A Fierce Radiance (23 page)

“So, gentlemen, how did you two make your ways to the hallowed halls of the Rockefeller Institute?”

Naturally, Stanton answered first…all straightforward and exactly what Rutherford would have expected, right down to the loving grandparents ready to take over when the parents died. When Stanton finished, Rutherford asked, “What about you, Catalano?”

“Oh, just the usual, especially compared to this guy here,” Catalano said, indicating his friend. Falsely blasé, Rutherford could spot it a mile away. The same cultivated sense of the blasé that he himself assumed when called upon to describe his supposed youth in Allentown, his family in trade. “Born upstate. Syracuse. Big family. Never an orphan. Went to Cornell and Harvard and then straight to the Institute. That’s it, all there is to tell.”

Not by a long shot, Rutherford knew. Of the two young men, Rutherford pegged Catalano as the greater idealist: it was harder to accept the lower salary offered by the Rockefeller Institute when your father was a factory worker, than when your father was a banker. Mentally he reviewed the industries of Syracuse: dishes, automobiles, soda ash, typewriters, if his memory served him (and he had a good memory for matters like that). But he suspected he wouldn’t be getting any more details from Nick Catalano this evening.

“Nick’s got a Ph.D. in chemistry as well as a medical degree,” Stanton said, with a pleasing generosity toward his friend’s accomplish
ments. “His background’s better than mine for the work we’re doing now.”

“Speaking of which,” Rutherford said, “my daughter mentioned all those milk bottles, bedpans, and jam jars. You fellas are at the forefront. That’s my kind of business. At the forefront. In every industry. Every endeavor. New things, whatever they are. Yes, I have a lot of fun.”

This was as far as he would go. He was planting a seed, that was all. A seed that signaled, sure, you’re idealists now, you’re working for the government and for the Rockefeller Institute now, but someday you might not be, and when that someday comes, I want you to remember me.

W
hen Claire stepped off the elevator at her father’s, the multilayered skirt of her evening gown rustled in the silence of the neo-Gothic front hall. She paused to get her bearings. As if from a great distance, she heard voices in the parlor. It was well after midnight, but she wasn’t tired. Instead she felt overattuned to the middle-of-the-night quiet and to the strange shadows thrown by the statuary. A kind of density filled the air, especially striking after the raucous high spirits at the office.

She walked down the hall and stood on the balcony overlooking the parlor. A massive fire, glowing and crackling, was burning in the fireplace where she’d hidden as a child. The three men sat in medieval-looking wooden chairs arrayed near the fireplace to catch the warmth. From the shape of their glasses, Claire knew what they were drinking. Rutherford had whiskey on the rocks. Jamie and Nick, brandy. Their naval dress uniforms reflected the shifting colors of the fire.

Claire wore a cashmere sweater over her otherwise bare shoulders, and she felt a chill. In mid-April, the nights were still cool. She wanted to be by the fire. Yet she held back, watching them. Jamie and Nick seemed to sit luxuriantly, as if they were enjoying a rare and slightly
illicit treat. No doubt they weren’t often invited to sip brandy in the double-height living room of a duplex apartment filled with Old Master paintings and facing Central Park. Although her father generally indulged in a Cuban cigar after dinner, they weren’t smoking. He’d probably offered, and when the doctors refused, he held back in deference to them, gentleman that he was.

The sounds of their voices filtered up to her, echoing off the stonework. She caught a few phrases here and there. Roosevelt, armaments, supply lines…they were discussing politics, business, the war. Jamie and Nick leaned forward in their chairs, seeming to enjoy a debate. Rutherford regarded them with a slight smile, taking it all in, as if he couldn’t believe his luck in chancing upon these two interesting fellows and helping out his daughter to boot.

Jamie’s face was bright in the firelight. She yearned to be beside him. She wanted to caress the line of his jaw, to kiss, ever so gently, his eyelids.

Finally they sensed her watching.

“Claire, there you are, at last,” Jamie said. He rose to welcome her as she joined them. He put his hands on her shoulders, taking away the cold.

L
eaving at 1:30
AM
, they managed to find a cab on East Seventy-ninth Street. When they reached the Institute to drop off Nick, the guard opened the gate and the taxi drove up the hill to the hospital.

