The Return of Lanny Budd

by Upton Sinclair

  Said Lanny with a touch of sarcasm, ‘Anybody would think that Hitler had attacked America. It just happens that it was Russia he attacked, and we came to Russia’s help’.

  ‘Anybody would think that you had never heard of Pearl Harbour’, remarked Bess, no less sarcastic. ‘You are evading as usual. Here is American capitalism, and it has the money. If you want anything you have to come to American capitalism to get it. Your financiers and big businessmen are buying up the whole world, the natural resources and the backward countries where the resources exist. There is a gentleman here in New York named Luce who talks about “the American century”, and that is what he means. And if anyone tries to change the rules, call him a Red and a warmonger and put him down’.

  Hansi sat there, looking tired and depressed and forgetting to taste his food. Lanny’s heart ached for him, and he said, ‘We aren’t giving Hansi a very cheerful evening’. He said ‘we’, meaning to take part of the blame.

  But Bess refused to be placated. ‘I never worry Hansi about what he believes’, she replied, ‘and there is no reason for Hansi to worry about me’.

  ‘It just happens that he loves you, Bess’.

  Said Lanny’s half-sister, ‘It was you who taught me to have a cause. I see another world war preparing, the most terrible of all. In the face of that, individuals do not matter; only the cause matters. Hansi understands that, and sooner or later events will force him to come over to my side’.

  These were weighty words, and Lanny remembered them well. ‘Individuals do not matter; only the cause matters’. These were practically the words that Lanny had said to Fritz Meissner. They were as true in New York as in Berlin and Poland; and to Lanny they would be like chickens coming home to roost—in his nest.

  IX

  In the hospital Lanny told his wife about this, and she complained that they were letting Stalin and the Soviets dominate their lives. ‘We don’t talk about anything else’.

  Lanny’s answer was, ‘When a man sets himself up outside your back fence and starts screaming curses and threats at you day and night, it is a little hard to ignore him. Just when you make up your mind to do so, you hear machine-gun fire and learn that he is practising: he says he is getting ready to defend himself against an attack that you have no idea of making’.

  ‘I know, Lanny. The pacifists who write to me tell me that’s the way all the wars come’.

  ‘It seems to me that if this war comes it will be because Stalin has a philosophy and a dogma that compel him to take the world. How could any nation give more proof of peaceful intentions than we have given? I doubt if we have one-fourth as many men in arms as we had a year and a half ago; but all that Stalin wants to abolish is the one weapon that he hasn’t got—the atomic bomb’.

  ‘If only he would let us alone!’ exclaimed the wife. ‘If we got back to full production, it wouldn’t be more than two or three years before we’d have another glut and have to set up production for use whether we wanted to or not’.

  ‘But that means nothing to Stalin. The last thing he wants is to see any country get socialism by peaceful means. That would be disproving his thesis, that it can come only by revolution followed by dictatorship. The Russian people and all his captive peoples would find out about it and would insist on freedom too’.

  ‘We are still talking about Stalin’, said Laurel with a wry smile.

  8 SPIES IN BATTALIONS

  I

  Doctors don’t keep women in childbed as long as they used to. Laurel was soon up and about and then she was ready to go back home. She would stay in bed a part of every day, and her secretary would bring her the mail. Work couldn’t hurt her, because she loved it and insisted that she never worried about it. She was going to nurse the new baby, as she had done the first one; she did this on principle and would arrange her work so that it would be done at the proper hours.

  So life settled down again and became a matter of routine. They divided their time between home and office and seldom went anywhere else. Emerson’s saying about the better mousetrap proved to be true; the world made a path to their door. All sorts of interesting people came. The group chose their speakers carefully, trying to give all points of view a hearing, but they saw to it that every speaker who left anything vague or uncertain was asked questions about it. He was warned in advance, so that he had a fair chance to prepare his mind with answers and was less tempted to try to evade.

