"I wish he could be here too, Grandma. I think about him up here," Bucky said. "I thought about him yesterday when I went off the high board. I remembered how he taught me to swim at the Y. I was about six. He threw me into the pool and that was it. How are you, Grandma? Are the Einnemans looking after you all right?"
"Of course they are. Don't you worry about me. The Einnemans are very helpful, and I can take care of myself anyway. Eugene, I have to tell you something. There have been thirty new cases of polio in the Weequahic section. Seventy-nine in the city in just the last day. Nineteen dead. All records. And there have been more cases of polio at the Chancellor playground. Selma Shankman called me. She told me the boys' names and I wrote them down."
"Who are they, Grandma?"
"Let me get my glasses. Let me get the piece of paper," she said.
Several counselors were now standing in line outside the booth waiting to use the phone, and he signaled to them through the glass that he would be only another few minutes. Meanwhile, he waited in dread to hear the names. Why cripple children, he thought. Why a disease that cripples children? Why destroy our irreplaceable children? They're the best kids in the world.
"Eugene?"
"I'm here."
"All right. These are the names. These are the boys who are hospitalized. Billy Schizer and Erwin Frankel. And one death."
"Who died?
"A boy named Ronald Graubard. He got sick and died overnight. Did you know him?"
"I know him, Grandma, yes. I know him from the playground and from school. I know them all. Ronnie is dead. I can't believe it."
"I'm sorry to have to tell you," his grandmother said, "but I thought, because you were so close to all those boys, you would want to know."
"You were right. Of course I want to know."
"There are people in the city who are calling for a quarantine of the Weequahic section. There's talk from the mayor's office about a quarantine," she told him.
"A quarantine of all of Weequahic?"
"Yes. Barricading it off so nobody can go in or out. They would close it off at the Irvington line and the Hillside line and then at Hawthorne Avenue and at Elizabeth Avenue. That's what it said in tonight's paper. They even printed a map."
"But there are tens of thousands of people there, people who have jobs and have to go to work. They can't just pen people in like that, can they?"
"Things are bad, Eugene. People are up in arms. People are terrified. Everybody is frightened for their children. Thank God you're away. The bus drivers on the eight and fourteen lines say they won't drive into the Weequahic section unless they have protective masks. Some say they won't drive in there at all. The mailmen don't want to deliver mail there. The truck drivers who transport supplies to the stores, to the groceries, to the gas stations, and so on don't want to go in either. Strangers drive through with their windows rolled up no matter how hot it is outside. The anti-Semites are saying that it's because they're Jews that polio spreads there. Because of all the Jews — that's why Weequahic is the center of the paralysis and why the Jews should be isolated. Some of them sound as if they think the best way to get rid of the polio epidemic would be to burn down Weequahic with all the Jews in it. There is a lot of bad feeling because of the crazy things people are saying out of their fear. Out of their fear and out of their hatred. I was born in the city, and I've never known anything like this in my life. It's as if everything everywhere is collapsing."
"Yes, it sounds very bad," he said, dropping the last of his coins into the phone.
"And, Eugene, of course — I almost forgot. They're shutting down the playgrounds. As of tomorrow. Not just Chancellor but all over the city."
"They are? But the mayor was set on keeping them open."
"It's in tonight's paper. All the places where children congregate are being shut down. I have the article in front of me. Movie theaters are shutting down for children under sixteen. The city pool is shutting down. The public library with all its branches is shutting down. Pastors are shutting down Sunday schools. It's all in the paper. Schools might not open on schedule if things continue like this. I'll read you the opening line. 'There is a possibility that the public schools — '"
"But what does it say specifically about the playgrounds?"
"Nothing. It's just in a list of things that the mayor is now closing."
So if he'd remained in Newark a few days longer, he would never have had to quit. Instead he would have been released, free to do whatever he wanted and to go wherever he liked. If only he'd stayed, he would never have had to phone O'Gara and take what he took from O'Gara. If only he'd stayed, he would never have had to walk out on his kids and look back for a lifetime at his inexcusable act.
"Here. Here's the headline," she said. "'Day's Record in City Polio Cases. Mayor Closes Facilities.' Should I send you the article, darling? Should I tear it out?"
"No, no. Grandma, there are counselors waiting to use the phone and I don't have more change anyway. I have to go. Goodbye for now."
MARCIA WAS WAITING by the entrance to the dining lodge, and together, wearing heavy sweaters against the unseasonable cold, they slipped down to the waterfront, where they found the canoe and started off across the lake through a rising mist, the silence broken only by the slurp of the paddle blades dipping into the water. At the island they paddled around to the far side and dragged the canoe ashore. Marcia had brought a blanket. He helped her to shake it open and spread it in the clearing.
"What's happened?" she asked. "What's the matter?"
"News from my grandmother. Seventy-nine new cases in Newark overnight. Thirty new cases at Weequahic. Three new cases at the playground. Two hospitalized and one dead. Ronnie Graubard. A quick, bright little fellow, full of spark, and he's dead."
Marcia took his hand. "I don't know what to say, Bucky. It's dreadful."
He sat down on the blanket and she sat beside him. "I don't know what to say either," he told her.
"Isn't it time for them to close the playground?" she asked.
"They have. They've closed it. They've closed all the playgrounds."
"When?"
"As of tomorrow. The mayor's shutting them down, my grandmother said."
"Well, wasn't that the best thing to do? He should have done it a long time ago."
"I should have stayed, Marcia. For as long as the playground was open, I should never have left."
"But it was only the other day that you got here."
"I left. There's nothing more to say. A fact is a fact. I left."
He drew her close to him on the blanket. "Here," he said. "Lie here with me," and he pressed her body to his. They held each other without speaking. There was nothing more that he knew of to say or to think. He had left while all the boys had stayed, and now two more of them were sick and one was dead.
"Is this what you've been thinking about since you got here? That you left?"
"If I were in Newark I would go to Ronnie's funeral. If I were in Newark I would visit the families. Instead I'm here."
"You can still do that when you get back."
"That's not the same thing."
"But even if you had stayed, what could you have done?"
"It isn't a matter of doing — it's a matter of being there! I should be there now, Marcia! Instead I'm at the top of a mountain in the middle of a lake!"
They held each other without speaking. Fifteen minutes must have passed. All Bucky could think of were their names, and all he could see were their faces: Billy Schizer. Ronald Graubard. Danny Kopferman. Myron Kopferman. Alan Michaels. Erwin Frankel. Herbie Steinmark. Leo Feinswog. Paul Lippman. Arnie Mesnikoff. All he could think of was the war in Newark and the boys that he had fled.