Earth and High Heaven (14 page)

“I can tell easily enough and so can your father, just from the way he's behaving. If he were genuinely in love with you, instead of just out for what he can get, apparently, he wouldn't be rushing you off your feet and doing his best to make you fall in love with him, when he's old enough and certainly experienced enough to be fully aware of the fact that there's no real future in it for either of you, and you're the one who's going to have to pay for it. He must realize how we feel about it, of course, although obviously our opinions don't matter in the least so far as Marc Reiser is concerned, but that's beside the point. If he were really in love with you, he'd care far more about your happiness and far less about himself.”

There was no point in arguing; the system of ready-made definitions and generalities by which Margaret Drake arrived at her moral judgments was infallible. All you had to do was to compare the behaviour and reactions of a given individual with the standard set of measurements which had long ago been laid down for all time, and you could even tell whether he or she was “genuinely” in love or not. It was as simple as that. Erica had been brought up on the system, but she had never been able to make it work, although she realized that it had worked well enough for her mother and father and for a great many others of their generation, enabling them to go through life with fewer misgivings, less uncertainty, and probably a good deal less muddle in the long run than she herself had any reason to expect.

She said, “I don't think you're being fair to either of us,” and let it go at that.

“Do you imagine you're being fair to us?”

She left the chest of drawers and sat down on the chair by Erica's desk with her back to the windows. She was wearing her pale blue linen dress and the late afternoon light fell on her shoulders and her soft brown hair, and was kind to her tired face. She said, “You don't understand, Eric. You seem to expect us just to sit back and do nothing and let you make a mess of your life without even trying to stop you. That's not what we're for. That's not what any parents are for, just to sit back and say nothing ...”

“But most of what you say about Marc simply doesn't make any sense. You always sound as though you're talking about a couple of other people.”

Her mother said impatiently, “I'm talking about a general situation which you know exists as well as I do! There is no use your trying to pretend that it doesn't exist ...”

“I'm not,” said Erica, switching on the light by her dressing table mirror in order to put on some makeup. “And I don't, but what I do have to do is balance Marc, and what he's worth to me, against the general situation and decide for myself whether I'm going to gain more than I lose. Nobody else can decide that for me. I haven't lived your sort of life, you were born in 1890 and I was born in 1914, and obviously what matters most to me isn't what matters most to you. Our whole scale of values is different. What would ‘ruin' your life wouldn't necessarily ruin mine, and anyhow, I don't think it's a question of ruining my life at the moment, so much as a question of who's going to run it. Obviously, if I were to stop seeing Marc purely because you wanted me to and for a set of reasons which I don't agree with, then it would be you and Charles who were running it, not I.”

“You know perfectly well your father and I haven't the faintest desire to run your life. If we had, we'd have started long ago.” Her mother paused, looked at Erica, one hand absently turning a pencil by hitting first one end and then the other against the desk and sliding it through her fingers.

She was on the point of saying something else when Erica broke in suddenly, “Mother ...”

“Yes?”

“Do you remember what Miriam said about Charles not wanting a son-in-law at all if it was a question of my getting married?”

“A lot of what Miriam says is pure nonsense.”

“Is it?” She herself had not taken the idea very seriously until now, but she had been listening to her mother for the past few minutes with a growing feeling that something was wrong somewhere, for while her father was as prejudiced as her mother on the subject of Jews, at the same time, he was a great deal less conventional. He could not possibly be as concerned with the purely social aspect of the problem, since he was such a thorough going individualist, so that, strictly speaking, he actually had fewer reasons for objecting — unless there was another motive still unaccounted for.

Erica said at last, “I'm not so sure that Charles doesn't want to run my life, and I'm beginning to wonder if he ever will want me to marry anyone.”

To Erica's surprise, her mother answered calmly, “I doubt if Charles will ever think anyone is really good enough for you, if that's what you mean, but Marc Reiser is hardly a fair example. After all, what matters most to your father is your happiness, and no one in his senses could possibly imagine that you and Marc have even a reasonable chance of being happy. There's too much against you.” She glanced at Erica and then went on in a different tone, “There'll be someone else, Eric — someone who'll really belong and who'll mean far more to you than Marc Reiser ever could and who wouldn't put you into an impossible situation simply by marrying you.”

“Marc has never said anything about marrying me. He's never even said anything about being in love with me.” Although she knew it was useless, because her mother's theories on the subject of Marc Reiser were so wildly at variance with the facts that they were literally discussing two different people, one real and one imaginary, she added, “You keep forgetting that the person who's going to take the most convincing is Marc, not me — or you and Charles.”

“Then just what does Mr. Reiser think he's doing at the moment?” inquired her mother.

“Maybe, like Miriam, he doesn't think, he just hopes.”

“Really, Erica,” said her mother, exasperated.

Erica picked up her lipstick and said as she unscrewed the cap, “As for there being ‘someone else,' the only answer to that is that I'm in love with Marc.”

Her mother said nothing but went on silently turning the pencil through her fingers.

“I can't understand why you and Charles feel the way you do and why it would be hell for either of you to be married to a Jew, in the world in which you've lived, but I'm not you and your world isn't the same as mine, and what I simply cannot see is how you can expect me to feel the same way. One of the things that seems to appall Charles most is the fact that if I married Marc, my husband could not be admitted to his club. I don't care about clubs!”

She got up, took the green and white print dress which was lying on her bed and as she pulled it over her head, Erica asked suddenly, “What did you mean when you said that you couldn't do anything with Charles? You agree with him, don't you?”

