Evening of the Good Samaritan (26 page)

“No, I’m not, and that’s part of it, Doctor Albert.”

“I see, I see,” the old man said. “A popularity contest after all, eh?”

“I’m beginning to win,” Marcus said, “but it hasn’t been easy without you.”

“What do you mean, without me?”

“Well, since you’re not there—it’s like being teacher’s pet as a kid. God help you when the teacher goes out of the room.”

“Isn’t it enough that I recommend you, that I stand behind you?”

“It’s enough for me,” Marcus said, “and that’s what’s deeply important, isn’t it? But you can’t impose your confidence in me on others any more than you could transfer your skill. I’ve got to win it without you. I am winning. There are men who’ll take me now when they can’t get somebody else. It used to be they’d only take me when they couldn’t get anybody else. And you see that’s what you really made possible, Dr. Albert: I’m now worth having on a case.”

“You were worth having the day I took you.”

“You thought so. Nobody else was that sure—including myself.”

“What?”

“Nobody but you and I thought so,” Marcus amended, “and my father.”

Bergner grunted his satisfaction with the answer.

Marcus drove him home, declining to stop for a drink when the old gentleman asked him.

“I don’t blame you. Madness. Children all over the place. I’m going to put our two into boarding school myself, I’ll tell you that.” Louise and George had moved back from Washington and were temporarily living with Dr. Bergner.

Marcus went around the car to help him out and up to the steps. The old man delayed him at the car door. “Do you know why George Allan came home?”

“I understand he’s working for Winthrop.”

“I mean to live, to live. He’s afraid I might do something like Alicia did.” He gave his dry spate of laughter. “And I just might. Remember how the University got its telescope? Three months to build a planetarium. They got it up, didn’t they? Think about Lakewood. It doesn’t matter whether you think you can teach or not. Men who want to learn, learn. You know that. Was I a teacher? Pah! And it will give you that thing they call … prestige. You know what that is, eh, Marc? That’s the extra zero you can put on your statement at the first of the month.” He took Marcus’s arm and they moved up the step slowly. “As for George Allan, every man’s son has a right to earn his own living, I say.”

“He hasn’t done badly, Doctor Albert, considering the start you gave him,” Marcus said dryly.

The old man looked up at him from under the thunderous brow of which Marcus had never really been afraid. Marcus smiled almost impudently, and they went on. His hand on the door knocker, Dr. Bergner said, “Bring your bride to see me next time, eh? There’s nothing wrong with my eyes—just my hands.”

Marcus dressed at the Fields’ for the evening, Martha having waited there for him while he visited Dr. Bergner, and before leaving for Winthrop’s they had a leisurely drink with Tony and a lovely Chinese girl whom he was taking to the party. Martha knew her slightly from the University; she was in one of Jonathan’s classes. Sylvia left early, having what she called a proprietary interest these days in how things were done at Tamarack. Marcus observed the maturity Tony was reaching, but afterwards when Martha commented on it, he teased her for becoming matronly.

Already a little late, they decided to be yet a little later and drove in the twilight to the bluff overlooking the lake. After sitting a moment in the car, they got out and stood listening to the early murmur of spring. Creeks were bursting in the first long thaw and the birds were not quite settled for the night. A sudden fanfare of chirping made them both smile, for there was the distinct sound of disgruntlement in it as though one bird had said to the other: for heaven’s sake, can’t I get any sleep in this nest? The green of maturing pussy willows flecked the tawny bushes at the crest of the ravine, the forsythia was popping open its numerous yellow mouths.

The sky, merging coral with pink with mother-of-pearl, was strung with small, golden-bellied clouds which reflected the setting sun, and were themselves hazily mirrored in the dark, rumpled waters of the lake. When the golds and reds were faded, the watchers returned silently to the car.

Martha was aware, arriving at Tamarack, of a deep, almost mesmeric contentment which she felt no one could intrude upon. Winthrop came up to greet them, both his hands extended.

“My tardy congratulations, Doctor Winthrop,” Martha said. “I hope you and Sylvia will be very happy.”

“Thank you. I’m glad you’ve come,” he said.

For the moment Martha came very nearly liking him. She knew that Marcus did. And now she must somehow.

