by Lia Matera
Her world contracted, she saw nothing but the sheen of silver, heard nothing but the roaring in her ears. Had Mario and the others sent her here with a bomb?
She didn’t notice the footsteps behind her. Nor the shocked exhalation that put a scent of coffee into the air beside her.
Then someone grabbed her arm and spun her. And there he was. Marshal Killy. Again. She wanted to scream from panic. Again. Marshal Killy again.
He said, “You had someone with you there, in Seattle?”
“No.” She could barely shake a word out.
“There to break my head.”
“No, I … ran away when he … when he came.”
“Ran away and left me to him? That’s your story?” Killy pulled her farther from the cart, farther from the group enjoying breakfast.
Pressed against the house, she stared up at the marshal. He was a handsome man—this time it came as no surprise. She watched emotions flicker over his broad face, and wondered what he saw as he looked at her. Did her confusion show? Her suspicion?
“You ran away,” he prompted.
“Yes.” She tried not to see it again in her mind. The marshal’s head on the cobblestones, his blood filling spaces between the pavers. She’d shrieked at Mario, then knelt to put herself between him and Killy so he wouldn’t bring the metal pipe down again. She’d feigned sickness that night. She’d found Mario another place to stay. For the rest of the strike, she’d avoided him.
But Mario knew she’d go anywhere on anybody’s say so to see Nicky.
“I ran,” she said, “but then I went back.” She had indeed ventured there later, keeping out of sight. “To be sure you weren’t dying. But you were gone.”
“And I suppose you looked all over for me, eh? And yet strangely, the next day, when I stopped throwing up and seeing double, I found no one who’d spotted you. They expected you at a union hall kitchen, but you didn’t show up. It took a few days to find your apartment—wise of you to change names. But you’d cleared out of it. Well done, my girl. For I’d have arrested you then.”
“You’d have arrested me that night, I think.”
“As big a fool as I am? I don’t know that I would have. But never mind that now. What are you doing here?”
She made a sweeping motion to indicate her uniform.
“Ah. Shall I ask the Westfields if you’re truly their servant?” He grabbed her arm as if to pull her inside.
“No. Please. I’m filling in for someone, that’s all. They can’t generally tell us girls apart, unless one’s a Negro. They’ll fire my friend. And I … honestly, I mean no harm to anyone.”
“And yet I’ve a new scar behind my ear from our last encounter.”
“I saw all the blood on the street where you were. I would never have wished that on you.”
“Miss Gualtieri—or whatever you call yourself now—I’ve yet to find it in my best interests to believe you.”
“I know. But …” She forced herself to stand as tall as she could pull herself. “But you’re always on the verge of arresting me. It colors everything I say to you—how could it not?”
“Well, perhaps you’ve a point.” His words were mild, but he looked furious, his face reddening, a vein throbbing in his temple. He took a deep breath. “My my. What a dance it’s been. How smooth your every step.”
“It’s not what I wanted.”
“Nor I.” He pulled her farther still from the groups on the veranda. Shall we put our cards on the table, then, at last? You know why I came after you. Don’t you?”
Immediately she saw the jewels in her mind’s eye. “You think I’ll confess to something now? To save you the trouble of dancing?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t call it a trouble. At least, not here, where I’m in no danger of another crack on the head.” His smile was almost sweet. “You’re an interesting girl, I’ll say that. But you’ll tell me the truth today.”
She looked past Killy, at the tray glinting on the cart by the porch rail. Beyond it, the lawn was the color of pippins. A rose-trimmed path ended at a pond as bright as a mirror. Beside its boathouse, tethered skiffs floated like confetti.
It was fully hitting her: Whatever else happened with the marshal, she wouldn’t see Nicky here. Maybe she’d never see him again.
“A boy I grew up with,” she said. “He was the reason I ran from you, in Chicago. I thought he must have been looking for me at the Kingstons. That he’d gotten into trouble there, and so you came after me. To make me say something or do something to make things worse for him.” She heard herself say it but couldn’t make herself believe it. “Is that true?”
