New York - The Novel

Twice her age, anyway. But he looked in pretty good shape.
    And you had to admit, older men were much more interesting.
    The St. Regis, on Fifth at Fifty-fifth, was not just a hotel. It was a palace. He’d taken her for a drink, first to the paneled bar, where Maxfield Parrish’s huge, luminous mural,
Old King Cole
, gave a rich glow to the whole room. She’d liked that. And then they had gone into the pillared dining room. Mr. Charles Master certainly knew how to treat a girl. And he talked well, too.
    It was only three weeks since she’d taken the job at the gallery, even if it did pay peanuts. So when Mr. Master had walked in this morning with his incredible collection of photographs, and the gallery owner had told her to take care of it, she couldn’t believe her luck. And now they were sitting in the St. Regis, and she was enjoying one of the most interesting conversations she’d ever had in her life.
    This man seemed to know everybody. He’d been friends with Eugene O’Neill and all the theater crowd back in the twenties, and he’d written plays himself. He’d heard the jazz greats in Harlem before they were famous, remembered Charlie Chaplin when he was still performing onstage. And now he’d just told her something even more amazing.
    “You know Ernest Hemingway?” She worshipped Hemingway. “Where did you meet him? In Paris?”
    “In Spain.”
    “You mean you were in the Spanish Civil War?”
    Sarah had only been seven years old when the Spanish Civil War began, but she had learned about it at school—and at home. At the Adler house in Brooklyn, the discussions had been endless. Of course, none of them supported the side that finally won. General Franco the fascist, with his authoritarian Catholics and monarchists, was everything the Adler family hated. “He’s no better than Hitler,” her father used to say. As for her mother, Esther Adler, who came from a family of liberals and trade unionists, she was ready to join the International Brigade and go to fight herself! Everyone was for the left.
    Except for Uncle Herman. Her father’s brother was a thickset man who used to pride himself on his knowledge of European affairs. And whatever the subject, he always knew best. “Listen,” he’d declare, “Franco is an old-fashioned authoritarian. He’s a son of a bitch, okay? But he’s not a Nazi.”
    Then her mother would berate him.
    “And those Catholic monarchists of his? You know what the Spanish Inquisition did to the Jews?”
    And soon there would be a furious argument.
    “You think the people fighting Franco are American liberals, like you? Let me tell you, Esther, half these people are Trotskyists and anarchists. Okay? They want to turn the place into Stalin’s Russia. You really think that’s a good idea? No!” Uncle Herman would suddenly shout when his brother tried to interrupt him. “I want to know if she really thinks that’s such a great idea.”
    “Your uncle just likes to argue,” her mother would tell Sarah, afterward. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
    But when he was alone with Sarah, Uncle Herman would give her candy and tell her stories in the gentlest voice, so she knew he was good and kind. It was just that he liked to argue.
    Sadly, those were the only memories Sarah had of her Uncle Herman.The Spanish Civil War was still in progress when he’d gone away to Europe—though not to fight in Spain. Maybe his fate would have been different if he had gone there.
    For Uncle Herman had never returned. It was a subject her father couldn’t bear to speak about. So the family never mentioned the poor man now.
    “I was a journalist,” said Charlie. “For the Hearst newspapers. I drank with Hemingway a few times, that’s all.”
    Sarah laughed out loud.
    “You’re mocking me,” he said.
    “No. I’m impressed. What was Hemingway like?”
    “Good company. I liked him better than Dos Passos or George Orwell.”
    “Dos Passos? Orwell? Oh my God, that must have been amazing.”
    “True. But civil wars are ugly. Bloody.”
    “Hemingway was wounded.”
    “So was I, actually.”
    “Really? How?”
    “There was a man down, quite near where I was reporting. You could hear him screaming. They had a stretcher, but only one bearer.” He shrugged. “I helped out. Took some shrapnel on the way back.” He grinned. “There’s a piece still in my leg, which speaks to me sometimes.”
    “You have a scar?”
    “Of course.”
    “But you saved a