Alexander cried for two days after Herman left in June to go back to Boston.
Chapter 13
THE WISDOM OF ALEXANDER POPE
One
IN THE FALL OF 1921, a few weeks before he and Esther were scheduled to return south for the winter, Herman called to speak to Harry. But Harry was out on the boat with Salvo, and so it was Gina who talked to her father-in-law for a few minutes and then gave the telephone to a jumping-jack Alexander.
“Gampa, where you?”
“What a good question, dear one. Where are you?”
Alexander giggled. “Here. You come soon?”
“Another good question. I would like to very much.”
“Mama says you come soon.”
“I’m going to try, sunshine boy.”
“Me growing gators, Gampa!”
“That is exciting. Real gators?”
Alexander laughed. “Silly Gampa. Of course.”
“Wonderful. What are you going to do with them when they’ve grown?”
“Have gator farm like Alligator Joe.”
“Marvelous.”
“We sell them. We be Alligator Alexander and Gampa.”
“Grand idea! But I want to be Alligator Gampa. You can be just plain Alexander.”
The boy laughed. “Bye! I love you!”
Herman tried to say something else, but Alexander had already dropped the earpiece and bounced like a ball outside.
“Sorry, Herman,” Gina said, picking up the receiver. “We’re still working on our manners. Do you want me to give Harry a message?”
There was a pause. “I called to say hello, that’s all,” said Herman. “Tell Harry, the world is young.”
When Harry and Salvo returned with their tremendous fish catch, both in long dirty boots, perspiring, brown, happy, and Gina told Harry while he was still in the boat that Herman had called, he dropped the netting with the fish, jumped to the dock, and without another word hurried to the house.
Gina ran after him. “Harry, wait! Not in your boots! Please. He sounded okay. He didn’t say it was urgent.”
“Do you know how many times in my life my father has called me just to say hello?” Harry said, dialing the Barrington number. “Once. This time.”
No one picked up at the house. When Harry finally got hold of Esther hours later, Herman had already died.
Two
THE HUSBAND AND WIFE sat outside in the sunny late October morning. Harry drank his coffee, the fingers holding the cup slightly unsteady. Alexander was nearby, digging a large hole with a small spade. Gina was watching her son. Harry was reading the paper.
“Can you believe it?” he said. “Big Bill skipped bail.”
She turned her gaze to Harry. “Bail? I thought he was in prison for twenty years.”
“No, he was out pending appeal. Which was denied. So he ran.”
“Ran where?”
“Russia, of course! Where else, Canada?”
“Oh, good riddance.” Gina pointed. “Harry, look at your son.” The boy was running back and forth, a pail on his head, the spade held out in front of him. He was making odd noises, too, like the spade was popping.
“Alexander, what are you doing?”
“Me shoot bad guys, Daddy!”
Harry and Gina exchanged a look. “Why is there a pail on your head?”
“It my helmet, silly bunnies!”
Harry got up from the table, walked down to the water, took the pail off Alexander, straightened out his white-and-blue sailor suit, kissed him. “Don’t get too messy, bud. Your mother just dressed you for the day. Where did you learn to do that?”
“What?”
“Run and shoot your spade with a pail on your head.”
“Me don’t know,” the boy said.
“Did you see a picture?”
“What picture?”
“How do you know what a gun is?”
“Zio Salvo took me to house. There was one on wall.”
“One what?”
“Zio Salvo said long rifle. It was so big, Daddy!”
Harry waved him away.
“Tell your brother I don’t want Alexander going with him to show houses anymore,” he said to Gina when he came back to the table. “It’s ridiculous to take a child with you to strangers’ homes. A rifle is the least of what you could accidentally see.”
“Oh, it’s fine. Alexander loves going. Salvo says the little guy is good for business.” She changed the subject. “We should get ready and head down to the Seminole Courthouse. Appeal Janke’s decision. She is being completely unreasonable.”
He shook his head. “I’m not appealing it.”
“Harry, be serious.”
