Free Redemption by Howard Fast Page A

I can’t ask people to come from Boston. But, Ike, let’s postpone it for another week—I feel strange about it coming so close after Sedge’s death.”
    â€œIf you wish. It’s only a ceremony.”
    â€œIt’s more than that for me,” Liz said. “And perhaps you can find a rabbi or I can find a priest who will marry us. It would be a bit nicer than a judge—I mean for me.”
    â€œSure. I won’t love you any less next week.”
    That was Sunday.
    That night, with Liz sleeping soundly, curled up against me, my own sleep would not come. Occasionally, when sleep defied me, I took a mild sleeping pill, Temazepam in the amount of twenty milligrams. I thought of taking one then, but I knew that if I moved, it would awaken Liz—so I chose to lie there quietly and be a victim of my thoughts. I was asking myself, who was Elizabeth Hopper? With all our days together, how much did I know about her? This waif—as much as I disliked the word—had entered my life out of nowhere, a woman on a bridge, measuring the distance to death; and now I had proposed marriage to her, a woman thirty years younger than I.
    A few weeks ago, on a sunny Sunday afternoon when we were walking on a crowded Fifth Avenue, something happened that was so very much Elizabeth. A little boy, perhaps five years old, had been separated from his mother and stood terrified and weeping in a jungle of legs that passed him by as if he didn’t exist. Without hesitating, Liz scooped him up in her arms and handed him to me. “Hold him high, Ike. You’re very tall. Hold him high.” And then, “Here he is! Where’s Mother?”
    His panic-stricken mother appeared in a moment, shouldering her way through the crowded street, taking her child, and thanking us and blessing us.
    As Sarah said after meeting Liz a few times, “What you see is what you get. There’s nothing hidden inside. Those are the women who suffer most.”
    Liz loved children, with the kind of deep, painful love many barren women carry. After the incident on Fifth Avenue, we had talked about it; and as much as I dreaded the thought of raising another child at my age, I found myself suggesting that when we married, we might adopt a child.
    â€œIke, would you? Really, would you?”
    Trapped, I said something to the effect that we would have to think about it carefully beforehand.
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œIt’s not easy, Liz.”
    â€œThey have healthy children for adoption in Russia and especially in Romania. I read about it, Ike.”
    â€œWell—I suppose we might try. I’m not young, you know—”
    â€œIke, you’re the youngest and best man in the whole world. And I would do everything.”
    And now I had decided who would perform the wedding. Finally, I slept.
    Three days later, Wednesday morning, while we were having breakfast, the doorbell rang. I opened the door for two men, one tall, thin, and balding and the other younger and carrottopped. The older man introduced himself as Detective Sergeant Hull and the younger man as Detective Flannery. Both of them showed me their badges, and Hull asked whether I was Professor Isaac Goldman.
    â€œOnly emeritus,” I replied. “What can I do for you gentlemen?”
    â€œCan we step inside, Professor?”
    â€œOf course. What brings you here?”
    Liz was standing in the opening between the entryway and the dining room.
    â€œI have a search warrant for your apartment.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œA search warrant, sir.” He handed me a folded sheaf of paper, and I opened it and saw the signature of Judge Lyman Ferguson. I knew Ferguson; I had met him several times. “You will note, Professor, that it includes your apartment as well as Mrs. Elizabeth Hopper’s apartment on Ninety-sixth Street. She vacated those premises some weeks ago.”
    â€œWhy on God’s earth would Lyman Ferguson