Rodin's Debutante (9 page)

I agree with the judge, the mayor said.

I second the motion, the merchant said.

Something like this happened many years ago in my village in Bohemia, Walter Bing said. He had not spoken before. His voice was deep and heavily accented and carried old-world authority. Naturally he commanded respect as something of a local celebrity and successful businessman, inventor of the Bing tennis racket. He said, This was before the Great War. The Austrians ran things. There were many rivalries in our village, clans opposed to each other, ethnic and religious rivalries. Vendettas were common. A girl of one clan was raped by boys of another clan. They left her for dead. But she had just enough life in her to commit suicide by hanging. You can imagine the uproar. Our town was remote. We did not have newspapers. News traveled by word of mouth, gathering details as it went. We had courts but they were not—I should say they were not equipped for a matter of this kind. The boys were never brought to justice. There was no trial. But before the year was out two of the boys were dead. There was a death and two injuries in the girl's family also. The vendetta went on for years. I imagine it is still going on into the second or third generation. The rape of that girl was a terrible thing for our village and the surrounding countryside. Matters of pride and insult were always dealt with personally. That has not changed to this day. We had long memories in our community. Nothing forgiven, nothing forgotten. As I said, we were in a remote district. Nothing much happened there. I have wondered often if our memories were long because the future was always in doubt. We looked to the past because we could not see the future. And so my wife and I and our sons and a few of the most skilled workers in my shop came to America, not to make zithers but to make tennis rackets. We were all happy to leave but we have mixed feelings about the place we left behind. He hesitated, and gave a dry chuckle. The communists have it now. Maybe they can stop it. Shoot someone. Jail the others. Brainwash the remainder.

For a moment no one said anything. I imagine my father and the others were puzzled as to the exact point Walter Bing was trying to make. It was hard to see the connection between a village in remote Bohemia and New Jesper in northern Illinois. Vendettas were not a feature of life in America. At last, as the silence lengthened, my father said, How long have you been here, Walter?

Almost thirty years, he said.

So, the mayor said, where do we go from here?

You had no newspapers in your village, my father said.

No newspapers, Walter Bing said.

We have them here, my father said with a laugh.

We surely do, the mayor said.

Perhaps Alfred could speak to that point, my father said.

ALFRED SWAN
was a third-generation publisher of the
World,
with his son, Alfred IV, waiting in the wings. My father disapproved of Alfred because, as he said, Alfred Swan believed that the First Amendment superseded all the other amendments, including the right to a fair trial. The motto of the
World,
placed in a little box to the left of the nameplate on page one, was
With Neither Fear Nor Favor.
To which my father replied, with some asperity, His favor, our fear. Alfred and my father got along politically because the publisher was a devoted supporter of the Republican Party and a perennial delegate to the Republican National Convention; all the men in my father's study that evening were Republicans, except for the mayor and Chief Grosza. Not that politics was involved in the discussion at hand. The rape of a high school girl had nothing to do with politics. But on the subject of the First Amendment Alfred Swan was immovable, aggressive to the point of angry hostility. Every few months he wrote an editorial on the subject and ran the editorial on page one. Alfred Swan was unbalanced, according to my father, who disliked zealots generally. He believed them unreliable.

What do you mean? Alfred asked.

For God's sake, Alfred, the mayor said.

We have a bad situation, my father said.

We certainly do, Alfred said.

Requires tact, my father said.

Alfred Swan did not reply to that, and the statement hung there.

I'm thinking of our community, my father said, and I thought of his words as an army advancing one foot at a time, the objective unclear but surely somewhere over the next hill or the hill after that.

What are you talking about? Alfred said, an edge to his voice.

I would like to know how you will handle this news, the mayor said.

Without fear or favor, the publisher said. The way the
World
normally handles, as you call it, news.

