U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [578]
-545-sent up for them from the uptown Longchamps and de-clared she'd spent the happiest afternoon in years. She made Mary promise to come to her concert in the smal hal at the Aeolian the fol owing week. When Mary was going Ada made her take a couple of dol ars for a taxi. They were both reeling a little in the hal waiting for the elevator. "We've just gotten to be a pair of old topers," said Ada gaily. It was a good thing Mary had decided to take a taxi because she found it hard to stand on her feet. That winter the situation of the miners in the Pittsburgh district got worse and worse. Evictions began. Families with little children were living in tents and in broken-down unheated tarpaper barracks. Mary lived in a feeling of nightmare, writing letters, mimeographing appeals, making speeches at meetings of clothing and fur workers, canvassing wealthy liberals. The money that came in was never enough. She took no salary for her work so she had to get Ada to lend her money to pay her rent. She was thin and haggard and coughed al the time. Too many cigarettes, she'd explain. Eddy Spel man and Rudy Goldfarb worried about her. She could see they'd decided she wasn't eating enough because she was al the time finding on the corner of her desk a paper bag of sandwiches or a carton of coffee that one of them had brought in. Once Eddy brought her a big package of smearcase that his mother had made up home near Scranton. She couldn't eat it; she felt guilty every time she saw it sprouting green mold in the icebox that had no ice in it because she'd given up cooking now that Don was away.
One evening Rudy came into the office with smiles al over his face. Eddy was leaning over packing the old clothes into bales as usual for his next trip. Rudy gave him a light kick in the seat of the pants. "Hay you, Trotzky-ite," said Eddy, jumping at him and pul ing out his neck-tie. "Smile when you say that," said Rudy, pummeling him. They were al laughing. Mary felt like an oldmaid
-546-schoolteacher watching the boy//s roughhousing in front of her desk. "Meeting comes to order," she said. "They tried to hang it on me but they couldn't," said Rudy, panting, straightening his necktie and his mussed hair. "But what I was going to say, Comrade French, was that I thought you might like to know that a certain comrade is getting in on the Aquitania tomorrow . . . tourist class." "Rudy, are you sure?" "Saw the cable."
Mary got to the dock too early and had to wait two
hours. She tried to read the afternoon papers but her eyes wouldn't fol ow the print. It was too hot in the reception-room and too cold outside. She fidgeted around miserably until at last she saw the enormous black sheetiron wal sliding with its rows of lighted portholes past the openings in the wharfbuilding. Her hands and feet were icy. Her whole body ached to feel his arms around her, for the rasp of his deep voice in her ears. Al the time a vague worry flitted in the back of her head because she hadn't had a letter from him while he'd been away.
Suddenly there he was coming down the gangplank
alone, with the old wicker suitcase in his hand. He had on a new belted German raincoat but the same checked cap. She was face to face with him. He gave her a little hug but he didn't kiss her. There was something odd in his voice. "Hel o, Mary . . . I didn't expect to find you here. . . . I don't want to be noticed, you know." His voice had a low furtive sound in her ears. He was ner-vously changing his suitcase from one hand to the other.
"See you in a few days . . . I'm going to be pretty busy." She turned without a word and ran down the wharf. She hurried breathless along the crosstown street to the Ninth Avenue