City of Light

by Lauren Belfer

  From the train window I saw miles of ill-made shacks forming a town of squatters. Here lived the thousands of workers who had come to construct the technological miracle which would one day—or so it was advertised—produce a million and a quarter tons of steel a year. The workmen were like an ancient army camped across the plain, accompanied by food and water wagons, as well as the requisite camp followers.

  The train stopped at the gates of the construction site and I got off. Before entering the complex, however, I paused. The air was acrid, stinging my eyes. Dust gritted against my teeth. At the end of a road lined with infant trees and carefully paved with asphalt (in addition to his other endeavors, Mr. Albright was our local asphalt baron), the administration building rose in almost shocking Beaux-Arts magnificence atop a gentle knoll. Beyond it, Lake Erie shimmered, light reflecting off the water to lend an unearthly halo to the monsters before me … yes, fifteen hundred acres of monsters: gruesomely shaped derricks, dredges, gantries, cranes and engines belching black smoke. With a touch of anxiety, I began my walk toward Albright’s office. Around me were rail lines by the dozen, going nowhere; narrow bridges crossing the sky; electrical lines in a dense weave. And there was sound: dull thuds, high-pitched screeches, small explosions, whistles, bells—whether of warning or alarm or happiness at the shift’s end, who could tell? Before I was halfway down the road, all the sounds blended into one sound, a vibration that never ceased and became more a feeling than a hearing, passing through my body.

  A few years before, Stony Point had been a forested lakeside wilderness. Now it was—this. Yet I had to admit that some of the monsters were beautiful. I had to stop to admire them, as they bathed and baked in the sunlight: slender smokestacks in towering rows; graceful lighthouses (or so they seemed) with bells on top; the machine shop like a crystal palace. In their way, these monsters were as beautiful as the forest they had replaced. Steel Works Will Rise Like Magic—that was one of the headlines I remembered. There was magic here: I was surrounded by a magical forest of the future.

  When the secretary ushered me into his office, John J. Albright did not stand to greet me. He simply looked up from the work at his desk, his glasses catching a glare of light.

  “Good morning, Miss Barrett,” he said graciously. He was terribly thin, but he always looked like this, year after year unchanged. “Thank you for coming. Please, make yourself comfortable. I’m at a tricky spot here.”

  He returned to work. Tools were arranged neatly across his broad, polished desk. In addition there was a stack of white boards, and a container of pins. As I approached, I realized that he was mounting butterflies, flashes of color dense beneath his long, delicate fingers. Don’t leap to conclusions, I cautioned myself.

  His office was what I would have predicted: the intricate scrollwork of the ceiling; the wide leather chairs; the flowing brocade curtains at the tall windows; the thick Persian carpet; gaslight rather than electricity. Nevertheless there was one important difference from the standard-issue industrial mogul’s office: The paintings were by Corot, misty-green scenes of sheep, lakes, and shepherdesses, feathery-leafed trees rising around them. Mr. Albright enjoyed landscape paintings, particularly from the Barbizon School, although he couldn’t be called a connoisseur. He simply collected things, from the canvases that would one day go to his art museum in Delaware Park, to the mounted butterflies that adorned one wall of the office.

  His “tricky spot” continued, and so with Corot’s vision in my mind I went to the windows. As so often happened in Buffalo, the wind from Lake Erie had changed the day. Clouds now covered the sky, painting the scene in shades of gray. If the office had been on the opposite side of the building, I would have seen the lake, huge as an inland sea; I would have seen the grain elevators and the skyscrapers of Buffalo, comforting as home. Instead I felt as if Albright and I were in a boat run aground in a landscape created by Jules Verne or H. G. Wells, no longer magical but desolate, the derricks and gantries looking like giant insects. For a split second the Pan-American Exposition flower garden that might have been exploded before me: millions upon millions of flowers in rows of rampaging color—roses, daffodils, lilies, tulips—butterflies flitting among them.

  “Did you have a pleasant journey?”

