Children of Liberty

by Paullina Simons

  “Yes,” said Alice. She was testy. “And about all the wrong things, Mother.” She turned to Herman. “I wanted to ask your advice. Harry won’t hear of it, but what do you think of postponing …”

  “Postponing?” Harry exclaimed.

  “Yes, darling. Your dissertation. Explain to Professor Carver how difficult it’s been for you, and how you simply must have more time to finish successfully.”

  “Are you that far from finishing, son?” Herman asked. “I thought you were close.”

  “He’s always in the library,” said Alice. “I never see him. But it’s too much to finish in three weeks.”

  “I’ll be fine,” said Harry. “I may ask for a June first extension if I feel I absolutely can’t deliver. But I’m not worried.”

  “Also, you’re thinking of going to Russia,” Orville said, not willing to let it go. “And that worries me, frankly, even more than rumbly Italy. Russia is in real upheaval.”

  “Etna, too,” Harry said quietly.

  “Well, Russia just had themselves a revolution! They’re fighting a debilitating war they can’t win with the Japs, and some Grand Duke was just blown apart by a nail bomb …”

  “That, ladies and gentlemen, is Anarchism. The greater the opportunities for every unit in society, the finer will be the individual and the better for society; and the more creative and constructive the life of the collectivity. That, in brief, has been the ideal to which I have devoted my life. Will it be the ideal to which you will devote yours?”

  “I’m not the Tsar’s uncle,” said Harry, “and things have quieted down quite a bit since February.”

  “It’s dangerous there. I recommend the Orient Express. Paris, Vienna, Bucharest, Constantinople—now that’s a trip.”

  “That does sound wonderful, doesn’t it, Harry?” Alice took his hand.

  “Yes.”

  “Darling, do you think we’ll have time for Italy, for Russia, for France, and for the Orient Express?”

  “And Greece. Of course we’ll have time. We’re going for two months.”

  “What an adventure!”

  “Alice is right, though. What about your doctorate?” Herman asked.

  “I’ll just have to finish, won’t I?”

  “But will you?”

  “Yes.” He tried not to sigh. He turned to Ben’s mother. “Ellen, how is Josephine?” Josephine had been diagnosed with cancer last year.

  “Thank you for asking, Harry. She’s not well.”

  “I’m so sorry. I thought she was getting better?”

  Ellen shook her head. “Wishful thinking on our part.”

  “That’s terrible. Where is she now?”

  “She is staying with me in Back Bay.” Ellen shook her head. “I don’t know how much longer we can take it. The nurse is having a terrible time with her.”

  “What other choice is there?”

  Ellen shrugged. “No choice really. Home, or …” She didn’t finish.

  “Maybe another nurse?”

  “Your sister is a grand woman,” Herman said. “She’s always been a shining star. Tell her that, Ellen.”

  “She knows, Herman, she knows how you feel. Thank you.” Ellen lowered her head, as if perhaps a listing of Effie’s accomplishments in life was not what Effie needed at that precise moment.

  But no one knew what Effie needed. No one knew what to offer.

  Suddenly the conversation lagged.

  “For in the last analysis, the grand adventure, which is liberty—the true inspiration of all idealists, poets and artists—is the only human adventure worth striving and living for.”

  Harry roused himself and looked around. His family sat around the patio table, serene yet lost in thought, attractive, sociable, mannered, familiar. Everyone was trying to figure out what to say to Ellen about the critical illness of her oldest sister—except for Harry, who was studying Alice’s sweet, concerned face.

  “She just needs someone kind to sit with her, Mrs. Shaw,” said Alice to Ellen, patting the older woman’s hand. “She just wants a little compassion.”

  Ellen nodded at Alice, her severe expression softening. “You’re so right,” she said, squeezing the young woman’s extended hand. “I think that’s probably all she needs. But I’m so busy. And the nurse is inadequate.”

  Harry marveled briefly at Ellen who once again managed to shut the conversation down with that last statement. Was she asking for someone else to come and sit with Effie? Was she implying that other people, present company included, were less busy than she? What to say to this?

  And then his blinkless gaze traveled back to Alice, sitting by his side. She was such a wonderful girl. Reaching over, he took her hand and squeezed it. He wanted to say he did it because the scales had fallen from his eyes. But that wasn’t quite it. He didn’t see new things here. He saw old ordered things with a clearer eye and a cleared head. What was he thinking? How could he have allowed himself to stumble into such an irrational state? All the preparations for their hectic summer, their travel itinerary, his doctoral presentation—for five enraptured minutes he had become blind and lost the plot he had been so carefully forging. It was lunacy. He laughed at himself, poured some white wine for Alice, and resumed his pleasant droll conversation with her and Esther and his father, this time fully engaged, vowing to forget and then actually forgetting the yawning mutiny that ruled beyond the lush and landscaped lawns.

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE HIGH PRIESTESS OF ANARCHY

  1

  “HARRY, did you hear? Emma Goldman is starting her own magazine!”

