Star Chamber Brotherhood (7 page)

The woman brightened at this and for a flashing moment Werner imagined seeing her as an enthusiastic, intellectually precocious seventeen-year-old Concord Academy day student.

“Oh, I totally remember Marie,” she responded. “We took English together in tenth grade. I loved listening to her read her stories; she was a really good writer. What is she doing now?”

“I don’t know,” Werner answered point blank. “My wife and my older daughter died in the Saigon flu pandemic during Marie’s last year at CA. I was working out West and we lost contact in all the confusion. It’s possible she emigrated, but she didn’t leave much of a trail. I thought maybe you or some of your classmates might have heard from her.”

Monica shook her head.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Werner, but I haven’t heard from Marie since we graduated.”
 

“Before the Events, Monica, I remember that kids used to stay in touch by computer with Web sites like Facebook and MySpace. Has there been anything to replace that? Or might there be some other way to get in touch with students from those days who knew Marie?”

Monica’s expression darkened.
 

“The days when every six-year-old kid had his own computer, cell phone, and iPod are history, Mr. Werner. And networking with expats would not be a very smart thing to do these days, if you know what I mean.”
 

She looked to either side as if to detect whether anyone had been listening. Suddenly, Werner realized that Monica might be on thin political ice at her old alma mater. She had, after all, been one of those elitist kids who enjoyed a $50,0000-a-year private education. Perhaps her father had been a Moneyman. Such a background might not endear her to the other social organizers struggling to level America’s civil order and build an egalitarian society.

Werner decided to back off in the hope that Monica might retain enough goodwill to contact him in the event she ever came across news about Marie.

He offered her his business card with the title, “Dealer in Fine Foods and Beverages.”

Monica eyed him suspiciously.
 

“You’re not a bootlegger, are you?” she asked in apparent disbelief. “My God, have you really been away that long? Don’t you even know what we teach here at this Center?”

“Apparently not. Look, Miss Cogan, I’m sorry if I…”
 

He decided against finishing the sentence and rose sheepishly from the bench.

But before he turned to leave he was heartened to see Monica slide his card into her trouser pocket.

****

Werner left the commissary heading east across campus toward Concord’s town center. As the day was sunny and warm and he did not need to be back at the Somerset Club until evening, he decided to take an indirect route back to the commuter rail station. He walked along Main Street into town, then past the First Parish Church to Emerson’s house, and finally turned north past the Colonial Inn to the Old Manse and the historic North Bridge.
 

Werner was stunned when he saw that both the First Parish Church and the Emerson house had burned down. It seemed inconceivable that the Concord Fire Department, located only a few hundred meters away, could have allowed this to happen, unless… At the thought of a political motive for the fires his mind ceased racing. It was a horrible thought, but it might be true.
 

While he was at Kamas, the Unionist campaign against religious opposition had escalated to encompass any church that did not unconditionally endorse the Unionist Party’s platform. Opponents and fence-sitters, including some Christian and Jewish denominations toward the liberal end of the political spectrum, received threats of prosecution, tax audits, utility cutoffs, bank account freezes, broken windows, and angry demonstrations by Unionist rent-a-mobs. Torching a few churches to intimidate the others would have been fully consistent with Unionist tactics of the day.

In Werner’s view, the destruction of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s residence, if it had indeed been by arson, seemed even more egregious than burning Concord’s historic church. For the fight between a government and a church was a dispute between living people. Tit-for-tat and overreaching often led to tragedy in such fights. But the dead Emerson led no political party or congregation. What was left of him lived only as ideas. To destroy his monument smacked of an attempt to destroy his memory and stamp out his concepts of freedom, individual dignity, and nonconformism.
 

With a troubled heart, Werner walked north toward Monument Street. The Colonial Inn, built in the early eighteenth century and operated as a hotel for more than a hundred years, lay vacant, its windows and doors covered by warped sheets of particleboard. The new sign in front declared that the building was under renovation and would soon reopen as a public housing unit operated by the Massachusetts Department of Housing. The projected opening date had come and gone years ago.

When Werner reached the Old Manse he was not surprised to see it boarded up, too. On the positive side, its lawn was freshly mowed and its garden, though unruly, showed signs of recent tending. Werner was pleased that the spirit of Emerson would be allowed to haunt at least one of his former residences, perhaps in company with Hawthorne, another Old Manse resident, or Thoreau, who had planted the property’s first garden.

Werner’s greatest shock and distress came, however, when he reached the North Bridge, where on April 19, 1775, colonial Minutemen had fired on British redcoats and pursued them all the way back to Boston, and scored the colonials’ first victory of the American revolution. What once had been part of Minuteman National Historical Park, now belonged to the Lexington-Concord National Forest, according to the only sign Werner could find. None of the wooden signs or engraved brass plaques marking the battle remained. It was as if nothing of importance had ever occurred near this quaint bridge over the Concord River. If the Unionists intended to rewrite American history, they had known exactly where to begin.

Werner returned to Monument Street and started back toward town. Upon reaching the Old Manse again he noticed a handsome middle-aged man dressed in blue jeans and a flannel shirt digging in a flowerbed not far from the sidewalk. As he approached he thought the man had a familiar look. Since the most likely connection would be the Academy, Werner asked him if he had been associated with the school as a parent or a teacher.
 

“Both,” the man replied with a warm smile, introducing himself as Parker Motley.
 

A few minutes later Werner discovered that both Marie and Justine had taken English courses from Motley. In response to Werner’s many questions, Motley described in detail the final days of Concord Academy and its principal actors, while Werner reciprocated by offering a brief and rather vague account of his work in the West. Werner also disclosed that his wife and daughter Justine had died of the Saigon Flu and that he and Marie had become separated when he was sent West. To Werner’s disappointment, Motley had not heard of Marie since she left Concord years earlier.

