An Unfinished Season (18 page)

There he goes, I said. A tomb of secrets.

But Aurora did not reply. She was watching him.

Then I decided that Mr. Stevenson was done with all that and was en route to his farm in Libertyville, a pretty rural community on the margins of the North Shore, there to meet an attractive young woman, a refreshing gin and tonic in his backyard garden, dusk falling, something on the phonograph, cornfields all around, hummingbirds in the air. There had been rumors in the campaign of his liaisons with women, society women from Chicago and New York. They were fond of Adlai, having known him for years, and discovered soon enough that there was raw romance in a political campaign, a festive high-stress atmosphere not unlike an opening at the Art Institute or a premiere at Orchestra Hall, a rush of adrenaline observing America from the rear platform of a Pullman car and of course all America watching back and deciding it did not like what it saw, a nondescript middle-aged man in a summer suit that looked one size too small, a Princeton man, an egghead, a quipster. Not a man of the common experience, a stranger to ordinary American life. I remembered hearing that the governor's advisers were divided on the value of news photographs of the candidate with women. Voters might get the wrong idea, not that he was a libertine, exactly, but that the bedroom or even the suggestion of the bedroom had no place in a political campaign. Impossible to know where such suggestions would lead. The other side argued that was exactly the idea the voters should have, the image of a country gentleman irresistible to women, owing to the other rumor, baseless but persistent. He was a bachelor and that raised troubling questions. A president was president of all the people, not only the bachelor portion. The divorce was worrisome also. Something turbulent about it. A divorced bachelor could not relate to the troubles of the average American family and so it was helpful to have photographs of the candidate with attractive women, normal middle-aged women with children of their own, along with the usual gallery of Nebraska farmers and Pittsburgh steel workers and, now and then, a Negro. The other rumor, the baseless but persistent rumor, rarely spoken out loud, was especially worrisome. Rumors in a political campaign were like airdropped propaganda leaflets in a war—exhausted troops read them and said, Well, it's possible, isn't it?

I said, Do you think he's attractive to women?

Aurora said, He's attractive to me. I don't know about women generally. But he likes us, so naturally we'd like him back.

Aurora waved at the governor but he did not see her. He had paused to admire a black prewar Cadillac convertible at the curb, its top down, the same model FDR used in his travels around Washington. Adlai Stevenson's expression was unreadable, only a trace of a wistful smile as he turned abruptly and continued on in the dappled sunlight of late afternoon, until he turned the corner and was lost to view.

There's a man with secrets, I said.

Secrets
kept
, Aurora said. And she waited a moment before adding, He's a friend of my father's. Jack was a sort of adviser. Adlai appointed him to one of his task forces on mental health or something.

Have you met him?

Of course, she said.

Did he tell you any secrets?

She laughed and said he hadn't, except for jokes.

Wonderful raconteur, she added.

I told Aurora my carnal speculation concerning the destination of the former governor of Illinois, an attractive woman in his back yard at the Libertyville farm, dusk falling, hummingbirds in the air.

A woman definitely, she said.

Do you think so really? He's old. He's way over fifty.

Do you think they stop at fifty?

I don't know, I said.

I don't think they do, Aurora said.

Probably not, I agreed. Most definitely not, she said.

Aurora paused and looked sideways at me, nodding suddenly as if she had come to a momentous decision.

I think it's time you met my father, she said.

 

 

 

 

Y
OUR FAMILY
had some trouble, didn't they?

We were sitting in the living room of the Brules' third-floor apartment, the failing sun casting long shadows in Lincoln Park. The crowns of the trees in the park seemed close enough to touch through the open windows. Dr. Brule was fussing at the cocktail table, breaking ice into a bucket, cutting lemons, and inspecting the bottles. He had poured a scotch for me and a Dubonnet for Aurora and now he was uncertain what to prepare for himself. He had greeted us in the foyer and after kissing his daughter had said, Hello, Wils, without any introduction from her, motioning for us to follow him into the living room. He was dressed casually in khakis and a faded green polo shirt. His feet were bare. I did not recognize him at first without his tuxedo. Aurora had excused herself and now we were alone, Dr. Brule at his drinks table and me on the long couch, the walls crowded with abstract paintings and a sculpture I recognized as one of Brancusi's birds in flight. The room had the look of a professor's parlor, academic journals on the coffee table, the couch well-worn, the far wall thick with books floor to ceiling with a sliding ladder to reach the high shelves.