“Is that Tia’s light on?” Claire said, looking up at the hospital.

Jamie bent forward to see. “Yes, it is.”

“No surprise there,” Nick said.

“Maybe she just leaves it on to make people think she’s working all night,” Claire said.

“I don’t think so,” Jamie said cheerfully.

“Not likely,” Nick agreed. He got out, and they exchanged good nights. Nick watched the taxi drive slowly down the hill. Forsythia
was blooming in the Institute gardens, the color ghostly in the shadows. He felt light-headed from the brandy. An unexpected jealousy filled him. How close those two seemed. They had an equality, a mutual support that he’d never experienced with the young women, sweet as they were, whom he typically dated. And that apartment of Rutherford’s. Where had the money come from for that?

Years ago, he’d made the choice to give up money as an end in itself and do the kind of work that interested him most. He didn’t want a high-paying private medical practice (even though his parents would probably have been most proud of that). He had a passion for medical research. When he was studying at Harvard, the common view was that only second-rate scientists went to pharmaceutical companies, so he wouldn’t do that. The Rockefeller Institute was the most prestigious medical research center in the United States. Coming as he did from Syracuse, with parents who did factory labor, the prestige meant a lot to him, he couldn’t deny it. At the Institute, he thought he’d found his true home. The only problem was the comparatively low salaries. Many of his colleagues had family money to back them up. What if he wanted to marry someday and have children? His wife and children certainly couldn’t live in the hospital’s residence rooms.

That look on Jamie’s face when he first spotted Claire entering the room. Nick wished he had that kind of love in his own life. He didn’t even know where to start, to find it. Except…he went inside and greeted the hospital guard, who doubled as the elevator operator at night. Nick hesitated for a moment and then gave the floor number of Tia’s lab, rather than his residence rooms. Reaching the floor, he said good night to the guard. He walked down the silent hallway to her lab. He’d been to see her several times after he got his new job, with the convenient excuse—which was the truth, after all—that he needed to learn about penicillin.

Tonight seemed different. Seeing the intimacy between Jamie and Claire made some part of him open into yearning. He’d stopped
thinking of Tia as Jamie’s baby sister a long time ago, but before tonight, she’d seemed too serious for him in every way. Of course he had to be careful with Tia. Anything with her
was
serious. He shouldn’t visit her if he didn’t intend to be serious. He evaluated himself: he
did
intend to be serious.

He stood at the doorway to her lab. Often she had visitors. Impromptu parties in the middle of the night. He listened for voices. If anyone else was there, he’d leave, go to his rooms and get some sleep. All was quiet. He knocked on the door.

He heard her voice, beckoning him on. At once he had an almost overwhelming feeling that this was exactly where he belonged.

I
n the taxi going downtown, Claire asked the driver to head over to Fifth Avenue. She loved Fifth Avenue late at night, when the usually bustling street was eerily deserted. They drove past the park, the Plaza Hotel, Bergdorf’s and Tiffany’s.

“I don’t recall you ever mentioning that your father is a multimillionaire,” Jamie said.

“Well, he is,” Claire said impatiently. She didn’t want to spend what could be a romantic drive downtown discussing her father.

Jamie laughed. “You’re annoyed at
him
because he’s a millionaire, or at
me
because I asked?”

Jamie always laughed at the beginning of potential arguments, diffusing her anger. “Both,” she said, although she was laughing now, too.

He put his arm around her, pulling her close. “Don’t worry, I won’t hold it against you.”

“Thank you.”

“I liked him quite a bit.”

“He’s charming, I know.” She shrugged.

“Don’t want to talk about him anymore?”

“That’s right.”

“No need to talk.” He kissed her on the lips, bringing her closer, and Claire pressed herself against him, meeting his kiss. Then Claire remembered the driver in the front seat, with his rearview mirror, and she pulled away. She rested her head on Jamie’s shoulder.

Rockefeller Center…the Public Library…the department stores Arnold Constable, Lord & Taylor, B. Altman’s. Madison Square with its blossoming canopy of trees. The arch of Washington Square in the distance…her city, her home, lent a clarity and a purity by the middle-of-the-night peace. The scents of spring flowed through the car window, a hyacinth wind upon her face, relaxing her after the work and tensions of the evening. Jamie rested his lips against her forehead.

