The Americans (8 page)

"i rest. "combecause I couldn't get along without you. You're the only one I can ask for advice about important things." "Such as cigars and girls, eh?" Carter said. He was secretly touched by the younger boy's words. "I'm serious. Having you here is like having a real brother." "But you could get along without me. It's nice to hear you say otherwise, though. One thing's for sure-was He squeezed his stepbrother's arm affectionately. "You don't want to follow my example. You need to attend to your studies and behave yourself. If you do, you'll get somewhere." Carter scrambled to his feet. There was pain showing in his eyes. Will saw it, but he didn't know what to do. "Back to your lessons, little brother," Carter admonished as he left. "Mother and Gideon deserve at least one son who turns out right." CHAPTER IX The Greek Woman CARTER LIED TO THE man doing the hiring at the Northeast Fishery Company. He said he was experienced, and because he could say it with a show of conviction, he got the job. He was scheduled to start work the following evening, on the twelve-hour shift which began at six, after the fishing boats returned. So that he wouldn't be fired the very first day, he began a search through the taverns in the neighborhood as soon as he left the hiring office. Around ten that night he located a whiskey-sodden derelict who was pointed out as a former processing plant worker discharged for constant malingering. Carter approached the old man and gave him some money he'd borrowed from W. The man called for a knife and a rancid gray scrod from the kitchen. He showed Carter how to chop off the head and tail and clean and bone the fish-all that he needed to know to keep his inexperience from being detected. The effort-and the money-turned out to be wasted. Carter was assigned to the bottom of the chute down which the catches were dumped. The head of the chute opened onto a dock at street level. The bottom was one flight below at ground level-where the principal work area of the packing house was located. Carter was one of half a dozen men who hacked off the heads and tails of the incoming fish, then threw the fish onto a large, slimy table where four other workers sorted them-onto moving belts powered by steam. By midnight of his first shift, Carter was ankle-deep in stinking fish parts. He hated the sight of the eyes in the lifeless heads; the dead fish seemed to be watching him in an accusing way, as if he were the one who had deprived them of life. He hated the smell even more. It was so pervasive, he couldn't eat the supper he'd brought wrapped in a piece of butcher paper. By the time he went home, spent and nauseous, right after sunrise, he was almost deliriously anxious for his first whiff of fresh air. A long hot bath somehow failed to cleanse the fish odor from his hands or hair, though. Even Will made a face when Carter saw him later that day. He didn't think he could stand to go back to the Northeast Fishery Company, but somehow he did. He didn't encourage the other workers when they attempted to strike up a conversation. They were an illiterate, foul-mouthed lot. But they did impart one useful piece of information. They told him he'd stay cleaner if he wore gloves, a black rubber apron, and high rubber boots, as they did. He'd have to buy them for himself, though. That was company policy. On that subject, he had his first dispute with the foreman. To those around him, he began arguing that boots, apron, and gloves should be provided for every worker. A man shouldn't have to pay out part of his already low salary in order to have the proper work outfit. The men needed to stand up together and make their demand known to the owners. He had little trouble persuading the other men to accept that viewpoint-or so he thought. Then, on the first night

1.r greater-than of his second week, the foreman, a long-jawed lout named Kimpton, marched into the work area and sarcastically called him down in front of the others: "Hear you been tellin" everybody they should make some demands of the company." "How'd you find out about that?" Carter exclaimed, gesturing with his serrated knife without thinking. The foreman grabbed his wrist and shoved it aside. "Don't wave that damn thing at me, college boy." Kimpton growled the words. "And listen close. You're here to work, not think. You obey the company rules as written, or go back to Harvard." He gave Carter's wrist a second shove, pivoted, and left. Carter looked around and saw a couple of his fellow workers snickering as they bent their heads over the fish coming down the chute in a glistening silver avalanche. Someone had talked behind his back, that much was certain. It gave him an eerie feeling to know there were company spies within the work force-and that information evidently flowed both ways. He'd told no one, not even the hiring manager, that he was a former Harvard student. But Kimpton knew, and now the others did too. What else did they know? The