First Papers (34 page)

“Good boy, Eli,” he ended. “I won’t stir from the phone. I’ll be thinking out the next move, in case he
is
there.”

The waiting was insufferable. Eli’s school was no more than twenty minutes away from the dog pound, but each of the twenty might have been an hour to the Ivarins. The first wild hope that all would be well faded for both girls before half the twenty were gone, and when the full period was over with no sound from the telephone, Fee said, “Eli can’t bear telling us Shag isn’t there,” and burst into hopeless sobs once more. Fran tried to comfort her, but her own fear was too evident, and Alexandra’s voice shook even as she spoke her most Montessorian words of calm wisdom to both her daughters.

“How can a man keep two and two together in this infernal racket?” Stefan demanded. “I still have to think, don’t I?”

Upon dispatching Eli, he had telephoned the Barnett License Bureau, explaining the difficulty of sending the actual license plate to the end of Brooklyn before closing time, should their dog Shag prove to be there, and asking if the Barnett dog licensers might check their records of this very morning, see that license 421 was indeed sold to a Mrs. S. Ivarin, and then telephone this fact to the dog pound, thus permitting Elijah Eaves, emissary of Shag’s owners, to pay the one-dollar fine and leave with Shag at his side.

The answer was no. That was not what the statute said. That way anybody could walk into the dog pound and claim the best dog there as the dog for 421, see?

Stefan Ivarin did not see and began to elucidate with vigor and clarity. At a warning from Alexandra, he desisted. Her look said that if he got the Bureau furious and something then happened to Shag because of that fury, he would be Shag’s executioner.

By now thirty minutes had elapsed and the telephone in the vestibule remained inert and insufferable.

Stefan Ivarin glanced at his children from time to time and was twisted by their grief, but he did not know what to say that might comfort either one. Whenever he did speak, it came out as rage at statute-quoting idiots, blame at Eli for being so all-fired slow in calling back and putting an end to this killing suspense, and even sharpness at Fee’s crying because it prevented him from deciding what to do next.

Five more minutes went by. Another five. By now, Fee was no longer sobbing; she sat as if paralyzed, upright, staring, her cheeks wet under the unpausing flow of her tears, looking only toward the vestibule where the implacable telephone faced her.

Then it rang.

Stefan raced for it. “He is?—Oh, good boy, good boy—”

He never finished that sentence. Fira, Fran, Alexandra, all of them incoherent, tumbled into the vestibule so that his footing was precarious. Each one had to grab the telephone in turn to hear Eli say that as the guard opened the locked door to the expanse of iron cages, he had whistled his special signal and at the first note “Shag just about pulled the place down.”

“Let me talk to Pa again,” Eli ended. “I can’t get him out because of the license, but I said somebody would be there first thing in the morning.”

“First thing in the morning,” Alexandra promised. “I’ll leave here by eight.”

“The morning?” Fee cried in new alarm. “Something might happen overnight.”

Alexandra said, “Now, dear, it’s so wonderful he’s found, be reasonable.”

“But he’ll be so scared when Eli leaves him. And all night long he’ll think—”

“But we can’t help it, Fee. It’s nearly five o’clock right now.”

Stefan interrupted by taking the phone from Alexandra, muttering about mothers who do not see the absurdity of talking reason to a grief-stricken child.

“Listen to me, Eli,” he said. “If you will simply stay there in the building, so they cannot take it into their heads to close a few minutes early, I will come there myself with the godforsaken license.”

“Tonight, Pa? I told them—”

“Yes, yes, but I never trust officials—if an error can be made, they’ll make it and chloroform the wrong dog tonight. So it’s better to get him right now. Can you wait there? I should make it by six.”

Eli promised, and Fee flung herself at her father in gratitude so intense that he finally yelled at her not to delay him for these precious minutes or he would certainly be too late. She jumped back and away, and off he went, trying without success to stuff Shag’s collar, leash and muzzle into his pockets as he hurried out of sight.

Two full hours had to elapse before Stefan Ivarin could possibly be expected back, but long before it was sensible, Fee and Franny went out to the porch to keep watch. It was a clear day, and the late-afternoon light was brilliant and open; the streets stretching away from the house to the brow of the hill were like pale ribbons, every inch visible except where the deep shadow of some tree scooped away a strip and left a long dark gap.

