My Heart Laid Bare Part 8

And then, Harwood arrived home.

They were seated in the cozy firelit dining room at the old oak table, the only table in the world, as Abraham Licht said, at which he felt entirely safe, when suddenly there was a noise outside, at the rear of the house, and a pounding at the door, which Elisha leapt up to open, for the Licht residence was the only residence in Muirkirk in which doors and windows were customarily locked, and, there, looking exhausted, starved-there was Harwood, staggering into the kitchen.

Staring at Father. His wild bloodshot eyes fixed upon Father.

As if no one else was in the room, only Father.

And Father on his feet, shocked by Harwood's appearance; not, at first, moving to him.

Harwood stammered he'd come a G.o.d-d.a.m.ned long distance on foot.

He'd had, he said bitterly, some G.o.d-d.a.m.ned bad luck.

Not his fault. None of it. Thurston was to blame-partly. And Father's "cousin" who'd betrayed him, in Baltimore.

Didn't want to talk about it right now, G.o.d d.a.m.n.

No he wasn't injured.

No not sick.

But tired.

And starved.

G.o.d-d.a.m.ned starved.

Elisha would have helped his brother to the table but Harwood shrugged away from him, began eating while still on his feet, by hand; poured himself ale, which he downed like a thirsty horse, in prodigious quant.i.ties. In stunned silence, the family stared at Harwood. Father was still on his feet, and fumbling to relight his cigar. The younger children weren't certain-at first-that this disheveled man was their brother Harwood, except his voice was Harwood's, and that angry mirthless laugh. His beard had grown out like a porcupine's quills, there was something mashed and furious about his mouth, his left eye was bruised and swollen, he'd sat down at a chair Katrina had provided for him, and was eating, head lowered toward his plate, warmed-up supper which Katrina placed before him, with that look of fearful affection she'd directed toward Harwood since boyhood; as if, of Abraham Licht's progeny, Harwood was the one fated for hurt, both to commit and to suffer. Yet, unlike his brothers, Harwood paid the old woman little heed, and seemed scarcely to know whose hands fed him, so long as he was fed.

Elisha regarded his brother with an expression of disdain: they were not friends, it was enough they must be brothers. Millie made an effort, as it seemed she could not help doing, to charm him-"We were missing you, Harwood. And-here you are."

But Harwood, eating noisily, biting off the heel of a loaf of bread with his strong teeth and was.h.i.+ng it down with a large mouthful of ale, only shrugged.

Still, Millie persisted. For Father's silence unnerved her.

Asking Harwood what news he had of Thurston, and Harwood now glanced up at her, and scowled, saying he hadn't seen Thurston in a long time.

Since March, maybe.

Maybe February.

"Why ask me of Thurston?-I don't know G.o.d-d.a.m.n nothin' of Thurs-ton."

Chewing as he spoke, sarcasm like pulpy food in his mouth.

Millie began to say, hadn't he just now spoken of Thurston?-blaming bad luck on Thurston?-but, seeing the blood-blackened look in her brother's face, shrank back in silence. A pretty fair-haired princess of a girl is no match, even in Muirkirk under Father's watchful eye, for a "roughneck" American youth like Harwood.

Still, Abraham Licht had not spoken.

For he knew. He knew. He knew. Owing to a stupid blunder of the least talented of my sons . . .

Harwood, seeing how everyone watched him, with a bold, fearful look at his father, began to snort with laughter, saying maybe Thurston eloped with his fancy lady, maybe they were on their honeymoon, sailing the high seas to Baby-lon, or Mad-a-gask-kaw, wherever you go on your honeymoon, maybe n.o.body would ever hear of Thurston again: how's it Harwood's fault?

Wheezing-snorting laughter. Suety juice trickling down his chin.

Seeing Father's expression, he fell silent. Fumbled for his fork, which clattered to the floor.

Jesus he was tired suddenly. So tired.

Nearly collapsing as Elisha, quick on his feet, helped him from the table. With a glance at Father, for Elisha and Father are close as Siamese twins it sometimes seems, their brains a single circuit, surely they share identical thoughts, but Father was occupied in lighting his cigar, face like stone. Elisha and Katrina helped Harwood to his room, Harwood's spiky-haired head lolling on his shoulders, knees buckling, half-sobbing he was saying O Jesus O G.o.d so tired, wasn't his fault not his G.o.d-d.a.m.ned fault . . . n.o.body could blame him.

Abraham Licht succeeded in relighting his cigar, and tossed down the match onto the table.

Esther whispered, "That isn't him . . . is it? Who is it?"

THE BOY HAD committed an evil act, yes, but more reprehensibly he'd lied to his father. He'd lied to Abraham Licht.

He hid his distress. That kick of his heart. Murderous rage.

Yet: it could not be rage. For Harwood with all his imperfections was a Licht, unmistakably; flesh, blood and bones; though his elder sons' mother had betrayed Abraham Licht long ago and he would never forgive her, yet Abraham Licht loved them as much as he loved the others. For that is my vow. As I am their father.

