Emily was still up when he got home. He'd thought she would have gone to bed. "It's late, Jeff," she said. "You're gonna be walkin' around like you was drunk tomorrow, you'll be so tired."
"Don't start in on me," he growled.
"Somebody needs to start in on you," his wife answered. "Dangerous enough out on the foundry floor when you're awake." Her voice rose, shrill and angry and worried, too. "You go out there half asleep, and-"
"Don't start in on me, I said!" He slapped her. She stared at him, her eyes enormous with shock. He'd never raised a hand to her, not even when he'd walked in on her and Bedford Cunningham. Why the hell not? he wondered, and found no answer.
He shoved her down the hall toward the bedroom, then picked her up, threw her down, and took her by force. They'd played lots of rough games over the years. This was no game, and they both knew it. Emily fought back as hard as she could. Pinkard was bigger and stronger and, tonight, meaner. After he spent himself and pulled out, she rolled away from him and cried, her face toward the wall. He fell asleep, sated and happy, with her sobs in his ears.
She didn't speak to him the next morning, except to answer things he said to her. But she made him his breakfast and handed him his dinner pail and generally took care not to get him angry. He pecked her on the cheek and walked off to work whistling.
"Mornin', Mistuh Pinkard," Vespasian said when he came onto the manmade hell that was the foundry floor. "Just got here my ownself"
"Good morning, Vespasian," Jeff said cheerfully. Vespasian was the best kind of nigger, sure enough: one who knew his place. Pinkard could hardly wait for Saturday afternoon. He and his buddies would take care of some niggers who didn't know theirs. They'd learn, by God!
He glanced toward Vespasian. In a really proper world, even the best kind of nigger wouldn't be doing any sort of white man's work. He'd be shoveling coal into the furnaces or out in the cotton fields where blacks belonged. Jeff wondered what the Freedom Party would do about that when it got the chance. Something worth doing. He was sure of that.
After he finished his Saturday half-day, he hurried home and changed into a white shirt and trousers the color of the Confederate uniform. When he started toward the door, Emily asked, ever so cautiously, "Where are you going?"
"Out," he answered, and did.
He got to the meeting place in good time. Barney Stevens shook his hand. "Good man," Stevens said, and gave him a two-foot length of thick doweling-as formidable a club as any policeman carried. "We'll teach the niggers they can't get away with putting on airs like they was as good as white folks."
Some of the Freedom Party men brought their own lead pipes or bottles or other chosen instruments of mayhem. With seventy or eighty of them all together, all dressed pretty much alike, they made a formidable force. Jeff's spirit soared at being part of something so magnificent. It soared again when a gray-clad policeman on horseback waved and tipped his cap to the Freedom Party force.
"Let's go," Barney Stevens said, as if they were about to head out of their trenches and over the top. And so, in a way, they were. "Remember, this is war. Hurt the enemy, help your pals, stay together, obey my orders. If I go down and out, Bill McLana-han's next in line. Now-form column of fours." The veterans obeyed without fuss. They'd done it before, countless times. "For'ard-haarch!" Stevens barked.
Magnolia Park, where the Negroes were holding their rally, was only a few blocks away. Their speaker stood on a platform on which Confederate flags fluttered. That made Jeff's blood boil, even more than Birmingham summer did. A dozen or so cops sufficed to keep a couple of dozen white hecklers away from the rally. Those white men weren't organized. The company from the Freedom Party was.
Cries of alarm rose from black throats when the Freedom Party men came into sight. "Double line of battle to the left and right," Barney Stevens shouted, and the men performed the evolution with practiced ease. Stevens pointed with his club as if it were a British field marshal's baton. "Charge!"
"Freedom!" Jeff yelled, along with his friends. A couple of policemen made halfhearted efforts to get between the Freedom Party men and the Negroes. The tough young veterans in white and butternut rolled over them.