“Your father’s here,” Winthrop said to Marcus, “and those other friends of yours and Sylvia’s. You shouldn’t miss the violinist, by the way.” He nodded toward the great closed doors. “He’s our new concert master.”

Martha realized how little she really knew about him. Sylvia, she knew, was a patron of the Traders City Symphony. As she and Marcus went into the drawing room she regretted having dragged her heels to have arrived so late. They heard but the final number of the musicale. As the musicians put away their instruments, the guests broke up into small groups, immediately convivial among themselves. Martha caught sight of the Muellers with Sylvia at the far end of the room, but lost them a moment later with the commingling of people in her line of vision. It was all so different from Martha’s memory of her last party here: the room was not so large, more crowded, the guests not so aloof although, to be sure, none fell upon her and Marcus in welcome.

Jonathan intercepted them as they moved toward their friends. He had driven out with the Muellers, and Martha thought he looked notably handsome in dinner dress, his gray hair brushed into a neat crest. He seemed in no way ill at ease. Nor would he be in any gathering, whether it be here or in Peking, Buenos Aires or Kankakee. A scholar, yet a gregarious man, he enjoyed talking with tinsmith or tycoon. He always listened with interest, even to her, Martha thought. He was naturally curious about almost everything and not at all hesitant about exposing his own ignorances, minute or monumental. Of the latter, despite his protests, she thought there must be exceedingly few.

Martha counted it one of the truly important things to have happened in her life, friendship with Jonathan. They talked of many things together, often of religion, but neither of them to the purpose of converting the other. Martha had never quite forgotten the Christian burial given her father, the Church in its magnanimity depriving him forever of dignity of purpose, as she saw it. Jonathan had never said one word that might have been construed as deprecation of her father, although she knew how profoundly he must have disagreed with him. He was even sometimes able to explain certain of Fitzgerald’s prejudices. Martha was devout and faithful to the Church still, but she gained through Jonathan her first understanding of why that was uncritically so, and why people of other conviction or faithless, as was Jonathan, might also be as faithful as herself. One could not help it, accepting the creed in which one was reared as the measure of logic as well as ethic. It was almost impossible to criticize the doctrines one
felt
were true: about as difficult, Jonathan said, as pulling oneself up by the bootstraps. There was gravity of mind as well as of body.

With Jonathan she and Marcus finally reached the Muellers who, too, had the faculty of fitting in even, Martha decided, where they stuck out. Julia was possessed of what Marcus called the joy of the earth. She was a handsome, laughing woman, well built and corseted, her white bosom brimming the snug, black velvet gown she wore that night; her cheeks were flushed and her black eyes dancing with frank pleasure. She did not have to talk to enjoy herself. Her presence, Marcus observed, had caused a number of gentlemen to join their group. He felt smug, taking a kiss by old prerogative.

“Ah, Martha,” Erich cried, “do you know who has come…?”

But Martha did not hear more for at that instant she saw, standing half-face from them a few feet away and talking animatedly to quite a large group of people, Nathan Reiss. He seemed not a stranger at all … and very little changed. The slightest of fleshiness beneath his chin when he smiled was the only suggestion of middle age.

“You know the gentleman, I see,” Jonathan said, his smile somewhat sardonic.

“I met him in Europe,” Martha said. “He’s Doctor Mueller’s friend.”

“I know. I had the pleasure of his company driving out from the city.”

“I should speak to him,” Martha said.

“Why?” The question was mischievous.

“He was very kind to me at a difficult time.”

“But he, obviously, is not having a difficult time,” Jonathan said. His tone was half-humorous, but Martha, knowing his moods, his levities at moments of least patience, suspected that Nathan Reiss had rubbed him the wrong way.

“He is a snob, isn’t he?” she said.

“That, too?” said Jonathan, again a little mockingly. But he took her arm and together they moved to the edge of Reiss’ audience.

Nathan Reiss had arrived in Traders City only the day before. He told of a harrowing escape from the Nazis, first at the Swiss border, then through France, and finally of a long and nerve-wracking wait in Spain for the necessary papers by which he could and did gain entry to America. The question in any intelligent man’s mind was: why had he waited so long to leave? It was a question Jonathan had asked bluntly on the drive from the city, and with something less, their mutual friend Mueller calculated, than his usual tact.

