The End of Innocence

by Allegra Jordan

  She glanced quickly at President Lowell, who gave a surprised look and stood up, beckoning them to come and sit beside him in the seemingly reserved section. Copeland nodded in their direction.

  “Any others?” There was silence.

  “Then lock the doors!” And the students did so.

  “You should all know the rules by now,” said Copeland. “I will give you two minutes to do all the coughing, sneezing, and chewing you wish, but then I require total and complete silence. Total and complete. Anyone who wishes to cough, sneeze, hack, or in any other way disturb thy neighbor may leave through the window.”

  A general murmur went through the crowd as they took this to be their cue to engage in prohibited behaviors. But at the end of the allotted time, the laughter quieted and all eyes focused on Copeland.

  Helen saw him survey the crowd, excited. She thought he looked ten years younger.

  And with that the reading began. He read selections from Chaucer, Balzac, and Dickens. He read Shakespeare and Marlowe, verses from Longfellow and passages from Thoreau. Two hours flew by.

  “This will be my last reading for the evening.”

  The students began to protest. “Be quiet and you just might learn!” he called, taking a drink. There was silence again.

  “We’ve had a lot of talk on campus about war recently. You here have thankfully grown up without one. You don’t know the price we’ve paid. Tonight’s last reading is from the Old Testament.”

  Helen sat back in a corner of the room, taking it all in. It was different from the first time he’d read to her—seventeen years ago. Now he was shrunken and stooped, his checkered jacket hanging loose on his frame. His voice was still clear, though chiseled with age and wear. And of course, there was no Wils to comfort her with his warm presence amid so many strangers.

  His story began quietly, in the Golden Age of Israel, when King David ruled the land. Copeland started where all the trouble began, when Absalom, King David’s son, decided to wage war against his father. She heard his voice grow stronger as he read of Absalom’s rebellion:

  And there came a messenger to David, saying, The hearts of the men of Israel are after Absalom.

  And David said unto all his servants that were with him at Jerusalem, Arise, and let us flee; for we shall not else escape from Absalom: make speed to depart, lest he overtake us suddenly, and bring evil upon us, and smite the city with the edge of the sword.

  She looked at Lowell, who shifted in his seat. I hope he falls out of it, she thought uncharitably. As Copeland continued and Absalom was killed by David’s captain, the audience was silent, caught up in the ancient feud.

  Copeland looked up. Lowell was glowering now, his face almost pink, sensing what was next. No students were moving, no noise was heard.

  And the king said unto Cushi, Is the young man Absalom safe? And Cushi answered, The enemies of my lord the king, and all that rise against thee to do thee hurt, be as that young man is.

  And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!

  The professor paused, closed his Bible, and looked up at his audience. President Lowell sat back in his seat, crossing his arms before his chest.

  “That ends the reading for tonight,” said Copeland. “With one exception. I beg of your attention for another moment,” he said, holding up his hand to the audience. “Patience, please.” He pulled a page from his coat pocket.

  “In 1914 I had a student who wrote poetry. He wrote some damned awful stuff. But before he left for war, for his last assignment, he turned in one of the most beautiful poems I’ve seen from a student. I’d like to read it tonight.”

  Copeland gave a cough. “Oh, yes, I almost forgot to mention. He was a German by the name of Wils Brandl who was compelled to fight for the kaiser, though he’d no interest in that cause. He fell in battle before we Americans had our first taste of it. And now he is being denied recognition among his fellow students and friends being honored in the new Memorial Church, built at the behest of the honorable President Lowell sitting here in front. I know that many of you tonight care about this cause. I know some of you are here for just this reason.”

  He caught the face of Helen Brooks in the back, her lips parted in surprise. Then he stared down President Lowell. “But, we’re all friends tonight, aren’t we?”

  A Prayer

  by Wilhelm von Lützow Brandl

  Is this how a spirit dies?

  On a dark August day under the guns of strangers

  Our children drown in the blood of a world

  Not we but our fathers made. We die for

  Thoughts we don’t think, and for men we don’t love.

  Luther’s God, build your fortress round our hearts

  Until our souls are welcomed back to earth.

  Grant the gift of Spring to a broken race.

  As Copeland read, tears fell down Helen’s cheeks. When he finished, the room burst into applause. President Lowell turned to survey the room, looking as if he’d just had a drink of vinegar.

  The head of the Phillips Brooks House stood up. “The Germans—they were ours, sir,” he said, looking directly at President Lowell. Another student stood up, a student Helen had talked with two days ago. “Ours, sir.”

  Another stood up—one from Copeland’s class. This was followed by row upon row, until the entire room stood—including Peter, Ann, and the donors—each one claiming the dispossessed.

  “They were once ours,” said Helen, standing, surveying the room. She swallowed hard. They had come and stood up for Wils at the request of Copeland and Helen. He was a boy they’d never known. She felt the calm assurance that they would prevail. A smile came to her lips. She had engaged in politics: meeting, calling, persuading people to attend the reading to support their cause. And they would win.

