About a week before the Student Council election, Harold Blest withdrew his name as a candidate, followed three days later by Barbara Severson, who said she would be marrying and leaving school. That left Reuben all but alone to compete for the office. Most of his classmates simply accepted that Castle was a young man destined to make his way in life. The chairmanship of the UND Student Council was just the next rung in the long climb ahead. “The manifest destiny of the student body,” a junior editor teased in an otherwise solemn endorsement of Castle, “is not to question the path of the comet that crosses our sky. We should just look at it, and say we’re glad we had a glimpse of it.” By the time Reuben was elected chairman, his status as big man on campus was taken for granted. After his success in getting the university to ban ROTC, he was energetically applauded in ideological circles.
Among other things, Reuben’s election gave him the use of the university station wagon every other Sunday, provided it hadn’t been reserved for official purposes. Sometimes it was needed to cart stage settings to or from the Burtness Theater; it was used every now and then to meet, or dispatch, university guests at the Grand Forks airport or to take especially august figures (this service was most often used by visiting trustees) as far away as to the airport in Minneapolis. But barring such preemptions, Sunday possession of the car alternated between Reuben and Sally Paulsen, the outgoing Student Council chairman. Once he was formally inaugurated next fall Reuben would inherit use of the car every Sunday until May, when his successor was elected and the car sharing began afresh.
A group of students belonging to the activist Students for a Democratic Society planned a little commotion for the big day in October when the new Student Council and its officers would be sworn in. SDS had in mind something that would draw attention to protests against the war and against the deployment of anti-missile missiles in North Dakota. The college station wagon would play an auxiliary role in the proceedings.
Reuben’s inaugural committee had made up a large red ribbon, a foot wide and sixty feet long, bearing gold lettering: “GOOD LUCK CLASS OF 1970!” The three girls in charge of decorations would drape the ribbon around the station wagon while it was still offstage. The antiwar activists planned to swoop down on the vehicle with their own banner, overshadowing the official one. It would read, “STUDENTS AT PEACE—FOR PEACE.”
The festivities always began almost immediately after the hockey game ended, shortly before six P.M. In days gone by, the station wagon would drive onto the rink loaded with kegs of beer. The beer would be unloaded and joyfully consumed while the band played, ending with the college anthem, “Stand Up and Cheer,” students standing and singing out the chorus. Testimonials would be exchanged, and the station wagon would slide around the rink, pushed here and there by students on ice skates. The players on the visiting hockey team happily participated, and the band reciprocated by playing the anthem of the visitors’ college.
The proceedings always featured a mystery guest, sitting in the passenger seat of the station wagon, face hidden by a great green-and-white shawl. Everyone waited eagerly for the opening of the station-wagon door. Only the incoming chairman knew who would be stepping out. Last year it was the good-natured president of UND, George Starcher, wearing a fake mustache. Once it had been Miss America, once a caged lion, and the year before that the movie actress Estelle Linkletter. The cheerleaders would greet the mystery guest with enthusiasm and excitement. When Reuben was an awestruck freshman he would not have been surprised if John Lennon had emerged as the mystery guest.
But suddenly, in October 1968, there was no more beer. The easygoing neglect of the state’s blue law against supplying beer to minors had caught the attention of a law-and-order trustee—unhappily, a year-round resident of Grand Forks. Kurt Reuger was a devotee of UND affairs. He was capable of showing up at just about any scheduled student function. When he appeared, students would rue the day they were born, if that had been less than twenty-one years earlier and if they were detected with a glass of beer by Mr. Reuger’s vigilance.
The enforcement of the beer prohibition generated widespread resentment. “May as well blame it on LBJ,” Reuben had said to Henri, over a beer at the Hop See. “It’s the American way—blame everything on the chief bad guy.”
“Yes,” Henri nodded, her face solemn, but her eyes sparkling. “Blame him for the Vietnam War, the ABM program, and the rise in the cost of living.”
