"I didn"t mean that," I said quickly. "You"re beautiful; you don"t have to be alone."
Her voice was bitter. "I"m not in the habit of picking up young boys on the Sunshine State Parkway."
"Hey, cool it," I said. "You"re going off on the wrong track. I called you, remember?"
"I was stoned," she said. "I imagined it all and you went along with it."
"Princess."
Anger seeped into her voice. "Don"t call me that! My name is-"
I leaned toward her. With one hand I took the chocolate stick from her fingers; with my other hand holding the back of her head, I covered her mouth with mine. At first her lips were hard, then they were soft, then they were warm, and when I took myself away from them, they were trembling. There were liquid blue shadows in her eyes.
"You have your mother"s eyes, Christina," I said.
I could hear the catch in her voice. "If you knew my name all along, why did you call me Princess?"
I said the words, but my father spoke them. "If you had been my daughter, that"s what I would have called you."
Her fingers clutched at my hands in fear. ""Jonathan, what"s all this about? Either I"m going crazy or there"s something in this dope that"s making me hallucinate."
I put her hands together and held them to my lips. "Don"t be frightened," I said. "We"re just playing catch-up."
"Catch up?" She was puzzled.
"We"re finishing something our parents never did." I got to my feet and drew her up after me. "Are your mother"s sc.r.a.pbooks still in the library?"
She nodded. "On the top shelf in the comer."
There were five books. Large, leather-bound, one on top of another. I took them all down and placed them on the desk. But I opened only the second and went right to the page I sought. "Here we are," I said, pointing to the photograph.
She stared at the picture of the young woman and the man smiling at each other in quarter-profile. Wonder crept into her voice. "It could be you and me."
"It could be. But it"s not," I said. "It"s your mother. And my father." I began to turn the pages. "There are more pictures."
Her voice was suddenly angry. "I don"t want to see any more!" She ran from the room, slamming the door behind her.
I closed the book carefully and followed her. I found her sobbing on the bed in her room. I stood there for a moment. "I"m sorry," I said. "I think I"d better go."
She turned, sitting up on the bed. "No."
"I didn"t come here to upset you," I said.
"I know that. I"m upset with myself. I"m ten years older than you are. I should be able to handle the way I feel."
I didn"t speak.
**Daniel,"" she said. And when I looked into the familiar depths of her eyes, I knew it wasn"t she who was speaking. It was her mother. "I still love you. And I still want you."
I had all I could do to keep myself from being sucked into the vortex of her eyes. I leaned over the bed and kissed her forehead gently. "Try to get some sleep."
""I don"t want to sleep," she said. ""I have so much to tell you." Her hands drew me down to the bed beside her. "*You were filled with anger. I never knew a man so filled with anger. That"s why I left you."
I pressed her slowly back against the pillow. ""You didn"t leave me," I said quietly. "You never left me."
Her hand found mine and squeezed it tightly. Her voice was a whisper. "Yes, in a way that"s true. I never left you." Then she was asleep.
I waited for a long moment, then quietly, so that I would not awaken her, went back into my room and began loading my backpack.
""Jonathan/"
""Stop messing with my head. Let go, Father. You"re dead."
*7*m not messing with your head. I need you."
"It"s over for you, Father. You don"t need anything or anybody now."
*7 love her, Jonathan."
""You"re mixed up, Father. She"s not her mother."
*"She is as much her mother as you are me."
*7 can"t help you, Father. Go away and let me lead my own life." A thought flashed through my head. "Is she your daughter. Father?"
"No." There was a sighing sibilance in his voice. "If she were, I wouldn"t need you to tell her how I feel."
"Her mother is dead, Father. Why don"t you tell her yourself?"
"*The dead cannot talk to the dead, my son. Only the living can talk to each other,"*
"Were you talking to someone, Jonathan?"
She was standing in the open doorway connecting our rooms. I didn"t answer. She came into the room. "" I thought I heard voices.""
"There"s no one," I said.
She looked down at the half-packed backpack on the bed. "You"re not going?"
