The Last Paradise Read online

  Despite their differences, their friendship grew as solid as a redwood. Together they enjoyed their first cigarettes and went to their first prom. They fell in love with the same girls, and when those girls rebuffed them, the disappointment lasted no longer than an old umbrella on a windy day. Over six long years, they forged a bond that they swore would never break. But on graduation day, an incident marred their friendship forever. Jack had just turned eighteen, and his whole family was on the top floor of the Hotel Bossert to celebrate the occasion. The partygoers included his uncle Gabriel and his cousin Aaron, whom he rarely saw because they lived in a wealthy neighborhood on Manhattan Island—and because Solomon disapproved of the way they made a living.

  After their arrival in America, the two brothers had gone their separate ways. While Solomon persevered as a shoemaker, Gabriel worked in a pawnshop of dubious reputation before establishing his own loan office.

  However, given the occasion of the graduation, Irina had persuaded Solomon to invite Gabriel to bring the family together for the benefit of their son. Jack had also convinced his father to accommodate Walter, whose parents did not have the means to pay for their child to attend the ceremony.

  Perhaps that was why Walter ate like a man possessed and drank the punch as if he’d just crossed a desert. When the alcohol began to take effect, he became bolder, and when he learned that Jack’s cousin drove his own car and had a liveried servant, he started in on him, calling him a filthy capitalist.

  That was the first mistake leading to the life-changing tragedy. The second was Jack’s: trying to separate them, he inadvertently caused Walter to send Aaron falling down a flight of stairs. When his uncle Gabriel found his son motionless, he cursed Jack as if the accident were his fault. Aaron never walked again, and Gabriel Beilis broke the weak bond that still tied him to his brother, Solomon. As punishment, Jack’s father barred him from any contact with his friend Walter.

  The incident forever tainted Jack’s relationship with his father. For years, Solomon had imagined that one day his son would inherit his little workshop and carry on the family trade, but though Jack worked hard from dawn to dusk, his interest in footwear ended as soon as his father pulled down the shutters at the end of the day. So when Brooklyn Technical High School’s head teacher, Theodorus Rupert, offered Jack the opportunity to secure a position at the gigantic factory that the Ford Motor Company had built in Dearborn, Michigan, he jumped at the chance.

  The idea of losing his only assistant angered Solomon, but Jack was determined. In Dearborn, not only would he receive a salary four times what his father paid him as a shoemaker, but he could also advance by earning promotions. Jack promised that he would send his parents half his earnings every month, but Solomon continued to refuse until his wife intervened. Irina insisted that neither Solomon’s nor the shoe store’s interests would be put before those of her son. After all, she reminded him, in their youth they had also left their parents in Russia to immigrate to America in search of a better future.

  With his mother’s blessing and his father’s resigned acceptance, Jack packed his bags, bought a bus ticket, and moved to Michigan to enjoy what destiny had in store for him.

  For a while, he heard news of Walter Scott through the old classmates with whom he corresponded from time to time. They told him that Walter had moved to Long Island, where he was a union man, helping disadvantaged workers. Then, as the years went by, Jack gradually lost contact with his classmates and his connection to Walter. He regretted it, because he missed their friendship. On some of his visits to New York, he was tempted to try to find him, but he never dared to go against his father’s wishes concerning Walter Scott.

  A decade had passed since the ill-fated graduation dinner that left his cousin Aaron an invalid. Now, aged twenty-eight and in dire need of help, Jack was directly disobeying Solomon for the first time with respect to those wishes.

  When Walter finally appeared, Jack barely recognized him.

  His old friend still had his scruffy intellectual mien, with the same shabby tortoiseshell spectacles perched on his nose, and his characteristic red scarf knotted around his neck. Yet he was thin, and his once smart clothes were now little more than rags. Jack’s surprise was so great that he didn’t know what to say. Walter was speechless, too. Finally, they clasped each other in a long embrace.

  “It’s so good to see you, Walter! You look . . . You look great,” he lied.

