Red Menace

by Lois Ruby

  “I’ve been getting them, too, here and at my office on campus.”

  “Think we should tell the FBI guys across the street?”

  “There’s no need to,” Dad says hoarsely. “They listen in on every call in and out of this house. We’re under siege, do you understand?”

  Yeah, I understand all right. The anger trickles up my spine and pumps hot loads of understanding into my head. Feels like a noose is tightening around my neck, and the floor’s about to drop out from under me, and I wonder again, is hanging any better than electrocution? Did they give the Rosenbergs a choice? My hands are shaking. I ram them in my pockets and beat a path out of Dad’s office like my heels are on fire.

  Standing here at the window makes me look like a complete drip, but there’s Amy Lynn across the street, and she’s got her legs propped up the wall of Luke’s house. She told me she’d be reading Mad Magazine to Luke, to see if she could appeal to his funny bone. If he still has one. Amy Lynn tilts her head back and waves to me over her shoulder. Luke’s as still as a department store dummy.

  Gotta pull myself away from the window. The radio’s blaring an obnoxious commercial for Colgate Chlorophyll Toothpaste, which Mom refuses to buy ever since they started putting chlorophyll in dog food to improve doggie breath.

  Yankees against the Indians. Cleveland’s third-baseman Al Rosen is the man to watch, if you take your eyes off the Mick for a sec. Man, Rosen is batting .336, which, as Bubbie Sylvia says, “isn’t bad for a nice Jewish boy.”

  The thing about radio is that you see and smell and taste every detail of the game—with your ears. Mel Allen pours it all into mine. No game is complete until some pitcher throws a gopher ball to a Yankee slugger, and Mel Allen yells, Going, going, gone!

  Now I hear the pre-game roar of the crowd and see thousands of hepped-up fans packed into Yankee Stadium. I suck in the smell of hot peanuts when bags fly past me down the bleacher line. There’s the mighty smack of the ball in my glove, because tonight I am the catcher warming up Eddie Lopat, who’ll be pitching for New York. I’m telling you, I am there, even if I’m invisible to Connor and all the guys on my team. Ex-team.

  Mr. Sokolov will be here to listen to me struggle through my lousy Hebrew pronunciation in twenty minutes, so I don’t want to miss a single minute of the game till then. But I can’t help thinking, It’s only a game, only a game, and there will be lots of other ones.

  Before I can chicken out, I pull the plug, open the back of the Philco, and jerk out a wire. Screw the radio together, pick it up, still warm, and take it across the street.

  I don’t tell Luke anything directly. I just belly-ache to Amy Lynn, “Stupid radio went out on me, at the worst possible time. Man, I missed the opening pitch. I am so ticked, I’m tossing this piece of junk in the trash.”

  Amy Lynn rolls over on her stomach as I wrap the cord around the radio with vengeance, choking it to death.

  And like magic, Luke says, “Lemme . . . have . . . a . . . look.”

  He’s got it fixed in minutes. You can bet there’s gonna be a whopping entry about this in my Luke box scores.

  Turns out the Mick went hitless against Cleveland, probably because I wasn’t listening. Can’t win ’em all.

  Chapter 20

  Friday, May 8 – Saturday, May 9

  Last night it rained flash-flood level, and I thought our windows would crack from the golf-ball-sized hailstones, but they didn’t. The Palmetto Pirates game after school tomorrow is gonna be a soggy one. And I’m not gonna be there, not even on the bench, not even in the stands, not even lurking behind a garbage can. I’m stretched out on my bed like a beached whale.

  I turn up the radio full blast and bury my head under my pillow.

  Mom says we’re living under the sword of Damocles. My clever response is, huh? Turns out, Damocles was this Greek guy a couple thousand years ago who had a sword hanging right over his head by nothing but a single hair. Potential severe ouch.

  The FBI sword could drop any time, and we’d be chopped meat.

  Plus, summer’s coming soon, and they’re not even opening the city pool this year because of the polio scare. I don’t have a single summer plan—no summer baseball league—except busting my butt with Mr. Sokolov drilling for my bar mitzvah in October. I might as well sleep right through the execution in forty-one days.

