that would scar Jeb Meunzer for the remainder of his life.
It would be told how Herschel Schwart then wiped the bloody knife calmly on his victim’s trousers, rose from him and waved insolently at the stunned, staring Mrs. Meunzer and her daughter, and turned to run into the darkness. It would be said that, at a bend in the Post Road, a car or pickup truck was idling, with its headlights off; and that Herschel climbed into this vehicle and drove away, or was driven away by an accomplice, to vanish from the Chautauqua Valley forever.
21
Earnestly he insisted, “My son, he is a good boy! Like all your boys. Your Milburn boys. He would not harm another. Never!”
And, “My son Herschel, where he is gone I do not know. He is a good boy always, working hard to give his wages to his mother and father. He will return to explain himself, I know.”
So Jacob Schwart claimed when Chautauqua County deputies came to question him about Herschel. How adamant the poor man was, in not-knowing! In a craven posture clutching his cloth cap in both hands and speaking rapidly, in heavily accented English. It would have required men of more subtlety than the literal-minded deputies to decipher the gravedigger’s sly mockery and so the men would say afterward of Jacob Schwart Poor bastard ain’t right in the head is he?
Among your enemies, Rebecca’s father advised, it is wise to hide your intelligence as to hide your weakness.
A police warrant had been drawn charging Herschel with three counts of “aggravated assault with intent to commit murder.” Of his three victims, two had been hospitalized. The swastika-mutilation to Jeb Meunzer’s face was severe. No one in the Milburn area had ever been so attacked. Bulletins had been issued through New York state and at the Canadian border describing the “dangerous fugitive” Herschel Schwart, twenty-one.
The deputies did not question Anna Schwart at length. The agitated woman shrank from them trembling and squinting like a nocturnal creature terrified of daylight. In her confusion she seemed to think Herschel had himself been injured and hospitalized. Her voice was quavering and near-inaudible and her English so heavily accented, the deputies could barely understand her.
No! She did not know…
…knew nothing of where Herschel had gone.
(Was he hurt? Her son? What had they done to him? Where had they taken him? She wanted to see him!)
The deputies exchanged glances of pity, impatience. It was useless to question this simple-minded foreign-born woman who seemed not only to know nothing about her murderous son but also to be frightened of her gravedigger husband.
The deputies questioned August, or “Gus,” Herschel’s younger brother, but he too claimed to know nothing. “Maybe you helped your brother, eh?” But Gus shook his head quizzically. “Helped him how?”
And there was Rebecca, the twelve-year-old sister.
She, too, claimed to know nothing about what her older brother might have done, and where he’d fled. She shook her head wordlessly as the deputies questioned her.
At twelve, Rebecca still wore her hair in thick, shoulder-length braids, as her mother insisted. Her dark-brown hair was parted, not very evenly, in the center of her head and gave off a rich rank odor for her hair was not often washed. None of the Schwarts bathed frequently for hot water in large pails had to be heated on the stove, a tedious and time-consuming task.
In the face of adult authority Rebecca’s expression was inclined to be sullen.
“”Rebecca,“ that’s your name? Is there anyone in your family in contact with your brother, Rebecca?”
The deputy spoke sternly. Rebecca, not raising her eyes, shook her head no.
“You haven’t been in contact with your brother?”
Rebecca shook her head no.
“If your brother comes back, miss, or you learn where he’s hiding, or that someone is in contact with him, for instance providing him with money, you’re obliged to inform us immediately, or you’ll be charged as an accessory after the fact to the crimes he’s been charged with-d’you understand, miss?”
Stubbornly, Rebecca stared at the floor. The worn linoleum floor of the kitchen.
It was true, she knew nothing of Herschel. She supposed that, yes he was the man the deputies wanted. Almost, she was proud of what Herschel had done: punishing their enemies. Carving a swastika on Jeb Meunzer’s mean face!
But she was frightened, too. For Herschel might now be hunted down, and himself injured. It was known that fugitives resisting arrest were vulnerable to severe beatings at the hands of their pursuers, sometimes death. And if Herschel was sent to state prison…
Jacob Schwart intervened: “Officers, my daughter knows nothing! She is a quiet girl, not so bright. You see. You must not frighten her, officers. I plead you.”
Rebecca felt a pang of resentment, that her father should misspeak. And malign her.
Not so bright. Was it true?
The deputies prepared to leave. They were dissatisfied with the Schwarts, and promised to return. With his sly mock-servile smile Jacob Schwart saw them to the door. Again telling them that his elder son was a boy who prayed often to God, who would not raise a fist even to a brute deserving of harm. Nor would Herschel abandon his family for he was a very loyal son.
“”Innocent until guilty‘-yes? That is your law?“
Watching the deputies drive away in their green-and-white police cruiser, Rebecca’s father laughed with rare gusto.
“Gestapo. They are brutes, but they are fools, to be led by the nose like bulls. We will see!”
Gus laughed. Rebecca forced herself to smile. Ma had crept away into a back room, to weep. Almost you would think, seeing Jacob Schwart strut in his kitchen, thrusting a wad of Mail Pouch chewing tobacco into his mouth, that something exhilarating had happened, that these others had brought good news of Herschel and not a warrant for his arrest.
In the days following, it was clear that Jacob Schwart took pride in what Herschel had done, or was generally believed to have done. He overcame his customary frugality by buying several newspapers carrying articles on the assaults. His favorite was a front-page feature in the Milburn Weekly with a prominent headline: