Harvard Yard (Peter Fallon)

by William Martin

Meanwhile, the cops chased students up the stairs and down the halls, slamming nightsticks on the brick walls and the paneling and the metal balustrades, and shouting, “Get in your rooms and stay there!”

  And Will turned to see a complete stranger, a guy in a jacket and tie, about thirty, dialing his telephone. “Who the hell are you?” asked Will.

  “I’m the stringer for the Washington Post. I have to file a story. I’ll pay for the call. They’ll never believe this happened at Harvard. Never.”

  iv

  “What a year to have your twenty-fifth reunion,” said Ned Wedge on the first Thursday of June.

  “Now, just keep calm,” said Harriet. “Have a cup of coffee, and don’t order a shot for it. It’s too early. Just run the meeting, then get on to commencement.”

  “Yeah . . . yeah.”

  “And may I say, you look marvelous in top hat and tails.”

  “Yeah . . . yeah.” Ned was one of the class marshals, a signal honor for members of the twenty-fifth reunion class, and he had announced that he’d be damned before anything, including his own son, would stop him from taking part.

  There had been times in the previous two months when it seemed that nothing would ever be the same again, at least at Harvard, and yet traditions had to be observed, because traditions mattered.

  Will thought that whoever it was in Thayer who had come up with a counterslogan “Tradition Unhampered by Progress” had been onto something.

  On the morning of the bust, the final chant was “On strike! Shut it down!” In the following weeks, there had been mass meetings, caucuses, guerrilla theater, position papers, leaflets . . . and committees. There were not enough letters in the alphabet for all the committees, but the one that mattered most was the Committee of Fifteen, ordained by the faculty to determine punishments for the 170 students who had been arrested, hauled off to the Cambridge District Court, and charged with criminal trespass.

  Professor George Wedge Drake was on the committee, and he argued for leniency. He reminded the faculty of President Conant’s words: “Harvard was founded by dissenters. Before two generations had passed, there was a general dissent from the first dissent. Heresy has long been in the air. We are proud of the freedom which has made this possible, even when we may most dislike the heresy we encounter.”

  It sounded good. But 102 students were admonished; 20 received suspended sentences and would be asked to withdraw if they engaged in further trouble; 16, including Franklin Wedge, were required to withdraw outright, though Franklin was told that he could apply for readmission in a year.

  He told Will that it didn’t matter. The world was wider than Harvard. He no longer cared about the family meeting, either, because any contributions he would want to make would be refused. So he was one of the last to arrive that morning.

  It wasn’t a large gathering, just the Wedges and Prof. G., who had brought his new—and old—girlfriend, Olga Bassett. Several of the cousins had submitted written requests for funding, but none had shown up, perhaps because word of Franklin’s fate had spread, and the breadth of Ned’s temper was well known.

  Still, the trays of scrambled eggs and bacon steamed on the side of the room, and there were plates of Danish pastries, lox and bagels, a big coffee urn, a melon salad—the menu hadn’t changed in thirty years. The trust, however, had grown spectacularly.

  Will had come in sport coat, oxford button-down, and khaki trousers.

  His father’s first words to him were “Where’s your tie?”

  Then Franklin came in the door, and Will knew there would be trouble. Franklin was wearing sandals without socks, cutoff jeans, and a Harvard Strike T-shirt. Someone in the School of Design had created a red fist—a powerful graphic—and they had silk-screened it onto thousands of white T-shirts, along with the reasons for the strike.

  Ned Wedge and Franklin had not seen each other since before the bust. Now they stood face-to-face.

  They made a strange picture, thought Will, one dressed for the day like a diplomat from some Ruritanian romance, the other in the 1968 uniform of rebellion. For a moment, Will hoped there would be a few words of reconciliation.

  Then, without any other comment, Ned began to read the words on the T-shirt. “‘Strike for the Eight Demands. Strike because you hate cops. Strike because your roommate was clubbed. Strike to stop expansion. Strike to seize control of your life. Strike to become more human. Strike because there’s no poetry in your lectures. Strike because classes are a bore. Strike for power. Strike to smash the corporation. Strike to make yourself free. Strike to abolish ROTC. Strike because they are trying to squeeze the life out of you.’”

