Downtown

by Norma Fox Mazer

  She thought about that for a minute. “I guess it makes good sense, or else everybody who committed a crime would run away and wait six or seven years, whatever it is, then come back and be free. But even so, nobody’s going to send them to jail for a long time just for bombing a laboratory.”

  “Where’d you get that idea?”

  “If I were on the jury and I knew they did it because they hate war and really had good intentions, just wanted people to listen to them and think about things like germ warfare, how terrible it is—isn’t that what you said? Why they did it? If I were on the jury, I’d take that into consideration. And another thing I’d take into consideration is that being in hiding for so many years is probably almost like jail, anyway. Don’t you think so? It’s really like being punished by yourself, isn’t it?”

  I looked at her for a moment.

  “Maybe.”

  “It is,” she said insistently. “Any normal person on a jury would think so. Hiding—” As if the word itself were something foul, she drew herself together, into herself, almost shuddered.

  And I thought how, in a way, it wasn’t only my parents who were in hiding. Cary and I were hiding too. I knew about me. And the more I knew about her, the more I knew that what she showed the world was just what she wanted to show the world. Or maybe just what she wasn’t afraid to show the world.

  I felt close to her and took her hand. It was warm, or maybe mine was cold. “You don’t know the whole thing about my parents, Cary. I didn’t tell you everything.” She turned her face up to mine, and I went on doggedly, saying what I’d avoided saying or thinking for so long. “If my parents come back—Listen, two people died in that bomb blast.”

  “Died?”

  “They weren’t supposed to be there, nobody was supposed to be there in the lab, nobody.”

  “Pete—”

  “And my name’s Pax Connors, not Pete Greenwood. Pax Martin Gandhi Connors. And now you really know everything about me.”

  From the Manila Envelope

  Services Held for Jameson, Udall,

  Killed in Lab Bombing

  Ralph S. Jameson, professor of molecular biology at Beecham University, and Kin Udall, a graduate student who had been working with Dr. Jameson, were buried today by their families in Woodcrest Cemetery on South Point Road. Although Ms. Udall’s family resides in Bethesda, Maryland, they acceded to the request of the Jameson family that she be laid to rest near Dr. Jameson, with whom she had worked over the past year as a graduate assistant.

  “Ralph was terribly fond of Kin,” Nora Jameson, Dr. Jameson’s widow, said. “Ralph had several graduate students working with him, but he and Kin had worked together especially closely. He thought highly of Kin’s potential. Kin was a very talented young woman. She had a great future ahead of her. Ralph brought her and her boyfriend home for dinner several times and all of us were fond of her. She was just a very, very, nice, bright young woman.”

  Dr. Jameson and Ms. Udall were both killed in the bombing of Femmer Laboratory Thursday night. Responsibility for the bombing has been claimed by an organization known as Air, Water, Earth.

  Dr. Jameson’s son, Norris Jameson, said, “My dad loved his country. These people who did this thing are killers. They are without conscience or heart. When the police catch them, I will sit in the courtroom and cheer when they’re sentenced to death.”

  Dr. Jameson leaves his widow, Nora Delblanco Jameson, two sons, Ralph S. Jameson, Jr., of Portland, Oregon, and Norris Jameson of Red Bluff, California, and one sister, Mrs. Farley Allen of Santa Monica, California.

  Ms. Udall leaves a sister, Monica Udall, and her mother, Harriet Udall, both of Bethesda, Maryland. Mrs. Udall is in poor health and did not attend the funeral.

  There have been unconfirmed reports that research in aspects of germ warfare, possibly involving genetics, has been under way in Femmer Lab. When contacted, university officials refused to comment.

  Twenty-nine

  Saturday was the opening night of Charley’s Aunt. Gene came home early from the office. I was watching TV. “So …,” I said, feeling that I had to say something. “Tonight’s the big night.”

  Gene managed a wan smile. “It sure is. I’m going to take a nap. If I’m not up by five-thirty, will you wake me?”

  “Okay.” Our fight hadn’t been resolved and we were still stiff with each other. It seemed as if we were each waiting for the other to make the first move, apologize or admit he was wrong—whatever.

