by Howard Fast
“They caught him tonight,” Lola whispered.
“No? Where?”
Lola told him and he listened intently. When she had finished, he looked at her and nodded thoughtfully. “That was a good thing you did to go in there. It’s an unhappy business when cops got guns in their hands and hate in their hearts. I’m glad Gregg’s all right. How do you feel?”
“I feel good,” Lola said flatly. “Maybe I’m selfish, but I’d never sleep and never rest if he were running. It’s a cruel thing to be hunted. I never thought of it that way before, but I lived through it today—to know that a man you love is like an animal in the woods——”
“A lot of folks like that, Mrs. Gregg, like animals in the woods and never know when a gun is going to be turned against them. You’re right. It’s a cruel thing.”
“I’m glad he’s alive. He’s in jail, but he’s alive.”
“That’s right. You got life, you got a lot.”
“And like he says, it’s only begun. They have to try him—they have to prove he committed a crime. That won’t be easy. Now I can fight for him and with him—and that’s all I want and all I care about.”
Burke nodded. “I’m honoured to know you, Mrs. Gregg. He’s a fine man and he got a fine wife. He’s got friends. So have you. You remember that, please, Mrs. Gregg.”
“I’ll remember it,” Lola said.
He said good night and he put on his hat and walked down the street, and Lola, the tears running down her cheeks now, whispered, “I’ll remember—I’ll remember.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE DOCTOR
LOLA paused to dry her eyes and to glance at herself in her handbag mirror, because, as she reflected, the children might very well be awake, and it would be best to approach them with great calm and certainty. From here on, she felt, all of her actions toward the children would have to be judged and considered with some wisdom, so that they might make “their way through the maze that now confronted them with at least a minimum of heartache and confusion.”
While she stood there, she recalled Adam Burke’s mention of the man upstairs who said that she was not yet at home. Who could it be, she wondered? A sudden wave of panic overtook her, and she closed her bag and dashed up the stairs. But she had not yet reached her door when the panic passed, and she realized that if a sensitive person like Burke had not been alarmed, then certainly there was no cause for alarm. And by the time she had unlocked the door, she began to believe and hope that it would be, that it was old Doc Fremont.
His first glance at her as she entered the living-room was rather reproachful. There he was, sitting opposite Roger, his coat off, his shirt-sleeve rolled up, interrupted in the midst of teaching the little boy how to take his blood pressure. For months now, Lola had not seen him, and whenever so long a time went past, age seemed to deal him hard blows. Now he was a little more grey, his moustache a little more crinkled, his black suit a little shinier, the wrinkles in his face deeper, the slope of his shoulders sharper.
As he got up, took the gauge off his arm and embraced his daughter, he said to her, “Lola, Lola, it wasn’t right. You should have called me first thing. An old man wants to feel useful when his girl’s in trouble—wants to help. Well, I came as soon as I could. It was just one of those days when you can’t seem to break out. You remember those days, don’t you, baby?”
“I remember,” Lola said. “How did you know?”
“Honey, the whole world knows, on the radio and in the papers all day. Made front page in Hagertown, local girl makes good. Your Aunt Sarah and your Aunt Bessie were on top of me half the afternoon. I told them, I want to get my work done, and leave me alone, you two old harpies—but, oh no, they were going to weep it out——”
“I hope it doesn’t hurt you, Dad.”
“Hurt me? Hell no—it’s made me feel ten years younger already to have a fight on my hands. But here I am and I haven’t even asked you—have they found Gregg?”
“Tonight—they caught him.”
Roger cried, “Is he all right?” And her father said, “My dear, I’m sorry—I’m awful damn sorry. I just didn’t think they would. Why now, I said to myself, Gregg will lead them a fine chase and have them standing on their heads, but they’ll never put their hands on him, they won’t.”
She answered Roger, crouched down next to him and looked him squarely in the eyes. “He’s all right,” Lola said. “I saw him myself and I kissed him for me and for you and for Patty.”
“He isn’t dead, Mummy?”