  I turned to find him staring at me. In his gray suit, with his graying hair and mustache, he was as stark as the landscape outside, the dead butterflies offering the only colors of life within the narrow orbit of his being.

  “Yes, thank you. It was brief.”

  He chuckled. “Indeed. We are close to the city but far away.”

  “Quite so,” I replied.

  He returned to his work. His every gesture was meticulous. Suddenly there was a long screech outside. A bell began clanging. A fire bell, maybe, or an ambulance. Albright tilted his head, frowning, listening. When the bell ceased, he resumed work. Albright had the overwhelming ease of a man born to great comfort. He had no need to rush, no need think of my responsibilities. His own convenience was the motivating force with which he passed through the world. Soon, perhaps, he would sojourn at his retreat on Jekyll Island in Georgia; soon he would visit his so-called cabin in the Adirondacks. What need had he to hurry?

  I approached the desk and stood beside him, to feel the presence of his body. Had he fathered Abigail’s child? It seemed unlikely, he with his asceticism, she with her solemnity. And yet—so far—he had fathered six children in two marriages. There must have been pleasure in such fecundity. Pleasure to spare.

  “What kind of butterfly is that?” I leaned close to him to examine the specimen. He glanced up at me, surprised, perhaps, by my nearness and meeting my eyes for an instant. Immediately he looked back at the butterfly.

  “This is a Colorado Hairstreak, sent by my man in the West.” He tilted up the mounting board for me to see. The butterfly had large patches of purple and orange, shaped by bands of black. I never understood the satisfaction derived from killing such exquisite creatures in order to mount them on the wall. “I’m preparing a gift for my little daughter Elizabeth.” He paused, giving me a quizzical look. “Do you like butterflies?”

  Who would admit to not liking butterflies? “Yes. Of course.”

  “This is one of my favorites.” He opened the wooden box on his desk and delicately used tweezers to remove one of the specimens. “Cloudless Sulphur.”

  A beautiful name. Cloudless Sulphur. The butterfly was completely yellow, even the body and antennae. Not the sallow, dingy yellow of the meeting room at the club. This yellow was pure and brilliant, like a bit of morning sunshine captured upon the earth.

  “It’s surprising, to see something so pure,” I offered.

  “Yes.” He studied me, his brow knit. “It is surprising. I’ll mount it for you as a gift. Yes”—he seemed to drift off into his own thoughts—“a gift.”

  “Mr. Albright, I don’t think—”

  “No, please, you are in need of a gift. You deserve a gift. Indeed you do.” He nodded his head hard, as if sealing the deal. “I won’t have it mounted today, however,” he insisted petulantly. “You won’t be able to take it home with you today. Please don’t assume—”

  “Oh, no, indeed. I would never expect to take it home today,” I reassured him, wondering what convoluted path had made him defensive. “Whenever you’re ready will be fine with me.”

  “Well then, that’s settled,” he said with happy relief. “Do sit down, Miss Barrett.” He motioned to the chair on the opposite side of his desk. “I’m most grateful to you for coming all this way. Did you tell Sinclair that you were coming?”

  “No. Why should I?”

  “A question, nothing more.” He waved it away. “I’ll get right to the point, then. I find myself in the position of asking a favor of you. Two favors, actually.”

  Here it comes, I thought: his admission of guilt. Evenly I said, “Whatever I can do. I’d be honored to assist you.”

  “You know, Miss Barrett”—he leaned back in his c
hair, crossing his arms across his chest—“I have often observed that things happen in this life which are difficult to explain. For which no one is to blame.” He sat up a bit. “Now there’s a bit of a rhyme, eh? ‘Difficult to explain, no one is to blame.’” He beamed at his cleverness.

  “Yes.”

  He watched me for a moment before beginning again. “Indeed I have often observed that life is filled with trials and rewards. With challenges that give us the opportunity to do our best. To become all we can become. To do what is right. So the Good Lord would have it—I believe, at least. Well”—he sat up straight, moving his chair toward the desk, rubbing his hands together—“enough said on that matter. And spring is here at last. Makes us all feel better.”

