U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [373]
"You poor boy, you're in no condition." She threw her arms round his neck and pul ed him into her room.
"Fanya, you gotto let me go. . . . I might make it across the Mexican border. . . other guys have."
"You're crazy . . . and what about your bail?"
"What do I care . . . don't you see we gotto do some-thing." She'd pul ed him down on her bed and was stroking his forehead. "Poor boy . . . I love you so, Benny, couldn't you think of me a little bit . . . just a little teeny bit . . . I could help you so much in the movement. . . . To-morrow we'l talk about it . . . I want to help you, Benny." He let her untie his necktie. The armistice came, and news of the peace conference, revolutionary movements al over Europe, Trotsky's
armies driving the whites out of Russia. Fanya Stein told everybody she and Ben'were married and took him to live with her at her studio apartment on 8th Street, where she nursed him through the flu and double pneumonia. The first day the doctor said he could go out she drove up the Hudson in her Buick sedan. They came back in the early summer gloaming to find a special delivery letter from Morris. The circuit court had denied the appeal, but re-duced the sentence to ten years. The next day at noon he'd have to report to be delivered by his bondsmen to the custody of the U.S. District Court. He'd probably go to Atlanta. Soon after the letter Morris himself turned
-448-up. Fanya had broken down and was crying hysterical y. Morris looked pale. "Ben," he said, "we're beaten . . . You'l have to go to Atlanta for a while . . . you'l have good company down there . . . but don't worry. We'l take your case to the President. Now that the war's over they can't keep the liberal press muzzled any more."
"That's al right," said Ben, "it's better to know the worst." Fanya jumped up from the couch where she'd been
sobbing and started screaming at her brother. When Ben went out to walk around the block he left them quarrel-ing bitterly. He found himself looking careful y at the houses, the taxicabs, the streetlights, people's faces, a funny hydrant that had a torso like a woman's, some bottles of mineral oil stacked in a drugstore window, Nujol. He de-cided he'd better go over to Brooklyn to say goodby to the old people. At the subway station he stopped. He hadn't the strength; he'd write them.
Next morning at nine he went down to Morris Stein's office with his suitcase in his hand. He'd made Fanya promise not to come. He had to tel himself several times he was going to jail, he felt as if he was going on a business trip of some kind. He had on a new suit of English tweed Fanya had bought him.
Lower Broadway was al streaked red, white and blue with flags; there were crowds of clerks and stenographers and officeboys lining both pavements where he came up out of the subway. Cops on motorcycles were keeping the street clear. From down towards the Battery came the sound of a military band playing Keep the Home Fires Burning. Everybody looked flushed and happy. It was hard to keep from walking in step to the music in the fresh summer morning that smelt of the harbor and ships. He had to keep tel ing himself: those are the people who sent Debs to jail, those are the people who shot Joe Hil , who murdered Frank Little, those are the people who
-449-beat us up in Everett, who want me to rot for ten years in jail. The colored elevatorboy grinned at him when he took him up in the elevator, "Is they startin' to go past yet, mister?" Ben shook his head and frowned. The lawoffice looked clean and shiny. The telephone girl had red hair and wore a gold star. There was an American flag draped over the door of Stein's private office. Stein was at his desk talking to an upperclasslooking young man in a tweed suit. "Ben," Stein said cheerily, "meet Stevens Warner . . . He's just gotten out of Charlestown, served a year for refusing to register."
"Not quite a year," said the young man, getting up and shaking hands. "I'm out on good behavior."