This Is How It Begins

by Joan Dempsey

  “Look at him. He’ll agree.”

  Izaac was smiling, his palms upturned, arms extended to the crowd. He turned and beckoned to the high school girl who’d stepped aside a moment ago.

  “Now. I believe this young lady has something she’d like to say about my grandson.”

  18

  Revelations I

  “Tommy can’t sue, kochanie, at least not right away. The statute mandates arbitration.”

  Izaac and Ludka were sitting by the fire, which Izaac kept feeding. At the rally, he had gotten more chilled than he’d known, and he still couldn’t quite shake the cold. Over a late dinner, he’d told Ludka everything, and she regretted having kept her unnecessary commitment to the faculty meeting, which Izaac had rightly questioned.

  “What Tommy can do—if the arbitrator doesn’t rule in his favor—is file a complaint with the Mass Commission Against Discrimination, and then after that he can file a civil action for damages or injunctive relief. I suspect he’ll end up there; the board of ed determines the process for choosing the arbitrators, and now that they’ve shown their true colors …”

  He gripped the chair’s arms and slowly pushed himself up. He bent over the fireplace screen and poked at the burning wood, sending up sheets of fine sparks.

  “At least it’s the national group—the American Arbitration Society—that provides the pool of arbitrators. They’re an honest bunch. Of course I suppose expediency also demands they choose local people, so chances are high at least one of them will be sympathetic to the church, if that’s who’s behind this.”

  “Oh, it is church! I did some more digging on this Pastor Royce Leonard. He is up to his eyeballs with long activist history, always collaborating with senior brass at monolithic, so-called Christian organizations: Dobson, Robertson, Jarvis.”

  “Heavy hitters.”

  “His last church in Virginia has now more than forty thousand members. And suddenly to move to Hampshire five years ago only? This is no coincidence. And the other name always cropping up? Warren Meck. His mother was secretary to Jarvis most of her working life. But where do you think she got her start? As secretary to Royce Leonard! Be wary on that radio program, Izaac. It is Meck’s heritage to be aligned against our Tommy. And they call themselves Christians.”

  She thumped the arms of her chair. Izaac smiled. Ludka started to speak, but Izaac held up a hand.

  “I know you’re serious, I know! But your belligerence can be so damned entertaining. I will be reasonable and fierce, how about that?”

  He held up a hand, clawlike, and showed her his teeth. Ludka suppressed a smile. Izaac maneuvered the poker under the top log and gave it a shove.

  “So tell me,” he said cautiously, “how is what they say any different than what the Catholic Church says? You yourself said ‘there is sin.’ It’s the same Bible.”

  “For one thing, you will not see the children of St. Hedwig’s picketing with vulgar signs, or members of the congregation beating up an innocent young man.”

  “And that man who grabbed Tommy in church? What do you think he’d do if no one was watching?”

  “He is the loose cannon, that one.”

  “Get your head out of the sand, Ludka. This is how it begins.”

  “Don’t lecture me, old man.”

  She frowned and stared into the fire. Izaac fitted the poker back onto its stand and ran a hand roughly through his hair. He turned to face her and rubbed at his lower back with both hands.

  “I have to tell you. Those counterprotesters were impressive, the whole sea of them. Utterly silent and still, even with people shouting in their faces from six inches away. Such discipline. I’m sure they’d call it faith, but it looked a lot like blind obedience. They frightened me. I was frightened.”

  He lowered himself slowly into his chair and drew together both sides of his open cardigan. Ludka felt her own fear rising. Tommy had seemed so panicked when Kulek had grabbed him in church. And what did she know about Kulek? Only that he routinely sat behind her on Sundays, that he was married, that he had a grown son who no longer attended mass at St. Hedwig’s.

