by Belva Plain
Then he began to walk around the apartment. He went from one fine room to the other and back again.
Only a few months ago, they had moved into this much larger apartment to have space for a growing family. They weren’t even finished with the furnishing of it; he almost tripped over a roll of carpet that hadn’t yet been laid. He’d been so pleased with the arrangement of the possessions that he treasured; the glimmer of sunshine on the Monet landscape over the mantel, the antique English table in the dining room, the crystal horse on its pedestal, a wedding gift from his German cousin, Joachim, who had remembered his love of horses. He was even growing used to Mimi’s experiment with art deco in her little sitting room, with its unfamiliar angles, its inlaid ivory-and-shagreen table at which she worked on correspondence for her charities. But what good now were all these things?
He paced the hall, not knowing what he was looking for, not looking for anything. In the library, he stood gazing absently at the array of awards and plaques that Mimi, so foolishly proud of him, had hung on the wall behind his desk. Everywhere his name, Paul Aaron Werner, was written in black ink on white paper or in brass letters on brown wood; his charities, the hospitals and orphanages on whose boards he served commended him. The American Joint Distribution Committee honored him for his work in filling the $7 million New York City quota “for relief of suffering in the war-ravaged ghettos of Central Europe.” Solid citizen, he thought with irony, condemning himself.
He picked up a framed snapshot of Hank at the age of three, sitting on a park bench one day when Paul had taken him on an outing. Such a merry little face! Bold like Dan’s. And yet a little like his father, with a softness around the mouth. The dead Freddy had left something of himself behind, anyway. To have a boy like that …
Try not to be bitter, Paul. It’s useless and it’s ugly.
On the opposite wall he came face-to-face with his wife in a silver frame. The photograph was a duplicate of the one he kept at the office. She had an air of sensitive refinement, showing her characteristic somewhat prim and wistful smile. Her long neck was framed in an Elizabethan collar of starched lace; she wore lace because he liked it, she did everything because he liked it. And he could have wept for her, for himself, for everything.
Then he crossed the hall. The door to the nursery was ajar, so that light fell over the canopied bassinet. That old wives’ warning about buying nothing for a baby until it was safely born, a warning at which both Marian and he had scoffed, made sense after all. He slammed the nursery door. Tomorrow he d call some charity and get all the stuff out of the house.
At last he went into the kitchen. Take a brandy, the doctor had said. He’d laid in a nice supply just before Prohibition went into effect. He’d thought to save the brandy for some celebration, although what possible celebration there would be now, he didn’t know. So he poured a generous, wasteful glass. Maybe it would help him sleep. And, sipping it slowly, he went to stand at a living room window, looking out into the night. Here and there, in houses up and down the street, a light went on: some student studying late for an examination, someone struck by sudden sickness, or a lover come home late, after having loved?
For a long time Paul stood waiting for sleep to tranquilize him. At last, near dawn, he went in to the wide, solitary bed and closed his eyes.
Two
The year was 1923, with the Red Scare still continuing. Never before in these United States had there been suppression so severe, not even during the worst moments of the Civil War. The Military Intelligence Bureau had drawn up a list entitled “Who’s Who in Pacifism” and given it to the newspapers and the courts; Jane Addams and Lillian Wald were among the eminent personalities on this list of supposed public enemies. The Reverend John Haynes Holmes was arrested for speaking his mind on a street corner. Not long ago the president of Dartmouth College had accused Attorney General Palmer of concocting imaginary dangers to further his own political ambitions; it was said by many in a position to know that he was angling for the presidency. All over the country, petitions were being circulated and speeches given, while the arrests went on.
Dan Roth was to speak one evening at a little hall on the Lower East Side. He felt that he had been still too long, deferring to Hennie’s fears for his health. For herself she had no fears at all; she spoke out whenever she was invited, attacking and giving names; her caution was only for him. But this time she had not been able to hold him back. Unfortunately, too, she had come down with the flu that morning, and could not even be with him.
