“That ain’t so,” Cincinnatus said.
“The . . . heck it isn’t,” Achilles retorted.
“No.” Cincinnatus shook his head. “I never said that, and I don’t believe it. What I say is, white folks reckon black folks is on the bottom o’ the pile. An’ that’s the Lord’s truth. If you was old enough to recollect what it was like livin’ in Kentucky when it belonged to the Confederate States, you’d know it, too.”
“But we aren’t in the Confederate States any more,” Achilles pointed out.
“But white folks is still white folks.” That wasn’t Cincinnatus; it was Elizabeth. The two older people thought as one on this question. If anything, Elizabeth was more cautious about rocking the boat than her husband.
Grace’s smile was sad. She held up a hand to stop Achilles when he would have come back with a hot answer. That hand did stop him, too, as Cincinnatus noted with surprise and more than a little respect. She said, “My parents sound the same about this. But times have changed. If times hadn’t changed, would Achilles and I be together?”
“Times has changed—some,” Cincinnatus said. “They ain’t changed enough. You look at the black folks runnin’ away from the Confederate States. You look at how the USA don’t let ’em cross the border. President Hoover, President Smith, that don’t matter—it don’t change. The USA don’t want nothin’ to do with us, an’ that’s how come I say things ain’t changed enough.”
He waited to see how Grace would respond to that. She shrugged and said, “Maybe.” He wondered what that was supposed to mean. Probably that he hadn’t convinced her, but she was too polite to say so. She didn’t always come out and say what she thought. Cincinnatus had already noticed that.
He asked, “You going to visit your folks while you’re here? Only one flight up.”
Grace shook her head. “Not much point. They don’t want to see us.”
“Don’t they want to see their grandbaby?” Cincinnatus pointed to Karen.
His son answered: “I’m not Chinese. I’m just a spook.” His voice was harsh and cold.
“That’s not quite fair,” Grace said. “They wouldn’t like it if you were white, either.”
“Well, maybe not,” Achilles admitted. “They don’t quite hate me, the way I’ve seen some white men do. They can make themselves be polite. I even used to think they were pretty nice, till the two of us started getting serious. But they sure don’t want you to be married to me, and the baby hasn’t made ’em change their minds about that.”
His wife sighed. “I know. It’s sad. They came to America to find a better life than they could have had in China. They got one, too. But they’re still Chinese first and American afterwards.”
“We came here to Iowa to get a better life, too,” Cincinnatus said. “I’m glad I’m livin’ in the United States and not in the Confederate States no more—’specially nowadays. God help the poor niggers in the CSA nowadays.”
Achilles and Grace left a little later. Cincinnatus walked to the stairway with them, hoping they would change their mind and go upstairs to visit the Changs after all. But they didn’t. They went down to the street, carrying the baby with them. He sighed and went back to the apartment. Elizabeth’s raised eyebrows asked a question. Cincinnatus shook his head.
His wife sighed. “That’s so sad, they cut off from half their family. Don’t seem right. Don’t seem right at all. You ain’t got family, you ain’t got nothin’.”
“And the baby’s so cute,” Amanda said. “How can you not love a little baby?”
Cincinnatus smiled. “You love everybody, honey.” That was true. Amanda was a sweet-natured child. Because she liked almost everyone, she thought everybody should like everybody else. And if all the people in the world had been like her, everybody would have. Sooner or later, though, she would have to realize not everyone worked the way she did. Cincinnatus hoped she wouldn’t get hurt too badly finding that out.
Elizabeth said, “I reckon Grace’s folks love the baby, all right. The one they got trouble with is your brother.”
Not even Amanda believed everybody ought to love Achilles. She loved him, yes, but sometimes even she had to work at it. Especially when she was smaller, he’d sometimes made her life miserable, as an older brother was only too likely to do with a younger sister.
The next morning, Cincinnatus gulped an extra cup of coffee before he hit the road. He stopped on the way to the railroad yards to buy a copy of the Herald-Express. As usual, he read the paper in snatches at stop signs and traffic lights, and not for the front-page stories but for the ones on the inside pages, the stories the editors—and most people in Des Moines—didn’t think were so important.
