The Immigrants (24 page)

“Danny, Danny, you talk like a child. You marry a Protestant woman who has no love for you. God forgive me that I, a Catholic, should say this, but I must. For two people to live without love is no good. We can get an annulment. I have enough influence.”

“I can’t. It’s not being a Catholic. I’m a rotten Catho lic.”

“Why? For what you must give her? Give it to her.”

“Tony, I don’t know why.”

Cassala pressed it no further. Danny needed a home for a pregnant woman; that was enough. At the library, May Ling had already told them that she was married and expecting a child. For the last two months of her pregnancy, she was at San Mateo with the Cassalas.

Cu riously enough, both Maria and Rosa accepted her with warmth and affection, perhaps in part because of their loneliness in a community so alien to them, and in part because no one could be with May Ling very long and resist her charm and openness.

Now, driving down the Peninsula, the baby asleep in May Ling’s arms, Dan asked May Ling not to mention to Cassala his plans to build the passenger vessel.

“Why not?” she wanted to know.

“Because I’m going to Seldon for the money.”

There was a long silence as they drove on. Dan glanced from the road to the sleeping child. He had his father’s curly black hair and his mother’s ivory skin—his own child, a child he had been permitted to name for his father.

“Why?” she asked at last.

“Why what?”

“Why do you go to Seldon? Why not Tony?”

“Because it’s too big for Tony. If I blow it, let Seldon bleed, not Tony.”

“If it’s that dangerous a gamble, why should the Sel don Bank back you? Or is Seldon buying you?”

“That’s a hell of a thing to say.”

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“I suppose so. You know, Danny, Chinese women are acquies-cent. I suppose it’s in our blood. I’m also a little frightened. I never was before.”

“Of what?”

“Of losing you. I’m not your wife, and sometimes I feel that I never will be.”

“You’re my wife and that’s my child.”

“And Jean?”

“Let me do it in my own way, please, baby. I’ll leave her. You have to give me time.”

“Time or anything else,” she said sadly. “You know that I give you whatever you ask, Danny.”

At San Mateo, Maria and Rosa enveloped May Ling and the baby with affection. It took very little to bring Maria to tears, and almost as soon as she held little Jo seph in her arms, she began to weep.

May Ling smiled slightly as Dan fled. He couldn’t bear the sight of tears. Since it was a weekday, Cassala was at the bank. Dan walked out onto the lawn, where Stephan was sprawled in a lounge chair.

He waved at Dan and got to his feet as Dan pulled a chair up to the lounge.

“Don’t get up. Take it easy, Steve.”

Stephan embraced him. “My God, it’s good to see you, Danny.”

He was skin and bones.

“How do you feel?” Dan asked him.

“Better, better. I’m going to be all right.”

“You’re damn right you are.”

“Last night I slept through. First time in months without pills. I still have some pain, but the doctor says it’s gas mostly.”

“Tony’s worried sick about you.”

“Pop’s worried, Mama’s worried, Rosa’s worried—Dan, they’re driving me crazy. She looks at me and she cries. She talks to me about getting married. She found a nice Italian girl for me. I want

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to get an apartment in the city, and every time I mention it, Mama begins to weep.” His eyes went past Dan to the house. May Ling was coming across the lawn.

“Look, let me explain—” Dan began.

“No need, Danny. I know.” He got to his feet. May Ling came to him and took his outstretched hand, in both of hers.

“I am so glad to meet you, Steve. Your mother made me feel like her daughter, so I feel like your sister. If you heard Chinese prayers, they were mine. I am re sponsible for the most confused Catholic priest in the Peninsula, who twice a week would see a pregnant Chinese lady at the altar rail next to your mother. Now I am going to leave the two of you. I’ll see you later.”

When she had left, Stephan said, “She’s beautiful—and charming. What a delightful woman!”

“I know.”

“Look, it’s none of my business. The thing is, well, you’re both here, and I’m here, and we’re alive. I never understood the virtue of simply being alive. I sit here and feel the sun and the wind, and I keep telling myself I’m alive.”

“Was it very bad?”

