The Victorious Opposition (54 page)

“All right, I do that,” Cincinnatus said. “I was thinkin’ comin’ up the stairs, hot water feel good. Maybe I put the wireless set in the hall so I can listen to it in there, too. That way, I don’t have to turn it on so loud, it’ll bother Amanda.”

“Well, go on, then,” Elizabeth told him. “Longer you stand here talkin’, less time you got to git clean and git warm.”

When they moved in, it had been a cold-water flat. They’d been happy enough because it had electricity, which they’d done without in Covington. Heating water on the stove hadn’t seemed like much. These past few years, though, the building had changed hands, and the new owner had put a water heater in the basement along with the furnace. The rent had gone up a few dollars a month to pay for it, but Cincinnatus didn’t know a single tenant who was inclined to complain. All the hot water you wanted, without having to heat it and carry it . . . If that wasn’t a bargain, he didn’t know what was.

He put the wireless on the floor in the hall, and ran it back to a plug in the bedroom with an extension cord. If he left the door open a couple of inches, he could hear just fine. He picked the station that would carry the football game in a little while. The Tri-State Association wasn’t a top league, but the Des Moines Hawks were one of the two or three best teams—and they were playing Keokuk, a doormat, tonight.

“Dutch will be along at half past the hour with the game,” the announcer said earnestly. “First, though, here is the news.”

Soaking in a steaming tub, Cincinnatus was inclined to be tolerant. “Go on, then. Tell me,” he said.

The announcer did, starting with the latest scandal at the State House. It sounded as if some Socialist legislators were going to spend some time in quarters less fancy than their present offices, but you never could tell. More than a few politicians here had managed to wiggle off the hook.

Farm news came next. Most of Iowa was farm country. They took prices for grain and hogs and cattle seriously here. They had to; an awful lot of people either made a decent living or didn’t, depending on whether those prices went up or down.

Only after the local and state news did the announcer bother to admit a wider world was out there. President Smith remained optimistic, or said he did, that an old-age pension bill would finally fight its way through Congress. The Socialists had been saying that for years. The Democrats had been filibustering for years. Smith was quoted as saying, “If they vote against it, they’ll pay at the polls next November, and they’ll deserve to.” Cincinnatus had long since decided he would believe in the pension when he saw his first check.

Someone in Houston had taken a shot at the U.S. commandant there. He’d missed, and been killed by the officer’s guards for his trouble. Someone in Sequoyah had blown up an oil well. “A spectacular fireball,” the announcer said, “and damage in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.” He sounded almost gleeful about having such exciting news to read.

“And in Kentucky,” he went on, “a plot to wreck the bridges crossing from Covington to Cincinnati was foiled by the vigilance of soldiers commanded by Brigadier General Abner Dowling. Dowling is quoted as saying Kentucky will stay in the USA as long as he is in charge there, and radicals and agitators had better get used to the idea.” Cincinnatus was sure the man on the wireless would have been more cheerful if he’d got to talk about the bridges falling into the Ohio River.

In the CSA, an auto bomb had gone off in Montgomery, killing four—three whites and a Negro—and wounding seventeen. The newsman said, “Like most of the recent rash of auto bombs, this is surely the work of Negro guerrillas, although no one has claimed responsibility for it. In Richmond, President Featherston has vowed vengeance for the attack, and has stated that, if necessary, he will hold the entire colored community responsible for the actions of the bombers, who, in his words, ‘are cowards destroying innocent lives but afraid to come out and fight like men.’ ”

Cincinnatus snorted. If you fought somebody stronger than you were, you had to be a fool to meet him face to face. Cincinnatus despised the idea of blowing up innocent bystanders. But he also despised what the Freedom Party was doing to blacks in the Confederacy. How could he blame them for hitting back with whatever weapons they found?

“In South America, talks between Venezuela and the Empire of Brazil on their latest border dispute are said to have made some progress,” the announcer said. “However, Argentina and Chile have recalled their ambassadors from each other’s capitals. They are said to be closer to war with each other than at any time since 1917.” Cincinnatus remembered that one of the South American countries had been on the USA’s side in the Great War, the other on the CSA’s. Sprawling there in the nice, warm tub, he couldn’t have said which was which. They were both too far away.