I picked up the backpack and spilled my clothing over the bed. "No," I said. "I"m not going."
There was a curiosity in her voice. "What happened between my mother and your father?"
"I don"t know. I just feel things. But something led me here because it"s important that I do know."
"I feel that too," she said. A sudden comprehension came into her eyes. "My mother kept a diary. Maybe-"
"That could be what we want to know," I said quickly. "Do you know where it is?"
"Yes," she said. "This was my mother"s home. After her death all her personal things were boxed and put away. The sc.r.a.pbooks were never touched because they were on the top shelf of the library and we didn"t find them until afterward. By then it didn"t pay to bother."
"Can we get to them?"
"Everything is in storage in Miami. We could drive down there tomorrow."
I began to feel better. "At fifty-five miles per hour."
She smiled. "At fifty-five. I promise." She turned back to her room. "Good night, Jonathan."
"Good night, Christina," I said. I watched the door close behind her, then undressed and got into bed. I felt exhaustion seethe through my body and dived into a deep sleep.
June 30, 1937 Philip Murray came to the hospital today to see Daniel, It was the first time anyone had come from the union in the month he had been there. It was almost a week after the doctors had told Daniel he would never walk again. Two men came with him. Mr. McDonald and Mr. Mussman. I was sitting beside the bed, so I was the first to see them as they walked down the ward past the curtains that separated the patients from each other. I got to my feet when they stopped in front of Daniel"s bed.
Daniel introduced us and there was an awkward pause when they heard my name, so I excused myself and walked down to the end of the ward. They remained there about fifteen minutes. Then they left, walking silently back down the ward, never once looking back to see me. I went back to Daniel.
There was an expression on his face I had never seen before. As if all the muscles had turned to stone and only his eyes were alive, burning with a coal-black anger. There were papers lying on the bed sheet in front of him, but his big hands were clutched into fists so tight that I thought the knuckles would burst through the taut white skin. After a few moments, he picked up one of the papers and held it toward me, with hands he could hardly restrain from trembling.
It was on the stationery of the Steelworkers Organizing Committee. In view of his past and valuable services, the executive board had agreed not to accept his letter of resignation dated before his injury. Instead, they had voted to retire him with one month"s severance pay and a pension of twenty-five dollars a week for a two-year period beginning thereafter. In addition, they would a.s.sume the hospital expenses over and above what was supplied by the public services and wished him every success in whatever future endeavor he might undertake. It was signed by Philip Murray.
I looked at him. There was nothing I could say.
The strike is lost, " * he said. You know that. "
/ nodded.
""Ten dead on Memorial Day in Chicago; less, than a month later, twelve dead in Youngstown, over a hundred men crippled and injured; and now iVs over. They walk away from it, while the men drift back to work like beaten dogs. We"ll get them next time. Meanwhile they go back and play their games of power, and the men who went on the line for them, bled for them and died for them are nothing but junk. To be thrown away like a lemon squeezed dry for which they have no further use." *
His eyes had gone from coal black to glacial. His voice had a pa.s.sion I had never heard before. "They think Vm finished. That I won"t walk again, that I won"t function. And that"s another mistake they can chalk up to their credit. Just like the strike they should never have begun. A strike they knew they could not win."
His eyes tore into mine. "I"m going to walk again. And you"re going to help me."
I nodded, "The first thing you have to do is get me out of this place where the only word you hear is "Sorry." "
"Where will we go?" I asked.
His voice was suddenly very soft. "Home."
July 16, 1937 We got off the train at Fitchville. I left him sitting in a wheelchair surrounded by valises on the station platform while I went down the street and bought a "35 Dodge touring car for two hundred and ninety-five dollars. Then we drove up the back roads far into the hills to the place he called home. It was not even a ramshackle cabin anymore. It was a blackened, burned"Out hulk. He stared at it impa.s.sively for a moment, then turned to me.
"^Tomorrow morning, you go back into town, hire the four biggest colored men you can find at a dollar a day and found. Then go over to the general store and buy each man a hammer, a saw, an axe, some lumber and a barrel of twopenny nails. Then get enough victuals to keep them for a week. Beans, fatback, coffee and sugar. Get whatever you like for us.""
