The day he had met her he had asked her what she wanted most and she had said, "Just what every other woman wants; I’m afraid I’m not very original", and the last day, three months later, he had asked her again, for somewhat different reasons, and she had said, "I want you to believe-to believe in us. I don’t care how long I have to wait, that isn’t what matters. I don’t think I matter much either. What does matter is you, and what I can’t bear is the idea of your going overseas with nothing to come back to at the end of it but a world in which there is no place for you and me".
"What’s wrong?" asked David, watching him.
"Nothing", said Marc. "I was just thinking".
They were silent again and finally David asked, "Mind if I ask you a few questions?"
"Go ahead", said Marc without interest.
"Is there anyone in this collection of people who are so dead against your marrying Erica, or her marrying you, who happens to know both of you?"
"No".
"Is there anyone who knows both of you who’s in favor of it? I don’t mean people who just know you casually".
Marc thought for a moment and then answered, "Yes, there’s one. Erica’s sister Miriam".
"Good", said David. "That makes two of us".
Marc almost missed it at first, and then he demanded, "What do you mean, two of you?"
"Miriam and me".
"You don’t know Eric…".
"Well", said David, "not intimately, but I did spend last Saturday night with her from six o’clock till my train left at eleven".
"You did what?"
"I told you I was in Montreal for a three-day clinic".
"Yes, but…"
"You told me about her that night we ran into each other at the Rosenbergs’ in Toronto, and then when you wrote to say that you were on draft and going to Petawawa, you sounded even more depressed about the whole thing, so I figured that since I didn’t have anything to do from five until my train left at eleven, I might just as well have a look at her and see what it was all about".
"How did you find her?"
"I just picked the Drake with the fanciest address. Got the right one first shot", he added with a certain amount of pride. "Anyhow, I rang up, and when I got her, I said I was your brother from the backwoods, and would she care to have dinner with me. She sort of gasped and then she said, ’You’re David,’ as though I’d suddenly dropped down from Mars. I don’t know whether she was crying or not, it sounded like it anyhow. There was a longish silence, because I couldn’t think of anything to say, until finally I asked her if she’d mind if I called for her at six so that we could have a couple of drinks…".
"You called for her?" repeated Marc.
"Naturally", said David. "I don’t make it as easy for people to dictate terms to me as you do".
"Go on", said Marc, staring at him.
"Well, she said she’d be ready at six, and I got a taxi so much sooner than I expected that I arrived there promptly at a quarter to".
"Did you meet any of the family?"
"Yes", said David. "I met Drake". He picked up a flat stone and sent it skimming out over the surface of the water upstream. "I was standing with my back to the door looking at that picture over the fireplace when someone said behind me, ’Mr. Reiser, I’m Erica’s father’. As soon as I turned round and he saw my face, it was obvious from his expression that something was wrong somewhere…".
"I’ll bet it was", said Marc grimly.
"No, not the way you mean", his brother answered immediately. "He was just puzzled. I said that I was afraid he’d got me mixed up with you, and that I was Dr. David Reiser, so we shook hands and he gave me a cigarette and then asked if I’d like a drink. I said, ’Yes, thanks very much,’ so he got one for each of us and one for Erica when she came down. He said he’d just heard the maid say the name Reiser, when she’d gone up to tell Erica I was there, so naturally he thought I was you".
He paused and then added deliberately, "The next thing Drake said after that was, ’I’m sorry to say that I’ve never met your brother’. And there was no doubt he meant it".
"He said that?" asked Marc incredulously. "But why? Why after all this time, for God’s sake? I don’t get it".
"I gathered from Erica, that her father’s opposition had collapsed, the day after he heard that his son was missing. I don’t suppose he felt much like going on with it after that. He looked pretty well shot when I saw him. Anyhow, he asked me what I was doing in Montreal, and I told him that I’d come down for a clinic. He wanted to know where I practiced, and I told him that too, and he seemed genuinely interested and kept on asking me questions, so I kept on talking. It may seem funny to you but I liked him. And by the way, the last thing he said to me was to tell you that he hoped he’d have a chance of meeting you when you were in Montreal on Wednesday".
"That’s day after tomorrow". He was still trying to believe it, when he heard David asking abruptly why he had allowed Drake to get away with it.
"Get away with it?" said Marc.
"Yes. Why didn’t you go and see him at the very beginning, before this whole mess had a chance to develop?"
"I couldn’t do that".
"Why not?" asked his brother. "I know what happened, or at least I’ve got a pretty good idea, because Erica told me the whole story. The point is that it takes two to play the game Drake was playing, and he couldn’t have got away with it at all, if you’d behaved like an ordinary, intelligent human being, instead of like a Jew with an inferiority complex. I know", he said in a different tone, "it’s easy to talk, particularly at this distance".
In the intervals of silence they could hear the wind stirring in the trees overhead, the sound of running water and sometimes the rustling of an animal in the underbrush.
Staring unseeing at the tangle of trees, bushes and vines across the little stream, Marc said at last, "I almost did see Drake once. I got as far as his outer office".
"And what happened?"
"I guess I just lost my nerve".
A moment later he burst out violently, "O.K., go ahead and tell me I’ve made a hell of a mess of it!"
"Give me time, laddie", said David imperturbably. "Don’t you want to know how Erica is?"
"I already know how she is", he said under his breath.
"I wrote her a prescription for some stuff to make her sleep-my idea, not hers. I hope she got it filled. She didn’t seem to be very interested in herself, all she could talk about was you. She did say that she was going to enlist this week, but she hasn’t a hope of passing her medical, till she’s put on ten pounds and had a good rest".
David changed his position, sitting higher, with his back instead of his shoulders against the log, and said dispassionately, "As I’ve already remarked once, you’re old enough to know better. This whole mess, as you call it, is your fault from start to finish, only having started it, you haven’t got the guts to finish it; all you do is listen to a lot of people yapping about a situation they don’t know the first thing about, and refusing to listen to the one person who does. And then you let those other people finish it for you".
He said, "If you think God is going to hand you another Erica Drake on a platter, only tailored to measure according to a lot of cockeyed theories about ’Jews’ and ’Gentiles’ you’re going to find that you’re wrong. There isn’t going to be another one".
"I know that". He had already made up his mind, but he had more faith in his brother’s judgment than in the judgment of anyone else he knew, and he said, "Go on".
"You’re a queer mixture of a weak character and a strong one. I’ve always thought you’d be up against something like this sooner or later, so that you’d be forced to make a choice, and if you made the right one, then you’d be somebody, and if you didn’t, then afterwards you’d just let yourself go, and say what’s the use, and subside into complete mediocrity. If you allow a lot of other people to talk you out of doing something that you know is right for you, and talk you into letting yourself and someone else down as badly as this, then you’ll never amount to even half the human being you ought to be. Maybe it’s a question of sticking by your own principles, I don’t know, but you don’t think like they do. If you did, you might be able to get away with it, but you don’t, and neither does Erica. The difference between you is that she seems to realize it and you don’t…".