Bellagrand: A Novel (62 page)

“Gina, please!” Esther cried. “Let him go! If he wants to go so badly, let him. You and Alexander stay here.”

A trembling Gina hung her head.

“Esther, we told you,” Harry said. “We are all going to the Soviet Union.”

“Gina, listen to me. I will take care of everything for you. The citizenship thing, I’ll fix it—”

“No!” Harry became red in the face.

“You will never have to worry . . .”

“You’re barking up the wrong tree, Esther. A loan for the passage is all we need.”

“I will never give you a cent for that.”

“Did you come here to tell us you
won’t
help us?” Harry scoffed. “Why even come?”

“I came here . . .” Esther couldn’t finish. “I will not be an accomplice to the end of . . .” She stepped toward the silent Gina. “You’re a
mother
!” she cried in a whisper. “You are
so
lucky. You’ve been blessed with motherhood. Think of your son!”

Another sway from Gina before Harry’s indignation reached full bore. “Don’t speak to her that way, Esther,” he said. “Don’t talk to her about things you don’t understand.”

“You think
I
don’t understand what’s happening?”

“I don’t think you do.”

“
She
doesn’t understand what’s happening!”

“Don’t say
she
! She’s standing in front of you!”

“Or maybe she understands exactly what’s happening!” Esther was breathless. “Gina, please!”

Harry raised his hand. “Enough. Leave her alone. You always were an apple-polisher, Esther. Always wanted Father’s money. And now that you have all of it, you won’t help us even a little.”

“I didn’t want his money, you imbecile! I wanted him to think about me one-quarter of the time he spent thinking about you—his whole life!” Incensed, she addressed only the trembling woman in front of her. “Are you going to tell me, Gina, that fathers and sons have a special bond? Is that why you’re going to ruin Alexander’s life? Because
now
you can’t separate father from son? Do you think you can make up for the past? Do you think Harry even
knows
what a father–son bond is?” Esther laughed. “They hadn’t spoken since the Russo–Japanese War! If it weren’t for Alexander, Father would have died and Harry never would have called him. What kind of a special bond does it require for a son not to come to his father’s funeral?”

“He threw me away,” Harry said. “He turned his back on me. I will never turn my back on my own son.”

“You’re turning your back on him by trying to kill him!” Esther yelled. “And Father didn’t throw
you
away. You threw
us
away. For
her
!”

“Don’t talk to my wife that way!”

“I wasn’t talking to her, I was talking to you!” Esther clenched her hands into fists, upbringing be damned. “My brother is a fool,” she said to Gina, her frantic, desperate voice hardening. “But
you
are deluded. You think he will love you if you go with him to the Soviet Union?”

“Esther, that’s enough!”

“No, it clearly isn’t!” Esther lost all composure. “You think because you became an anarchist, my brother married you? Because you spouted inanities about social conditions and market value? Don’t you understand
anything
?” She uttered a wrenching cry. “Gina, you will
always
come a distant second to whatever it is he wants first. I know something about this. You’ve been with him twenty-five years. Haven’t you understood that yet? He went to prison, and didn’t care that he left you behind. He promised you a life of plenty and then wasted the only inheritance from our dead mother paying his lawyers so he could spend Saturdays on a soapbox instead of playing hockey with his son and taking you dancing. Look at where you’re living! God knows what else he spent Mother’s money on. And now that he’s run out of options, taken away your citizenship, forced your family into an impossible corner, he has somehow convinced you that life will be sweeter in the Soviet Union.” A mirthless laugh. “And you believe him?”

“Yes,” Harry said, “she does.”

Esther slapped Gina across the face.

“Esther! My God!”

“What kind of a mother are you?” Tears rolled down Esther’s face. Tears rolled down Gina’s. She hadn’t lifted a hand to defend herself. “What’s wrong with you? This is abuse, this is malicious negligence.
You
should be in jail—for endangering the life of a minor. You are a
terrible
mother!”

“Who are you comparing her to?” Harry yelled, yanking his sister away from Gina. “
Our
mother? This mother doesn’t desert her own children!”