The driver turned right on West Ninth Street. Claire squeezed Jamie’s hand, and he returned the pressure. Ninth to Christopher, the driver taking the turns gently on the narrow streets, and finally to Grove.

When they pulled up to the curb, the house was dark. The school play was tomorrow, and Charlie had campaigned for permission to spend the night at Ben’s house so they could practice their lines. Charlie had six lines, Ben had four, and they were determined to get them right. With Charlie out, Claire had given Maritza the night off and hired Tom to take Lucas out at ten.

“No one’s home.” She paused, not knowing how many words she needed to say. How explicit she had to be. “Would you like to stay?”

He hadn’t been expecting this. He’d assumed Charlie would be home. Now, at last, she was ready. Everything fell into place. He felt emotion choking him. He would have prepared himself better, paced himself through the evening, if he’d known this was how it would turn out. Even on a practical level, he would have planned better: he had an 8:00
AM
meeting with Dr. Rivers, and it was past 2:00 now. Luckily he was accustomed to nights with little sleep, and he didn’t care anyway if he was tired in the morning. He felt a sudden vulnerability. He pushed a wayward lock of her hair back into place.

“Of course I’d like to stay.” This he said in a self-righteous tone that made her laugh. He laughed also, and the moment of awkwardness was gone. They got out of the cab, he paid the driver, they were alone.

When Claire opened the front door, switching on the hall light, a heavy-lidded Lucas ambled over to greet them. He sniffed their feet, pressed his head against Jamie’s leg, then returned to his bed by the parlor fireplace, collapsing into sleep. Claire walked down the hall to the stairs, Jamie following her.

Now she faced a choice. Immediately upstairs to the bedroom, or downstairs to the kitchen first, to offer him a drink. She looked both ways, as if she were about to cross the street. She held the banister. She felt the downward pull of doubt. Of anxiety. She felt as if she’d never been with a man before, despite a husband and sex partners whose names and faces she couldn’t, at this moment, even remember.

Coming up behind her, he wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed her against his chest. Her cashmere sweater was soft against his hands, her hair soft against his cheek. He smelled the perfume in her hair.

He was waiting for her to decide, she understood that.
This is a time for firm resolve
—the words of a wartime leader whose name she couldn’t place came into her mind, Churchill probably. She smiled at this new application for the phrase, and her smile surprised him, coming, as it seemed, out of nowhere. She turned out of his embrace, took his hand, and led him up the stairs.

Upstairs…the peeling William Morris wallpaper, the well-worn Persian carpets, the bookcases overflowing, and the photographs covering the walls. The house had a lived-in clutter that made him feel comfortable. This could be his home, too. He only needed to bring a suitcase, and he would be home.

Once across the threshold of the bedroom, she turned to him. He slipped off her sweater. She unbuttoned his jacket.

Reaching for the zipper of her dress, fumbling with it, he said, “I’ve never taken off an evening gown.”

“It’s simpler than you might think,” Claire said, guiding his hand.

The gown fell to the floor, and Jamie placed his hands upon her breasts. She unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it down his arms. He undid the cuffs, pulled the shirt off. She pressed against him, their skin touching at last. She unbuckled his belt, undid his trousers, took him in her hand and in her mouth. As much as he enjoyed it, he put a stop to that before it was too late, pulling away from her, undoing her garters, rolling down her stockings. They were kneeling now upon the Persian carpet. Two desires warred within him: the urge to be fast and the urge to be slow; to fulfill his passion, or to prolong it; to be inside her while still thinking only of her fulfillment.

She maneuvered her mouth upon him once more.

“I need a turn,” he said.

“I am giving you a turn,” she paused to whisper, teasing, “A turn to accept what I’m giving you.”

“Then I also need time for you to accept what I want to give you.”

We might never have enough time, she said, although by then she wasn’t certain if she’d said it aloud. He knew her thoughts, though. Of that she was certain.

