A Choice of Enemies Read online

  “Hornstein wasn’t a bad pilot – that much you had to give him. He had three 109s and two probables to his credit. But he was a fixer. He wangled the longest leaves and the best girls. If it was liquor, a week-end pass, a phone number, or money you wanted you went to Hornstein and hated him for it. I avoided him like the plague. But Hornstein tried everything – he wanted to be accepted at any cost. One evening in the mess he read us a B’nai Brith pamphlet which proved that in proportion to the population of Canada there were more Jews than Gentiles in the armed forces. None of us gave a damn one way or another, really, but one by one we got up and left him alone at the table with his pamphlet.”

  “I know the kind of man you mean,” Sally said.

  “The next day – at the time, you know, the Germans were putting everything into knocking out our advance fighter bases – we ran into a formation of about twenty 109s at 20,000 feet. They had the height – the sun – everything. We were occupied with the twelve Dornier 215s below us. Hornstein was flying close to me. Before we peeled off to join the battle he winked and made a thumbs-up sign to me. That made my stomach turn.” Norman poured himself another drink. “The battle was brief, fierce, and explosive. Hornstein was hit. I watched as at a height of about two thousand feet he prepared to bail out of his blazing machine. Hornstein was over a thickly populated area. I saw him climb in again and crash his machine into the Thames.

  “That takes courage, madness, or a Jew terrified of doing the wrong thing. At that moment I hated Hornstein more than I’ve ever hated anyone in my life.

  “I would have bailed out, you see. There’s no doubt about it.”

  “Come on,” Sally said, “how do you know what you would have done?”

  “Because I had visualized just such a thing happening to me.”

  “How can you tell for sure?”

  “I had figured out that in rounder terms my life was worth more than any deaths or damage my crashed Spitfire might have caused. After all, I was a trained fighter pilot. So on top of everything else I hated Hornstein for being braver than I was.”

  Norman paused, much as though he had given Sally something – a pill, perhaps – and he didn’t want to continue until it had had time to dissolve.

  “After I saw him crash like that I went temporarily out of my mind. I still had some ammunition left so I didn’t return to the aerodrome with the others. I moved up into the sun and saw four 109s heading for home. I must have chased them half way to France before bullets suddenly started appearing on my port wing. Two 109s had been flying even closer to the sun than me. I pulled up and away desperately, but black smoke was already pouring out of the engine. The fire spread inside – that’s how I crashed.”

  Having told her about Hornstein, a grief he had not shared with anyone else, he felt, and she seemed to understand, that they were now free to make demands of each other. She was already in his debt.

  “I think I’d better be going.”

  Sally came close to Norman and kissed him on the mouth. But the kiss was affectionate; no more. Norman seemed resentful. And Sally, a little perplexed, said:

  “Will you call me early tomorrow morning?”

  “Sure.”

  “Really, though. You’re not just saying that?”

  “I’ll call you early. I promise.”

  Sally stood by the window with her cheek and hands pressed against the cold pane and watched Norman get into a taxi. There were all those stars – she hated them for “twinkling” just the way they did in cheap novels – and below the endless noises of the night.

  At home, in Montreal, right now her father would be seated at his desk steeply and severe, The Lusiads opened at one elbow and an exercise book at the other. Mother in the parlour with knitting and Mozart and below the 3a streetcars and next door Mr. O’Meara calling, “Hurry, Ros, hurry. Ed Sullivan’s just beginning.…” and in the park the boys in blazers called hi, bee-utiful and smoked meats and Frankie Laine at Ma Heller’s and boning for Psych 103 and Sheldon saying, “If you insist on going to London I guess that’s it.…”

  But she missed them. Already she missed them.

  Sally lay down in the dark with a cigarette. I’ll never get to sleep tonight, she thought.

  VII

  “If you want a script that’s nifty,” Charlie sang, “I’ll write it in a jiffy, Lawson but does nuttin’ for ya ‘olesale.”

  “Not so loud,” Joey called out from the bedroom.

