U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [532]
-438-Mary French
The first job Mary French got in New York she got
through one of Ada's friends. It was sitting al day in an artgal ery on Eighth Street where there was an exposition of sculpture and answering the questions of ladies in flow-ing batiks who came in in the afternoons to be seen ap-preciating art. After two weeks of that the girl she was replacing came back and Mary who kept tel ing herself she wanted to be connected with something real went and got herself a job in the ladies' and misses'
clothing de-partment at Bloomingdale's. When the summer layoff came she was dropped, but she went home and wrote an article about departmentstore workers for the Freeman and on the strength of it got herself a job doing research on wages, livingcosts and the spread between wholesale and retail prices in the dress industry for the International Ladies' Garment Workers. She liked the long hours dig-ging out statistics, the talk with the organizers, the wise-cracking radicals, the working men and girls who came into the crowded dingy office she shared with two or three other researchworkers. At last she felt what she was doing was real.
Ada had gone to Michigan with her family and had
left Mary in the apartment on Madison Avenue. Mary
was relieved to have her gone; she was stil fond of her but their interests were so different and they had sil y arguments about the relative importance of art and social justice that left them tired and cross at each other so that sometimes they wouldn't speak for several days; and then they hated each other's friends. Stil Mary couldn't help being fond-of Ada. They were such old friends and. Ada forked out so generously for the strikers' defense com-mittees, legalaid funds and everything that Mary sug-gested; she was a very openhanded girl, but her point of
-439-view was hopelessly rich, she had no social consciousness. The apartment got on Mary French's nerves, too, with its pastelcolored nicknacks and the real Whistler and the toothick rugs and the toosoft boxsprings on the bed and the horrid little satin tassels on everything; but Mary was making so little money that not paying rent was a great help. Ada's apartment came in very handy the night of the big meeting in Madison Square Garden to welcome the classwar prisoners released from Atlanta. Mary French who had been asked to sit on the platform overheard some members of the committee saying that they had no place to put up Ben Compton. They were looking for a quiet hideout where he could have a rest and shake the D. J. operatives who'd been fol owing him around everywhere since he'd gotten to New York. Mary went up to them and in a whisper suggested her place. So after the meeting she waited in a yel ow taxicab at the corner of Twentyninth and Madison until a tal pale man with a checked cap pul ed way down over his face got in and sat down shakily beside her. When the cab started he put his steelrimmed glasses back on. "Look back and see if a grey sedan's fol-lowing us," he said. "I don't see anything," said Mary.
"Oh, you wouldn't know it if you saw it," he grumbled. To be on the safe side they left the cab at the Grand Central station and walked without speaking a way up Park Avenue and then west on a' cross street and down Madison again. Mary plucked his sleeve to stop him in front of the door. Once in the apartment he made Mary shoot the bolt and let himself drop into a chair without taking off his cap or his overcoat. He didn't say anything. His shoulders were shaking. Mary didn't like to stare at him. She didn't know what to do. She puttered around the livingroom, lit the gaslogs, smoked a cigarette and then she went into the kitchenette to make coffee. When she got back he'd taken off his things
-440-and was warming his bigknuckled hands at the gaslogs.
"You must excuse me, comrade," he said in a dry hoarse voice. "I'm al in."
"Oh, don't mind me," said Mary. "I thought you might want some coffee."
"No coffee . . . hot milk," he said hurriedly. His teeth