foreman's harsh words made him want to quit on the spot. But he kept working- chop the head, chop the tail, throw the fish combecause of the large debt he still owed for the wagon. He despised being treated like a slave, and forced to put up with it, but reluctantly decided he'd have to until he could work his way out of his present difficulties. If the company didn't pay for the boots, apron, and gloves, then he'd have to ask his stepfather for a loan. Stifling his frustrated fury, he plied the knife with savage single-mindedness. Chop the head, chop the tail, throw the fish- At the end of the second week, he discovered that some- j one knew much more about him than he liked. Each worker at the plant had an old, wooden locker in a dingy room near the employees' entrance. None of the lockers could be secured against entry by unauthorized persons; you stored your things and took your chances. When he got off work early on a Saturday morning he opened his locker and blinked. A folded scrap of paper lay on the locker shelf. I He unfolded the paper, read it, and hastily folded it again. He leaned against the adjacent locker, sick with fright. He looked to the right and left. Men were stripping off aprons, tugging off boots, chattering sleepily about going home to their beds or their women or a morning meal. Who had put the note in his locker? A friend of Ortega's certainly-but who was it? On the way to Beacon Street, he stopped and studied the scrap of paper again. The message was scrawled in pencil; the handwriting was terrible-perhaps on purpose, to disguise it. Ortega wil be glad to know backslash vher to find you Any anonymity he'd possessed when he started work at the processing plant was gone. Someone-perhaps more than one person-knew who he was. Should he quit? Try to find another job in a different part of town? It was the sensible thing to do, perhaps, and yet he equated such a move with cowardice. He didn't want to flee the docks unless it became absolutely necessary. Which it very well might, he realized as he limped wearily on toward home, and sleep, while the city woke around him.

At the end of a month-four weeks of hard work and constant watchfulness-Carter concluded that the note might have been nothing more than a malicious joke perpetrated by one of the clods at the packing plant; someone who knew of his trouble with Ortega, but had no perspnal stake in it; someone who just wanted to make him squirm because he'd gone to college. Reassured, he started venturing into the taverns again. He even returned to the Red Cod. No one had seen Ortega or heard a word about him. Carter began to think Tillman had been wrong, and that the Portugee had left Boston for good. disd Soon he no longer hesitated to go anywhere after dark. And although he was repaying the bakery owner, and working twelve hours a night, six nights a week, he had enough time and money left over so that he could occasionally enjoy a beer and the favors of a whore such as Josie. On one of his free nights, he was ambling toward the Cod when he spied a familiar figure half a block ahead. Even at a distance, Carter could see the cruel malformation of Captain Eben Royce's hands. The fisherman hobbled along on a heavily padded crutch braced beneath his left arm. Carter stopped near a chandler's side door to watch- Royce. He made good progress, yet Carter couldn't help rubbing his stubbled chin, and swallowing hard. Royce's left foot was unmistakably twisted. It scraped the ground, useless. Royce was coming toward him. Carter stepped out from the doorway, waved and called, "Eben? It's me-Carter. I haven't seen you for-was He stopped. With a strange, almost humiliated look, Royce turned and hobbled out of sight down a passageway. Carter ran to the passage and peered into it. But it was so dark, he could see nothing, only hear the dragging of Royce's foot. The sound grew softer, then died. Carter shook his head and turned back on his original course. Later that week he ran into Tillman, who had a new job as mate on another fishing boat. When Carter mentioned the encounter with Royce, Tillman told him Royce had become almost a complete recluse. He lived near the Red Cod, but he no longer went there or to any other tavern. He only left his room to get food or tobacco: "He makes do with the money he got from the sloop. All he talks about-all he lives for-is the chance of seeing Ortega again." Carter didn't say so, but he fervently hoped poor Eben Royce never got his wish. ru Shortly after starting at the processing plant, he'd learned why Tillman, during their first conversation about Royce's misfortune, had given him an odd look when Carter mentioned the Greek woman. It was Phipps who told him the woman had moved out of the quarters she shared with Royce, shortly after Royce sold his boat. Carter supposed her action was understandable. Royce was no longer a whole man. At least she'd helped nurse him back from the worst of his injuries. When he said as much to Phipps, the