The Americans

by John Jakes

  She reached the corner and started to turn right. Just then she saw men watching from the large window of a saloon on the corner diagonally opposite. Like targets in a shooting gallery, their heads were visible above gilt scrollwork on the lower half of the window. Weak lights shone inside. Evidently the owner had decided to remain open to serve those who had nothing to do but drink until the storm passed.

  One man raised a stein, pointing her out to a companion. What caught and held her attention was another face at the opposite end of the window.

  She stopped abruptly and stared. The man holding the stein assumed the attention was meant for him. He waggled the stein and grinned. The true object of her interest quickly stepped back out of sight. But the huge head, protrading eyes, and venomous scowl had been unmistakable.

  Would it be possible to find a policeman this morning? She doubted it. For a moment she entertained the idea of charging into the saloon and accusing Kleinerman herself. But that wouldn’t get her anywhere either. Suspicion wasn’t evidence. There was no way to prove that the fat man had paid for the attack on Leo, even though they both believed it to be a certainty.

  She couldn’t forget the bulging, hate-filled eyes behind the saloon window. Shivering, she turned and resumed her walk. She fervently hoped she and Leo had seen the last of the man.

  iii

  She planned to make a complete circuit of the block. At the next corner, three boys of twelve or thirteen were romping in the street. They slapped up handfuls of muddy water, shouting as they doused each other.

  As Eleanor went by, one of them pointed. “Hey, look. There’s a lady who needs a bath.”

  A second boy laughed. “That she does. She ain’t wet enough by half—” He whipped his right hand toward the water. One slashing scoop and Eleanor was drenched.

  Sputtering, she wiped her face. She was about to charge into the street and whack the young oafs with her parasol when she saw their attention shift to someone behind her— someone coming along the submerged sidewalk with swift, noisy strides.

  “Get the hell away from her or I’ll toss you all in the Little Conemaugh!”

  The boys replied with some obscenities and a couple of feeble threats. One started to scoop up more water, but another grabbed his arm to stop him. The surly trio splashed away down the street while Eleanor turned to see her benefactor.

  Her first glance explained why the boys had fled. The man was exceptionally tall: two or three inches over six feet, with wide shoulders and the roughened, ruddy complexion of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors. She noticed a paper sack tucked in the crook of the man’s left arm. From the sack came the fragrant smell of coffee.

  She judged the man to be thirty or a little older. His face was neither handsome nor ugly, yet it was instantly memorable and eminently likable.

  His teeth were a bit irregular, and he showed a lot of them when he smiled. The ingenuous charm of that smile didn’t quite jibe with the worldly look in his pale gray eyes. His brows were dark and thick, his hair the same. It curled out beneath an old fisherman’s cap. He wore dark clothes, shabby but not dirty. Their drabness was relieved by a bright red railroad kerchief knotted around his neck.

  He touched his cap. “Sorry I swore, ma’am. Seemed the best way to get rid of those louts. Here—better step closer to the building.”

  Flustered, she did so. She knew how silly she must look, strolling in the rain and soaked to boot.

  She took the man’s advice, moving to his side beneath a roof at the front of a tobacco shop. There, virtually no rain reached her. The shop was dark. A carved and painted Indian chief on the sidewalk was fastened to the wall by a chain around his throat.

  After she caught her breath, she said, “I appreciate your help—cusswords and all.”

  The man grinned again, taking in her figure with one swift glance. The inspection was more admiring than lustful. Yet it made her uncomfortable, and not a little sad. She’d seen other men look at her the same way. She could never be flattered and let it go at that. Such looks always touched off feelings of insufficiency, and bitter speculation about what the men would think if they knew she was an incomplete woman. Acting a role in everyday life just the way she enacted roles for Daly—

  The silence stretched out longer than she intended. Embarrassed, she touched her soaked sleeve. “Those boys were boorish, but more water wouldn’t have hurt me very much.”

  He eyed the sky. “If the object is staying dry, I’d say we both chose the wrong week to visit Johnstown.”

