Children of Liberty Read online

  “Thank you, sir, but it’s my lunch hour …”

  “Of course. But you know, I offered you the opportunity to guest teach it with me in February and March.”

  “You did, sir. But I was—still am—finishing my doctorate.”

  “Your colleague Mr. Broun, also working on his Ph.D. by the way, took two full months to explain socialism, communism and the single tax to my students. I take one month of April to refute.” Carver smiled lightly. “What’s happened to Mr. Broun, do you know? I haven’t seen him since April began.”

  “Yes, well,” Harry nodded his head from side to side, “I think it’s not because he doesn’t wish to be refuted, sir. I’m certain he does. It’s just that the, er, baseball season has started …”

  Carver laughed. “Say no more. Let’s hope I see him again before October.”

  “About my letter, though …”

  “We’ll sit down next month, all right, you and I, and … talk to my secretary. Set up a time. Right now I’m late.” He sped up.

  “But do you think it might be possible?”

  “We’ll talk next month!” Carver rushed off. Was it Harry’s imagination, or was the professor avoiding answering? Had he promised the class to someone else? It was probably that Edward Gay—he was always making up to the chair with his novel ideas. He had started at the bottom two years ago, suddenly recruited a wife, produced two children, and not five minutes later became associate professor. He was probably looking at a full professorship next year.

  It was so irritating. Nothing was the same in the department since Cummins left in 1902 to become a Unitarian minister. Despite Carver’s assertion that he wanted to make the economics department the strongest in the nation, it had been all downhill from there. Carver was always trying to persuade the “unenlightened” as he called them. Harry suspected that Carver must have counted Harry among them.

  He liked teaching, mostly. He liked being able to read the books he wanted to read and then distil the meaning of the important parts for eager Harvard undergraduates. It appealed to him purely on that level. On another level, it pleased him to know that no one in his family had ever been a professor, at Harvard no less.

  But he hadn’t expected the students’ apathy, coupled with their staggering arrogance. Their lack of understanding was firmly partnered with an indifference to it. He hadn’t anticipated haggling with them over grades, or prepared himself for marking, term in and term out, the most inane, thoughtless, last-minute nonsense. He was teaching basic economics, the building blocks of business administration, of management skills, of politics, of law, of engineering—by God, of nearly everything! And yet many of his students understood nothing of profit, of statistics, of demand, of operating costs, of trying to organize business and economics into a coherent whole. At first he thought it was his fault. He was not good enough as a teacher, and so his students were falling behind. He stayed late at his windowless office, trying to come up with bright examples, trying to make them understand materialism, dialectical and otherwise. They would have none of it. The more he tried to explain, the more they made themselves immune to understanding. So he started performing economic experiments in class. He built a model factory in his classroom, separated his students into owners, managers and workers. He showed them how a factory controlled by the very few and labored in by the many eventually grew into disparate worlds, separated by lack of a common language. All seemed to be to no avail.

  In the late afternoon, Economic Theory went no better than Outlines that morning. The freshmen were done sitting in a classroom. Spring was here, the buds were about to burst, the air was aromatic and, unusually for Boston, it had been quite warm. It would change, it always did, but while it lasted, no one wanted to be stuffed inside talking about markets and manufacturing and millionaires.

  It was five o’clock when Harry left University Hall, and still light. Everyone was out and about. A glance at Appleton, a brief vivid memory of Ben sitting on the chapel steps—proximate yet far—waylaid Harry for a moment. He stopped and looked around Harvard Yard, at the crisscrossing paths, at the elms, at the patches of serene sunlight. He needed to go to Gore Hall to work, but it was so mild and pleasant, and from Harvard Square he could hear the wafting of guitar strings, accompanied by a raucous young vocal that already sounded drunk, though it was barely opening time on a Monday. Tentatively he took a step toward Mass Avenue, wondering if he should call on Vanderveer for a game of billiards at the recently built Harvard Union. But, though he wanted to talk to someone about Carver and his mysterious vacillating, he didn’t want to be cooped up inside, even with good company. He decided instead to walk to the river. He had a little bit of time, he wasn’t due in Brookline for dinner with Alice and her mother until eight, and a stroll down the Charles was exactly the kind of impulsive thing he said he always wanted to do but never did.

