A Fierce Radiance

by Lauren Belfer

  She served the oatmeal. Put out the milk and cinnamon. She’d never made oatmeal for him. She didn’t know how he liked it. She wished she had blueberries or strawberries to add, but the season hadn’t started. Instead she brought out the peach jam. Charlie liked jam in oatmeal.

  Jamie watched her do all these things. He still felt distant from himself. He knew he should eat, but actually confronted with food, he began to feel queasy. Probably if he actually ate, the queasiness would pass. And the oatmeal was mild. She was right to suggest it. What to add to it? He stared at the options. The dog was at his feet, pressing its head against his ankle.

  Claire watched him. She remembered herself after Emily died, taking one step, and then the next step, and then another. Living in an absolute present. Avoiding all thought of past and future. She felt at one with him. Closer even than when they made love.

  He chose the jam. One spoon only. He ate slowly and methodically.

  When he finished the oatmeal, he looked up at her. From some trick of the light, he saw himself reflected in her eyes. Did that mean she saw herself in his eyes? He wished he had the strength to ask.

  “Would you like anything else?” she said. “Tea? Coffee?”

  “I’d like to lie down.” Suddenly he was exhausted. He didn’t think he’d make it to the guest room down the hall without collapsing.

  Again she took his hand. She seemed to lead him down the hall, even though they were side by side. The guest room was shadowed, the shades and curtains drawn. He pushed off his shoes and lay down on the bedspread, curling on his side. He sensed her watching him. Then she cracked open the window. He breathed the pleasant scents of spring. She pulled the far side of the bedspread over him, so that he’d be warm.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  In Prospect Park, Brooklyn, a Quaker cemetery was hidden on a hillside. Claire would never have known this, even though she’d been to the park dozens of times, but for the fact that Tia Stanton would be buried there.

  On Tuesday at midday, Claire and Jamie drove to Brooklyn with George Hallowell, the head of Tia’s Meeting, as the Quakers called it, for a private burial of Tia’s ashes. She had left instructions that she be cremated, and Jamie didn’t question her wishes. The urn that contained her ashes was inside a plain box that sat on the front seat next to Mr. Hallowell, like a passenger in the car, leaving the backseat for Claire and Jamie. Mr. Hallowell was a thin, long-legged man with white, wispy hair and a restrained smile.

  Tia’s memorial service would be the next day, but a Quaker burial was strictly private. The Quaker customs were foreign to Claire, and she wanted to understand them, for Jamie’s sake, but without pressing him with questions. He wanted only Claire to come with him. She rubbed her palm against his leg, and he pressed his own palm against the back of her hand.

  The cemetery dated from the 1840s, before the creation of the park. Quaker Hill, this area was called on the guidebook map that Claire had found at home. When Mr. Hallowell turned off the park’s main roadways, leaving behind the meadows filled with visitors flying kites and tossing baseballs on this warm, bright day, Claire felt disoriented. Soon the trees closed in and the park became wild, as if they’d gone back to the days when it was a forest. Thick foliage that cut off the sunlight arched above the narrow roadway. A forbidding loneliness filled her, despite Jamie’s presence at her side, as if she’d entered the dark forest of a fairy tale fraught with nameless threats, the fears of childhood magnified, not diminished, by adulthood. She looked at Jamie. He seemed preoccupied, not even noticing their surroundings. Just as well. They reached an opening cut into the trees on the left. Mr. Hallowell made the turn onto a muddy dirt road. Several dozen yards along the rutted path, they reached the cemetery’s open gates.

  A light was on in the cemetery office, a small stone structure just beyond the gates. Mr. Hallowell stopped, turned off the engine, and went into the office. Jamie joined him. Claire got out of the car, too.

  About twenty yards in, the land rose steeply. Claire wandered for a moment while Jamie was in the office. Her heels sank into the soft earth. The scents of grass and of heavy, wet soil drifted around her. Birds were twittering, and Claire spotted the reason: a hawk sat on a high branch, surveying its kingdom. Small gravestones covered the hillside, interspersed with exotic plantings—immense copper beeches; slender tulip trees, leaves spreading at their summits; and elegant, elongated Japanese maples. The cemetery was like an arboretum.

