That spring she wrote a letter to her father and mother, the first in two years.
I haven’t a husband yet, but I have another baby. A boy, and the best yet, I believe. That makes four in case you’ve lost count. He looks a little like you, Dad, with his eyes wide apart and his nose as straight as a rifle barrel. Of course his own father thinks he looks like him, but he really doesn’t at all. He was born on January 16th, so he’s nearly three months old. By the way, Morris’s father, Max, you remember I told you, the Jewish jewelry salesman, is dead. He got pneumonia and his heart was weak the doctor said a year ago last March. Morris is over two years old now and has the funniest little nose, I wish Max could see him. I wish you could see all of them—maybe some day we’ll pay you a visit.
When it was finished she read it through twice, slowly, her brows drawn together and her lips closed tight. They’ll read it all right, she thought; they’ll leave it lying around for a day or two unopened and she’ll finally open it and read it and then he’ll read it too. Before sealing the envelope she went through a drawer of snapshots and enclosed a dozen or more. Several were of Leah, with Morris—on her lap, in her arms, held perched on her shoulder—and Lora shook her head at them. It’s too bad, but I can’t help it, she thought.
Leah had come to the apartment twice, once the day before Christmas and once in February, and on both occasions had been refused admittance. The first time Lora, lying big on her bed, had not even seen her; the second time she had gone to the door and told her firmly that she might as well stop coming, it was impossible to trust her. Leah pled and threatened and wept, tried to kiss Lora’s hand, declared she would kill herself, asseverated once again that Maxie had not called his son’s mother a whore. At the end, feeling her cause hopeless, she stated categorically that Morris was not Maxie’s son anyway.
“Ha,” said Lora, “you’re right, he isn’t.” And at the new fury that blazed in the other’s eyes she hastily and forcibly closed the door against her and locked it.
It was hard to believe that Max had been Leah’s brother. Possibly he wasn’t; the faith in paternity is always more religious than scientific. He had been placid, agnostic and Occidental, with questionable traits from beyond the Aegean showing but rarely; as for instance when at their third meeting he had asked her to marry him and she had said no nor anyone, he had at once proceeded to try the other road. He had said immediately in his agreeable modest tones:
“You’re probably right; neither Yahveh nor Christ nor civil blessing could make it more agreeable to kiss your hand. Nor brighten the glory of your hair. I have never seen such beautiful hair. You’re right not to have it cut; I want to see it down over your shoulders.”
That had been on a September day in Union Square; Albert Scher had taken Roy, then a little more than three years old, to the Bronx Zoo, and Lora had as usual been six times around Union Square, with Helen, still in her first year, in the carriage with the broken wheel. Only a week had passed since Albert had brought Max to the diminutive flat on Eleventh Street at the dinner hour, having found him in a Fifth Avenue gallery examining with a magnifying glass a blue necklace on a Hals portrait. At that time Albert, big and booming and blond, midway between thirty and forty, was still doing galleries and exhibitions for the Star; Max, nearly ten years his junior, was beside him remarkably compact and swarthy.
“My friend, Max Kadish,” Albert announced from the threshold, “is going to grace our table. This, my boy, is Lora the Lorelei. Miss Lora Winter, permit me, engaged, as you see, in the miraculous process of turning beef stew into milk entirely without divine assistance.”
Lora, seated with Helen at her breast, unembarrassed and unruffled, looked up at them and smiled. “Not tonight he isn’t, there isn’t enough,” she said. “How do you do, Mr. Kadish; another time. You two go out and eat, there’s only enough here for me. You know I wasn’t expecting you, Albert.”
“Hell, we want an evening at home,” Albert protested.
Max spoke, diffidently. “If you would permit me, I am a very good cook, it would be a great pleasure—a big dish of scallopini for instance, and chicory with oil dressing.…”
“It’s a lot of trouble,” said Lora.
“Grand idea!” Albert declared. “And a bottle of wine. We can do it in ten minutes. I’ll help.”
