Dreamland

by Nancy Bilyeau

  Where was Stefan?

  The muggy heat hadn’t loosened its chokehold on the street, but panic churned inside me. If Lieutenant Pellegrino lied and refused to release Stefan from this building, what could I do about it? I was the one who had lied about being able to make Batternberg lawyers come running, and he might have guessed it. Why else would his final threat be to seek out my mother?

  The door to the police precinct swung open. A hard-faced woman, dragging a child by the hand, stepped out. I didn’t remember seeing them in the waiting area. I felt as if I were losing grip on the situation.

  “Peggy.”

  I whirled around. Stefan stood no more than ten feet away. As I rushed to him, my relief turned to anguish. His left eye was ringed in red, his nose was swollen, and his chin was covered in a bandage.

  “My God, what did they do to you?” I burst into tears as I threw my arms around him.

  Stefan doubled over in my arms. “No, no, don’t,” he begged.

  I stepped back while he felt his ribs, grimacing. My hugging him had caused greater pain.

  “I have to take you to the hospital,” I cried.

  He shook his head. “My ribs not broken. My jaw not broken. I need rest, not hospital.”

  “Oh, Stefan, how could they do this?”

  “With much skill,” he said, and looked over his shoulder. “We must get away from here, Peggy.” It was only then that I noticed Detective Sean Devlin standing at the corner of the police building, watching us. He must have been the one to lead Stefan out the side door. To all the world he resembled a friendly young man, fresh out of the school house with his freckled nose, who just put on a police uniform for the first time. I knew better.

  I wanted so much to help Stefan down the street, but I could not take his arm, his bruises were too tender. Instead, we walked side by side, slowly because of how much pain he was in, until we made it to the end of the block. By that time, Stefan’s face was damp with sweat; beneath the sweat, his skin was gray as chalk.

  “You have to get off your feet,” I said, alarmed. “And water. You need water.”

  Turning left, I spotted a hardware store one-third of the way down this block, an empty bench in front of it. Stefan did not argue with me when I urged him to sit.

  Now I needed to find him water, not as easy to secure. The hardware store, with its front window crammed with fireworks equipment, was closed. I didn’t see any grocers. A busy-looking tavern dominated the far corner, but I was reluctant to leave him alone for however long it took me to talk someone into giving me a glass of water. He might faint right here. How frustrating to know that just a few blocks away stood an amusement park selling every kind of drink imaginable. But how to get him there?

  I spotted two boys on the sidewalk, bent over a flat pile of garbage pushed to the side of the street. One of them picked up a shred of something that gleamed like silver in the sun. I called them over. “I’ll give you a dollar if you can buy us two tall cups of water from someone and bring it back,” I said. “Or iced tea. Or lemonade. Anything like that.”

  “Sure, lady,” said one of the boys, long-faced, about nine years old. He nudged his friend with a delighted glance. The other, with a tangled mop of dark hair, looked even younger, though I saw a clutch of cigarette butts bursting out of his patched shirt pocket.

  “Peggy,” rasped Stefan warningly.

  “Ah. Yes. I’ll give you a dollar to buy the drinks and another dollar when you bring them back.”

  “Two dollars?” crowed the boy in disbelief. “Yes, ma’am!” His friend said nothing; instead, he stared at Stefan. Well, he did make for a dreadful sight.

  Once they’d scooted off with one of my dollars, I turned my most burning questions on Stefan.

  “Which one of the police hit you?”

  After a few seconds, he said, “Does it matter?”

  “But they can’t do this – to pummel someone who’s being interviewed. That must be against the law.”

  “Agree. Who should we make complaint to?” Rubbing his left side with a wince, he said, “They would just say my Slavic temper meant I must be restrained.”

  To my amazement, Stefan exhibited no rage over being beaten by the police after we went to the precinct to volunteer assistance. It wasn’t that they’d frightened him into submission. Nor was he resigned to it, precisely. He didn’t seem defeated. If I had to describe his state of mind, I’d say it was a tragic serenity. As much pain as he suffered, he seemed at peace now. And that was more horrible than anything else.

