had arrived in Jerusalem to put a top dressing of Jewish grandeur on his chicken-scratch career, on this poor punished N.Y. soil of his. (I am thinking of the tiny prison enclosures—a few black palings—narrow slices of ground preserved at the heart of Manhattan for leaves and grass.) Here Noguchi would create for him a Rose Garden of Sculpture, an art corner within a few kilometers of the stunned desert sloping toward the Dead Sea.
“Tell me, Sorella, what were you after? The objective.”
“Billy to meet with Fonstein.”
“But Fonstein gave up on him long ago. They must pass each other at the King David every other day. What would be simpler than to stop and say, ‘You’re Rose? I’m Harry Fonstein. You led me out of Egypt
“What is that?”
“With a mighty hand. So the Lord God described the rescue of Israel—part of my boyhood basic training. But Fonstein has backed away from this. While you…”
“I made up my mind that Billy was going to do right by him.”
Yes, sure, of course; roger; I read you. Something is due from every man to every man. But Billy hadn’t heard and didn’t want to hear about these generalities.
“If you lived with Fonstein’s feelings as I have lived with them,” said Sorella, “you’d agree he should get a chance to complete them. To finish out.”
In a spirit of high-level discussion, I said to her, “Well, it’s a nice idea, only nobody expects to complete their feelings anymore. They have to give up on closure. It’s just not available.”
“For some it is.”
So I was obliged to think again. Sure—what about the history of Sorella’s own feelings? She had been an unwanted Newark French teacher until her Havana uncle had a lucky hunch about Fonstein. They were married, and thanks to him, she obtained her closure, she became the tiger wife, the tiger mother, grew into a biological monument and a victorious personality… a figure!
But Billy’s reply was: “So what’s it got to do with me?”
‘Spend fifteen minutes alone with my husband,” she said to him.
Billy refused her. “It’s not the kind ofthing I do.”
A handshake, and he’ll say thanks.”
First of all, I warned you already about libel, and as for the rest, what do you think you’re holding over me anyway? I wouldn’t do this. You haven’t convinced me that I must. I don’t like things from the past being laid on me. This happened one time, years ago. What’s it got to do with now—1959? If your husband has a nice story, that’s his good luck. Let him tell it to people who go for stories. I don’t care for them. I don’t care for my own story. If I had to listen to it, I d break out in a cold sweat. And I wouldn’t go around and shake everybody’s hand unless I was running for mayor. That’s why I never would run. I shake when I close a deal. Otherwise, my hands stay in my pockets.”
Sorella said, “Since Deborah Hamet had given me the goods on him and the worst could be assumed, he stood up to me on the worst basis, with all the bruises on his reputation, under every curse—grungy, weak, cheap, perverted. He made me take him for what he was—a kinky little kike finagler whose life history was one disgrace after another. Take this man: He never flew a single mission, never hunted big game, never played football or went down in the Pacific. Never even tried suicide. And this reject was a celeb!… You know, Deborah had a hundred ways to say celeb. Mostly she cut him down, but a celeb is still a celeb—you can’t take that away. When American Jews decided to make a statement about the War Against the Jews, they had to fill Madison Square Garden with big-name celebs singing Hebrew and America the Beautiful.’ Hollywood stars blowing the shofar. The man to produce this spectacular and arrange the press coverage was Billy. They turned to him, and he took total charge…. How many people does the Garden hold? Well, it was full, and everybody was in mourning. I suppose the whole place was in tears. The
Continuing her report on her interview with Billy, Sorella said that he adopted what negotiators call a bargaining posture. He behaved as though he had reason to be proud of his record, of the deals he had made, and I suppose that he was standing his ground behind this front of pride. Sorella hadn’t yet formulated her threat. Beside her on a chair that decorators would have called a love seat there lay (and he saw) a large manila envelope. It contained Deborah’s papers—what else would she have brought to his suite? To make a grab for this envelope was out of the question. “I outreached him and outweighed him,” said Sorella. “I could scratch him as well, and also shriek. And the very thought of a scene, a scandal, would have made him sick. Actually, the man was looking sick. His calculation in Jerusalem was to make a major gesture, to enter Jewish history, attaining a level far beyond show biz. He had seen only a sample of the Hamet/Horsecollar file. But imagine what the newspapers, the world tabloid press, could do with this material.
“So he was waiting to hear my proposition,” said Sorella.
I said, “I’m trying to figure out just what you had in mind.”
“Concluding a chapter in Harry’s life. It should be concluded,” said Sorella. “It was a part of the destruction of the Jews. On our side of the Atlantic, where we weren’t threatened, we have a special duty to come to terms with it….”
“Come to terms? Who, Billy Rose?”
“Well, he involved himself in it actively.”
I recall that I shook my head and said, “You were asking too much. You couldn’t have gotten very far with him.”
“Well, he did say that Fonstein suffered much less than others. He wasn’t in Auschwitz. He got a major break. He wasn’t tattooed with a number. They didn’t put him to work cremating the people that were gassed. I said to Billy that the Italian police must have been under orders to hand Jews over to the SS and that so many were shot in Rome, in the Ardeatine Caves.”
“What did he say to this?”
“He said, ‘Look, lady, why do
‘Suppose I do,’ he said. ‘What’s your offer?’
‘I’ll hand over Deborah’s whole file. I’ve got it right here.’
‘And if I don’t play ball?’
‘Then I’ll turn it over to some other party, or parties.’ Then he burst out, ‘You think you’ve got me by the knackers, don’t you? You’re taking an unfair terrible advantage of me. I don’t want to talk dirty to a respectable person, but I call this kicking the shit out of a man. Right now I’m in an extrasensitive position, considering what’s my purpose in Jerusalem. I want to contribute a memorial. Maybe it would be better not to leave any reminder of my life and I should be forgotten altogether. So at this moment you come along to take revenge from the grave for a jealous woman. I can imagine the record this crazy put together, about deals I made—I know she got the business part all wrong, and the bribery and arson would never stick. So that leaves things like the private clinical junk collected from show girls who badmouthed me. But let me say one thing, Missus: Even a geek has his human rights. Last of all, I haven’t got all that many secrets left. It’s all been told.’ Almost all,’ I said.”
I observed, “You sure did bear down hard on him.”
“Yes, I did,” she admitted. “But he fought back. The libel suits he threatened were only bluff, and I told him so. I pointed out how little I was asking. Not even a note to Harry, just a telephone message would be enough, and then fifteen minutes of conversation. Mulling it over, with his eyes cast down and his little hands passive on the back of a sofa—he was on his feet, he wouldn’t sit down, that would seem like a concession—he refused me again. Once and for all he said he wouldn’t meet with Harry. ‘I already did for him all I’m able to do.’ Then you leave me no alternative,’ I said.”
On the striped chair in Billy’s suite, Sorella opened her purse to look for a handkerchief. She touched herself on the temples and on the folds of her arms, at the elbow joint. The white handkerchief looked no bigger than a cabbage moth. She dried herself under the chin. “He must have shouted at you,” I said.
He began to yell at me. It was what I anticipated, a screaming fit. He said no matter what you did, there was always somebody waiting with a switchblade to cut you, or acid to throw in your face, or claws to rip the clothes off
