“Well, I’m just here to keep you company, so I’m happy to do either.”
“What did you bring?”
“Tender Is the Night.”
“I haven’t read it.”
“Neither have I.”
The book might as well have been set in Atlantic City, Anna realized as she began to read, “?‘On the pleasant shore of the French Riviera, about half way between Marseilles and the Italian border, stands a large, proud, rose-colored hotel. Deferential palms cool its flushed façade, and before it stretches a short dazzling beach. Lately it has become a summer resort of notable and fashionable people—’?”
Anna read until the sun sank in the sky, until Rosemary Hoyt had been drawn into the Divers’ circle of friends and Dick Diver had acknowledged the girl’s attraction to him. Rosemary wasn’t just attracted to Dick Diver—she was completely infatuated with him. And Anna found herself wondering if the feeling was so different from the buzzy sensation she got when she looked at Stuart.
Once, when she thought Fannie had fallen asleep, she folded down the page and placed the book on her bedside table. “Don’t stop, please,” Fannie had whispered, so Anna picked up the book and continued, squinting her eyes to make out the words in the evening’s fading light.
“Isn’t it interesting that Rosemary’s mother wouldn’t be a proponent of marriage?” said Fannie, at one point, when Anna paused to pour herself a glass of water.
“I guess marriage didn’t work for her. Remember, she’s got two dead husbands.”
Fannie leaned on her elbows in bed. “But I don’t think Rosemary’s mother is referencing her own experiences. It’s bigger than that.”
“Lie down.” Anna went back and skimmed the pages she’d just read. “I suppose Mrs. Speers believes Rosemary is special, deserving of the chance to earn a living and stand on her own two feet.”
“Do you think that’s a better kind of life?” asked Fannie. “Not being beholden to anyone?”
Anna thought of Joseph and the money he’d deposited in the bank account at the Boardwalk National Bank. “We’re all beholden to someone.”
“You know what I mean,” said Fannie. “A husband. Someone you’ll never please.”
Anna tilted her head and looked at Fannie. Was Fannie’s marriage so imperfect? She couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Is Isaac hard to please?”
Fannie just nodded and stared at the ceiling. Suddenly, she seemed very far away. Anna didn’t know what to say to her, found it hard to defend a man whose company she did not enjoy. Eventually, Fannie was the one to speak: “Sometimes I feel as though I’ve spent the last eight years holding my breath.”
Anna understood the sentiment—what it felt like to lose control of one’s own destiny. “I think most women make some sacrifices for their own security, or the security of the people they love.” She looked at Fannie’s round belly.
“Not Rosemary Hoyt,” said Fannie with a short laugh.
Anna flipped the book over and studied the photograph of Fitzgerald on the dust jacket. He was a handsome man, with features that weren’t unlike Stuart’s. “I think it’s possible that Mr. Fitzgerald wrote a woman who doesn’t exist.”
Anna arrived home from the hospital to find a familiar airmail envelope waiting for her on the dresser in the Adlers’ front hall. The front was littered with stamps, most of which had Hitler’s face on them.
The contents of the letter, written in her mother’s native Hungarian, were brief.
Dearest Anna (and Joseph),
We provided the bank deposit slip, along with the letter indicating that the account had been established in our name and that we had permission to draw a hundred dollars monthly in the first year. The consul-general laughed and asked what we’d do in thesecond year. He is demanding that some amount of money be put in an irrevocable trust in our name and wants us to show evidence that we have permission to draw from its earnings. We tried to ask how much money would be enough—to which he replied, “I’ll tell you when it’s enough.” Not very helpful. We know people who have gotten visas with nothing more than an affidavit from a distant cousin, so this new development is particularly disheartening.
Joseph, I know there’s not much more you can do. You have your own family to consider. I remain grateful that Anna is safely in the United States and look forward to learning how she is settling in at school.
As for us, there’s a rumor that the American consulate in Vienna is friendlier to Jews. Leaving Germany and waiting for a visa in Austria might be a prudent decision, particularly since we are now considered stateless in the eyes of the German Reich. My worry is that if we go and the consul there needs us to present additional documents, they will be more difficult to obtain from outside the country. The U.S. consulate here keeps urging Jews to wait it out in Germany. Apparently, the Americans think Hitler’s government will soon be toppled. I wish I could believe this but everything we see, in the streets and in the newspapers, seems to indicate otherwise.
My love to you, Anna. And my sincere thanks to you, Joseph.
Inez
Anna pictured her mother, a coat tightly cinched around her waist, a folio of papers clutched to her chest, standing before the consul general, making a case for herself. She could picture the little room where the interviews were conducted, the way the people waiting in the lobby—almost all German Jews seeking visas—refused to so much as whisper to one another, lest they say or do anything that might ruin their chances of being granted a visa. The officials who had conducted Anna’s interview had sneered at her documents—more than fifty in total—andasked a series of questions that in any other circumstance would have been considered impertinent. When had Paul met her mother? When had they married? Was Anna illegitimate? At every turn, Inez had produced the right document—Anna’s father’s military records, his death certificate, her mother and Paul’s marriage certificate. By the time Anna received her student visa, she or her parents had passed through the doors of more than twenty-five government agencies.
Anna would show the letter to Joseph but she suspected her mother was right and that there was not much more he could do. It had been one thing to plead for his help when what she needed was an affidavit, even several of them. Everyone knew that affidavits were of no real consequence; no American who signed one for Jewish relatives, friends, or even acquaintances actually expected to have to provide financial support to them forever. But this was different.