Esther gulped to keep herself from retching. She felt physically sick. “How can I not get through to you, brother?” she whispered. She implored the speechless Gina. “How can I not get through to
you
, a woman, a mother?”

“Get out, Esther,” said Harry. “We’ve had enough.”

What happened to our life, Harry? Esther wanted to say. What happened to our family? There were four of us once, and we had such a full and good life. And one by one everyone has up and flown from me, through sadness, illness, death, lack of love—and now you. You’re the only family I have left. You, your wife, my beloved boy. Once you leave, I will have nothing. You’re going to a dreadful place, yes, but you’re also leaving
me
, and that feels so wrong. How can you not understand that? Do I have to even say it?

She didn’t.

She couldn’t.

She picked up her purse, her hands shaking, her fingers numb, picked up her purse, but not her hat, because she had forgotten to bring one. Very carefully, so as not to trip or faint, she walked across the empty living room, her heels tapping out the uneven rhythm of growing distance on the wood floor, opened the front door, and was gone.

Outside, she slumped against the gate until she felt able to cross Beacon Street to the Public Garden where Alexander was kicking a ball with some friends.

She called for him. He ran to her.

“Are we going?”

“No, I’m sorry,” Esther said. “You have to stay here. But I have to go.”

He looked disappointed. “I promised Teddy.”

“I know. Teddy and Belinda will understand.”

“Can I come next weekend?”

She pushed the hair from his forehead with the tips of her thin unsteady fingers. “I think you’re about to embark on quite an adventure. So I don’t know about next weekend.”

“Dad says not before Christmas.”

“Oh. Well, if you’re right, maybe I’ll see you for the holidays then.” She opened her arms. “Come, give your aunty a hug.” He was such a good boy, Esther thought, letting her embrace him, even though his friends were watching. She held him to her, eyes shut tight,
Please please please, don’t let him see me break down.
She kissed his head, and took a deep breath.

“Alexander,” she said, stepping away, still holding his hands. “I’m going to tell you a little prayer, a short psalm. Will you promise you’ll try to memorize it?” She even managed a carved-on smile.

He rolled his eyes mightily. “Mom is always trying to get me to remember this or that.”

“She is right to. Now listen:
Thou shall not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day, nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness, nor for the destruction that wasteth by noonday, a thousand shall fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near thee.”

Alexander stared into his aunt’s wretched face. “You want me to remember
all
of that?”

“Yes. Can you try?”

He must have noticed the despair graying her features. He frowned. “Okay, Aunty Esther. Don’t get so worked up. I’ll try. I promise. Later, though. My friends are waiting.”

“Yes, of course. Later. Moses wrote that prayer to help himself during his forty years in the wilderness. Repeat it to yourself, until it is written on your heart.”

Alexander chuckled. “Is that where you think I’m going, Aunty Esther? To forty years in the wilderness?”

“Of course not! It’s just a metaphor. A figure of speech.”

“Which part? The forty years, or the wilderness?”

Esther didn’t reply right away. “I’m hoping both.”

“After the wilderness, what did Moses find?”

“The promised land.” She was barely audible.

“That’s funny. That’s where Dad says we’re going now. The promised land.”

“Live how you wish, Alexander,” Esther said. “Your grandfather would be so proud of you. You are a Barrington. A child of privilege, a child of liberty. The advantage of being born a Barrington is that you have the freedom to choose your path in life.”

Alexander grinned. “Like my father before me, right?”

“Yes, my dearest heart,” said Esther, glancing around for a bench to fall on. “Just like your father before you.”

“Aunty Esther,” Alexander said, lowering his voice, “can you please tell my parents I really want a dog for Christmas?”

“A
live
dog?”

He gave her a funny look. “Yes, silly. Of course a live one.”

“I thought maybe a stuffed toy?”

“I’m too old for toys.” He smiled. “Except for the
toys
I leave at your house.”

“Of course. I’ll be sure to put in a good word for you.”

“My second request is a Colt I can keep in my own house.”

“You know your father will never allow that.”