Once or twice there was a false alarm as a figure appeared in the distance, and Fee or Fran cried “There they come,” but being wrong was delicious when the outcome was so exciting to wait for. Alexandra unpacked a nightgown for each of them and herself, and then came out to the porch also, rocking back and forth, back and forth, overjoyed that tragedy had only brushed instead of striking her children.

Occasionally she smiled at the reason Eli had been so slow about calling them back: 1718-W was a party line and it was busy. He had tried it every other minute, he said during her short turn on the phone with him, and the buzz-buzz drove him mad. Not one of them, waiting as the minutes dragged by, had thought of this simplest of all reasons, neither Fee nor Fran, nor herself, not even Stiva, splendid though he was through the family’s torment, even Stiva’s brain had failed on that everyday point. He had been splendid and she loved him for going off to Brooklyn then and there. If she told him so, of course, he might twist it around into a hidden accusation that he was a good father so rarely, it was like a national holiday when he actually did something for his children.

Fee cried, “This time it’s
them.”

Just at the crest of the hill, Stefan appeared with Shag. Even that far away it was clear that Shag was virtually hauling him off his feet by his pull on the leash. Fee and Fran flew toward them, screaming “Shag, Shag,” whereupon Shag leaped into the air in a pure perpendicular ascent. When he hit the ground again, Stefan shouted, “You halfwit, you,” and dropped the leash entirely.

Shag became a reddish blur racing toward the girls. He bounded at Fee with such abandon that they went down together, Fee squealing and laughing while he dashed around her and at her and over her. Franny called him, and he repeated his performance, though Fran managed to keep upright. He raced back to Fee, beyond her to Stefan, then hearing from the distance Alexandra’s voice, he abandoned all three and turned reddish streak once more until he hurled himself at Alexandra, who had had the foresight to sit down firmly on the porch floor to await the onslaught.

Later, as Shag lay under the kitchen table at their feet, a place usually forbidden him when they were at supper, Stefan supplied the details they begged for. He had been lucky with connections from trolley to train and had reached dog pound and Eli with ten minutes to spare. Eli stood leaning on the outer door as though he would put his foot in the way if they tried to lock up early. They had presented Shag’s license plate to the man in charge, with its 421 and 1912 shining up like all the stars of heaven, and handed over one dollar.

“Then he took us inside,” Stefan said. “It’s an unhappy place, with the dogs all whimpering and howling and running back and forth. Before I could spot Shag, I called out, ‘Here, boy, here, Shag,’ and Eli whistled for him. Down at the far end, that crazy fool nearly beat his brains out with excitement, and when the guard unlocked his gate, Shag must have scraped half his fur off his sides, pushing through the first inch of space—”

“He was so relieved,” Fee cried, “and so happy.”

“He flew straight for me—my life was at stake, I tell you, and then Eli’s. You saw for yourselves how he can be. I never knew such a maniac of a dog.”

“He was so happy to see you, Papa,” Fee repeated, her eyes suddenly wet again. “He must have loved you so for going after him yourself.”

“He must have,” Alexandra said ardently, not looking at Stefan. “Who could help it?”

T
HE CATALYST THEORY WAS
correct, Ivarin thought, but Fehler astonished him by his gloom over the final spurt of donations for the Berkman Printing Fund.

Apart from the paper’s activity, Berkman’s own group had been holding fund-raising “readings” of the manuscript, and at last a specific day could be announced for the book’s appearance next month, in September. But still Fehler gave no sign of triumph, and Ivarin was puzzled.

He had little time for speculating. Mail from readers had been mounting week by week in volume and intensity, and by August, he was reaching a wider readership than ever before in his whole life as writer and editor. The praise, the disapproval, even the abuse was elixir indeed, whether it was evoked by one of “Evan’s articles” or by one of his last-call pieces on
Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist.
Deeply, in the unknown place where generals know a battle is being won, Stefan Ivarin knew he was crossing new lines in his fight to make the Jewish East Side see what America meant by freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

“Not afraid to print a book of its enemies—what a country!” one letter ended, with fifteen two-cent stamps enclosed for the book fund. The letter was shaky in its writing, misspelled, a little soiled, and somehow more valuable on all three counts. Ivarin underlined the final sentence, and tacked the letter on his bulletin board where people could glance at it as they passed.

