Amerika (28 page)

“I know.”

Amanda tugged lightly and Jackie took a step down the stairs. “I don’t know anybody in Omaha.”

“I don’t either.”

“You have Daddy.”

“I hope I have him. I hope we both have him.” Jackie stopped, halfway down the stairs. “What if Justin comes back and I’m not here? He won’t know where to find me.”

“Your father is the governor-general of the area. I’m sure even Justin will figure it out.”

They reached the empty living room. Jackie smiled wanly, taking it all in. “I love this house. I never thought I’d leave it.”

Tears burned Amanda’s eyes. “What about flying off to dance on the great stages of the world?”

“You know what?” Jackie said. “I don’t think I’m ever going to do that.”

The limousine was waiting. It was at the head of a small convoy that included two jeeps and the four trucks that were moving their belongings. As they entered the Milford courthouse square, they saw that the town had come alive again, had shaken off its mantle of fear.

“They ended the curfew,” Amanda said. “At least Major Gurtman follows orders.”

“Is that a plus or a minus?” Jackie said wryly. “They were all going stir crazy,” Scott said.

“I was in town awhile ago,” Margaret told them.

“They’ve been ringing bells and honking horns—quite a celebration.”

“Good for them,” Amanda said.

As they passed the courthouse Amanda saw the people start to glare at their convoy. She saw their celebration turn to anger as they shook their fists and yelled. Amanda was shocked by the ugly display of hostility. “Why are they doing that?” she cried.

Jackie was openmouthed with dismay. Scott sank down in the seat, hoping not to be recognized.

“They don’t know who we are,” Margaret said. “The windows are smoked so they can’t see in.”

“They think we’re Russians or something,” said Scott.

“Maybe they’re not so far off,” said Jackie.

They had gone back to the garage where the plumbing truck was kept. Men were working on other cars and trucks. They paid little attention to Devin, Billy, and Clayton. There was a bucket of soft drinks—a local brand, called ChiCola—and Billy prowled around the garage, sipping the soda and watching the mechanics.

Devin, sitting against the wall with Clayton, watched his son with a sense of wonder.

“He’s fourteen,” he said. “Almost a man. But still a boy. Look how gracefully he moves. I’ll bet he’s a good athlete. You could see it, even when he was younger. My God, what a beautiful creature.”

Clayton laughed. “Just a kid, wandering around a smelly old garage.”

“You wouldn’t say that if he was yours. Then you’d know what a miracle he is.”

“Do you see his mother in him? Or is that an impolite question.”

“Sure I see her. In his physical grace. And in the quickness of his mind. I was always a plodder, but Marion is intuitive, her mind’s like a computer going a hundred miles a minute.” He grinned and added, “But mostly I see me in him.”

Billy joined them. “What’s up?”

“I was saying I thought you were a lot like your old man.”

Billy laughed. “You got that right. Hey, are we really going to be Resisters?”

“You might say that,” Devin replied.

“What’ll we do? Blow up stuff?”

“There are a lot of ways to resist.”

“Well, what’s the plan?”

The two men grinned at the boy’s bluntness.

“I thought we’d start by getting your brother,” Devin said.

Billy thought about that, unsure what he should say. “The thing is,” he ventured, “he won’t want to come like I did. Mom’s got him real scared.”

“Of me?”

“Yeah. It’s like you’re some evil person who’ll hurt us.”

Devin’s face reflected his bewilderment. He’d never imagined that one of his own sons could fear him.

“Plus, he’s real gung-ho on the Lincoln Brigade stuff. He heads it up.”

Devin was thinking hard, trying to decide. How could he rescue a boy who didn’t want to be rescued, who didn’t remember his father the way he, Devin, remembered his son? “How does your mom feel about that?”

“You gotta be kidding. She’s like the head of the local party and all that. She’s really heavy into it.”

Clayton said, “You’ll have to decide soon. If you wait, it’ll be too late.”

Devin, lost in his own thoughts, stammered, “What?”

“In a little while they’ll look for Billy and set off the

alarm.”

“They can’t know it’s me,” Devin said.

“Doesn’t matter,” Clayton answered. “They may interpret it as a terrorist act against your wife. Or a kidnapping for ransom. Whatever, they’ll take it seriously. It isn’t going to be a situation where a kid’s a little late after school.”

Devin gazed into space. “Maybe I should forget it. I don’t want to hurt him.”

“Maybe you owe him a chance at least to meet his father,” Clayton said. “To see the truth, face-to-face. To make up his own mind.”

Devin wrestled with that possibility. It was not the danger he feared, not the police, but the horror of confronting a son who hated him.

He asked Billy, “Will you help me?”

Billy hesitated, then slowly nodded. “I can show you the best way to do it,” he said. “When his school lets out, there’s a lot of confusion. That’s the time.” Devin nodded his agreement. Clayton produced a pencil and paper and Billy drew them a map of the school. He marked the door from which Caleb came out, as well as the place where the police escort waited for him.

It could be done, Devin thought. At least a meeting, a chance to talk. A memory to leave with the boy, for the years ahead.

It was only noon. They had at least two hours to wait. Devin thought the noisy, smelly garage was becoming oppressive.

“Fm going to take Billy out for a walk,” he said. “You want to come?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Clayton replied.

“Oh hell, there’s a park out there, beside the river, and a lot of people wandering around. Nobody’ll notice us. Dammit, Clay, you can’t spend all your life being afraid.”

Clayton shrugged. “Okay, just be careful.”

