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Gentleman's Agreement
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When a reporter pretends to be Jewish, he experiences anti-Semitism firsthand in the New York Times bestseller and basis for the Academy Awardāwinning film. Journalist Philip Green has just moved to New York City from California when the Third Reich falls. To mark this moment in history, his editor at Smith's Weekly Magazine assigns Phil a series of articles on anti-Semitism in America. In order to experience anti-Semitism firsthand, Phil, a Christian, decides to pose as a Jew. What he discovers about the rampant bigotry in America will change him forever.
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Historische RomaneCHAPTER ONE
ABRUPT AS ANGER, depression plunged through him. It was one hell of an assignment.
āYouāll find some angle,ā John Minify said.
āItāll need an angle all right.ā He squinted his eyes and looked off past Minifyās shoulder as if he were taking the measure of some palpable thing there.
āTake your time on it.ā Minify spoke without urgency. āI think you might turn out a great job.ā
Philip Green nodded, not in agreement with the comfortable words, but in affirmation of his own estimate of the job ahead. It would be flabby, lifeless, unless he found some special approach to it. Instinct, experience, past failures as well as past successes, all helped him now in his quick appraisal.
āIf you want,ā Minify went on, āweāll borrow the clips on it from some newspaper morgue. Thereād be plenty of names of agencies and committees to start on.ā
āCommittees.ā The certainty of future boredom, of wasted listening, laced his depression with resentment. Minify surely could have found a more manageable subject for his first job as a staff writer. āThe clips would help,ā he said. āThanks.ā He half closed his eyes, drew his lower lip in taut over his teeth as if he were shaving his chin, and sat thinking. āIāll start researching it, anyway. There must be plenty of dope around.ā
āI wouldnāt force this series on you,ā Minify said. āKnock it around awhile and weāll talk again.ā
āO.K.ā Phil stood up, without finality. He was in his middle thirties, tall, too thin, with an intelligent, decent face. Eyes and hair were dark; he had begun to go gray. There was a quiet about him, an absence of aggression, yet there was no diffidence in his voice or manner.
āYou certainly didnāt hand me a pushover for a starter,ā he said at last. It was matter-of-fact, bare of complaint or chiding. It would take more than a disappointing assignment to topple his admiration for Minify or lessen his confidence in him as an editor. āWould anybody read five articles about antisemitism?ā He saw Minify nod. āThree million readers?ā
Minify didnāt answer. He leaned forward toward his desk, propped his chin on the knuckles of his closed hand. Then he swiveled the hand about so that the thumb stood up vertically across the corner of his mouth. He seemed all at once absorbed in another idea. His thumb tapped lightly against his lips, in a one-two-three, one-two-three rhythm. Phil smiled. Minify was considering three million readers out there somewhere across all the towns and cities of the land.
āNo,ā Minify said at last. āYou couldnāt print anything in Godās world all three million would read. But some of them will.ā
āSure. And will it do any good?ā
Minify tipped his head back so he could look directly at Phil. āDid your Okie pieces or your mine pieces ādo any goodā?ā
Phil smiled. āThatās nailing me. Fathead question.ā
āIt didnāt take that Roper survey to tell me itās getting worse. You feel it. It gets you either mad or uneasy. I mean me.ā
āOr baffled.ā
āSo you can bet itās hitting plenty of people that same way. If you find some strong way to write it, itāll get read.ā
āIf.ā
Minify offered his half-empty pack of cigarettes as if he counted on a refusal, the way you used to during the cigarette shortage. He lit one himself and then sat examining his lighter. He snapped the flame on and off several times, watching it flare up and snuff out. He gave it a last decisive click and stood up.
āGetting to know people here?ā
āNot so many. Iām always slow about that. Itās fine, though. My kid likes it, and my mother. She always wanted to live in New York.ā
āHave you any relatives here? Or are they all in California, too?ā
Phil shook his head to both questions. Minifyās concern on this personal level pleased him. āOne of my sisters is out there, and the other lives in Detroit. Grosse Pointe, rather.ā
āIāve been meaning to introduce you,ā Minify began vaguely. Then his manner lost its air of improvising. āHow about tonight at my place? Weāre having some people over. Couple of girls and people.ā
āThanks. Iād like to.ā
The editor told him where, and they shook hands with a touch of formality, as if each suddenly remembered he didnāt know the other well. With an inexplicable embarrassment, Phil took up his coat and hat and left quickly. He went down the long corridor, past open-doored offices in which people were talking or laughing. The shyness of the outsider came over him. Though the line āBy Schuyler Greenā was known to every one of them, he himself was a stranger. Working at home was the setup heād asked for, but it would be wise, now that he was on the staff, to come in every day until he got to know some of these editors and writers. At once the idea disturbed him. On an assignment, he was never shy about meeting and interviewing people, but to make new social contacts was another thing. His mind ran from this self-recognition, with a hurried promise to do something about the office soon.
