was going to have to grapple with what that meant.
As she painted red rings on the next pair of overshoes, she suddenly wished Upton Sinclair hadn't won the election after all. Sinclair, when he talked about dealings with other countries, talked about reconciliation and improving relations with former foes. That had sounded good during the campaign. Now-
Now Sylvia wished Teddy Roosevelt were going to be inaugurated again come Friday. With TR, you always knew where he stood. Most of the time, Sylvia had thought he stood in the wrong place. But he would have demanded that Confederate submersible skipper's head on a silver platter. And, if the Rebs hesitated about turning him over, TR would have started blowing things up. He wouldn't have stopped blowing things up till the Confederates did what he told them, either.
Sylvia sighed. So much for Socialism, she thought. As soon as she wanted the United States to take a strong line with their neighbors, she automatically thought of the Democrats.
That's why they ran things for so long, she realized. Lots of people had wanted the United States to take a strong line with their neighbors. As soon as people thought they didn't need to worry about the CSA and Canada, England and France, any more, they threw the Democrats out on their ear. She'd wanted to throw the Democrats out on their ear, too. Maybe she'd been hasty.
How am I going to get revenge with Upton Sinclair in the Powel House or the White House or wherever he decides to live? she wondered. He won't do it. He's already said he wouldn 't do things like that. Will I have to do it myself?
She laughed, imagining herself invading the Confederate States singlehanded. What would she wear? A pot helmet over her shirtwaist and skirt? A green-gray uniform with a flowered hat? And how would she get rid of the Reb who'd killed her husband? With a hatpin or a carving knife? Those were the most lethal weapons she owned. She had the feeling they wouldn't be enough to do the job.
She kept on doing her job, as automatically as if she were a machine. The factory owners hadn't figured out how to make a machine to replace her. The minute they did, she'd be out of work. Millions of people, all over the country, were in that same boat. That was another reason Sinclair had beaten TR.
When the dinner whistle blew, Sylvia jumped. She couldn't decide whether she thought it came too soon or too late. Either way, it shouldn't have come just then. It snapped her out of a haze: not the haze of work, but the haze of a mind far away-in the Confederate States, in the South Atlantic, and back in her apartment with her husband.
Still bemused, she picked up her dinner pail and went out to meet her friends. 'What in the world did you say to Frank?' Sarah Wyckoff demanded. 'He's been walking around all morning like he just saw a ghost.'
'And the way he's been looking at you,' May Cavendish added, taking a bite from a pungent sandwich of summer sausage, pickles, and onions. 'Not like he wants to get his hands inside your clothes, the way he usually does, but more like he's scared of you. Tell us the secret.'
'I don't know,' Sylvia said vaguely. She remembered talking with the foreman not long after the shift started, but hardly anything of what had passed between them. Most of what had gone on since she'd seen that story in the Boston Globe was a blur to her.
'You all right, dearie?' May asked.
'I don't know,' Sylvia said again. She realized she had to do better than that, and did try: 'I'm having a lot of trouble keeping my mind on my work-on much of anything-this morning.'
'Well, I know all about that' Sarah said. 'This isn't the most exciting place they ever built, and that's the Lord's truth.' May nodded while lighting a cigarette.
Sylvia lit one, too. The surge of well-being that went with the first couple of puffs penetrated the fog around her wits. In thoughtful tones, she asked, 'May, what would you do if you could find the soldier who killed your husband? I mean the soldier, the one who fired the machine gun or rifle or whatever it was'
'I don't know,' May Cavendish answered. 'I never thought about that before. For all I know, he's already dead.' Her eyes went flat and hard. When she spoke again, her voice was cold as sleet: 'I hope he's already dead, and I hope he took a long time to die, too, the stinking son of a bitch.' But then, after a savage drag on her cigarette, she sounded much more like her usual self, saying, 'But how could you ever tell? With so many bullets flying around, nobody knew who shot people and who didn't. Herbert always used to talk about that when he came home on leave.' Now she sighed and looked sad, remembering.
