The End of Innocence (27 page)

“So now the donors are the reason for what we're doing?”

President Lowell sat upright, tall and proud. “Miss Brooks, I am sorry you lost your husband,” he said.

“President Lowell, my argument is not made out of some kind of wounded sentiment.”

“Well, it actually is. Otherwise, it's the same argument I've heard already from the others.” He caught himself, and then continued in a softer voice. “It doesn't make it easier that if I had counseled our German students back in 1914, I would have told them to fight for what their conscience dictated. But it's difficult to separate the men from their country's mission, and that mission was wrong, even if in retrospect.”

She looked at his hard eyes, and she knew she had lost him, but she wasn't willing to give up on Wils's memory that easily.

“But wasn't it found to be wrong because they lost the war? Because they were not strong enough to win? If history had played out differently, we could easily be having a different conversation, in which I'm trying to persuade you to include so many of our students who fought for our allies.”

Lowell shook his head. “It was wrong because their cause killed millions and mutilated their own country and continent, regardless of how history would have played out. I will not change my path to support the idea that it doesn't matter what side you fight for. I don't accept that, not even in a church where all are presumed equal before God. If I were God, I would not look to the killing of a generation of men kindly, simply for more power and territory. And to my regret, that means that I cannot grant the request that you and many others have made that Wils Brandl be memorialized with the others. I am not against him or the other boys like him, just their kaiser's cause. And I have made the argument to Dean Sperry, the entire Phillips Brooks House, and some three hundred petitioners this past spring. Your Mr. Brandl has some powerful friends on campus,” he said with a kind smile. “But the matter is settled.”

Helen looked down at her feet. What would she tell Peter or Professor Copeland? That she had walked away? She looked up at the president. “My mother once told me a matter is only settled when the opposition walks away. And with all due respect, President Lowell, while I may walk out of here now, I am not walking away from this until we have true justice.”

He gave a wan smile and they looked at each other in the bright morning light for a moment. And then, with nothing left to say, and, with all courtesy, President Lowell stood up and ushered her out of his office.

As she walked out of University Hall, instead of turning to the library as usual, she went the other way, to the church. She stepped with purpose around the boarded walks, ignoring the call of the workmen that the church was closed to the public.

She was an officer of Harvard by virtue of her employment in the library. And she was part Windship, after all. Their rules didn't apply to her. She wanted to see the tomb.

Cambridge, Massachusetts

The church was cold inside. Helen opened the door and walked down the central aisle, careful to avoid the workmen's debris. Bags of plaster, some open and dusty, littered the floor. Scrap wood lay in a heap, near scattered sawhorses and piles of dirty cloths. Paint cans were stacked by a tall scaffolding, and brushes soaked in open jars of pungent turpentine. She could hear workmen's saws and hammers outside as they resumed their work, thankfully not bothering her further.

She looked to the side, where large doors were closed before what she thought must be the Memorial Room. She took a deep breath, traipsed through the dust and around the scaffolding, and opened the door.

A solitary bulb strung from the ceiling illuminated the dark room. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw against a wall a heavy statue, a woman carved in marble mourning a lost crusader who lay in her arms. His feet were not crossed—a sign that he'd not reached the Holy Land.

She swallowed, catching her breath. She was not one for crying at gravestones.

Around the top of the walls was an inscription she could barely make out:

While a bright future beckoned, they freely gave their lives and fondest hopes for us and our allies that we might learn from them courage in peace to spend our lives making a better world for others.

She stepped back against the wall and stumbled over a stack of travertine panels yet to be installed. She knelt down to press her hands into the grooves of the names.

There they were.

Child upon child of Harvard who had died in the Great War, their names carved by class year into the panels and gilded with bronze. There were so many names.

She looked up at the north wall, where several classes had already had their names set in place. It was there she saw them.

The Class of 1915: Rhyland Cabot Spencer. Jackson Marion Vaughn.
She looked to the later classes. No Wils. No Germans at all.

As she looked around the memorial, her rising anger was overpowered by a silent grief. After seventeen years, all of her losses were there, facing her. This was no home for her. Her heart had fallen off a ledge and been crushed when she had received the news of Wils's and Riley's deaths, and she'd found that all the king's horses and all the king's men could not put it back together again.

In the dim light of the Memorial Room, she stood up, dusted off her skirt, and said a short prayer to whoever might be listening. Then she exited into the daylight, to the surprise of some unsuspecting workmen, who scrambled to move a pair of sawhorses so that she might pass.

New dreams
, she thought.
It's time for new dreams
.

* * *

As she walked to the library, images of her mother standing before City Hall came to her mind. The newspapers. An idea began to form that perhaps publicity wasn't always a bad thing. Newspaper pressure had certainly helped her mother's cause in the end. Perhaps it would here too.

No
, she thought, shaking her head.
This
had
been
in
the
papers
before
and
caused
no
such
change
in
policy.

