As Mr. Sandman looped the tape measure about my chest, brushing against my breasts, I flinched from him, involuntarily.

  He laughed, annoyed. But did not persist.

  “Another time, perhaps, dear Violet, you will not be so skittish.”

  SO MANY BOOKS! I STARED IN WONDERMENT. I HAD NEVER SEEN so many books outside a library.

  Proudly Mr. Sandman switched on lights. Bookcases of dark expensive-looking wood lifting from the floor to the ceiling.

  (There were no bookcases in our house on Black Rock Street. Old textbooks gravitated to the basement where no one touched them, they grew moldy and smelly with time.)

  Many of the books were old, matched sets. On the lowermost shelf were Encyclopedia Britannica, Collected Works of Shakespeare, Collected Works of Dickens, Great British Romantic Poets. There was an entire bookcase filled with books on military history with such titles as A History of Humankind at War, Great Military Campaigns of Europe, The Great Armies of History, Soldat: Reflections of a German Soldier 1936–1945, Is War Obsolete? In an adjacent bookcase, The Coming Struggle, Free Will and Destiny, The Passing of the Great Race, Racial Hygiene, A History of Biometry, The Aryan Bible, Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf: A New Reading, The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler, Origins of the Caucasian Race, Is the White Race Doomed?, Eugenics: A Primer.

  On a special shelf were oversized books of photographs. More military history: U.S., Germany. Tanks, bomber planes. Fiery cities. Marching men in Nazi uniforms, swastika armbands. Saluting stiff-armed as Mr. Sandman saluted the flag in our classroom.

  Daddy had hated the army. Daddy had hated being a soldier. I wondered if Mr. Sandman had been a soldier, ever.

  There were yearbooks from Mr. Sandman’s old schools, when he’d been young. Group photographs of Mr. Sandman’s Boy Scout troop (1954, 1955). (“Can you recognize me, Violet? No? First row, third from the left. More Scout medals than any other eleven-year-old.”)

  On a table were unframed photographs of local landscapes, skies of sculpted clouds, the mist-shrouded Niagara Falls, which Mr. Sandman had taken himself. And one, apart from the others, depicting a girl of about my age lying on a four-poster bed, partly clothed, hands clasped over her thin chest. Long straight pale hair had been spread about her head like a fan. Her eyes were open and yet unseeing.

  A girl I’d never seen before, I was sure. I felt a pang of alarm. Jealousy.

  Mr. Sandman saw me staring at the photograph and quickly pushed it aside.

  “No one you know, dear. An inferior Snow White.”

  I would not recall the part-unclothed girl afterward. I don’t think so. Though I am recalling her now, this now is an indeterminate time.

  Against the windows of Mr. Sandman’s cobblestone house, a faint ping of icy rain, hail. An endless winter.

  “It is a fact kept generally secret in the United States that Adolf Hitler acquired his ‘controversial’ ideas on race and on the problems posed by race from us—the United States. Our history of slavery, and post-slavery, as well as our ‘population management’ of Indians—on reservations in remote parts of the country. How to establish a proper scientific census. How to determine who is ‘white’ and who is ‘colored’—and how to proceed from there.”

  Mr. Sandman spoke casually yet you could hear an undercurrent of excitement in his voice.

  Adolf Hitler was a name out of a comic book. A name to provoke smirks. And yet, in Mr. Sandman’s reverent voice Adolf Hitler had another sound altogether.

  I’d left my mug of apple cider in the kitchen, half-empty. I had not wanted to drink more of the hot sweet liquid that was making me feel queasy. But Mr. Sandman brought both our mugs into the library, and was handing mine to me.

  “Finish your apple cider, Violet! It has become lukewarm.”

  Helplessly I took the mug from him. Shut my eyes, lifted the mug to my lips, to drink.

  Sweet, sugary apple-juice. A taste of something fermented, rotted.

  They would ask—But why would you drink anything that man gave you? Why, after what happened the first time?

  There’d been no first time. All times were identical. There was not a most recent time, and there was not a present time.

  “Some of us understand that we must archive crucial documents and publications before it’s too late. One day, the welfare state may appropriate all of our records. The liberal welfare state.” Mr. Sandman spoke with withering contempt.