  Harriet said, “Ned . . .”

  Ned smiled and took a breath. “Well, I’m glad we got that cleared up.”

  “That’s it?” said Franklin.

  “There’s no poetry in your lectures,” said Ned. “I’m so sorry.”

  Franklin said, “I can’t stay. I just came by to tell you I’m headed to Canada.”

  “Canada?” Ned shouted.

  “Oh, no,” said Harriet.

  “You don’t need to go to Canada,” said George. “Register at another college in the fall, and see what happens in the draft lottery.”

  “That’s too easy,” said Franklin. “And Wedges never take the easy way. That’s what my father told me when I said I wanted to go to a small college in Vermont. He said I should be in the center of things. I should be at Harvard. He wanted me to be like you, Uncle George. Right there when the first bomb went off. But you know, even if you read all John Harvard’s books, including the ‘small gift of majestic proportion,’ you won’t ever figure out where we all went wrong.”

  “Because we haven’t,” said Ned.

  “Where did you hear that?” asked Prof. G. “That business about John Harvard and the small gift?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve heard you talk about it,” said Franklin. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” said Ned, “because Uncle Jimmy here has some big gifts to give out.”

  “It can wait,” said Jimmy.

  “No, it can’t,” said Ned. “I’m supposed to escort one of the honorary degree recipients this morning. So I can’t be late. Let’s get started.”

  “And unless the administration lets us speak,” said Franklin, “I have a commencement to disrupt.”

  “Do it and I’ll kill you,” said Ned.

  “But Canada?” said Harriet. “How will you live?”

  “He should have thought of that before he decided to throw his life away,” said Ned.

  Franklin did not answer. He was already gone.

  “How’s Ned doing?” asked Prof. G. the next morning.

  “He got drunk at the class barbecue, stayed drunk all through the talent show. He’s sleeping it off in Matthews. It’s so romantic, how we all get to stay in freshman dorms during twenty-fifth reunion week.” Harriet took a long drag on her cigarette.

  They were sitting in the Pewter Pot Muffin House in Harvard Square. George was eating a blueberry muffin. Harriet hadn’t touched her bran.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t help Franklin,” said Prof. G.

  “I think he’s glad to be going to Canada. He sees it as some kind of political exile.” Harriet stubbed the cigarette out in her muffin plate. “Oh, to be young and arrogant.”

  “More young than arrogant,” said Prof. G. gently. “Remember, ‘Two things are always new—youth and the quest for knowledge.’”

  “Victor’s favorite quote.” Harriet sipped her coffee and left a print of lipstick on the cup. “But I’m curious about the other one, about the ‘small gift.’ Where did Franklin pick up on John Harvard? Victor never said anything about that.”

  “Actually”—George took a deep breath—“Victor did.”

  “He did?”

  “I don’t know where Franklin heard about it,” said George, “but Victor wrote a letter to my father in 1937. I found it after my father died in ’53. He said
he had filed a new will, now that his divorce was final, so there were things his executor should know. He said the Tercentenary envelope—this was the quote—‘contained knowledge of Lydia’s small gift of majestic proportion, the book that Grandfather Heywood had often heard Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Theodore argue over.’”

  “Did he say what the book was?”

  George watched the waitress refill their cups, then he said, in a low voice, “This is the quote: ‘It is a book from the library of John Harvard, who wrote so wisely on his flyleaves, “A man will be known by his books.”’”

  “Better than being known by your brand of scotch.” Harriet lit another cigarette.

  “That quote started me on my little quest. At the beginning, every time I bought an edition of one of Harvard’s books, I hoped that I’d find that quote written on the flyleaf. Then I’d know that I’d found a real John Harvard book, because there have always been rumors that more than one survived.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “Victor wanted the John Harvard business kept secret until the trust liquidates.”

