The Other Traitor (26 page)

Julian was Isaac Goldstein’s grandson.

The man she had just fallen in love with, had just made love to, was her half-cousin. How could she have not seen it? This beautiful man, with whom she’d felt a connection deeper than anything she’d ever experienced before, shared her blood.

Annette could hardly breathe. She was frozen. Unable to speak, or scream or even move.

Julian drew her close, his heart pounding. And although she could feel her own heart respond, her mind couldn’t. It was frozen.

“It’s okay,” he whispered.

It isn’t okay. It can never be okay.

She pulled away. She hated her grandfather, who had not only had an affair with Julian’s grandmother, but had had a child with her. Hated him because he’d chosen to protect his mistress and their child rather than his own wife and legitimate daughter. Hated him because she loved his grandson.

Across from her, Mariasha sat in the huge turquoise chair, looking tiny and dark like a trapped animal. Annette hated her, too, for causing so much pain to her grandmother, her mother, herself, and now Julian.

She heard her own voice, small, sharp and unfamiliar. “Do you realize what you did?”

Mariasha slowly raised her head and met her eye. “Of course,” she said softly. “I let him die.”

This woman deserved to suffer as Annette’s family had. As she and Julian now were.

“Not Isaac Goldstein,” Annette said. “My grandmother and mother. Do you understand what you did to them?”

Mariasha tilted her head. She looked confused.

Annette forced the words from her icy throat. “My grandmother was Betty Goldstein. My mother is Sally Goldstein.”

She watched Mariasha’s face blanch.

The freeze broke and her voice came out loud and clear. “I am Isaac Goldstein’s grandchild. Just like Julian.”

Isaac Goldstein’s grandchild.

Mariasha pressed her hand against her pounding heart as she looked across at the two young people, agony twisting their beautiful faces.

She wished she’d died an hour ago listening to Yitzy’s sweet voice on the old scratchy record. Wished she’d died before her grandson had come here. Before she had told him the truth.

And the girl.

She should have recognized the clear blue eyes the first time she’d met Annette. Yitzy’s eyes. Like the cat’s-eye marble she’d had as a child. But Mariasha had been distracted by Julian’s attraction to this warm, lovely girl. So happy he’d finally met someone he deserved.

A moan escaped her lips. Hadn’t she destroyed enough? Yitzy. Saul. And now Julian and even this unsuspecting girl.

With each destruction, she had felt her own death. And yet, God had kept her alive to suffer with her pain and guilt.
Dear God. Why didn’t you take me an hour ago?

She tried to get up from her chair to comfort these poor children, but she had no strength. All she could do was watch them sitting a few inches apart, no longer able to comfort each other.

Her grandson stood up first, his face ghostlike. He gently pulled Annette up from the sofa by her arm, then he took a step toward Mariasha. “We’re leaving,” he said, his voice raw. “I don’t know what to say to you.”

Mariasha ran her tongue over her lips and nodded.

Julian leaned toward her. Hesitated. Then he swooped over and grabbed her head in both his hands. She could feel the pressure of his palms against her ears, for a moment sealing her inside a snow globe. Then he pressed his lips hard against her forehead.

He pulled away abruptly and started toward the door. “Let’s go, Annette.”

He wasn’t a traitor
, she tried to call after them, but no words came out.
Yitzy was a kind, generous man, who had been caught in the web of my love. Who was unable to protect his family. All of you.

The door slammed after them.

“Don’t hate him,” she whispered. “Hate me. I am the traitor.”

Snowflakes came down hard around them, coating the park bench, settling in his cap and on his eyelashes. He reached beneath the plaid blanket for her hands. Their eyes met. The world seemed to freeze. And for a moment, Mari felt as though they were sealed inside a snow globe. Safe, untouchable.

“Anything,” Yitzy said. “You know I’ll do anything you ask.”

“My brother is about to make a terrible mistake. I need your help.”

A foghorn sounded off the river, penetrating the stillness and shattering her illusion of safety.

He dropped her hands and looked out toward the thick snow falling over the river. His features had gone from boyish happiness to a cold hardness. She didn’t understand the change that had come over him, but she continued.

