Homeland

by John Jakes

  “Are you all right?”

  “No bones broken. I’ll make it. But Pop didn’t believe my story that Benno promised no one would get hurt.”

  “I believe you.”

  “You’re the only one.” To Paul’s astonishment, there were tears in his cousin’s eyes. “Get out of here,” Joe Junior whispered. “No need for two of us to be tarred and feathered.”

  More shocks were in store. Late in the afternoon, Paul picked up a note from the message stone at Vanderhoff’s. Julie couldn’t meet him the next afternoon. No explanation. Could it be another illness? Or woman’s eternal affliction? Julie had once hinted that, when it came, she went to bed for one or two days, as expected of members of her sex.

  The prospect of not seeing her depressed him even further. So did the Crown house when he returned. It had been transformed. It might have been eine Aufbahrungshalle; a funeral home. A three-foot black wreath with a large bow of black silk hung on the front door. Swags of black crepe covered the tops of picture frames and mirrors throughout the downstairs.

  Abendessen was a ghastly affair. No one wanted the food Louise had cooked. Aunt Ilsa was red-eyed and drawn. Uncle Joe had a black armband on his shirtsleeve. Carl and Fritzi wore them too. Uncle Joe spoke sharply to Paul.

  “You will wear an armband like everyone else. Get it from Manfred. This household is in mourning for Friedrich Schildkraut. We pay no respects to the scum responsible for his murder.”

  Ilsa twisted her napkin. “May Joe Junior come down to eat?”

  “He may not. Send his food up to him. I want him to sit in that room until he comes to a full appreciation of what he did. It isn’t merely thousands of dollars of property destroyed, it’s human life. He is—what do they call it in the courts? Ein Teilnehmer. An accessory.”

  “Oh, dear heaven—” She was on the point of tears again. “Joe, you can’t mean that. He mustn’t be penned up like an animal.”

  “Why not? He behaved like an animal, let him suffer like one. There is no way he can atone for the loss of a fine upstanding man like Fred, no way under God’s blue sky. He is guilty. I have ordered Manfred to keep his door locked so he can contemplate that fact.”

  Paul was stupefied. Treat your own son like ein Knast-bruder? A jailbird? If ever he hated his uncle, it was then.

  He got his black armband from Manfred, who continued to look at him as though he were some kind of viper. Fritzi caught him in the back hall. “Come out in the garden, I’ll tie it for you.”

  Outside the air was heavy, with mutters of summer thunder in the distance, and flickers of heat lightning. Fritzi looped the black band around his arm and knotted it. Suddenly she leaned close, her breath warm as she whispered:

  “Joey needs to talk to you.”

  “Your father’s locked him up.”

  “Talk through the door, after everyone’s asleep.”

  More conspiracy. It alarmed him. But he couldn’t abandon his cousin. “All right.”

  Fritzi kissed his cheek impulsively. “You are wonderful.” He said goodnight and hurried from the dark garden.

  About half past eleven he crept along the hall. His nightshirt brushed against his calves. The landing light cast a soft-edged circle on the carpet. Otherwise the upstairs was dark.

  He listened for sounds of anyone stirring. All quiet. Reaching the door of his cousin’s room, he whispered, “Ssst. Joe. Here’s Paul.”

  He heard a muffled scraping as his cousin dragged himself to the door. “Is it safe to talk?”

  Another swift look up and down the hall. “I think so.”

  “I’m going to leave, Paul.”

  “What? Cousin—”

  “Don’t argue with me. You think I’m going to stay here when my own father calls me a criminal?”

  “He was upset, he surely didn’t mean—”

  “Oh yes he did. Yes, he did. I’m going to get out for good. You’ve got to help me.”

  “How can I? This door is locked. I don’t know where to find the key.”

  “I’ll leave by the window. You’ve got to put up a ladder. With this splint, I daren’t risk a jump. There’s a big ladder in the stable, hanging on pegs, opposite the stalls.”

  “I have seen it.” He didn’t want to be the cause of more trouble in the household. But he knew where his loyalty lay. Uncle Joe condemned Paul’s cousin cruelly and unfairly …

  “Paul? Will you do it?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You’ll have to fetch the ladder without Nicky seeing you. It may be hard.”

