Under a Pole Star: Richard & Judy Book Club 2017 - the most unforgettable love story of the year

by Stef Penney

  The water seemed far below, very black. Growing from both sides, the crowd became denser. Behind them, a man yelled out for those ahead to hurry it along. Some people turned back, adding to the confusion. Jakob and Frank kept walking, but there was a disturbance up ahead. A woman cried out in alarm. The crowd was suddenly a crush. Someone screamed, and the festive atmosphere shivered and cracked. The boards beneath their feet drummed and vibrated with footsteps. Someone shouted, ‘It’s giving way!’ and screams rose all around them. Those ahead tried to run back to the shore, but those coming on to the bridge far behind kept coming. Caught in between, Jakob and Frank seemed to be in the densest part of the crush. Jakob, suddenly and icily calm, shouted, ‘It’s not giving way. Don’t run!’ and was surprised at the authority in his voice.

  A woman looked at him, sheer panic and entreaty on her face, and cried, ‘I felt it move!’

  Jakob took her arm – she seemed to be alone – and said, ‘Don’t worry; there is nothing to fear as long as we stay calm.’ He raised his voice again and shouted, ‘Everyone keep still. The bridge is sound.’ A few other voices were calling for calm, but the majority of the crowd were panicking, pushing to get off the bridge as fast as they could.

  Frank grasped his sleeve, and shouted in his ear – he had to shout, now, to be heard – ‘Let’s keep going – there’s fewer people that way.’ He looked around him, over the tops of heads, and yelled, ‘If everyone keeps walking across the bridge, there won’t be a problem!’ But even his powerful voice was lost.

  Jakob found himself pressed up against the woman who had appealed to him. Everyone was now crushed together, and it was difficult to breathe. The wooden deck vibrated with stamping feet, although no one could move in the crush. Jakob felt himself being squeezed in a vice of flesh and bone; there were more shouts, screams; people began to collapse. In front of him, a man’s face was distorted into a terrible grimace – he was screaming at the man next to him, his face twisted with fury. No words were audible. Jakob realised with a shock that he was the target of the man’s fury; he had no idea why.

  It was impossible to move forward or back – it was all he could do to stay on his feet. He struggled to turn his head to look for Frank. He had no more breath to talk to the red-headed woman pressed against him. At one point, a great pressure on his back caused him to lose his footing and he felt himself start to fall, but very slowly, unable to move his feet. He and the woman were both falling, he realised, and then they would be underfoot, and then . . . He felt a hard blow on the side of his head. He struggled, almost comically helpless, and at the point where he realised both feet no longer touched the ground, a painful grip on his arm pulled him steadily backwards. Frank, with the advantage of his height and bulk, stood like a rock in the roiling current and heaved Jakob back on to his feet. The woman he had been holding was gone, and he called out in alarm; as far as he could tell, nobody was on the ground near him, but he couldn’t see the ground amid the press of bodies. The human mass swayed back and forth; the screams went on, although, as people were starting to realise, those screaming were all right: they could breathe.

  .

  It seemed endless, although it could have been only a couple of minutes that they were jammed into that awful pressure of bodies. Frank was holding Jakob’s arm, tugging him. ‘Climb up there,’ he was shouting, jerking his head towards the steel girders. Jakob nodded, and tried to swim his way through the swaying bodies, but it was impossible to move. By the time he could make progress in any direction, the pressure had eased sufficiently to allow them to walk back to the Manhattan steps. A woman was crying hysterically, slumped against the handrail, while a man comforted her. The ground was littered with the things people had dropped – umbrellas, baskets, shawls. One of Frank’s sleeves was almost ripped off. Jakob had lost his hat. His right ear sang with the blow he had taken. A dozen yards away, a clot of people loosened and revealed a dark-featured man lying on the boards. A stout man squatted beside him, shouting hoarsely, ‘We need a doctor here! Is there a doctor?’

  Frank pushed towards him, said he was a medical student, knelt beside him and put his fingers on the wrist of the motionless man, thumbed up his eyelids. The man who had called Frank over backed off and, when Jakob looked round, had vanished into the crowd.