landlord replied, "Oh, yes, she's a regular Nightingale, that one." Carter resented the sneering tone. He assumed the landlord had some grudge against the woman, whose beautiful I dark eyes were often in Carter's thoughts, and whose face he sometimes imagined when he was making love to a whore. The Greek woman remained an ideal; perfect- someone he wished he could see again. Eventually he did. It happened on another Sunday evenings late in June. He had left the tavern where he'd eaten supper and was bound for the Red Cod, planning to take Josie over the jumps. It had been three weeks since he'd been able to afford her-the tension in his groin testified to that. He was just passing an old man playing his concertina while a trained monkey jigged at the end of a rope. Suddenly, on the far side of the small crowd, he saw Helen Stavros turning the corner into a dark, narrow lane. He ran to catch up: "Mrs. Stavros-wait." Excited about his good fortune, he ran after her in the lane. He came up beside her where she'd paused near the lamplit doorway of an oyster house. He raked a hand through his dark hair, wishing he were better dressed. "Perhaps you don't remember me-was It was a warm evening. Above the scoop neckline of her blouse, her cleavage was visible, shiny with sweat. After one covert glance at it, he was rigid. She smiled. "Of course I do. You're the one who helped Eben that night at the Red Cod. You helped me too." Her voice was low and pleasant, her English smooth and only slightly accented. She gave him' a smile whose unmistakable sexuality bothered him. She was too beautiful to behave that way with someone she hardly knew. She touched his cheek then, adding, "I am grateful." He waved that aside awkwardly. "I haven't seen much of Eben lately." A remote tone came into her voice: "But you know what happened to him." "Yes. I can understand why you might not want to stay with him for good. But I heard that you stayed for several weeks after he was hurt. I'd say that was very kind." She shrugged. "No kindness about it. I stayed until he sold the boat. He promised me part of the money and I didn't want to leave without it." He blinked, uneasy. "That's pretty cold-blooded, Mrs. Stavros." "Cold-blooded? What are you talking about?" "I thought you liked Eben." "Hah!" Her dark eyes glinted, without warmth, and Carter began to wish he hadn't chased her. The face in the lantern light was as lovely as ever, and yet he was beginning to notice wrinkles in it, and the cratering of the pores in her skin. He supposed those flaws had always been there. But now he saw them-just as he saw other things that surprised and upset him. "If that's how you feel, why did you stay with him at all?" "Because he earned a good income before he got hurt. I want to go home to Poros. I've wanted to go home ever since Stavros died. Eben and I made an arrangement whereby each week, he gave me what I needed-money- and I gave him what he wanted. Just ten dollars more and I'll have enough for passage to Greece. I feel sorry for Eben, but he wasn't an attractive man. He was old and he stank of fish. So do you-but you're young and good looking." Her words shocked and saddened him. Poor, lonely Eben had talked so proudly about her angelic disposition- assuming no one would ever discover he had willingly paid for her companionship, and that she had just as willingly sold it. A business transaction. Christ. were all women as mercenary as she was? For the first time, he wondered. Languorously, she relaxed against the dirty brick wall, drawing her shoulders back and pushing her belly forward so that her skirt touched his trousers. She moved her hips and laid her left arm over his right shoulder, then crooked it around his neck and pulled his head closer to hers: "Aha, that teases you a little, doesn't it? Feeling me excites you-was With her right hand she reached down and touched him. He wanted to tear the hand away and run. "I despise America, but I don't despise American men. Not all of them, anyhow. Just the pious ones who pray on Sunday and try to put their hands up your dress the other six days of the week. I've met plenty of those. Tell them to stop and they call you a dirty foreigner-which is what their wives call you all of the time. But with ten more dollars comsch a little bit-I can go home to the place I love. Would you give me ten dollars? For five dollars, I'll take you to my room and let you love me any way you wish. Ten dollars-you can have me all night. I did business with old Eben, surely I can do business with-was Carter flung off her arm. "Get away from me before I break your damn neck." "What's the matter with you?" she whispered. "What kind of self-righteous, cockless little wart are you? Maybe you're more Greek than I. Maybe you like little boys-was "Whore!" he shouted, and shoved her so hard she fell. Lithe as a cat, she caught herself on hands and knees and glared from under a fall of dark, gleaming hair. Three longshoremen walked by, their box