Children of Liberty

by Paullina Simons

  Someone yelled from far behind them. “Janie! Janie!” This was accompanied by a high-pitched whistle. They both turned around. A strapping man was waving and unsuccessfully pushing his way to their seats. Gina waved back. Harry hated him instantly. You whistled for dogs, not women. Maybe you whistled for Emma Goldman. “Tell him to stay where he is,” Harry said. “There’s no room for him here.”

  “Wait till you hear her speak,” she said leaning to him. He had one breath to inhale the scent of her auburn hair, and then Emma Goldman opened her mouth.

  “This is what I believe,” she yelled, to sudden hysterical applause. “The anarchists are right in assuming that the absence of government will ensure the widest and greatest scope for unhampered human development, the cornerstone of true social progress and harmony!”

  Her audience clapped after every sentence. Her speech should’ve taken fifteen minutes; instead she was onstage for over an hour.

  “Anarchism, to the great teachers and leaders in the spiritual aspect of life, is not a dogma, not a thing that drains the blood from the heart and makes people zealots, dictators or impossible bores.”

  When they finally filtered out of the hall onto Milk Street, it was well after nine. Harry was reeling.

  “So what did you think?” Gina asked.

  “She is persuasive,” he admitted. “She’s a good public speaker.”

  “You mean the best public speaker in American life today?”

  “I guess that’s what I meant,” he said, wanting to smile.

  “I want to be just like her,” Gina said.

  Harry held his tongue. He wanted to say, please no.

  “Anarchism is a releasing and liberating force because it teaches people to rely on their own possibilities, teaches them faith in liberty, and inspires men and women to strive for a state of social life where everyone shall be free and secure.”

  “I love what she says about women,” Gina said as they walked from Milk Street to Washington. Harry couldn’t remember where he had parked his car. He hadn’t driven to this part of town before and he felt disoriented, remembering too late that he had plans with Alice. He glanced at his watch reluctantly. It was almost nine-thirty! He really needed to run. Yet he couldn’t leave her in the middle of the crowded darkened street. Faneuil Hall was around the corner and drunken navy men abounded near Quincy market, the docks.

  “Wait here,” he said. “I’ll go find the car and drive you back.”

  “I’ll walk with you,” she said. “You’re going the wrong way. You left it on Tremont Street.”

  “There is neither freedom nor security in the world today: whether one be rich or poor, whether his station high or low, no one is secure as long as there is a single slave in the world.”

  “Janie! Jane!” Two young bucks, entirely different from the ones in Harvard Square, ran up to them with Sophie and Miranda in tow. “We tried to get to you,” the taller of the men whined. “You didn’t save us a seat like you promised.”

  “We couldn’t get four more seats,” she said. “It was crowded today. Soph, Miranda, you’ve met Harry. Archer, Dyson, this is Harold Barrington.”

  “How do you do.” Utterly without enthusiasm the three men shook hands. “What college do you gentlemen attend?” Harry inquired.

  “The Evening Institute for Younger Men,” eager, wiry Dyson said proudly. “We’re in our last year.”

  “Congratulations,” said Harry. “Isn’t that being offered at the YMCA?”

  “No,” Archer drew out, giving him the cool once-over. “It’s affiliated with the Y, but the Institute has its own campus, just two blocks from Simmons. And what about you?”

  “Harvard, class of 1900,” Harry said.

  “Good on you,” Archer said. “We rowed against you in crew last year. Beat the daylights out of ya.” He laughed. “Didn’t we, Dyse?”

  Harry nodded. “It was an exhibition race for charity, as I recall? Not the Yale–Harvard Regatta.”

  His smile dimming considerably, Archer pointed the way down to the Commons. “Come on, Janie. I’ll get us a carriage on Park Street. The round-table discussion starts soon. We host tonight. Let’s hurry—I want us to have a little fun before your curfew. We have hot food. You must be starving.” He waved his bear-like hand near her honey arm, and she stepped away from Harry, careless and free. “Harry, do you want to come? You’ll even out our numbers.”

  “Oh no, no. Much as I enjoy symmetry. Maybe another time. I’ve got to run myself. Will you be all right getting back?”

