The Last of the Stanfields(89)
Toward the end of fall, Robert was approached by another driver and became entangled in a scheme delivering black-market goods. Robert would keep the keys to the truck on him after his official route had ended, and then, after hours, he would pick up the truck, cross the Hudson River, and drive down to the docks on the Jersey side to load crates of cigarettes and other contraband for distribution.
It was a victimless crime, but it would have come with heavy consequences if he’d ever got caught. Yet the pay outweighed the high risk, a full fifty dollars per truckload. With four runs per weekend, he was at last able to offer Hanna a better life. He could now take her out to dinner on Wednesdays and Saturdays, or even dancing at a West Village jazz club.
One night, Robert came home from work to find Hanna crying at the kitchen stove. She wept soundlessly, as the steam from a pot of fresh vegetable soup rose up into her face. Robert sat down at the table without a word, and after Hanna had set down the tureen and served his dinner, she headed off to bed. Robert followed shortly after, lying in the bed beside her and waiting for his young wife to speak.
“I see how hard you’re trying, darling. I don’t blame you at all. Rather, I’m indebted to you for everything you’ve done for me. It’s just . . . life here . . . isn’t what I thought it would be,” she said.
“We’re going to be okay,” Robert insisted. “We just have to wait it out. If we stay strong and stick together, we’re going to make it.”
“Stick together?” she sighed. “I already feel like I’m going it alone, almost all the time, every day of the week. And don’t think I’m blind to what you’ve been doing on the weekends; I’m no fool. All I have to do is look out of the window to see who you’re cavorting with in the dead of night, and what you’re mixed up in. I know a deliveryman’s wages would never pay for all those meals out, not to mention the new ice box last month, or that dress you gave me.”
“I’m just trying to give you the nice things you deserve.”
“I won’t wear that dress, Robert. I don’t want dirty money, and I don’t want to live like this anymore.”
Hanna had been spending far too much time walking around posh neighborhoods. She watched the refined, attractive people wearing the most lavish attire and driving around in shiny new cars. She peered through the windows of places she was now barred from entering, gazing at the very people with whom she had spent her entire childhood. The war and the loss of her father had forced Hanna into exile. She was looking in from the outside, wandering about like Alice in Wonderland in search of a secret door that would lead her back to her old life and the world to which she belonged.
“You don’t understand, Robert. We’re never going to get anywhere with you driving a truck, and I can’t stand the thought of you in prison—at least, not unless it’s for something worthwhile.”
“Are you serious?” asked Robert, astonished.
“Of course not! If you join the Mafia, I’ll walk out on you. I only wish we could find a way to get back to France . . .”
“And just what would that change?”
“One day I’ll tell you.”
Hanna had no idea of the consequences of her words. That one conversation would steer the course of their entire future together, driving Robert further into a life of lies. The absurdity and irony of it all was that every lie was out of love for her.
The end of December 1944 saw Manhattan blanketed in endless snow. On New Year’s Eve, Robert promised Hanna he would be back before dinner. She had pushed their budget to the limit on a decadent meal from Schwartz’s, their favorite deli on the Upper West Side, splurging on smoked whitefish, pastrami, salmon roe, and sweet challah. She arrived home and set the table, at last ready to put on the dress her husband had given her.
At nightfall, Robert made his last run of the year, arriving to find the docks in total darkness and empty. There was no risk that the police would be patrolling all the way out there on New Year’s Eve. The loading of cigarette cartons and crates of booze took place seamlessly. The two longshoremen who helped Robert wished him a happy new year and were on their way. He tied down the tarp, climbed behind the wheel, and turned over the engine. As the truck lumbered between two cranes, a red light appeared in Robert’s rearview mirror. A cop car was right on his tail, its siren wailing in the dark night. Robert knew he could play dumb about the cargo, claiming he was a deliveryman putting in some overtime for the holidays. With his spotless record, he risked little more than a night in jail and a slap on the wrist from a judge. But the thought of being held behind bars made Robert panic. He froze, paralyzed by the memory of the only other time he had been held prisoner, and the scars that he still bore from that terrible day.
He slammed on the gas, jerking the wheel. Determined to bury any evidence of wrongdoing, Robert sent the truck roaring straight for the river. He leapt out of the cabin at the last second and rolled, catching just a glimpse of the truck as it plunged into the murky Hudson. The cop car nearly met the same fate, but came to a screeching halt with its front bumper hanging out over the void.
Robert didn’t wait for the cop to come to his wits. He scrambled to his feet and fled, disappearing into the labyrinth of stacked cargo.
1945
New York had already rung in the new year by the time Robert arrived home, with skinned elbows and knees, and a fresh set of bruises on his back. Hanna tended to his wounds without uttering a single word. He thought she might explode at any moment, and he’d spent the long two-hour walk through the dark and icy streets preparing for a serious blowup. Yet Hanna seemed strangely calm as she dressed his wounds.