“I know. But you could tell them if I’m going to grow up to be a soldier, I need to keep a gun in my house.”

“A
real
Colt?”

The boy stared at her, arching his eyebrows.

“Of course. I’ll be sure to let them know.”

“My third wish is for a big red sled. Like everybody else has in Boston but me.”

She tapped on her temple. “Got it all right here. Dog, Colt, sled.” Reaching out, she patted his smooth cheek.

He smiled, and ran from her, calling back, “Goodbye, Aunty Esther!”

It was a rare mild day in Boston in December, dry and fine, and the sun was out. She watched him approach his friends, his aunt already forgotten.
Goodbye, my darling boy.
She cast her eyes away from the bonfire in the day, from the conflagration of all that was most precious to her heart. Everything burned down.

She turned on her fine court heels, out of habit reached up to adjust her nonexistent hat, her fingers fumbling for the invisible ribbons under her chin, and stumbled out, with blind eyes searching for Clarence, for the car parked somewhere on Tremont Street.

Harry and Gina left Boston with Alexander two weeks before Christmas. The American Communist Party and Gina’s bartered diamond ring paid for the passage to the Soviet Union. They never saw or spoke to Esther again.

Chapter 20

H
ARRY’S
F
AVORITE
B
OOK

W
HEN HE WAS PACKING,
Alexander found
The Man Without a Country
, a book he hadn’t read in a couple of years. It had been collecting dust on his shelf. Taking a break from the chore of deciding which of his few things he would take with him, Alexander perched on the bed, opened the slim volume and began to read. It took him no more than forty minutes to devour the story of Philip Nolan and his unfortunate exile. He lost himself in the book, and as he closed it, he heard his parents shouting at him from down the hall. The suitcases had to be packed and ready in two hours. Was he even close?

“I’m almost done!” he shouted, continuing to sit on the bed. When he heard his father’s footsteps, he jumped up and pretended he had been working hard.

“Alexander, your room looks just as it did this morning,” Harry said. “Which is to say unpacked.”

“No, no,” said Alexander. “It’s an illusion. I’m almost ready. I just have to get dressed, and find my Boy Scout tie, and then I can go, I think.”

“You think so?” Harry looked around. “In ninety minutes, whatever is not in your suitcase is not coming with you. It’s that simple.”

Alexander picked up the short story he had just read. “Dad, look at this book I found. Wasn’t this your favorite? Mom told me it was.” He showed it to his father. “Dad, it’s the saddest story. This man hates America, and as punishment he is exiled and when he wants to come back, he can’t.”

Harry took the book out of Alexander’s hands and threw it emphatically in the trash. It made a loud thud as it hit the metal container. “It’s nonsense, Alexander. Tripe and utter nonsense. I was a child when I read it. Little did I know how vapid it was. You’re not taking it with you. Get back to your packing. Please. Your mother will blame
me
if you’re not ready. Have you looked under your bed for your tie?”

Alexander stared into the bin where
The
Man Without a Country
lay broken-spined and discarded. “I don’t normally keep clothes under my bed, Dad,” he said. “Do you?”

“Well, then, find it, clever clogs. Eighty-five minutes.” Harry walked out of the room, his shoes making a stern tap-tap on the wooden floor.

Alexander studied the
National Geographic
map of the United States his mother had hung in his room to help him with his lessons. Turning to the mirror, he theatrically clenched his fist, furrowed his brow, deepened his voice, tried to make himself look as intense and fierce as he imagined Philip Nolan might have looked, and whispered, his clenched hand shaking, the other pointing to the reflected map of America, “
You see? I have a country!
”

Chapter 21

T
HE
S
NAKE AND THE
F
ALCON

G
IA, LOOK! ARE YOU
looking?” Harry’s excitement was infectious. “You have to admit they’re amazing. I’ve never seen anything like these Alps. This is just—look how close we are! We can almost touch them.”

He was right. They could almost touch them. The train raced its way along the side of the carved-out mountain, perilously plunging into tunnels, nearly grazing the rocky cliffs. Alexander said it was like a roller-coaster ride on Revere Beach during the summer fair. Which is better? she asked, but he didn’t reply.

