New York Echoes (7 page)

Thankfully, he had
managed to compensate by working longer and harder in his practice and had
increased his income, which helped with his legal bills. With discipline, he
tried valiantly to effect a calm demeanor. Unfortunately, the sight of his
Blonde Goddess, looking haughty and beautiful, did not stir warm nostalgic
memories of the happy days of their marriage. Instead he dwelled on the
unsavory aspects of her cunning deception. How had he not known? How could she
have done this to him? Worse, why had he not made peace with this affront to
his dignity and self-worth? Yes, he assured himself, it was about time to shed
the corrosive power of his inner rage before it destroyed him.

The lawyers calmly outlined the
differences that separated them. Although it hurt, he agreed to divide the
artwork, giving up some especially favorite work, and she finally consented to
let him have his beloved leather-bound books. At this point, he was in a
compromising mood, wanting at last to put all this behind him. He had lost and
it was time, he told himself, with lawyerly logic, for dignified face-saving
surrender.

She wanted to keep the
apartment and through her lawyer, she made an offer. He was about to concede on
this point, but he hesitated. Her lawyer said she had had an appraisal and he
handed Charlie the document citing the value.

“I'd like to have my own appraisal
done,” he said to her lawyer.

“Oh come on, Charlie,” Carol blurted,
revealing her impatience. “This is the right price.”

“He is entitled to it,” Charlie's lawyer
said, turning to his client seeking approval.

“The fact is that I demand it,” Charlie
said, as if his sense of fairness felt suddenly violated.

“You people are
impossible,” Carol blurted.

“We people?”

“You know what I
mean.”

He could see the
beginning of an accelerating anger.

“No, I don't,” he said
deliberately fueling the exchange.

“Jesus, must I say it,
Charlie.”

“Yes, you must.”

She drew in her breath
and shook her head:

“Jews, Charlie. Jews.
All you can think about. Money. Money. Money.” He felt his insides curdle. “I
mean face it, Charlie. There has to be a reason why Jews are persecuted and
reviled for thousands of years. It took me a long time to see it. You Jews are
the most impossible people on earth. You think you're smarter than the rest of
us poor goyem. So fucking superior. You know everything. The fact is, as I have
learned, you are a vicious, greedy people. You take. All that baloney about
giving, justice, fighting for the underdog. It's all bullshit, an attempt to
make you look goody-goody so people won't see the real flaws and subterfuge
behind the façade.” She stopped for a moment and exchanged glances with her own
lawyer, who, as he knew, was not Jewish, probably deliberately chosen.

Charlie's lawyer was
Jewish, but held back any reaction, looking toward Charlie with an expression
of concern. He made a movement with his hands, which signaled to Charlie to
restrain himself. Charlie did not need to be told. There was no defense, no
possible argument to be mounted against this time-tested canard. No one as far
as he knew, especially a Jew, had ever understood the logic behind it. It was
too embedded in the culture of the planet, perhaps a genetic fault in the human
species, beyond explanation or rationality. He felt a sudden epiphany, the
realization of an absurdity that had morphed into a universal mindset. There
were, therefore, only two choices: fight or flee.

“I know I sound
awful,” Carol said, but without any sign of remorse. “Unfortunately it's true,
Charlie. Jews are that way. You people can't help yourself. That's the way
you're programmed. You have this compulsive need to take advantage. Believe me,
Charlie, I understand. It's just part of your makeup and any corrective
strategy is out of your hands. And, unfortunately, out of mine.”

She grew silent, as if
something had ballooned inside her and some mysterious pinprick had deflated
the balloon. Charlie was surprised that his own anger had abated. He thought
suddenly of his daughter. In Carol's mind was she, too, poisoned by his genes?
He wanted to bring up the point, but decided against it. How would such a view
impact his daughter? He decided to remain silent and turned to his lawyer.

“Accept the
appraisal,” Charlie told him, standing up, lifting his hand and waving a tepid
goodbye. Fight or flee. He had chosen the latter.

“Done,” Susan Charrap
had said, her voice a low, hoarse whisper on the cell phone. “You're free now.”

A burden removed, he
had thought at first, even though it had been totally unexpected. Searching for
a response, he was confused. It had been discussed, but there had been no
resolution.

“You should have told
me,” he admonished.

“Why? I'm free now as
well.”

“After all, I do have
some say.”

“Not anymore,” she
said. He remembered the long silence, hearing vague background noises, horns
honking, outdoor sounds. Then she said: “I don't want to see you ever again.
Not ever. Do you understand? Not ever.”

She had her own place
on the East Side off 73rd and Lexington, a two-room apartment in an older
walk-up. He lived on West 80th off Amsterdam. She spent more time at his place
than her own. When he had finally accepted the ultimatum a few weeks later, he
had sent her clothes and other odd possessions back to her. The fact was that
he had taken it seriously for his own reasons, feeling, after long reflection,
that she had it right: He was the unwilling one.

But he was twenty-five
then, just starting to get a leg up with the firm. He was hardly ready for
fatherhood and all its inhibiting responsibilities.

“I feel trapped,” he
had argued. He hated the idea.

“So do I.”

