“You surely can’t read any other languages,” he said. “You look eighteen.”
“Well, there’s Latin, of course,” I said, not addressing my age, for that would be lying again, “which could still be useful, perhaps? There must be Latin scholars at the university, and Latin is taught even in America, is it not? The speeches of Cicero, the poems of Catullus; such items as these, I think, you may have. I read some Greek as well, although I’m a poor Greek scholar. And French, naturally. Most recently, I’ve readLa Peste,by Camus, to which I reacted much as I do to the works of Kafka, for I don’t believe people are so powerless as these men would like to believe, and I find allegory rather tiresome. AndÁ La Recherche du Temps Perdu,by Proust, but this, too, I struggled with.”
“The French too difficult?”
“No. The books too long. However, I was alone, waiting to be allowed to join my husband, and it was very cold. So I read for many hours each evening. I don’t have as much time to read now, but I’m much happier.C’est la vie.And you haven’t asked me about Shakespeare. Surely you wish to know about Shakespeare.”
“You could be French, I suppose,” he said slowly, “if anybody asks.”
“I would greatly prefer not to lie.”
“And if I said you had to lie about that in order to work here?”
“Then I’m afraid,” I said, “that I would have to most regretfully decline. But how can relations between countries improve if one never meets one’s former enemies, so they remain monsters in one’s mind? I understand very well the hatred—I have a great hatred for Hitler myself, and for many who followed him, and feel much shame for my country—but if we are to live in the world together and avoid more war, should we not try to understand one another?”
“So you’re saying you’re some kind of cultural ambassador? Is that it?”
“But of course I would be this,” I said, “if a customer wished to discuss Thomas Mann, perhaps, or Goethe, for that’s one reason a person reads, isn’t it, to understand life in other places, in other times? My husband, who was an infantryman and an interpreter in the war, and afterward at Nuremberg for the trials, is a Jew, but also German by ancestry. He has a deep love for the poems of Rilke, and also Goethe, for Goethe was a great genius, you know, but also most human. Life is not so simple, I think. One can hate an idea, and one can hate cruelty and oppression. Oneshouldhave hatred for such things. Hating an entire people, though, seems a great waste.”
“All right,” he said. “We’ll give it a try. Twenty hours a week maximum, though.Maybe,because I suppose now you’ll tell me all the hours youcan’twork. Married women!”
“I am most flexible,” I said. “This is the correct word, I believe.” Easy enough to say, as the bookshop was open only until five, and closed entirely on Sundays.
“Well, you’re unusual, then,” he said. “My wife’s hardly able to take care of the house and kids, let alone going out to work. Suppose you tell me your secret.”
“I believe,” I said sweetly, “it’s because my husband helps me with the cleaning of our apartment and doesn’t criticize my cooking even when it isn’t very good. That, I findmostinspirational.”
21
IN THE HOT SEAT
Life became easier after that. The bookstore was always interesting—I was only cataloging and shelving new purchases, but they were books! And talking to the customers about books was the best of all. Most of the other employees were students, but some were as avid as me. I learned a new word: “bookworm.” Perhaps because one would like to crawl between the pages of a favorite book and live there?
My cooking grew a little better, too, and we did begin entertaining, although in most homely fashion. A dish called “hamburger casserole” was particularly well received. It consisted merely of macaroni, hamburger, rather a lot of Cheddar cheese, a few vegetables, and a can of tomatoes, all baked together in one dish. It was not in the least elegant, but Joe’s friends were former GIs, and grateful for any hot meal “that doesn’t come from a can.” When I heard this, I always smiled a little inside, thinking of how we in Germany had coveted those cans of Spam and beans and peaches after the endless bread and potatoes of our daily fare.
Susie began seeing a man named Fred whom she met at one of these evenings. He looked, she insisted, “so much” likeJimmy Stewart. Other than being very tall and somewhat loose-limbed, I didn’t see the resemblance, but he told the most amusing stories about his terrible fear of heights—he’d been drafted into the Army Air Corps, and had spent most of his time there, he swore, being sick in a bucket. Our parties were rather noisy when the two of them were included, but also very gay. Fred was a most enthusiastic and rather ungainly dancer, and when he was in full flow, Joe danced me carefully into a corner to avoid bruises.
I’d never really been a young person, at least not in the way many young people in America acted and seemed to feel. Carefree. Uninhibited. So sure that life was a wonderful adventure, riding their bicycles miles just to have a picnic, playing noisy games of cards, and lolling about in chairs as it grew late, talking freely about the world without the slightest fear of being overheard. Isn’t it funny that it was only after being married that I was sometimes able to feel young? Joe teased that I was “aging backwards,” and it often felt that way.
My best times, though, came when I was alone with Joe. Attending a concert at the university—they were free!—to hear the masterworks of the composers we both loved best, or, even better, listening to him playing the cello in the evening. Bach, Beethoven, Dvorák, and more; his hands on the bow and strings expressing all that he struggled to put into words, the pain and the joy of living in the world with too much heart, a tender conscience, and one skin too few.
I was determined not to wish for anything when I had so much, but oh, how I longed at such times for a piano, so we could play together! But even sitting alone with him in the evening, drinking tea and reading quietly in our cozy apartment, was joy unimaginable to my former self.
And then there was the class on Human Heredity. To my great pleasure, Professor Jacobsondidallow me to take the exams, and marked them, too. I baked him a loaf of challaheach time as a thank-you, as even Mrs. Stark had been pleased by that gift. He accepted it in a most grave and courtly manner, so he appreciated the gesture at least. It was too little, but what else did I have to give?
I was surprised and not a little alarmed, then, during Joe’s break period after the final exams in March—he’d had only two nightmares during that final week, which was better—to receive a call from Professor Jacobson at the house. Joe answered, and when he turned to me and held out the telephone, he looked puzzled.
“Mrs. Stark,” the professor said. “Good afternoon. I wonder, would it be convenient for you to come to my office on Thursday morning to discuss an academic matter?”
“Oh!” I said. “Yes, certainly. At eleven? Yes, I can do that.” I needed to be at the bookstore at noon, but how long could this take? But anacademicmatter?
“Bring your husband, if you like,” he said. “In fact, it would probably be best.” This sent a chill through me. Was I to be reprimanded? For what?
I didn’t sleep well the night before the meeting. Might he think I’d cheated on the exam? This was the word: “cheating.” But I wouldn’t receive a grade in the class and hadn’t been required to take the exam at all; why should I cheat? I could think of no other reason for this summons, and when Joe and I presented ourselves at the office door and saw not only Professor Jacobson but another man there whom I didn’t know, I quailed inside.
They’re not the Gestapo,I told myself.You’ve faced much harder things than this.It’s strange how quickly one adjusts to one’s circumstances. I had so much now—love, a clean home of my own with both a kitchen and bathroom, enough money to eat well and to clothe myself, work that I enjoyed—how could such a small issue, of no real concern to my future, have such power to unsettle me? Any such accusation seemedridiculous anyway, but I couldn’t quite convince my galloping heart.
“Ah,” Professor Jacobson said when Joe and I appeared. “Here you are. May I introduce Professor Webster of the History Department, who’s also Associate Dean of the College of Letters and Sciences? Professor Webster, Mr. and Mrs. Stark.”