“I am. I don’t want to rock the boat. I’m so close to the end, Gina. Four months to go.” He was firm. “No. You go. Besides, someone has to stay with Alexander.”
“Harry, don’t joke. Salvo will stay with him.”
Harry raised his eyebrows, nodding toward Alexander, the pail back on his head. The boy was flat down in the grass, dragging his torso and legs behind him, shooting from the ground.
“How is that Salvo’s doing?” Gina wanted to know. “I’ve never in my life seen my brother drag his body along the ground. Alexander! Stop it! You’re getting filthy!”
“No matter,” Harry continued. “I’ll stay. Otherwise, what will he think, both his parents gone? He’s never been without us. Even if she let us go, we’d have to take him with us. And then what? I’m sure everyone’s going back to the house after the burial.” He shook his head. “I’m not doing it to him. He’s not old enough.”
“Harry . . .”
“Gina, you heard Janke. We did ask. She said no. Specifically no to Boston.”
“It’s immoral of her,” Gina said. “She let you go to the church for the baptism.”
“Yes, twenty minutes’ drive. Not quite the same as returning to Boston.”
“Marito! You can’t not go to your father’s funeral.”
Harry opened his hands to say, This is how things are. “You can be my emissary. Represent us both. Tell everyone I’m stuck here for four more months.”
She wanted to ask what he meant by stuck—on the grass under the palm trees. She wanted to ask what he meant by four more months. As in, only four? “It’s your father.”
“I don’t want to risk an appeal for nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.” She frowned at him.
“I mean, to appeal and fail. Or, to go and have a problem.” He shook his head. “I’m so close. And you heard her—reluctant though she was, she’s going to recommend reduced probation because I’ve been good.”
“You want me to go to your father’s funeral by myself?” Gina was aghast.
“Or don’t go, if you don’t feel comfortable. Stay here. Everyone will understand.” But he didn’t look at her when he said it, didn’t look up from the paper. “Can you believe, though, about Big Bill? To Russia!”
Gina was not sure everyone would understand.
Tentatively, she tried again. “Harry . . . you don’t want to talk about it?”
“I do. I wonder how he did it, evaded the authorities. That’s not easy.”
“I mean . . . about your father.”
Harry didn’t raise his eyes from the newspaper. “Isn’t it obvious,” he said, his voice breaking, “that I don’t want to talk about it?”
Gina couldn’t imagine both of them not showing up. She went by herself.
Three
IN BOSTON, ESTHER, looking older for her grief, greeted Gina at the door, glanced down the walkway to Clarence’s car, back to Gina, and said, “He didn’t come?”
“Janke—” was the only word Gina managed to utter, before Esther abruptly turned on her heels and walked away from her down the hall. After that she didn’t bring up Harry’s absence.
On the day of the funeral, with Rosa and Gina flanking her, Esther was impeccably composed in black crepe. A veil covered her face.
She walked stiffly, barely spoke, but kept herself together through the funeral service and burial, through the condolences and speeches. The repast was organized and catered at Herman’s house, just as Harry had surmised. “My father would’ve wanted that,” Esther said. “All his friends and family—most of his friends and family—coming to his home to have a bash in his honor. I don’t know how we’ll fit everyone. There must be four hundred people attending.”
At the packed church Gina was alarmed to see Ben sitting in one of the back pews. She stumbled, tripping over the edge of the carpet, and walked right past him, her face to the altar, not looking left or right. She hadn’t expected to see him. On one side of him sat his mother, Ellen Shaw, whom Gina had not seen in many years, and on the other, a Spanish-looking woman, no doubt his wife.
At the end of the service, an unusually fidgety Gina stood on the condolence line next to Esther, dreading the inevitable encounter, but thanking God that with the number of people in front and behind, it would be blessedly brief.
They were waiting for the pallbearers to carry the casket to the hearse for the drive to the cemetery when Ben, his mother, and the Spanish woman stepped up to Esther.
