Bellagrand: A Novel (55 page)

“What does Alexander have to do with any of that?” She tried not to shout.

“Who do you think the boy is with, while you’re on holiday in Florida?”

“I’m not on holiday, Esther. I’m searching for my vanished brother.”

“Welcome to the club, sister.”

Gina was left with no choice but to return to Boston immediately, her only show of faith: not closing Salvo’s bank account. It had remained untouched since the day before a strong wind and heavy rain swept away South Florida and washed him far away.

Two

HARRY AND ALEXANDER
were waiting for her at South Station. Having Alexander to cling to stopped her from discussing volatile issues with Harry. She was grateful she had held her tongue about things like the arrest, legal trouble, the threat of prison, because Alexander, still in the crook of her arm, said, “Mom, we moved.”

“Moved what?”

“Not what. Where. We moved to Spruce Street.”

Gina stopped in her tracks. Harry, carrying her suitcase, pulled her along. “Come on, don’t dawdle, let’s hail a taxi.”

“Where’s the car?”

“I told you. I sold it.”

“No,” she said slowly, “you didn’t tell me you sold it. You told me you were
thinking
of selling it. You asked me if I thought it was a good idea. I hemmed and hawed. I suppose you also told me we were moving?”

“I would have told you, but I found the place on Spruce so quickly, and five other people were looking at it. I was afraid we’d lose it if I waited another second. I took a chance. I know you’ll like it. It’s better this way.”

“It has no furniture, Mom,” said Alexander.

“Where’s the furniture?”

“I sold it,” said Harry. “It was too big to fit into our new home.”

The apartment was on the fifth floor of a narrow walk-up on a narrow street. Just like the one the Attavianos had stayed in when they arrived by sea from Sicily a quarter-century earlier.

“Not quite,” Harry said. “That one was a tenement in the North End ghetto. This one is on the Boston Common in Beacon Hill. A world of difference, wouldn’t you say?”

Gina didn’t think there was a world of difference. She didn’t think there was a daylight of difference between them.

She put down her gloves, her bag, her hat and walked around, or took “a tour,” as Alexander called it. It took two minutes. The place had one washroom, two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, a dining room. One fireplace. The rooms were small, dark, sooty, as if steam heat hadn’t come yet to the fifth floor. The boxes were still packed, waiting for her.

“So what do you think?” Harry kept asking, in remarkably good humor.

Gina was less enthusiastic. “Where is the rest of it?”

“That’s all there is, Mom,” said Alexander. “There is no other part to it, like a room where we dance.”

“You were never much of a dancer, son,” Harry said. “You used the ballroom to stage fake gun battles. You can do that on the Common. It’s right across the street.”

“On the Common there are no frogs,” Alexander said sullenly.

“Were there frogs in the ballroom? And what do you mean, there are no frogs on the Common? Why is the pond called Frog Pond?” Harry took Alexander over to the window to show him the patch of black water they could see across the street, through a stone gate.

“I don’t see any frogs.”

“All right, enough.” Setting him down, Harry lightly pushed the boy away. “Go and get ready for bed. Let me talk to your mother.”

She was searching through the kitchen cabinets for pots, for vases, for spoons.

Alexander hugged her. “Don’t worry, Mom,” he said. “It takes no time at all to find things. Dad sold most of it.”

“I sold the things we don’t need,” Harry said. “I kept our bed”—he arched his brows—“Alexander’s bed. The sofa.”

“You should have kept the malachite table,” said Gina, pointing to the window where an ugly old pedestal table stood romantically placed. “You’d have enough to make bail for a year.”

“I keep telling you and telling you about women who think they’re funny.”

“A few more moves and we’ll be right back in the North End,” Gina said, glancing around the cramped space. “Fitting to come around in such a circle, no?”

“I don’t think you understand the definition of a circle. For you, a circle would be ending up in Sicily. For me, in Barrington. Do you see how it works?”

Oh, she saw how it worked.

“Are we low on money?” she asked carefully.

“Of course not.”

“Is that why we moved?”

“Of course not. We have
more
than enough. We moved because I don’t want to waste our money foolishly. I didn’t think you’d want that either.”

