The Legacy (35 page)

“No.” She turned to Barbara. “Do you know, ever since Danny died, your Dr. Milt Kellman assumes that I am his personal property, to be kept alive at any cost. I don't want to be kept alive. I am seventy-six years old. If I only knew some truly stylish way to end it all, I wouldn't hesitate.”

“What nonsense! Will you please sit down. What happened? Did Milt tell you no more drinking?”

“Exactly. Not that I would pay any attention to him, but I can't. It does something awful to me. I'm going to sell this house. It's absolutely insane, one old woman living alone in this great barn of a place. And it reminds me. Oh, I hate memories! It's more than half a century since Danny built this place.”

“Perhaps you ought to travel again — for a while.”

“It bores me. I've been everywhere I want to go. I couldn't bear to go alone, and I think poor Stephan's traveling days are over.” She sat down now, staring at Barbara. “He has cancer of the bowel.”

“Oh, no!”

“Bobby, being an old lady is a wretched business — like being at a party and overstaying your time, and then just staying on and on and your hosts are dying for you to leave —”

“This is your day, isn't it? That's awful about Stephan, but you are very much alive and still attractive.”

“I will have a drink. All this nonsense about an ulcer. Will you join me?”

“Certainly.”

“Just wine. If I told Milton I had a cocktail, he'd be enraged.”

“Shall I get it?”

“I'm quite capable.” She went to get the wine. “White? Yes, I think so. Don't let on if you see Stephan. He wants no one to know, poor dear. They'll have to operate in a few weeks.” She handed Barbara her glass. “Cheers and things. It's Higate's best, and quite good. Adam sends me a case each month. He's eternally grateful that it was through me he met Eloise. They say marriage is impossible, but that one does break the rule, doesn't it?”

“It certainly does.”

“Oh, I do miss the kids. Will Freddie and Sam ever come back?”

“I hope not until this wretched war is over. Why don't you go to Israel? They're spending the summer there, both of them.”

“That is a thought. Oh, I don't know, Bobby. But tell me, how is May Ling taking the death of that boy she was so enamored of — what was his name?”

“Rubio Truaz.”

“Oh, yes — a Mexican, wasn't he?”

“A Chicano. She took it very hard, but I suppose in time she'll get over it.”

“Well, perhaps it's for the best.”

“Mother,” Barbara exclaimed, “there are times when you astonish me!”

“Bobby, I don't mean the boy's death. It's just that they were wrong for each other.”

“How do you know?”

“Bobby, do you know you bully me? I said nothing so terrible. I just don't see a match between that child and a Chicano, as you call him.”

“Any more than you could see a match between yourself and the son of an Italian fisherman.”

“That's not fair. You're determined to strip me of all my prejudice. I don't have much else left.”

Barbara couldn't stay angry at her mother. Jean was of a time and of a place. The time was gone forever, and if she sold the house on Russian Hill, one of the last of the old mansions, then the place too would vanish.

Barbara went to her and kissed her. “I do love you.”

“That's very rewarding. Now tell me, how was New York?”

“Exciting and wonderful. And I want to tell you about it.”

When Barbara had finished her account of what had taken place in New York, Jean shook her head hopelessly. “Dear Barbara, you are precious. You never change. You are still going to feed the hungry and change the world.”

“Nothing so exalted. Only whatever little bit I can do.”

“And you actually believe that women will find some kind of equality?”

“If they fight for it. We're half the human race.”

“The poor, as you sometimes remind me, are most of the human race, and I haven't noticed that they can do much about it.”

“This is different.”

“Yes, it always is.” She was smiling now, watching her daughter. “I was talking with Grace Pettyborn the other day — you know, she does an occasional review for the New York
Times,
which puts her among the very intellectual elite — and she referred to you as Miss Goody Two-Shoes. Of course, she's right, and you do exist with both feet firmly planted in midair, but in this worst of all possible worlds, thank God for the few mad ones like you. You know, when I'm so absolutely down that nothing appears to help, I remind myself that you're my daughter and that I did at least one thing right. Now what is it this time, Bobby?”