  He crossed the Yard intending to exit through Johnston gate. Easier said than done. It was congested at this time of evening, emptying out onto Peabody Street, and he was delayed by a gaggle of young women, who were loud and slow-moving. As was the habit of young water birds when they banded together, when they came to an exit or entrance, instead of hurrying through it, mindful of whoever was behind them, they stopped and with increasing excitement began honking about some female fool thing or other. On this fine evening, Harry felt peevish. They were keeping him from his impulsive plan. He wanted to keep strolling, but instead was forced to stop, and worse, forced to listen. He thought that as usual they would be talking about their hair, or perhaps about ice-cream cones at last year’s hugely successful World’s Fair, or perhaps about the Summer Olympics also just passed. But no, they were talking about Eugene Debs, of all things!

  “He said he was for socialism because he was for humanity. Isn’t that powerful?”

  “Yes, yes, brilliant!”

  Debs, president of the newly formed U.S. Socialist Party had recently spoken at Mass Hall. Harry was surprised that a week later, the delinquent girls were still discussing him. Had they been logjammed at Johnston gate all that time? He could not discount the possibility.

  “Yes, but did you hear what just happened?” said a tall girl. “The Supreme Court barred the state of New York from setting the maximum number of hours one can work in a bakery!”

  “And this is good?” a shorter girl asked.

  “Oh, yes!” the tall one replied. “It’s a leap for liberty. We work as much as we want—or as little.”

  Harry fought the overwhelming urge to exhale derision from his throat. Another anarchist, this one in his way.

  “At the same time,” the brunette continued, “that’s not all we’re trying to achieve, of course. We want to be paid more, too, for the hours we do work, be they many or few.”

  The girls clucked that yes, getting paid more was better. Because they wanted to have fun, not just work, they wanted to go dancing, get their hair done. One of them imitated a dance step right in front of him. Harry wilted. It had almost been a real discussion for a second.

  “Excuse me, please,” he said to them loudly, trying to push his way to the gate without accidentally touching any of them. Not one of them moved or even acknowledged that they heard him. “Pardon me,” he said, nearly falling against the tall brunette who, while continuing to speak, gracefully moved out of his way. He glanced at her, irascibly at first—then with astonishment.

  “Gina?”

  She spun around to face him. “Harry—is that you? Well, hello.”

  “Gina?” said the shorter one. “You have the wrong person. That’s not Gina.”

  “I am, Sophie,” said the brunette. “Gina is my given name.” She smiled politely at Harry. “How have you been?”

  Dumbfounded, he took off his hat and held it in his unsteady hand. Now the girls and Harry were all blocking the way out, a yardful of disgruntled students behind them. Finally they made their way out of the wrought-iron gates and stopped against the fence on Peabody.

>   “I’ve been well,” Harry said. “And you? It’s been a long time.” Her friends encircled them, appraising him.

  “Has it?”

  “Yes, five years, I think.”

  “Five?” she said. “It can’t be.”

  He hoped she didn’t notice his flushed skin, didn’t hear his inexplicable stammer. He couldn’t get his words out. Was this really Gina? He bit his lip from following up his thoughts with some inanity. “How are you?” was all he said.

  She was restrained and formal, and this made it easier for him to get his composure back.

  “I’m doing well, thank you.”

  “What are you doing on campus? And what do you mean, your name isn’t Gina?”

  “Gina was too ethnic,” she said. “Too Italian. The American equivalent is Jane. I liked that. So when I applied to college I gave my name as Jane Attaviano.” She spoke almost without a trace of accent now, just a subtle misplacement of the accent and a light appealing rolling of her vowels that made a simple “applied to college” sound like flowing sultry candy from her mouth.

  Harry smiled. “Can’t get too far from the Italian with that last name.”

