Janette Travis was greeted by a silence that was more sensed than heard. The room was airless, replete with tension, and that tension was felt in every breath.
Janette looked in Michael’s direction, and yet she seemed to be looking right through them. A faint smile crossed her lips, as if noting a pretty child, a cute dog in the street, but nothing more. It really was as if she were elsewhere, her mind still inside a jail cell, endlessly pacing back and forth as if in constant determination of the amount of sadness trapped within the walls.
Michael raised his hand, but Janette’s focus had already drifted. He was aware of Esther holding on to the sleeve of his jacket. His chest was like a balloon—as light as air and empty.
Formalities ensued, people entered, a bailiff appeared and shuffled papers ceremoniously.
And then came the judge, and his expression was austere and hard; the shadows cast from the single window to his right made his features as angular and severe as if cut from stone.
Words were spoken—people rose and then were again seated, and finally Janette Travis was asked to stand, and she did so, and her defense attorney stood with her, and she looked at the judge as if she were waiting for him to offer her a cup of coffee, a cigarette perhaps. Nothing more significant than that.
“Janette Alice Travis, having been charged and tried and found guilty of murder in the first degree of James Franklin Travis on May 10, 1927, in the town of Flatwater, against the peace and dignity of the state of Nebraska, it is the judgment of this court that sentence is now heard. It is with a heavy heart that I am obliged to pass down the most severe sentence afforded this crime by the state of Nebraska, that you shall be remanded into the legal custody of the Nebraska State Penitentiary Department at a facility deemed fit for such detention, and there you shall reside until such time as provision can be made for your execution. That is the determination of this court in this case, and I am required by law to inform you of your right to appeal, said appeal to be filed within the due time allocated, the details of which will be afforded to you by your legal counsel.”
The judge paused.
Esther’s body trembled as she withheld the flood of grief that assaulted her every sense.
Michael sat silent and stoic, his eyes like glass, his heart measuring nothing but the passing of time.
Janette seemed insensate, as if this were nothing of any significance, as if this were no more important than a postponed train or an overdue library book.
“Does the defendant wish to make any further statement at this time?” the judge asked.
Nathan Harper looked at his client. Janette continued staring emotionlessly at the judge. Harper leaned close to her, said something that only she could hear, and then said it again as there seemed to be no recognition of what he was telling her.
And then she smiled. She turned and looked at Michael, at Esther, at the small gathering of onlookers and officials in the courtroom, and said, “Most of the time I had no idea why he was so very angry… but then other times I did know why.” She shook her head, and for a moment she seemed again elsewhere, a smile playing across her lips as if recalling some past moment of happiness. Then she turned to the judge and said, “Sometimes I wonder if my punishment for killing him was actually served before he died…”
Janette lowered her head.
“No further statement at this time,” Harper told the gathering, and the judge nodded sagely, seemingly unsettled by the few words that the defendant had uttered.
The bailiff stood. “This hearing is hereby adjourned. All rise.”
Everyone rose.
The judge got up and left the room.
Those who had business elsewhere departed immediately, and soon there was no one in the room but Michael, Esther, Janette, Nathan Harper, and two officers of the court on each side of the door.
Janette had remained standing, almost trancelike now, looking back and forth from the window to the door as if undecided as to her means of exit.
Harper took her hand and indicated that she should sit. She did so without word or question.
He then crossed the room to speak with Michael and Esther, introduced himself, shook hands, and then lowered his voice.
“She is fragile,” he told them. “She is in shock, I believe. Really, for the past three or four weeks, I have not been able to establish with her any understanding of what is going on. She keeps asking me when she will be able to go home.” He looked down at the floor, and when he looked back at Michael, there was such a sense of sadness it his eyes, it was almost painful.
“I am sorry to say that she has not asked about you,” Harper continued. “I wrestled for a long time with whether or not I should tell you this, but decided that it was best you know. I have met with her three or four times a week, and each time I see her, I have to remind her of my name, my job, what I am meeting her for. Frankly, and it pains me to say this, I am certain she has lost all connection to reality.”
Michael held Harper’s gaze unerringly. “Perhaps that is best for both myself and her,” he said.
Beside them, Esther stifled her sobs with a handkerchief.
“I cannot bear to consider such a thing,” Harper said, “but I think you may be right.”
“I’ll speak to her now,” Michael said.
Harper stepped back. Michael walked to the table where his mother sat. He took a chair and sat facing her. He reached out his hand to enclose hers, but she withdrew it. A frown crossed her brow.
Michael said nothing for some seconds, and then he smiled.
“My name is Michael,” he said. “Do you remember me?”
Janette smiled back. “Yes, I am sure I remember you,” she said. “From church, wasn’t it? Didn’t I see you in church last week?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Michael said. “From church.”
“I thought so.”
“So, how have you been?”
“Oh, I can’t complain,” Janette said. “The food is not so good, but it’s better than nothing. I keep asking them when I will be finished, but no one seems to know. Sometimes I have a headache thinking about all of it, but it goes away when I sleep.”
