The End of Innocence

by Allegra Jordan

  “It’s what you do with intelligence that matters, not that you have it,” said Wils in a careless tone as he flipped through telegraphs from his mother.

  “That’s quite enough. Helen is champagne without the headache. She may be the one for me. You and Peter will have to get accustomed to it.” He returned to the pantry.

  “I’ve heard that at least a hundred times,” muttered Wils. But arguing with Riley was a lost cause. He’d end up driving the pair. Riley would insist on it and not rest until he’d given in from some mix of duty, guilt that his family was richer than Riley’s, and his desire to protect his car from his cousin’s depredations.

  “Have you heard how Jackson is doing?” called Riley.

  “Nightmares,” replied Wils as he opened another telegram.

  “Sounds like progress.”

  Wils didn’t respond as he turned over the paper at the bottom.

  LORD KITCHENER HAS CALLED FOR MORE TROOPS STOP RILEY YOU MUST COME HOME STOP FATHER

  The color left Wils’s face. He threw it back on the table, as if it were on fire.

  Chapter Six

  Radcliffe and Harvard Yards

  Cambridge, Massachusetts

  Monday, August 31, 1914

  Helen had prepared for bed Sunday night as usual, writing out her prayers in longhand. She told God that she wished to do well that term; that He should help her mother find a more productive use of her time, and help Riley Spencer figure out if he was engaged or not. And that God, in His infinite mercy, should blow up the kaiser.

  Such prayers provided cold comfort, though, the next morning. Helen did not sleep well and on Monday morning she awoke even before the first bell, nervous about the first day of class. She dressed quickly, carefully buttoning her crisp white shirtwaist, hooking the back of her navy skirt, and wrapping her long dark hair into a tight knot secured with a dark silk ribbon.

  Ann’s mother had left a box of pastries for their first day, and as Ann was still asleep, Helen breakfasted quietly over the news reports from the Crimson. She read the stories with gloom: there was the terrible British defeat and rumors of a new offensive in France, of the new German empire swallowing Europe as a whole. There was hard talk of how the student Arnold Archer, son of a powerful politician in Boston, had actually done America a real service in alerting authorities to a spy in their midst.

  Questions were raised about a German professor feeding pigeons—whether those pigeons were messenger pigeons—and an announcement was made by Professor Kuno Francke that his plans for the new Germanic museum at Harvard were put on hold. Three students withdrew over the weekend to go to war, and yet class continued, the professors insistent on the careful observance of the academic year. At least none of the news items were about her mother’s cause du jour, family limitation among the poor, she thought, grateful that God had answered at least a bit of her prayer.

  She brushed the crumbs from her skirt and left for class, careful not to wake Ann as she shut the door. This is not how I imagined my first day of college, she thought, walking outside. She had thought she’d be bright and happy, not vaguely out of sorts.

  Her first class, mathematics, went well, taught in the Radcliffe Quadrangle by Miss Parcher, a quiet lady with white hair and skin so thin it was nearly translucent. Her voice warbled as she spoke and Helen, who had read ahead to chapter three, had no problem keeping up.

  For her next two classes—modern literature and world history—she sat at rapt attention only to find that both were lecture classes in which no student opinion was sought nor was it to be offered. Her teachers, a balding young man for literature and a dour matron for world history, were terribly boring. She hoped class would become more exciting and challenging and reminded herself that the past was not always a predictor of the future, although, as her father pointed out, it typically was.

  Helen returned to her dormitory at noon and ate lunch with Ann. Ann’s morning had been as uninteresting as hers, with the exception that Ann had received an offer to read the scripture at Radcliffe’s Opening of Term Sunday service on behalf of the Lowell family. After Ann had left to audition for the choir, Helen packed her books and made her way over to Harvard Yard for her final class of the day.

  Professor Copeland’s Editing for Editors seminar was held in a small room in Boylston Hall, a building now hidden by the construction surrounding the mammoth new Widener Library. The walkways leading around the workers had become a labyrinth of wooden planks and temporary railings. With some difficulty Helen made it to the rough granite hall.

