by John Jakes
“Don’t worry, it doesn’t make any difference—”
Braced on his elbow, he gazed at her tear-reddened face. The most beautiful he’d ever seen. This encounter in a cheap room on the windy lake shore sealed a permanent change in his feelings, his life, his fate.
“I love you, Juliette. Always. Eternally.”
“Then do love me, Paul.” She raised her arms. “Now.”
The wind shifted around to the northwest in one of those abrupt changes common to the region in summertime. They could hear and feel the wind creaking the cottage as they lay naked in each other’s arms, soft, warm, satiated, under a coarse starched sheet and a down comforter. All the light had gone out of the day except a splintered gleam of the sun setting behind the poplars bordering the property.
She said, “Are you hungry?”
He laughed. “Food is the last thing on my mind. I’ve so much to ask you. So much to tell—”
“Well, if you do get hungry, I brought a hamper. I filled it in Waukegan this morning. There’s cheese, some bratwurst, a loaf of bread, a bottle of Mosel wine the shopkeeper almost refused to sell me because of my age—it’ll be too warm, I suppose.”
“You are more capable than you allow yourself to believe, Miss Juliette. To rent this place—stock it with food—wine, even—”
“It’s because I fear they’ll make me go away and I won’t see you for a year. A lot can happen in a year, Paul. People can separate forever. They can forget.”
“Never. I love you. Immer. Always.”
They kissed, and touched, and began slow, languorous lovemaking a second time. She was less shy, less hesitant. She embraced him with an eagerness that tore the climax out of him in such a shattering way, he slept for a half hour afterward.
She slept too, nestling in the crook of his arm. They slept as comfortably as old married people. Or so he mused in the drowsy delirium of his joy.
In the dark, he struggled into his shirt and pants. She put on her skirt and white shirtwaist with nothing underneath. He helped button the shirtwaist in back. He felt oddly but happily domestic.
He opened the curtain at the front of the cottage, noticing only three windows lit in the hotel. A buggy with large yellow wheels was parked by the porch, the horse tied to the hitching block. The rush of waves against the rocky shore beyond the road was a soothing sound.
Julie had matches. He closed the curtain, pulled down the library lamp and lit it. They feasted from the hamper. The Mosel wine, though warm, was nectar. Julie looked soft, fulfilled, as she munched black bread he’d sliced from the loaf with his clasp knife.
“I must tell you what’s happened. Cousin Joe is gone.”
“Joey? Where?”
“No one knows. He ran away.” He described the events leading up to it. She was astonished, but even more so when he described his role in it, how it was discovered, and how the family reacted.
“Oh, Paul, I am sorry.” She stroked his face. “You had to help him when he asked, you hadn’t any choice.”
“That is what I thought.”
“Poor Joey. Do you think he’s gone for good?”
“I have that feeling, yes.” He paused. “You are the second runaway I’ve associated with this week.” His attempt to lighten the conversation failed. He cleared his throat for the dreaded question. “You are going back, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know. I have courage, Paul—sometimes. But not often enough.”
“Courage is like a muscle, I think. You must use it.”
She laughed, patting him. “You’re a bright young fellow. I’m glad I fell in love with you. You’ll go far.”
Julie said she’d sent a telegraph message to her Aunt Willis night before last, while she’d been agonizing about this clandestine meeting. She’d asked permission to come to her aunt’s home if she needed a refuge. Her aunt’s housekeeper had telephoned by expensive long distance, saying Willis had left for Paris a fortnight earlier, with a traveling companion. “The housekeeper never said so right out, but I could hear what was in her voice. The companion is probably a new man. My aunt has the courage I don’t.”
“You do have it,” Paul insisted, kissing her unbound hair.
She wasn’t persuaded.
“Now we must talk about tomorrow,” he said. “We will have to tell lies about our absence.”
He hated lying to anyone. But, for Julie, discovery would be serious. She was a female under the age of consent. She had lost her virginity, the evidence was on the sheet beneath them. He would receive the blame—he’d take it, gladly—but she would suffer the taint.
“Truly, we must think up the very best—”
“Not now, Paul. In the morning. We won’t spoil this night with worry. Hold me. Give me courage.”