In the valleys outside Gina’s window were farms, and fields, and women working. One woman, struggling uphill, carried her son on her hip and a large metal bucket. Both looked too heavy for her, because she was so small, but somehow she balanced, she managed. Gina watched Alexander watching the woman, her little boy, her bucket. He was tall now, and big, but it wasn’t so long ago that she had carried him everywhere on her hip the way that woman was carrying her own son.

“Dad is right, Mom. It is beautiful here. What country are we in now? Austria?”

Gina’s eyes didn’t leave Alexander, sitting across from her by his father’s side.

I’ve seen this beauty, she wanted to say. I’ve lived with beauty my whole life. I grew up at the foot of Etna. We were born and raised looking out at the peak of that majestic, fearsome volcano. When Salvo, Alessandro, and I climbed the hills, we could see all the way down to the blue Catania. We swam all year round in the Ionian Sea. I know what beauty is. I’ve seen
donne contadine
carry their children. There is no reason to romanticize it. It was easier for me to raise my son in Boston than it was for my mother to raise me and my brothers on the outskirts of Belpasso in a hut with no running water. Many years ago we sailed to America because my father wanted to give me and my brothers a chance at something more than carrying buckets of water and milk uphill along with our hip-sized children. He who cut hair and made violins, though he himself had never played the violin, the barber of Belpasso, the greatest man I’ve ever known, the love of my young life, he wanted us to study, to learn, to become successful, to become anything we wanted. Even me, a girl, his only daughter. He wanted me not to be defined by my sex or my children. Gina studied her son, sitting next to his occupied father, forehead pressed against the glass, gazing at the mountains. And yet—here I am, defined by my one child. I am defined more by the one child I have than my father’s mother was by the twelve children she had. My motherhood is undiluted by quantity.

They were moving down the mountain. Soon the Alps would be behind them, the way America was, the way Italy was. They would leave Austria, be in Hungary, then Poland, they would switch trains, push east and north past Warsaw, be in Moscow in two days, three? Moscow. To think. Her fingers trembling, Gina glanced across at Harry. The image maker, the pulpit maker, the objection maker. His objection had been first to her youth, then to her anarchy, then to her love. To the ties she imposed on him, to the conventions of a normal life she forced on him, to the baby she desperately wanted from him, at whatever the cost. He objected to her desire to live as a normal woman, not as a revolutionary. He objected to it all. He didn’t want the upper-class life any more than he wanted the ghetto of Lawrence or the mansions of heaven or the whiteout of Bellagrand, their one brief shining moment in the blinding sun.

Alexander coughed. Instantly Gina blinked, came to. “Why are you coughing?”

“I am a child, Mother. A human being. I got a piece of bread stuck in my human child throat. I coughed to clear it.”

“Come here, let me feel your forehead.”

“Leave him alone, Gina. He’s fine.”

“I said come here. Are you sick?”

Dutifully he came and squeezed in between her and the window. “I’m fine. I coughed.” But because he was Alexander, he coughed again, dramatically hacking and doubling over. “Just kidding, Mom,” he said when she grabbed him by the shoulders and started pounding his back. “I’m fine. You’ve got to learn to relax. Otherwise you’ll soon be just like Dad.”

They both looked across at Harry, now sitting by himself, reading, making notes in those Cyrillic hieroglyphs he had been studying. He looked over at them, somber and unsmiling. “What is it?” he said. “I’m practicing Russian. Which is what you should be doing instead of clowning around, coughing, reminiscing like silly children.”

“But I am a silly child, Dad.”

“Stop it.” Harry looked down into his books. Gina and Alexander turned back to each other, and to their mountains. She gave the boy some chocolate, and he nibbled on it, not taking his eyes from the river streaming through the valley, from the bare trees in brown contrast against the sky. She stroked his black hair. He would need another haircut soon. His hair grew too fast. Like him.

“Are you excited, son?”

“About what? Oh.” He paused. “
That
.” He sucked on the last of the chocolate. “Sure. Why not? Aren’t you?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Hey, Mom, did we bring any money for this adventure?” he asked. “Dad told me we won’t need any in Moscow. But he was joking, right?”