“Okay,” Michael said. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“That’s very sweet of you, young man.”
Michael smiled, and then he got to his feet.
“Will I see you in church again?” she asked.
“Oh yes,” Michael replied. “I would think so.”
“Until then.”
“Yes, ma’am. Until then.”
Janette held out her hand. Michael took it. He felt those slim cool fingers against his palm, and he knew then that she was gone and would never return. Whoever his mother might have been, she had departed long ago. Perhaps she had left immediately after his father, following him even into hell, trying to gain his forgiveness for what she had done.
Michael released her hand, and he turned back to Esther.
“We’re going,” he said.
They bade their farewells to Nathan Harper, and Harper escorted Janette Travis from the room and into the custody of the court officers.
Michael and Esther left the building immediately, beginning at once their journey home.
Upon arrival, it seemed that Michael had recovered from the ordeal, whereas Esther was traumatized beyond words. She had spoken not a single word on the way back despite Michael’s best efforts to encourage her into conversation.
Once inside the house, he poured her a drink, sat while she sipped it, and eventually he held her hand and looked into her eyes as he spoke.
“Esther, listen to me. We knew this was going to happen. We knew this would be the outcome. She knew it too. There is nothing we could have done about it, and there is nothing we can do to change what will happen. I think she wants to die—”
“
She… she i-is your mother, Mi-Michael… your mother. Do you not feel anything at all for her?”
Michael frowned. “Of course I feel something for her. Is that what you think? That I feel nothing for her?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Esther said. “You confuse me. Sometimes I think I understand you, and sometimes you feel like a complete stranger.”
“I am as upset as you are, Esther—”
“No, Michael, you aren’t. I look in your eyes and I can see that you’re not. If it were my mother, I would be tearing myself to pieces right now. I would be inconsolable, and I would be doing everything I could to help her in any possible way. But you?” She paused, looking at Michael, at the way he looked back at her, almost in disbelief at his seeming lack of reaction to what was happening.
Michael knelt before her. He reached up and touched her cheek.
“No, Michael. Don’t…”
Michael put his hand around the back of Esther’s neck and pulled her close. She resisted at first, as if angry at him for trying to change the direction of things, but she yielded against the warmth of his body and the touch of his fingers on her throat.
“I love you, Esther,” he whispered.
“Oh, Michael, don’t say that…”
“I love you, Esther, plain and simple. Whether you like it or not, I love you.”
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She felt guilty then, perhaps for the first time—guilty for loving him in return, guilty for his age, for who he was, for how such a thing would be viewed by others who could never understand what had happened between them.
As if voicing her fears, he said, “And I don’t care what people think or what people say. I really don’t. You think I feel nothing, well, you’re wrong. I feel everything I want to feel, and I make myself invisible for things I don’t.”
She pulled him tight, tighter, and then she was kissing him.
They made love then, right there on the floor, and it was desperate and hurried, like people possessed, as if each were trying to be inside the other, as if each were trying somehow to get away from who they were and become someone or something else.
And when they were done, they lay beside each other and their breathing slowed, and she turned on her side and watched him, the way his chest rose and fell, the way his hair fell back across his ear.
And it was then—for the last time—that she saw a single tear escape his eye and make its way across his cheek.
38
Away from the confines and formality of the university, Sarah Ebner seemed to be an entirely different woman. Her hair was down, and she was wearing an open-necked blouse and casual slacks instead of the dark suit. Despite the hour, she seemed pleased to see Travis. It was past eleven thirty when he finally reached her door, and she opened it before he’d had a chance to knock.
“You have no idea how much I appreciate this,” Travis said.
“Well, strange as though it may sound, Agent Travis, I am intrigued also. I am curious as to what is so important it brings you from Kansas to Wichita on a Saturday night.”
“Your expertise,” Travis said. “The comment you made regarding your work on national socialism.”
“Come in,” she said. “I’ve made coffee.”
No more than fifteen minutes later, they sat together in Ebner’s study. Again, it was not dissimilar to that of Ralph Saxon, but here the sense of order and organization was far more pronounced. There were distinctly feminine touches between the high-ranged bookshelves and towering columns of texts and dossiers. A manuscript sat on her desk, a good three or four inches thick, and from the scrawls of red ink, the underlinings and margin notes, it appeared to be something she was currently editing.
“Your own work?” Travis asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “It’s my own crackpot theories on why Communism will ultimately fail, and why the allies should have marched on into Moscow and taken it, just as Churchill advised.”
“And you have made studies of national socialism and the Third Reich, yes?”
“Some, yes.”
“And you speak German?”
“Yes, I do, as a matter of fact. German, Italian, and French. Not bad for a girl, eh?”
“My misogynistic tendencies have tempered somewhat, Dr. Ebner,” Travis said. “After all, who did I call when I needed assistance with this?”
She smiled, and it was such a forgiving smile, Travis couldn’t help but see the humor in what he’d said.
“You called me because you had no one else to call, Agent Travis.”
