Mitla Pass - Leon Uris [163]
“Yes, ma’am, everything he’s written so far.”
Holy Christ, she thought, holy Christ! She handed him the composition book.
“Got any more of these filled up?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am, seventy-two of them, to be exact. I should have known you’d figure out where I got my plots and characters.”
“You’re too much!” She laughed. “All right, how about you whipping up a little play for me. Nothing too serious. It’s for the kids. A fun play. And I’ll steal a few tunes from my favorite composers—not Stephen Foster—and you can do the lyrics with me and I think the drama club might just like to put it on.”
Gideon’s mouth was agape. “Oh boy!” he shouted and ran up to her and threw his arms about her neck and kissed her on the cheek. Then, realizing his transgression, he nearly fainted with fright. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Forget it, partner.”
He turned and started to go, then walked back to her bravely. “Miss Abigail, I went to the meeting to hear James Ford at the Zion-Afro Church in North Carolina. I ... I ... I saw you there. I saw everything that happened.”
It was her turn to show fright.
“The secret is safe with me. My father is a Party organizer.”
“The young man you saw was a soldier working in the Army, recruiting other soldiers into the Party. He was so good that it was arranged for him to go to Moscow to study. We waited until a Russian ship was in port for him to desert.”
“I swear to you, Miss Abigail, that I’ll never tell another person. Not even Molly.”
“I know, Gideon.”
THE BALANCE OF the school year was the happiest Gideon had ever known. He was not absent because of illness for a single day. He wanted time to stand still, because when the semester ended, he would leave J. E. B. Stuart and go on to junior high school.
To Leah’s horror and Nathan’s disgust, Gideon made a sandlot baseball team, the feisty little player who made up in gall and guts what he lacked in size and talent. Joining his list of writer heroes came baseball heroes, Jimmie Foxx and Lefty Grove.
There was a lot of forbidding and scolding at home when Gideon came in scuffed-up, but he and Molly noticed that if they made a stand against their parents together, both Leah and Nathan gave in quietly.
Molly had come to an age when she was interested in boys and boys in her, and she established her right to have dates.
Leah was spending less and less time with Gideon. It came down to going to the odd concert with him or taking him for a doctor’s visit. She was immersed in Party activities and whatever else she did later at night, after the choral society rehearsals, when Nathan was out of town.
Nathan had even less to do with his family. Except when he took them to Party functions, Nathan Zadok engaged in no activities with his son and stepdaughter. He never set foot on a playground, in a restaurant, at a movie, the theater, a sporting event, the beach, a department store, school. Nor did he listen to a radio program, or read a book, or newspaper except the Freiheit, or help with homework, or take a walk around the block, or go to an amusement park, or a museum, or fish, or net crabs, or see a parade, except for May Day.
“SO, WHAT’S THE big surprise?” Nathan asked.
“Your son ... fanfare ... Gideon Zadok, aged twelve ... has won the Alice B. Merriweather prize for the best short story by a sixth-grade student in the entire Nawfalk, Virginia, district! Ta da! This story will go on to the state finals. I have here a check for ten dollars as the winning prize.” Molly finished by holding the check and story aloft.
“I’ll take care of that,” Leah said, snatching the money deftly.
“Aw, nothing, folks, really nothing,” Gideon said, “just another ordinary day in the life of Gideon Zadok, red-blooded American boy and future writer of renown.”
“I think that’s just marvelous,” Leah said. “Here, let Momma give you a kiss.”
“Now, folks, if you will relax,” Molly continued, “I will read you the winning story by your son and my baby brother.”
“I have an important meeting for the Free Tom Mooney Committee,” Nathan said, in reference