  It’s tempting; I’m already lying on my bed. My pre-algebra book’s propped up between my gut and my raised knees, and the squiggles are swimming around like ants building one of those thumb-sized cities they’re famous for. Man, how can Amy Lynn’s father spend his life on this? He’ll put the senators on the HUAC committee to sleep with just a page of this stuff.

  Just when I’m about to doze off myself, I hear a crash in the living room. When I run out there, I see that somebody’s finished what the hail left undone. The window’s shattered. Now there’s a pile of glass on the floor and a bad chip in our coffee table, caused by a big rock with a note tied around it. I carefully unfold the paper—fingerprints; maybe the G-men will find the guy, unless they’re the ones who hurled the rock.

  Nah, somebody else. The note says:

  THE ONLY GOOD RED

  IS A DEAD RED

  DDT (DROP DEAD TWICE)

  Underneath is a picture of two electric chairs with grinning stick figures in them, with the date June 18, 1953.

  My heart does cartwheels. Why isn’t the FBI chasing the guy who threw the rock instead of sniffing our milk and pawing our mail?

  ♢

  Dad gets a fix-it man to board up the window until we can get a new one. Good thing, too, because there’s another storm the next day. Thunder rumbles, lightning flashes. Rain pelts a drumbeat on the plywood over the window. Mom and Dad and I are sprawled on the couch and chairs in the living room. I’m trying not to doze off while Mom reads us stanzas from her latest collection, Vainglory, or maybe it’s Gory Veins, when the doorbell rings. As heavyweight champ Rocky Marciano might say after pulverizing Joe Louis: saved by the bell.

  Turns out, we’re doomed by the bell. It’s our old friends, dripping again. Maybe they pick the rainiest days to come in because they’re afraid the Studebaker might float to the next county, carrying them someplace without commies to hassle.

  Mom’s ready to give the G-men some snappy sass, but Dad runs interference, oozing charm. “What can we do for you gentlemen?” He’s the guy who can talk to the southern African people who make impossible click sounds down deep in their throats. What’s so hard about a couple of professional government spies who know more about us than we know about ourselves and could throw us in the slammer?

  “Mrs. Rafner, we’d prefer to speak with you in private,” Milgrim says.

  She fires back, “No dice. As I said last time, I need witnesses.”

  “My wife and I are partners,” Dad adds. “You may speak freely, because our son is a junior partner in this family enterprise.”

  Since when? Yeah, I defended the Rosenbergs to Connor. Yeah, more than once I’ve spit on the FBI car and kicked its tires. But I honestly gotta wonder if it’s a good move for me to be a partner in Rafner and Rafner, the maybe-commies.

  “Suit yourself.” Milgrim might as well add, It’s your funeral. He crosses his ankles like an old lady, showing white and green argyles. I wouldn’t be caught dead in socks like those.

  Milgrim, with his notebook balanced on his knees, pokes his chin in Mom’s direction. “Mrs. Rafner, our wish is to spare you as much unpleasantry as possible.”

  Mom sneers. “That’s evident.” Dad moves across the room to her side, and it’s me and the two agents on my side.

  I’m thinking of that game we used to play at recess: Red Rover, Red Rover, send Marty right over. I’d bombard the other side, ramrod my way in like a raging bull, while the people in the line locked their arms to keep poor little freckle-faced Marty out. You know, one of those cruel games we all loved in grade school.

  Milgrim tips his notebook shut by raising
one knee. “Ma’am, it is my duty to inform you that you are at risk of deportation.”

  Mom laughs. “Deportation to where? This is the only country I’ve ever lived in.”

  “To Poland, Mrs. Rafner, where you were born in 1909.”

  “Oh, gentlemen, you’ve got your facts bass-akwards. I was born in Poland, true, but only because my mother was visiting her parents, and I came four weeks early. Two more weeks, and I’d have seen the sun in New York, not Krakow.”

  Dad puts his hand on Mom’s arm—Back off, he’s telling her. “Agent Milgrim, my wife is a U.S. citizen by virtue of being the child of citizens, regardless of where she first drew breath.”

  Milgrim leans forward, ready to pounce, and Kluski throws him a warning look. Good cop/bad cop.

