I'm Dying Laughing

by Christina Stead

  ‘Yes,’ said Vera, looking at him directly and then quietly at the others.

  ‘And that—with one thing and another—some episodes I’ve left out, not really printable—must be censored except for Vee’s ears—was how I came back home just before the war broke out.’

  ‘Yes, yes, really, fancy that,’ Emily had been saying, fidgeting in her chair and drawing on the plate with a bit of bread. Stephen had been listening quietly, smiling occasionally. To Godfrey and Millian the story evidently was not new.

  Holinshed laughed tranquilly, ‘There was a girl in New York who seemed to know a lot but I would have missed the plane. I was coming back to Vee—and I refused. To refuse experience is wrong.’

  Emily, all of a sudden, said loudly, ‘I don’t think experience is something outside you you have to seek. I think experience is inside you.’ She opened her mouth, shut it, then said, ‘Well, anyhow, I don’t see how married people can betray each other: to me, it’s betrayal. I don’t call it old-fashioned. I don’t see how a woman can look at her husband, if she’s even thinking about another man. How can she look him in the eye, how can she speak to him in an honest tone, discuss the weekly bills with him? It’s dishonest. I think it’s the same with men. After all, being loyal is an experience, too.’

  Millian looked across at her with a faint superior smile; and Vera said, ‘Let’s go into the other room, shall we? The Byrds will be along soon; and a doctor and his wife, they’re progressives, and a man called Evans and some others.’

  The two friends Bowles and Holinshed began consulting in low tones by the piano and Stephen was talking to Millian. Katsuri had arranged bottles and glasses for the evening’s entertainment. Emily and Vera went in to look at the two young children, who were sleeping. The two women did not come back for some time. They looked at the house, the kitchen, the linen closets, the larder, the small backyard built of stones; at Vera’s pictures, the library where Jim worked when at home. There was a private class in socially significant writing organized by Holinshed and Bowles. These classes and intimate political meetings were held in the bigger rooms. Vera worked on two women’s committees, and twice a week worked on a voluntary committee which collected clothes for the British.

  Emily exclaimed, ‘Why the British? I wouldn’t give them our torn underwear. Well, we haven’t any. They’re our enemies; there isn’t one of them that doesn’t think we’re ignorant savages, a dollar in one hand, a stick of chewing gum in the other and a bottle of Coca-Cola clenched in the teeth; and in our pants pocket a writ of dispossess, pay up or be damned!’

  She burst out laughing, ‘Well, they’re right! That’s what we do. Goddamnit! Why do we go out of our way to prove we’re just like foreigners think we are. Well, OK, I’ll give you some clothing for the British, not torn either. It does me good to think of them going about in what Giles and Lennie wouldn’t wear.’

  Vera laughed but said sturdily, ‘They’re our allies. We all believe in the united front.’

  ‘For my money, the united front, the way it’s being worked, is a pentagon front, facing five ways, but all against Russia. Look at all the intellectuals who felt they were out on a limb, who got into $600 handmade uniforms and sat in Hollywood-land doing important secret work in firms for which they were paid not only by the studio but also by the Government. It was an unmixed blessing for the brainy reds who were tired of being called un-American Kremlinites, fifth columnists, fellow travellers and Russian agents. I don’t blame them. Who wants to be called a traitor to his country? Though it’s only the communists themselves who are true to their country, real patriots who see the future of their country—’

  She stopped a moment, burst out, ‘It’s in this country that the word traitor means most of all. A traitor in England is just one of a long line of shabby individuals who had no guts; but in this country, it’s the blackest and lowest.’

  ‘Don’t you think that when we’re working for the war effort and buying bonds we believe in the united front?’

  ‘I think they were sick of being out on a limb and they fell on spy-watching and social services and desk-militarism with a glad cry.’

  ‘Well, I disagree with you there. Jim’s new book is to show how ten years of work in the people’s movement brings a man logically on the day of Pearl Harbor to American loyalism.’

  ‘What does he do then?’

  ‘He joins the fire patrol.’

  Emily yelped with laughter and ‘Oh, ho, ho,’ said she, ‘excuse me, Vera.’

  Vera reddened.

  ‘It’s as plain to me as the war memorial in Kallikak. It’s philosophic decadence; and the unions’ no-strike pledge was betrayal. We’re all just glad to belong.’

  Vera said coldly, ‘You’ll see it won’t turn out that way. Why should there be war between the worlds? Unity and eventual peace is the best pledge either of our worlds has. It’s the best refuge for American progressive democracy and Russian recovery.’

  Emily burst out with, ‘Not one of you can see a stone’s throw around the corner! Haven’t the words meant anything to us? Surely the Russian system is the bitter enemy of everything our system stands for! And surely it’s us or them! You mean it isn’t as bad as typhoid to every congressman and his flock that we’re the allies of Russia?’

  ‘So you really have been against the united front and the second front and a peaceful solution?’ said Vera, in a very hostile manner and going towards the door.