He saw the expression in my eyes when he turned to look at me. ""Don"t worry," he said. ""It"s going to be all right."
"You sure you want to do this, Daniel?" I asked. "*We can still take Uncle Tom up on his offer." It had been just a few days ago that Uncle Tom had agreed to pay for all the therapy, but only on the condition that Daniel sign an agreement whereby he would never work in the union movement again.
Daniel had refused. "No more deals with anyone. For or against the unions. I"m keeping my options open. The only man I trust is me."
He ignored my question. "We"ll sleep in the car tonight. Tomorrow we"ll move into the house after the men clean it up."
He stretched out on the back seat as comfortably as he could. I used the front seat because it was easier for my legs to go under the steering wheel. Sometime during the night I woke up. He was sitting on the back seat, looking out at the house. When he heard me, he turned his face to me.
" "Are you all right?" I asked.
He nodded. "Will you do me a favor?"
"Of course. What?"
"Think you can manage to sit on my face?"
"Only if you let me suck you afterward,"
For the first time in a long while I heard him laugh. That was when I knew it would really be all right. He held out his arms toward me. "Come here, baby/" he said. "We*re home.**
August 28, 1937 Dr. Pincus, the orthopedist, finished his examination. All afternoon, he had tapped and probed and checked. He had watched Daniel walking. With crutches. Then on the long runway of parallel bars, moving his legs stiffly, but moving them neverthless, while supporting himself with his arms. Then on crutches again, with a brick tied under each shoe to give them extra weight so that greater effort was needed to make each leg take a step. Finally the examination was completed and Daniel stretched, exhausted, while Ulla began to ma.s.sage and knead his legs from thigh to toe.
The doctor walked out into the field with me. 7 cant believe it. A month ago I would have said what he just did was impossible.**
"You dont know Daniel,** I said.
""But everything he*s done was wrong. It goes against the theory of musculature repair under which we work.**
""Maybe there*s something wrong with your theory,** I said.
He looked at me. "Where did Daniel get his ideas?**
"From two books he ordered by mail.HSernarr MacFadden*s Bo&^ b.u.mingand Charles Atlas* Don"t Be a Ninety Seven Pound Weakling."
"And the therapist? Where did she come from?**
"Mrs. Torgersen, who takes care of Daniels son in California. She used to work with her in a hospital and wrote us about her. She was an expert on orthopedic ma.s.sages in her own country.**
Dr. Pincus shook his head. "I saw it, but I still don*t know whether I believe it. But Vm not going to fight it. It*s working. At this rate, in another month he"ll be walking.""
""That"s what Daniel said. By September thirtieth he"s going to walk out of here."
Dr. Pincus nodded. "7 think I"d better come down every week now to check him out. I wouldn"t want him to overdo it and run into a real setback."
September 10, 1937 Daniel threw away the crutches. He is now walking around with the support of only two canes. He is beginning to try to walk even without them, but when he takes more than a few steps his legs go out from under him. Ulla picks him up as if he were a baby and chides him for trying to move too quickly. He must move slowly at first. He shakes his head stubbornly and starts out again. This time she catches him even before he falls. Then, as if he were a child, she holds him up with her hands under his armpits and puts him down in a chair and makes him rest. I don"t know which of us was more surprised when she did that, Daniel or me. She is a big woman, almost six feet, ma.s.sive-breasted, broad-hipped, strong legs.
She knelt at his feet, unlacing his shoes. ""Unb.u.t.ton your pants," she commanded.
He looked up at me. I laughed. "Better do as she says or she may beat you up."
He opened his belt and unb.u.t.toned the pants. Expertly she slid them off and stretching his legs across her knees, began to ma.s.sage them. "The trick is to keep the circulation up so that the muscles do not get stiff and tight."
"Sure," he said, looking at me uncomfortably.
I laughed and went inside. It was almost time for me to start dinner. Ulla and I take turns cooking. Today was my turn.