  Sure, Charlie thought. Not so loud. The Chairlady of the Bitchers’ Club will now say a few words. Charlie stuck out his tongue. “You made lots of women in ’22,” he sang sotto voce, “you let other hacks make more gold than you, why doncha do right, and make me a movie to-ooo?”

  Charlie was going to get work. He had made a good impression. Invitations to dinners and parties from Winkleman, Landis, Jeremy, and Graves would soon come down on him like rain. They would please Joey so much. And once he was rich Charlie would be handsome with his money, not like some other guys he knew.

  Money, Charlie thought. Charlie required lots of money. Money to support his in-laws, the Wallaces, and money to pay Selma’s tuition at drama school. Joey’s sister Selma was cute but a weirdie, too. There was still that nose operation of hers to be paid off. And what if the Wallaces took it into their sinus-soaked heads that they needed Arizona again next winter? (Perish the thought, Charles.)

  “Maybe it’s because I’m a Torontonian,” Charlie sang, “that I love London so.” He raised his voice. “London’s going to be lucky-ducky. We’ve finally made it. I’ve got that certain feeling.”

  Charlie could hardly wait for Norman to get back. Meanwhile, sifting through the top drawer of his desk he came upon a thick airmail letter addressed to Norman Price, Esq.

  “As long as you can earn a living,” Joey said, entering the room, “I’ll be pleased. Remember what you said when you first came to New York?”

  “New York was different.”

  “Maybe, but all the same – What have you got there?”

  “A letter from you to guess whom?”

  “If I were you,” Joey said, “I wouldn’t read it.”

  “I was looking for a pencil. I can wait until he leaves before I go through his personal papers.”

  Joey took the letter into the kitchen, lit it, and then let the ashes fall into the sink.

  “Why did you do that?” Charlie asked.

  “Charlie, do you remember that Norman used to come round every night for weeks and then didn’t show up for months? You know why, don’t you?”

  Charlie didn’t answer.

  “Don’t you?”

  “Sure. Joey, sure. I mean I know you could have.…”

  “You should have seen the wild letters he wrote me, Charlie. But I wrote him no. Absolutely no. That was the letter I just burnt.”

  “I love you,” Charlie said. “I trust you completely.” He hugged her. “You know what I’m going to be?” he asked, lifting her off the floor. “An Irish Sean O’Casey.”

  Joey laughed. She kissed him.

  The door opened. “Hello,” Norman said cheerfully. “Still up?”

  Joey broke away from Charlie.

  “Ah,” Charlie said, “the satyr of Church Street returns. He’s abandoned his soubrette at last.”

  Norman grinned.

  “We didn’t expect you back until morning,” Joey said. “Wait, I’ll get you a drink.”

  “Thanks,” Norman said.

  “Feel free.” Charlie filled his glass again. “We want you to treat this place like your own home.”

  “Do you think you’ll like it here?” Norman asked.

  “We’ll adore it,” Joey said.

  “Wait till I tell you about Rinky-Dinky Winkleman. A few days in London and I’ve as good as got a film contract in the bag. Not bad, huh?”

  “Please, darling. He hasn’t even taken an option yet.”

  “Am I or am I not seeing him first thing tomorrow morning?”

&
nbsp; “Charlie’s right. Sonny likes his script a lot. He told me so himself.”

  “I’ll believe it when I see the cheque. Not before.”

  “Thank you, Madame Defarge.” Charlie turned to Norman. “You didn’t have to go to her hotel, old chap. You could have brought Sally here. We’re very liberal-minded.”

  Norman slept on the sofa in his little study, and there, he remembered Sally’s freshly washed smell. He recalled her wild blond hair – the creamy smile – and all at once he felt foolish. He had made an unsuccessful pass at the sweetheart of the Sigma Something. No more. That kind of stuff was O.K. for Nicky, but not for a man of his age.

  I shouldn’t have told her about Hornstein, he thought, just before he fell asleep.

  VIII

  But the next morning at nine-thirty, Norman, feeling uncomfortably like a college boy again, was waiting for Sally in her hotel lobby. They ate breakfast together.