  “Faith can be worse,” said Izaac. “It trumps reason all too easily. Reason? Reason is impotent. They see what they see, believe what they believe, and that’s that. Discrimination born of moral conviction is infectious. We know this. Don’t be too tolerant of your church, kochanie. We’re always so tolerant, but sometimes there are occasions for intolerance. And these folks are pretty confident, starting here. They’d have had an easier go of it in the big McCain states: Oklahoma or Wyoming or Idaho. I mean, Obama got sixty-two percent of our vote. Here in Hampshire County it was closer to eighty. I suppose if they win here, though, they can win anywhere. Maybe that’s the point.”

  Ludka pulled a shawl off the back of the chair and onto her shoulders.

  “They will not win. You said it yourself. This is America. Such things do not happen here.”

  They sat quietly, then, and stared into the fire, Ludka drawing courage from her resolute words, Izaac recalling an eerily similar sentiment that echoed down through the decades, haunting enough to trigger a chill, even by the blistering fire.

  “Well, one thing’s for sure,” said Izaac, after a time. “They’re not going to succeed tonight. I’m going to get ready for bed.”

  He yawned and pushed up out of the chair. He stretched his spine and rubbed again at his back.

  “No more Stanley, then, eh?”

  Ludka shook her head and thought of the Chopin secured away in the closet. She’d been surprised when Stanley had told her after class on Friday that he would go back to California on the weekend. He claimed she had renewed his inspiration for reviving his gallery. And maybe that’s all it had been, in the end, a thought Ludka found surprisingly disappointing, and not a little disconcerting. Always she had relied on her intuition, on her keen powers of observation, and this time they had proven unreliable. She would have expected nothing but relief at his departure, but instead found herself feeling somewhat deflated. Izaac had been right that the pot needed to be stirred, and now that Stanley’s appearance had stirred it, Ludka didn’t want it to settle again. In all these years, she had never gotten this close to finding Oskar, and having his grandson nearby had transformed her hope from something chronic and ordinary into something fresh and remarkable. She’d even gone so far as to imagine an imminent reunion. But this angered her, too. How was it that someone who’d been absent so long could suddenly feel so newly lost?

  “So he wasn’t out to persecute you after all,” said Izaac. “Just a young man missing his grandfather.”

  Ludka glared past Izaac at the fire, and he laughed. He whacked at the logs to break them apart so they’d burn out more quickly.

  “Do you miss him, kochanie?”

  “Why would I miss him? I hardly know him.”

  “I don’t mean Stanley. I mean Oskar. Or should I call him Pawel now? But do you miss him? Do you miss Oskar?”

  Ludka closed her eyes. Always, she thought.

  “I remember him, you know,” said Izaac. “From back then.” Ludka peered at him with surprise. She shook her head. “Impossible.”

  “My Ludka, always so sure you know everything there is to know. I followed you. A few times. To his apartment building, to the ghetto, to the orphanage.”

  “You followed? You left the house? My god, Izaac! To the ghetto?” She rose from her chair as fast as she could and shook a fist.

  “There is no leaving house,” she said in a low, warning tone. “How could you take such risk, all we do to protect you?”

  “I was thirteen, Ludka. I’d been inside for three years. Even death would have been worth those walks. I wanted to go where you went, that’s all. I wanted to feel normal again. It saved me.”

  With both hands Ludka clutched the shawl at her neck and darted glances all around, as if she feared someone might leap out.

  “They will shoot you in head,” she said in a fierce whisper.
“They will set dogs on you! They will come for my parents! You must stay in house. You must!”

  Izaac grew alarmed at her agitation. He spoke her name as calmly as he could, repeatedly, but she made no response. She took a few steps backward, as if she might be hoping for the protection of a wall at her back, and all at once her eyes locked onto something in the dining room. She froze. Izaac followed her gaze. She was staring at Stanislawsky’s painting—Irises by a Country Cottage—as if she’d never seen it before.

  “What is it, kochanie, what is it?”

  He went to her. He put a tentative arm around her back. She flinched. He patted her clutched hands. She squinted at him in some confusion.

  “You must not risk,” she said in a small voice. “They will come for my Mama and Tata.”

  Izaac thought she might cry. He tightened his arm around her.

  “Look at me. It’s 2009. We’re at home, in America.”