A varied crowd had assembled in the little hall. There was the usual mixture of intellectual and academic types, neatly but soberly dressed, along with a swelling of labor union people.
A sprinkling of Communists as well, Paul thought, surveying the dingy, poorly lighted room.
This was not his usual sort of gathering, although certainly he was against war and in favor of free speech! Perhaps, though, it occurred to him, he wasn’t courageous enough to be an agitator. On the other hand, perhaps these impassioned harangues delivered to people who already held your point of view were just so much wasted breath. He wasn’t sure. He had come because Hennie had asked him to. Obviously she wanted him to help fill the hall.
Also, he had come because he had wanted to get out of the house, this being ladies’ bridge night and Mimi’s turn to be hostess. One night a week, among a certain group of friends, the husbands met for cards and on the same night their wives met in some other house. Paul, it seemed, was the only husband who didn’t play, a fact that annoyed Mimi considerably. He had no interest in cards, couldn’t remember who had dealt what card and didn’t care. Ordinarily he had no problem with ladies’ night but simply went into his library to read. Lately, though, there had been times when the feminine gathering grated on his nerves. The women seemed so trivial, with their idle gossiping.… At the same time he felt ashamed of himself for so harshly condemning an innocent amusement. What else, after all, did Mimi have to do except to make a life for herself among her friends, with their charity luncheons and their bridge games? His feelings were confused.
Suddenly he recognized Leah and Uncle Alfie’s Meg across the room. It was vacation week, he realized, so Meg was down from Wellesley. That’s an odd friendship, he thought, watching the two heads nod and bob. A smart chinchilla beret perched on Leah’s glossy hair, while Meg’s face was framed by a wide felt brim; the hat was schoolgirlish, yet pretty and becoming. Meg was a big girl with strong jaw and cheekbones; comfortable in sweaters and plaid skirts, she glowed in cold weather, when her fine skin shone pink. There was something in her trusting, wholesome face that had always touched Paul with a kind of pity. Of late, though, there had been change: Leah was teaching her how to dress. Her mother, having a fetish about refinement, had always dressed her badly.
Paul, too, liked to take some credit for having “rescued” Meg, since it was through his urging that Alfie and Emily had finally allowed her to go away to college. They would have kept her at home, dependent and infantile, forever. She’ll have a hard time with them when she tries to marry, he thought.
He got up and took the vacant seat beside them.
“What a surprise! A family turnout!” Leah said. She could sound faintly mocking without meaning to mock at all.
“What brings you here?” Paul bantered back. “Shouldn’t think this sort of thing was your first interest.”
Leah grinned. “You know very well it’s not. But I couldn’t disappoint Hennie.”
Meg said earnestly, “I wanted to come. There’s been so much talk at school about what’s going on in the country. Even Radcliffe has been attacked as radical because they had a debate about labor unions! Can you imagine? So when Dad said at dinner tonight that he’d heard that Uncle Dan was to speak, I decided to come.”
“Your father’s not here, though,” Paul said somewhat mischievously.
Now Meg laughed. “Oh, you know Dad doesn’t think people should get themselves involved in government busines
s! You’ve got enough to do to mind your own affairs.”
She has her mother’s symmetrical English face, Paul thought, but her smile is Alfie’s. She ought to use it more. He wondered whether she went out much with men, and rather thought not.
Then Dan came out onto the platform, along with the chairman of the meeting, who was to introduce him. Promptly the buzz of talk ceased, and there was a general expectant settling of chairs.
The chairman had a bushy head and a foreign accent. He spoke in orotund phrases: “This distinguished scientist, this devoted teacher, a man of conscience who had come here tonight, calling us all to heed …” et cetera, while Dan, who was obviously embarrassed, sat stiffly with his hands clutching the arms of the wooden chair.
