They talked nonstop for hours well into the early morning. By the time they said good night, he knew that this girl was very special.
Fanny had been born on a farm near Croningen during the early years of the Second World War, and had lived through the terrible hunger that devastated her country as the conflict drew to a close. Despite the hardships of her childhood, she had a buoyant good humor and optimism that delighted him.
And although Fanny had ambitions, they were not all-consuming. She was a medical student at Leiden, studying just enough to become a good doctor, and practicing just enough tennis to remain a decent player.
Jason concluded on the basis of this single evening’s conversation that Fanny was the most balanced person he had ever met. She was neither an overly cerebral Radcliffe girl battling for a Med School professorship, nor a bubble-headed Long Island deb whose only goal in life was an engagement ring.
Fanny had a talent he had not encountered in all the girls he’d dated in America. She was happy just being herself.
As he sat in the grandstand watching her play that next afternoon, his admiration grew. Not only had she stayed up late the night before a match, but they had shared quite a bit of wine. He was certain that the Florida girl she was facing had been in bed by nine, after drinking a glass of warm milk.
But Fanny was still good enough to make her opponent work for the victory. Her service was strong and accurate and was never broken until the second set, when the gritty American teenager began to wear her down. Fanny lost 5–7, 6–3, 6–1. Jason met her at the gate to the court with a towel and a glass of orange juice.
“Thanks,” Fanny puffed, “but I’d really like a nice cold beer. Aggressive little devil, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah,” replied Jason, “I bet her father would have spanked her if she lost. God, didn’t his shouting drive you crazy?”
“No, I never hear anything when I’m playing. Anyway, I enjoyed myself.”
They began to walk toward the changing rooms.
“Hey,” said Jason, “you could be really great if you worked at it.”
“Don’t be silly, tennis is a game. If I actually worked at it, it would become a job. Now, where would you like to have dinner tonight?”
“I don’t know. Any suggestions?”
“How about going to Rougemont for a fondue? It’s my turn to invite you anyway.”
That evening they briefly discussed strategy for their doubles game. Since Fanny was shorter (though not by much), she would play net.
“I’m counting on you to keep all the balls from even reaching me in the back court,” Jason joked.
“Please don’t get your hopes up. I think somewhere in that competitive American brain of yours you imagine we actually have a chance of winning tomorrow.”
“Well,” Jason conceded, “I confess it was on my mind. The two turkeys we’re playing may be worse than we are.”
“Nobody in this tournament is worse than we are.”
“Gosh, what a partner you are. You’re destroying my confidence.”
“Nothing could destroy your confidence, Jason.” She smiled meaningfully.
They almost won.
Neither of the Spanish couple they were facing was a power hitter, and they actually took the first set with ease. Then gradually their opponents began placing their long, slow shots with greater accuracy, getting them past Fanny and making Jason run himself into exhaustion.
After a marathon battle, he was sweaty and breathless from the sun and the thin Swiss air.
Too tired even to go change, he simply sat on a bench and contemplated his fatigue. Fanny arrived with two paper cups of mineral water and sat down beside him.
“Thank Cod we lost,” she said, wiping his face with a towel. “I don’t fancy the idea of another long afternoon like this. But I’ll tell you something, Jason. I think we played pretty well together for the first time. Next year we might even lose by a closer score.”
“Yeah, but I can’t make it next year. I’ve got another engagement.”
“Engagement?” she asked, misunderstanding. “You are engaged to someone?”
“Yeah,” he replied, protracting the ambiguity. “My fiancée’s name is the United States Marines. I owe them my body for two years starting in September.”
“What a waste of a nice body.” She smiled. “When are you going back?”
“Oh, I’ve got another three weeks or so yet,” he answered. And then looked her in the eye. “Which I’d like to spend with you — and I don’t mean playing tennis.”
“I think that could be arranged,” she replied.
“I’ve got my VW,” he said. “Where would you like to go?”
“Well, I’ve always wanted to see Venice.”
“Why?” Jason asked.
“Because it’s got canals like Amsterdam.”
“I can’t think of a better reason,” he replied.
They took their time, driving first through the mountain roads of Switzerland. Then down into Italy, spending a few days on the banks of Lake Como. And all the time they talked.
Jason soon felt that he knew all her friends intimately and could practically list them by name. And Fanny discovered that her new boyfriend was a lot more complex than the handsome blond tennis player she had first admired across a crowded lobby.
“What kind of American are you?” she asked, as they were picnicking by the lakeside.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, unless you are a red Indian, your family must have come from somewhere. Is Gilbert an English name?”
“No, it’s just made up. When my grandparents came to Ellis Island, they were called Gruenwald.”
“German?”
“No. Russian. Russian Jewish, actually.”
“Ah, then you are Jewish,” she said with apparent interest.
“Well, only vaguely.”
“How can one be only vaguely Jewish? It would be like being only vaguely pregnant, wouldn’t it?”
“Well, America’s a free country. And my father decided that since the religion didn’t mean anything to him, he might as well, as he put it, join the mainstream.”
“But that’s impossible. A Jew cannot be anything but a Jew.”
“Why not? You’re a Protestant, but couldn’t you become Catholic if you wanted to?”
A look of incredulity crossed her face.
“For an intelligent person you make such a naive argument, Jason. Do you think Hitler would have spared you and your family because you denied your faith?”
He began to grow irritated. What was she driving at?
“Why does everybody invoke Hitler in trying to convince me that I’m Jewish?” he asked.
“My God, Jason,” she replied, “don’t you realize what the Atlantic Ocean spared you in your childhood? I grew up in the shadow of the Nazis. I saw them take our neighbors away. My family even hid a Jewish girl during the whole war.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “Eva Goudsmit. We grew up like sisters. Her parents owned a china factory and were — so they thought — pillars of the Dutch community. But that didn’t impress the soldiers who took them off.”
“What happened to them?” Jason asked quietly.
“The same thing that happened to millions of Jews all over Europe. After the war, Eva searched and searched. She went to all kinds of agencies, but they could find nothing. All they traced was a distant cousin living in Palestine. So when she finished school she went off to join him. We still keep in touch. In fact, every few summers I go and visit her kibbutz in the Galilee.”
That conversation and several others like it in the weeks they spent together crystallized in Jason’s mind a firm desire to learn about his heritage. And ironically, he owed this resolution not to another Jew but to a Christian Dutch girl of whom he was growing fonder each day.