Establishment (2 page)

“I know,” she said softly. A clutch of fear began to tighten in her stomach. In spite of his ebullience, this was not going to be a good evening. His words brought back that day in 1939 when he had knocked at the door of her apartment in Paris. She had opened the door and there he stood, an enormous figure of a man dressed in old dungarees and a sweat shirt, unshaven. The Spanish war had ended. The International Brigades had been disbanded. Bernie Cohen, one-time volunteer in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, then unemployed, had made his way across the Pyrenees into France and had walked and hitched to Paris. She could even remember the first thought that had gone through her mind:
What a strange man, like a bear with a large nose
!

Until she saw his eyes. His eyes were pale blue, large and wide and innocent as a child's. You looked at those eyes, and there was no question of mistrust or deception.

Those same eyes were watching her now, wide open, childish. Her son, Sam, had the same eyes. This man had never grown up. Women mature; it is in their glands, their bodies, their life force; but men can experience a host of hells, and still they are small boys framed in large bodies.

“What happened today, Bernie? Why don't you tell me about it?”

“Well, sure, sure. But it's one of those damn things that has a history. It didn't just happen, any more than you and me, any more than we just happened. You remember when I left you in Paris?”

“I remember.”

“Well, I made my way south. I told you about that, and in Marseille I teamed up with this kid, Irv Brodsky. You remember?”

“He was with the Internationals too.” Barbara nodded. “Just tell me, Bernie. I remember.”

He looked at her questioningly. Something in her tone threw him off. “What was I saying? Oh, yes, Irv Brodsky. A Spanish vet from the Bronx in New York. He got out of Barcelona by boat to Marseille, and we both got jobs with two Frenchmen who were running illegals from Marseille into Palestine. We were scuttled off the coast of Palestine, and we got to shore and made our way inland and ended up in a kibbutz near Haifa.”

Barbara nodded. She had heard the story many times.

“Well, I wasn't sure you remembered. We were very close, Brodsky and me. We worked at the kibbutz a few months, and we organized a defense for them. I'm just putting it into perspective,” he said uneasily. “I guess I told you how the kibbutz decided that I should enlist in the British army and learn how to be a pilot. I mean that was the last time I saw Brodsky—until today.”

“You saw him today? Where?”

“That's what I'm trying to get at, Bobby. Today, around lunchtime, he and another guy, name of Herb Goodman, well, they just walked into the garage and there they were, Irv Brodsky and this fellow Goodman. You can imagine how I felt, seeing Brodsky after all these years.”

“You mean they just walked into your garage by accident?”

“No, no. Good heavens, no. Brodsky tracked me down.”

“What do you mean, he tracked you down?”

“It's not so complicated. The Lincoln vets have an office in New York, and they keep track of us. I subscribe to their newsletter, you know, and I sent them some money. He got my address from them—I gave them the garage address—and he and Herb Goodman came out here to see me.”

“Just to see you,” Barbara said after a long moment. “They came all this distance just to see you again. I got the impression that you never met this Herb Goodman before.”

“That's right. And I get the impression that you're angry. Good God, for once I don't feel like a hole in the ground and you're angry.”

“I'm not angry.” And to herself she added,
Only afraid. I'm so afraid
.

“I run a garage,” he exclaimed. “Do you ever reflect on that fact? That's what I do. I'm a damn grease monkey, whether you want to accept it or not. I work twelve, fourteen, sixteen hours a day trying to meet my payroll and make the mortgage payments. I don't even support my wife and kid. You do.”

“That's not true.”

“I come home at night and I'm too damn tired to put my arms around you and say I love you. I'm too tired for sex. Or maybe I've come to hate myself so much that sex doesn't work.”

“Do you want dessert?” Barbara asked quietly. “We have ice cream.”

He leaned back, and a slow grin spread over his face. “You know, I love you, Bobby. I get these crazy fits, but I love you so damn much. It's just that loving you and running a garage don't make it for me. I don't know why. I eat myself up. This morning I was sure I was developing an ulcer. I'm only forty-two years old. That's not old. But I live with the feeling that everything's behind me and nothing's ahead of me.”

