Another Eden (30 page)

"Well!" Ben exclaimed heartily. "Got your bag all packed, have you?"

"Yes, sir."

Sara said, "Go downstairs and wait for me."

"That's a good idea," Ben seconded. "I'll be right down."

"Are you coming too, Dad?"

"Well, now, there's been a little change in plans. Your mother's not coming with us; it's just going to be you and me."

"No," Sara cried involuntarily. lighting for control, she sent Michael a ghastly smile. "Go down and wait for me," she repeated, "your father and I have to talk for a few minutes." Michael didn't move. "Please, darling—"

Just then Tasha appeared in the door behind Michael. "Take the boy downstairs," Ben ordered, "and call for the carnage."

"Yes, Mr. Cochrane." She reached for Michael's hand, but he slipped away. "Mummy?" He blinked fast to keep from crying.

Sara started toward the door. Ben stepped in front of her, blocking her. "Now, I said!" he bellowed, at the same moment he reached back with one hand and slammed the door shut in Michael's face.

She sprang at him and he hit her across the cheek with his open palm. She fell on the bed, stunned, but with enough presence of mind left not to cry out—Michael might still be close enough to hear. She tried to stand, but Ben hovered over her, legs spread, breathing hard.

"I thought we settled this a long time ago. You're never leaving me. I took Michael away once to teach you a lesson, but I guess you didn't learn it. This time he's going away for a long, long time, with me and his Aunt Tasha, and you aren't going to do a damn thing about it. Because if you do, if you make a
peep
, I'll fix it so you never see him again."

"For the love of God, Ben, you
can't
do this—"

"I'm doing it." He spun around, went to the door, and yanked it open.

Jumping up, she ran after him and caught him in the hall. "Please don't, please don't." She pulled on his arm to stop him. He pushed her off roughly and kept walking. Over the bannister she saw that the foyer was empty—Michael must be outside already. She threw herself between Ben and the stairs, blocking the way with her outstretched arms. "You can't have him!" she shrieked, pummeling him with her fists when he butted into her, forcing her down a step at a time. "You want me to hurt you? Is that what you want?"

"You can't take him! Damn you—" She flung herself at him, screaming, nails raking across his cheek. She saw his hand fly backward, then whip toward her face. The blow was shocking; the force of it threw her against the wall. She lost her balance and fell down the last six steps to the hall below.

She lost consciousness, but not for long. When she could see past the shimmering gray cloud of dots blurring her vision, she made out Ben's white moon face frowning down at her, and she felt his big hands surrounding her biceps.

"You okay, Sare?"

She whispered, "Don't take him, Ben. Please don't take him."

He let her go and sat back on his haunches. "You don't give me any choice."

"I won't leave you, I promise."

"You're probably lying. I got to teach you a lesson, and this is the only way to do it."

"Ben—"

But he stood up and backed away from her, watching her until he reached the door. For a second she thought she saw regret darken his eyes, blotting out the spite. Then he was gone.

She got up slowly; she had to lean against the wall to stay on her feet. Bruised hip, sore ribs, bump on the head, she inventoried automatically; scraped shins, palms, elbows. Not serious. Limping, she made it across the hall to the front door and dragged it open.

In the street, the carriage was just pulling up. Tasha helped Michael inside, then got up behind him. Ben called to the coachman, "Grand Central," and climbed in too. Sara took two steps out onto the porch and stopped. Michael saw her; his small face in the window looked frightened and bewildered, but he smiled at her. He waved. She lifted her hand, but her mouth was trembling too much, and she couldn't smile back. The carriage rolled off.

She turned immediately and went back into the house. She crossed to the telephone and gave Alex's number to the operator in a shaking voice she couldn't control. "Sorry, ma'am, no answer." No—of course, it was Saturday, he wouldn't be at work. If he still went to work. Moving more quickly now, she went to her tiny study, found her telephone book, and gave his home number to a new operator.

"Hello?"

Somewhere in the back of her mind it registered that he'd been sleeping. "Alex, can you help me?"

"Who is this? Sara?"

No wonder he didn't know her voice; she hardly recognized it herself "Ben's taken Michael, kidnapped him."

"What?"

"They've gone to Grand Central Depot in the carriage—Tasha too—and I have to stop them but I can't do it by myself Alex, can you come here?"

"Yes."

"If you can get a cab and pick me up, I think we can stop them." "I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Thank you." She hung up and ran upstairs to get dressed.

Alex opened the black hansom cab's door and leapt to the pavement while the vehicle was still moving. Sprinting up the steps, he lifted his hand, but the door jerked open under it.

"Thank God," cried Sara. She had been watching for him through the beveled glass sidelight.

He took her arm when she started away without another word, holding her, his other hand going to the side of her face. "Jesus God, what did he do to you?"

