Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [110]
The Navy and its institutions were on the mend from a long decline that followed the Civil War. The Academy itself had become an orphan, lollygagging for appropriations and direction. Changes were in the wind with the Navy’s transition from sail to steam, from primitive ironclads to steel battle wagons, from the old-salt sailors to sophisticated engineers and gunners. Under the direction of the previous superintendent, a legendary admiral, the Academy found its fortunes making a dramatic turnabout as he directed it toward becoming a first-class university.
The city of Annapolis nestled sweetly on the shores of the Severn River, near where it flowed into the mighty Chesapeake Bay. It was a place of many prerevolutionary buildings, of charm and quaintness, a pastoral setting to make its landfall, easy to abide in.
Moses Balaban found a small cottage a few minutes’ walk from the campus and hired a negress mammy to take care of his boys and the home. Indeed, life had taken a turn for the better, and this was reflected in a change of the man’s disposition. He was the house Jew, an oddity, but under the protection of the commodore. Moses was treated, not as a mysterious menace, but as a man with direct bloodlines to the Bible and therefore to be respected. He relished the status and now dressed snappily in one of his three handsome suits and tapped his cane and doffed his derby as he strolled, chatting it up with midshipman, officer, and civilian alike.
There were a few dozen Jewish families in Annapolis, mostly merchant families, but they were Reformed in their religious practice and were more Americanized than Jewish. He would have no truck with them whatsoever. In Ireland, he had felt little inclination to associate with his neighbors. It was the same in Annapolis, only better. The only place of worship was a tiny chapel on campus for the Jewish midshipmen, who rarely numbered more than one or two in a class. This didn’t bother Moses, either. He was used to praying alone in a room.
Fifteen months after his appointment and six months after Moses’ arrival, Commodore Percy Poindexter Holifield died peacefully in his sleep of a heart attack, after a raging session with the bureaucracy.
Moses prayed as he had never prayed before, as the new superintendent arrived on the scene. His prayers were not answered. Rear Admiral Adam Harper didn’t particularly like Jews. However, he was a reasonable sort and offered Balaban what seemed a palatable demotion, at first.
Among the raft of new changes instituted was the manner in which uniforms were to be made, particularly those of the midshipmen. Previously they had been hand-tailored. Harper brought in a new-era tailor, who manufactured clothing on an assembly line, using mass-production methods. This was galling to Moses Balaban. Henceforth Moses was to supply only a variety of sizes of pants and vests and had to become a government employee, as well, on a fixed and meager salary. After a few months of this, he decided to resign.
But not foolishly.
Moses had been the epitome of frugality for over a decade in Ireland, stashing away a small but tidy sum of money. He traveled an hour and twelve minutes by train to Baltimore, which held a Jewish population numbering in the tens of thousands, and through the various agencies there made inquiries.
In a matter of weeks he heard of a tailoring business for sale in Havre de Grace, a town to the northeast of Baltimore. He went to see it.
Havre de Grace, 1889–1901
HAVRE DE GRACE, like Annapolis, sat on a river that flowed into Chesapeake Bay. By contrast, though, the Susquehanna River was a large body of water that ran deep into Pennsylvania and was partway navigable to commerce. The town had connections to the outside by both rail and ferry. There was a thriving canning industry for the farm produce from the Eastern Shore, a racetrack,