  General Marshall had just come back from a visit to China, where he had tried to reconcile the warring factions and set up a truly democratic and representative government in that land, so long torn by civil war and foreign invasion. There were people who insisted that the Chinese Reds were not Communists in the Stalinist sense but were agrarian reformers and liberals. All right, if that was true, why were they unwilling to have a government of all classes set up, as the United States was doing in Japan and as Britain was doing in India and the Dutch in Indonesia?

  Here in New York the nations were assembled in what was supposed to be a sincere effort to establish world order and peace. Why was it that the Soviets were insisting that the abolition of the atomic bomb must come ahead of all other disarmament proposals? Wasn’t it obvious that this would give Stalin with his armies of four or five million a commanding advantage over Western Europe and the democratic world? America had had more than eight million men under arms at the end of the war; now, in less than two years, she had disbanded nearly all of them, and had only five hundred and fifty thousand in foreign lands. Why wasn’t Stalin willing to agree to inspection and control of all armed forces, and not merely of the atomic bomb? Why wasn’t he willing to have really free and democratic governments chosen by the peoples of the Central European lands he had occupied? Why had he let down that iron curtain, doing everything in his power to keep the rest of the world from knowing what he was doing? Why, above all, had he adopted a programme of hatred and abuse of all the free world, and especially of America, which had come to his help so spontaneously and generously? Those were the questions that puzzled all Americans, and to which they wanted answers and got none.

  II

  There came a letter from Bernhardt Monck, telling how the Reds were still looting their sector of Berlin, regardless of the fact that they had to feed the people; they were looting the peasants of the surrounding country and using the food for their army in Berlin. Incidentally he wrote, ‘Ferdinand is getting along well’. Ferdinand was the code name Lanny had suggested for Fritz Meissner—Lanny being Christopher Columbus and Fritz the king. But there could be no Isabella! Lanny warned Fritz that this stern mission would require giving up love; manifestly he could not love a Nazi girl, and no Socialist girl would look at him.

  That sentence was all Monck said about the Völkischerbund. Lanny wouldn’t know any more about the matter unless he went back to Berlin; and even then he mightn’t learn much, for neither Monck nor Fritz ought to talk freely if there were developments involving other persons. Lanny had launched a balloon into the air, a ship upon the sea, and the wind would carry it he knew not where. The only way to satisfy his curiosity would be to get himself reassigned to the case, and that was something he had no thought of doing. It was his intention to stay in Edgemere, New Jersey, take care of his wife and two children, and continue ‘saying, Peace, peace’, over the radio.

  But there was no peace. The whole world was torn by strife, and every time he picked up a newspaper or turned on the radio in his home he caught new items about that strife. The postman brought a load of it in a wagon twice every week-day. People wrote, scolding or pleading or mocking, because of this or that which had been said on the programme. It was hard to avoid strife even inside the group; whenever they discussed a speaker and what he had said or was about to say, there was likely to be disagreement—and were they exercising too much censorship or not enough?

  And then there was the tension inside the Budd family. At the Thanksgiving Day reunion Lanny’s stepmother had taken him aside and whispe
red her anguish of soul over what had happened to her daughter. Esther Remsen Budd considered it her duty to try to understand Bess and had been reading Communist literature; but the more she read the less she could comprehend how it was possible for one of her blood to take up such a creed, to fill her soul with such bitterness, and to consort with people who were telling monstrous falsehoods about Bess’s homeland. Esther had tried to talk with her, but she wouldn’t listen, and now wouldn’t come to the house.

  Robbie was unhappy too, so Esther reported. He was a stern man, and grim when he had made up his mind. Bess was incorrigible, and he was through with her and didn’t give a damn what anybody else thought about her or her behaviour—that was what he said. But Esther knew it wasn’t true; he was bitter, but also he was ashamed and in his secret heart grieved. Esther wanted Lanny to do something about it, but Lanny said he had tried everything he knew.

