The Other Traitor (21 page)

The sky was covered with dark clouds and there was a biting chill in the air, as Annette hurried toward the Dobbs Ferry station. She kept her hood up and hands buried in the pockets of her ski jacket. She wasn’t surprised that neither Linda nor Kenny came after her to give her a lift. After today, her relationship with Linda was probably over. Which was fine by her. She didn’t need more lies and deception in her life.

When she reached the outskirts of downtown Dobbs Ferry, she stepped into a coffee shop. It was an old-fashioned place with a counter for ordering, a black-and-white checkered floor, and painted chair railings along the walls. For an instant she was reminded of Yonah Shimmel’s Knishery, sitting across from Julian, both of them still mysterious strangers. She checked her phone, but he hadn’t called or texted. Nothing from the hospital, either.

She ordered a coffee, then sat down at a table in the back to read the letters. A few were in envelopes, most weren’t. She skimmed them. Although the loose letters weren’t dated, they appeared to be in date order based on the mixed-in postmarked envelopes. She decided to read them as they were arranged to get context.

A few of the early letters from before 1949 were long, filled with mundane details about meals that Betty had prepared using the cookbook Irene had given her. Betty had written about how much Isaac enjoyed her cooking. How baby Sally was doing. Teething, walking. Details of a contented life.

And then, in an envelope postmarked August 13, 1950, Annette found this.

Oh my dear sister,

How much I need you right now. As I told you on the phone, Isaac was arrested three days ago. He had assured me that it was a mistake and he would be released as soon as they realized it. But as each day passes, the news reports say otherwise. They say Isaac is a spy. How can that be? My Isaac?

Betty

The next letter was in an envelope, postmarked September 12, 1950, one month after the arrest.

Dear Renie:

I cannot express in words how grateful I am to you for coming to New York and staying with me these last few days. I don’t know how I would have managed without you. I’m doing a bit better. At least I’m able to get out of bed and take Sally to school, though this morning she clung to me and screamed not to leave her. My heart breaks over what this is doing to my little girl. The children are cruel to her, which doesn’t surprise me considering the looks I’m getting from their mothers.

She stopped reading. A young woman with a stroller had come into the coffee shop and taken a seat at the table next to hers. The woman gave her a little smile, then broke off pieces of a muffin, which she fed to the toddler in the stroller. Annette returned to the letter.

Our lawyer, David Weissman, is encouraging. He says that he spoke to the prosecutors and if Isaac gives them the names of the people who got him in this mess, they’ll release him. Everyone seems to know that Isaac isn’t capable of doing what they’re accusing him of.

Your loving sister,

Betty

She absorbed this. Early on, it appeared that the prosecutors were looking for bigger fish than Isaac Goldstein. So what happened? Had the government given up on finding the real spy? Had they built a case against Isaac Goldstein because he was the best option they had? From what Arnie Weissman had said, the government was determined to make someone an example.

She read another short, undated letter.

Dearest Renie:

Thank you, dear sister, for your offer for me and Sally to come stay with you in Boston. I appreciate it more than you can imagine, but I can’t possibly leave Isaac. Although he’s quiet and distracted when I see him, I think he treasures my weekly visits to the detention center. At least, I tell myself he does. I wish he would speak to me. The trial is scheduled for March 13, two months from now. That will make seven months that Isaac will have been apart from me. I know once the trial is over, everyone will see that he isn’t guilty and he’ll come home to me.

Betty

Poor Grandma Betty. Annette could hardly imagine what she must have been going through.

Dear Renie:

I want to scream. Doesn’t he understand what he’s doing to me and Sally? How can he maintain this silence? Why won’t he come forward and tell the FBI what they want to know? There’s talk that they will be asking for the death penalty at his trial. Our lawyer says that’s just a scare tactic, but it’s certainly working on me!

Today, I met him as usual in the visitor room, but it was as though seeing a stranger. He has lost so much weight, that there’s very little left of the man I loved and married. I begged him, “Isaac, can’t you give them a name? Please tell them what they want.”   He looked at me and began to cry. “I’m sorry, Betty. I can’t.”

God help me, but I’m starting to believe he could be the monster they say he is in the news. Why else wouldn’t he speak out to save himself unless he was guilty?