  She wondered about his choice of a verb. How did he know she wasn’t a resident?

  The man was impeccably polite, and yet he continued to fluster her. All those irregular teeth somehow added up to a smile of great warmth. His gray eyes, capable of the anger she’d seen when he drove the boys off, were cordial now.

  “I take it this isn’t your home—” she began.

  “Yes and no.” He leaned against the wooden Indian and gestured to the west. “I was born up in the hills behind Sang Hollow.”

  She wondered why in heaven’s name she was interested. Perhaps it was because she’d run into so much hostility in Johnstown. It was good to talk to someone friendly. She found herself listening closely as he continued.

  “I left town years ago, but I still have relatives here. My brother-in-law works for Cambria Iron. My sister’s the one who sent me out for this.” He shook the sack of coffee. “She and her husband have eight children. The whole kaboodle’s crowded into one of those tenements down by the river, the ones Cambria built—at a pretty fair profit, I might add. I have a brother with the company too. But he isn’t married. He lives in a nice brick barracks the company maintains for bachelors. Cambria likes to watch over the morals of single employees.”

  “It’s obvious the company pretty well controls the town.”

  Cynicism ruined the man’s smile a moment “You might say that. Still, King Cambria can be a benevolent despot.”

  Those words told her more about him. Obviously he hadn’t come from a well-off family, but he’d educated himself. How and where? she wondered.

  The man folded his arms and gazed past her, seeing something other than shuttered shops along a flooded street. “Cambria really does take care of anyone who goes to work there. The company store over on Washington sells you everything from chewing tobacco to goosedown comforters. The Cambria Benefit Association pays you when you’re laid up, and the Cambria Hospital takes you in when it’s time for you to die. If you’ve been sufficiently loyal and had a spot of luck, there might even be some fellow members of the Cambria Club at your funeral. You have to rise pretty high in the company to get into the club, though. I suppose working for Cambria’s fine for those who want that kind of existence. It takes most of the fear and insecurity out of living. But it takes away all the surprise and joy, too. I couldn’t tolerate it. That’s nothing against my brother and sister, you understand.”

  “No, of course not. What do you do, Mr.—?”

  “Martin. Cornelius Raphael Martin. My mother hung two fancy Christian names on me and I hate both of them. I use Rafe instead.

  “When I was growing up here, I worked in the barbed-wire plant. But only long enough to save money for college out in Oberlin, Ohio. Oh, I don’t mean the regular college—the fancy one. I went to Oberlin Business and Telegraph College. I’m a puncher. That’s—”

  “I know what it is,” she broke in. “My father publishes a newspaper. You’re a telegrapher.”

  “Good for you. But I don’t work for anyone on a regular basis. I’m a boomer. I travel a lot. I suppose a more honest word would be wander.”

  “A gypsy of the key.” She smiled. I’ve heard my father use that expression, too.”

  “Fits.” Martin nodded. “Some of us can’t hold jobs, and some don’t want to. I like to think I’m in the second category but maybe I’m really in the first. I go wherever I can find work. Fill in when someone’s sick, or when there’s a lot of extra
wordage to be sent. After a big fire, or a flood—”

  “Let’s hope you have no call for your services here.”

  His smile faded. “No, let’s hope I don’t. Those nabobs up at the Lake Conemaugh club have refused to repair the dam for too many years. Well—enough chatter. I expect you want to change into dry clothes. And if I don’t deliver this coffee, my sister’ll think I’ve drowned.”

  She extended her hand, man-fashion. “Thank you again for your help, Mr. Martin.”

  He held her hand longer than necessary. “Pleasure, ma’am.”

  “I can understand why you wouldn’t want to consign yourself to one company for life. I’m something of a boomer myself.”

  He surprised her when he nodded and said, “I know.”

  “You do? How is that?”

  She’d overlooked the obvious. “I saw you at the Opera House last night. From the gallery. Best I could afford— but you were fine. Just fine. Your performance was a bonus I didn’t expect when I came home for a visit, Miss Kent.”

