by Marlene Lee
Tomorrow she would see that Carson ate properly before they went to their favorite bar on sleazy Congress Street.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Carson murmured as she stood and gathered up the pages of Member of the Wedding. She reached for Mrs. Ames and pressed the stern face dramatically to her flat chest. Agnes kept a sharp eye on the ash at the tip of Carson’s cigarette that threatened to fall into Mrs. Ames’s hair.
They left and Agnes remained alone in the kitchen, drinking tea. The world outside the bay windows was white. White snow as slow in its fall as history itself. Movement so repetitive, so disinterested and faceless, that motion took on the quality of stillness.
Agnes was comfortable with action, purpose, heat, light, risk, conclusions, but here in winter there was no beginning or end, and no purpose. She thought of China. Peace had come to America and Europe, but not to China. If Chiang Kai-shek won the civil war now raging, China would be plunged back into corrupt elitism, with perhaps another revolution required, like the snow falling slowly, slowly, no beginning, no end.
But snow falls bloodlessly.
All morning in the little cabin in the woods the letter felt like a heat source over her heart. Warmth traveled down her arms and hands and emptied in an igneous flow of words onto the keyboard of her old typewriter. At noon, pleased with the half day’s work, she paused and pulled the letter from her pocket. She slit the envelope with her index finger. Sitting down in the rocker, she began to read, savoring Evans’ personality and his reach for her.
But the reach today was short. She stopped rocking. Her heart, moments earlier so warm, now cooled and nearly stopped. Evans had recently married. He’d married a young woman named Peggy. He called her Peg. He said she was a “grand companion.”
The fire in the wood stove burned out, and still she sat. The rocking chair became a straight chair, without movement or rhythm. The day became night, without stars or moon. Her inner voice died. She had no thoughts.
When her mind came back to life, she felt mortally wounded. “Grand companion!” The words split her heart open because they hid so much. She got out of the rocker and walked to the small window of her cabin. “Peg shares my inner life,” he should have said. “No secret is too small. In bed, I find my home.” Why didn’t he say that? “Grand companion” was a lie. Agnes was his grand companion! His pal. Only a companion and pal.
She tore up the letter. She would have taken it outside to bury under the snow except for the pain of finding it next spring. She threw it in the fire. She laid her lunch out for birds or deer or any animal who, unlike herself, could still eat. She put on her coat and gloves and set out to walk away the rest of the day and night. The tears running down her cheeks would freeze. She would leave them there. She would never chip them off. Perhaps, if spring never came, she would find peace within this brittle casing.
Afterword
It is respectfully requested that Agnes Smedley, of Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, New York, be placed on the regular Censorship Watch List, and submissions of all communications and telephone conversations to, from, or regarding her be forwarded to the Bureau.
Purpose: Agnes Smedley is recognized as one of the principal propagandists for the Soviets writing in the English language. Agnes Smedley is considered an authority on Communist activity in the Far East, and as the operations of the United States Army and Navy come closer to the Asiatic Mainland and the Japanese home islands, Communist activity in those areas will be of increasing importance to the Bureau.
J. Edgar Hoover, Memo to Albany,
New York office, October 24, 1945
[Battle Hymn of China has been offered by the Book Find Club, which], according to information available locally, [is] a Communist Book of the Month Club.
Agnes Smedley File, FBI
Boston office, 1946
The subject was reported to at all times carry a sidearm of heavy calibre.
Agnes Smedley File, FBI
Boston office, 1946
Smedley, Agnes: Native Born Communist.
Caption,
FBI Security Watch Index,
July 1946
The Subject’s name is being deleted from the Key Figure List of the Albany Division. In view of SAC Letter #44 dated April 17, 1947, it is not believed this subject warrants active investigation. It is requested that the Subject’s name be removed from the Bureau’s Key Figure List. This case is being closed in the Albany Office.
Agnes Smedley File,
FBI Albany, New York office
May 1947
…everyone knows that she is a Communist.
Whittaker Chambers
December 1945
I had no information that [Smedley] was a CP member, but gained the impression that she was at least a CP sympathizer.
Whittaker Chambers
March 1947
American Woman Involved in Spy Disclosure.
Agnes Smedley, an American writer, described as a native of a Missouri farm, shown in a camera study made today before she conferred with her attorney in New York. The United States Army had released a report on the amazing Russian spy ring which operated in the Far East before the Pearl Harbor attack. The report links Miss Smedley to the ring as its Shanghai operative and states she is ‘a spy and agent of the Soviet government.’
Kansas City Star
February 10, 1949
MacArthur Says Remnants of Ring Could Be Active in World Capitals.
Kansas City Star
February 10, 1949
General MacArthur proposed no action against me. He knows I am not guilty of the charges brought against me. He makes his charges while hiding behind the protection of a law which says that he, as a top Army official, cannot be sued for falsehood. I therefore call him a coward and a cad. I now say to him: waive your immunity, and I will sue for libel.