  Emily chuckled sadly and said, ‘Oh, I guess it’s maybe the sere, the yellow in me. I feel like a poor old cracked and tarnished buggy in my Grandpa’s shed. I don’t seem to understand politics, though I always thought I did. I’m some kind of dope. Still, is there anyone you know who can explain to me, not yell at me, why in the USA alone of all the world, a Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist Party of the working class is considered unnecessary and even harmful? Why are we friends with every political crook because of the lesser-evil policy? Why do we hush-hush on the good old class struggle? You mean all that’s abolished for the USA? I thought Lovestone got thrown out for being an American exceptionalist? Are we just going to sit down to a love-feast? No advantage taken, no profit, no imperialist urges? Are the contradictions of capitalism all solved now and leading Marxists are going to get a chance at the presidency? But isn’t the fight won in a way? Isn’t this the hour of triumph of the Soviet Union? And shouldn’t we say it? That we’ve got what we fought for? And why is it wrong, if we believe it, to say “Up the Labour Republic”? I suppose I’m just an Old Bolshevik and ought to be retired.’

  Vera had become stern, cold, very pale. But she said, ‘Moffat Byrd’s going to be here this evening and he’ll explain to you how we feel. But you ought to be careful what you say. I’m saying this as a friend. As a matter of fact, Emily, I’m against this evening’s meeting. They’re coming here tonight for a specific purpose, to straighten you out, both of you, I mean. I think it’s wrong. I think you should have been told.’

  ‘What is it? They’re going to give us a working over? Why? I’m just as much a Trotskyist as the green man in Mars. Stephen agrees with you absolutely. Hence I’m driven to mumbling to myself in my workroom, and I make seditious speeches at the anniversary meeting of the Soviet Union. Do you know what I said?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Vera looking at her fixedly.

  Emily laughed, ‘Yes, I guess you do. Everyone else too. I guess I’ve made trouble in this duck-pond. But no one has yet given me a good answer. The Soviet Union is winning and we’re to say that Lenin said Rockefeller is progressive.’

  ‘He did say that.’

  ‘Well, then our martyrs were all wrong. They should just have laid down and let the American progressive steamroller squash them flat. Let us all be slaves here, wear gags and we’ll be honourably serving American progressive capitalism.’

  Vera said, ‘You’re very much in error. Let’s go and join the others. I think this discussion should be general and I think Moffat Byrd can show you just where y
ou’re wrong. But you ought to get closer to the people, hear how they think and you ought to read the Labor Daily regularly.’

  ‘That’s the last straw. I write for the damn rag. I’m an editor.’

  ‘I know you are; and when you first came out, you and Stephen, we thought for one thing you’d been sent—’ She bit her lip and hastily continued, ‘There was some confusion, we thought your opinions were official. But Moffat Byrd soon realized they were not.’

  She had paused inside the door and looked at Emily a little more friendly. She said quickly, in a lower tone, ‘Don’t you think you ought to accept more discipline? Do you think your own individual opinion is so important? I don’t believe you’re just a Bohemian; and for that matter, we’ve all talked it over and put it down to your coming from New York. Everyone here knows that New Yorkers are more Bohemian, more individualist than we are; especially writers. There you’ve got the nineteenth-century view of writers. Here, we’ve got a mass of working writers who are unionised, work for big bosses, just like factory workers. The writer working in a cellar on his own ideas, is almost unknown: it belongs to the handloom epoch. This gives us a different and more modern viewpoint. We understand that New York writers, when they first come here, bring along a heap of out-of-date fetishisms and individualist attitudes. We’ve put it down to that; and we’re conscious of your importance as a humorist and family writer. It’s very important that you shouldn’t go wrong. Your family books appeal to the people. You’re important.’

  Emily turned red and began to shout. ‘What about my political books? What about The Wilkes-Barre Chronicle? What about Johnny Appleseed? Why are my serious books not mentioned?’

  Vera said painfully, lowering her eyes and raising them appealingly, ‘They didn’t sell. They didn’t communicate.’

  Emily was shouting, ‘Three times a week, I get letters from miners and seamen and such non-executives of the Party saying that my books, my serious books, put fresh heart into them; and before they felt the struggle was too hard but now I’ve given them fresh hope and a fresh wind has blown through their lives. I can show you these unsolicited testimonials to the value of my books and my communication. Why, I had letters this week from a group in Wilkes-Barre saying that everyone there was arguing about Johnny Appleseed. They said he wasn’t a symbol but a real worker; a miner said he was a miner and an ironworker said he was an ironworker he knew. What about that? Aren’t you just a bunch of intellectuals yourselves?’