  “Thank you indeed. But Kent’s only my stage name. My maiden name. My husband, Leo Goldman, is also in the company.”

  “Goldman, Goldman—the fellow who played Snap!”

  “You have a good memory.”

  “I have a liking for good performances. Just like good women, there aren’t enough of them in the world.” He paused before adding, “Your husband did a splendid job, too.”

  It struck her as something he felt obliged to say, but she didn’t let on. “I’ll tell him, Mr. Martin. He’ll be pleased to hear it.”

  “I knew you were married,” he said. “I saw your rings when I chased the boys off. Well—goodbye again.”

  One more touch of his cap, and he turned up his collar and started across the street, moving through the foot-deep water with long, strong strides.

  Eleanor watched him go, wondering why she’d found the past few minutes so enjoyable. She was wet, she was cold— and despite a twinge of conscience, she was wishing she could have kept Martin talking longer. Why?

  Shortly after he vanished around a corner, she found a possible explanation. It had nothing to do with a lack of love for her husband. She’d enjoyed herself with Martin because the encounter had been an inconsequential one— an agreeable conversation completely free of the kind of pain and guilt that accompanied her relationship with Leo.

  Then, staring into the rain, she saw Martin in her mind’s eye and felt an emotion sharply at variance with her conclusion of a moment ago. She didn’t want to acknowledge that emotion. It was disloyal, shamefully so—

  She banished the feeling, turned back the way she’d come and soon reentered the room at the Penn.

  “You were right, I shouldn’t have gone out,” she said as she closed the door and pulled off her wet cape. “It’s raining hard again.”

  From the bed, Leo said, “I thought you’d bumped into old man Noah and decided to buy a ticket for the ark.”

  She averted her face. Unexpectedly, Rafe Martin’s smile had flashed into her thoughts.

  She concentrated on getting into dry clothes. She was thankful she was enough of an actress to keep her guilt hidden. After everything else Leo had endured because of her, he didn’t deserve so much as one moment of infidelity.

  But she was giving him more than that, much more. She kept thinking of the stranger. She felt an undeniable attraction that was all the more pathetic because she was a sexual cripple.

  The attraction, and her own shameful response, mystified and angered her, adding more tension to a day already too heavy with it.

  CHAPTER XII

  THE DELUGE

  i

  BY NOON THE DOWNTOWN area was completely flooded. Some streets could only be traversed by rowboat or improvised raft. Yesterday’s far-fetched jokes about swimming to the theater and canoeing to the depot had become today’s reality.

  Black clouds pressed down overhead. The rain poured without letup. The two narrow rivers continued to spill over their banks upstream of their junction near the stone railroad bridge. One of the men who’d taken refuge on the top floor of the Penn worried about the possibility of water reaching the boilers and hearths of the Cambria mills. If that happened, he said, there could be catastrophic explosions.

  From her window Eleanor watched people splashing along the submerged sidewalks and poling rafts down the center of the street in an effort to reach higher ground. Others were still carrying merchandise out of stores. Here and there children romped in the water, laughing and beating at it with sticks. Why a parent would send a child out to play on such a day, Eleanor couldn’t understand.

  At a few minutes past one, Homer Hack looked in. He confirmed something Eleanor had suspected for a couple of hours. “No more trains are running. I can’t raise the central telephone office, either.”

  From the bed, where he was sprawled with a bedraggled copy of the previous day’s Johnstown Tribune, Leo asked, “How deep is the water in the lobby?”

  “About three feet.”

  “Good God.”

  Suddenly, down the hall, a man began to weep. “We’re going to drown. We’re going to drown and die in this goddamn place.”

  Young Hack looked upset, and uncertain about what to do. Eleanor strode to the door and gently pushed him aside. Her hand white as she gripped the doorframe, she spoke to the sobbing man in a low, ferocious voice.

  “Don’t do that. It doesn’t help you and it doesn’t help the rest of us.”

