Part 33 (1/2)

”Want a job?”

”N-no.”

His knowing eye missed no detail of the suit, the hat, the gloves, the shoes.

”What's your salary now?”

”Ten thousand.”

”Satisfied?”

”No.”

”You've hit the heart of that parade. I don't know whether you could do that every day, or not. But if you struck twelve half the time, it would be enough. When you want a job, come back.”

”Thanks,” said f.a.n.n.y quietly. And held out her hand.

She returned in the subway. It was a Bronx train, full of sagging faces, l.u.s.terless eyes, grizzled beards; of heavy, black-eyed girls in soiled white shoes; of stoop-shouldered men, poring over newspapers in Hebrew script; of smells and sounds and glaring light.

And though to-morrow would bring its reaction, and common sense would have her again in its cold grip, she was radiant to-night and glowing with the exaltation that comes with creation. And over and over a voice within her was saying:

These are my people! These are my people!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The s.h.i.+p that brought Theodore Brandeis to America was the last of its kind to leave German ports for years. The day after he sailed from Bremen came the war. f.a.n.n.y Brandeis was only one of the millions of Americans who refused to accept the idea of war. She took it as a personal affront. It was uncivilized, it was old fas.h.i.+oned, it was inconvenient. Especially inconvenient. She had just come from Europe, where she had negotiated a million-dollar deal. War would mean that she could not get the goods ordered. Consequently there could be no war.

Theodore landed the first week in August. f.a.n.n.y stole two days from the ravenous bins to meet him in New York. I think she must have been a very love-hungry woman in the years since her mother's death. She had never admitted it. But only emotions denied to the point of starvation could have been so shaken now at the thought of the feast before them. She had trained herself to think of him as Theodore the selfish, Theodore the callous, Theodore the voracious. ”An unsuccessful genius,” she told herself. ”He'll be impossible. They're bad enough when they're successful.”

But now her eyes, her thoughts, her longings, her long-pent emotions were straining toward the boat whose great prow was looming toward her, a terrifying bulk. The crowd awaiting the s.h.i.+p was enormous. A dramatic enough scene at any time, the great Hoboken pier this morning was filled with an unrehea.r.s.ed mob, anxious, thrilled, hysterical. The morning papers had carried wireless news that the s.h.i.+p had been chased by a French gunboat and had escaped only through the timely warning of the Dresden, a German gunboat. That had added the last fillip to an already tense situation. Tears were streaming down half the faces upturned toward the crowded decks. And from every side:

”Do you see her?”

”That's Jessie. There she is! Jessie!”

”Heh! Jim, old boy! Come on down!”

f.a.n.n.y's eyes were searching the packed rails. ”Ted!” she called, and choked back a sob. ”Teddy!” Still she did not see him. She was searching, womanlike, for a tall, blondish boy, with a sulky mouth, and humorous eyes, and an unruly lock of hair that would insist on escaping from the rest and straggling down over his forehead. I think she was even looking for a boy with a violin in his arms. A boy in knickers.

Women lose all sense of time and proportion at such times. Still she did not see him. The pa.s.sengers were filing down the gangplank now; rus.h.i.+ng down as quickly as the careful hands of the crew would allow them, and hurling themselves into the arms of friends and family crowded below.

f.a.n.n.y strained her eyes toward that narrow pa.s.sageway, anxious, hopeful, fearful, heartsick. For the moment Olga and the baby did not exist for her. And then she saw him.

She saw him through an unimaginable disguise. She saw him, and knew him in spite of the fact that the fair-haired, sulky, handsome boy had vanished, and in his place walked a man. His hair was close-cropped, German-fas.h.i.+on; his face careworn and older than she had ever thought possible; his bearing, his features, his whole personality stamped with an unmistakable distinction. And his clothes were appallingly, inconceivably German. So she saw him, and he was her brother, and she was his sister, and she stretched out her arms to him.

”Teddy!” She hugged him close, her face buried in his shoulder. ”Teddy, you--you Spitzbube you!” She laughed at that, a little hysterically.

”Not that I know what a Spitzbube is, but it's the Germanest word I can think of.” That shaven head. Those trousers. That linen. The awful boots. The tie! ”Oh, Teddy, and you're the Germanest thing I ever saw.”

She kissed him again, rapturously.

He kissed her, too, wordlessly at first. They moved aside a little, out of the crowd. Then he spoke for the first time.

”G.o.d! I'm glad to see you, f.a.n.n.y.” There was tragedy, not profanation in his voice. His hand gripped hers. He turned, and now, for the first time, f.a.n.n.y saw that at his elbow stood a buxom, peasant woman, evidently a nurse, and in her arms a child. A child with Molly Brandeis'