“How odd that we should meet just now,” Werner mused. “Barely an hour ago I spoke to another young woman from Marie’s class. She and Marie took English together in tenth grade; perhaps they were your students. Does Monica Cogan ring a bell?”

“Yes, I think I may have taught her,” Motley replied.
 

Werner noted a sudden coolness in Motley’s voice and wondered whether he knew something about Monica he was unwilling to share. He decided to change the subject and asked Motley how he might reach other students who could provide leads to Marie.

“Is there still an alumni association somewhere, or a CA historical society, or some other vestige that serves as a gathering place for people associated with the old Academy?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Motley replied. “I’m sure that the alumni records and many of the Academy’s historical archives still exist in private hands somewhere but, to my knowledge, there is no public access.”

“Why the secrecy?” Werner persisted. “CA was always such a tightly knit community. I can’t believe all those people would suddenly go incognito.”

“How long have you been away? Four years? Five? Didn’t they have a Moneymen Purge where you were?”

Werner knew the term, but hadn’t run across many of the purged Moneymen in the camps. Either their numbers were few or they hid themselves well or they never reached the camps in the first place.

“Maybe out west where you were, the Moneymen Purge didn’t leave much of an impression,” Motley explained. “But in banking centers, like Boston, it devastated the financial sector top to bottom. I remember it well because the press picked up the Moneymen mantra shortly after the President-for-Life announced his plan to eradicate private education.”

“Please go on,” Werner encouraged him, noticing Motley’s hesitation.
 

“While the Academy was coping with being forced out of business, many of our board members and parents were being arrested and hauled before grand juries, Congressional committees, and every kind of commission that the politicians could conjure up. Graduates of Ivy League universities and elite New England private schools were singled out for special persecution. To stand up and declare yourself a graduate of an Ivy League college or a New England prep school was like declaring yourself a member of the Nazi Party or the Ku Klux Klan a couple of generations ago.”

Motley’s discomfort was palpable.

“I see what you mean,” Werner replied quietly while he thought of a way to change the subject. “I guess a lot happened while I was away.”

He spotted the garden and spoke again.

“You’re doing a bang-up job with that flower bed,” he told Motley. “How is it that you’re out here gardening on a weekday afternoon? What does an English teacher do for a living without a school?”

“The same thing I did before, except now I’m a tutor. I teach in my students’ homes. It’s against the law to operate a private school, so we keep the classes down to six or fewer to keep it legal. And I love it. No faculty meetings, no administration, just pure teaching. It’s exactly what Emerson did when he was fresh out of Harvard.”

“Do they still let you teach about Emerson?” Werner probed. “I heard somewhere that his books were banned.”
 

“They’re not banned in Concord. He’s our native son and this is the home of self-reliance and civil disobedience. They can burn his house down but Emerson’s memory is alive and well. Well, maybe not in the public schools yet, but one day they’ll catch up.”

“Are many former CA faculty doing what you’re doing?” Werner inquired. “Without faculty housing, I would think many would find it hard to make ends meet.”

“Heavens, no,” Motley replied. “Very few CA teachers could afford to stay. Concord is still a very expensive town. It’s still highly gentrified, though less than before the Events. Our family was able to stay afloat only because I did some screenwriting early in my career and didn’t have to rely exclusively on my teaching income. We bought a small farm about a mile out on Monument Street and went into organic gardening as a hobby because we thought it would be good to teach the kids. Little did we know then that we’d need those vegetables and apples and eggs one day to avoid going hungry.”

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Werner asked, returning to his initial question about gardening, “why are you tending the garden here if you garden professionally at home?”

“It’s a long story, but it’s mainly because I’m on a committee to protect the Old Manse. After Emerson’s house and the First Parish Church and Orchard House burned in suspicious fires, a few of us decided to keep watch over the Old Manse so that there would be honest witnesses if it happened again. The Unionists may remove all the signs and fence it off and even torch it, but we’ll bear witness to whatever happens. They can’t be allowed to erase the memory of who lived here or the ideas that Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, and the Alcotts gave the world from this special place.”

Werner looked at his watch. It was much later than he had planned to stay.
 

“Say, it’s been great seeing you again, Parker,” he remarked, reaching out to shake Motley’s hand. “How would I find you if I wanted to get in touch.”

“We’re about a mile further down the road, right past the apple orchard.”

“Say, have you ever thought of doing some distilling with your surplus apples?” Werner asked as an afterthought. “There might be a good market for local applejack if some skill went into it.”

Motley chuckled.
 

“It’s occurred to me more than once, Frank, but I think the project may have to wait. At the moment, we’re still testing the authorities’ reaction to our hard cider.”

“Well, if you ever decide to go forward with it, let me know. Here, I’ll give you my business card. I might be able to help you find a market. Anyway, it was a pleasure to see you, Parker, and I hope we cross paths again.”

Chapter 5

Friday, April 13, 2029
Concord, Massachusetts

For the second consecutive day, Werner sipped coffee as he watched cars enter the parking garage behind the offices of the Federal Emergency Management Agency at 99 High Street. On the previous day, he had surveyed the building on foot and taken up a position just after eight o’clock outside the front entrance on High Street. From there he watched people enter the building for fifteen minutes before concluding that Regional Administrator Fred Rocco was far more likely to enter the building by car than he was to walk in the front door. He moved to the sandwich shop next to the rear entrance of the underground garage for another cup of coffee. But after a few minutes on a stool at the window, he realized that it was far too exposed a place for him to use often without being noticed.