“Hello, dear.” He kissed her cheek. “What have you been up to today?”
“I played tennis after church, and then went riding, as always.”
“You look so fresh, you don’t look as if you’ve been playing tennis and riding.” His hand went to her back.
“I cleaned up, darling, before I arrived at your father’s house.”
“And you clean up quite nicely,” purred Harry. “Oh, hello, Mrs. Porter, Mr. Porter, sir. How are you this afternoon?”
Alice didn’t look like anyone’s idea of a girl who managed lumberyards and sawmills, and this is what appealed to Harry. She was petite, blonde and a debutante. A few years before she met Harry, she had been one of the most sought-after young ladies in Boston, bejeweled, dazzlingly dressed, spending the entire of her eighteenth year dancing and glad-handing at coming-out balls and social functions. By the time Harry had met her, she had already been courted by all the Lowells and the Cabots, and he wasn’t forced to compete. As if he would have. He deemed her out of his league, and it took several slight breaches of etiquette by Alice herself to show Harry she was interested before he invited her and her best friend Belinda for a stroll along the Charles with him and Ben. Belinda wasn’t what Ben was looking for, but Alice was what Harry had been looking for. Alice, whose clothes were crisp, her blonde hair ironed, her makeup flawless —and yet who rode horses and canoes, played tennis and golf, was a senior member of four different charities, arranging fundraisers, cookie bakes, plant sales, old book swaps to raise money for hospitals for the poor. She read history and loved poetry. She was bright and indefatigable, and it was she who chose Harry over the swarm of other eligible Boston men and now stood confidently and silently by his side, while Ben fraternized with Esther.
“Are you going to eat one, or aren’t you?” Ben said to her. “They are the future.”
“If I eat one, will you promise to stop bringing them?” Esther said, peeling down the skin. “Bananas are the future?”
“Your brother’s friend is not entirely wrong, Esther,” said Elmore in the banquet-hall dining room that afternoon. “Tropical fruits are the future.” He was seated to the right of Herman, the most honored place at the table. Even Ellen Shaw, usually Herman’s most welcome guest, today sat one demoted place over. Herman’s two children did not sit by their father. Ever. Ben sat there once, after he had been accepted at Harvard (“On a scholarship, no less!” pointed out a delighted Herman. “Didn’t cost his sainted mother a penny.”) Alice sat there half a handful of times, because Herman was quite fond of her. Often Alice’s father sat there, because they were friends and business partners. But not today. Alice sat between her mother and father. Ben sat between Harry and Esther, who was seated mutely next to the verbose Elmore.
“I know I’m not wrong,” Ben said, casting a sideways look at Esther, as if to say, I need this person to approve of my bananas?
“Benjamin is soon starting his last year at Harvard,” Herman explained to Elmore. “He has just changed his concentration to engineering. He is thinking about his future.”
“Giving bananas to my sister is engineering his future?” asked Harry. “See,” he said, “while Ben is concentrating on tropical fruit, I, who am also, inter alia, starting my last year at Harvard, am writing my senior thesis on the Civil War. I thought you’d be impressed, Father. I’m writing it about Ben’s relatives.”
“Why would that impress me?” Herman wanted to know. “You’re always writing about one war or another. You’re consumed with other people’s conflicts.”
“Be that as it may,” Harry said, “my main topic is a juxtaposition between Robert Gould Shaw and Philip Nolan.”
“Not again!” Herman exclaimed. “Didn’t you do an essay on Nolan in secondary school? Philip Nolan, the man without a country?”
“I wrote a five-page paper on him in Andover,” said Harry. “Hardly the same as a university dissertation.”
“But, son, Nolan’s story is only about five pages.”
Everyone laughed.
“Thirty-nine, sir.”
“I beg your pardon. You can read it in its entirety while waiting for Jones to serve the second course.” Herman steadied his gaze on Harry. “You know this story by heart. Why are you taking the easy way out?”
“It’s never easy, sir,” Harry said.
