Homeland Page 21

  Though he and Ilsa had lived together many years, she didn’t fully understand the price he paid for the family’s comfort and happiness. The many prices …

  “Mr. Crown? We are here.”

  Nicky Speers stood on the curb, holding the carriage door open. Joe saw the fountain, the statue of Gambrinus. “Sorry,” he said, jolted out of his reverie. The folder of articles slid off his knee.

  While he gathered them up, it struck him that alcohol was the only issue in their marriage that had never been resolved, only smoothed over, suppressed, a hundred times and more. It was the one issue with the power to divide them. The one issue that could threaten what they had worked together to build.

  He left the carriage, no longer savoring the April sunshine or the balmy air. Ilsa was right, he needed to get away. He felt one of his dark moods coming on.

  But he couldn’t outrun the issue, it was forever there, a canker, a worm in the dark, gnawing. It didn’t bode well. He tried not to think about that either.

  18

  Paul

  SCHOOL WAS TORTURE. A repetitive, soul-deadening routine of recitation and memorization. Daily subjects included reading and literature, grammar and spelling, mathematics, and rudimentary science instruction. Mrs. Petigru loved to quote the science text Our Bodies and How We Live, which bore on its title page the words REVISED AND APPROVED BY OFFICIALS OF THE W.C.T.U. To Paul it seemed as though half the book was devoted to attacks on the harmful effects of tobacco and alcohol.

  Drawing was included on two days each week. It consisted of copying illustrations from books onto a slate. Mrs. Petigru liked to stand at Paul’s elbow, gazing down at the mess of white lines and cloudy-white erasures while she murmured, “Hopeless. Absolutely hopeless.”

  Paul’s mathematics exercises consistently received a failing grade. Mrs. Petigru wrote notes all over his papers, disparaging the pencil smudges, his poor handwriting, the generally unsatisfactory nature of his work.

  She badgered Paul about his appearance almost every day. Ordered him to straighten his shirt, tie his shoelace, comb his hair in the lavatory. “You are a sloppy boy. I noticed it the first time I saw you, and it immediately told me all I needed to know about your capabilities. Disorderly appearance—disorderly mind.”

  He had been struggling with the English of a Buffalo Bill dime novel each morning and afternoon on the streetcar. Mrs. Petigru saw it on his desk, snatched it up, reviled him for bringing trashy literature to school, and dropped it in a wastebasket.

  And all because his uncle was a German brewer.

  Reading exercises were similar to the ones he was doing with Mars. Pupils were called forward to read a passage from McGuffey’s Sixth. One day the selection might be a passage from Hamlet, full of words impossible for him to understand or pronounce. (“Have they heard of Shakespeare in Germany, Paul?”) It might be a rhythmic, eerie poem called The Raven. (“Speak up, Paul, have you lost your voice?”) His turn came again with a famous speech to a Virginia convention made by the American patriot Patrick Henry. “ ‘The war is inev-inev—

  “Inevitable,” said Mrs. Petigru, with a soulful sigh of resignation. A nasty pupil named Maury Flugel tittered.

  Paul struggled on syllable by syllable. “ ‘—inevitable—and let it come. I repeat, sir, let it come. It is in vain, sir, to exten—uh—’ ”

  “Extenuate. That word is pronounced ex-ten-u-ate. When are you going to learn, Paul? We’re all hopeful it will be soon.”

  The whole class laughed.

  Mrs. Elsie Petigru was his enemy. But he was unfamiliar with the ways of American schools, and didn’t know what to do about it. Tell Uncle Joe? No, he didn’t want his uncle immediately deciding that he fell short, unable to live up to the expectations of the family.

  One morning at recess a boy from the class approached him shyly and asked him if he wanted to shoot marbles. Paul almost whooped for joy. He said he had no marbles of his own. The boy eagerly shared his sack. A bond was sealed.

  The boy was Leo Rapoport. Short, round-faced, with black eyes and a funny lump of a nose. He was a full head shorter than Paul, but he seemed more like a little old man than a thirteen-year-old.

  Leo had a kindly and merry disposition, Paul discovered. Yet, mysteriously, he too was an outcast. One day in the lunchroom he explained why:

  “My pa’s a Unitarian, but he was born a Jew. Mama’s R.C.”

  “What?”

  “Roman Catholic. Fish-eater. Papist.” Leo was philosophical. “It’s a pretty bad combination, a Unitarian and an R.C. It means you’re liable to get beat up twice as hard, twice as often. Can’t do much about it.”

