She looked at him, twisting her head an inch or two, pivoting on her cheek, crushing her nose to the glass. She moved slowly, as if she were in a trance. “She’s as crazy as the rest of us,” thought Ernest. “Just because she’s inside and we’re out here, that doesn’t make her any better off.”
The woman drew her hands slowly to her sides, then moved them up her belly and cupped her small breasts. She offered them to Ernest. “I wonder if she thinks this is real,” he thought. “We’re all on the other side of the glass. Maybe she thinks she’s watching television. If anything unusual happens in our lives, it happens on television.”
He smiled; she did not. He pointed to his torn jacket, to his bruised face, to the thin line of blood drying on his chin. She nodded, very slowly. She let go of one breast and pointed to her own mouth. She opened her lips in a horrible grimace; her teeth were broken and bloody. A dark trickle spilled down past her lower lip. Her free hand slid slowly down her body, her fingers at last twisting in the dark hairs. Her hips moved slowly against the window.
“She’s really crazy,” muttered Ernest. “She’s not too bad looking, but she’s out of her tree.” Ernest waved goodbye. She didn’t seem to notice. He picked up a handful of pebbles and tossed them lightly to the window. She didn’t react. He shrugged and turned back to the crowd. The man who had caused the riot a few minutes before was waiting for him.
“Are you quite finished?” asked the man.
“What’s your trouble?” asked Ernest warily.
“My wife wasn’t enough for you, eh? She’s dead, now, you know. You killed my wife. I can’t even find her body.” The man turned to the street. “This guy’s a sex killer,” he shouted. “He raped my wife, right here in the street. He killed her.” Then he attacked Ernest again; others in the crowd joined him eagerly. Ernest had no time to be horrified. He drew his body together and closed his mind to the assault. After a while, he heard the man’s raving voice, though he couldn’t make out the words. Ernest felt several people pick him up and start to swing him back and forth. He opened his eyes. He saw the naked woman staring at him. Details of her face dug into his consciousness: the blood flowing freely from her mouth; her eyes, opened impossibly wide; her head rising and dipping rhythmically. He heard a scream; the hands holding him threw him, flung him at the woman. He was suddenly free, for only a partial second relieved of all responsibility, all weight, all pain of living. Then he heard the splintering of glass, though he felt no shock of impact. He heard his own crying and the shrill laughter of the woman.
He looked up. It was Gretchen. “How did you get here?” he said in a stunned voice. “Is this what you do during the day?”
She looked down at him sadly. “Ernie,” she said, “every time you yell at me like that, it makes me feel sorry for you. I don’t take it personally. I can’t, not after these last few years. It stops hurting after I think about why you do it.”
“Why do I do it?”
“You’re afraid of me, aren’t you, Ernie? Or you’re afraid of yourself. You’re afraid that you’ll do something too wrong one of these days, and then you won’t have somebody to come home to. You don’t have to worry, Ernie. I’m not as small as that.”
He said nothing for a moment. She stood a few feet away from him, her head cocked to one side; he knew she was only a couple of seconds away from making her pitiful clucking noises. He stood up and brushed himself off. “You mean you’re not as small as I am,” he said. “That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it?”
“Ernie, you’re forever putting words in my mouth, giving me rotten motives for doing things. It doesn’t make me look any worse. But the trouble is, it makes you look terrible to yourself. And you take it out on me. And the whole thing starts all over again. If you were only a little more sure of yourself, we could have a great life. Just like in the beginning.”
“We never had a great life,” he said bitterly. “It took me all this time to realize it. It was never so terrific. You just had me swindled for a while. With sex, with going out to eat, and going to movies. It was like being in high school all over again. But you can’t do that forever. I don’t think you’ll ever learn that. After a while, it began to sink in just what kind of a nonperson you are.”
She smiled. “I could still swindle you if I had to, Ernie.” She started unbuttoning her shirt. “You used to like these.” She touched her breasts, looking at her husband in amusement. She began moving her hips in a slow, suggestive motion. Then, suddenly, she stopped. “But I won’t. No more. That’s not the answer at all; at least you’re right, there. But I can’t do anything else until you straighten yourself out. I wish you’d hurry. Stevie’s getting too old.”
Ernest woke up painfully. “What is that supposed to mean?” he said hoarsely. He was lying just as he had fallen, in a clutter of broken glass. The wetness he felt on the floor beneath his face was blood. He got to his hands and knees. His chest, his arms, his legs were bruised and swollen. His face had been badly beaten, and his eyes were nearly closed.
It was very dark. The apartment was deserted; Ernest idly wondered what had happened to the naked black woman. Already his dream of Gretchen was fading. He could remember little of what had gone on in it, or what it could have meant. He sighed heavily and stood up.
The window was broken in a jagged silhouette. Beyond it, the avenue was still filled with people, all moving restlessly toward the downtown shopping area. They wouldn’t give up, although Ernest was sure that during the day many individuals had simply quit, unable to stand the pressures and the disappointment. He felt his jaw; it did not seem that any bones had been broken and, in a way, he wasn’t sorry about what had occurred. Now he could go back out there with a justified attitude of ruthlessness. The last tatters of humanity had been ripped from him by the mob’s angry hands. He was sorry about it, but the decision had been made for him. At this time of night, in this situation, that was the way things stood.