O
n Friday, May 22, Claire took the train from Atlanta, Georgia, back to New York. She dropped her film at the office and arrived home at 11:00
PM
. Maritza had left a note for her on the kitchen table, listing two telephone messages from Mack and reporting that she’d given Lucas his last walk for the day. And she’d attached a telegram. Claire’s fingers trembled a bit with expectation as she opened it. It was from Jamie, as she’d hoped.
Home this weekend. Love
,
J.

The surprise of his visit filled her with contentment. With luck, they’d find some time to be alone together, she thought as she made herself a drink and went out to the garden. She sat down and leaned her head against the back of the chair. The evening breeze was sweet. She was glad to have some time, even if it was after eleven, to relax and catch up with herself.

Over a month had passed since she and Jamie had first made love. A month filled with traveling for them both. For her, stories at a hog farm outside Fort Wayne, Indiana, and an aircraft factory in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Without making a conscious decision, Claire had slipped into the new role the magazine required of her. Charlie was safe at home with Maritza and sounded happy enough the few times she’d been able to get a long-distance call through to him. The calls were an extravagance, but she’d wanted to hear his voice. She and Jamie exchanged letters, which somehow felt better for them than trying to speak of their emotions down a staticky long-distance telephone line.

Claire let herself drift through the peaceful, almost-summer evening. The sound of giggling and murmured, half-serious protests reached her from a garden down the block. Teenagers in love, she decided. Somewhere a baby began crying and was gently hushed.

In the weeks that she’d been in and out of town, she’d walked Charlie to school exactly once. She remembered that day. It was May 7, and she’d woken to a concert of birdsong from the gardens along the block. As she’d walked Charlie to school, the crab apple trees bloomed like snowflakes along Grove Street, giving off a floating sweetness. The day before, the island fortress of Corregidor had fallen to the Japanese after a long, brutal siege. Many thousands of Allied troops had been taken prisoner.

Outside school that morning, the parents had been quiet. On her way to the subway, heading for the office, Claire sensed a silence on the streets. Corregidor…although it was on the other side of the earth, it felt as close as the Brooklyn side of New York Harbor. Claire had studied the sky. The day was magnificent, the sky clear blue, the air pure. Manhattan was an island, too, like Corregidor. In a gust of wind, crab apple blossoms blew off the trees and settled in the gutters. The morning newspapers had printed the final message telegraphed from Corregidor.
They are piling dead and wounded in our tunnel…. Get this to my mother…. Tell Mother how you heard from me. Stand by….
And then nothing, the telegraph operator dead or taken prisoner.

The following morning, she’d been off again. The story: female shipyard workers in Mobile, Alabama. Then, seven days in the life of an army induction center in Atlanta. She’d profiled boys entering the military who looked more like Charlie than like grown men. Claire met their mothers and fathers, simultaneously proud and nervous. She listened to stories of the Great War from the officers supervising the boys’ enlistments. How many of these boys would survive to come home again?

Claire quickly downed her gin and tonic and pushed the memory
of these boys from her mind. She went in, locked the back door, turned out the lights, and went upstairs.

Before going to bed, she looked in on Charlie. Sleeping soundly, he lay on his side, clutching his teddy bear. Although he’d given up the teddy bear years before, he’d retrieved it from his closet shelf soon after Pearl Harbor. Beside Charlie’s bed, Lucas sighed and turned in his sleep, revealing the almost-white fur of his chest and tummy. He barked softly, his front limbs pawing the air, as if he were chasing squirrels in his dreams.

When Charlie slept, he looked very young. As she had done since he was an infant, she checked for his breathing, watching the slight movement of the sheet up and down upon his back. In less than a decade, he would be old enough to serve in the military. The front lines were manned by boys.

When he was old enough to be drafted, maybe this war would still be raging. Or some other war would have taken its place. She’d be saying good-bye to him beneath the monumental arches and skylights of Pennsylvania Station, trying to hold back her tears until after he’d gone down to the train platform. How would she bear it? Her eyes welled with tears from imagining it. By then maybe she’d have more children, Jamie’s children, and they’d be crying at the station, too, seeing their brother off.

