“No, Frankie, summer school’s over, so beat it like a good little boy! You’ve had your fun—now beat it!”
I went over to her and took her arm. She shook it free roughly.
“But Julie—”
“Get out, Frankie!”
A funny lump came into my throat, and I walked to the door. “Good-bye, Julie.”
She didn’t answer me. I opened the door and went out. Outside her door I took a cigarette from my pocket and lit it. I heard the faint creak of her bed, and then I could hear her crying. I walked away from the door and let myself out of the apartment.
I went out into the street. It was a bright, sunny afternoon but I didn’t feel it. I felt chilly, almost cold. I walked into the park and threw myself on the grass. I looked up into the sky with unseeing eyes. Thoughts kept running through my mind—Julie, Julie, Julie.
I wrote to Jerry and told him I had been adopted. He sent me a letter saying he was very glad for me. The week flew by and at last it was the day I was to leave. That afternoon my uncle would come to take me away. I had packed my things in a couple of cardboard boxes and had taken them downstairs to the superintendent’s office.
I didn’t feel like going back to my room. I heard some noises from the gym down in the basement. I thought I’d go down there and see what was doing.
As I started down the steps I heard the lunch bell ring. I went back upstairs to the dining room. I seated myself at the table and bowed my head while Brother Bernhard said grace. It was then I began to get the strangest feeling—a feeling that I had never been there before. The faces around me seemed strange, indifferent. The white marble tabletop felt cold and new. I put my fingers on it and felt where I had scratched my name into its surface with a key. It felt rough there, and I wondered how long ago I had done it. It was many years ago—I couldn’t remember when. I wasn’t hungry. I began to wonder how my aunt would like me, if my cousins would like me. Then I thought that I didn’t want to leave here.
Halfway through the meal I asked Brother Bernhard’s permission to leave the table. He seemed to understand how I felt and said it would be all right.
I went out into the yard. This was where I had played ball and stood in line to go up to school. It was empty now and deserted, but suddenly I could hear the voices of the kids waiting for the school bell to ring. I could see them running about playing tag and ball, leaving their books in the line to hold their places. I looked up at the steeple of St. Therese half expecting to hear its chimes.
A shadow fell across my path. I looked up. It was Brother Bernhard.
“You’re feeling strange, Francis?” He made the statement rather than asked a question.
I nodded.
“I know how you feel, Francis,” he said. “I’ve watched you grow for many years, from when you were a little boy. I remember the first steps you took, the funny way you’d look when you fell and then tried to get up again. You’d never cry. You’d set your mouth in a funny little line and try again. I watched you when you were sick. I tried to help you understand the ways of people. I watched you grow into a fine, strong lad and I was proud of you. I tried to be both a mother and father to you—to cushion your disappointments, to hold your head high when you would fall into despair. I knew you better than anyone—better than you yourself did. I knew when you were happy and when you were sad. There were some things I couldn’t tell you—things you would have to learn for yourself. I watched you learn them. I watched them form hard lines about your mouth, throw shadows behind your eyes. But there was nothing I could do about it—just hope that you would be all right, that it wouldn’t hurt you too much. But always there is the feeling that it wasn’t enough.”
I looked at him and said: “Oh, no, Brother Bernhard! You were wonderful! I couldn’t ever thank you enough for what you did.”
He smiled. “Tis not I that ye should thank, Francis. It’s the Church. And yet the feeling persists in me. I know there are many good things we teach here. But outside these walls, Francis, is where you learn more than anywhere else.” He gestured with his hand toward the street. “We who live here live sheltered, quiet lives, free from the struggle, and we lose touch with it. When you’re within these confines we can watch you and guide you. But when you’re outside…. Who is there that can be of help? Who is there to give you shelter and defend you against the thoughtlessness of others? No, Francis, I am afraid there is much more to do—things we never think about. We must learn to walk outside with our boys.” He took out his handkerchief and blew his nose. “Enough sentiment, Francis! Did ye say good-bye to Father Quinn, the Sister Superior, and all your teachers? We’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss them too, sir,” I said, “I told them good-bye this morning.”
