Not This August (4 page)

Her flow of chatter was almost hysterical and Justin thought he knew why. It was the hysteria of relief, the discovery that the Awful Thing, the thing you dreaded above all else, has happened and isn’t too bad after all. Chiunga Center was occupied, taken, conquered, seized—and life went on after all, and you felt a little foolish over your earlier terror. The Russians were just G.I.s, and weren’t you a fool to think they had horns?

“You see?” Lew Braden said to nobody in particular.

“What I think,” Betsy chattered, “is that they’re just as dumb as any army men anywhere. You know what the first poster they stuck up said? Turn in your uranium and plutonium at once. The dopes! The
second
notice covered pistols, rifles, shotguns, and bayonets. That touch of idiocy is almost cute. Bayonets!”

They had reached State Highway 19 and stopped; Norton lay dead ahead and Chiunga Center was fourteen miles to the right on the highway. A convoy of trucks marked with the red star was rolling westward at maybe thirty-five. They were clean, well-maintained trucks and they were full of Russian soldiers in Class A uniforms. They caught a snatch of mournful harmony and the rhythmic nasal drone of a concertina.

“My Lord!” Betsy said. “They really do sing all the time. And in minor fifths. I thought they were putting it on at the mess tent, impressing the Amerikanskis with their culture and soul, but there isn’t any audience here.”

The last of the convoy, a couple of slum-guns, field kitchens like any army’s field kitchens complete to the fat personnel, rolled past and Justin realized that they were waiting for him to get out and proceed on foot to Norton.

“Take it easy,” he said to the Bradens, and watched the car swing right and pick up highway speed. The Bradens were about to enter into their own peculiar version of the kingdom of heaven. He himself needed another pump rod. The one Croley sold him turned out to be a painted white metal casting instead of rolled steel. It had, of course snapped the first time he used it.

Perce, Croley’s literally half-witted assistant, waved gaily at him as he approached the store. Perce bubbled over: “Gee, you should of seen ’im, mister, I bet he was a general or maybe a major. Boy, he came right into the store and he looked just like anybody else on’y he was a
Red
! Right into the store. Boy!”

Perce couldn’t get over the wonder of it, and Justin, examining himself, was not sure that he could either. When would this thing seem
real
? Maybe it seemed real in the big cities, but his worm’s-eye view frustrated his curiosity and sense of drama. It was like sitting behind a post in a theater, only the play was
The Decline and Fall of the United States of America
. A Russian—a general or maybe a major—appeared and then disappeared. The local underground Reds were summoned to service—where and what? The convoy passed you on the road, to duty where?

Croley was tacking up a notice, a big one, that covered his bulletin board, buried the ration-book notices, the draft-call notices, the buy-bonds poster. It said:

SOVIET MILITARY GOVERNMENT
Unit 449
Chiunga County, New York State

Residents are advised that on and after April 23, 1965, the following temporary measures will be observed:

1. A curfew is established from Nine O’Clock
   P.M.
   to Five O’Clock
   A.M.
   All residents must be in their homes between these hours
   .
   
2. Fissionable material must be turned in to this command at once since uranium, thorium, and plutonium have been declared nationalized and unlawful for any private person to hold
   .
   
3. All privately held pistols, rifles, shotguns, and bayonets must be turned in to this command or representative. For the township of ________ this command’s representative is __________. The weapons should be tagged with the owner’s name and address and will later be returned
   .
   
4. Violators of these measures will be subject to military trial and if found guilty liable to sixty days in jail
   .
   

S. P. Platov
Colonel, Commanding

Justin shook his head slowly. Sixty days! Was
this
the Red barbarian they had all been dreading? He seemed to hear Lew Braden saying again: “Smart cooky… exactly right.”

Croley had gone behind his counter for something, a price-marking crayon. He was filling in the blanks in Number 3. “For the township of NORTON this command’s representative is FLOYD C. CROLEY. The weapons should—”

Croley stepped back, looked for a moment at the black, neat printing, stuck the crayon behind his ear, and turned to Justin, waiting and blank-faced.

Justin asked: “Since when have you represented the Red Army?”

