Julie Orringer - The InvisibleBridge

“But everyone will see it’s your old hat,” he protested, and then repeated the last words in English: “Old hat. In the States, it’s a pejorative. It’s what you call something predictable or trite or démodé.”

“All you have to do is change the hatband,” Andras said. “No one will know it’s your ohld het. If you think anyone looks that closely at what you’re wearing, you’re mistaken.”

Paul laughed. “I suppose you’re right, old man,” he said, and let Andras show him where a hat could be taken to be reblocked.

Often, on those Sundays when Paul came to lunch, Andras would see Klara retreat into watchful silence. He knew she was observing her daughter’s intended, sizing him up, taking note of how he treated Elisabet, how he responded to Andras’s queries about his work, how he spoke to Mrs. Apfel as she served the káposzta. But she was also watching Elisabet. There seemed to be a kind of urgency in her watching, as if she had to record every nuance of Elisabet’s existence. She seemed acutely aware that these were the last days her daughter would live under her roof. There was nothing Klara could do to stop it; Elisabet had been on her way out for years, slowly but unmistakably, and now she would be gone for good, across the ocean, into a fledgling marriage with a non-Jewish man whose parents might not accept her. To make matters worse, there at the same table sat Ilana di Sabato, newly divorced: evidence of how a marriage between two very young people might go wrong. Ilana sat in lonely despair, hardly touching her food; she’d cut her gorgeous dark braid at the nape of her neck when she’d married Ben Yakov, and her hair clung forlornly to her head like the kind of close-fitting cap that had been fashionable a decade earlier. Old hat, Andras thought. It was painful to look at her. He had not yet received a reply to his letter, and didn’t want to speak to her about Tibor until he did.

Elisabet would sail at the beginning of August, and many things had to be prepared for the voyage. Her clothes were a schoolgirl’s clothes; she had to assemble the wardrobe of a married woman. Paul insisted on contributing to the preparations, at first presenting Elisabet with the kind of extravagances he had only ever thought of as necessities: a linen tennis costume with a pair of rubber-soled canvas shoes; a pearl necklace with a platinum clasp; a set of traveling cases made of fawn-colored leather, her initials stamped upon them in gold. Each purchase devastated the savings he’d accumulated by practicing the small economies Andras had taught him. At last Klara suggested, as gently as one could, that Paul might ask her how the money might best be spent. Elisabet needed things like cambric slips, nightgowns, walking shoes. One of the fillings in her teeth had to be replaced. She wanted her long hair cut into a short style. All of these things cost money and took time. When Andras left in the evenings, Klara would always have her sewing basket out; he imagined her as a kind of Penelope by proxy, each night tearing out the work she’d done so that Elisabet would never have to marry. It terrified her, she’d told him, to think of Elisabet setting out across the ocean while Europe stood on the brink of war. It was not uncommon for civilian ships to be torpedoed. Couldn’t Elisabet wait another few months at least, until the situation in Poland had quieted down and the problems with the Anglo-French Mutual Assistance Agreement with Russia had been resolved? Did Paul and Elisabet really have to sail in August, that month when wars traditionally began? But Elisabet had insisted that if she waited, France might indeed go to war; then the journey would be impossible. The subject had sparked arguments that had brought Klara and Elisabet close to emotional collapse. Andras had the sense that this was their last great opportunity to demonstrate their love in the way they’d practiced most, through a struggle in which neither party would yield and neither could win, a conflict whose subject was not the matter at hand but the complicated nature of mother-and-daughterhood itself.

On the rare nights when Klara came to him at his garret during those weeks, she made love to him with an insistence that seemed to have nothing to do with him at all. He had never imagined he might be so lonely in her arms; he wanted her unfocused eyes to settle upon him. When he stopped her once and said, “Look at me,” she rolled away from him and broke into tears. Then she apologized, and he held her, unable to suppress the selfish wish that this would all be over soon. On the other side of Elisabet’s departure was the fulfillment of the promise they’d made last fall: They, too, would be married, and would live together at last. In her grief over the loss of her child, Klara had ceased to talk about what would happen once Elisabet was gone.

…

21 July 1939

Modena

Dear Andras,

I am sorry, truly sorry, to hear that the marriage between Ilana and Ben Yakov has ended so sadly. It grieves me to consider the role I may have played in their unhappiness. If regret could mend that error, it would have been undone long ago.

When I first received your letter I thought I couldn’t possibly come to Paris. How could I face Ilana, I asked myself, knowing how I had wronged her? Love insists upon its own expression; it tells us it is right simply by virtue of being love. But we are human beings and must decide what is right. My feelings for Ilana were so acute that I failed to govern them. I hardly deserve a second chance to prove myself her friend; still less to plead my case as a lover.

But, Andráska-and perhaps you’ll consider me a scoundrel for saying so-I find that my feelings for her are unchanged. How my pulse raced when I read that she’d asked after me! How it moved me to hear that she’d spoken of me with tenderness! You know me too well to have mentioned these things lightly; you must have known what they would mean to me.

And so, finally, I am coming. I am ashamed, but I am coming. At least you’ll never have reason to doubt my constancy; neither, I hope, shall Ilana. By the time you receive this letter I will have reached Paris. I will take a room at the Hôtel St. Jacques, where you can find me on Friday.

With love,

Your T IBOR

It was Saturday morning by the time Andras got his brother’s letter. He had been at the architecture firm all night, helping Lemain complete a set of drawings for a client. The letter was sitting on the front table, along with a handwritten note from Tibor: Andras: Came to see you this morning. Waited until 9. Can’t wait longer! I must try to see her. Meet me at Klara’s. T.

He knocked on the concierge’s door. There was a long silence; then came an unintelligible French curse and approaching footsteps. The concierge came out in a grime-stained apron and sooty work gloves, a stripe of grease across her brow.

“Tsk!” she said. “A visitor arrives with great commotion at an inconvenient hour. What a surprise: He’s a relative of yours.”

“When did my brother leave?”

“Not three minutes ago. I was cleaning the oven, as you can see.”

“Three minutes ago!”

“There’s no need to shout, young man.”

“Excuse me,” Andras said. He stuffed the note into his pocket and charged out into the street. The door slammed behind him; the concierge’s muffled curse followed him down the block. He took off at a run toward the Marais. It was a bright, hot morning; the streets were already crowded with tourists and their cameras, families out for Saturday strolls, lovers walking arm in arm. At the Pont Louis-Philippe, Andras glimpsed a familiar hat in the crush of the crowd. He called his brother’s name, and the man turned.

They met at the center of the bridge. Tibor seemed to have grown thinner since Andras had last seen him; the angles of his cheekbones were sharper now, the shadows beneath his eyes darker. When they embraced, he seemed made of a substance lighter than flesh.