Out they dashed, and soon were back again, Albert with olives and wine and bread, Max with a package of meat and cans of mushrooms, string beans, tomato sauce, pimiento and olive oil. Lora had got Helen into her crib in the little back room, where Roy was already sound asleep.
“The door’s shut,” she said, “but for heaven’s sake be quiet anyway. I’ll set the table. Albert, you’d better go in front and look at pictures or something.”
“Do you realize,” Albert demanded, “that olive oil comes from olives? It’s incredible. Good god, think of the olives it must take.”
The scallopini was excellent, the salad delicious, the wine sour but possible. They sat on the wooden chairs in the kitchen and drank coffee for two hours, then Albert and Max washed the dishes while Lora went in front to feed the baby again.
“We have a swell maid,” Albert explained, “a wench from Alabama that looks like Aida except she’s cross-eyed, but she only comes four hours a day and if we don’t do these now we’ll have nothing to eat breakfast on. So Lora would say. I demur. The Romans used no dishes. Today, in a belt within twenty degrees of the equator north and south, precisely on the earth’s belly, there are half a billion people eating without dishes. In our decadence—”
The platter that had held the scallopini, now soapy and dripping, slipped from his fingers onto the floor, taking a carom off the garbage pail in its flight, and was shattered into a dozen pieces. Albert knelt, scooped the pieces together, and dumped them into the pail.
“In our decadence,” he repeated, “we make gods of bread-and-butter plates.”
A week later, the day they met in Union Square, Max told Lora that thanks to Albert he was already acquainted with a workable outline of her history. He had been told, he said, that she was twenty-six years old, had never been married, was intellectually and esthetically an infant, and was totally devoid of the vices of ambition, greed and curiosity. Lora merely smiled and let him hold her hand as they sat on the bench near the middle of the Square, though it was broad day and passersby were nudging each other and grinning at them. She didn’t notice; she was wondering about Albert. For one thing, he was becoming impossibly careless about money. Presumably he still had seventy dollars a week from the Star, reinforced by an occasional check for an extra piece, but the proportion that got to her had gradually decreased until now it was touch and go even with such essential items as the rent and the grocer’s bill and the maid’s modest wages. That Albert had ceased to be amusing was not intolerable, that had always been only a sideshow; but that he was apparently no longer amused threatened danger. She did not feel herself in competition with the rich young widow from West End Avenue who was suddenly finding Albert’s constant advice essential in her search for bargain Seurats and Gauguins, nor with the little blond art student, whose name she did not know, who was apparently a successful candidate for a solider and less subtle seduction; merely they were menaces to the sternest of all her necessities; and if they could not be removed must be evaded. The difficulty about money, she knew, came from pure inadvertence; Albert got his pay on Tuesday, and on Thursday or Friday, when he got around to consideration of the responsibilities of a father and the head of a household, no one was more astonished and irritated than he to discover himself once again plunged into insolvency. “Nobody will ever succeed in persuading me,” he declared, “that the tendency of money to evaporate is controllable by human forces. So help me god, Lora mia, I had five tens in that very pocket yesterday morning.”
She would not, or could not, compete with the widow and the art student. The expedient of dragooning Albert on Tuesday evening, before the process of evaporation had set in, did not even occur to her. Just as her body was always her body, and Roy and Helen always her babies, so was Albert’s seventy dollars his money. It might by good fortune or the exigencies of existence become the grocer’s or the landlord’s or the maid’s, but never was any part of it hers.
She liked Max Kadish. Often that autumn he came early in the afternoon to the apartment on Eleventh Street, helped her get the baby in the carriage and Roy ready for the street, and walked with her to Union Square or Washington Square and sat with her on a bench while Helen slept and Roy chased his ball or bruised pedestrians’ shins with his scooter. When she protested that he must be neglecting his business he explained that in his line hours didn’t matter, the point was contacts. Yesterday, he said, to give an illustration, he had bought for his employers, a big and highly respectable firm, for the sum of twelve hundred dollars, a ring which they had sold two weeks ago for four thousand. His commission, as usual in such transactions, had been twenty percent of the gross profit. This particular ring was an uncommonly fine one; his firm had sold it no less than four times in the past year. Contrary to the popular belief, he said, it wasn’t always millionaires who bought nor chorus girls who sold; one of his best contacts was a woman who lived with her husband in a quiet little apartment on Lexington Avenue and gave teas at the Mayfair.
