wires. She’d got answers. No, more: she’d got promises. Satan surely fried people who said they’d do something and then didn’t come through. That wouldn’t do her any good, though. If this fizzles…I’ll try something else, that’s all, she told herself. Quitting never entered her mind.
Another woman wearing mourning got out of a car. The old De Soto drove off. The woman, who shouldered a sign as if it were an M-1, came over to Diana.
So did another reporter. He introduced himself as Chuck Christman, from the
The other woman was Louise Rodgers, from Bloomington. She was about Diana’s age-no big surprise there- and she’d lost a boy to a roadside bomb two weeks after the German surrender. “The papers and the news on the radio just whitewash everything,” she told E. A. Stuart and Chuck Christman.
“We’re here now,” Christman pointed out.
“Months late and how many lives short?” Louise Rodgers said. “Till I heard from Diana, I didn’t think I could do anything about David-that’s my son; no,
“You said it,” Diana agreed. The reporters scribbled.
More women drifted in. Some of them had lost sons after the Nazis allegedly gave up, too. Others hadn’t, but still hated the idea of so many soldiers dying after the war was supposed to be over and victory won. Some men joined them, too-not many, but some. Two were veterans who’d been wounded in France or Germany. Another, older, was like Ed; he’d caught a packet in 1918.
“They called the last one the war to end war. This time, the stupid war can’t even end itself,” he said. The reporters liked that. They both wrote it down.
Diana went back and opened the Pontiac’s rear door. She took her own picket sign off the backseat. BRING OUR BOYS HOME FROM GERMANY NOW! it said. “Come on,” she told the other demonstrators.
Heart thuttering, she led them to the sidewalk in front of the capitol. She’d never done anything like this before. Till Pat got killed, she’d never imagined doing anything like this. Nothing like a kick in the teeth to boot you out of your old routine.
HOW MANY DEAD? one sign asked. TOO MANY DEAD! another answered. WHY ARE THEY STILL THERE? another demanded. ISN’T THE WAR OVER YET? a sign inquired rhetorically. STOP THE WAR DEPARTMENT’S LIES! another said. 1000+ DEAD SINCE SURRENDER! another sign declared. Anybody who carried one without either a question mark or an exclamation point seemed out of place.
Another contingent of picketers came up the street. ILLINOIS MOTHERS SUPPORT BRINGING TROOPS HOME! announced the sign their leader carried. GERMAN OCCUPATION WASTES AMERICAN LIVES! another one said. A decorated veteran carried that sign.
“Good to see you!” Diana called to the Illinoisans. She could hear how relieved she sounded. Well, she’d earned the right, by God. They’d said they would come down. It was an easy train trip from Chicago. But promises were worth their weight in gold. She remembered what she’d thought a little earlier about the Devil and people who didn’t come through.
Now, where were the people from Ohio? They’d promised, too. Which meant…She’d have to see what it meant, or whether it meant anything.
A man driving a battered Model A Ford stopped right in the middle of Capitol Street. The bakery truck behind him almost rearended him, but he either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He leaned out the window and shouted, “Communists! You’re all nothin’ but a bunch of lousy Reds!”
“We’re Americans, that’s what we are!” Diana shouted back. The demonstrators near her cheered.
“Communists!” the man in the Model A yelled again. He shook his fist at the people on the sidewalk.
The bakery-truck driver leaned on his horn. So did somebody stuck in back of him. The man in the Model A shook his fist once more, maybe at them, maybe at the picketers, maybe at the world. He put the decrepit old car in gear. It wheezed on down the road.
“Well, people are noticing us,” said the woman at the head of the Illinois group. Her name was Edna Somebody-right this minute, Diana couldn’t remember what.
She nodded. “That’s the idea. Now where are those folks from Columbus and Cincinnati? They said they’d be here.”
“Isn’t that them?” Edna Somebody pointed up the street. Lopatynski, that was her name.
Sure enough, here they came, like the cavalry riding up over a hill in the last reel of a Western serial. OHIO SAYS TOO MANY HAVE DIED FOR NOTHING! their leader’s sign said. THE WAR DEPT. STILL WANTS WAR! declared another. And a haggard woman’s sign poignantly asked, WHAT DID MY ONLY SON DIE FOR?
Another car stopped on Capitol, this one with a screech of brakes. “Traitors!” yelled the man inside. His face was beet red; he all but frothed at the mouth. “They oughta string up the lot of you!”
Diana worked hard to stay calm. She’d feared-no, she’d known-people would shout things like that. She’d done her homework, too. “The Constitution says we can peaceably assemble and petition for a redress of grievances. My son got blown up months after the surrender. Isn’t that a grievance?”
The red-faced man’s arm shot up and out in a salute the Germans had made odious all over the world.
Edna Lopatynski’s laugh was shaky, but it was a laugh. “Well, Diana, are we Communists or are we Nazis?”
“No,” Diana answered firmly. “We’re Americans. If the government is doing something stupid, we’ve got the right to say so. We’ve got the right to make it stop. And that’s what we’re doing.” She looked around. Chuck Christman and E. A. Stuart were both close enough to hear what she’d said.
Yes, she’d expected to get called a traitor and a Communist. That anybody could think she was trying to help the Nazis after Heydrich’s lunatics murdered Pat…Her free hand folded into a fist. She wanted to clock that guy. The nerve!
Several cops stood around watching the picketers go back and forth. One of them ambled over to Diana and fell into step beside her. “You running this whole shebang?” he inquired.
“I organized it, anyhow,” she said. “I don’t know that anybody’s in charge.”
“Yeah, well, if it goes wrong you’re the one we’ll jug,” the policeman said. “Keep doing like you’re doing. Stay spaced out. Let people through. Stuff like that. Long as you play by the rules, we won’t give you no trouble. I think you’re full of hops myself, but that’s got nothin’ to do with what’s legal.”
“My son got killed for no reason,” Diana said tightly. “President Truman never has said why we still need to be in Germany. I don’t think he knows, either.”
“He’s the President of the United States.” The cop sounded shocked.
“He was a Kansas City machine politician till FDR dumped Henry Wallace,” Diana retorted. “He’s only President ’cause Roosevelt died. He’s not infallible or anything.”
“Huh.” Shaking his head, the policeman went away.
Several men who looked like state legislators-they were mostly portly, they had gray hair, and they wore expensive suits-came out onto the Capitol steps to watch the demonstration. Some of them shook their heads, too.
One of the legislators got into an argument with his colleagues. Another man ostentatiously turned his back on him. Diana wondered if the first guy was on her side. She could hope so, anyhow.
A car horn blared. The driver stuck his left hand out of the window, middle finger raised. He didn’t bother slowing down.
Lobbyists and lawyers with briefcases passed through the picket line on the way to doing business in the Capitol. “You should be ashamed,” one of them said, but he took it no further than that. More ordinary people went through, too-men in work clothes, women in dresses they’d got from the Sears catalogue or made themselves.
A couple of them said unkind things, too. But one fellow who looked like a mechanic said, “Give ’em hell,
