by Belva Plain
“My God,” Leah cried, “you took forever! What’s going on in there?”
“You’ve read enough about it. They’re looking for Communists.”
“Well, why are they holding Dan? Are they holding him? Where is he?”
“Sitting up front with that other fellow, the one who made the introduction. I think they are probably going to hold him. I’m not sure,” Paul said.
“They won’t put him in jail, will they?” Meg was aghast.
“I don’t know. There’s nothing we can do till we know. I wish you two would go home,” Paul said impatiently. “This may take half the night. I’ll find a cab for you.”
“I’m not going,” Leah said. “You don’t really think I could go home and sleep without knowing what was happening to Dan?”
Meg murmured, “Hennie will be frantic.”
His heart, Paul thought, and wondered just how much pressure Dan could stand.
The others were thinking the same.
“I hope he has his medicine with him,” Leah said.
A few more people emerged from the hall, glanced cautiously toward the three under the lamplight, lowered their eyes and went rapidly down the street. Like frightened rabbits, Paul thought, but aren’t we all? He felt the rage rising again. It was blowing up cold. They walked to the next corner and back. There was nothing to say, nothing to do but walk and wait.
Presently, three black vans drew up and stopped in the alley at the side door through which Paul had pushed Leah and Meg.
“What are they?” Meg asked.
“Police vans. And,” seeing their faces, Paul added kindly, “if they do take him away—if they should—we’ll get bail and take him right home. So that’s all that will happen.”
The street was strangely deserted. The news must have spread through the neighborhood and people were staying indoors out of sight.
Now the side door opened. Police came out first and made an aisle between the door and the van. Over their shoulders one could see a few men and women being hurried toward the van. Paul thought he saw Dan, but couldn’t be sure. He felt Leah’s hand on his back.
“Let me through—they can’t do this, let me through, Paul, dammit—”
He blocked her. “Stop it! This is serious! Keep out of it, don’t be a fool.”
He addressed the nearest policeman. “How far is the precinct house? Can we walk?”
“Ten blocks, down the avenue and one west.”
There wasn’t a taxicab in sight. “Hurry,” Paul said.
The three walked. Behind them now others were walking, almost running, to be first to see their people. No one spoke; the only sound was the scurry and slap of feet on the sidewalk.
The vans had arrived at the station ahead of the walkers, and the space in front of the high desk was filled with police and prisoners. They must have been making arrests all over the city. The crowd was pressed against the grimy walls, and the scuffed chairs along the walls were overturned. Up in front, Paul saw the same three cool young men in dark suits presenting their warrants to the man behind the desk. His eyes searched desperately for Dan and found him, pressed in a corner against a spittoon.
Roughly, he pushed men aside. “You all right, Dan?”
“I’m all right, I just took my medicine.”
“You need a chair, I’ll get one, you can’t just—”
“No. I’m worried about Hennie, that’s all.”
“Hennie will be all right. We’ll get bail for you as soon as they set it. This is crazy. What have they got against you?”
Dan said wearily, “They didn’t distinguish me from Leo. He is a member of the Communist Labor Party, though God knows I’m not. But they wouldn’t believe me on account of my speech.”
“Bastards,” Paul said.
“Hey, you haven’t got Leah and Meg with you?”
“I didn’t bring them. I met them there.”
Dan grinned. “Alfie will have a fit that Meg was there.” The grin turned into a grimace and his hand went to his chest.
“Is it bad?” Paul was frantic. “I’ll rush this through, get you to a doctor, they can’t do this, keep you standing here—”
Dan put out the other hand, restraining him. “No, it’ll pass. Just get home to Hennie.”
Ignoring him, Paul pushed his way back through the jostling crowd, to a policeman.
“Officer, there’s a sick man here. He’s got a bad heart. Is there any way he might be called up fast, so I can get bail? That will be no problem for me.”
The policeman’s placid middle-aged face took on an expression of wonder. “Bail? There’s no bail in these cases, mister. These are federal cases, didn’t you know? Department of Justice.”
“No bail?” Paul heard his own voice rise sharply. “I never heard of such a thing!”