“It’s ugly,” said Lora.
“Sure it is,” he agreed, “almost as ugly as living on coal miner’s lungs or factory women’s backs. Dear Lora, no taking in life is beautiful.”
“It is undignified”
“Only to those who borrow their standards.”
She shook her head vaguely; such things didn’t matter, you talked of them only to be saying something. When Roy was born, she remembered, she had decided that the most undignified process in the world was giving birth to a baby. What were you going to say for dignity after that?
As the weeks passed Max grew more and more insistent; Albert no longer loved her, he declared; obviously she did not love him; he, Max, could be and would be patient, but why not open the gate of his paradise? Lora, smiling and frowning by turns, kept him delicately suspended on the thread of her indecision. She liked him, but she mistrusted his smooth ready speech and more particularly his total lack of moral attitude. Steve had been brutally selfish; Albert, by his own admission, was constitutionally volatile; but neither, ignoring the moral verities, had deliberately insulted them. But no, she finally felt, that wasn’t it either, it was just something indefinable in the way Max talked.…
One rainy day in December, after a long afternoon with her in the little flat, he gave up. He went to the closet and put on his coat and then returned and stood in front of her with his hat in his hand.
“I annoy you, dear Lora,” he said. “I am a nuisance to you and to myself. You were nearer to me that first day in the Square, when you let me hold your hand. You are more beautiful than ever—oh, so beautiful—but you are farther away. It is something I cannot conquer with my devotion and my desire —something I can’t help—my race perhaps, or my modest stature, something you’re not even aware of.…”
“That’s it!” Lora suddenly exclaimed. She laughed.
He looked at her, his polite brows lifted.
“It’s because you’re a Jew. How funny! Isn’t it ridiculous? I’ve always been a little afraid of you, a little doubtful, and I didn’t know why. That’s it, because—”
She stopped; Max had gone to the door and opened it and was passing through without a word.
“Don’t go, Max!” she said, but the door closed behind him, and his rapid steps sounded from the hall.
She ran to the door and opened it. He was just starting down the stairs.
“You’re a fool,” she said. “Go if you want to, but you’re a fool.”
He stopped and looked back at her down the length of the dim hall. His tone was suave and emotionless.
“What’s the use, since it is, as I suggested, something I can’t help—”
“You know very well you’re a fool. We can’t talk out here—come—”
“What’s the use?”
“Come.”
He turned and walked slowly towards her; she preceded him into the room and after he had entered closed the door.
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” she demanded.
“I’m ashamed that I came back.”
“Silly! Would I have said it if there had been any hurt in it? Knowing it took it away—at once—like that!” She waved her hand. “I know what it is, it’s the old peddler with a beard who used to come to our house long ago, many years ago, when I was a little girl—that’s why it’s funny. If you don’t see it’s funny!”
“It isn’t funny, dear Lora.”
“Oh, yes, it is! I can’t say I’m sorry I hurt you because I didn’t really—you had no right to be hurt—but you will forgive me—”
He still stood holding his hat, looking at her.
“I suppose it would be the same,” he observed, “if I loved a Lesbian and she told me she despised me because I’m a man. That wouldn’t be funny. I can’t help being a man.”
Lora shook her head.
“There’s something wrong with that; I know; what if she wasn’t really a Lesbian, and what if she didn’t despise you? Anyway—it’s late and I have to feed the baby and you must go. But before you go—”
She walked up to him, quite close, and stood there against him, her hands at her sides, smiling into his face.
“I’d love to be kissed by a Jew,” she said.
He caught his breath. “You’re playing with me.”
“I’d love to be kissed by a Jew,” she repeated.
“Any Jew presumably?”
“Please.”
“This is not…dear Lora…”
“Please.”