  “Oh, come on, Jack, there’s no need for flattery,” the young man said with a smile. “Things have changed since we were at school together, huh? But I suppose I can’t complain. But look at you! Quite the man about town. Are you still a hit with the girls?”

  “Believe me, women are the last thing on my mind.”

  “There’s always time for dames, Jack. Always!”

  Jack could see that, though Walter had lost much of his hair, he hadn’t lost any of his optimism. His smile lifted Jack’s spirits. But his appearance didn’t really suggest that he was someone in a position to provide him with employment. He didn’t want to seem self-interested, but it was raining hard and they were getting soaked, so he asked, “What should we do, then? Should we go inside?” He pointed at the refinery entrance.

  “There? What for?”

  “I don’t know. When you mentioned this place, I thought—”

  “That the job would be here? God, no! At American Sugar they hang union guys from the chimney! No. I suggested meeting here because it’s close to a coffeehouse I know. Come on, let’s get going before we freeze to death!”

  On the way to the coffeehouse, Jack wondered how he’d pay for their drinks—he needed every last cent that he possessed. Walter seemed to read his mind.

  “It’s on me. They still give me credit there.” He laughed self-assuredly and put his arm around Jack’s shoulder.

  When they walked into the establishment, Walter smiled and greeted the other customers. Jack was pleased to see that his friend was still the same affable, talkative guy he had been, the kind of person whose mere presence could brighten up a wake.

  They made themselves comfortable at a table by a window and ordered coffee. Jack asked for a large one. They could barely breathe with the cigarette smoke, but it was warm and comfortable, and the music from the wireless was an invitation to believe that happiness still existed in some corner of the world. Jack sipped his coffee nervously. It was burning hot, and though he detected a hint of chicory, it tasted no less delicious.

  “Well, thanks for coming, Walter. I guess my call surprised you? I bet you’re wondering why I’ve suddenly appeared, after so much time and . . . Well . . . it might sound like an excuse, but I would have found you sooner had my father allowed it. I never blamed you for what happened to Aaron. But for my family, it was a big blow. You know how these things are . . . Then the years went by and, well, what else can I say? I’ve missed you, old buddy.”

  “Oh, come on! You don’t have to apologize, especially for something that was my fault.” Walter downed his coffee, and his eyes came to rest on the tabletop, as if he could see the past on its surface. “Believe me, I’ve gone over and over it, and I still don’t understand why I behaved like that. I don’t know, I was sore . . . That cousin of yours, he was so young and full of himself. He had everything, and I couldn’t even pay for my dinner. The drink went to my head, and when he poked fun at my clothes, I lost my cool and—” He looked down and fell silent, before adding, “I asked after you and Aaron a few times. They told me he never recovered.”

  “It’s true. Ah well, let’s change the subject. How about a toast, to us?”

  “This damned Prohibition! Toasting with coffee. What the world’s come to, eh, Jack?” He touched his empty cup against his friend’s with a smile.

  “So you’re still living on Long Island?” Jack asked.

  “Surviving, shall we say? But tell me about you. I heard it was going well for you in Detroit. Someone even said you got yourself an apartment. Your parents mus
t be proud of you.”

  Jack’s face darkened. Looking at him, Walter remembered how close Jack had been to his mother.

  “I’m sorry. I forgot about your ma. My parents died, too. But it’s a fact of life. We just have to pick ourselves up and carry on.”

  “It was like a prelude to this goddamned depression. First I lost my mother, then . . . then everything else.” He sighed.

  Jack couldn’t stop himself remembering the afternoon of March 23, 1931, when Bruce Tallman called him into his office at the Ford factory in Dearborn. At that time, Tallman was foreman of the stamping area, where they shaped the gleaming metal coils into doors and fenders for the Model A. Jack presumed he was calling him in to promote him. Despite the economic crisis, the assembly lines were at full capacity, and there were rumors among the workers that an innovative new vehicle was about to go into production and take the market by storm.