He stood very still. Then he nodded.
Their eyes held for a moment.
There was hearty laughter at the other end of the veranda. As if she’d stepped into some bizarre play.
“Because he was a draft dodger? Was that it? Or did you think him guilty of worse? And me, too?”
“Are you guilty of worse?” He squinted down at her. “Are you a Galleanist?”
“No. Or … not in the way you mean it.”
“In what way, then? You know they tried twice to kill my friend, Mitchell Palmer?”
“I heard that someone bombed his home. I … I was sorry. It must have frightened the girls who work in those houses, up and down R Street.”
“Carlo Valdinoci,” he said. “That’s the bomber’s name. Do you know him?”
Carlo? Whose sister Assunta sewed the uniform Ella wore now?
“No, I— I don’t believe you.”
Carlo had come to the Hall with Mario and Galleani a few times. He was film star handsome, a natty dresser with fine wavy hair. He used to flatter Ella by asking her to dance when old Mr. Shelstein played the piano. As if she were old enough, pretty enough, to catch Carlo’s sparkling eye.
“We haven’t made it public,” Killy said. “But it was Valdinoci, all right. He tripped, I suppose, carrying the bomb up the porch steps. Or it would have killed everyone inside. Little Mary. Mitchell’s wife, Roberta. We found Valdinoci’s torso, in a striped shirt and bow tie, on the roof across the street.” His grip on her tightened as her knees went weak.
“Carlo? No. I never would have thought … That’s not how he was when … Things were different when Nicky and I— When we were growing up, it wasn’t like this. We called ourselves Anarchists, all of us, but it meant free-thinkers. Utopians.” How could Carlo have done such a thing? How could he have changed so much? “Even Galleani … he was just … just another man who came to lecture. I never thought he wanted— Emma Goldman came, too. Eugene Debs. Bertrand Russell. Intellectuals, syndicalists. Exercising free speech while they still had it. It wasn’t illegal yet to hear speeches from pacifists, Socialists, even—”
“And you think it’s a good thing, to protect the speech of men like Galleani, who advocate violence?”
“But he didn’t. Not out loud to us there, not that I ever heard. He advocated new ideas, yes. And resistance to bad ones.” She talked over him when he interrupted. “And don’t you advocate violence? Don’t you deputize vigilantes when it suits you, knowing that they’ll murder strikers? Don’t you turn a blind eye and let them lynch Negroes?”
“‘Let them?’ Do you know how many times I’ve gone to investigate— It’s that no one will speak up, speak to us. They’re too afraid of—”
“I hate violence.” The words burst from her. “It’s an infection, like the flu. And you’re the ones who spread it. You Democrats.” She waved toward the other end of the veranda. There was a commotion as men rose from Adirondack chairs, as they stubbed out cigarettes and set cups onto saucers, clapped backs and laughed at one another’s jokes. “With all your money, your influence. What example do you set? War, Jim Crow, false charges, strike-breaking. And you blame us? Blame the tail for the actions of the tiger? It’s all the same bea
st, but you, all of you in power—”
“I repeat my question,” Killy said. “Are you a Galleanist?”
“No.” Ella shook her head. “If Galleani preaches violence now, then no. But you’d make the Attorney General our President? You know what he has in mind. He’ll raid tens of thousands of people who’ve done no—”
“He will not. You think you understand what it is to be a pacifist? But a Quaker like Palmer, like me, does not? Do you know why I’m a marshal? Because the first time I ever met one, he called himself a peace officer. We’re raised to revere peace. It’s peace we’re after when we—”
“Maybe it used to be that way. As it used to be something different, to be an Anarchist.”
The sound of imperious orders and Yes, ma’ams drifted to them from inside the house.
“Tell me why you’re here,” he said. “What are you doing?”
“Hoping to see Nicky. They told me he’d come. Do you know what became of him? You must know.”