“He’s as alive as you and me and Grandpa.” Grand-pa’s eyes were bright and excited, and suddenly Lola felt a great pity for him. More than Roger, he was like a little boy, exulting in the excitement of it, the adventure of it. His ageing, bent figure, his worn suit, his sagging stomach—all of it was symbolic of what had happened to a generation like himself, keen minds, high hopes, and bitter hatred of injustice, and all of it blown out and wrapped away and frightened away; and now this old man who resented and feared and admired Gregg was caught up in a sudden flight of youth and glory. It was his golden bird that fell plunging to the earth when Gregg was taken; for his own tired soul would have roamed free with Gregg in league-long strides over cities and mountains, so fleet of foot that no force could take him—hungering for the old dead legends.
This was her father, Lola reflected, poor tired man, lost man, a whole life washed away, a small town doctor who ends up with none of the much-touted and fictional glory, but only in genteel semi-poverty; and he wanted to know why she hadn’t called him. What would happen to him if she told him the whole truth of why she hadn’t called him—that it had not entered her mind to call him, that he and all his world were dead and only alive in the memories of her childhood? And yet, now that he was here, Lola was glad, and the warmth of his presence filled the room and gave her a kind of contentment and happiness that she had not known for a long, long while. Nevertheless, she felt a certain guilty sadness at her elimination of him—and the fact that she had not called him, not turned to him weighed heavily upon her.
“But what happened? What happened?” Roger demanded, and Doc Fremont’s eyes snapped as he wanted to know what kind of a fight Gregg had given them. Lola was amazed at how incapable he was of seeing tragedy in this; his whole life had been tragedy trooping in and but of his office, but with this, he was like a little boy at a western film. Lola told them what had happened. She wanted Roger to hear it, and she left out no detail. She told how she had spoken to the men in the car, how she had gone into the theatre, and how she had found Gregg.
Roger stared at her, eyes wide and round, mouth open, creating the pictures within himself, no longer doubting that his father lived, seeing his father and his mother new and wonderful for the first time. Doc Fremont bit at his moustache, clapped his fist into his palm again and again, and finally burst out:
“Well, by God, I’ve got a daughter who’s something, even if that’s all I got! Lola, that took guts!”
“No, it didn’t, Dad. I just want Gregg, and I want him alive.”
“I want him too,” Roger agreed.
“We’ll see him tomorrow, both of us,” Lola said, in that tone which Roger had long come to recognize as the bed-time tone, and explained to her father, “He has to go to bed, Dad. It’s late, I’ll be with him fifteen or twenty minutes, and if you’ll answer the phone I’ll be grateful. Just tell whoever it is that everything is all right, that Gregg is in jail and everything is all right.” She asked Roger whether he and Patty had had supper, and Roger said, yes, Mrs. Schwartz had fed them. He said that Mrs. Schwartz was very nice and that she knew how to cook, and Lola recalled that she had not even gone across the hall to thank her. Well, she would, just as soon as she had a moment.
As Roger undressed, he wanted to know about jail. Was it like it was on television? Would Gregg try to escape? Would the floodlights go on, and bang, bang—shooting and all that? How long would they keep his father in jail? Question after ques
tion—and Lola tried to explain about bail and then there would have to be a trial, but was never sure that the explanations reached Roger. In the next bed, Patty slept the way children sleep, relaxed, arms thrown loosely.
“Will I go to school tomorrow?” Roger asked, and Lola told him, not tomorrow but the next day. His face fell. He said he would rather not go back at all, and his face became old. She realized that for this generation, raised with the television screen as a backdrop and with the bursting mushroom glory of the atom bomb instead of sunset, there would be no high adventure. Television, strangely, wasn’t enough to replace the riches they had lost, and they lived sombrely. He asked her to sing to him, and she softly hummed the Brahms lullaby. Outside the telephone rang, and she heard Doc Fremont’s muted voice explaining who he was and that all was well because Gregg was safely in jail. Safely in jail. Her mind formed words, go to sleep, baby boy, sleep well and sleep gently. Sorrow for the parents, she thought, herself over Roger and the old man outside. How wonderful he was when she herself was a little girl and filled with admiration for his skill, his wit, his caustic wisdom, his ability to cut through to the heart of any situation, his hatred of hypocrisy, his control of almost any situation! But the wonder was gone. Gregg had once said, “The end of a liberal is one of the more ignoble tragedies of our time.” But Lola wondered whether it was that simple, and what would her end be? What awful disease fastened on a person who could no longer endure wrong silently? Sleep well and sleep gently, and the lights were out and in the darkness she saw the slow droop of the child’s eyelids. How many before her, like herself, had said, my world will not be your world, and you, my child, you will grow up in a world like a garden. But what kind of a garden for Roger, for Patty? What would they dream of tonight? Tonight, if she slept, Lola would dream of neatly dressed men in sharkskin suits with neat portfolios and neat steel-rimmed spectacles and neat Anglo-Saxon names and neat speech patterns and neat little guns with snub barrels in neat holsters under their armpits. Then go to sleep, my baby boy. How tired she was suddenly.
