Bellagrand: A Novel (61 page)

L’amore tollera ogni cosa, crede ogni cosa, spera ogni cosa, sopporta ogni cosa
.

“He is my husband, Ben,” Gina said. “He and Alexander are the only family I have left. He fully believes. And I have to believe in him. I hope he is proven right, as you were. That his leap of faith on Bolshevism will turn out to be as sound as your leap of faith about Panama.”

“And what if it isn’t?”

They stared at each other, at a loss for words.

“We’ll have to cross that canal when we get to it,” she said at last.

They had come to the end of the walk, the end of the conversation, the end. Awkwardly they moved off the path to the grass, to let the hurrying noisy students pass. She had to rush back home. He had to rush to prepare for his evening lecture. It was time to part.

“Thank you for today,” she said. “I really needed it.”

“You’re welcome.”

She stood motionlessly without touching him. Then she moved forward, opened her arms, and embraced him. She held her purse. He held his umbrella. She lowered her voice before she spoke into the collar of his coat. It was long ago what had passed like a song between them. They had lived many lives since then. And yet she couldn’t leave without acknowledging their
gioia effimera condivisa
.

“I’ll never forget you, Ben,” she said. “I never have. I never will.”

He squeezed her in reply, in a shudder, as if surprised by her intimate words. Holding her, his voice breaking, he spoke. “I thought Panama was the adventure of my lifetime,” he said into her hair. “But I was wrong. It wasn’t Panama. It was you.”

“Please don’t say that.” A whisper. She tried to move away, but he wouldn’t let her.

“Nothing in my life compares to the fleeting moments of glory I spent with you.” Now he let her go.

“You don’t mean that. Please.”

Silently he gazed upon her as they remained too close to each other, their coats touching, on the edge of Harvard Yard under the Japanese lanterns.

She shook her head and stepped away, regret and repentance falling across her face. “It left us, Ben,” she said. “The maples, the willows, the ice skating.”

“It didn’t leave us. We left it. I couldn’t build the canal now. I couldn’t part mountains and stanch eruptions of liquid clay. I don’t have the old vim anymore.”

“Sometimes I feel my life is a slide on an eruption of clay.”

“A glacier of mud.”

“Marble and mud. That’s what Rose had told me.”

Ben nodded. “She also told you to make the best of everything.”

“Is going to Russia making the best of it?”

“No,” he said. “Don’t go, Gia. That’s my true advice. Please don’t go.”

She looked away, unable to bear the expression on his face, anxiety, other things.

“So what do you think?” He tilted his head to catch her eye one last time. “Have I set you straight?”

“I believe it’s too soon to know,
mio amico,
” Gina said, holding out her hand in farewell. “Ask me again in fifteen years.”

Removing his hat and lowering his head, Ben brought her hand to his lips. He kissed it through her frayed silk glove, then pulled off the gray glove, turned her hand upward and kissed the bare skin inside her palm. Both he and she trembled slightly. They did not speak again. He bowed before he put on his hat and walked away, his squared, dark silhouette blending in with other men and disappearing out of view. At the edge of Massachusetts Avenue, she climbed aboard a bus. She cried all the way home.

Two

THE BLOOD DRAINED
from Esther’s heart when over a month later she finally learned from Ben about Harry’s plan to move to the Soviet Union. She, a lady, who wore court shoes and long gloves, who never left the house unless completely put together, arrived at her brother’s doorstep on a Saturday morning unmade-up, unmanicured, manic-eyed, and without her hat. The only thing that saved them from a scandalous scene was Alexander. “Aunty Esther!” he said, kissing her and showing her his skates. “Why didn’t you come yesterday? I waited all evening for you.”

“I’m sorry, dear one. I had a small emergency. I tried to call but . . .”

“Yes, our telephone is out,” he said. “Please take me back with you right now. Because Teddy is playing a must-win hockey game at the pond this afternoon and I swore to him I’d be there.”

“Darling,” Esther said, “it’s been over forty degrees this past week. The ice on the pond is not safe. The last thing you want to do is skate on it.”

“I’m not skating. I’m cheering. Please? I promised.”

