They sat opposite each other, hunched forward, hands clasped. “I almost didn’t wait for you,” Sara confessed. “It took so long.”
“I’d have gotten here sooner, but we came up Sixth instead of Fifth Avenue, thinking it would be faster, and instead we ran into a mob.”
“A mob?”
“The trainmen’s union is picketing all along the Sixth Avenue Elevated, you can’t get through.” He squeezed her hands. “Sara, tell me what’s happened.”
“It happened so fast. I told Ben I was leaving him.”
“Why?”
The obvious answer wasn’t the answer at all, she realized. “I found him with Tasha this morning. In bed. I suppose it’s been going on for months. It’s why he wanted me out of the house all summer.” Alex started to say something, but she shook her head. “No, but that’s not really why I did it. I mean—it is, in a way, it’s what brought it on. But it wasn’t even a decision—I never really made up my mind to do it. All of a sudden I was doing it, and it felt so right. And yet—oh God, Alex, look what I’ve done,” she whispered, horrified.
He could hardly stand to look at the deepening bruise on the side of her forehead, the raw scrapes on her palms. “Listen to me—whatever happens, you did the right thing. You had to leave him, Sara.”
She stared back in misery, thinking but not saying that if she lost Michael, she would certainly not have done the right thing, and she would regret this day’s decision for the rest of her life. She looked out the window. “Why are we going so slowly?” They were just turning onto Park Avenue from Thirty-fourth Street. “What’s happening?”
Alex got up, opened the door, put one foot on the step, and leaned far out, peering north. There was nothing to see but carriages, carts, trolleys, and jitneys jammed front to back, moving a few feet, then stopping. “Can you see anything?” he called to the driver.
“Something’s backin’ ’em up,” he answered laconically. “Can’t tell what.”
Alex resumed his seat, slamming the door.
“What did he say?”
“He doesn’t know.” He watched her twist her hands in her lap, teeth clamped on her bottom lip. “Ben’s probably caught up in the same snarl,” he told her. “We’ll find him, Sara, don’t worry.”
She hardly heard. “When he took him away the last time—I told you, remember?”
“Yes.”
“He took him to a hunter’s camp on the tip of Long Island. But he’s much too clever to go there again. Unless we find them before they leave, I won’t know where to start looking.” She wouldn’t even know where to go when they finally reached Grand Central—the Harlem Railroad depot, the New Haven, the Long Island—
“We’ll find them,” Alex repeated doggedly.
“I can’t stand this.” Every minute she almost jumped out to walk—surely it would be faster than this nerve-wracking crawl!—and each time the coach suddenly jolted forward, filling her with an agonizing burst of new hope.
Minutes later they crossed Thirty-eighth Street and the hansom came to a final halt. The driver yelled something; Alex jumped out of the cab. “What’s that?”
“Can’t go any farther, I’m turnin’ off here and getting out. Might be them trainmen again, striking along Third and the Forty-second Street Spur into Grand Central. We can’t get through.”
Sara heard, and stepped down into the street with Alex. “Then we’ll walk.”
Alex paid the driver and ran to catch up with her, taking her arm. He closed his mouth against all the reasons he could give for why she should turn back, knowing how futile it would be. At Thirty-ninth Street the sidewalk became almost as crowded as the street, with as many people hurrying toward them as there were pushing along beside them. “What’s going on?” Alex asked a neatly dressed gentleman rushing southward.
“Strike! You can’t get to Forty-second Street, there’s hired strike breakers shoving everybody back down Park and Lexington. The Murray Hill Tunnel entrance is blocked so you can’t even get into the station. I’m telling you, you can’t go anywhere!” he called after them when Sara started off again and Alex hurried after her.
She scanned the cluttered avenue for signs of the Cochrane carriage returning south—” It’s gray with maroon trim,” she told Alex—but they never saw it. A patrol wagon full of uniformed policemen clattered northward in the southbound lane, bell clanging. The sidewalk crush worsened; Alex drew Sara to him and linked arms with her securely.