  III

  Also, there was Hansi, with a problem equally unsolvable. Lanny loved Hansi as a brother. He had watched Hansi’s progress from boyhood and been proud and happy over his success. He had helped to make Hansi’s marriage and had shared the happiness of the young couple. Now here was a wreck of all happiness and all hope; Lanny feared it would be a wreck of spiritual power, and even of health.

  The violinist had taken a lad as pupil; not for money, for he had all the money he needed and could earn all he wanted. He thought he had found another Jewish genius and was delighted to pass on his secrets. Now suddenly the relationship came to an end; Hansi told the boy he couldn’t go on, and the boy in his grief and bewilderment wrote to Lanny, asking if he knew what the reason was and whether he had made any mistake or done any wrong. Lanny could guess that Hansi was too tormented in mind and soul to have any interest in teaching or even in playing. Lanny couldn’t write that to the boy, yet he couldn’t bear to ignore the letter, so he wrote that he would see Hansi and try to find out about it.

  Lanny and his wife discussed the question whether they should advise their friend to get a divorce or to let Bess get a divorce. To go on together was simply to prolong their misery. Laurel was firm in that conviction; but Lanny wasn’t so sure. He believed that Bess in her heart still loved Hansi. The granddaughter of the Puritans had the same stubborn pride as her mother and father. She would say over and over that she was perfectly willing for Hansi to believe whatever he pleased and to let him alone; why couldn’t he let her alone in the same way? But the fact was she was affronted, knowing that Hansi despised her creed and considered it based upon cruelty and falsehood. Bess would start to defend her creed, and so the wrangle would go on, over and over.

  Laurel said, ‘What difference does it make what’s in her mind? The fact is they fight and will go on fighting. Certainly she isn’t going to give up, and Hansi isn’t going to give up, and what is there left of a marriage under such circumstances? They should cut themselves cleanly apart with a knife and be done with it’.

  Lanny called his brother-in-law on the telephone and asked if he was planning to be in New York, so that they could meet. Hansi said he would come the next day; he specified the train by which he would arrive, and Lanny would meet him at Grand Central Terminal. Since it was impossible to find parking space, Hansi would be at a certain exit at a certain minute, and Lanny would pick him up.

  IV

  This feat achieved, they went for a drive in Central Park, the only place that was comparatively free of traffic. Lanny told about the letter from the pupil, and the reply was what he expected. ‘I’ve been so depressed, Lanny, I just can’t take an interest in teaching anybody, or in fact doing anything’.

  ‘I guessed that was the case, Hansi. Surely you can’t go on like this’.

  ‘I know it, and I have made up my mind’. Lanny had expected that, and fully expected the next sentence to contain the word divorce, or at least separation. But it was a different kind of sentence, one that took Lanny so by surprise that he drew the car up by the side of the drive and stopped and stared at his friend. The sentence was, ‘I have decided that I’m going to follow Bess and become a Communist’.

  ‘My God, Hansi!’ exclaimed the other. ‘You can’t mean that!’

  ‘I have thought it over from every point of view, and it is the only thing possible for me. I simply can’t break up my marriage; I can’t live without Bess. I have tried to see myself breaking with her and living alone, and I just can’t’.

  ‘But, Hansi, how can you play such a game? You are no actor!’

  ‘I don’t have to be an actor, Lanny; I mean it. I have listened to Bess’s arguments, and I’ve decided that she is right—at least she is right so far as I am concerned. I have always been a Communist, and communism is what I truly want. It is a question of how to get it, and what I think is that Bess knows more about such matters than I do. She has been studying the problem for years—all the years that I have been wrapped up in music. I don’t think it is unreasonable for me to accept her as an authority’.

  Lanny was flabbergasted. He was embarrassed too, because he felt the deep conviction in his old friend’s tone and hesitated to resist him—it would be meddling in his most intimate affairs. ‘But the boys, Hansi!’ he objected.

  ‘I had to make this decision about the boys; either they have to be brought up in a split family, with their mother and father quarrelling all the time, or they have to be brought up in the belief which is so important to their mother. Bess has agreed with me that when they are old enough to judge they will make up their own minds what they believe, and she will not argue with them’.

