Blackford.'
'Thank you, Mr. Speaker,' Flora said. 'However much pleasure most of us would take from no longer having the company of the members from the Freedom Party, I am also certain more than a few of us would not care to give them the satisfaction of gaining anything they want, simply because they have made themselves so obnoxious to us.'
That brought jeers from the Congressmen from Houston and Kentucky, jeers largely drowned out by a storm of applause from Representatives of other parties. Flora wasn't particularly proud of herself despite the applause. She knew she'd sunk to the Freedom Party's level in condemning it.
Hosea wouldn't have done that, she thought. When he'd been a Congressman, Hosea Blackford had got on well with everyone-he'd got on better with reactionary Democrats than Flora ever had. But the men from the Freedom Party weren't just reactionaries. They were reactionaries on the march, in the same way as the Reds in the failed uprisings in the CSA and Russia had been radicals on the march. Up till the past few years, the world hadn't had to worry about revolutionary reaction. It did now.
Wearily, Speaker Cannon fought yet again for order. When he finally got it, he spoke in wistful tones: 'Do you suppose we could possibly return to discussion of the trade bill before us at the moment?'
They did go on. In due course, the Speaker let Congressman Pratt and Congressman Goldwater return to the floor. They started sniping at each other again, but within-sometimes narrowly within-the rules of House decorum. The Freedom Party Congressmen from Houston and Kentucky went back to ignoring the rules, as they usually did. They cared nothing for them, and admitted as much. They didn't want to be here in the first place, and seemed to operate on the theory that, if they made all the colleagues hate and despise them, their states became more likely to leave the USA for the CSA. What worried Flora was that they might well prove right.
Thanks to their unending shenanigans-and thanks to the basically uninspiring nature of trade bills-the day crawled past on hands and knees. Speaker Cannon didn't look for a motion to adjourn till well past six that evening. When he did, a throng of Representatives tried to make it and another throng tried to second it. Wearily, the members left the floor.
Competition for cabs outside was as fierce as anything that had gone on within the hallowed hall. Flora, normally polite and gentle, brawled with the best of them. She wanted to get home to Joshua as fast as she could. Thanks to a judicious elbow, she quickly won a ride.
Her son looked up from his homework in surprise when she came through the door. 'Hello,' he said, his voice at fifteen as deep as a man's. 'I didn't expect you back so soon. Weren't you going to do some office work before you came here?'
'The session ran long, so I came…' Flora's voice trailed away, also in surprise-not at what he'd said but at what she smelled. 'That's cigarette smoke. When did you start smoking cigarettes?'
'Last year, not long after Father died,' Joshua answered, resolutely nonchalant. 'Everybody at school does it, and it doesn't hurt anything.'
'It hurts me that you've been sneaking cigarettes behind my back,' Flora said. 'If you thought I wouldn't mind, why didn't you come out and tell me?'
'Well…' Her son looked uncomfortable, but he finally said, 'Mostly because you're so old-fashioned about some things.'
'Old-fashioned?' Flora yelped. If that wasn't the most unkind cut of all for someone who'd always prided herself on her radicalism, she couldn't imagine what would be. 'I am not!'
'Oh, yeah?' Joshua said, a colloquialism that made his mother incline more toward reaction than radicalism. He went on, 'If you weren't old-fashioned, you wouldn't flabble about cigarettes.' As fifteen-year-old boys are wont to do, he acted monstrously proud of his own logic.
Flora blinked at the slang, then figured out what it had to mean. 'I don't flabble about cigarettes-for grownups,' she said. Instead of seeming pleased that she'd understood him, Joshua merely looked scornful that she was trying to speak his language. She might have guessed he would. Suppressing a sigh, she forged ahead: 'No matter what you think, you're not a grownup yet.'
'Father was smoking cigarettes when he was fifteen,' Joshua said.
He was right about that, however much Flora wished he weren't. 'Your father grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere,' she answered. 'When he was fifteen, he was going to the bathroom in a privy, bathing once a month, and eating food his folks had cooked over buffalo chips. Do you want to imitate him there, too?'
For a moment, she thought he would say bathing once a month didn't sound so bad. But he visibly changed his mind and changed the subject: 'If cigarettes are so terrible, how come everybody smokes them?'
'Not everybody does.'
'Just about!' Joshua said, by which he doubtless meant three or four people he liked did.
This time, Flora didn't suppress her sigh. She knew a losing fight when she saw one, and she saw one here. Whether she liked it or not, Joshua was going to smoke. She said, 'From now on, you don't need to sneak any more.' That made him happy. She wished it would have made her happy, too.
Sylvia Enos came out of the moving-picture theater with Ernie. She looked happy-she'd liked the film. He didn't, and hadn't. 'What was wrong with it?' she asked. 'It was exciting, and it had a good love story.'
'What was wrong with it?' he echoed. 'I will tell you what was wrong. The men who made it never saw war. They were boys in 1914. They had to be. Either that or they were cowards. Half the things in the film could not have happened. Soldiers would have gone to the guardhouse for the other half.'
'It's only a story,' Sylvia said. 'It's not supposed to be true.'
'But it pretends to be true,' Ernie said. 'That offends me.'
She didn't want him angry. When he got angry, he got angry at the whole world, not just at what had bothered him in the first place. She said, 'Let's go somewhere, and we'll have a couple of drinks, and we'll forget about it.'
'All right,' he said. 'That film deserves forgetting.'
They ended up having more than a couple of drinks-considerably more, in Ernie's case. Then they went back to Sylvia's apartment. Mary Jane was out with friends, and wouldn't be back till late. They had the place to themselves. Sober or drunk, Ernie made a conscientious lover. He did what he needed to do to make Sylvia happy. Then she tried to do the same for him. She'd had pretty good luck with that lately. Not tonight, though. Try as she would, nothing happened.
She did her best to make light of it, saying, 'See what those last couple of cocktails will do to you?'
'My cock has more wrong with it than cocktails,' Ernie answered, which was unfortunately true. 'Half-cocked,' he muttered. That was what Sylvia thought she heard, anyhow. He shook his head. 'It is no good. It is no goddamn good at all.'
'That's not true,' Sylvia exclaimed. 'It was fine just last week.'
He didn't want to listen. 'No good at all,' he said again. 'Sometimes I wonder why the hell I bother. What is the use? There is no use. I know that. I know that much too well.'
'Don't be silly,' Sylvia told him. 'It can happen to anybody at all, not just to you.'
'It does not happen to a real man,' Ernie said. 'That is what it means to be a real man. And what am I?' His laugh told what he thought he was. 'A leftover. Something from the scrap heap. I ought to go to Spain. I could fight there.' A Nationalist uprising backed by Trance and Britain had half the country up in arms against King Alfonso XIII. Kaiser Wilhelm had belatedly sent the Monarchists weapons to resist their would-be overthrowers, but things didn't look good for them even so.
Sylvia shook her head. 'What does shooting people have to do with-this?' She set her hand on the part, or part of a part, that hadn't quite worked.
Ernie twisted away, kicking the quilt she'd got from Chris Clogston down onto the floor. 'You do not understand. I knew you would not understand. Damn you anyway.' He all but jumped out of the bed they'd shared and started putting on his clothes.
'Maybe I would understand, if you'd talk sense once in a while,' Sylvia said.
'You are only a woman. What do you know?' Ernie stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him. Sylvia sighed as she picked up the quilt and put on a nightgown. This sort of thing had happened before. It would probably happen again. She sighed once more, went into the bathroom to brush her teeth, and then came back and fell asleep. Whatever time Mary Jane came in, Sylvia never heard it.
