Red Menace

by Lois Ruby

  What am I supposed to do? Should I be praying? What would Mr. Sokolov do? There are Jewish prayers for everything, like one to thank God for making the rooster able to tell whether it’s day or night. Who thinks up this stuff? There’s even one for when you take a leak, so there’s got to be some kind of a prayer for this situation. Where’s Mr. Sokolov when I really need him? Maybe I should have counted in Hebrew; slower, more syllables. Ehad, shtaim, shalosh . . .

  “Can’t hear you, Luke. Nine!” I shout. “Nine and a half . . . Nine and two thirds . . . Nine and three quarters.” I scramble down a few more steps and wait.

  “Deal,” Luke says faintly.

  Did I hear it, or just imagine it?

  And here comes his boot on the first step, and his voice saying, “One . . . two . . . three . . . ” real slow and steady.

  I’m dizzy with relief and take a deep breath so I don’t tumble head over heels to the bottom.

  Luke and I count all the way down, four hundred and sixteen winding stone steps, to the oaken door. I walk out ahead of him, squinting in the bright sunlight, and I’m surprised to see a circle of spectators who must have spotted us up there and followed the silent drama.

  “Stand back,” I shout as Luke comes out that door and marches in lock-step, a proud U.S. Marine. The small crowd parts for him, and soon it’s just Luke and me, across campus and down Oxbow Road, right to my front door.

  No speeches, no music, no floats with paper flowers, no signs and banners, but it’s a parade for a genuine hero, the parade Corporal Luke Everly earned over there surviving the icy night of the bugles.

  Chapter 36

  Wednesday, June 17 – Thursday, June 18

  People are saying I’m some big hero. Amy Lynn believes I absolutely saved Luke’s life. Even Milgrim said, “Good job, kid.”

  I don’t feel like a life-saver or a hero, and what’s a hero anyway? Somebody caught in a bad situation who’s lucky enough to try something that works.

  I’m just glad Luke’s on solid ground. Wendy and Carrie came and got him. They’re all with Wendy’s parents in Newton. The Marines are getting him shrink help. He’ll be okay. He’s got Rizzuto in his pocket.

  ♢

  We’re on our way back from a “Clemency for the Rosenbergs” rally in Wichita. Mom says, “It’s a violation of everything American. No one’s ever been executed for espionage in this country, much less a husband and wife leaving behind two little boys. And on such sketchy evidence.”

  I’ve heard it all a zillion times.

  “Those folks who want blood, don’t they realize this death makes martyrs of the Rosenbergs?” Dad asks. “Guilty or innocent, their case will echo for generations. Mark my words, Rosalie, long after we’re dead and buried, people will still be talking about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.”

  Mom sighs. “So, all we can do is wait and see whether Eisenhower will grant presidential clemency. If that letter Ethel wrote him doesn’t defrost his heart, he’s not human. It just has to reach him in the next few hours. All he has to do is raise one eyebrow, sign a paper, and the nightmare is over, for good.”

  But it’s not over.

  Today Mr. Rosenberg had his last visit with his brother and sister and mother. Mom and Dad are hashing it over in the front seat.

  Mom turns around to face me. “What can a mother say to her son two days before he’s to be executed? I hope to God I don’t survive you, Marty. That would kill me.”

  “I better not ever be facing the electric chair.” It’s gloom and doom in the DeSoto. Hope hangs by a hair on the Supreme Court’s last-ditch decision, and on Ike. Roller coaster; we don’t know how to feel as we turn the corner onto Oxbow Road—where our house is lit up like a carnival.

  “I didn’t leave lights on, did you, Rosalie?”

  “Oh, good grief, it’s my mother. She’s the only one who throws every window open, rain or shine.”

  Sure enough, Bubbie Sylvia has commandeered our kitchen and greets us with a wooden spoon dripping soup. After hugs and kisses, she pinches my cheeks. “Look at you, sweetheart. Not a pimple on your gawgeous face.”

  Mom groans. “What are you doing here, Ma? It’s a long way from New Jersey.”

  “Listen, I know what tomorrow is. Julius and Ethel.” She leans forward, though she doesn’t have far to go, this little woman Connor calls the Human Fireplug. “Today’s their fourteenth wedding anniversary, yet. Oy. So, you shouldn’t be alone at a terrible time like tomorrow, and a little turkey barley soup can’t hurt. I brought the turkey bones on the aeroplane, such an aroma! Here, taste. Delicious, didn’t I tell you?”