“Okay, you got me there,” he said. “I wanted to ask you about an organization called Winterhilfswerk.”
“Well, all right. A curious question. It means winter help work, literally. Winter Relief was the more official name of the program, and it was as it sounds. It was an annual project established by something called the National Socialist People’s Welfare Organization. Its motto was ‘None Shall Starve Nor Freeze.’ It was actually an entirely community-orientated program that went back as far as 1930 or 1931, but Hitler later claimed sole credit for it. It cycled through a six-month period, October to March, and it required donations and contributions of basic necessities like food, clothing, and coal. A lot of the collecting was done by the Hitlerjugend and the Bund Ditcher Mädel, the boys’ and girls’ organizations. On the face of it, it was a very clever propaganda technique, for it positioned the idea that community was superior to individual, that Hitlerian policy encouraged community responsibility for one another, that children could contribute just as much as adults. It made people think that they were working for the common good of the people as well as the state. In fact, significant donations to the organization made you an ally of the Nazi party without having to formally be a member. Giving to the Winter Relief Program got them off your back.”
“And there were badges, medals, awards?”
“Hundreds of them, thousands perhaps. They became collectible items. Badges, pennants, things like this, all known as abzeichen, and they were displayed and worn by people to show that they had made contributions. There was even a monthly placard called a monatstürplakette, which you put in your window to show that you’d donated. People who didn’t donate were actually reviled, sometimes even the victims of mob violence. Eventually, the Brownshirts were employed to collect money as well, and they collected it with threats and menaces. They would trawl the markets, beer halls, anywhere where people congregated, and oblige people to give as much as they could. What was originally established as a purely philanthropic and community-minded program became something far more sinister and politically motivated.”
“In what way?”
“Well, if money was being collected for social welfare from the people themselves, then state and tax monies earmarked for welfare could be diverted to armaments and propaganda. Essentially, if the people themselves paid both taxes and for their own maintenance, then the taxes could be employed for the war effort. The second thing was that those who didn’t donate, even those unable to, could be labeled as dissenters, traitors, subversives, anything that seemed to be in vogue, and shipped off to the work camps.”
“I wanted to ask you about the badges that were issued. They sometimes used flowers, right?”
“Flowers, yes. Birds too. Insects, nursery rhyme and fairy-tale characters for the children. They had badges depicting German historical personalities and many of Hitler himself.”
“And the forget-me-not?”
Sarah Ebner frowned, and a narrow smile played across her lips. “The forget-me-not?” she asked. “You want to know about this badge specifically?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Might I ask why?”
“Because I know someone who wears one.”
“Presently?”
“Yes, as we speak. Every time I have seen him, he is we
aring it.”
“And he is American?”
“Irish.”
“But he lives here.”
“Now he does, yes.”
“And he served during the war?”
“According to what information I have, he served in Ireland in collaboration with British military intelligence in routing out and exposing Nazi sympathizers. He then appears to have worked alongside the Resistance in France, but the last two years of the war saw him betray his loyalties and start work for the Nazis.”
“And you have concluded this because of the badge he wears?”
“I have, yes.”
“Well, I might just have to shatter your preconceptions, Agent Travis.”
“Because?”
Ebner leaned back in her chair and sighed. “Well, there is a very strong possibility, Agent Travis, that you are looking at someone who is the diametric opposite of precisely what we’ve been discussing.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, very simply, that this man with his forget-me-not badge might have been involved in something that the Nazis would have been very upset about.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Have you ever heard of an organization called the Freemasons, Agent Travis?”
Travis’s surprise was evident.
“I am sorry,” Ebner said. “Of course you have. In fact, you are more than likely already a member of this organization, aren’t you?”
“As a matter of fact, no,” Travis replied. He couldn’t help but think of the conversation he’d had with Doyle, the fact that Doyle himself had spoken of the Freemasons when detailing the history of those who had made studies of the human mind and its capabilities. “I know that Mr. Hoover holds a very significant office in this organization.”
Ebner smiled knowingly. “If you know someone is a senior officer in the Freemasons, then they’re probably nowhere near as senior as you think, Agent Travis.”
“I have to be honest and say that I don’t know a great deal about them.”
“Well, there’s a history all its own, Agent Travis, and I don’t need to overwhelm you with that right now. Let’s just say that it’s a very old organization, and—as with all such fellowships and fraternities—it has two faces, the outward and the inward. Essentially, what it says it does and what it actually does. What you need to know is that the Freemasons were not looked upon as potential allies by the Nazis. In fact, in many countries, anti-Masonry and anti-Semitism are strongly linked, even now, and that harks back to idea that the Freemasons built the Temple of Solomon. As far as the last war is concerned, records were discovered in the Reich Security Main Office that detail the persecution of the Freemasons as enemies of the state. There was a man called Franz Six, and he was responsible not only for creating anti-Semitic propaganda, but also that of anti-Masonry. Masons were considered politically and ideologically subversive, and they were persecuted, as were so many others.”