  Jamie and Mr. Hallowell came out of the office, accompanied by a black man who wore overalls and carried a shovel. This man, older, and not especially strong for the job he had, was introduced to her: Mr. Atkins.

  At the sight of the shovel, Claire inwardly cringed. Claire’s mother, and Emily, were buried at the Trinity Church Cemetery on West 155th Street. Claire still remembered the services at their grave sites, the prayers of the Episcopal priest, the workmen with their shovels keeping a polite distance. She now repeated those prayers in her mind, to cover the strangeness of the ceremony, or rather lack of ceremony, before her. Mr. Hallowell retrieved the box with the urn. They walked up the hillside to a place that had been prepared, a mound of dirt marking the site. In sure and certain hope of the Resurrection…she heard the other ceremonies, filling the Quaker silence. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes…

  Mr. Hallowell placed the urn into the burial place. “We may now speak out of the silence,” he said.

  No one said anything. Jamie stared at the urn. Claire looked at the sky. She glimpsed a seagull, and then another. Long minutes passed. Claire began to feel surrounded by a kind of sacred circle of silence.

  Mr. Hallowell spoke: “William Penn wrote in Fruits of Solitude, ‘Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still.’ This is how I remember Lucretia Stanton.”

  Then it was over. The silence, which had become an invisible presence around them, dissolved. Mr. Hallowell put his hand on Jamie’s shoulder. “I’ll wait down below, son,” he said. “Take your time. I’m in no rush.”

  Mr. Atkins stepped off, also waiting.

  And so they were alone together. Claire studied Jamie. He continued to stare at the urn. Claire wished she’d brought flowers for the grave. She’d felt at such a loss, not knowing what was appropriate. Abruptly, Jamie turned away. He began to wander through the cemetery. Claire followed him.

  “Look, Claire,” he finally said. “Look at these names.” He motioned to a row of the small grave markers, some so old they were sinking into the earth, their lettering overgrown by moss and grasses. Claire made out Mott, and Stanton. “These are probably distant relatives of mine,” he said. “Go back far enough and we’re all related, I suppose.”

  “A continuum,” she said.

  Ten yards behind them, Mr. Atkins carried out his job, burying the urn.

  “I suppose so.” He wandered on, and Claire let him be. Then he noticed something unusual. He stopped.

  Thomas Reed, January 14, 1896—November 11, 1918.

  Abigail Coffin, April 4, 1877—November 15, 1918.

  Jonathan Thomas, August 1, 1886—November 12, 1918.

  In this section of the cemetery, one grave after another gave the date of death in November or December of 1918. These were the months of the worst of the Spanish flu epidemic. Dozens of men and women in their twenties, thirties, and forties were buried across this hillside. How many orphans did they leave behind? In his mind he saw the death cart making its way down Delancey Place in Philadelphia. He saw his mother’s body there, in the back of the cart. He hated that his mother and father were buried in a mass grave. In Philadelphia in November 1918 too many died too quickly for individual burial.

  Claire joined him. Put her arm though his. Jamie gestured to show the story symbolized by these graves. The story of his own life.

  Wednesday, May 27, 1942, 11:00 AM. Tia Stanton’s memorial service at the Quaker Meetinghouse on Stuyvesant Square.

  To Claire, the square was a tranquil haven
of nineteenth-century gentility, a place far removed from the jazzy glitter of skyscraper New York. The square intersected with Second Avenue between East Fifteenth and East Seventeenth streets. Its central park was surrounded on three sides by town houses and churches. Next to the Quaker Meetinghouse was J. P. Morgan’s church, St. George’s, with its Gothic Revival brownstone tower. Exuberantly decorated Victorian-era hospitals lined the far side of the Square. The park was lush with sycamores, silver lindens, and elm trees coming into leaf. Sunlight turned the yellow-green leaves translucent.

  Claire spotted her father waiting for her at the corner of Fifteenth Street, as they’d planned. Jamie would be arriving with colleagues from the Institute.

  “Good morning, my darling,” Rutherford said, giving her a quick hug.

  “Hi,” was all she could manage.

  “Difficult days, I know,” he said, squeezing her hand. She was grateful for his comforting presence.