  Dad asks, “Did you think about calling first, Sylvia?”

  “Long-distance? Of course not!” Bubbie rescues a carrot from the soup pot and charges toward me with the spear. “Tell me, is it too mushy? Never mind, I don’t want to know. Tell me instead, you got everything worked out at the College?”

  Mom sighs, and Dad rescues her. “The good news is the Hawthorne board voted on Tuesday to ban all faculty loyalty oaths, in keeping with Quaker religious principles. They admit they should have done it years ago. They were trying to adapt to the political climate.”

  “So, Rosalie, you’re back teaching that poetry nonsense?”

  “Not so simple, Ma. The board went over the case against me, including a transcript of the hearing in New York. They’ve asked me to resign. I’m a liability.” Mom snorts. “A liability! I’m the conscience of the College.”

  “Oy, you’re as stubborn as your father, may my Avrum rest in peace.”

  “I’ve been offered a teaching position over at Bethel College in Newton. Mennonites, they’re open-minded. And with only two classes, I’ll have time for my own poetry nonsense.”

  Yeah, like I’ve had all that free time since I was booted off the Pirates. At least Mom’s not moving us to the Deep South. Though Dad does keep reminding us that a lot of fine Negro colleges are thrilled to get Ph.D. profs even if they’ve fallen under the evil eye of the Carnivore.

  “She could be called back before the SISS committee any time, Sylvia, but, at least we’re not facing deportation to Poland, thanks to your excellent record-keeping,” Dad teases.

  “Poland, ach, you wouldn’t want to live there these days. Such a shortage of meat, and the winters, don’t ask.”

  Connor taps at our kitchen door, his mug framed in the window.

  “Oh, it’s that nice little boy you play with!” Bubbie says.

  If she hadn’t been there, I might’ve opened the door just so I could slam it in Connor’s face, but instead I rush outside.

  Connor’s got a basketball on his hip. “I heard about Luke Everly and the tower yesterday. Musta been pretty nerve-wracking.”

  “Yeah, you know what it’s like up there.” After that we don’t know what to say to each other, with Bubbie mugging at us out the window. We shift from foot to foot until, idiot that I am, I start singing the Dragnet theme song, Dum da-dum dum; dum da-dum dum, DUM! Connor picks up on it and fakes Jack Webb’s deep, rolling voice: “The facts, ma’am, just the facts.”

  It’s a start that I’m not sure I want.

  Chapter 37

  Friday, June 19

  My stomach’s churning this morning, like after I’ve eaten a whole row of Oreos dunked in milk. This time it’s not about anything I’ve snarfed down. It’s about them, the Rosenbergs. This is the day, one day late.

  I collapse onto a chair at the kitchen table. The radio’s tuned low, and the announcer reports on the huge crowd flashing signs: JUSTICE AND MERCY and DON’T MURDER THE ROSENBERGS. Then comes the daily on-again-off-again ride. Since the Supreme Court has refused to uphold Justice Douglas’s stay of execution, it’s on for tonight, eleven p.m. Only a few more hours to sweat it out for Mr. and Mrs. Rosenberg and all the rest of us.

  Bubbie says, “At least they didn’t die on their wedding anniversary. Wait, eleven o’clock? After sundown. They’re going to assassinate two Jews on our Sabbath? I don’t
believe it!”

  Mom jumps up to grab her avocado-pit plant with its two pathetic limp leaves, and she suddenly yanks it out of the mayo jar, rips out the life-support toothpick holders, and tosses the whole thing into the waste basket.

  “Ah, that feels better.” She stomps out of the kitchen.

  Bubbie dips a spoon into some goo in a bowl and waves it at me. “Taste. It needs a little cinnamon?” She puts down the spoon and runs her fingers through her curly, bluish hair. “Tell me, sweetheart, is your mother all right?”

  “Mom’s a rock,” I assure her. “You should have seen her at the SISS hearing. She had those senators shaking with fear.”

  “Yes, but the College gave her such a clop, and tonight . . .” We both know what tonight means. “On Shabbos. How could they?”

  “Aw, Mom will probably write five prize-winning poems about the whole deal.”