'I suppose you're right,' Sylvia said. She'd forgotten the differences between the wars the Army and the Navy fought. She knew the name of her husband's killer: Roger Kimball. She knew he lived down in South Carolina and agitated for the Freedom Party. She had no idea whether the Freedom Party was good, bad, or indifferent.
'What would you do, Sylvia?' Sarah asked. 'If you knew?'
'Who can say?' Sylvia sounded weary. 'I like to think I'd have the gumption to try and kill him, but who can say?' The whistle blew, announcing the end of the dinner break. 'I like to think I'd have the gumption to try and kill Frank Best, too, but it hasn't happened yet,' Sylvia added. Chuckling, she and her friends went back to work.
Flora Hamburger remembered the last presidential inauguration she'd attended, four years before. That long? She shook her head in wonder. So much had changed since 1917. She'd been brand new in Congress then, unsure of herself, unsure of her place in Philadelphia. Now she was starting her third term. The war had still raged. Now the United States were at peace with the world. And she'd gone to the inauguration of a Democrat then. Now-
Now half the bunting that decorated Philadelphia was the traditional red, white, and blue. The other half was solid red, symbol of the Socialists who had come into their own at last.
A lot of people in Philadelphia were going around with long faces. Being the home of the federal government since the Second Mexican War, it had also been the home of the Democratic Party since the 1880s. Now President Sinclair would be choosing officials ranging from Cabinet members down to postmasters. A horde of Democrats who'd thought they owned lifetime positions were discovering they'd been mistaken and would have to go out and look for real work.
President-elect Sinclair had chosen to hold the inauguration in Franklin Square, to let as large a crowd as possible see him. He'd thought about going down to Washington, D.C., but the de jure capital remained too war- battered to host the ceremony. Philadelphia it was. 'We are the party of the people,' he had said a great many times. 'Let them know how they are governed, and they will ensure they are governed well.'
Before Sinclair took the presidential oath, Hosea Blackford would take that of the vice president. Flora shook her head again. In March 1917, she'd had a mild friendship with the Congressman from Dakota. Now… Now I am the mistress of the vice president-elect of the United States.
The title should have left her feeling sordid and ashamed- and it did, sometimes. What, after all, was mistress but a fancy word for fallen woman? But she also knew she'd never been so happy as in the time since she and Blackford became lovers. Did that make her depraved? She didn't think so-most of the time, she didn't think so-though no doubt others would if they knew.
Whatever she was, it didn't show on the outside. Dressed in a splendid maroon wool suit (Herman Bruck would have approved) and a new hat, she had one of the best seats for the ceremony. Why not? She was a Socialist member of Congress. Then she wondered, Is it a matter of rank? Is this what we get? Will we become part of the ruling class, the way the Democrats did?
She hoped not. The people had elected Upton Sinclair to prevent that kind of thing, not to promote it. Then all her thought about anything but the immediate present blew away. A rising hum from the enormous crowd behind her announced the arrival of the motorcars full of dignitaries who would go through the ceremony that marked the changing of the guard for the United States.
People clapped and cheered to see them. In the lead, behind an honor guard of soldiers and Marines, strode Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. He was a little thinner, a little more stooped, than he had been when Flora first saw him four years before, but he still moved like a much younger man.
Behind him came Vice President McKenna, an amiable nonentity who was almost as fat as Congressman Taft. In white tie and tails, he looked like a penguin that had swallowed a beach ball. And behind McKenna walked Theodore Roosevelt, also in white tie and tails. As he moved toward the raised platform on which President Sinclair would take the oath of office, Senators and Representatives got to their feet and began to applaud him. Democrats rose sooner than Socialists and Republicans, but soon, regardless of party, members of both houses of Congress stood and cheered the man who had led the United States to victory in the Great War.
Roosevelt did not seem to have expected such a tribute. He doffed his stovepipe hat several times. Once, he took off his spectacles for a moment and rubbed at his eyes. Had he got a cinder in them, or was he wiping away a