  “I don’t want to get too far from that,” she said. “I carry my father’s name proudly.”

  He stammered again. “You applied to Harvard?”

  “Well, no.” Faintly she smiled. “Harvard doesn’t educate women.”

  “Yet!” piped in Sophie.

  Now it was Harry who felt like a fool. He wished Sophie weren’t standing so close, pulling all the other girls to listen in. He just wanted … he didn’t know what he wanted. “Are you going to school?”

  “Yes, I’m at Simmons College on the Fenway. Do you know it?”

  “Vaguely.” By which he meant not at all.

  “They opened their doors to women in 1899. So I applied after I graduated.”

  “Good for you. Long way to commute, though.”

  “I don’t commute, I live in the residence hall. Sophie! Wait for me—I’ll be just a minute.”

  “How is your mother? Your brother?”

  “Everyone is doing fine. You?”

  Returning, Sophie tugged at her arm. “Janie, come on, we gotta go. We still have to eat before the meeting.”

  “Meeting?”

  “Yes,” Gina said. “On Mondays, the Daughters of the Revolution meet.”

  “To discuss …?”

  “Tonight Mother Jones is speaking about the dangers of letting children work at the textile mills and the mutilations they suffer on the machines.”

  “Mother Jones?” muttered Harry. “I didn’t know she was still alive.”

  “Tireless at seventy-five,” said Gina. “Um, would you like to join us or do you have to run?”

  The river forgotten, his dinner plans all dispersed in the heady breeze, Harry mumbled non-intelligibly and found himself walking down the street alongside her. Well, alongside her and Sophie and four other friends, who he wished would all (temporarily) vanish.

  “You’ve gotten taller,” he said, glancing at her feet to see if perhaps it was extra high heels that made her stand half a head above her compatriots. She was nearly his height. He glimpsed stylish black pumps but couldn’t see the heels. He became distracted by her slim gray dress, fitted through the bodice, slightly flared in the skirt. His gaze traveled upward. Her hair was up in a loose bun, brown and wavy. Her makeup was light, but her features looked dramatic—her long eyelashes extra dark, her eyes a deep cocoa, her eyebrows theatrically arched, her teeth sparkling, and her mouth—in the curve of her lips there was no hiding the intoxicating Sicilian immigrant behind a sober Beacon Hill name like Jane. Harry found himself becoming light-headed. Long and limber, she bounced as she walked. Five years ago Harry must have overlooked the harbingers of her present height. He had been careful to overlook so much. Perhaps the length of limb had always been there. Her face and neck were smooth and tanned, her southern skin naturally darker than her pallid northern friends.

  As they walked, he shuffled, trying to count his steps. Math flew out of his head. How old was she now? Twenty? Surreptitiously he glanced again at the rolling curve of her slim hips cinched under the long narrow waist. Could it be that she still didn’t wear a corset? Impossible in today’s day and age. All the women wore the S-shaped corsets, so popular in the Edwardian fashion. Even Esther had got into the swing of it, uncomfortably. Harry teased his sister mercilessly about never being able to sit down. But Gina remained straight and slender, except for the natural arcs and swells of her body. Disoriented, Harry looked away before he tripped and fell.

  He knew the restaurants had been doing well; Billingsworth kept his banker’s eye on them. A while back Harry asked Billingsworth if Gina still worked at Antonio’s by the station, but Billingsworth said he hadn’t seen her in years. If you want I can ask Salvo, he said, but Harry adamantly said no.

  Yet here it was, trouble next to him, sashaying to Harvard Square in her smart parlor heels, trouble glittering from the rings on her fingers and the buckles in her hair. Trouble smelled good too, or maybe that was one of her friends. It was hard to tell, they all walked so close together, in a lupine pack. Harry nearly prayed it wasn’t one of her friends who smelled like the beach and books and brine. He inhaled when they stopped for the light, and was simultaneously relieved and agitated to realize, no, it was her.

  “I don’t know if I can get used to calling you Jane,” Harry said. “You might have to start calling me Harold.”

