by John Jakes
“Oh, do be quiet, everyone, and look,” Aunt Ilsa said. “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?”
She leaned forward in her chair and pressed her gloved palm to the glass. A spectacular vista of twinkling lights spread beneath them, running more than a mile to the south.
Aunt Ilsa made a joyful little sound, part laugh, part gulp, and squeezed Paul’s hand.
“Pauli, can you believe your eyes? Was there ever a more magnificent sight?”
“No, never,” he whispered as the car rose and swayed. His face was bathed in the colors of the magic twinkling lights. The panorama below symbolized the almost limitless wonders of the new scientific age brought to its fullest glory.
In America.
Exhausted, they said little as Nicky Speers drove them back to Michigan Avenue at eleven o’clock. Paul looked for a light under Joe Junior’s door and saw none. Tomorrow, then.
Unintentionally, he arose late. A schoolday! He dashed downstairs and barely had time to cram a roll in his mouth and wash it down with milk. Joe Junior had already left to catch a tram to the brewery. Uncle Joe refused to let his son ride with him in the landau, fearing an appearance of favoritism. It wasn’t until a quarter of nine in the evening that Paul trailed his cousin to his room.
“Well, tell me. What did you think of it?”
“Joe, don’t get mad. I thought it was pretty fine.”
“Oh, you did?” His cousin stared at him. Paul’s stomach knotted. Suddenly Joe Junior grinned. “Hell, I didn’t expect anything else. I expected you’d be taken in. All that show. All those fancy names for it. ‘The New Jerusalem.’ ‘The White City.’ Maybe the buildings look beautiful to you, but it’s just white paint over cheap stucco. There’s another side to that fair, Paul. Things you need to know.”
“What things?”
“Maybe I’ll let Benno tell you.”
Paul’s hands were sweaty with excitement.
“When?”
“Sometimes there are Sunday labor picnics, out in the country. I might take you to the next one. If I do, can you keep quiet in front of Mama and Pop? Fritzi and Carl?”
Paul’s heart was beating fast. His cousin was drawing him into his confidence; trusting him with a dangerous secret. Like a true friend. He shot his hand into the air.
“Silent as a statue, I promise!”
Paul ran to his room, flung himself on the bed, elated. But only briefly. He clasped his hands under his head and lay gazing at the ceiling. The secret, the confidence, was already bothering him.
By saying he’d go with Joe Junior whenever asked, and then keep it a secret, he’d made a kind of pact with his cousin. A pact weightier than mere friendship between boys who were relatives. It could cause trouble. He spent a restless night, full of worry and guilt over disloyalty to his aunt and uncle.
Scarcely a month was left in the school term. Paul was failing. Failing every test; failing his handwriting exercises; failing his recitations at the blackboard. Mrs. Petigru took delight in announcing his poor marks to the class.
Mrs. Petigru kept him after school to inform him that she would have to hold him over.
“Sorry, I do not understand.”
“I refuse to promote you to a higher grade. Your work’s completely unsatisfactory. I’ll keep you here and you will repeat the whole year. Perhaps the second time, a few grains of knowledge will penetrate that thick German head.”
He reeled out. Stay with Mrs. Petigru another year? Never. He’d jump off a building. He’d swallow poison.
He tried to think of a way out. His mind was blank. And he was too ashamed of his predicament to tell Uncle Joe or his tutor.
Around the house, Fritzi was driving everyone mad with her imitation of the portrait of Ellen Terry. She’d made a crown of gold paper and borrowed a shawl from her mother to simulate the kimonolike sleeves of Miss Terry’s gown. Paul and others would unexpectedly come upon Fritzi posing in a corner, or in the middle of the staircase, wrapped in the shawl, the crown raised above her head with both hands while she gazed heavenward with an ethereal expression.
Carl snorted and called her dizzy. She threatened to hit him, which merely egged him on. “Dizzy, dizzy, dizzy,” he chanted, dancing around her. Uncle Joe found them rolling on the carpet, pulling hair and punching each other.
He boxed Carl’s ears severely, and ordered Fritzi to stop the imitations. Fritzi ran sobbing to her room, which vexed Uncle Joe even more. In fact he seemed grim and short-tempered lately. When Fritzi came to supper red-eyed, he delivered a stern lecture.
