The Voyage (17 page)

Chapter 63

There was no use just standing there in front of the ruins of her life. Anna clumsily thanked the two women and then turned back to Valente.

“Are you sure your mother won’t mind? I will only stay until I can get a place of my own.”

“I am sure.” Valente smiled. “Very sure. Everything will be fine. I’ll take care of you. Come away from here. Let’s go.”

It felt good to just drop the burden for a few minutes and let Valente lead her away. She rested her head on his shoulder and he gently squeezed her arm.

Anna’s thoughts weighted heavily on her mind as she began to walk away.  She had so many questions, and none of them could be answered. Valente pushed their way through a group of children playing with jacks and a ball, gently leading Anna, then another group of little girls playing hopscotch.

Where was Alex? Would she ever see him again? Anna wondered. He was such a troubled man. Even she could not help him. Alex.

Valente and Anna were halfway down the street, almost ready to turn the corner, when Anna heard Alex cry out.

“Anna..! Anna! Please…”

She turned around to see him standing there, his hands limp at his sides. He looked so small and helpless that she felt as if her heart was breaking.  His hands went up in a gesture of desperation.

“Anna…” he cried again.

Tears fell from her eyes. What was she going to do with him?

“Please…” Alex ran toward her.

She glared at him. She had so many questions, but all she could do was shake her head.

Alex glanced at Valente, and Anna saw the hurt in his eyes. She wanted to turn and walk away with Valente, to leave Alex’s constant need to feed off her strength behind. It was becoming exhausting to watch his every move and wonder if he was going to have an emotional episode and disappear for an undetermined amount of time, or leave a perfectly good job in a terrible economy because of something that troubled him from his past. Anything could set him off, anything at all, and he needed constant reassurance from her that no matter what happened, she would be there, she would understand, and she would love and nurture him. ll afternoon with Valente, she’d allowed herself to imagine a life where for once she could be the weak one, where she could have the indulgence of leaning on someone else, and he would be there and be strong enough to lift
her
up.

“Anna...” Alex said. “Anna, my Anna?” His hands went up in a gesture of helplessness. His handsome face contorted with pain.

She shook her head, and tried to turn away, but not before she saw that there were tears in his eyes.

“I love you, Anna.”

Again, she shook her head.

“I can’t, Alex…”

He fell to knees, and she heard the crack as his knee caps hit the pavement. “Please, Anna, don’t leave me. You are my whole life, my everything… The reason I get up in the morning, the reason I am still alive… Anna, please.”

She was angry. He’d evoked feelings of guilt in her and she resented them.

“Then where in hell were you, Alex? I was in the hospital for a week. I had no idea what happened here…to Uncle Max and Aunt Edith. I was coping with the loss of our child. But you? No Alex, you had to go off alone. Yes, our lives always have to revolve around what Alex needs. I can’t do it anymore. I just can’t.”

“Anna, please listen to me. I had to find us a place to live. I couldn’t bring you home from the hospital without a place. I wouldn’t let you live in the park like a bum and subject you to constant danger. So, I sold my blood in order to get enough money to rent an apartment. As soon as I found somewhere to take you, I came for you.   I was never going to leave you…”

“Oh God, Alex.”

“Please Anna. I have a job, too. It’s not much, but it’s a start. Please, don’t leave me. Give me another chance. I promise I will never do this again. If I feel that I must be on my own for some reason, I will talk to you about it. I won’t run away. We will work it out together.”

She loved him.

As she watched her incredibly handsome husband begging her on his knees in the middle of Delancey Street, her heart began to melt. Dear Lord, Alex was truly handsome. There was no doubt about that.

“Do you promise never to disappear again?”

“Yes. I promise. Please, Anna. I love you…”

She turned to Valente, and carefully removed his arm from her shoulder; then she gently took her small bag from his hand. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Thank you for everything today. I will pay you back all of the money that you spent, but I must go with my husband now.”

Valente nodded. “If you ever need me. You have my address…”

“Yes. Thank you. I will mail the money to you.”

Anna watched Valente straighten his back and walk away. Then she reached down and took Alex’s hand. “Let’s go home to that apartment you were talking about.”

“It’s not as nice as I would like it to be, but as soon as I can I will get us a better place to live.”

Chapter 64

The first day at the World’s Fair, Alex sold his entire loaf of sandwiches before ten o’clock. From where he stood, just outside, he could see many of the exhibits. Right inside the gates there was a Bavarian village that was so reminiscent of Germany it made him long for home, and a Hall of Nations that gave him a glimpse into countries he had never seen. There were automobile exhibits, futuristic refrigeration, and a big poster of a black and white cow that said, “It sure makes you proud to be an American.” But of all the exhibits, the one that he most longed to enter was the Jewish Palestine Pavilion. Ever since he was a little boy, he’d heard talk of a Jewish state, a place somewhere far across the seas, in a land called Palestine.  For the Jews, this land represented hope, dreams…a future where Jews would live in safety.

On the second day, Alex invested his entire share of the money that he’d made the previous day and bought several loaves of bread. Anna helped him to prepare the sandwiches. 

Abe was right. Many of the mothers bought his sandwiches for the children because they were far less expensive and much less rich than the food at the fair.

By the end of the week, Anna was baking cookies to sell and she and Alex were making up several loaves of bread each day.

Abe was pleased with his share, and even offered Alex another opportunity to earn some cash.

“Listen Jew boy, I have a couple of ideas,” Abe said when Alex paid him for the week. “Why don’t you and your wife make up lots of sandwiches and cookies for all the other fellows too. They can pay you a percentage, and that will give you some extra dough. Of course you’ll have to give me a little for a finder’s fee.”

