by Ward Just
She said, I worry about him but I’m not afraid of him. Why would you think I was afraid of him? I’m not afraid of him or anybody.
I was only asking, I said.
You should have known the answer without asking. He would never do anything to harm me. Never. Not ever.
I know, I said.
Then why did you ask?
We walked on, quickly now, not in tune. I remembered our conversation of the night before, when she told me she could read my mind. I said I believed it but the reverse was not true. She had said, Try harder.
I said, Do you think a lot about New York?
She said, Now is not the time to talk about that.
It was not the time last night, either, or the night before. I knew she wanted out of Lincoln Park as badly as I wanted out of Quarterday, and I wondered if she had chosen Barnard to spite her father, as I had chosen the University of Chicago to spite mine, and how passionate was her desire to leave all else behind, making her way in New York. But this was not a subject she cared to discuss, beyond saying that we would write letters to each other and plan to meet at Thanksgiving. Of course I was afraid she wanted to cut all ties to Chicago, including me, in order to arrive in New York unencumbered. Listening to Aurora, I knew she was in distress, preoccupied with the life her mother led and the life she herself had made with her father, a difficult personality who frightened people though he did not frighten her. She had waited all this time to tell me of her split-up family life. It occurred to me that we were suddenly a crowd, my family and her two families including a stepfather and the swimmer, Dwight. When I looked into the rearview mirror now I saw a multitude, all of them with competing claims. Last night we had been at the jazz club to hear the closing set but the band was off so we sat at the bar. I wanted to talk about the future, her life in New York and mine in Chicago and how these would fit together. I wanted the future to begin at once and she said that wasn’t possible. We had to take things on faith. We had to assume that our life together would work out, and meanwhile she was going to New York alone and that was the end of it. Discussion closed. Earl, the bartender, had been listening to us and put in that the future began with the first night you spent in jail. Same as losing your virginity, you never forgot it. I smiled, thinking of Earl, and explained to Aurora that I was thinking about this crowded past we had suddenly acquired, but I did a bad job of it because she did not reply. I was not certain she was listening carefully.
I said, What’s his name, anyhow? Your stepfather?
Robert Elliott, she said. Two l’s, two t’s.
I thought I ought to know in case I become a doctor and need to drive a Buick.
She smiled marginally and said, Give it a rest, Wils. I should have kept my mouth shut.
No, I said. I put my hands on her elbows and turned her so that we were face to face. I said, We must have no secrets between us.
She said, Everybody has secrets.
I’d like it if we didn’t, I said.
She shrugged and turned from me.
Honestly, I said.
Secrets are what get you from one year to the next, she said, pulling away. Secrets are what make the difference, one person to another. That’s what a personality is, secrets. One mask after another. Secrets known and secrets kept. Secrets treasured. Secrets honored. Otherwise, what’s the point?
There shouldn’t be secrets between us, I said stubbornly.
That’s impractical, she said.
What’s impractical about it?
It sounds too much like work, she said.
And now we’re having our first fight, she added brightly. She was smiling and looking over my shoulder at someone across the street.
Look there, she said. It’s Adlai Stevenson.
He was alone, lost in thought, carrying a heavy briefcase, hatless. We watched as an older woman approached him and nodded, the governor grinning cordially, moving on. I thought he would be hard to pick out in a crowd, a nondescript middle-aged man in a gray summer suit that looked a size too small, his face pale and fleshy, his hair thinning. He looked like any tired businessman on his way home after a hard day at the office. Not so long ago he had been a presidential nominee, Americans attending to his every thought and deciding at last that they were the wrong thoughts, perhaps too precise for the perilous times and that, all things considered, muddled syntax from a five-star general was preferable. On the night of his defeat he quoted Lincoln to the effect that he was too old to cry and it hurt too much to laugh, and with that quip returned to private life and now, on a warm August afternoon, was strolling up Astor Street alone, a common citizen once again. I wondered where he was bound at this hour, imagining that he had an appointment with his advisers, perhaps to contemplate another campaign, perhaps only to complain about the last one, out of time, out of money, harassed on all sides by the miserable Republican press. The ghosts of a hundred secrets would be present at such a meeting, secrets among the advisers, secrets of the candidate, secrets concealed from the public and the press, secrets shadowing every word uttered. They were the war plans in the commander’s tent, and would never be disclosed. The reason given would be “confidentiality.”