  Entire populations were falling behind others, Mr. Sandman said. The birthrates of those who should reproduce are declining while the birthrates of those who should not be allowed to reproduce are increasing—“Mongrel races breed like animals.”

  When I stared blankly at him Mr. Sandman said, “Violet, you’re a smart girl. By Port Oriskany standards, a very smart girl. You understand that the Caucasian race must preserve itself against mongrelization before it’s too late?”

  I had heard that a mongrel dog is healthier and likely to live longer than a pedigree dog. But I did not often reply to Mr. Sandman’s questions for I understood that he preferred silence.

  “‘Mongrelization’ is the natural consequence of the slack, liberal illogic—‘all men are created equal.’ For the obvious fact is, in human nature as in nature itself, all men are created unequal.”

  This seemed reasonable to me. I did not feel equal to anyone and certainly not to any adult.

  My legs were growing weak. Mr. Sandman took the mug from me, and seated me on a sofa. In his kindly lecturing voice, which was very different from his classroom lecturing voice, he told me that there are hierarchies of Homo sapiens, the product of many thousands of years of evolution.

  At the top were Aryans, the purest Caucasians—the “white race.” Northern Europe, U.K., Germany, Austria. White Russians. The crème of the crème. Beneath these were Middle Europeans, and Eastern Europeans, and beneath these Southern Europeans. By the time you got to Sicily you were in another, lower level of evolution—“Though some of the Sicilians are very physically attractive, paradoxically.”

  There were the Eastern civilizations—Asian, Indian. Here too the lighter-skinned had reigned supreme for many thousands of years though in continuous danger of being infected, polluted by the darker-skinned who resided in the south.

  In Africa, Egypt was the exception. A great ancient civilization, and (relatively) white-skinned. The remainder of the continent was dark-skinned—“Indeed, a ‘heart of darkness.’”

  Earnestly and gravely Mr. Sandman spoke, facing me. His words were incantatory, numbing.

  “Black Africans were brought to America as slaves, which would prove a disaster to our civilization. For the enslaved Africans would not remain enslaved through the meddlesome efforts of Abolitionists and radicals like Abraham Lincoln, and so it was inevitable that black Africans were granted freedom, and seized freedom, and wreaked havoc upon the white civilization that had hitherto given them shelter and employment and nurtured them . . . First, the military was ‘integrated.’ Then, public schools. Then, the Boys Scouts of America!” Mr. Sandman shook his head, disgusted.

  “With integration comes disintegration. Some Negroes wish to dilute the white race by interbreeding while others wish to eradicate the white race of ‘demons’ entirely. Revenge is only natural in humankind. As species have to compete for food to survive, so races must compete for the dominion of the earth. The Führer understood this and launched a brilliant preemptive strike but his fellow Caucasians idiotically opposed him—who can forgive them! One day there will be a race war. To the death.” Mr. Sandman’s voice rose, vehemently as it sometimes did in class.

  Führer. This too was a word out of a comic book. Yet, there was nothing funny about Führer now.

  “Your brothers, you know . . .”

  Anxiously I waited. Mr. Sandman searched for the proper words.

  “. . . were following their instinct, in the war. Sacrificing themselves.”

  Sacrifice was not a word I would have associated with Jerome and Lionel. Two years had passed since they’d begun their prison sentences at Mid-State Correctional, in Marcy, New York. Their lawyer’s appeal had come to nothing, so far as I knew.

  From time to time, I heard of them. Only indirectly through my aunt Irma. My older brother’s prison sentence had been extended for he’d been involved in a beating in which another (black?) prisoner had nearly died. But Lionel was taking high school equivalency courses. Lionel hoped to be paroled within a year or two.

  Each night I dreamt of them. It would become confused in my mind, when I was very tired, that Mr. Sandman was their ally, and that they had been his students, too.

  Mr. Sandman said, curiously, “Do you regret it, Violet? ‘Informing’ on your brothers as you did?”

  A paralysis gripped me. I could not move my head—no.

  I could not murmur—yes.

  Mr. Sandman was about to ask more, then seeing the stricken expression in my face seemed to take pity on me.

  “Violet, have you heard of the fearful science of eugenics?”

  To this, I could shake my head no.