  “Worry not, my friend, we’ll take care of her,” said Archer.

  “Goodbye!” she yelled to Harry with a jaunty wave, already running with them to Park Street, to where he couldn’t even imagine: to seedy common rooms where the round-table discussion with hot food took place until midnight … Is that what they called it nowadays?

  “No one is safe or secure as long as he must submit to the orders, whim or will of another who has the power to punish him, to send him to prison or to take his life, to dictate the terms of his existence, from the cradle to the grave.”

  He found his car after wandering for half an hour, and kicked all five horsepower into high gear to Brookline; he arrived just as Alice and her mother were being served dessert.

  “Darling, did you forget about us?” Alice said plaintively. “You never come this late.”

  Irma, with pursed lips, said nothing.

  “I’m very sorry, darling,” he said. “I was at Gore working and got so carried away that first I completely lost track of time and then I fell asleep. Right at my table over my books. Please forgive me.”

  “Oh, my poor darling!” she cried, jumping up to embrace him, to pat him tenderly. “You have been working yourself to a skeleton! Mother, did you hear?”

  “I heard,” said Irma.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Famished.”

  “He didn’t even have time to eat!” Alice rang for Sheffield.

  “You must forgive me,” Alice said with a sheepish giggle. “Because Mother and I were convinced you were playing billiards and drinking with your friend Mr. Veer.”

  “That would be highly unlikely,” Harry said, waiting to be poured a glass of red wine, “since one, I don’t know a Mr. Veer, though I am friendly with a Mr. Custis, and two, President Eliot does not allow alcoholic beverages on his campus.”

  “Yes, but technically,” said Irma, “aren’t the billiard rooms right outside Harvard Yard?”

  Harry blinked politely. “Still college property, Mrs. Porter.”

  “Harry, please,” said Irma. “Call me Irma. There is no need for these forced formalities after all this time.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Porter.”

  “It is not only because of love of one’s fellow-men—it is for their own sake that people must learn to understand the meaning and significance of Anarchism, and it will not be long before they will appreciate the great importance and beauty of its philosophy.”

  Friday came and went. Harry taught his two courses, graded some papers, consulted with six students, attended a faculty meeting, attempted to begin a semester plan for next year, chewed half a dozen pencils down to their stubs. At six in the evening, he got hold of himself and went to the Colonial Club. It was Friday night and he was meeting Vanderveer and C. J. Bullock there.

  Usually Harry enjoyed spending a few hours in the company of his friends, even though Bullock, a decent enough chap, was another stair climber. Class of ’04, he got hired by Carver last September to assist with the chair’s classes and for the spring semester was already instructing two courses of his own. This, while Harry spent three years getting his masters and the last two preparing for his doctorate. It beggared belief.

  Tonight he didn’t care about any of it. Tonight it was all vanity.

  Vanderveer didn’t get under Harry’s skin because he was associate professor in the English Department, and whether he became chair at twenty-seven, or taught four Chaucer c
ourses and six Shakespearean seminars was all dandy with Harry.

  “Harry?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Something must be terribly wrong,” said C.J. “We’ve been here an hour and you haven’t said one thing I wanted to punch you for.”

  “Give him time, C.J.,” said Vanderveer. “The evening is still young.”

  Vanderveer was a very tall, very thin, Nordic warrior of a man, who had the deepest voice Harry had ever heard, and his bass so frightened his students that no one dared even shift in their seats in his lectures, though he regularly went seven or eight minutes over time, praising Chaucerian wit and Shakespearean sonnets.

  Vanderveer was also nearly entirely apolitical, knew nothing about baseball, had an unseemly passion for tennis, entirely unmatched by his abilities, and made Harry feel completely right while everyone else was completely wrong. The Dutchman was just below Ben in Harry’s hierarchy of regard for his friends.

  “Mr. Veer, Mr. Bullock, gentlemen,” Harry said, “I don’t recall you saying anything witty or wry to warrant my rapier retorts. I’m waiting until you say something spectacularly stupid.”

  “Stop calling me Veer,” Vanderveer said.

  “Vander, don’t get churlish on me. Ask the waiter for another drink. But not in Dutch, no one will understand you.”