Here, too, Fehler surprised him. “And what a relief,” he said sourly, “not to be a post office any longer, for thirty cents’ worth of stamps.”

Ivarin exchanged glances with Abe Kesselbaum and Saul Borg. They were all in his office to see some new formats Abe had developed for Page One, and at Fehler’s words, Ivarin found a sardonic gleam in Abe’s eyes. Behind his thick lenses, he winked at him. To Fehler he only said, “I can’t write my review until they send me Jack London’s preface—they haven’t forgotten, have they?”

“They’ll send it when they’re ready,” Fehler said shortly.

Ivarin went wrathful on the instant. “If you please, you will not take that tone. Next you’ll be telling me I’ve damaged our newsstand sales to help get your damnable book printed.”

Again Fehler surprised him. Conciliatory at once, he said, “I will admit—sometimes I wish you had let it alone, sink or swim. The police may investigate us over the Berkman fund; that could damage us everywhere, not just at newsstands.”

“The police? Is it so?”

“I hear rumors.”

“Let them. It would be a routine nuisance at the worst, a good story at the best.” He sounded gruff, but Fehler’s emotions struck him as delectable. Fehler the Business Manager versus Fehler the Faithful—that was a jousting bout worthy of Ivanhoe.

“Well, the book didn’t sink,” he said, thinking, My review should help do that. He had read the final manuscript a few weeks ago; it was just about what he had foreseen. But Fehler had read it also without perceptible misery. Was the unseen preface the new element contributing to his gloom? Suddenly Ivarin wanted to get hold of it at once, tonight if possible.

“Do you agree, Mr. Ivarin?”

That was Borg, and he came back to the business at hand with all his attention, for Abe Kesselbaum had labored like a miner to dig out these new ideas on format. Passing by the open door, Isaac Landau said, “May I see too?” and joined them. He looked tanned and well, his stomach troubles forgotten under the new regimen set up for him, and for the next half-hour, Ivarin’s office was filled with the impersonal give-and-take of preference and discussion.

But the moment he was alone again, Ivarin returned to the absentee preface. Everybody knew that Berkman and his cohorts had induced the world-famous author of
Call of the Wild
to write a special foreword for the book; they treated it as a
grand coup,
the final guarantee of success. Even if it had been late in getting to them, it must be in proof by now. Were they withholding it from all reviewers, or just from him, whom they had lauded to the skies for his campaign on behalf of free speech and free writing? Fehler would never tell him.

His nerves tightened; soon irritability gave him a headache. When the first press run began, he went down reluctantly to the café for his usual bite and for the ending of a game of chess begun the night before.

His opponent, a neighborhood expert, was a violinist at the Metropolitan Opera, a night owl by necessity for most of the year and by predilection for the rest. He sat at a side table, the board before him, the pieces in tidy rows along its side, and as Stefan appeared he began to set up certain pieces and pawns, consulting the notations he had made when they had finally called a halt after two hours of play.

Lucky man, Stefan had thought then, needing to write them down, instead of seeing them on the chessboard of his brain all night.

Now, approaching the table, he said, “Your move, Feifel. I had moved Queen to Queen’s Bishop Four.”

“Yes, a big attack,” the other said.

The game went slowly. It is abominable, Ivarin thought, that Fehler and his comrades keep me from my final connection with Berkman’s opus. They’ve known all along I would blast it the day it became a duly published book, blast its idiotic “defense” of assassination as a political principle, blast the stupor of its reportage on life in prison.

A child in kindergarten could write the review. But London’s preface might yield something worth a man’s time. London is a socialist, not an anarchist, a man of reason, moderation and talent; whatever he writes is worth a reviewer’s attention.

I’ve become obsessed with this preface, he thought, and the recognition soothed him. He was; he was correct to be. This decision made, Ivarin gave himself completely to the game at last.

From a nearby table an old man rose and came over to watch. He wore a black skullcap, and his shoulders were huddled up, his head lowered between them and his eyes peering, as if he were running a seam in dark cloth by dim light. He was soon engrossed in their game, and when he was joined by another watcher from another table, he whispered proudly, “It’s Ivarin, when he sometimes plays with Capablanca, all Capablanca gives him is pawn and move.”