Bellagrand: A Novel Read online

  Ben sighed, as if even success in the present was not sufficient to gloss over the monumental crises in the past. “It was the Culebra Cut that had felled the French.” He shrugged. “They were trying to excavate too high. Sixty meters above sea level was too high for the valley. We made it only twelve feet above. That was better.”

  “Not good, but better?”

  “Not good, but better. This is one of the reasons I’m cautious and not yet fully optimistic. I know what it took. And that was before the landslides.”

  “The what?”

  “Oh, yes,” Ben said. “We at Army Corps told everyone to beware of the landslides. Gaillard was very afraid of them. But the International Board of Engineers overseeing the project decreed we had nothing to worry about. They had deemed the Divide sufficiently stable. Except they didn’t count on water from the rains infiltrating a previously impregnable mountain. This, of course, caused a weakening and then a mass wasting of half a million cubic yards of clay.”

  “Ben!”

  “Oh yes. And this clay was too soft to be excavated by our steam shovels.”

  “Like a mud volcano.” Gina recalled the mighty and fearsome Etna, what it was like living under the volcanic threat her entire childhood. Yet she didn’t feel as afraid then as she sometimes felt now in her folk Victorian on Summer Street.

  Ben glanced at her approvingly. “Except we can’t have a tropical glacier made of mud lying in the path of our ocean liners, can we?”

  “Mud lying in the path of civilization? Certainly not. So what did you do?”

  “Nothing.” He shrugged. “What could we do? We climbed the mountain, sluiced the clay down with water from great heights, and continued detonating.”

  She was thoughtful. “But won’t water keep getting into the rock? How are you going to keep the torrential rains from coming? Are you going to control the skies as well as the seas?”

  “Clearly we’re not. This will continue to be a problem.”

  “I read that just last month the canal closed for a week because of another landslide.”

  “Yes, the canal will continue to close intermittently so the falling debris can be cleared. No way around it.”

  She patted his arm affectionately, and quickly withdrew when she realized that etiquette had been breached.

  “I heard the valley is going to be renamed after your general?”

  “Colonel.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  Ben laughed. “Right. But yes, next year it’ll be called the Gaillard Cut.”

  “Such a shame he didn’t live long enough to see the canal completed,” Gina said. David Gaillard died of a brain tumor in 1913.

  Ben stopped smiling. “I even grew a bushy mustache in his honor. I shaved it before I returned home,” he added when she stared at the smooth skin between his nose and mouth. “He was a West Point man. Which may explain why he succeeded where others had failed.”

  She resisted the impulse to touch him again, though he looked exhausted by the exertions of his memories. “You certainly did make the dirt fly, didn’t you?”

  They walked on, lost in their thoughts. They were headed back to the Wayside after a three-mile excursion to buy a few apples.

  “So was it worth it?” she asked.

  “Was what worth it?”

  “The toil, the sacrifice of blood and men, time away from home, sickness, misery. Are you crowned in glory? I mean, from my perspective, it seems a monumental achievement, almost like a miracle. But what do you think?”

  “From an engineering and technological standpoint, without a doubt,” he said. “And no one but us could’ve done it, by the way. It was the American heavy machinery that made it happen, and we only had the steam shovels and the trains and the excavators because we spent the last sixty years building railroads across this nation. So in that regard, to build the canal through fog and mountain, to dam rivers, to raise the seas, to divide the Divide, it is a feat of civilization. But we didn’t build it just to build it. We built it so it could change the path of mankind. And perhaps it’s too soon to answer your question—was it worth it? First we must gauge the impact it’ll have on the world, on war, on the world at war, on the economies and standard of living of distant countries, on the living conditions and life span of sailors and navies. Clearly I hope that the answer is yes. But ask me again in fifteen years. If I haven’t keeled over by then from the mosquitoes and the sandflies.”