Then his arms were around her and his lips were on hers. She pressed tight against him so that her swelling breasts could feel his firmness, and he could feel them; her arms remained at her sides but her whole body was against him, not wanton, not aggressive, but lyrical and warm and ready. He kept her mouth a long while, and then buried his face on her shoulder and gasped for breath, his arms still holding her tight.
“Dear Lora…dear Lora…”
“Yes. Yes.”
She raised her hand to pat his head and smooth his hair. At the touch he trembled, then raised his head and sought her lips again, but she put her hand on his mouth and he kissed the palm, over and over.
“Beautiful…oh, beautiful.…” he murmured.
“You must go now.”
“Let me stay. I can’t leave now. I wouldn’t know where to go. Let me stay and cook dinner—you can’t go out in this rain—”
“Albert is coming.”
“Don’t make me go, dear Lora. How does it concern him that I have kissed you? Let me stay.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“I haven’t two babies, I have four,” she said.
When Albert arrived a little later he found Max in the kitchen furiously stirring a bowl of eggs and bread crumbs, and Lora seated across the table from him peeling potatoes.
That night Lora lay alone in bed, stretched comfortably under the warm blankets, looking through the open window at the street light glowing through the winter mist. Max had left early; at eleven Albert had got up from his chair, yawned, and announced that he was off for a party uptown. She was glad to be alone; after a last look at the children she got into bed at once but did not close her eyes. This is getting chronic, she thought, I’d better find out what it is I’m trying to do. She was committed to Max, that was sure. Why? His lips had felt soft and moist, not at all disagreeable, but certainly not exciting. His embrace was not as urgent as Albert’s once had been—but that was actually a relief, let that dead lion sleep. Yet she had been excited. He had felt good against her breasts; she had pressed them against him exultantly, until they hurt; she had wished savagely that they might hurt till she fainted of it. Fearing to alarm him then, she had drawn back, pushing the thought away, patting his head and smoothing his hair as a mother might have done.
Beautiful, oh, beautiful, he had said. He meant her face, of course, and her hair, he was always talking about her hair and wanting to touch it. Well, she was beautiful. There was nothing more beautiful than her full breasts, just before she gave them to the baby, when she sat before her mirror with her dress open nearly to her waist, with their great drooping curves, drooping with weary grace like the branches of a peach tree loaded with ripe heavy fruit. Max of course did not mean that; think of Steve! Strange that men could be so blind to the only beauty that mattered. Probably Max wouldn’t want a baby at all. Ha, wouldn’t he though! Beautiful, oh, beautiful, he had said. How would he be, how would he feel? Suave and polite. That was one time that apparently manners didn’t count, but in reality they did; politeness was just as pleasant then as any other time. My loins are two spent tigers drowsing in the sun, Albert had said that day, stretched six feet two on his back beside her, and she had smiled to herself, thinking of the new strength in her own loins to support the new life. That had been the last time with Albert, three months before Helen was born—to her great relief, for her indifference had almost become an active repugnance; and by the time it was over he had gone afield.
But, she thought impatiently, the question is what is it I’m trying to do? She couldn’t go on having babies forever; this would be three, and certainly that was enough. If she weren’t careful she’d be in a hole she couldn’t get out of; what if Max became indifferent, as Albert had; what indeed if like Steve he made no bones about it, simply put on his hat and went away? Left alone with three infants would be no joke. She was headed for disaster then. Bah, she thought, there are no disasters left. Disaster, my god, that’s funny. Disaster.…
She shivered a little, turned on her side, pulled the covers tighter around her shoulders, and closed her eyes. By an old trick, born long ago of necessity, she suddenly was not there, she was far off in a sunny meadow of clover, running slim and youthful to greet a crowd of women, a great throng of them, all smiling and reassuring and beckoning as they approached through the clover blossoms from all sides, calling her name. They were her mothers.…
She slept.
