them, together. She saw so much love in Jamie’s face as he gazed at the infant, surely some would spill over, even a few drops, just for her.
She asked softly, “What shall we name her?”
He almost said, “Eve,” and was furious with himself. But it was hard to look at the baby and not think of her, even long for her at a time like this.
But she was behind him, she and what she represented. He had to try harder not to think of her, not to think of any of them. It was all a long time ago. Another world. Over and done with.
No, the baby couldn’t be Eve. Even if the name didn’t rake across his heart conjuring up all kinds of painful images, he couldn’t possibly name the baby after his mother. Even though she might be dead to him, she was very much alive, and Jews didn’t name their children after the living. He was still Jew enough to remember that.
Yet, even though his mother was gone from him she was still part of him just as his baby was part of him, just as they were all part of each other. His princess would be part of Eve. She would be Ava, a name that was close to the name Eve but yet not Eve. Certainly not Eve.
“Ava,” he said.
“Ava.” Anne rolled the name around on her tongue. “It’s a pretty name,” she said, wanting to please him. “A pretty name for a pretty little girl . . .”
Pretty? But he hadn’t expected her to understand. She was incapable of understanding. She was just Anne. . . .
It never worked out the way Anne had hoped, the way she yearned for it to be—the three of them together, a family. From the very first, Ava was her daddy’s girl, and it seemed as if there was no room for her, the mother. She never completely understood it. As for Jamie, she knew what she had done—tricking him into marrying her—was a terrible thing. There was no denying it. But why couldn’t he, now that he had so much, forgive her? Why couldn’t one tiny piece of his heart soften toward her and allow her into that special kingdom they, Jamie and his little princess, shared?
Sometimes Anne ached to shake him, shout: “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have any of this—all these things you prize so highly—the business, the house, your place on the City Commission, your precious princess of a daughter!” But of course she didn’t; she wouldn’t dare.
She couldn’t understand how, right from the beginning, how her very own baby, an infant, could be so much a stranger to her. Sometimes it seemed as if Ava wasn’t really her child at all; as if, somehow, she, Anne, had only been a means, a vessel, chosen to deliver the child into the world, that Ava had really never been of her loins; wasn’t part of her blood. . . .
Anne knew it was crazy to think like that, still, she couldn’t help herself. The baby’s coloring—where had it come from? She had asked her mother and father if anyone in their family whom they could remember had had red hair or green eyes, and they had told her no. Then she had asked Jamie the same question and he hadn’t answered her at all, only shaken his head in what she assumed was some kind of a negative answer. It was a mystery . . .
Ava’s personality was equally puzzling to her. As an infant she almost never cried, only looked straight into one’s eyes as if she could see right through a person and disdained what she saw there. By the time she was two, she still didn’t cry as children her age usually did, when they fell, or were tired, or even when they didn’t feel well. The only time Ava cried was when she was frustrated in some matter, getting something she wanted, something she couldn’t reach, another child’s toy, or when she simply didn’t want to obey some command. These were tantrums such as Anne had never seen, tantrums of a frightening fury, an incredible rage. Then Anne remembered what the doctor had said that day she had given birth . . . It was as if she had a rage to be born. Those were the doctor’s very words.
She remembered the night Ava was conceived, conceived in Jamie’s rage. Anne wondered if what she had once heard was really true—a child conceived in rage shall never know peace . . .
Painful as it was, Anne had to admit to herself that her daughter was as alien to her as was the daughter’s father. Could it all have started when she didn’t have the milk to suckle Ava and a wet nurse had to be hired? She wondered. She had been miserable about that, had felt so inadequate, a failure. Still, she wasn’t the first woman unable to nurse a baby. Jamie himself had interviewed the wet nurses, had looked at her, Anne, not with contempt exactly, but as if she were a zero, a nothing.
Then, it seemed as if the child never turned to her for anything. She turned to the wet nurse, of course. And to the nannies Jamie hired, one after the other. Anne begged him not to; she told him that they had enough servants so that she herself was free to spend all her time with Ava—playing with her, feeding her, talking to her, reading to her. But Jamie wouldn’t listen. He said he wanted Ava to have the benefit of women trained in these duties, women of many heritages, so Ava would learn many languages. Jamie was obsessed with languages. He hired first a German woman, then an English one, and then a French one.
Sometimes Anne wondered if he switched nannies so that Ava wouldn’t get too attached to anybody except himself.
Jamie himself always found time to do some of the things he hired the nannies to do and the things they didn’t—carry her around piggyback, or take her to the beach. He was always the one who tucked her in bed and told her a bedtime tale.
No, Ava never turned to Anne, or ran to her or kissed her. Maybe this was, in the final evaluation, that she who was so much her father’s daughter, had sensed with her unchildlike perceptions what her Daddy felt, and emulated him, shut Anne out, finding her not beneath contempt, perhaps, but certainly not worthy of too much attention, of love.