  She walked into Room 14, ten minutes early, and all the desks were empty. Every move she made seemed to echo off the bare walls and scuffed floorboards.

  In each chair she saw a note.

  “I saw some Belgian children last trip. Their hands had been cut off by the Germans and they were starving. We have to help them. If we don’t they will die.”

  —Captain Joe Stubbs of the steamship Essex

  Stop the kaiser’s terror in Belgium!

  Join the Patriots’ League!

  Rally by the College Pump tonight at 8:00 to find out more!

  Helen shook her head at it and put her note in the trash can. She hoped the kaiser would pay for what he’d done.

  Precisely on the hour, a rush of men flooded the room, pushing past her to sit at the back of the class. As they streamed in, she thought they looked nearly identical with their short hair, starched shirts, and dark suits. Some wore glasses and others jackets with various crests on them. One young man looked particularly wan. A debauched life, she supposed. They all seemed to push the notes from their seats onto the floor.

  Professor Copeland, in a bowler hat and brown checkered suit, strolled in by the time the third bell sounded. He seemed not to notice that his class, with the exception of Helen, sat as far from him as possible, but instead put his hat by the lectern and opened a notebook to call roll.

  “Amory.”

  There was no sound. Professor Copeland cleared his throat. “Amory,” he repeated.

  Silence.

  “Does anyone know where Herbert Cincinnatus Amory might be?” Copeland asked.

  Helen saw a young man raise his hand. “Amory withdrew this morning.”

  Copeland pulled out a pencil. “Thank you,” he said, marking his notebook. He asked for no explanation and began again. As he read, his eyes were magnified by his thick glasses.

  “Brandl, Breckenridge, Brooks, Elken, Ferguson, Hoyt, Iselin, Kingman, Meltzer, Porter, Rabin, Reycroft, Shepherd, Simpson, Stone, Tibbetts, Vaughn, Wharton, and Zilgitt.”

  He looked up and surveyed the class. “Greetings to our first meeting of Editing for Editors, a class where you will write and then we will critique your work as we would if we were publishers. As you know, Harvard relies on you to refresh this ancient fellowship and hopes you will add luster, and not tarnish, to our ranks. Let’s commence. I assume you all have done the assignment. Please pull out your work and we will begin editing, starting in alphabetical order. We were to start with Amory, but as he is not here—”

  Helen’s stomach lurched as the students rustled their papers. She’d received no assignment. She thought back to the note her father had given her. She felt her face flush as the men behind her quieted down.

  “Brandl, please read your work and then, class, we shall see what we think of it.”

  Brandl? She turned with horror and recognized the young man from the dance. She’d not made him out at first, there in his street clothes. His blond hair had fallen over his eyes. His crisp navy jacket, white shirt, and striped tie made him look much like the others.

  He pulled out a sheet of paper and began to read.

  What Lachesis, the Fate, Saw

  by Wilhelm von Lützow Brandl

  Lachesis shifted her silv’ry robe

  Of stars across her maiden’s
breast

  As Agamemnon brought an eagle

  Atalanta, a spear and chest.

  Under the brooding eye of the fates

  Kings and heroes chose their lives

  While the three sisters laughed

  At what true soul liberty gives.

  Then she saw Odysseus search

  The valley of dry bones

  And take a simple bowler hat

  As crown for his next home.

  Her heart flickered with hope

  As he drank from Lethe’s measure

  And vanished from her sight again

  To live in simple pleasure.

  When he was finished the class was silent, and Helen was thoroughly confused. She had no idea what he’d just recited.

  “Mr. Rabin,” said Copeland, “you are the editor at a magazine called Editing Virtues and the Learned Man. What have you to say about this work?”