A week later, following a discussion and agreement with Max the preceding day, she announced their plans to Albert. It was late at night; he had not come home for dinner and she had waited up for him, out of respect for his distaste for morning discussions. Albert sat on the edge of the bed taking off his socks; he placed each sock precisely on top of its shoe with the garter neatly tucked inside, an infallible sign that he had drunk a little more than usual.
“You’re crazy,” he observed, with his bare foot carefully shoving the shoes and their cargo under the bed.
“I think you’re lucky,” she replied. “All your paternal duties ended, a free man, just think of it!”
“When does this happy hegira occur?”
“Friday.”
He frowned. “Today is Tuesday. Are you in love with him?”
“No, today is Wednesday.”
“You’re crazy, it’s Tuesday.”
“All right. Anyway, it’s to be Friday.”
“Of course you’ll want the furniture.”
“No, only the cribs and our clothes and us. Max has bought furniture.”
“The hell he has. The carriage.”
“We’re buying a new one.”
“The hell you are!” He got up and stuck his hands in his pockets and started towards her, then suddenly sat down again. “Listen, Lora mia, this is a blow. You thought I would be pleased? Like hell I’m pleased! I’m furious. I’m Helen’s father, you know. She’s my daughter. I suppose you think I want that little squirt going around buying things for my daughter? You’re crazy. I brought him here too; brought him into my own house, let him cook his damned scallopini in my own kitchen—Oh, that doesn’t matter, I’m talking like a jackass, but you might have told me…I positively will not permit any man to buy a new baby carriage for my daughter.…”
“All right, we’ll take the old one.”
“Yes, and that damn wheel will break again and she’ll fall out and smash her nose.”
“Why don’t you get her a new one yourself? For Christmas.”
“Good god!” He got to his feet and this time kept them, staring at her, moving from the rug onto the cold wooden floor, in his bare feet, a thing he hated, without noticing. “By god I forgot! Christmas! We were going to have a tree, with lights, and popcorn and bags of candy—when is Christmas, you might as well tell me, when is Christmas? Let’s see, today’s the sixteenth, today’s Tuesday—
“It’s a week from Friday.”
It took him a quarter of an hour to get Christmas talked out; he was overwhelmed by the thought that his daughter was to be torn from him just a week before the great Children’s Festival. No man with any self-respect would submit to it. The word self-respect opened up new fields; obviously, he said, Max didn’t have any. He should have come first to him, Albert, since his daughter was concerned, and arrive at an understanding. Not that any understanding under the circumstances would have been possible. Max was in fact an idiot, what with two children neither of them his own, bearing different names even…
“Their name is Winter. Both of them,” Lora declared quietly.
“Like hell it is. Helen Scher. You agreed to it.”
“Temporarily. Albert darling, don’t fuss any more. You know you don’t really care. Be reasonable. Names don’t matter. You can come to see her as often as you like and call her Helen Scher or Helen of Troy or whatever you want. Remember, the rent hasn’t been paid yet for November, and I made the coat Roy is wearing out of your old dressing-gown. Be reasonable.”
Unbuttoning his shirt, he turned and grinned at her. “Lora mia, do you know what I really think? I think poor Max. Poor little Max. Caveat emptor. He thinks he’s getting a gazelle, a trembling panting gazelle in heat, and when he finds out it’s only a milch cow.…”
“He does say I’m beautiful,” said Lora, amused.
“So you are, Lora mia. As lovely as a eunuch’s dream. I shall never forget the day I saw you standing white and straight in front of that purple curtain. I said to myself, with that massive central mountain once more properly subsided into a gently sloping mound, there stands Venus. Albert, my son, look no further; and calmly and patiently I awaited parturition and happiness.”
Lora, offended at last by the coarseness of his “massive mountain,” did not reply, and when he went on did not listen. A few minutes later they were in bed, side by side, with an intercommunication of warmth completely impersonal and dispassionate; their feet touched and then separated, with no gesture, without lingering and without haste. As Lora turned over on her side, with her back to him, she said:
“Why don’t you help us with a Christmas tree anyway? Max would be glad to have you. It might be fun.”
“All right,” came his mumble through the darkness. “Damn silly custom though. We’ll see.”