“Saul has agreed to steal secrets for the Soviets, even though I begged him not to. He believes scientific knowledge belongs to everyone.”

“You and I have taught him well,” Yitzy said.

“Saul’s being naïve,” she said. “Like you and I talked about the other night, what my father believed, what you and I once believed, doesn’t work. Social democracy is a myth
.
”

“That’s right,” Yitzy said. “You told me you’re no longer a good communist.”

“And I don’t believe you are either, despite the act you put on. I think you’re someone, like me, who believes in peace, not the violent destruction of the world so that a particular political agenda can prevail.”

He turned to her and rapidly blinked the snow off his eyelashes. “But you’re also thinking about your brother, aren’t you? What could happen to him if he’s caught.”

Mari looked away. There were small black holes in the blanket of snow that covered the ground. Weeds that had pushed their way through. She had promised Mama and Papa to always watch over Saul.

“What is it you want me to do?” Yitzy said.

She took a deep, cold breath that stung her lungs. “If I give you the documents that Saul steals from Los Alamos, would you be able to modify them in such a way that the weapons won’t work if the Soviets build them?”

The world around them was silent, all sound muted by the snowfall.

“Do you realize what you’re asking?”

“Yes.”

Yitzy stood up from the bench and shrugged the snow off his lap and shoulders. “Bring me whatever you need me to change.” He started to walk away, dragging his bad leg through the thick snow.

Mari felt miserable. She believed she was doing the right thing, and not just to protect Saul. If this terrible weapon got into the wrong hands, the potential was devastating. But she was putting Yitzy at grave risk.

“Yitzy,” she called, as she ran after him.

He stopped and turned. There was something like hope in his face.

“I’m sorry.” She held the wool blanket over her head as the snow cascaded around her. “I had no right to ask you to do this.”

“I told you, Mariasha. I would do anything for you.”

“I know, and that’s what isn’t fair. Forget what I asked you to do. I don’t blame you for being angry with me.”

He drew his head back. “You think that’s why I’m upset?”

“Isn’t it?”

“Oh, Mariasha.” His voice broke. “You can’t imagine how I felt when you asked me to meet you. It was all I could think about all week. I was hardly able to eat or sleep.”

Mari let out a little gasp. Yitzy had misinterpreted the reason for their rendezvous today.

“I’d hoped you and I...” He looked at her with a terrifying intensity, his blue eyes just like the cat’s-eye marble she’d had as a child.

Her heart thumped hard inside her chest. Had she been hoping for that, too? Had that been the real reason she’d asked him to meet her today?

“I love you,” he said. “I’ve loved you since the first moment I saw you.”

Stop, she tried to say. You have a wife who adores you. I adore my Aaron. But images of the handsome boy who had sung so sweetly at Camp Kindervelt, the passionate college student who had held her at Coney Island, the young man who had once been her life, blocked her words.

“Say you haven’t stopped loving me.” Yitzy grabbed her hands. “Say it.”

The smell of damp wool was suffocating. “Oh, Yitzy. This is wrong.” She tried to pull her hands out of his, but he held fast.

“I can’t help myself,” he said. “Believe me, I’ve tried, but you’re the one I think about when I’m falling asleep, when I wake up in the morning. Please, Mariasha. Tell me you feel the same.”

“You left me,” she whispered. “When Mama died and Saul was sick. You left me when I needed you most.”

“Oh my darling, I was a stupid fool. I’ve regretted that more than anything I’ve ever done. You are the love of my life.”

She willed her heart to stop pounding, her breathing to slow down, but her body wouldn’t listen. Reason had left her. Nothing seemed to matter as much as Yitzy. The feelings from all those years of yearning for him rose up. And when he leaned forward to kiss her, she couldn’t pull away. She felt his warm lips against hers, gentle at first. And then he pushed against her with ferocity and crushed her against him.

“Mariasha,” he whispered. “You are my life.”

She was dazed and breathless as Yitzy led her from the park in the deepening snow. They walked north, farther and farther away from the familiar tenements and shops, away from thoughts of Aaron, to a place where everything was shrouded in white, as though reality had been erased. And although she told herself to stop, to turn back, her legs and heart propelled her forward.