There he goes, I said. A tomb of secrets.
But Aurora did not reply. She was watching him.
Then I decided that Mr. Stevenson was done with all that and was en route to his farm in Libertyville, a pretty rural community on the margins of the North Shore, there to meet an attractive young woman, a refreshing gin and tonic in his backyard garden, dusk falling, something on the phonograph, cornfields all around, hummingbirds in the air. There had been rumors in the campaign of his liaisons with women, society women from Chicago and New York. They were fond of Adlai, having known him for years, and discovered soon enough that there was raw romance in a political campaign, a festive high-stress atmosphere not unlike an opening at the Art Institute or a premiere at Orchestra Hall, a rush of adrenaline observing America from the rear platform of a Pullman car and of course all America watching back and deciding it did not like what it saw, a nondescript middle-aged man in a summer suit that looked one size too small, a Princeton man, an egghead, a quipster. Not a man of the common experience, a stranger to ordinary American life. I remembered hearing that the governor’s advisers were divided on the value of news photographs of the candidate with women. Voters might get the wrong idea, not that he was a libertine, exactly, but that the bedroom or even the suggestion of the bedroom had no place in a political campaign. Impossible to know where such suggestions would lead. The other side argued that was exactly the idea the voters should have, the image of a country gentleman irresistible to women, owing to the other rumor, baseless but persistent. He was a bachelor and that raised troubling questions. A president was president of all the people, not only the bachelor portion. The divorce was worrisome also. Something turbulent about it. A divorced bachelor could not relate to the troubles of the average American family and so it was helpful to have photographs of the candidate with attractive women, normal middle-aged women with children of their own, along with the usual gallery of Nebraska farmers and Pittsburgh steel workers and, now and then, a Negro. The other rumor, the baseless but persistent rumor, rarely spoken out loud, was especially worrisome. Rumors in a political campaign were like airdropped propaganda leaflets in a war—exhausted troops read them and said, Well, it’s possible, isn’t it?
I said, Do you think he’s attractive to women?
Aurora said, He’s attractive to me. I don’t know about women generally. But he likes us, so naturally we’d like him back.
Aurora waved at the governor but he did not see her. He had paused to admire a black prewar Cadillac convertible at the curb, its top down, the same model FDR used in his travels around Washington. Adlai Stevenson’s expression was unreadable, only a trace of a wistful smile as he turned abruptly and continued on in the dappled sunlight of late afternoon, until he turned the corner and was lost to view.
There�
��s a man with secrets, I said.
Secrets kept, Aurora said. And she waited a moment before adding, He’s a friend of my father’s. Jack was a sort of adviser. Adlai appointed him to one of his task forces on mental health or something.
Have you met him?
Of course, she said.
Did he tell you any secrets?
She laughed and said he hadn’t, except for jokes.
Wonderful raconteur, she added.
I told Aurora my carnal speculation concerning the destination of the former governor of Illinois, an attractive woman in his back yard at the Libertyville farm, dusk falling, hummingbirds in the air.
A woman definitely, she said.
Do you think so really? He’s old. He’s way over fifty.
Do you think they stop at fifty?
I don’t know, I said.
I don’t think they do, Aurora said.
Probably not, I agreed. Most definitely not, she said.
Aurora paused and looked sideways at me, nodding suddenly as if she had come to a momentous decision.
I think it’s time you met my father, she said.