The room was in deep shadow and Dr. Brule's voice seemed to come from it, a doctor's voice, I thought, a bored baritone. I did not answer right away when he asked about my family's troubles because I did not know what he meant, other than Squire's death, and he would not have known about Squire. The silence lengthened and finally I asked him if he meant the strike.

Yes, he said. The strike.

Thank God it's over now, I said, and when he did not reply I added, It was hard on my father.

Dr. Brule was silent again, concentrating on feeding ice cubes into a shaker and pouring the gin over the ice and waiting while it settled.

Hard on all of you, I imagine.

My father mostly, I said.

He poured the contents of the shaker carefully into a goblet and brought it brimming to the cocktail table, where he placed it on a coaster. Then he stepped to the window and stood staring over Lincoln Park, the trees moving in a light breeze, a sliver of Lake Michigan beyond. The silence lengthened. I wished Aurora would return. The ice in her Dubonnet was melting and I believed I was not far behind. The examination had begun and I did not think my newsroom anecdotes would carry me very far. I remembered Aurora telling me of her father's terse descriptions of people he saw in the street and imagined him sorting through the ones that might fit me, “anxiety neurosis,” for example, or “chronic maladjustment.” Whatever test he was devising, I was failing badly. His posture at the window reminded me of a military man's. I noticed him slip his feet into loafers, the loafers highly polished, a professional soldier's spit-shine before taking review of the troops.

When I took out a cigarette and flipped the top of my Zippo, he said sharply, Not in here. No smoking in here.

House rule, he added, all this without turning around.

I put my cigarettes away while Dr. Brule continued to stare out the window, raising and lowering himself on the balls of his feet, an athlete's exercise, his hands clasped securely behind his back. I listened to the clocks tick and traffic sounds coming through the open window, and, far away, the bleat of an ambulance. Apparently he was waiting for Aurora because he had not touched his drink; and mine was already half gone. I had never heard of a house that forbade smoking, except my father's aunt's house and that was for religious reasons. She was a Methodist.

I said, My mother was upset. It's understandable.

That earned a grunt from the window.

She was disappointed they couldn't go to Havana.

He cleared his throat and said quietly, I would have thought Havana would be the perfect place to forget. The casinos, dance bands and nightclubs, swimming pools and other distractions. A sandy beach.

That's what my mother thought, I said.

But your father didn't agree.

He agreed but there was nothing he could do. It was a strike. My father couldn't leave his business. Would not leave his business while it was under attack. He had production quotas to meet, things like that. He had to fight. His back turned to me, Dr. Brule did not move and appeared not to have heard.

I hesitated, sipping my drink, and then with as much nonchalance as I could muster, I said, For a while, he carried a gun.

Dr. Brule turned slowly, a sort of theatrical turn, a double take. But he said nothing and presently resumed staring out the window. Somewhere in the apartment I heard a rush of water.

He needed it for his own protection, I said.

They threatened him? Dr. Brule said.

Yes, in a note. Then in a phone call to the house. They threatened my mother over the phone.

Dr. Brule nodded gravely and said in a voice scarcely louder than a whisper, And how did your father react?

I thought a moment, remembering him with his hands on my mother's shoulders, attempting to comfort her. I said, He was upset, naturally. A telephone call not to his office but to the house, and whoever it was had mentioned me, too. So he had us to worry about along with everything else. I hesitated, trying to remember what he had said to my mother that night at the dinner table but I could not remember his words. I said, But he had the gun. A long-barreled Colt .32, I added unnecessarily. He carried it with him wherever he went.

And did he have occasion to fire it?

No, I said. He never did.

That's fortunate, Dr. Brule said.

But he would have used it if he had to.

Is that what he told you?

I know he would have, I said.

