City of Light (45 page)

“Don’t you have guards on duty?” I whispered.

“I sent them out.” How calm he was. “They’ll come running soon enough when they hear the explosion. I had to work out a balance between making the place accessible but still normal. I don’t want to put anyone in danger. I have to make certain everything goes according to plan, and I can’t leave that responsibility to anyone else. There’s always the chance—”

Suddenly there was a sound. A muffled creaking. Then a brief flickering of light from a lantern, which left the cavernous building seeming darker than before. Whoever had come in should have trusted the moonlight. Tom covered my knee with his hand and began to whisper, his mouth to my ear, his breath warm against my cheek. “When I tell you, we must go down the stairs. We’ll have more than enough time. Just go at a steady pace and don’t stop. The stairs lead all the way into the tunnel—you remember, where Peter Fronczyk took you and your girls that day. You’ll be perfectly safe. I’ll go first and hold your hand. But even if we get separated you’ll be able to find your way out. The tunnel slopes; just follow the slope.” Beneath his reassuring tone, there was a sharp urgency.

Below us, on the main floor, there were furtive, fervent murmurings. We peered through the posts of the balustrade. Several shadowy figures were feeling their way toward the generators. Once more came the light, and I was able to make out a man: Was it … yes, it was Daniel Henry Bates. Although he carried a cane and moved slowly, he held his back and shoulders straight and strong; he wasn’t the bent, aging prophet he publicly pretended to be. In his hand was a slender package. Dynamite, my mind said. I sensed rather than saw the others pushing close around him. Three at least, maybe four. A voice gave instructions. The lantern shone again—and there was Susannah Riley, her pale face flashing brilliant. As if sensing my gaze, she looked toward the balcony, blind triumph deep as a trance in her eyes. I stood, as if also in a trance, staring at her as she stared at me, although I couldn’t tell for certain whether she actually saw me. Maybe she only
felt
me, like a vision in a dream, before Tom gently pulled me back to kneeling.

“You see?” Tom asked, grasping at my hand, clutching it tightly. “You understand?”

My quick inhalation alone told him yes. So … I had been duped by Susannah. Even the way she’d withheld Grace’s name from me in my office until the very end, knowing Grace was my goddaughter, had been part of her snare. Tom put his arm around me in protection and possession.

There was work to be done below us. The small group positioned itself beside the Westinghouse-Speyer; they looked infinitesimal beside the mass of the generator.

“Why did they choose that generator, the one Speyer designed?” I whispered.

He shrugged. “I chose it. It’s the strongest. The newest design. It’ll get the most attention in the press.”

“But Karl Speyer is dead.” Suddenly I felt that Tom was committing a sacrilege. “And not only that, when they were putting the casing on, Rolf—”

Tom put his fingertips on my lips. “It’s a piece of machinery, Louisa. That’s all. It’s not a person. It’s a machine. It can be rebuilt.”

No—to me it was more than a machine. It represented human hopes, efforts, and dreams, all sacred. “Why are you letting this go on?” I pleaded. “Why don’t you stop them? Surely there’s enough evidence already to prove—”

“I want to discredit them for good. Be rid of them once and for all. They’ll become nothing but dangerous radicals to the public. People are beginning to appreciate the importance of electricity, and they won’t have any sympathy for so-called nature preservationists bombing the power station.”

“But you could lose all you worked for here, all you’ve created.”

“That won’t happen.” He shifted to see better.

Someone was lifted up on crossed hands; I heard the sharp exhalations of strain. The lifted man ran his hands over the metal casing of the generator, feeling his way, searching for the proper place. He whispered to Bates, who gave him the slender package. The man unwrapped it and began taping it to the generator; I heard the rips from the spool of tape. He asked for light—and I gasped to see the handsome face of Peter Fronczyk. He wore workman’s overalls. Loyalty and betrayal crisscrossed through the moonlit darkness while Peter checked the dynamite, positioned the wires that led from the bomb, funneled the wires through his hands. How could Peter betray Tom? Was it because of the death of his father here at the power station? Or some unintended insult the evening we sat on Tom’s veranda together? Or did Peter know something about the power station, and about Tom, that I didn’t know and couldn’t begin to guess?

I glanced at Tom. He simply stared at the scene below us with intermittent nods that told me everything was going according to plan.

At a mumbled signal, Peter was eased down again to the floor of the generator room. Someone began unraveling the line across the floor toward the door. The others followed, Peter instructing, correcting, cautioning in whispers. They reached the exit. I heard a match being struck and the hiss of burning as the fuse line was lit. Peter placed it on the tiled floor, and the group slipped out.