  Harriet took a long drag on her cigarette. “I wonder why.”

  “Because every generation tries to explain itself to the next. Victor did it in his way and Heywood in his. I’ll bet Dorothy and Uncle Theodore probably did the same thing for Heywood’s generation. And we should be doing it for Franklin. But Harriet”—George reached across the table and put his hand on her arm—“we can’t interfere with the plans Victor Wedge made. It would be like interfering with the working of time.”

  “That’s rich, coming from you.” Harriet lit another cigarette. “Wouldn’t you love to see what’s in those three safe-deposit boxes that Victor left?”

  “If God is good, we’ll all be dead when those boxes are opened.”

  “A physics professor believes in God?”

  “The Elizabethans did.” George shrugged. “It’s either God or coincidence.”

  Chapter Thirty

  THEY WERE sitting beside the saltwater pool. It was empty of water, a spiderweb of cracks. So they looked out at the ocean instead, warming nicely in the late-spring sun.

  Harriet Webster Wedge smoked her eighth cigarette. “You know, Will, you boys were sowing dragon seeds back then.”

  “Not all of us,” said Will.

  “No. Not all of you. And not all of them sprouted.” Harriet put her head back against her chair.

  “Was Dad really drunk the night he died?” asked Will. “I didn’t remember him drinking that much when I was a kid.”

  “It came later. He went to Washington because he felt that he could afford to give something back. And Jack Kennedy was a friend. He didn’t start to drink heavily until after the assassination. He hated Vietnam as much as anyone, but he couldn’t understand what drove your brother.”

  “Franklin hated that war,” said Will. “And he stood up.”

  “He’s still standing up,” said Harriet, “whether you agree with him or not.”

  “Back to your husband,” said Peter.

  “The night that we got the news that Franklin had taken off for Canada—”

  “How did you get it?” asked Peter.

  “That Sherry Lappen girl came to the door. Came all the way up from Cambridge. We were very nice to her and asked her what we could do for her. She seemed very nervous. She had wild black hair and always wore a tight rim of mascara around her eyes. And she looked particularly wild that night.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said that she needed money. Ned, of course, had already had a martini or two, and he said we weren’t going to give her a nickel. So Sherry looked over her shoulder very nervously. She had ridden up with someone in the car. I couldn’t tell exactly who it was. She said that Franklin had left for Canada but that he owed some friends some money.

  “All that Ned said was ‘Canada?’ And he closed the door in her face.”

  “Did you ever find out who was in the car?” asked Peter.

  “We thought it was that Keegan. He was a drug dealer. We’d known that since the day he ruined our Yale game tailgate.

  “Anyway, in the middle of the night, Ned got up and said that he was going for a swim. I just rolled over. I’d had a few myself. We found him at the bottom of the pool the next morning, naked and dead.”

  “That must have been terrible,” said Evangeline.

  “It was,” said Will.

  “We’ve always wondered,” said Harriet, “if he was too drunk to notice that the tide had gone out and the sluice gate was open. Or did he jump on purpose.”

  “Mother,” said Will, “enough.”

  Harriet looked at Peter. “I know what you’re thinking now.”

  “What?”

  “He had to be pretty stupid to jump twelve feet into an empty pool.”

  No. Peter was thinking about Keegan. Something subtle, seemingly accidental . . . a fall into an empty pool, a fall from a boat. Professional work. Cold-blooded. Somebody owed him money and wouldn’t pay, so he extracted a different kind of payment. But Peter didn’t mention his thoughts; instead, he asked her, “When did you look at the Theodore Wedge diary?”

  “After my husband died and Franklin fled. I was looking for answers. And Prof. G. always says that each generation finds a way to explain itself to the next. So I looked to earlier Wedge generations.” She lit a cigarette, took a puff, then stubbed it out. “I found Theodore’s journal. And he had plenty to say about Harvard, about the Wedges, about living as an outsider but still living in society.”

  “Why did you tear out the last page?” asked Will.