  Kluski says, “I regret to inform you, Mrs. Rafner, that neither of your parents completed the citizenship process, and since you were not born on American soil, I’m afraid you aren’t a citizen of this country.”

  The color bleaches from Mom’s face. Dad grips her arm; they’re a fiercely linked Red Rover chain.

  They can do that? Deport her? Man, they can! They’re the feds. They can ship my mother back to Poland in the blink of an eye!

  Chapter 21

  Saturday, May 9

  Milgrim isn’t done delivering bad news. “We have reason to believe that charges will be brought against you under the Internal Security Act of 1950, commonly known as the McCarran Act. You, a Polish national, are a clear and present danger to the security of the United States.”

  “Absurd!” Mom cries.

  Milgrim opens his notebook with his thumb and index finger like he’s picking up a dirty diaper. “You have been a member of two subversive organizations, namely the Congress of American Women and the National Council of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions.”

  They move closer, as if Mom’s going to bolt. Suddenly we’ve switched from Red Rover to Farmer in the Dell. I’m the cheese, standing alone.

  Mom sounds breathless. “The first group merely advocates for equity for women, and the second is a professional fellowship organization. I hardly think—”

  Milgrim cuts her off. “Known to be communist fronts, both.”

  Mom takes a deep breath for her comeback blow. Which doesn’t come. Instead, a zap of lightning sends our lights flickering.

  Great. We’re gonna lose power and crawl around in the dark with these guys to hunt up candles and matches.

  There’s a quick blackout, but after a second the lights hold. Phew! Our window air conditioner roars in the corner, water dripping from it and pinging onto a tin pan.

  Mom asks, “When did democratic ideals of justice and equality become subversive?”

  “When they’re in the hands of foreign nationals linked with communist front organizations, Mrs. Rafner.” Kluski’s brilliant comment.

  Dad throws Mom a keep quiet signal. “What is my wife’s status? Her options. Be frank and specific.” No more Mr. Nice Guy, ambassador to the world.

  Milgrim says, “She’ll be called before the SISS. That would be the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee.”

  “I’m not an infant or an imbecile. Address me directly.” Mom’s voice is chilly, still shaky.

  “As you wish. The second option is that you voluntarily return to your homeland, Poland.”

  “This is my homeland! My family, my work, my life are all right here. For God’s sake, I’ve voted here for twenty-three years.”

  “A clerical oversight.” Kluski shakes his head sadly.

  “If you don’t go voluntarily, you’ll be arrested and deported forthwith.”

  Nobody says forthwith, not even Mom, who bites her lip until it turns white.

  “Hypothetically, what if we relocated to another country?” Dad asks.

  Oh, no, he’s going to haul us into the African jungle.

  “You and your son are free to go, sir. However, your wife will not be issued a passport.

  Correction: she’ll have a one-way trip to Poland, at which point her passport will be confiscated. I’m truly sorry to tell you this.”

  “I’ll bet.” The words zing out of my mouth, which earns me a warning scowl from Dad.

  Mom drops into the recliner. “All because I refused to sign an unconstitutional loyalty oath?”

  “No, ma’am,” Kluski says. “That’s only the tip of the iceberg.”

  “What my partner means is that you’re in violation of federal statutes. As a foreign agent, you’re required to notify the Immigration and Naturalization Service of your whereabouts annually. Failure to do so makes you an alien living illegally in the United States, in violation of the Immigration Act of 1924. Furthermore, as an enemy alien and member of two communist organizations, you are in violation of the McCarran Act and, pursuant to your membership, you are required to register under the Internal Security Act of 1950.”

  “Which President Truman vetoed,” Mom says.

  “But which veto Congress overrode and duly enacted,” Milgrim adds snidely.

  Dad interrupts this deadly ping-pong match. “And if she signed the loyalty oath now?”

  “I’m afraid that wouldn’t help, sir, now that her immigration status and communist associations have come to the attention of the Director.”

  Ah, the fascist, J. Edgar Hoover.

  Kluski adds, “And Senator McCarthy, of course.”

  What a combo on their team, like pitting a National League catcher/pitcher battery against the squirrely Palmetto Pirates.