“Come here? Who told you that?” He squinted, leaned closer.
“I’ll answer your question if you answer mine.”
“Answer your—? Why should I believe you? You’d be a fool to show up where you don’t belong, where others know your face. Just to meet a man?”
“But I didn’t know this would be … whatever it is. A meeting? I didn’t know who’d be here. I thought it was just a party. But it doesn’t matter. Because, yes. I’d risk anything to see Nicky again.”
“Well, that you will not, my girl. If your Nicky is Nicola Mancusa. We arrested him November last.”
“Oh, no. No.”
“He did go looking for you.” A wry smile. “In fact, it was through his efforts that your employer, Mrs. Kingston, survived.”
“What? Mrs. Kingston lived? I don’t believe it. She looked far beyond help.” She took a ragged breath. “I left her for dead.”
“It was a near thing, I gather.”
“But Nicky saved her?”
“With cold baths, yes. Then Kingston came home and found them.”
“And the great hypocrite would rather have seen his wife a corpse,” Ella said, “than bathing in front of another man?”
Killy didn’t reply.
Nicky must have understood the danger in staying to help Mrs. K—a ragged man alone with a rich woman? But he’d tended to her anyway, he’d done it to save a stranger. He was still the boy Ella grew up with, still the man she loved.
“Kingston claimed he’d taken some jewelry,” Killy said. “It wasn’t found on him. He might have hidden it, or handed it off to someone.”
Ella stopped breathing.
“But Mrs. Kingston contradicted her husband. And as the baubles were hers … That aspect came to nothing.”
Had Mrs. K understood Nicky’s sacrifice, then? Protected Ella for his sake? Nicky must have told her why he’d come to her house. Was this her way of thanking him for his care, for what it cost him?
“You know it was Galleani,” Killy said.
Ella was still reeling. “Galleani?”
“Who ordered his followers to Mexico. To evade the draft.”
“But Nicky didn’t go there to follow anyone’s orders. He went from conviction. The other Galleanists, if you call them that, came back after just a few months.”
“Whatever his motive, draft evasion’s a crime. We’d have brought charges if his English was better. As it was, we put him aboard a boat. Deported back to Italy.”
Her sense of unreality grew. “But Nicky’s not Italian.”
“What? We could barely understand him. And we found no citizenship papers for him.”
“He was born in Kentucky, taken to Arizona by other miners when his parents were killed. Then rescued from the strike at Ludlow. He came to us when he was eleven. My mother taught him Italian. Because we all spoke it, at the Hall. She called him Nicola but his name’s Nicholas. And not Mancusa. That was her pronunciation of a name I don’t remember. Mancowski, something like that.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Killy said. “I suppose he thought he’d fare better in Italy than in prison.” He scowled for a moment, obviously deep in thought. Then he shook himself out of it. “Who told you you’d find him here?”
She couldn’t meet his eye. “Are you on the guest list?”
“Am I—? Of course. Despite your absurd notions about him, I mean to get Palmer the nomination next year.” His tone was defensive. “You think you were sent here because of who’d recognize you?”
“Mr. Palmer, Mr. Roosevelt, you … I don’t know. I don’t know what to think.” But she did know Mario used her love for Nicky to get her here.
“Where’s the logic in it? We pull you in, you might give information against those who sent you.”
If I lived long enough. “Yes.”
She didn’t dare look at the tray she’d brought.
Instead she looked at the men still on the veranda, smokers mostly, leaning along the porch rails. A voice drifted to her: “That room in Albany was the closest to college I ever came.” His companion laughed and said, “You might have mentioned that a few dozen times, Al.”
Al Smith, the governor of New York, wore a white linen suit that on him looked as elegant as a fish monger’s apron. He, Roosevelt, Palmer … any might be President someday. And all were just a stone’s throw from Mario’s platter.
