“Your smile, Hazel Jones! That cinches the deal.”
It was a little joke between them, rather daring on Edgar Zimmerman’s part. His fingers caressed the spiky goatee, with unconscious ardor.
Edgar Zimmerman, too, was a pianist: not so gifted as his brother Hans but very capable, demonstrating pianos for customers by playing favorite passages from Schubert, Chopin, the thunderous opening of Rachmaninoff’s “Prelude in C-sharp Minor” and the romantic-liquidy opening of Beethoven’s so-called “Moonlight Sonata.” Edgar spoke of having heard Rachmaninoff play the Prelude, long ago at Carnegie Hall, Manhattan. An unforgettable evening!
Hazel said, smiling her ingenuous smile, “You didn’t ever hear Beethoven, I guess?-in Germany? That was too long ago, I guess?”
Edgar laughed. “Hazel, of course! Beethoven died in 1827.”
“And when did your family come to this country, Mr. Zimmerman? A long time ago, I guess?”
“Yes. A long time ago.”
“Before the war?”
“Before both wars.”
“You must have had relatives. Back in Germany. It is Germany the Zimmermans came from, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Stuttgart. A beautiful city, or was.”
“”Was‘?“
“Stuttgart was destroyed in the war.”
“Which war?”
Edgar Zimmerman saw Hazel smiling at him, though less certainly. She was an awkward schoolgirl, twining a strand of hair around her forefinger. Her red-lacquered nails flashed.
He said, “Someday, Hazel, maybe you will see Germany. There are some landmarks that remain.”
“Oh, I would like that very much, Mr. Zimmerman! On my honeymoon, maybe.”
They laughed together. Edgar Zimmerman was feeling giddy, as if the floor had begun to tilt beneath him.
“Hazel, much said about Germany-about Germans-has been luridly exaggerated. The Americans make a fetish of exaggeration, like in Hollywood, you see?-for a profit. Always for a profit, to sell tickets! We Germans have all been tarred with the same brush.”
“What brush is that, Mr. Zimmerman?”
Edgar edged closer to Hazel, stroking his chin nervously. They were alone together in the lavish piano showroom.
“The Juden brush. What else!”
Edgar spoke with a bitter laugh. He was feeling reckless suddenly, this naive attractive girl staring at him with widened eyes.
“”Juden‘?“
“Jewish.”
Hazel was looking so perplexed, Edgar regretted he’d brought the damned subject up. It was never a subject that quite justified the expenditure of emotion it seemed to require.
He said, in his lowered voice, “What they have claimed. How they-Jews-have wished to poison the world against us. Their propaganda about ”death camps.“”
Still Hazel was looking perplexed. “Who is ”us,“ Mr. Zimmerman? Do you mean Nazis?”
“Not Nazis, Hazel! Really. Germans.”
He was very excited now. His heart beat in his chest like a deranged metronome. But there was Madge in the doorway, summoning Edgar to the telephone.
The subject would never again be brought up between them.
“Hazel Jones, you keep us all young. Thank God for people like you!”
It was Hazel’s idea to bring flowers in vases, to display on the most beautiful of the pianos in the showroom. It was Hazel Jones’s idea to organize a raffle for tickets to Hans Zimmerman’s annual student recital, held each May; and to offer “complimentary” tickets to customers who spent a certain sum of money at the store each month. Why not television advertisements, instead of just radio? And why not sponsor a competition for young pianists, it would be such wonderful publicity for Zimmerman Brothers…
Hazel grew breathless, expressing such ideas. Her older companions in the store smiled in dismay.
It was then Madge Dorsey made the remark about Hazel Jones keeping them all young. And thank God for people like her.
“”People like me‘? Who?“
Hazel seemed to be teasing, you never knew quite what she was getting at. Her girlish laughter was infectious.
Madge Dorsey made up her mind then not to hate Hazel any longer. These several weeks since the new salesclerk-lacking not only experience in sales, but totally ignorant of music-had been hired by Edgar Zimmerman, Madge had felt hatred blossoming inside her, in the region of her bosom, like a fast-growing cancer. But, to hate Hazel Jones was to hate the much-awaited spring thaw of upstate New York! To hate Hazel Jones was to hate the warm blinding flood of sunshine itself! And there was the futility, Madge conceded: Edgar Zimmerman had hired the girl, and Edgar Zimmerman was clearly taken with her.
Evelyn Steadman, salesclerk at Zimmerman Brothers for twenty-two years, was slower to be won over by Hazel Jones’s “personality.” At fifty-four, Evelyn was yet unmarried, with a waning and ever-waxing hope that Edgar Zimmerman, widower now for twelve years, in his early sixties, might take a sudden romantic interest in her.
Still, Hazel Jones prevailed. Thinking I will make you love me! So you will never wish to hurt me.
“How’s my girl Hazel doin‘ here, Edgar? Any complaints?”
A few weeks after Hazel began working at Zimmerman Brothers, Chet Gallagher began dropping by in the late afternoon, in the wintry dusk when the store was about to close. Out of nowhere Gallagher appeared. He was known to the Zimmermans, and he appeared to be known to Madge and Evelyn, who brightened at his appearance. Hazel was always taken by surprise. Hazel had no idea that Gallagher was in town, and planning to surprise her with a dinner invitation that evening; often, Gallagher had failed to call her for several days, in the aftermath of a temper tantrum.
At such times, entering the store, Gallagher was smiling and exuberant and very much in control. He wore an expensive, rumpled camel’s hair coat, his high forehead gleamed and his hair straggled over his shirt collar. Often he hadn’t shaved for a day or two, his jaws glinted like metal filings. Hazel felt the glamor of her friend’s sudden presence, the flurry of drama that accompanied his every gesture. In the tastefully decorated interior of Zimmerman Brothers Pianos & Music Supplies, on the polished parquet floor, Gallagher seemed somehow larger than life, like a figure that has stepped down off a movie screen. He made much of Edgar Zimmerman, zestfully shaking the man’s small hand. He seemed even to enjoy the attention of Madge Dorsey and Evelyn Steadman who fluttered about him, calling him “Mr. Gallagher” and imploring him to play the piano.
“Just for a few minutes, Mr. Gallagher. Please!”
It was a lively scene. If business at Zimmermans had been slow, Chet Gallagher’s appearance would end the day on a bright note. For it seemed that the jazz pianist was something of a local figure, and well liked.
Glancing at Hazel with a sardonic smile You see? Chet Gallagher is a big deal in some quarters.
Hazel removed herself to the side, not entirely comfortable. When Gallagher made one of his appearances she was obliged to show pleasure as well as surprise. Her face must light up. She must hurry to him in her high-heeled shoes, allow him to squeeze her hand. She could not hold back. She could not wound him. This was the man who had paid for her move to Watertown, who’d loaned her money for numerous items including the deposit on her apartment. (“Loaned” at no interest. And no need to repay him for a long time.) Gallagher insisted there were “no strings attached” to his friendship with them yet Hazel felt the awkwardness of her situation. Gallagher was becoming ever more unpredictable: driving from Malin Head Bay to Watertown on an impulse, to see her, and driving back to Malin Head Bay that night; capable of not turning up in Watertown when he’d made arrangements to see her, with no explanation. Though he expected explanations from Hazel, he refused to explain himself to her.
In the music store, Hazel saw Gallagher staring at her with an expression of confused tenderness and sexual arrogance and she was filled with anxiety, resentment. He wants them to think I’m his mistress. He owns Hazel Jones!