  I beg your pardon, Mr. Albright, I felt like saying. What are you trying to tell me? If this was a code, its meaning completely eluded me. I could understand how the owner of the land we were sitting on had been persuaded to sell for a song because he thought a flower garden was going to be built here instead of a steel mill. I leaned forward. I smiled brightly. Why not bring on a confrontation? “Mr. Albright,” I said charmingly, “are you acquainted with a Macaulay student named Abigail Rushman?”

  He looked confused, his eyes narrowing. “I didn’t say that. Why do you ask?”

  “She has a great love of butterflies.”

  “Ah,” he exclaimed happily. “Good for her. A fine interest for the young. You might show her your Cloudless Sulphur—when it’s prepared.”

  “Yes, I shall. What a good idea. I may even give it to her. As a gift. In the summer.” In the summer, Abigail would give birth to her child.

  “That’s as you wish.” He appeared indifferent to the prospect of me making a plan to give away his gift before I had even received it. “How well I know the pleasure we butterfly lovers find in the acquisition of new specimens. Now, Miss Barrett, the second favor.”

  I wasn’t aware that he’d asked the first favor. He stared at the Corot on the wall beside his desk. He seemed to be collecting his thoughts, pondering how to begin. Finally he said, “You must tell Tom Sinclair that I have my finger in the dike, but I can’t hold the waters back much longer.” He smiled at me thinly. “That turn of phrase is a good joke, don’t you think? In this context, I mean. ‘Finger in the dike … holding back the waters.’”

  “I don’t precisely understand it.” Was Albright trying to warn Tom that the authorities were closing in on him regarding Speyer’s death?

  “I’d assumed he’d taken you into his confidence.”

  “About what?”

  “Well … about what he’s doing. Out at the power station. You’re certainly a person worthy of confidence. I’ve always had the utmost confidence in you. I would trust you with anything.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  How should I play this? I decided on continued confusion. “But why would Mr. Sinclair take me into his confidence about his work? I rarely even see him.”

  Mr. Albright glared at me as though convinced he’d caught me in a lie. “You see him often enough. After all, you are godmother to young Grace.” Suddenly his mood shifted. “Of course, you and I have that in common. Being Grace’s godparents, I mean. I’d almost forgotten. It’s as if we’re related to each other, being godparents to the same child. Well, well. I hadn’t thought of that before; hadn’t put two and two together. Good, good. At any rate, Sinclair will understand my message,” he concluded in a non sequitur.

  “Why don’t you tell him yourself?” I inquired firmly.

  “Oh, I have, I have. We’re very close, as you know. At least we once were. Before these … matters came up, and I found it necessary to distance myself. I still feel responsible for him. You don’t help someone for years and whatnot and then just turn your back.”

  “No, of course not.”

  “I’m hoping that hearing my message from you, with your mutual … connections, will be more persuasive for Sinclair than hearing it once more from me. If you follow.”

  I hesitated. “Not exactly.”

  He sighed. “I’ll try to be more clear.” He thought for a moment. “You see, Miss Barrett, in America we have always had equality of opportunity. This is what I tell these unionists when they come to me.” He waved his hand in irritated dismissal. “I’m giving men an opportunity here at Stony Point—an opportunity to work. What they do with that opportunity is their business. But unions—they don’t give equality of opportunity, do they? They make everyone exactly alike, make everyone part of a faceless mass. A cog in the industrial machine.” The distaste in his voice was palpable. “But equality of opportunity—that is America. Sinclair knows this better than any of us, coming from where he’s come. He didn’t stay where he began and spend his life organizing a glassmakers’ union, now did he?”

  Albright stared at me, expecting an answer to this rhetorical question. “No,” I admitted to appease him.

  “And just as we must have equality of opportunity, so too nothing can be given away for free. Destroys the motivation. The incentive, if you will.” He stopped. “I don’t see how I can be more clear than that.”