She spent longer with Ben than with anyone else. He hugged her, patted her back, kissed her. They talked quietly to each other. He held her hands. Ben was salt-and-pepper gray now. He looked older, a little stockier. But he smiled the same, was animated as before. He was still Ben. He pulled forward the woman next to him, then his mother. Gina continued to stare straight ahead, only in the periphery of her rapidly blinking gaze noting the nodding, the handshaking, the quiet introductions. She tightened her mouth in what she hoped was a polite and indifferent smile.
Ben was in front of her. He opened his mouth to say something, and she blurted, “Thank you!” before he could speak.
“Um—you’re welcome?”
“I’m sorry for your loss.” But that wasn’t the proper response.
“No, I’m sorry for your loss,” said Ben.
Mercifully he moved down the line to Harry’s three imposing cousins, their wives, and their four or five dozen half-grown children. The Spanish woman walked by Gina with a nod. She was uncomfortably pregnant.
Ellen Shaw stepped in front of her. “Gina! What a surprise. It has been such a long time.”
She shook Ellen’s hand. “I’m sorry for your loss,” Gina repeated. “Thank you. Thank you for coming.”
Ellen was gray, little, round, frailer than Gina remembered her, less forceful. “You look well.” Ellen smiled. “Ravishing as ever. Florida is good to you? How is Harry?”
“Oh, fine. Well, no. He’s upset, of course, and regrets he can’t be—he’s with—”
“Mother!” Ben called, coming toward them and taking his mother by the arm. “A condolence line is not a receiving line. I trust you are aware of the difference?” He pulled Ellen away from Gina with a fleeting apologetic glance.
“When did he come back?” Gina whispered, leaning into Esther. She felt she had to say something.
“Last July,” Esther replied, leaning away.
It had been many years since Gina saw him last. Here, at the white-steepled Methodist church in Barrington, in a rush of people, all of them adult and grown, men, women, black suits, black dresses, black hats and bags, dark umbrellas, white flowers, everything was proper, proper. Yet just a blink away—Harry, Ben, and Gina stand on Essex Street together, also in a rush of people. She dresses in what she can to look flirty and pretty, to be the kind of young girl that those two boys might notice, especially the other one, the one who doesn’t speak, who just stares at her with his colorless eyes to make her imagine all manner of stormy seas under the placid glass. They hawk bananas and hand out flyers to promote ditch digging in Central America, and she serves lemonade with too much sugar so that when those Boston boys drink it, they’ll think it’s sweet, and will like it because she made it.
Another blink away—they teeter on blades, just Ben and Gina. They glide in white circles deep in the valley of Fairyland.
It had been seven years since the black-ice night ponds. Six years since his hat came off for the farewell bow at the foot of her Lawrence porch. Twenty-two years since the sickly sweet lemonade, summer laughing, flyers for Panama.
Gina fixed her lipstick, tucked in the loose strands of her pulled-back hair, adjusted her crepe black hat, straightened her spine, and, blinking rapidly, climbed into the black limousine with Esther to take them to Herman’s house.
During the repast, she avoided Ben. But not handily enough. With a drink in one hand and the Spanish woman on the other arm, he finally strolled across the stone patio to Esther and Gina, sitting away from the crowd. Everyone else was eating, drinking, talking, socializing. Esther wanted no part of it. And Gina was happy to sit by her sister-in-law’s side, to keep her company. She didn’t know anyone, and no one knew her, except for Ellen, who had left early, and Harry’s cousins, who’d heard of her, but had never met her. She might as well have been Esther’s lady-in-waiting, like Rosa. When people approached and offered condolences, Esther nodded, and Gina patted her back. Would you like a handkerchief, Esther? No, thank you. A drink? No, thank you. Something to eat? No, thank you. When the people moved on, Gina moved her hand away from Esther’s back and stopped with the questions.
The afternoon waned and cooled, the guests slowly filtered out.
Now it was Ben’s turn to socialize with them. Gina put on her blank face, her formal smile when she saw them approaching. It was October, the blazing month, and for a few days in Boston before the snows, the crisp chill air was filled with the pungent smell of decaying sugar maple leaves and summers past.