“King Charles of France has demanded a plebiscite in Alsace and Lorraine, much as President Featherston has demanded a similar vote in Kentucky and Houston,” the announcer declared. “No immediate reply is expected from Kaiser Wilhelm’s government, not least because of the Kaiser’s failing health. In Britain, Prime Minister Churchill announced his support for the French demand, saying, ‘The Germans have decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.’ ”

From what Cincinnatus had seen in the papers, this Churchill was a reactionary. The only reason he was prime minister was that the Conservatives had named him to the post to keep the Silver Shirts from eating their party the way the Socialists had eaten the Republicans in the USA. He was an old man, and cartoonists liked to show him with jowls like a bulldog’s. But he could turn a phrase.

“Churchill has also introduced a bill instituting conscription in Britain,” the newsman went on. “In his speech in the House of Commons, he said, ‘Come on now, all you young men, all over the kingdom. You are needed more than ever now to fill the gap of a generation shorn by the war. You must take your place in life’s fighting line. Raise the glorious flags again; advance them upon the new enemies.’ He pointed to the achievements of the British Unicorn Legion in Spain, and its role in helping the Nationalists seize Madrid from the German-backed Monarchists. ‘Surely Wellington would have praised their pluck,’ he said, amidst loud applause.”

Who was Wellington? Cincinnatus supposed the British knew. Achilles and Amanda might have known, too. He had no idea himself.

He didn’t much care, either. After giving the day’s stock-market figures (dismal, as usual) and the weather forecast (not much better), the newsman went away. The excited background mutter from a packed football stadium came out of the wireless speaker. “Hello, Hawks fans. A very pleasant good evening to you, wherever you may be,” the sportscaster said. “This is your pal Dutch, bringing you tonight’s game between Des Moines and the Keokuk Colonels. Des Moines has to be the favorite, but you’ve got to watch out for Keokuk because they’re coming off a win against Waterloo, and . . .”

“Ahhh.” Cincinnatus knew he would enjoy hearing the game regardless of whether the Hawks won or lost. Even if it was 49-7 at the half, Dutch would find a way to keep the broadcast exciting till the final gun sounded. Dutch could read the telephone book and make it interesting. If there ever was a great communicator, he was the man.

And then, with the Hawks driving (“There they go again!” Dutch said after yet another gain), Elizabeth spoiled things by yelling, “Supper’s ready!” Cincinnatus didn’t want to get out of the tub, but he did.

J
onathan Moss was chewing a piece of roast beef when Dorothy looked across the table at him and asked, “Daddy, why are you a damned Yank?”

He didn’t choke. It took an effort, but he didn’t. After carefully swallowing, he looked not at his little girl but at his wife. Laura shook her head. “I’ve never called you that, Jonathan—well, never where Dorothy could hear.”

He believed her. She was straightforward in what she thought and said; he couldn’t imagine her lying about it to his face. Turning back to Dorothy, he asked, “Who called me that, dear?”

“Some of the kids at school,” she answered. “They said Mommy was a collabo-something. I don’t know what that means.”

Laura turned red. She bit her lip. She knew what it meant, too well. Quickly, Jonathan said, “It means those kids don’t know what they’re talking about, that’s what.”

“Oh,” Dorothy said. “All right.” She went back to her supper.

But it wasn’t all right, and Jonathan knew it. He read stories to Dorothy while Laura did the dishes. They all listened to the wireless for a while. Dorothy changed into a long flannel nightgown, brushed her teeth, and came out clutching her favorite doll for good-night kisses,

After she’d gone to bed, Laura looked at Jonathan and said, “Hello, you damned Yank.”

He didn’t say,
Hello, you collaborator,
or even,
Hello, you collabo-something.
That would only have made things worse. He just shook his head and said, “Kids.”

“She’ll know what a collaborator is soon enough,” Laura said bitterly. He wouldn’t be able to escape the word by not mentioning it, then. He hadn’t really thought he would, though he had hoped. His wife went on, “The schoolchildren will make sure of that.”

“She’ll know you’re not a collaborator, too,” Moss said. “You still can’t stand Yanks, even though you married one. And there are plenty of Yanks who’d say I’m the collaborator—collaborator with Canucks, I mean.”

