The Body In The Big Apple (9 page)

“Yes, yes, I would. I don't have to be home yet.”

They walked quickly, without speaking. The snow had stopped, leaving a thin, crusty layer on the ice that had built up at the curbs and around the traffic lights. It was grimy; the soot on the top looked like a sprinkling of black pepper. The cold wind brought tears to Faith's eyes and stung her cheeks. The woman didn't have to be home yet, but she did have to be home sometime. A husband? Kids? She'd find out soon.

The coffee shop was tropical in comparison to the weather outside, and Faith led the way to a booth at the rear, far from the opening door. The windows were outlined with colored lights and garlands proclaiming
MERRY CHRISTMAS
and
HAPPY HANUKKAH
, and
HAPPY NEW YEAR
had been looped uncertainly behind the counter. A plastic poinsettia stood next to the cash register. Each table sported spiky evergreens, with smaller versions of the poinsettia shoved in the glass vases normally reserved for limpid carnations. But the attempt managed to impart the same air of holiday festivity that was filling every corner of the city with a vengeance as the countdown to Christmas continued.

After sitting for a moment, contemplating the decor and thinking how best to begin the conversation, Faith realized it was one of those places where you ordered at the counter and served yourself.

“Come on, let's get some coffee right away and order.”

It wasn't long before they were settled in. The woman—Faith realized she didn't know her name—had ordered pastrami—clearly not a maven. Coffee shops were not the place for pastrami. Katz's was, the Carnegie Deli was.

Faith took a sip of coffee, enjoying the feeling of the
hot liquid traveling down her throat, past her rib cage, restoring her circulation. She held the paper cup in both hands for warmth—a blue-and-white cup with Aegean decorations, Greek keys on top and bottom. “We're Happy to Serve You.” All New York coffee shop paper cups looked like this. How did it start? A supplier in Athens?

“Sad that the only ones left are his cousins,” Faith commented. It was an opener.

The woman nodded vigorously and put her thick sandwich down. Under her parka—the button had urged people to continue to boycott lettuce—she'd partially covered the turtleneck with a loopy beige crocheted vest. She tossed her braid, almost long enough to sit on, back over her shoulder and started talking intently.

“When he was in college, first his mother died, then his father. Sophomore year. The year we met. He took it very hard, and later he used to say how much he regretted they never knew what a famous son they had. ‘Lorraine,' he'd say—oh, I'm sorry. I haven't introduced myself, Karen.” She looked genuinely stricken.

Faith instantly quelled the impulse to look over her shoulder for “Karen” and instead said, “It was pretty cold outside, not the place for introductions.”

The woman smiled. She'd taken her glasses off, which had steamed up when they entered the restaurant, and was wiping them with a tissue. She must have been, if not beautiful, at least pretty when she was younger. Even now with a good haircut, losing the gray, a little makeup, new clothes…It would be a big job.

“I'm Lorraine Fuchs.”

“Fuchs?” Faith was surprised.

Lorraine blushed. She was a lot better-looking with some color in her face.

“‘The wife of his heart.' That's what he always said. Of course, we never believed in the bourgeois institution of marriage, created solely by men to ensure that property would be transferred to a legitimate male heir and to further subjugate and humiliate women.”

This is going to be heavy going, Faith realized dismally. But “wife of his heart”—that was sweet.

“I'm so pleased that someone, especially a woman, is writing an account of Nathan's life, and I'm happy to help in any way I can. I've been with him since the day we met.”

“You mean you went underground with him?”

“Of course. He needed me. Maybe I'd better start from the beginning.”

“That would be wonderful. You're the only person I've interviewed so far, and it certainly seems you've been the closest.”

Again, it was the right thing to say. Obviously, Nathan Fox was Lorraine Fuchs's entire reason for being—or so Faith thought.

“We met at City College. He was in my poly sci class and knew more than the professor. They were always having these big fights.” She sighed blissfully. “Nathan started to offer his own course. He was living in a tiny apartment on Morton Street. The rest is history. We became his cadre. I don't know why people always say the fifties were dull. Believe me, there was never a dull moment for us!”

