Always and Forever Read online

  Wouldn’t David be pissed when he realized that his cousin had moved in where he had never made it! David was such a loser. He wouldn’t have to say anything to David. David would understand just from seeing them together.

  He knew when he asked Kathy to come with him to Paris that he’d propose. She was beautiful and bright and hot. After two years of fighting a war he wanted a steady woman in his life. No more having to chase after girls—he’d have a woman of his own. Chuck and he had talked a lot about that.

  He waited another few moments, just to make sure Kathy was asleep for the night, then slid from under the comforters with a silent oath as he emerged into the dank cold. Swiftly he dressed, with constant glances at the bed to make sure Kathy was asleep.

  He walked down the stairs, out through the kitchen into the backyard. He’d find a shovel in the toolshed. It was almost as though the calendar had swung backward and he was heading with Chuck to bury the paintings. Only that had been a scorching night in August and they’d worried about being seen in the spill of moonlight.

  The paintings had to be here, he thought with sudden apprehension as he found a shovel. Who else knew about them? He counted off paces from the back steps, then began to dig, no longer cold with the physical effort required of him. Damn, how far down had they planted the canvases? Then the shovel hit the metal lid of the oversized toolbox in which they had cached their secret treasure.

  Gloating in relief, he brought out the box and opened it. The paintings had not suffered through the course of being buried; He could take the art and bury the box again, cover it up. Nobody would know he’d been digging out here. And if they got curious, so what? Nobody knew who he was. By tomorrow afternoon Kathy and he would be heading back to Hamburg. Just an ex-GI and his girlfriend out for a weekend in Paree.

  He’d have Kathy bring in the paintings, he decided as he made his way back into the house. He’d just ask her to stuff a box of film into one of her valises. The box would be sealed up; she wouldn’t bother trying to open it.

  “I’ve got so damn much film I can’t squeeze this batch into my luggage. Bring it in for me, honey.”

  David watched in private torment while Phil presented each of the girls of the group with a bottle of French perfume.

  “A gift,” Phil stressed with an air of gallantry.

  It wasn’t the perfume that upset David. He knew from the glint in Phil’s eyes, from the possessive way he dropped an arm about Kathy’s shoulders, that his cousin had made yet another conquest. How could Kathy fall for that line of shit that Phil spread around?

  “I’ll be sailing out of here in about eight days,” Phil told them. “Provided, of course, my magazine gets the ticket here in time. You know the problem we’re having with mail these days,” he reminded grimly.

  “Take my place on the group’s return trip, Phil.” David turned to Brian. “That’ll be okay, won’t it?”

  “What about you, David?” Brian seemed troubled.

  “I’m going on to Berlin,” he said. “I’ll probably stay there.”

  “You mean for good?” Rhoda asked.

  “For good,” David acknowledged. “I’d like to pick up where my father left off.” He made a point of avoiding Kathy’s eyes. Why did she look so shocked?

  “Why don’t you come back home with us and give it some thought?” Brian urged. “It’s a serious decision.”

  “I know,” David said quietly. “It’s what I have to do. Thanks for bringing me over, Brian. This has been a very special time for me.”

  Later, when the others had gone off to bed, David sat alone in the living room. When had he lost out with Kathy? When Phil arrived, he taunted himself. But then Phil always had that way of moving in and taking any girl that appeared interested in him. It was a weird kind of competition, but it had never disturbed him until now.

  “David—”

  He glanced up with a start as Kathy came into the night-cold room. She wore a maroon flannel robe over her pajamas.

  “I thought you’d be fast asleep by now after a weekend in Paris.” He managed a light chuckle.

  “I can’t believe you’re not going back with us.”

  “I’d been thinking about it for weeks,” he lied. “I can be useful to those who’re trying to pick up their lives again in Berlin.”

  “Everything will be hectic from now on,” Kathy said slowly. She was reaching for something beneath the lapel of her robe. “Let me give you this back before I forget about it.” She unpinned the bow-shaped brooch, closed the pin again, and handed it to him.