  “I’m fourth-generation American, you insufferable snob,” Vanderveer said, gesturing for the waiter.

  “Ah, so an immigrant.”

  “And the name is Vanderveer.”

  “Don’t get stroppy, Vander. Just because you can’t win a single game of tennis. Try holding the racket with the flat part pointing toward the ball.”

  Vanderveer turned to Bullock. “C.J., I don’t understand how you can have made up lesson plans for courses Harvard is not even offering.”

  “I’m going to speak to Professor Carver about adding them to the course selection next semester.”

  “Anarchism repudiates any attempt of a group of men or of any individual to arrange a life for others.”

  “Leave C.J. alone, Vander,” said Harry. “Concentrate instead on your serve. Because you well know that concreteness of plans is a mark of every unsuccessful man.”

  C.J. flipped Harry the bird.

  “By your own words shall thou hang thyself, Mr. Barrington,” Vanderveer said with a smile, raising his glass to Harry.

  “Anarchism rests on faith in humanity and its potentialities, while all other social philosophies have no faith in humanity whatsoever. The other philosophies insist that man cannot govern himself, that he must be ruled over.”

  The weekend was spent in a monotonous fog, in which Harry was forced, as if on a convict-gang, to grudgingly participate.

  He kept repeating that he didn’t fully recognize her, but that wasn’t it. He didn’t fully recognize himself. He didn’t know who he was.

  As for her, she definitely wasn’t the girl who had walked away from him on Charter Street five years earlier. She had kept vestiges of herself from back then—the roll of her vowels, the swell of her lips. Gina. His mouth softened when he sounded out her name to himself. Gia. G. What’s happening to me? he thought. This isn’t me, not remotely like the man I am, he lamented silently, sitting outside on the lawn, waiting for the Porters to arrive on Sunday. Ellen had already joined them but fortunately Herman was showing her his cigar collection from Cuba while she was accusing him of colonialism. They were all having late brunch outside; it was such a glorious April afternoon. Harry had forgotten to ask her what she was studying. Was anarchy a major at Simmons College for women? And what good was it for women to pursue anarchism? How did this help them become wives and mothers? This was one of the reasons Harvard kept resisting conferring the Radcliffe girls with a formal degree. To what end argued President Eliot persuasively.

  “Nowadays most people believe the stronger the government, the greater the success of society will be. It is the old belief in the rod. But we have emancipated ourselves from that stupidity. We have come to understand that education does not mean crippling and dwarfing the young growth. We have learned that freedom in the development of the child secures better results, both for the child and for society. Freedom for the development of the woman secures better results both for the woman and for society.”

  He had forgotten to ask her what she planned to do when she graduated. Was this her last year? She might have told him—but he didn’t remember.

  How was he going to get through today, through Monday? He was still sprawled in a daze on the lawn. He looked up and saw Herman standing in front of him.

  “Son, what are you doing?”

  “Reaping the fruits of idleness, Father,” replied Harry, tilting his head back in the Adirondack chair.

  “Get up, please, and greet our guests. Don’t be impolite. The Porters have arrived. Orville is itching to talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  “About the choice of countries for your summer trip.”

  “I’m going to suggest he travel to Europe with Mrs. Porter and go wherever he likes. I would never presume to tell a grown man what European country he should and should not visit.”

  “You will say no such thing.” Herman prodded his reluctant son toward the house. “You know he just gets overly excited. He is always listing to one side or the other.”

  “Why can’t he be even-keeled like us?” Herman and Harry began walking toward the French doors, waving to the Porters.

  “Perhaps because you and I need a slight imbalance. Where’s your sister—Orville, hello!”

  A panting Orville shook Herman’s hand. He was rounder, heavier and balder than he had been five years ago.

  “Anarchism is not a cut-and-dried theory. It is a vital spirit embracing all life. Therefore I do not address myself only to particular elements in society: I do not address myself only to the workers. I address myself to the upper classes as well, for they need enlightenment even more than the workers.”

  “Ellen, when is Ben coming back?” That was Esther. Harry blinked. Hours must have passed. Brunch had been served and cleared, the coffee was cold in Harry’s cup, his lemon sherbet long melted. “Last time he wrote, he mentioned returning in May sometime. Isn’t that right, Harry?”

