“What you got to tell me about them Reds?” Luther Bliss asked now.
“I done told you everything I ever knew,” Cincinnatus answered. It wasn’t quite true, but he didn’t think Bliss knew that.
He did know what was coming next. It came. Joe and the other guards got to work on him. They enjoyed what they did, yes, but not to the point of getting carried away and doing him permanent harm: they were, in their way, professionals. It went on for a very long, painful time.
What hurt most of all, though, was a casual remark Bliss made halfway through the torment: “You might as well sing, by God. It isn’t like anybody on the outside gives a damn about what happens to one miserable nigger in a Kentucky jail.”
At last, the beating stopped. The guards dragged Cincinnatus back to his cell. He probably could have walked. He made himself out to be weaker and hurt worse than he really was. Maybe that made them go a little easier on him than they would have otherwise. On the other hand, maybe it didn’t do a single goddamn thing.
“See you next time, boy,” Joe said as his pal undid the manacles from Cincinnatus’ wrists.
Cincinnatus lay on his cot like a dead man. Had Luther Bliss sent for him more often, he would have been a dead man in short order. Maybe Bliss didn’t want to kill him right away. Maybe, on the other hand, the secret policeman was taking so many different vengeances, he wasn’t in a hurry about finishing off any one of them.
It isn’t like anybody on the outside gives a damn about what happens to one miserable nigger in a Kentucky jail. In a way, that was a lie. Cincinnatus knew as much. Elizabeth cared. Achilles cared. Amanda cared. But what could they do? They were black, too, black in a white man’s country. Nobody who could do anything cared about Cincinnatus. That burned like acid. It would keep on burning long after the pain of this latest beating eased, too.
He ran his tongue over his teeth. So far, the goons had broken only one. He’d taken no new damage there today. They hadn’t done anything to him this time that wouldn’t fade in a couple of weeks. In the meantime . . . In the meantime, it’s gonna hurt, and ain’t nothin’ you can do about it.
A cart squeaked up the corridor: supper trays. Cincinnatus wondered if he’d be able to eat. You better. You got to stay strong. A redheaded white man shoved a tray of something that smelled greasy into Cincinnatus’ cell. The fellow wore the same sort of uniform as the guards who’d beaten him.
In a low voice, the redhead said, “Freedom.” Cincinnatus suppressed a groan. Just what he needed—somebody with diehard sympathies mocking him. I ought to report you, you bastard. Luther Bliss’d make you pay. But then the fellow went on, “We’ll get you out.” He pushed the cart away. Cincinnatus stared after him. Did he mean that? And, if he did, whose side was he really on?
IV
Another trip down to Washington. Flora Blackford preferred Philadelphia, and didn’t care who knew it. But she was willing to excuse the trip to the formal capital of the USA for one reason: so her husband could for the second time take the oath of office as vice president of the United States.
“Now we think about 1928,” she told him as the Pullman car rattled south from Philadelphia. Then she shook her head. “No. That’s not right. We should have been thinking about 1928 since the minute we won last November.”
Hosea Blackford’s smile showed amusement—and, she was glad to see, ambition, too. “I don’t know about you, Flora,” he said, “but I have been thinking about it since the minute we won last November, and a while before that, too. When I first saw what the office was, I didn’t think I could do much with it or go any further. I’ve changed my mind, though.”
“Good,” Flora said. “You should have, and you’d better think about it. You can be president of the United States. You really can.”
“That wouldn’t be too bad for a boy off a Dakota farm, would it?” he said. “You always hear talk about such things. ‘Any mother’s son can grow up to be president.’ That’s what people say. Having the chance to make it come true, though . . .”
“Of course, if you thought being president was the most important thing in the world, you never should have married me.” Flora tried to keep her tone light. Other people would be saying the same thing much more pointedly in the years to come. She was as sure of that as she was of her own name. A presidential candidate with a Jew for a wife? Unheard of! How many votes would it cost him?
