Bellagrand: A Novel (27 page)

Herman walked to the liquor cabinet to fix himself a drink. “Harry is not a child,” he said. “No matter how much he acts like one.”

“I’m talking about the
baby
, Daddy! Not Harry.”

They fell silent. Herman’s hands shook noticeably as he poured himself a whiskey, raised it to his lips, and drank it in one long, pained swallow.

“Esther, he has been convicted of inciting violence and of
actual
violence against our armed forces and law enforcement. He has been convicted of scurrilous and abusive language toward his government at war, convicted of aiding and abetting the enemy by willfully interfering with the operation and success of the United States armed forces by obstructing and preventing army recruitment. I mean, that’s almost a high crime, is it not? Ten years seems woefully insufficient. Who do you think I could possibly know on the federal bench who can help us?”

Esther folded her arms. “I don’t know. I don’t care.”

Herman sighed. “Let’s say goodnight. He utterly exhausts me and I haven’t seen him in years. Before he was charged I whispered in the DA’s ear for weeks to persuade him to ask for a smaller sentence. He had wanted twenty! I have to sleep now. Tomorrow is another day. Though tomorrow I’m headed to Roxbury with Billingsworth. He wants me to look over some investment properties.”

“No. Go to court with him instead. Billingsworth is always bragging about how many people he knows at the DA’s office. And didn’t you sponsor the DA’s son through Yale? Doesn’t that count for something?”

“I don’t know how good a student he was, I can’t say.”

“All right. Joke. Do whatever you need to—just help my brother.”

“Esther,” said Herman, “that’s the very DA who asked for ten years for Harry instead of twenty. That’s the return favor we got for the Yale sponsorship. The well is dry.”

“Draw one last bucket from it.” She stood to go. “Remind all concerned that one, it’s Christmas, and two, Harry’s wife is expecting.”

“On the first count, the DA, I believe, is Jewish. And the second one might not be a plus either,” Herman said, putting down his empty highball and grabbing an inconspicuous cane near the corner bookshelf. “What if the DA stipulates that as one of the conditions of his release, Harold not procreate?”

Four

GINA REMAINED IN BARRINGTON.
She barely got out of bed for the first few sleepy days, wishing that whatever was happening out of her line of sight with Herman and Esther would take just a little bit longer because it was a summer walk through a field to stay in a house this warm and comfortable in December. There was always hot water, and no drafts, and the towels were fresh and white, miraculously starched by someone other than her. She had brought no clothes with her, but as if by magic, the next afternoon new clothes appeared on her dresser; white undergarments, a navy wool dress, a plaid skirt, a cashmere shawl, a red scarf, new black boots with patent heels and in just the right size. Every few hours a woman came in, a maid, not Rosa, and inquired if Gina needed anything, anything at all. Some tea, a sandwich, a cake, another pillow, a book? Did she want to get dressed, did she want a bath? The woman offered to dress her, to bathe her. Her name was Donna. She cleaned up Gina’s cups and plates and crumbs from the cake that fell from her mouth onto the floor. She opened the drapes, she drew them. Every time she walked into the room, Gina cried.

She slept like a male lion, twenty hours out of every twenty-four, praying to God that Herman would find a way to help them so she could find a way to be a better wife to her husband. She could not believe Harry would give up this life, even for a woman like her. And perhaps that was the source of his constant undercurrent of resentment toward her. Perhaps he realized early on she hadn’t been worth it.

Could she give it all up for a man like Harry? Gina wanted to say yes. She remembered fondly their once unquenchable blaze, but as she, covered to her neck by a down quilt, lay in the soft white four-poster bed the few hours she was awake, weeping repentance for her weakness, her loneliness, for her fleeting joy with another soul, not Harry’s, she couldn’t say for sure.

Five

“DON’T STUDY ME, ESTHER,
I’m not a textbook,” Herman said after a week had passed. “No one wants to stick his neck out. The case is too high profile. He’s been so publicly tried, so publicly convicted! All of his co-defendants are going away for decades. Oh, and by the way, Emma Goldman may be deported to Russia.”

They were talking quietly in the library while taking their afternoon tea. They didn’t want Gina to overhear.