  Milgrim stands up, smoothing his pin-striped slacks. At least we can’t see the stupid argyles now. He flips a page in his notebook and acts like he’s just noticed a little detail. “By the way, Yossele Mendelev. The name rings a bell?”

  I remember Dr. Mendelev. He stayed with us when I was nine. Those nights when my parents didn’t have College people over to hang out with him, he challenged me to a game of chess. Truth is, I never liked chess and never got any good at it, but I liked Dr. Mendelev and the story he told me in his thick, creamy Russian accent, a new episode every chess game. Man, it was better than Tom Corbett, Space Cadet.

  Dad closes his eyes, but Rosalie out-stares Milgrim, who says, “This Mendelev, we understand he boarded with you in 1949, correct?”

  Mom bristles. “Dr. Mendelev is a world renowned poet who honored Hawthorne with a one-month residency, and if you say it was 1949, I’ll assume you’re right.”

  “World renowned,” Milgrim says. “Would that world include the Soviet Union, from which he came, and to which he returned in June of 1949?”

  Dad announces, “This interview is over, gentlemen.”

  “Yes, yes, forgive me.” Milgrim’s nearly groveling. “We’ll leave you to consider your options.” He jerks his head, and Kluski shoots to his feet like he’s got a firecracker up his rear.

  “You will be served summons papers, Mrs. Rafner. Your SISS hearing is Wednesday, June third, in New York City.” Milgrim advises, “Allowing for the realities of train travel, plan on approximately a week. My colleague and I will leave you to make your decision: voluntary deportation, or testifying at the hearing.”

  “If she’s served papers,” Dad says.

  “When she is served. And may I offer a recommendation? Brush up on your notes about Yossele Mendelev. Good day.”

  He and Kluski prance like stallions to the door and leave us to pick up the lives they’ve just smashed into atoms.

  Nobody has a clue what to say, so we all yammer stupid things.

  Mom: “There are fresh sheets on your bed, Marty.”

  Dad: “Who wants to go out for ice cream?”

  Me: “I’ll never be able to learn Polish. Even Poles can’t pronounce half the words in their language.”

  We’re like the Tower of Babel, until Mom puts two fingers in her mouth and lets out a blood-curdling sailor’s whistle. “Irwin, there’s a package of Lucky Strikes in the buffet drawer. I need a cigarette.”

  Bad sign. She hasn’t s
moked since 1947 when she exhaled into the fishbowl, and Rainbow went belly-up.

  Dad comes back with the Lucky Strikes and lights Mom’s cig like Humphrey Bogart on the silver screen. She blows satisfied smoke rings out her mouth. “These cigarettes are stale.”

  Finally we can all let out our breath and start to make some sense of the mess we’re in.

  Mom waves the cigarette around. “It’s a trumped-up case. They’re harassing us, trying to intimidate us. My parents both became citizens before I was born. It was their proudest accomplishment. There’s a picture that was taken the day they got their citizenship, each of them wearing an Uncle Sam hat and waving an American flag.”

  “I’ll call your mother,” Dad offers. “We’ll see if she can produce the citizenship documents, or at least the dated photograph. First I’ll call Barry Siegel and see how we go about getting a good immigration lawyer.”

  Mom nods. “We have to let the College know, too.”

  “Maybe we should cancel my bar mitzvah,” I suggest.

  “No!” my parents say together, and Dad adds, “We have to keep life as normal as ever.”

  When was the last time it was normal? Truth is, things haven’t been normal since Judge Kaufman’s gavel came down in the courtroom the day he sentenced Mr. and Mrs. Rosenberg to death, and that was two years ago. Forty days to go, but who’s counting?

  Mom backs toward the kitchen. “This situation calls for chocolate chip cookies.”

  We recognize this strategy and know to stay clear of her path. When Rosalie Rafner’s mad, she attacks the kitchen like a crazed army cook. In a minute we hear a bowl spin viciously on the counter. Drawers jerk open, with silverware flying. The fridge slams shut. Two eggs are smacked against the side of the bowl, the empty shells hurled across the room, splat, into the sink.

  “I’m going into the combat zone,” I offer bravely.

  “At your own risk.” Dad tosses me a National Geographic as a shield. “That’s to protect you from airborne cookie dough.” He’s started making his list, and he heads for the phone.