Homeland

by John Jakes

  Pork’s study at home was a smaller replica of his lair on LaSalle Street. The walls bore specimens from the taxidermist, including a splendid blue-water shark and a prettified, largely imaginary rendering of the old family place at Darien.

  A sixteen-button bell panel was within easy reach on the wall behind him. It was no mere affectation. He regulated the household by means of those bells. Nell, with her delicate Southern sensibilities, had for more than a decade refused to utter a word to any of the servants except the chief steward. Hence the bells. The enjoyment of riches was not all pretzels and candy, Pork often said to himself.

  The ticking clock showed half after eight. He’d already set up the fiction of an all-night card game—he loathed cards; it was I.W. who was a wizard at determining other people’s hands sight unseen—and he would be leaving as soon as he concluded this interview. The thought of the person with whom he intended to spend the night made him reach under the desk and rub his crotch.

  Well trained, Juliette knocked softly before she entered. Pork’s heart brimmed at the sight of her. Despite her recent streak of rebellion, which he now understood, she was a lovely young woman, a daughter to delight any father. All the more reason to separate and protect her from the young foreign brute who surely intended to vandalize her body. Pork prayed the desecration had not already taken place.

  “Julie, good evening.” He beamed.

  “Papa.” She sat in the side chair, her smile, alas, more perfunctory than his.

  Still, he kept up the front. “How fetching you look tonight. That’s a new summer outfit.”

  “Thank you, Mama bought it for me.” Her shirtwaist was a dusty pink, like autumn roses, with a tiny figure in it. A smart turn-down collar, plain white, set it off. The skirt was gray grenadine, the open-mesh leon weave allowing the matching pink lining of taffeta to show through most attractively.

  Still, clothes didn’t entirely make the girl. He noticed a nervous agitation of her fingertips where they rested on her knee. Unbecoming fatigue circles around her gray eyes, too. A thought struck him. He must check the latest listings of telephone and telegraph charges for the household. He didn’t want his daughter communicating with that damned subversive Willis for advice.

  From a humidor Pork extracted a Cuban cigar, tubular, green, eleven inches long. He fancied Cuban cigars. For that reason he’d given a thousand dollars to the Cuban freedom organization in New York. He didn’t give a curse for its principles, he just didn’t want all the finest cigars to be smoked by a lot of royalistic queers in a palace in Madrid.

  Julie coughed delicately. Blasted female sex! Nell did the same thing when he enjoyed a cigar in her presence. He put the cigar in a crystal ashtray from which the smoke could rise straight up. With a sly-fox grin, he pushed the Cook’s envelope across the desk.

  “A present for you, my dear.”

  The envelope lay in the pool of light cast by his green-shaded banker’s lamp. Julie’s gray eyes darted to it. Of course she knew the significance of the name Cook’s.

  She said nothing. Pork announced his plan for their grand tour. It was part of his scheme to pretend to absolute ignorance of the trashy German boy.

  When he finished, Julie said, “It sounds lovely, Papa. But I don’t want to go away. Not for a year, or even a month. I have too many interests here.”

  Sparkling beads of sweat were collecting on Pork’s dewlaps again. “What are they, pray?”

  “Reading. My music—”

  “My dear. English books are available on the Continent, I do believe. Pianofortes are not unknown in France, or Italy, or the Netherlands—why, those places are almost civilized, I hear.”

  More provocatively, he added, “They ice-skate and cycle over there, too.”

  He watched closely. She didn’t bite at either of the hooks. First came a shake of her head; her thick black hair glinted like the wing of a raven in sunshine. Then:

  “Papa, there is no other way to say this but straightforwardly. I won’t go. I don’t want every moment of my life planned for me.”

  “Juliette! That sounds ungrateful.”

  “I don’t mean to be ungrateful. I appreciate the thought, the expense of what you have in mind. I just don’t want to go to Europe right now.” Her voice grew stronger. “I am grown, after all. Many girls are married and raising children at seventeen or eighteen. So I think I should have some say about the matter.”

  Pork’s very soul rebelled. Women had no say. Why, he hadn’t even mentioned the trip to Nell. She would fall in line, that was a given.