“Son,” said Harry, intervening, “why would you promise Teddy something you can’t control?” He and Gina were at attention in the living room, Harry pretending to casually glance inside a newspaper, Gina not even pretending, standing stiffly in the farthest corner. She looked so elegant. She would have made a fine first Boston lady. A skeletal Boston lady. Esther couldn’t help but notice that Harry’s wife for the last of her Beacon Hill years had become the thinnest woman in the room.

“Dad, by that definition, no one would ever promise anyone anything!” Alexander looked beseechingly at Esther. “Please,” he whispered intensely.

“But I’m right, son,” said Harry. “You should never promise what you can’t control.”

How did Esther continue smiling through the pointless talk? Somehow she managed—for her nephew. “We’ll see,” she said to him. “Let me talk to your mother and father first, darling.”

“But we’ll go right after?”

“I’ll try. I can’t promise.”

He squeezed her hand, blessedly oblivious to her deathly pallor and stricken expression. “If you take me with you,” he whispered, “I will sit for your dumb Christmas portrait.”

Leaning forward, she pressed her mouth to the top of his black head. He was growing so tall. Soon he would have to bend to her for a kiss. “Go play in the park for a few minutes. Get yourself some ice cream.” She fumbled in her bag for some change. Her fingers felt like swollen sausages; they couldn’t grasp the coins. “Here you go. Now let me talk to your mother and father.”

Alexander ran from the apartment, leaving the three grown-ups in a Mexican standoff.

“I don’t know where to begin,” Esther said. She saw from her brother’s closed expression that he would be impervious to persuasion. He had the look of someone who was being accosted by a cat, or a bird.

“What is the matter, Esther? You seem distraught.”

“Please tell me what I’ve heard is wrong. Please tell me you are not seriously thinking of taking your family to”—how did she even speak?—“the Soviet Union.”

Frowning, Harry hesitated. “Where did you hear that?” He glared at Gina. “I thought you and I agreed not to say anything?”

Gina opened her hands and shook her head.

“Esther?”

In the mute polka dance of strangled allegiances that followed, Gina looked away from Harry and at Esther, who was staring at her sister-in-law, staring at her piercingly and yet pleadingly, as if to say,
Gina! I know you have been visiting Ben, trying to help my brother, and for reasons known only to you, you have not told Harry of this, and for reasons known only to him, my brother, despite living thirty minutes away from his oldest friend, has not been in touch with Ben in seven years. Ben has not been in touch with Harry either, though he is clearly not averse to helping him—or is it helping you? I know this, you know this, and I have said nothing. I will say nothing now, if you heed the silent scream inside my throat, if you heed your own conscience. Tell me what you want me to say to my brother.
All of it was in Esther’s unyielding gaze.

Gina furtively caught Esther’s eye, and melted away. She lowered her head.

Esther turned to Harry. “Ask your wife,” she said, “how I might know of this.”

“Gina has no idea, Esther,” Harry said. “Perhaps through our former lawyer, Mr. Domarind?”

“Not through him.”

“Look,” he said, “I don’t know what’s going on between you two right now, just as I don’t know what’s been going on between you for years. It’s not important. However you found out, Esther, it
is
true, we
are
going to the Soviet Union.”

Esther squeezed together the bones of her fingers, as if she wanted them to break. “Were you
ever
going to tell me? Or were you just going to vanish into thin air?”

“Don’t be silly,” Harry said. “We were going to talk to you this week.”

“As you talked to Alice a full week before your wedding date to inform her that you had married someone else—oh, wait.”

“Not someone else, but my wife, and Alexander’s mother—”

Both women groaned at the sound of the same word:
Alexander
.

Harry’s gaze grew cold. “Esther, I know you must be upset, but there’s no need . . .”

“Upset!”

“Why are you going on like this?” he asked. “We’re not saying
you
have to come with us.”

Esther couldn’t get the words out, they were so painful. It was as if they were tearing apart her throat as she tried to speak. Desperately her eyes darted from Harry to Gina, her hands clenched together in agonized supplication. “Gina,” she said hoarsely, her breaking voice just above a whisper, “what about our . . .
Alexander
?” Sadness seeped from her eyes.

“What about him?” Harry asked.

“He’s got his whole life ahead of him!”

“Exactly. We have to think about Alexander.”

