Free The Other Side of Love by Jacqueline Briskin

Thrusting his hands in the pockets of his grey flannel slacks, he asked:
    “Has the German press mentioned the make-up of our basketball team?”
     
    At this abrupt retreat to the impersonal, Kathe moved a bit apart.
    “No, but basketball’s not considered a real sport here.”
     
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    ‘Tell me about it!”
    he said. He explained that this was originally a movie-studio team but some of the players had been forced by financial considerations to stay home in Hollywood.
    “I was scheduled to spend August with a buddy, but suddenly I was hot to show these Nazi bullies what it was like to be up against the great Kingsmith. I made the team. When I told my folks I was coming to Berlin, Mom went crazy.”
     
    “Aunt Rossie? That’s hard to imagine.”
     
    Wyatt walked a few steps.
    “Let’s face it,”
    he said.
    “You’re not the only one who wondered why they waited so long to make it legal. After Dad was asleep, Mom came to my room. It seems she’d been married before. The guy’s name was Myron Leventhal. Jewish, in case you’re wondering.”
     
    Kathe felt the blood drain from her face as the pieces tumbled into place. Wyatt’s outbursts against Germany, his impulsive anger at her, the baiting remarks about those Jewish Mayans.
     
    A muscle jumped at his jaw.
    “So tell me, Briinnhilde in the white suit, why the stunned expression? Have I sprouted horns?”
     
    “Please stop doing this to me,”
    she whispered.
     
    “Forget I said that,”
    he said repentantly, and began telling her of the Wyatts”
    displeasure and the Leventhals chopping Myron from the family tree. His voice grew low and he swallowed when he came to the end of the lovers”
    brief marriage. He picked a lime leaf and tore it apart before he continued with Rossie’s refusal to go back south.
    “It must have been a truly rotten time for Mom. Widowed. Pregnant. Nineteen. She’d never worked before, but she landed a job at Kingsmhh’s. Dad fell for her immediately. After he found out I was on the way, he insisted on a wedding. When Mom finished I told her that was in the past, and I didn’t feel any different. In other words, lied. Because everything was goddam different. If I wasn’t a Kingsmith, who was I? I consulted the Manhattan telephone-book for Leventhals.”
     
    “Were there any?”
     
    “You sure don’t know New York.”
    The fading light glinted on his smile.
    “A pageful. Fortunately Mom had mentioned Myron had lived near Columbia. There was a Judge and Mrs Leventhal on West
    102nd Street. I fought against going, but after a sleepless night there I was. I stood outside so long I could diagram the ironwork grille. Finally I rang the bell - my hand shook. An ancient family retainer answered. He hobbled away and returned to say that they would see me, his tone indicating that I had been granted an audience with the Lord God of Hosts.”
     
    “They must have been so happy.”
     
    “Are you kidding? It was obvious they’d kept track of Mother and knew exactly who I was. Mrs Leventhal - she’s thin, with a
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    long bony face - left it all to the judge. He asked what it was I wanted. He had a slight German accent and spoke deliberately, as if handing down a verdict. Mom had given me Myron’s watch. I put it down.
    “This belongs to you,” I said. They both sat very still for a few seconds, then Mrs Leventhal rang for coffee. Neither of them referred to the watch. The judge asked me a couple of questions
    - did I go to college, what was I studying, that kind of thing. After that he talked about them. In a way it was like the Rossies and the Wyatts. Ancestral net worths. Except the Leventhals could trace their families back further, to fifteenth-century Spain. When the Inquisition expelled the Jews, they moved on to Germany. The judge obviously thought it swell that both he and his wife’s parents had come from Germany, which struck me as wild. Why would a Jew be proud of being German? A cousin of his owns