“Please stop that sniffling. I am tired of theatrics in this house. I won’t go to the German-language theater, it’s too old-fashioned, but I occasionally enjoy a play in English, you all know that. I do, however, have a low regard for persons involved in putting on plays. The stage is a disreputable, godless calling. Any man or woman foolish enough to take it up deserves to be rejected by society. And they usually are. Please pass the mashed potatoes.”
After that evening, a new gravity seemed to prevail at the supper table. Uncle Joe was subdued, speaking quietly to Aunt Ilsa about “the gold standard” and “shares” and other mysteries. One night, unable to restrain his curiosity, Paul politely asked whether there was any special reason for so much talk of financial matters. There certainly was, Uncle Joe said, going on to explain that since May 5, prices of shares in large companies had begun to fall off sharply. “European investors are pulling millions of dollars out of American banks. Illinois Trust is in trouble, the Chemical National too. I fear it’s the panic many people predicted.”
Joe Junior said, “What do you expect, Pop? The system’s corrupt.”
Aunt Ilsa looked pained. Uncle Joe struggled to contain himself. “Thank you for enlightening us. We surely respect your wisdom and experience as a student of economics.”
Joe Junior’s jaw clenched and he turned red. He attacked his food with stabs of his fork.
Still, Uncle Joe wasn’t so downcast about the panic that he completely lost interest in other things. He took Paul and Carl to a Saturday afternoon baseball game between the Chicago White Stockings and the Providence Grays. He drove the landau himself. Their destination was Congress Park, out on Congress Street at Loomis.
Paul sat beside his uncle on the coachman’s seat. Carl was amusing himself in back by monotonously singing a song called “Slide, Kelly, Slide,” over and over.
“I wish Joe Junior could have come with us,” Paul said.
Expressionless, Uncle Joe watched the street traffic. “You know he’s working today. Not that it matters. When he was smaller, he loved coming with me to a game. No longer.”
Congress Park was a fine place, with a cycling track on one side and lawn tennis courts on the other. A high brick wall surrounded the playing field. Uncle Joe said the park held ten thousand people, but it was only half full this afternoon. They went through a turnstile and climbed a stair to Uncle Joe’s private roof box. It had four comfortable armchairs and weather curtains which had already been drawn aside and tied.
Both teams were on the field, practicing hitting and catching. The field was brilliant green, sending the aroma of freshly cut grass all the way up to the box. A few picture-perfect clouds lazed in the sky. In the aisles, vendors hawked beer, sausages, roasted nuts.
“The beer is Crown’s,” Uncle Joe said with pride. “I know Bill Hulbert, the coal merchant who’s president of the team. That helped with the selection.” He smiled.
“I don’t know the rules of the game, Uncle.”
“I’ll try to explain them. I’ve loved baseball for many years. In the camps during the war the men played a lot of ball. I played, though never well. Back in ’69 I saw the first professional team in America, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, for only a nickel. When I sit out here on a beautiful day like this, I’m happy. I’ll admit that inside, a part of me frowns and says, Joe, you ought to be working. That’s a German for you. Always a little guilt under the smile. Some
don’t even smile.” But he did.
Carl began to sing “Slide, Kelly, Slide” again. “Carl, after the fiftieth time that song is annoying. Desist.” He said to Paul, “Mike Kelly was one of the greatest players the White Stockings ever had. His position was right field, just there. He led the league in runs scored in ’84, ’85, and ’86. King Kelly, they called him. Off the field he was a wastrel, a carouser. But you had to like his play. Look out, they’re taking the field.”
He pointed out the manager of the White Stockings, Cap Anson. “Used to play first base. He knows the game, but I don’t like him. He hates the colored people. At one time there was a fine Negro player in the league, Fleet Walker of Toledo. Anson refused to let the White Stockings play Toledo because of that. It drove Walker out of the game.”
Soon a man in shirtsleeves, the umpire, shouted, “Play ball,” and the game began. Uncle Joe patiently interpreted the plays, and Paul began to catch on. Providence took an early lead, three runs to one. This brought a black youth off the bench; Paul hadn’t noticed him before. The black boy wore a White Stockings jersey. He ran to home plate and did a kind of shuffling dance. The crowd cheered and whistled.