“Well then.”

“Well then what?”

“You know what you
have to do.”

It wasn't a question
of money. They were both making good salaries. She was freelancing commercial
art. He was established at the firm.

“People do it all the
time. We don't even have to get married.”

They had avoided the
issue of responsibility. People in love, physically attracted, could be
careless. To cite her neglect, he thought at the time, would be dishonorable.
Indeed, he truly felt that this procedure was the practical solution for them
in that moment. There would be plenty of time, he had told her. She seemed to
have agreed and that was that. Until she called him with the news. Then it was
over.

But it wasn't over,
not really. Five years hadn't granted him the complete cure. Withdrawal had
been difficult since he loved her, truly loved her. Not that he thought of her
as often, as time went on. Other things happened. He imagined he fell in love
again with Dorothy, then Barbara. At that moment, he thought Barbara was the
one and now that he was thirty and had moved up in the firm, he could honestly
tell himself he was nearly ready. Not quite, but nearly.

Barbara and he lived
together in his larger West Side apartment and were seriously discussing the
official ring ceremony and all it implied. There were pros and cons, of course.
They wanted to be absolutely one hundred percent certain that they were the
ones, that this was the time.

It was in the middle
of that debate that he saw, of all people, Susan Charrap. He had been jogging
along the main access in Central Park at 72nd on Saturday. It was late morning.
He and Barbara usually slept in on Saturdays. He wasn't sure at first.
Actually, it had amazed him that he had never bumped into her, not once.
Admittedly, sometimes he had passed her old place, even stopped to watch,
wondering what she was doing.

There were times, too,
when he thought he had glimpsed the back of her head or a passing side view,
but he had been mistaken, and after awhile he became less alert to the
possibility.

This time he was dead
certain. He was wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled low against the
late spring sun. If she had been alone, he imagined he might have simply
stopped, identified himself, and, after a few brief pleasantries, he would jog
on. But she was holding the hand of a little boy, and for some reason he did
not have the courage to reveal himself.

After she had passed
by, he suddenly found himself with the overwhelming urge to follow her. By then
he had jogged all the way to the east side of the park. Following her at a
distance, he hid, literally hid, behind a tree and watched her go into the
children's playground. The little boy began to play in the nearby monkey climb
with other children. She sat on a bench, opened the
New York Times,
and
began to read, periodically lifting her head to observe the little boy.

So she had probably
married, he concluded after watching her for a while. Had found another life
and just as he had predicted, in time she had had a child. She was still quite
beautiful, he decided, acknowledging a trill of the old feeling, that
pulse-quickening sensation of emotional memory. God, he had loved her.

It had taken him a
long time after their breakup to make peace with his behavior. At times,
especially on those sleepless, dead-of-night confrontations with the truth, he
berated himself for his cowardice, his utter lack of character, his refusal to
take a risk, his putting his career above his sense of honor. She, on the other
hand, had seen what he was truly made of and had taken the bold step, an act of
far greater courage than his, to protect her integrity.

Eventually, he forgave
himself. Not quite. But he no longer brooded over his failings. Okay, he was a
lot less than heroic, but he had done the practical thing and now he had moved
upward and was ready to face whatever came his way. He stopped beating himself
up. He had fallen in love with a beautiful, decent, honest girl with whom he
was compatible and with whom he was comfortable.

“Are you okay, Ben?”
Barbara had asked when he got back to the apartment after jogging.

Of course he was okay.
What had she detected in his expression or demeanor?

“Don't I look okay?”

“Maybe it's my
imagination. You look, I don't know, funny.”

“Don't be ridiculous.”

That night he awoke in
a sweat, suddenly wide awake. The little boy! He was not a good judge of
children's age, but he figured that the little boy might be about five or
pretty close. Could it be? He spent the next few hours running the gamut of
speculation. Over and over again, he heard her words on the phone, “Done,
you're free now.”

“You look tired,”
Barbara said at breakfast.

“Couldn't sleep. Must
be a cold coming on.”

It was part of the
protocol these days to be reasonably candid about past relationships, and he
had been. Up to a point. He could not bring himself to tell her the full story.
Perhaps he was too embarrassed, or a true confession would make him seem lesser
in her eyes. He hadn't dwelt on it. Besides, it was over, a blip in his
personal history. Or was it?

On Sunday, he went
jogging again and made a beeline to the playground. There she was, sitting on
the bench watching the little boy. But this time he studied the boy. The child
was tall, dark haired, freckled. Ben was tall, dark haired, and as a child had
been freckled. He studied the boy's movements, the way he moved his hands on
the monkey bars. Once the child looked up, and even at that distance he
imagined he and the boy exchanged glances. Had they communicated some
mysterious genetic attachment?

He had calculated that
the boy was about five or close to it. If so, the math worked. Could it be? He
hung around the playground, hidden behind the tree, watching, waiting,
intuitively investigating the possibility. At about noon, Susan stirred, folded
the paper, summoned the boy, took his hand, and proceeded to walk along the
path toward Fifth Avenue. He followed her at a distance. Luckily, he could fade
into the crowds who filled the streets, taking in the beautiful spring day.

