Breakthroughs

of sneaking around behind my back. Can you grant them peace, pray tell?”

“Of course not,” Flora said, “though I would if I could.”

“I would not,” Roosevelt said, “most especially not if they go about it in this underhanded way. And, since I was comfortably returned as president of the United States, defeating Senator Debs who shares your views, I must conclude that my views on the subject are also the views of the large majority of the American people.”

That was probably true. Because of it, Flora did not have a good opinion of the political wisdom of the large majority of the American people. Nationalism kept too many from voting their class interests. She said, “Mr. Wiggins-Mr. Edward C.L. Wiggins-is staying at the Aldine Hotel. I think you should hear him out, to see if the terms Richmond proposes are acceptable to you.”

“Not bloody likely,” Roosevelt said with a snort. “What did this fellow with the herd of initials have to say about Kentucky, for instance?”

Roosevelt might be a class enemy, but he was no fool. Flora reminded herself of it again: he went straight for the center of things. Reluctantly, she answered, “He spoke of a plebiscite, and-”

“No,” Roosevelt broke in. “Kentucky is ours, and stays ours. And I need hear no more. When the Confederate States are serious, they will let us know. Good day, Miss Hamburger.” He hung up.

So did Flora, angrily. Slighted was the least of what she felt. Her first instinct was to call or wire half a dozen good Socialist newspapers and break the story of the president’s refusal to negotiate with the CSA. But, before she picked up the telephone once more, she had second thoughts that had nothing to do with Socialism and everything to do with the ghetto from which her family had escaped to the United States. Don’t do anything to make things worse was the eleventh commandment of the ghetto, at least as important as the original ten.

And so, when she did pick up the telephone, it was not to call the newspapers: not at first, at any rate. Instead, when her call was answered, she said, “May I please speak with Mr. Blackford? This is Miss Hamburger.”

“Hello, Flora,” Hosea Blackford said a moment later. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this call?”

Flora felt her face heat at Blackford’s cordial-maybe even more than cordial-tone. As baldly as she could, she told him of the approach from Edward C.L. Wiggins, and of President Roosevelt’s response to it. When she was through, she said, “I want to expose Roosevelt for the bloodthirsty rogue he is, but at the same time I don’t want to do anything that would hurt the Party.”

Blackford was silent even longer than Roosevelt had been when she put Wiggins’ proposal to him. She heard him sigh, start to speak, and then stop. At last, he said, “Much as I regret admitting it, I would advise you to keep Mr.-Wiggins’, was it? — visit to yourself. You might embarrass Teddy if you thunder what he did from the rooftops. You might, I say, but I wouldn’t want to bet on it. You’re too much likelier to embarrass us instead.”

Flora made automatic protest: “This is a capitalists’ war. If we can keep the workers and farmers of one country from slaughtering those of another in the sacred name of profit, how can we hold back?”

“Because the workers and farmers of the United States will be perfectly happy to slaughter those of the Confederacy and Canada as long as they win in the end.” Was Blackford mournful or cynical or both at once? Flora couldn’t tell. The congressman from Dakota went on, “A year ago, I would have told you to take it to the papers as fast as you could. A year ago, the war was going nowhere.”

“And because it was going nowhere, the Confederate States wouldn’t have come to anyone in Congress looking for a way out,” Flora said.

“Exactly.” Blackford paused for a moment, perhaps to nod. “But if you go to the papers now, with the war on the edge of being won, Roosevelt will crucify us and say we’re jogging his elbow-and I’m afraid people will believe him.”

“But-” Flora didn’t go on right away, either. She sighed instead; it seemed to be her turn. Then she said, “All right, Hosea; thank you. You may be right.” Only then did she realize she’d called him by his first name.

“I am right. I wish I weren’t, but I am,” he said, and changed the subject: “How is your brother doing?”

“He’s not going to die,” Flora answered. “He’s out of the woods, as far as that goes. He’s only going to be crippled for life, in this war that Teddy Roosevelt has brought to the edge of being won, this war where we don’t dare jog his elbow, this great, grand, glorious, triumphant war.” She hung up the telephone and, very quietly, began to cry.

XIV

When Luther Bliss unhappily released him from the Covington, Kentucky, city hall, Cincinnatus had devoutly hoped he would not see the inside of the building again. That hope failed. Here he stood outside the city hall, soon to be inside once more, and, very much to his surprise, he was not filled with panic.

One thing he had seen since the USA drove the CSA from Kentucky: bureaucrats were far more numerous and far more thorough than their C.S. counterparts. That had a great deal to do with why he was standing in front of the Covington city hall in the middle of a long line of Negroes. He and they laughed and gossiped as the line moved forward. Why not? They were friends and neighbors; the new government of Kentucky had been summoning Covington’s Negroes to the city hall a few square blocks at a time.

“I tell you,” somebody behind him said, “this here gonna make the passbooks we had to put up with look downright puny alongside it. You step out of line now and they kin step on your whole blame family, wherever they be in the USA.”

“Ain’t doin’ nothin’ with us the white folks ain’t done to themselves,” somebody else answered.

“And they reckon they’s free,” the first speaker said, and shook his head.

“They ain’t free,” Cincinnatus said. “All the taxes they got to pay, they’re powerful expensive. And now we get to be just like them. Ain’t that bully?”

Nobody answered, not straight out. A couple of people let their eyes flick toward a white policeman who was standing not far away. Cincinnatus looked his way, too, then nodded ever so slightly. He’d pitched his words about right. The people he wanted to hear had heard, while the cop with his billy club and permanent tough expression hadn’t noticed a thing.

As the line snaked forward, the man right behind Cincinnatus murmured, “Don’t want to let the white folks know you’s a Red.”

“Ain’t against the law, not like it used to be,” Cincinnatus answered, but the fellow had a point. Cincinnatus glanced at the white cop again. He wondered if the bruiser had been a policeman when the CSA ruled Covington, or if he was one of Luther Bliss’ men. If he belonged to Bliss’ Kentucky State Police, he was liable to be more dangerous than he looked.

Once Cincinnatus got inside the city hall, he found himself face-to-face with white petty officials whose faces said they were disgusted at having to show up for work of a Sunday. That he and his fellow Negroes might also be unhappy at having to come to the city hall on Sunday never seemed to enter their minds. That surprised Cincinnatus not a bit.

“What’s your name, boy?” a clerk snapped when he got to the head of the line.

“Cincinnatus, suh,” Cincinnatus answered. Kentucky might be part of the USA again, but the clerk, by his accent, had likely served the Confederate States far longer than his new country. Long and sometimes bitter experience warned Cincinnatus to walk soft.

Not soft enough. “Cinci-what?” the clerk demanded, even though Cincinnati was just across the Ohio River. He gnawed at the top of his fountain pen. Toothmarks showed that was a habit of his. “I don’t reckon you can spell that for me, can you?”

“Yes, suh, I can,” Cincinnatus said, as quietly and submissively as he could. He spoke the letters one by one, slowly enough so that the clerk had no trouble writing them down. Then he gave his address. Reading upside down, he saw that the clerk had misspelled the name of his street. He did not correct the man; being literate gave him a leg up on being thought uppity, and he was already in enough hot water with enough different people.

“Family?” the clerk asked.

“My wife Elizabeth, my son Achilles,” Cincinnatus answered. He had to spell