“That’s Clarence, the team mascot,” Uncle Joe said. “Anson makes him do that Cakewalk step at every game.”
Carl said, “Cap Anson calls him the pickaninny.”
“Carl, don’t use that word.”
Several Chicago players surrounded Clarence. The boy stood patiently while the white men scraped their knuckles back and forth through his kinky black hair. “That’s for good luck,” Uncle Joe said. “They mistreat the boy, make fun of him because he’s colored. Anson’s idea. For this we fought and bled thirty years ago?” Blood had rushed to his face.
By the seventh inning, when Uncle Joe left the box for refreshments, Providence still held on to its lead. Carl put his foot on the rail of the box, which he couldn’t do when Uncle Joe was present.
“They need Billy Sunday. Used to be the utility outfielder. Fastest man you ever saw. Ran like a scared deer.”
“Did he quit?”
“Yep. God called him to be a preacher and Pop says he answered the call. Personally, I wish he’d kept plugs in his ears.”
Uncle Joe returned with some smooth pale wursts of a kind Paul had never seen. Each was wrapped in a soft roll. “These are new. They’re called frankfurters. You can guess where they originated. Try one. Here’s a sack of peanuts too.”
In the first half of the ninth inning, a surprise home run by the home team’s catcher drove in runners from second and third base. The crowd cheered when the pitcher struck out the last Providence batter in the second half, ending the game. Uncle Joe leaned over the box rail, applauding and shouting, “Hurrah, well done!”
The light was fading in the west. The White Stockings leaping and hugging one another on the green grass cast long shadows. Paul was stuffed with snacks, warmed by his uncle’s friendship, happy to be with boisterous Carl. A perfect afternoon.
Sleepily jouncing in the carriage, he felt grand. The euphoria lasted until they trooped into the kitchen from the stable. Louise had her head bowed over the stove; she didn’t greet them. Aunt Ilsa pulled something from her apron. Her face was grim.
“This came today, Joe. It’s the letter you wrote to Charlotte.”
Uncle Joe took the soiled and wrinkled envelope. On the front, stamped in red, was a single word. VERSTORBEN.
“Deceased? How could it be? What happened?” With a look of anguish, he turned to Ilsa. “What happened?”
“I suppose we will never know. Possibly it was the illness Pauli has talked about.”
Paul was shaken too. There was a choking lump in his throat. Uncle Joe snatched off his straw boater and hit his leg. The edge of the brim cracked.
The letter fell from his hand. Tears flowed down his face. Ilsa put her arms around him. No one said a word.
Uncle Joe took them to the Exposition a second time—again without Joe Junior. They began with an afternoon performance of Eugene Sandow, the world-famous strongman. Afterward, Uncle Joe went backstage to greet a young man he later identified as Florenz Ziegfeld, son of Dr. Ziegfeld, founder and president of the Chicago Musical College. Young Florenz booked most of the bands appearing at the Exposition. He was Sandow’s manager in America. Uncle Joe seemed to know every Chicago German of substance or accomplishment.
In the evening, they attended a concert by Mr. Theodor Thomas and his Chicago orchestra (“He’s from Cincinnati originally,” Uncle Joe said). The program consisted of music by the German composer Richard Wagner. Aunt Ilsa said Wagner was a genius, and a credit to all Germans, but the slow, heavy music made Paul squirm.
He much preferred the music they heard at an outdoor bandstand, just before the fireworks. Liesgang’s Chicago Band and its guest conductor, Mr. Sousa, played stirring martial airs, including “Marching Through Georgia,” which Herschel Wolinski had played aboard ship. Poor Herschel, where was he now? Paul really didn’t believe they’d meet again.
On a Thursday evening at the end of May, Uncle Joe packed a grip and caught an evening train for the South. By a stroke of luck there was a labor picnic the following Sunday. A political-cultural day, Joe Junior called it. He politely asked his mother if he and Paul could go for a hike in the country. Aunt Ilsa told them to be careful and to return before dark.
Their destination was a place called Ogden’s Grove, beyond the city limits. “Why do they hold it so far away?” Paul asked as they rattled along on the horsecar for the first stage of their journey.