“I'm going to stop this filthy war, which will be my small contribution to the women's movement.”

“Oh? All by yourself?”

“No, I'll have some help.”

“I shall miss you terribly if you end up in jail again. You are also totally mad.”

“I've thought of that. But I wonder whether I'm any crazier than the next person. It may be the change of life, or perhaps living alone.”

Jean shook her head. “No, you've always been this way.”

“Mother,” Barbara said, “what's the state of your finances?”

“That's an odd question. I have all the money I shall ever require. Why? Do you need money?”

“Not right at this moment. Perhaps later.”

“When you set about stopping the war?”

“Something like that.”

“Barbara,” Jean said, “I don't like this. You appear to be reasonably sane, but appearances can be deceiving. You are fifty years old ——”

“Fifty-two, mother.”

“Fifty-two then, and it's unseemly that I should be lecturing you as your mother. Twenty years ago, I would have told you to find an eligible man, marry him, have children, and live the way most people do.”

“You did, mother.”

“Yes. Today, it would not address the problem. My dear, wars cannot be stopped. They are a part of our way of life, like death and taxes. None of it can be stopped, altered, or bettered. I don't know what you are thinking or planning, but why can't you be satisfied just to live and be reasonably miserable? The rest of us exist that way. Why can't you write another book? Or teach somewhere? Or lecture? Or ride? Suppose I were to make you a gift of a horse. You always loved horses.”

“Mother, I haven't been on a horse for thirty-five years.”

“You don't forget.”

“You're a dear,” Barbara said, “and I do love you.”

“Which is condescending and changes nothing. Well, I've said all that I can say. How much money do you want for this idiotic scheme of yours?”

“I have no idea — yet.”

“Of course, your mother is absolutely right,” Boyd Kimmelman said to her. “It's not that you're insane in the legal or medical sense of the word. If you were to kill someone, I'd have the devil's own time pleading you a loony.”

“Thank you. I have no intention of killing anyone, so you can put your mind to rest.”

“On the other hand, you're completely out of touch with reality. As I understand it, you are going to start some kind of women's movement to end this thing in Vietnam. It just happens that there are at least two hundred organizations in existence right now with the same purpose and goal. All you have to do is to pick up the morning paper to see how successful they are.”

“I know,” Barbara agreed. “I know what you're saying, and so often I wonder why I do what I do. Why can't I live with it? My own son is safe for the moment. After we finish lunch, if I can get you to take a few hours off, we can have a walk in the park. We're fond of each other, and we have enough money to live pleasantly. And as far as the human condition goes, it's always been this way, hasn't it, and I suppose it always will be this way. Back in January, President Johnson told us that for a year, we had only thirteen hundred dead kids in Vietnam. God knows how many maimed, crippled. But they're not my children. They're always someone else's kids, aren't they? He said the enemy had thirty-five thousand dead, but they're not our kids either, and why should it disturb my sleep? I don't know. I honestly don't know. I'm sure that if Mr. McNamara were here, he could argue very brilliantly why this horror must go on. Of course, I can't stop it. I'm not a total idiot and I don't have any delusions of grandeur. And I don't want to go to jail again. I can't tell you how much the thought of prison terrifies me.”

“No,” Boyd said slowly. “You're just the way you are. If you were any other way, you wouldn't be Barbara, would you?”

“You can't imagine how tiresome it becomes — being Barbara.”

“I don't find it so. Now let's be very practical. Whatever you're going to do — well, I imagine you'll do it. This is not fifteen years ago. McCarthyism is over. You will not go to jail. On the other hand, whatever you do must be done openly, and the people who do it with you must understand that. There's an interesting legal footnote to all this. We're not at war. Congress has never voted a declaration of war against Vietnam. This is a presidential action, which is pretty damn weird, but there it is, so you will not be breaking any law. I still think that whatever you do will make absolutely no difference, but that is because I am a cynical and tired middle-aged lawyer.”

“You're probably right.”

“And I'll be delighted to take the afternoon off and walk in the park with you.”

They went to the Japanese Tea Garden and sat on a bench, looking at the wonderful red five-storied pagoda. Barbara had never been to Japan. “I'd like to make the trip someday — Japan, China.”