She tip-toed out of the room, closing the door behind her, blinking in the bright light of the living-room and reacting to the pungent smell of fresh coffee. She followed it to the kitchen, where her father had put up coffee to cook and had put bread and butter and cheese and cold meat on the table. “I’ll bet you had no supper,” he grinned.
“I guess not, but I’m not hungry, Dad.”
“Roger asleep?”
She nodded, and her father said, “Try to eat something, Lola. I never held with this stupid modern habit of not eating. When the body’s upset, food’s better than medicine, believe me.”
“All right, I’ll try.” He explained about the large plate of coldcuts; he didn’t like to come empty-handed, and he had brought a bottle of wine and a bottle of whisky. He insisted that she have another drink, which she took straight. It warmed her stomach and brought a glow to her face and her skin, and she began to feel relaxed and comfortable, while the presence of her father gave her a sense of security she had not felt all day. He poured coffee for her and made a thick sandwich of roast beef, which she found she could eat after all. She said to him, “Dad, I’m glad you came.”
“Sure you are. Not that I’m the same thing as your mother, but one of us is better than none of us.”
“It’s been rough going since she died, hasn’t it?”
“Lonely, mostly. And how such a sweet, good, wise woman could have been connected with a gang of sisters as narrow, nasty, and downright stupid as your aunts passes my understanding.”
“They are not as bad as all that, Dad.”
“Worse, as you would find out if you had anything to do with them. If they would only leave me alone, Lola, and not try to do for me, it would be different, but they do try to do for me. I suppose I can’t blame them. The old house is a lonely place now. I got to thinking that maybe with all this trouble, Lola, maybe you’d like to bring the kids back there——”
She shook her head and smiled. “Thanks, doc, but Gregg is here, and there’s a big fight ahead of both of us.”
“I know, I know. Look, Lola, there’s nobody respects Gregg more than I do, but my God, girl, you got a life to live and a world to live in. I won’t say it broke my heart when you married Gregg, but your mother never got over it. Why you could have married——”
“Not tonight, Dad. I don’t want to go over that tonight.”
“All right, baby. But don’t think I got anything against a working man. I spent my life treating working men, and to me they’re the salt of the earth. But damned if I ever could decide whether the life they live is worth living!”
“Please, Dad.”
“All right—all right, finished. Just one word—I wish to hell your brother Robert was half the man Gregg is. That’s all. I don’t hold with Gregg or see things his way, but I just wish Robert was half the man he is.”
“I haven’t seen Robert for years,” Lola said.
“Of course you haven’t. Robert would risk shaking his golden nest by looking out at you.”
“Have you seen him, Dad?”
“Today.”
“Today—how could you see him today?”
“Very simple, by going to his home and ringing his doorbell and walking in. God damn it, Lola, I’m not impressed by Park Avenue. I’m not that much of a country bumpkin. I lunched with Woodrow Wilson at the White House when he wanted some honest opinion on an international medical service—yes, I been out of Hagertown once or twice. I never earned the eighty thousand a year that Robert manages to get by on, but neither did you do hysterectomies three times a day and stay out of jail in those times. Or maybe you did, and I’m being unfair to Robert. He’s a good surgeon, even if he gives more time to his investments than to medicine. Why not? The world belongs to a few, and he’s one of them——”
“Dad, why on earth did you go over there today?”