“You know, Danny, I don’t talk about it because there’s no sense talking about it. I had lots of time to read these past few months. I read
War and Peace
. Tolstoi says everything said about war is a lie.

He’s right. I had five days of it before my gut was ripped open. I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t do anything except crawl in the mud and watch people die. And be afraid. Oh, shit—the hell with it.

What about Jake Levy? Is he all right?”

“As far as I know. He got a field commission. I think they call it that. He’s a lieutenant.”

“Still there?”

“That’s right.”

“Poor bastard,” Steve said.

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The Brockers had purchased some forty acres of land in what would some day be downtown San Francisco. The purchase price was five dollars an acre. Eventually, a single acre was sold by the son of the original Brocker, a placer miner, for seventy-two thousand dollars, and that was before the price truly began to rise. Alan Brocker was the third generation in California, and he had returned to San Francisco from Harvard College to find that Jean Seldon had married a fisherman called Daniel Lavette.

During the seven years since that event, from which Alan Brocker emerged with his heart unbroken, he had been married long enough to produce a child, avoid the draft, and get divorced, had inherited eleven million dol lars, give or take a few hundred thousand, upon the death of his father, and had done Europe—as it was put—and with approach of the war had returned to San Francisco. He purchased a small but luxurious house on Jones Street, kept a sloop on the bay, played tennis, and kept two saddle horses. If not the most sought-after sin gle man in Jean’s set, he was certainly one of them, per haps too tarnished by divorce and reputation for some of the best families but nevertheless eagerly welcomed where a single man was required at a dinner party. In that capacity, he and Jean had been paired off a num ber of times—on occasions where Dan could not or would not be present. Twice, he had taken Jean home, the second time ventur-ing a kiss on her lips which had turned into a passionate embrace.

During the months that followed, they met surrepti tiously at least once or twice a week. He kept his horses at a stable in Mann County, and on occasion they would meet there and ride together.

When they lunched alone, it would be in some out-of-the-way restaurant where they would not be recognized. For weeks, Jean brushed aside any serious advances on his part, but they were old friends who had known each other as children, and when he finally

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suggested an afternoon at his house, she accepted with full knowledge of what might follow. In her mind, she had turned over and over the question of an affair with him. He was a good-looking man, perpetually sunburned, with bright blue eyes, set off by dark skin, and a high, thin nose; he was of me dium height and dedicated to keeping himself trim. The question in her mind was whether she desired to have sex with any man; and when at last she allowed him to take her to bed, she was far more amazed than he by the passion it unleashed in her.

Lying naked next to her, touching and caressing her beautiful white body with almost professional skill, Brocker said to her, “You’ve been starved, my love. What is that oversized fisherman of yours—a gelding?”

“Let us say a disinterested stallion.”

“Disinterested? Shit.”

“I love it when you’re foul.”

“Women like you always do.”

“That is truly foul. What a disgusting thing to say.”

“You don’t look horrified.”

“You’re the second man in my life, Alan. I’ve been with no one else.”

“Indeed.”

“Believe it or not—I don’t really care.”

“Do you care for me?”

“As what?”

“You’re a bitch, you know. You’re a thoroughgoing bitch.”

“No end to your compliments.”

“I’ll amend it. The loveliest bitch in California.”

“That limits it.”

“Do you want the world? Let me tell you something, Jean. I’ve never known another woman like you. Do you realize how long I’ve looked at you and wanted you?”

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“And now that you have me?”

“I don’t have you. The fisherman has you.”

“He doesn’t think so,” she said. “Alan, stop petting me. Your hands don’t stop and your mind is a thousand miles away.”

“Not a thousand miles. I was only wondering how we could be together for a few days.”

“Don’t be pushy. Suppose I divorced him. Would you marry me?”

“No,” he said flatly.

“You really thought about that. Why?”

“I would never marry again, not you, not any woman. I have all the money I need, and I have you.”

“Don’t be so goddamn sure about that!”

“Ah, the fangs show. I’ll bet you’re something when you lose that temper of yours.”

“Perhaps.”

“You’d like me to say I love you?”

“No. Because I’m not a bit sure that I care very much about you.”

“But you do, even if the fisherman still has a foot in the door.”

