Rodin's Debutante

by Ward Just

How is the mother? the banker asked.

  About as you might expect, the chief said.

  Has she been interviewed?

  I had a few minutes with her. She is suspicious. I mean, she is suspicious of me and the government in general. I think she is afraid. It's common enough among immigrants. Men in uniforms. Also, her English is not good. For what it's worth she has no record with us. She's just someone trying to get by, as best I can judge. When I asked her about her husband, she said he was in Puerto Rico. She heard he was dead, and if he was it served him right. The truth of the matter is, Mrs. Serra is terrified. She is not coherent. So I'll try tomorrow with an interpreter present. Right now, she's my focus.

  Is there anything else we can do? Should do?

  No one answered that question. The room was silent.

  Are we missing something obvious here? my father asked. First the tramp, now this. Can he be the same man?

  The thought had occurred to us, the chief said.

  I don't know what's worse. One maniac or two.

  But I think not, the chief said. I cannot imagine a common tramp in the vicinity of the high school without someone noticing. Such a man is conspicuous. He'd stick out. He would be seen and commented upon. We are questioning everyone at the school, students, teachers, maintenance men. No exceptions.

  And you are careful how you go about it?

  Of course, the chief said. We've only had a few hours.

  This thing is out of control, my father said.

  Not yet, the banker said.

  You wait, my father said. Tomorrow our town's crawling with newspaper reporters. Imagine the disruption. The chief won't be able to do his work. We'll have a circus.

  So, Alfred, the mayor said once again. What do you intend to do?

  I intend to publish a story, Alfred Swan said. I will write it myself. Look for it tomorrow. That's the best I can do.

  You are making a mistake, my father said.

  You run your courtroom, Erwin. I'll run my newspaper.

  And with that the meeting broke up. The men were out the door in minutes and I watched them congregate around the mayor's blue Buick. They stood with their hands in their pockets, heads bowed as if at graveside, all but Chief Grosza and Alfred Swan, who had driven away at once. My father returned to his study alone and I heard the clink of the decanter. I saw his shadow at the window and then his head as he leaned into the darkness. From the ear-to-the-ground cast of his head I knew my father was listening to the sounds he had known since childhood, crickets and the intermittent soft thud of a chestnut on the sidewalk. Across New Jesper Avenue all the houses were dark and the sidewalks empty. Then I heard the downbeat of Bechet's "Petite Fleur." My father was waiting for it because he turned his eyes upward as if the music were coming from the heavens, my old man's choir of angels with names like Jimmy Yancey and Fats Waller and the dissolute Jelly Roll Morton along with Bechet. He had a mystical feeling about them, as he had for the long-vanished Indians of our region, except he was kinder about the jazzmen. We listened for a few moments, he from his study and me from my bedroom, and then the music stopped abruptly and the street was silent once again. This was my father's regimen in September, early to bed, things in place as they always had been, except for the bad situation. His shoulders seemed to sag, his head downcast. I think he was hearing Sidney Bechet's music in his head, because he began to move his arms to a dirge beat as if he were conducting an orchestra. Then I heard him moan, a sound from deep within. My heart went out to him.

  My father told me once that all you needed to know in life you could learn from American blues, mostly forbearance but other things too, like tolerance and compassion. I think he meant that two ways. They were serious people, the jazzmen. They had gravity. There was not a mill on earth they had not been through time and again. That was the source of their music and while you wouldn't wish the mills on anyone, something good came of it, this original American art form imitated everywhere but never duplicated because it rose from a specific condition. That was sometimes the way of things, not as often as you would like. My father was not entirely satisfied with that thought because he turned gruff, mixed another cocktail, and demanded to know if I'd done my homework and if not why not. Even the greatest musicians practiced their scales, even Bechet.

  Now my father leaned far out over the windowsill, his head bowed, and remained there, deep inside himself, most troubled.