After the soft repeat of sympathy, Ben said—to Esther? to Gina?—“I wanted to introduce you properly to my wife.” He prodded the woman forward and smiled. “This is Ingersol.”
Esther and Gina sprang up like wooden string dolls. They shook hands and nodded, smiled without prodding, turned their heads this way and that, said how do you do, and so nice to meet you, how do you like Boston, yes, isn’t it pretty, this time of year especially so.
Ingersol was pregnant again, “our fourth,” she happily informed the two women in heavily accented English. They were hoping for a boy this time. Who said this—Ben, Ingersol? She liked Boston, she said, but could never live here. “I don’t know how you live with the cold and the snow.”
The marionette’s head that was Gina’s nodded up and down. “You are so right. I live in Florida now. It’s sunny, and salty, warm, so much better.”
But sometimes, there’s magic in it.
Did Gina just say that? The puppet blinked, the ice-covered Walden Pond blocking her eyes. They had walked too far and got lost in the woods, holding hands, the skates on their feet, gliding across the ice to the distant shore, perhaps a way out.
Another blink. The puppet nodded her wooden head. All her American life Gina divided people into two kinds: those who loved Boston and those who did not. She was disappointed and yet pleased Ben had married a girl who was the latter. It made Gina think less of his wife. What a blessing.
“Magic in what?” asked a puzzled Ingersol. Ben said nothing.
Oh, disaster! “Sometimes in the snow,” Gina stammered.
Ingersol was pretty, in a soft sort of way. Nondescriptly attractive. Everything was right, but forgettable. Except for the large stomach—that was unforgettable. A pale and weakened Esther eased herself back down into the patio chair. While Ben chatted to her, Gina remained standing, making small talk with Ben’s wife about the weather and the pumpkin fair on the Boston Common and the season for clams (through May). Presently Ben joined the conversation.
“But not oysters?” he asked.
“No.” The string for Gina’s mouth went up, went down. “Oysters now. Oysters only in months with an R in them.”
They laughed, both Ingersol and Ben, at how the puppet on a string could know that, they counted out the months of the year, and d
elighted some more, and even the marionette bobbed her head, as if she were also laughing. It was Harry who had told Gina this, and he had learned it from his mother. Frances Barrington had been such a good hostess. She always knew what to serve and when. Like oysters. The puppet wondered if there were any oysters in the Mystic River in half-frozen December. Did oysters get that far, swim into rivers like salmon, trying to find their way home? Oh, what was she thinking about! What was wrong with her? This was excruciating.
Ingersol excused herself to go to the powder room. Ben and Gina were left alone, standing two feet in front of a sitting Esther. Gina tightened her mouth and without meeting his eyes smiled like he was the postman. After all, Esther was watching.
“What happened to your voice?” he asked. “You sound hoarse.”
She fake-coughed to fake-clear it. She couldn’t tell him she had torn her vocal cords giving birth. “Just a touch under the weather,” she said.
“So Harry didn’t come?”
“He’s under house arrest until February. So no.”
“Yes, yes, of course. But it’s been good otherwise?”
“Yes, okay, oh, fine. Why not, no, it’s been good. Great, actually. What about you?”
“Very good. Can’t complain.”
“Exactly. Can’t complain.” Gina was afraid even to ask a question. “So are you back for a visit, or . . .” She searched for other words. The only ones that came into her head were per sempre. Forever.
Ben smirked. “Ingersol prays every day it’s just for a visit. How do you say just for now in Italian?”
“Solo per ora.”
“Solo per ora,” he repeated. “We’ll see. A year ago I was invited to be a guest lecturer at Harvard. It’s a big honor. I couldn’t refuse.”
“Oh, yes. Big honor. Harvard? Congratulations. Lecturer in what?”
“The only thing I know. Civil engineering.”
Gina said nothing. She was stuck on canals, and rocks, and explosions. The detonating things in her head were so loud. She couldn’t look into his face.
“Go ahead, say it,” said Ben.
Oh, no! Her eyes darted back and forth across his jacket. “Say what?”
“Do we need another canal somewhere?”