  She agreed gamely. “If you call me Jane, I will call you Harold.”

  He didn’t really want her to call him Harold. Posh and proper people called him Harold, like his work colleagues. His friends and family always called him Harry. And he didn’t want to start calling her Jane. She was Gina to him, though Jane somehow suited her new, taller, confident self more. Then again, she had always moved with pride and poise, even when she had just stepped off the boat.

  “Harry.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” He had stopped listening, absorbed in his thoughts.

  “How is married life? Do you have any children yet?”

  “Oh, you’re married?” said Sophie on Gina’s right.

  “Not married yet,” he replied and volunteered no further.

  “Five years and still not married?” Gina chuckled lightly.

  “You sound like my father.” But he said it amiably, as if being like his father was the best possible thing she could be.

  “How is Ben?”

  “Good.” Harry rolled his eyes. “When I say good, he isn’t dead yet, so that’s good.”

  “Why would he be?”

  “He’s down in Panama fighting off malaria, standing all day long in five feet of foul water.”

  Gina clapped her hands. “That doesn’t sound like much fun, but I’m so proud of him. I always think of him when I read about the plans for the canal in the paper. Sounds like they’re almost ready. Did he just leave?”

  “He’s been down there nearly five years now.”

  “Five years! So he left back when—”

  “Yes—just a few months after you—” He didn’t finish and she didn’t finish. It was best forgotten and left unmentioned. A raw sorrow still laid out on Charter Street. “We’re all proud of him. He’s been toiling there, building up the infrastructure in impassable mud during the monsoon season—a thankless task. He didn’t think it would ever happen, the whole project has been in such a state of disarray. But Roosevelt may finally be serious about excavation. Ben is assistant engineer, second in charge only to the chief engineer, but I think he’s getting a new boss—John Stevens, who was put in charge of construction by the president himself. Stevens is not even in Panama yet.”

  “Amazing,” said Gina. “Please give Ben my regards when you write to him. And what about you? What are you …” but her attention drifted from Harry. Some young men were loudly calling for her from across the square near College House residence hall. Despite th
e saxophones and the French horns, Harry heard them vying for her attention. He had no doubt it was for her attention. Her girlfriends were mere collateral. The men were harmonizing in a sing-song from across the street, making complete fools of themselves. “Hey, you Gibson girl … look at me … hey hey, Gibson girl, turn your eyes to me …”

  He thought with contempt, no serious young woman is going to fall for such tomfoolery. But she was laughing—she obviously found them amusing!

  “Well, look,” he said, deflated, “I’ve got to run.”

  “You’re sure you don’t want to come with us?”

  He glanced at the wild pack across the street, caterwauling, gesticulating to her. He looked down the street to the river, to his other obligations, none of which he could see clear to. He narrowed his eyes. “Where are you headed?”

  “Quick dinner, then the amphitheater at Sever Hall. Joe Ettor is speaking after Mother Jones.”

  “Ah.” Harry nodded approvingly. “An Industrial Workers of the World crowd.”

  “Yes. We’re preparing for the convention in Chicago at the end of June.”

  “He’s a good speaker, I hear.”

  “He’s all right,” said Gina. “But he’s no Emma.”

  “Emma? You mean Goldman?”

  “As if there is another. Will you come?”

  He glanced peripherally at her friends, then more intently at her in the Harvard Square dusky sun. What he wanted most of all at that moment was to catch up with her for five minutes, without the boys, without the girls. “What about afterward?” he asked. He would go to the library, pretend to work, and wait.

  “I’ve got plans after,” she said. “Sorry. Maybe another time?”

  “Yes, maybe.” He stepped away more definitely. “It was nice to see you again. Please give my regards to your brother.” He put his hat back on his head and resisted the urge to bow deeply. He bowed to her slightly.

  “And my regards to your sister. Has she married?”

  “Yes, yes. Married a doctor last year.”

  “Oh nice, a doctor. Goodbye, Harry!” She was dragged away by her friends.