“That’s what we call ideological opportunism,” Reuben said, sipping his beer with delight. Reuben allowed himself to be carried away on the theme of LBJ. “You know, just imagine—just suppose—that Sally had thought to convey an invitation to the White House and that LBJ had accepted! The mystery guest comes out of the station wagon and it’s the president of the United States! Henri, I’m not sure he’d have gotten out of there alive.”
“That’s silly, Reuben. Dumb. The president can come and go without your permission.”
“Of course—though I’ve done my bit to restrict his movements. You know that.”
Indeed she did. Against her advice Reuben had marched in Chicago with the thousands of other protesters at the Democratic convention in August 1968. President Johnson, having decided not to run for reelection, had appropriately declined to attend. But Reuben was one of the agitators who had gone one step too far, ending up in jail after the police cracked down at Lincoln Park. He had asked the resolute cop who led him into the police station whether the jail had any postcards—“I’d like to send some to my friends.” Reuben winced at the memory. “That’s when he clubbed me.”
“I don’t blame him,” Henri said.
Inauguration Day 1969 was a festive day on campus. Henrietta wore her fake-fur coat and held up a UND banner, green and white, mounted on a three-foot-long stick. She was seated in the crowded stands two or three rows up from the improvised ceremonial stage. Reuben had wanted her to sit in the box with the student dignitaries, but she said no. “Reuben, I haven’t belonged to anything much here, and I’ve certainly never been president or chairman of anything—”
“I was going to suggest you appear as honorary chairman of the Duck Hunters’ League.”
Henri blushed lightly and turned her head, but Reuben had already darted away to see to his myriad duties.
She watched it all from her seat in the stands, looking down at the student powerhouses engaged in yielding authority, and assuming authority—early training in democratic discipline? After the preliminaries, Reuben was sworn in. He gave a five-minute speech on the moral responsibility of college students to be active in the development of national policy. Henri cheered and applauded as Reuben promised the end of the Vietnam War, a repeal of the Sentinel missile emplacements, expedited student loans, and the elevation of water hockey to NCAA status. “As for my predecessor”—he had turned to Sally Paulsen, seated alongside—“let’s cheer that she’s a girl—and won’t ever have to fly off to fight an illegal war in Vietnam.”
All eyes turned to the outgoing chairman with the wrestler’s build, an ardent supporter of Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War. Henri found herself relieved when, after an instant’s dramatic deliberation, Sally laughed. Henri laughed in turn: it would have been a memorable scene if, taking offense, Sally had sprung from her seat and lunged at Reuben. Sally was captain of the UND women’s volleyball team.
Then the moment came for the station wagon and the red ribbons, and the mystery guest. He turned out to be the aged campus hero Bronson Reid, Class of 1911. Reid had been an Olympic athlete the year after graduating, but now he had trouble stepping out of the car.
It was a heady couple of hours. By eight o’clock, half of the skating rink had been covered with squares of plywood, turning it into a dance floor. The big brassy UND band gave way to a rock band, and the undergraduates filled the rink with their gyrations. It didn’t hurt that beer was somehow getting around. Sally Paulsen, freed of formal responsibilities as chairman of the Student Council, offered toast after solemn
toast in honor of Kurt Reuger.
CHAPTER 5
Grand Forks/Letellier, November 1969
After the football game, Reuben led Henri to the gateway and out to the station wagon, which he laid claim to, even though it wasn’t quite yet Sunday. He suggested they pop over to the Hop See for a nightcap, but Henri kissed him and said she was going home. “I’m tired. We’ll have a good day tomorrow. A special day. I promise.” She kissed him again, and walked away toward her dorm.
She went to Mass at Saint Michael’s Church at nine. When she came out, Reuben was there with the sparkling station wagon he had himself washed and waxed. He was standing by the passenger door, leaning back against the car, dressed in a blue sweater and chinos, as usual jaunty and cocked for action, whether pleasurable or professional, and often he didn’t see a difference between the two.