It's so ugly, the mayor said in a voice that indicated he was speaking to the room at large, everyone in it. The facts are terrible. They are obscene. Awful for that little girl and her family and surely we must be mindful of them. Even if she is not named, as I assume she will not be, her identity will become known. Her life will be ruined.

The life of this town will never be the same, my father said.

The story isn't fit to print, the banker said, his voice booming in the study. Who benefits if this story is spread over the front pages of your newspaper? My God, Alfred, the
Tribune
will be up here, and the
Daily News.
The Hearst people, the photographers, the radio. Who knows what riffraff, all of them asking impertinent questions, the girl's name dragged through the mud. The town, too.

The people of our town will be coarsened, my father said. We'll all be touched by it. It's black as sin, this event. It's the worst thing that's ever happened here. We have no idea who committed this crime. I'm prepared to take the chief at his word that the student being questioned is innocent. If that is how it turns out after investigation. In that event we have a crime without a suspect.

My father's voice was soft but his words were ragged with anguish. I think he wanted to believe in the essential virtue of New Jesper, and by virtue he would mean a fundamental innocence that, once violated, would vanish forever. It was true that the town was in the fist of more powerful interests, unconcerned with the general welfare of the citizens or their government. But that did not mean New Jesper did not have its own sense of self despite the fist. My father was suggesting, in his roundabout way, a quarantine against a terrible and mysterious virus of unknown origin. The men in the room, worldly men, had a duty to the community and the community was not at all worldly. Against this virus the town had no resources except its stubborn pride. As the banker said, the story of Magda Serra was not fit to print. To print would be a provocation.

I'm sure you agree, Alfred, my father said, to which the publisher replied with a smile.

It's just a hell of a thing, the mayor said.

I think I'll have that drink, if you don't mind, Judge, Alfred said.

Walter Bing said he would have one too, and the banker and the merchant followed suit. Chief Grosza and the principal declined. No one said anything during the preparation of the drinks, the rattle of ice and the clink of my father's whiskey decanter against glass. At last the company was settled and waiting for Alfred Swan to speak.

There are eight people in this room, Alfred said. We all know the details of this crime, or most of the details. I'm sure the chief has withheld the worst of them. When this meeting is over some of us will go home and tell our wives, of course swearing them to silence. And as surely as the day will dawn, this story will be all over town by close of business tomorrow. The first question will be: Who's the victim? The second will be: Who's the suspect? And the third will be: Why haven't I read about it in Alfred Swan's newspaper? What's the
World
covering up? That bastard Swan, you can never trust him. Swan only prints what suits him. Fuck him, they'll say. Fuck Alfred Swan and his newspaper. I'm canceling my subscription.

I remembered how startled I was. I had never heard that word used in our house. Occasionally my father allowed himself a "goddamn" and, in extremis, "shit," and never within my mother's hearing. Ungentlemanly behavior, my father said. The language of truck drivers.

That's not true, Alfred, the mayor said.

You fellows think that if the tree crashes in the forest and there's no one nearby to hear it, why then it didn't crash. But it did. And someone is always nearby. In a small town someone always has his ear to the keyhole. Alfred Swan is not the solution to your bad situation. The solution is to arrest the son of a bitch who did this, bring him to trial, and condemn him to death. There's an electric chair in Joliet specially for that purpose. Bought and paid for by the good people of the state of Illinois. They'll want to see it used. And they'll want to read about it in their newspaper, beginning, middle, and end.

Jesus, Alfred, the mayor said.

Jee-sus, Al-fred,
the publisher mimicked and gave a short laugh.

That's enough of that, my father said.

Tell him, Chief, the mayor said.

I'd rather not, the chief said mildly but with an edge of malice. I wouldn't want to shock Mr. Swan. The others.

Tell him, the mayor said again. Tell him all of it.