Holding the little
boy's hand, she walked for a couple of blocks and then entered a high-rise
apartment building on 71st Street. She had moved up in the world. After she had
disappeared into the building, he reentered the park and jogged his way to the West Side.

With effort, he tried
to maintain some semblance of normality. Under the circumstances, it was
extremely difficult since he was growing angrier by the minute. How dare she?
In his mind, he could not mistake the coincidence of the time frame and the
appearance of the child.

“Is something wrong,
Ben?”

“Why?”

He supposed he was not
good at hiding things, especially something as searing as this. If that little
boy was his child, she had literally stolen it away from him. Clearly, it was a
betrayal. If she truly wanted it, he would have honored his commitment. Despite
the awkward timing, he would have found the courage to step up to the plate, to
do the right thing.

All sorts of scenarios
came to mind. What had she told people about the child? Was there an adoptive
father? If she had married, how did she portray the child's history to his new
daddy? What had she written on the boy's birth certificate? Father unknown? How
could she?

He grew increasingly
agitated. A few days went by. He grew listless. His mind wandered and his work
suffered. Thoughts of how he had been betrayed crowded into his mind. He spent
long hours in silent contemplation going over numerous possibilities about how
he might react when the true situation was revealed. He had no intention of
remaining silent.

Everyone around him
during the next week looked at him askance, asking him what was wrong.

“Not a damned thing,”
he would shoot back to their queries. He wanted to say it was none of their
friggin' business, but, above all, he was a practical man when it came to
taking risks. In the firm, he could not look as if he were involved in anything
that was not relevant to the activity of the firm. People did understand real
problems like sickness or death in the family, but a person who exhibited
perpetual anger and depression was not long for upward mobility.

With Barbara, he did
not need to be as careful with his demeanor. She was quick to assess his moods,
and when they were prolonged she reacted with concern.

“Why are you so
angry?” she would rebuke.

“You're imaging
things.”

“I know you, Ben.
What's going on?”

“Nothing.”

Of course, it wasn't
“nothing.” Anger was becoming rage. Susan had inveigled him, forced him into
conceiving a child for her own selfish purposes. He was merely a means to an
end, a way for her to realize her secret dream of motherhood without having to
take him along as excess baggage. He had been taken, abused, his good nature
manipulated for her own evil ends. She had stolen his seed.

Thinking back, he
tried to re-imagine how he could have been so naïve. She had assured him that
she was on the Pill, that she loved him. Now he was certain she had faked her
pleasure in their couplings, egged him on, taken advantage of his sexual
nature. He cursed his naiveté.

Three times in the
week after he had first seen her with the boy, he had stolen away from the
office, canceled meetings, and rushed off to the children's playground in Central Park to observe them. She was so calm, so self-assured, so certain that she had
gotten away with her subterfuge.

Watching the boy, he
fantasized about him. His son. Child of his loins. His conception. He viewed
Susan Charrap with growing hatred, but still he did not reveal himself to her.

One thing was certain:
His entire life had been turned upside down. Remembering how he had agonized
over his fate, cursed his cowardice in those days after the break-up. Worse,
his entire sense of self had undergone profound changes on account of what she
had done. Even today, he was becoming convinced it affected him so profoundly
that it had inhibited his progress at the firm. In truth, he had expected to go
further. Not that he had done badly, but he could have done a lot better if the
incident hadn't happened.

In fact, he looked at
Barbara now in a new light. Can any woman be trusted? He was having second
thoughts about the future of their relationship. After a week of this new agony,
he suggested that maybe they should give themselves pause, reconsider their
long-term plans.

“I don't understand
any of this, Ben.”

“It's my fault,” he
told her.

“What changed?”

“That line of
questioning will get you nowhere,” he told her, reducing her to tears, which,
surprisingly did not move him. He remembered when Susan Charrap had been
reduced to tears. Only now he knew they were crocodile tears.

It rained the
following weekend, and he did not go out jogging. It was unlikely that Susan
would take her son, their son, to the playground. Instead, he stayed in his
apartment and stewed. It was becoming impossible to live with his rage. He
decided he would have to confront her.

He toyed with the idea
of calling her on the phone, but decided that such a move was cowardly. No, he
decided, he would meet her face-to-face, and the most logical method would be
to do this in the playground with their child just a few feet away. When he
came up with that course of action, he felt slightly unburdened. As for the
practical implications, the legal aspects, he would consult a lawyer. With DNA
testing, he felt certain that paternity could be established without a shadow
of a doubt, but he considered that a mere formality.

He wasn't certain
exactly what he would ask for. Probably some form of visitation rights or, at
the very least, the revelation that he was the boy's father and that such
knowledge should be imparted to the boy when he was old enough to understand
its implications. If there were monetary considerations, he would consider
them, especially as concerned the child's education.

If she refused, he
would fight her in court. In his mind, he became militant and aggressive and
nothing could assuage his anger. In fact, this cause had established itself as
his number-one priority. All else, his career at the firm, his relationship
with Barbara, retreated against the onslaught of this personal crusade. The
fact that it had happened so fast was not an issue. He was ready to cast
everything else aside.