Meantime F
March 1922.
Gretchen’s timetable was strict, allowing no margin either for error or personal comfort. Weintraub knew virtually nothing about the precise methods she contemplated, but he had a good general knowledge of the steps they would both follow in infiltrating and weakening the spiritual, economic, and political framework of America. As time passed, the Americans lost their resentment of the Jermans, and that fact made Weintraub’s chores simpler. He found that the Americans were surprisingly eager to listen to his ideas, even though he often contradicted his audience’s cherished Constitution. He had lived in the country more than two years, but he was still amazed that Americans actually upheld and defended the freedoms they were guaranteed; in Europe, it had often been the custom to disregard casually the fine print in ancient governmental documents.
The Springfield Literary Association then became too small an arena for Weintraub’s activities. Using the influence of Dr. Tieflander, Weintraub was soon addressing interested gatherings of religious leaders from all over Ostamerika. As the result of one of these lectures, he was invited to deliver a guest sermon in a church in Rhode Island. This was just the opportunity he and Gretchen had been hoping for. When Weintraub arrived on that Sunday morning, he learned that in the congregation were nearly a dozen ministers from neighboring communities who had come to hear him speak.
“It used to arouse my curiosity,” said Weintraub, gazing out nervously over the assembled worshipers, “that I am so often sought out by members of the clerical world. I found this puzzling because, after all, my ideas are rather obviously political in nature. I use the past tense for the reason that, a short time ago, my lovely wife stumbled upon the meaning of the riddle. It is, simply, that all of our political thoughts, our political theories which we attempt in typically imperfect, human fashion to put into practice in our various governments, are based directly on our religious teachings. It is not merely that political theory is a kind of highly refined theological study; no, politics is religion, made secular
and substantive. Our governments order themselves according to prevailing senses of right and wrong, according to moral principles derived from the religious beliefs of the constituency. Therefore, changes in political thinking reflect changes in religious temperament.”
Weintraub paused; he saw Gretchen sitting several pews from the front. “I am, as I said, an agitator for social reforms. We are all aware of certain injustices built into governmental systems. We have all thought that these faults, being historically rooted, were immune to change. I do not believe that any longer, not since my stay in this most blessed of all nations. I have seen and experienced what is sometimes mockingly called ‘the American way of life,’ and I have chosen to spend the rest of my own life pursuing it rather than return to the land of my heritage. I offer no new complete social system. I am not crying out for the tearing down of one form of government in favor of another equally infirm order. I merely hope to awaken you to the existence of great possibilities, and it is my good fortune to be able to use the church to further my ends.” There was a crackle of applause in the congregation. Weintraub took the opportunity to catch Gretchen’s eye; she had her hand over her mouth, trying desperately to keep from laughing out loud.
August 1923.
“I don’t believe that eliminating deterrents can possibly lead to a decline in criminal behavior,” said an attorney with whom Weintraub was having lunch.
“You persist in misunderstanding me, Mr. Davidsohn,” said Weintraub. The luncheon, in honor of the ten recipients of the 1922 Springfield Civic Awards—including Weintraub—had ended nearly an hour before, but still a large number of the Springfield Bar Association’s members remained to debate. “I’m not saying that we ought to remove categorically all penalties for statutory infractions. No, what I suggest is that we take a closer look at those very statutes themselves. I believe that it is possible to overlegislate ourselves into a highly restrictive form of government.”
“Where, then, would you begin?” asked Davidsohn.
Weintraub shook his head. “I am not a lawyer,” he said. “I am only a philosopher. But I truly think that what was thought to be socially wrong a century ago may not be so today. I think we ought to review our legal structure critically, and remove the penalties for those offenses which the people, in their changing attitudes, have come to accept.”
“That is a very dangerous course,” said another attorney. “Merely because our young people are indulging themselves in immoral pursuits, activities which we were wisely forbidden at their age, and because we haven’t the strength of character similarly to enforce restrictions, that does not mean that we ought to legalize that behavior. That would only have the effect of increasing the amount of this scandal.”
“We are entering a highly subjective area,” said Weintraub, smiling. “Soon we’ll be arguing our respective definitions of right and wrong. And, after all, our laws only reflect the definitions of the majority. When those ideas change, the laws change. That is what I’ve always said. I say now that we must prepare for a revolution in thinking, and a revolution in legal interpretation.”
“I pray to God it won’t happen while I’m still around to watch,” said Davidsohn.
“We shall see,” said Weintraub quietly.
Weintraub sat in his sunny living room, reading aloud an editorial he had written for the Springfield Morning Call. ” ‘It has been several years now since the end of the World War. We who were born in Jermany have no feeling left of ‘victory,’ although our troops and our governmental assistants remain in Ostamerika to complete this nation’s reconstruction. Similarly, the people of this, my adopted home, no longer carry the psychological stain of defeat. We have all grown beyond such trivial distinctions.’ “
“That is very good,” said Gretchen. “You have an inborn talent for this. I have told you so since the beginning, but you never listen to me.”