"I fell," she said automatically. No—the time for lies was over. "He hit me, and I fell down the steps. Come on," she pleaded over his numb curses, "we have to hurry." She hauled on his hand. "I'm all right, really. Come on!" She pulled him toward the hansom, gave the driver the destination herself—"Grand Central Depot, as fast as you can!"—and got in. Alex jumped up behind her and the cab jerked away.

They sat opposite each other, hunched forward, hands clasped. "I almost didn't wait for you," Sara confessed. "It took so
long
."

"I'd have gotten here sooner, but we came up Sixth instead of Fifth Avenue, thinking it would be faster, and instead we ran into a mob."

"A mob?"

"The trainmen's union is picketing all along the Sixth Avenue Elevated, you can't get through." He squeezed her hands. "Sara, tell me what's happened."

"It happened so fast. I told Ben I was leaving him."

"Why?"

The obvious answer wasn't the answer at all, she realized. "I found him with Tasha this morning. In bed. I suppose it's been going on for months. It's why he wanted me out of the house all summer." Alex started to say something, but she shook her head. "No, but that's not really why I did it. I mean—it is, in a way, it's what brought it on. But it wasn't even a decision—I never really made up my mind to do it. All of a sudden I was doing it, and it felt so
right
And yet—oh God, Alex, look what I've done," she whispered, horrified.

He could hardly stand to look at the deepening bruise on the side of her forehead, the raw scrapes on her palms. "Listen to me—whatever happens, you did the right thing. You had to leave him, Sara."

She stared back in misery, thinking but not saying that if she lost Michael, she would certainly not have done the right thing, and she would regret this day's decision for the rest of her life. She looked out the window. "Why are we going so slowly?" They were just turning onto Park Avenue from Thirty-fourth Street. "What's happening?"

Alex got up, opened the door, put one foot on the step, and leaned far out, peering north. There was nothing to see but carnages, carts, trolleys, and jitneys jammed front to back, moving a few feet, then stopping. "Can you see anything?" he called to the driver.

"Something's backin' 'em up," he answered laconically. "Can't tell what." Alex resumed his seat, slamming the door. "What did he say?"

"He doesn't know." He watched her twist her hands in her lap, teeth clamped on her bottom lip. "Ben's probably caught up in the same snarl," he told her. "We'll find him, Sara, don't worry."

She hardly heard. "When he took him away the last time—I told you, remember?"

"Yes."

"He took him to a hunter's camp on the tip of Long Island. But he's much too clever to go there again. Unless we find them before they leave, I won't know where to start looking." She wouldn't even know where to go when they finally reached Grand Central—the Harlem Railroad depot, the New Haven, the Long Island— "We'll find them," Alex repeated doggedly.

"I can't stand this." Every minute she almost jumped out to walk—surely it would be faster than this nerve-wracking crawl!—and each time the coach suddenly jolted forward, filling her with an agonizing burst of new hope.

Minutes later they crossed Thirty-eighth Street and the hansom came to a final halt. The driver yelled something; Alex jumped out of the cab. "What's that?"

"Can't go any farther, I'm turnin' off here and getting out. Might be them trainmen again, striking along Third and the Forty-second Street Spur into Grand Central. We can't get through."

Sara heard, and stepped down into the street with Alex. "Then we'll walk."

Alex paid the driver and ran to catch up with her, taking her arm. He closed his mouth against all the reasons he could give for why she should turn back, knowing how futile it would be. At Thirty-ninth Street the sidewalk became almost as crowded as the street, with as many people hurrying toward them as there were pushing along beside them. "What's going on?" Alex asked a neatly dressed gentleman rushing southward.

"Strike! You can't get to Forty-second Street, there's hired strike breakers shoving everybody back down Park and Lexington. The Murray Hill Tunnel entrance is blocked so you can't even get into the station. I'm telling you, you can't go anywhere!" he called after them when Sara started off again and Alex hurried after her.

She scanned the cluttered avenue for signs of the Cochrane carnage returning south—"It's gray with maroon trim," she told Alex—but they never saw it. A patrol wagon full of uniformed policemen clattered northward in the southbound lane, bell clanging. The sidewalk crush worsened; Alex drew Sara to him and linked arms with her securely.

"You've got to go back." He had to raise his voice to be heard over the growing din. A man running behind them butted his shoulder and Alex bumped hard against Sara. She recovered and kept walking, pulling on his arm when she spotted openings between people ahead of them. "You heard what that man said," he persisted, "the station's closed. That means Ben can't get through either. If there are strike breakers up there, there's going to be violence. Let me go on by myself You go up Fortieth to Fifth and go home, Sara, let me—"

"No. I have to find him. I have to find him."

That was all she would say, and he gave up.

"Let's walk in the street," she said, pulling on him.