“That has occurred to me,” Hosea Blackford said slowly. “It couldn’t very well not have occurred to me. But then I decided that, if I had to choose between the two, I would rather spend the rest of my life with you than be president. So I’ll take my chances, and the country can take its.”
Flora stared at him. Then she kissed him. One thing led to another. The run from Philadelphia down to Washington wasn’t a very long one, especially not when traveling on President Sinclair’s express. They barely had time to get dressed again and set their clothes to rights before the train came in to Union Station.
“It’s a good thing you don’t have to wrestle with a corset, the way you would have before the war,” Hosea said, adjusting his necktie in the mirror.
“Don’t speak of such things—you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Flora answered. “The only thing I can think of is, whoever put women in corsets must have hated us. Especially in summertime. A corset on a hot summer day . . .” She shuddered.
“Well, you wouldn’t have had to worry about the heat today.” Her husband looked out the window. “The snow’s still coming down.”
“March is late in the year for a snowstorm,” Flora said. “I wonder if what people say is true: that the weather’s been peculiar since the Great War, and that it made the weather peculiar.”
Hosea Blackford laughed. “Back in Dakota, I would have said May was late for a snowstorm, but nothing sooner than that. If you ask me, the weather’s always peculiar. I have a suspicion it’s peculiar because it’s peculiar, too, and not because we made it that way. I can’t prove that, but it’s what I think. The weather’s bigger than anything we can do, even the Great War.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said.
On the platform, a military band blared away. Flora didn’t care for that. It wasn’t a proper Socialist symbol, even if it was a symbol of the presidency. But if President Sinclair wanted it—and he did—she could hardly complain. People called her the conscience of the Congress, but this wasn’t a question of conscience—only one of taste.
A limousine whisked the president and his wife to the White House. Another one brought the Blackfords there. The journey took only a few minutes. When Flora saw the Washington Monument, she pointed. “It’s taller than it was when we came down here for Roosevelt’s funeral. You can really tell.”
Her husband nodded. “Before President Sinclair’s term is up, it’ll be back to its full height. No mark on the sides to show how much of it the Confederates knocked down, either. I think that’s good.”
“So do I,” Flora agreed. “No matter what the Democrats say, there can be such a thing as too much remembrance.”
“Yes.” Hosea sighed. “Some people just can’t see that. Why anyone would want to remember all the horror we went through during the Great War . . . Well, it’s beyond me.”
“Beyond me, too,” Flora said. “Try not to get into an argument with my brother tomorrow.”
“I won’t argue if David doesn’t,” her husband said. “I’ll try not to argue even if he does.” David Hamburger had lost a leg in the last year of the war. In spite of that—or maybe because of it—he’d gone from Socialist to conservative Democrat since. Having paid so much, he couldn’t, wouldn’t, believe that payment hadn’t been worthwhile.
During President Sinclair’s—and Vice President Blackford’s—first inauguration, Flora had been a Congresswoman, yes. But she hadn’t been Blackford’s wife, and hadn’t been fully swept up into the social whirl surrounding the occasion. Now she went from one reception to another. She found i
t more wearing than enjoyable.
When she said as much, Hosea Blackford laughed. “Are you sure you’re a New York Jew, and not one of those gloomy Protestants from New England? No matter what they say, there’s nothing in the Bible against having a good time.”
“I didn’t say there was,” Flora answered. “But it all seems so—excessive.”
“Oh, is that all you’re worrying about?” Hosea laughed again. “Of course it’s excessive. That’s the point of it.”
She gave him a disapproving look. “I’m sure Louis XVI said the same thing just before the French Revolution.”
“Not fair,” Hosea said.
“Maybe not.” Flora didn’t want to argue with her husband, any more than she wanted him quarreling with her brother. But she wasn’t altogether convinced, either.
She found believing him easier when Inauguration Day came. When the Socialists won the election in 1920, electricity had filled the air. The Democrats had dominated U.S. politics since the election of 1884. Some people had feared proletarian revolution. Some had looked for it.