  “Let’s shake on it,” said Gina. But she did not extend her roughened hand, even in jest. And he knew she wouldn’t, for he made no movement toward her. Only his eyes gleamed at the possibility of being in touch with her in fifteen years. Well, why not, reasoned Gina. It was over fifteen years ago when they had first met, and here they were, though under vastly different circumstances.

  “Why don’t we take a drive to a pumpkin farm next Sunday afternoon?”

  “Why would I want to go there?”

  “Because it might be an enjoyable way to spend a few hours. We can go pumpkin picking. There might be hot mulled cider. Sometimes they have sack races. We could race and beat the very small children. You get to weave your own basket. You learn to make pumpkin butter.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Apple butter?”

  “Better.”

  “There is a corn maze.”

  “I don’t like mazes. I always get lost.”

  “I never get lost. You can come with me.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. I have so much work at Rose’s. We’ve taken too long today as it is. We walked nearly to Walden Pond! We haven’t been very good workers on Sundays, I’m afraid.”

  “You’re right. But even the good Lord rested on Sunday.”

  Feebly she protested. “But even on the Sabbath you have to take care of the sick. The Lord didn’t rest when there was work to be done, did He? And . . . Rose has been chiding me for my absentmindedness, for my derelictions. I don’t want to displease her. It’s like displeasing God.”

  “Come on,” Ben said. “The world is not a sad and solemn place.” He took hold of her calloused hand. “Don’t fret. Be glad like the belle of Belpasso. Be glad in the trees and the silence. Come to the maze with me.”

  “You know there is nothing like that we can do except dream it.” She had been soaking her hands in milk every night to lessen the visible hurt of her work. Perhaps Ben didn’t notice they still felt like sandpaper.

  “We can do anything,” he said. “For a few hours on Sunday, even the weary can sing in the trees. Even monkeys eat red bananas and have bliss.”

  “Ben . . .”

  “Don’t Ben me. Just say you’ll come with me.”

  Three

  SUNDAY FROM NOON TO TWO.

  Harry asks if she brought him the newspaper.

  Gina hands him the newspaper.

  He leafs through it purposefully. He is clean-shaven. When she asks why he always shaves, he says they make him shave on Sundays. It’s God’s day, they tell him. It’s also visitors’ day. They want me to look my best for you, with my prison pajamas and my clean-shaven face.

  She wants to ask if she looks her best for him. She wears a white crepe de chine blouse and a plaid fitted skirt. He likes it best when she wears fitted styles to emphasize on her the things that he used to murmur he loved. Her tapered waist. Her long arms and legs. Her slender hips. Her high breasts. Her smooth neck like royalty’s, the throat he loves to lay his lips upon.

  His gray eyes are not full of bliss. They’re sad and solemn, and they barely glance at her as he reads, as he holds out his hand for a smoke, the ring gone from his finger a long time. There are scrapes and scratches on his knotted knuckles she hasn’t seen before. She wants to reach across the partition and take his hand, but he is holding the newspaper.

  The hour passes. Another conjugal Sunday with Harry. Like Mass earlier in the day: the liturgy, the supplication, the sermon, the presentation of gifts, the laments. The dry Communion. The g
uard calls time. Gina stands for Harry, as earlier she stood for Jesus, and collects her bag.

  He stares at the newspaper for another moment. Then he gets up too.

  I’ll see you next Sunday, okay, mio marito? she says. Be well. She bows her head.

  Don’t forget to bring me the newspaper.

  Of course. I won’t forget.

  Last week you forgot.

  Ah. Yes. I’m sorry. I won’t forget.

  Is it cold out? He glances at the light coat she has put on, the thin crepe beige wool.

  It’s crisp. Not too cold yet.

  The leaves?

  They’re falling.

  Mimoo?

  She is good.

  Are you still with Rose?

  On the weekends, yes.

  He is silent for just one moment too long. You don’t work in these clothes, do you? he says. His eyes are on her white silk blouse.

  No, I change to come see you.

  He nods. You always look so fresh, as if you just ran in from outside.

  I did, she says, run in from outside.