Ever so gently, Tom took my hand. We rose and went to the circular staircase and began walking down, Tom in the lead. Down and down, around and around, the curves tight, Tom walking first slowly and then faster as if sensing the danger growing—down and down, making me dizzy. What had O’Flarity said all those months ago—ten floors down, was that it? With every step I feared I would tread on the hem of my skirt and fall—fall onto Tom, both of us swept round and round into the center of the earth. The stones of the wall where I pressed my fist for balance changed from dry and warm to wet and cold as we progressed deeper underground.

Then we were in the tunnel. The water at my feet felt like melted snow as it seeped into my boots. The air was cold but fetid, the stink of it catching in my throat. Feeling his way confidently, holding my hand, Tom guided us. When we reached the interlink, he stopped. He pressed me against the wall with the side of his body while he fumbled for something. A match.

“Look, Louisa,” he said, holding up the match. The cavernous interlink curved above our heads. He led me forward to the horseshoe-shaped main tunnel. “If anything happens, keep your hand on the wall and run in the direction of the fresh air. Downward, like I said before. At the end you’ll be safe. You won’t get lost.”

Just as the flame touched his fingers, he blew out the match. He took my right hand while I kept the fingertips of my left on the wall as we ran. Suddenly there was a deep rumbling behind us and above. The explosion. We paused, listening. Then Tom tugged on my hand to urge me along.

All at once, a bit of the air turned sweet. Gradually we slowed to a walk. More and more the air greeted us with waves of fragrance—not perfume; simply the pure smell of a summer’s night. We reached the end of the tunnel and walked out onto the ledge which the workers used as a staging area during the day. It was piled with detritus: cast-off planks, broken tiles, shards of stone, wires and pieces of twisted metal. The Niagara Gorge rose before us. The roar of the Falls was all around us. I turned to gaze upriver. The Horseshoe Falls gleamed white in the moonlight and seemed terribly close—huge and exultant, soaring over me.

I turned to Tom. He placed his hands upon my shoulders. At that moment Grace seemed far away, the drawings nonexistent. The power station and its battles too: far away and meaningless. We had passed through danger together and now we might have been the last two people alive on earth.

Tom put his hands on either side of my face and drew me close to kiss me. He smelled like wildflowers, was all I could think of, but that might have been simply the air around us. His body was strong enough to hold me even as I yielded my weight against him. That feeling, as he kissed me—that touch, the warmth, simple and consoling … I’d never thought I’d know it; I’d never expected or imagined it, and I leaned into him to meet it.

CHAPTER XXIX

T
om and I climbed the construction ladder riveted to the side of the gorge and picked our way among carts and cast-off timber until we reached the road and saw the Sinclair carriage, driver and horses waiting patiently. We got in and the carriage drove away at a steady pace as if nothing were amiss; the master was simply returning home from a late night at the office. By carriage the journey to Buffalo took some time. Tom said he would take me “home”—to his home, he meant, and I didn’t object. I would be safer from prying eyes if I emerged from the carriage in the confines of his estate rather than on Bidwell Parkway in front of the school.

Trusting him to be a gentleman, I leaned against his chest. He held me close, his arms wrapped around my shoulders in the coolness of the evening.

“I’m sorry about Peter Fronczyk,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“That he was there, with them. That he—”

Tom laughed gently. “He was there, but he was with
me.”

Had I heard him properly? I pushed up against his chest, to look at his face.

“When I discovered their plan, I decided to guide them. Or rather, I let Peter do the guiding. I took a tip from union-busting tactics and infiltrated their meetings.” His voice was cold now, and professional.

So this was why Tom had shown no reaction when Peter was revealed to us by the lantern light. Should I have condemned him for using Peter, or complimented him? At that moment the complexities of his decisions were beyond my comprehension, and I dealt on a simpler level: “Did Peter escape? Did any of them escape?”

“Peter at least. I hope. There’s a path along the river. Once they’re off the property, they’re separating, so they can’t be linked to one another. I’ve got a boat waiting upriver for Peter, if he can manage to get to it. He’s a good lad.” Tom shifted to nestle me closer.

“What makes you think this will discredit them and not simply bring them more attention?” I spoke against the soft underside of his jaw.

“People are sick of violence. And a power station’s got more intrinsic glory in people’s eyes than, say, an aluminum factory.” His strong fingers massaged the back of my head. “No one will support them now. I wish all my critics were so easily thwarted.”