  “Did you think that they might do this to you?” I asked.

  “I have experience with police, Peggy,” he said. “Not here. In Rome, Belgrade. Same everywhere. The surprise was they release so quick. The dark officer comes in, shouts at them all, they stop, put bandage on, push me out door.”

  “That was Lieutenant Pellegrino,” I said. “He kept talking about anarchists, murders, and the ruling class. He had an absurd theory about you, about how you meant to kidnap me. I still can’t believe this was their reaction to us coming in. But I made him see that they couldn’t detain either of us.”

  Stefan murmured a sentence in another language.

  “Pardon?”

  “The English is ‘A hundred suspicions don’t make a proof.’ Dostoevsky wrote in Crime and Punishment.”

  After that, Stefan lapsed into silence. He seemed to be concentrating on bearing his pain. I felt sick with guilt over doing this to him. I was completely at fault. He had expected to be mistreated by the police. With a sickening rush, I realized something else.

  “Before we went into Hell Gate, you said, ‘If you want me to go with you, it has to be today,’ you said that because you thought there might never be another opportunity.”

  “It was possible,” he said simply.

  And did he kiss me like that because he thought we might not ever have another chance? I couldn’t bring myself to ask.

  Rubbing his swollen jaw, he said, “Anyone looking to prove America has ruling class could see it today.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Police release me today only because of you, the status of family. No appeal to reason or rule of law would work.”

  That made me feel worse. I didn’t want to be part of a wretched system in which the police – and everyone else – bowed to those with money. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that. But if I were a member of a ruling class, why did I feel lost and powerless most the time?

  I said, “Despite all its claims to liberty, America is no better than Europe.”

  Stefan said, “Is different. In countries ruled by Austria, Russia, man knows he cannot move up ladder, no hope at all. Here, hope lives, but only for few. Man working hard, great effort, is not enough. Some luck necessary. But…” He considered. “Not getting luck can drive man mad.”

  His insights were like no one else’s. And what had I done to him? I blurted, “Oh, Stefan, why did you come with me if you knew it would expose you to their suspicion and their violence?”

  “Because you ask me to,” he said. Within that bruised face, his expression was brimming with sadness and anger, yes, but also ardor.

  I took his left hand and pressed it to my cheek, and he did not shrink in pain. “Stefan,” I whispered.

  I let go of him, reluctantly, when the long-faced boy appeared on the sidewalk, carrying a crate with no little effort. I spotted a large bottle of water, cups, and two smaller curved bottles shimmering with dark brown liquid.

  “Where’s your friend?” I asked the boy when I gave him the second dollar. He shrugged as he pulled a small bag from his pocket. As he reverently slipped the dollar in, I spotted strips of tin foil from cigarette wrappings and chewing gum wrappers. Was that what he was picking up before – could this junk actually be worth something? I wondered, with a pang.

  Stefan moaned, “Yes, yes, Coca-Cola.”

  I thought the water much better for him, but when he insisted, I handed Stefan on
e of the cold bottles with a Coca-Cola label pasted on. To my chagrin, he stuck his hand deep in his pocket, even though it made him curse with pain, to extract a bottle opener. And then to my greater chagrin, he insisted I drink the other one.

  “First beer, now this,” he said with a shadow of a smile. How could I refuse after that? Once he’d pried the metal cap off the second bottle, I hid my distaste over drinking straight from a bottle and handled the Coca-Cola as Stefan did, held high and tilted to my lips. It tasted both sweet and metallic, exploding with a fizz in my throat like a tiny bomb. I could almost feel Coca-Cola racing through my veins.

  I absolutely loved it.

  Stefan and I sat on the bench before the hardware store, thirstily drinking our Coca-Colas to the last drop. Afterward, the angry exhaustion of the afternoon subsided. When I told him how the drink transformed me, Stefan nodded but said, “Will take more than Coca-Cola to heal me.”

  “I will help you get home, Stefan,” I said.

  “Not good idea,” he responded. “Don’t look, but across street, two shops down, in doorway… policeman watch us.”