  “Tell me more about your mother and father,” Paul said.

  “They sure aren’t rich, like your uncle. Mama’s a very high-class lady, though. She gives piano lessons.”

  “What does your father do?”

  “He’s a drummer.”

  “With a band?” Paul was excited.

  Leo laughed. “Nah. Drummer means a peddler. Pa travels nine states. He sells ladies’ corsets. Hot stuff.” Leo rolled his eyes. “I could bring some pictures maybe.”

  “Yes, why not?”

  Leo also had valuable advice:

  “Don’t ever make old Petigru mad. If that happens she takes her ruler out of the bottom drawer. It’s this long—this thick. She uses it on your hands. Last October, on a dare, Dora Gustavson went into the boys’ toilet and pulled her bloomers down. Someone snitched, I think it was Maury Flugel. Petigru used the ruler. Dora couldn’t do her penmanship exercises for a week.”

  As the days grew longer, Paul hurried every Saturday to finish whatever jobs Aunt Ilsa asked him to do. Then, with her permission, he hopped on a car to explore the city. Sometimes Leo joined him. Leo had been born in Chicago. Indeed, he’d never been anywhere else, except to a beach in Indiana once for a summer picnic. Leo knew a lot about the city. If he didn’t know something, Uncle Joe did. From them, and from his own sharp observations, Paul was getting an education about the history and character of a great metropolis.

  Che-cau-go was an old name, he learned. Nobody was sure of what it meant. It might have meant “wild onion,” it might have meant “bad stink.” Over the years, as a village grew up around an early trading station on the prairie beside the lake, and a town followed the village, and then a sprawling city, a profusion of somewhat more relevant names followed. There was Slab Town, because of all the slab-sided wooden buildings, and the Garden City, because of the passion of early residents for laying out spacious homesites and planting trees and pretty shrubs and flowers. There was Porkopolis, because of meat packing, and Gem of the Prairie, no explanation needed. But for all its modernity, little more than a generation ago Indians had walked the street. It made Paul’s hair prickle to think of standing where red men had trod.

  Almost a million people crowded Chicago now. There was no sign of the growth stopping or slowing down, and there wasn’t even a trace of the great fire of 1871 that had razed the business district, gutted four square miles, done over $200,000,000 in damage, driven more than one hundred thousand from their homes, left two hundred and fifty dead, and certainly many more dead but uncounted in charred hovels and incinerated buildings. Uncle Joe and many other Chicagoans spoke of events in the past in terms of “before the fire” or “after the fire.”

  Chicago had started to rebuild almost immediately after the fire. Buildings in progressive new styles now rose everywhere. A railway elevated above the street ran to the South and West sides, and plans were being drawn to bring it to the center of town. This downtown was a pandemonium of buggies, wagons, cable cars, horsecars, and pedestrians, all hurrying madly all the time. There was no significant shade for the teeming streets, only telegraph and telephone wires casting meager shadows, but there were thriving theaters, and large stores like Field’s, and Elstree’s. There were splendid hostelries, like Mr. Potter Palmer’s internationally famous eight-story Palmer House on State Street, destroyed
twice and rebuilt more splendidly each time.

  Chicago had landmarks. Old ones, like the Water Tower north of the river, which the fire had spared; new ones, like the ten-story Auditorium Building at Michigan and Congress, where the symphony orchestra performed. It had many solid residential areas—neighborhoods of Irish and Bohemians, Poles and Scandinavians, and of course Germans, who predominated on the Nordseite, where the Crowns had moved first when they left Cincinnati. There were also slums, and disreputable areas ruled by a criminal element. One of the worst was the Levee, centered down at Twenty-second and Dearborn. Paul stayed out of those districts.

  There were fine areas of mansions belonging to the newly rich—you couldn’t find many old rich in a city so young—and it was in one of these, lower Michigan Avenue, that the Crowns lived. The most prestigious address, however, was Prairie Avenue, down around Eighteenth Street. Here lived the Pullmans, the Fields, the Armours. Aunt Ilsa told Paul that some Prairie Avenue residents called Potter Palmer a traitor for moving away and building his present castle on North Lake Shore Drive.

  Chicago was a forest of advertising signs. A thousand saloons displayed the universal emblem, a foaming beer stein. Some of these signs bore the Crown insignia, and the name. Paul was able to inform Leo that his Uncle Joe supplied the signs free if the establishment carried the brewery’s product exclusively.