  ‘What can I do?’ Jakob knelt beside him. Frank shook his head, pressing his ear against the man’s chest. He started to work the man’s arms, pulling his elbows above his head, then pressing them down against his chest, over and over again. Next to Frank’s big body, the dark-skinned man seemed the size of a child. His features, bloodied from a cheek wound, hinted at far origins: China, perhaps. There were others watching, but fewer every minute; the crowd was thinning – people were desperate to get off the bridge. And then, at some point, a fireman was beside them, and a stretcher was brought. Frank didn’t cease his movements until a uniformed man demanded of him, ‘Who are you?’ Frank said again he was a medical student. The officer’s aggressive manner softened a little. He peered into the dark man’s eyes and sat back on his heels.

  ‘He’s been dead some time. There’s nothing you could have done.’

  Jakob looked down at the dead man’s face. He was older than he had assumed; though his hair was thick and black, the skin was wizened round the eyes, and his jaw hung open, revealing gaps where he was missing teeth. His clothes were poor.

  Frank was panting, his brow creased, and he looked as though he might weep.

  ‘So what do we do now?’ he asked the officer.

  ‘Do?’ He shrugged. ‘We’ll take him to the hospital. You go on home.’

  Frank stood up, unwilling to walk away. ‘But his family . . .’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘No.’

  The fireman shrugged. ‘We’re taking them to Chambers Street. Anyone looking for someone will go there. Go home, son.’ Another official joined him, and together they scooped the body on to a stretcher.

  There had been more casualties on the stairs, where people had tripped and fallen, and tripped others, who fell on them in their turn. The stairs were stained with blood; in the darkness, Jakob and Frank did not see this, only read about it later. Afterwards, Jakob found he could picture the bloodstains in his mind, although he knew this memory to be false.

  .

  They walked away in silence. Jakob wanted to say something to comfort Frank, who strode with his head down, looking neither right nor left.

  ‘Let’s get a drink. I think we could do with one.’

  Frank looked at him and shoved his hands in his pockets.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ he said viciously, shocking Jakob, who had never heard him blaspheme. ‘I’ve been robbed! My money’s gone!’

  ‘Maybe it fell out . . .’ Jakob felt in his own pockets, relieved to find his money was still there.

  ‘I thought I felt a hand in my pocket. Can you believe that? Can you fucking believe that? Fuck!’

  Noise and light spilled out of a beer cellar up ahead.

  ‘Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.’

  They went inside. It was full of loud voices and the smell of beer; they had outpaced news of the tragedy, and everyone was still celebrating. Jakob bought beers and they stood outside the door. Frank seemed more angry than anything, and more angry about the stolen money than the crowd’s panic, or the dead man.

  ‘I hope that woman got out all right,’ Jakob said.

  ‘What woman?’

  ‘The red-haired woman. She was next to me practically the whole time, sort of clinging on to me, until you stopped me falling over – then she’d gone.’

  Frank gave a twisted smile.

  ‘You had a woman clinging to you? Some people have all the luck.’

  Jakob laughed dutifully, although Frank sounded vicious.

  ‘I guess anyone who wasn’t lying on the bridge must have got off okay.’
<
br />   ‘Fleeing for her honour, probably.’

  Jakob couldn’t think of anything else to say. The beer was sweet and warm, and made him feel sick.

  After a long pause, Frank said, ‘What if I didn’t do it right – and he would have lived, if it had been someone who really knew what he was doing?’

  ‘The fireman said he’d been dead for a while.’

  ‘He was just a fireman.’

  ‘Yeah, but . . . they must see a lot of people who’ve died.’

  ‘Died of fire.’

  Jakob felt a mad bubble of laughter rising in his chest.

  Just then, a young, inebriated couple left the beer cellar, tripping over the step on the way out. The woman fell against Frank. He had to grab hold of her and heave her back to her feet. She clung to his jacket, giggling, looking up at him with great round eyes.

