“Well, good night,” he said, standing as well, and Honora was surprised to see how short he was. He unrolled his trousers, leaving a dusting of sand on the floorboards. He tried to pick the sand up with his fingers. “Oh, don’t worry about that,” she said. “I’ve got a broom.”
“This is important, you know,” he said.
“I can’t pretend to understand this,” she said.
“There’s not a lot to understand,” he said. “The workers and their families are living like dogs.”
And Honora thought that Louis Mironson might be surprised at how much she knew about living like a dog.
In the morning, Vivian returned early, looking polished and nearly luminous in a peach linen ensemble, while behind her a man named Ellis brought in carton after carton of food that challenged Honora’s organizational skills in the kitchen, though it was a lovely task to have to put it all away on her shelves and in her icebox. Vivian credited Jack Hess with supplying the food, though it was perfectly obvious that Vivian was funding the provisioning. In her dressing gown, Honora fixed a breakfast of eggs and bacon and ham and toast and coffee — along with the precious grapefruit — as one by one the men and the boy came downstairs, looking a bit shy and sleepy. They once again ate in the front room, the sun from the east bathing the incongruous scene in a light that made them all squint. The boy, Honora noted with satisfaction, had four eggs, a toast-and-bacon sandwich of his own making, and a delicate porcelain cupful of milky coffee. After the meal, McDermott sent Alphonse into the kitchen to help with the dishes, and though Honora intended to ask him only to dry them, she noted that he had finished washing them almost before she’d had time to put the food away.
“You’re good at this,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
“You’ve had a lot of practice, then.”
“I have,” he said. “But . . .” He paused.
“But what?” she asked gently.
“Well, this is easy, isn’t it?” he blurted. “The water coming hot from the tap.”
“You don’t have hot water?” she said.
“No, ma’am.”
Honora nodded and thought maybe she didn’t know what it was to live like a dog after all.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to print this workers of the world unite guff,” Vivian is saying as she reads a fresh copy of the first pages of the newsletter.
“Miss Burton,” Mironson says quietly, turning in her direction, “though the immediate issue to hand is the wage cut and the appalling conditions of the workers in Ely Falls, the underlying problems are far graver.”
“Maybe so,” Vivian says, “but I don’t believe for one minute that the men and women who show up on your picket line on Monday give a toss about the . . .” Vivian checks the wording in the newsletter, “the sharp struggle furnishing irrefutable proof of the process by which the inner contradictions of capitalism in the imperialist period bring on economic struggles which speedily take on a political character.”
“Jesus Christ,” Ross says from a corner of the room, where he is placing bound packets of leaflets into boxes. Mironson shoots him a quick look, as if to say, Who asked you?
“What I imagine the workers will be concerned about on Monday,” Vivian says, “— this is going out on Monday, correct?”
Mironson nods.
“Is food for their families, how they’re going to pay the rent, why are they striking — that is to say, what’s the immediate reason for the strike — how long is it going to last, where are they supposed to go, and what are they supposed to do. And I imagine they’re going to want to know something about the consequences of what they’re doing as well. You know, will they lose their jobs ultimately, even if the bosses capitulate? That sort of thing.”
Honora looks over at McDermott, who raises an eyebrow and smiles.
“I believe the workers will want to know in what way they are being exploited,” Mironson says, “and how they are united with workers all over the world, not just in Ely Falls and not just in America, but internationally. By going out on strike on Monday, they become part of an international brotherhood.”
“I sincerely doubt whether anyone who strikes on Monday will give a fig for international brotherhood,” Vivian says, “or — shall we call a spade a spade, Mr. Mironson — the Communist Party.” Vivian fishes in her purse for her silver cigarette case. “Possibly later, when everyone is fantastically bored because the strike has gone on for weeks and weeks and they’ve had nothing to do for days on end, then you can give them this internationale and Marxist rot, and maybe, just maybe, they’ll read it. But if you hand them this now, it will end up underfoot on the street.” Vivian lights one cigarette with the end of another. She offers the open case to Mironson.