  “And you, sweet boy? How are you doing?”

  I’m startled, because suddenly I realize that nobody has asked me that since Whittier Tower. Mom, Dad, Connor, the Marines, Wendy—they’re all caught up in their own stuff, and the Rosenberg thing is so gargantuan. Me, I’m just the kid hanging around burning grilled cheese and getting kicked off the baseball team.

  “Wanna go for a walk, Bubbie?”

  Down the street, I pour all of it out—my hurt over the Pirates and Coach Earlywine and Connor, and how scary it is to think about somebody’s mom and dad getting killed tonight, legally.

  Bubbie slips in a bunch of oohs and oys.

  “Can I ask you something? Are my parents as weird as I think they are?”

  “Yes, but they’re like a terrible pair of pajamas with fire engines. Wait a while, and you’ll outgrow them.”

  “It’s not fair, Bubbie.” Like the Rosenbergs, and the way the senators cut Mom off when she had something important to say, and Dr. Sonfelter hiding out who-knows-where, and Luke locked inside his own head. Hey, that’s life, Connor used to say about stuff like that. That shouldn’t be life.

  Bubbie draws herself up to her full four-foot-ten and says, “You’re telling me things aren’t fair? Did I expect to be a widow, alone in my golden years?”

  Near the FBI car Milgrim’s checking her out. They’ve probably got a thick file on her already.

  “Hello, gentlemen! You should get out, get a little exercise like my grandson and me.”

  Milgrim answers, “We’ll consider that, ma’am. It’s a balmy day.”

  After we’re past them, Bubbie asks, “Who are those bums loitering there?”

  “FBI spies. They watch every move we make.”

  “What, they don’t have criminals to go after?” Bubbie has trouble catching her breath and her ankles hang over her shoes like bread dough.

  “You and Zeyde, back when you were young, did you think about things the same way Mom does?”

  “Sweetheart, seventy-six years I’m living, and I never met anybody who thinks the way your mother does, except almost my Avrum, he should rest in peace. But a finer mensch you never met. You know the Yiddish word, mensch? It means not just a man, but a person with character, backbone, heart. My Avrum had it all, and not bad looking, on top of it.”

  “He was your loverboy.”

  Bubbie blushes. “If you only knew!”

  “I don’t want to know.” I think for a second. “I guess Mom’s a real mensch.”

  “The best kind, but sometimes I could scream from her, just like her father. It isn’t easy, is it?”

  We reach the corner at Oxbow and Greenwich. “Want to turn back?” I ask.

  Bubbie does a little jig. “Once more around the dance floor, sweet boy. I need the exercise to keep my girlish figure,” says the Human Fireplug.

  Chapter 38

  Friday, June 19

  Definitely. Tonight. There’s only one thing that can stop them throwing the switch. President Eisenhower has to suddenly get a conscience. He should have one; he’s a Kansan, from right over there in Abilene. But he’s already said no once, and now there’s that letter Mrs. Rosenberg wrote that begs him to reconsider. It might not even get to him in time, because they’ve moved up the eleven o’clock execution.

  After thousands of people all over the world protested about killing Jews on their Sabbath, the prison guys are making a big concession. Since Shabbos begins at sundown, and sundown isn’t until eight-thirty in New York, they’ll do the deed at eight. It’ll be history by sundown. Man, they’re all heart.

  Here’s what gets me: the warden’s scared that Mr. Rosenberg will try to commit suicide. What—take all the fun away from the Sing Sing executioner? What a way to make a living. So, they stripped everything out of Julius Rosenberg’s cell, even his insect collection. Guess they thought he could kill himself by swallowing dried cockroaches. Man, that’s a fate worse than death.

  Mom knocks on my bedroom door. “There’s a vigil at Bethel College. Want to go with Dad and me? It’s important for solidarity, so the Rosenbergs know the world cares.”

  Do I want to go? No, because it’s hopeless. It won’t change a thing. They’re still going to the Chair tonight, no matter what some kid in Kansas does. But I think about the Rosenberg People on the train, and the thousands demonstrating on the streets of New York, and . . . and . . .

  “Yeah, I wanna go with you.”

  So we join the quiet crowd at noon. No speeches, no chants, no signs waving at the sun and clouds. Just three hundred sad people with arms locked, in silent respect, because in a few hours, like distant stars, two humans will wink out forever.

