Quartet for the End of Time

by Johanna Skibsrud

  BUT THAT SAME DAY also brought a storm of leaflets distributed by presidential hopeful Norman Thomas. When finally Sutton and Alden managed to reach Chet and Arthur’s camp, they heard about that. He was encouraging the veterans to abandon the fight, Arthur informed them crossly; to direct their efforts instead toward permanent government relief. “We address you not only as veterans of the World War but also as veterans of that larger and unending war against poverty,” the leaflets read. Chet, Arthur, and Douglas had spent the better part of the day collecting as many pamphlets as they could in order to burn them.

  After all the progress we’ve made, Chet said, shaking his head.

  John, who had just joined them and as yet had not said a word, coughed, then peered quizzically at Chet.

  Progress? he said.

  In his arms, Felicity slept peacefully. She was wearing a pretty white dress with blue stitching, which she had inherited from Mrs. Evalyn Walsh McLean.

  What, I wonder, is that?

  Chet snapped his head in the Indian’s direction and swore softly.

  We’ve got one hundred thousand men, he said. We could have a million. This thing is getting bigger, not smaller—that’s progress, in my books. When it comes down to it, politics is just numbers, after all—and we got ’em.

  Politics, John said calmly, is more than just numbers. Or at least—he paused—there’s more than one way of adding them up. If we start counting, for example, how much money they have up there versus us down here, then what happens? And what about guns? Have you calculated ammunitions?

  Again, Chet swore under his breath, but said nothing.

  ON THE WEEKENDS THE tourists arrived carrying cameras and picnic baskets filled with food to be shared with the veterans. There was also an influx of journalists—each more eager than the last to report the “truth” about the camps and the Bonus Army. Sutton clipped the articles that were subsequently published, along with a corresponding rash of conflicting editorials and letters—organizing them together in an old school notebook she had allocated for the purpose. Sometimes she underlined her favorite quotations, such as the comment in Survey magazine by Gardner Jackson, who wrote that the veterans could be observed to practice “the first large-scale attempt to mimic Mahatma Gandhi’s passive resistance.” Alden had laughed out loud at that. Imagine saying that to Waters! he’d said. He’d have you thrown out for a Red! Or Roy Wilkins’s report for Crisis magazine, which described his surprise upon finding, in the camps, “black toes and white toes sticking out side by side from a ramshackle town of pup tents, packing crates, and tar-paper shacks.” In the Bonus Army, he wrote, unlike the one within which they had fought the war, “black men and white men lined up equally, and perspired in sick bays side by side.”

  But not all Washingtonians were weekend picnickers or reporters for Crisis magazine, and soon, no matter where you stood, or from which direction you looked at the thing, there could be no doubt any longer that (despite how many times Waters insisted on the “all-American” integrity of his army, or how many times cast-off suits were washed by his men) key factions of the BEF were now controlled by the Communists—who would (if no progress was made through more “legitimate” lines) soon control more. But still, even when pressed, Alden denied any involvement with the Red element. He was careful, however—Sutton noted—never to go as far as to disown their approach. Even when the problem spread to the city and ordinary citizens began to complain of being accosted by Reds on the street. Stopped as they exited grocery stores, and asked for donations—then berated if they insisted on taking any more than half of their own purchases home.

  Mary Kelly herself had been accosted in this fashion one afternoon, arriving home some time later, stricken and pale. The Judge, ordinarily dismissive of his wife’s “nervous” complaints, was enraged by the incident.

  Now they’re attacking decent women in the streets, he shouted that evening—at no one in particular, because Alden had not yet arrived. He paced the room with a heavy tread, his feet on the bare floorboards sounding louder and louder, as if building momentum toward some unknown end.

  When Alden did finally arrive, his father greeted him with a roar.

  Decent women in the street! he repeated. What will it be next?

  At her husband’s request, Mary recounted her story once more so that Alden could hear. Perhaps, the third time through, she was even beginning to enjoy it a little.