“Which critics?” I asked, beginning to sit up until his arms tightened around me.

“None you need to bother yourself about.”

“But—”

He caressed my cheek with the back of his hand. “Now, now, enough of this talk,” he said, pressing me against him once more.

As the carriage swayed, we drifted into languor. We took the River Road, along the Erie Canal and the Niagara River. The pear orchards of the Tonawandas surrounded us, the fruit ripening, its weight pulling down the branches. A hundred thousand pears: The air was heavy with their scent. I opened my eyes and gazed out the window: moonlight on water; pear trees as far as I could see; and nothing else, no one else.

Closing my eyes again, slipping from Tom’s shoulder to his chest as I rested, I dreamed a memory, of being on a moonlit summer journey with my father in the West. We traveled on horseback, at night because it was cool. I wore a jacket and trousers. We followed an ancient Indian route. The moonlight and the starlight were bright enough to read a map. The sky was huge around us. An exultant sense of my own singularity filled me. Safe within my father’s love, I felt myself joined to a universe of infinite possibility.

From far away I heard Tom’s voice. “Tell me you’re Grace’s mother.”

Abruptly I was alert, my memory-dream cut short: “Her godmother,” I insisted, afraid even now to have this truth set out between us, afraid that the truth would push him away.

“Her mother. Aren’t you? You gave her to us, after all; told us about her, arranged for everything. She looks just like you…. Tell me. I have a right to know.” Then, as if he already knew the answer, and would never judge me harshly, “Won’t you kiss me, Louisa?”

“Yes.” I lifted my face to his. “Yes,” I said again, and I didn’t know which question I was answering, but all at once there was only one answer, to every question, because I was finally tired of fighting, tired of keeping secrets, tired of being always careful, always wary. I wanted someone else to fight for me. I might never fully understand him, but at least on this I could trust him. I could sigh against his chest and offer him every worry I’d suffered, knowing he would keep me safe; knowing he would never use my secrets against me.

“I sensed it,” he whispered. “These last months. So in a way we’re married already, aren’t we? Having a child together.”

How easy my life suddenly seemed; easier than I ever would have credited.

“Who is Grace’s father?”

“You are.” This I could never tell him, my humiliation too deep.

“Don’t tease.”

“I’m not teasing.”

“Tell me.”

“I can’t tell you.”

“You must. I have a right to know that too.”

I pushed against him with my elbows in order to see his face, but a shadow thrown by the moon concealed him.

“The man is no one from here, no one you know. A gentleman, I suppose we can call him. But no one you need to concern yourself about.” He squeezed my shoulders and I sensed his discontent. “You’ll just have to trust me on that,” I added.

“All right,” he agreed with a grudging laugh, embracing me once more.

Perhaps we slept in the carriage; we reached town sooner than I expected, and once inside the house, my fatigue lifted. Tom paced the second-floor library while I stood at the window waiting for the dawn. Grace was with Ruth Rumsey for the night, so I couldn’t go upstairs to watch her sleep.

“Why don’t you lie down?” Tom finally said. Preoccupied, he checked his watch. Without explanation he went to the desk, unlocked the bottom drawer, and took out a small red portfolio. He counted the money inside. I sensed he had counted the money many times. While he glanced at his watch once more, we heard a faint knocking upon the door downstairs.

“Excuse me, won’t you? I don’t mean to be rude, but I would prefer you to stay upstairs.”

“Of course.”

Nonetheless I went to the staircase. To the place where I had waited with Grace during Karl Speyer’s visit months before. I peered over the banister to see Tom leading Peter Fronczyk into the downstairs parlor. Peter wore a neat tweed suit and carried a new carpetbag. Except for his still-wayward hair, he looked all at once grown-up. He spoke excitedly to Tom, clearly relating the night’s events, and he appeared utterly happy, his expression open, eager, and newly confident. Tom regarded him indulgently, with a slight smile, as he closed the parlor door behind them.

I felt my moral compass suspended, overwhelmed by all the explanations the night had brought me, waiting for the peace of reflection.

Tom and Peter spoke for many minutes in the study. I grew restless. When finally they came out, Peter was putting the red portfolio into the inner pocket of his jacket. At the door, Tom gripped Peter’s shoulders. “Good luck,” Tom said. Neither of them seemed saddened by the parting; their plan was still playing itself out and they were still united.

“Thanks,” Peter replied buoyantly, and then he was gone.