Who in Des Moines, for instance, got excited about a page-three story whose headline said KENTUCKY STATE POLICE DISBANDED? Kentucky had rejoined the USA before Houston had, and had been much less troublesome. But the Freedom Party had done very well in the last elections there, and this was the result.
How many comfortable Iowans knew the Kentucky State Police might better have been called the Kentucky Secret Police? The Kentucky State Police had been the instrument the USA used to make sure the state stayed loyal to Philadelphia. Cincinnatus knew Luther Bliss, the head of the outfit, all too well. Just thinking of Bliss’ light brown eyes, the color of a hunting dog’s, was enough to make him break out in a cold sweat. He’d spent a couple of years in prison on account of the Kentucky State Police.
And now they were disbanding? Cincinnatus whistled softly. “Do Jesus!” he muttered. “Who hold that state down?” And what would happen to their longtime head, who’d spent a generation stomping on everything the Freedom Party stood for? Would the new winners in Kentucky hang him from a lamp post?
Cincinnatus got his answer to that in the very next paragraph. State Police Chief Luther Bliss, the story said, is on a fact-finding trip to Pennsylvania, and was unavailable for comment. When Cincinnatus saw that, he chuckled grimly. Bliss was either lucky or—giving him credit no less real for being reluctant—sly to have escaped Kentucky when his foes grabbed hold of the reins.
President Smith is conferring with the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Interior about the present situation in Kentucky, the story continued. A statement from Philadelphia is expected within the next few days.
Would the U.S. government send more troops to Kentucky to force the state to rescind what it had done? Or would it send enough soldiers to hold things down without the Kentucky State Police? The only thing Cincinnatus couldn’t imagine the administration doing was nothing. After all, Kentucky’s southern border was also the USA’s southern border these days.
Behind Cincinnatus, a horn blared. He jumped and put the truck in gear. He’d been reading and woolgathering while traffic piled up. He would have honked, too, if someone else did something like that.
He didn’t get to finish the story, then, till he stopped at another red light. When he did, ice ran through him, for the last sentence read, Governor Ruby Laffoon pledges to make good on a campaign promise to explore a plebiscite on whether Kentucky should belong to the United States or to the Confederate States.
“They can’t do that!” Cincinnatus exclaimed. He hoped they couldn’t, anyhow. His father and mother still lived in Covington. If the Stars and Bars replaced the Stars and Stripes . . . He shivered, though the day was warm and muggy, even so early in the morning. “Got to git them out o’ there.” For Negroes, what nightmare could be worse than returning to the CSA with the Freedom Party in the saddle?
IX
The Manitoba prairie seemed to roll on forever. Above, puffy white clouds drifted across the blue sky. Mary Pomeroy watched a hawk circle in lazy spirals high overhead. The hawk would be watching, too, for rabbits or gophers. To it, a picnic on a farm wouldn’t mean a thing.
Mary couldn’t watch the hawk for long. She had to watch her own son like a hawk. Alexander Arthur Pomeroy’s first birthday was the occasion for the picnic. He’d just figured out how
to put one foot in front of him without falling down, which made him all the more dangerous to himself. Alexander didn’t know that, of course. To him, walking was the most wonderful thing in the world.
Something went into his mouth. Mary tossed the drumstick she’d been gnawing onto a plate and grabbed her son. “What have you got there?” she said sharply.
“Mama!” Alexander said. Then, as her forefinger snaked into his mouth, he let out an indignant wail. Something there . . . She fished it out—a blade of grass. Not so bad, she thought, wiping her hand on her checked skirt. She’d taken a used match and a dead fly out of his mouth at one time or another. She didn’t want to think about the things he might have swallowed. None of them seemed to have done him any harm, anyhow.
Maude McGregor watched her daughter with a faint smile on her face. “I don’t know how many times I had to do that with you,” she said. “Then there was the pearl button I found in your diaper.”