  Well, said Alden, when the account was complete. Are you all right?

  Yes! the Judge shouted, before Mary herself could reply. She’s all right!

  In that moment, it became clear—to Mary, as equally as to the rest— that the real issue had never been, for the Judge, Mary at all. Sutton saw this knowledge cross her mother’s face: the brief moment in which she had seemed, once again, to have captured the Judge’s attention had just as quickly been stolen away, or had never existed at all. Her shoulders crumpled and she was wracked, suddenly, with violent sobs. No one went toward her to comfort her, so finally Sutton went herself, placing a hand tentatively on her mother’s shoulder.

  Well, if she’s all right, Alden was saying over the noise, then—

  All right! the Judge shouted. Are you going to wait until women are beaten to death on the streets before this amounts to a problem for you? Is this the country we live in? Where if a woman can make it home without being accosted by vagrants and Communists then everything is “all right”?

  But the Judge, as he continually reminded his son, did not seriously doubt that the matter would be fully resolved before long—and in the government’s favor. Training, he said, had been under way at Fort Myer for more than a month.

  Yes, indeed, he informed his family one evening with some satisfaction, the government would very soon be prepared (should anyone be foolhardy enough to press them on the issue) for all-out war.

  The next day Alden repeated what his father had said to Arthur and John. Arthur swore through his teeth, then quietly shook his head.

  We went to France to bury the war, he said, not bring it home.

  The Indian, however—observed Sutton—remained curiously silent.

  NOT LONG AFTER, the whole camp was roused in the middle of the night. Waters had recently returned—cured of a mysterious ailment—and his first order of business was to rid his troops of all Communist influence. After that, he promised to lead an attack on the Communist organizer John T. Pace himself, who—in Waters’s absence—had established his own camp nearby.

  The enemy has infiltrated! Waters shouted at his troops in order to rouse them from their beds. He’s among us!

  When, having stumbled from their tents, his men had assembled before him, Waters ordered them to take with them what weapons they could find: bricks, iron bars, scraps of metal from their makeshift homes—then he led the attack.

  By the end of the night hundreds of alleged Communists had been “evicted” from Camp Marks—evictions so violent in nature that, finally (adding a strange twist to the affair), government troops had to be called, in order to defend Pace’s men. By the time they arrived, however, Waters had already caught and tried at least half a dozen men—sentencing them, by his own authority, to fifteen lashes across the back.

  When Sutton heard all of this, she wondered aloud to Alden what would happen if his own allegiances—and those of the Indian—should be discovered. Two men, merely rumored to be Communists, she reminded him, had recently turned up drowned on the banks of the river, just outside the camp—victims of Waters and his men.

  Don’t worry about me, Alden had said sharply. Then, by way of apology: Anyway, sooner or later it’ll dawn on all of them that we’re on the same side.

  THEN, SUDDENLY, THIS SEEMED to be true. On the fifteenth of June, the Bonus Bill swept through the house, and two days later nearly one thousand veterans—Pace’s as well as Waters’s men—assembled on the Hill to await the Senate’s final ruling. Everyone (Sutton included—with only a tinge of regret in her heart) felt ce
rtain that the “Bonus Army affair” would very soon be at its end, having resolved itself happily—despite her father’s dire predictions—in the veterans’ favor.

  Instead, the Senate returned with a decisive no.

  A palpable shock rippled through the crowd; the police stepped forward. After only a moment’s hesitation, Waters did, too. The Senate vote, he declared, was only a temporary setback. The BEF could, and would—he promised, his voice ringing in anger—stick it out. They would not back down until the bonus had been paid in full, and to every last deserving man.

  With that, the veterans turned, and—very slowly—began to make their way back to the camps.

  IT WAS NOT UNTIL much later that it occurred to Sutton to wonder how those inside—her own father—must have felt during those hours before the verdict was read. How even the bravest among them must have felt their throats go dry at the sound of the men assembled on the hill outside. How they must have felt their hearts quicken in their chests—as they ducked through evacuation tunnels in order to avoid what they could only anticipate would, very soon, be an angry crowd.