Tom walked into the drawing room, and after a moment I went downstairs to join him. He was standing at the floor-to-ceiling French windows, staring into the garden, where amorphous shapes were being transformed by the dawn into irises and lilies.

“I’ll miss him,” Tom said. “He reminds me of myself—needless to say. Stronger than me, though, I think. I’m not sure I could have done what he did tonight.”

“Where will he go?”

“He’ll disappear into the West, I suppose; at least that’s what I advised him. He doesn’t have much choice right now. The police will be searching out tonight’s perpetrators, and I don’t want Peter even temporarily caught in the net.”

“Is that fair? To make Peter a criminal in order to discredit Daniel Henry Bates?” I surprised myself with my quick, flaring anger. “He had a future here. A family.”

Tom gazed at me calmly. No doubt this was the way Margaret had spoken to him during the disagreements that had loomed so large in Grace’s mind: a man and woman in actual conversation, without simpering or manipulation.

“I made Peter Fronczyk a hero. In my mind as well as his own,” Tom said matter-of-factly. “And I paid him well. He’ll be able to get an education now. Become an engineer, which is what he wanted. With enough left over to help his family. And he’ll stay in touch; I won’t forget him.”

“Exactly how have you made him a hero? A hero to your profits?”

He gave me a long, forbearing smile. “I’ll forgive you that, Louisa, because you were speaking out of forgetfulness.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Come now. You know my dream. My goal.” He spoke lightly, as if joking. “I told you that evening you came to see to me about Grace, back in March. Don’t you remember?”

“I remember visiting,” I said. I didn’t say, what I remember best is that it was the evening Karl Speyer died.

“I bared my soul to you and you don’t even remember?” he teased. But then he turned away from me, touching the curtain with his fingertips as he stared out the window. “How many of us have the opportunity to step beyond ourselves? To do something for the common good? Not many, I think. I would like to make an attempt, at least. Don’t you remember”—he looked at me again—“my telling you that I wanted to be able to generate so much electricity that I could start giving it away? To make it a force for good in the world? To change the world? Don’t you remember that?”

“Yes,” I said hesitantly, trying to think back. Was this the explanation, then? The explanation that had eluded me all these months? The reason for the veiled warnings from Maria Love and John Albright, for Mr. Rumsey’s inscrutable tactics? “But I thought you were talking about something in the distant future. A utopia. A dream. Not something you could achieve in the here and now.”

“Well, cliché that it is, the future does have a way of catching up with us. The technology pushes us along. Makes the impossible possible. That’s how I’ll present it to the president next week.”

“The president?” I asked with surprise.

“Certainly. Why not go right to the top?” Tom joked. “He’d make a noble convert to the cause. Especially because he’s reputed to be at the mercy of the ever-so-magnanimous businessmen who put him where he is. That kind of dependency can’t do much for a president’s self-esteem. I’ll give him a chance to shock us all with his courage and fortitude. I know, I know: It’s doubtful he’ll play along. But it’s possible.” Tom gave me a shrugging but still hopeful look. More soberly he continued. “After Margaret died I realized I had to make this happen sooner rather than later. She had some sympathy for Niagara. Not for the preservationists and their inanities, but for the Falls. We had so many arguments about how far development should go. Grace overheard those arguments, I’m sorry to say, and I know they upset her.”

All they ever fought about was electricity
. Grace’s sorrowful words were embedded in my mind.

“At any rate, Margaret thought my hope was absurd. Nothing but a pipe dream. But if she’d known it was real, she would have approved. She would have seen how worthwhile it is. Margaret of all people would have known that water falling over a cliff can’t be compared to giving people electricity to operate their wells. Or giving children light to read by, to educate themselves. She would have understood that all that water shouldn’t go to waste. But you see, Louisa,” he explained in frustration, “to make this work, there has to be enough output for both profits
and
charity. I have to placate the powerful; let them see where their own benefit lies—give them a taste of what it means to be paternalistic. And to do that, I have to clear the air a bit: put a stop to these ‘preservationists,’ so that the investors can evaluate the issues clearly.

“I’ll admit to you that I’ve had doubts about this bombing. I hope I’ve done the right thing. Of course I could have stopped their little plot at any point after they hatched it, particularly once Peter was involved. It was their idea, but I was the one who had to decide whether to let it happen. I believe it was for the best, but I can only wait now to see how it plays out.”

A voice from behind us said, “I must say in my opinion it was very clever. Very clever indeed.”