George Jakes was in a sour mood. His arm still hurt like hell although it was encased in plaster and supported by a sling around his neck. He had lost his coveted job before starting it: just as Greg had predicted, the law firm of Fawcett Renshaw had withdrawn its offer after he appeared in the newspapers as an injured Freedom Rider. Now he did not know what he was going to do with the rest of his life.
The graduation ceremony, called commencement, was held in Harvard University’s Old Yard, a grassy plaza surrounded by gracious red-brick university buildings. Members of the Board of Overseers wore top hats and cutaway tailcoats. Honorary degrees were presented to the British foreign secretary, a chinless aristocrat called Lord Home, and to the oddly named McGeorge Bundy, one of President Kennedy’s White House team. Despite his mood, George felt a mild sadness at leaving Harvard. He had been here seven years, first as an undergraduate, then as a law student. He had met some extraordinary people, and made a few good friends. He had passed every exam he took. He had dated many women and slept with three. He had got drunk once, and hated the feeling of being out of control.
But today he was too angry to indulge in nostalgia. After the mob violence in Anniston, he had expected a strong response from the Kennedy administration. Jack Kennedy had presented himself to the American people as a liberal, and had won the black vote. Bobby Kennedy was attorney general, the highest law enforcement officer in the land. George had expected Bobby to say, loud and clear, that the Constitution of the United States was in force in Alabama the same as everywhere else.
He had not.
No one had been arrested for attacking the Freedom Riders. Neither the local police nor the FBI had investigated any of the many violent crimes that had been committed. In America in 1961, while the police looked on, white racists could attack civil rights protesters, break their bones, try to burn them to death—and get away with it.
George had last seen Maria Summers in a doctor’s office. The wounded Freedom Riders had been turned away from the nearest hospital, but eventually they had found people willing to treat them. George had been with a nurse, having his broken arm treated, when Maria had come to say that she had got a flight to Chicago. He would have got up and thrown his arms around her if he could. As it was she had kissed his cheek and vanished.
He wondered if he would ever see her again. I could have fallen hard for her, he thought. Maybe I already did. In ten days of nonstop conversation he had never once felt bored: she was at least as smart as he was, maybe smarter. And although she seemed innocent, she had velvet brown eyes that made him picture her in candlelight.
The commencement ceremony came to an end at eleven thirty. Students, parents, and alumni began to drift away through the shadows of the tall elms, heading for the formal lunches at which graduating students would be given their degrees. George looked out for his family but did not at first see them.
However, he did see Joseph Hugo.
Hugo was alone, standing by the bronze statue of John Harvard, lighting one of his long cigarettes. In the black ceremonial robe his white skin looked even more pasty. George clenched his fists. He wanted to beat the crap out of that rat. But his left arm was useless and, anyway, if he and Hugo had a fistfight in the Old Yard, today of all days, there would be hell to pay. They might even lose their degrees. George was already in enough trouble. He would be wise to ignore Hugo and walk on.
Instead he said: “Hugo, you piece of shit.”
Hugo looked scared, despite George’s injured arm. He was the same size as George, and probably as strong, but George had rage on his side, and Joseph knew it. He looked away and tried to walk around George, muttering: “I don’t wish to speak to you.”
“I’m not surprised.” George moved to stand in his way. “You watched while a crazed mob attacked me. Those thugs broke my goddamned arm.”
Hugo took a step back. “You had no business going to Alabama.”
“And you had no business pretending to be a civil rights activist when all the time you were spying for the other side. Who was paying you, the Ku Klux Klan?”
Hugo lifted his chin defensively, and George wanted to punch it. “I volunteered to give information to the FBI,” Hugo said.
“So you did it without pay! I don’t know whether that makes it better or worse.”
“But I won’t be a volunteer much longer. I start work for the Bureau next week.” He said it in the half-embarrassed, half-defiant tone of someone admitting that he belongs to a religious sect.
“You were such a good snitch that they gave you a job.”
“I always wanted to work in law enforcement.”
“That’s not what you were doing in Anniston. You were on the side of the criminals there.”
“You people are Communists. I’ve heard you talking about Karl Marx.”
“And Hegel, and Voltaire, and Gandhi, and Jesus Christ. Come on, Hugo, even you aren’t that stupid.”
“I hate disorder.”
And that was the problem, George reflected bitterly. People hated disorder. Press coverage had blamed the Riders for stirring up trouble, not the segregationists with their baseball bats and their bombs. It drove him mad with frustration: did no one in America think about what was right?
Across the grass he spotted Verena Marquand, waving at him. He abruptly lost interest in Joseph Hugo.