  “Keep it,” he said, almost brusque. “As a souvenir of our time in Germany.”

  “David, I can’t do that,” she said. “It’s too important to you. A piece of home, you said—”

  She held out the brooch with an air of finality. Reluctantly he took it from her. No woman would ever wear it, he vowed. He would love no other woman.

  “Be happy, Kathy,” he said with unexpected intensity. “You’re a very special lady.”

  Chapter 5

  AS FEBRUARY APPROACHED ITS end, Brian and his group grew apprehensive about transportation back to New York. Phil, too, reported that the magazine was encountering problems about his passage home. Kathy was touched when she inadvertently discovered that Phil had received reservations on a west-bound liner and was concealing this. He was uneasy about leaving her behind in Hamburg, she interpreted, when he knew their funds were running out.

  Then Brian managed to cut through bureaucratic red tape to acquire reservations for the group but with only forty-eight hours’ notice before sailing.

  “I won’t even be able to tell my folks I’m coming home,” Kathy told Phil while he helped her pack. He was apologetic about asking her to find a place in her luggage for batches of his film because his own was overstuffed, and it was impossible to buy luggage in Hamburg. Nor was there time to try to secure any using the barter system.

  “I’ll just walk in on them,” said Kathy, her thoughts still with her family. She felt a rush of excitement at the prospect of seeing them all again. She had never been away so long.

  “I cabled my folks,” Phil said casually. They grew up in such different worlds, Kathy thought again. “Would you like me to send a cable to your family?”

  “No,” she said quickly and laughed. “They’d be terrified before they opened it and saw it wasn’t some awful message—like I’d died or was badly hurt.”

  “We’re traveling like cattle,” he warned. “The next time we cross the Atlantic it’ll be on the likes of the Normandie or the Queen Elizabeth.”

  Kathy started at the light knock on the open door, and turned to face David.

  “Kathy, I thought you’d like to know,” he said with a shy smile. “I heard from my uncle in New York. Phil’s father—”

  “What’s up?” Phil demanded, one eyebrow lifted in curiosity. “I had your father run an ad in the Daily News to try to locate somebody in the Bronx. A cousin to a teenager Kathy and I were working with.”

  “Are you kidding?” Phil clucked in skepticism. “People read the three front pages, the sporting news, and the columnists. Who’s going to notice a personals ad?”

  “Heidi’s cousin did,” David shot back, his face triumphant. He turned to Kathy. “The cousin’s been in touch with the relief agencies. She and her husband want to bring Heidi to live with them.”

  “Oh, David, how wonderful!” She darted across the room and threw her arms about him. “Did you tell her yet?”

  “She knows.” David nodded while Kathy self-consciously took a step back.

  “Phil, this is such great news.” She turned to him, surprised by his lack of enthusiasm. “Heidi has nobody else in the world but her cousins in the Bronx.”

  “Some luck.” Now Phil acknowledged his approval.

  “I’m glad it happened while we’re here. I wanted so much to see Heidi with family. It was a fine thing for you to have accomplished, David.” Why wasn’t David going back to Ne
w York with them, Kathy asked herself for the dozenth time. Why must he sentence himself to stay in Germany? New York was his home now, he hadn’t lived in Berlin since he was a teenager.

  “I’m happy for Heidi.” All at once David was unfamiliarly formal. “It’s what she wanted.”

  At dinner David announced he was leaving for Berlin late that evening. Kathy was startled. She’d thought he’d stay until the group sailed tomorrow night.

  “Our work is done here,” he said quietly. “I’m anxious to find out how I begin to operate in Berlin.”

  “It may take a while,” Phil told him, “but you’ll collect a fortune in reparations from the German government. Keep your eyes open, old boy.”

  “The German government can never repay for the lives they took.” David’s face was etched with rekindled rage. “The world must never forget.”

  “There’s probably a frightful shortage of doctors in Berlin,” Rhoda said softly. “They’ll be fighting for your services.”