“What? No!”

“That’s the proposal. Two hundred convicted seditionists to be escorted onto a boat and shipped off to Russia as a present for Lenin and Trotsky. The reason I mention this is because that’s what the DA has offered me. In lieu of his current sentence, Harry would be put on the Soviet Ark and shipped to Russia.”

“Daddy, is this another joke? Because it’s completely without humor.”

Herman pointed to his face. “Do I look like I’m joking? Exactly. So don’t judge me. I barely managed to reschedule his sentencing until early in the new year, to give me and Billingsworth a little more time to talk to the sentencing judge, to see if he has any leeway.” Finished with his tea and requiring something stronger, Herman got up, poured himself a whiskey, and sat back down on the couch next to his daughter. “Trouble is, the Red Scare is in full gale mode. No one wants to go on public record for supporting a communist, showing leniency to a Red.”

“But the war ended! How can there
still
be sedition?”

“All right, my legal scholar daughter. Your brother committed his crimes when the war had
not
ended.”

“You have to do something quick, Daddy. He is going to panic. She hasn’t been to see him in weeks.”

“So tell her to go and see him.”

“And it’s Christmas!”

“All the more reason to go.”

“She doesn’t know what to say to him.”

“What does that have to do with me,” Herman thundered, “that she doesn’t know what to say to her own husband?”

They turned their heads to the door, and there was Gina standing in the entryway watching them.

“I am a terrible inconvenience,” she said.

“Come in,” said Herman, “sit down with us, have a drink. Esther, ring for Rosa, tell her to bring some more scones and jam.” He turned to his daughter-in-law. “
You’re
not the inconvenience here, Gina. This Sunday ask Clarence to drive you to Concord. Go visit him before Christmas. Bring him a small gift. Tell him you’re expecting. Don’t say anything else because there is a good chance I can’t fix it.”

But before Sunday there was a breakthrough of sorts, a small step forward. As always, when something was given, something had to be taken away. When Gina heard what was being proposed, she said she could not face Harry on her own. Herman and Esther reluctantly agreed to accompany her to Concord.

Six

ON SUNDAY ROY WENT
into cell number 26694 and told Harry to get up.

“Has she come back?” was the first thing Harry asked when he saw Roy. That’s the first thing he had been saying to Roy for four Sundays in a row since the last time he had seen her. He jumped down from his bunk.

Roy shook his head. Before Roy opened his mouth, Harry was already back in his bunk, his face turned to the wall. Roy started shaking him. “Get up, I said!”

“Forget it. Leave me alone.” Harry closed his eyes.

“I don’t know what you done to make that lovely woman so cross with you that she stopped visiting you in jail during Christmas season, only you knows that, you and God, but get up because you has new visitors. I has to dress you and shave you.”

Harry turned to Roy. “What visitors?” He didn’t get up. “As in plural? Who?”

“Do I know who? I do simple math, I count two, one of them is not your wife because I would know her anywhere, but I suggest you hurry or hours will be over. Don’t make me regret I let you keep your light on so late. What could you possibly be reading? I bet it wasn’t my Bible.”

“I bet you’re right,” Harry said, closing the book he had fallen asleep on and reaching for his toothbrush. It was Ovid’s
Metamorphoses
. What a perfect accompaniment to his current isolation. Sentencing for some reason postponed until after Christmas, the holiday in prison, in a cell by himself, alienated from everyone and everything. And Gina vanished through the haze. If Harry felt terror, he did not want to show it to his guard.

He got ready and clean in minutes.

In the visiting room behind a low partition of glass his father and his sister sat composed in the visitors’ chairs. When Harry saw them, his knees buckled. Not because it was a shock to see them, whom he hadn’t seen in over thirteen years, though it was that also. His knees gave out because he knew they were here for only one reason—to bring him bad news. Last time Gina had visited she looked like cold death. It was no secret that the flu was knocking them down in the cities and villages by the hundreds of thousands, that the flu was chiefly responsible for the sudden end to a world war. When Roy, holding Harry steady by his elbow, helped him into the metal chair, Harry couldn’t speak because he feared the worst.

“Hello, Harry,” said Esther.