So next day when finally Harwood crawled from bed, still unshaven, unbathed, smelling rank as a horse, beset by spasms of nausea, but unable to vomit, Abraham Licht called him into the room at the rear of the house that was Abraham Licht's "rectory"-his office and library, containing stacks of files, and boxes of doc.u.ments and correspondence, and a three-foot safe with a combination dial. Bluntly he asked, "All right. What has happened between you and Thurston?"

Harwood said quickly, with a guilty duck of his head, "What-what d'you mean, Father? Has something happened-?"

"Tell me."

Harwood, groggy from his stuporous sleep, steadied himself against a chair. His greasy hair fell in quills into his face and he brushed them back nervously. His puffy lips twitched in a kind of smile. "Did I say last night I saw Thurston?-because I don't guess I did. It was a mistake if I did. I mean-if I said I did."

"Harwood. I've asked you if something has happened between you and Thurston."

Harwood shook his head like a baffled dog.

"Has something happened to-Thurston?"

"I don't know anything about G.o.d-d.a.m.ned Thurston," Harwood said irritably, "-all I heard is, he's in some kind of trouble. In Atlantic City, at that fancy hotel. Where I didn't get to go 'cause I had to go to G.o.d-d.a.m.ned Baltimore to operate the G.o.d-d.a.m.ned lottery."

"In trouble?" Abraham said sharply. "Thurston? How?"

"I don't know!"

"Tell me."

"Father, I said-"

"Do you imagine, Harwood, you can lie to me? You are my son; you are my creation. Even as a lie forms in your brain, d'you imagine I can't sense it? hear it?"

Harwood stared in terror at Abraham Licht. In the act of wiping his mouth with a beefy forearm he froze, and began to back away as, on his feet now, Abraham Licht advanced. Harwood swayed as if faint, his eyes showing white above the rim. "Look at me, son," Abraham Licht said, calmly. "Tell me what's in your heart."

And now Harwood began to sob, visibly trembling. It was as if his very backbone had become unhinged. Saying in a faltering voice, "-don't know, I never saw him-G.o.d d.a.m.n I was on my way to see him, and he wouldn't let me in-wouldn't lend me money-denied that we were brothers."

Abraham Licht gripped his son's hunched, muscular shoulders to prevent him wrenching away. He said, still calmly, "Tell me."

"Father, I did nothing wrong-it was his fault-"

"What was his fault?"

"-he denied we were brothers, Father!-made me beg for crumbs-"

"Tell me."

Harwood stood mute, his bruised face turned aside in an att.i.tude of shame. An odor lifted from his cringing body that Abraham Licht knew well, of rank animal distress. Even then, though I knew, I could not believe. For we had reaped such a harvest, until then.

It was then that Abraham Licht saw a curious shadowed or indented mark on Harwood's forehead. Forcibly he drew him to a window, the better to examine him in the light. "Harwood, what is this? This mark? Since when have-" Harwood panicked, pus.h.i.+ng away from his father; not daring to flee, but sinking to his knees on the floor; raising his hands in a childlike gesture of piety. His face was puckered; he wept in harsh, heaving sobs; clutched at Abraham's hands, stammering, begging for mercy-"Father, it was Thurston's fault, not mine! Thurston is the murderer, not me! It was Thurston who strangled her."

THE MUTE.

He fled to the north, along the wide bleached sands, past Oyster Creek, and Little Egg Harbor, and Barnegat Bay; he fled to the west, to the trackless wilds of the Pine Barrens, where he might hide for days, years; unwisely (now starving, near-delirious) he fled south, by Batsto, by Makepeace Lake, by Vineland . . . where, at last, on the fourth day following the murder of Mrs. Wallace Peck, he would be run to earth.

And so ign.o.bly, like any common criminal!-tracked down by bloodhounds, pursued by police, shot and wounded, beaten, kicked, manacled, brought back to Atlantic City in triumph.

CHRISTOPHER SCHOENLICHT THE "fiance" of MRS. WALLACE PECK.

CHRISTOPHER SCHOENLICHT the murderer of MRS. WALLACE PECK.

CHRISTOPHER SCHOENLICHT standing mute at his arraignment, nodding just perceptibly when asked if "Christopher Schoenlicht" is his name, shaking his head no, just perceptibly, when asked if he had any accomplice in the heinous crime.

CHRISTOPHER SCHOENLICHT (unrepentant? in a daze of terror and grief? weakened by the gunshot wound in his left shoulder?) standing mute as testimony is given . . . by the little Filipino maid (who had been hiding in a wardrobe in the adjoining room, paralyzed with fear, "For next, I knew, he would have strangled me"), and the manager of the Saint-Leon (who had behaved so very unctuously to Eloise and Christopher in the past), and many another witness, including sweet Mrs. Amos Sellick, who had seemed, at one time, to have been attracted to him . . . .