He didn’t know it, but it would be a grave day for him—and for her. She had planned all the details as carefully as a general would plan an amphibious landing. But she had not acted alone. She had prayed for guidance and was resolved now on the correctness of her plans.
So where would they go in their official car, this sunny November day? Henrietta spoke quietly but with unmistakable resolution. “I told you, honey. Three days ago. I want to go to Letellier. It’s ten miles across the border in Manitoba. I explained that to you.”
“Oh, yes. That’s where your mom was from.”
“Yes. And where I was born.”
They drove off, and Reuben settled the car down at sixty miles per hour as they headed up the Red River Valley. Reuben liked to play the date game, which was making the rounds on campus among the livelier students. “So that was 1948, the year you were born. What else happened in 1948 that was news-worthy?”
“Well, let’s see.” Henri rolled the window up, to hear better. “That was the year the Communists made a big bid for power in Italy.”
“And in France.”
“Well, yes. And in France. Was I supposed to say ‘in Italy and in France’? Like I had forgotten about France?” She was mildly annoyed, but glad to be diverted from the important business at hand. “I wasn’t set to come up, Reuben, with what happened everywhere in 1948. That might have been a big year in Mongolia, for all I know. Are you going to go on with this?”
“Yeah,” he said, pulling out to pass the big truck. “What about 1848?”
“That was the short unhappy reign of Louis XVIII, wasn’t it?”
“I’ll give you that. Europe is your thing. Mine’s America.”
“Okay, what happened in the good old USA in 1848? By the way, did you ever take a course with Professor Benning?”
“No. Why?”
Henri’s face turned grave, her voice that of a fussy classroom lecturer. “He said he overheard two women talking in an airplane. One of them asked, ‘Why did we have to pay for Louisiana when we got the other states free?’”
“What was the reason?” Reuben sounded genuinely perplexed.
“The other woman explained. She said those territories were owned by two sisters, Louise and Anna Wilmot. They agreed to give the land to the Union provided it was named after them. That was the Wilmot Proviso. But Winfield Scott refused to go along. That was the Dred Scott decision.”
Henri laughed happily, as did Reuben. But she didn’t go on with the running badinage. She fell silent as they made their way through the rich farmlands. The fields were now brown, and there were patches of snow. Reuben had gotten used to her occasionally opting for silence. Finally he spoke. “That exit was our last chance to avoid Canada,” he teased. Reuben liked it when conversation ensued after a prod from him, as usually it did. But all he got from Henri now was a perfunctory acknowledgment—yes, Canada lay directly ahead. That was all she said.
What Henrietta now wanted was just to get on with the trip. The oblique autumn sun made the hills with their leafless trees just a little forbidding. Reuben was quiet for five minutes. Then he turned on the radio. The news report told of two U.S. infantry regiments dispatched for reinforcement duty in Vietnam.
Breaking the silence Henri said, “You take the next exit, in two miles, and then turn left.”
“Left it is. What would happen if I turned right? Bump into a Nixon rally?”
She smiled, but said nothing.
The border crossing was routine.
“Where are you headed? Winnipeg?” The Canadian officer leaned down, addressing Reuben.
“Actually, we’re going to Letellier. My girl—my lady friend was born in Letellier.”
The guard peered over to view Henri. “Well, I’m sure, miss, they were sorry to see you go. Maybe this time you’ll decide to stay.” He drew back and waved them on.
“Keep on this road,” Henrietta said. “It’s about ten miles.”
He drove on more slowly and at a hilltop said, “That is some river, Henri. Some force of nature made it turn right around—” he squinted, looking out across the rich loamy fields, “every time it traveled a few hundred yards.”
“You’re right, the river is like a snake coiling perpetually.”
“It’s very pretty.”
“It’s very beautiful.”
“Yes,” he said. “Beautiful.”
They drove a few more miles. “That”—she pointed to the huge structure they were passing—“is a grain elevator. They store the grain there until it’s picked up by the freight trains and taken off to our—to Canadian cities.”
“Henri”—Reuben was amused—“you’re explaining grain elevators to a North Dakota boy?” Silence once again.