  Dismayed, I said, “They’re following us?”

  “They will follow me for while,” he said matter-of-factly. “I can’t have you with me after we rest here. I don’t want you in trouble.”

  “But how will you get back to your home?” I wailed.

  The unfairness of this, the violation of privacy, angered me. And then another aspect of it struck me. “How will we be able to see each other again?” I asked. I almost told Stefan how Lieutenant Pellegrino threatened to inform my family if he caught me with him again, but I held back that unpleasant piece of information. Even without the lieutenant’s threat, we would have a tense time meeting in Dreamland or anywhere else in Coney Island while being trailed by the police.

  Stefan did not answer.

  Surging with hurt pride, I said, “I could hardly blame you if you preferred not to see me again.”

  “Peggy, stop. You know I want to be with you.” He reached over, discreetly, and took my hand. “We wait. End of summer not far. I see you, but not in Coney Island. After this all die down.”

  A part of me wanted to laugh. This was exactly the scenario I’d idly imagined that first night before drifting to sleep. My working at Moonrise Bookstore this autumn, meeting Stefan following a day’s work. But after what we’d been through – the passionate kissing in Hell Gate, followed by the nightmare of accusations and violence in the precinct – I couldn’t face waiting nearly two months to see him again. The intensity of our shared experience made enduring long weeks of nothing simply impossible.

  “What about if we meet in Manhattan sooner?” I asked. “Could you get away from the police and meet me there?”

  He frowned. “How about you, Peggy? How would you do that?”

  “Don’t worry about me! I can manage it. Let’s pick a date. Ten days from today?”

  “Peggy, you sure?” he said, hesitantly.

  I don’t know if it was the Coca-Cola surging in my veins or my anger over the beating, but I said, my voice rising, “Do you want the police to tell us what to do – to run our lives? I know I don’t. I absolutely refuse to submit to their bullying, or to anyone’s.” I peered across the street, to the doorway Stefan spoke of, and spotted a man’s silhouette. He was not dressed in a uniform but regular clothes. He stood in the doorway of a closed office, his gaze raking the road with elaborate casualness. It was all I could do to restrain myself from marching across the street to give him a resounding slap.

  A smile danced across Stefan’s bruised face. “Ah, Peggy, you… magnificent. Like rebel princess.”

  “I always detest being called a princess, but I’ll suffer it on this occasion if you’ll agree to meet me in Manhattan.”

  “I will. Of course I will. Where?”

  My first thought was Moonrise Bookstore, but an instant later I had a better idea. “Central Park? The carousel? Can you find it?”

  We fixed the date and time, but suddenly his attention was elsewhere. Following his gaze, I spotted a strange trio of people hurrying toward us. In front scrambled the boy with dark tousled hair who’d stared at Stefan and not reappeared. It seemed he went in search of others to share the news of Stefan’s condition – did everyone in Coney Island know Stefan and feel a proprietary fondness for him? The person charging across the street on the boy’s heels was the very one I’d gone out of my way to evade earlier. Yes, Louise, a figure in green, picked up her skirts and ran to Stefan’s side, crying, “My God, what have they done to you?” – exactly the words I had used.

  “Be calm, Louise,” he said. “Nothing is broken.”

  When she bent over Stefan to get a closer look at the purplish bruise around his eye, her white breasts nearly spilled out of her dress. Averting my eyes, I met the stare of the third person in the trio, giving me a hard, curious appraisal. She was about the same age as Louise, with silky dark curls and a mouth with generously pouting lips and wearing a crimson dress that, while not so low cut in the bosom as Louise’s, showed off a perfect figure. I became acutely aware of my own loosely fitting white dress, buttoned to my throat, and my plain hat. Compared to these two, I was the perfect picture of dull, girlish innocence. How mortifying.

  “Whatever happened, I’m sure she was at the bottom of it,” said Louise, leaving no doubt she meant me.

  At that, Stefan pushed away her hand, which had been cradling his chin to get a closer look. “You must not say that,” he said. “Peggy did nothing wrong. I will not permit criticism of her.”