  Perhaps impossible. When Nicky was well, he often went to the taverns at night if he wasn’t needed. But he was in bed this evening, in his partitioned loft above the stalls, stricken with a severe case of summer grippe. He might be laid up for several days. “I will think of something.”

  Of course, why not? Wasn’t he ein scharfsinniger Junge from Berlin? What a bitter joke. His head was empty as a sieve.

  “Do you know when they’re burying Mr. Schildkraut?” Joe Junior asked.

  “Tuesday morning. Crown’s will be open only half a day Monday.”

  “That means there will probably be visitation at the funeral home tomorrow night, and Monday night too. I’ll go Monday night. I’ll get my bundle ready.”

  “Are you going far away?”

  “To the end of the earth, that’s how far I’d like to go. I don’t want to hurt Mama, but Pop’s forced it. He can take the blame this time.”

  The brewery closed at noon Monday. Paul rushed home and found Nicky hanging about in the kitchen, still sniffling and sneezing and feverish. It was unlikely that he would be driving tonight.

  With this in mind Paul scouted the property. He loitered in the alley, then strolled around to the north side of the stable, studying a window in Nicky’s quarters in the loft. Could the corner of Nineteenth and Michigan be seen from the window? He thought so. The plan became clear.

  He pleaded a stomachache and didn’t go to supper. He stayed in his room, trying to read a tale of a plucky messenger boy written by one Mr. Horatio Alger. He couldn’t absorb three words. He paced up and down, lifting the lace curtain every few minutes. About seven, as a purple summer dusk was enveloping rooftops to the east, he saw the landau leave the stable, turn the corner and speed north along the lighted avenue.

  His aunt and uncle would be at the funeral home until perhaps nine o’clock. The journey back from Evanston would take at least a half hour. By nine it would be almost totally dark, but he must go then even if it was not. With dismay, he saw hundreds of sparkling stars in the heavens. He’d have preferred a cloudy night.

  He left his room at ten minutes before nine. On the landing he bumped into Fritzi. Already in her nightdress, her hair falling loose around her shoulders, she was clasping a Scott novel to the scalloped lace and ribbons on her flat bosom.

  “Where are you going, Paul?”

  “Just for some air.”

  “Take me with you. I can’t stand this place—all those black decorations—and Joey locked up. Wait two minutes, I’ll put on my shoes and—”

  “No, Fritzi, I want to walk by myself.”

  “But—”

  “By myself.”

  He ran down the stairs. From below, he looked back and saw Fritzi gripping the newel post with a small white hand. “Another time,” he called softly. It didn’t help. She turned her back and disappeared.

  The downstairs was silent. Louise was away tonight. So was Mrs. Blenkers; she’d gone to visit her sister, who lived on the west side. He had carefully ascertained all this during the day.

  He stole into the kitchen, dark now, but still fragrant with the smell of a spicy rabbit stew served for supper. A block of light slanted across the tiled floor from a door standing partially open. The door led to a small room adjoining the pantry. It served as a kind of sitting room for Manfred until he went off duty and retired to his quarters upstairs.

  Paul took hold of the chopping block to steady him
self and peeked in. Manfred sat on a wooden chair. His reading glasses had slipped down his nose. His chin rested on his chest. His newspaper had fallen on the floor. Paul wiped his upper lip and crept past the oblong of light.

  From the garden he glimpsed a figure at the window of his cousin’s room. He waved, then stepped through an opening in the hedge to the alley. Earlier, he’d collected twigs and rags and stuffed them in the bottom of an empty nail keg from the cellar, then filled the keg with kindling from the scrap wood pile. He’d hidden the keg under a cardboard box against the wall of the stable.

  He lifted the box and reached behind the keg. His fingers closed on smooth glass. A small bottle he’d filled with kerosene, also from the cellar.

  He uncorked the bottle, dumped the kerosene over the kindling and rags, and tossed the bottle in the fragrant grass without a sound. The night was full of humming rustling noises. The air smelled of summer leaves, the lake, the inevitable stinking fumes of Chicago’s manufactories.