They made love once more, and fell back to sleep.
Someone was drumming.
Paul bolted up. He’d kicked the comforter off. He was frozen. Julie muttered into her pillow, still asleep.
“Julie!” His voice was low, hoarse. He took hold of her shoulder to rouse her. He recognized the drumming for what it was. Someone pounding on the door.
“Juliette? We know you’re there, answer.”
He shook her. She still didn’t waken. Outside, the man said, “Use the God damned ax.”
Paul just had time to leap out of bed and pull on his pants as the blade cleaved through the door with a splintery crash. A groping hand twisted the knob. A second ax blow knocked the door from its top hinge. There were four—no, five men outside, crowding in. One was a huge round-shouldered hulk wearing a fedora.
The lanterns flashed. Boot’s rapped on the linoleum. Julie sat up naked. She was mute with terror. Paul yanked the sheet over her.
Her glazed eyes focused. Bright silver badges gleamed on vests. Strident voices overlapped.
“Juliette. Oh my God. Deputy, arrest him, for Christ’s sake, she’s a minor.”
“Don’t blame me for this. She booked the room with a false name.” That was a bald man with a waxed mustache and suspenders over a collarless shirt.
One of the men wearing a badge grabbed Paul’s shoulder. Paul knocked the hand away. The man cuffed his face.
Paul struck at the man and missed. He fell on the throw rug, his behind hitting hard. The deputy kicked his leg, his ribs’, while the hulking man shouted at the bald man. “You knew she was under age, Radigan. You took the bribe anyway.”
“Stand up, you pile of shit.” One of the lawmen manhandled Paul to his feet.
Julie cried, “Oh, don’t hurt him.”
“Be quiet,” her father shouted. Another deputy with a tinplate badge snapped handcuffs on Paul. The hotel owner whined:
“I took the twenty so she wouldn’t be suspicious, Mr. Vanderhoff. She signed a phony name in the book but I recognized her from the time before. I did right, I telephoned you, didn’t I?”
“Hours later. Christ, you can smell the rutting.” The hulking man struck Paul across the face. “You little son of a bitch, I’ll see you imprisoned for the rest of your natural life.”
He lunged to his daughter and pushed her off the bed. She used the comforter to hide herself. The hulking man grabbed a bull’s-eye lantern from one of the deputies and passed it over the sheet. “Oh God, look. The damage is done. The damage is done.”
“See here,” Paul cried out. “You have no right to come in here and frighten her—”
“Don’t talk to me of rights, you God damned foreign scum, you fucking seducer.” Vanderhoff thrust the bull’s-eye lantern forward as if wanting to set Paul on fire. One of the deputies pulled him back.
“Mr. Vanderhoff, hang on, let’s follow our plan. Get him into the wagon.”
“What are you going to do?” Julie said. She was on her knees behind the bed, trembling.
“Take him across the line to Cook County,” the deputy said. “Throw him in jail. When some of the hopheads and bugger boys get hold of him, he won’t soon forget it.”
A
nother deputy snickered. “He’ll be ready for the nut farm when he gets out.”
“If, if,” the first one said.
“Stop congratulating yourselves,” Vanderhoff snarled. “Put him in the damn wagon.”
A deputy pushed Paul outside. The night air raised gooseflesh on his bare chest and arms. Under the newly risen moon, two horses hitched to a closed wagon breathed transparent vapors into the chilly air.
He had no thought for himself, only for her. He looked back toward the dark cottage; called out, “Julie? Remember what I said. You’re stronger than—”
Vanderhoff seized his arm. “Shut up.” He flung Paul against the wagon. “You’ll never see my daughter again.”
Paul’s eyes, usually so mild, shone like moonlit ice. “Es fliesst noch viel Wasser den Rhein hinunter!”
“What garbage is that?”
“An old proverb. A lot of water will yet flow down the Rhine.”
Livid, Vanderhoff screamed, “Lock him up before I beat him to death!”
The deputy jabbed Paul with a truncheon. “In the wagon, Dutchie. Where you’re going they don’t serve no beer or sauerkraut.”
