Daybreak (28 page)

She answered honestly, “Yes, it took some persuasion,
but he finally agreed. Please don’t talk him out of it, Bud.”

“Can we drop the subject, Laura? It’s been a long day. Long weeks.” He stared out of the window. “Sometimes I think maybe it’s true—oh damn, I don’t know what to think—about that other kid, and if he was ours we never knew him, and it’s all so damn sad. But then I think, no it’s not true. Tom’s the right one. He’s ours, and they’re driving him crazy. It’s not fair. We were—we are—good parents, and why should this happen to our family?” Turning back to regard Laura, Bud frowned sadly, his forehead puckered, his eyes deeply ringed. “You look beat. I don’t want you to lift a finger tonight. Let’s go out for lobster or steak, whatever you want. Come on, let’s cheer up if we can.”

12

O
n the Friday, in spite of his father’s dissuasion, Tom left with Ralph Mackenzie. Resentment boiled in him; he knew himself well enough to understand that it was his mother’s sorrow that had moved him; she was so soft, so close to him, that he had been unable to refuse her plea.

And at least he was being accompanied by a gentleman, a person to whom he could relate, a
Mackenzie
, not a
Krehfeld
, not one of those awful people who now claimed him as their own. At this reminder, he winced. A foreboding chill passed through his blood. What if Dad was wrong? What if he really was—was a Krehfeld? And again something within him, a dread voice, spoke as it had when he had taken a deep look at Margaret Crawfield,
You are and you’ll have to acknowledge it
.

At that moment the car, on its way to the interstate, passed by the sign lettered
RICE AND SON
, all bold and glittering in the morning light. Then his heart swelled, and instinctively he sat up straighter in the seat. By God, he’d show them! He wasn’t going to be worn down.
Rice and Son
. And Son.

Mackenzie, who had until now been silent, reached
toward the radio and the stereo, asking Tom what he would like to hear.

“I assume you’d like music instead of a bunch of chitchat between you and me. Unless of course there’s something you want to say.”

Tom was grateful for that. “Music,” he said.

“What kind? Country, rock, or Mozart? You name it.”

“I don’t care. Whatever you want.”

“Since you don’t care, I choose Mozart.”

Mom played all of the sonatas. It pleased Tom that he was able to recognize so many of them, but he said nothing, allowing the music to flow through him, trying not to think.

When finally toward midday they turned into the street, his fear came surging back. There was the house, number 17. Would he ever forget that door with the tubbed evergreens on either side? Or the heart-pounding walk from the car to that door?

“Ten minutes past twelve,” Mackenzie said. “Good timing.”

“I don’t want lunch,” Tom told him. “I won’t eat here.”

“You needn’t. But Margaret’s a good cook. So I’m going to enjoy myself.”

Margaret opened the door. Behind her in the hall the family formed a phalanx: Arthur, Holly, the grandparents, and the white collie. Only Cousin Melvin was missing. In one quick glance, Tom saw all this.

And he took quick measure, too, of the atmosphere. Voices, faces, and body language were different from the last time. There was no outward anxiety; the greetings were cordial and unemotional, almost as if he were a casual guest, an afterthought whom Mackenzie
had brought along with him. And he knew that this change must be the result of a careful strategy, the result of a conference between Mackenzie and the family. Clever indeed, he thought wryly.

Again there was a spread in the dining room. Did these people do nothing but eat?

“I had something on the road,” he lied.

“You can come in and sit down anyway,” Mackenzie said. “You can have a cup of coffee or not have one, as you like.”

The man had a calm way of letting you know what he wanted. To resist would be to make himself conspicuous, Tom knew. He sat down next to Mackenzie with a vacant chair, the eighth chair, on his other side. That empty space felt good.

The table talk, all about the campaign, its personalities and finances, was of no particular interest to him. No attempt was made to draw him into the talk; indeed, no one seemed to be paying any attention to him. Since they were not looking in his direction, it became possible for him to look in theirs and to reassess his previous judgments.

Holly was even prettier than he had remembered. Dressed as she now was in jeans and T-shirt, he could really see her shape. A little taller and a little heavier than Robbie, she still curved in the proper ways, Robbie’s ways. And she had spectacular hair, glossy, black with red lights or blue lights as she moved, or as the light moved.

The old lady, Frieda, seemed not as old as he had thought, perhaps because today her eyes were not red-rimmed by tears. She was quiet and barely noticeable. The old man with the bushy gray mustache was inoffensive except when he opened his mouth to emit his
guttural, accented English. These people were unimportant. And Tom’s eyes shifted past them to the head of the table, where Arthur sat, and to the foot, where Margaret sat.

She caught his glance, looked away, and without saying anything, got up and put before him a cup of coffee and an ample, double-sized slice of coconut cake. It had been a long time since breakfast, and he was starved, yet had she asked him whether he wanted any dessert, he would have refused. As it was, he ate it all. Then he thought about her gesture. It was the kind of thing Mom did, treating her husband and sons regardless of their ages as if they were little boys, while at the same time guarding their adult dignity. He had for a long time been aware of this nuance, the subtlety of a loving woman. In this instant now, he suddenly saw Margaret as a
person
, and it terrified him.

Arthur was talking. He had removed his glasses so that his eyes became again the focal point of his face. They were earnest eyes, quite stern as he made some forceful point in reply to Mackenzie, stern eyes in a face gone momentarily stern, This man would make a forceful enemy. There was no weakness in him; why had he thought there was? Because he was small in contrast to Dad? Napoleon had been small. And suddenly, seeing Arthur also as a
person
, he was terrified again.