“Well, you’re hearing it now.” And the man turned away.
Paul was in a state of shock. A bystander who had overheard explained, “Oh, yes, my brother was taken last month. He’s still in a federal penitentiary.”
“I don’t understand,” Paul repeated. He felt helpless; it flashed across his mind that he wasn’t used to feeling helpless, and he wasn’t going to accept it. His name was Paul Werner; he knew where to go and how to get what he wanted; he had been doing it all his life.
One of the marshals was approaching. Paul pulled him by the sleeve.
“Is it true that bail won’t be set?”
“Yes.”
“This is a crime! You have a completely innocent man here, a sick man. I demand bail!”
The man surveyed Paul from foot to head, pausing at his necktie. “You can demand what you want, that’s your privilege. See your lawyer in the morning.”
“In the morning?” Paul cried. “I can get him now! Right now!”
“It won’t do any good. The prisoners are being taken to the Tombs overnight, and nothing at all will be done until the morning. I’m sorry. Take your hand off, please.” For Paul had not released his sleeve.
“Jesus,” Paul said.
He made his way back to Dan, who was standing with Leah and Meg.
“It’s an outrage, Dan. You have to be kept overnight. The bastards.”
Dan said only, “I rather expected so.”
“I swear to you we’ll have you out first thing in the morning! Dan, you’ll manage, won’t you?”
His cheeks looked blue and Paul was sick with fear for him. So they stood, the two young women speechless with fright, holding Dan by the arms, as if leaning on him or helping him to lean on them. No one spoke. The gabble and the swarming in the close, fetid air was sickening. Half an hour later, Dan’s name was called and they had to let him go. He was taken to the desk, there was a brief buzz of talk, some statements were written down on some official papers, and then Dan Roth, remanded to the Tombs, was led away.
Now the two women let their tears fall. “I’ll get right home to Ben. He’s a smart lawyer,” Leah said. “He’ll find a way to wiggle out of this.”
Meg said, “I’ll go to Hennie’s. And I’m not,” she added, with some defiance, “going back to college until this is over.”
In spite of all, Paul had to smile at that. Little Meg was becoming a person.
Ben Marcus sat in his office overlooking Grand Central Station. His accountancy and law diplomas, in fine mahogany frames, were ranged behind the mahogany desk. From this seventeenth floor, he could see the rivers east and west; north lay the green oblong rug that was Central Park. Its lakes and ponds looked as if someone had dropped a couple of Tiffany diamonds on the rug, he was thinking now as he waited for the family to gather.
This was the morning of the third day since Dan’s arrest and he was still being held in the Tombs.
Well named, Ben said to himself, with a shudder; it was as dank as one imagined a medieval dungeon must have been. Fear hovered in the corridors. Thieves and derelicts of every description, the scum—and the tragedies—of the city, suffered and cursed and yelled
and wept and beat with their fists upon the walls. God help them! he thought, for although Ben was above all a keenly practical and ambitious man, he was also a kindly one, and had imagination. He could be haunted for days afterward whenever he had to go into a prison cell, which was now very seldom, since in his practice he dealt with corporative balance sheets and contracts rather than with street crime. He shuddered again.
What in the name of creation possessed a man like Dan Roth to get himself into a fix like this? The times were very dangerous for anyone who had what one might call “liberal” tendencies; surely the politic thing to do was to keep quiet until the times changed, which assuredly they would.
But Dan was an odd one. Likeable, but odd. Stubborn as all get out. Irritating, sometimes, with his holy attitudes, especially when he gave his opinions about the upbringing of Leah’s boy. For example, he was a nut about the public school system. Hank was seven, and Leah wanted to put him into a good private school, which made sense. There certainly was money enough! Dan’s money, Ben thought, shaking his head.
What an unusual lot he had married into! No two of them alike, and yet tight together as glue. Having grown up without relatives, he valued that.
Take Hennie and Dan—well, they were in a class by themselves. How people could be satisfied with never getting ahead, was beyond Ben. As far back as he could remember, when he had been a little kid in the Bronx, he had made plans to get ahead.