“Yes, Abe, we can certainly do that,” Alex said. He knew Anna would help him. Together they would do all right, and they would manage.

At night after work, Alex studied his English. He’d become fluent in writing and reading, as well as speaking the language.

When Alex was at work, Anna cleaned the apartment. She opened the windows and tried to air the musty smell from the flood out of the tiny rooms. However, she knew that the first hard rain would bring another flood. So, as soon as possible, she and Alex hoped to move. The water when it worked ran ice cold. In order to bathe, Anna boiled water on the stove and added it to the tub until it was lukewarm. The neighbors Anna spoke to warn her that in the winter the entire population of the building frozen from lack of heat. They kept the ovens on in their apartments all day, in order to stay warm.  

  Every day, Anna thought of Max and Edith. They had been kind to her and Alex, and she missed them. She missed her parents too, but they never answered her letters.

One night after they finished their evening meal, Anna was tired and went off to bed early. Alex couldn’t sleep. It had been years since he’d felt the urge to write, but tonight it came back to him. He wanted to put down in words all of the things he’d seen at the fair. And so he began to pen articles.

Alex missed having a typewriter, but even working manually with pencil and paper he felt as if he’d come home. He was a writer. Before he’d been arrested in Germany, he’d been a journalist. It was in his blood, and now that he was writing again, he began to feel the depression he constantly battled begin to lift a little.

One morning as she was sipping coffee and wrapping sandwiches, Anna happened to read one of the articles Alex left on the table. It was about the Jewish Palestine Pavilion at the fair.

“This is very good,” she said as he Alex walked into the room. “Did you write this last night?”

“Yes, I’ve been writing little articles about the different exhibits. I want them as reminders of what I have seen. Besides that, it makes me feel good.”

“Alex…”

“Yes, love?”

“Why don’t you submit this to the newspaper?” Anna said.

“Oh, I couldn’t. It isn’t that good.”

“But it is…”

“No, I don’t think so. This is America. My English is not good enough. And, besides, who wants to read about Jews here? People are demonstrating their hated for us in the park. It’s just a little article about Palestine, for my own enjoyment,” he said, kissing her cheek, then gathering the sandwiches and putting them into a basket.

“Here,” she handed him the bag for the other sellers. “And here are some extra cookies too.”

He took them and left.

It had rained lightly the night before, and a quarter of an inch of dirty water and sediment had seeped in to the apartment through the foundation. There was always the smell of mold and sewage to contend with in this filthy place. Anna looked around her on all sides. It would take another day’s worth of heavy cleaning to make this hole in the ground even moderately livable.

She looked out the window and sighed as she saw Alex walking quickly toward the subway. He was doing his best. She couldn’t fault him for that. But perhaps he needed a little help.

As soon as Alex was out of sight, Anna got dressed and went to the corner, where she bought a newspaper. Although she was not as advanced in English as Alex, she could read and write enough to understand. The address of the newspaper office was right on the inside front cover of the paper.

She did her best to construct a letter of introduction. Then she went through Alex’s papers and chose the best articles she could find. They were all about the World’s Fair. And right now, the World’s Fair was the most exciting thing going on in New York, and everyone wanted to know more about it.

After folding the articles neatly, she carefully addressed the envelope, walked downstairs and purchased a stamp at the post office, then sent them off to the newspaper.

Alex never missed the articles. He never realized that they were gone until he received an answer from the paper three weeks later. They wanted him to come in for an interview.

Chapter 65

“You sent these articles to the newspaper?” Alex asked.

“Are you angry?” Anna looked into his eyes.

“No, I just didn’t expect this.”

“Well, you are an excellent journalist. This is what comes naturally to you.”

He nodded. “What would I ever do without my Anna?” he asked and smiled at her. Then walking over, he kissed her lips lightly. “Anna, my Anna…” He smiled.

“So you’ll go for the interview?”

“Of course I will go.”

The paper bought Alex’s articles and asked for more. He wrote freelance for the next six months while Anna continued to prepare the cookies and sandwiches for the other sellers.

A blast of heavy snow fell upon New York City that November of 1941. As the neighbors had promised, the heat hardly worked. Alex and Anna wore coats even when they were inside, and Anna felt as if she would never be warm again.  Then, like a blessing and a curse, the weather warmed up for a few days, giving them a break from the bone-chilling cold. But it was just enough time for the snow to melt, leaving Alex and Anna with two inches of dirty water on the floor of their apartment.

“Let’s move. We can afford it now,” Alex said. He was doing fairly well with the paper, earning almost fifty dollars a month, and even though the fair had ended and that source of income had dried up, they had saved enough to move to a decent flat.

The new apartment was furnished, overlooking the street, on the second floor of well-maintained building just a few miles from the newspaper offices. The hallways and vestibule smelled a little like boiled cabbage, but other than that, it was a fine new home. The neighborhood was better and the apartment much cleaner.

Every night Alex and Anna studied until they passed the test and became citizens of the United States of America.

Alex began writing news articles and the editor of the paper loved them.  He offered Alex a salaried position with the paper, which paid him well enough to keep him and Anna comfortable.

“Can I go back to school now that things are better for us?” Anna asked.

She had always wanted to further her education. Alex knew this, and he put great value on learning, so he was pleased at her request.

Before she could attend college, Anna had to finish high school. She didn’t mind. She loved every minute that she spent in the classroom. It was then that she decided that some day she would like to be a teacher.