  “I wanted Franklin to read the journal, but I wanted him to hear Theodore’s message rather than his speculations about the book. Of course, Franklin didn’t bother to read it until last fall, after I told him what his brother was planning. Wedge House, and all. . . .”

  “Thanks, Mom,” said Will.

  “I have tried to treat you boys equally, dear.”

  “Did Franklin really get you stoned before you’d tell him?” asked Peter.

  “I had a bourbon. I told him to keep his funny cigarettes.”

  “Do you have the page?” asked Evangeline.

  The old woman went into the house and came out a moment later with the very sheet. She held it in front of them and read, “‘It is a book of some sort. . . . I believe further that Lydia’s tombstone suggests a work by Shakespeare. I believe that someday, it will be found, once the gilt-edged envelope is opened. . . . And then it will be over.’”

  “The gilt-edged envelope,” said Evangeline, “in the Tercentenary packet.”

  Harriet looked at Peter and Evangeline. “Since you have been part of this since last fall, come to the family meeting before commencement. You should be there when we uncover the information that Victor left us in his safe-deposit boxes.”

  “Why not tell us now?” asked Peter.

  “Because Victor specified that it be done when the Wedge Charitable Trust was officially liquidated . . . and he did a lot of good through it, so we should respect his wishes.”

  Will said, “I don’t think Victor expected his sons to die so young. First Dad at forty-eight, then Jimmy, out in California, drowning in the surf in his sixties. And now, twenty-one years later, here we are.”

  “Here we are.” Harriet looked down into the concrete pool.

  Since Dorothy was graduating, they had moved the meeting to the night before commencement, in the usual room in the Faculty Club.

  And it was the Full Wedge, as Ridley would have said. Prof. G. and Olga Bassett got there first, because they were old and always punctual. Will Wedge and his wife and Dorothy were there. Half a dozen more distant cousins. Peter and Evangeline. Everyone had a glass of wine or a cup of coffee. And everyone waited for Franklin, who always arrived one half hour after the stated time.

  He stalked in, dressed in jeans, T-shirt, and sandals, as always, shook hands all around, and said to Fallo
n, “You’ve been around us so long, you’ve decided to join the family?”

  “I’m an observer.”

  Then Will Wedge turned to Prof. G. “As the senior male in direct line from Heywood Wedge, you are chairman for the day.”

  “Well,” said the old professor, “as you all know, the trust must liquidate, so we are here to determine where the bulk of the money is going.”

  “The blood descendants get to take twenty-five percent for themselves,” said Franklin. “We know that. What’s it worth?”

  “That’s in the treasurer’s report,” said Prof. G. “We haven’t had that yet. We need to read the minutes from last year.”

  Franklin looked around. “It’s just us, George. Let’s dispense with Robert’s Rules of Order. Will wants to give Harvard a house. I want to give Harvard hell. It’s as simple as that. It always has been.”

  Will looked across the table at his brother. “Maybe we can reason this through.”

  “Maybe,” said Franklin. “For all the high ideals that Harvard preaches, it’s all about power. If I hold a piece of Harvard property—one that represents hard reality in a spectacular dollar value and at the same time offers the ideal of one more Shakespearean look into the human heart—the powers of Harvard will be forced to negotiate.”

  “Negotiate what?” asked Harriet, lighting her fifth cigarette.

  “Harvard’s commitment to drop their tax-exempt status in communities where Harvard buys land and takes it off the tax rolls. That’s a good start.”

  “You’ve been fighting that battle for years,” said Prof. G. “Harvard makes payment in lieu of taxes and they negotiate in good faith.”

  “Yeah,” cracked Franklin, “like the federal government negotiating in good faith with some Central American country.”

  Will said, “Still trying to change the world?”

  “Little by little. Step by step.”

  “I’ve done more good than you. I’ve seen to the management of this trust, so that it’s worth over thirty million now.”

  Peter glanced at Evangeline and rolled his eyes. She gave him a little nod, as though she knew what he was thinking: this bunch could make her Pratt relatives look like a functional family.