  Later, around six o’clock, after Gene had already left for the theater, I went upstairs to shower and change. I was supposed to pick Cary up at seven. “I’m doing this for you, Gene,” I said, shining my shoes. I put on a clean shirt, picked out one of Gene’s ties, and found a matching pair of socks in his bureau.

  Downstairs, I flipped on the TV. I was still struggling with the tie, when the phone rang. It was Mrs. Yancey.

  “Peter? I’m really sorry to tell you this, but Cary won’t be able to go to the play tonight.”

  “I was just on my way out for her—”

  “She woke up sick this morning, some kind of flu. I kept her in bed all day. Do you want to speak to her? Just for a few minutes, though.”

  Cary got on the phone. “Isn’t this the worst, Pete?” Her voice was hoarse. “I feel just miserable about missing out.”

  “I’m going to miss you,” I said. I walked the phone into the dining room and sat down on the steps and idly watched what was on the boob tube.

  “I don’t think I’d even last the bus ride. You’re going to go, aren’t you?”

  “I have to, Cary. This is the big enchilada—opening night. You should have seen my uncle. Nervous doesn’t half cover it.”

  “Will you tell him how bad I feel? I wanted to be there so much.”

  “He’ll be sorry, too.” I glanced at the TV. On the screen a long-haired woman in a skirt and blouse, her arm linked with that of a man holding a briefcase, hurried up a flight of stone steps. Reporters chased after them, holding out microphones and yelling questions.

  “Call me tomorrow and tell me all about it,” Cary said.

  “Yes … sure …” I stared at the TV. The barking cries of the reporters, the bland voice-over of the newscaster, and Cary’s hoarse coughing all mingled in my head.

  “’Bye!”

  “’Bye.”

  I dropped the phone. I’d barely seen the woman on the screen, and yet I knew who she was. Something about the angle of her shoulders, some buried memory of her just that way … back straight, legs striding purposefully up stairs, away from me, toward a massive columned building …

  The picture on the television changed and the anchorman appeared, serious, sincere, his hair blow-dried into place, his lapels neither larger nor smaller than lapels ought to be. Behind him, boxed high on another screen, was frozen the moment when the man holding the woman’s arm had thrown out his hand to brush away the reporters.

  I stood there, transfixed, stunned, trembling. It was Laura. My mother. I hadn’t heard her name. I hadn’t seen her face, but I knew beyond any doubt. And some awful grief, something ancient and nameless, rolled over me.

  Thirty

  A woman in a drooping skirt and brilliant yellow leotard top pulled the big wooden door of the playhouse shut. “No hurry,” she said. “It’s just getting a bit chilly in there. You’ve got plenty of time.”

  I walked up the worn steps toward the stone Star of David carved above the door. I had seen that six-pointed stone star innumerable times, but now it struck me as forcefully as a blow to the heart. I had never thought of myself as Jewish, no more than I thought of myself as Irish. I had never thought of my mother as Jewish. My mother’s parents, yes, the grandparents I’d never known, but me—I wasn’t anything in that way.

  People streamed around me, entering the theater, murmuring, laughing. I looked up at the stone star. Oh, please … oh, please … What I was pleading for I didn’t know, yet it seemed to me the closest to real p
rayer I’d ever come. Oh, please … oh, please …

  Inside, I handed over my ticket. A slip of paper had been inserted in the playbill, stating that Gene would play Lord Fancourt and Howard Faulk would play Brassett.

  “Excuse me.” A tall thin girl, her face and arms as spotted as a leopard’s, pushed past me. “Do you think they’ll start on time? My friend is late.”

  What if I stood up, clapped my hands, and yelled, Listen, everybody. Pay attention. My mother is back.

  “I’ve never seen this theater company before. Are they good?”

  I made an effort to act normal. “My uncle’s in the play.”

  “Oh, I see.” She smiled at me and, for some reason, I felt almost crazily grateful. Then Martha came and sat down next to me. Her hair flopped around her shoulders. She wore a purple dress printed with green parrots. “Hi, sweetie. Where’s Cary? Are you nervous? I am! I’m probably more nervous than Gene.” I said something, stared at the mad-looking parrot on her shoulder.