  ‘My, you’re a big fella,’ she said. Her companion apologised fulsomely, great blasts of beery breath hitting them in the face. He dragged the woman away, both of them laughing non-stop. As they staggered down the street, Frank looked sourly after them.

  ‘She was probably trying to rob me too. Well, too late.’

  ‘Oh, come on.’

  Frank seemed to have difficulty swallowing his beer. Jakob didn’t particularly want his own, but finished it, since he’d paid for it.

  ‘Frank, it’ll take you hours to get home. You can stay with me.’

  ‘What, in your rabbit hutch?’

  ‘I’ll sleep on the couch.’

  ‘No. Thanks. I could do with the walk.’

  Jakob was relieved, and ashamed of his relief. Frank simmered with a sort of rage. Before they parted, Frank said, with a twisted smile, ‘That woman in the beer cellar, who fell against me . . . Do you realise, that’s the closest I’ve ever been to a woman?’

  After a moment’s silence, Jakob laughed, although he knew Frank wasn’t joking.

  People talked about the tragedy for days afterwards. Anyone who had been in the vicinity was questioned endlessly. Neither Jakob nor Frank had much to say, although it got out that Frank had tried to resuscitate the dead Chinaman. This was the cause of merciless ribbing by his fellow medical students. Jakob was horrified, until he realised the morbid teasing soothed Frank more than anything else.

  After a couple of days, the final death toll was announced: twelve people had lost their lives. Their names were published in the Brooklyn Eagle. Frank bought a copy and showed it to Jakob, his finger resting on a name that stood out from the others.

  Ah Ling. A fifty-four-year-old Chinese tobacco peddler.

  Jakob scanned the article. Among the dead were two children – a fifteen-year-old girl and a thirteen-year-old boy. A newly wedded bride. Those deaths seemed far sadder to him than the old tobacco peddler’s.

  ‘It says he had no family.’

  ‘So? He didn’t deserve to die.’ Frank’s voice had that aggressive edge again.

  ‘I’m not saying he deserved it. It’s all terrible . . . They’re all . . .’ He shook his head. He knew that nothing he could say would be the right thing.

  The following Thursday was the first time Jakob felt almost indifferent to the prospect of sex. He went, but walked past Cora into the apartment, rather than seizing her as soon as the door was closed, as he usually did. Cora contemplated him with one of her more sardonic expressions.

  ‘What is it, Liebling?’

  He shrugged, sullen and uncomfortable. Now that he was here, he did want to make love, but he was irritated by his body’s desires. He was angry and didn’t know why he was angry with her.

  ‘I heard you were on the bridge when it happened.’

  Cora didn’t offer sympathy – he would have been surprised if she had. She must have talked to Bettina about him, which made him suddenly furious.

  ‘Yeah . . . well.’ He shrugged again, aware that he was behaving like a child, and then said, although he had determined not to mention it, ‘I saw you that night, in the crowd.’

  ‘And you thought, Who is that old hag?’

  ‘No!’ he lied, guilty. Cora smiled.

  ‘I saw you too.’

  ‘Oh.’ He paused, surprised; what did that mean? ‘I didn’t say anything, since you were with your husband.’

  ‘No, that was quite right. Thank you.’ She paused, for once uncertain. ‘Do you want a beer?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Was it true? They said people thought the bridge was going to collapse, and there was a stampede.’

  ‘Yes, pretty much.’

  Cora shook her head. ‘People are such idiots. As if that bridge could fall . . . Ah well, there are twelve fewer fools in the world now. They’ll be spared further trouble.’

  Jakob glared at her, glad that she had given him a reason for his anger.

  ‘How can you say that? You weren’t there. It wasn’t the people who panicked who died . . . It could have been anyone – it could have been me – would you say I was a fool then?’ He paced across the room in a rage, aware that he was overdoing it, but unable to stop himself.

  Cora watched him. ‘No, of course not. I’m sorry, Schatz.’

  ‘Those people . . . My father died, you know, building that bridge.’