“You’ve got to go back.” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the growing din. A man running behind them butted his shoulder and Alex bumped hard against Sara. She recovered and kept walking, pulling on his arm when she spotted openings between people ahead of them. “You heard what that man said,” he persisted, “the station’s closed. That means Ben can’t get through either. If there are strike breakers up there, there’s going to be violence. Let me go on by myself. You go up Fortieth to Fifth and go home, Sara, let me—”
“No. I have to find him. I have to find him.”
That was all she would say, and he gave up.
“Let’s walk in the street,” she said, pulling on him.
He let her lead him over the curb, realizing it was probably safer in the street now because the crowd on the sidewalk was getting rough.
She twisted her ankle in her high-heeled boots on the uneven cobbles, but after a few limping steps the pain faded. The sound of shouting grew louder in the distance, but it was impossible to see what was ahead because of the stalled vehicles blocking the street. All at once the crowd on the sidewalk surged out into the street in a great, unruly wave, and a second later bright orange flames shot out of the sides of a wooden building fronting the sidewalk.
“Arsonists,” Alex guessed grimly, shoving a, way through the new crush with his shoulder.
Sara lost her shawl; her hat had been torn off minutes ago. Shouts mingled with the screams of terrified horses rearing and jerking the reins to the stranded carts and carriages behind them. Alarm bells rang frantically and incessantly. There was no such thing as lanes in the street anymore; police wagons battling their way north through the mob were as stationary as every other conveyance. From the three-story rooftop of a restaurant up ahead, two boys not much older than Michael hurled bricks at the crowd below. People leaned out of windows and hung from telegraph poles; below them the mob swayed back and forth from sidewalk to sidewalk. There were few women in the crowd now; those who were left were tough-looking, some carrying pickets declaring their support for the strikers.
“We can’t get through!” Alex shouted, both arms around Sara’s shoulders. “You have to get out!”
She shook her head violently. “Michael’s in there! Could be in there!” she shouted back. All of a sudden his grip on her tightened and he lunged sideways in an ungainly pivot; in the next second a wild-eyed man in shirtsleeves swung a wide wooden picket down across his shoulder. Alex grunted. Sara registered the words “Fight Corrupt Bosses” before the man hoisted his sign to strike again. Alex twisted around, bracing, shielding her with his back, but the crowd intervened and the sign descended on someone else’s head before the picketer was lost to sight. When Alex turned around, Sara was gone.
She could see him clearly no more than six feet away, a head taller than anyone around him; but it might as well have been sixty feet because of the densely packed bodies between them. “Alex! Alex!” He didn’t hear. When he turned, she couldn’t get her arm up to wave to him because of the crush. The beginnings of panic snaked through her. She shoved as hard as she could against the stiff, moving wall of people pressing her back, back, but it was futile; she was as helpless as a twig in a current of flooding water.
A horse-drawn jitney lay on its side on the pavement; standing on top, a man heaved paving stones at the helmeted guardsmen surrounding him, clubs raised. The crowd waded into the fight, Sara borne along with them helplessly. She saw a policeman’s red, sweating face looming above her, his club raised h
igh in the air over her head. She screamed; he saw her, wheeled, and brought the club down on the shoulder of the boy beside her.
Horses hauling another patrol wagon reared and plunged, so close she could smell their hot breath and see the terror in their rolling eyes. Men in the clogged street lunged for their bridles. A policeman with his feet hanging out of the tail of the wagon was hauled out by his heels and surrounded. The other guardsmen leapt out and charged the jeering crowd, night sticks striking right and left. Bricks and bottles flew from all sides. Something struck Sara between the shoulder blades and she stumbled, breath gone. On one knee, hands pressed to the cobblestones, she tried to stand, but at that moment gunshots rattled over the shouts and the turmoil, and panic swept through the mob. A man’s hard thigh struck her shoulder and she lost her balance, falling. She couldn’t scream; it wouldn’t have helped anyway. A booted foot smacked into her hip. She rolled, throwing up her hands to shield her face.
“Lady, get up!”
