There were others on that terrace who were annoyed with Mr. Brand, for it was felt by some that he could enjoy the day and the sun without monopolizing one of the too few tables long after he had finished eating. Mr. Brand was unaware of this annoyance and would have been undisturbed if he had been aware of it. There was a certain regal hauteur about the man that discouraged those who had even considered asking him to move. In this respect their instincts were correct. If one had asked him whether he would mind moving his coat so that someone else could share his table, Mr. Brand would have replied that he certainly did mind — and the ensuing small scene would have spoiled the would-be diner’s digestion and fazed Mr. Brand not at all. Indeed, aside from the absent giraffes, he found nothing worthy of his attention. That is, until she came along.
She was rather taller than average, probably 25 to 30, slim and neatly but not tastefully dressed. She was walking slowly and shyly looking for an empty place on which to put her tray. She was nothing remarkable whatever except to the eyes of Walter Brand. He recognized her as beautiful. Mr. Brand, besides being a perfectionist and perhaps because of it, was a connoisseur. He made his living, which was an exceedingly good one, by the importation and sale of foreign objects of beauty. He recognized beauty at a glance whether it was covered with the dust of a century or disguised, as this one was, by an inappropriate setting and the wrong attire. He knew perfectly and precisely what the absolutely beautiful woman should look like. Not perfect features. There must be some tiny fault to show that the lady is human. But so nearly perfect that the tiny fault is adorable. And she must have an unidentifiable spark. Somehow this girl had it. She was a gem improperly cut and mounted in a garish setting entirely unworthy of her and, because he had seen it, of him. He rose quickly and bowed.
“Madam. Take this table please. I am just leaving.”
“Oh! Thank you. Today it is very crowded.” The th might almost have been s. The very might have been fairy, and when she smiled other less discerning eyes than his could see a glimpse of hidden beauty.
As she seated herself he picked up his coat. Then, “I see that you had the happy thought of iced coffee. Iced coffee is out of season and so this is exactly the time to have it.” He replaced his coat on the chair and strode purposefully towards the cafeteria.
Now would be the time for her to escape, to leave her tray untouched, to rise swiftly and, gathering her gloves and purse, walk away as fast as she could. It would be better still to run, not looking behind her, until the city gave her sanctuary. But how was Magda Lederer to know? The thought of leaving did not cross her mind. When Walter Brand came back and sat beside her she was pleased.
“Yes, you were right, precisely,” he said, sipping at his straw. “The man who says he dislikes champagne or beer or Coca Cola is a fool. There is a time and place for every drink. This is the time and place for iced coffee and I detect that they have the discrimination here to brew it long and dark.”
Magda did not reply. She was eating. But she was pleased.
“My name,” he said, “is Walter Blackford Brand. I am forty-one years old. I have a shop under my name at 507 Madison Avenue where we sell imported antiquities. I bank at the Fifth Avenue Bank, live at the Forest Hills Inn in Forest Hills, am a member of the New York and Huntington Yacht Clubs, and am a widower with no children.”
Magda went on eating, more pleased than ever. Walter was pleased too. She ate delicately, without affectation, and detested chatter. He sat quietly, enjoying his thoughts until she had finished. He looked at her benevolently and said, “Now, tell me about yourself.”
Magda was very shy but the quiet and direct approach had reassured her.
“My name is Magda Lederer. I am twenty-seven. I am born Hungarian but am an American citizen because my husband was. He was a flyer and was killed flying three years ago. I work for a decorator also on Madison Avenue. I have the afternoon off because we have nothing to decorate and she went home. I too am lonely.” She smiled at him. “But I haff neffer had an avair and do not intend to ’ave one.” Magda’s accent invariably increased with the emotional context of her words.
“Splendid, splendid,” he said. “In ten minutes we know each other and have put our cards, face up, on the table. And I agree with you. Affairs have a way of turning sordid. To my mind, sordid is the most distasteful word in the English language. And if there is one thing I pride myself upon, it is my taste.”
Magda stood up. “We must leave,” she said. “Others need our table.” The figure, under the badly cut dress, was exquisite.
“May I spend your holiday afternoon in your company, Magda?” he asked.
“I would like that,” she said simply. “Let us ride on the carousel. I have never done it here. One feels foolish behaving in a childish way alone. But with a companion, childish ways are fun.”
There are other splendid things to do on a fine early Spring day when one is not alone. They took the sightseeing boat around Manhattan and it was almost empty and, by then, a little cold so that it seemed natural that most of the way he hold her hand. He took her to a tiny, quiet restaurant on Fifty-Eighth Street and convinced her with little trouble that this was the occasion for champagne.
She told him about her husband. It wasn’t as tragic as it should have been. She had been twenty and had fallen for his dash. “Speed,” they called him — Speed Lederer — and he had done everything with speed. Too much speed and dash, not time enough for tenderness. There had been four years, most of the time in separation, usually a day or two together, at most a week, and he would be off, speeding to somewhere. Finally he had run his fighter plane into a mountain and that was that — before she ever really knew him.
And Walter told her about Elsie. He told it well, sadly and courageously, trying in no way to absolve himself from blame. “Of course I was to blame,” he said. “They said she jumped or fell. Ridiculous. When one is alone on the fifteenth floor of the Lord Baltimore Hotel one does not fall from the window. Of course she jumped, and, since she was not ill, it must have been because she was unhappy, desperately unhappy, with me. Why is another matter. In what way I failed her I cannot tell. For twelve years I was a loyal, faithful husband but somehow we grew apart. When she left to visit her mother I thought it a good idea, the change might do her good. I knew she was unhappy — she always had seeds of unhappiness within her. Some people are made that way and one cannot change them. But that she would take her own life — it seemed then and seems now — incredible. And it is deeply on my conscience.”
“I shouldn’t think it would have to be,” she said, feeling sorry for him. “Even husbands and wives know very little about what goes on in the other’s mind. Life is essentially lonely. She may have known people you did not know, had thoughts you never dreamed of. I can conceive of a wife having a tragedy completely separate and unknown to her husband.”
“Perhaps. It is kind of you to say so. And tonight, for the first time in years, I do not feel lonesome.”
“ ’Sank you. Nor I either.”
They fingered long over their dinner and drank a little more champagne than was good for her but Walter was the perfect gentleman. He dropped her at her dingy little apartment on Fourth Avenue and, before he drove grandly off to Forest Hills, he gallantly kissed her hand. She walked up the two long flights of stairs rather unsteadily and had trouble with her key but when she looked in her mirror she was smiling. He had arranged for dinner and the opera, no less, for the following night. She took her lipstick and ringed the date, April 3, 1953, with a big red O.