“Is she all right?” was the only thing Harry could say.

Esther blinked as if just realizing what he must have been thinking about their inexplicable appearance. “Oh, yes, yes,” she said quickly. “Gina is fine.”

He relaxed just a little, but still gripped the metal chair rails. “She’s not sick?”

“She was. She’s better now.”

Exhaling relief, Harry focused on his sister. He couldn’t look at his father. He was afraid he would cry. He tightened his mouth and steeled his spine against the hard chair.

“Are you all right? How is everything? No one got sick?”

“No, we were lucky. Not out of the woods yet, though. What about here?”

Harry shrugged. “Eh. On the floor below me twenty out of thirty men died. But on our floor we only lost one. So . . . how’s what’s-his- name . . . Elmore?”

“What?” Esther paled, glancing sideways at her impassive father. Her hands clasped the edge of the table and then fell into her lap. “Elmore died in France, Harry.” She frowned. “He went there with the Red Cross. He died in 1915. Typhus.”

“I’m very sorry.” Harry’s mouth twisted. “I didn’t know.”

“How could you
not
? I asked Ben to tell you.”

Now it was Harry’s turn to frown. “How did you know I saw Ben?”

“He told us he was picking you up when you got out in 1915.”

“Ah.” Harry nodded. “That part he told you. Good.”

“As opposed to what other part?”

“Nothing. Where is he now? Still back in Panama?” Harry almost added
I hope
but stopped himself.

Esther nodded. “He married his longtime sweetheart in 1916. He invited me to his wedding. In Panama,” she said, shaking her disillusioned head. “As you can imagine, I politely declined. He has children now. Three girls. We write. He sends me photographs of his family. Would you like me to bring some with me next time I come?”

“No, thank you.” Harry took the deepest breath. Finally he turned his eyes to his father. “Hello, Father.”

“Hello, son.”

They both blinked, were both silent. Harry had been right. Herman did have tears in his eyes.

“How’ve you been?”

“Can’t complain.”

“How is the business?”

“Good. I had to retire from active construction. The advancing years didn’t permit me to keep to my punishing schedule.” Herman’s hands lay folded on the table. “I sold my half of the business to my brother. He passed away five years ago. His three sons now run it, very successfully, I might add.”

Harry nodded, without comment, for he couldn’t find anything to say and couldn’t bear to say anything.

“So where’s my wife?” he asked when he found his voice to speak again. “I figure her disappearance has something to do with your appearance.”

“She’s been staying with us,” Esther said.

“Why?”

“She needed our help.”

“What kind of help?”

“She is expecting.”

“Expecting what?” And then Harry exhaled, pushing back against the chair. For a few difficult moments he had to hastily think back to a time when that would’ve been possible. They had so few opportunities for successful conjugation. It seemed as if all there had been in the last months were fights and arrests. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up, if I were you,” he said at last.

Herman and Esther became grim, appraising him with condemnation.

“She doesn’t . . . we’ve had some trouble.” Harry turned to Esther. “Do you have children?”

“I haven’t been blessed with any, no,” she replied quietly. “But your wife is almost four months along.”

Harry tried to hide his skeptical face. He showed them his poker face instead, his inscrutable face. He didn’t want to tell them that he and Gina had gotten to this point time and again only to be bitterly disappointed. He changed the subject. “Why was my sentencing postponed? Did you have something to do with that?”

“Yes,” said Herman.

“Father postponed the sentencing,” Esther said, “to give himself time to talk to the judge.”

“Why would Father need to talk to the judge?”

Herman and Esther were silent.

“Father?”

“He has persuaded the judge to commute your sentence!” Esther said in a thrilled breath. “It’s nothing less than a Christmas miracle.”

“Really?” Harry sat back. “How in the world did you manage to do that? In September the judge told me that even if the DA recommended a shorter sentence, he wouldn’t allow it.”

“Yes, Judge Rosen is not happy with you,” said Herman. “I traded in every bit of goodwill I ever had anywhere with anyone. Never mind. It’s the result that’s important.”

“Does this mean I’m free?”

“Uh—not quite.”

“Ah,” said Harry.

“You’re under house arrest until 1922 and then on probation until 1925.”