The chief sighed, a long, drawn-out whistle. We got the call from the school janitor, the chief said. He was not coherent but eventually we got to the gist of things. We ordered up an ambulance and met the janitor in the gym. He was so upset he could barely speak. He pointed at the equipment room door, still ajar. The girl was in a corner, curled up. Her legs were covered with blood and there was blood on the floor. I was reminded of the war except this wasn't Omaha Beach or Bastogne, this was a high school gymnasium in America. It was only when we went closer that we saw she had a wooden ruler in her ... Chief Grosza paused then, seeking an alternative to the barracks word, a clinical word or any word that would not offend the judge and his Republican friends. But the chief failed, and after the pause continued in his dry voice. The ruler must have reached her stomach because there was only an inch of it showing. And that was not all, gentlemen. There was much more. The ruler was the least of what was done to that girl.

And just then I heard a noise outside my bedroom door and moved quickly away from the open window to my desk, where the math book was lying open. If my father suspected for one minute that I was listening to him and his friends talking downstairs, that would be the end for me. So I sat at my desk pretending to do my homework. My bedroom walls were decorated with college pennants and a team photograph of the 1945 Chicago Cubs and a movie poster my mother had given me,
Casablanca.
My thoughts were with Magda but my eyes patrolled the room, the bookshelves crowded with boys' books,
Ivanhoe
and
The Last of the Mohicans
and two of Kenneth Roberts's novels and C. S. Forester and
Treasure Island
and a dozen others and a pile of magazines,
Collier's
and the
Saturday Evening Post.
I was not aware of any irony. In my father's house irony was subversive, a perverse answer to the tragic or inexplicable. It was insincere, the language of agnostics. In any case I was not thinking of the pennants on the wall or the contents of my bookshelves but of the conversation downstairs, wondering all the while what the chief meant when he spoke of "the least of what was done to that girl." It was obvious to me that the men in the room were appalled at what they were hearing from their chief of police and were baffled as to how to proceed. I cautiously moved away from my desk to the window once again, standing now as if idly looking into the street while I worked out my math problem.

...and that's about it, the chief said.

Jesus, the banker said. Jesus Christ.

Someone rose to fill his glass, again the clink of the decanter.

I've never heard of anything like that, the merchant said. Never in my life.

We appreciate what you're doing, Chief, Walter Bing said.

Thank you, Chief Grosza said.

We wish you luck, he said.

We'll need some, the chief said. We'll also need time.

So, Alfred, the mayor said.

Give me a minute, the publisher said, his voice thick and much subdued.

We have photographs if anyone wants to see them.

No one wants to see your photographs, Chief.

As you wish, Judge.

I'd like to, Bing said.

And me, Swan said.

After a moment my father said, So here we are.

Decision time, said the mayor.

Do you have a guess, Chief? my father asked. Who you're looking for?

No, the chief said. He's someone physically strong. An adult, I would say. Obviously a mental case. Of course we're checking the asylum downstate to see if anyone's absent without leave. No word from them yet. There appear to be no witnesses, and no evidence at the scene, except for the ruler, an ordinary school ruler with Magda's name on it. What we have so far is a clean crime.

Unless the girl speaks, the mayor said.

The doctor is doubtful, the chief said. At least in the near future. He described the girl's state as unresponsive. The word he used was catatonic.

And no wonder, my father said. Let's make certain she has everything she needs, medically speaking. Any treatment, any hospital. Whatever it costs.

I'll set up an account in her name tomorrow, the banker said.

Let her mother know. She is not to worry about expenses.

How is the mother? the banker asked.

About as you might expect, the chief said.

Has she been interviewed?

I had a few minutes with her. She is suspicious. I mean, she is suspicious of me and the government in general. I think she is afraid. It's common enough among immigrants. Men in uniforms. Also, her English is not good. For what it's worth she has no record with us. She's just someone trying to get by, as best I can judge. When I asked her about her husband, she said he was in Puerto Rico. She heard he was dead, and if he was it served him right. The truth of the matter is, Mrs. Serra is terrified. She is not coherent. So I'll try tomorrow with an interpreter present. Right now, she's my focus.