She pursed her lips, arguing the case with herself. The president's reputation had been badly tarnished for what was considered a case of class loyalty over fairness in the 1927 Sacco–Vanzetti anarchy trial review. It was beginning to be said, in some circles, that the president had not outwitted his enemies but outlived his friends, including his wife of fifty-one years who had recently died. Perhaps at this late date, pressure could be brought to bear on him such that he would bend.

But who could affect him? The back room was where the Harvard Corporation sat, the only ones with real influence over the president at Harvard, and she could not influence that table.

Some yards down the broad path, she saw a sign tacked to a freestanding bulletin board. “Copeland in the Yard at Sever Hall. Introduction by President Lowell. Seating limited to first five hundred.” She stood looking at the flyer and her eyes widened. She turned toward Hollis Hall.

She walked up the steps to Professor Copeland's door and knocked.

“I've no appointment at nine twenty—” came a thin voice from behind the door.

“Professor Copeland,” she called in a loud voice. “It's Helen Brooks. I must see you at once, appointment or not.”

“Have you found your courage?”

“I spoke with President Lowell and he has denied the Germans inclusion in the war memorial.”

The heavy wooden door squeaked open on its hinges a crack. She saw one of his eyes blink at her from behind his thick glasses.

“But I've a plan,” she continued in a loud voice. “It requires that you humiliate the president.”

The door opened immediately, and he bade her come in.

Cambridge, Massachusetts

November 1932

On an evening in early November, Professor Copeland puttered over to Sever Hall. His assistant, Thomas, a young man with a mop of brown curls, walked in tow with his water glass and book. As they passed in the shadow of Memorial Church, looking to Sever Hall's brick arches, they saw an unusually large group assembling. They made an attempt to wade through the crowd, but the throng of students prevented them.

“Thomas, you see what all the ruckus is about. I'll wait outside,” Copeland said, sitting down on a step. It was too loud inside.

Thomas came back a few minutes later, his face ruddy. “The crowd—they're waiting for you,” he said breathlessly.

Copeland's face brightened.

“Not knowing if you'd die or something and this would be your last reading.”

Copeland began to scowl, but checked himself upon seeing President Lowell coming up the path, his hair flowing out from under a black fedora.

“Copeland!” called the president with a smile and a wave. The balding Copeland had long been jealous of Lowell's thick gray hair. He didn't deserve it.

“So I hear this may be the last one,” said the president in greeting.

“I can't get into the classroom,” Copeland returned loudly.

“What? Oh, yes, I see,” he said, looking through the glass around the doors at the crowd in Sever. “No problem. Just move it to my lecture hall.”

“The new lecture hall?” Copeland said, raising his eyebrows. “I read in Sever Hall,” he said stiffly.

“Is there a problem?” asked Lowell, bowing his head to hear Copeland over the voices of the students pouring from the hall.

“I read in Sever Hall,” he repeated into President Lowell's good ear.

“Now, now, Charles, I know it's not like old times. But they want to hear you. Come on, now, we'll walk over there together.”

“Boy!” Lowell beckoned to Thomas. “Go tell the students that they will see Mr. Copeland at the new lecture hall.”

As Lowell turned, Copeland said quietly, “Thomas, make sure Miss Brooks and the others we need in that room know about the new room.” And he left to accompany the president to the clean, shiny, newfangled lecture hall.

* * *

The new hall was located beyond both the Memorial Church and the large Victorian Memorial Hall, to the north of campus. Built in Lowell's favorite Georgian brick, it looked like an elegant box on the corner of Kirkland and Essex streets, and sat nearly one thousand students.

By the time Helen arrived at the new location, the president had already begun his introductory remarks—a eulogy of sorts.

She entered the room from the back. Copeland, she saw, was still fiddling with his lamp and his water glass. Lowell concluded his remarks and went to sit in the front of the room, his hand cupped behind his good ear. The room was filled, except for several seats around the president. Students did not wish to get too close, it seemed.

She caught Copeland's eye. He nodded at her, peering above the rims of his spectacles.

“Lock the door against the latecomers!” he said. The student ushers promptly got up to do his bidding.

“Wait!” came a voice. Helen turned to see her brother and Ann enter, followed by four elderly men. Helen's heart gave a leap: they were four of Harvard's richest donors and their fortunes were known to have weathered the crash. Peter and Ann had persuaded them to attend tonight to support Copeland's and her cause. Helen saw Dean Sperry and members of the Phillips Brooks House Association there too, a charitable student group that had been vocal supporters of Copeland's in the attempt to change the memorial plans to include German students.

She glanced quickly at President Lowell, who gave a surprised look and stood up, beckoning them to come and sit beside him in the seemingly reserved section. Copeland nodded in their direction.

“Any others?” There was silence.

“Then lock the doors!” And the students did so.

“You should all know the rules by now,” said Copeland. “I will give you two minutes to do all the coughing, sneezing, and chewing you wish, but then I require total and complete silence. Total and complete. Anyone who wishes to cough, sneeze, hack, or in any other way disturb thy neighbor may leave through the window.”

A general murmur went through the crowd as they took this to be their cue to engage in prohibited behaviors. But at the end of the allotted time, the laughter quieted and all eyes focused on Copeland.