“So the bluenoses won’t yell about Sunday beer drinking, and the Chicago coppers won’t snoop. Even if you don’t listen to a single speech, these are great affairs. I met my girl, Rosie, at one of them last year.”
“You know a lot about socialists. How did you learn?”
“Not in school, that’s for damn sure. I listen to Benno and his pals. I read everything I can find. Karl Marx. A Frenchman called Proudhon. Bakunin—Russian—the first man to say the old order had to be overturned by revolution. I read a lot of articles by Prince Kropotkin, from the Russian nobility. He lives in London now, like any ordinary person. Even translated, the foreign stuff’s hard going, I don’t understand a lot of it. So I read this, too.” From under his shirt he pulled a newspaper printed in German. Die Fackel. The Torch. “It’s a special Sunday edition of the labor paper, Chicagoer Arbeiter-Zeitung. If Pop caught me with it he’d have my hide.”
“Then why do you read it? Just to make him angry?”
Joe Junior sat up straighter, his lips in a hard line. “That’s a dumb question. I read and hang out with these people because Pop and all the men like him are wrong, their ideas are wrong, they’re oppressors of the poor.”
“But you wouldn’t kill them, would you?”
The horsecar was slowing its already plodding pace for the end of the line. Joe Junior rested his elbow on the sill and watched a straggle of small cottages passing by. “You ask a hell of a lot of questions.”
“I want to learn.”
Joe Junior whirled and pinned him with a look.
“So you can pick the right side?”
Paul resisted the prodding. “To learn,” he said again.
His cousin searched his face as if expecting to find signs of truth or falsehood there. All at once the tension drained from him, he relaxed, and slipped his arm around Paul’s shoulders, giving him a squeeze.
“All right, that’s fair. Just make sure you always question the right people.”
They hopped off the car where the macadamized road ended. Before them was a double-rutted stretch of sunlit dust, heavily shaded by large old trees. In a field to his left Paul saw cows grazing, and a barn needing paint.
They trudged for a mile and then Paul heard music. An oompah band; a tuba, maybe two or three smaller horns. They came to a rickety wooden arch with a faded sign at the top. OGDEN’S GROVE. Back in the trees Paul saw trestle tables with little gauze tents p
rotecting food, and people mingling, and a few dancing a schottische on the grass. Children chased each other through patches of sunlight and shade.
In the grove, Joe Junior introduced Paul to people so quickly, he didn’t have time to fix names and faces in his head. A few things registered. The families were generally not well dressed; there was a lot of patched clothing. Some of the men were almost sinister because of heavy beards and long hair. One of them reminded him of the Russian journalist, Rhukov. He was surprised by the great number of infants and youngsters, and by nationalities represented. Not merely Germans but Swedes, Bohemians, even a pair of Englishmen.
Throughout the grove, faded red flags were planted in the ground. “Red for the blood of the oppressed,” Joe Junior said. “Red for the Internationale, and everybody who’s died for the cause.” He snatched two sour pickles from a brown crock and replaced the lid. “Here’s something to keep you from starving. Let’s find Benno.”
They found him on the other side of the grove, arguing with half a dozen men. Benno spied them, broke off and hurried over, grinning. His teeth looked huge beneath his flowing guardsman’s mustache. “Hey, looka here. The pupil. Glad to see you again. How’s he coming, Joey?”
Joe Junior tilted his hand back and forth. “Langsam. Langsam.” Slowly.
“Your name’s Paul, ain’t that right? Old Joe’s nephew?” Paul said yes. Benno scratched his nose. “And how long you been in this country?”
“Since Christmas, that’s all.”
“You speak the language okay. He speaks the language okay, don’t he, Joey?”
With a smile, Joe Junior nodded. “Pretty well.”
“My aunt in Berlin taught me some of it before I came over.”
“Got you.” Sunlight brought a sheen of perspiration to Benno’s bald head. “Well, drink some beer, kid, it’s free. There’ll be speeches after while. Very instructive, so listen close. See you later.” Benno returned to his friends, all of whom were regarding Paul with suspicion. “Nah, he’s okay, I know him,” Benno said to them.