  They headed toward the Meetinghouse. The building was set back from the street, surrounded by a garden and a wrought-iron fence. According to the inscription over the entryway, the sanctuary had been dedicated in 1860, the year before the outbreak of the Civil War. Yet the Meetinghouse appeared far older. With its simple, classical lines, it felt like a church where George Washington might have worshipped. Passing the newspaper photographers gathered at the gates with their 4x5 Speed Graphics and flashbulbs, Claire looked carefully in case she knew any of them, but she didn’t. Their editors must have scented scandal, to send them here.

  Claire wasn’t accustomed to visiting new places without the protective armor of her own cameras and equipment. Despite her father’s presence, she felt a touch of nerves as she made her way into the sanctuary. The plain, whitewashed room was brilliant with sunlight from the long windows. Pews on four sides faced the center. Claire and her father found a place halfway back. Once seated, she focused on the light pouring through the windows. Jamie had explained to her the Quaker belief that light led you to God. That light was God. In the Meetinghouse the light was blinding.

  The Rockefeller Institute, the Quaker Meetinghouse, the cemetery in Prospect Park…Jamie came from a New York unknown to her, even though she’d spent her entire life in this city.

  “It’s a good-size crowd,” Rutherford said. “I’m glad of that, for his sake.”

  “Yes.” Jamie had told Claire that Tia was known well here. She’d attended the Meeting each Sunday. A dozen white-haired ladies sat near the front, the stalwarts of any church. Five or six women of about Tia’s age came in together. They were crying, and they comforted one another. Judging from their stylish clothes, Claire assumed they were Tia’s college friends.

  “Look, Claire, over there,” her father whispered, pointing with his chin. With surprise, Claire saw John D. Rockefeller Jr., the richest man in the world, it was said, and the president of the board of trustees of the medical institute that bore his family’s name. He sat three-quarters of the way back, an empty place on each side of him like an invisible protective cordon. He was said to be shy and self-effacing. Cushioned within his exceptionally well-made suit, his bearing was humble. Head bowed, he appeared to be praying. He devoted his life to philanthropy to redeem the sins of his father, who’d destroyed his competitors to build the Standard Oil Trust—or so the rumors went.

  Finally, Jamie arrived, with a large group. He was surrounded by Nick Catalano and others Claire recognized from the Institute. Dr. Rivers. Dr. Lind. Chief Nurse Brockett. David Hoskins, Sergei Oretsky. The group included others she didn’t recognize, or recalled only from passing them in the hallways. The Institute group sat together, diagonally across the sanctuary from Claire and her father. Jamie met her gaze. She wished they were side by side.

  Mr. Hallowell rose and introduced himself as the leader of the Meeting. He explained how the memorial was conducted, that anyone could rise and speak if the Spirit moved them.

  To be moved by the Spirit. Most of the people in the Institute group fidgeted in discomfort.

  Dr. Rivers, in dress uniform, rose, unfolded papers from his pocket, cleared his throat, and began to read from a formal speech, determined to follow his preconceived role regardless of what the circumstances required. “Dr. Lucretia Mott Stanton was a brilliant scientist and a credit to her profession. I was privileged to know her…”

  From his tone, Claire judged that he was moved not by the Spirit but by bureaucratic responsibility. As the Meetinghouse became warm, Dr. Rivers methodically reviewed Tia’s life, the loss of her parents to the Spanish influenza in 1918, her scientific training, her many accomplishments, her exceptional efforts to bring the insights of a mycologist to the field of medical research. Claire gave up trying to follow the details of his long narrative, delivered in a monotone. Finally he sat down.

  After a moment, a small, elderly woman sitting near Claire rose. “My Tia,” she said brightly, clutching her glasses in her hand. The woman’s eyes were a shiny, watery blue. “My Tia Stanton. Every year for five years she helped us with the clothing drive for the poor. You never saw such beautiful uptown clothes as the clothes that Tia brought.” Tia’s college friends laughed self-consciously. “The Spirit moved within her. Gratitude fills me for her presence here.” She sat down.

  A full minute seemed to pass, as the sunlight covered them. Then David Hoskins rose. “I—well, Tia was the closest friend I ever had in science. She had an extraordinary commitment to her peers…” Claire sensed the painful effort that these words required from him. The pain of his effort became a kind of pain inside her. “Her example gave us all the will to move forward regardless of temporary setbacks.” Abruptly he sat down, losing his battle against tears.