  He carried the keg around the stable to Nineteenth Street and there looked toward Michigan. The dark chute of Nineteenth narrowed into the west. Above it a band of smoky orange still shone at the horizon.

  Paul hurried toward the corner. There he set the keg on the curb under a rustling sycamore. From the window of the stable loft, Nicky Speers could see it—if only he would.

  He broke the first two wooden matches trying to light them. He struck the third and tossed it into the keg. The kerosene flamed up with a whoosh. The light tinted the sycamore leaves as he ran back to the stable and threw himself against the wall near the alley.

  He waited for any sound of response. There was none. Just when he thought he’d planned stupidly—failed—he heard the window go up. Nicky uttered an oath. A moment later he came pelting from the stable’s front door in his nightshirt, carrying a bucket of water.

  While Nicky ran to the burning keg, Paul darted into the alley and opened one of the stable’s folding doors. He found the ladder, hauled it off its pegs. It was ten feet long and heavy. Thank God he had strong arms and shoulders. Even so, he was breathing hard by the time he reached the side of the house. Joe Junior already had his splinted leg over the sill.

  “Watch out,” he called, and tossed something. Paul dodged the bundle of belongings stuffed in a pillowcase tied with a bandana.

  He positioned the ladder. Joe Junior worked around backward, holding tight to the window frame while he placed his unsplinted foot on the top rung. He climbed down one rung, another. On the corner, Nicky Speers shouted an alarm. Because of a tall hedge, Paul couldn’t see him, only a ruddy glare. Hurry, he thought, steadying the ladder with both hands. Somewhere a door opened. Then, someone running …

  Stepping down to the third rung from the bottom, Cousin Joe was first to spy him. “Look out. It’s Manfred.”

  He came charging at them along the side of the house. Paul shouted, “Run, Joe,” and leaped between Manfred and the ladder. Joe Junior hopped off the second rung, letting out a groan as he landed. “Run,” Paul cried again, and threw himself against Manfred’s legs. They tumbled in the dewy grass. Manfred’s thrashing heel slammed Paul’s jaw, and not by accident.

  “Mr. Joseph!” Manfred shouted in a drillmaster’s voice, as if that would stop everything. Prone in the grass, Paul saw his cousin’s face as a white blur in the starlight. Joe Junior snatched up his bundle and fled to the alley, gone.

  “You devil. You damned sneak!” Manfred hauled Paul to his feet. “What have you done?”

  Manfred shook him. That was enough. Paul kicked his shin, then knocked his forearm down. “Let go of me, who the hell do you think you are?”

  “Someone with more loyalty and honor than you.” But Manfred stepped back and dropped his hands. He wiped them on the bib of his kitchen apron. Like so much else, it bore the coronet of Crown embroidered in dark thread.

  “I was dozing, but I thought I heard someone in the kitchen. I should have known it was you. You’ve been acting suspiciously, it’s been all over your face today.” Manfred sneered. “You make a terrible criminal.”

  Nicky Speers appeared through a gap in the garden hedge. He was barefoot. “Bloody pranksters—hello, what’s all this?”

  Manfred ignored him. “Wait till Mr. Crown gets home,” he said to Paul. “Wait till he hears what you’ve done.”

  Paul sat in the study awaiting the return of his aunt and uncle. Manfred had turned on lights and posted himself on a chair outside, like a jailer. Paul tried to stay calm.

  Finally he heard a door close. Then voices, low at first, but quickly louder, one of them shearing off into a sobbing cry, as Aunt Ilsa ran upstairs.

  The door was thrown open. Uncle Joe knew everything; it showed in his eyes, and the pinkness of his cheeks, and the diamonds of sweat in his beard.

  Paul stood and squared his shoulders. He’d grown several inches taller than his uncle, but it hardly made a difference. In his anger, Uncle Joe was a Goliath.

  “My son has run off, with your connivance and assistance—it’s unbelievable. We gave you shelter, your aunt and I. We gave you the affection of a family. We encouraged you, saw to it that you had a good job, with a future. This is our repayment?”

  “Sir—”

  “Where is my son? Where has he gone?” Joe Crown’s shout stirred ornamental glass pendants on a table lamp. They tinkled like fairy bells.

  “Uncle Joe, I cannot tell you. He did not confide in me.”