Alfie, now, Hennie’s brother, made a lot more sense, even though, in spite of his marked success, he never seemed quite grown up. A funny thing to say about a corpulent man of forty-five! Maybe it was his explosive laugh, all that expansive good nature, that kept him boyish. One wondered about his marriage, too, a marriage in which he seemed to be content, as did Emily; yet they didn’t seem to have much in common. They had started with a religious handicap, his Jewish parents and her gentile parents having been equally opposed to the marriage. She was sedate, while he was convivial. She was cultured, while he never opened a book. Of course, he had made a great deal of money and that had a way of smoothing the bumps. Certainly it helped their social climb—and a lot of nonsense that was!—although because of Alfie’s being Jewish, the climb would have its limits. Even the great parties at Laurel Hill wouldn’t help that much, Ben thought as he recalled the handsome spread in the green New Jersey countryside, the lavishly remodeled farmhouse with its wings, the pool and tennis courts, and the herd of fawn Jerseys in the barn.
It might be nice to have a place like that someday, he reflected, if Leah wanted it, that is. She loved the city, so she probably wouldn’t, and that was all right with him. Anything Leah wanted was all right with him. He chuckled. He’d gotten the gem of the family, all right!
He made a second’s comparison with Paul’s wife, the proper Marian. Straight as a broomstick, and about as lovable. He wondered how Paul really felt about her. Wouldn’t be surprised if he kept a pretty little person somewhere! Wouldn’t blame him. But one could never get close enough to Paul to know anything about him. Still, one liked him. Respected him. He had—what was the best word? Authority. And it wasn’t all because of his inherited position, although heaven knew that helped. No, it was the strength in him. Funny, Ben thought, I find myself deferring to him lots of times, not minding it, and I don’t defer easily.
Yet today they are coming to me; neither Alfie nor Paul has been able to get anywhere.
He stood up and moved closer to the window. He had a narrow, foxy red-brown head and quick humorous eyes. Now, as he studied the view, placing the museum in the park, gauging the location of his house, so close to the park, those eyes brightened with pleasure. He had come far! And he was going farther; he was no pauper, no hanger-on among his wife’s rich relatives; he could hold his own among them.
Now he heard them come in, heard Paul’s and Alfie’s voices.
Paul looked haggard. “Nothing,” he said. He threw up his hands. “I was down there again yesterday afternoon. He’s holding up, but he looks terrible. I don’t know how long he can last.”
Alfie confirmed that. “He hasn’t eaten or slept. It could break your heart. Hennie went yesterday. She can hardly stand up. Dan said she’s not to come again.”
There was a reflective silence. Ben, doodling on a pad, frowned over a new thought.
“Oh,” Alfie said, “I see you’ve redecorated! New carpets. Nice. Very nice.”
Paul threw him a look and turned to Ben. “I spent last evening with my lawyer. Of course, he’s wills and trusts, but he knows plenty of people. He’s tried here in the city. He was on the phone all day with Washington. That’s the sum of it, and it looks bad.”
Chastised, Alfie made amends. “I even called my stockbroker. A very wealthy man, top family, Son of the American Revolution, and all that. I must say, with all the money he’s made out of me, I thought he’d be a little more cooperative, but he seemed to feel that people like Dan deserve what they get. I don’t know.…” Alfie looked puzzled. His voice trailed off.
Ben drummed on the pad with his pencil. “So it looks as if we’re exactly nowhere, doesn’t it?”
“I’m afraid so,” Paul said. “You know, I’ve had the feeling, since the moment those men jumped onto the platform where Dan was speaking, that this isn’t real. I keep thinking of Alice in Wonderland. Curiouser and curiouser. The police station, and the cell. Dan Roth sitting in a cell on a dirty cot. For what? What’s he done, for God’s sake? God damn it! I feel like going down there and blowing the place up and taking Dan out!”
Ben had never seen Paul like this, and he regarded him with interest. Paul’s tie was askew; he was still wearing his topcoat and had dropped his hat on the floor.
Alfie, who had probably never seen Paul so agitated either, asked almost timidly what legal proceedings were next.