  Now one of the college friends rose. This young woman, wearing a hat with a face veil and a sophisticated black suit, swaying slightly on what must have been very high heels, looked like an elongated bird. “Tia was the friend I relied on most,” she said in a surprisingly frail, light voice. “Whenever I had a problem…” The young woman spoke on through tears, making Claire realize that the bird image was all wrong, that this girl’s appearance was a facade, just as maybe Tia’s appearance had been a facade.

  And so it went, speaker after speaker adding another element in the portrait of a woman Claire had never really known. The words washed over her. Claire felt somehow separate from them, isolated and alone.

  What was left of a life, when death came? Emily left behind a dozen small dresses, three pairs of shoes, the drawings she’d made of her apartment and of her baby brother. Little else. If Tia had been able to finish her work, another Emily might have survived. Claire saw a line between Emily and Tia, a kind of immortality that Tia achieved by working to save the lives of others, even though she’d been taken before her work was complete. Claire felt an inner urge to rise and speak, to express somehow what Tia’s life meant—not in terms of solving problems or testing hypotheses or donating clothes to the poor, but in terms of saving children like Emily, or fathers like Edward Reese, and all of the individuals gathered here in the Meetinghouse.

  At that moment, Mr. Hallowell stood. “Thank you, all of you. Please join us now for a reception in our fellowship hall.”

  Claire’s desire to speak dissolved. Jamie rose and walked out. He’d told her that there’d be a receiving line. John D. Rockefeller Jr. stood and joined the line of the departing congregation.

  “I don’t want to stand on the receiving line,” she said to her father.

  “That’s fine, dear,” he replied, looking at her closely and with concern. Rutherford was worried. Claire seemed uncharacteristically passive. “You’ll be seeing Jamie later anyway, won’t you?” He wanted to make certain she’d be looked after.

  “Yes. I just don’t want to shake his hand.”

  He heard the pain in her voice. “I understand.” Rutherford hadn’t found much consolation in the Quaker service. He was raised in Roman Catholicism with a Croatian bent, and even though he wasn’t a believer, he had to han
d it to the church: once you sat through a funeral mass, listened to the choir and the prayers (even if they were in Latin and you didn’t understand them), with the organ soaring at the beginning and the end, you wound up feeling better. With a pang he wondered what kind of funeral his dear granddaughter Emily had. He found himself loving and missing Emily without ever knowing her, and he didn’t understand how or why. As he grew older, so much of life was becoming a mystery to him, his certainties dissolving.

  Walking around those waiting on line, they reached the entry gallery in time to see Rockefeller holding both of Jamie’s hands within his, as a minister might, and speaking words of reassurance. The tall entry doors of the Meetinghouse were thrown open to the sweet spring breeze. Nick Catalano joined Rockefeller, and they, too, shook hands and exchanged a few words.

  To the boom of photographers’ flashbulbs, Rockefeller went down the path and through the wrought-iron gate, looking neither left nor right. His waiting driver opened the back door of a black car, and Rockefeller slipped in. Thus the richest man in the world was whisked away, flashbulbs popping all the while. For once Claire saw the cameras from the other side. She felt sorry for him. How awful, to be always on view, guaranteed privacy only within the confines of a closely guarded estate or apartment.

  “I need to get downtown,” Rutherford said. “You okay here?”

  She forced herself to smile for him. “Yes, Dad, I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. I’m just tired.” How odd it felt, to find herself reassuring him about her well-being.

  “All right then, we’ll talk later.” Again they quickly hugged, and he left.

  Claire went to the reception room, plain and bare, its dull green paint peeling. The windows overlooked the courtyard that the school next door, Friends Seminary, used for recess. The students were on break now. Shouts, taunts, and the steady beat of a jump rope reached Claire as she went to the refreshment table. Lemonade and fruit punch were ladled out by several of the kindly white-haired ladies who’d been sitting near the front. The ladies also refilled the platters of cookies, oatmeal raisin and chocolate chip, by the look of them. Claire didn’t feel like eating cookies. Sergei Oretsky stood before the cookies, seeming to study them, intent on choosing the right one.