Jeff swung his club. It smacked into black flesh. A howl of pain rose. His lips skinned back from his teeth in a savage grin. He swung again and again and again. A few of the black veterans fought back. Far more fled, though. Some few of them might have gained the vote, but a Negro who fought a white man in the CSA fought not just his foe but also the entire weight of Confederate society and history.
Inside five minutes, the rally was broken up, destroyed. Some of the white hecklers had joined the Freedom Party men. None of the cops had made more than a token effort to hold them back. A lot of Negroes were down with broken heads. Jeff felt as if he'd just stormed a Yankee position in west Texas. He stood tall, the sweat of righteous labor streaming down his face. Just for the moment, he and his comrades were masters of all they surveyed.
The Speaker of the House pointed toward Flora Hamburger. "The chair recognizes the honorable Representative from New York," he intoned.
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker," Flora said. That was more than a mere courtesy; Seymour Stedman of Ohio was himself a Socialist, the first non-Democrat to be Speaker since the first Congress of President Blaine's disastrous term at the start of the 1880s. "Mr. Chairman, I move that the House pass a resolution whose text I have conveyed to the Clerk, deploring and condemning the assaults against law-abiding Negroes now taking place within the Confederate States."
"Mr. Speaker!" Several Congressmen tried to gain Stedman's attention. As had been arranged, he recognized Hosea Blackford. "Second!'" Blackford said in a loud, clear voice. He and Flora grinned at each other.
"It has been moved and seconded that we adopt the resolution Miss Hamburger has conveyed to the Clerk," Congressman Stedman said. "The Clerk will now read the resolution for debate."
Read the clerk did, in a deadly drone. As soon as he finished stating the resolution Flora had summarized, hands shot up all around the House chamber. Speaker Stedman said, "The chair recognizes his honorable colleague from Ohio."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker." William Howard Taft rose ponderously to his feet, then turned toward Flora. "I should like to inquire of the distinguished Representative from New York why she does not include in her resolution the disorders currently taking place in China, Russia, South America, France, and Spanish Morocco, all of those being no less beyond the boundaries of the United States and the purview of the House of Representatives than the events condemned in the Confederate States."
Flora glared at Taft, and there was a lot of him at which to glare. With the Socialists and Republicans holding a slim majority in the House, he no longer chaired the Transportation Committee, and could not use his power there to make her life miserable. He seemed to have trouble realizing that; a lot of Democrats did. They took power for granted, even when it wasn't there.
"I would answer the gentleman from Ohio in two ways," she said. "First, what happens in the Confederate States is vitally important to the United States, because the Confederate States are so close and so closely related to us. And second, the attacks on the Negroes there are fierce, unjustified, and altogether unprovoked."
"They're only niggers, for Christ's sake," somebody called out without waiting to be recognized. "Who the devil cares what the Rebs do to them?"
"Order!' Speaker Stedman slammed down the gavel. "The chair recognizes the honorable Representative from Dakota."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker," Hosea Blackford said. "That unmannerly fellow gives me the chance to quote Donne, and I shall not waste it: 'No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for
thee.' If the Confederates now permit the terrorizing of their Negroes, as appears to be true from the reports reaching us, who can guess what they may permit a year from now, or five years, or ten?"
"I have two questions for the gentleman from Dakota," said the Democrat who rose to reply to Blackford. "The first is, why do you think the Confederate States will pay any attention to a resolution from this House? The second is, if you Socialists want us to do something the Confederate States will pay attention to, why have you taken a meat axe to the War Department budget?"
The second question, in particular, made Flora wince. She'd urged and voted for cutting the military budget, too, and the reasons for which she'd done so-chief among them that the country could no longer afford to keep spending as it had-still seemed good to her. But she had to admit that a warning delivered under credible threat of war would have done far more to deter the thugs who called themselves the Freedom Party than any resolution from the House of Representatives.