  As Jack walked into the office, Tallman asked him to sit down and offered him a cigarette. Jack was suspicious—the man was never this friendly. He accepted the cigarette all the same. But before the first puff reached his lungs, the foreman had taken a piece of paper from his drawer and held it out to him without saying a word. Jack recognized the document immediately. For a moment, he thought it must be a mistake, but Tallman continued to hold out the letter of dismissal until Jack took it from him. After reading it, he sat in silence. The document announced the termination of his contract without specifying a reason. As he looked up, he saw a hint of a smile on the foreman’s face, a smile he could happily wipe off with a thump, he thought to himself. But assaulting him would only get Jack locked up, and he wasn’t going to give Tallman that pleasure. After slamming the door on his way out, he headed to the trade union offices, where they informed him that there was nothing they could do. Henry Ford, the factory’s owner, had personally ordered every Jew to be dismissed.

  “They must have added my name to a blacklist, because I found it impossible to find work anywhere in Detroit. When my savings ran out, I had to leave my apartment, so I came back to be with my father, who wasn’t in a good way. He hadn’t told me, but the shoe store’s debts and the cost of treating my mother’s illness had ruined him. For a while, I worked in a repair shop, fixing flat tires and washing cars for a miserable salary until the owner sold the business. Then I did a bit of everything: mechanic, lathe operator, electrician, docker. But unemployment spread through New York, and by the end of the summer, I found myself on the street, broke. It’s nothing you haven’t heard already! And the ironic thing about all of this is that my father still thinks I’m working. He’s sick, and I don’t want to upset him. Which is why I thought to call you. I reckoned that seeing as you’re a trade union guy, you might be able to help me. I hope I’m right.”

  “The filthy rats! I could imagine it happening to pretty much anyone, but not you. And at Ford! Those fat cats! Things are bad. Really bad. I’m serious. You should have formed a union.” He stood up from the table and gesticulated at the other patrons of the coffeehouse. “Workers need to defend themselves against the vultures. They need to band together to help one another. Do you hear? This is how the capitalists grind us down!”

  Jack was embarrassed. He’d forgotten how vehement Walter could become, and he tried to calm him down; he didn’t want them to be thrown out, and he was even less keen for word to get around that he was one of those hotheads who goaded the jobless into rising up against the employers. Fortunately, the few customers in the coffeehouse continued with their conversations without paying much attention. Jack got the feeling it wasn’t the first time they’d listened to one of his friend’s rousing speeches.

  “There you go,” Walter said, slumping despondently back into his chair. “Spineless, all of them! The jobless just sit around waiting for someone to come down from the heavens and help them, and the employed bless themselves and keep their heads down to wait for the storm to pass. To hell with this country!”

  Jack felt uncomfortable. Walter had been his best friend, but that didn’t mean Jack had to share his radical views. In fact, Jack remained convinced that the United States offered endless opportunities and that if a man worked hard enough, sooner or later he’d escape the misery. His fear was that it might not happen before he starved to death.

  He kept his thoughts to himself and refocused on Walter.

  “So, you’re just a trade unionist?”

  “Well, let’s say I used to be. The printer’s where I worked went bust, and the bastard in charge let us all go. The trade union thing gave me enough to survive on for a while, but no longer. But we sure as hell gave that bloodsucker his comeuppance!” He smashed his fist into the palm of his other hand.

  “So, you’re out of a job, too?”

  “Who isn’t? Wake up, Jack! Why do you think I’m wearing this patched suit?”

  Jack took a deep breath. As nice as it would’ve been to reminisce about the old days, it was time to speak frankly. When he asked him about the kind of work he had in mind for him, Walter gave him a mischievous smile, adjusted his spectacles, and from his raincoat took a newspaper clipping that he unfolded on the table.

  “Relax, Jack. I have everything under control.” He pushed the crumpled clipping toward his friend.

  Jack picked up the piece of paper and smoothed it out with care. As he read, he went from confused to astonished.

  “Walter, if this is some kind of joke, I’m not in the mood for—”

  “A joke? Are you serious? This is the solution to all our problems!” He pointed at the scrap of newspaper again.