THE KING OF CHICAGO
7
YOUR FAMILY had some trouble, didn’t they?
We were sitting in the living room of the Brules’ third-floor apartment, the failing sun casting long shadows in Lincoln Park. The crowns of the trees in the park seemed close enough to touch through the open windows. Dr. Brule was fussing at the cocktail table, breaking ice into a bucket, cutting lemons, and inspecting the bottles. He had poured a scotch for me and a Dubonnet for Aurora and now he was uncertain what to prepare for himself. He had greeted us in the foyer and after kissing his daughter had said, Hello, Wils, without any introduction from her, motioning for us to follow him into the living room. He was dressed casually in khakis and a faded green polo shirt. His feet were bare. I did not recognize him at first without his tuxedo. Aurora had excused herself and now we were alone, Dr. Brule at his drinks table and me on the long couch, the walls crowded with abstract paintings and a sculpture I recognized as one of Brancusi’s birds in flight. The room had the look of a professor’s parlor, academic journals on the coffee table, the couch well-worn, the far wall thick with books floor to ceiling with a sliding ladder to reach the high shelves.
The room was in deep shadow and Dr. Brule’s voice seemed to come from it, a doctor’s voice, I thought, a bored baritone. I did not answer right away when he asked about my family’s troubles because I did not know what he meant, other than Squire’s death, and he would not have known about Squire. The silence lengthened and finally I asked him if he meant the strike.
Yes, he said. The strike.
Thank God it’s over now, I said, and when he did not reply I added, It was hard on my father.
Dr. Brule was silent again, concentrating on feeding ice cubes into a shaker and pouring the gin over the ice and waiting while it settled.
Hard on all of you, I imagine.
My father mostly, I said.
He poured the contents of the shaker carefully into a goblet and brought it brimming to the cocktail table, where he placed it on a coaster. Then he stepped to the window and stood staring over Lincoln Park, the trees moving in a light breeze, a sliver of Lake Michigan beyond. The silence lengthened. I wished Aurora would return. The ice in her Dubonnet was melting and I believed I was not far behind. The examination had begun and I did not think my newsroom anecdotes would carry me very far. I remembered Aurora telling me of her father’s terse descriptions of people he saw in the street and imagined him sorting through the ones that might fit me, “anxiety neurosis,” for example, or “chronic maladjustment.” Whatever test he was devising, I was failing badly. His posture at the window reminded me of a military man’s. I noticed him slip his feet into loafers, the loafers highly polished, a professional soldier’s spit-shine before taking review of the troops.
When I took out a cigarette and flipped the top of my Zippo, he said sharply, Not in here. No smoking in here.
House rule, he added, all this without turning around.
I put my cigarettes away while Dr. Brule continued to stare out the window, raising and lowering himself on the balls of his feet, an athlete’s exercise, his hands clasped securely behind his back. I listened to the clocks tick and traffic sounds coming through the open window, and, far away, the bleat of an ambulance. Apparently he was waiting for Aurora because he had not touched his drink; and mine was already half gone. I had never heard of a house that forbade smoking, except my father’s aunt’s house and that was for religious reasons. She was a Methodist.
I said, My mother was upset. It’s understandable.
That earned a grunt from the window.
She was disappointed they couldn’t go to Havana.
He cleared his throat and said quietly, I would have thought Havana would be the perfect place to forget. The casinos, dance bands and nightclubs, swimming pools and other distractions. A sandy beach.
That’s what my mother thought, I said.
But your father didn’t agree.
He agreed but there was nothing he could do. It was a strike. My father couldn’t leave his business. Would not leave his business while it was under attack. He had production quotas to meet, things like that. He had to fight. His back turned to me, Dr. Brule did not move and appeared not to have heard.
I hesitated, sipping my drink, and then with as much nonchalance as I could muster, I said, For a while, he carried a gun.
Dr. Brule turned slowly, a sort of theatrical turn, a double take. But he said nothing and presently resumed staring out the window. Somewhere in the apartment I heard a rush of water.