Croley said: “He wanted a central place. Somebody steady.” And that was supposed to dispose of that. O.K., you skunk, Justin thought. Wait until my two traitorous friends blow the whistle on
you
. When the Bradens finish telling the Reds all about Floyd C. Croley, Floyd C. Croley will be very small potatoes around these parts, or possibly Siberia. And aloud: “You sold me a dog, Mr. Croley. Look at this crumby thing.”

He slapped down the two broken halves of the cheap cast pump rod. Croley picked them up, turned them over in his hands, and put them down again. “Never guaranteed it,” he said.

“For twelve-fifty it shouldn’t break on the first stroke, Mr. Croley. I need a pump rod and I insist on a replacement.”

Croley picked the pieces up again and examined them minutely. He said at last: “Allow you ten dollars on a fifteen-dollar rod. Steel. No coupons.”

And that, Justin realized, was as good a deal as he’d ever get from the old snake. Too disgusted to talk, he slapped down a ten-dollar bill. Croley took it, produced another rod, and a queer-looking five-dollar bill in change. The portrait was of a hot-eyed young man identified by the little ribbon as John Reed. Instead of “The United States of America,” it said: “The North American People’s Democratic Republic.”

Justin’s voice broke as he yelled: “What are you trying to put over, Croley? Give me a real bill, damn you!”

Croley shrugged patiently. A take-it-or-leave-it shrug. He condescended to explain: “He bought gas. It’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for me. Or you.” And turned away to fiddle with the rack in which he kept the credit books of his customers.

Speechless, Justin rammed the phony bill into his pocket, picked up the rod, and walked away. As he opened the door, the old man’s voice came sharply: “Justin.”

He turned. Croley said: “Watch your mouth, Justin.” He jerked his thumb at the announcement. (“… representative is FLOYD C. CROLEY. The weapons…”) He went back to his credit books as Justin stared incredulously, torn between laughter and disgust.

He walked out and across the Lehigh tracks. Nobody seemed to be in town; he was in for a four-mile walk, mostly uphill, to his place. The cows would be milked late—he quickened his pace.

At the highway a couple of Russian soldiers beside a parked jeep were just finishing erecting a roadside sign—blue letters on white, steel backing, steel post, fired enamel front. They hadn’t rushed
that
out in six days. That sign had been waiting in a Red Army warehouse for this day, waiting perhaps twenty years. It said: “CHECK POINT 200 YARDS AHEAD. ALL CIVILIAN VEHICLES STOP FOR INSPECTION.” That would be the old truck-weighing station, reactivated as a road block.

The Russians were a corporal and a private, both of the tall, blond, Baltic type. They had a slung tommy gun apiece. He said: “Hi, boys.”

The private grinned, the corporal scowled and said: “
Nye ponimayoo
. Not per-mitten.”

He wanted to say something witty and cutting, something about sourpusses, or the decadent plutocrat contaminating the pure proletarian, or how the corporal might make sergeant if his English were better. He looked at the tommy guns instead, shrugged, and walked on. Yes, he was scared. With the vivid imagination of an artist he could see the slugs tearing him. So the rage against Croley festered still, and the taste of defeat was still sour in his mouth. And he still had four uphill miles to walk to milk those loathesome cows of his.

By nine that night he was thinking of starting to work on Mr. Konreid’s brandy. The current was on and, according to his electric clock, steady. He had lost the radio habit during the silent years. There was now apparently only one station on the air and it offered gems from
Mademoiselle Modiste
. He didn’t want them. He leafed over a few of his art books and found them dull. Somewhere in the attic a six-by-eight printing press and a font of type were stashed, but he didn’t feel like digging them out to play with. That had been one of the plans for his retirement. Old Mr. Justin would amuse himself by pottering with the press, turning out minuscule private editions of the shorter classics on Braden’s beautiful hand-laid paper. Maybe old Mr. Justin would clear expenses, maybe not—

But now he was too sick at heart to think of the shorter classics and Braden was much too busy securing his appointment as Commissar of Norton Township or something to contribute the beautiful paper.

The phone rang two longs, his call. It was a girl’s voice that he didn’t recognize at first.

“It’s Betsy,” she said with whispered urgency. “No names. Your two friends—remember this morning?”

Yes; yes. The Bradens. Well? “Yes. I remember.”