  Helen heard Rabin clear his throat. “It’s quite lofty, as is the style of our Mr. Brandl, but it’s also obscure. I didn’t understand it at our study group and I don’t understand it now,” responded the young man in a heavy New York accent. “But it’s perfectly pompous enough for Harvard.”

  Helen would have felt sorry for Brandl, but she felt it just deserts for the other night.

  “Mr. Brandl, this from your good friend Rabin? Why did you inflict obscure poetry on our class?”

  “As ever,” said Wils in a voice that sounded bored, “Mr. Rabin aims for the gutter and hits his mark. This poem is straight from Plato’s Republic. Men have little choice in their circumstances, and then use what choice they do have to solve their last problems, not the ones that confront them. I wrote about how Odysseus outwits the fates by renouncing materialism and power—his crown that brought him all of the problems of war and voyage. It’s appropriate for our world today, where power and material goods—not striving for excellence found in each soul—are seen as the best use of a man’s time.”

  There was silence as Morris Rabin shook his head but refused further comment. Copeland looked around the class. “Mr. Shepherd.” A fair boy with a dimpled chin spoke.

  “Would Plato know Ezekiel?”

  “Mr. Brandl, Harold Shepherd points out that the valley of dry bones is Hebraic. Why are you mixing your Greek and Hebraic theology in my class?”

  “The reader would know it. I only intended it to sound familiar,” protested Brandl.

  Copeland looked around the room again. “Any more comments? Iselin, have you something to say?”

  Dane Iselin, a thin boy with red hair and freckles, spoke. “Wils, why would you write about Plato when your country is at war? Why not just write about how hard it is to be German in America? I thought we were to write about what we know—to trust ourselves.”

  Helen saw Wils’s face flush to the roots of his blond hair. “Because writing about Plato in Boston won’t get you killed.” A chilled silence filled the room. Embarrassed for him, Helen looked down at her blank notebook paper. He must have been referring to von Steiger.

  After a pause Copeland spoke. “Mr. Brandl, I have a few comments. First, Mr. Iselin is right—a poem about how things are right now from your perspective would be a good idea, even if you don’t share it with the class. You must write about what you know and trust your instincts. You are a good man who thirsts for knowledge, and the world needs this. Remember who you are, Mr. Brandl. Second, please don’t write any more Plato. My doctor tells me I can’t handle it at my age. It will provoke—”

  “SPELLS OF BLACK DEPRESSION,” chanted the students in unison. All except Helen. She looked around, feeling vaguely uncomfortable, as if she were sitting in on someone else’s conversation.

  “Yes, yes, quiet down,” said Copeland with a wry smile to the class. “Consider my health when you write, Mr. Brandl.” Copeland looked down to his notebook again.

  “Breckenridge, you’re next. Please read your work for the class.” Helen’s stomach turned as she realized where this was going.

  Philip Breckenridge, a ruddy boy with dark brown curls, then read a poem about the death of his dog. He was firmly ridiculed by the class for writing on the passions of death. Helen, who had no poem for the day, looked through her purse while they talked. She saw her poem, stained with moisture from the other day, and blushed to remember what Wils had said about it. It was freakishly bad, she thought. She folded it and put it away.

  “Brooks, please read what you’ve brought us,” called Copeland. There was silence as Helen felt the eyes of all in the class bore into her. It took her a bit, but then she said, “I don’t have a work, sir.”

  “Nothing to read?” he asked with a frown. “You’ve edited three books for your father. How can you have nothing?”

  Wils looked over at the frightened young woman. He had been surprised to see her when he’d walked into the room.

  He saw her stiffen with embarrassment in her seat under Copeland’s questioning, he stifled a smile. She probably didn’t know how to take Copeland’s comments. She seemed just the type to let him get under her skin. Perhaps she’d learn to take criticism. They’d all been baptized under Copeland’s withering stare and she should be no different.

  “I didn’t receive the assignment,” she said. “Your note to my father told me what time to arrive but that was it. I thought on the first day I’d learn what we were to do.”

  Copeland frowned. “Could you recite anything for us?”