  His sapphire ring glowed and glittered as his fat hand reached out to stroke the Cook’s envelope. “Don’t be so stubborn, Juliette. Read the material in here. There’s a tentative itinerary for the first ninety days. A description of the deluxe suite of staterooms I’ve already booked on the Cunard line’s finest—”

  “I’m sorry, Papa,” she interrupted. “I won’t go.”

  My God, this infatuation is deep, and dangerous. He’d presumed it could be disposed of quickly. Now he wasn’t sure. He unsheathed the weapon he’d been saving.

  “I will not relay your reaction to your mother just yet.” Julie’s gray eyes flashed with bitter comprehension. “Your mother very much wishes to take this trip. You know as well as I do what may result if you continue to balk. You know the precarious state of your mother’s nerves. Do you want to be responsible for a collapse? Or, God forbid, something worse? If you deny her this, and something dire happens, it will all be on you.”

  With a soft cry, Julie bolted. She held the edge of the open door, as if about to faint. Her tear-streaked face showed above the puffed top of her sleeve as she looked back.

  “That’s so cruel.”

  “All on you,” Pork repeated loudly. “On you.”

  She shut the door with a crash.

  He leaned back, positively aghast at the little scene just concluded. Her “infatuation” deserved a much stronger label. It was an adolescent love-madness, of the kind parental guidebooks warned against. That nephew of Crown’s must be a devil of a seducer.

  Still, as his shock passed and he accustomed himself to realities he hadn’t suspected before, he felt a little better. He had observed Juliette’s pained and guilty look at the moment she left the room.

  She was correct about her physical maturity; she had many of the traits of a woman five or ten years older. Inwardly, however, she was still immature, with all the turbulent emotions of girlhood. It was understandable that she might fall in love with someone completely unacceptable, and be whipsawed by her feelings for him.

  At the same time, she had been strictly trained to revere and obey her parents. And to touch the quick of those filial emotions, he had drawn his sharpest knife. One set of emotions could be pitted successfully against the other. It had worked before. It would work again. He would be patient. He rang the bell for his coach and was soon carried away up Prairie Avenue on a cresting wave of confidence.

  Pork spent the night at a shabby cottage in the weedy wilds of Touhy Avenue. But the cheap surroundings were, in fact, as delightful as a Turkish harem because of the occupant of the cottage, an aspiring soubrette named Liza. Liza toured with Midwestern theatrical troupes of dubious reputation and accomplishment. He had once sneaked into McVicker’s to see her when she had a minor role in a light comedy. She was a poor actress onstage. But she was a spectacular performer in bed.

  The following morning, Friday, he went directly to LaSalle Street at a quarter of seven. His clerk Roswell greeted him on the threshold, looking frantic.

  “You’d better go home immediately, Mr. Vanderhoff. Your wife is in hysterics.”

  Pork rushed to Prairie Avenue. He found Nell in her quilted robe, her hair standing up at all angles, ranting through the house. She fell on Pork and beat his chest with tiny fists.

  “She’s gone, I don’t know where she is, her bed’s still made, she must have left during the night, where is she, what’s happened? My God, I’m
in ruins, call Dr. Woodrow before I lose my mind.”

  53

  Paul

  PAUL HAD BEGUN TO feel like a stranger in the Crown household. Uncle Joe and Aunt Ilsa were polite, but that was all. Paul could still hear suppressed wrath in his uncle’s voice, and a deep, soul-searing sadness in Aunt Ilsa’s.

  The Tuesday night following Joe Junior’s departure, Paul had worked up courage to speak to his aunt in her sewing room. He clumsily tendered his regret that Cousin Joe was gone and asked her forgiveness for the part he’d played. She said yes, it was her Christian duty to forgive him. But her words sounded empty. He couldn’t blame her.

  Fritzi was grieving. She didn’t accuse him in any direct way, but neither did she chatter and joke with him. She seemed sorry for him, but she didn’t seek him out as she had before. Carl gloomed about the house, but he appeared to be the least affected. Maybe he wasn’t old enough to understand fully what had happened. Maybe he had an innocent belief that his brother would soon come trooping home. It was evident to Paul that no one else believed it.

  At work he spoke only when necessary. In every spare moment he read newspapers. Not so much for information as for distraction.

  The Chicago strike was broken. Railway workers who had supported the Debs boycott by deed or word were finding severance slips in their pay envelopes. Withdrawal of the federal troops had begun; the soldiers were boarding cars for California, where labor unrest had broken out in Sacramento and Oakland. The following Monday, Eugene Debs was to go before a judge for a hearing on charges of contempt filed after he ignored the injunction. Debs had retained a shrewd and pugnacious lawyer named Clarence Darrow, an Ohioan who had come to the big city some years ago. It was something of a scandal when Mr. Darrow resigned an excellent position as general counsel of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad to defend a rabble-rouser routinely characterized by editorial writers as “an utter madman,” “known syphilitic,” or “a felon richly deserving of the hemp.” But then Darrow wasn’t a typical career-minded lawyer, Paul deduced. Some of his inflammatory statements were quoted. “The country is ruled by business, and business is legal fraud.” “Justice is like the amount of sugar or salt on your table—regulated by the money you have.”

  Paul had tacked the piece of white ribbon among his postal cards on the board in his room. The bloodstains had turned brown. The ribbon seemed foolish and pathetic now that the strike was melting to a memory and the light of capitalistic reason and order was returning to the dark city.

  He hated the fact that a decent gentleman like Mr. Schildkraut had lost his life. But was Cousin Joe the sole culprit? Benno and his accomplice had planted the bomb. And couldn’t it be said that Uncle Joe bore some of the responsibility? To place all of it on Joe Junior was damnably wrong, and Paul was still convinced that he’d been right to help his cousin escape. He just wished that the other people he’d come to love didn’t hurt so much, didn’t blame him so much. He wished that he didn’t hurt so much either.

  Uncle Joe said nothing. Nothing about his son, and nothing about any decision regarding Paul. By Thursday Paul could no longer stand it. At noon, leaving his lunch sack unopened, he went to the office building. Typewriting with two fingers, Stefan Zwick watched as he raised his hand to tap on his uncle’s door.

  “I wouldn’t if I were you.”

  “Mr. Zwick, I must.”

  He knocked. A growled monosyllable gave him leave to come in. He stepped only far enough into the room to shut the door.

  “What is it?”

  “Sir, I hate to interrupt—”

  “Which is precisely what you’re doing.”

  Paul reddened but stood his ground. “I have so much wanted to ask—is there any news of my cousin?”

  “None. I’m in contact with the police every day. I’ve also hired a private agency. They too have failed so far. Joe Junior has seemingly vanished from the city of Chicago.”

  “Uncle, please believe I’m sorry. I did what he wanted. I helped him when he asked.”

  Uncle Joe held his pen as if it were a spear he was about to hurl at his visitor. “No,” he said, “you took a stand against your aunt and me. You can’t absolve yourself with a show of contriteness now. Please get out, I’m busy.”

  When he reported for work on Saturday morning, a Negro boy stopped him at the gate.

  “This here’s for you, sar.” He handed Paul a folded note.

  “Are you sure?” There was nothing written on the outside of the note.

  “Yes, sar, wasn’t no trouble to spot you. You was described just perfec’.”

  “Described by whom?”

  “A real pretty young white lady. I had my shoeshine box outside the Northwestern depot an’ she come up an’ tol’ me what you looked like an’ paid me a whole dollar to bring that an’ find you.”

  Paul unfolded the note. His lips went white.

  Radigan’s Hotel & Cottages—north

  of Waukegan. This afternoon—

  PLEASE!! YOURS ALWAYS.

  At four o’clock he was slumped on a green plush seat on a northbound local of the Chicago & Northwestern, staring out the window at telegraph poles and small suburban farms shuttling by.

  He’d get in more trouble for leaving work without telling anyone. Somehow he didn’t care very much. The note had a clear urgency about it, and his standing with Uncle Joe could hardly be worse.