He let her lead him over the curb, realizing it was probably safer in the street now because the crowd on the sidewalk was getting rough.

She twisted her ankle in her high-heeled boots on the uneven cobbles, but after a few limping steps the pain faded. The sound of shouting grew louder in the distance, but it was impossible to see what was ahead because of the stalled vehicles blocking the street. All at once the crowd on the sidewalk surged out into the street in a great, unruly wave, and a second later bright orange flames shot out of the sides of a wooden building fronting the sidewalk.

"Arsonists," Alex guessed grimly, shoving a way through the new crush with his shoulder.

Sara lost her shawl; her hat had been torn off minutes ago. Shouts mingled with the screams of terrified horses rearing and jerking the reins to the stranded carts and carnages behind them. Alarm bells rang frantically and incessantly. There was no such thing as lanes in the street anymore; police wagons battling their way north through the mob were as stationary as every other conveyance. From the three-story rooftop of a restaurant up ahead, two boys not much older than Michael hurled bricks at the crowd below. People leaned out of windows and hung from telegraph poles; below them the mob swayed back and forth from sidewalk to sidewalk. There were few women in the crowd now; those who were left were tough-looking, some carrying pickets declaring their support for the strikers.

"We can't get through!" Alex shouted, both arms around Sara's shoulders. "You have to get out!"

She shook her head violently. "Michael's in there!
Could
be in there!" she shouted back. All of a sudden his grip on her tightened and he lunged sideways in an ungainly pivot; in the next second a wild-eyed man in shirtsleeves swung a wide wooden picket down across his shoulder. Alex grunted. Sara registered the words "Fight Corrupt Bosses" before the man hoisted his sign to strike again. Alex twisted around, bracing, shielding her with his back, but the crowd intervened and the sign descended on someone else's head before the picketer was lost to sight. When Alex turned around, Sara was gone.

She could see him clearly no more than six feet away, a head taller than anyone around him; but it might as well have been sixty feet because of the densely packed bodies between them. "Alex! Alex!" He didn't hear. When he turned, she couldn't get her arm up to wave to him because of the crush. The beginnings of panic snaked through her. She shoved as hard as she could against the stiff, moving wall of people pressing her back, back, but it was futile; she was as helpless as a twig in a current of flooding water.

A horse-drawn jitney lay on its side on the pavement; standing on top, a man heaved paving stones at the helmeted guardsmen surrounding him, clubs raised. The crowd waded into the fight, Sara borne along with them helplessly. She saw a policeman's red, sweating face looming above her, his club raised high in the air over her head. She screamed; he saw her, wheeled, and brought the club down on the shoulder of the boy beside her.

Horses hauling another patrol wagon reared and plunged, so close she could smell their hot breath and see the terror in their rolling eyes. Men in the clogged street lunged for their bridles. A policeman with his feet hanging out of the tail of the wagon was hauled out by his heels and surrounded. The other guardsmen leapt out and charged the jeering crowd, night sticks striking right and left. Bricks and bottles flew from all sides. Something struck Sara between the shoulder blades and she stumbled, breath gone. On one knee, hands pressed to the cobblestones, she tried to stand, but at that moment gunshots rattled over the shouts and the turmoil, and panic swept through the mob. A man's hard thigh struck her shoulder and she lost her balance, falling. She couldn't scream; it wouldn't have helped anyway. A booted foot smacked into her hip. She rolled, throwing up her hands to shield her face.

"Lady, get up!"

She opened her eyes to see a huge paw of a hand reaching for her. She took it in both of hers and was jerked to her feet by an enormous black man with a beard; a button on his chest said, "No Wage Cut, Porters in Sympathy with Trainmen."

"Get outa here, lady, they're shootin'!" he yelled at her.

She pulled out of his grip when he began to lead her south, away from the violence. "I have to find my little boy!"

Shots rang out again. The big man flinched, mouthed, "Good luck," turned, and ran.

The crowd had begun to thin at the first shots, but groups still clustered in doorways, calling insults to the police and throwing stones whenever they turned their backs. Limping, her dress torn, hair loose, Sara staggered off northward. The stampede was over and the devastation in its wake was visible now. Broken pickets and bricks and boards littered the cobblestones, and the sidewalks were lined with broken glass. Smoke from a burning coal cart filled the air with acrid soot; the frantic neighing of stranded horses sounded from everywhere, pitiful and nerve-wracking. Sara scanned the wide corner of Forty-first Street, searching for anything familiar. Twenty feet away a man in shirtsleeves and torn waistcoat had his back to her, but she recognized the set of his shoulders and his tawny hair.

"Alex!"

He turned, and the raw anguish in his face changed to intense, heartfelt relief They came together, oblivious to the people running past and the shouted orders of militiamen to keep moving.