The years had changed Dan very little. There was just a threading of silver in his thick hair; his expression was vivid; his suit, Paul saw with a smile, was still carelessly rumpled. And settling back, Paul prepared himself to let his mind wander. He knew so well what Dan was going to say that he could have given the speech himself. There was, after all, only one point of view that any right-thinking citizen could take.
“What we are here for,” Dan began at last, “what we have to do is prevent the next war. In the next war, let me tell you now, there won’t be any front lines or any safe rear quarters where the tax dodgers, corrupt politicians and militarists can go on living in comfort, while the young are slaughtered.… What we have to do is to silence those people who would silence us … the very kind of people who get rich out of war.…”
Paul felt himself wince. Not everyone who made money during the war had been a militarist. Not his father, who had simply made loans to the Allies when they needed money; wars cost money. God knew his father never wanted a war, nor Paul in it. Yet wealth had flowed. Were they to give it all away? Well, they always had given a good deal of it away and still did.
Always, in Dan’s presence, he was made to feel apologetic, not by Dan but by his own self.
Dan said, “Now they attack the settlement houses! ‘Hotbeds of Communism in America,’ they say. Well, I should like to inform him that these dangerous ladies come from what he would call our best families. Oh, these dangerous ladies, subverting the immigrant with lessons in cooking and English and child care—”
There was laughter from the audience.
“Yes, of course you laugh! You see the absurdity of it. Now they condemn the International Conference of Women for Peace. You recall when they met in Zurich to influence the makers of the Versailles Treaty? Well, I say it is too bad those women didn’t have more influence, because the treaty contains the seeds of the next war, unless we here do something about it.”
Dan’s voice rose. The room was absolutely still. He knows how to rouse them, he’s an orator, Paul thought, and then was worried because Dan was using too much energy and too much emotion. He would be needing his pills before he was through.
Dan held his arms aloft, crying, “Yes, I say, it’s these false patriots who are the menace! Their mouths are filled with bitter lies. Every prediction they ever made was wrong and a lie and, what is more, they know it. The May Day parades these last couple of years at which, we were told, there were to be bombings and assassinations: Were there any?”
A murmur went through the room: No, no.
“They would like to extend, to renew the war powers and the Espionage laws. They flout the constitutional guarantees of free speech and a free press.
Innocent people have been arrested and railroaded through their hearings. This outrage—these outrages—”
Dan caught his breath. He was shouting now as he grasped the podium and Paul, alarmed, thought: We shouldn’t have let him come.
“Listen to what Clarence Darrow has to say about what is going on!”
Dan took out a sheet of paper, put on his glasses, and—three men in dark suits leapt up on the platform. At the same instant the doors at the rear of the hall were flung open, slamming against the walls. A stream of sallow light from the lobby poured in and a dozen policemen came trotting down the aisle in double time.
“What in blazes—” Paul began.
A gasp went through the audience, followed by faint screams and a scramble to see what was happening.
“Cossacks!” someone yelled.
The police had taken their stand with folded arms at the foot of the stage, glowering back at the crowd. A woman wailed, and then, as suddenly as the commotion had erupted, it ceased and the room fell still.
One of the dark-suited men produced a badge. “You are Leo—” and then some difficult name, probably mispronounced.
“I am.” The moderator, who was half a head shorter than his interrogator, stood his ground. “I am,” he repeated with defiance.
Meg had seized Paul’s arm. “What is it? What’s happening?”
“Department of Justice, U.S. marshals,” Paul whispered. His eyes were on Dan, who had sat down, huddled on his chair. A heart attack coming on, or simply terrified? Paul’s own heart drummed.
“Leo”—again the blurred name— “you are under arrest. You are a member of the Communist Labor Party and a threat to the established peace and order of the United States. I order you to identify among those present any and all active members of your organization.”
“Absolutely not,” said Leo.
“It would be a great deal simpler than having us make a personal search of everyone in this room for identification.”
Indignant shouts broke out. “This is America! Where do you think you are? Show your warrants!”