“I am naturally modest,” said Weintraub. ” ‘Perhaps, therefore, it is time that we join together in the grand project of all mankind: eliminating the failures and prejudices entombed within our ancient attitudes. With the collapse of National Socialism in Jermany, after the supremely foolish attempted Putsch of Herr Hitler and his henchmen, we have had demonstrated to us that hate and racial falsehoods can never be used to found a social order. Human beings will not stand for it.
” ‘But let us show our charity. Let us not fall into the Nazis’ own trap. Our world is changing; patterns of behavior crumble, to be replaced by new ones. The role of women grows each day; our feelings about marriage, family, and morality alter, even as we watch; the right of the individual to choose his own life is now universally accepted. Let us extend these freedoms. Let us put our faith in the judgment of our fellow citizens. Socialism, Communism, even Fascism all have loyal adherents. It cannot be our stand in a free nation to deny these men the right to preach their foreign creeds. It cannot be our stand to deny our fellows the right to listen. We have proven our maturity as a people; we have nothing to fear from the moral exercise of tolerance.
” ‘The Golden Age of Man is at hand. We have only to quench forever our obsolete doubts to enter it together.’ “
“That’s more than sufficient,” said Gretchen with a mocking laugh. “If anything, it ought to make everyone turn to Fascism in disgust.”
“Then we’d just have to start over,” he said.
September 1926.
Weintraub paced the narrow stage in the auditorium of the Springfield Senior High School. He was addressing a meeting of the school’s Council on World Affairs. “Now, it seems to me,” he said, “that as soon as a person falls back on simple name-calling, he’s lost the force of his argument.” He was referring to a charge by a reader of the Springfield newspaper that Weintraub was an “avowed Communist.”
“This is not a large town,” he said. “I’m sure that many of you know me personally; if not, then you may know me by reputation, at least. I shop in your fathers’ stores. I come to your fathers for medical help, dental care, legal advice. I’m not some kind of strange political creature. The one thing that sets me apart from most other people is that I’m vocal about my political and ethical ideals.
“Now, being a Communist, which I’m not, used to be a horrible thing. Nowadays, thanks to the activities of our more enlightened citizens, a person has more opportunity for self-determination. Before I start an epidemic of letter writing condemning me for preaching Communism, let me just make my point and get off this stage. I suppose you’re as bored as I am nervous. Anyway, it’s your generation that will soon inherit the duty of maintaining the liberty that has always been America’s greatest possession. Let there be no doubt that I believe utterly in guarding our freedom. If making sure anyone has the right to speak his mind, no matter what minority opinion he represents, is the hallmark of ‘Communism,’ well, you young people will be the ones who have to redefine things.”
Weintraub finished his speech and waved. As he started down the steps of the stage, the students jumped to their feet and began applauding wildly.
Gretchen met him at the exit and gave him a warm hug.
“We are several months ahead of schedule, I estimate,” she said. “We have now successfully enlisted the aid of many groups of theoretically anti-Communist people, all supporting those very causes which lead directly to victory for the Party. These students will be of great value in creating political upheaval here in the next few years. Though they may not vote themselves, they will do a great part of the work for the candidates we shall endorse.”
“I think it was the vague promise of sexual freedom that did it,” said Weintraub wryly. “That seems to work on everybody. Even the clergy.”
June 1927.
Gretchen finished drying the dinner dishes and tossed the dish towel to Weintraub. “Sometimes, dear,” she said, “I wish I could figure a way to liberate everyone from everything.”
“That’s simple,” he said. “You’ve mentioned the ice ax to me many times
.”
“That isn’t what I mean, and you know very well that it isn’t. The one fallacy which tempers our Party’s reasoning is that not everyone will fulfill his duties when left unattended. Without certain tangible inducements, or the dreams of extravagant profit, many people will stop working. I fear that I, myself, am of that kind. I hate doing the dishes.”
“That is why I do them for you as often as you wish.”
“Only because you’re a good Communist, not because you’re a good husband.”
Weintraub smiled affectionately. “We’ve never been married. How could I be a good husband? Anyway, you’re the most industrious person I’ve ever known.”
“I am lazy. I work hard only so that eventually someone else may be duped into doing my labors. Do you know that Women’s Study Group?”
“Yes, of course,” said Weintraub. “The one you started last autumn.”
“Mrs. Murray organized it. I only gave the idea to her. Nevertheless, they passed a resolution today. They’re going to support that young man, Spencyr.”
Weintraub thought for a moment. “The one who was arrested for selling obscene literature?”
“Yes,” said Gretchen, “that Irish book. One of my protegees in the study group gave a little speech about freedom of expression. While they don’t approve of what Spencyr was doing, they object to the infringement of his rights. That’s the official position. And I didn’t need to make use of the usual preliminary hints. See, my students are beginning to take care of me in my old age.”
Relatives Page 17