  They might, perhaps, have mustered some courage by imagining themselves, briefly, in the tradition of the Founding Fathers, who had similarly fled when, in June 1783—one hundred and fifty years ago almost to the day—Revolutionary soldiers had poked their bayonets through the windows of the Philadelphia capitol, demanding instant payment for their own services to the new country, which had at that time not yet even cooled into a solid shape in their minds.

  It would have been then, perhaps, some comfort to remind themselves of their proximity to history in this way—of the way that things repeated themselves, if in ever-widening circles. Some comfort to remind themselves that the sole reason the Capitol had been built in the very spot from which they now fled was to avoid precisely the sort of unruly, antidemocratic behavior that had once threatened the Founding Fathers and now threatened them. It was, they would have assured themselves then, their duty to protect both themselves and the principles they had been entrusted to uphold! (That Congress had eventually given in to the demands, and that the last beneficiary of the Revolutionary War had received his final payment as late as 1911—well, that was beside the point. It had been a different war, a different time, and if a “bonus” payout now was not downright impossible, as it surely seemed to be, it was at the very least—they would have reminded themselves then—inadvisable to make decisions in the present moment based on the grounds of the past.) To be connected to history by a singular narrative line, thrust through the ever-widening circles of history, was one thing—but the trajectory had, always, to be forward! Now, of all times (they would have thought encouragingly to themselves, as they retreated underground), was not a time to look back!

  EVEN MORE DIFFICULT TO imagine was how it actually came to pass, that—a month later—the United States government, led by General Douglas MacArthur, stormed the Pennsylvania Avenue and Anacostia camps, smoking out ten thousand men, women, and children—including at least several veterans of the 42nd “Rainbow” Division, which he himself had led into battle at Verdun and through the Marne. In the weeks leading up to the riots, it had been increasingly difficult for Sutton to get any sense of the situation at all. Not only had she been forbidden to go down to the flats—she hardly saw Alden anymore. He began to leave earlier each day, and return later; when their paths did cross, and she pressed him to tell her what was on his mind (it was hardly like him to keep his cards like that—she told him—held so closely to his chest) he reacted violently. He had no idea what she was suggesting, he said. Indeed, he wished he could say he had some knowledge of what Pace had planned—but he did not. At any rate, he hoped it would be better than what Waters had up his sleeve. Which was (he said), as anyone could observe, nothing at all. Marching around down there—making a fool of himself, and everyone else. Anything, Alden insisted, before turning away, would be better than that.

  DESPITE HIS PROMISES, WATERS’S first political move following Congress’s negative ruling had, in fact, been to officially resign. But the words had hardly been uttered when he had a sudden change of heart. He would, he announced, continue to lead the Bonus Army—but only on the condition of absolute power.

  I’m going to be hard-boiled now, he told his men after they’d sanctioned his pronouncement with a rousing cheer. If any man refuses to carry out my orders, he will be dragged out of Washington by the military police. To hell with civil law and General Glassford, I’m going to have my orders carried out!

  He ordered military drills, beginning that very afternoon, and the formation of a force of five hundred “shock troops” à la Mussolini’s gang. The Italian leader, who had done so much for the veterans of his own country, had for some time served as Waters’s chief inspiration. Now he even went so far as to rename his men the Khaki Shirts—a move that went over especially well with the Italian element.

  Waters led his Khaki Shirts—Douglas, Chet, and Arthur among them—in their first big march on the Hill on the second of July. That same afternoon, Sutton went down to the camps for what—though she could not have known it then—would be the last time. When she arrived, she found Aida alone with the child. The men had been gone nearly three days straight, she was told. They returned only late in the evening—exhausted by the long hours they spent performing drills on the flats beneath the hard glare of the sun.