  My mother is back. Back. Returned. The sojourner from strange lands, from the underground, from the land beneath the land, from somewhere that was nowhere, that was yet somewhere. And how had she done it? Had she burst through the earth, red hair flying, arms outstretched? Wonder Woman! But when I had seen her, she had only been hastily but sedately walking up stone steps to a courthouse. A man, not my father, had held her arm and fended off the reporters. A scene from a movie to be called Courthouse, or Justice. But real. A documentary. A movie about real people, starring my real mother who had returned to the real world, suddenly changing all the rules of the game I had played for eight years. The game of Pete-not-Pax.

  The lights dimmed, the curtains drew back. Something was happening onstage. Voices chattered, actors came and went. Gene made his entrance and Martha nudged me.

  “I’ve been indiscreet,” Lord Spettigue informed the audience in a nasal aside. “Oh, I am sorry, very, very sorry,” he said obsequiously to Donna Lucia, the rich widow. Donna Lucia, actually young Lord Fancourt disguised in a long skirt and bonnet, actually my uncle, flapped “her” fan vigorously, whisking it against Lord Spettigue’s pompous face.

  Martha leaned toward me, whispering. “Gene looks much better than I expected. Don’t tell him, but I was sort of worried. He’s not exactly your typical English college boy. But I think he’s really carrying it off, don’t you?”

  Had I really seen my mother? The moment on the TV screen passed behind my eyes, like a dream: something half remembered, shadowy, doubtful. A woman went up a flight of steps. A man held the woman’s arm. The steps led to a courthouse. A woman holding a man’s arm went up a flight of steps. Yes, a dream. Or a memory. Or a wish. I must have wished that scene into being!

  But there was something wrong with my wish picture … something—someone—missing. Where, for instance, was my father? Where was Hal Connors in that picture? Was he walking up another flight of stairs in the grip of another lawyer?

  During the intermission, standing in the lobby, I heard someone say my name, my real name. Pax. I turned my head sharply. But no one was speaking to me, no one was even looking at me. Later as the play ended and the actors took their bows, it happened a second time. Pax. Was it my mother, calling me over the miles? Everyone stood up, but I sat there, waiting to hear my name again.

  “Pete.” Martha hauled me to my feet. “I told Gene we’d meet him at the cast party.”

  The party was held in Regina’s, a restaurant around the corner from the playhouse. People milled around the long tables, eating and drinking. A cloud of smoke hung over the room.

  “I think it went wonderfully, don’t you?”

  “… almost forgot my lines in act three, then they came to me as from above.”

  “Lover! You were fabulous! How was I?”

  Gene appeared and put his arms around me and Martha. “So what do you think, my people? How’d we do? Was all the work worth it? I don’t know if I’m up or down. I had the most god-awful case of stage fright before I went on. Panic, panic. Halfway through the first scene, it left me, just like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  “You’re up,” Martha said. “Definitely up.”

  “I’ll really be up if we get a good review. See that little guy over there, the one with the wild mustache? Donald Friedman. He writes the reviews for the New Winston Times. If he likes us, we’ll have full houses. If not—” Gene drew his hand across his throat.

  I left early. At home I went straight to my room, took the manila envelope from its hiding place and emptied the contents on my bed. There were the letters from my parents. There were the articles and the pictures I had collected about them. It was their lives and, by extension, my life. I picked up the article with the picture of my parents on their graduation day: my father holding the small Pax on his shoulders, my mother gesturing to the reporter, both of them wearing black graduation robes. The tassel from my mother’s mortarboard fell over her face, giving her a rakish look.

  She had returned to this world and never let me know that she was coming. She must have made plans, talked to people, written letters, made phone calls. That lawyer wasn’t there by accident. But no phone calls to me. No letters. No messages. I had had to watch the evening news to find out my news. “Laura,” I yelled. “Laura! Laura! Laura!” I pounded the walls like a madman, crying and cursing. My eye fell on the letters. I crumpled and tore them. The phone rang. I tore Laura’s picture and threw it to the floor. The phone rang again. “Shut up, shut up.” I tore up everything, all the letters, all the articles, tore them into smaller and smaller pieces.