“But they like fresh meat,” said his colleague, generating laughter. “You’ll wonder why you ever set foot on the fucking boat.”
The doors of the wagon slammed, hiding the moon. A chain clinked; a padlock snapped in the hasp. Paul huddled on a hard bench, shackled hands between his knees, in total darkness.
54
Julie
SHE DRIFTED IN A strange twilight state. Her body was weightless. That seemed natural, and correct.
She had no concept of time. Faces came and went at the periphery of vision, gliding over her, large and a bit misshapen, like painted balloons.
“I hope you are resting. Dr. Woodrow mixed a special prescription. You must drink more of it now.”
She recognized the voice, the face. Her mother. She felt pressure against the back of her nightgown. Lifted, she sat up part way. A hand resembling a little bundle of dead twigs brought a glass to her lips. She drank of the sweet syrupy liquid and sank down again with a tired sigh.
Fairy lights winked distantly. She recognized candles, each surrounded by four spikes of light that formed a luminous star.
Her mother’s frail hand descended from the darkness, stroking the long black hair.
“It’s so beautiful. You’re such a beautiful child. I can’t have some coarse ignorant foreign boy despoil such beauty. Papa told me the truth. Oh, I cried. I was beside myself, like a madwoman. You’re damaged goods. We will have to live with that, what else can we do? But we will take certain steps, as if it never happened. Dr. Woodrow has already made sure there will be no child. No one outside this family will know it happened. There are ways to deceive a bridegroom. That’s for the future. Now you must rest. Rest and let Mama heal you. A woman’s health is everything. Nothing else matters.”
Presently another face floated above her. She recognized Papa, jovially flourishing a thick yellow envelope.
“Don’t forget this, Juliette. We’ll have a splendid holiday, the three of us. But first you’ll spend a month in Cleveland. Dr. Woodrow’s recommendation. There is a fine establishment called the Mountjoy Hospital for Orthopedic and Nervous Disorders. The largest number of patients are women suffering from neurasthenic prostration. A month of rest, in complete seclusion—you’ll be ready and eager for Europe.”
That brought a new face into her thoughts. It was twice as vivid as the ones slowly circling and drifting and bumping each other in the twilight where the candles burned. This face was young, strongly cut. The hair was brown, with reddish glints. The eyes were blue, kindly, trusting. The sight of it brought cascades of sensation, emotion. Memory of kisses, caresses, their bodies together. Fear of separation. Loss. Threat—
“Paul? Where are you?”
“Dr. Woodrow, Dr. Woodrow,” someone cried in the twilight, stridently.
Dr. Woodrow’s huge head appeared, angelic. There was curly blond hair dusted with gray at the ears. There were cheeks like ripening apples, and a pink bow mouth. He smiled and patted her hand. “Now, now.”
“Is it a crisis?” said her mother somewhere in the dark.
“I believe so.”
“What do you recommend?”
“Bleeding. It’s restorative.”
She began to thrash, and cry, “No.” They didn’t seem to hear. Someone grasped her hands and pulled them above her head, out of sight, exposing her wrists. Papa sat on her ankles.
There was a rattle and clink of metal things. Disembodied hands carried a twinkling silver basin past her eyes.
It floated over her like some bright fantastic airship, and disappeared.
“Now, now,” Dr. Woodrow said again, stroking her black shiny hair.
Scissors cut each sleeve of her nightgown. She struggled to no avail. Rubber tubes were tied and knotted around her upper arms. Dr. Woodrow donned white muslin gloves. Hands brought a silver tray into view. A sparkling tray of silver instruments with sharp points or blades for bleeding.
“It’s salubrious,” said Dr. Woodrow, his lips pursed and pink like a lover’s. “You’ll hardly feel it.”
He selected a twinkling scalpel.
She screamed.
55
Paul
HANDS GROPED ON HIS leg. Half asleep, Paul fancied it was some bug, a larger specimen of the ones crawling in the moldy straw-filled mattress.
His eyes cleared. A feeble gaslight beyond the bars illuminated a moonface with bloodshot eyes, a mouth of rotten teeth. The face hovered close to his. The hand groped higher.