  They stand face to face, the table, the barrier between them. They blink at each other, wary, affectionate, sorrowful.

  Have you heard from Purdy?

  Not yet, she says. But last time I saw him, he said it all looked good for Christmas.

  Now it’s really time for her to go. His hand squeezes into a fist.

  So what words of wisdom does our holy Rose have for me this week?

  Gina puts on her hat, ties the silk ribbons under her chin. He doesn’t take his eyes off her.

  There can be art and love, Rose says, but art and economics are mutually exclusive.

  Harry nods, as if he approves. But not economics and war, he says. Because millions of boys are about to be slaughtered for economics. Perhaps someone will draw a picture of the carnage. Then they can call it art.

  She turns to leave. He turns to leave. At the door she turns to glance at him one last time. He has already turned. She sees his eyes on her, profound, somber, unwilling to let her go. She raises her gloved fingers to her lips and blows him a lingering kiss. He disappears through the steel-reinforced door. Slowly she leaves too, flagellating herself with another thing Rose said: Those whose hands are pure don’t need to glove them.

  Because the pumpkin farm and the corn maze await.

  Four

  WHILE THE SUGAR MAPLES in Concord looked as if they were on fire under the sun, Gina finished her Saturday duties at the Wayside and changed into a slim, embroidered, above-the-ankle, rust-colored crepe day dress with a lace collar. It had a black velvet belt and silk appliqué. Her nails were painted a rust color also. Her wavy hair was piled expertly, fake-casually atop her head. She put on gold hoop earrings and wore bracelets on her wrists. She covered herself with a wool cape and walked out through the gate and into the street where Ben was waiting.

  They went for an evening walk into town, where they found a small restaurant with hay bales at its doors. They walked in like a gentleman and a lady. He held the door open for her, took her cape, her hat, her gloves. Gina could not remember the last time she and Harry had the money to go out together for an evening. She didn’t want to remember.

  It couldn’t be true, she thought, as the server pulled her chair away from the table to allow her to sit, that since Harry’s all-consuming, life-transforming pursuit of her back in 1905, she had not been to a restaurant for dinner? She pressed her lips together to banish the memory and the tears of self-pity that weren’t far behind.

  There was candlelight and fine china. Voices were hushed and the laughter delicate. She wanted to tell Ben that no Italian she knew spoke so low and laughed so daintily, but didn’t. When they ordered, she spoke so low, and when he made a joke, she laughed so daintily. During aperitifs Ben asked her why she kept herself in such check. “That’s not how I remember you.”

  “I’m grown up now.”

  “Yes, but you were a girl on fire when I knew you. Where is the Sicilian?”

  She didn’t reply. She didn’t want to tell him how hard she worked on herself to hide the Sicilian parts—the loud boisterous voice, the flailing gesticulations, the instant emotions, the lilting accent—lest they expose her to all the world as an immigrant. She didn’t want to tell Ben how desperately she wished to be not an immigrant, but like the girls she envied, the girls from Harry and Ben’s world.

  Girls like Alice.

  The way Ben knowingly blinked at her, it was as if he already knew.

  “You’ve become so proper, why?”

  She said nothing.

  “You want to be like the girl he left behind, the girl he left—for you?”

  She flushed. “It’s not like that.”

  “What is it like then?”

  “Not like that.”

  “So explain it to me, like I explained the Culebra Cut to you.”

  “I’m just grown up, that’s all. Sicily is the child part of me.”

  He shook his head. “You’ve taken deportment and speech lessons. You’ve learned how to dress, how to laugh, how to speak. You did it all to hide who you are.”

  “Harry doesn’t much care for the loud Italian,” Gina told Ben. “For the flashes of my Old World self.” Except for the times he wanted nothing from her but her Sicilian flame. Oh God! Could there be one exchange this entire evening, just a merciful one, when she wasn’t recalling her husband after every sentence?

  “I feel as if I should go visit him,” Ben said. “It seems wrong not to. We were such good friends. I want him to know there are no hard feelings. Do you think I should?”