  “I’d be happy to provide something tomorrow,” she answered.

  “You have nothing for us?”

  “No.”

  “No elegy or sonnet? A ballad, perhaps?” asked the professor.

  “No,” she said, flushing deeply.

  “Could you recite a limerick?” Several men snickered, but she just sat straight, looking ahead. Copeland gave a curt wave to the rest of the class. “Miss Brooks, please get a copy of the schedule after the bell rings. Tomorrow I expect you to come to class with a work of yours that we shall critique as if we were professional editors. Also, you will need to join a study group. Next week we’ll have a group writing project.” He looked back down at his notebook.

  “Marvin Elken, would you—”

  Helen’s hand shot up.

  “Yes, Miss Brooks?”

  “How will I find a study group?”

  He nodded. “Gentlemen, Miss Brooks needs to join a study group. Please raise your hands if you have an opening.”

  Wils looked over at her and felt a little sorry for her. No man raised his hand, nor did he. He was already in a group with Jackson and Morris. If they were to add a person, they’d need to discuss it first, especially as the person in question was a woman with a known temper.

  But Copeland didn’t want to let the class off easily on this score. As he allowed the silence to become painful, Wils felt a begrudging admiration for her. There she sat, frightened and nervous, but she didn’t burst into tears. And she didn’t protest. In fact, she seemed to bear it well. As he knew far too well nowadays, being the only one of your kind in a room changed you—gave you a certain kind of determination.

  “Professor,” Helen said, “I’ll work on the assignment alone for now.”

  Copeland gave a thin-lipped frown. “Gentlemen, I’ve never seen a room of men cower so in the presence of a young woman. I hope you reconsider this evening. I expect by the next time I see you here in this class one of you will have a space for her in your study group. Now, Marvin Elken, please recite your work.”

  Helen sat in a fog for the duration of the class. She'd rather be with her mother stuffing family limitation pamphlets into envelopes than producing a poem by the next day and joining a study group. Copeland continued the class recitations in alphabetical order until they reached Hoyt. The bell then tolled, signaling the end of class.

  As Helen collected he
r notes, the men rushed by to leave. Wils Brandl walked to Copeland’s lectern, picked up the class schedule, and went back to her desk.

  “Miss Brooks, I’m Wilhelm von Lützow Brandl. We met at the Saturday—”

  “Yes, I remember,” she said curtly. He frowned and then seemed to regroup.

  “Here is the assignment page,” he said, handing it to her. He stood there for a moment as she packed her things.

  “Miss Brooks, may I ask you something? You had a good poem from the other night. Why didn’t you recite it for class today?”

  “You weren’t so kind to it on Saturday.”

  “This is a class of patriots and I assure you they’d have loved your poem. And did you hear what Morris said about mine?” His eyes smiled from behind his spectacles. “I’d be hard put to find a more derisive review.”

  She looked at him, puzzled as to why he was being so kind to her now. “I’ll write something tonight.”

  “It’s just—” he continued earnestly, “it was a fine poem and in Copeland’s class it’s usually better to present something, even if you think it’s not your best work, than to say you’re empty-handed.”

  “Don’t make her worry,” said a young man standing behind Wils. “She did just fine.” He introduced himself as Jackson Vaughn, the pale boy in the back. His accent was slow and melodic, that of a southerner. A short young man beside Jackson introduced himself as Morris Rabin. He smelled of kitchen soap, but his manners were polished. He opened the door for her as they left the room.

  As they walked into the hall, they were surprised by two policemen in blue suits with bright shiny gold buttons. The men looked as if they’d been waiting for some time. One officer was tall and lanky, his face rough with pockmarks. The other was stout and bald, his bug eyes taking them in. As they approached, Helen’s heart began to race. What was this?

  “Wilhelm Brandl?” said the tall man. “I’m Inspector Walter Gordon of the Boston Police,” he said, extending his hand, “and this is Officer Kim O’Hara. I’d like to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind.”