“I wasn’t joking, son,” Harry said. “We didn’t bring any money because we don’t need any money. The Soviet government will set us up, and then I will find work. We’ll be fine. That’s the whole point. We are not going to be defined by how much we have—”

“But by how much we don’t?”

“Don’t be fresh.”

“Sorry.” He nudged his mother. “Is that true, Mom?”

“Yes, don’t be fresh.”

Gina did not want to catch Alexander’s eye when he posed his question, when he turned to her searching her face for the truth. Putting her arm around him, she drew him to her and put a palm over his face. She jostled him a bit, distracted him, and soon they turned their gazes once again to the countryside beyond their windows, watching the Danube flow past them . . . hours . . . days . . . through Belgrade, through Budapest.

“Mom, what was that thing you used to sing to me? I can’t remember. But you used to do this thing, when you held me like this. You would say words and kiss me between them.”

“I kiss you all the time.” To prove it, she kissed him. “What words?”

“I don’t know. Something singsongy. For bedtime.”

“How did it go?”

“Are you listening? I don’t know. Something like . . .” He tried to remember. “My bubby rubby bug. My hip, my bubbiness, my bug, my bug, my bug.”

She laughed. “Yup, that’s it.”

“Mom!”

“What? You got it. Exactly right.”

He tickled her to get her to stop teasing him. “How did it really go?”

She took his head in her hands. “My bubby rubby bug—” She kissed him.

“Mom!” He tried to get free, but she wouldn’t let him. “Are you going to tell me, or are you just going to sit here and joke?”

She pretended to think about it. “I’m going to sit here and joke.”

He continued to tickle her.

She continued to laugh.

“You two are so loud, I can’t hear myself think,” Harry said, putting down his books and getting up. “How long are these childish games going to continue?”

They pretended to quiet down. Harry stepped out of the compartment to stretch his legs.

As soon as the door closed behind him, Gina spoke. “Don’t worry, son,” she said in a low voice, rushing through her words. “Don’t tell your dad, but I brought a little something with us. A small nest egg. Just in case. You know? For a rainy day.”

Alexander studied her face. “I thought we were broke. That’s what Dad said. That’s one of the reasons we had to leave, he said. We had nothing left.”

“Well, he’s right.” She swallowed, dry-mouthed. “Still, though. A few extra dollars to exchange for rubles might come in handy, in case we need something.”

“Where did you get it? Did it come with you from Italy?”

“From Italy? When I was fourteen?” She ruffled his black head. “No, rubby bug. I didn’t bring it from Italy. From there we truly came with nothing. What money we had saved, we spent on my father’s funeral. Your grandfather’s. The one you are named after.”

“I know who I’m named after, Mom,” Alexander said. “Where did you get the money from then, if we have no money?”

“From a secret place.”

“What place?”

“A green valley surrounded by mountains,” Gina said. “An isolated, forever happy land far away from the troubles of the outside world. A mythical kingdom.”

“If it’s mythical, how is the money real?”

After she found out what Harry had really been up to behind her back, and she started to make plans to take Alexander to Florida, Gina had gone to the bank. Back then, there was still plenty of money, although less than she had expected. After she returned from Miami and discovered that Harry had moved them to a smaller place and sold their furniture, she intended to redeposit it, but never got the chance.

Hundreds of parchment notes, crisp, clean, recently minted. A stash so slim it was barely a bump in the smallest pocket of her purse on the train seat next to her, barely a dent sewn carefully into the silken lining.

And although she had initially felt slight remorse for holding on to it instead of paying their rent or their phone bill, once she discovered what Harry had wasted their money on, she regretted only one thing—not that she had taken it, but that she hadn’t taken more. Better her family to have kept it than the Workers Party. And the money wouldn’t have made much difference to Harry in the end. One more tithe to the
Daily Worker
, one more payment to Domarind. What hubris to think that her tidy sum could have tamped down his lofty dreams.