“Until today?” Barbara asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you want ice cream?”

“Sure.”

She went to the refrigerator. With her back to him, scooping the ice cream onto a plate, she asked, “Who are they, these two men—Brodsky and—?”

“Goodman. They're both members of the Haganah, which is the defense force of the Jewish settlements in Palestine. They're Americans, but they've been living there. Now they've come back on a special mission.”

“What kind of a mission?” She set the ice cream in front of him. He began to eat it, watching her out of his pale, childlike eyes.

“This is very damn secret, Bobby.”

“I am your wife.”

“All right. With the UN decision for the partition and the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, all hell will break loose. It will probably happen in weeks, months—in any case it means war with the Arab states, and the most desperate need for the Jews is planes. Somehow or other, they made a deal with the Czechs. They can't get anything out of the States because of the embargo. The Czechs want two million in cash, and the money was put together in New York. It was all very subrosa. They can't go to any of the regular sources. Then there's the question of getting the money to Czechoslovakia, picking up the planes, which will be dismantled, and getting them to Palestine. The FBI has gotten wind of it, and they're watching the whole operation like hawks.”

“And why did they come to you, Bernie? Just to renew an old friendship?”

He had finished the ice cream. He got up, went to her, and bent and kissed her. She made no response. She felt that her blood had stopped flowing, that ice was congealing around her heart. He went to the stove and picked up the coffeepot. “Can I pour you some coffee?”

When they got married, he had had about three thousand dollars, his British army pay, and what he had picked up shooting craps. He would be a good, honest, substantial, hard-working citizen. He borrowed five thousand more, and for eight thousand dollars and a large mortgage, he had purchased the garage. He went to work each morning; he returned each night.

He poured coffee for both of them. “There are ten C-54s on a field down near Barstow. They're the big four-motor jobs that Air Transport used during the war. The guy who owns them bought the lot for sixty-five thousand, war surplus. He wants a hundred and ten thousand for them. If we can get them, we'll rip out the seats and use them for cargo. Fly them to Czechoslovakia, pick up the planes, and fly them to Palestine.” Then he waited, watching her. The silence built up between them.

Finally she said, “‘We,' Bernie?”

He nodded slowly.

“When did you make that decision?”

“Bobby, haven't you watched me? Don't you see what's happening to me? I'm turning rotten. I tried. God, how I tried! For two years I've gone to that damn garage every day. It's no good. You've seen the way I've been for the past six months. Do you want me that way?”

“I want you,” she whispered. “I still want you, Bernie. I didn't come to this marriage easily. We took each other for better or worse.”

“I'm not walking out on you. I love you. We got a kid together. We got blood and grief and agony between us. We didn't just run into each other and say ‘I do.'”

Controlling herself, choosing her words carefully, Barbara said, “You're not walking out on me. Then what would you call it, Bernie?”

“It's something I have to do, Bobby. Sure, this thing with Brodsky came out of the blue. But there hasn't been a day in the past year when I didn't think about what's going on over there. Now I look at it this way. I'll help them find the money to buy the planes, then I'll make the flight. I've spent ten years of my life being a soldier. I'm worth my weight in gold over there, and I'm needed. That's the thing. I am needed. I fought for the Spanish Republic, and for six years I fought for the damn Limeys. And I wasn't needed. There were twenty million others. Here you count heads. I'm a Jew. You forget that.”

“You never let me forget it, Bernie.”

“And I'm not walking out on you. It may take a few months to work things out over there, but we will. Then there'll be peace, and I'll be in a place that I made. I'll have a function. My life will make some sense. Then you and Sam can join me.”

She shook her head. “No. This is my place, Bernie, here in San Francisco. I had my romantic dreams. It's your place too.”

“Then I'll come back. I'll do what I have to do, and I'll come back.”