  What Lanny wanted to say was, ‘Fiddlesticks! She will force their minds exactly as she has forced yours’. Bess had said that individuals did not matter, but Lanny knew that when the individuals were her sons they would matter greatly, and she would see to it that they were fitted to dwell in the new world which she was engaged in building.

  However, he realised that it would be futile to argue. Hansi had wrestled over the question for years and had made his decision. He was going on forty-two, and that was old enough for him to know his own mind. Lanny started the car again; it seemed like a harsh criticism to have stopped it. They drove along slowly, and he asked in as matter-of-fact a tone as he could assume, ‘Are you going to join the party, Hansi?’

  ‘I have applied for membership. Of course it will be some time before they accept me. They are naturally suspicious of me’.

  ‘I suppose so. You have been outspoken’.

  ‘Bess was suspicious of me too, but I think I’ve managed to convince her of my sincerity. Now, of course, she is happy. She has promised to resume practice with me’.

  ‘I suppose you will be giving concerts for the party?’ He tried to keep any trace of sarcasm out of his voice.

  ‘Of course,’ Hansi said. ‘They need the money, and it is the one way I can help’.

  ‘Are you going to tell the family?’

  ‘I shall have to tell them. They won’t like it, but they will get used to it’. Then Hansi burst out, ‘Lanny, you musn’t hate me for this!’

  Lanny brought himself to answer quickly, ‘Good Lord, no, don’t think about that. We can never hate you. We are sorry, of course—it will rather limit our subjects of conversation. You know how it was with Bess’.

  ‘You must understand that I couldn’t help it. Bess is a part of me and I can’t live without her. We have been married more than twenty years, and that is half my life. My whole being was torn to pieces, and I just couldn’t endure it’.

  ‘It’s all right, Hansi, I understand. Try not to become as aggressive as Bess is. You know that’s not your nature’.

  ‘Bess is absorbed in politics. I could never do that, and she has agreed not to expect it of me. What worries me is that you and Laurel will despise me’.

  ‘Don’t harbour any such idea, Hansi. If you take to brooding over that you’ll turn us into an obsession, as you did with Bess. We shall let each other alone and avoid arguing about the things on which we can’t ag
ree’.

  But even as he said this Lanny knew he was being hypocritical. He felt pity, but also contempt, for a man who could give up his principles for the sake of anything, even marital love. Hansi knew all the facts and the arguments and had deliberately decided to suppress his mind for the sake of his sexual happiness. Lanny knew that it was the practice of the Communists to set their young women to seducing desirable men; it didn’t make much difference to him that in this case the woman was legally married to the man—the effect upon the man’s mind and character was the same.

  Lanny’s thought was, Hansi will be a bore, and I’ll never want to talk to him again. He faced the thought of losing his best friends one by one; first Kurt Meissner, and now Hansi Robin, and the cases were the same in his mind. He was coming to dislike Stalinism as he had formerly disliked Hiterlism; and just as he had said to himself that the old Kurt no longer existed, so now he would have to say that the old Hansi no longer existed. He wondered, Who next?

  V

  He went in to Laurel and found her propped up in bed, buried in her mail and manuscripts as usual. When he told her the news she dropped everything and stared at him in dismay. ‘My God, Lanny, you can’t mean it!’

  He told her the whole conversation, and when he got through he saw there were tears in her eyes. ‘Oh, the poor fellow!’ she exclaimed. ‘He won’t be happy! He’ll be perfectly wretched! He’ll be ashamed, he’ll be burdened with guilt. He’ll be more lonely than before he gave up. Lanny, we ought not let him do it!’

  ‘Darling’, he said, ‘Hansi knows the whole story. He knows everything that we know, and there is no use arguing with him. He has made his choice: he can’t live without Bess’.

  ‘He can’t live with her, and he can’t live with the Communists’, she answered. ‘I know him better, and I just won’t believe it. It’s a dreadful thing, Lanny. It’s a public calamity’.