  “You’re referring to unionization at the powerhouses? Or here at Stony Point?” I asked in bewilderment.

  “Neither! Whatever do you mean?” Now he looked bewildered too. “Why would you think that?”

  I didn’t respond.

  Exasperated, he demanded, “Why this subterfuge? Sinclair knows very well I won’t betray him—you can tell him once more that I won’t be party to what he’s planning, but neither will I betray him.”

  “What is he planning?”

  “Miss Barrett. Disingenuousness doesn’t become you.”

  “No, honestly. I don’t know. But I feel I should know, don’t you? Especially since you clearly assume I do know.”

  For a long moment he studied me. “Well, we’ve worked ourselves into quite a conundrum, haven’t we,” he observed. “Well, well.” He glanced around the room, his fingers drumming the desk. When he looked at me again, there was something sinister in his eyes. “Miss Barrett, have you ever seen a butterfly called the Blue Morpho?”

  “No, I haven’t.” My voice caught from nervousness.

  “It’s a South American butterfly. A tropical butterfly. I’ve coveted it all my life. It would be easy enough to acquire,” he assured me. “I’ve men collecting for me around the world—I just need to give the word. On the other hand, I’ve been hesitant to let the Blue Morpho join my collection, for fear that acquiring my heart’s desire will serve only to harken my demise.” He smiled in appreciation of his own jest. “A Blue Morpho is a large, brilliant azure butterfly. The few specimens I’ve seen are remarkable. But what’s truly remarkable is that the undersides of the wings are drab brown, with small orange-black eyespots. When the Blue Morpho alights, on a tree limb, for example, it seems to disappear.” Intently he stared at me. “Rather like you, don’t you think?”

  Was he threatening me? I clutched at my independence and attempted to affirm that I too was a person to be reckoned with: “Mr. Albright, forgive me for changing the subject, but I was surprised, on the train ride out here, to see the squalid encampment where your employees live. Such a situation hardly complements the work you do here. Something should be done about it,” I added more confidently, my fear dissipating as I saw a wary expression appear on his face. “You should build a model village for your workers, like Echota, out at the power station.”

  “All in good time, my dear,” he replied carefully.

  “Why don’t you at least clean things up a bit? Otherwise by summer you’ll have typhoid. Or cholera. Who’ll build your steel mill then?”

  “Women like you are always trying to improve the world,” he said bluntly. “How glad I am that I rescued Susan from such a fate.”

  Susan Fuller Albright, the governess-companion from Smith College. Obviously his words were intended as an insult, which I ignored.

&nbs
p; “Aren’t you worried that your men might revolt, living as you force them to?”

  “Not very likely. I do believe they need the work.”

  “At the least, you provide fertile territory for union recruiters.”

  After a long moment, and carefully staring at one of his Corots on the wall, he said, “What would you know about that?”

  So, I had scared him. He could visualize me as a spy, or a socialist. “I know absolutely nothing about it. But I will say that you’d best do something to help those men, Mr. Albright, or I’ll see to it that Miss Love is informed.”

  “You blackmailer!” he suddenly cried, delighted. “Yes, yes—I certainly shall do something before Miss Love can be called in to help.” He began to laugh boisterously. “Miss Love: our own local battle-ax. What would we do without her? You’ve certainly given me the most effective threat I’ve heard in years. I’ll remember that one. Well, well.” He wiped his brow with his finely pressed handkerchief. “In the end I suppose we’ll recognize that it’s you women who’ve single-handedly made the world free for capitalism. What would have become of us without your petticoat brigades lending a hand to the downtrodden? It’s my favorite irony: wives, daughters, and sisters righting the wrongs of fathers, husbands, and brothers. Men victimize and women rescue. A neat little trick. Who needs socialism, or communism, when Miss Love can be called in at a moment’s notice to redress all wrongs!”

  Done with his laughter, Albright pushed up his glasses to rub his eyes. Then he folded his thin hands over one another on the desk.