“Was there?” Mary said, and her mother nodded. Mary glanced toward her husband. Mort Pomeroy was doing his polite best to pretend he hadn’t heard, but he turned red all the same. Of course, he’d grown up in town, not on a farm. Mary had dealt with droppings of one kind or another ever since she learned how to walk: talking about them didn’t faze her.
Her older sister, who still lived on a farm, was the same way. “I’ve had a surprise or two changing my kids, too,” Julia Marble said. She lay on a blanket on her side, propped up on one elbow. Her belly bulged; another chip off the Marble block was due in about six weeks. Her husband, Kenneth, and mother-in-law rode herd on her children. She couldn’t move fast enough now to do it herself.
Mary remembered that beached-whale feeling from her own pregnancy. “Don’t you wish it was over?” she asked Julia.
“Oh, Lord, yes,” her sister answered. Their mother nodded at that, too, and so did Beth Marble, Kenneth’s mother.
“Hand me another beer, would you, dear?” Mary said to her husband. Mort pulled a Moosehead from the picnic hamper. He opened it with a church key and gave it to her. “Thanks,” she told him. Nothing went better with fried chicken than the intense hoppiness of beer. She smiled. “That’s nice.”
He nodded. “It is, isn’t it? We get some Hamm’s at the diner, too, because Yanks will order it when they eat, but I wouldn’t bring it here.”
“I hope not,” Kenneth Marble said. “I’ve had Yank beer. They strain it through the kidneys of a sick horse and then bottle it, eh?”
Mort started to nod again, then blinked and made a peculiar noise, half snort, half giggle. Beth Marble laughed out loud. So did Mary, who was always ready to say or hear unkind things about the USA. So did her mother, which surprised and pleased her; Maude McGregor didn’t find a whole lot to laugh about these days.
Fried chicken. Homemade potato salad. Deviled eggs. Fresh-baked bread. Apple pie. Mary made a pig of herself, and enjoyed doing it, too. She changed Alexander’s soggy diaper and cuddled him, then set him down on the blanket when he fell asleep.
After a while, the picnickers headed back to Maude McGregor’s house. Mort carried Alexander. Mary carried the hamper, which was much lighter than it had been when they put it in the motorcar back in Rosenfeld. Julia said, “Mary and I will take care of the dishes.”
“That’s all right,” Mary said. “I can do them. You should stay off your feet.”
“I don’t mind, even if I have to run to the outhouse all the time now,” her sister said. “We can talk while we do them. We don’t get the chance much any more, not the way we used to when we both lived here.”
“That’s sweet,” Beth Marble said. “I was going to tell you I’d help, but now I won’t. I’ll be lazy instead.” She laughed at that. So did Julia. Her mother-in-law was one of the least lazy people around.
Before Mary got married, she’d taken working the pump handle every so often while she did dishes for granted. Now she had to remind herself to do it, and it made her shoulder ache. “Running water’s spoiled me,” she said sheepishly.
“Well, you’re living in town now,” Julia said. “We always knew it was different.”
“It sure is. We didn’t know how much,” Mary said. “Electricity . . . It beats kerosene all hollow.”
“I bet it does,” Julia said. “Like I said, a lot of things are different in town. I know that.” She lowered her voice and added, “But I’m afraid some things haven’t changed at all.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mary asked, scrubbing at a frying pan. The breading and chicken skin at the bottom didn’t want to come off. She used more elbow grease.
In that same quiet voice, Julia answered, “I think you know. I almost died when I heard somebody put a bomb in the general store. I think Ma probably did, too. If anything happened to you, I don’t think we could stand it, not after Alexander and Pa.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Mary, who knew perfectly well. “Besides, that was a year and a half ago now—more than a year and a half ago. Nobody ever thought I had anything to do with it till now.”
Her sister set a glass in the dish drainer. In the front room, Mort was telling a joke. Mary recognized his tone, though she couldn’t make out the words. That ought to mean nobody in the front room could make out what she and Julia were saying. “You’re lucky,” Julia told her. “And like I said before, the two of us don’t get the chance to talk like we used to.”
“If you’re going to talk about things like this . . .” Mary said.
