“And you should have better sense. What the hell are you doing here?”
Tony crossed his feet. “Man, there’s so many feds and National Guard troops crawling around, I had to get someplace safe, even for a little while, and this was it. You know, when we were kids, it’d take about ten minutes to get to this neighborhood from Pierce Island at a good trot. Tonight it took me almost an hour. Can you believe that?”
Sam took a chair, sat down heavily. “Yeah, I can believe that. You must have learned some skills up there, to miss all the patrols.”
“You wouldn’t believe some of the things I learned.” He looked around and said, “Toby and Sarah coming back soon? I’d love a chance to see ’em, I really would.”
“They’re gone for a few days. I stashed them up in Moultonborough, at her dad’s place. Too many chances of something bad happening while Portsmouth gets crowded with every nutball in the region.”
“A good idea. Too bad there aren’t enough safe places like that in the state for people who need them. Or the country. Or the world.”
Sam stretched out his legs. “Jesus Christ, do you have to make everything into some goddamn symbol of the times or something?”
“Why not? That’s the world we’re living in.”
“So says you,” Sam said, tired of it all.
From the radio came a familiar voice, that of Charles Lindbergh, speaking at some rally. In his Midwestern high-pitched tone, he said, “It is not difficult to understand why Jewish people desire the overthrow of Nazi Germany. The persecution they suffered in Germany would be sufficient to make bitter enemies of any race. No person with a sense of the dignity of mankind can condone the persecution of the Jewish race in Germany. But no person of honesty and vision can look on their pro-war policy here today without seeing the dangers involved in such a policy both for us and for them. Instead of agitating for war, the Jewish groups in this country should be opposing it in every possible way, for they will be among the first to feel its consequences. Tolerance is a virtue that depends upon peace and strength. History shows that it cannot survive war and devastations. A few farsighted Jewish people realize this and stand opposed to intervention. But the majority still do not. Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government.”
“Can you believe that rube?” Tony motioned to the radio. “The war’s all about Europe, all about the Jews. Just stay home between the two oceans and mind our own business and beat up the Jews ourselves and we’ll all be happy little children.”
Sam said, “Some would say the man makes a point, even if he has a lousy way of making it, of staying out of Europe’s war.”
“Yeah, some point. Just because you know how to fly a plane doesn’t mean you know shit about politics and history. The next hundred years of what kind of people we’re going to be, what kind of world we will inhabit, is being fought out in the steppes of Russia, small towns in occupied England and Europe, and our sainted Kingfish has just cast his lot on the side of the invaders.”
Sam felt his blood rise. “As opposed to what, Tony? Helping Joe Stalin and the Reds? You say you know so much. Ever hear of a place called the Katyn Forest, in Poland? Russians took over the eastern half of Poland back in ’39, as part of the Stalin and Hitler peace pact. When the Krauts overran that part in ’41, they found thousands of dead Polish soldiers and officers buried in pits, hands tied together, shot in the head by the NKVD, the Russian secret police. The Krauts invited reporters there, newsreel guys, showed the world what the Russians had done to those Poles. That’s the kind of people we should be helping?”
Tony glowered at him. “Just like you can’t choose your family, Sam, you can’t choose the ones to help you in a desperate fight.”
Lindbergh’s voice kept on coming, almost whiny. “I am not attacking either the Jewish or the British people. Both races, I admire. But I am saying that the leaders of both the British and the Jewish races, for reasons which are as understandable from their viewpoint as they are inadvisable from ours, for reasons which are not American, wish to involve us in the war. We cannot blame them for looking out for what they believe to be their own interests, but we also must look out for ours. We cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices of other peoples to lead our country to destruction.”
“Come on, Tony, what do you say? Should Long make an alliance with Stalin, help him fight the Germans, is that it?”
“The Germans gassed Dad, put him in an early grave. And the Navy Yard thought so little of him and the other workers that they didn’t care when he started coughing out his lungs. Don’t you ever think about that?”
“Sure I do, but having one doctor or six at the Yard wouldn’t have made much difference,” Sam said. “And you know what? I’m sure we go back far enough, we’ll find some English lord or gent made life miserable for the Millers back in Ireland. Does that mean we hold a grudge forever? Christ, that’s what they do in Europe, and look where it’s gotten them.”
“So we just give up?”
“Christ, Tony. What the hell do you want me to do? Buttonhole Long or Hitler in a few days, give ’em the point of view from my escapee brother? Is that it?”
Tony stayed silent for a moment. “No. I… I expect you to do your job, Sam. That’s all. Just do your job and do the right thing.”
It now made sense. “Tony. It’s no coincidence you’re here now. What’s going on?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, yes, it does,” he insisted. “You just told me to do my job. And that’s what I’m doing. My job. So why are you here? You’ve been a prisoner for a couple of years, you finally escape and end up in Portsmouth just when Hitler’s coming by for a visit. A hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?”
Tony got to his feet, face set. “Sorry, brother. Time to go.”
“You’re not leaving. Tell me why you’re here. The summit… what are you going to do? Make a scene? A protest? Tell me why you’re here.”
Tony stepped toward him. “You going to stop me? Arrest me? Pull a gun on me?”
Doing his job, doing what he had done with those two Long boys, that had been one thing. But his brother was something else. The room was still.
“Tony….”
“Still here.”
“Leave, then. But get out of Portsmouth. It’s too dangerous here. If you care for Sarah or Toby, get the hell out. Stop whatever it is you’re up to, and just get the hell out.”
“Good advice,” Tony said, brushing past him, heading to the door. “But you know me when it comes to advice. I hardly ever take it. Even if I do care for your wife and boy.”
The door slammed behind Tony and Sam wiped at his face with both hands. Such a goddamn day. He changed the radio station to some music, went into the kitchen, pulled out a bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, and emptied it before he headed for his bath.
INTERLUDE VII
When he left his brother’s house, he circled around, went to the backyard, where it seemed like so many lifetimes ago he had sneaked over to place three rocks on top of each other. At the rear steps, there was another rock, larger and flatter. He picked it up, removed the slip of paper from underneath, and then walked to the shrubbery separating Sam’s yard from the neighbor’s. He reached into the shrubbery, took out a bag he had hidden there earlier, and then looked up at the lights of Sam’s house.