Read Online Gentleman's Agreement by Laura Z. Hobson - Free Book Online Page A

books—he never could bring himself to throw any book away, so one or two of the ones he remembered owning ought to be somewhere in this conglomeration. Whatever novels he had were old. He’d heard of a couple of new ones in the last year that dealt with “the Jewish problem,” but he wasn’t much of a novel reader, so he’d missed them. He’d have to ask about them, buy them for whatever he might learn from them.
    He finally found one of the books he’d expected to find, and he renewed his search. Then he had two more. He’d known they ought to be there, and they might help him now with his job of “thinking into.” As he remembered these books, their central characters had been Jewish. He began to reread, rapidly skimming, suddenly remembering the people, plot, incidents.
    For more than an hour he read. And as he read a sickish anger grew in him.
    He stood up finally. He placed the three books side by side on a shelf. He stared at them. One, two, three in a row. Exhibits A, B, and C.
    In each of these novels the central figure, the Jew, was a heel—dishonest, scheming, or repulsive. A Goebbels, a Rankin might have written these books. But in each case a talented Jew had been the author. It was before the war that each had done it. But he had done it.
    Somewhere in the 1930’s each had labored long and done it.
    What dark unconscious hatreds must have been operating in those very authors that made each of them, with a world of subjects to pick over, finally choose these subjects and stay unswerving to their purpose through the long months and loneliness of writing! How neurotic they themselves must have been made by the world of hatred! Did it never occur to one of them to write about a fine guy who was Jewish? Did each one feel some savage necessity to pick a Jew who was a swine in the wholesale business, a Jew who was a swine in the movies, a Jew who was a swine in bed?
    He would have to look elsewhere for any valid clue to what a normal Jew would feel about anything—a Jew who was a scientist, say, or a historian, or a businessman, or a housewife. Or a Jew who’d risked maiming or death in the war against the master-race theory.
    He sat down and wrote quickly on his typewriter.
    Dear Dave:
    When the hell you getting back? And will it be a surprise to know we’ve moved to New York for good, or did I say I was going to, last time I wrote? I’ve taken a staff job with Minify. I want to talk to you about a series I’m supposed to do, on antisemitism; do you hyphenate the damn word or not, I never can remember. Anyway, what chance your stopping here for a bit before heading for the Coast?
    Best, and where’s the letter you owe me,
    Phil
    He put three red stamps on the envelope, wrote, “AIR” beneath them, checked on Dave’s APO number, and went down to the street to mail the letter.
    Even this much decisiveness feels good, he thought. He could almost taste his own disgust and bile.
    He dreamed of Betty. For the first time in months, she was there in his angry sleep, young as she had been, asleep beside him and smiling at something. Somewhere was the sound of an infant’s thin wailing, and she wasn’t startled, just smiling, calling out, “Yes, darling, I’m coming.” There was such readiness in her voice, hurrying to her baby, unruffled, not resentful at being waked.
    He turned on his back and knew he had dreamed. “You’re afraid to let on to anybody about it, aren’t you? Don’t be, Phil, you don’t have to be, with me or anybody.” That was Kathy, his sleep-filled mind told him, and he stirred into a half waking. There had been the overwash of two voices, the second flowing over the first like a new wave rolling in on the outgo of the preceding. Different yet one because each was of the indivisible sea.
    Now he sat up, really awake. He turned on the light above his head and reached for a cigarette.
    An extraordinary sense of peace ran through him as he remembered the dream and the half dream