Yitzy unlocked the door to a store and bundled her inside. Around her pipes and copper spheres, the smell of oil. Yitzy mumbled something about an army buddy, store closed early for the Sabbath, as he led her to the back room.

Then, as though there were no other possible choice, they fell into each other’s arms.

And after they made love, Mari lay on the narrow daybed in Yitzy’s arms and listened to the beating of his heart. Snow completely covered the small window, shutting out the world. Safe and untouchable.

Yitzy began to sing softly.

One promise I will make to you

Wherever I am, whatever you choose.

I will love you till my last breath’s drawn

I will love you long after my time is gone.

All around the dim room were pipes and rods and copper spheres shaped like heads. Faces. Watching her.

She sat up abruptly.

“What’s wrong?” Yitzy asked. “What is it?”

Mari pressed her hand over her pounding heart. She felt sick inside, knowing that as much as they loved each other, they had just done something unforgivable.

She promised herself  it would never happen again.

And that no matter what, no one would ever learn of what she and Yitzy had done.

Annette had been unable to look at Julian, nor speak to him in the elevator ride down from Mariasha’s apartment. They stepped outside into the courtyard and their eyes finally met.

Please don’t say you’ll call me,
she thought
. Don’t demean what we had.

He reached out to touch her cheek, then drew back his hand. He spun around and headed down the street toward Brooklyn or somewhere far away.

She walked in the opposite direction, increasing the distance between them with each step, not knowing where she was going, but only that she needed to get away from this place.

Her quest for the truth about her grandfather was over. She now knew exactly who Isaac Goldstein had been and what he had done, but there was no satisfaction in her discovery, only more pain.

She kept walking and walking until the sound of children’s laughter broke through her anguish. She was at the entrance to a small playground. Mounds of cleared snow were piled up against the fence. She sat on a bench and watched children in colorful snowsuits climb the jungle gym, hang from swings, run shrieking down the snow-cleared paths. It reminded her of the playground near where she grew up in Paris. Her mother used to take her there when she was little.

Mama. What would the truth about Isaac Goldstein mean to her?

He hadn’t been the traitor the world believed, that Mama had believed. Yes, he had been a communist spy, but he had sabotaged the information that was passed on to the Soviets. So, in one sense, he had acted valiantly. But what he’d done to his family—could that ever be excused or forgiven?

That was not for her to decide.

She took out her phone, oddly relieved as she pressed the speed-dial number and listened to it ring on the other end.

The familiar voice answered, tinged with the usual worry. “Annette? Is everything all right?”

She looked up at the sky. Blue. No clouds. The air was warmed by the sun.

“Mama,” she said. “It’s time for you to come home.”

His feet were moving, taking him farther and farther away from Annette. It wasn’t until Julian had crossed the Williamsburg Bridge that he realized he was in Brooklyn.

Brooklyn. Where Nana had been born. Where she’d watched her brother play stickball and mended his overalls. Where her stories of the past had their beginning.

But there would be no more of Nana’s stories for him. No more stories, and no more gentle counsel. One of the worst parts of his grandmother’s deception was that she could never again be a trusted haven for him. He had no one safe to turn to. Even Annette was gone.

He was startled by the sound of a boat horn. His wandering had taken him to the edge of the East River. Across the rippling blue-black water was Manhattan. The park where he and Annette had sat appeared very different from this perspective. Rolling mounds of white. Broad, leafless trees. Skyscrapers, not low-rise buildings, against a blue sky.

The sky was just as clear as the first time he’d gone to the park with Annette last Sunday, when they’d hardly known each other. They had talked about their childhoods and how their mothers had been unable to show them love.

A small boat sped along in the river, passing a slow-moving cargo ship.

Would knowing the truth help his mother heal from her own wounds? All he knew for certain was he was tired of lies and deception. His grandmother had pre-empted fate by deciding who should live and die. He would not make that choice. He would tell his mother what he had just learned and let her handle it her own way.

He took out his cell phone and touched the speed-dial number.

His mother answered, her voice concerned. “Julian?”

“Mom,” he said. “We need to talk about Nana. I’m coming home.”

It was only after he disconnected from the call that he realized this was the first time he’d called her ‘Mom’ in almost twenty years.