It hadn’t come. Politics had gone on as usual—the same song, but in a different key. Flora supposed that was a good thing. She still sometimes had a sense of opportunity missed, though.
This second Socialist inauguration seemed different. Now no one acted astonished the day had ever come. People took it for granted, in fact. Flora didn’t know whether that was good or bad, either. She did know that, up on the reviewing stand in front of the White House, she wondered if she’d freeze to death before her husband and President Sinclair took the oaths of office for their second terms.
But having her family up on the stand with her made up for a lot. Her older sister Sophie’s son Yossel was very big now—he was almost ten. He’d never seen his father, who’d been killed in action before he was born. Flora had hardly seen her younger sister Esther’s new husband, a clerk named Meyer Katz. She was also startled at how gray her parents were getting.
She wished her brother David hadn’t worn his Soldiers’ Circle pin, with a sword through the year of his conscription class. Only reactionaries did. But he wore his Purple Heart next to it. That and the stick he used and the slow, rolling gait of a man who made do with an artificial leg after an above-the-knee amputation meant no one near him said a word about it. His younger brother, Isaac, had gone through his turn in the Army after the Great War. His tour had been quiet, uneventful. He didn’t wear a pin on his lapel.
In President Sinclair’s second inaugural address, he talked about justice for the working man, old-age pensions, and “getting along with our neighbors on this great continent.” The first two drew fierce applause from the crowd, the third rather less.
“Memories of the war are still too fresh,” Hosea Blackford said when all the speeches and parades were over. “In another ten years, people will look more kindly on the Confederate States.”
“Not everyone will,” David Hamburger said. He was only a tailor talking to the vice president of the United States, but he spoke his mind.
His brother-in-law frowned. They were going to argue after all. “Would you want your children to go through what you did? Do you think the Confederates are mad enough to want their children to go through it again?”
“I hope there’s never a war again,” Flora said.
“I hope the same thing,” David answered. “But hoping there won’t be and staying ready in case there is are two different animals.”
“We’d do better if we’d made a just peace, not the harsh one Teddy Roosevelt forced the CSA to swallow,” Hosea Blackford said. “And we’re still trying to figure out what to do with Canada.”
“You try giving away anything Roosevelt won and you’ll lose the next election quicker than you ever thought you could,” David said.
“I don’t think so,” Flora said. “If we aren’t a just nation, what are we?”
“A strong one, I hope,” her brother answered. They eyed each other. They both used English, but they didn’t speak the same language.
No one questioned the Socialist Party’s agenda at any of the inaugural banquets and balls that night. Even the Democratic Congressmen and Senators who made their appearance were smiling and polite. They wouldn’t show their teeth till Congress went back into session up in Philadelphia.
Flora was just as well pleased to return to the de facto capital. Over the past eight years, it had become home to her. Her husband teased her as the train pulled into Broad Street Station: “You’ll be busier than I will. The vice president’s main job is growing moss on his north side.”
“You knew that when you accepted the nomination the first time,” Flora said.
He nodded. “Well, yes. Even so, these past four years have really rammed it home.”
But Flora had trouble charging into the new session as she was used to doing. She found herself sleepy all the time, without the energy she usually took for granted. Before long, she was pretty sure she knew why. When she no longer had room for doubt, she said, “Hosea, I’m going to have a baby.”
His eyes grew very wide. After a moment, he started to laugh. “So much for prophylactics!” he blurted. Then he gave her a kiss and said, “That’s wonderful news!”
Flora wished he’d said that before the other. “I think so, too,” she said. “The world he’ll see . . .”
“I know. That’s astonishing to think about.” Hosea Blackford ran a hand through his hair. It was thick, but gray. “I only hope I’ll see enough of it with him for him to remember me. This is one of those times that reminds me I’m not so young as I wish I were.”
“You’re not too old,” Flora said slyly. Her husband laughed again. Even so, the moment didn’t quite turn out the way she wished it would have.