“Good boy!” he said, walking toward the building with me. “I’ll see ye again before ye go.” He started into the building.
“Brother Bernhard,” I called him back.
He turned toward me. “What is it, son?”
“It is a mortal sin to be a Jew?” I blurted out.
His face softened as he stood there looking at me. When he finally spoke, he spoke very slowly and quietly: “No, son, it isn’t. It couldn’t be. You see a lot of us are prone to forget Jesus Christ was a Jew.”
“But, Brother, if I’m a Jew and I live with my folks, I could not come here to church. And I would not attend confession and be absolved of my sins. Then when I die I would surely burn in hell.”
He came back to me and took my arm. “Francis,” his voice was very low, “as much as we like to think it is, heaven is not a private preserve of us Catholics. It is a place where all good people are welcome. I like to believe that it is open to all mankind regardless of the manner in which they worship our Lord, as long as they do believe in Him and live according to His lights. Be a good lad, Francis, and love your people. Do what is right and ye’ll have naught to fear.” He smiled. “Do ye understand me, son?”
“Yes, sir,” I answered, “I think I do.”
“Good!” he said. “And now I must go. Luncheon must be almost over.” He mussed my hair half affectionately and went inside.
The kids were coming out from lunch. They poured into the yard from all the doorways. I went into the building through the gymnasium entrance.
I stood on the steps of the gym looking around me. There were a couple of kids playing with the basketball on the other side of the room. Peter Sanpero was among them. I decided to walk over and say good-bye and to tell him to forget all the arguments we had had.
The group fell silent as I approached. They watched me walk toward them. I could feel something was wrong. The back of my spine tingled, and yet I could not understand why. I had learned a long time ago not to show that I felt anything was wrong. So I continued to walk toward them. I stopped in front of Pete and stuck out my hand.
“Will yuh forget what happened, Pete?” I asked.
He looked at me, ignoring my hand. Then he took a step toward me. “Sure I’ll forget,” he said, and hit me in the chin. I went head over heels on my back over a boy who knelt down behind me. Several pairs of hands held me down. I couldn’t move. At first I was too surprised even to try. Pete stood over me.
“Yuh Jew son-of-a-bitch,” he snarled at me, “sneaking into our school and never telling anybody!” He kicked me in the side. I could feel the pain running across me. He bent down and hit me in the face. I managed to pull one hand loose and grabbed his shirt. He pulled back at the same time hitting my face. I hung onto his shirt and he pulled me up with him. My other hand came free and I fastened them around his throat and neck. He was back against the wall and the other boys were swarming against me, hitting me in the back and in the neck. I paid no attention to them. For the first time in my life I fought without thinking. I was crazy with hate for him. I squeezed his neck. Then methodically I began to butt his head against the wall behind him. His hands kept punching me in the stomach. Blood was running down my face from my nose and mouth. Then the other boys jumped on
me, and we were all rolling around on the floor, over and over. I felt my jacket tearing away. But I didn’t care. All I wanted to do was kill Pete. I wanted to kill him—kill him! I banged his head against the cement floor. Suddenly strong hands grabbed my shoulders, lifting me up, pulling me away from Pete. Suddenly everything was quiet. Brother Bernhard was holding me and I couldn’t move. Peter was still lying on the floor.
His face was stern, his eyes blazing mad. “Who started this?” he asked us.
One of the younger kids piped up before he realized what he was saying: “Peter. He said it was about time somebody taught that dirty Jew a lesson.” And just as quickly he fell silent.
Without relaxing his grip on my shoulder, Brother Bernhard said to them: “Go to your dormitories.” And to Peter he said: “Go home and never come into this gym again. It’s only for those who live here.”