Verena was graduating from the English Department. However, there were so few people of color at Harvard that they all knew one another. And she was so gorgeous that he would have noticed her if she had been one of a thousand colored girls at Harvard. She had green eyes and skin the color of toffee ice cream. Under her robe she was wearing a green dress with a short skirt that showed off long smooth legs. The mortarboard was perched on her head at a cute angle. She was dynamite.
People said she and George were a good match, but they had never dated. Whenever he had been unattached, she had been in a relationship, and vice versa. Now it was too late.
Verena was an ardent civil rights campaigner, and was going to work for Martin Luther King in Atlanta after graduation. Now she said enthusiastically: “You really started something with that Freedom Ride!”
It was true. After the firebombing at Anniston, George had left Alabama by plane with his arm in plaster; but others had taken up the challenge. Ten students from Nashville had caught a bus to Birmingham, where they had been arrested. New Riders had replaced the first group. There had been more mob violence by white racists. Freedom Riding had become a mass movement.
“But I lost my job,” George said.
“Come to Atlanta and work for King,” Verena said immediately.
George was startled. “Did he tell you to ask me?”
“No, but he needs a lawyer, and no one half as bright as you has applied.”
George was intrigued. He had almost fallen in love with Maria Summers, but he would do well to forget her: he would probably never see her again. He wondered whether Verena would go out with him if they were both working for King. “That’s an idea,” he said. But he wanted to think about it.
He changed the subject. “Are your folks here today?”
“Of course, come and meet them.”
Verena’s parents were celebrity supporters of Kennedy. George was hoping they would now come out and criticize the president for his feeble reaction to segregationist violence. Perhaps George and Verena together could persuade them to make a public statement. That would do a lot to ease the pain of his arm.
He walked across the lawn beside Verena.
“Mom, Dad, this is my friend George Jakes,” said Verena.
Her parents were a tall, well-dressed black man and a white woman with an elaborate blond coiffure. George had seen their photographs many times: they were a famous interracial couple. Percy Marquand was “the Negro Bing Crosby,” a movie star as well as a smooth crooner. Babe Lee was a theater actress specializing in gutsy female roles.
Percy spoke in a warm baritone familiar from a dozen hit records. “Mr. Jakes, down there in Alabama you took that broken arm for all of us. I’m honored to shake your hand.”
“Thank you, sir, but please call me George.”
Babe Lee held his hand and looked into his eyes as if she wanted to marry him. “We’re so grateful to you, George, and proud, too.” Her manner was so seductive that George glanced uneasily at her husband, thinking he might be angered, but neither Percy nor Verena showed any reaction, and George wondered whether Babe did this to every man she met.
As soon as he could free his hand from Babe’s grasp, George turned to Percy. “I know you campaigned for Kennedy in the presidential election last year,” he said. “Aren’t you angry now about his record on civil rights?”
“We’re all disappointed,” Percy said.
Verena broke in. “I should think so! Bobby Kennedy asked the Riders for a cooling-off period. Can you imagine? Of course CORE refused. America is ruled by laws, not mobs!”
“A point that should have been made by the attorney general,” George said.
Percy nodded, unperturbed by this two-person attack. “I hear the administration has made a deal with the Southern states,” he said. George pricked up his ears: this had not been in the newspapers. “The state governors have agreed to restrain the mobs, which is what the Kennedy brothers want.”
George knew that in politics no one ever gave something for nothing. “What was the quid pro quo?”
“The attorney general will turn a blind eye to the illegal arrest of Freedom Riders.”
Verena was outraged, and irritated with her father. “I wish you had told me about this before, Daddy,” she said sharply.
“I knew it would make you mad, honey.”
Verena’s face darkened at this condescension, and she looked away.
George concentrated on the key question: “Will you protest publicly, Mr. Marquand?”
“I’ve thought about it,” said Percy. “But I don’t think it would have much impact.”
“It might influence black voters against Kennedy in 1964.”
“Are we sure we want to do that? We’d all be worse off with someone like Dick Nixon in the White House.”
Verena said indignantly: “Then what can we do?”
“What’s happened in the South in the past month has proved, beyond doubt, that the law as it stands is too weak. We need a new civil rights bill.”
George said: “Amen to that.”
Percy went on: “I might be able to help make that happen. Right now I have a little influence in the White House. If I criticize the Kennedys I’ll have none.”
George felt Percy should speak out. Verena voiced the same thought. “You ought to say what’s right,” she said. “America is full of people being judicious. That’s how we got into this mess.”
Her mother was offended. “Your daddy is famous for saying what’s right,” she said indignantly. “He has stuck his neck out again and again.”
George saw that Percy was not to be persuaded. But perhaps he was right. A new civil rights bill, making it impossible for the Southern states to oppress Negroes, might be the only real solution.