“Crazy Tom’s asleep, pretty boy. Come down to my bunk and be nice to Swede. If you do I’ll give you a plug of my chaw tobacco. But you got to chew something else first.” Swede giggled.
Paul knocked his hand away. “Let me be, I want to sleep.”
“Oh yes?” Swede grabbed Paul’s ear and twisted viciously. “It don’t pay to be snotty in jail. Word gets around. You’ll turn your back and drop your drawers in the shifter, then some boys will pay you for your snottiness in a way you won’t like.”
Paul felt busy mites in his hair, his armpits. He wriggled and scratched. Before the deputies dimmed the gas for the night, Crazy Tom, an inebriate and apparently a frequent guest of the county, had sat on the stool in the corner with his shirt off, scratching the vermin until blood ran in the hair on his chest.
Swede fondled his neck again.
“I said leave me alone, damn you.”
“All right, pretty boy. I will for now. Just keep watch on your behind.”
Swede gave Paul’s buttocks a pinch, giggling again. His forehead and thinning hair sank from sight. Swede slept in the lowest bunk. Paul had the one on top; the middle one was empty. The cell contained bunks for six. Crazy Tom snored in the bottom one on the other side.
Fending off the old man called Swede had been Paul’s burden for almost twelve hours. He was exhausted by it. He rolled toward the wall and covered his face with his elbow. He was so weary and ashamed, he wanted to die.
Late in the morning the police wagon had brought him through the gate of Cook County Jail, most of whose granite-walled cells had no windows. The jail reeked of human waste in metal buckets and tobacco juice spat onto the granite floors. The slimy coating was treacherous.
Paul’s cell block was a bedlam of shouts, oaths, obscenities. The cells had been unlocked from four in the afternoon until six. During those two hours he’d been allowed to roam the corridor. Up and down, up and down, shuffling among the dregs of the city. Some of the men eyed him, others tried to touch him; some whispered things he tried not to hear.
For supper the guard had brought tin plates of cold gray corn bread squares. Paul bit into a piece and found a nest of wiggling white worms. He gagged into the reeking toilet bucket; Swede and Crazy Tom found it very amusing.
The cells adjoined the women’s block via a connecting door that was kept open. Soon
after everyone was locked up for the night, the women began to weep and shriek. “Hey, screw. Screw, fuck you. No, fuck this. Put your head up this. Ha-ha, ha-ha, ha-ha …”
Footsteps approached. The night guard peered in. “Sleep tight, ladies.” He raked his truncheon over the bars. Crazy Tom started and yelled. The guard laughed and went on.
Paul fought to maintain his courage, but it was hard. This is America? You came all the way across the ocean to experience this?
And Julie … what had happened to her? Had her father punished her? He feared for her safety.
Shortly after guards woke the inmates in the morning, Paul was pulled from his cell and escorted down a flight of stairs to a granite-walled room with no windows, a cheap electric fixture in the ceiling, a wooden chair in the middle of the damp floor, a steam radiator hissing.
Two detectives wearing stiff collars and sleeve garters welcomed Paul with smiles he immediately distrusted. “Sit down, Dutch,” said one detective while the other shut the door and shot the bolt.
The radiator gave off so much heat, Paul was immediately bathed in sweat under his coarse jail shirt. The heavier of the detectives took a wide-legged stance in front of Paul’s chair.
“This is a sweatbox. Do you know what that means, Dutch?”
Paul shook his head.
“We work in teams in here. Each team does one hour on, one hour off. That way, we can keep you here till you tell the truth. You won’t eat, you won’t drink, you won’t sleep, you won’t piss, you’ll sit there and sweat.” He leaned over to shout. “Why did you kidnap her?”
“You are fools, I did not kidnap—”
“Don’t call names in here, you kraut son of a bitch. You’re in police custody. In Chicago, U.S. of A. Hal? Give him a tap, so he’ll mind his manners.”
A shot-loaded sock hit the back of his head. Driven forward, he fell off the chair. The other detective kicked him as he fell.
Paul groaned and scratched the granite floor. He shut his eyes.
“None of that, you shit bag. Get up.” The older detective grabbed the waist of his trousers and yanked. Paul was forced to scramble to his knees, then to his feet.