himself before saying goyim to his brother-in-law-'turned up their noses at the idea of eating tongue.'
'All what you're used to, I suppose,' Blackford said. 'When I was growing up on a farm, we'd have it whenever we butchered a cow-or a lamb, for that matter, though a lamb's tongue has a skin that's tough to peel and so little meat, it's almost more trouble than it's worth. I hadn't eaten tongue for years before I first came here.'
'I knew then you liked,' Sarah Hamburger said, 'so I make.' Her English was the least certain of anyone's there, but she made a special effort for Blackford.
Over supper, Esther said, 'What is it like, being vice president?' She laughed at herself. 'I've been asking Flora what it's like being in Congress ever since she got elected, and I still don't really understand it, so I don't know why I should ask you now.'
'Being in Congress is complicated, or it can be,' Blackford answered. 'Being vice president is simple. Imagine you're in a factory, and you have a machine with one very expensive part. If that part breaks, the whole machine shuts down till you can replace it.'
'And you're that part?' Esther asked, her eyes wide.
Blackford laughed and shook his head. 'I'm the spare for that part. I sit in the warehouse and gather dust. President Sinclair is the part that's hooked up to the machine, and I hope to heaven that he doesn't break.'
'You're joking,' David said. He studied Blackford's face. 'No, I take it back. You're not.'
'No, I'm not,' Blackford said. 'Flora has heard me complain about this for as long as I've had the job. I have the potential to be a very important man-but the only way the potential turns real is if something horrible happens, the way something horrible happened to the Confederate president last year. Otherwise, I haven't got much to do.'
Abraham Hamburger said, 'This Mitchel, down in the Confederate States, seems to be doing a good job.'
'He does indeed,' Blackford said. 'I'm not telling any secrets when I say President Sinclair is glad, too. If the regular politicians in the Confederate States do a good job, the reactionaries don't get the chance to grab the reins.'
'A kholeriyeh on everybody in the Confederate States,' David muttered in Yiddish. Blackford glanced at Flora, but she didn't translate. She didn't blame her brother for feeling that way. Because of what the Confederates had done to him, she could hardly keep from feeling that way herself.
Her father nodded at what Blackford had said. 'These Freedom Party mamzrim remind me of the Black Hundreds in Russia, except they go after Negroes instead of Jews.'
'Not enough Jews in the Confederate States for them to go after,' Isaac said. 'If there were more, they would.'
'That's probably true,' Flora said, and Blackford nodded. Flora's laugh sounded a little shaky. 'Funny to think of anybody going after anyone instead of Jews.'
'It is, isn't it?' Isaac said. 'People do it here, too, even though there are more Jews than Negroes in the USA. It makes life easier for us than it would be otherwise.'
Hosea Blackford looked around the crowded apartment. Flora knew what was in his mind: with so many people in so small a space, Jews still didn't have it easy. She hadn't been able to see how crowded the flat was, how crowded the whole Lower East Side was, till she moved away. Before, they'd been like water to a fish. Only going to Philadelphia had given her a standard for comparison.
But that standard for comparison didn't mean her brother was wrong. Easier and easy weren't the same thing. She said, 'Wherever we end up, no matter how hard things are for us, we manage to get by.'
'That spirit is what made this country what it is today, no matter who has it,' Hosea Blackford said. He stopped with a bite of tongue halfway to his mouth and an astonished look on his face. 'Will you listen to me. Will you listen to me? If you didn't know better, wouldn't you swear that was Teddy Roosevelt talking?'
'He's set his mark on the country for a long time to come,' David said. He rapped his own artificial leg, which sounded of wood and metal. 'He's set his mark on me for the rest of my life. Having the Socialists running the country has turned out better for the country and better for us'-he grinned at Flora and at Hosea Blackford-'than I thought it would. I admit it. But I still think TR deserved a third term in 1920.'
Flora knew her brother's opinion. She had never understood it, and still didn't. But she refused to let him get her goat. 'Now we'll see how many terms President Sinclair deserves,' she said, which seemed to satisfy everyone. As her husband had, she heard what she'd said with some surprise. Will you listen to me? Will you listen to me? If you didn 't know better, wouldn 't you swear that was a politician talking?
