“Good,” Esther said. “Except … well, listen, it’s hard to judge a man by the last two months of his life before a wedding. You know Harry. He has to think about everything for five years before he undertakes a project. He’s like your Panama.”
“What, he thinks the marriage is happening too fast? Too spur of the moment?”
“I don’t know what he thinks. Probably he’d prefer to have finished with his doctorate.”
“I thought he was! His deadline was in May, wasn’t it?”
“He missed it,” Esther said. “And asked for a July extension. But now it hangs over him. He’s been working too hard and just seems … distracted by the details, what can I say?”
“So where was he running off to?”
“Who knows? He’s been doing that a lot. Shopping for gifts? Last-minute things?”
“I’ve never known Harry to buy anything for anyone,” Ben said. “Louis buys.”
“Louis has not been buying,” said Esther.
They had finished eating, and were sitting at the table at right angles to each other, their conversation waning. Ben said he was getting tired and perhaps if Louis made up a bed for him, he could have a nap before Harry returned.
Esther rang for Louis. “I’m happy to see you, Ben,” she said. “Harry’s really missed you.”
“Yes, so much so that he bolts the day I arrive and even worse, makes friends with a Dutchman.”
“Yes, well.” Esther pursed her lips. “Vanderveer Custis is an acquired taste. I hope you will enjoy his company.”
“Acquired taste like Elmore?” Ben said, lowering his voice.
“You don’t have to whisper, Ben,” said Esther. “Elmore is at the hospital.”
“Oh, good.” They both laughed. “You’ve been married now, what, two years?”
“Almost.”
“Are you and Elmore planning to start a family?” Ben smiled. “I would like to become Uncle Ben to a little Esther.”
“What about to a little Elmore?” said Esther.
“That would be quite insufferable,” Ben said.
Esther smiled at first and then, very carefully, she shrugged. Her shoulders sank inward almost imperceptibly were it not for her words underlining her body language. “Man proposes, but God disposes,” she said. “We haven’t been blessed yet with a family. Though let’s make a pact: when you become Uncle Ben, you’ll have to move back home.”
He took her hand. “Our pledge is iron-clad,” he said. “I’ll get sacked long before that. When I make my report to the president advising our solution to the sea-level canal, he’ll come to Panama and detonate me himself.”
Esther couldn’t hide her delight with him. “What is your solution? Paving the canal with bananas?”
“Close. Building three concrete dams through which the ships are raised”—he smiled broadly—“and then lowered.”
“Like a river dam? Ben, that’s cracked. You can’t do it.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Louis entered the room, received his instructions, and promptly left to prepare Ben’s quarters. “Will your father allow me to invite Mr. Vanderveer Custis for dinner tonight?” Ben asked. “He and I should go over our plans for the bachelor evening. Harry won’t mind if we discuss it in front of him?”
“I think it would greatly amuse him,” said Esther. “I’ll see if we can contact Mr. Custis through the English Department. Go rest, Ben, please. Harry will be back in an hour or two.”
4
“I never cease to marvel at the beauty of this church,” said Irma as they stood in the entrance to the enormous St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Brookline and admired the pews and the altar. “Look at the opal glass windows, the stained glass stations of the cross. It’s stunning.” She glanced lovingly at her tense and distant daughter. “And you in white silk with a tulle veil, and a bow of white taffeta, holding a spray of crimson roses, why the whole thing will be like a painting!”
“Mother, could you please not change the subject? I’ve just told you, we have a serious problem.” Alice clicked her heels in unison with her tongue as she walked down the center aisle counting the pews. “Harry has to see this, Mother. I need to bring him here immediately.”
“There is nothing to do,” said Irma, her consoling hand out. “Don’t be upset. We’ll fit everybody in as best we—”
“I don’t know how we’re going to do it!” Alice interrupted. “We have seating for five hundred and seven hundred are coming!”
“Alice, dear, you’re getting yourself in a lather over nothing. They’ll wait in the narthex. We’ll open the doors.”
“Mother!”
“What do you propose? We can’t change the venue of the church at this late date. Everyone is coming here.”
Alice folded her arms, and paced up and down the aisle. “Maybe we can remove some of the ferns, here and there, and take out these giant planters of lilies,” she said. “Harry was right. They’re completely unnecessary.”
“The flowers are what people will remember.”
“Well, perhaps we should have only invited the flowers,” retorted Alice. “Because the entire church will be turned into an arboretum and there is nowhere for human beings to sit.”
“Five hundred human beings will sit.”
“If we throw away fifteen rows of flowers, we can fit another hundred.”
“We can’t throw away the flowers, child!”
“Oh, please. Of course we can. Let’s put the flowers in the Algonquin. And in our house. We have seventy-five people coming for the wedding breakfast. Let’s positively suffocate them with flowers. We’ll give planters away as gifts.”
“Darling … the church must be decorated with flowers,” Irma Porter exclaimed. “It’s not a wedding without the flowers. This is your Garden of Eden, darling.”
“I’ll be holding a bouquet, Mother,” Alice said in a no-nonsense voice. “So will my bridesmaids. And let’s give Harry an extra large boutonniere made from some of the flowers that are taking up all this precious room. Let’s go and talk to the priest about it. Oh!” she lamented. “I wish Harry could help me. He’d know what to do.”