Blinking, she smiled at her son. She touched his face. She pressed her fingers to his mouth in a shh. “I saved it instead of spending it, in case
you
might need it.”

Alexander giggled. “What do I need money for, Mom? I’m a child.”

“You’re not always going to be a child, are you?”

“You better not tell Dad. Ever. He won’t forgive you for keeping secrets.”

“Perhaps,” she said, having never been forgiven. “I’m hoping we won’t need it. But if we do, or if, God forbid, something happens to me, there is enough to take care of things for you.”

He frowned. “What do you mean, if something happens to you?”

She half-smiled. “I’m not getting any younger, Alexander.”

“Hmm. I suppose not. But, Mom, no one gets any younger.”

“You’re right about that.”

“Dad is not worried.”

“Dad is never worried about anything.”

“Are
you
worried? About moving to Russia?”

She smiled. “No,
mio caro figlio
. I’m not worried either.” She kissed him. “
My lovely, living boy
,” she said, kissing him between each word. “
My hope
”—kiss—“
my happiness
”—kiss—“
my love, my life, my joy
.” Kiss, kiss, kiss.

“That’s it,
that’s
the lullaby!”

“You’re telling me? I
know
.”

Harry returned, sat down.

“You two have settled down, I hope?”

“Dad,” Alexander said, “did you say the Soviet Union is a socialist utopia?”

“Yes, son.” He opened his Russian books, took out his notepad, his pen.

“Did you know that in Greek, the word
utopia
comes from
ou
, meaning
no,
and
topos
, meaning
place
?”

“The English word is a homonym, Alexander, don’t think you’re so clever. The first syllable, if rendered as
eu
, means
good
.”

“Like I was saying. A good place that doesn’t exist.”

“It exists. I’m not going to talk about it anymore to win over you or your mother. Very soon, you will see for yourselves. Now say,
menya zovut Aleksandr
.”

“
Menya zovut Aleksandr
,” the boy dutifully repeated, and then, leaning to his mother and lowering his voice, whispered, “Tell me the number in Russian, see if I will understand. It’s good practice for me. How much?”

“How much what?” said Harry.

“Nothing, Dad. Mom is teaching me how to count in Russian. Tell me, Mom,” he whispered.

She was silent, struggling, ambivalent. “
Dvatsat tysach dollarov
,” she finally whispered back.

Alexander gasped.

“What’s wrong?” Harry looked up. “What did you see, son?”

“Nothing, Dad, nothing.” He sat, his mouth agape, his astonished eyes unblinking.

“That’s how you know you are fluent in Russian,” Gina said. “If you can understand spoken numbers. It’s one of the most difficult things to grasp in a foreign language. I know how hard it was for me in English.”

Alexander slumped against the cloth seats. He glanced at his unaware and busy father, avoided catching his mother’s eye, and turned to the window, placing his forehead on the December glass. “What are we headed to,” he whispered, “if that’s for the
just in case
?”

Gina didn’t answer.

Soon Harry and Gina closed their eyes. Night fell. Only Alexander remained awake, catching the shadows of the mountains, the black peaks, the leafless trees, the needle spires, all fading from view. Teddy’s house, where his family lived, Teddy’s big house in Barrington, with a mother, a father, two sisters, and two grandparents, cost three thousand dollars. A Rolls-Royce his Aunty Esther once told Alexander she was thinking of buying cost twelve thousand dollars. And here was his mother, headed to
utopia
, with over six Teddy mansions or nearly two aunty Rolls-Royces stuffed in her back pocket, for the
just in case
.

For reasons he didn’t understand and didn’t want to, Alexander shivered, even though he and his mother were sitting close and were both covered by an itchy wool blanket. He hoped his mother was just being cautious. She had a tendency to be like that, just as she fussed over his coughing. Perhaps girls who came from volcanic Sicilian villages whose fathers were barbers and violin makers, who once had nothing, tended to be more careful about relocations. But Alexander felt queasy now that he saw the world through the prism of the troubling greenbacks. It was as if the money had tainted something inside him, had stained his anticipation of the bright future. Instead of excitement he began to feel dread.