Lauren Fox - Send for Me

Walter stares at her for another second, eyebrows raised, and then he laughs again, and, to Annelise’s surprise, he keeps laughing until he has to wipe away the tears from his eyes.

Annelise stands with her elbows bent, hands still on her hips, and observes Walter—the crinkly lines around his eyes, his face entirely open to happiness.

The irregular beat of her heart is the first uncertain thump of love.

Today I had a very difficult day. I was so homesick for all of you.

Please write in your next letter whether I should sell my stone pots. I may have somebody who wants to buy them. For the time being I won’t buy anything, for, as you wrote, it could still take about a year or so until we can leave here, and who knows what can happen.

Thank you for the beautiful picture of Ruthie. She looks like such a bright little girl. She looks so much older and has a much different expression on her face. Why does she have to be so far away from us?

Dear Lise, nobody can change anything. You looked that way when you were that age, my dear child.

Later, he’ll marvel at their small slice of good luck: that they fell in love before the fear sank down into their bones. It was a small thing, to get to know each other as they were. It was a gift.

Certain events diminish you, alter your elemental structure. Later, he will not trust police officers; she won’t abide Fourth of July parades. She’ll shrink from conflict; he’ll refuse to sleep under a window. He’ll suffer panic attacks. She’ll hate the language she feels most comfortable speaking. That’s who they’ll become.

But when they fell in love, they were just who they were.

—

“He’s ten years older than I am,” Annelise warns her parents.

Her father slides his knife into a baked potato with gusto. “None of the impulsiveness of a younger man,” he says. Klara looks fondly at Julius and nods.

“He’s been married before,” Annelise says. Her mother passes the butter dish to her father and dabs her mouth with a napkin. It’s as if they can’t hear her. “He is divorced !”

“He must have been very young,” Klara says. She pours water from a crystal pitcher into her husband’s glass, then her own.

“Well, she wasn’t Jewish!” Annelise says, saving her best argument for last. “His wife was not Jewish!”

“Not uncommon these days,” her father says, now carving his roast chicken into small pieces.

“Remedied, perhaps,” her mother adds, with an infuriating wink.

What is she trying to do? She’s fond of Walter. She’s enamored of him! He’s good and lovely, handsome and so attentive. He looks at her when she talks. He remembers her favorite song (“I Kiss Your Hand, Madame,” from the movie) and sings little snippets to her in her ear. He offers his arm to her as they walk down the street and then smoothly maneuvers her body so that he’s the one walking on the outside, closer to traffic. He is solicitous and sweet. He reminds her of Julius.

“Invite him to dinner,” her father says. They acknowledge him when he comes to the bakery, of course. But they’re people who believe in rules.

Her mother nods. “Next week,” she demands.

—

A few nights later, they’re walking home from a film. The evening is misty and damp. Their footsteps sound like the last echoing applause in an empty theater.

“My mother and father,” Annelise says, removing her hand from Walter’s in order to smooth her hair, renegade in the humidity. “Klara and Julius.” She had the idea that saying their first names would make her seem mature, and she immediately feels idiotic. “They have insisted that…no, I mean, have asked that…and of course I would also like it, if you…” Her confidence fizzles in a lightning zap. She glances around, as if she might find it lying on the cobbled sidewalk. “We would like it if you would join us…”

“Of course,” Walter says. “I’d be delighted.” Well, finally, he thinks.

—

On his way to Lise’s apartment to meet her parents, Walter pauses at a poster tacked to a lamppost. the jews are our misfortune! it reads, and his first reaction (which he will also ponder later, frequently) is an audible chuckle. He has a keen eye for absurdity, which doesn’t always work in his favor. Whose, he wonders, and how ? He’s a shoe salesman. He sells shoes. People compliment his high-quality selection and frequent his thriving business. They appreciate his competitive prices! He is a valuable member of the community, a sincere if irregular synagogue attendee, a conscientious shopkeeper who sweeps snow not only from the front steps of his own store, but also from those of the businesses on either side. He does the weekly shopping for two of his elderly neighbors. He sets out a bowl of milk for the stray kitten that likes to climb up to his kitchen windowsill. And he doesn’t even particularly like cats!

Walter straightens his back and moves past the lamppost, tucking the two bouquets of flowers he’s carrying closer to his chest—a spray of lavender tulips for Mrs. Adler and a dozen red roses for Annelise. Tulips, he feels, are respectful, subdued, and long-lasting, just the impression he is hoping to make. Red roses—he knows what they mean. He’s crazy about Annelise, and even if she hasn’t quite arrived at the same conclusion, he knows that she will. He is nobody’s misfortune.

It’s dusk. The gas lamps are flickering on. He passes a few workers heading home, a young couple, arm in arm. The man nods at him, and Walter touches the brim of his hat in reply. He walks quickly now past shops and buildings so familiar they’re etched into his brain in their particular order—Woolworth’s, grocer, dry goods, coffee shop, doctor’s office—the collage of home he will return to in his dreams. The night is close, and a little perspiration gathers on his forehead. He takes out his handkerchief and wipes it away. By the time he arrives at the Adlers’ apartment building, he is just slightly out of breath and has put that poster out of his head almost completely.

—

She feels like a little girl, sitting here in her parents’ living room, her own home, surrounded by the detritus of her intimate life. The dolls on the shelf in her bedroom. Wolfgang, the one-eyed stuffed bear lying languid and winking on her bed. The bathroom down the hall, the toilet! How has she allowed herself to invite Walter into such mortifying proximity? Even this living room. A framed photograph of her as a small child. Her cello stand. The lamp she broke when she was five (repaired, the crack down the middle of the stand barely visible). The wingback chair she likes to curl up and read in. Walter sits across from her, taking in the room for the first time, and suddenly to Annelise her home feels like an excavation site of her childhood. She is not ready for this.

What are they talking about? She’s drifted. Her father and Walter are drinking brandy, their gestures, she notices, mirroring each other’s.

“We’re treated with less respect,” her father is saying.

“Some suspicion,” Walter agrees. He debates telling them about the poster. He’s seen a few others like it around town. He suspects they all have. Murmurs, whispers. A cloud hanging over them, but tempered with faith in the prevailing sanity of their friends and fellow citizens.

“I was standing in line at the butcher shop,” her mother offers, sitting down, finally. “And Mr. Günther only waited on me after he’d served the very last person in line, a woman who’d arrived fifteen minutes after I had. The very last person. ‘Next customer, please. Next customer, please.’ ” She waves her hand, shooing an imaginary person aside. “Imagine!” she says.