A second marshal stepped to the edge of the platform. “Less noise here, please.” Firm and correct, he might have been speaking before some conservative forum. Obviously, he had been instructed to permit no violence. The arrested were just quietly to be whisked away.
“We are in possession of warrants to search the premises and the persons present. It will be to your benefit to comply willingly. Will all on the left side of the center aisle please line up on that wall, those on the right do the same.”
Paul looked about. Leah and Meg were in the seats closest to the aisle, next to an exit. Men and women, some silent with fright, others cursing with anger, were shoving and being shoved to the wall. Paul pushed Leah, who resisted. “Get out. Slip out. Fast.” He pushed Meg, whose face was crinkled, ready for tears. “Get out, both of you! Fast, I said! Dammit!” he cried, steering them through the rising frenzy of the crowd. He slid them safely through the door, just as a policeman, having suddenly become aware of the open door, came rushing up to block it.
The men on the platform were now interrogating Dan.
“I’m not a member of any organization. Never have been,” Paul heard him say.
They were asking him to turn his pockets inside out. They were examining his wallet. There would be nothing subversive there, that was a certainty. Still, what had he just been saying? Paul tried to recollect what he had been hearing only a few minutes before. But whatever Dan had said, it had been his right to say it. Or it always had been, in this country.… Dan and Leo were now alone on the platform except for one policeman; must that mean that Dan, too, was under arrest?
The men from the Justice Department were now beginning to examine the people lined up against the walls. Carefully, quietly, they looked through pockets and wallets, briefcases and pocketbooks. There were mild protests of innocence and ignorance, tears from some of the women and muttered fury from some of the men, all of which the examiners ignored as, methodically, they proceeded to separate the crowd.
Many were dismissed, sent up the center aisle and out of the building. It will take a couple of hours to go through everyone here, Paul thought, resigning himself.
Then suddenly, he was called out of turn and asked to show the contents of his pockets. He wondered whether he could possibly be under suspicion for something. Or was it that they thought he looked out of place here? His clothing, which was merely his habitual business dress, did set him apart. Complying, he
withdrew the contents of his pockets: a Dunhill pipe and tobacco pouch, a monogrammed cigarette case, a pair of gray suede gloves, and a gold house key on a gold chain, last year’s birthday present from Marian.
“Your wallet, please, sir?”
Yes, it must be the clothes; the workmen in the line had not been addressed as “sir.” The wallet, of black pin seal, contained the following: two hundred dollars in new bills—he liked new, clean, unwrinkled bills—his business card, and an identification paper giving his home address on Fifth Avenue.
His examiner replaced everything with care. “And what were you doing here, sir, tonight?” There was a slight emphasis, as of surprise, on the word you.
Paul felt his indignation mount. An American citizen, being asked what he was doing. But it was only common sense to deal prudently with an opponent who had the upper hand. For Dan’s sake, if not for his own.
“I came to hear my uncle speak. Daniel Roth. He’s been a peace activist, no Communist, I guarantee you!”
The man smiled slightly. “Guarantee?” he repeated. He was a young man, surely not more than twenty-five, and very polite.
“Oh, yes,” Paul said. “He’s a schoolteacher, idealistic—” And searching for anything that might help Dan, he explained, “Lost a son in the war, you see, and that’s why he’s so mixed up in this peace business. But that’s all it is. And he’s got a heart condition. You aren’t going to hold him, are you?”
“I really can’t discuss that,” the young man answered. “But you certainly may leave, sir. In fact, you must leave now. Out through the main door, please.” And he proceeded to the next in line.
Out through the main entrance. Of course. So he wouldn’t be able to go down the front to where Dan was still sitting. Only when the cold air hit him, did Paul realize that his body was burning, as with a fever.
There were not many people on the sidewalk. Those who had been released had scurried as fast and as far away as they could. Under a streetlamp in the corner, he saw Leah and Meg.