hooks hanging from their belts. One called: "What d'you think she'd be if not a whore, my lad? Ain't any other kind of women walkin' around here this time o'night." Helen Stavros scrambled to her feet, gave Carter a withering look and poured out profanity, English and Greek, so filthy and violent it was almost like a physical blow. Then she turned and strode away, haughty and injured. Bewildered, he watched her go. A huge, sick ache filled his middle. He'd thought she was a beautiful woman who loved poor Royce. But she wasn't beautiful, she was a slut. She'd deceived him. There was, apparently, nothing to believe in and no one to trust, save yourself. Carter slouched on toward the Red Cod, the mood of profound disillusionment refusing to lift. He was by turns shocked and angry the rest of the night. When he flung Josie on her pallet in her cubicle upstairs at the Cod, she complained afterward that he had never treated her so roughly-as if he were revenging himself on her. rather than loving her. CHAPTER X Campaign Year BUSINESS PRESSURES forced Gideon to neglect Carter and his problems during the next few months. Carter had managed to hang onto his menial job at the fish processing plant. And he'd repaid about a third of what he owed for the wagon. He still lived with the family, but they saw less and less of him; he worked nights and slept days-when he wasn't off carousing. With increasing frequency, he was away from home several days at a time. Gideon decided to assign a man from Kent and Son to make occasional inquiries. He didn't prettify this action with some high-sounding description that absolved him of guilt. In his thoughts he called it what it was-spying. But he justified the measure on the grounds that he might learn something with which to reassure Julia. His hope was a vain one. The information brought back to him was so disturbing, he didn't dare pass it along to his wife. Gideon's informant repeatedly said the young man was mixing with a bad crowd. Tavern idlers; harlots; people prone to resolve trivial quarrels by violence. His favorite haunt was the notorious Red Cod. Something would have to be done to put the young man's life back on a better course. But what? The answer continued to elude Gideon. The end of the year brought the prospect of a presidential election campaign and a new employee to the publishing house. In offices all around the country, typewriting machines were bringing a new neatness, speed, and efficiency to the preparation of letters, records, and memoranda. A Wisconsin inventor named Sholes had designed the prototype in 1867. After several modifications, it was being manufactured by Remington and Sons, and meeting wide acceptance. Of course it required an operator, who was called a typewriter. Many firms put men in the job until the men complained the work was demeaning and not sufficiently masculine. When Gideon expressed his interest in obtaining one of the machines, Julia urged him to hire a woman to run it. She said that because of the new machine, women were being taken into offices for the very first time. Julia's suffragist group saw the Sholes typewriter and Sir Isaac Pitman's shorthand system as weapons of economic Eberation for the female sex. Gideon recognized the familiar signs of determination in Julia and bowed to them. After interviewing four obviously inexperienced women, he found one who favorably impressed him-a prim spinster named Helene Vail. Miss Vail was somewhere in her forties. She had lively hazel eyes and the prettiest contralto voice he'd ever heard. She was also monumentally ugly. Using his new office machine, Miss Vail demonstrated her skill. She was fast and accurate. She was equally good with dictation. They were soon discussing wages. Gideon mentioned a very high figure-eighty dollars per month. That was the amount he'd put into a preliminary yacht budget for both his captain-pilot and his engineer. He assumed Miss Vail would be as important to him as either of them. "Would eighty be satisfactory?" he asked. Miss Vail pursed her lips, the closest she was ever to come to smiling, he would discover. "Very satisfactory, sir. If each of us remains content with our arrangement in the months to come, you may be sure nothing will distract me from my duties, or induce me to leave for another post. My parents are gone, I have neither brothers nor sisters, and I have been in the world of commerce most of my adult life. I have no emotional attachments. At an early age, I was disappointed in love." "I see." Gideon suppressed a grin. "Are you always so candid, Miss Vail?" "Yes. It is the only way to accomplish things quickly and without misunderstanding." She surveyed his desk. "As soon as I become familiar with my other duties, I will undertake the sorting and arranging of that material. This office is a disgrace. I'm sure you'll work more happily and efficiently when I take charge of it." Open-mouthed, he recovered sufficiently to say, "I'm sure I will." And so it proved.