“So you all stayed together as a social-action group?”

“Yes. For a while, we were in the Socialist Workers party, but that didn't work out. Nathan felt the party
wasn't sufficiently committed to the working class. We formed a faction and published a paper, but eventually we left. Then Nathan wrote the first book and started giving talks all over the country. He was one of the first to speak out against the war in Vietnam,” she related proudly. “You've probably seen him in the documentaries. There was no one who had as powerful an effect on a crowd as Nathan.”

Faith hadn't seen Fox in action, but she planned to soon. She'd heard about his charisma, though. The peculiarly mesmerizing, yet galvanizing, effect he'd had on great masses of people.

“Of course, my parents disapproved terribly. I'm an only child,” she said apologetically, as if her mother and father's failure to produce a sibling were somehow her fault. “They thought Nathan was using me. That's what my father used to say. They didn't understand that even without Nathan, I would have chosen the life I led.” She began to eat her potato chips, one at a time. She had long, slender fingers unadorned by any rings.

“They never cut me off. They weren't like that, and my mother always made a nice meal for us when we'd visit, but Nathan said it made him uncomfortable to be there, even if the pot roast was good. He always had his little jokes. He told them their phone was probably tapped and to be careful. My father was pretty upset at that. It was the last time Nathan went with me to the house. Harvey was a baby, so it would have been around 1964.”

“Harvey?”

“Harvey's my son.”

Faith swallowed hard. A piece of her pita pocket lodged in her throat and she reached for her coffee. Not only did Emma have two—what would Irwin and Mar
sha be, first cousins once removed? Second cousins? It was one of those things she'd never been able to keep straight—but a half brother around her own age!

“So, Arthur Quinn was wrong.” And where was Harvey? Why hadn't he been at his father's service?

“Harvey isn't Nathan's child, although Nathan was the only father figure he ever knew. Nathan worried that any child of his would be persecuted by the police, the foot soldiers of the ruling class. We made a decision not to have any children. I'm not proud of what I'm going to tell you next, but things happen in life.”

And how, Faith thought.

“I left Nathan briefly at one point. I needed to get my head together. He'd become very well known. The first book had been published and he was traveling in pretty high circles. I felt excluded and wrongly assumed it meant he didn't love me. He tried to reason with me, and deep inside I knew I was the only woman for him. My jealousy was an indication of my own weakness and lack of commitment to our goals. But I went out to California for a while and lived in a collective in San Francisco. Somehow, I got pregnant.”

Somehow? Surely Lorraine wasn't that naïve, although Faith had quickly realized that Naïveté could be Lorraine's middle name.

“It was very difficult to get a safe abortion in those days—women had not won the right to choose, a right imperiled now. But thank goodness I didn't. Then I wouldn't have my Harvey. I'd have nobody now.”

“What does your son do?”

“At the moment, he's seeking employment.” Lorraine managed to sound proud. “He's an expert mechanic, so good that many of the employees and even the bosses where he's worked get envious of his skills.”

Mouths off and gets fired was Faith's hasty analysis. She was beginning to feel very, very sorry for Lorraine Fuchs.

“We live in Brooklyn. My mother passed away recently and my father has been gone for some years now. I inherited the house. I know I'll eventually have to sell it and give the money away, but it's been wonderful having our own place. We've moved so often. I grew up there,” she added wistfully. “And it's good for Harvey to have a real home. I mean to come to. He's got an apartment with some friends. They grow up so fast.”

Before Lorraine could go off on a Harvey and motherhood tangent, Faith slipped in a question.

“Had you been living with Nathan Fox in the city?” It would have been cramped in the studio apartment with the three of them.