“Be that as it may,” Herman said, “what I’m interested in is whether you’ve heard from the Porcellians.”
“Not yet.” Harry looked into his bowl. “But fall semester doesn’t begin for almost two months. There is time.”
Porcellian was the final club at Harvard, the club of all clubs, members of which included the governor of New York, Teddy Roosevelt, chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, Oliver Wendell Holmes, oh, and Herman Barrington. But not yet Harold Barrington. This was Harry’s last chance, and everybody knew it.
“The potato soup is delicious, Herman,” Ellen said, intruding to change the subject. “Bernard has outdone himself.”
“I’d like my butler to bring the second course. We’re having cod today. And then pork chops with roast potatoes.”
“The scallops wrapped in bacon were also wonderful,” Ellen continued, giving Harry a sharp look as if to say, stop talking.
“I’m working to graduate first in my class, Father,” Harry continued unheeding. “That counts for something, no?”
“Can’t make a living from books, son,” Herman said, ringing for Louis.
“Can’t make a living from the Porcellian either,” Harry countered quietly.
“Oh, but I heard,” said jolly Orville, “that the legend goes that if a member of the Porcellian doesn’t make his first million by the time he is forty, the club gives it to him. Is that true, Herman?”
“I wouldn’t know, Orville. Perhaps Harry will be given a chance to find out.”
In front of Alice’s parents! Harry looked across the table at Orville who, as if on cue, without even bothering to clear his throat, opened his mouth and, buttering another piece of crusty bread, said what he said nearly every week at Sunday dinner: “You know, I’m grooming Alice to take over the family business upon my retirement.”
And then there would be an awkward silence while the guests scraped the last of their salads and soup bowls. Just like today.
Harry ate all of his cod before he filled the silence with his stock reply to Orville, steady and ready as the hour chime.
“Fortunately,” Harry said, “my father is not even close to retiring. Are you, Father?” In his precise syntax, Harry inserted the same two sentences into the same pause after the same Porter preamble Sunday after Sunday.
Herman, who often said nothing, today was clearly feeling objectionable himself.
“No, I’m not close to retiring,” he agreed, but didn’t stop there. “How can I retire? I’ve got no one to take over the family business.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Alice. “Could you pass the biscuits, please?”
Esther refused to keep her mouth shut. “Alice, darling,” she said, passing the bread basket across the table. “Perhaps you can also take over our father’s business? Father has such high regard for you.”
Harry laughed. Alice chuckled uncomfortably into her napkin. Before anyone else could take a breath, Esther calmly continued. “He loves you, Alice, like a daughter he never had.”
Everyone got feverishly busy cutting up their meat—everyone except Ben.
“Mr. Barrington, sir,” Ben said, putting down his knife and fork, “I don’t know if Harry mentioned it, but our Lime Alley buildings are full.”
“Harry didn’t mention it,” said Herman. “Harry was busy telling me we were charging too much rent to the immigrants.”
“We are,” Harry said.
“Why don’t we just let them stay there for free then?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t we?”
Herman put down his own fork. “Because of the Sherman Act of 1890, son. Also, do you really f
eel that able-bodied human beings should not have to pay rent on their dwellings or are you just being contrary? Residences that someone’s money renovated, upgraded, painted, put water and plumbing in, ran electricity into?”
“Not just someone’s money, Herman,” said a rotund and robust Orville Porter. “Yours.”
“Harold, answer me, do you feel all that should be received gratis?”
Ben kicked Harry under the table and hastily continued. “Harry is just joking with you, sir—”
“Actually, I—”
Ben kicked him again, harder. “The next liner is due in on Tuesday, and we’re out of room. Three full ships are coming in week after next. What do we do? We have nowhere to put anyone.”
Herman went back to buttering his bread and pouring himself a drink. “Benjamin, I’m taking care of it. We have four more buildings nearly ready on Charter and Unity; almost two hundred apartments.”
“Will they be ready by Monday?”