  She slumped against him and seemed to come to. Her breaths were quick and shallow. She searched his face and lightly touched his cheek. She couldn’t steady her shaking hand and clutched again at her shawl.

  “So vivid, Izaac. Like yesterday.”

  “What did you remember?”

  She squinted in concentration, then slowly shook her head. “Come. Why don’t you go on up to bed? I’ll tend to the fire.”

  “I must sit.”

  Izaac helped her into her chair and stood protectively by her side. She laid her fingers for a moment on her cheeks, and then pressed them against her lips. She closed her eyes and spoke through her fingers.

  “It is like flashback, I think, these reveries. But nothing specific can I remember, just terror.” She gazed searchingly at Izaac. “How is it we lived through such terror?”

  Izaac shook his head.

  “We just did. We just did.”

  “Why did you never tell me you followed me?”

  Izaac ran a hand through his hair. He smiled.

  “Maybe because I thought you’d react like this. No, no, that’s a poor joke. Why didn’t I tell you? I don’t know, exactly. I suppose it was just my story, not yours. Sharing a thing can rob it of its power, and for so very long I had so little power. In a world of terrible secrets, I wanted one of my own. That’s all. I haven’t really thought of it in years.”

  Ludka took a deep breath and nodded slowly. She reached up and squeezed Izaac’s hand. Something tugged at her mind. Something out of place. Everything around her felt reassuringly familiar: in front of her the hearth and the Kantor; to her right the back entryway and the door to the garage; to her left the curtains drawn across the French doors and the Musialowicz at the bottom of the stairs. It was probably nothing. Whoever had left that note on their porch had unsettled her more than she’d expected. The harassing phone calls had also continued. The police were now involved. She peered around the wing of the chair, behind her into the dining room. That was it: the Stanislawsky. It had not been there yesterday, she was certain. A Lebenstein had occupied that space. She envisioned the Chopin where she had stacked it in the closet. But where had the Stanislawsky been in relation? She couldn’t recall.

  “Already you rotated the art?”

  “Just the Lebenstein. I couldn’t take it another minute. All this with Tommy, I wanted something peaceful, something apolitical, without all that grim Lebenstein portent. I put up the Irises before you got home. It’s a relief, don’t you think?”

  She scrutinized Izaac’s face, trying to tell if he’d found the Chopin. But of course he would have said something.

  “I am too wound up for sleep. I will sit longer, maybe make some tea, calm down. No, Izaac, you go on up. I am again myself. You are looking more worn out than I feel. I won’t be long.”

  She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. He nodded. He stepped back onto the hearth and took hold of the poker.

  “The fire will die down,” said Ludka. “I will take care of it.”

  Izaac hesitated and then replaced the poker.

  “Don’t forget—don’t close up that flue unless the fire’s out.”

  “In eighty-five years I have never put fire to bed before!”

  Ordinarily Izaac would have laughed at this, but these episodes of dissociation disturbed him more and more. He was starting to feel reluctant to leave her alone.

  “I think it’s time to consult a doctor. No! No, I won’t allow your protest this time. You don’t see yourself. You go away completely. I don’t know what might happen if I wasn’t here, or if you were driving. Tomorrow we’re calling to make an appointment.”

  Ludka knew Izaac was right. During a reverie, she lost time, in much the same way she might end up driving past her highway exit while occupied in deep thought. When she resurfaced, she knew only that she felt shaken and wrung out, that she’d been young again, during the war. Not once had she remembered the details. Perhaps a doctor could put the episodes to rest.

  “I will call first thing.”

  Izaac’s relief was evident.

  “You shout out if you need me, won’t you?”

  She smiled and struck the pose: a half-hearted pledge of allegiance.

  She waited until she heard him upstairs in the bedroom, and then in the bathroom. She listened hard for the hum of his toothbrush, but the distance was too great, or her hearing wasn’t up to the task. Only when she expected he was engrossed in brushing did she get up. Her legs felt wobbly, but she took a few steps, paused, and judged herself capable. She retrieved the key from the toe of Izaac’s old boot and fitted it into the coat closet’s doorknob. She wished they had taken the trouble of installing a more vigorous lock. In the dim glow of the low wattage light she could tell immediately—the Chopin was gone.