“I'll take you,” Boyd said.

“It can wait. We'll save it for the declining years, if you haven't found a wife by then.”

“I don't look forward to the declining years.”

“Mother and Stephan Cassala wandered through Italy, two very distinguished older citizens. I think they enjoyed it. Now Stephan is dying of cancer.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

“Yes, I suppose there's nothing else to say. I've heard that if a soldier dies in battle, another who survives is gratified because he's spared, and out of that comes the guilt. You were wondering before why I do what I do. I live with my own guilt.”

He didn't pursue that. He knew about her guilts. There was no point in trying to talk about it.

Stephan Cassala was alone when Barbara entered his hospital room. A thin wraith of a man, he smiled with pleasure. “How good of you to come, Barbara. Please, sit down.” She had brought a pot of African violets. There were flowers in the room, but no other African violets. “I do love them. My mother used to raise them,” Stephan said. “You know, my son, Ralph, was here. He left just a few minutes ago. I would have liked for you to see him.”

I will see him at the funeral; the thought entered her mind without her willing it, making her think then how rotten a thought can be, how heartless. Was she really unfeeling, manufacturing thoughts and emotions? Did nothing come as a natural response from her innermost being? She put down the violets and went to the bed and kissed him on his cheek.

“Why, that's the nicest thing,” he said. “Thank you, Barbara.”

“How do you feel?”

He shrugged. “They keep the pain down. I'm no good at pretense, Barbara, even to myself. It's metastasized, as they say. I lie here thinking that I'll be dead very soon — well, it's not too terrible. It is, yes, terrible, but then again it isn't. I don't know whether that makes much sense. Your mother's been here every day. The three months we spent together in Europe were the happiest time of my life. That's no disloyalty to Danny, is it?”

“Oh, no. No.”

“You know, long ago, back in nineteen thirty, pop had a bank. I think you heard about it, the Bank of Sonoma — just a small bank, not like the Seldons' bank. Well, we had a run, and that destroyed us, but during the run, I was going crazy trying to cover. Danny and his partner, Mark Levy, had the big department store down on Market Street then, and I came to them, and they emptied their cash drawers for me, over thirty thousand dollars. We could never pay it back and they never asked for it —”

It was difficult for him to talk. “Don't strain yourself,” Barbara told him.

“I mean, to make Jean a little happier — that's not disloyalty to Danny — I love her so much, but God Almighty, that's not a sin.”

“Steve, just for that I'm more grateful to you than I can tell you. Please rest now. Don't try to talk anymore.”

Stephan Cassala died nine days later. He was buried in the Catholic cemetery in San Mateo. Barbara drove Jean to the funeral and sat beside her in the church. “Dear man,” Jean said, when it was over. “Dear, sweet man. Now they're all gone, all of them.”

Sam met Fred at the airport in Tel Aviv — and at first meeting, each stared at the other in amazement. They had filled out. Both were bearded, Fred's beard of tight strawberry-blond curls, his sandy hair shoulder-length, Sam's beard and hair sun-bleached, his skin bronzed, his pale blue eyes seemingly paler than ever. They embraced, pummeled each other, and then stood back to regard each other again.

“By God, I'm glad to see you, cousin!” Sam exclaimed. “Two years of exile in the land of the Jews! What a treat to meet a bona fide American white Protestant goy!”

“You've survived very nicely, cousin. What's all this crap about breaking your ass studying? You didn't get that coat of tan sitting with the books.”

“School's been out for a month. I've been wasting my life at the beach here, being a bum.”

“And that's how you live — in shorts and a shirt and sandals?”

“That's how I live, cousin. I've redeemed myself sufficiently, enrolled at Hebrew University, two years of trying to master premed with this incredible language, and now I'm young Sammy Cohen, on the town. I have a little room in Frishman Street, ten bucks a week, easy walk to the beach, and I've been unwinding. Don't look at me like that. I deserve it. And I've fixed it for you to bunk with me — just a few days, and then we'll take off. Is that all you've got?” pointing to the single bag Fred was carrying.