Agnes Smedley
Mutual Broadcasting System radio program
February 10, 1949
[The] report contained several opinions that are now embarrassing the Army here… .
[It was] believed that Miss Smedley should not have been mentioned by name until the appropriate authorities had investigated her.
Army spokesman
New York Times
February 16, 1949
The Army acknowledged publicly tonight that it had made a ‘faux pas’ in releasing a ‘philosophical’ report of Communist spying in Japan and China, and said it had no proof to back charges that Miss Smedley, U.S. author, had been a member of the alleged spy ring… . Colonel Eyster said it was not the policy of the U.S. government to ‘tar and feather people without proof.’
New York Times
February 18, 1949
…the Albany office determined that subject still remained at the estate [Yaddo] and was doing nothing inconsistent with her occupation as a writer. She seldom left her residence and according to the informant [Mrs. Ames’ secretary], she made no trips of any consequence… Furthermore, investigation by the Albany and New York offices had failed to disclose current espionage activity on her part.
Agnes Smedley File,
FBI Albany, New York office
1949
It is our impression that Mrs. Ames is somehow deeply and mysteriously involved in Mrs. Smedley’s political activities….She is totally unfitted for the position of executive director.
Robert Lowell, Poet
Yaddo, Saratoga Springs
February 26, 1949
The guests departed, vowing to blacken the name of Yaddo in all literary circles and call a mass meeting of protest…then I left too, feeling as if I had been at a meeting of the Russian Writers’ Union during a big purge. Elizabeth [Ames] went to a nursing home. Her secretary resigned. Yaddo was left like a stricken battlefield.”
Malcolm Cowley, Writer
Board member, Yaddo
February 26, 1949
…even if I wrote you a long letter I couldn’t begin to tell you how angry I feel at the s.o.b.�
��s who so casually smear a person of your record. Somehow you and I and a number of others seem to have lived through a period when the spirit and the will counted; and are now caught up in the hands of mechanical men who measure faith by the yard and loyalty by lead counters.
Theodore White,
letter to Agnes Smedley,
March 1949
My friend, why didn’t I go to China and become a Chinese citizen months ago? I could have worked in peace there. But this country is no place for anyone who loves liberty. A general can simply say ‘A.S. is a spy and an agent of the Soviet govt.’ because she defends China.
Agnes Smedley, letter
February 1949
Miss Agnes Smedley, author and former newspaper correspondent…appealed today to President Truman as commander-in-chief to intervene with the Army and help clear her name and reputation. Miss Smedley, who has denied the charge, described MacArthur and his aides as having engaged in ‘privileged smearing.’
She… called on him to make General MacArthur either apologize or else waive his immunity so that she could sue him for libel.
New York Sun
February 11, 1949
The charge against me took many weeks out of my life and cost me $1,500 in legal and other expenses. Though the charge was called a faux pas, it stuck to me so that I was thereafter never again able to get a lecture engagement or sell an article. I could, of course, speak before radical meetings for nothing, which I did… .
Agnes Smedley,
letter to Zhu De,
1949
They won’t give me a passport for Europe because I might go on to China.
Agnes Smedley,
letter to Zhu De,
1949
The news from China fills me with great joy and I feel at peace at last. Here I sit in this God-forsaken country when I should have been in China. I have missed the greatest revolution in human history.
Agnes Smedley,
letter to Zhu De,
1949
Anna Louise Strong also will have a new book, The Chinese Conquer China… Edgar Snow gave me the proofs of her book… She is now lecturing on China through the country. She can get lecture engagements, but I cannot.
Agnes Smedley,
letter to Zhu De,
1949
Day before yesterday I saw the Italian movie ‘Bicycle Thief.’ I went alone and stood in a queue for two solid hours to buy a ticket. It was worth it. That little child sits enthroned in my heart. God of gods, but the human animal is savage! On every hand, everywhere, the human being can look on the most appalling injustice, the most blatant poverty due to the ownership of the earth by a few, without rising in their wrath. I can never understand that, and it fills me with despair.
Agnes Smedley,
letter to Edgar Snow
January 9, 1950
Thanks, Aino, for parcels. They are desperate for clothing and other supplies in England… .Basic foods are rationed. We get one-fourth pound of butter each a week, with a little more than that of margarine… .
Agnes Smedley,
letter to Aino Taylor,
London
February 11, 1950
I regard myself as a kind of political exile, and I find that Europe now has many American exiles who cannot earn a living in America because of the political reaction… I hope I never again have to return to the USA. I have no love for fascism, the American brand or otherwise.
Agnes Smedley,
letter to Aino Taylor
London, 1950
I’ve had a terrible cold for days—inflamed throat and eyes and God knows what. I have sort of disintegrated.
Agnes Smedley, letter to
Aino Taylor, London
January 21, 1950
My dear Margaret, I don’t expect to die under the operation before me, but in case I do, I’d like to inform you of a few things and ask you to do me a favor or two.