  Chicago was at all hours a raucous choir of street vendors. Pushcart men sold pins and pears, little girls sold matches, little boys sold papers, older girls sold hot ears of corn from tin boxes, and perhaps, Leo hinted, perhaps they sold themselves. The streets resounded with the chant of the old clothes man who wore six coats and a teetering stack of ten hats; the squeal and shriek of the scissor grinder’s wheel spitting sparks like a firework; the bellow of the newsboy hawking something called an extra; the clank of the cart of the rag-and-bottle man. No section, even Michigan and Prairie avenues, was without a daily horde of peddlers.

  There were silent vendors as well, sickly sallow creatures who wore gaudy placards strapped on, front and back, and shuffled with slow exhausted steps from block to block. Sandwich men, Cousin Carl called them when one of them passed the house. At supper the family discussed sandwich men. Uncle Joe said they were the lowest of the street sellers; the dregs. Joe Junior called them “the downtrodden,” with a look at his father.

  Chicago was a pall of coal smoke, a wind reeking of raw meat, a miasma of floating river garbage made all the worse by the stench of human and animal waste. Chicago was noise, dirt, poverty, bright lights, an exciting vigor, a sharp sense of danger. It reminded him greatly of Berlin, and despite the horrors of school, he fell in love with it.

  Leo Rapoport had a dog, Flash. A tan mongrel with scraggly short hair. Sometimes Flash was waiting for Leo when the last bell rang, and sometimes he followed him to school in the morning. One day in April, Paul sat on the concrete wall waiting for Leo as he now did every day. He saw Leo coming briskly along the sidewalk with Flash romping at his heels.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with him today, Paul, he’s acting up. Maybe it’s spring. Go home, Flash. Flash, go.”

  Flash ignored the command.

  Reluctantly, Leo and Paul headed for the building. Somehow Leo didn’t close the door quickly enough, and Flash darted inside. He ran up the wooden stairs to the first floor, his claws tick-ticking on the worn yellow-brown wood. Students hurrying to their rooms laughed and pointed.

  “Flash, go home,” Leo exclaimed with a dramatic gesture toward the stairs. But Flash’s antics amused him, the dog capering and leaping and pretending to a ferocious growl. Leo started to giggle. He kept pointing and demanding that Flash go home, but made no effort to catch him. Soon Leo and Paul were both laughing, inexplicably convulsed by the diversion.

  Suddenly a classroom door opened with a bang.

  “In the name of heaven, what is going on out here? Whose beast is this?” Mrs. Petigru demanded.

  Flash barked.

  She kicked him. Paul detected a change in Flash’s growl. It was distinctly rancorous.

  Flash crouched with his head near the floor. Mrs. Petigru tried to kick him again. Flash snarled, snapped, seized the hem of her skirt in his teeth. There was a loud rrrip of fabric.

  “Oh, look at that, look!” Mrs. Petigru exclaimed. Leo fell against the wall, hanging onto Paul, laughing helplessly. Mrs. Petigru’s face contorted. She grabbed Leo’s ear and twisted. Leo stopped laughing, and let out a howl.

  “You nasty little mongrel, is this dog yours? Someone get the principal at once.”

  Transformed, Flash was baring his teeth and growling low as he slowly circled Mrs. Petigru. Paul tried to straighten up and stop laughing. He let out a last, rather weak guffaw.

  “You, you’re just as bad,” Mrs. Petigru cried. Her hand shot to Paul’s ear. “I have no more patience with you.” She twisted. “None!”

  Paul heard doom in her voice. Their relationship had taken a new, dire turn.

  Mr. Relph and a male teacher managed to corner Flash and drive him down the stair and out. Leo ran along calling, “Good boy, good Flash, go,” in a quavering voice.

  The principal telephoned Leo’s mother and Paul’s uncle that afternoon. After school, Mr. Mars was sympathetic to Paul’s plight, but could offer no advice beyond, “Tell the truth, it’s the honorable way.”

  Uncle Joe didn’t arrive home at his usual time. This prolonged Paul’s suffering. Finally, Uncle Joe stomped into the house at twenty past nine, apologizing to Aunt Ilsa and pleading difficulties at the brewery. He looked grim.

  “We’ve kept supper warm, Joe.”

  “First Paul will come with me to the study.”