Looking Ben over with admiration, Herman smiled. “Probably not by Monday, but very soon. You boys have done a fine job managing the buildings for me. Too good a job. I don’t know what I’m going to do when you go back to school.”
“Well, next year your son will graduate,” Ben said. “He can manage Lime Alley for you full time.”
Now it was Harry’s turn to kick Ben under the table.
“I’m not holding my breath,” said Herman. “In the meantime, Unity and Charter just need painting and some furniture.”
“By Monday?”
“Ben, have them move in, give them a discount on the rent, and tell them we’ll paint and furnish in the next week or so and as a bonus keep their rent the same.”
“Good idea. Perhaps we can also convert the back of Old Wells House, sir? I know there are at least eleven apartments we could put back there.”
Herman nodded his approval. “Good thinking. I’ll talk to my man first thing Monday morning.”
“We have one apartment available on Lime Alley,” Harry interjected. “The family decided not to stay. Left after one night.”
“Ah, yes.” Ben said that so dramatically that everyone’s ears perked up. “I’m being facetious,” he assured them, seeing their curious expressions. “Really, Mother.”
“Not entirely, um, facetious,” said Harry.
“Harry’s right,” Ben said, hand on his heart. “Truth is, I have been hit by a raven-haired thunderbolt.”
Everyone smiled in delight, except Harry, and Esther, who became paler if that were possible, lost another shade of herself, and squeezed her suddenly tense white fingers around the tines of the fork, as if trying to stab herself with them.
Herman followed his delight with advice. “Benjamin, I hope it’s just an infatuation.”
“No, sir,” said Ben. “It’s more than that, I’m afraid.”
“Ben, stop it,” said Harry.
“Yes, Ben, stop it,” echoed Esther, wilting noticeably by dessert, rum cake with coffee, shoulders sunk with maidenhood.
“Where is the family from?”
“Sicily. They got tired of living under a mountain that kept vomiting fire.”
Herman shook his head. “Do yourself a favor, Ben, stay away from unsuitable Sicilian females. They’re trouble.”
“For more reasons, Father, than you can possibly imagine,” Harry muttered under his breath, but loud enough for everyone to hear.
“I know them all,” said Herman.
“Not this one.”
“Son, why do you think you’re the only one who knows everything?” Herman’s attention turned back to Ben. “You should stay away from things in which there is no future,” he went on.
“Oh, I agree, sir. The bananas are the future. I’m sticking with them.”
“There’s no future in them either. They’re a funny little fruit that will never catch on. But I’m pleased they amuse you.”
“Mark my words, sir,” said Ben. “They will absolutely catch on. We’ve got a businessman here in Boston, Andrew Preston, who started the United Fruit Company. He is one of the reasons I switched to engineering.”
“A man who runs a banana company,” Elmore asked, “is the reason you’re studying engineering?”
“Ben,” asked Harry, “isn’t Andrew Preston your mother’s friend?”
“Oh?” said Herman with a sly smile at Ellen. “That’s disappointing.”
While Ellen blushed, a nodding Ben was all infectious smiles. Even Esther didn’t look quite so pale anymore: they had stopped talking about Italian girls in the North End.
“He’s a brilliant man,” Ben said, “this Preston fellow. A true visionary.”
“Ellen, do you agree with your son?”
“I reserve all comment.”
“Is he a handsome man?” Herman pressed on.
“I really reserve all comment,” said Ellen.
“Well, that is truly disappointing.”
Everyone laughed and the tension lifted. Louis served raspberry sherbet to cleanse the palate. Raspberries were in season and Bernard had made the sherbet from scratch earlier that afternoon. Harry smiled to himself as he asked Louis for second helpings. How did Ben do it? Make all situations lighter, better?
But for Ben, the bananas were not just a conversational play at the dinner table to help his friend. Later, by the fire in the library, sipping some brandy, he continued to extol the virtues of the export business to a relaxed Herman, an attentive Esther, and a delightfully disagreeable Elmore. “I really am thinking of going into exports, sir,” Ben said to Herman. “The bananas are not going to walk to Boston by themselves.”