  “Get to your room until I decide what’s to be done. I should lock you up, too.”

  “As you locked him up? You drove him to what he did.”

  Something slipped in his uncle’s head, “verdammt!” He slapped Paul across the face, full palm, making Paul’s head snap to the side.

  Paul recovered and drew a long, deep breath. He was white. “It won’t be necessary to lock me up, Uncle. I will stay or leave, as you please.”

  He was convinced he had been absolutely right to aid his cousin. And yet he couldn’t help feeling a traitor. How hateful that he wanted to cry like a child. He fought the feeling as he walked out of the study, past Manfred Blenkers standing with his arms folded, smiling.

  51

  Joe Junior

  HE WENT TO PULLMAN after all, out of desperation.

  The model town was back to normal. Though it was close to midnight, many lights showed in the rows of brick houses. Sounds drifted from windows. A man and woman laughing low, intimately. A baby fretting noisily, gasping shrieks of hunger. Someone playing a piano exercise. Someone’s dog barking …

  After several futile minutes on Rosie’s doorstep, he hoisted his bundle and knocked at the house immediately adjoining. A short, slight man of middle years answered. He gripped the doorframe, blocking the entrance with a pugnacious stance. He wore a faded nightshirt and carpet slippers. From the color of his face, the pertness of his nose, Joe Junior suspected he was Irish.

  “How do you do, sir,” Joe Junior began.

  “What is it you’re wanting this time of night?”

  “I’m a friend of the Jablonecs. Their place is shut up tight. No one answered my knock. Can you tell me where they are?”

  “Gone. Evicted. This housing is for workers. After the mister was killed there were no workers in that family.”

  “And Rosie—she went with her mother?”

  The man wrinkled his nose. “Nobody can say where that one went. A wild girl. Hard as they make ’em. She left the day after the funeral. Ran off. Mrs. Jablonec collapsed, the poor thing. You could hear her caterwauling at all hours. Say, lad, don’t I know you?”

  “Possibly, sir. Rosie was a friend, I sometimes came to call on Sundays.”

  “That’s it. Well, you’ll have to hunt far and wide to find her now. She never told her poor mother anything, so my Kitty says. One thing sure. That girl’s headed for perdition. Can’t tell you anything more.”

  “All right, sir, thank you.”

  The door shut. The light in the front room
went out and Joe Junior was left in the looming shadow of the row houses. He hadn’t harbored any great hope of Rosie’s taking him back, but he’d thought she might offer him temporary refuge—let him lie low for a day or two, in case Pop put someone on his trail.

  He gazed up at the sky, a thousand stars swimming in heat haze. The vastness, the loneliness paralyzed him. A distant train went whistling through the enormous night.

  He fought his sadness, his sense of loss and isolation. His dread. He was strong; why should he fear what lay out there?

  He picked up his bundle and tramped to the corner. There he halted to get his bearings. He chose a street running west. Somewhere a bell tolled midnight.

  52

  Pork

  TWO BLACK TROTTERS PULLED the handsome Studebaker carriage, one of four that Pork Vanderhoff owned. The driver stopped in front of the Crown brewery at a few minutes before 10 A.M. on Thursday, the second day following young Joe Crown’s disappearance. Pork of course had no knowledge of that yet.

  Pork stepped from carriage to curbstone with a heavy gasp and eyed with distaste a statue of some oafish Teutonic king at the center of a bubbling fountain. He had already put in three hours at his headquarters on South LaSalle Street; in the Vanderhoff packing empire the day began at 7 A.M. and continued until work was done, even if employees trudged home at midnight. As Pork often confided to his cronies, his success, built on drive and sweat, was a prize to be guarded and preserved, especially after generations of family failure in the same trade. “I don’t love the money for itself, but I love what it stands for. And I love the game. The getting of it. Outfoxing, outdealing, outthinking the rest of them.” In that respect—the worship of success—Pork shared something with the rich German brewer he’d come to see.

  The sky promised another sunless but hot day. Pork shifted his leather portfolio from one hand to the other in order to examine his fingers. They were sooty from the carriage ride. Chicago’s familiar pall of coal smoke stained the sky, just as Chicago soot stained skin and clothing.