“I don’t smoke,” Mironson says, and somehow his refusal, though justified, sounds boorish to Honora’s ear.
“My advice,” Vivian says, snapping the case shut, “though of course my advice is perfectly useless, is to put the newsletter in the form of questions and answers. Start with the most important question that’s going to be on the minds of the strikers Monday morning and then go from there.”
Vivian’s suggestion is so simple and yet so insightful, Honora thinks, that Mironson cannot fail to see its brilliance. There is a long silence in the front room, during which hardly anyone moves — apart from Vivian, who continues to smoke as though completely unconcerned. Mironson brushes away his pesky forelock. Honora sees that Sexton has stopped the Copiograph machine in midrotation.
“There may be some merit in that,” Mironson says quietly.
“Marvelous,” Vivian says, as though this small victory held no personal significance whatsoever. “Then should we just put our heads together for a few minutes, you and I, and come up with a series of questions and answers? Or do you want to do it yourself?”
But Mironson isn’t quite through yet. “What is at stake here, Miss Burton . . .”
“Oh, do call me Vivian,” she says.
Mironson crosses his arms over his chest, the paper he was dictating from dangling from a hand. “. . . is nothing less than a way of life and the future of this country. I don’t expect you to be able to see the importance of such a critical overturning of this way of life, being so mired in the capitalist class yourself. By definition, you cannot see. And while one can admire your charity and generosity, and it goes without saying how grateful we are, I cannot possibly expect you to understand the underlying significance of what is happening here and all over the country.”
McDermott looks sharply over at Mironson and opens his mouth as if to speak, but Vivian puts up a hand to signal she can handle this on her own. “I do see what you’re saying, Mr. Mironson. May I call you Louis? It sounds so, I don’t know, notcomradely not to be on a first-name basis,” she says.
“Yes, of course,” he says.
“You have a wonderful way of putting things, Louis. And, really, I was just wondering, where did you go to school? You’re obviously marvelously educated.”
“I don’t think where I was educated is at all the point here.”
“Oh, but it’s precisely my point,” says Vivian, decorously crossing her legs.
Honora thinks that Mironson cannot refuse to answer the question. “I went to Yale,” he says finally.
“Ah,” Vivian says. “On scholarship?”
“No,” he says.
Vivian nods, her penny-colored hair aglow in the morning sunlight. “Is it too personal a question to ask what your father does? Or did?”
Mironson hesitates. “He was a shoe manufacturer.”
“He actually made the shoes himself, or he owned the company?”
“My grandfather started the company in Brockton, Massachusetts. He made the shoes himself.”
“But your father?”
Mironson straightens his tie. “He owned the company.”
“Never made a shoe.”
“I can’t say never.”
br /> “Would it be fair to say, then, that you grew up ‘mired in the capitalist class’?”
Mironson removes a handkerchief from his pocket. “I’m a Jew, Miss Burton,” he says. “My class-consciousness is very different from yours.”
“Oh, did I miss something here?” Vivian asks sweetly. “Jews can’t be capitalists?”
“I’ve been studying this for years,” Mironson says, wiping his brow. “I’ve been working at this all my adult life. I’ve been to Moscow. I’ve worked with Eugene Debs.”
“Of course,” says Vivian. “And I cannot say how much I admire your dedication. We all admire your dedication. And without you, I imagine that the men in this room would be hopelessly lost. But as to being able to understand what’s at stake . . .” She pauses. “Let’s see if I’ve got this right. Capitalist owns textile company and makes huge amount of money and lives across the river in big house with Frigidaire and GE washing machine and Packard and Chris-Craft motor yacht while employing hundreds of workers to whom he pays pitiful wages, all the while thinking it perfectly normal that they should live in hideously filthy tenements with no running water and no indoor plumbing and not enough money to feed their children. How am I doing so far?”