  After dinner David shook hands with the men, kissed each of the girls on the cheek—Kathy last of all—and with valise in hand walked down the hall and out the door. Kathy was conscious of a painful sense of loss. David was Phil’s cousin and her close friend. She had expected to see him when they were back in New York. She had thought that of all those in the group David and Rhoda would remain part of her life after Hamburg.

  “David couldn’t bear to stand at the harbor and see you leave,” Rhoda said sentimentally when they were alone in the kitchen on dishwashing duty.

  “You’re way off base,” Kathy said defensively. “David and I were close friends. There was nothing romantic between us.”

  “David was mad about you. We all knew that.”

  “He never said a word to me.” He’d never even tried to kiss her. He’d asked her to wear the brooch because—she sought for his words and then remembered—"”Seeing you wear it will be like seeing a bit of home.”

  “Hey, Kathy—” Phil hovered in the doorway. “What about a refill on that Turkish coffee? Is there enough left for one more pot?”

  Again, the group crossed the Atlantic in primitive quarters. The days seemed to drag for all of them, though Phil labored to create a sense of conviviality. On their last evening before arriving at their port, Kathy stood at the railing with Phil and gazed at the spill of moonlight on the water. She was eager to see her family, yet apprehensive about telling them about Phil. She should have given them some warning.

  “Why don’t we both stay over tomorrow night at my place in town?” Phil said, an arm about her waist. “I feel so deprived.”

  “You’ll make up.” She lifted her face to his.

  “This is such a teaser,” he reproached but kissed her with passionate promise. “What about staying over?” he tried again.

  “I’d feel so guilty at not going right home,” she confessed.

  “Okay.” He sighed and slid a hand around to the curve of her breast. He laughed as she glanced around in instant alarm. “Nobody can see us.” He pulled her around to face him, moved with her in arousal. “So when’s the wedding?”

  “As soon as my parents can make the arrangements.” Her voice was unsteady. “They don’t even know you exist—”

  “We go home tomorrow night, but the next night,” he said firmly, “I show you my place.” He chuckled with pleasurable anticipation. “Among other things.”

  “Why not? But I can’t stay all night.” Even knowing she was marrying Phil, Mom and Dad would be horrified if they thought she had spent the night with him.

  “My folks won’t believe it.” Phil was amused. “They’ve been trying to marry me off since I finished college. And here I’m bringing home a nice Jewish girl. Mother was sure I’d marry a shiksa. Dad figured I’d play the field forever.”

  How would his parents feel about his marrying a girl whose father ran a candy store in Brooklyn, Kathy asked herself. At intervals she worried about his parents’ reaction. She’d grown up in an apartment above the candy store. Phil was raised in a mansion in Greenwich.

  Aunt Sophie had said it was important for her to go to a prestigious college—translation, where the students came from rich homes. If she hadn’t gone to Barnard, she wouldn’t have been part of the group that went to Hamburg. She wouldn’t have met Phil. She wouldn’t have met David, she thought involuntarily.

  Their ship docked early in the afternoon. Their group exchanged fervent good-byes and promises to stay in touch. Duffel bag over one shoulder, Phil insisted they find a cab to take them to Lindy’s for a late lunch before she headed for Brooklyn and he went to his father’s office and a ride to Greenwich.

  “Oh, let me get my film out of your valise before we eat,” he said as they climbed out of the taxi and the driver circled to the trunk to bring out their luggage.

  “Phil, you’re opening my valise right here on Broadway?” she reproached with laughter while he reached for the valise that contained his package.

  “Why not?” he shrugged, ignoring the curious glances of passers-by. “Here it is.” He withdrew the package and closed the valise again, shoving the package into his duffel bag. “We could go to a hotel—” He managed an appealing grin. “Walking into Lindy’s with all this gear could be awkward.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.” She was too excited over being home to think straight about anything, she admitted subconsciously.