As debate went on, she also began to see that even the resolution was going to have a hard time passing. A lot of Democrats proclaimed that they did not care to be seen meddling in the internal political affairs of a neighboring sovereign state. Speaker Stedman countered that one with a sardonic gibe: "As we won't meddle in the affairs of the Republic of Quebec? Had we not meddled in those affairs, there would be no Republic of Quebec."
But the Congressman who'd said, "They're only niggers," had spoken for a great many of his colleagues, whether they would come out and admit it or not. Flora had expected little better from the Democrats. But the Republicans, mostly farm-belt Congressmen from the Midwest, also proved to have little sympathy for the colored man's plight. And even one Socialist stood up and said, "This is not an issue that concerns the people of my district."
"The people of your district don't care about pogroms?" Flora shouted angrily, which made Speaker Stedman bang the gavel against her.
When Stedman called the question, Flora's resolution fell eighteen votes short of passage. "As the hour now nears six, I move that we adjourn for the day," the Speaker said. His motion carried by voice vote, without a single dissenter heard. The House floor emptied rapidly.
Still furious, Flora made no effort to hide it. "What will they do when the bell tolls for them?" she demanded of Hosea Blackford.
"Who can guess, till the time comes?" he answered with a wry smile. "You don't win all the time, Flora. For a lot of years, we hardly won at all. We are on the record, even if the resolution failed. If things go on, we can bring it up again later in the session."
"You take the long view of things," she said slowly.
"I'd better, after all the worthwhile resolutions and bills I've seen die." Blackford flashed that wry grin again. "For now, what sort of view do you take toward supper?"
"I'm in favor of it," Flora admitted. "With luck, someplace where they know how to serve up crow."
"Oh, I think we can do a little better than that," he said, and took her to a chophouse they'd visited a couple of times before. After mutton chops and red wine, the world did seem a less gloomy place. Brandy afterwards didn't hurt, either. Blackford took out a cigar case. He waited for Flora's nod before choosing and lighting a panatela. Between puffs, he asked, "Shall we go out dancing, or to a vaudeville show?"
Flora thought about it, then shook her head. She wasn't that happy. "No, thanks. Not tonight. Why don't you just take me back to my flat?"
"All right, if that's what you want." Blackford rose and escorted her out to his motorcar. The ride back to the apartment building where they both lived passed mostly in silence.
They walked upstairs together. The hallway across which their doors faced each other was quiet and dim: dimmer than usual, because one of the small electric light bulbs had burned out. As usual, Blackford walked Flora to her doorway. As usual, he bent to kiss her good-night. The kiss that followed was anything but usual. Maybe Flora was trying to make up for the day's disappointment. Maybe it was just the brandy talking through her. She didn't know, or care.
Neither, evidently, did Hosea Blackford. "Whew!" he said when at last they broke apart. "I think you melted all the wax in my mustache."
Flora's laugh was shaky. Her cheeks felt hot, as if in embarrassment, but she was not embarrassed. Her heart pounded. She turned, wondering if the routine business of unlocking and opening her door would still the tumult in her. It didn't. She reached for the light switch by the door, then looked back to Blackford. "Would you like to come inside?" she asked.
"Good-" he began, responding to the Good night she'd always given him before. Then he heard what she'd really said. He asked a question of his own: "Are you sure?"
She leaned forward and stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the end of the nose. He'd never pushed her to go further than she wanted to go. Pushing her would have done no good, as a lot of people, in Congress and out, could have told him. But he hadn't needed telling. He wasn't pushing now. She liked him very much for that… and for the feel of his lips pressed against her, his body pressed against her. "Yes," she said firmly.
/ could never have done this back in New York, she thought as they sat side by side on the sofa-not with everyone who lives in our apartment. But even that wasn't true. When Yossel Reisen was about to go off to war, her sister Sophie had found a way to give him a woman's ultimate gift-and he'd given her a gift in return, a gift that now bore his name, a gift he'd never lived to see. If you wanted to badly enough, you could always find a way.