  At this moment, James Holinshed with a smile around the eyes in his pale smooth face, stood in the doorway. Emily saw him but went on to say, ‘Who cares about the purity of a bookworm in a heap of gold? I think that’s wasting time and the time of local X of the Printers’ Union. What’s the apotheosis of this bookworm? It takes all Pearl Harbor to make him the fireman he meant to be as a boy. Well, so did the grocer’s lad, didn’t he? Or, to put it in the terms of your industrial, not handmade epoch, the cashier at the superstores? Or didn’t he? Do the intellectuals in Hollywood join a separate branch? The writers’ branch of fighting progressives in Hollywood is by long miles separate, isn’t it, from the vulgar Mexican worker downtown?’

  ‘Labour unionism is based on the division of labour,’ said Vera.

  James Holinshed came smoothly into the room, ‘Oh, we’re segregated. Let’s all get together. The Moffat Byrds are here. Katsuri’s handing out drinks. Clare Byrd has reeled on to her favourite sofa: she’s got a yellow dinner dress on and she’s just spilled her drink down the front and she’s hiccuping from pure embarrassment. Byrd’s waiting for you, Emily. We consider you are two of the leading intellectuals here and you’ve kept us up at night; you’re a maverick; or else it’s your simple innocence from Wilkes-Barre, Penn? Was that my book you were castigating? We’re intellectuals and they don’t want us to corrupt the honest Mexican worker of Los Angeles. First with our money; then with our ideas.’

  Emily said, ‘That’s wrong. We might teach them something; or they might teach us something.’ Holinshed said, ‘I know, that’s often discussed; but we see no way out. Our subscriptions are so much larger, to all causes; we have cars; we do so much more, we have more time, more influence. We have connections all over the country. We’d overwhelm, discourage and then drive out the ordinary worker.’

  ‘In flat words, we’re rich and he’s poor. What good can come of it? Pooah!’ said Emily. She flounced out, nearly fell down the three steps leading to the dropped living-room, where the guests were. Standing on the bottom step a moment to wrench at her shoe, she heard the two behind her whispering.

  ‘What about the letter? When is Godfrey reading that?’

  Holinshed said, ‘That’s later. Byrd is very anxious to speak. She’s making deviationist speeches every time she opens her mouth. It’s a very serious thing.’

  Emily sailed down into the room and looked gaily and impertinently at Jay Moffat Byrd, the political leader of the rich progressive writers of the studios. The screen writers were organised into a professional guild apart from the guilds of the pulp-writers, photographers, actors and stagehands and others. This gave them a corporate interest and a curious, conscious self-interest which she had never met before.

  She changed her mind about him when she looked into the large, dark, fleshy face of Jay Moffat Byrd. She was afraid of him, not because of his strict ideas, nor his political and studio position, but because she was in the presence of a quality she did not understand and shrank from. He was in the highest moneymaking market of any writer in Hollywood; he was a ‘faithful Party Communist’ as they said. His explanations, however unexpected, of political happenings and the changes of political line, and however difficult to follow and explain, were accepted; and his political incubations, his views of the other world, the non-Hollywood world, were at least always seriously discussed; though by no means slavishly followed. There were a few, though, well-paid writers, like Godfrey Bowles (called by the Howards in private ‘God’ or ‘Godfrey the Good’), who abdicated and asked Byrd for guidance. These were few, but strong. At the same time, there were barely any who went so far as Emily in thinking that serious mistakes of policy had been made by the American progressives, out of thoughtless patriotism perhaps and by the American Labour Movement, during this wartime crisis of opinion: few who thought so; fewer who said so.

  6 THE STRAIGHTENING OUT

  THE WOMEN SAT ABOUT among the men, saying very little, huddling in groups and talking quietly about their children, well-dressed, modern, polite and most somewhat drunk; and the men, also drunk, took many postures, horsing on the backs and arms of chairs, striding up and down, leaning on the windowsills, on the high mantel of the bogus fireplace. As they passed, the women drew in their feet; except for Clara Byrd, lounging now on a large brocade sofa, dressed, since she had spoiled her dress, in a borrowed white and red wrapper and red mules, her strong arms bare, her hair loosed on each side and her bright blue eyes starting from her head. Clara Byrd and Emily were boldly drunk.

  Every time Emily took a drink, Stephen, who was sipping brandy, gave her an angry glance and said, ‘Emily, quit drinking,’ or ‘You’ve had enough.’

  Mrs Byrd was left alone and the mood of the party was dull, but restless.

  Stephen had taken a dislike to a newcomer, Everett Maine, the son of millionaires who owned property near Central Park in New York. He had joined the Party and been disinherited. He was working, rolling barrels in a brewery. He had been expected to dinner but was late because a jalopy which he had bought for twenty dollars had broken down at a street turning. He would have to get up early to walk to work the next day. He was a fair, tall, good-looking man, and appealingly, with something of Stephen’s own manner, described his parents’ ways. In the private suite at the top of the apartment house they owned, were hints and glints of gold; a gold-plated toilet seat, goldwasser in the bar, a banknote in trompe-l’oeil in the lounge, ‘maybe so that some guest will break her fingernails trying to pick it off the wall.’ They
insisted on his coming for Sunday dinner and Christmas.