…I own no property. All I possess is with me: $1,900 in Government Bonds (in my purse) and a book of Thomas Cook’s Travel Checks, also in my purse… I do not recall the exact terms of my will, but I think I left $1,000 of my Government Bonds to my little niece, Mary Smedley. All income from my books, everywhere, all go to General Zhu De, Commander-in-Chief of the People’s Liberation Army of China, to do with as he wishes…which means the building of a strong and free China… .
I am not a Christian and therefore wish no kind of religious rites over my body—absolutely none. I have had but one loyalty, one faith, and that was to the liberation of the poor and oppressed, and within that framework, to the Chinese revolution as it has now materialized. If the Chinese embassy arrives, I would be thankful if but one song were sung over my body: the Chinese national anthem, “Chee Lai” [“Rise Up”]. As my heart and spirit have found no rest in any land on earth except China, I wish my ashes to live with the Chinese Revolutionary dead.
Agnes Smedley,
letter to Margaret Sloss
April 28, 1950
On Monday I enter the Acland Nursing Home to have this old duodenal ulcer cut out… . I’ll be coming out from under the anesthesia by the time this reaches you… .
Agnes Smedley,
letter to Aino Taylor,
London
April 28, 1950
A memorial meeting will be held for Agnes Smedley on Thursday afternoon, May 18, 1950, six o’clock, at the meeting house of the Religious Society of Friends, 221 East 15th Street, New York. You are invited to attend in person, or if that is not possible, to send a message, Room 567, 11 Broadway, Hanover 2-5845.
Announcement of Memorial Service for
Agnes Smedley following her death
on May 6, 1950
Age 58
There is no vanity in this woman. Absolute honesty in thought, speech and action was written all over her. She was grand, attractive, alive, animated, wise, courageous, a wonderful companion—impetuous and wants things done right away!
Evans Carlson,
Diary
In memory of Agnes Smedley, American Revolutionary Writer and Friend of the Chinese People.
Chinese characters inscribed by Zhu De on
Agnes Smedley’s gravestone in the
Cemetery for Revolutionaries
Beijing,
China
About the Author
Marlene Lee has worked as a court reporter, teacher, college instructor, and writer. A graduate of Kansas Wesleyan University (BA), University of Kansas (MA), and Brooklyn College (MFA), she currently lives in Columbia, Missouri and New York City. After graduating from Kansas Wesleyan, she taught English at Salina Senior High School. Her poems, stories, and essays have appeared in numerous publications.
Other books by Marlene Lee:
The Absent Woman
Published by Holland House April 2013
Virginia Johnstone doesn’t need a rest, she needs a change; not comfort, but purpose. Divorced, and a visitor in her children’s lives, she decides to leave Seattle and spend three months in the harbor town of Hilliard. There, on the edge of Puget Sound, she sublets rooms in an old hotel, rooms belonging to a woman who has vanished without explanation. In search of someone who can take her piano-playing to the next level, Virginia encounters Twilah Chan, an inspiring teacher and disturbing presence. Twilah’s son, Greg, an exciting but also disturbing presence, re-awakens Virginia’s romantic life. When she discovers a connection between the absent woman of the old hotel, Twilah, and Greg, she must decide whether to pursue the uncertain course she has set for herself or return to the safety of Seattle.
In a novel which is both elegiac and passionate, insightful and wryly humorous, Marlene Lee explores the need for change and the emotional consequences of leaving an old life in order to embrace a new one.
Praise for The Absent Woman:
“I couldn’t put down The Absent Woman. I relished every scene, every word. It’s one of the most compelling novels that I’ve read...”
Ella Leffl
and, author of Rumors of Peace; The Knight, Death, and the Devil, and others
“Lee writes quite beautifully, with grace and wit and precision. I thought it was a very brave book, and very honest. Virginia’s feelings about leaving her boys were especially resonant. And she writes about music wonderfully. The book will stay with me for a long time.”
Alex George, author of A Good American
Limestone Wall
Published by Holland House November 2014
Evelyn Grant, newly widowed, returns to her hometown of Jefferson City, Missouri, where she rents rooms in her old family home across the street from the Missouri State Penitentiary. Then Evelyn sets about trying to see her mother for the first time in forty years. She knows where to find her – across the street, behind the limestone wall: Mabel Grant is serving a life sentence in the penitentiary for murdering the twin babies of a neighbour.
Evelyn makes the acquaintance of Roz Teal, who has befriended a condemned prisoner soon to be executed. Through Roz, Evelyn meets Ezekiel, lifetime convict, who leads Evelyn to her mother.
A novel about loss and healing and unexpected bonds. Moving, poignant, Limestone Wall explores the tragic and the absurd in one town, one prison, and one person’s past.
“Limestone Wall is a slim novel that nonetheless contains worlds upon worlds--in its wonderfully knobby, authentic characters, and in its elegant meditations on childhood, marriage, death, and the passage of time. Each page is a gift of beauty and truth. Fans of Marilynne Robinson and Paul Harding will find much to admire in Marlene Lee’s books.”
Keija Parssinen, the author of The Ruins Of Us