“I don’t want that.”

“Good. Then we both want the same thing.”

Where was she going to go now? Salvo was gone.

What a thankless affair Thanksgiving was.

Three

“CAN YOU TRY
not to be upset with me all the livelong day?” said Harry as she was angrily cleaning up one night in December after Alexander had gone to bed.

“I’m not thinking of you at this precise moment,” said Gina. “My brother is gone.”

“I’m very sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry—”

“But perhaps if you stopped dragging our son to your violent uprisings advocating for peace, you could make me less upset.”

“I’m not advocating for peace. I’m advocating for revolution.”

“That right there is the gist of why I continue to be upset.”

She spent her time hiding from everyone else: her friends, her sister-in-law. How could she bear it? All she wanted to do was scream. She and Harry had reached a truce, a moment of kinship, a respite from disagreement when they had commended each other for selling Bellagrand and not ruining their life with Jenkins’s fake millions. How short-lived that truce had been. Like joy. Like everything.

“When did you become so ideologically inflexible?” she asked when she found him buried in Russian books near the window while she, like an asylum patient, wiped and rewiped the same wooden coffee table trying to make it shine.

“What do you mean? This is how I’ve always been.”

She showed him her skeptical face, but wondered was it true? Had he always been like this, and she had never noticed?

“Did you know that my sister has been taking our son on excursions around Boston with our old friend Ben?”

Gina did know, but she didn’t want to talk about it. Why would Esther do that? Why would she introduce Alexander to Ben? What was the point? To make trouble? But there were so many other details turning Gina’s insides upside down that this inexplicable mystery had remained unsolved. She didn’t ask Esther about it. She didn’t care to.

“Alexander invited him over for dinner,” Harry said.

“Oh. When is he coming?”

“You’re joking, right?”

“I am, yes.”

“Well, stop it. You’re not funny.”

“But there is so much to joke about. I see how you’ve handled things while I was searching for my brother. Leaving our seven-year-old son alone in the house. Getting yourself and him arrested, being charged with a felony. It’s all so humorous.”

Harry was dismissive. “I’m not concerned. The war is over. I’ll get a good lawyer before my hearing next month. It’ll be fine.”

“And then what? You’ll stop?”

“Stop what? My life’s work? No. That won’t happen.”

Gina threw down her useless rag, grabbed her own book, and headed for the bedroom. “You might want to put that lawyer on a retainer then,” she said.

She perched on the bed by Alexander’s side. He was under heavy blankets, covered up, cozy. Was he sleeping? He opened his eyes and stared at her, unblinking in the dim light from the street.

“How long have you been watching me, Mom?”

“Coming on eight years,
caro
.”

He sat up and hugged her. “Don’t be sad about your brother. Please. Promise me you won’t be sad anymore?”

She wiped her face behind his back so he wouldn’t see. “Okay, sunshine,
mio amore, mio amato figlio.
” She held him close, kissed his head, but he was the one patting her back, as if to say, there, there. “You helped your dad while I was gone?” She caressed his cheek. “And you were a good boy for Aunty Esther?”

“Of course,” he said. “Don’t tell Dad, but . . .” Alexander lowered his voice. “Aunty Esther’s friend Ben got me a revolver, Mom! A
revolver
!”

“Yes, she told me. Keep it in Barrington.”

“I know. I will. But do you know what Dad and I did while you were gone? He taught me how to play hockey!”

“He did?”

“Yes. We weren’t just getting arrested, you know. Though that was interesting. But I already knew how to skate, and then Dad bought us two hockey sticks and a puck and we went to Matthews Arena. It was so much fun! You have to come and watch. He says I’m good. I should join the hockey team when I go to grammar school. I can be as good as the Canadians.”

“Oh, better than the Canadians, I would hope.”

“The Bruins are playing again next week. Do you want to come to a game with us? It can be violent. Sometimes there is blood. Will you be all right with that?”

“I’ll manage.”

“Do you know what Dad told me?”

“No,
il mio cuore
.” She brushed the hair out of his face. “What did your dad tell you?”