Julia’s smile was anything but amused. “I know you. So does Ma. You’ve hated the Yanks since you were this high.” She set a hand where her waist had been. “And you know what Pa did. The Americans never found his tools. Did you?”
“Even if I had, I wouldn’t say anything,” Mary answered. “People who know things can tell them. That’s how the last uprising got betrayed. Some folks blabbed, and they’re rich and happy. And other folks hanged on account of it.”
“Do you think I would do anything like that?” Julia asked indignantly.
“No, dear. Hand me that platter, would you?” Mary scrubbed at it. “But it doesn’t matter, because I haven’t told you anything. There isn’t anything to tell. Nobody knows where Pa hid his tools. If the Yanks couldn’t find them, you don’t think I could, do you?”
After that, they worked together in tense silence for some little while. Julia said, “I never thought the day would come when my own sister lied to me.”
That hurt. Mary scrubbed away, her head down. “I didn’t lie,” she said in a low, furious voice. “I told you there was nothing to talk about, and there isn’t. And if you call me a liar, there won’t be anything to talk about, not ever.”
“Tell me you didn’t put that bomb in the general store, then,” Julia said.
“I didn’t put it there,” Mary said. Julia’s jaw dropped. Mary added, “And if you don’t believe me, you can go to the devil.”
She lied without hesitation. Her family was and always had been sternly Presbyterian. Here, though, she had no compunctions. She’d seen her father, a man of somber rectitude if ever there was one, lie the same way. Some things were too important to trust to anyone but yourself. Other people, even a sister you loved, could let you down. Better not to give them the chance.
And the lie worked. Julia put her arms around Mary. Because of her bulging belly, the embrace was awkward, but Julia plainly meant it. “I’m so sorry, dear,” she said. “I did think you had something to do with it, and it left me petrified. Ma, too. We’ve talked about it, though I don’t think she’d ever get up the nerve to say so.”
Mary didn’t think so, either. When her father was making bombs, her mother had never asked him about it. She’d known. She’d known full well. But she’d kept quiet. That had always been her way. As the older sister, though, Julia had always thought she could poke her nose into Mary’s business whenever she felt like it. That was how it seemed to Mary, anyhow. She never stopped to wonder if it lo
oked any different to Julia.
They finished the dishes. When they went into the living room, Mort asked, “What were you two gossiping about in there?”
“Men,” Mary answered.
In the same breath, Julia said, “Horses.”
“How to tell the difference between them,” Mary said. That got a laugh from Julia and their mother and Beth Marble. Mort and Kenneth Marble didn’t seem to think it was quite so funny.
On the drive back to Rosenfeld, Mary held Alexander on her lap. He put up with that for a while, but then started to fuss. He wanted to crawl around in the auto. No matter what he wanted, Mary didn’t let him. Who could guess what kinds of fascinating things he’d find to stick in his mouth down there?
“It’s a different world, your mother’s farm,” Mort remarked as he pulled to a stop in front of their apartment building.
“I’ve thought the same thing,” Mary said. “No running water, no electricity . . . I didn’t know what they were like till I married you.”
“No indoor plumbing, either. And that privy . . .” Her husband held his nose. Alexander thought that was funny. He tried to hold his little button of a nose, and almost stuck a finger in his eye.
“I didn’t even think about it when I lived there,” Mary said. She’d had to use the privy while she was there, though. The stink was enough to make her eyes cross. It wasn’t so bad in the wintertime—but during the winter, you didn’t want to expose any part of your anatomy to the cold.
“What we’ve got here is better,” Mort said. “A lot better.”
“Of course it is,” Mary said. “We’ve got each other.” That made Mort smile, which was what she’d had in mind. She didn’t talk about what Canada didn’t have: freedom, independence, its own laws, its own people running its shops, its own police in the streets, its own soldiers guarding the frontiers.
Mort knew his country lacked all those things, too. But Mary didn’t want to remind him about them, lest he wonder if she’d put the bomb in the general store. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him. If she hadn’t trusted him, she never would have married him. But some burdens, she remained convinced, had to be borne alone. This was one of them.
The Victorious Opposition Page 30