“I had obligations,” was Reiss’ explanation, and of course, Jonathan thought, one does not press a gentleman on his obligations. Erich had got him aside briefly on their arrival at Winthrop’s and explained that there was a woman involved. This Jonathan had not doubted.

There were at the moment several women involved as well as men, attending Reiss’ discourse on the European situation. He was accounting in some detail the political intrigue behind the fall of France:

“… One could not say he was not an honorable man. Some would say stubborn. And believe me, the Countess would agree! It was told of him, he was the only man entering her house saying, ‘No,’ and leaving it also saying, ‘No.’ Daladier, on the other hand, was flattered by the attention, the patronage of the Marquise. He is, after all, a peasant, you might say—the baker’s son. It was an extraordinary thing, let me tell you, to watch these two remarkable women playing with men like puppets in the game for France. What they were able to do, they never did. For them the only thing worth doing was the impossible. Therefore …” (He gave a shrug of despair.) “… The Moslems, they have something, you know? They cover the faces of the women.” He looked to the women nearest him. “But I would not want to be a Moslem myself …”

He had a way, Jonathan thought, as the refugee was pressed for more of his intimate journal, of giving a boudoir atmosphere to matters of grave import.

Martha, it should be said, cherished an uncritical belief, not necessarily in the truth of what Reiss told, but in the appropriateness of his knowing it. She had remarked during her visit at the Baroness’ the intimacy among her guests, and the casualness with which they discussed the most portentous of national affairs.

“It is,” Reiss was saying, “the great pity, of course, that the Russians could not have been persuaded to neutrality.” (The Soviet-German Pact was in operation at this time.) “But perhaps it is better: this way we know all our enemies at once.”

“Does Hitler know his friends? That’s what I’d like to know,” a man prompted.

Reiss cocked his head. “I do not understand. Please?”

Jonathan squeezed Martha’s elbow and whispered, “I wonder if Herr Doktor knows his.”

The explaining gentleman opened with an astounding phrase: “If I were in Hitler’s shoes, I’d be damned sure I deployed half my armies to the east. The Russians are going to turn on him, you’ll see. All that nonsense about their inefficiency, bad equipment—sheer propaganda. It’s my idea they went into Finland in the first place just to pull the wool over our eyes. A red herring, how’s that? They haven’t shown anything like their real strength yet. Nobody knows what they’ve got. When the bear gets the bit between his teeth, God help us all, including Hitler.”

Jonathan spoke to the man next to him, who was standing, glass in hand. “Excuse me. Who is the gentleman?”

“Edgar Murray.”

Jonathan murmured his thanks. Murray was a manufacturer of transport equipment.

“He’s in a pretty good spot to know what he’s talking about. The Murrays have a lodge in Germany. Hitler’s taken it over for his own use, I understand.”

“Lend-lease,” Jonathan said dryly.

His neighbor laughed. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Charlie Forsberg.”

“Jonathan Hogan.” The two men shook hands. Jonathan introduced his daughter-in-law. He supposed, as they all turned back to the mainstream of the conversation, Forsberg was trying to place him. He was doing the same of Forsberg, without success.

“It won’t be Hitler’s first mistake, if Ed’s right,” someone else joined in. The conversation was on the verge of breaking away from Reiss’ domination. “He’s gone a little too far with the Jewish business, I think.”

There was no great outburst of approval with the observation.

Then Reiss said, smiling, “You would be surprised, let me tell you, how far they will go to … collect … one Jew.”

People were amused.

Someone asked Reiss if he thought the United States would allow itself to be drawn into the war, and Jonathan wondered if the refugee knew he was being tested.

“No. I don’t think so,” Reiss said carefully. “Perhaps—if what the gentleman proposes—I am sorry, I do not know you by name …”

Edgar Murray identified himself to Reiss, who acknowledged by bringing his aristocratic body to attention. “I am honored. If, as you propose, Russia is persuaded to stab Germany in the back, you should then be prepared, I think. I do not truly believe Great Britain can stand up to Russia. You do not know, perhaps, how strong the Communist parties are among the working class people in Great Britain—and in France. France is the lesson of the world, let me tell you. If it were not for the Hitler-Stalin collaboration, France would still be France. I should still be in Paris myself.” He went on, very loosely documenting the effectiveness of Communism at internal subversion, and its part in the fall of France; no one seemed to think it in any way contradictory of his prior account of the fall.