  Sally was small, no more than five feet four, and she was cursed with a plump figure and the most useless big feet. Her blessings – Sally considered them few – were her streaky blond hair and slender ankles. But what attracted Norman most were her warm, quizzical blue eyes, and the absence of hardness about her. They were extremely polite with each other. Norman intimidated Sally. His long narrow face was solemn; his manner was exacting. She felt that she was being examined like a potential sexual belligerent, and this she found disquieting.

  After breakfast they walked through Soho, down Charing Cross Road, and to the Strand. They ate an enormous lunch at Simpson’s. Then, because Sally was momentarily panicked by the strangeness of it all – the streets of little black cars and sexless black men and old blackened buildings – they hurried back to Leicester Square and went to see an American film. Inside, Sally pretended she was in Montreal again. Norman fell asleep half-way through the film and that, oddly enough, made her like him much better.

  From there they went to the Arts Theatre Club bar for drinks and, her assurances regained, Sally was very cheerful indeed. They exchanged old and tested anecdotes that were, all the same, fresh to each other, and whenever Sally laughed – and she laughed spontaneously and often – her head fell against his shoulder. They were so happy together that they did not realize they were being loud and conspicuous. As the crowd in the bar thickened they reached that point of intimacy where a nod of the head for a foolish face discovered, a nudge for a pompous snatch of conversation overheard, was enough to send them off into further fits of laughter. At dinner Norman squeezed her knee under the table and Sally leaned over and kissed him once.

  Later, at the Theatre, East Stratford, they joined the Winklemans and Charlie and Joey to see a new play by a left-wing theatre group. Norman began to sober up. A fuzzy-haired Jewess with a wide red mouth sat beside him. Her boy friend, a skinny boy with a little sandpaper face, chewed his nails endlessly. The play, a political comedy, was spiked with puerile jokes about Eden, Rhee, Dulles, and the rest of them, but the audience responded with laughter wild and febrile. Tense, thick faces. Partisans. A kinky West Indian with a flash of pink tongue. A hunchback in a corduroy cap with a smile like a clenched fist. Young girls in rumpled clothes hand in hand with boys who required beards just as older, sunnier men needed desks before them. The virtuous failures; the good people. A middle-aged woman made in Bethnal Green of headlines and mashed brussels sprouts and unuseful memories. They laughed, they applauded, and their laughter was so sad, so savage, that Norman was immensely relieved when it was time to leave the theatre.

  Sally held on to his arm, just like she was his girl, and that made him feel better. They were joined by the Winklemans and Charlie and Joey, and together they piled into Winkleman’s car and drove to his house in Hampstead. Winkleman was in one of his more expansive moods. He told them how he had settled his accounts with the Home Office.

  Norman, who had heard the story many times before, joined Sally in the laughter that followed all the same, but he was not aware, as the others certainly were, that he was also holding her hand. He and Sally didn’t realize that the Winklemans and Charlie had been nudging each other whenever they looked in their direction. Joey alone remained aloof.

  Finally, it was time to go. Before Norman could protest Joey announced that she had called a taxi and that they could easily drop Sally off on their way home.

  The Winklemans went upstairs to bed.

  “I’m so glad for Norman,” Bella said. “I think she’s a very sweet girl.”

  “I hope it works out for Norm, too. That guy’s so lonely it’s a crime.”

  Charlie was too excited to sleep. “They’re like a couple of kids together,” he said to Joey.

  “Norman’s going to get hurt.”

  “How come?”

  “She’s far too young for him.”

  “Me,” Charlie said, “I like them under fifteen. Sixteen tops. Yum, yum.”

  The next morning, at nine-thirty, Norman presented himself at Sally’s hotel again. This time she was waiting for him. They kissed eagerly, and after breakfast Norman helped to move her things into Karp’s house. The cooking facilities in Sally’s bed-sitter looked fine and there was even a telephone extension on the table, but the gas heater seemed inadequate. The kitchenette part of the room closed like a cupboard. The walls, originally a bright yellow, were by this time a depressing brown. Bright yellow squares, where the last tenant’s pictures had used to hang, glared angrily at you. There was an abandoned Penguin on the mantelpiece. Ballet by Arnold Haskell. The kind of room, Norman imagined, where once or twice a year there had been bottle parties. Warm punch out of sticky glasses. A red-stained slice of lemon adhering to the bottom of your glass all night. A bearded boy with a guitar, perhaps.