When the road sign for Letellier came into view, Henri said, “Take that turn. I’ll tell you where to go when we get into town.”
In a few minutes, passing by sturdy wooden houses and some children having a bicycle race, they reached the driveway Henrietta was looking for. Following her instructions, Reuben pulled in. On the right was a wooden church, feeling its years. Henri opened the car door and walked to the adjacent house, ringing the doorbell. Tieless, dressed in a sport shirt, a bald elderly man, heavyset, opened the door.
“Ma chère Henriette! Entres-y!” They embraced, and then the priest shook hands with Reuben and led them to the living room. He pointed to the seemingly endless array of photographs of young girls at commencement time lining the hallway. “If you look, you can find yourself in the photograph of your class at Saint Joseph’s. I’m too nearsighted to make it out, dear Henriette.”
“I didn’t stay on for graduation, Father. I went back to Paris.”
“Oh, yes, I remember now, and how sad the sisters were to see you leave. How is your dear father?”
“He is well. He has a new book out. I brought you a copy. Les Œuvres d’Auvergne, it’s called.”
Father Lully put on his glasses and reached for the book, focusing on the dust jacket. He lapsed into French, and spoke of his last meeting with Raymond Leborcier. “It’s been ten years, hasn’t it, since he returned to Paris?”
Henri started to reply in French, but then raised her hand. “Reuben doesn’t speak French, Father.”
“Dommage,” the old priest smiled. “Never mind. In Manitoba we missionary priests can certainly manage in English. Elise, I’m sure, has prepared tea for you—for you both.” He called out and a matronly woman came in from the back of the house. She said something quietly in French to the priest, who raised his hand to his neck, confirming the absence of his collar. “I’ll be right back.”
He soon reappeared, wearing now his clerical collar and a black wool jacket. “Excuse me!” He bowed his head slightly. “J’étais déshabillé. Now, go to the tray and arrange what you want in your tea, and take some cookies. Elise’s special oatmeal cookies.”
Reuben ate hungrily. Henri nibbled at a cookie and greeted with relief Father Lully’s conversational initiative, reminiscences of the periods in her life when they had known each other—first when she was a young girl, up to age eleven, when her mother died. “In Raymond’s arms, af
ter receiving the last sacraments, you and I praying in the little hospital room. She was very beautiful, very devoted.” And then at age fourteen, when her father sent her back from France to spend a year at the convent school. “Will you go back to France when you graduate from the university?”
Henri said she hadn’t decided. “I am studying library science. And of course the protocols I’ve learned are all in English. I’m not certain I could practice that profession usefully in France.”
Reuben interrupted. “Presumably, Henri, they have libraries in France, and there are equivalent French words for whatever it is they are teaching you at Grand Forks.” Turning to the priest: “She is very modest, Father, about her accomplishments. She is a leading student.”
Father Lully looked into the eyes of the engaging young man with the lock of blond hair over his left eye, erect but utterly relaxed, quick with a smile. Reuben was put out that he could not join them in French. “I’m thinking of learning French, Father. Just something I’ve put off. Other interests, other concerns.” Then another of his appealing smiles.
Henrietta took the bit in her teeth. “Yes.” Her voice was earnest. “And one of his concerns, Father, as I told you on the phone, is that in seven months he will be a father. I am the mother. And I brought Reuben here because I want you to marry us.”
Reuben sprang up, put one hand on the back of the sofa, and stared down at Henri. Then he looked over at the priest, who reached nervously into his pocket, bringing up a pipe.
“Henri! Are you crazy?”
“No. If you do not want to raise our child, that’s one thing. But he will not be born without a father.”
“Of course. Of course.” Reuben nodded, distracted, turning his head, as if for relief, to look at the bookshelf.
Father Lully rose. “I will leave you here and go to my study. Call for me when you want me. If you want me. Anything else you want, Elise is here.” They could hear the door shut, and then Reuben’s arms were around her. Both of them wept.
The Rake Page 3