The mother and daughter proceeded to the rectory.
“I haven’t seen him around this whole week,” said Irma. “Where has he been? He didn’t even come for Wednesday dinner as usual.”
“I know,” said Alice. “To be frank, I haven’t seen him either. Or heard from him. I think he is trying to finish his doctoral thesis before our wedding trip.”
“I thought he was presenting that a few weeks ago?”
“He was, but he couldn’t finish. He said he had too much on his mind—because of the wedding. He can hardly be doing doctoral work when we are soon sailing to Europe.” Her whole face flushed with anticipation. “I wish we didn’t have to come back so soon. Two months is not long enough, don’t you think? We’ll barely be able to spend two weeks in Italy.”
“It’ll be wonderful just as it is,” said Irma. “The less time in Italy, the better.”
“Oh, Mummy.” Alice took her mother’s hand while they waited for the priest. She tutted, suddenly remembering something else. “The string quartet maestro asked me if I wanted to keep them for the Viennese hour at midnight. But we’ll already have a symphony band playing. I don’t know if the quartet might not be nicer, though, at that hour of night.”
“Ask Harry about that. Don’t make this decision on your own.”
“I tried, Mother! Yesterday Belinda, Alyssa, Clara and I all called on him in the late afternoon.”
“And?”
“He wasn’t home! Esther and Ben were there and Esther said he was out. But she said it oddly. I asked if I should wait. She thought about it for ten minutes and then said, I don’t think so. Not no. But I don’t think so.”
“So what did you do?”
“We waited a little bit. They were quite hospitable and funny. Mr. Barrington came home, and we had a wonderful evening.
He is such a nice man.”
“Yes.” Irma’s face was expressionless.
“At dinner Ben entertained my friends and Esther by making everybody laugh. Then he and Elmore got into a tremendous fiery discussion about Panama to the delight of all, especially Mr. Barrington. Elmore called Ben a ditch-digger. Ben called Elmore a mosquito-hunter! We didn’t leave until nine in the evening.”
“What—and Harry didn’t show up all that time?”
There was just the slightest pause.
“No.”
“And no one spoke of it?”
“Not a word! As if he didn’t live at the house. No one even mentioned his name.”
“So what did you talk about at dinner? Besides Panama.”
“The wedding of course! We’ve been talking about nothing else for two years.”
“The wedding without mentioning Harry? That’s quite a feat.”
“Well, we mentioned him in his role as the bridegroom. As in, how much of the bridegroom’s tuxedo and morning coat should be white? Should his waistcoat also be white? Could Ben make sure Harry’s patent leather shoes are shined the night before? Has he picked up his silk black hat? And what does the bridegroom think of the ‘Strains of Lohengrin Wedding March’ instead of Mendelssohn’s?”
“All without mentioning Harry’s name?”
“Yes! And no one said, oh, look at the time, I wonder where Harry is. Mr. Barrington regaled us with stories about the people who were traveling from all corners of the globe to see his son get married. Colonel MacKenzie, Mr. Barrington’s personal friend is arriving all the way from California. And Judge Blackhouse, who apparently never goes to these things, is an honored guest. So is Supreme Court Justice Wendell Holmes. Mother, he asked me to play something on their piano. He said Esther hadn’t played in a long time. It was a little out of tune, their Kimball, but I played ‘Consolations,’ and made only one tiny mistake. When I finished and turned around, Esther had tears in her eyes. Even Mr. Barrington looked a little misty.” She straightened her spine. “Well, why not? It’s a beautiful piece, Mother. So that helped pass the time. At one point, Rosa had to step outside for something and when she returned through the front door, Esther and Ben jumped nearly to the ceiling. When they saw it was just the housemaid, they sat back down like someone dropped potato sacks on their heads.”
Irma was pensive. “Were they waiting for Harry?”
“I don’t know. I found the whole thing unnerving. And as you see, without him we don’t have answers to a dozen questions.”
“Well, of course. You’re having to make all the decisions.”
“Yes!” Alice said, overburdened. “But he told me last week that he thought loin of pork and lobster Newburg was too much, and didn’t go together. Yet he didn’t come up with anything else. I told him, propose something else. You know what he suggested? Lasagna!”
Mother and daughter made an exasperated interlocution. “He will never stop with his jokes, will he?” said Irma. “Not even at a time like this.”
“I know, Mother, I know. The other week we were going over the colors of the flowers and he asked why the roses had to be crimson. I told him, Harry, because of Harvard, remember? And he said, yes, but in a tone that made me uncertain he actually did remember. So, as a joke, I asked him if he’d prefer pinks and yellow organdies instead? And he said, why not?”
Irma steadied her anxious daughter. “Don’t worry, darling. It’s good he is letting you decide. Believe me, you need that in a marriage. You want him to be malleable, to do the important things how you like, not as he likes.”
Alice agreed half-heartedly. “At least he’s bought me a wedding present—finally. God, I thought he’d never get it done.”
“How wonderful! How do you know this?”
