After Mama and all the rest of us got back from Europe, everyone sat around waiting for the war to end in six months. And in 1941 I suppose a lot of people still thought it would.
But Mama wasn't one to sit around reading the novels of Robert Chambers (the Louis Bromfield of his day) or knitting headgear for the British troops. She did knit… gay fearful little hoods that never seemed fit for normal heads. Gramp came in one day to find her holding up her newest knitted horror for all to see. Gramp shook his head.
“Damn me for a pump handle, Sara, but who ever told you the British were putting two-headed soldiers into battle!”
“It's not a hat,” said Mama. “It's a sweater.”
“Well,” said Gramp, maybe they have three-armed soldiers. …”
But Mama's mind wasn't on her knitting. Mama's mind was on The Peace to Come (sure, they talked that way in those days, too).
“Gramp,” said Mama, “some day there will be a peace.”
“And the horrors of war and knitting will be done with.”
Mama said, “I am holding a mass meeting tonight. I want you there.”
Gramp winked at me and bit the head off one of his huge cigars. “I mass badly.”
“This meeting will organize for the peace to come. We need names…big names…important people.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“That's what Lord Belka said.”
Gramp inhaled cigar smoke and exhaled it, and looked at me and then at Mama. “Lord Belka?”.
“Lord Belka will address us tonight.”
“On what?”
“Peace. What to do with the Germans.”
Gramp snorted. “Nothing will be done with them except to beat them…nothing is ever done.”
“This time,” said Mama, “we hope to do something.”
“But we're not at war yet.”
“We will be soon,” said Mama. “Will you come?”
“Lord Belka, hah!” said Gramp, with a sound as if someone had put bitters into his best Port (I know an actor who drinks it that way…but then…).
“I'll be there,” said Gramp. “Where are we dining?”
“At the Beurre Fondu.”
“Well, I hope 'Arry has some interesting dishes tonight.”
At that time the Beurre Fondu, known to many who didn't dare try out their high school French as the Butter Ball, was a small, well-hidden French cating place in the 23rd Street neighborhood. The owner and chef was called 'Arry (never Harry). He was Hungarian. The waiters were all Austrian, the bus boys Dutch, and the fat lady with the perfect bottom (it was good deportment for all old customers to pinch it) and the bright green eyes and the red hair was from Madried, and was rumored to be both a British and a Turkish agent. She never did much to prove this untrue…except to drink her very white wine and sing “Bien hablar no cuesta nada. …”
There was not one Frenchman on the staff, yet the knowing ones called it the best French eating place to be found in New York.
'Arry himself met us that night. Papa was away on a business tour (Gramp figured with a war boom on even Papa couldn't lose more than ten thousand dollars that year). I went along to escort Mama and also because I had an evening habit of sliding down the stair rail into all the other little children in the house, howling that I was a British plane and they were “lousy Huns. …”
Anyway, 'Arry himself came to greet us at the door of the coal cellar he had made into the Melted Butter. He had a calf's eye, a cocktail mustache, and a mouth like a slack bag-opening, but he could put dashes of things on crackers and hand them around so fast, that you had finished your first course before you knew it.
'Arry said, “Bienvenue.”
“Never mind the French,” said Gramp. “What's to eat?”
“To be seated…so, please…such fine brusquerie, M. Longrue.”
We went to our table, and Gramp bowed to The Bottom, but skipped the ritual pinch because Mama frowned on such things in public. The Bottom winked at Gramp, smiled at me, and dipped her red hair to Mama. All international rules of greeting being finished, we sat down to eat.
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