Someone had plastered two-word posters-VOTE FREEDOM! — on every telegraph pole and blank wall in the Terry. As Scipio walked from his roominghouse to Erasmus' fish store and restaurant, he wondered if all the Freedom Party men had gone round the bend. Only a handful of Negroes in Augusta, Georgia, were eligible to vote. Even if they'd all been eligible, the Freedom Party wouldn't have picked up more than a handful of their votes.
When Scipio came up to the fish store, Erasmus was scrubbing a Freedom Party poster off his door. 'Mornin', Xerxes,' he said. 'I don't need me no extra work so early in the mornin'.'
'Crazy damnfool buckra,' Scipio said. 'Ain't nobody here got no use for no Freedom Party.'
'Freedom Party?' Erasmus exclaimed. 'That whose poster this here is?' He was a clever man, and sharp with figures, but could hardly read or write. At Scipio's nod, he scrubbed and scraped harder than ever. 'Mus' be try in' to make us afraid of 'em.'
'Mebbe so,' Scipio said; that hadn't occurred to him. 'I was feared o' they befo', but I ain't now. They shoots theyselves when they shoots de president.'
Erasmus didn't answer for a moment; he was busy getting rid of the last bits of the offending poster. 'There- that's better.' He kicked shreds of wadded-up paper across the sidewalk and into the gutter, then glanced over at Scipio. 'Them bastards ain't even collectin' 'taxes' no more. You reckon they's goin' anywheres now?'
'Pray to Jesus they ain't,' Scipio answered with all his heart. He still didn't believe prayer helped, but the phrase came automatically to his lips.
'Amen,' Erasmus said. Then he reached into a pocket of his dungarees and pulled out a one-dollar banknote. 'And I reckon this here hammers some nails in the coffin lid, too. Give 'em one big thing less to bellyache about.'
'Yeah.' Again, Scipio spoke enthusiastically. The Freedom Party hadn't been alone in bellyaching about the inflation that had squeezed the CSA since the end of the Great War. He'd done plenty of that himself. 'Been a year now, near enough, an' the money still worth what it say. Almost done got to where I starts to trust it.'
'Wasn't all bad.' Erasmus chuckled. 'Still recollect the look on the white-folks banker's face when I paid off what I owed. Thought he was gonna piss his pants. Money was still worth a little somethin' then, so they couldn't pretend it weren't, like they done later. An' now I got my house free an' clear. Wish more niggers woulda did the same.'
Scipio shared that wish. Most of the Negroes in Augusta hadn't been alert enough to the opportunity that had briefly glittered for them. 'Reckon mos' of the buckra don' think of it till too late, neither,' he said.
'You right about that,' Erasmus answered. 'Some folks is jus' stupid, an' it don't matter none whether they's black or white.' Before Scipio could say anything about that, his boss went on, 'We done spent enough time chinnin'. Got work to do, an' it don't never go away.'
Once inside the fish store and restaurant, Scipio fell to with a will. Erasmus had told a couple of important secrets there. Fools weren't the only ones who came in all colors. So did people who worked hard. One way or another, they got ahead. The ones with black skins didn't get so far ahead and didn't get ahead so fast, but they did better than their brethren who were content to take it easy.
After the lunch crowd thinned out, Scipio said, 'You let me go downtown for a little bit, boss? Bathsheba want some fancy buttons for a shirtwaist she makin', an' she can't find they nowhere in the Terry. Don't reckon no buckra too proud to take my money.'
Erasmus waved him away. 'Yeah, go on, go on. Be back quick, though, you hear?' Scipio nodded and left. He could take advantage of his boss' good nature every once in a while because he did work hard-and because he didn't try taking advantage very often.
Fewer Negroes were on the streets of downtown Augusta nowadays than had been there right after the war, when Scipio first came to town. The factory jobs that had brought blacks into town from the fields were gone now, gone or back in white hands. Two cops in the space of a couple of blocks demanded to see Scipio's passbook. He passed both inspections.