She looked out the window. Because of the finally enforced dim-out, she could see the stars. She found Orion’s belt. The lights of a plane flashed through the sky. The plane made her think of enemy bombers. In recent weeks, the Germans had been bombing British cities in retaliation for the RAF bombing of German cities. Exeter, Bath, York, Norwich…historic cities were the targets. The Germans called these the “
Baedeker
Three-Star Raids,” professing to use the guidebook to choose which cities to bomb.

How many stars did New York have in
Baedeker
?

If New York City were bombed, Greenwich Village would never
be a target—or so Claire tried to convince herself. Because of underground streams, the buildings were low. There were no targets of strategic or psychological importance. God and nature protected the neighborhood.

The plane banked toward the east. Claire imagined herself a passenger on that plane, gazing down at the Village. From the air, the West Village was a dark emptiness. Then she remembered: the Hudson River was only a few blocks away. The docks at the end of Christopher Street were a target. Bombs could go astray. In fact, a few blocks probably didn’t even qualify as “astray.” A few blocks either way were most likely considered part of the target. She’d read about German bombing raids on the London docks that wiped out nearby residential neighborhoods. You could tell when a bomb was headed toward you, Claire had read, because it sucked the oxygen from the air and trapped you suffocating in a vacuum.

The air raid warden shouted at someone down the street to either turn off the light or close the blackout shades.

After Corregidor, Charlie said that he no longer wanted to take the subway. What if a bomb fell on the street above and blocked the subway stairs, and they were trapped? he’d asked her. Much better to be on a bus if a bomb fell nearby, Charlie said, because at least they could run away. Much better to take the George Washington Bridge if they needed to leave Manhattan, instead of risking the Holland Tunnel, because if a bomb fell by mistake into the Hudson River, maybe they could escape from the bridge, but they could never escape from the tunnel. The water would pour in like a tidal wave. But what if the target was the bridge? The bridge was a logical target, Charlie assured her. Then they’d be better off in the tunnel.

Charlie had explained this while he and Claire sat at the counter of their neighborhood Schrafft’s at Fifth Avenue and Thirteenth Street. While he talked, he devoured a gigantic chocolate-marshmallow sundae. They’d come here after school, when the restaurant was crowded
with children and their mothers, grandmothers, or nannies. It was also crowded with men in uniform on leave in New York, four army privates at one table, three sailors a few tables down, a Marine Corps officer and his girl dining in a corner.

Claire didn’t share with Charlie that she harbored similar fears, had thought through similar options. The newspapers, magazines, and radio were filled with advice on what to do if New York were bombed. City authorities assured the press that thousands of municipal employees were trained to restore basic services like electricity and water. Nonetheless, Claire had stockpiled candles, matches, jugs of water, and cans of food and condensed milk in the basement, not forgetting a can opener, in case they had to survive without the daily services provided by a functioning city. She’d kept these preparations secret from Charlie.

The plane banked again and went out of her view. Worrying was futile. She’d done what she could to prepare. Now all she could do was wait. She was luckier than most: she had Jamie in her life, and her father, so she didn’t face the future alone.

She pulled the blanket over Charlie’s shoulders and left his room. Following the rituals that had comforted her since her childhood, she bathed and prepared for bed. After turning out the light, she reviewed her plans for the weekend. On Saturday evening, she and Charlie were planning to have dinner with her father. Now Jamie could join them. She’d invite Tia also. After their evening at the River Club, Claire had been feeling more willing to include her father in plans, more willing to bring together the disparate parts of her life. On Sunday, she’d arrange for Charlie to spend the afternoon at Ben’s house, so that she and Jamie would have a few hours alone. Or better yet, she’d call Hannah, a high school girl in the neighborhood who looked after kids on the weekends. Hannah could take Charlie and Ben to a movie. They’d like that; in fact they’d consider it a treat. She’d telephone Hannah first thing in the morning. As Claire fell asleep, she imagined mak
ing love to Jamie on Sunday afternoon, their desire especially strong from their time apart. In the afterglow, the sheet lightly upon them, she’d fall asleep with his arms around her, the fragrant spring breezes enveloping them.