  “Why is it ‘fearful,’ you’re wondering? Because it tells truths many do not wish to hear.”

  According to eugenics, Mr. Sandman explained, interbreeding—“miscegenation”—was a tragic error that would result in the destruction of Master Races, and free-breeding—“promiscuity”—would result in inferior races having as many babies as they could and overwhelming Master Races with their sheer numbers.

  “We have seen how the black race is being contaminated by its own ‘thugs’—cities like Chicago have become overrun with gangs and drug addicts. They breed like rabbits—like rats! Slavery is the excuse their apologists give—its shadow has fallen upon all blacks, and renders them helpless as invalids. They have no morals. They are greedy and lustful. Their average IQs have been measured many degrees lower than those of whites and Asians. How many great mathematicians have been Negro? That’s right—none.”

  Relenting then, “Well. Almost none. And they were light-skinned blacks, Arabs. In medieval times.”

  And, “In all fairness, some dark-skinned persons have realized the danger of promiscuity. Certain black intellectuals and leaders like W. E. B. Du Bois believed that only ‘fit blacks’ should reproduce—not thugs! The ‘Talented Tenth’ of all races should mix.” But Mr. Sandman shuddered at the prospect.

  In my fifth-period algebra class there were just three black students—two girls and a boy. Not often but occasionally Mr. Sandman would call upon Tyrell Jones, a stolid, solemn dark-skinned boy with thick glasses: “Ty-rell, come to the blackboard, please. Solve this problem for us.” Because Tyrell was one of the better students in the class, and black, Mr. Sandman seemed bemused by him. Tyrell was not a thug certainly. Yet Tyrell was not what Mr. Sandman called light-skinned.

  “Here, Ty-rell. We are waiting to be impressed.”

  Mr. Sandman handed Tyrell the chalk, which Tyrell near-fumbled in his nervousness.

  Tyrell Jones was in two other classes with me. Teachers were protective of Tyrell for he was cripplingly shy, with few friends even among the black students. He wore heavy tweed jackets that might’ve belonged to his grandfather. He had allergies and asthma and was often blowing his nose, spraying medication into his mouth out of a small red plastic device he kept in a pocket, to clear his sinuses. His eyes watered. His lips quivered. He did not seem young. Standing at the board in Mr. Sandman’s class, chalk in his fingers, he appeared to be paralyzed with fear, staring at the problem Mr. Sandman had scrawled on the blackboard as if he had never seen it before though (probably) he’d successfully solved it in our homework assignment. His eyes magnified by the thick lenses skittered over the class of (mostly) white faces as if, desperate, he was looking for a friend.

  I would have smiled at Tyrell Jones if he’d looked at me. Just a quick, small smile. For if I smiled at anyone, I did not (really) want them to see; I did not want to be responsible for a smile.

  But I was seated too far to the right, out of Tyrell’s range of vision.

  Mr. Sandman had been peering at me, frowning. Could he read my thoughts? In my fear of the man was a numbness of intellect: I had ceased thinking rationally.

  “. . . race war, inevitable. If they can’t mongrelize our civilization they will attack us directly. Even Tyrell Jones of whom you seem fond . . . he is no friend of ours.”

  It made me very uneasy that Mr. Sandman read my thoughts. Often I felt as if my head must be transparent, Mr. Sandman could peer inside.

  “They would slash our throats in our beds, if they could. You will see! And they all know your name—‘Kerrigan.’ They know whose sister you are. And your flamboyant relative—‘Tom’ Kerrigan. They certainly know his name.”

  Vaguely I was aware that my father’s uncle was running again for political office in South Niagara. In the local newspaper there’d been articles about Tom Kerrigan’s “controversial”—“inflammatory”—interviews, speeches, accusations. In the recent Republican primary for state assembly Tom Kerrigan had received more votes than a younger, more moderate rival. His campaign emphasized “law and order”—“welfare reform”—“an end to affirmative action.” It was Tom Kerrigan’s belief that affirmative action was the “new racism—against whites.”

  Of course, Tom Kerrigan defended his young nephews who’d been “wrongfully convicted” of manslaughter . . .

  “Kerrigan is crude, but sometimes crudeness is the best weapon. A mallet, not a surgical instrument. A shotgun, not a pearl-handled revolver. Did you know your uncle well, Violet?”