“He’ll stand before the magistrate’s court in a few days,” Paul answered. “The docket’s full, that’s why it’s taking so long. And then a federal prison. I don’t know for how long. It’ll kill him,” he finished. “Kill him.”
There was another silence in the room, until Ben said, “A stone wall.”
Paul sighed. “I’ve asked everywhere I could think of. The banking community, bar association men, my congressman and senators. Everybody I could dredge out of my memory. And my father has too. I must say he’s done his best, and you can imagine how much he disapproves of the sort of mess Dan can get into.” He managed a rueful smile.
“I can imagine,” Ben said. He’d met the old gentleman only two or three times, but it hadn’t been hard to size him up: stiff collar, Prussian moustache, high button shoes.
“Well, what are we going to do?” Alfie’s cry was almost a wail.
“I’ll tell you what,” Ben said. “I’ve been thinking of something. I don’t know whether it would work. I don’t know.”
As a matter of fact, he had been thinking since early the previous day, but for reasons of his own had been hesitant.
“There’s a man, a client who’s come to me recently. I don’t know him all that well—yet. But he’s got connections. There’s a man who really has got marvelous connections.”
“Well, why didn’t you call him right away? What are you waiting for, if he’s so marvelous?” Paul asked almost angrily.
“I’ll tell you. It may cost money.”
Paul and Alfie spoke at once. “For Christ’s sake, Ben, what difference does that make?”
“On the other hand, it may cost nothing.”
“What’s all the mystery? Get hold of him,” Paul commanded. “I’ll admit I’ve used up all my resources. I don’t care who the man is, I want Dan out of there before he dies of a heart attack, or Hennie has an emotional collapse!”
Ben stood up. “It’s nine-thirty. He’s got an office not far from here. I’ll just run over. This is too big to handle on the phone. Where are you both going?”
“We’ll be going down to see Dan. After that, Hennie,” Paul said, straightening his neck
tie.
“Hennie is still at my house. Leah wouldn’t let her stay alone in the apartment.” Ben was already halfway to the door. “I’ll call you at my house the moment I hear anything. If I hear anything.”
Paul had read through the Times and The Wall Street Journal; his head had begun to ache with the strain of idle waiting. Momentarily alone in the library, he could hear the life of the house, in the dining room where the women had been having coffee all afternoon, and upstairs where Hank had come home from school with two little boys. Their shrill voices were cheerful, Paul thought, as he heard them whooping down the stairwell. His eyes wandered around the room from the Steinway to the pale silk curtains, the gilded mantel clock and the muted pinks in the Oriental rug—all bought by Dan when he made a gift of the house to his son.
And now he sat in the Tombs. A queer business, among many queer things in this queer world.
Leah had added to the quiet luxury. She had begun to collect art, consulting Paul about her purchases. She was making a great deal of money herself. She had enlarged her shop, which was frequently mentioned in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Ben was making money, too, rising with surprising speed for a young lawyer who had no family connections. That spacious office this morning … and Leah had new jewelry … Paul had an eye for such things and recognized quality: a small fine emerald ring, excellent pearls with a diamond clasp … Well, it was none of his business.
Restlessly, he got up and crossed the hall to the dining room. Leah, Emily, Marian, Meg, and Paul’s mother hovered around Hennie, who sat without speaking. Her hands were locked tightly in her lap and her face was gray.
“We’re trying to get her to eat something,” Marian said. “She’s had nothing but tea all day.”
They all talked at once. “She still has fever, better not to eat. She should lie down. Do go upstairs and take a little nap, Hennie. We’ll call you the minute there’s anything, you know we will.”
But Hennie only shook her head, took another sip of tea, sighed, and locked her hands together again.
I don’t know what we’ll do with her, Paul thought as a possibility ran through his mind. Given what had been happening lately, it might even be a probability. Dan might receive a very stiff sentence, and how would they care for Hennie? And, as always, he felt that sense of blood linkage among his relatives, something, he knew, that was often remarked upon by outsiders because it was regrettably being lost in this century. He wondered why he felt it so strongly; his own parents didn’t feel it as strongly as he did.