  The man—the same one who had described Johnstown, at such length—was leaning against the wall to Eleanor’s right. He looked at her with eyes reddened by tears. “Then what will, lady?”

  “Patience,” she said, suddenly aware of how tired and hungry she was. “Just patience.”

  Disbelieving, the man shook his head and turned away. Leo said, “Patience and maybe a prayer—just in case the foundations of this fine hostelry aren’t as strong as we assume they are.”

  He sounded nonchalant. But his face was nearly as pale and strained as Eleanor’s.

  ii

  At four o’clock, a faint, shrill sound roused Eleanor from the chair where she’d been dozing. Men were running past the open door, but it was difficult to see much else because the hall was so dark; Homer Hack had shut down the main gas valve hours ago.

  Leo had been resting too. Now his eyes flew open. Someone shouted, “What’s that crazy sound?”

  Another voice: “Train whistle.”

  Like a faraway scream, the sound continued. “The whistle’s tied down,” a third man exclaimed. “Homer, get up on the roof and see what the devil’s happening. Maybe there’s been an accident in the Pennsy yards.”

  Eleanor rushed to the door, waiting there until the young clerk clattered back down the stairs connecting the third floor hall with the roof. Just as he appeared, the whistle stopped.

  Men crowded around the clerk, shouting questions. He shook his head. “I couldn’t see far enough. The rain’s too heavy. And there’s a lot of white smoke over in Woodvale. But I heard an explosion. Could be the wire works.”

  “Bet you saw steam, not smoke,” said the man who’d been crying earlier. “The boilers must have exploded. All that wreckage will be coming down the river into town— we have to get out of here. We have to get out!”

  He shrieked the last, slumping against the wall with his arms clasped over his stomach. Childlike, he bent his head and sobbed.

  “Maybe the worst is over—” young Hack began. Jeers and humorless laughter greeted that, but he went on in a dogged way. “No, no, I mean it. The rain’s still coming down pretty hard, but the sky isn’t so black. Go look for yourselves.”

  It was the first hopeful word they’d heard all day. Men hurried past Eleanor and rushed up the stairs to the roof. Hack went with them.

  She turned to the window of the little room. In the northwest, boiling black clouds were yielding to gray. Jubilant, she clapped her hands.

  “Leo, I think Ho
mer’s right. The sky’s definitely lighter.”

  He pushed himself up from the bed. “Let’s go upstairs for a better view.” She started to protest but he cut in, “Look, I’ve been flat on my back for the prescribed length of time. And we’ll never reach Altoona tonight, so it hardly matters whether I walk, limp, or crawl the rest of the day.”

  Once on his feet, he slipped his left arm over her shoulder and she put her right arm around his waist. They made their way slowly along the corridor redolent of dust, leaking gas, and wet wool carpet.

  In a moment, Eleanor felt almost light-headed with relief. Above her, the oblong of the doorway at the head of the stairs changed from dark gray to pearl.

  She helped Leo up the steps. All at once she heard sounds like claps of thunder. Then came another distant howling, deeper than the first. A factory whistle, perhaps. Just as she and Leo reached the top of the stairs, a man began to yell, “Oh my God. Look up there. She gave way. The dam gave way!”

  Eleanor and her husband staggered into the rain and looked northeast along the steep-sided valley. Dimly at first, then with increasing clarity, she saw a sight so incredible, so numbing to the mind, that it made her bite down on her lip until blood ran.

  Filling the valley from wall to wall, its noise like that of a runaway locomotive, a foaming rampart of water forty feet high was rushing down on Johnstown.

  iii

  For a moment everyone on the roof stood motionless, numbed by the sight. From the streets below rose shrieks and shouts. One of the traveling men tugged out his gold turnip watch, as if compelled to fix the exact moment of the catastrophe.

  “Nine minutes past four. No, make that ten.”

  The man snapped the lid shut and put the watch back in his pocket. He had a curiously peaceful expression on his face. What could be done now? it seemed to say. Everyone shared his silent resignation for a few more seconds.