Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow [59]
The party went on into the early hours. Younger Brother despaired of getting her attention. He sat, Indian style, on an old couch with sagging springs. After some time he realized the room was quiet. He looked up. Goldman was sitting on a kitchen chair directly in front of him. The room was otherwise empty, he was the last guest. Unaccountably, tears came to his eyes. You actually asked if I remembered you, Emma Goldman said. But how could I forget. Could anyone forget a sight such as that, my pagan. She touched his cheek with her thumb and mashed away a tear. So tragic, so tragic. She sighed. Is that all you want from your life? Her large magnified eyes peered at him through the lenses of her eyeglasses. She sat with her legs apart, her hands on her knees. I don’t know where she is. But if I could tell you, what good would that do? Suppose you got her to come back to you? She would only stay awhile. She would run away from you again, don’t you know that? He nodded. You look terrible, Goldman said. What have you been doing to yourself? Don’t you eat? Don’t you get any fresh air? He shook his head. You have aged ten years. I cannot sympathize. You think you are special, losing your lover. It happens every day. Suppose she consented to live with you after all. You’re a bourgeois, you would want to marry her. You would destroy each other inside of a year. You would see her begin to turn old and bored under your very eyes. You would sit across the dinner table from each other in bondage, in terrible bondage to what you thought was love. The both of you. Believe me you are better off this way. Younger Brother was crying. You’re right, he said, of course you’re right. He kissed her hand. She had a small hand but the fingers were swollen and the skin was red and the knuckles were enlarged. I have no memories of her, he sobbed. It was something I dreamed. Goldman was unappeased. This way you can feel sorry for yourself, she said. And what a delicious emotion that is. I’ll tell you something. In this room tonight you saw my present lover but also two of my former lovers. We are all good friends. Friendship is what endures. Shared ideals, respect for the whole character of a human being. Why can’t you accept your own freedom? Why do you have to cling to someone in order to live?
He bowed his head as she talked. He stared at the floor. He felt her fingers under his chin. His head was lifted, tilted up. He found himself staring into the faces of Goldman and Reitman. From Reitman’s scatterbrained smile a gold tooth gleamed. They peered at him, curious and interested. Goldman said He reminds me of Czolgosz. Reitman said He is educated, a bourgeois. But the same poor boy in the eyes, Goldman said. The same poor dangerous boy. Younger Brother saw himself standing in line to shake the hand of William McKinley. A handkerchief was wrapped around his hand. In the handkerchief was a gun. McKinley fell back. Blood dyed his vest. There were screams.
When he left she hugged him at the door. Her lips, surprisingly soft, pressed his cheek. He was overcome. He stepped back. The literature under his arm fell to the floor. There was laughter between them as they crouched in the doorway and gathered it up.
But an hour later he stood between the cars on the milk train going up to New Rochelle. He considered throwing himself under the wheels. He listened to their rhythm, their steady clacking, like the left hand of a rag. The screeching and pounding of metal on metal where the two cars joined was the syncopating right hand. It was a suicide rag. He held the door handles on either side of him listening to the music. The cars jumped under his feet. The moon raced with the train. He held his face up to the sky between the cars, as if even moonlight could warm him.
23
One Sunday afternoon