  Jack had to read the New York Times advertisement twice to convince himself that Walter was serious.

  THE AMTORG TRADING CORPORATION

  OFFERS AMERICA’S UNEMPLOYED THOUSANDS OF JOBS

  IN THE FACTORIES OF THE SOVIET UNION

  “Have you lost your mind?” He stood, visibly disappointed. “Do you really think I’m going to leave the country where I was born to go back to the hell my parents escaped from?”

  “Listen to me, Jack! Things aren’t like they were before. Now the Soviets are offering—”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you? For the love of God, Walter! We’re Americans! Have you forgotten that those Bolsheviks are butchers? That they killed the tsar and everyone else who got in their way? Even our own government has questioned the legitimacy of their leaders!”

  “Please, Jack, calm down and listen! I was at Amtorg yesterday, and everything advertised here is true. You should’ve seen the lines of applicants, from all over the country: Texans, Southerners, Californians . . . entire starving families, looking for a better life.”

  “I’m sorry, Walter, but you can count me out.”

  “Oh, come on, Jack! You speak perfect Russian. And there’s work for you there. Do you know how much they’re paying in their factories? A hundred and eighty dollars a month! Do you hear me? How much would you get here now, if you could even find a job? Four dollars? Five, maybe? And that’s not all. In Russia, they’ll give you a free home! And medicine. And paid vacation. Look, just last year they received over a hundred thousand applications from Americans like you and me. A hundred thousand, Jack! With your skills and my contacts, we’d be kings of the world.”

  Jack shook his head in disapproval.

  “Russia . . . You must be crazy.”

  “Crazy? Me? Have you stopped to look at yourself recently?” Walter fell silent for a moment. “Do you really think you’re going to trick anyone with your raincoat that won’t even button up? Tell me something: When was the last time you ate a hot plate of spaghetti? Or a hamburger? Or pork chops? How long will you last like this? What has this country done for you that makes you think it’s so great?”

  Jack wasn’t sure how to answer, but the one thing he did know was that in Detroit he’d had a chance to enjoy life. Though he had lost everything he had worked for, something told him that he could get it all back.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t accept, Walter.
I knew that you were wrapped up in all this stuff at school, but I never thought you’d go this far. I don’t know. Maybe it’s my fault for thinking you were talking about a normal job. Thanks for the offer anyhow. If you end up going, I wish you all the luck in the world.” He rummaged around in his pocket for the money to pay for the coffees himself.

  “Wait a minute, Jack. Don’t you see? We used to be inseparable, and now you’ve shown up as if it were meant to happen. I don’t speak a word of Russian; I’d feel like an orphan out there. If it’s the Bolsheviks who are the problem, I can promise you that—”

  “It’s not just that. I told you, my father’s sick. I can’t just leave him.”

  “And what will you do for him here? Start begging to pay for his hooch?”

  “Watch your mouth, Walter! I won’t allow you to insult my family!” Jack’s voice turned threatening. He left twenty cents on the table and turned around to leave, but Walter held him by the arm.

  “It’s common knowledge. That drunk’s sucking you dry, and you just let him do—”

  A fist stopped Walter midsentence, making him crash into a table. Jack froze. He realized how out of proportion his reaction had been. He tried to help Walter up, but his friend refused the gesture.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” Walter said, acting as if it were nothing as he tried to reassemble the spectacles that Jack had just broken. “I don’t believe it, Jack. At school you protected me from the bullies, and now you’ve turned into one of them.”

  Jack couldn’t find it in himself to apologize. He just put on his hat and left. As soon as he was out on the street, the rain whipped his face. He regretted punching his friend, but Walter had asked for it. His problems with his father were his own, and no one, not even Walter, had the right to rub salt in the wound.

  2

  Back in Williamsburg, Jack noticed two squat figures sitting on the steps at the entrance to his father’s apartment block. They were cloaked in the smoke from their cigarettes, but as he approached, he recognized one of the figures as his landlord, Lukas Kowalski. The other man was one of his goons. When the landlord spotted Jack, he stood with a snort.