  ***

  THE ARTICLE IN THE World the following afternoon was anodyne. It carried no byline and the tone was ex cathedra. There had been an incident at the high school and the police were investigating and expected an arrest within the week. That was the gist of it, elaborated over five paragraphs on page fourteen, nestled between two advertisements and an account of a recent zoning board meeting. That was the last word on the subject of the bad situation to appear in the World or anywhere else. The Tribune and the Daily News never picked up the story, as they had no means of reading between the lines. Magda Serra's attacker was never identified and in due course the girl and her mother left town for parts unknown; the rumor was that they had returned to Serbia. Magda never spoke of her ordeal and so far as anyone knew never regained consciousness. In fact, while she was in St. Vincent's Hospital and later on in a private facility she barely moved and never uttered one word. Of course there were rumors in town and in the corridors at school, but the rumors were guarded, side-of-the-mouth conversations, and in the absence of fresh information they died away, though a profound uneasiness remained, the uneasiness of the uncompleted thought. Most everyone assumed that the tramp's killer or killers had gone away to another part of the country but no one knew that for certain, either. In time both matters were forgotten or hidden away in an attic region of the mind, except by my father and the others who had gathered that night at our house; and they did not speak of it. It was true also that Mayor Bannermann was defeated at the next election, his twenty years in office cut unexpectedly short. Chief Grosza resigned and took a security job in Florida. The principal of the high school retired, as planned. And New Jesper began its long decline.

  The atmosphere at home changed. My mother no longer sang as she went about her household chores. She was as incensed by the attack on Magda Serra as she had been by the tramp's death a month earlier. If the high school was not safe, what was? New Jesper was not the place she thought it was and she no longer felt safe in her own house; now the doors were locked day and night. She worried about my safety. She wanted to return to Champaign where she grew up and where her parents still lived but she knew that was impossible. A judgeship was not transferable. My father insisted that the tramp's death and the attack on Magda were isolated events—appalling, certainly, but isolated. They could have happened anywhere. In Chicago murder was virtually a civic sport, public entertainment. Given enough time, he said, New Jesper would return to its normal self. The argument between my mother and my father continued each evening after dinner. From my bedroom I could hear the rise and fall of their voices and in my mother's tone a new insistence, an unfamiliar hard edge. For the first time in my hearing, my father was on the defensive, querulous and irresolute. My mother believed she had seen the face of evil and wanted to leave New Jesper for one of the North Shore towns.

  We don't belong there, my father said. All they care about is their country club and the commuter train. Bedroom towns.

  Safe towns, my mother said.

  My father thought it unseemly, the probate court judge living out of town.

  Your cases come from all over the county, my mother said. What's the difference which town you live in?

  The courthouse is here, my father said.

  You have a car, my mother replied.

  I like walking to work, my father said. Gives me a chance to think, stretch my legs. I notice things. Someone is building a tree house for his kid. Someone else has bought a new car. Dry Goods has a sale. I'll say hello to half a dozen people and I'll visit for a while, learn what's going o
n. And there's a lot more than you might think, quite a lot more. People have troubles and they tell me their troubles. Sometimes I can help. I know we have a placid surface here but that's all it is, a surface. What we read in the World is what Alfred Swan wants us to read, and that's all right. Alfred does his job as he sees fit. But there's a whole other life here, a civilization that's layered. And that's what I hear about on my walk to work and later in the courthouse. These things matter to me. They matter more than I can say. I was born here, grew up here, went to school here, practiced law here. Our friends are here. We've had a nice life here, you and I. Maybe the idea would be to get a new house, larger, with a better view of the lake. I've never lived anywhere else and never wanted to live anywhere else and that's why this is so damned hard for me, dear.

  I'm not suggesting we move to California, my mother said. I'm proposing we move a few miles south. You'll still have your friends. You'll still know what's going on in New Jesper. They just won't live next door. Anyhow, maybe it's time to make new friends. The North Shore is—lovely.

  We're too old to make new friends, my father said, an observation to which my mother did not reply.

  You forget, Melody. I'm twenty years older than you are.

  That's one of the things I'm thinking about. It's time for you to back off a little. Not work so hard. Take some time off.

  It's giving up, my father said. You're throwing in the towel. You're surrendering to the barbarians.