Your poor Betty

Annette took a deep breath. So even Grandma Betty had believed he was the traitor. And yet, from the next letter, she wasn’t willing to give up on him.

Dear Renie:

I appreciate your concern, but I can’t divorce Isaac. I just can’t. It would make him look all the more guilty in the public’s eye if I were to desert him. The trial is depleting all of our energy. Sally is still having nightmares. She wakes up in the middle of the night screaming. She’s sleeping in my bed now, but I’m not sure it helps.

Betty

The next letter’s envelope was postmarked April 5, 1951, one day after he had been convicted.

My dear sister:

I want to stay in my bed and sleep until I no longer wake up. I barely have energy to write. Sally lies here beside me, sucking her thumb like an infant, although she’s six years old.

My husband is a convicted spy, sentenced to the electric chair. I say these words over and over, hoping the repetition will numb the pain. It isn’t working.

Betty

“Are you all right?”  The woman with the stroller stood beside Annette’s table.

Annette touched her wet cheek and looked down at the water spots on the letter. She forced a smile for the concerned woman. “Yes, thank you.”

The woman glanced at the letters, nodded, then pushed the stroller out of the coffee shop.

She wiped her cheeks and blew her nose in a paper napkin. She went through the rest of the letters. Irene had apparently stayed with Betty in New York for a while after the conviction. Then Isaac’s lawyer filed a number of appeals over the next two years.

Mr. Weissman assures me that the conviction will be overturned in our next appeal.

But Betty’s optimism was quashed as each appeal failed. Her last hope hinged on presidential clemency, but the pardon from Eisenhower never came.

And then Annette came to an envelope postmarked June 11, 1953, the day before the execution. There was no letter inside, but the last loose undated letter must have belonged in it. It was scrawled in a shaky handwriting, like the writing on the envelope.

Dear Renie:

Did you know that the FBI has a phone line at the prison that goes directly to J. Edgar Hoover? Mr. Weissman told me that the FBI expects Isaac to name the real spy rather than die in the electric chair. I told this to Isaac today, expecting him to say what he’s said for the past two years. Instead, he looked up at me and said, “This is a sacrifice I must make”

Annette sucked in her breath. What? He knew? She continued reading.

I was stunned. “You know who the spy is?”  He nodded, unable to look me in the eye. “You’ve rotted away in prison these two years” I said. “You’ve left me and Sally to be treated worse than lepers, and all this time, you knew? He kept his head down, and I screamed at him. “Tell them. Tell them now. I can’t live like this another minute.”

He brought his eyes up to mine. “I can’t,” he said. “I won’t.”

And then he called for a guard to take him back to his cell and left me in my rage.

I will tell you something, my dear sister. I have mourned for this man for almost three years, believing that he was as trapped in this nightmare as I. Now I learn that all this time, he had the ability to set himself, me, and Sally free. All this time, he had at his fingertips the means of avoiding public disgrace and the electric chair, yet he’s chosen to protect someone else. Not me, not his daughter, but a traitor to our country.

Annette felt numb. He had known all along, but chose to die. Chose to let his wife and daughter live in shame when he could have freed them.

Why would he have done that? And whom was he protecting?

It took Annette a moment to realize she’d received a text. She checked her phone, relieved to see a message from Julian.

Just woke up. How r u? Any news on Bill? Want to meet at ER park ?

ER Park? Emergency room parking lot? Her heart bounced. Why would Julian want to meet there? Then she reprocessed it. East River Park.

She wrote back.
No news on Bill. I can be at the park by 2.

Julian replied.
See u then. I’ll bring lunch.

She took the train back to Grand Central, then transferred to the subway to get down to the East River Park. It gave her plenty of time to reread Grandma Betty’s letters and consider her grandfather’s actions. Although she didn’t agree with what Linda had done, she could certainly understand her cousin wanting to keep these letters from her. With each rereading, she felt a spike of pain for Grandma Betty. She wanted to believe her grandfather had an admirable reason for destroying his family, but she couldn’t imagine what, or how she would ever learn what it was.

As she put the letters away, it occurred to her that she hadn’t come across the phrase ‘cruel, heartless man,’ though the sentiment was clear enough in the letters. Linda must have paraphrased Grandma Betty’s words.