“Yes, so far as your marrying Marc Reiser is concerned. Yes, I know,” she said impatiently as Erica's head appeared and she saw that her daughter was about to protest again, “but neither of us has ever seen you so worked up about anyone else, you're obviously not yourself and there's no telling what may happen or what you're likely to do in this state,” she added, her face drawn with anxiety. “You're in love with him, or you think you are, and you've said absolutely nothing to give us any grounds for thinking that you wouldn't marry him, or that you even realize what you'd be letting yourself in for.”

“Listen, Mother,” said Erica, staring at her. “The first night I ever went out with Marc, he asked me where I wanted to go and I suggested a restaurant over on the Back River. It's quite a long drive to the Back River, and when we finally got there, there was a sign on the gate saying ‘Select Clientele.'”

In a voice of sheer despair her mother said, “And you expect us to help you and treat Marc Reiser as though he were anybody else, when all he has to offer you is that sort of thing for the rest of your life!”

“I only told you that to make you see that I do know what I'd be letting myself in for, and so does Marc. The second time I saw him he said it was better to be on one side or the other than out in the middle where you get it both ways ...”

“Then why doesn't he leave you
alone
...”

“I don't want to be left alone,” said Erica after a moment's silence. She realized now that to have expected her mother and father to treat Marc as though he were anyone else was to have expected them not only to change character but to alter
their
scale of values, which was obviously out of the question and far more than she herself was capable of doing, even supposing she had been willing to try. They were not to be blamed for doing everything in their power to shield their daughter against even the possibility of a lifetime out in the middle and for acting in what, in all sincerity, they conceived to be her best interests.

It was a complete deadlock.

Her mother went on at last with a visible effort, “What I don't agree with is the way Charles is going about it. This is your home, and although I can't imagine your father and me and Marc Reiser having much to say to each other,” she observed with a slightly different expression, “whether we happen to care for him or not, he is a friend of yours and you should be able to invite him here. You might just as well be living in a boarding house ...” she said, and broke off, remembering that she had said it before in another connection altogether. Then, because Margaret Drake was nothing if not honest, she made herself go on. She said wearily, “Well, it's true, and certainly that part of it is not your fault.”

Erica was standing by the window, so that her mother had to turn her head toward the light in order to look at her. The long rays of the sun drove straight into her mother's face, and for the first time, Erica could see how tired she was. She was tired out.

In spite of everything Margaret Drake had been saying, Erica knew that left to herself, she would have followed a different course. She would have said what she thought, but having done that, she would not only have invited Marc to the house but she would have done her utmost to regard him objectively and to be fair to both Marc and her daughter.

Erica said suddenly, “It's Charles who's behind all this! It's our fault, not yours. Why should you have to be dragged into it?” she asked desperately. “You can't do anything, you're just caught ...”

“I can't stop unless you do, darling,” said her mother, smiling faintly. “I can't help being dragged into something that concerns both my husband and my daughter. You're such a baby in some ways, Eric.”

A moment later she remarked, “I always wondered what would happen if you and Charles came up against each other. I don't understand you as well as he does, and I don't understand him the way you do, but I couldn't just sit by and watch you killing the best in each of you, even if I weren't involved in it myself. Your relationship with your father was a very fine thing, Eric,” she said, glancing at Erica and then back to the window again. “There's one side of him which you've been able to bring out, but which I've scarcely been able to touch since we were first married.”

Her eyes came back into the room, to the Poster of Carcassonne which Erica had brought back from her last trip to France, just before the war, and she said, “Because it was you and not me is no reason for me to let that side of Charles disappear again without a struggle. I don't know what he'd do without you. If he should lose you, he'll lose an outlet that he needs and that he's never been able to find in anyone else.”

She said quietly, “I want him to keep his outlet,” and got up, adding on her way to the door, “As for you, I just want what every mother wants — I want you to be happy, to marry the right person, and not the wrong one.”

“Mother,” said Erica.

“Yes?”

“Won't you meet Marc? Couldn't we have lunch together some day, just the three of us?”

“Why?” she asked, pausing with her hand on the doorknob. “What difference would it make?”

“I don't know,” said Erica, dropping her eyes. “I just thought that you wouldn't be so worried if you really knew him. I'm sure you'd like him ...”

“Liking him would just make everything that much more complicated, wouldn't it? The situation is awkward enough as it is. I don't think I particularly care about meeting him now in any case. After all, he must have some idea of the damage he's doing by this time.”

“You don't know how hard I work to keep him from finding out!” said Erica involuntarily.

“What do you mean?” asked her mother, staring at her. As Erica did not answer she said, “How hard you work to keep him from finding out the truth, is that it?”

“I told you Marc was the one who really needed to be convinced,” said Erica after a pause.

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

Her mother opened the door and Erica said, “You will meet him sometime, won't you?”

“I don't see how I can manage lunch very well. You know I always stay at the Red Cross, it takes too much time if I go out.”

“All right,” said Erica. “No harm in asking.”

She realized that it was still Charles, and not her mother, but she was crying when Miriam wandered in through the communicating door between her bedroom and Erica's.

Miriam was in slacks and a white shirt, carrying a glass of rye in one hand and a hairbrush and another glass of rye in the other. She put the first glass down in front of Erica on the dressing table and retired to the window seat, remarking, “Private stock. If this goes on, we're all bound to take to drink sooner or later anyhow, and I thought it might just as well be sooner. How are things?” she inquired conversationally.

“Lousy, thank you,” said Erica, drying her eyes.

“So I gathered. Is that a new dress? It looks nice, darling — I'll say this for Marc Reiser, at least he's got you out of suits.”