The wall behind Berry was decorated with posters from the Wild West. A desperado-outlaw theme halfheartedly accomplished with Jesse James and Billy the Kid wanted posters. Caroline noticed a black-and-white poster that said “FBI Most Wanted” over a large picture of the Weather Underground siren Bernardine Dohrn. She was in a leather miniskirt and knee-high boots. It showed her fingerprints and vital stats just like a real FBI poster, but surely doctored to feature an alluring body shot of Dohrn instead of a mug shot. Caroline had seen the body shot before, of course, it was one of the reasons some women distrusted Dohrn, the way she seemed to play into the porno of outlaw chick with great legs. But she did look great, didn’t she? But Caroline was not thinking long about Dohrn because she soon noticed other, smaller FBI wanted posters. These were not altered but actual tear sheets, like at the post office. Some were covered over partially and hard to read. At Bernardine’s left toe she could see a poster of another woman fugitive, whom Caroline took several breathless seconds to realize was her, Mary Whittaker, a.k.a. Freya. It was, after all, her high school photograph, a photo five years old and not a picture she particularly cared for. But it looked remarkably like her. Anyone who saw it, particularly with her sitting right beside it or under it, would easily recognize her. Naturally no one was actually looking at the wall except Caroline, who felt her mouth slowly fall open.
“What is it?” Berry said.
Caroline shook her head and forced herself to turn her gaze back to Berry at the table. “Nothing.”
Berry glanced over her shoulder at the wall behind her and then back at Caroline. “What?”
“I don’t feel very good.” A completely true statement.
“You don’t?”
“Let’s leave.”
“Why?”
“Can we just go and get a motel or something? Can we just get out of here?” she said.
“What about the Allman Brothers over there?”
“Forget them. C’mon.”
They got a room in a small, clean motel with prints of the Erie Canal on the wall. Berry flipped on the TV. Caroline went to the bathroom and closed the door. She splashed water on her face. She let the water run and took several deep breaths, staring in the mirror. She looked like herself, no question about it. Everyone could see it, would see it, the whole town, the whole world. But would anyone notice her picture, so upstaged by dangerous Dohrn’s eye-enchanting legs?
They put the brown quilted bedspread on the floor in front of the TV. They sat cross-legged on it and smoked a joint. Caroline could feel her body slowly relax into the night. They watched Johnny Carson and then the late movie. They ate M&M’s candies one after the other and chased them with bottles of beer. And they talked to each other, or Berry talked and Caroline listened. Berry told her she didn’t want to spend the winter at the commune.
“Where do you want to go?” Caroline asked.
“You mean where do we want to go. I’m taking you with me.”
Caroline smiled and let Berry stroke her hair. She loved Berry, she did. She cared for her, she trusted her. And then Caroline made her mistake, or walked into it, or let it happen:
“What happened in the bar? Why did you look so upset? Were you thinking about Bobby?”
“Sort of.”
Berry looked at her, waiting. Sometimes you are expected to give something to people. It is hard to resist. Sometimes you might even trust people.
“Look, I haven’t been completely honest with you about my past. I want to be honest with you. I trust you. But what I tell you has to be a secret forever,” Caroline heard herself say. She sounded stern, even harsh.
Berry sat up, intent. “What! What is it?” she said.
“This is really serious.”
“I will never tell, I swear. I know what it is, though—”
“Listen—”
“You’re Bernardine Dohrn.” Berry laughed.
Caroline shook her head and looked at her hands. Later she would recall this moment and consider what had transpired. Everyone will swear never to tell and mean it. No one can resist, or very few people can resist, the chance to learn a secret. The question was, did Caroline, in her need to tell someone, think to explain to Berry what would potentially be at stake for Berry if she kept Caroline’s secret? Caroline didn’t think enough about it then, but she often thought about it later, after it was too late.
Caroline told her, Berry heard her.
That night Berry bathed Caroline in the warmth of acceptance and intimacy. Even, perhaps, admiration. But as Caroline tried to fall asleep, the relief of confidence faded. The fear set in. A person who knew your secrets stayed part of your life forever. She would always have to be connected to Berry.
When Caroline woke the next morning, it all came back to her. She watched Berry sleep and felt profound regret. Berry was as kind and benign and loyal as they came, but she had a big mouth, she would slip up, she would get drunk and tell a boyfriend. Caroline watched her sleep and sort of hated her, hated all her flaws and weaknesses.
They ate breakfast in silence. Caroline tried not to panic, and then she gave up.
“Look, Berry, what I told you last night, we should never, ever speak of it, no matter what.” They sat across from each other in a diner booth, and although no one else was anywhere near them, Caroline spoke in an angry whisper.
“He made you do it, didn’t he? Men are always getting caught up in violence,” Berry said. She poured syrup over a mound of pancakes and butter.
Caroline took a deep breath. And then, from somewhere it came, this feeling she had not had since before she went underground. She felt outrage and anger, a chemical burn.
“That’s not it, not by a long shot. I’ll tell you once. One time. Then no more questions, right?” Caroline stared into Berry’s face.
Berry stopped eating.
“It wasn’t his idea, it was my idea.” She paused, pleased for a second at saying it. She wished she could leave it at that, and she already felt weary of trying to explain herself. But she continued. “I’d had enough of demonstrating against the war. We’d all had our fill of it — years of it. It changed nothing. I wanted to actively oppose. Not protest, some form of symbolic speech or gesture. We wanted tangible, unequivocal action. It was not necessarily the right tactic. I will say this, though, I was sure it was right at the time. I had to do something, I had to put myself at risk, personally. I had to meet the enormity of what they were doing with something equal to it. There was no end. They were sending troops home but with such bad faith; they knew that would placate the antiwar movement, but then they stepped up the bombing. They had no intention of not continuing. Napalm, someone makes that, you know? Someone sits in an R and D lab and thinks, Let’s make it burn, but hey, let’s add plastic so it will also stick. But look, they just jump in the water, so let’s add phosphorus so it burns underwater, burns through to bone. So people on the board of Dow or Monsanto or GE decide that this is a good way to make money, and they are so removed from the consequences. These men are at such remove they could help prolong it, a year, two years, and is it right that that should cost them nothing? We are invisible to them. How smug they were, ignoring us. I wanted them to feel some consequence, pay some price for the terrible things they did for pride or power or profit.”
“Okay, I know.”
“And it wasn’t intended to be violent. It was just destructive. Of stuff. For a purpose. Like the Berrigan brothers said, some property doesn’t have a right to exist.”
Berry began to cry over her pancakes and syrup, clutching her fork.