Esther shook her head. And kept shaking it. “He’s just a boy. He doesn’t know anything. He can’t make this decision. You’re making it for him.”

“That’s what parents do. They make decisions for their children. That’s why we are the parents. And they are the children.”

“But it’s wrong, Harry. You will ruin his life. It’s so wrong.”

“Obviously we disagree.”

Digging her nails into the palms of her hands to contain her terror through physical pain, Esther took a small, shaking step toward Gina. “Please,” she said to the pale woman standing next to Harry like a salt pillar. “Gina! I’ve reconsidered all my previous positions. Imagine what a shifting of the sands this is for me. Please forget everything hurtful or hostile I’ve ever said to you, and forgive me. But
please
—don’t do this. Your son is your ladder to the stars. He deserves better than this.”

“We disagree, Esther,” Harry said.

Gina’s lips were as white as her skin.

“I have helped you before,” Esther said. “You know I will do anything to help you stay here.”

“Yes, you helped us,” Harry said. “But you
wanted
to help us. We didn’t ask for your help.”

“Your wife did,” Esther said. “She asked for my help.”

“That was without my approval.”

“This will be, too.”

“This? There is no
this
. There’s nothing to be done.”

“There’s always something to be done.”

“Do you see, Gia?” Harry turned to his wife. “And you think
I’m
the one who always falls back on Father’s money.”

“Please, Gina.” Esther had to ignore Harry to keep a hold on herself. “Don’t do this. Don’t destroy your son’s life.”

“Esther!” Harry raised his voice. “That’s not how Gina and I feel about the Soviet Union. We are going to live in Moscow. We are starting a new life. Everything will be fine.”

“If you go, you will never be able to come back,” Esther said, addressing only the mute woman before her. “Because of my brother, you’ve lost your American citizenship. Oh Gina! You’re no longer an American, no longer an Italian. What will you be? What will Alexander be?”

“Russian,” Harry said.

“Let her speak, Harry!”

“We’ve told you, Russian,” Harry repeated.

“But he is not Russian.” Esther’s voice was failing. “He is a Barrington. He is not a Pavlov, or a Smirnov, or a Litvinov. He is a Massachusetts Barrington. Gina, your son’s ancestors built this country and this city you say you love.”

“All right, enough,” said Harry. “He is his own boy. He is not a slave. He is not bound by the Barrington heritage. Russia needs young men like him. He is coming with us to help the Soviet Union. They need us a lot more over there, Esther, than the city of Boston needs us.”

“Because you’ve been getting yourself arrested every five minutes! How much will the Soviet Union need you if you say vile things against it every Saturday afternoon?”

“Well, we’re never going to find out. Right, Gina?”

“Gina, I
beg
you . . .”

“Esther, our mind is made up,” Harry said. “The visas have been applied for, the citizenship signed away, the bank account liquidated. It’s really just a matter of nuance,” he went on, “but we’ve been given the choice of leaving voluntarily or being deported. We took the first option, but because of that, we have to pay for our own passage.” He shrugged. “Gina wanted it this way. Right, darling? If we were deported, true, the government would foot the bill for our relocation, but then it would be very hard to return if . . .”

“You will never return,” Esther said.

“But because Gina insisted on this option,” Harry continued, “we are a little short of cash . . .”

“I will not give you a penny to go to Russia.”

Harry glared at Gina, almost smugly. “What did I tell you? I told you she wouldn’t help us.”

“Not with this.”

“Well, never mind. We don’t need your money. We’ll be fine.”

“I will do
anything
to help you stay here,” Esther said. “I will pay anyone any amount. You owed money to Domarind? I’ve already taken care of that. Your legal fees? Your apartment? Your debts? I will hire you the best lawyer in the United States to fix this. I will buy you a house.”

“No, Esther,” Harry said. “That’s not the kind of help we need.”

Esther turned to Gina. “I will buy you back Bellagrand!”

The pillar that was Gina swayed.

“Esther, stop! What are you trying to do, bribe us?”

“Not you,” Esther said. “Your wife.”

“My wife will not be bribed.”

Gina said nothing.

“Gina?” said Harry.

“Gina?” said Esther.

Gina said nothing.