The tension in the room reminds Honora of the aftermath of a thunderclap: full of sound and yet intensely silent.
“And then said capitalist decides for whatever reason,” Vivian continues, “— perhaps his business is not doing well, perhaps he wants a trip to Havana — to cut his workers’ pay ten percent so as to increase profits for himself. And, mirabile dictu, the workers mind!”
Mironson says nothing, but Honora can see a small twitch at the side of his mouth.
“Uppity workers,” Vivian says, exhaling a long plume of blue smoke.
Mironson shakes his head and smiles.
“Of course, it’s more complicated than I can understand,” Vivian says graciously. “I think that goes without saying. Quite frankly, I don’t even know who Eugene Debs is. My point is to keep it simple. One need tell the strikers only what they have to know in order to survive until Tuesday. And then until Wednesday. And then until Thursday. And so on. And if later someone actually asks you, what does this all mean? — well, then I suppose you can give them all the Marxist rhetoric you think they can stand.”
“I hope you were on the debating team wherever you went to school,” Mironson says.
“Oh, well, no,” Vivian says. “Actually, I’m not sure my school even had a debating team. I took classes in table etiquette and deportment.”
McDermott laughs, and even Ross is grinning.
“What shall we call it?” Mironson asks, looking at Vivian. “This practical newsletter of ours.”
Vivian exhales a long curl of smoke. She stubs her cigarette out in an ashtray on the makeshift table. Beside the ashtray is a crumpled package of cigarettes.
“Lucky Strike,” she says without a moment’s hesitation.
Alphonse
All day yesterday they worked on the newsletter, which now Alphonse can just about read and which is a thousand times better than the one they were starting to pack up before Miss Burton spoke her mind and then went into a huddle with Mironson while they all kind of sat around eating a second breakfast, which Alphonse thought was frankly terrific. And then the other woman, Mrs. Beecher, saw Alphonse putting rolls with cheese in them in his pockets and asked him if he wouldn’t rather wrap them in waxed paper, and Alphonse nearly died of embarrassment and then confessed that he took them for his mother, and Mrs. Beecher said well maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to carry rolls and cheese in your pockets because of all the crumbs and wouldn’t it be better if she just made up some sandwiches for his mother when it was time for Alphonse to go back to the city, and all day yesterday he was furious with himself for not even being able to say a proper thank you.
In the late afternoon, Ross and McDermott and Alphonse went back into the city with some of the newsletters and leaflets tied into bundles, and Alphonse thought Mr. Beecher’s arm must be near to falling off with all the pumping he was doing on that nifty machine that printed the copies. After they delivered the leaflets to Nadeau’s apartment, McDermott asked Alphonse if he wouldn’t like to visit his mother for a while, after which he would pick him up in an hour and take him back to the house on the beach. Alphonse knew that McDermott and Mahon and Ross wanted to go to the speakeasy and drink, but he was glad anyway for the chance to see his mother and Augustin and Gérard, and even, he had to admit, Marie-Thérèse, who seemed to have calmed down considerably. And also it was a chance to check to see if he was taller than Marie-Thérèse yet — an exercise he liked to do weekly — though she wouldn’t agree to a back-to-back.
And then McDermott picked him up as he said he would and for the first time ever Alphonse didn’t want to eat any of the leftover bread or cupcakes in the truck because he knew that he and the men were headed for a good meal. Mrs. Beecher made excellent pies and potatoes and eggs and coffee, and just this morning, the smell of bacon was again so wonderful that Alphonse nearly tripped over himself trying to get down the stairs to breakfast.
Last night, the woman with the penny-colored hair brought more food and the men had a lot to drink and Alphonse noted that even Miss Burton had quite a lot to drink herself. She was teaching Mironson how to make something called a sidecar in a beautiful silver shaker and after he got the hang of it, everybody got more drunk, even Miss Burton. Mrs. Beecher didn’t drink too much, though, and you could just tell by the look of her that she probably wasn’t much of a drinker anyway.