She got out at Delancey Street at a few minutes after two. Dark clouds hung low in the sky, looking like they’d burst open at any moment. She was breathless when she got to the park. It was practically deserted except for some kids playing football in a slushy field. On the bench beside the old oak tree, she could see the back of a man in a black wool hat and green army jacket.

Julian turned, as though sensing her presence, and waved her over.

She sat down beside him, awkward for the moment. Were they on the brink of a relationship, or were they supposed to keep a distance?

He seemed to hesitate, then he reached over and gave her a hug. “How are you doing?” he asked when he released her.

“Still no news on Bill. I feel like I’m in limbo.”

“I understand. Here’s lunch. Maybe that will help.”

He gave her something wrapped in foil. She opened it. A hotdog covered with sauerkraut and mustard. She took a bite, the combination of flavors waking up her senses.

“It’s what my dad and I always ate when we came here. Hotdogs, Cracker Jacks and orange soda.”  He handed her a bottle of Fanta. “Unfortunately, the vendor didn’t have Cracker Jacks.”

She finished the hotdog while Julian ate his. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was,” she said.

“Lack of sleep will do that.”  He reached over and rubbed something off the corner of her mouth. She started at his touch. He held up his finger and showed her the mustard, then he licked it off.

She turned away, chagrined by what she was feeling when she should have been thinking about Bill and dealing with her grandfather’s treachery. The football kids were cheering someone’s touchdown. She looked out over the river at Brooklyn’s low skyline. Many of those buildings and smokestacks had been here when her grandparents lived on the Lower East Side. Had they ever come to the park? Had Isaac loved Betty? She’d cooked his favorite meals for him. They’d had a child together.

But her grandfather had chosen to protect someone and die a traitor despite all they may have shared.

Julian gathered up their trash, threw it away, then sat back down. “It’s kind of strange,” he said. “Being here reminds me of my father, but it also makes me think about my mother. At least her absence.”

“Are you angry with her?”

“No, not today. I’m starting to realize that her life has always been much larger than just being a mom.”

“Something happened?”

“I went to see her yesterday at her clinic.”

“
Her
clinic?”

“She runs a free clinic.”

“I thought she was a pediatric oncologist.”

“That, too.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. You know, I spent so many years resenting her that I never really thought about how much she gives to others.”

Annette nodded. “What happened at the clinic?”

“There was a rush of patients. One of her doctors hadn’t come in, so I helped out.”

“I forget you’re an MD. How did it feel getting back into it?”

“Good.” He ran his tongue over his lips. The same lips that had kissed her a few hours before. “Real good.”

“You’ve never felt that before?”

“No. Isn’t that crazy? But when I went for my MD, I had this negative attitude that I was doing it for my mother. I hadn’t realized how much it meant to me to actually heal people.”

She studied the reflection of low-hanging clouds in the river. “I’m mixed up, too,” she said. “I don’t know what I really want out of life, yet here I am trying to understand all these people in my family. My grandparents, my mother, even my cousin Linda.”

He shifted closer to her on the bench until their shoulders touched. “Talk to me.”

She let her weight slump against him, letting him share her burden. “Linda was holding back letters my grandmother had sent her sister while Isaac was in prison. I found them at Linda’s house this morning.”  She patted her satchel. “Of course, now that I have them, I’ve uncovered a whole other level of my grandfather’s deception.”

“What do you mean?”

“Isaac Goldstein was a traitor to his family.”

“Not to his country?”

She shook her head. A dirty candy wrapper blew past in the wind. “Apparently he knew who the real traitor was, but chose not to give him up.”

“He went to the electric chair for someone else?”

“That’s right.”

The football game was breaking up. The mud-covered kids were leaving in groups of two and three, crossing in front of them on the riverfront path.

“You’re not alone anymore,” he said. “I know you wish you’d grown up in a nice, normal family, but family can be just someone who understands you.”

She looked into his eyes, darkened by the overcast sky. “You’re not alone either.”

He reached for her hand. A large, cold raindrop splattered against her cheek.

Julian brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them, just as the sky opened up, pelting them with rain
.