  Thirty-one

  In the morning, the phone ringing downstairs got me out of bed. “Pete, you sound half asleep,” Martha said.

  “I am,” I said, but I’d been up for hours, thinking about my mother … trying to think about her. All these years, eight years, half my life, I had been without her. There had been the visits, of course—yes, the visits—and what did they mean? They had been so brief, so intense, so frightening and awful. After each visit, I had always been depressed for days, given Gene a rough time. I remembered how, right after seeing Laura and Hal in North Carolina at the drive-in movie, I had barely spoken for a week, sleepwalked through the days.

  “Is Gene awake yet?” Martha said.

  “No.”

  “Well, let him sleep. I’m coming over with croissants, put on the coffee. Maybe the smell will rouse our star. Did you see the review?”

  “No.”

  “Read it. It’s neat. A few little crits, but that’s to be expected. Gene, and everybody, should be happy, I’d say. See you in a while.”

  I took in the newspaper, spread it out on the kitchen table. The article about my mother was on the second page. FUGITIVE SURRENDERS TO FEDS. There was a smudged picture of her next to the article.

  I had thought I was calm, but I couldn’t bring myself to read the article. I stared at the photo for a long time. Was that really Laura? How could I know? How could I be sure? I had read a story in the paper about two sisters who had been reunited after fifty years. “I would have known her anywhere,” the older sister said. Wasn’t that what a son should be able to say about his mother? I’d know you anywhere … But would I? What if I saw Laura in a crowd of strangers? What if there were two red-haired women in that crowd? What if two women came up to me and each one said, “I’m your mother, come with me.” Would I know which one to choose?

  Last night, seeing Laura on the TV, I had known who she was. But this morning, I was uncertain of everything. I thought of those moments in motels and drive-in movies when I had seen her, I thought of the newspaper pictures I had studied so often. I thought of my own memories. And all of it seemed to add up to nothing concrete, nothing solid or real. Laura … who was she? What was she? Laura, the invincible … the certain … Laura, the Wonder Woman … Laura, the miracle worker, out to save the world.

  To save the world … to save the world … “Oh, yeah!” I said it out loud. “Oh, yeah!
” It came out hard, clenched, mean between my teeth. Save the world forget your son drop a bomb two people dead who cares go away run hide I’ll help being good never cry never deny good boy I’m good my mother’s son my father’s boy mature grown-up responsible stay with Uncle Gene never be mean do my share we all care save the world save the world save the world …

  I spun around the room, pounding the floor, pounding the counters, slamming my fist into the fridge, against the stove. Oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah, breathing hard, something in the chest, something in the throat, gritty lump, lump of anger, nowhere to go, just sitting there, lumpy lumpy lumpy …

  I opened the back door, stuck my head out, breathed in the cool wet morning air. Faint city hum, the ailanthus in bloom, a jet streak like a message in the sky.

  I sat down at the kitchen table. Look at the picture again, read the article, you can handle it. Picture first. A head shot, Laura grimacing, turning away from the photographer. Was it she? Laura? My mother? Yes … no … yes … The smudged photograph was like a trick picture where the image appears and disappears and appears again.

  The article described her as “weary” and “soft-spoken.”

  “In a soft voice, Connors directed all questions, including those about her husband, Hal Connors, also wanted on the same charges, to her lawyer, Porter G. Danbury, who was at her side throughout. However, she did read a brief prepared statement. ‘I have returned to face the charges against me. Long ago, I dedicated my life to working for a peaceful, nonviolent world. Yet, through my actions, two people died. With the passing of time, it has become harder, not easier, for me to live with this knowledge. I don’t think justice can ever truly be served in this situation, nothing will bring them back, but nevertheless I feel compelled to pay whatever the penalty will be. Thank you.’ Connors was remanded before Federal Judge Ivan B. Percolo and then taken to the Women’s Correctional Institute on Ellis Island in New York City.”