  “What, she got tired of getting arrested for reading Lucifer the Lightbearer?”

  “Mock if you want.”

  “I want to mock.”

  “I told you she’s a genius. She wants to call the new publication Mother Jones. What do you think of that?”

  “I have no opinion. Men will never read it.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Harry. Everyone will read it.”

  “Men won’t. They will think it’s a publication on mothering.”

  “What, men don’t understand metaphors? They don’t think Atlantic Monthly is a magazine on the ocean tides, do they?”

  “I believe they do, yes.”

  “Oh, go ahead, poke fun.”

  “I’ll go ahead then and poke fun.”

  “She is touring the country now. She’s not going to be back this way until May.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Harry!”

  “Isn’t there another anarchist we can go listen to? What about some of your Italian counterparts? Cafiero? Malatesta?”

  “How do you know so much about Italy? Malatesta is selling ice cream in Naples. Cafiero died in an insane asylum.”

  “Do you think anarchy made him insane?”

  She pealed with laughter. “No—a group of peasants eating black bread.”

  “No, I think it was anarchy. Bakunin also went mad.”

  “Because of strong sorrows.”

  “No, I think it was anarchy.”

  “Harry,” said Herman, “Billingsworth informs me you’re buying an astonishing number of books from the Simmons College bookstore.”

  Without a beat: “They have a large selection.”

  “The Crimson doesn’t?”

  “It’s too crowded, I can’t browse. What’s the difference?”

  “No difference. Isn’t Simmons an all-women’s college?”

  “That’s why they have so many books in stock; the women don’t read.”

  Esther made a muffled sound over her marmalade toast, but observed him carefully.

  “Don’t study me, Esther,” Harry said. “I’m not a textbook. You know I’m going full steam on my doctorate. I received an extension. I present in June and I have no time to waste waiting for volumes to become available at Gore Hall.”

  “I haven’t said a word, Harry,” Esther said, with Elmore by her side, who was reading the paper on Sund
ay morning, paying no attention to the customary squabbles between the siblings. “I’m scrutinizing you.”

  “Well, you keep at it,” Harry said, wiping his mouth and rising from the breakfast table. “I’ll be a doctor of philosophy and you’ll have a degree in scrutiny.”

  “Why don’t you have Clarence drive you anymore?” Herman persisted. “It would make things easier for you, especially when you keep getting back so late. You wouldn’t have to worry about the car.”

  “I’m not worried about the car now, Father. I spend so many hours at the library that I don’t want to tie up poor Clarence for hours just waiting for me. And if I really get tired, I can bunk with Vanderveer. He is always offering his floor to me.”

  “Why don’t you work at home?”

  “Can’t concentrate,” said Harry.

  “Have you had a chance to speak to Carver about your next year’s course load?” Herman smirked. “I should think as soon as your thesis is completed, they will make you an associate professor without much ado.”

  “Let’s hope so,” said Harry, pulling in his chair and stepping away. “Seems about time. I’ve been toiling as an adjunct for five years. I finally have an appointment with him next week. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to drive to Cambridge and get some work done.”

  They were meeting in the Cambridge Commons and then walking to the library together. She had a paper due on the defiance of social conventions and the class struggle between Thomas Hardy’s Jude Fawley and Sue Bridehead and he had promised to help her with it.

  “On a Sunday?”

  “Gore is open seven days a week, Esther,” Harry said. “Much like a hospital. Right, Elmore?”

  Elmore put down his paper and kissed Esther absent-mindedly on the head. “That reminds me. I best be heading out myself. I’m on call until Monday afternoon. Harry, can you give me a ride to Mass General?”

  Wincing, Harry said, “Sure, but hurry up. The library is not open all day, you know.”

  2

  “Harry, you’re a bright young man,” Carver said. “I liked you very much when you took my Methods of Economic Investigation graduate course.”

  “Yes, you gave me an A.” Harry sat in the dark paneled office across from Carver and struggled not to look at his watch. They had been talking for over twenty minutes and just got around to the purpose of his appointment. It was nearly four o’clock. Harry liked to be at the bookstore by four, so he could loiter around her for two hours before she got off work. But the meeting, which was supposed to take place in the morning, had been pushed until 3:30 and so here they were: Carver delayed and Harry in a hurry.

  “Yes, you were an excellent student.” Carver coughed. He had been coughing a lot the last twenty minutes. “Though slightly argumentative.”

  “Not true, sir.” Harry smiled. “Give me one example.”

  “Can I narrow it to just one? Oh, you were joking. I see. Very good. But I’ll give you one anyway. It’s a matter of fact not opinion that curbs on immigration will absolutely increase labor’s marginal product and therefore wages, but you, though an ostensible advocate for higher wages, still managed to argue that curbs on immigration would do no such thing.”

  Harry paused, trying not to smile. “Okay, another example, sir.”

  Carver laughed. “Like I said, a fine student.” His face turned serious. “But it’s one thing to sit in a class, and quite another to teach it.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “As I hope you know, the first principle of any worthy teacher, especially of a topic as complex as economics, is to make the students understand the foundations of the subject matter.”