CHRISTOPHER SCHOENLICHT about whom much official and unofficial speculation soon rages-for who is he? how had he and the wife of Wallace Peck met? where does he come from, why can no county supply a birth certificate, has he no family he wishes to contact?

CHRISTOPHER SCHOENLICHT standing mute, sullen, declining to confess or to deny the charge that he murdered ("by an act of wanton and willful brutality, with robbery as the motive") the unhappy woman, the supremely foolish woman, who had publicly declared herself, only a week before, his "fiancee" . . . declining to enter a plea of Not Guilty and forbidden by law to acquiesce to the charge of Guilty since the plea of Guilty is tantamount to suicide, which cannot be allowed under the New Jersey statute.

CHRISTOPHER SCHOENLICHT, mute, unmoved, doubtless "calloused," "hardened," "defiant," when told that the penalty for his heinous crime is death by hanging.

CHRISTOPHER SCHOENLICHT, mute.

THE GRIEVING FATHER.

For the next eleven months, from the time of Thurston's arrest and arraignment, through the four-day trial, and the long months of his imprisonment, up to the very hour of his "execution" at the State Correctional Facility at Trenton, New Jersey-Abraham Licht was to think of nothing else; no one else.

It was the great challenge (as it threatened to be the great sorrow) of his life.

For Thurston was as dear to him as his own breath, his very heartbeat, and must be freed.

For Thurston, being a gentleman, could not be guilty of the vulgar crime charged against him, and must be freed.

For, guilty or no, he was a Licht, and Abraham's firstborn, and therefore innocent, and must be freed.

WITHIN AN HOUR of his interview with Harwood he left Muirkirk, alone, telling no one where he was going; and was away for several days.

During that time he ascertained these terrible facts: a woman by the name of Eloise Peck had been murdered in Atlantic City; one "Christopher Schoenlicht," her twenty-five-year-old fiance, was suspected of the crime; "Schoenlicht" had already been arrested, booked on charges of murder, arraigned for a trial; he seemed to have no prior record, and nothing was known of his background; he was reported as "uncooperative" with authorities and "clearly guilty" of the heinous crime.

Abraham Licht subsequently made no attempt to see his son in jail (for reasons having to do with his own past record); but, acting swiftly, he contacted a lawyer acquaintance by the name of Gordon Bullock, of Manhattan (a business a.s.sociate from the era of X. X. Anson & Sons Copper, Ltd.); and allowed it to be known in Atlantic City courthouse circles that a generous defense fund had been established for "Christopher Schoenlicht," by way of an anonymous donor.

HE THEN RETURNED at once to Muirkirk, knowing himself, for the first time, a man no longer young.

"DO I DOUBT-I do not. Does my hand shake?-it does not. Am I like other men?-I am not."

Now he must plot strategy, now his son's life depends upon his genius, and his life depends upon his genius; now that all that Abraham Licht is must bear fruit in what he does.

The door to his room is kept locked, the blinds drawn against the s.h.i.+mmering white heat of August. He is able to eat only one meal a day, late in the evening, brought to him by Katrina, who can be trusted to ask no questions; not even to glance, that sharp-eyed old woman, at the newspapers he has spread across his desk. When he questions her (about Millie, Elisha, Darian, Esther, but especially Harwood, who will be leaving again soon) she answers succinctly, without reproach. Have they lived through a terror before, he and she?-the protracted dying of poor Sophie, perhaps?-Abraham Licht's own ill luck with the law, and his subsequent (secret) imprisonment? No matter, no matter, Katrina can be trusted.

"Does my hand shake?-it does not."

Bloodshot eyes confronting their own filmy mirror image, beneath eyebrows grown grizzled and queer; fingers plucking at the beardless chin; lips that have acquired the habit, it seems, of moving of their own accord . . .

How could Thurston have forgotten, a gentleman does not soil his gloves, raise his voice, lift his hand! . . . How could Thurston of all people have committed so vicious a crime! . . . breaking a defenseless woman's neck.

a.s.suming of course that this time Harwood has not lied.

But Harwood would not dare lie, would he, to his father?

THESE HAD BEEN weeks of triumph, coups to be recorded at a later date in My Heart Laid Bare, that readers eat out their paltry hearts in envy and outrage: the adroitly "c.o.ked" Midnight Sun ridden by that most professional of jockeys Parmelee (with whom A. Washburn Frelicht had never once spoken directly); the mysterious poisoning of little Tatlock (by way of an herb of the family Atropa belladonna); the felicitous accident of Xalapa's fall (with which Frelicht had nothing, nothing to do-ah, the poor beast!); the honest winnings, in excess of $400,000, now kept in absolute safety in Abraham Licht's master bedchamber, until such time as investment seems providential. And there was "Mina Raumlicht" in her brilliant debut; and Elisha, proving as clever at the age of twenty as Abraham Licht had been at that age.

And now it seemed that the Wheel was reversing itself, to destroy all that Abraham Licht had forged out of very nothingness.