  Once there, his uncle’s charge was simple. “Explain yourself.”

  Paul did his best. He said that Flash was his friend’s dog, that he’d been frisky and ran past them into the building by accident, and the two of them had just gotten carried away, laughing. “I know that it was wrong. I am sorry.”

  “That’s all you can offer in your own defense, sorry?” Uncle Joe scowled. “I’m sorely disappointed in you, Paul.”

  Paul hated the feeling of having let down this powerful man who had been so kind to him. He mustn’t confirm his guilt with complete silence. “Sir, may I tell you something?”

  Uncle Joe’s reply was a curt nod.

  “I do not think it was so bad, not so terrible, except for Flash tearing her dress. Mrs. Petigru is not a nice woman. She—” He swallowed. “She may be a good teacher, but a nice woman, no. She doesn’t like Germans. She doesn’t like beer.” Uncle Joe leaned back in his chair, startled.

  “She doesn’t like me, either,” Paul went on. “She punished me by twisting my ear so hard I thought it might bleed. That is the truth, Uncle.”

  “Well, even the principal said your teacher was a strict disciplinarian. Strict is all right, cruel isn’t.”

  Uncle Joe fixed him with a stare that left no doubt about who was in control.

  “This time we’ll wipe the slate clean. I can see that perhaps it had a funny side to it.” He raised a cautionary finger. “But you were wrong to rebel—laugh at the teacher’s discomfort. Don’t do it again. You’re in America now. Ways are different. It’s your duty and responsibility to fit in. Let’s have supper.”

  Uncle Joe left the room first. Paul followed him, no longer hungry. He’d disappointed his uncle after all.

  On Saturday morning two weeks before the great opening day of the Exposition, a knock at the door dragged Paul out of bed at half past five in the morning. He stumbled to the door and was surprised to find Joe Junior there, already dressed.

  His cousin shut the door and leaned back with an amiable smile. “Been meaning to tell you, I think it’s great that you got your teacher’s goat the way you did.”

  Paul was flustered. “Thank you.”

  “Ragged her good, did you?”

  “I would say so. Definitely.” He was delighted by his cousin’s interest
and approval.

  “What are you doing this afternoon?”

  “Pete has work for me outside, I’m not sure how much.”

  “Tell him you can’t do it today. Make it up tomorrow. The brewery closes at noon for a warehouse inventory. Meet me there and I’ll show you a few sights. Little corners of Chicago you’ll never find on your own.” He winked.

  Paul was speechless.

  Assuming a vaguely fatherly air, Joe Junior crossed his arms. “Well, old man, what about it? Will you come?”

  “Of course. Sure.”

  “Swell.” Joe Junior dodged out the door and hurried off down the hall.

  Paul found his cousin piling up sacks of hops on the brewery loading dock. The spring afternoon was mild and clear, with a pleasant breeze blowing out of the south. Unfortunately such breezes always picked up the stink of sewer waste and garbage in the Chicago River. Paul could even smell the cattle, hogs, and sheep in the Union Stock Yards, miles away.

  “Just about ready,” Joe Junior said, heaving the last sack onto his shoulder. He carried it inside and returned. “There’s someone I want you to meet.” He shouted something into the gloomy warehouse.

  In a moment a burly bald fellow walked out. He was an impressive, not to say forbidding, man with huge shoulders, a shining pate, glittering eyes.

  “Benno, say hello to my cousin Paul Crown. Paul, this is Benno Strauss.”

  Paul’s skin prickled. The infamous Benno. He’d heard Uncle Joe rail against him at the dinner table. Benno Strauss led the socialist-anarchist faction at the brewery.

  Benno shook Paul’s hand. Paul’s grip was strong but Benno’s was mighty. To Joe Junior, Benno said, “This the one?” Benno’s English was guttural, rough.

  “Right, this is him.”

  Benno regarded Paul with a long, speculative gaze. It wasn’t friendly. Finally he said, “Okay.”

  Paul was mystified. The cousins started for the steps leading down from the dock. Benno said, “You getting much out in Pullman, Joey?”

  Joe Junior grinned. “Plenty.”

  At last Benno smiled. He had large irregular white teeth. Paul thought of a tiger he’d seen in the Berlin zoo. “Well, I am going to visit a couple of young ladies this afternoon. Huren, but clean. I thought maybe you want to come along. Me, I like to see the workers getting what they need.”