  He got off the train at the sleepy Waukegan depot at the foot of a steep hill on the lake shore. He rented a red safety cycle for twenty cents and set off north along tree-lined Sheridan Road. After pedaling several miles into open country, he was close to the Wisconsin state line. To the left of the macadamized road he saw a weathered sign—RADIGAN’S—swaying on chains. A lake wind raising whitecaps blew the sign hard.

  Behind the sign stood a white frame house with cupolas, a widow’s walk, weather vanes, and lightning rods. To the rear, laid out in a U, were a number of small square cottages built to resemble the house but without its porches or gingerbread.

  Stiff and dusty, he climbed off the wheel and walked it up the dirt drive leading to the cottages. He understood what might be happening, yet couldn’t altogether believe it. The prospect was thrilling and frightening at the same time. What he was doing was foolish and dangerous.

  One of the cottage doors opened. Someone in white waved a handkerchief.

  His heart soared with happiness. He couldn’t get up the dirt drive fast enough.

  He parked the cycle outside the cottage. He ran to the door and threw his arms around her and kissed her damp cheek. She’d been crying. Happy tears, he hoped.

  She kneaded his shoulder and kept repeating his name as she drew him inside.

  “You got the note—” she began.

  “I did, I just don’t understand—”

  She stopped his words with sweet-scented fingers on his lips. “Last night I ran away. I had to see you, by ourselves. I took the train and rented a little trap at a livery. I’ve put it in the barn so no one will notice it from the road.”

  “Julie, in the name of heaven—you left home? Why?”

  “I love you, Paul. I love you so much, and Papa wants to separate us.”

  “What? Has he found out?”

  “Oh no, I don’t think so, it’s just the devil’s own timing. He and Mama want a grand tour of Europe. They’re insisting I go with them.” She was calming down, brushing tears from her eyelashes. Light fell through a small lace-curtained window at the rear; a sun halo radiated around her black hair.

  Paul noticed details of the cottage. Linoleum flooring. A throw rug. A cheap library lamp hanging from the ceiling, its glass shade and oil font etched with flowers.

  The large iron bed was finished in white enamel, with brass knobs on the corner posts. Nearby was a matching white commode, the doors shut to hide the china pot. The mirror above, tilted forward slightly, was speckled from age. It reflected a wavy image of the lovers as they sat side by side on the bed, touchin
g, hugging.

  “Don’t go if you don’t want to,” he said.

  “? told Papa I wouldn’t. He said Mama had her heart set on the trip. He said it would devastate her if I refused. He said it might kill her. Whenever they want something they use Mama’s health to make me do it. I’ve thought about leaving home permanently, but what would I do? Be a shopgirl? I don’t know how to do anything for myself.”

  He clasped her hand in both of his. “You got here, didn’t you? How did you find this place?”

  “I was here once before, two years ago. I was coming back from Wisconsin with Mama and Papa. Our carriage broke down and we spent the night.”

  “But how did you get in this time, by yourself?”

  “By offering the clerk a bribe. Aren’t you glad? Say you’re glad. If you don’t it’ll break my heart—I love you so.”

  She pressed her palms to his cheeks and kissed him. His arms slipped around her. They tumbled back on the hard bed, her travel-dusty shirtwaist of white lawn rumpling under his hands. He threw his left leg over her hip and kissed her deeply. She gave a low moan, pushing herself into him, stroking his face.

  “I want you so, Paul. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you—”

  “And so much has happened.” He kissed the damp corner of her lips, her nose and eyes. “I’ve so much to tell you.”

  “Later, sweetheart.” She kissed his throat, tugged at his waist.

  “Julie, I must not take advantage of you—”

  “Oh, don’t say that,” she exclaimed, laughing and crying too. “I’m begging you to love me. Why do you think I compromised myself by doing this? Please don’t refuse me. Make love to me while we have a chance.”

  They kissed again, his hand on her breasts, touching and then kneading gently. Julie petted his ear, ran her tongue over his cheek, becoming aroused. “I’m not experienced,” she whispered. “Mama refuses to discuss—men and women.” Paul’s hand worked under her skirt and petticoat, stroking the cotton stocking on her inner leg. “She says the whole subject is improper. What little I know is hearsay.”