In the reception room, he stopped to put on his overcoat. The receptionist gave him a neat, exact smile, a precise replica of the one she had bestowed each of the other three times he had come in or gone out through the double glass doors that announced Smithās Weekly Magazine. The scene was a replica of the other times, too; in the dark-red armchairs the usual assortment of people waited the signal to go in to their appointments. Could any of these unknowns be some writer whose name and work were perfectly familiar? The notion made him look around once more. With the exception of best-selling authors and syndicated columnists, whose faces looked out of endless book advertisements, reviews, and columns, there was an anonymity about most writers. Perhaps some of these waiting people in the reception room knew his name and work and would yet look blankly at his strangerās face. In his anonymity, he smiled comfortably, and went out to the elevators.
In the street, he turned toward Fifth Avenue. In the two weeks since heād become a resident of New York, he had passed the stage where he had to watch two successive street signs to see whether he was headed uptown or down. At the corner of Fifty-seventh and Fifth, he turned south and began to walk rapidly in the thin December sunlight. Soon he was striding along as if he were hurrying to a specific place at a specific time. Actually he was walking only so that he could think more rapidly about the new assignment. Already the search for the āangleā completely occupied him. He might take one Jewish family in some particularly antisemitic section and trace its life in the past few years. No, a long string of articles on that would bore readers to death. His mind pushed the notion aside, darted in new directions, hunting possibilities, exploring, rejecting. Again he was depressed. For days heād be in for the old familiar sequenceāhope as an idea flared bright, then unease and self-mistrust as closer examination snuffed it out. Like Minifyās lighter.
It was the rhythm of all living, apparently, and for most people. Happiness, and then pain. Perhaps then happiness again, but now, with it, the awareness of its own mortality. He had made an honest enough search for happinessāin the last year or two, at any rate. All he had found was transience.
The sting of cold air in his throat told him he had sighed deeply. āCut the philosophy,ā he told himself testily. He walked on now, thinking of nothing, merely watching, seeing, noting. At Thirty-fifth Street, he turned left, to the remodeled brownstone house just east of Park where he lived. In the vestibule he took out his keys, tapped the bell, and let himself in without waiting. Above, a door opened. His motherās voice said, āThat you, Tom?ā and he said, āNo, itās me.ā He went up the carpeted steps slowly, suddenly thinking about his mother. Her voice sounded older than her sixty-eight years; all the chivying details of transcontinental moving had been hard on her.
āHow was it, Phil?ā she greeted him.
āO.K. Iāve got the hell of a stiff assignment.ā
She sat down, waiting. He wandered about the wide, tall-ceilinged room in which their own furniture and books looked so different from the way they had in the house in California. When the extra bookshelves were built in and the rest of his books taken out of the stacked cartons, it would be a pleasant room; he would like working in it. This and his motherās room in the rear of the whole-floor apartment were the only good things about it; the kitchen and bathroom had air-suction outlets instead of windows, and the two āhall bedroomsā which were for him and Tom were smaller than their bathroom out in California.
Yet when Minify had told him that he could sublease the apartment from an editor who had been newly assigned to the London office, Minify had said, āBetter grab it, whatever it is. The Coast isnāt the only place with a desperate housing shortage.ā He had grabbed it and considered himself lucky.
Actually, the very oddness of living in a rectangular shelf of space rather than in a house set to the earth among bushes and trees had so far stimulated rather than dampened his spirits. He had sought basic change in the patterns of his life. This apartment was physical proof that he had found it, or, at any rate, one facet of it.
He remembered that his mother was waiting for him to go on. āMinify wants me to write a series,ā he said, āfive, six articles, on antisemitism in America.ā
āThatās good.ā She underlined the āgoodā with approval.
āIf I could find some way to make it good.ā
āI mean, most big magazinesāitās nice Mr. Minify wants to do it. You can do such a fine thing on it.ā
āMinifyās a strange guy. I liked him even better today than the first time.ā He lit a cigarette. āHeās all hopped up about the job I could do, just like you.ā
āAnd youāre not?ā
He frowned. āItās a toughie.ā
āYouāll do a wonderful series, dear.ā She sounded placid. He remembered Minifyās comfortable words and was all at once irritated with both of them. It was so easy to say, āThis is a great theme and youāll write a great series.ā
āChrist, I will if I can get some idea.ā His voice flung exasperation at her. āBut not just if I spin out the same old drool of statistics and protest.ā He walked over to the window, looked down on the street. Without turning around, he added a moment later, āSorry.ā
āThatās all right. How about some coffee?ā She started toward the small kitchen.
āFine. Damn assignmentās got me in a sweat already.ā
A hundred times he vowed never to talk to her in that quick sharpness, yet a moment would come when it sprang out as if he had no power to halt it in his throat. Once he had apologized, too earnestly, and she had said, āItās all right. Itās because youāre not happy enough.ā At his silence, she had added, āBeing lonely makes people snap. Tension, I suppose.ā
Now he waited a moment and then followed her to the kitchen. āWhereās Tom?ā he asked conversationally. āItās nearly four.ā
āAcross the street at Jimmy Kellyās.ā She looked at him and smiled. āHe makes new friends so easily, Phil.ā
āYeah.ā Suddenly he felt obscure pride in himself. Tommy, at eight, without a mother since infancy, was relaxed, outgiving, never āthe problem child.ā Somehow, then, he, Phil, had done a sound job of concealing the unevenness of his own moods all these seven years.
