The teacher smiled. “Boys and girls, let me introduce Caleb’s mother, Ms. Marion Andrews, who is a magistrate here in Chicago and also a member of the National Advisory Committee that helps our president and Congress make important decisions.”
Even without the glowing introduction, the children would have known that this was someone special by her elegant bearing and clothing. She didn’t dress like any of their mothers. Her black silk suit had been made especially for her in Paris, where most of the great fashion designers still flourished. Now, though, their chief customers were the wives of Communist party officials around the world, instead of the wives of corporate moguls and oil princes.
“Thank you, Miss Chavez,” Marion said. “But most important, I’m Caleb’s mom,” she said, smiling. “May I steal him for a moment?”
She led the boy out to the corridor and knelt to his height to face him. Caleb wore dark pants, a white shirt, and the red armband of the Young Lincoln Brigade. He was a blond, blue-eyed child, seemingly intelligent, and eager to please. la the wholesome, open face he presented to his mother was mingled a child’s quiet concern and ultimate trust in his mother’s power to make whatever it was that had made her pull him out of class all right again.
“Darling, there’s nothing wrong,” Marion began. “But you know how we’ve talked about your father maybe someday trying to see you?”
“But he’s in the hospital,” Caleb said, his face now clouded with apprehension.
“Well, honey, he’s out now, but he’s not supposed to come anywhere near us. But just in case, I wanted to warn you and your brother not to speak to any strangers, whether you think you recognize them or not, okay?” Caleb nodded silently. “There’ll be a policeman to pick you up after school today and take you home, because I won’t be here.”
“Where axe you going?” the boy demanded.
“lb an important dinner in Omaha with Colonel Denisov. I’ll be back late tonight and I’ll come in and check on you then. Mis. Marin will get your dinner and stay until I get back. Just remember what I said about strangers, okay?”
“Sure,” he said uneasily.
“Okay, back to class.” Caleb started back into the classroom, but then he hesitated and abruptly turned around and rushed into his mother’s arms. “Love you, babe,” Marion assured him.
“Me too, Mom.”
A short limousine ride later, Marion Andrews delivered the same warning to her firstborn, Billy, a freshman at Chicago’s most prestigious private high school. But the older boy’s reaction to the news was dramatically different. Caleb, the baby, barely remembered his hither; Billy remembered Mm vividly as a gentle and affectionate man who had played catch with him, carried him on his shoulders, and spoken to him with a seriousness and respect that adults too seldom show to children. A fiercely independent boy, Billy had remained stubbornly loyal to his banished and disgraced father. He’d refused to adopt his mother’s maiden name of Andrews, used as a smoke screen for the family’s shame. Billy was proud to be a Milford and it was the only name he answered to.
“Where is he?” Billy demanded.
“I don’t know. It’s hard to get reliable information from that far.”
“You’re a big shot. You should be able to find out.”
Marion sighed. “I’m not going to argue what I should or should not be able to do. I’m telling you that an officer will pick you up after school and be at the apartment.”
“I don’t want some prole hanging around, watching me.”
“I told you not to use that word. It may be in among ninth-graders, but you don’t even know what it means.”
Billy stared at the ground. “Whatever…”
Marion straightened Billy’s sweater. “The officer will pick up your brother first, then come and get you. I’ll be back late—so don’t wait up.” She leaned forward and kissed him and started to walk away.
“Mom?”
She tamed around, her designer cape moving elegantly around her. “Yes?”
“Do you think he’s all right? I mean, in those hospitals they do stuff like shock treatments and lobotomies.”
She studied him a moment, not quite sure of what she should say. “I’m sure he’s fine. Otherwise they wouldn’t let him out.”
“He was real smart, wasn’t he?”
“Yes. Yes he was. Okay, honey, I’ve got to go.”
“I want to see him. They have to let us see him, don’t they?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. He could be”—she hesitated for a moment—“it could be bad for us.”
“I want to see my dad.”
“We’re not going to discuss it right now. We’ll discuss it when I get back. Okay?”
The truck rattled to a halt at the Odessa Relocation Center. Devin and the others from Fort Davis were put into a huge cinderblock compound surrounded by an electrified fence, to await processing. There were perhaps two hundred prisoners waiting there. Outside the fence scores of men and women were calling out names, searching for loved ones or just reasons to keep going.
“My husband,” a woman called, “Clarence Babcock… disappeared three years ago… has anyone seen…?”
A dozen voices called, scores of hands waved photographs of loved ones. They had traveled from the east, or from cities like Atlanta, New Orleans, and Houston, where pockets of political rebellion still existed. Many of them had seen a loved one simply vanish, and now, when they could, they traveled to remote relocation centers like this one, seeking some shred of hope. They set out in ancient Chevrolets and Mustangs, and sometimes they abandoned the cars en route because they were unable to get fuel. Weeds grew crazily along the little-traveled roads, burying the vehicles under vines and rushes. The seekers continued on foot, wearing through the soles of torn-up running shoes or old loafers meant for short strolls on urban sidewalks, not for five-hundred-mile treks through landscapes grown threatening and inhospitable.
There were thousands missing, tens of thousands. Devin half listened for the occasional instructions over the PA system. Stay with your own group. You’ll be processed by camp. No talking… move along.
He did not mind the waiting. Prison had taught him to take the long view. This was a bureaucracy and bureaucracies were not evil, only slow and inane. Evil took other forms. Sometimes it was guards who came in the night to take you to small rooms where they attached electrical devices sometimes to your temples, sometimes to your private parts; sometimes, it was doctors who watched without expression until it was time for them to give you the drugs that were worse than the shocks. That was evil; compared to it, waiting in line was a taste of paradise.
Devin walked toward the edge of the fence and looked out toward the town, which from his vantage point looked almost deserted. His eyes scanned the dusty town square and the drab, unpainted buildings. The air smelled of concrete dust. As lifeless as it all appeared to him, it seemed a glorious glimpse of freedom.
A man’s voice jarred him from his reverie.
“First time I was in Midland-Odessa I was eighteen years old—stopover from Phoenix to Houston. You flew over oil fields for twenty minutes. Lot of money here.”
Devin turned around. The man was fiftyish and overweight. He continued to talk.
“Kind of like going home—sure looks like it’s changed.”
Devin nodded, not wanting to carry this any further. “Just get in with that Fort Davis group?”
Devin nodded again.
“You hear anything? About the country, I mean, like what’s happening?”