  They've won, my mother said.

  I hate to believe that. I won't believe it.

  Believe it, my mother said.

  I see things from a different point of view, my father said. It's another way of life, being on the inside of things, and I feel responsible. I have a responsibility to New Jesper. I'm not sure you've ever understood that or appreciated it.

  I understand more than you think, my mother said.

  What I try to do is protect the reputation of the town, my father said. We're more than just the place where Walter Bing makes tennis rackets and it's sometimes seemed to me that everyone is trying to define us according to their own prejudices—big joke, Oh, you come from New Jesper, where they make the tennis rackets, ha-ha. My aim is that we define ourselves. No one does that for us. We have a fine town here. It's a—moral town. I think that all things considered we handled the bad situations pretty well. Things could have gotten out of hand. We avoided publicity. Speculation was at a minimum. You hardly hear anyone talk about it, or if they do talk about it, they talk about it in private. It's out of mind, as it should be. It's old news. We—my friends and I—felt responsible, not for the situation but the response to the situation. How the matter was handled. We had a murder and an assault of the most appalling nature. We were on new ground, trying to deal with it. Do you see? I know the girl, especially, was a shock to you. Everyone was affected, like a death in the family. Thank God Alfred Swan decided to do the proper thing. My father paused then and I imagined my mother listening carefully and, this time, keeping her thoughts to herself. At any event she did not reply, and at last my father said, And what about Lee? His school.

  This conversation took place on a Saturday afternoon in late October, a crisp autumn masterpiece of color, Cézanne's palette. My mother had made a pot of tea and she and my father were inside trying to bring their discussion to some worthy conclusion. I was outside on the porch, stretched full length on the glider, reading a story in the Saturday Evening Post. This was the story about the seaman home from the war who could not bear civilian life. He believed he was two people and neither of them fit in. Wherever he went he was an alien, unable to recognize himself in his civilian situation. I was well into the story but distracted by the brilliant surround and the conversation inside, fully audible through the open windows. Somewhere in the vicinity I heard a radio broadcast of one of the Big Ten games. My mother and father had forgotten I was there and I had the idea I had achieved a kind of invisibility. I heard my mother pour tea and then I heard her answer my father's question.

  There are other schools, she said.

  He's doing so well here, my father said, always on the honor roll. They think the world of him. Good athlete too.

  He'll be on the honor roll wherever he goes, my mother said. His teacher told me he ought to skip a grade. He's way ahead of his class.

  Skip a grade?

  That's what she said.

  He's old for his age, it's true.

  My mother said nothing to that.

  What about his friends?

  He can find new friends too. Probably he needs new friends just like we do.

  Have you asked him?

  My mother laughed. Your son Lee can adapt to any situation. Don't worry about Lee. He's Mr. Adaptability.

  I sat up at that. I had never thought of myself as adaptable. I was as reluctant to leave New Jesper as my father, though I had no bias against Chicago and its suburbs, unknown and therefore alluring. I even liked the Chicago newspapers and their remorseless quest for the novel and the scandalous.

  He's growing up, my mother said. He doesn't go down below the hill anymore.

  He doesn't?

  No. Why would he? What's there for him?

  I'll be damned, my father said. I told him not to, but I assumed he and Dougie Henderson would sneak down there anyhow, one more thumb in the old man's eye.

  Down below the hill was just a boy thing, she said.

  My father was silent and I heard the clink of a china teacup. He said, You're asking a lot of us.

  I'm asking what's necessary for our family, my mother said, her voice rising. And in the dead air that followed I could hear the tide subtly turn, my father's presence receding. When he spoke it was with an unfamiliar wistfulness. He said, It's like giving up your own name. Throwing away your name and taking an alias, like a criminal.

  My mother named three friends who had already left New Jesper and a fourth who was planning to, all of them moving to the North Shore. Lake Bluff, Highland Park. They had children too, and long family ties to New Jesper. This move is not unique to us, she said. No one wants to live in New Jesper anymore. It's dangerous. There's no future here. New Jesper is washed up.