She opened her eyes to see a huge paw of a hand reaching for her. She took it in both of hers and was jerked to her feet by an enormous black man with a beard; a button on his chest said, “No Wage Cut, Porters in Sympathy with Trainmen.”
“Get outa here, lady, they’re shootin’!” he yelled at her.
She pulled out of his grip when he began to lead her south, away from the violence. “I have to find my little boy!”
Shots rang out again. The big man flinched, mouthed, “Good luck,” turned, and ran.
The crowd had begun to thin at the first shots, but groups still clustered in doorways, calling insults to the police and throwing stones whenever they turned their backs. Limping, her dress torn, hair loose, Sara staggered off northward. The stampede was over and the devastation in its wake was visible now. Broken pickets and bricks and boards littered the cobblestones, and the sidewalks were lined with broken glass. Smoke from a burning coal cart filled the air with acrid soot; the frantic neighing of stranded horses sounded from everywhere, pitiful and nerve-wracking. Sara scanned the wide corner of Forty-first Street, searching for anything familiar. Twenty feet away a man in shirtsleeves and torn waistcoat had his back to her, but she recognized the set of his shoulders and his tawny hair.
“Alex!”
He turned, and the raw anguish in his face changed to intense, heartfelt relief. They came together, oblivious to the people running past and the shouted orders of militiamen to keep moving.
“Have you seen him?” she asked helplessly.
“Not yet.” He kept to himself what he had seen. “They must have gone back, Sara.”
“But we have to look.”
“Yes.” He took her hand, and they began to walk against what was left of the still-fleeing crowd.
She saw the carriage before he did. On its side in front of the Park Avenue Oyster Palace, the lathered horses standing still in the dangling reins, exhausted. Five men hunkered behind it, hands braced on the edge of the roof that touched the pavement. On the count of three they all heaved, and the heavy carriage rose up on two wheels, teetered, and dropped onto the other two, bouncing gently. Sara dropped Alex’s hand and ran.
“Stand back, lady, there’s somebody in there,” warned a policeman in uniform, reaching for her.
She eluded him, crying out, “Michael!”
Another policeman was yanking the door open. Michael looked out, white-faced, huddled on the floor between the seats. “Mummy?” He scrambled down unassisted and ran to her. Sara dropped to her knees in the street, unable to speak. His high-speed impact nearly knocked her over; she hugged him back fiercely and they both burst into tears. Alex stood beside them and watched their sobbing, swaying, wordless embrace.
“There’s somebody else in here. Big guy. Somebody give me a hand.”
Sara lifted her head, blinking to see past the tears as Alex and two other policemen returned to the carriage. Michael choked out, “It’s Dad, he’s really sick, I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” just as the men lifted Ben from the carriage and, laid him on the pavement beside the door. Sara stood up slowly, still holding Michael’s hand. They walked together to the still, prostrate figure on the ground and knelt beside him.
“This your husband, ma’am?” She nodded. The policeman said no more, but over Sara’s shoulder he gave Alex a quick, bleak shake of the head.
“Daddy?” Michael faltered, touching his father’s arm gingerly. Ben’s face was the color of beeswax. “Tasha jumped out and ran away, Mum, but Dad said not to move, we were better off in the carriage.”
“Sare?”
She looked down at Ben. He was sweating now, but still white as paper, pressing one hand to his chest. She covered his hand with hers and leaned over him.
“I wasn’t going far,” he said in a wheezy gasp, blinking up at her. “Wouldn’t’ve kept him so long this time, either.” She couldn’t answer. “Sorry about Tasha. Jeez, that was…” He shook his head once. Finally he muttered, “Stupid.”
“You have to rest, Ben. Save your strength.”
He made a weak gesture of impatience with his free hand; for a second the old belligerence gleamed in his black eyes. But he was strong enough only to whisper. “Money problems coming.”
“It’s all right.”
“Big problems. Might have to sell stuff, but you’ll be all right.”
“Don’t talk, Ben.”
“Maybe not a millionaire, but still rich as hell.” His laugh turned into a desperate gasp for breath.