“In the basement of the school. The janitor saw the bodies before they took them away. They were shot. You knew them. I—I thought I ought to tell you. They must have been very brave. I never suspected—”

“Thanks,” he said. “Good-by,” and hung up.

Betsy thought the Bradens were some kind of heroic anti-Communists.

Then he began to laugh, hysterically. He could reconstruct it perfectly. The Marshal said to the General: “The first thing we’ve got to do is get rid of the damn Red troublemakers.” And so it trickled down to “Pliss to expedite delivery of these, Mr. Postmahster,” and so the Bradens got their summons and, unsuspecting, were taken down-cellar and shot because, as Braden knew, those Reds were very smart cookies indeed. They knew, from long experience, that you don’t want trained revolutionaries kicking around in a country you’ve just whipped, revolutionaries who know how to hide and subvert and betray, because all of a sudden
you
are stability and order, and trained revolutionaries are a menace.

No, what you wanted instead of revolutionaries were people like Croley.

Croley!

He couldn’t stop laughing. When he thought of thousands of underground American Communists lying tonight in their own blood on thousands of cellar floors, when he thought of Floyd C. Croley, Hero of Soviet Labor, Servant of the North American People’s Democratic Republic, he couldn’t stop laughing.

April 30…

The first of the spring rains had come and gone. They were broadcasting weather forecasts again, which was good. You noticed that forecasts east of the Mississippi were credited to the Red Air Force Meteorological Service. From the Mississippi to the Pacific it was through the courtesy of the Weather Organization of the Chinese People’s Republic. Apparently this meant that the two Communist powers had split the continent down the middle. China got more land, which it badly needed, and Russia got more machinery, which it badly needed. A very logical solution of an inevitable problem.

The Sunday
Times
had stopped coming, but Justin hardly missed it. He was a farmer, whether he liked it or not, and spring was his busy season. He had grudged time to attend the auction of the Bradens’ estate, but once there he had picked up some badly needed tools and six piglets. Croley, under whose general authority the auction was held, himself bought the house and twelve acres for an absurd eight hundred dollars. Nobody bid against him, but after the place was knocked down to him, half a dozen farmers tried to rent it. They were thinking of their sons and daughters in the service who should be back very soon. Croley grudgingly allowed the Wehrweins to have the place at fifty dollars a month, cash or kind.

Justin was almost happy on the spring morning that was the fourteenth day of defeat. His future looked clear for the moment. The red clover was sprouting bravely in his west pasture; he’d be able to turn his cows out any day now and still have hay in reserve. Electric service was steady; he’d be able to run a single-strand electric fence instead of having to break his back repairing and tightening the wartime four-strand nonelectric fences. The piglets looked promising; he anticipated an orgy of spareribs in the fall and all the ham, bacon, and sausage he could eat through the winter. His two dozen bantams were gorging themselves on the bugs of spring and laying like mad; it meant all the eggs he wanted and plenty left over for the Eastern Milkshed Administration pickup. His vegetable garden was spaded and ready for seeding; his long years of weed chopping seemed to have suddenly paid off. There wasn’t a sign of plantain, burdock, or ironweed anywhere on his place.

At ten-thirty the EMA truck ground to a stop at his roadside platform and even McGinty, the driver, was cheery with spring. He loaded the cans and handed Justin his monthly envelope—and stood by, grinning, waiting for Justin to open it. Justin understood the gag when a few of the new phony bills fluttered from the statement. He counted up ninety-three dollars in Bill Haywood ones, John Reed fives, and Lincoln Steffens tens. He didn’t give McGinty the satisfaction of seeing him blow his top. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t particularly upset. If everybody agreed that this stuff was money, then it
was
money. He murmured: “Paying in cash now? I guess that means I sign a receipt.”

McGinty, bitterly disappointed, produced a receipt book and a stub of pencil. “You should of heard old lady Wehrwein,” he said reminiscently. Justin checked the statement (Apr 1-Apr 15 a/c Justin WH, Norton Twp Chiunga Cy, 31 cwt at $3.00, $93.00) and signed. McGinty’s truck rumbled on.

It was a miserably small two-week net for eight good Holsteins, but they were near the end of their lactation period; soon he’d have to arrange for freshening them again.