  Harry stared at his sister. Marriage didn’t agree with her. She had become more gaunt, angular. The laughter lines had faded from her face. Her skirts had gotten plainer, her blouses less lacy. She wore barely any makeup.

  “If you say so, Esther. Where is Elmore?”

  “He is on call at the hospital today. One Sunday out of four. But do you think Ben will return early?”

  “I don’t know,” Harry said. “Last time he wrote, he went on for nine pages about the detonations of the earth and how he had recently finally got permission from Roosevelt to build a lock-step canal instead of the proposed sea-level one. He was also recovering from yellow fever. So I don’t know.”

  “Did he say he would try? Or how long he would stay?”

  “He will probably go back soon, Esther,” said Ellen. “He is needed there. I don’t think he can get away for long.”

  “Life itself teaches the masses, and it is a strict and effective teacher. Unfortunately life does not teach those who consider themselves the socially select, the better educated, the superior. I have always held that every form of information and instruction that helps to widen the mental horizon of men and women is most useful and should be employed.”

  “Mr. Barrington, sir, I wanted to bring something to your attention,” said Alice.

  “Is it that you’re not calling me Herman? Because I’m bringing that to your attention.”

  “Yes, sir. But this is actually about your son.”

  “What has he done now?”

  “He is working too hard, Mr. Barrington.”

  “We must be speaking about a different Harry.”

  “I’m serious, sir.”

  “I won’t even talk about it until you call me Herman.”
/>   “Yes, sir, Herman. But he is not eating, or taking care of himself. He is losing weight. Just look at him.” They all stared at Harry sitting like a glassy apparition on the patio. “He is so anxious about this doctoral deadline that I’m beginning to suspect he may have a breakdown. And then he won’t be healthy enough to travel … and we have such a busy summer planned.”

  “Ah, yes, darling,” said Orville, “now that you bring it up, Harry, tell me again the order of the countries on your itinerary?”

  “Daddy please, later for that. I’m trying to talk to Mr. Barr—Herman, about my concerns. And then you can talk to Harry about your concerns. But me first, Daddy, all right?”

  Harry snapped out of his trance. “Orville, what are you worried about? We’re going on the Orient Express, I promised you that. But not until we see Italy and Greece.”

  “Italy is having unrest,” said Orville.

  “You don’t say.”

  “It’s very tumultuous over there.”

  “Is it indeed?”

  “There is volatility, tension. I worry that Italy won’t be good for Alice.”

  “I’ll be fine, Daddy,” Alice cut in. “You’re talking about a girl who stood on the wrong side of a badly barber-chaired stump after a hundred-and-fifty-foot hemlock split vertically and fell the wrong way and still managed to get out of the way.”

  “You knew what you were doing, princess.”

  “I was nine, Daddy.” She patted her father. “How bad can Italy be? Besides, Harry really wants to see it.”

  “Do you, Harry? Do you really want to see it?”

  “See what?” Harry said. “Um—yes, why not?”

  “There’s trouble there,” Orville said. “There was a general strike, I read.”

  Harry tried to focus. “That was last year, Orville. It lasted four days.”

  “There hasn’t been an earthquake in southern Italy for almost twelve years,” Irma said suddenly. “That means they’re due. They have too many volcanoes there, Harry. One of them is bound to erupt at any moment. Like Vesuvius. I’m afraid Orville may be right on this point.”

  “Etna is twice as large,” Harry said. “And ten times as active. Etna is the most active volcano in the world.” He chuckled, oddly, and then stopped, mid-laugh. “And do you know why?” He sat up straight. “Because Zeus after his raging battle with Typhon, the monster of all monsters, he with a hundred fire-breathing serpent heads, picked up Etna and buried Typhon underneath it.” He smiled, as if reminiscing. “That’s why it’s called the mountain of fire.” He stopped and watched the puzzled faces all around him. “He is trapped under there for eternity,” Harry explained, puzzled that they were puzzled. “That’s why Etna is in a near constant state of activity—but don’t worry. We’re not going to Sicily.” He tried not to sound wistful. “We’ll be fine. Right Alice? Irma, you worry too much.”