  “We’ll go over to Seventh Avenue to the Taft,” he decided, his eyes amorous. “We’ll make love, then call room service for thick roast beef sandwiches and real coffee. I dare you to say no.”

  “Roast beef and real coffee?” She pretended to be weighing this. “Now how could I turn down an offer like that?” So she’d arrive in Borough Park two hours later.

  At shortly before 5 P.M., Phil put Kathy into a taxi and gave the driver instructions to take her to her address.

  “In Brooklyn,” he repeated, and erased the driver’s grimace with the bill he dropped onto the seat.

  “Drive carefully,” he ordered. “This is my bride-to-be.”

  He watched the taxi pull away from the curb, then flagged down another to take him down Seventh Avenue to his father’s office. He hated that drab area, the ugly manufacturing loft that was set up around his father’s lushly furnished oversized office, plus the loft on the floor above where the furs were dressed and dyed. All the worktables and machines were set up around the old man’s office like a colony of peons around an exalted master, he thought with a touch of humor.

  He’d heard a million times about how his grandfather Peter had come to America from Russia back in 1881 to build a fur empire, as his father and uncle had done in Russia. “Your great-grandfather Nathan was furrier to the Czarina herself, as well as to the Royal Court,” his father loved to brag. “Your grandfather on my side came to New York, he learned the place to trade was Alaska—and he went there and bought raw furs from the natives on the mainland. That was the beginning of the Kohn Fur Company. And I don’t do so bad myself. Look at the movie stars who come to Julius Kohn.” It became Julius Kohn Furs at the death of his grandfather.

  His duffel bag over one shoulder in the image of the returning GI, Phil walked into the elevator in the turn-of-the-century building where his father had moved the manufacturing section of the firm twenty years ago. The Kohn Furs retail store was a huge expanse of lush decor up on Madison Avenue, but the old man spent most of his time here, though he made a habit of summoning favored models from the store to his office. “To model the new styles for me” was the way he put it, Phil recalled. Most of their modeling was on the maroon velvet sofa that dominated one wall of his office.

  Riding up in the ancient elevator, Phil remembered how his father had brought him into the ostentatiously furnished office on his sixteenth birthday and pointed to a tall, rather flat-chested young model sitting on the sofa with her legs crossed so high he could see velvety white skin between stocking top and lace-edged panties.

  “Phi
l, this is Daisy,” he’d said with a wink. “Daisy, my son. It’s his birthday—be good to him.”

  Dad didn’t know that he’d been pulling up skirts since he was fourteen. Still, it was fun to do it with a high-class model ten years older than he was. She’d been surprised that he wasn’t exactly inexperienced.

  He walked from the elevator onto the huge floor, deserted now because the workday was over. As far back as he could remember, Dad made a point of bringing him into the work area three or four times a year, showing off “my only son.”

  For a moment he hesitated before the closed door to the office. Was he interrupting a little something? Then with a shrug he lifted a hand and knocked.

  “Come in.” Expectancy in his father’s voice. He opened the door and walked inside. “What took you so long?” Julius Kohn reproached, but he was on his feet and rushing to embrace his son. “I thought you’d be here this morning.”

  “I didn’t say what time,” Phil reminded, always uncomfortable when his father kissed him. “We just docked. You know what traffic is like this time of day.”

  “I told Wally to hang around at the garage until I called him to come and get us.” He dropped an arm about Phil’s shoulders and prodded him toward the sofa. “Well?” he asked with a sly grin. “You brought back my paintings?”

  “Right in here.” While his father watched, he reached into his duffel bag and brought out the tightly wrapped parcel.

  “Thirty thousand bucks and I don’t even get frames?” Julius lifted his eyebrows questioningly.

  “Dad, you didn’t expect me to smuggle them out of the country in the frames?” he demanded. “These are two old masters. If I’d been caught, you’d have one hell of a time bailing me out.”

  For a few moments they were silent while Phil ripped open the parcel, brought out the two canvases, then spread them on the floor.