Sara looked up. The nearest policeman said, “There’s a wagon on the way, ma’am.”
Ben subsided, exhausted, face gray and clammy. Michael, weeping beside Sara, touched his father’s hand with one finger just for a second, then jerked away, afraid. Sara leaned close to Ben and whispered in his ear. His eyes flickered open, but they were glassy now. She squeezed his hand and whispered again.
Ben took a slow, shuddering breath and fixed his gaze on his son. “Michael.”
“Sir?”
He opened his lips, but only air came out. Sara stopped breathing, clutching his arm with all ten fingers. “Michael,” he tried again.
“Sir?”
“Something I never told you.” Now his breath was a grotesque rattle deep in his throat and his lips were blue.
“Yes, sir?” Michael quavered through his tears.
Ben finally said it. “Love you. Always have.”
Michael’s pinched face was transformed. “Really, Dad? Really?”
But Ben didn’t answer; his lashes fluttered once more before his eyes rolled slowly back into his head and his stertorous breathing ceased. He didn’t hear Michael say, “I love you too, Dad.” He didn’t hear anything else at all.
Twenty-one
“MRS. WIGGS? ARE YOU home?” Alex put his head in the door his landlady always left ajar in defiance of constant warnings from friends and tenants that anyone could walk right in and steal everything she owned, and peered inside the cluttered parlor. Plenty of furniture, knicknacks, gewgaws and bric-a-brac, but no landlady.
“Alexander?” came a call from beyond the beaded curtain between parlor and kitchen.
“Yes, ma’am.”
A moment later Mrs. Wiggs bustled out, drying her hands on her apron. Her big, pink-faced smile collapsed when she saw the suitcase on the floor by the door. “I’ll swan, you’re really doing it,” she said tragically, fat shoulders slumping. “Lighting out on a train on Christmas Eve. I swear, I don’t believe you’ve got the sense God gave a flea.”
“You’re probably right. But my ticket says December 24, 6:37 P.M., so I guess I’ve got to go.”
Mrs. Wiggs clucked her tongue, a loud, sharp sound connoting powerful disdain. “And of course nobody’s ever changed a ticket to a more, sensible day before. They never heard of that at the train station.”
Alex smiled and shrugged but kept quiet, experience having taught him he was no match for his landlady’s sarcasm.
She jerked her head at the s
uitcase. “That all you’re carrying?”
“I sent everything else ahead.”
“Hmph. You couldn’t stuff enough underwear in that little bag for four days.”
He grinned. “Quit griping and be nice to me. I want to remember you smiling, not scowling.” To his astonishment, Mrs. Wiggs’s eyes suddenly welled with tears.
His dismay was nothing compared to hers. She scoured her cheeks roughly and stuck out a damp, raw-boned hand for him to shake. “Well, go if you’re going.”
He squeezed her hand gently between both of his. “I’ll write when I get settled, to let you know my address.”
“If you want to.”
“Will you write back?”
“Maybe.”
“It’s been a good five years. I’ll never have another landlady like you.”
“That’s a safe bet.”
He arched a brow. Admit it—you’re going to miss me.”
“Hah. I wish you’d left two months ago when you said you were going to. Could’ve doubled the rent and now I’d be a rich woman.”
Alex’s smile grew fixed. He might as well have left two months ago, considering the way things had turned out.
“Least you’ve got a job to go to now. I guess that’s something,” she said grudgingly.
“I guess it is, if I want to keep eating food and sleeping indoors.” In truth, he was excited about his new job. Thanks to Professor Stern—again—he’d been invited to bid on and had won a contract to design the new foreign language students’ union on the Berkeley campus. His brain was buzzing with ideas and he was impatient to start work; he even had plans to hire an assistant draftsman—McKie & Associates’ first associate. The commission he would earn was modest by Draper and Snow’s standards, but considering that he was almost broke, he’d have taken even less.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a flat oblong box. “Merry Christmas,” he said, handing it to his landlady.
“My law, what’ve you gone and done?” Her scowl deepened; she took hold of the box as if it might contain spiders. “Do I have to open it now?”