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.
Jonathan 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?'
'A little,' Moss said glumly. A military prosecutor would claim Godfrey had signed the certificate only because of his dispute with the occupying authorities. He would also claim everything Godfrey had done over the past twenty-odd years was illegal because he'd done it without having a certificate on file. A military judge would be inclined to listen to that kind of argument, too, because occupation law presumed the worst about men who'd tried to kill U.S. soldiers.
'I'm sure you'll do your best,' Godfrey said.