  Helen left the room before it was over. Its air had become suffocating to her. As she unbolted the door and walked out into the cool night, the air hit her with a refreshing gust, chilled and clean.

  She began to walk slowly back to the Yard. She wasn’t in a rush. She wasn’t angry. She just needed a bit more space.

  She’d forgotten that Wils really had been a better poet than she. Her face broke into a grin, thinking how outraged he would be that this was even a matter worth pondering.

  * * *

  It was not much later when, on a cold day in mid-November, and with little fanfare, a plaque was found on the wall of the new church, outside the confines of the Memorial Room.

  Harvard has not forgotten her sons who under opposite standards gave their lives for their country, 1914–1918: Wilhelm von Lützow Brandl, Fritz Daur, Konrad Delbruck, Kurt Peters, Max Schneider.

  Few could read it, however, for it was engraved in Latin.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Memorial Church

  Cambridge, Massachusetts

  Christmas Eve

  It was Christmastime once again in Cambridge, and colored electric lights decorated the storefronts. Despite the toll of the Depression, money was still found for windows to be hung with holly wreaths and stair railings to be draped in boughs of fir and pine. Helen had managed to put a red ribbon on her front door.

  The morning of December 24, she was called from her coffee and toast by a knock. She walked to the front door and was surprised to see Robert Brown standing there, in a dark suit and topcoat, with a copy of the day’s newspaper. He was tall and thin, with wrinkles beginning at the edge of his brown eyes. His hair was dark, yet, as she got closer to him, she saw some silver. His cane and limp, she had heard, were souvenirs from the Battle of the Somme.

  “Robert!” she exclaimed, surprised at how pleased she was to see him. She’d tried to meet him in the past few
weeks, but his calendar had been quite crowded. “Please come in!” she offered.

  He didn’t move, but rested on the cane while holding up the front page of the newspaper. “I see you made the news, Miss Brooks,” he said with a smile. His breath came in white puffs.

  “What?” she asked, puzzled. She stepped outside to take a closer look at the paper. The cold hit her hard, biting through her wool sweater. She crossed her arms in front of her.

  The photo in the paper was of the new memorial. Its caption read:

  The Harvard compromise memorial plaque, above, was supported by Reverend Sperry, Professor Copeland, and Librarian Helen Brooks. Students from the Phillips Brooks House gathered this week to protest the compromise Monday as “too little” and “a memorial to division.” As President Lowell announced his resignation shortly after the compromise was reached, the students will have to wait for the next president to discuss the matter.

  “Too little! Those students should be grateful they—”

  “Your mother would be proud,” he interrupted. “And I walked over here on a cold day to tell you. You got yourself involved in politics and prevailed.”

  “In other words, I’ve become my mother!”

  “I certainly hope so,” he said with a smile. “Your father loved her.” He folded the paper and put it under his arm. “My mother had said that the passion of the Brooks family died with your mother. I’m glad to see it didn’t. I was given hope.”

  Her eyes stung in the wind. “Hope?” She frowned. “For me?”

  “No. For me. She is what you should have been all along. I’m glad to see people return to their old selves.”

  “Thank you! How kind of you to stop by. But was it just for this? Was there anything else?”

  He hesitated.

  “Would you come in for some tea?” she asked. “It’s freezing out here.”

  He nodded and agreed to enter. She poured him a cup of hot tea as he took off his topcoat and pulled up a chair by the fire.

  “Helen, I thought you might consider joining an old friend at the Christmas Eve service tonight, over at this new church you’re so fond of. Of late I have found it useful to have old friends around at Christmas. It’s one of the few times of year, since Jane died, when I actually look forward to something.” A fragile smile crept to his lips.

  She took a deep breath. “I’ve not thought much about Christmas since the war. I thought it a farce,” she said. “Perhaps it’s time I held it in higher esteem.”

  “I should say so.”

  Helen paused and looked at him.

  “Robert, I have a question—something I can only ask an old friend who has walked the same path as I have.”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you believe God takes care of our dead: Jane and Wils and the others?”

  “That would be a relief. I’m no good at it myself. I tried,” Robert said with a twinkle in his eye.

  “Be serious, Robert.”

  “Helen, what can I say? I don’t know. None of the dead have seen fit to return and inform me. So you teach me,” he said with a grin. “What do you believe? After all these years, what have you learned?”

  Helen laughed. “Caught! I thought you’d know the secret.”

  “I have none. And you?”

  “I do have an idea, and one that gives me solace. I think that love may return to the source of all love, and there finds even greater joy.”

  “That, Helen, is a great comfort to me. I like it. Maybe it’s true. But I wish that love returning to love didn’t require so many tears.”

  “Me too.” She sighed. “But, Robert, I have also come to believe that nothing is wasted, not even those tears.” She looked at him intently. “Do you think this makes me a heretic?”

  He laughed. “I’m hardly the one to judge. Do you breathe better, having sorted this out?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why did you need to ask me? You have your answer. You don’t need some man to tell you what your heart knows. What would your mother say to that?”