After dinner Alphonse helped Mrs. Beecher with the dishes, and McDermott, who was pretty drunk but not as drunk as Ross and Mahon and Mr. Beecher, who were just roaring drunk on the porch, sat at the table and smoked while Mrs. Beecher and Alphonse washed and dried. Alphonse didn’t mind the job one bit because the hot water came from the tap and just putting his hands under it was a kind of treat. He couldn’t help but think how much easier it would be to mop the floor and do the clothes and all the rest of it if they had hot water from a tap on Rose Street. But they didn’t, and that was that.
All weekend, Alphonse had to remind himself that the strike was going to happen on Monday, because just looking at the men and Miss Burton getting drunk and laughing so much, and even Mrs. Beecher giggling at dinner, no one would ever have the idea that tough times were ahead.
This morning — his second morning in the house — Alphonse was the first one down to breakfast because Miss Burton had gone home and all the men were sleeping late and would probably wake up with terrific headaches. Mrs. Beecher sat with Alphonse at the table and asked him all the usual questions, and Alphonse considered telling her about wanting to be a doctor, because he knew she was going to be disappointed about the weaver, but when the time came, he just couldn’t bring himself to lie to her and so he kind of shrugged and hoped she wouldn’t ask him again what he wanted to be when he grew up.
Now they are all on the beach on blankets that Miss Burton brought from her house, and Alphonse thinks it is kind of amazing how lively she is considering how much he personally saw her drink last night. In fact, she’s a lot more lively than some of the men, like Ross, who couldn’t even eat his breakfast, and Alphonse imagines she must have some sort of vitamin tonic at her house for times like this. Mrs. Beecher and Vivian packed up sandwiches and made salads and deviled eggs, and even though they are all only sitting in front of the house and could go right inside and eat at a table if they wanted to, they are having a picnic as if it were a day at the beach, which he supposes it is. Mr. Beecher has on his bathing suit and the other men have their pants rolled, and Ross was pretty funny when he stood up and walked into the ocean in his clothes and then hopped around like he’d been electrocuted. But when he came out he looked so much better than when he’d gone in that Mahon and McDermott and Mironson went into the ocean in their clothes too. Mr. Beecher ran to the water’s edge and dived in and that was when Alphonse w
orked out where he’d seen the new guy before — at the beach that day last summer, swimming through the water like a shark. McDermott and Ross came out and got Alphonse and carried him kicking and screaming into the water and then just dumped him in too. And holy Joseph, it was so cold that Alphonse couldn’t breathe and when he came up and got the water out of his eyes, Ross, McDermott, and Mahon and even Mironson were dripping like wet ducks and laughing like they’d never seen anything so funny in their whole long lives, and Alphonse thinks that if this is what it means to go on strike he wishes that the strike would go on forever.
Vivian
“They’re little boys, aren’t they?” Vivian says, watching the men throw Alphonse into the water. And indeed, though she means Aren’t they silly? she does think they are all so very, very young. Honora and McDermott are only twenty-one, Louis twenty-five.
“In their way,” Honora says.
“Poor Alphonse. Do you think he knows how to swim?”
“Doesn’t look like it,” Honora says.
“I’ve hardly been outside in months,” Vivian says, stroking Sandy’s fur.
“You’ve been in Boston?”
“No, in New York,” Vivian says, slightly envying the men in the water. She wishes she had brought her bathing suit so that she could take a dip herself. “I’m trying to write a play.”
“For the theater?”
“Well, it’s the most remarkable bit of good luck — or bad luck, I’m not sure which. I met this fellow in Havana who’s a producer in New York, and one night at dinner I was telling him about an idea for a play that more or less came to me as I was talking to him, and he said — mainly because he was drunk, I think — write it yourself. And as I didn’t seem to have any other useful occupation, I decided to give it a try. It’s great fun, though I’ve a lot to learn.”
“That’s very exciting. What’s it about?”