“No, he was working on a very important book and wanted to be completely alone. Of course, I knew where he was. He got sick once and called me to take care of him, which I was only too happy to do, but that was just one of two times I was ever there. The second was the day before he died. When he said good-bye, how could I have known it would be forever? You'll have to excuse me.” Tears were streaming down her face. She took off her glasses and wiped her eyes with another tissue.

“I'm so sorry,” Faith said.

“Well, that's life, isn't it? Anyway, he didn't have a phone, but he'd call once in a while. We were going to move back together when the book was finished. In any case, it would have been hard to live together when he decided to move to the city, because I was taking care of my mother. I guess I secretly hoped he'd move
to the house after she died, but people would have known who he was. The neighbors are…well, they like to keep track of what's going on. So he stayed where he was and I stayed where I was.”

Lorraine, clinging to Fox as they got older, would have had to play by his rules—always his rules.

“And Harvey? Were they close?”

“Well, not to say close, but Nathan was a very accepting man. That was what was so special about him. He didn't judge. When Harvey was a little boy, Nathan explained to me that it wasn't a good idea for the child to get attached to someone who might have to disappear, and there were long stretches when Nathan was in a safe house that only had room for him. I've always been able to find secretarial work and supported us that way.”

Us being Harvey and Lorraine, or all three of them? Faith wondered. Probably both at different times.

Time! She didn't have time for this—unfortunately. There was much more to be learned from Lorraine. And she now had two more people who knew where Fox lived. Faith had no doubt that whatever Lorraine knew, her son knew—if he wanted to, and she'd have to meet him to judge that. Had Lorraine seen the Stansteads' wedding picture when she went to care for Fox, seen the postcards on the fridge? Somehow, Faith thought not. Fox would have tucked them out of sight. But still the question remained. Did Lorraine Fuchs know about Emma?

And what about the bank job?

“Were you involved when they tried to rob Chase Manhattan?”

“No, I'd been away for a few weeks helping my mother sell my grandmother's house. She'd died a
month earlier and there was a lot to do to get it ready to put on the market. It was in New Jersey, out in the country near the Delaware Water Gap. It would have been a nice place for Harvey. He loved it there.” Lorraine sounded wistful. It had probably been one of the happiest times in her life, and Faith imagined the two women going through drawers, closets, boxes in an attic, reliving old memories while the little boy played outside in the sunshine. But it was time to get back to business.

“When did you find out about the robbery?”

“Right away. I had called Nathan the night before and told him I'd be back the next day, but I still had to help my mother unpack the things she'd decided to keep. I couldn't just leave her, no matter how much I missed Nate. She gave me a beautiful set of dishes—Nippon—that had been my grandmother's. Nate, Harvey, and I were living in a tiny apartment in the Village then, and I thought I'd just bring a few plates. They're still in a box. I really should get them out and use them at last. But anyway, about that night. Nathan knew where I was, of course, and showed up there. He tapped on the kitchen window when he saw I was alone.” Obviously another blissful memory. “He was really annoyed with himself for making such a mess of it. Two were arrested right away, but Nate and the driver of the car got away. He would never tell me who the driver was, but I have my guesses. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I hadn't gone away. I would have been there, too, and things would have been a lot harder. About keeping Nathan safe, I mean. The authorities weren't looking for me. I mean they were, but not like with Nathan. I changed my name to Linda Fuchs and called my parents only once
a year for a long time. That part was hard. But things got better after a while. I think the FBI had better, or worse, things to do.”

Fox had found the perfect helpmate. She didn't even seem to be much of a worrier, yet she was obviously intelligent. Faith wished she had more time to talk. She wanted to find out about the other men involved in the robbery attempt. Close comrades. Did they know about Nathan's personal life? Where were they now, and were they in need of cash?

She grabbed the bill, over Lorraine's protests that going Dutch was only fair. “You've been such a help, so please let me get this. I'm sorry I can't stay longer, but I have to go. I have to be at work. Maybe we could arrange a time to meet again?”

Lorraine was clearly delighted at the prospect. “Why don't you come to the house and look at my scrapbooks? I've kept every news article, every review over the years.”