  “I agree.”

  “Here’s the rub.” There was another coughing fit. This one required first a handkerchief, then a trip to the restroom. “Harry, your students are coming to me with alarming frequency, complaining that they don’t understand what you’re teaching them. The grades certainly bear that out.”

  “I find a number of them lack a desire for learning.”

  Carver opened a folder on his desk. “Let’s see. Bullock teaches my other comp econ class and his seventy students received twelve As, thirty-seven Bs, and nineteen Cs. Four unfortunately did fail. But still, that’s about the normal curve for a beginner class like his. I can show you the records, preceding even me, of the commonality of grades given to first-year students.”

  Harry sat. “I don’t follow.”

  Carver opened another folder. “Here is your class. Let’s take the semester ending next month. You have sixty-eight students. You have given out two As, eleven Bs, forty-four Cs, eighteen Ds, and you’re failing ten.”

  Harry was stymied. “I didn’t fail them, Professor. They failed themselves.”

  “All right. But do you see what I’m getting at?”

  “Not at all.”

  “How do you explain the sharp discrepancy in grading between yourself and every other instructor in the department?”

  “You didn’t mention every instructor. You mentioned one other.” Harry shrugged. “I’m a tougher grader than Bullock. He wants to be liked. I want the students to learn.”

  “That’s admirable. But your students are constantly in my office complaining about your grading policies, about their grades, their term papers, their essays. They complain about the questions on your tests, about the topics for your papers. They complain about your comments to them. About your antagonistic manner in the classroom. Many of them have told me they feel you have an agenda. I hear many times a semester that you’re less interested in teaching them economics than you are in foisting your set of beliefs on them. Many of them have said that you present your data in a skewed and biased way. When they ask you questions, I’m told you don’t answer them or answer them incompletely or answer a question they’re not asking, or resort to ad hominem attacks in order to embarrass them into staying quiet next time.”

  Harry sat stunned. “Professor, why have you not brought up any of this before?”

  “Oh, Harry, but I have. We sat down with you last August before the new year began and I asked you to reconsider your methods. Do you remember?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “And the year before that. The year before that you were coming out of your masters dissertation and were very green. I attributed some of these problems to a lack of experience. But it’s been three years now. Something tells me this is how things are going to continue with you.”

  Harry pondered. “Perhaps I should grade on a curve.”

  Carver shook his head. “It’s not about that. I see you’re not denying what the students are saying.”

  “I’m not going to defend myself against a couple of disgruntled freshmen.”

  Carver looked inside Harry’s folder. “I received fifty-seven complaints about you this semester alone. That’s from two of your courses. Fifty-seven. Do you know how many complaints Bullock received? Three. That’s total for the year.”

  “I told you, he sucks up to the kids. What’s to complain about? He gives them all As! I wouldn’t complain either.”

  “Your A students also complain.”

  Harry became quieter. He began to understand Carver’s continued avoidance of him, his silence on Harry’s requests for an added class, his discomfort at being approached by Harry in the staffroom.

  “We need to resolve this before you take on another class in the fall,” Carver said. “We need to approach this in a different way.”

  “What way?”

  “Have you considered English?” asked Carver. “Professor Kittredge is a fine chair, and a good friend. I can speak to him and see if there are adjunct courses available.”

  “In English?”

  “Yes. They read a book. You talk about it. You give them a test. Maybe ask them to write an essay. Talk to your friend Mr. Custis about it. He is an excellent instructor of English.”

  “You think I’d do better in English?” Harry shook his head. “Professor Carver, I’m
about to present for a doctorate in economics. Why would a Ph.D. in economics suddenly get transferred to teach English?”

  “English may be a better fit for you. I think there is either something about economics you don’t understand or something about teaching you don’t understand. I sincerely hope it is the former, not the latter.”

  “I understand both quite well.”

  “All right. In any case, I’m afraid your methods are causing unnecessary conflict in my department.”

  Harry shifted tensely in his chair. “Can I get three courses to teach in English so I can get a full salary?”

  Carver stared at him in amazement. “Harry, I have to persuade Kittredge to let you teach even one. You’ll have to show him you can do it, and that you can follow his departmental requirements.”

  “I’ve been teaching here for five years! C.J.—Professor Bullock has been on a full-time salary his only year here. And he doesn’t have a doctorate. How long before I can teach a full load?”

  “You’re putting the cart before the horse, I’m afraid.”

  “I need a job, Professor,” said Harry. “I need a real income. I can’t just be coming to your classroom, refuting your refutations about communism.”

  Carver smirked. “Come now, Harold Barrington. Pick a mansion to live in. This is not your dinner.”

  Harry got up. “That’s where you’re wrong, Professor. It is my dinner. My dinner and my life.”

  “I have been asking you for two years to teach a curriculum based on our department’s criteria, and you have refused. This tells me you are not interested in a salaried position.”