  What do people do when they know they only have a few hours to live? I hear Julius and Ethel will be spending the afternoon together, facing each other on chairs, with a mesh screen between them. Maybe they can bump knees and kiss goodbye through mesh holes. Will they walk together down that cinderblock hall, holding icy hands?

  After the vigil, shadows are getting longer. Amy Lynn and I sit on my front porch steps.

  “I wonder how Luke’s doing with his family in Newton. You saved his life, Marty, you did,” Amy Lynn says again.

  “Not really. I don’t think he was really gonna jump or anything. He just needed to be up there. It’s powerful.” I don’t tell her I go up there for the same reason. Now it seems unreal, what happened up there with Luke two days ago.

  Amy Lynn grabs my hand in both of hers; tears fill her eyes. “I’ve been to see my father. Shh, don’t say a word. I’m not supposed to tell you. End of subject, okay?”

  “My lips are zipped.” If I squint, I can just see the position of the hands on the tower clock. Five-fifteen. Six-fifteen in New York. “In two hours it’ll be over.”

  “Ethel sings to him through the cold stone walls, Marty, and he writes letters to her and calls her my sunshine. It’s so utterly tragic, just like Heloise and Abelard.”

  “I hope it turned out better for them than it’s gonna for Ethel and Julius.”

  “It didn’t.” Amy Lynn gives me back my sweaty hand. “I think I’ll know, I’ll feel it, the minute they pull the switch, don’t you think you will?”

  “Probably.” Six-thirty. Time for their last meal. In the movies, the Death Row cons always order a T-bone steak and French fries, with strawberry shortcake for dessert. Wonder what the Rosenbergs picked to eat on both sides of the mesh screen. And what Rabbi Koslowe will say to them. He’s the only one who’s allowed to visit them in these final hours.

  “I better go home and sit with my mother. She can’t face this alone.” Amy Lynn slides down the steps and jumps to her feet. “I’ll see you . . . afterward.”

  ♢

  We listen to the countdown on the radio. I’m doodling, and Dad’s randomly filling in crossword squares. Passing time.

  Mom viciously tears a head of lettuce into shreds. “Do you realize that this is the first daylight execution in the history of Sing Sing? They usually cover their shame with darkness.”

  Doodle. Doodle. “I hope Robby and Michael are asleep before eigh
t o’clock.”

  The radio drones in the center of the kitchen table. We’re eager for news, bulletins, hope. We wait to hear if Eisenhower will be won over by Mrs. Rosenberg’s personal letter to him. They keep quoting one line: I ask this man, whose name is one with glory, what glory there is that is greater than the offering to God of a simple act of compassion!

  Mrs. Rosenberg is really laying it on thick, but hey, the stakes are pretty high. Maybe President Eisenhower isn’t just a war hero. Maybe he’s a mensch. He’s still got an hour to make up his mind.

  Mom sometimes forgets to light candles on Friday night, but not Bubbie. So, on the counter next to the toaster are the Shabbos candles they’ll be lighting and blessing just before sundown, which is at seven-twenty-three here. By the time it’s sundown for us in Kansas, they’ll already be dead. Unless Ike comes through.

  Mom turns up the volume. “Shh! Another announcement!”

  Chapter 39

  Friday, June 19

  The reporter’s voice shakes as he reads the late-breaking bulletin: “It appears that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg have reached the end of their appeal process in the eleventh hour before their execution, as moments ago the office of President Dwight Eisenhower issued this statement: ‘The President has read the letter of the defendant Ethel Rosenberg. He states that in his conviction it adds nothing to the issues covered in his statement of this afternoon.’ ”

  Mom slams the table, sending the napkins flying out of the holder. The giraffe salt shaker falls on his nose. “I’m ashamed for the whole country. It’s a mockery of our judicial system. Shame, shame, shame.” She clicks off the radio. “I don’t want to hear a blow-by-blow when they march them down to the death chamber.”

  I still haven’t shaken off the gloom of this afternoon’s silent vigil, mixed with the sad conversation with Amy Lynn. And now that sad feeling morphs again, and I’m pumped full of a rage so wide and deep that I want to tear down the checkered curtains, hurl the toaster out the window, pull up floor boards with my bare hands. I want to race up to school and grab Coach Earlywine by the neck and . . .