“Now you begin to bore me, Alan.”

But the excitement of the affair overrode the fact that he was indeed a boring man. Dan talked about every thing, the war, his ships, his dreams—at least he did when she permitted a conversation to take place. Alan talked only of the people he met and the food he ate—and horses. Jean was interested in neither food nor horses. Yet he made love to her, and that did not bore her.

A few weeks after they had been to bed together, Jean said to him at lunch one day, “I want something, and I don’t know how to get it. Perhaps you could help me.”

“Perhaps I could. What do you want?”

“I want to know who my husband has been sleeping with.”

“Oh? Why?”

“Reasons.”

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“How do you know he’s been sleeping with anyone? You tell me he’s your willing slave when you want a slave. Could be the beast is satisfied with beauty and his gonads are quiescent.”

“Don’t be disgusting.”

“You like it in bed.”

“We’re not in bed. Whatever else Dan is, he’s very much a man.

Now can you help me or not?”

“You want to open a can of worms. My dear Pan dora, let it lie.

Right at this moment, we have a very good thing going, and if your fisherman is banging a filly, why it’s simple justice.
Quid pro quo
, as the law yers say.”

“I told you not to be foul. And don’t call me Pan dora. I can’t abide your wretched metaphors.”

“The hell with my metaphors. If you do find out in the affirma-tive, what will you do? Divorce him?”

“No. Seldons do not divorce.”

“Well, there’s a statement of principle.”

“Will you help me or won’t you?”

“All right. Your husband has a secret liaison, and you want to know. The only thing I can suggest is that you hire a detective.”

“Do they do that kind of thing?”

“Their bread and butter, my dear.”

“I can’t be involved in this,” she said uncertainly. “I can’t go to a detective agency. You do understand that, don’t you, Alan?”

“I suppose you can’t.”

“Will you do it for me, please?”

“All right. Be it on your head. I’ll go to the Pinkertons. They’re very good at this kind of thing.”

“How do you know?”

“My wife hired them. You’re not the first one to think of this, bless you.”

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Clair Harvey had come into ten thousand dollars’ insur ance money when her father died. She had not known about the insurance, a company plan which Dan and Mark had instituted; as for savings, Jack Harvey had none. He spent what he earned, easily, sometimes grandly, often eloquently. When Clair first came to live with the Levys, she sought work in Sausalito. Until she found a part-time job at Grundy’s Hardware Empo rium, she tried to do enough cleaning and chores around the place to pay for her keep— resisting all of Sarah’s arguments that simply to have her there was reward enough. When the insurance was paid, she gave up the job at Grundy’s, which she disliked intensely, and after much argument persuaded Sarah to accept ten dollars a week for her board. She and Sarah were both strong-minded women, and both of them became somewhat hysterical before the matter was settled. Sarah’s ration ale was to put the money in a jar—whence it would some day be returned as a gift.

Clair, however, was far from idle. Not only did she continue to help with the housework, but she dedicated each day to the preparation of a history, anywhere be tween five and ten pages, of the past twenty-four hours, both in and out of the Levy establishment—a history that was folded, addressed, and dispatched to France the following morning. When this was finished, she had sixty-one letters from Jake, to be read and reread. While occupied thus, she had the adoration of Martha Levy, who at age thirteen was being transformed by the action of numerous ductless glands from a chunky child into a round-limbed, lovely, and gifted young lady.

There was a process in those times called “elocu tion,” which along with music and dancing lessons con stituted the extracurricular activity of each properly raised young lady. It consisted of a technique of dra matic recitation, with much expression, of selections

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ranging from Shakespeare to William Cullen Bryant to Eugene Field and including such gems as “Oh, Captain! My Captain!” and “Spartacus’ Last Address to His Men.” Martha reveled in it, and Clair’s necessary return for Martha’s interest in her letters was to listen admir ingly to the current recitation. For all that, the two had become very close. Clair allowed Martha to read some of Jake’s letters, and in turn Martha would listen raptly to Clair’s current news report to Jake, for example, “Dan says that the people who run the Overseas Shipping Company are out of their minds because they have just built and launched a ship made of concrete. Mar tha’s cat died.”