The McGregors’ wagon plodded toward Rosenfeld. The horse’s tail switched back and forth, back and forth, flicking at the flies that came to life in the springtime. Mary McGregor felt like a turtle poking its head out of its shell. All through the harsh Manitoba winter, she’d stayed on the farm. Going into town then wasn’t for the fainthearted. Her mother had done it, for kerosene and other things they couldn’t make for themselves, but she hadn’t wanted to take Mary or Julia along.
A Ford whizzed past them. The horse snorted at the dust the motorcar kicked up. Mary coughed, too. “Those things are ugly and noisy,” she said. This one had been particularly ugly—it was painted barn red, so anyone could see it coming, or going, for miles.
“They go so fast, though,” Julia said wistfully. “You can get from here to there in nothing flat. And more and more people have ’em nowadays.”
“People who suck up to the Yankees,” Mary said.
Her older sister shook her head. “Not all of them. Not any more.”
From the seat in front of them, their mother looked back over her shoulder. “We’re not getting one any time soon,” Maude McGregor said, and brushed a wisp of hair back from her face. Her voice was harsh and flat, as it so often was these days. “Hasn’t got anything to do with politics, either. They’re expensive, is what they are.”
That silenced both Mary and Julia. The farm kept them all fed, but it could do no more than that—or rather, they could make it do no more than that. If Pa were alive, and Alexander, we’d be fine, Mary thought. But there was always too much work and not enough time. She didn’t know what to do about that. She didn’t think anybody could do anything about it.
“We ought to be coming up to the checkpoint outside of town pretty soon,” Julia said.
“We’ve passed it by now,” Maude McGregor said, even more flatly than before. “It’s not up any more.”
Mary felt like bursting into tears. Two or three years before, she would have. Now she faced life with a thoroughly adult bleakness. “The rebellion’s all over, then,” she said, and nothing more lived in her voice than had in her mother’s.
“It never had a chance,” Julia said.
That was enough to rouse Mary, whose red hair
did advertise her temper. “It would have,” she said, “if so many people hadn’t sat on their hands. And if there hadn’t been so many traitors.”
For some little while, the clopping of the horse’s hooves, the squeak of an axle that was getting on toward needing grease, and the occasional clank as an iron tire ran over a rock in the roadway were the only sounds. “Traitors” is an ugly word, Mary thought. But it was the only one that fit. The Americans had known the uprising was coming before it really got started. The Rosenfeld Register—the weekly newspaper—had even said a Canadian woman with a name famous for patriotism helped with information about it because she was in love with a Yank. The only famous woman patriot Mary could think of offhand was Laura Secord. Did she have descendants? Mary wouldn’t have been surprised. She didn’t think the uprising would have had much of a chance anyhow. With such handicaps, it had had none. All that was left now was punishing those who’d done their best for their country.
Maude McGregor drove around a muddy crater in the road. This one was new; it didn’t date back to the days of the Great War. Mary hoped it had blown up something large and American.
Before long, Julia pointed ahead and said, “There it is! I see it.”
Mary McGregor saw Rosenfeld, too. Like her sister, she couldn’t help getting excited. Rosenfeld had perhaps a thousand souls. If two railroads hadn’t come together there, the town would have had no reason for existing. But there it was. It boasted a post office, a general store, the weekly newspaper, a doctor’s office, and an allegedly painless dentist. He’d filled a couple of Mary’s teeth. It hadn’t hurt him a bit. She wished she could say the same.
“I suppose Winnipeg’s bigger,” Mary said, “but it can’t be much bigger.”
“I wouldn’t think so,” Julia agreed. Neither of them had ever seen a town bigger than Rosenfeld. Up in front of them, Maude McGregor chuckled quietly. Mary wondered why.
Regardless of whether there were towns bigger than Rosenfeld, it was quite crowded and bustling enough. Wagons and motorcars clogged its main street. Locals in city clothes—white shirts, neckties, jackets with lapels—and U.S. Army men in green-gray shared the sidewalk. Women wore city clothes, too. Julia pointed again. “Will you look at that?” she said, deliciously scandalized. Mary looked—and gaped.
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