  Sally was enthralled. She told him excitedly of her plans to make the room more “homey.” Norman was briefly conscious of the years that separated them. For her a rented room was an adventure. He remembered it as a place where you were alone. Terribly alone.

  Karp told Norman that his room would not be ready until Monday and then Norman went off to have lunch with Charlie.

  “I’m surprised you’ve got time for me these days,” Charlie said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Hey,” Charlie said. “Hey there.”

  Norman grinned foolishly. “Do you like Sally?” he asked.

  “What are you trying to promote – a triangle?” Charlie laughed. “She’s crazy about you.”

  “I wish I thought so.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “No.”

  “Hell, that girl can’t keep her eyes off you. You’re like a couple of honeymooners together. An iceberg of a guy like you. I’m shocked. Personally, I think you’re a couple of dirty pigs.”

  Norman laughed self-consciously and then quickly changed the subject. Charlie was disturbed. He complained to Norman that Winkleman was stalling. He had not yet been paid his advance on the script. So that afternoon Norman phoned Winkleman, told him to give Charlie some money, and promised to begin work on the script on Monday.

  “That’s a nice girl you’ve got there,” Winkleman said.

  Norman and Sally became inseparable. On Wednesday he borrowed Bob Landis’s car and took her to Cambridge. They rented a canoe, ate a picnic lunch beside the Cam, and on the midnight drive back to London she slept with her head on his shoulder. The next afternoon they visited Hampton Court together. They managed to avoid the Winklemans and Charlie and Joey until Saturday night, when Norman had promised to bring Sally home for dinner. In all that short febrile time, though everyone had put them down for lovers, they had not been to bed together. Norman, after the first night’s failure, had shied away from trying to make love to her again. He lived in perpetual fear of rejection. With the fear, though, he also had his dream. He and Sally were married, they had three children, and they were uniquely happy. They did not hang impressionist prints on their walls. Sally, like him, enjoyed making love in the mornings. But when the kids came that was seldom
possible. The kids woke them early each morning, jumping up and down on their not-Swedish Modern double bed.

  After they had dinner with Charlie and Joey on Saturday night Sally invited him into her room for a drink, even though it was quite late.

  Sally sat on the floor, her legs tucked under her wide green skirt and her blouse sufficiently open at the neck so that he could see where her breasts began. Norman told her about the time he spent with his father in Spain and Sally spoke about her parents. Their conversation was forced. Norman was always so annoyingly a man of no frivolity that she was constantly afraid of making a fool of herself with him. When Sally wasn’t getting up to twist a dripping faucet tight or to pull the curtains or replace a book, she seemed just a little petulant.

  “Well,” she said at last, “here we are.”

  “Here we are.” Norman cleared his throat. “Bob says we can have his car again tomorrow. We can drive down to Brighton, if you like.”

  Sally gathered that Norman was particularly proud of his community of friends. There was, to be sure, an instinctive generosity about the way they lent each other money, their cars, and even – as in Norman’s case – a flat. There was plenty to be said for a group of men who, though they were naturally competitors and professionally jealous of each other’s success, still did their utmost to share out the available work. But what astonished her was the ways in which the “enlightened” left was similar to the less intelligent groups it despised. The loyalties, the generosity, like those of the Rotary, lost in purity by being confined to the group strictly. You didn’t wear a badge with your first name on it, you weren’t asked the name of your “home town,” but your contributions were “concrete,” your faith “progressive,” and your enemies “reactionary.” Joe Hill ousted Down By The Old Mill Stream, but, though the sentiment was loftier, it was still uncritical, still stickily there. It seemed to Sally that Norman and his friends were not, as they supposed, non-conformists, but conformists to another rule.