  She didn’t persist or argue with him. The two women began to plan how best to get Stefan home – an address Louise obviously knew. But I did not feel quite as jealous now. The way Stefan spoke to her was more of a stern father or brother than an angry lover. Whatever their relationship, I was important to Stefan. He made that clear to all.

  When Louise and the other woman, each taking a side, gently pulled Stefan to his feet, he said, anxiously, “Peggy, how will you get back to hotel?” The dark-haired woman’s eyebrows shot up at that.

  I assured Stefan that it would be easy for me to find my way. I rose to my feet too but hung back awkwardly as they took charge of him. After a few steps, he stopped and turned, moving with stiffness, to say goodbye to me. Louise glanced over her shoulder, eyes narrowed.

  “Goodbye,” I said. “I’m happy that you have this help.”

  Louise rolled her eyes; apparently I’d hit the wrong note once again. The woman was impossible.

  I stayed put, clutching my handbag in the shadow of a shuttered hardware store as I watched the little party progress toward the heart of Coney Island. Soon enough they’d be among the theaters and the restaurants that bordered the amusement park’s massive attractions. It occurred to me that Louise and her companions hadn’t demanded to know who laid hands on Stefan. Was violence so common here? As I pondered this, my heart jerked a beat as the man who Stefan pointed out, who watched us from the doorway, moved along the sidewalk across the street. He walked casually, hat pulled low over his face, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. He took no notice of me. Suddenly he craned his neck to see around a woman walking in front of him, as if anxious to keep someone in sight farther up the block. Was he the police? Impossible to be certain. Neither fat nor thin and not too tall, he could even be the one who followed us on the boardwalk that first night. I watched, helplessly, as the mysterious man melted into the crowd at the corner, as had Stefan with his trio of helpers less than a minute previously.

  How my moods flipped and spun. I was still in the grip of agitation, perhaps fueled by Coca-Cola, when I hailed a buggy driver willing to take money to spirit me to the Oriental Hotel. We passed the large theater, so lonely looking in the middle of the afternoon, now with its doors thrown open and people streaming in like bees returning to the hive. The driver chose a different route than Stefan and I took on foot, and I found myself in the middle of a busy street jammed with thea
ters and dance halls and taverns. With afternoon slipping to evening, the street was most definitely coming to life. Groups of men sauntered down the sidewalks here. One pair of young men wearing smart suit jackets and bowler hats who stood on the edge of the sidewalk leered at me when my buggy paused a few feet from them. I looked away at once, and they burst out laughing. As the buggy picked up speed again, I thought about Louise and her friend. If I attracted notice in my maiden’s dress, imagine what attention they must fend off.

  The street sign “Bowery” flashed by. Lieutenant Pellegrino had asked me if Stefan ever mentioned this thoroughfare, along with a specific place called Mabel Morgan’s. I didn’t see a sign for the latter. I couldn’t imagine what he suspected Stefan of when he mentioned this part of Coney Island. Such a milieu didn’t seem to have anything to do with anarchists.

  Among the many aspects of that bizarre day on Coney Island was the distortion in time. Just as it seemed as if a day had transpired within the walls of the police precinct instead of a couple of hours, when I walked up the pathway to the Oriental Hotel, its minarets soaring and flags flying above, it felt like I hadn’t been there for a week. It was half past six, I saw by the large clock mounted on the veranda. Just five hours ago I’d slipped out of the hotel, tingling with excitement about the day before me.

  As I made my way across the lobby, I also remembered that that morning I’d arranged it with Lydia that, as far as the rest of the family was concerned, I remained in my room all day. I found it very difficult to care about such things now. Should they see me on their way to dinner, I didn’t care. My outrage over what happened to Stefan and me had drained away, replaced by a black pessimism over the state of the human race.

  I looked forward to the solitude of my hotel room. I needed to contemplate that and all the strangeness, the painful shocks of the day. I made it all the way to my door and was fishing for the room key in my handbag when the elevator door opened with a clang, and I heard footfall.