“They chose me because I can pass for a servant,” she said. “Better than any of them.” And how they’d pampered her last night. The pastries and fresh cream, the kisses on the cheek. Because they knew they’d never see her again?
“Come with me,” the marshal said.
He jerked her toward the French doors. If he got her inside, either to question her or arrest her, someone might lift the tray’s lid while they were gone. And if that triggered a bomb?
Ella might get away then, in the confusion. Mario wouldn’t be waiting where the driveway met the road. But the dust and carnage would give her a chance to run.
Spots danced in front of her eyes, sweat dripped between her shoulder blades and down her back.
Saying anything now was the same as signing her own arrest warrant. So the enormity of her words nearly lodged them in her throat: “The tray,” she said. “The one I was about to uncover. They gave it to me, to bring inside.”
Killy reacted as if she’d slapped him. He turned to face it.
It was too big to pick up with one hand. He let go of her. He grabbed the tray without a backward glance.
She watched him dash down the veranda stairs with it, hurrying past the lush arbor and along the path to the pond.
It was no use leaving. With no car to take her away, she’d be picked up soon enough. And she had to know for sure. Mario, Sacco … would they truly have sacrificed her? She was afraid the answer was clear in the guest list.
Ella was a few paces behind Killy when he reached the dock. He set the tray down, then looked to the boathouse as if searching for something. Not for Ella. He nodded as if certain she’d be there.
“Ah,” he said. He grabbed a pole hanging from a support.
The long stick had a crook at the end for pulling skiffs closer. He signaled for her to back up, then he hooked the handle of the tray’s dome cover. He lifted it and set it aside.
Ella didn’t know exactly what she was looking at, there on the tray. A bit of glass glinted on a pyramid of greasy looking tubes.
A second later, she heard popping, like firecrackers. Again using the stick, Killy pushed the tray into the pond.
Then he backed away to stand in front of Ella. His arm went up as if by instinct, shielding his face. Then he let it fall. For a moment he didn’t move.
Ella ventured, “So was it—? Those little bursts. Only firecrackers?”
“Blasting caps. A vial was rigged to tip when the
lid came off. What you heard were the caps underneath. Set off by acid.”
“Blasting caps? Did they only mean to … to scare people?”
“No. The caps would have ignited the fuses. Dynamite fuses. Like the package bombs. That’s why I brought it to the water … But those had one stick. This had nine, stacked four, three, two, the vial on top. Who gave it to you?”
The world seemed to dim. “Mario Buda.”
“The man who wrote the bomb-making pamphlet?” He wheeled to face her. “Salute è in Voi? The one they sold in Galleani’s newspaper?”
“No! That can’t be Mario.”
“He and some others. But Buda was the main— How could you know him, but not know this?”
“I remember the ad. In the Cronaca Sovversiva.” 25 cents for the anonymous booklet. “Tiny ad. For that and other pamphlets. All of them full of bravado. Fish stories, I thought. Because the country was mad for war—the parades, the marches. It was like that, I supposed. The same lust for battle. But pushing through cracks in a philosophy where it didn’t belong.”
“So you didn’t know Buda as a—?”
“No! No, of course not. I know him as … as a syndicalist. An organizer. I’ve seen him only twice in these last …” She could hardly stand. She was shaking, her head pounding.
“Was he in Seattle with you?”
“He came for the strike.” The shame overwhelmed her. What he’d done to the marshal. Because of her.
“The reason we intercepted thirty of the package bombs last April? It was thanks to Ole Hanson. His aide opened one upside down. The acid dripped onto the desk instead of the caps. So we knew what the parcels looked like. And that they came from someone who disliked Seattle’s mayor.”
Ella gestured toward the veranda, not yet empty of partiers. “If I’d taken the lid off?”
“Porch and drawing room would be a smoking hole now. Everyone in them vaporized. Or torn to chunks.”
For an instant, Ella saw it through Mario’s eyes: The triumph. Bloody death to the leaders of a Party that brought years of war and injustice.