“Not as many as there used to be,” Laura said. “Not since you started flying again.”

“Ha! Shows what you know,” Moss told her. “You should hear the way the fellows at the airdrome outside of London needle me.”

“I don’t want to hear them. I don’t want anything to do with them,” she answered. “If I did, I really would be a collaborator.” She glared at him, daring him to tell her she was wrong.

He didn’t want to argue about it. They argued enough—they argued too much—without looking for reasons to lock horns. He said, “I want to review those papers I brought home. I’m going to have to put in a lot of work on that appeal when I get to the office tomorrow.”

A military judge had sentenced one of his clients to five years for lying about his past in the Canadian military when applying for a liquor-store license. Moss was convinced the judge had ignored the evidence. He thought he had a decent chance of getting the verdict overturned; the military courts in occupied Canada weren’t nearly so bad nowadays as they had been shortly after the war.

But he also wanted to remind Laura of what he did for a living—what he’d been doing for years. To his relief, she nodded. “All right,” she said. “Will it bother you if the wireless stays on? I like the music program that’s coming up next.”

“I don’t mind a bit,” he said. “I won’t even notice it.”

As he headed out the door the next morning, he wondered if he should have asked Dorothy which children at the local elementary school were calling Laura and him names. That probably said something about how their parents felt about the U.S. occupiers. He shook his head. He didn’t want to know.

The sun shone on soot-streaked snow. As usual in early March, Berlin was a gloomy, frozen place. Moss warily looked around before getting into his auto. He saw nothing out of the ordinary. Relieved but not reassured, he got in and started the motor. The day seemed just like any other. All the same, he didn’t go to his law office by the route he’d used the day before. He’d had too many threats to care to make things easy for anyone who might want him dead. And, while the bomb that had blown up occupation headquarters hadn’t been aimed at him in particular, it would have killed him just the same if he’d been there when it went off. He came by his caution honestly.

Getting out of the Ford and walking half a block to the office building was another small, thoughtful stretch of time. No matter how he went from his block of flats to the office, he got there in the end. Somebody could be waiting.

Nobody was, not today, not outside, not in the lobby, not on the stairs, not in the office. Moss nodded to himself. Now he could get on with business. He lit a cigarette, plugged in the hot plate, and got a pot of coffee going. The first cup would be good. He prepared to enjoy it. By the end of the day, the pot would be mud and battery acid. He knew he’d go right on pouring more from it.

He was his own secretary. He could have afforded to hire a typist, but the idea had never once crossed his mind. He started pounding away on a typewriter not much younger and not much lighter than he was. The letters that appeared on the sheet of paper were grayer than he would have liked. When he looked in the desk drawer to see if he had a new ribbon, he found he didn’t. He muttered under his breath; he thought he’d bought two the last time he needed them. Either he hadn’t, or this was the second and not the first. Before long, he would have to go shopping again. Ribbons for this ancient model were getting hard to come by.

He’d dealt with some ordinary correspondence and was working on the appeal when his first client of the day came in. “Mr. Godfrey, isn’t it?” Moss said, turning the swivel chair away from the typewriter stand and toward the front of the office. “How are you today, sir?”

“I’ll do, Mr. Moss, thank you.” Toby Godfrey did not look like the plump, red-faced English squire his name might have suggested. He was skinny and sallow and wore a perpetually worried expression. Since the occupation authorities were taking a long and pointed look at his affairs, he had reason to wear that kind of look, but Moss suspected he’d had it long before the Great War started.

“Let me check your file, Mr. Godfrey.” Jonathan got up and pulled it out of a steel four-drawer cabinet. Looking at what was there reminded him of what wasn’t. “You were going to get me your certificate of discharge and your certificate of acceptance.” A Canadian man who’d fought in the Great War and couldn’t prove he had accepted U.S. authority after the surrender in 1917 had a very hard time of it indeed if he ever came to the notice of a military court.

Godfrey coughed: a wet sound, half embarrassed; half, perhaps, tubercular. “I have the certificate of discharge,” he said. “As for the other . . .” He coughed again. “I would, of course, be happy to sign a certificate of acceptance now. That would be better than nothing, wouldn’t it?”