  If everyone leaves, it surely will be.

  I don't have your loyalties, my mother said. Sorry.

  Goodells have been here for four generations, my father said. That's a long time in this part of the country. It's like coming over on the Mayflower, something like that anyway. When my grandfather arrived from Pennsylvania as a teenager, the Sac and the Fox were part of the population. George Goodell was said to have gotten into a gunfight with one of them, shot him dead. That's the story I heard from my father, who didn't believe it but told the story anyway. My father gave a short laugh and said, I don't know. I honestly don't know. Maybe you're right. Maybe it's time, he said and his voice trailed away. He said no more, but I knew what he was thinking. He would no longer be the chairman of the Committee, or even on the Committee, with the mayor, the corporation counsel, the owner of New Jesper Dry Goods, the president of the bank, Walter Bing, and Alfred Swan. They would move along without him, ask someone else to take his place, probably another judge. The new chairman would be the president of the bank; and then I wondered if the Committee itself would dissolve without my father at its head. In any case he would no longer have a voice in the affairs of the town, the bond issues, the politics and personalities, the controversies large and small, and any bad situations that cropped up. These were civic undertakings with no reward except the satisfaction of helping the community. Keeping the lid on, as the mayor liked to say; beneath the lid was a multitude of bad situations. The satisfaction was richer because it was private, unacknowledged except in the World's obituary when the time came. Living in a North Shore suburb my father would be merely another judge, nothing more. His influence would be restricted to that sphere. And one fine day he would awaken to discover a new streetlight across the way, and no one had asked his advice on its size or shape or
its placement. He would be merely another taxpayer grumbling about the runaway cost of government. Bad situations would come and go without his counsel or even his knowledge. He would subscribe to the World and be unable to read between the lines and when he asked someone What's this about, anyway? the reply would be hesitant and off the point, Oh, it's nothing much, just another misunderstanding. It's been taken care of, Judge. Don't worry about it.

  At the end of a long silence, my father exhaled as if he were rising from underwater. He said, Well, I hate the idea. Leaving the battlefield and shooting the wounded is the way I think about it, but maybe you're right. I suppose you are. You've always had charge of the house and I've never had cause to object. You've been a wonderful wife, Melody. Maybe it's time for a change of venue. But it's going to be a mighty big change for me, and for Lee too. And you.

  I'll call a real estate agent tomorrow, my mother said. What's our budget?

  My father must have been lost in thought because he did not answer.

  The budget, dear, my mother said.

  My father named a figure and that was that.

  THAT SUMMER we moved south to the North Shore, my father supervising the move with his usual aplomb. He was making the best of it. My mother had found a gray shingled house with a wide front porch on a cul-de-sac a few blocks from the lake, causing my father to lament that he had lived his entire life within sight of Lake Michigan, its storms and its calms, its ice in winter and sailboats on the horizon in summer. The lake had always been a comfortable presence, a constant as he went about his business; the lake and the railroad anchored his life. Now to see the lake he had to climb to the attic, and what he saw there was the thinnest sliver of blue. It might as well have been a pond, six feet deep and a hundred yards wide.

  But he adapted, we all did. The neighborhood was filled with brokers, lawyers, and advertising executives. On meeting them, their first comment was how long they had lived there, twelve years, fifteen years; they seemed to be saying, That's how long I've been rich. They were eager to specify where their children were enrolled at boarding school or college and these institutions were usually on the East Coast. My father took all this more or less in stride, making the best of things. His first North Shore act was to join a country club and revive his golf game, and in a few years he was a member of the board of governors and a few years after that he was chairman. As he knew he would, my father lost touch with the daily life of New Jesper and he fretted some about that, not knowing what was happening there. No one asked his opinion on civic matters, and when he himself inquired the answers were evasive, and so as time went on he arrived home at ever earlier hours, the better to squeeze in an afternoon golf game. New Jesper ceased to be part of his conversation, and if he ever thought about the death of the tramp and the assault on Magda Serra he gave no sign. Both matters slipped into the shadows, unresolved.