  “It might make him feel worse,” she said. “Point up the stark contrast between your freedom and his incarceration.”

  “That’s true. But not to visit him even once . . .”

  She agreed. “His mood is not great. It won’t be like your old times.”

  “Few things are. And why should he be in a swell mood? He’s in prison.” Ben sighed as they sipped their wine and buttered their bread. “What’s he reading nowadays? Maybe I can get you a book to take to him.”

  “If it’s in Russian, then yes.”

  “He’s reading Russian? Good God of Jacob, why?”

  “At first he wanted nothing to do with the Russian writers, but Max Eastman and John Reed have been in touch with him recently and now he’s all about learning to speak Russian like them.”

  “Your husband is trying to be like John Reed?” Ben laughed. “So just like you, he’s trying to become someone else?” He eyed her with affection. “Would you like Harry better if he were a Russian-speaking Bostonian? I’ve never heard of such a combination.”

  Gina laughed, too, and said she liked Harry just fine without his ever speaking a word of Russian. “But then I’ve never heard of an explosive-detonating Bostonian either, so there you have it.”

  “Ah, okay, but the question is, do you like me better now that I’m an explosive-detonating Bostonian?”

  She knew it was a rhetorical question that didn’t require an answer, but if she absolutely had to answer, she would admit that the answer was yes.

  During peach cobbler, Ben brought up Lawrence.

  “Gina, why do you always keep running somewhere else other than Lawrence when you’re not working? From the beginning you’d sneak out on trains and come to Boston, first for my mother and her radicals, then for Eugene Debs and Emma Goldman. Now you come here to Concord. I’m not saying you don’t work for a noble cause with Rose. All I’m saying is, isn’t there a noble cause in Lawrence? Why are you always running somewhere else? Or am I plain wrong about this?”

  She thought for a long time. She finished her cobbler before she spoke.

  “You’re not wrong,” she said at last. “I used to fool myself into thinking it was for this reason, or that. And even to come here, I mean, Harry is here, and—”

  “Gina, that’s not why.”

  “No, it’s not,” she agreed. “Truth be told I want no
thing to do with the immigrants. It’s terrible to say.”

  “It’s not.”

  “It is. Like I’m not grateful. But I’m just so bone-tired of them! I’d prefer to live anywhere but Lawrence. It is so ethnic—the stores, the smells. Like the North End, but worse. All I want is to live somewhere people aren’t drying their washing outside their front windows and making their mozzarella fresh on the street. When I come to Concord it’s so peaceful. Even robins don’t sing too loud here. Everyone is polite, no one raises their voice, and on the benches in town men are reading calmly under the umbrellas, while nannies push the babies up and down. The women talk sotto voce, and the men take off their hats when a woman approaches. There is something classy about that. It’s so staunchly American.” She paused.

  “And what else?”

  “And . . . you couldn’t imagine twenty thousand women stampeding down the Concord streets, trampling each other without any regard for anyone’s safety or security, could you? Spitting, hollering, breaking windows, kicking the men, flailing on the ground in a temper tantrum that lasts sixty-three days.”

  “No,” Ben said. “I can’t imagine it.”

  “That must be it.” Gina took a long, lingering sip of her dessert wine. “I want to live in a place where Bread and Roses is as distant as the stars.”

  Ben stopped driving her back to Lawrence on Saturday nights. Their dinners would run too late, and she had to be back in Concord early the next morning for the ringing of the five bells and for Harry. It made no sense to do all that driving, her to Lawrence, Ben to Boston. She started staying regularly overnight at the Wayside and Ben rented a room at the Ridge Bed and Breakfast down Lexington Road as it wound down a steep hill, around a field, a stream, and a meadow, away from town, from Rose, from Harry.

  One Sunday in November Gina didn’t visit Harry. The next Sunday she told him she had been sick, things weren’t right, she hoped it would pass.

  If October was a month for painted leaves, then November was a month for cloaking.