  “Izaac!”

  Her cry was reactionary, instinctive, and she clapped a hand over her mouth as if she could call it back. She held her breath and listened for his steps, but heard nothing. She pawed through the rack, forcing herself to really see each painting, and then she searched again from the other direction, knowing it was futile; she’d felt it in her gut the instant she’d seen the Stanislawsky. Ludka gripped the door casing, her knees weak. But how had Stanley gotten into the house? The closet she could see, such a flimsy lock, but she’d believed their house was impenetrable. Since she’d seen Stanley last, the house had been empty only once, earlier today while Izaac had been in Boston and she’d been with the faculty. Then she remembered how her office door had been inexplicably open the morning Stanley had turned up. She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers over her mouth. He might toss the portrait into the trunk of a car, shove it into a backpack, maul it with gloveless hands. But surely he had taken it because he knew its value? Surely he would be cautious?

  Oskar had held the painting so carefully, incrementally lowering the back of it over the steaming teakettle to relax the canvas before pressing out the dent. And all the while, shuddering up through the floorboards, vibrations from the passing German tanks.

  Upstairs, Izaac flushed the toilet. Ludka realized that some small part of her had been hoping he would call out, or come back down to see if she was all right. Had he found her now, quaking as she was in the doorway of the unlocked closet, she wouldn’t have had the wherewithal to lie. She turned off the closet light, the violated house growing quiet around her. She didn’t call out to him again.

  Part II

  19

  Tell It Like It Is

  It hadn’t taken long for progressive Americans, still understandably and deservedly giddy from the wildly successful opening act of what they assumed would be as history-making a presidency as Barack Obama’s election, to grab hold of their laurels and, exhausted, sink into them like an armchair facing a cheery hearth, confident in the naive belief that Obama would carry not only the day but perhaps the next century, that at long last the pendulum of democracy had been halted in its arc, not only in that infinitesimal hesitation at its apex before it drops back, but finally retired, never to swing a
gain.

  Meck had anticipated these exhausted assumptions and watched with satisfaction as the majority of Obama supporters rolled down their sleeves and went back to their precampaign lives, figuring the people’s work had been done; he couldn’t have hoped for a better climate. The premature dismissals were a setback, certainly, as was last week’s attack on Tommy Zeilonka, but the fundamentalist community across the nation was riled by their loss to Obama and far more ready to champion Meck’s cause than he and Whit and Pastor Royce had dared to hope. Money was pouring in from all over the country, and the ACLU had already agreed to speak on their behalf at Zeilonka’s arbitration hearing.

  Meck was therefore in a buoyant mood the morning Izaac Rosenberg was to appear on Tell It Like It Is, but as airtime approached, his mood was rapidly deflating. He had arranged for Rosenberg to arrive thirty minutes early to acclimate him to the studio and give him the rundown. He was already twenty minutes late. For the fifth time, Meck went to the window in the suite’s lobby and checked Main Street: finally! Rosenberg was picking his way across the slushy road, head lowered, one hand held out against possible traffic. Meck checked his watch and frowned. He stepped into the hallway, where the broadcast played quietly from a speaker they’d rigged outside the station’s door. Chuck Little, who hosted the morning music program, went into his final wrap. Meck felt a building tension in his neck and massaged it as the old elevator inched its way up, a faltering bell announcing each floor. There was a long pause on two. Finally, the elevator doors slid open, and there at last was the former AG, hat in hand, smiling in such a way that Meck wondered if his tardiness had been a ploy. Meck gave him a tight smile, shook Izaac’s hand, and ushered him as quickly as he could into the suite. By the time they entered the guest studio, Izaac had stripped off his coat and shoved his hat and scarf and gloves into a sleeve. Meck was surprised at how fragile he seemed without the bulk of his winter clothing, just a feeble old man, really, swimming in a corduroy sports coat with shiny, drooping elbows. He suddenly felt sorry for him.