“Funny,” Barbara said, “so damn funny.” She fought to hold back tears, to keep her voice steady. “You don't come to me and say, Let's discuss this. Let's talk about it. Let's weigh this against that. You don't ask me how I feel, what I want. Good heavens, Bernie, we're man and wife. And now you tell me that you're going off to another stinking war like you're going across the street for a pack of cigarettes. Is that what this whole thing means to you? Weren't two wars enough for us? And if you're killed, what then?”

“I won't be killed. A few months and I'll be back.”

“Damn you!” she exclaimed. She pushed back her chair and ran out of the kitchen, up the stairs to the bedroom, where she flung herself on the bed. She heard his steps following her, and she closed her eyes and pressed her face into the counterpane.

“Bobby, Bobby,” he said, bending over her. “I love you. I don't want to hurt you.” He lay down beside her, pressing his head close to hers.

“Don't go away,” she begged him. “Please, Bernie, don't go away and leave me alone again.”

***

Eloise was a timid woman. It was one of the qualities that endeared her to her husband, Adam Levy. She was blond, with a peaches and cream complexion and golden hair that fell in natural ringlets. She was small-boned, gentle, and totally vulnerable, and on first encounter she often gave the impression of being entirely empty-headed. The impression was far from the truth; she was not only sensitive and aware, but well educated and on her way to becoming one of the Bay Area's foremost authorities on modern art. Adam and his wife lived in the Napa Valley, in the house he had built for her on the grounds of the Higate Winery, which his family owned, but she spent two days a week in San Francisco, where she acted as curator for the gallery of modern art that Jean Whittier had established in the old Lavette mansion on Russian Hill. For the most part, Adam would accompany her to San Francisco, and they would spend the night in a room that Jean had provided for them in the house on Russian Hill.

Eloise suffered from an ailment called cluster headache, which was little understood in the forties and simply diagnosed as another form of migraine. One of the most painful afflictions known to medicine, it caused her constant and devilish suffering, which she managed to bear without complaint and with surprising cheerfulness. If her husband adored her, it could be said that she worshipped him. Some of the worship was based on contrast. Her first marriage, in 1941, was to Thomas Lavette, Barbara's brother, and that had endured for five years that she remembered as a particularly nasty nightmare. The only positive result of her first marriage was her son, Freddie, who was now six years old.

The day after the two men from the Haganah walked into Bernie Cohen's garage, two other men drove up to Higate and asked for Eloise Levy. They were almost as alike as twins, except that one of them wore gilt-rimmed spectacles. They both wore gray sharkskin suits and Panama hats, although it was only March. They both had even-featured, expressionless faces, and they were both coldly polite. Pedro, a Chicano worker, directed them to Adam's house. Adam was working at the bottling plant and Freddie was at school. The two Airedales, regarded by Eloise as her friends and protectors, greeted them with a flurry of angry barks that brought her to the door. Then they showed her their credentials, which represented them as agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“I'm sure you've made some mistake,” Eloise told them. “I can't imagine anything that the FBI would want of me.” Nevertheless, she was frightened, and seeing Pedro standing a few yards behind the two men, she called out, “Pedro, get Adam and tell him to come home, please.”

The two men introduced themselves. One, who called himself Agent Williams, said, “May we come in?”

“I think not,” Eloise said with surprising firmness, pleased that the two Airedales had arranged themselves on either side of her. “Not until my husband gets here.”

“You are Eloise Levy?”

“Yes.”

“And you're well acquainted with Barbara Cohen.”

“Of course I am. She's my first husband's sister, and she's my very dear friend.”

“We'd like to ask you some questions about her.”

“Why?”

“Because she's under investigation. It would be in your best interest to cooperate.”

“I refuse to say another word until my husband gets here.” She had raised her voice, and the Airedales growled threateningly.

Williams spread his hands. “As you wish.”

A moment later, Adam came racing up to the house, his father, Jake Levy, lumbering behind him. Adam was a tall, skinny man, with blue eyes in a perpetually burned, freckled face, and a long, narrow head topped by a thatch of bright orange hair. Jake Levy, who owned and operated the winery, was large and heavily muscled, a year short of fifty. It was Adam who wanted to know angrily what in hell was going on?