He held onto me as they went out. When the last one had left the room he let go of my shoulder. He looked at me, his face softening. “Bear them no grudge,” he said. “They still have to learn.”
I looked at him, my breath coming fast, blood running down my nose, and pain running through my side. I said nothing.
“You’d better wash up,” he said more gently. “Your uncle is waiting and you can’t change for everything is packed.”
I walked into the lavatory and washed my face. Brother Bernhard stood silently behind me and handed me paper towels to dry myself with. Silently we walked upstairs and into the superintendent’s office.
My uncle was there. There was a woman with him, who I supposed was my aunt. I guess I made a rather frightening picture as I stood there, my jacket and shirt hanging in shreds around my back covered with blood. Her face grew white. I started across the room. Pain began running down my side and across my chest. There was a roaring in my ears. I felt as if I were falling down into a circle and faces were whirling around me—Brother Bernhard, my uncle, my aunt, Peter, Marty, Raymond, Jerry, Jerry’s father, Ruth, Sister Anne, Father Quinn, Jimmy Keough, Fennelli, Julie.
I tried to open my eyes. I could hardly move them. They seemed to be swimming in tears. At last, after hours of trying, I opened them. I was in a white room. My aunt and uncle and Brother Bernhard were bending over me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a nurse leave the room. Vaguely I wondered what a nurse was doing in my room. I tried to speak.
Brother Bernhard put his finger against my lips. “Hush, lad, don’t try to talk. Ye are in Roosevelt Hospital. Ye’ve three broken ribs. Lie still.”
I let my head roll back on the pillow. A calendar on the wall with but a single page on it said in big letters “September 1, 1925.”
It was my last day at the orphanage at St. Therese.
Interlude
Marty
Martin stood at the door listening to the tinkle of the chimes coming from within the apartment. He took off his cap. The light from the big overhead fixture turned his thinning blond hair to an almost dull gold matching the oak leaves he wore on the shoulders of his uniform. Half idly he wondered to himself what they would be like. Four years—it was a long time.
People changed in four years. They change a lot. He laughed wryly to himself. He ought to know. For four years he had been watching boys turn into men—old men, tired men. He had watched them walking back to first aid with virginal looks of disappointment and horror imprinted deeply on their faces. Their disbelief in the realities of pain and horror that had surrounded them would leave its mark on them—inside—deep inside.
That had been his job—to remove from inside them those hidden, invisible scars that had been engraved in their souls. The marks on their bodies were comparatively simple to handle. You took a knife and cut and prayed. And after awhile you stopped praying but kept on cutting with an inner feeling of despair. They either survived or didn’t. It was as simple as that.
His job wasn’t that simple. The things he did to them were not tangible things. They didn’t live or die by what he had to do. And yet it made as much difference as if they had lived or died. Only you couldn’t see it if you didn’t know where to look for it. Sometimes you would suddenly notice a mouth stop its almost imperceptible trembling, or a new light come into an eye, or the tiniest shake disappear from the hand; or sometimes it was just in the way a man held his head or the way he walked. And you would realize you had won. An intangible, viscerous triumph that would almost slip by you if you hadn’t looked up at the right moment.
Janet opened the door. A moment passed while they looked at each other. “She hasn’t changed much,” he thought wildly, “the same small face, blue eyes, and blond hair, the ends flying around her face making her look childlike and gaminish.”
“Marty,” she said in a sweet, pleasing voice.
He felt the soft press of her lips against his cheek and mouth. The light, tender kiss of friendship, of welcome.
“It’s been—” she started to say as he let her go.
“Four years,” he said with a smile. “I had just been thinking—”
“So were we,” she broke in. “It’s a long time. We wondered if you had changed.”
“Funny, I was wondering the same thing about you and Jerry.” She took his arm and drew him toward the living room. He continued to speak while allowing himself to be drawn along with her. “For a few lonely seconds I felt like a stranger standing in the hall waiting for you to open the door.”