She'd never dreamt she might want to so badly. When, in an experimental way, Blackford slipped an arm around her, she pinned him against the back of the sofa. This kiss went on much longer than the one in the hallway had, and left her feeling as if she might explode at any moment.
Blackford kissed her eyes, her cheeks; his mouth slid to the side of her neck, then up to her ear. Every time his lips touched her skin, she discovered something new and astonishing and wonderful. He nibbled at her earlobe, murmuring, "You don't know how long I've wanted to do this, darling." She didn't answer, not with words, but left no doubt about what she wanted.
But going into her bedroom with him a few minutes later was another long step into the unknown. She didn't turn on any of the lights in there. No matter how much urgency filled her, the idea of undressing in front of a man left her shaking. Even so, she sighed with relief as she slid off her corset. On a hot, muggy late-summer night, bare skin felt good.
Her bare skin soon felt quite a lot better than good. She was amazed at the sensations Hosea Blackford's hands and lips and tongue evoked from her breasts, and then amazed again when one hand strayed lower. She'd stroked herself now and again, but this was different: every touch, every movement, a startlement. The small, altogether involuntary moan of pleasure she let out took her by surprise.
But that surprise also recalled her partly to herself. She remembered Sophie's horror and panic out on the balcony of the family flat when her sister told her she was pregnant. "I can't have a baby!" she exclaimed.
Blackford hesitated, studying her in the half-light. Had she made him angry? If he got up and left now, she would die of humiliation-and frustration. But, to her vast relief, he nodded. "One of the reasons I care for you so much is for your good sense," he said. "We'll make sure everything is all right." He bent so that his mouth went where his hand had gone before.
Flora had literally never imagined such a thing. She hadn't imagined how good it felt, either. When pleasure burst over her, it made everything she'd done by herself seem… beside the point was the best way she found to think of it.
If he'd done that for her, she ought to return the favor, though she didn't quite know how. Awkwardly, she took him in her hand. As she drew near, she saw he looked strange. From inadvertencies around the family apartment, she knew how a man was made. Hosea Blackford was made a little differently. He's not circumcised, she realized. She'd forgotten that consequence of his being a gentile.
She kissed him and licked him
. He needed only a moment to understand she didn't know what she was doing. "Put it in your mouth," he said quietly. She did, though she hadn't imagined that only minutes before, any more than the other. The sound he made was a masculine version of her moan. Encouraged, she kept on.
She didn't need to keep on very long. He grunted and jerked and spurted. It caught her by surprise, and didn't taste very good. She coughed and sputtered and gulped before she could help herself. When she could speak again, she asked, "Was that right?"
He put her hand over his heart, which pounded like a drum. "If it were any more right," he assured her, "I'd be dead." She laughed and lay beside him, still marveling that such pleasure was possible-and ever so relieved that, unlike Sophie, she would not have to worry about consequences nine months later.
"Atlanta!" the conductor called, stepping into the car in which Jake Featherston rode. "All out for Atlanta!" He strode down the aisle, making sure no one could doubt the upcoming stop.
Featherston grabbed his carpetbag and sprang to his feet. His seat had been in the middle of the car, but he was one of the first people off it. He was one of the first people to a taxicab, too. "The Kendall Hotel," he told the driver.
"Sure thing," the fellow answered. The hotel proved to be only a few blocks east of Terminal Station. Brakes squealed as the driver stopped in front of the massive brick building with Moorish-looking turrets and ornaments. "That'll be twelve."
"Here you go." Jake handed him a $1,000 banknote and a $500. "I don't need any change." With the taximan's tip, he would have got back only a hundred dollars, two hundred if he wanted to be a cheapskate. He didn't. Anyhow, with currency the way it was these days, you had to be crazy to worry about anything as small as a hundred bucks.
A uniformed Negro porter came up to carry his bag. He gave the black man a hundred dollars. That was what such nearly worthless banknotes were good for. It was also, he thought, what nearly worthless black men were good for.
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