  ‘I didn’t know that. How old were you?’

  ‘Three, four . . .’ This is what he believed, rather than remembered. A shadow passed over Cora’s face.

  ‘That was after your mother died?’ She must also have known this from Bettina, since he had never spoken of her. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  Jakob shook his head, martyred, but sat down on the edge of the chair behind him.

  ‘Would you rather go home tonight?’

  He shook his head again, and she shyly put her arms round him. He allowed her to hold him while he remained inert for as long as he could – to punish her – and then turned his face into her bosom and put his arms around her waist. He wouldn’t let her lead him into the bedroom until they had made love, roughly, awkwardly, right there in the chair.

  For some reason, nothing they did that evening was truly satisfying, although there was a tinge of frenzy in his desire. He thought, perhaps – this was long afterwards – because he was trying to cure something in himself that could not be cured, or forget something that did not want to be forgotten.

  When Jakob was in his final year of college, Hendrik received a much-forwarded letter. It was from the public asylum on Blackwell’s Island.

  Jakob came home one evening to find Hendrik and Bettina sitting in a tense silence at the kitchen table. The upstairs neighbours were fighting – a not uncommon occurrence.

  ‘What’s happened?’ he asked, struck with a nameless dread. His first thought was that either Hendrik, or Bettina, who was pregnant, was terminally ill.

  ‘I got a letter. It’s about our father.’

  Jakob was instantly relieved. Once someone is dead, you are inured to further anguish.

  ‘Apparently . . . Ha! It says he’s not dead.’

  Jakob put both hands on the table. Even so, he swayed. ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘No, I’m not. Here’s the letter; look . . .’

  ‘It’s a joke, Hendrik.’ He didn’t take the letter. He had an enormous desire not to read it.

  ‘No, it isn’t. He’s on Blackwell’s Island. It says he’s been there since 1869.’

  Jakob made a strange, abrupt noise – it was meant to be a laugh. He shook his head. ‘Then it’s a mistake. Someone with the same name.’

  Hendrik pushed the letter towards him. Reluctantly, Jakob picked it up. The letter stated that Arent de Beyn, civil engineer, born Ede, Holland, April 1832, had been committed to the public asylum after several attacks of mania, culminating in February 1869. He had attacked a fellow worker. It was thought his mania stemmed from his experiences
during the War of the Rebellion. Now, the consulting doctors felt he was no longer a threat to others or himself, and was well enough to be released into the care of his relatives – if any could be found. There was no mention of the East River Bridge, or any bridge.

  ‘No, Hendrik – our father didn’t fight in the war.’

  Hendrik shrugged uneasily. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t know that he did . . . but he could have.’

  ‘What are you talking about? We would know!’

  ‘Would we? Who would have told us?’

  ‘He would! He would have told you!’

  Hendrik shook his head.

  Jakob was bewildered, then he laughed with a tinge of hysteria, then he got angry with Hendrik – he, being so much older, should have known the truth, should have—

  ‘There was a funeral. Wasn’t there?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Why would they tell us he was dead?’

  Hendrik shrugged. ‘To protect us? If they thought he was . . . incurable. Does it matter now? It couldn’t have come at a worse time – we don’t have room here. I don’t have time, with the business, and now, with the baby . . .’

  ‘It’s all right, Henk,’ Bettina put her hand over his. ‘We’ll manage.’

  ‘I can move out. I could work full-time,’ Jakob said, dully.

  ‘No! You have to finish your studies. You’re not moving out until you do. Don’t say that again. Ever!’ Hendrik stabbed his finger at Jakob. He looked demented.

  Jakob read the date on the letter. It had been written nearly three months previously. Bettina looked anxiously at her husband. Hendrik was the owner of a temper that he rarely let get the better of him, but when it came, he burnt with a dark flame; there was no talking to him. Recognising this, Jakob addressed Bettina: ‘I suppose we’d better go and see him; see if it’s actually true.’

  ‘Blackwell’s Island!’ Hendrik made an expression of disgust. ‘Don’t you see what this means?’