Helen saw him survey the crowd, excited. She thought he looked ten years younger.

And with that the reading began. He read selections from Chaucer, Balzac, and Dickens. He read Shakespeare and Marlowe, verses from Longfellow and passages from Thoreau. Two hours flew by.

“This will be my last reading for the evening.”

The students began to protest. “Be quiet and you just might learn!” he called, taking a drink. There was silence again.

“We've had a lot of talk on campus about war recently. You here have thankfully grown up without one. You don't know the price we've paid. Tonight's last reading is from the Old Testament.”

Helen sat back in a corner of the room, taking it all in. It was different from the first time he'd read to her—seventeen years ago. Now he was shrunken and stooped, his checkered jacket hanging loose on his frame. His voice was still clear, though chiseled with age and wear. And of course, there was no Wils to comfort her with his warm presence amid so many strangers.

His story began quietly, in the Golden Age of Israel, when King David ruled the land. Copeland started where all the trouble began, when Absalom, King David's son, decided to wage war against his father. She heard his voice grow stronger as he read of Absalom's rebellion:

And there came a messenger to David, saying, The hearts of the men of Israel are after Absalom.

And David said unto all his servants that were with him at Jerusalem, Arise, and let us flee; for we shall not else escape from Absalom: make speed to depart, lest he overtake us suddenly, and bring evil upon us, and smite the city with the edge of the sword.

She looked at Lowell, who shifted in his seat.
I hope he falls out of it
, she thought uncharitably. As Copeland continued and Absalom was killed by David's captain, the audience was silent, caught up in the ancient feud.

Copeland looked up. Lowell was glowering now, his face almost pink, sensing what was next. No students were moving, no noise was heard.

And the king said unto Cushi, Is the young man Absalom safe? And Cushi answered, The enemies of my lord the king, and all that rise against thee to do thee hurt, be as that young man is.

And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!

The professor paused, closed his Bible, and looked up at his audience. President Lowell sat back in his seat, crossing his arms before his chest.

“That ends the reading for tonight,” said Copeland. “With one exception. I beg of your attention for another moment,” he said, holding up his hand to the audience. “Patience, please.” He pulled a page from his coat pocket.

“In 1914 I had a student who wrote poetry. He wrote some damned awful stuff. But before he left for war, for his last assignment, he turned in one of the most beautiful poems I've seen from a student. I'd like to read it tonight.”

Copeland gave a cough. “Oh, yes, I almost forgot to mention. He was a German by the name of Wils Brandl who was compelled to fight for the kaiser, though he'd no interest in that cause. He fell in battle before we Americans had our first taste of it. And now he is being denied recognition among his fellow students and friends being honored in the new Memorial Church, built at the behest of the honorable President Lowell sitting here in front. I know that many of you tonight care about this cause. I know some of you are here for just this reason.”

He caught the face of Helen Brooks in the back, her lips parted in surprise. Then he stared down President Lowell. “But, we're all friends tonight, aren't we?”

A Prayer

by Wilhelm von Lützow Brandl

Is this how a spirit dies?

On a dark August day under the guns of strangers

Our children drown in the blood of a world

Not we but our fathers made. We die for

Thoughts we don't think, and for men we don't love.

Luther's God, build your fortress round our hearts

Until our souls are welcomed back to earth.

Grant the gift of Spring to a broken race.

As Copeland read, tears fell down Helen's cheeks. When he finished, the room burst into applause. President Lowell turned to survey the room, looking as if he'd just had a drink of vinegar.

The head of the Phillips Brooks House stood up. “The Germans—they were ours, sir,” he said, looking directly at President Lowell. Another student stood up, a student Helen had talked with two days ago. “Ours, sir.”

Another stood up—one from Copeland's class. This was followed by row upon row, until the entire room stood—including Peter, Ann, and the donors—each one claiming the dispossessed.

“They were once ours,” said Helen, standing, surveying the room. She swallowed hard. They had come and stood up for Wils at the request of Copeland and Helen. He was a boy they'd never known. She felt the calm assurance that they would prevail. A smile came to her lips. She had engaged in politics: meeting, calling, persuading people to attend the reading to support their cause. And they would win.

Helen left the room before it was over. Its air had become suffocating to her. As she unbolted the door and walked out into the cool night, the air hit her with a refreshing gust, chilled and clean.

She began to walk slowly back to the Yard. She wasn't in a rush. She wasn't angry. She just needed a bit more space.

She'd forgotten that Wils really had been a better poet than she. Her face broke into a grin, thinking how outraged he would be that this was even a matter worth pondering.

* * *

It was not much later when, on a cold day in mid-November, and with little fanfare, a plaque was found on the wall of the new church, outside the confines of the Memorial Room.

Harvard has not forgotten her sons who under opposite standards gave their lives for their country, 1914–1918: Wilhelm von Lützow Brandl, Fritz Daur, Konrad Delbruck, Kurt Peters, Max Schneider.

Few could read it, however, for it was engraved in Latin.