“Their lawyer probably prompted them.”
“Unh-hunh. Well, if he did, he did a good job of it. I’ve seen a lot of prisoners come here, but I don’t think I remember the arrival of any of them more clearly than these two.”
“Maybe you were keyed up, waiting for it, all the publicity…”
“Could be. I don’t remember. But I do know I didn’t feel it until they actually came through the gates. It was as though they were bringing some outside presence in with them. And it was true, you know — they were. I’m not the only one who remembers what they said. It’s been repeated everywhere, it’s part of history now.” He sighed, gazing off toward the river, which was now right in front of us. A sheen on it put down by the sun. We were facing into it, and it made the distant Cat-skills hazy and miragelike. There was a big greenhouse down there on the river bank on the other side of a heavy wire fence, a gun tower half-concealed behind it as though playing hide-and-seek. The greenhouse reminded me that I’d been meaning to bone up on farming methods for my Midwestern campaign visits. “It’s funny, isn’t it, Mr. Nixon?”
“What’s that?”
“How billions and billions of words get spoken every day, like all these we’ve been speaking on the way down here, for example, and for some reason — or for maybe no reason at all — a few of them stick, and they’re all we’ve got afterwards of everything that’s happened. Of course, you’re more used to that than I am, you’re probably always thinking of what the lasting impression is going to be…”
“What? I mean, yes!” A direct quote. Was he mocking me? “Part of the public life, Mr. Denno. You get used to it.”
“I don’t think I ever could. I can’t imagine ever saying anything that would be remembered. Or that I’d want to be remembered. The Rosenbergs have been just the opposite. Talking and acting like characters out of Aesop’s Fables or something.”
“Knowing that Aesop is around to write it down, you mean.”
“Yes,” laughed the Warden. “Right…”
We angled left. “Tell me, is there anything…uh, between them?”
“And kind of real intimacy, you mean?”
“Yes, well. Like that. I sometimes get the feeling that all of that, uh, heartthrob stuff has just been part of the, you know, the same show. Public-relations gimmick, you might say…”
“Probably. Most of it. Why do you ask?”
“Uh…oh, just looking for an angle…”
“Mm.” He pondered that. I got the idea he was becoming habituated to the idea of reading sentences more ways than one. “There is something between them, though. I don’t know what you’d call it. Despair, I guess. Even their best hopes seem colored with it. It doesn’t make them very happy, but it does create a kind of bond between them. Maybe they don’t want to be happy, I don’t know. Mrs. Rosenberg seems to feel it worse than her husband. He’s got a lot of resources finally, but she…well, she’s sort of given up. She’s become…very withdrawn.”
“I see. Uh…psycho?”
“No, not exactly. Just…well, you’ll see for yourself…”
I took it by his tone that we’d reached the Death House and I glanced up. Ah. Yes, this was it all right. Unlike any other building on campus. In the prison, I mean. We’d been strolling down the bluff past really massive cell-block buildings, at least five stories high with huge dark window areas, everything on a superhuman scale. By contrast, this small clean brick structure was all too human in its dimensions. There was a pretty semicircular garden in front of the main entrance with trimmed hedges, shaped trees, and patches of flowers, but the two-story red brick walls, aglow in the afternoon sun, were windowless. I paused at the edge of the paved walk that led up to the heavily barred front door. It reminded me of the yellow brick road in The Wizard of Oz. “So this is it,” I said. Already, I’d forgotten all the arguments I’d been rehearsing. Well, I was better at ad-libbing it anyway.
“Yes,” said the Warden. “This is it. Come. I’ll take you around by the back door.”
We walked along the paved pathway between the Death House and the river, the warm June sun beating down on us. At the corner there was a patch of green lawn with a birdbath in the middle of it. No birds though. “These are the, uh, Death House cell blocks…?”
“Yes, that’s right, Mr. Nixon. Twenty-four cells for men, three for women. But the Rosenbergs aren’t in there any more. They were moved this morning into the special Death Cells.”
“The Death Cells?”
“In the middle of the complex. A kind of halfway house, away from the other condemned prisoners. It’s where we get them ready.”
“Ah, I see…get them ready…” High above us loomed a gun tower, the guards in it smiling down at us. The Warden waved and they nodded, cradling their weapons. Past them, it was a clean dash to the river, only fifty steps or so. But a long swim. “Is there a…a bathroom—?”
“Here we are,” said the Warden, and he led me through a door on the south side of the complex and into a plain room with drab tan walls, a few chairs, a table. It was gloomy and sour, stifling hot. I thought I must be in the very heart of the prison, the solitary-confinement area or something, but the Warden said it was actually a meeting room for reporters and execution witnesses. “It will be filling up soon when we get ready to move the Rosenbergs. It’s probably not the best place.”
“The best place?”
“You said you wanted some place where you wouldn’t be bothered, where they wouldn’t feel watched.”
“Oh yes, right,” I said, wiping my forehead with my sleeve (where had I left my handkerchief?). I glanced up at the clock on the walclass="underline" after 6:30 already! How much time did I have? Fifteen minutes? Thirty?
“That clock’s eight minutes fast,” the Warden explained with an apologetic smile.
“Oh, I see…” But what did I see? There was a calendar on the wall that read SATURDAY JUNE 20. Like everybody was in a hurry here. “I hope it’s not suppertime or anything, is it?” I asked irritably.
“That’s all right,” the Warden said. “It’s only scrambled eggs.”
“Scrambled eggs?”
“We didn’t have time to fix a proper last supper, I’m afraid. All this has come on us so fast…”
“That’s not your fault,” I said. Actually, scrambled eggs didn’t sound all that bad to me. I remembered I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. “Where does that door lead to?” I asked, wondering if maybe it was a men’s washroom.
“The death chamber.” The Warden went to open the door. I was sorry I had asked.
“That’s all right,” I said, and while he wasn’t watching ran the end of my tie around my neck, under the collar. I realized I was still wearing my sunglasses. I pocketed them.
“I’m sorry we don’t have any air-conditioning in here,” he said. He flicked a switch by the door and the room beyond exploded with light. The walls were whitewashed, which probably intensified the glare, but the lights were bright by themselves. Must be one hell of a shock to walk out of a dark cell into that. But as Uncle Sam would say: That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? “Here, you can see the setup we have. Can’t stay there in the press room anyway, not if you want privacy — it’ll soon be filling up with people.”
“Ah. Well.” I followed him hesitantly into the death chamber. As I moved toward the door, it reminded me somehow of the doorway into the downstairs bedroom off the living room in my folks’ house back in Whittier. “I, uh, don’t have much time…” Because of my brothers, I thought. Where they were laid out.