  “N-No . . .”

  “You didn’t visit his house? He didn’t visit yours?”

  It seemed that I was disappointing Mr. Sandman. His wiry grizzled eyebrows knitted over his fierce eyes.

  I had not ever met Tom Kerrigan though I’d been hearing about him for as long as I could remember. I’d seen photographs of him—an older man, broad-chested, white-haired, not handsome like Daddy but with a recognizable Kerrigan face. A mean pike mouth disguised by a wide smile.

  “Most politicians shrink from associating themselves with the ‘race issue’ at the present time. But Tom Kerrigan—he plunges right in.” Mr. Sandman laughed, enviously. “As a public school teacher, I am in a very different position. At least, in this northern state. And so, I’ve had to be the very soul of discretion. I never ‘discriminate’ against Negro students, when they are in my classes. Nothing could be proved against me if the NAACP tried to sue. I never go out of my way to help, or to hinder. But I rarely acknowledge them, either. For the most part they are invisible to me.”

  This seemed sad, and wrong. I dared to ask Mr. Sandman why he didn’t like Ethel, Lorraine, and Tyrell, in our class? They were all nice, and Tyrell was smart.

  “It isn’t a matter of ‘liking’ them as individuals. As individuals they might be inoffensive. They do behave themselves in our class. It’s the race that is a threat. Suppose the Negroes were carrying plague virus? You’d avoid them then, even if they are ‘nice.’”

  “But—they don’t have the plague . . .”

  “Silly girl! They have something worse than the plague. They have the virus that will destroy the white race, from within. Look, I am one of the most fair-minded teachers in the Port Oriskany school district. I give everyone the benefit of the doubt. But the Ne-groes, I do not. I draw the line. I don’t ‘see’ them and I don’t want to teach them. I am obliged to teach them, but I am not obliged to ‘see’ them.”

  “Did a black person hurt you, Mr. Sandman?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous! No one has hurt me. I’ve tried to explain to you! This isn’t personal, it’s principle. Even if I ‘liked’ one of them, I would not want our race to be contaminated by their genes . . . Some of them are attractive, yes, and even intelligent, to a degree. I grant you, there are astonishing black musicians, singers, dancers. Athletes—of course. But their cousins, brothers, fathers—those are the problems. The weakness of white women, in succumbing to them . . . The race issue in the U.S. isn’t black people we know, our students, our servants and the people who work for us, for instance in the school cafeteria, or collecting trash, it’s the ones making trouble politically, and the ones who are their relatives. Thugs just getting out of prison, or on their way in.” Mr. Sandman spoke meanly. Words bubbled up like bile.

  He went on, “Your brothers have been martyred because they are white, Violet. I’ve followed the case closely. It was a mistake for them to plead guilty—their legal counsel was incompetent. I’m convinced they’re innocent. They were defending themselves. Or, they were provoked. As I’ve predicted, there is a race war brewing. We have no choice about whose side to be on.”

  My eyelids were becoming heavy. Mr. Sandman’s vehement words were like blows of a mallet that has been wrapped in a material like burlap. Hard, harsh yet numbing.

  It was not an unpleasant sensation, sinking into sleep. For now my heart was beating less rapidly and nervously and my thoughts were not flashing and darting like heat lightning.

  GENTLY THE VOICE NUDGED: “VIO-LET? TIME TO WAKE, DEAR.”

  Gently the hand nudged my shoulder. With an effort I opened my eyes. Seeing a man stooping over me, feeling his humid meat-breath.

  Seeing with alarm that the sun had disappeared entirely from the sky and night pressed against the windows.

  In a silk robe I was lying on a bed. A four-poster bed that creaked as the man’s weight settled heavily upon it.

  The silk robe was royal blue on the outside, ivory on the inside. It required some time for me to realize that something was wrong.

  Was I naked, inside the robe? My skin tingled, as if I’d been bathed. Lotion rubbed into my skin. Talcum powder on my breasts, belly.

  A shock to comprehend. I could not allow myself to comprehend.

  The ends of my hair were damp. At the back of my mouth was something dry and gritty like sand.

  “Sleeping Beauty! Time to open those beautiful myopic eyes.”

  My eyes were open. But I was not seeing clearly.