“He told me that the Swedes are going to be the team to beat in the 1928 Olympic Games. He said they’re almost as good as the Canadians.”

“Then they must be really good.” She eased him down, covered him up. “Go to sleep. I don’t know why you’re still awake.”

“Because you came into my room and stared at me until I woke up and talked to you.”

She leaned over him. “Who is my beloved?”

“Me, me,” he said. “But Mom, don’t be upset at Dad about the arrest. He was great, shouting at the police. He was brave. He wasn’t afraid of them at all.” Smiling, remembering, Alexander pulled the blankets up to his neck. “He was like a soldier.”

Four

NOT LIKING THE GIST
of what Harry had been shouting about, the police told the crowd to disperse. Harry told the crowd not to listen. He yelled to them that strength in numbers was on their side. It was for this he was arrested and detained with Alexander. After he was forcibly taken into custody, he was charged not only with seditionary speech and disturbing the peace, but also with resisting the police. He found himself an excellent lawyer who was an underground member of the United Front. The lawyer took him on, but a few weeks later dropped him with no explanation, returning the entire retainer along with a terse letter.

When Harry confronted him—by going to the man’s residence, no less—the lawyer told him that, in professional circles, defending Harold Barrington was tantamount to displaying his party card on his lapel. The lawyer had already lost six clients, and his firm received another dozen angry letters from people threatening to take their business elsewhere. The lawyer would lose his practice if he continued to defend Harry. Despite their communist ties, he couldn’t do it. He was sorry. He was wearing a custom-tailored evening coat and gold cuff links when Harry called on him. His shoes were newly shined. His residence was a spacious mansion off Newbury Street, larger even than Harry’s former abode.

After weeks of searching, Harry admitted to Gina that he was facing difficulties he had not anticipated. Little did he know, he said, how hard it would be to find a lawyer whose socialist virtues were sturdy enough to withstand the shallow anxieties of the bourgeoisie.

Gina, doggedly wiping the table, dusting the shelves, told him to keep at it.

Harry tried. Everywhere he went, he was refused as a client. It was the last thing they needed, they all said, the kind of trouble he invited.

“When did you become so circumspect?” Harry asked accusingly of the seventh man who had turned him down.

“I have a good life,” the lawyer said. “Why would I risk it? Find someone whose life is in shambles—like yours.”

“My life is not in shambles,” said Harry, taken aback.

“Really? You come to my door under cover of night. Why don’t you come to my office during working hours?”

“I don’t want to upset your bosses. I don’t want them to put pressure on you to say no.”

“But eventually they’ll know I’m defending you, won’t they? Someone will see your name and mine joined together on the court docket?”

“It’s not just standing up for
me
,” Harry said. “It’s standing up for the rights of man.”

“I might believe that at the gentlemen’s club,” the man said, stepping back inside his front door. “But I don’t believe it in my paycheck.”

Five

IT WAS GINA
who finally came to Harry’s aid. She took the train to Cambridge, went to the Engineering Hall at Harvard’s graduate school campus, and asked to see Ben Shaw.

He was neither unhappy nor entirely surprised to see her. He left his office and together they stepped out into the frigid air. It was January, a bad month to be in Boston.

“We don’t have to walk, Ben. We can stay in the vestibule,” she said, covering up her shivering with her words.

“No, let’s walk for a bit.”

“At least it’s not snowing.”

“Yes. But snow makes everything new,” he said.

She responded not even with a breath as they crossed Cambridge Street and entered Harvard Yard.

“So, I heard about your outing with Esther and Alexander,” Gina said, diverting.

“Hardly an outing. We were across the street from your house.” Ben paused. “Harry wasn’t happy?”

She shook her head. “Not with you, or Esther, or Alexander—and certainly not with me, even though I was fifteen hundred miles away.”

“Perhaps if you were nearby, it wouldn’t have happened.”

“That’s exactly what Harry said.”

They walked silently for a few moments.

“I thought your contract was for three years,” she said. “You decided to stay?”

Ben shrugged. “Harvard tenure is not small bait. Ingersol got used to living here. In the winter she leaves me for four months and goes back to Colon with our daughters.”