She took his cap from him and gave it to a maid, who seemed to appear from nowhere and disappeared as quickly as she had come. Jerry came running into the room.
The two men clasped hands looking at each other, each reluctant to let go. They spoke, almost together, the foolish things that grown men say to each other when deeply moved.
“Marty, you old sawbones!”
“Jerry, you old ambulance chaser!”
Janet came up with some drinks. They raised their glasses.
“To reunion!” toasted Jerry with a smile, inclining his glass toward Martin.
“To you two!” Martin returned.
“No, wait a minute,” interrupted Janet.
The two men looked at her.
She looked back at them proudly, smiling. “To friendship,” she said, holding her glass high. “The durable kind.”
They drained their glasses.
Dinner was one of those things that Martin had dreamed about for a long time—a rich, white tablecloth, sparking silver, impeccably clean china, candles on the table. And these were his friends—the friends of his childhood, with whom he could retrace the steps of time and live again those very young, exciting days when all the world was new and every day was different and every tomorrow had hope.
It was inevitable they should talk about Francis. They always did sooner or later. This time Janet started it and Martin picked up the thread. Memories flooded into his mind and spilled over to his tongue—Francis, the first days they had met and spent together. It was as if it had happened yesterday.
“I remember the first time I saw him,” he heard himself saying. “We were only kids then. I was about thirteen and a bunch of boys ganged up on me as I was coming from school. He gave me a licking and then chased the others away.
“It was strange. I never could understand why he liked me, but, as far as I felt, he was wonderful.” He laughed a little. “He did the things that all boys wanted to do and did them well. At that time I had been interested in boxing but I wasn’t too good at it. He was good. I knew that as soon as I tried to hit him.
“But there were other things about him that drew me to him: an instinctive, almost reluctant, sense of fair play, of feeling for the other fellow; a certain quiet competence and surety in himself and in what he did. Older people didn’t faze him. He spoke to them as he did to me, as an equal, as if he were one of them.
“It was from him I drew a sense of equality. Before that I was always aware of the fact that I was a Jew. I had been reminded by obscenities scrawled on walls, by beatings in the streets, by sly snigg
ering remarks, and by being tripped up and having my books knocked out of my hand. I was in a fair way toward becoming twisted and bigoted myself, attributing every little incident that had happened to that fact. But he cured me in the way he took me into his little group without question, the way he had me meet his friends without explanation.
“He accepted me and so did his friends. Maybe it was because of him that they did. Maybe not. I don’t know. But I like to think that he helped.
“I remember many years later when I was going to med school that I thought of him and realized that it was as much due to him as anyone else that I was doing as I did. He once said something to me about a fellow I didn’t care very much for. ‘Oh, he’s all right. You just gotta understand him, that’s all.’
“And in those words I found an answer to almost everything that had been festering in the back of my mind. If you understand a man, if you know why he does things, you don’t have to be afraid of him, you don’t have to let your fear lead you to destroy him. I don’t know whether I thought it all out when I was young or when I was in school, but in some way I associate the two as if they happened together.
“It was in Germany in 1935 that I again thought of him. I was attending the university there, taking specialized courses. One day coming from lectures, I walked along the street reading a book I was very interested in at the time. I had to concentrate even more than usual because German was a tough language for me, and I bumped into a man. Without looking up I apologized and proceeded on my way.
“Then it happened. For a moment I was confused and a kid again back on Fifty-ninth Street being tormented by a group of ignorant kids. Then I heard the word ‘Jude’ used in that evil, nasty manner. I looked up and saw the man in a uniform which I recognized as a storm trooper’s. He struck at me, and I beat the living daylights out of him.
“Then I turned and went back to school and asked the professor, who incidentally wasn’t Jewish, why they permitted that to happen? ‘You don’t understand, my boy,’ he said, wagging his very gray head, ‘the people are sick and unhealthy and afraid and of their fear is born a hate….’
Harold Robbins Organized Crime Double Page 8