T
hat same Friday evening, May 22, Jamie’s train pulled into Pennsylvania Station at 11:30
PM
. A minor miracle: he’d actually made it back to New York, and only three hours late. Probably too late to go to Claire’s. He didn’t want to wake Charlie, and Claire needed her sleep, too. He’d phone in the morning at a proper hour and invite himself over for breakfast. Besides, he wanted to shower and shave before seeing her, and change his clothes. He reeked of the cigarette smoke that filled the interior of the train.

Tonight he could visit Tia. Share a midnight snack with her, since without doubt he’d find her in the lab. They hadn’t had a meal alone together in a while. He missed her.

He retrieved his small suitcase and waited his turn amid the packed crowd exiting the train. On the platform, he followed along with the others to the exit, maneuvering up the narrow staircase. The woman in front of him was gray-haired and dressed in black: an elderly widow who went slowly, gripping the handrail.

“May I carry your bag?” he asked, to quicken the pace. When he put his hand lightly on her elbow to assist her, she smiled up at him. He saw more than gratitude in that smile. He saw a kind of closeness, as if he were her son. She offered him her bag, more of a canvas grocery bag than a suitcase.

Arriving at the top of the stairs, the cavernous station opened before him. The old woman was pulled into the embrace of her waiting family. He gave the bag to her daughter.

The concourse was crowded even at this late hour: lounging officers, clutches of parents and children, lovers gripping hands…the whole human drama of arrival and departure. Enlisted men slept against the
walls, using their duffel bags as pillows. Young draftees in civilian clothes lined up for the trains that would carry them to their induction and basic training. The Red Cross’s coffee and doughnut stand welcomed anyone in uniform. A sign pointed to the USO canteen. A woman with an Irish lilt in her voice announced the trains: “Midnight to Chicago, boarding at the east gate, track twelve.”

How many times had he been in Pennsylvania Station? A hundred? And still his reaction was like the first time. The soaring arches and steel girders gave him a sense of freedom. Of exhilaration and exaltation.

Suddenly in front of him was a man he knew, accompanied by an older man he didn’t recognize. His mind took a moment to catch up with this unexpected situation. Someone he knew, waiting at the station. Waiting for him, or for someone else? Jamie strode forward.

“Nick! Good to see you!” He reached to shake Nick’s hand, pat him on the back, greet him like who he was, his best friend.

But Nick didn’t smile. Nick didn’t pat his back, didn’t meet his eye. Jamie stopped. Waited. Suspected. Knew. Claire. Something had happened to Claire. An accident. Her travels, and the risks she took to get the right shot. The archways, the skylights, the station’s midnight bustle…everything faded around him. There was only the here and now, this small circle of space, these two men before him.

Nick said nothing. Seemed incapable of saying anything. The other man stepped forward.

“Lieutenant James Stanton?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“Detective Marcus Kreindler. New York City Police Department.” The detective was white-haired, strong rather than stocky. His face was lined with a thousand small wrinkles. “I’m afraid we’ve got some bad news for you. Let’s find a quiet place to talk.” He motioned into the distance, in the direction of the Savarin coffee shop.

“Whatever it is, you can tell me right here.”

Neither Nick nor Kreindler spoke. Did he have to force them?

“Nick,” he demanded. “Is it Claire?”

“Claire?” Nick seemed to wake up. He looked confused. “Claire Shipley?” Nick thought for a moment, figuring this out. “No, no, not Claire Shipley. I mean, I don’t know anything about Claire. I haven’t seen her. I don’t know where she is. Do you know where she is?”

Kreindler intervened. Put his big, strong arm on Jamie’s shoulder. “Lieutenant, it’s your sister. We believe it’s your sister.”

S
omeone had combed out her hair. Jamie wondered who. He seldom saw her hair combed out, long, around her shoulders. Framing her face, as the saying went. The heavy sheeting was pulled up to her chin, with a lighter sheet covering her face. It was this lighter sheet that Detective Kreindler pulled off to reveal her.

Despite the pennies placed on her eyelids to keep them closed, and despite the scarf tied around her head to keep her jaw closed, she looked perfect. At any moment she would wake up, take off that silly scarf, climb off the table, get dressed, and walk out with them. They’d go for a walk across the Institute grounds, where the azalea were in bloom.