As on the first time, he felt trapped. It was as if a vise were steadily, inexorably closing in upon him. If he could have risen and run from this house, if he had not been more than a hundred miles from home with practically nothing in his pocket, he would have done it.

“Shall we sit outside for a while?” asked Margaret. “There’s a breeze. Fall’s coming.”

Fall. Back to school. Back to Robbie.

They were on the terrace where he and Holly had sat sulking apart that other time. A green-and-white-striped awning had been let down, and the dog, who had been sleeping out in the sun, came to lie down again under the awning.

“Star,” said Arthur, “did you know that Holly took him from the animal shelter? She’s been a volunteer there ever since junior high.”

The remark, addressed ostensibly to Mackenzie, was meant for Tom, he knew, for surely Mackenzie must long ago have been told about Star.

“His owner died and none of the relatives wanted him. That’s how he got to the shelter.”

The dog, hearing his name, got up and stretched. Then he walked over and put his nose on Tom’s knee, making it necessary for Tom to give some sort of response. Without speaking then, he stroked the silky head.

“Didn’t you say you have a dog?” asked Arthur.

“I said my brother has.”
My brother
.

“That must be what attracts him.”

Tom kept smoothing Star’s head. He was not going to be drawn into conversation. He was here, and for the second time, too. Wasn’t that enough for them? No, blood was what they wanted, his blood. And he did not look up from Star’s head.

No one spoke. Mourning doves crooned at the bird-feeder, agitating the silence. He thought of the trite expression “The silence rang.” But it
did
ring. And he knew that they were all waiting for him to speak. Mackenzie
ought to help him out by saying something, anything. He was furious with Mackenzie.

Arthur said, “Tom, you haven’t spoken a word. You can’t keep this up. It’s unnatural. Surely you have something to say to us. Say it, then, no matter what it is.”

Hadn’t they heard enough from him? They knew where he stood. And now they were asking for more.

“Arthur, it’s too hard,” Margaret objected. “Let’s not force things. Tom will speak when he’s ready.”

But Arthur persisted. “No. Let us be free with one another. It’s the only way. We’ve been talking about Ralph’s campaign, and you said you’re for Johnson. Will you tell us more about it?”

The man was positively looking for trouble. Very well, let him find it. All the doubts about himself, the rage, self-pity, and fear that were balled up within Tom now burst apart and the shrapnel scattered.

“All right, I’ll say what I think. You won’t like it, but since you asked for it—I think Jim Johnson is the most honest man I’ve ever met next to my father. And a lot of people who won’t always admit it because in certain circles the things he says are not acceptable, a lot of them know in their hearts that he is right.”

“Right about being a Nazi?” Holly asked.

“That’s not so.”

“He admitted that he had been once.”

“Yes, had been. When he was a kid, somebody inveigled him into joining the American Nazis, but he didn’t stay there. As soon as he learned what they were, he got out. Jim’s too smart for that.”

“It all depends,” Arthur said quietly, “on what you mean by ‘smart.’ A wolf in sheep’s clothing is smart, too.”

The old man, Albert, spoke up. “The man is a danger not just to blacks and Jews. In the end he and his kind are a danger to everybody. People should realize that.”

“Well, sir, you need to open your mind.” Tom was dignified now, and cold, remembering that Bud had once advised him never to lose his temper in argument, for that was to show weakness. “You need to hear another point of view. Jim speaks for middle America, the real America, like my ancestors. The Rices arrived here before 1700. They came down over the Blue Ridge Mountains, they fought through the French and Indian Wars. Later, during the Revolution, Elijah Rice served under Marion the Swamp Fox and was decorated for bravery and—”

“And your great-uncle on my side, young man, received the Kaiser’s Iron Cross for bravery and wounds at the battle of the Marne. Some years later he was shoved into a gas oven at Auschwitz.” The old man, with furiously burning eyes, stood up to face Tom.

“Papa, please,” implored Margaret.

But the old man still stood, swaying a little on unsure legs. “I remember you said it was propaganda, that there was no Holocaust. Here, look.” And he rolled up the sleeves of his gingham sport shirt. “Look.” He thrust his arm in front of Tom. “What do you see?”

“Papa, please,” Margaret cried again.

“No, Margaret. These are things he must be told, so I’m telling them. This is the number they tattooed on me. I was in Auschwitz, too, but I was one of the lucky ones, if you can call it that, because I was still alive when the war ended. Don’t turn your eyes away. It’s important for you to see these things while some of us are still alive to show what liars your Jim Johnsons are.
What did he say about propaganda? Turning crematoria into ovens? That there never were any ovens? Well, take me to him, I’ll shove this number into his face. How does he dare, how can he—”

“Papa,” Margaret said, “Tom was talking about the American Revolution, and this is—”

“No, Margaret. You want me to stop this unpleasant story, but I won’t. It’s important. It’s necessary.”

The gray mustache quivered, and the old voice cracked. In the face of this undignified emotionalism, Tom felt a certain calm superiority.

“Yes, Tom, I want you to know who you are. We left Germany before the war, my wife and I. I had another wife—her family had been in Germany for a thousand years, a thousand years, mind you—and a child, before Frieda. I married Frieda much later, after I came to this country. That’s why I’m so much older than she.” He paused and wiped his forehead. “Ah, what’s the use. I think maybe I’m saying too much after all.”