'They'll vote in the plebiscite,' Smith said. 'They've got surnames these days. We can keep track of 'em, make sure it's fair and honest. They aren't slaves any more. In the USA, they're citizens, even if they don't vote. If they're going to change countries, they have to be able to help make the choice.'
Jake considered. Smith had neatly turned the tables on him. He'd been yelling, Let the people vote! Now Smith said, Let all the people vote! How could he say no to that without looking like a fool? He couldn't, and he knew it. 'All right, goddammit,' he ground out. That made Sequoyah even iffier, but he didn't think it would hurt- except as far as precedent went-in Kentucky or Houston.
Smith seemed a little surprised he'd accepted, even if grudgingly. He gave his next condition: 'Any state that changes hands stays demilitarized for twenty-five years.'
'That's a bargain.' Jake didn't hesitate for even a moment there. He knew he would break the deal inside of twenty-five days. He could always manufacture incidents to give him an excuse-or maybe, if the blacks got uppity, he wouldn't have to manufacture any. 'What else?'
'These have to be your last demands as far as territorial changes go,' Smith said. That would leave the United States with part of Virginia, part of Arkansas, part of Sonora-maybe enough to claim they'd still made a profit on the war.
'Well, of course,' Featherston said, again without hesitation. If I get that much, I'll get the rest, too-you bet I will. 'Anything else?'
'Yes-one more thing,' the U.S. president said. 'We can announce an agreement now, but I don't think the vote itself oughta come before 1941. We should have a proper campaign-let both sides be heard.'
'What?' Featherston frowned, wondering what sort of fast one Smith was trying to pull there. Then, suddenly, he laughed. Al Smith would run for reelection in November. He wanted to be able to say he'd made peace with the Confederate States, but he didn't want to have to hand over any territory to them before Election Day. Afterwards, he'd have plenty of time to repair the damage. He thinks so, anyway. 'All right, Mr. President,' Jake said. 'You've got yourself a deal.'
XV
Anne Colleton had heard that people danced in the streets in Richmond when Woodrow Wilson declared war on the United States. Now the newsboys here shouted, 'Plebiscite!' — and people danced in the street. Maybe that was because they thought there wouldn't be a war now. But maybe-and, odds were, more likely-it was because they thought the Confederate States would finally get back what they'd lost in the war.
She thought as much herself. She felt proud of herself for backing the right horse. Before the Freedom Party came to power, who would have believed the United States would ever even think of turning loose the lands they'd stolen from the CSA? But the stolen states had grown too hot to hold on to; the United States kept burning their fingers. And if that wasn't Jake Featherston's doing, whose was it? The right horse, sure enough, Anne thought smugly.
Celebrations in Capitol Square, across the street from Ford's Hotel, were noisy enough to keep her awake at night. She hadn't thought of that when she checked in. There were, of course, plenty of worse problems to have, even if she needed her sleep more regularly than she had when she was younger.
She was in Richmond to pay a call on the French embassy. Some of the men with whom she'd conferred in Paris years before had risen in prominence since. She could talk with one of them informally but still leave him certain he understood where the Confederate government stood. She hadn't had much chance to speak French lately, but she expected her accent wouldn't be too barbarous.
Across from the French embassy east of Capitol Square stood the much bigger building housing the U.S. embassy. A man-high fence of pointed iron palings protected the neoclassical white marble pile above which flew the Stars and Stripes. Anne understood why the U.S. embassy needed that kind of protection. How many times had her countrymen wanted to give it what they thought it deserved?
But not today. Today people cheered the U.S. military guards in their green-gray uniforms. The guards stood impassive at the entrance to the embassy. Their faces showed nothing of what they were thinking. All the same, Anne wondered what that would be. How happy did the prospect of a plebiscite in the annexed states make them?
Not very, I hope.
Colonel Jean-Henri Jusserand had been French military attachй in the Confederate States since sailing across the Atlantic with Anne aboard the Charles XL 'So good to see you again, Mademoiselle Colleton,' he said, bowing over her hand. 'It has been too long a time.'
'Yes, I think so, too,' she said. 'I hope you are well?'
'I must confess, the weather here in summer is a trial,' Jusserand replied. 'Other than that, though, yes, thank you. And I must also say that I am full of admiration for the extraordinary achievement of your government. C'est formidable!'
'Merci beaucoup,' Anne said. 'I hope that France will soon have similar good fortune with respect to Alsace and Lorraine.'
Colonel Jusserand's narrow, intelligent face twisted. 'Who can say? The Germans delay and delay. They delay endlessly. And we cannot even tax them for it overmuch, for the Kaiser delays dying. He delays and delays, delays- almost-endlessly. And while he is dying, what can be decided? Why, nothing, of course.'
'There are ways to make them decide,' Anne murmured.
'To go to war, do you mean?' the military attachй asked. Anne nodded. Jusserand sighed. 'It is not so simple. I wish it were, but it is not. We have to know what the English will do, and the Russians, and the Italians. Until we are sure, how can we move? The Boches have beaten us twice in a lifetime. If we lose for a third time, we are ruined forever.'
'When we came across the Atlantic from France to the Confederate States a few years ago, your country was ahead of mine,' Anne said. 'You poked and prodded at the Germans, while we could not do much with the United States. Things are different now. C'est dommage.'
The Frenchman's eyes flashed. 'Yes, it is a pity,' he agreed. 'You will understand, I hope, that there are those who wish to move faster. And we wish to be certain that if we do move, we shall not move alone. If the United States are not distracted, if they land on our back while we face the German Empire…'
Anne had gone to the French embassy to pass along a message. Now she saw she was getting one in return. 'I do not believe, my dear Colonel, that you need concern yourself on that score.'
'Ah? Vraiment?' Colonel Jusserand looked alert. 'May I pass this interesting news on to my superiors- unofficially, of course?'
'Yes-as long as it is unofficially,' Anne answered.
He nodded. They understood each other. After some small talk, she stood to go. He bowed over her hand. He even kissed it. But it was politeness, and politeness only. No spark leaped. Anne could tell. That politeness felt like a little death. Twenty years ago, he would have drunk champagne front my slipper, she thought bitterly as she left the embassy. She hated the calendar, hated the mirror and what it showed her every morning. A handsome woman, that's what you are. She would almost rather have been ugly. Then she wouldn't have to remember the beauty she had been not so long ago.
She had walked to the French embassy. It was only three blocks from her hotel. She thought hard about taking a taxi back. All the heat and humidity had manifested themselves while she talked with Colonel Jusserand. The sun beat down from a sky like enameled brass. The air was thick as porridge. Sweat rivered off her and had nowhere to go. Every step felt enervating.
Stubbornly, she kept on. The hotel bar was air-conditioned. Just then, she would have crawled through broken glass to get out of the heat. Not many whites were on the sidewalks, though plenty drove past. But most of the pedestrians were Negroes.
By their clothes, a lot of them hadn't been in Richmond long. She had no trouble recognizing sharecroppers thrown off the land as farming grew increasingly mechanized. She'd seen plenty of them in St. Matthews. Some of them turned to odd jobs in town, others to petty theft. The big farms, the farms that raised cotton and tobacco and grain, seemed to get on fine without them. Tractors and harvesters could do the work of scores, even hundreds, of