They crossed a street and entered a shabby, rundown park. Wrigley Field loomed a few blocks to the south, and across the park Lake Michigan sparkled in the midday sun. They took a bench that faced the lake. At first Devin didn’t know what to say. After all these years of dreaming, the reality of the boy left him speechless.

“What do you want to do?” Billy asked. “I mean, when we leave Chicago?”

“I’m not sure,” Devin admitted. “I’d like to go back to Nebraska. I guess that’s my home now. Your grandfather, your aunt and uncle—things have been hard and they could use my help. But I don’t know if the . . . the authorities will let you live with me there. If not, I don’t know.”

“Could we go to Alaska and join the resistance?”

“That’d be a last resort,” Devin said. “I don’t see what they’re accomplishing. I’d rather just live underground in some city. Change our names; I’d get a job and you could go to school, and try to live a normal life. Maybe, someday, your mother will agree to let you five with me, openly, if we convince her that’s what you want. Maybe, someday, you’ll want to go back with her . .

“No!”

“It’s always possible, Billy. It’d be an easier fife. The decision is yours.”

“What she wants isn’t what I want,” Billy said. “The thing is, we don’t know what may happen. We don’t know how much time we have. You have to learn to look at time differently, to look at the people you love differently. That’s what I learned in prison. Some people have a lifetime together and some people only have an hour or a week or a month. But an hour can be more than a year, a week can be more than a lifetime. Time is what you make of it. You can waste a lifetime or you can make a single afternoon precious.”

Devin watched the gulls soar over the lake. He wondered if any of this made sense to a boy of fourteen. A few hard-won truths were all he had left to
give.
He looked at Billy, whose gaze had never left his
face.

“It’s like when someone is dead or . . . away. The relationship changes, but you don’t stop loving them. When I was in prison, I loved you more than ever before. Sometimes I would t
hink
of you—of you and
Caleb-—
all' night long. It was sort of like praying, I
guess,
except it was just the three of us. I told you how much I loved you and I told you what kind of boys . . .
men
... I wanted you to be and I told you I’d survive
and
see you again. Believing that, and believing you
still
loved me, was what kept me alive. Literally. You
kept
me alive.”

Billy took his father’s hand. “I heard you,” he said. “I could feel you ... in the night. Like when you used
to
come in and kiss me good night and we’d talk until I
got
sleepy. You weren’t really there but I pretended
you
were and it was just the same. I talked to you and prayed that you heard me.”

“I did,” Devin said.

They sat in silence for a time. Devin wondered how tragic it was that the message had not gotten through to his other son, that Caleb had been turned against him. Perhaps it was because he was younger, he thought, or perhaps it was simply in the genes. Kids were different —you learned that fast, as a parent—and probably Caleb was a great kid who just happened to be more like his mother. He guessed he could see a little of it now, looking back to when Caleb was just two or three, but it was hard to judge a child at that age.

“Dad, can I ask you a question?”

Devin turned and looked into Billy’s somber, open face. “There’s nothing you can’t ask me,” he said.

“Tell me about you and Mom. I mean, what was it like when you were young? Did you love each other? What was she like then? I just . . . sometimes I don’t understand what happened.”

Devin smiled. Sometimes he didn’t understand what had happened either.

“Your mother was a beautiful, wonderful, brilliant woman,” he said. “And I loved her very much. Whatever happens, son, remember that.”

Billy had attended Caleb’s elementary school and he knew it as well as his own. He showed Clayton where to park the step-van and led Devin through the azaleas to a window that looked into the school auditorium.

The auditorium was packed with students and parents. Onstage, a choir was singing a song called “Heartland, Our Heartland.”

“It’s new,” Billy explained. “Part of the big Heartland push they started a couple of weeks ago. It’s like we’re supposed to forget Nebraska and Illinois and even the U.S.A., and just love dear Heartland. Forget that.”

Devin listened for a moment. The song’s words were mundane at best, and offensive if you understood their intent, and yet the sweet young voices gave them an innocence and beauty that was beyond criticism. How very shrewd they are, he thought bitterly.

When the choir finished the song, a slender, intense boy with sandy-blond hair stepped to the microphone. Even before Billy spoke, Devin felt a chill.

“That’s Caleb,” Billy said.

Devin gazed at his younger son in wonder. The boy was slender and angelic, and yet there was something stiff and mechanical about him.

“I warn you, he believes all their crap,” Billy whispered.

“We are the voice of a new generation,” Caleb began, in a monotone. “The destructive ways of the past are gone. We will replace them with our vision of the future. The party will lead us to the new age.

“We are grateful to our Soviet brothers for saving the world from destruction,” Caleb continued. “And we can now join them in a world of socialist brotherhood.”

Devin turned away. Billy squeezed his arm. “It’s not really his fault. Between Mom and the teachers, he never knew any different.”

Devin nodded. “I know. He’s a believer, like I was. We just latched on to different things.”

When Caleb finished his speech there was a roar of approval from the audience. A band played “The Internationale,” and everyone began to file out of the auditorium.

“This is it,” Billy said. “You know where to go?”

“I know,” Devin said. “Will you be okay?”

“Sure.”

Billy was waiting when Caleb came out of the school. Across the street he could see Sergeant Moran, the officer assigned to bringing Caleb home, with his partner. Caleb emerged with some other boys, but when he saw Billy he broke free and joined him.

“What’re you doing here?” he asked nervously. “You get out early?”

“Yeah. How’d the program go?”

“Great. I almost got the whole thing memorized.” “That’s swell. C’mere.”

He grabbed Caleb’s arm and steered him around to the side of the building.

“Where’re we going?” the younger boy asked.

“I want to show you something.”