“Perhaps it’s best they don’t,” said Esther.
Ben bowed to her comically. “They need to be grown. That requires development of not only the most efficient farming techniques, but also construction of housing for the workers. The bananas need to be collected, appraised, counted, packaged and crated. Someone has to do all this.”
“And someone has to make the crates,” Herman said, seeing the nails because all he carried was a hammer.
“First they have to procure the lumber to make the crates,” Orville cut in, seeing the nails because all he carried was a hammer.
“Absolutely,” Ben agreed, who carried a number of tools with him. “Even lumber has to be delivered and processed into an end-product for the crate-making. The crates should be made locally, in Costa Rica. Which means someone there has to be taught to make them.”
“How difficult could that be?” asked Harry.
“Well, and someone has to be sent there to teach them,” said Irma Porter, who had once been a teacher.
“Right, Mrs. Porter,” Ben agreed. “And then the bananas have to travel eight thousand miles by ship or by land to Boston where I can offer them to an underwhelmed Esther.”
“No, no,” Esther said, straight-faced. “I enjoy them very much. Have you got any more?”
Ben gave her an exaggerated glare, but the Porters didn’t stay and partake of the conversation further. It was getting late and their carriage had to travel quite a way south across the Charles, to Brookline.
After they left and Herman came back inside the library, he resumed the conversation as if no time had passed. “I still don’t see how this is an engineering problem, Benjamin,” he said.
“It’s nothing but,” said Ben, happy to keep talking about it. “From beginning to end. What complicates matters is that bananas do not stay fresh for long. Mercilessly they continue to ripen until they rot. Refrigeration has been shown to stave off spoilage. So now there is one more thing to think of, to build, to generate. The fruit needs to be picked while still green and transported from Costa Rica to California, then across our entire country. Railroad tracks must be built through Central America, an unwelcoming terrain if ever there was one. And now, to answer your question, sir, this is the part where the engineering comes in.” Ben grinned. “This is also the part my sainted mother, as you call her, is least happy about.” br />
“Oh, no,” Ellen said from the couch when she overheard. “Don’t start that again. And why are you all standing there like giraffes?”
They finally got off their feet, and made themselves comfortable on the sofas and chairs. Louis poured more brandy and relit Herman’s cigar.
Ben continued excitedly. “I’m writing several detailed proposals to the Isthmian Exploration Commission to reopen the research into the efficacy question of building a canal that cuts straight across Central America, either in Nicaragua, which is close to Costa Rica and my bananas, or Panama, which happens to be geologically better suited for a canal.”
“Lunacy!” Ellen exclaimed. “He wants to build a canal in Panama.” For a moment there was silence in the library, even the crackling fire quiet.
Elmore spoke. “Mr. Shaw, how can you say a canal would be geographically better in Panama?”
“I didn’t say geographically.”
“Perhaps like your friend Harry, you ought to study history instead of engineering.”
“I have studied history,” Ben said. “Also geology. Which is why I know for a fact Panama is the best place.”
“Have you read what happened to the French ten years ago?” asked Elmore with polite disdain. “During their botched national attempt to build a canal in Panama?”
“Elmore is right, Ben,” said Esther. “I don’t know what you’re thinking. Panama is too far away.”
“It’s close to the bananas, Est.”
“This isn’t about distance,” Elmore said. “It’s about the French losing over 20,000 men chasing this supreme folly.”
“Not to the canal,” said Ben. “To influenza.”
“It wasn’t influenza,” Elmore returned. “It was malaria. And the reasons for the malaria are not going to go away by the time you send Americans to Panama.”
“Ben isn’t going there himself,” Esther said quickly. “He’s just writing a report.”
Ben frowned. “I thought a virus killed the French?”
Elmore nodded. “Yes, but spread by what means?”
“How should I know?” Ben was irritated to veer so off topic. “Sneezing?”
“Mosquitoes,” Elmore replied. “Perhaps if you get rid of those, you can build your canal.”