“Because I couldn’t take the suspense anymore. You know how I hate surprises. And to be perfectly honest,” she said sheepishly, “I was a tiny bit afraid he’d forgotten. So I asked Billingsworth. I begged him to divulge. And he told me that Harry had apparently bought an exquisite gold and diamond watch and a diamond necklace!”
The mother and daughter couldn’t speak for a moment, in their excitement. “So when he finally takes the leap, he really goes overboard,” said Irma.
“Doesn’t he just, Mother! Oh, I really wish he could help me decide on these flowers.”
Irma took her daughter by the hand and led her back inside the church hall. “We’ll tell the priest we want to bring in more pews, darling, and remove the flowers as you suggested. I fully believe, the more people in the holy place to witness your triumph the better.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” She kissed her mother in gratitude. “Oh!” Alice exclaimed. “What a brilliant spectacle it will be!”
5
In Chicago they stayed at the Palmer House on Monroe Street. The convention was for three days in the middle of the week, and they had bought tickets well in advance. Two hundred anarchists, socialists, radical trade unionists, opponents of the American Federation of Labor and Harry and Gina gathered in Chicago for one of the seminal events in the history of the trade union movement—the foundation of IWW, the Industrial Workers of the World—though Harry and Gina never left their hotel, barely left their hotel bed.
The Palmer House, destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire mere days after it opened in 1871 had been restored to its original opulence. Everything in that hotel from the lobby upwards was rebuilt on the grandest of scales. Harry told Gina the hotel was the outcry of romance in the fight against the drudgery of daily life. “So we can forget our life for just a few minutes, and rejoice here as if there is nothing else.”
“But Harry,” said Gina, in his arms, “there is nothing else.”
“There isn’t much,” he said, locked inside himself in a compartment that was becoming smaller and smaller. The lobbies had to get grander to obviate the airless quarters inside him, like steerage berths on a sinking ship. The guesthouses just weren’t doing it any more.
It rained for three days in Chicago while the collectivist anarchists butted heads with the insurrectionary anarchists, and the anarcho-communists dueled with the anarcho-syndicalists. “Direct action” man Big Bill Haywood made an uneasy alliance with “ballot box” guy Eugene Debs while radical Lucy Parsons bitterly and publicly fought with revolutionary Tom Haggerton. Meanwhile Harry and Gina spent the rainy days allied in bed, smelted together, caught in their own insurrectionist downpour and venturing to the door to pick up the room service and the newspaper to read all about it. Italy, Iberia, Innsbruck were dots on the maps of their bodies that they kept connecting, drawing over with the piercing needs of their protracted couplings.
“Gia, do you care if I’m rich or poor?”
“Makes no difference to me.”
“But all things being equal …”
“I’d like to wear a white hat and live in a house with two staircases.”
“So you do mind. But what if I have nothing?”
“You have everything. It’s I who’ve got nothing. Except you.”
“What if there is nothing else but me?”
“That’s all I want. It’s all I ever wanted.”
She wasn’t answering his questions even though she was pretending to. She was giving him what she thought he wanted.
“Your father, was he poor?”
“Yes. But we always had enough. No more, no less.”
“But what about his violins?”
“He built them only for America. We never touched the violin money.”
“Until you buried him with it.”
“But what a funeral he had. We carried him through the streets of Belpasso and the procession after him, three hundred people, all wept. The bells rang for him in ten churches.”
“He was an amazing man by the sound of it.”
“Yes, and careful with his money.” She kissed Harry’s neck, nuzzling him. “My father was a great proponent of having only one of what you needed. He wasn’t concern
ed about having two combs, two belts, two handkerchiefs when only one would do. He had one pair of scissors for twenty years.”
“I have never met a man like that. I wish I could have known him.”
“Me too. But I learned from him, my darling. I’ll be careful with our money. You’ll see.”
“I don’t want children, Gina.”
“Lord, of course not. Children? Nor me. Progressive women don’t have children nowadays. It’s just not done. You know what Emma says about children: they’re soul-destroying.”
“I’m serious.”
“I’m more serious.”
“Other people’s children are nearly intolerable.”
“Why qualify intolerable?”
“Quite right. But also I know women who suddenly mold their whole being around the new life that is forming.”
“That would not be me, darling. I’m here to change the world.”
“Children can’t be the reason for your whole existence!”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
“Nor should they be.”
“Harry, we are speaking the same language.”
He saw her then, really saw her, her open Italian face, the shining black-brown eyes, the ready smile. “But you said you love me,” he said.
“You are what I love most in life.”
“If it weren’t for me, would you want to have children?”
“Never,” she said, adamant and fierce. “I didn’t come to America to tie myself to babies. I’m my father’s daughter. I have a lot to prove.” Gina smiled. “We’re too young. We will never be young like this. I want to have just us, Harry. I want to get my degree, I want to work, to travel. Do you know I’ve never been anywhere but Lawrence and Boston?” She giggled. “And Italy, of course. But there is so much I haven’t seen. So much I haven’t done. I want it all.” She held his hand, lying happily in his arms. “I want it all with you.”
He was pensive, pondering. “But Gia,” he said with puzzlement. “What if I wanted children?”
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