  And John? Sutton asked. He goes with them?

  She was not surprised to learn he did not.

  Oh, no, Aida said, and shrugged. He doesn’t go in much for Waters and that lot.

  Sutton held on to Felicity for a time while the child slept. An hour passed, then two. She was about to give up (she would soon be missed, she knew, at home—where it was becoming increasingly difficult to explain her long absences), when Arthur ducked through the door of the tent. Chet, then Douglas, followed. They greeted her kindly, but—as Aida had said—they seemed exhausted, and sad. Even the plate of food Sutton had managed to beg from Germaine that morning did not seem to revive their spirits—though they thanked her sincerely for it, and began—hungrily, if rather mechanically—to eat.

  There was not much; it did not take long.

  The march, Arthur said, after they had finished and the plate had been wiped clean, had proved a disappointment—to say the very least. It was a long weekend holiday (a detail Waters had somehow overlooked); by the time they’d arrived at the Capitol, everyone had already gone home. Well, they’d stayed four hours anyway. Waters shouting the whole time about the change of tide the new President would bring.

  Arthur raised his hands, then let them fall. I don’t know what to believe anymore, he said. I don’t.

  Then the child began to cry, and Sutton was reminded of how late it had become. She handed the child back to Aida, gathered the empty dish, and—expressing her regret that it had not been more—took her leave as quickly as she could.

  IT WOULD BE MANY years before she came to learn with any sort of accuracy what took place between that moment—as she bade them all, Chet and Arthur, Douglas, Aida, and the child, a hasty goodbye; then turned, in order to make her way for the last time through the rutted streets back home—and when, three weeks later, “all hell broke loose,” just as her father had promised it would. Or how it was that Alden had managed, in that brief interim, to find himself in possession of a powerful explosive, at (depending upon how you looked at it) precisely the right, or precisely the wrong, place and time; or that Arthur had found himself, the afternoon following, wearing another man’s ill-fated hat.

  Many years before she would learn, for example, of how—on the morning of the twenty-eighth of July—Waters read aloud the eviction notice he’d received, which ordered the immediate evacuation of the Bonus Army. The Penn Ave. as well as the Anacostia camps would need to be cleared, read Waters—his voice shaking with rage—by no later than ten o’clock that morning.

  Or of how—at exactly ten o’clock—Glassford and six members
of the United States Treasury arrived at the armory building off Pennsylvania Avenue, which now housed Pace’s men. The building—along with an adjacent concrete block once owned by the Ford automobile company— had been slated for demolition since early spring, in order to make room for the new Federal Triangle. That morning, however, as the first cranes and wrecking balls came into view (looming up suddenly in the distance, from behind the approaching Treasury men), it still belonged to the Bonus Army.

  This armory is not for sale! shouted a veteran posted out front, when Glassford and the first of the Treasury men drew near enough to hear. It’s the headquarters of sixteen hundred men of the Sixth Regiment of the BEF! All of whom have been honorably discharged, and eighty-five percent of whom have served in France!

  Aside from this—single—show of resistance, however, there was little dissent as Glassford and the Treasury agents pushed past, then entered the building; or as they returned, only a few minutes later, with the first startled veterans, their wives, and a few children. Once more, then, Glassford and the agents turned and plunged inside—this time making their way up a rickety flight of stairs, left exposed due to the building’s demolished western wall. And once more, it was not long before they were on their way down again—a stream of veterans following steadily behind.

  The eviction carried on like this more or less without incident. By one forty-five that afternoon, the building had been cleared. Only the police were left—sweating in their summer uniforms and pacing the grounds. The veterans and their families, who had just been fed a spartan lunch (personally provided by Glassford), lounged at a distance of about hundred yards—and if it were not for the desolate backdrop and the stricken, half-starved appearance of most of the crowd, it would have looked more like a Sunday picnic than an unruly evacuation scene. Even the mass of onlookers who had gathered to witness the drama unfold were beginning to move off.