He needed it for his own protection, I said.
They threatened him? Dr. Brule said.
Yes, in a note. Then in a phone call to the house. They threatened my mother over the phone.
Dr. Brule nodded gravely and said in a voice scarcely louder than a whisper, And how did your father react?
I thought a moment, remembering him with his hands on my mother’s shoulders, attempting to comfort her. I said, He was upset, naturally. A telephone call not to his office but to the house, and whoever it was had mentioned me, too. So he had us to worry about along with everything else. I hesitated, trying to remember what he had said to my mother that night at the dinner table but I could not remember his words. I said, But he had the gun. A long-barreled Colt .32, I added unnecessarily. He carried it with him wherever he went.
And did he have occasion to fire it?
No, I said. He never did.
That’s fortunate, Dr. Brule said.
But he would have used it if he had to.
Is that what he told you?
I know he would have, I said.
No doubt, Dr. Brule said. I know that weapon, he went on in his soft voice. I know it very well. It’s reliable and well balanced. It does not have the stopping power of a Colt .45, but the .45 is heavy, almost forty ounces, and awkward to use. It’s a brute of a gun, not accurate beyond twenty yards. He was silent a moment and then he said, Did your father carry it in a holster?
A duffel, I said.
Yes, of course. Dr. Brule continued his vigil at the window, his glass of gin on the table growing warmer by the minute as the light failed outside. He cleared his throat and said, It was difficult for your father, wasn’t it? The letters and the telephone calls, his family threatened. And his business, too, of course. So it’s normal for him to be frightened.
My father? No.
But it’s rational to be frightened when someone’s threatening to kill you. Bring harm to your family. Don’t you see?
He wasn’t, I said loyally.
An unusual man. Hats off to him.
He’s tough, I said. He was a hockey player in college.
Did he see them face to face? The ones who wrote the letters and telephoned?
Not exactly, I said. They followed him in a car and then, once, they threw a brick throu
gh our terrace windows. We were at dinner. My father was cut, not seriously. Most of the time, during the day, he had a sheriff’s escort. The sheriff and my father are old friends.
The sheriff, he said.
It was the sheriff who gave him the gun. From his inventory.
I see, he said.
Tom Felsen, I said.
And did Sheriff Felsen give your mother a gun, too?
My mother wouldn’t know how to shoot a gun, I said.
Yes, Dr. Brule said. Of course.
It wouldn’t be safe, I said.
Dr. Brule nodded agreement. So, he said. They threw a brick.
While we were at dinner, I said.
And he never saw them.
No, he never did.
Their faces.
I shook my head.
Invisible men—
Yes.
Lucky him, Dr. Brule said. Lucky, lucky him.
Excuse me, I said. Why is that lucky?
Dr. Brule raised his athlete’s shoulders and let them fall, bending forward until his forehead almost touched the window. Beyond him, through the trees, were the rushing lights of Lake Shore Drive and here and there points of light on the water, pleasure craft. He said, The world is anonymous to us. We walk our own paths for the most part. Family, friends, colleagues, the woman at the post office window, the cop on the beat. That’s our orbit. God help us when we slip from it and enter someone else’s and it’s unfamiliar. They do not wish us well. They have decided we are a blood enemy. Of course we know there is evil and malevolence in the world but most of us do not see it up close. We read about it in a newspaper article or hear about it from an eyewitness. We watch a newsreel and are moved or not depending on the quality of the film. It’s a different thing entirely when you see the devil face to face, snake-eyed, malignant, merciless. He wants to erase you, destroy your soul. He’d do it in a second, without a moment’s thought or a backward glance. If your father was not frightened, it was because he never looked into their eyes and saw the absence of reason. They are dead eyes. It’s a terrible thing, hatred. Terrible. But in the witness of malevolence, it is inevitable. It is the product of fear.