No doubt, Dr. Brule said. I know that weapon, he went on in his soft voice. I know it very well. It's reliable and well balanced. It does not have the stopping power of a Colt .45, but the .45 is heavy, almost forty ounces, and awkward to use. It's a brute of a gun, not accurate beyond twenty yards. He was silent a moment and then he said, Did your father carry it in a holster?

A duffel, I said.

Yes, of course. Dr. Brule continued his vigil at the window, his glass of gin on the table growing warmer by the minute as the light failed outside. He cleared his throat and said, It was difficult for your father, wasn't it? The letters and the telephone calls, his family threatened. And his business, too, of course. So it's normal for him to be frightened.

My father? No.

But it's rational to be frightened when someone's threatening to kill you. Bring harm to your family. Don't you see?

He wasn't, I said loyally.

An unusual man. Hats off to him.

He's tough, I said. He was a hockey player in college.

Did he see them face to face? The ones who wrote the letters and telephoned?

Not exactly, I said. They followed him in a car and then, once, they threw a brick through our terrace windows. We were at dinner. My father was cut, not seriously. Most of the time, during the day, he had a sheriff's escort. The sheriff and my father are old friends.

The sheriff, he said.

It was the sheriff who gave him the gun. From his inventory.

I see, he said.

Tom Felsen, I said.

And did Sheriff Felsen give your mother a gun, too?

My mother wouldn't know how to shoot a gun, I said.

Yes, Dr. Brule said. Of course.

It wouldn't be safe, I said.

Dr. Brule nodded agreement. So, he said. They threw a brick.

While we were at dinner, I said.

And he never saw them.

No, he never did.

Their faces.

I shook my head.

Invisible men—

Yes.

Lucky him, Dr. Brule said. Lucky, lucky him.

Excuse me, I said. Why is that lucky?

Dr. Brule raised his athlete's shoulders and let them fall, bending forward until his forehead almost touched the window. Beyond him, through the trees, were the rushing lights of Lake Shore Drive and here and there points of light on the water, pleasure craft. He said, The world is anonymous to us. We walk our own paths for the most part. Family, friends, colleagues, the woman at the post office window, the cop on the beat. That's our orbit. God help us when we slip from it and enter someone else's and it's unfamiliar. They do not wish us well. They have decided we are a blood enemy. Of course we know there is evil and malevolence in the world but most of us do not see it up close. We read about it in a newspaper article or hear about it from an eyewitness. We watch a newsreel and are moved or not depending on the quality of the film. It's a different thing entirely when you see the devil face to face, snake-eyed, malignant, merciless. He wants to erase you, destroy your soul. He'd do it in a second, without a moment's thought or a backward glance. If your father was not frightened, it was because he never looked into their eyes and saw the absence of reason. They are dead eyes. It's a terrible thing, hatred. Terrible. But in the witness of malevolence, it is inevitable. It is the product of fear.

It is, yes, I said.

Not their hatred, he said loudly. Your hatred.
Yours.
You cannot possibly understand fully at your age, the way you live and where, your country at peace. It's your hatred
of them,
and this hatred becomes an obsession to you, a passion that you can only know when you see them, see their faces, listen to their speech, watch their hands, these degenerates, so-called members of the human species. In your passion you become like them. No difference between them and you, and you find yourself thinking thoughts that are unimaginable and committing acts that are more unimaginable still. The line dividing them and you vanishes, except they are powerful and you are not. The abnormal becomes normal and you are—reduced. And you enjoy it, this reduction. The more extreme, the more pleasure you take. This does not occur at once. You do not recognize the change day to day, and then one morning there's an encounter and you know your heart's grown cold. In such circumstances pleasure and pain are the same thing. You need only a context. So do not believe for one minute that there is very much difference between one human being and another. We all have a will to survive, but it is stronger in some than it is in others; and the urge for revenge, that too is stronger in some than in others. As a father I have tried to keep this knowledge from Aurora. Dr. Brule raised his timeworn head and sighed deeply. He was silent at last, his thought concluded. He remained standing with his back to me and then, at a noise somewhere in that many-chambered apartment, he wheeled and left the room, motioning for me to remain where I was.