“I’d better find my folks,” George said. “An honor to meet you both.”
“Think about working for Martin,” Verena called after him as he walked away.
He went to the park where law degrees would be presented. A temporary stage had been built, and trestle tables had been set up in tents for the lunch afterward. He found his parents right away.
His mother had a new yellow dress. She must have saved up for it: she was proud, and would not allow the rich Peshkovs to buy things for her, only for George. She looked him up and down, in his academic robe and mortarboard. “This is the happiest day of my life,” she said. Then, to his astonishment, she burst into tears.
George was surprised. This was unusual. She had spent the last twenty-five years refusing to show weakness. He put his arms around her and hugged her. “I’m so lucky to have you, Mom,” he said.
He detached himself gently from her embrace and blotted her tears with a clean white handkerchief. Then he turned to his father. Like most of the alumni, Greg was wearing a straw boater that had a hatband printed with the year of his graduation from Harvard—in his case, 1942. “Congratulations, my boy,” he said, shaking George’s hand. Well, George thought, he’s here, which is something.
George’s grandparents appeared a moment later. Both were Russian immigrants. His grandfather, Lev Peshkov, had started out running bars and nightclubs in Buffalo, and now owned a Hollywood studio. Grandfather had always been a dandy, and today he wore a white suit. George never knew what to think of him. People said he was a ruthless businessman with little respect for the law. On the other hand, he had been kind to his black grandson, giving him a generous allowance as well as paying his tuition.
Now he took George’s arm and said confidentially: “I have one piece of advice for you in your law career. Don’t represent criminals.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’re losers,” Grandfather chuckled.
Lev Peshkov was widely believed to have been a criminal himself, a bootlegger in the days of Prohibition. George said: “Are all criminals losers?”
“The ones who get caught are,” said Lev. “The rest don’t need lawyers.” He laughed heartily.
George’s grandmother, Marga, kissed him warmly. “Don’t you listen to your grandfather,” she said.
“I have to listen,” George said. “He paid for my education.”
Lev pointed a finger at George. “I’m glad you don’t forget that.”
Marga ignored him. “Just look at you,” she said to George in a voice full of affection. “So handsome, and a lawyer now!”
George was Marga’s only grandchild, and she doted on him. She would probably slip him fifty bucks before the end of the afternoon.
Marga had been a nightclub singer, and at sixty-five she still moved as if she were going onstage in a slinky dress. Her black hair was probably dyed that color nowadays. She was wearing more jewelry than was appropriate for an outdoor occasion, George knew; but he guessed that as the mistress, rather than the wife, she felt the need for status symbols.
Marga had been Lev’s lover for almost fifty years. Greg was the only child they had together.
Lev also had a wife, Olga, in Buffalo, and a daughter, Daisy, who was married to an Englishman and lived in London. So George had English cousins he had never met—white, he assumed.
Marga kissed Jacky, and George noticed people nearby giving them looks of surprise and disapproval. Even at liberal Harvard it was unusual to see a white person embrace a Negro. But George’s family always drew stares on the rare occasions when they all appeared in public together. Even in places where all races were accepted, a mixed family could still bring out white people’s latent prejudices. He knew that before the end of the day he would hear someone mutter the word mongrel. He would ignore the insult. His black grandparents were long dead, and this was his entire family. To have these four people bursting with pride at his graduation was worth any price.
Greg said: “I had lunch with old Renshaw yesterday. I talked him into renewing Fawcett Renshaw’s job offer.”
Marga said: “Oh, that’s wonderful! George, you’ll be a Washington lawyer after all!”
Jacky gave Greg a rare smile. “Thank you, Greg,” she said.
Greg lifted a warning finger. “There are conditions,” he said.
Marga said: “Oh, George will agree to anything reasonable. This is such a great opportunity for him.”
She meant for a black kid, George knew, but he did not protest. Anyway, she was right. “What conditions?” he said guardedly.
“Nothing that doesn’t apply to every lawyer in the world,” Greg replied. “You have to stay out of trouble, is all. A lawyer can’t get on the wrong side of the authorities.”
George was suspicious. “Stay out of trouble?”
“Just take no further part in any kind of protest movement, marches, demonstrations, like that. As a first-year associate, you’ll have no time for that stuff anyway.”
The proposal angered George. “So I would begin my working life by vowing never to do anything in the cause of freedom.”
“Don’t look at it that way,” said his father.
George bit back an irate retort. His family only wanted what was best for him, he knew. Trying to keep his voice neutral, he said: “Which way should I look at it?”
“Your role in the civil rights movement won’t be as a frontline soldier, that’s all. Be a supporter. Send a check once a year to the NAACP.” The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was the oldest and most conservative civil rights group: they had opposed Freedom Rides as being too provocative. “Just keep your head down. Let someone else go on the bus.”