  She thought for a moment. “I’ve never needed her approval either! Robert, I’m ready to live again. But it’s a scary thing to admit that I can’t control much.”

  “I had to get used to that fact long ago!” he said. “But, Helen, may I say that I’m so very glad the days of your mourning have finished.”

  She sighed. “Robert, it’s been quite a journey.”

  Helen heard the telephone ring in her kitchen. “Wait,” she said hurriedly. “Please don’t go, Robert.”

  A British accent spoke on the other end. Riley Spencer Jr. was in town and had arranged to come by. Helen put down the phone and steadied herself.

  “Robert, Riley Spencer’s son is coming over.”

  He stared blankly then suddenly frowned. “That name.” His eyes suddenly opened. “The dance before you went to Radcliffe! And the car at the Harvest Festival. I wanted to do some fairly awful things to that young man after the way he treated you,” he said.

  She gave a half laugh. “He probably would have deserved them too. But he married and died in the war. His son is looking to create a past.”

  “And you’re part of that?”

  “Briefly.”

  He looked at his shoes and nodded. “I’ll leave you to your visit,” he said. “Perhaps we shall go together to the service later this evening?”

  She looked at Robert and smiled, fondly remembering his friendship so many years before in Concord and Lexington.

  “I’d enjoy it. We could discuss your mother’s plans for us—for your life.”

  He laughed. “I’ll need an ally in that battle. You know, she always did approve of you. You had better watch out.”

  Helen took a deep breath as she saw him out into the cold December air. She had always approved of Robert Brown. She waved at him, watching him leave. The tap of his cane seemed almost energetic.

  * * *

  On most days Helen’s white parlor saw no one, yet today she had two male visitors, neither a blood relative. Her neighbors on Chestnut Street thought this might be the year’s Christmas miracle, and resolved after the holidays to converse among themselves about the odd goings-on at Helen Brooks’s house.

  At the appointed time a young man had arrived at her doorstep. He was a good bit taller than his father, but had the same brilliant green eyes. His teeth were a bit large, perhaps his mother’s doing, but his smile was quick and kind, again like his father. He seemed at ease with an adult, projecting the confidence of a remarkably untroubled life. Since he’d had such rough beginnings, she could only think it reflected well on his Kinnaird grandparents.

  “Miss Brooks, I’ve only a half hour before I’m to catch the train to New York, and I wished to come by to speak.” His voice was his father’s. She could barely contain her smile as she invited him in.

  As he spoke of his family, she felt a burden lift from her shoulders. She had long thought she was the only one who cared to recall the lives of these cousins. But here was another generation who would know, and would wish to learn, of the two men she had cherished in her younger days as well. She no longer felt alone. It was the touch of cool water on the tongue of the thirsty.

  They talked quickly, and she learned much. Riley was entering a military academy in England. His German relatives in Prussia had been devastated by the war. The Brandl estate had been overrun and looted, and Wils’s mother had been placed in an asylum, where she’d died shortly after the war. The toll of the war and the depression had been difficult, but he had faith that things would right themselves.

  “I am quite thankful for any news that you might provide me about my parents such that I could place it with the museum.”

  She looked at him carefully. “I didn’t know your mother.”

  He beamed. “She was a beautiful woman. I think
it was heartbreak that led to her death. She adored my father, and it was so clear that he loved her too. If I can only find that in my life, I would think it complete.”

  She looked at him carefully. He knew little. “And who else will you visit while you are here?”

  “I saw a few professors and the Memorial Room. I’m off now to see Mr. Morris Rabin in New York. I had a hard time finding my father’s friends, but it seemed time to give it a try.”

  She related to him what she could—the story of her courtship with Wils, of Arnold Archer’s brutal attack, of his father Riley avenging her husband, and of how Riley had told her he promised to marry Edith in their last meeting. She also told him with a wry smile about how she thought that her family’s romantically inclined cook may have taken pity on Wils and herself as young lovers just as her father was heaving Wils out the door, and that it was this same cook who pierced Wils’s tires. Wils could go nowhere, and as a result they had a moment in which they married in body and in spirit.

  As the time drew near for him to leave, he reached into a scarred leather satchel and brought out a folder. “Miss Brooks, I have something for you that recently came into my possession. It is of such a personal nature that I could not send it by post.” She looked up quizzically at him.

  “I was given two letters before I left England. Apparently my uncle Wils was with my father at the time of my father’s death. When Uncle Wils died, the letters were retrieved by a priest, a Father Rupert, who was subsequently killed by a British soldier. By an odd coincidence, when the Imperial War Museum called a meeting to request donations for their collections, I attended, as did a man who had letters that, we both acknowledge, belong to you. They were opened when they came into my possession and I have them here now.

  “I’ll let you read these in private; I know you must wish to.” He looked down at his watch. “I am sorry but I must be off. I’ve an invitation and my train leaves soon.”