“Because I’m old enough to remember the Palmer Raids and Sacco and Vanzetti, and I know that when a man goes to jail for being a radical, he needs money and lots of it. If I had it, I’d die before I’d ask my son for it. But I don’t have it and your brother Thomas is hard at work at that fine American profession of being the son-in-law of a Texas oil millionaire and afraid to talk to me except out of the side of his mouth and quaking that possibly his oily relatives may discover that his father is a seedy country medic with strange ideas—well, that left Robert, and I went to Robert. Why not?”
“Dad, I didn’t——”
“But you looked it. Why not? It took my last dollar to put him through medical school—and your mother with cancer already, and knowing it too, and still I put him through school and gave him his start. Did I ask a penny for that? Did I ask a penny from him when your mother died and I didn’t have the price of the funeral? Yes, I know you sent me money—God knows how you did—but not a penny from Robert. I guess he thought that if I could afford to educate him to be a surgeon and keep his brother in Rutgers, then I could afford to bury my wife. I never said this until tonight, Lola—never, but I figured I had some repayment coming and that today was the day to collect it.”
“You shouldn’t have,” Lola whispered. “Daddy, you shouldn’t have, you shouldn’t have.” She got up, went around the table, and laid her hands on his cheek. “Daddy, I would have died before I had you hurt. We’ll get the money—it won’t be so hard. Nothing is really hard, Daddy, nothing except inside of you.” She kissed him then, the old grizzled moustache, the old smell of tobacco and antiseptic, the old life and the old times, the quick spinning of the earth and the irresistible wash of time into the neverland of what has been.
“Except inside of you,” he said. “Sit down, Lola. How did you know I was hurt?”
“I knew,” she answered helplessly, as she sat down opposite him. He watched her as he took out his pipe and tobacco, filled the pipe slowly and deliberately, tamped down the top, and then pinched fire with his finger-nail from an old-fashioned w
ood match. Smoke clouded his face and Lola breathed the sweet and familiar and honeylike odour.
“Tell me, Lola,” he said, a little uncertainly, “what’s in this for you?”
“In what, Dad?”
“The life you live—the road you’ve chosen to walk.”
“I thought we weren’t——”
“No, no—no, baby. This is something else. I got to know. I want to know. I want to understand. It’s not just curiosity or burning over old coals. I got to understand.”
Lola nodded, wondering what had happened at her brother’s house. A man is your brother, but he goes away, and then other men must be your brother; but if the thread was so thin, what bound her to this old man who faced her across the table? Why couldn’t she find the thread, finger it, and then find her way down it to its source? She tried to tell him that his question wasn’t a case of what was in it for her. One step led to another, little steps that stretched far, far back and down through the whole line of her life. If logic became your master, if truth took hold of you, did you ever shake it off? Was there any taskmaster like that?
“I don’t follow you,” he answered tiredly.
“Weren’t you a socialist once?” she demanded.
“Well—well, that was different. I suppose I was a sort of socialist. I believed in social justice until I found that I believed in a legend. I don’t like to believe in legends. That’s why I’m an atheist. When I saw my first cancer case, I challenged God. When my best friend died of multiple sclerosis, I cursed Him; and when your mother died, I didn’t care any more. You have to believe in something to curse it. Sometimes of a Sunday, your poor mother would drag me to church, and there I would see the hardest, the meanest, the most narrow and unmitigated scoundrels, cheats and moneygrubbers in the county, all of them with that nasty, pious, unctuous look on their faces, all of them handshaking the pastor and him apple-polishing them and upping the miserable few pennies they would drop in the plate. I lived through two wars that were made and fought for money, and I saw young lads by the thousands lay down their lives gallantly and unselfishly, so that where there was one millionaire, a hundred could grow and bloom. I watched the generals climb, the cheap, lying politicians ooze with joy, the summer crop of two-bit patriots prate their lousy nonsense while they eased their bank accounts into five and six figures—yes, I watched it, I watched a lifetime of it. Cynical—yes, I’m cynical, Lola. The man is Robert; smart, shrewd, in tune with the times. Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, and the poor swallow it——”