“There might be another way,” said George.
“What’s that?”
“I could work for Martin Luther King.”
“Has he offered you a job?”
“I’ve received an approach.”
“What would he pay you?”
“Not much, I’m guessing.”
Lev said: “Don’t think you can turn down a perfectly good job, then come to me for an allowance.”
“Okay, Grandfather,” said George, although that was exactly what he had been thinking. “But I believe I’ll take the job anyway.”
His mother joined the argument. “Oh, George, don’t,” she said. She was going to say more, but the graduating students were called to line up for their degrees. “Go,” she said. “We’ll talk more later.”
George left the family group and found his place in line. The ceremony began, and he shuffled forward. He recalled working at Fawcett Renshaw last summer. Mr. Renshaw had thought himself heroically liberal for hiring a black law clerk. But George had been given work that was demeaningly easy even for an intern. He had been patient and looked for an opportunity, and one had come. He had done a piece of legal research that won a case for the firm, and they had offered him a job on graduation.
This kind of thing happened to him a lot. The world assumed that a student at Harvard must be intelligent and capable—unless he was black, in which case all bets were off. All his life George had had to prove that he was not an idiot. It made him resentful. If he ever had children, his hope was that they would grow up in a different world.
His turn came to go onstage. As he mounted the short flight of steps, he was astonished to hear hissing.
Hissing was a Harvard tradition, normally used against professors who lectured badly or were rude to students. George was so horrified that he paused on the steps and looked back. He caught the eye of Joseph Hugo. Hugo was not the only one—the hissing was too loud for that—but George felt sure Hugo had orchestrated this.
George felt hated. He was too humiliated to mount the stage. He stood there, frozen, and the blood rushed to his face.
Then someone began clapping. Looking across the rows of seats, George saw a professor standing up. It was Merv West, one of the younger faculty. Others joined him in applauding, and they quickly drowned out the hissing. Several more people stood up. George imagined that even people who did not know him had guessed who he was by the plaster cast on his arm.
He found his courage again and walked onto the stage. A cheer went up as he was handed his certificate. He turned slowly to face the audience and acknowledged the applause with a modest bow of his head. Then he went off.
His heart was hammering as he joined the other students. Several men shook his hand silently. He was horrified by the hissing, and at the same time elated by the applause. He realized he was perspiring, and he wiped his face with a handkerchief. What an ordeal.
He watched the rest of the ceremony in a daze, glad to have time to recover. As the shock of the hissing wore off, he could see that it had been done by Hugo and a handful of right-wing lunatics, and the rest of liberal Harvard had honored him. He should feel proud, he told himself.
The students rejoined their families for lunch. George’s mother hugged him. “They cheered you,” she said.
“Yes,” Greg said. “Though for a moment there it looked as if it was going to be something else.”
George spread his hands in a gesture of appeal. “How can I not be part of this struggle?” he said. “I really want the job at Fawcett Renshaw, and I want to please the family that has supported me through all these years of education—but that’s not all. What if I have children?”
Marga put in: “That would be nice!”
“But, Grandmother, my children will be colored. What kind of world will they grow up in? Will they be second-class Americans?”
The conversation was interrupted by Merv West, who shook George’s hand and congratulated him on getting his degree. Professor West was a little underdressed in a tweed suit and a button-down collar.
George said: “Thank you for starting the applause, Professor.”
“Don’t thank me, you deserved it.”
George introduced his family. “We were just talking about my future.”
“I hope you haven’t made any final decisions.”
George’s curiosity was piqued. What did that mean? “Not yet,” he said. “Why?”
“I’ve been talking to the attorney general, Bobby Kennedy—a Harvard graduate, as you know.”
“I hope you told him that his handling of what happened in Alabama was a national disgrace.”
West smiled regretfully. “Not in those words, not quite. But he and I agreed that the administration’s response was inadequate.”
“Very. I can’t imagine he . . .” George trailed off as he was struck by a thought. “What does this have to do with decisions about my future?”
“Bobby has decided to hire a young black lawyer to give the attorney general’s team a Negro perspective on civil rights. And he asked me if there was anyone I could recommend.”
George was momentarily stunned. “Are you saying . . .”
West raised a warning hand. “I’m not offering you the job—only Bobby can do that. But I can get you an interview . . . if you want it.”
Jacky said: “George! A job with Bobby Kennedy! That would be fantastic.”
“Mother, the Kennedys have let us down so badly.”
“Then go to work for Bobby and change things!”
George hesitated. He looked at the eager faces around him: his mother, his father, his grandmother, his grandfather, and back to his mother again.
“Maybe I will,” he said at last.