āI told him not to be too long,ā Mrs. Green added. āBelleās in town.ā
āAgain?ā His sister had flown in from Detroit to help them get settled the day theyād arrived in the East.
āJust for todayāChristmas shopping.ā
āArenāt Detroit stores good enough for her? That Belle. Sheās the golden sheep in this family for fair.ā
āNow, Phil.ā
āO.K.ā Suddenly he grinned. āShe is a little hard to take at times, and you know it.ā
āSo are you, dear, but itās worth it.ā
āSure, sure. Iād hate to think Iād stodgied up as much as she has in the last few years, though.ā Mrs. Green made no comment. When the coffee was ready, Phil took his cup, said, āThink Iāll start jotting down some notes,ā and went back to the living room. āIāll quit when she gets here,ā he added.
But when the downstairs bell rang half an hour later, he left his desk and went to his room. It was too small to serve as a study, taking only a tall chest, one big reading chair, and a narrow bed. He puttered about, dissatisfied, with what he did not know. He drew out a bureau drawer, closed it, and drew out another, as if he were searching for something. At his desk, he had ordered himself to think about the assignment, but like a fractious child, his mind had refused to comply. This was another sign, he thought dismally, that his flash appraisal in Minifyās office had been correct. There was in him no itch to get at it, the way there was when instinct told him he had a ānaturalā by the tail. As he had said, it was going to be the hell of an assignment and the bitch of a job to bring the stuff alive.
There was a knock at the door. āHi, Belle,ā he called, and she opened the door.
āMamma says youāre working.ā She made it a gentle accusation. āCome out a minute and tell me about the new job.ā
When he told her, she said, āI should think heād have assigned it to a Jewish writer.ā
āWhy? Iām not blind, am I?ā
Belle went on as if he hadnāt spoken. āAnyway, I just wonder. You canāt scold people into changing.ā
āWho said anything about scolding?ā Phil asked, and Mrs. Green said, āNow, Belle, you donāt mean that. Itās not like you.ā
Belle began to elaborate her point, but Phil scarcely listened. There was a flat certainty about her statements which irritated him. He had noticed it on her other trip and decided she had changed a good deal during the war years. The difficulties of travel had kept her away from the Coast; for five years they had not seen her. Apparently she regarded New York as a neighboring town of Grosse Pointe.
He sat, dispirited and silent, looking at her and wondering how he could get off by himself again. Belle was handsome, slender, expensively dressed. He looked at her attentively, as if she were someone he would have to describe accurately on paper. There were two horizontal lines grooved in her neck, like necklaces tight to the skin; he had never noticed detail of that sort before. She talked with loud animation as one does in a large room with many voices to combat; her hands moved restlessly in gesture. Now she was describing the large new house she and Dick wanted to buy.
āDid you close the sale on the old place?ā Mrs. Green asked.
āNot yet. That cheap Pat Curran keeps trying to Jew us down.ā She shook her head despairingly, and Phil thought her distress vulgar and ridiculous when millions of people couldnāt find a two-room flat. He saw his mother frown at her. He glanced at his watch, offered excuses about a pressing appointment, and left them.
Outside, the city was already dim with the early twilight and sharp with the clean smell of cold, but he still relished New Yorkās positive weather and walked into it as if into sanctuary. He wished it were his sister Mary in California instead of Belle who lived near enough for frequent visits. Belle was seven years older than he, and Mary only four; maybe that accounted for the greater closeness thereād always been between him and Mary. No, it was more than that. Mary lived in a sprawly house near the university and was lazy and easy about things; Belle had a terrific place, smart to the last ash tray. Heād been only sixteen when Belle had married Dick King. Nineteen years ago, Dick had been a college-boy draftsman, and for a long time the Kings had led an ordinary modest life like the rest of the family. Then Dick had designed the new wheel-transmission gadget that did the trick better than the one his company had been using; almost at once heād become one of the high-priced big shots in the automotive world. That was ten years ago, and as if sheād been tensed and ready to spring, should the chance ever be offered her, Belle instantly changed into one of the āsmart setā out there. āPerhaps a long transition period would have made her less of a jackass about being rich,ā Phil had once remarked to Mary. Now he thought, Oh, well, and forgot her.
Heād been walking along Lexington Avenue. At Forty-second, he stopped and folded his head back on his neck as far as it would go, looking up at the Chrysler Tower. He wondered whether an atomic bomb could really vaporize it out of existence. He knew he looked like any t...
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Chapter One
- Chapter Two
- Chapter Three
- Chapter Four
- Chapter Five
- Chapter Six
- Chapter Seven
- Chapter Eight
- Chapter Nine
- Chapter Ten
- Chapter Eleven
- Chapter Twelve
- Chapter Thirteen
- Chapter Fourteen
- Chapter Fifteen
- Copyright