Thanks, Bozey. I'm going to change."
the table. and took out and looked at g white paint She opened a closet door crusted with yellowin -sided bay and the small room. With a three a dress and slip, glancing arou as the whole window looking out on back yards and drying laundry, it w f blue the kitchenette and a tiny bath. Large pieces of apartment, exce for van under yellow PaPer Patterns- 'Dam it. Cloth jay on the threadbare finish cutting that t. Maybe I'll have time to That divan is such a rat's nes
dress, if I hurry.
"I can finish cutting it," Bozey said. a dress. Don't try." A doorbell "Nonsense, Bomey, you can't cut ready. That's good." She went to wheezily rang. iwell, the wine's here al seti the tall POPopen the door. Warren and Janice walked in and surpri his pink apron, holding shears in one hand and a sleeve eyed man in ew, and Madeline pattern in the other. What with the smell of the hot toast was a strikingly in a housecoat with a dress and a lacy slip on her arm, it domestic scene. "My gosh, Warren, you're tan!" Madeline was "oh, hi.
You're early. M cur to her to be embarrassed.
so sure of her own rectitude that it didn't oc ozeman, a friend of mine."
"This is Sewell B ; he was embarrassed, and in Bozey waved the shears feebly at them his fluster be started to cut a ragged blue rayon sleeve.
Madeline said, "Bozey, will you stop cutting that dress!" She turned to Janice. "Imagine, he actually thinks he can do it."
"it's more than I can," Janice Lacouture said, staring incredulously at Bozeman. Bozey dropped the shears and took off his apron with a giggle.
Warren said just to say something and cover his stupefaction, "Your dinner smells great, Madeline."
After completing introductions, Madeline went off into what she called her boudoir, a grimy toilet about four feet square. "If you'd like to freshen up first-" she said to Janice as she opened the door, gesturing at the few cubic feet of yellow space crammed with rusty plumbing. "It's a bit cosy in there for two."
"Oh, no, no I'm just fine," Janice exclaimed. 'Go ahead." A halting conversation ensued while Bozey donned his jacket and tie.
Soon Madeline put out her head and one naked shoulder and arm.
"Bozey, I don't want that beef stew to boil over. Turn down the gas."
"Sure thing."
As he went behind the screen, Janice Lacouture and Warren exchanged appalled looks. "Do you play with the New York Philharmonic, Mr. Bozeman?" Janice raised her voice.
'No, I'm with Ziggy Frechtel's orchestra. We play the Feenamint Hour," he called back. 'I'm working on getting up my own band." He returned and sat in an armchair, or rather lay in it, with his head propped against the back and the rest of him projecting forward and down, sloping to the floor. Warren, something of a sloucher himself, regarded this spectacular slouch by the limp long brown bulging-eyed trombonist with incredulity. In a way the strangest feature was his costume. Warren had never in his life seen a brown tic on a brown irt.
a the issued from the bathroom smoothing her dress. "Oh, come on, Bozey, mix some drinks," she carolled.
Bozey hauled himself erect and made drinks, talking on about the problems of assembling a band. A shy, awkward fellow, he honestly believed that the best way to put other people at their ease was to keep talking, and the one subject that usually occurred to him was himself. He disclosed that he was the son of a minister in Montana; that the local doctor had cured him of religion at sixteen, by feeding him the works of IngersoU and Haeckel while treating him less successfully for thyroid trouble; and that in rebellion against his father he had taken up the trombone.
Soon he was on the topic of the war, which, he explained, was nothing but an imperialist struggle for markets. This was apropos of a remark by Warren that he was a naval fighter pilot in training. Bozey proceeded to set forth the Marxist analysis of war, beginning with the labor theory of value. Madeline meanwhile, finishing angi with d serving up the dinner, was glad to let him entertain her company. She knew Bozey was talkative, but she found him interesting and she thought Warren and Janice might, too. They seemed oddly silent. Perhaps, she thought, they had just had a little spat.
Under capitalism, Bozey pointed out, workers never were paid what they really earned. The capitalist merely gave them the lowest wages possible. Since he owned the means of production, he had them at his mercy.
Profit was the difference between what the worker produced and what he got. This had to lead to war sooner or later. In each country the capitalists piled up big surpluses because the workers weren't paid enough to buy back what they produced. The capitalists, to realize their profits, had to sell off those surpluses in other countries.
This struggle for foreign markets, when it got hot enough, inevitably turned into war. That was what was happening now.
"But Hitler has no surpluses," Janice Lacouture mildly observed.
An economics student, she knew these Marxist bromides, but was willing to let the boyfriend, or lover-she wasn't yet sure which-of Warren's sister run on for a while. "Germany's a land of shortages."
'The war is a struggle for foreign markets, all the same," Bozey insisted serenely, back in his deep slouch. 'How about cameras, just at random?
Germany still exports cameras.
Warren said, 'As I understand you, then, the Germans invaded Poland to sell Leicas."
"Making jokes about economic laws is easy, but irrelevant." Bozey smiled.
"I'm fairly serious," Warren said. "Obviously Hitler's reason for attacking Poland was conquest and loot, as in most wars."
"Hitler is a figurehead," said Bozey comfortably. "Have you ever heard of Fritz Thyssen? He and the Krupps and a few other German capitalists put him in power. They could put someone else in tomorrow if they chose, by making a few telephone calls. Of course there's no reason why they should, He's a usem and obedient lackey in their struggle for foreign markets."
'I"at you're saying is the straight Conununist line, you know," Janice said.
"Oh, Bozey's a Communist," Madeline said, emerging from behind the screen with a wooden bowl of salad. "Dinner's ready. Will you dress the salad, Bozey?"
"Sure thing." Bozey took the bowl to a rickety little side table, and made expert motions with oil, vinegar, and condiments.
"I'm not sure I've ever met a Communist before," Warren said, peering at the long brown man.
"My gosh, you haven't?" said Madeline. "Why, the radio business swarms with them."
"That's a slight xaggerafion," Bozey saidy rubbing garlic on the salad bowl, and filling the close, warm flat with the pungent aroma.
"Oh, come on, Bozey. Who isn't a Communist in our crowd?") "Well, Peter isn't. I don't think Myra is. Anyway, that's just our gang.- He added to Warren, "It dates from the Spanish Civil War days.
We Put on all kinds of shows for the benefit of the LoYalists."
Bozey brought the salad bowl to the table, where the others were already seated.
"Of course there', just a few of us left now. A lot of the crowd dropped away after Stalin made the pact with Hitler. They had no fundamental convictions."
"Didn't that pact bother YOu?" Warren said.
"Bother me? Why? It was a move. The capitalist powers want
to snuff out socii in the S
a' sen oviet Union. If they bleed themselves white beforehand, fighting each other, the final attack on socialism will be that much weaker. Stalin's peace policy is very wise." Warren said, "Suppose Hitler polishes off England and France in a one-front war, and the tun n ms and smashes Russia? That may well happen. Stalin could have made a deal with the Allies, and all of them together would have had a far better chance of stopping the Nazis." "But don't you see, there's no reason for a socialist country to take part in an imperialist struggle for foreign markets," 'Socialism doesn't need foreign Plained to the benighted naval aviator. Bozey patiently e,markets, since the worker gets all he creates."
"Bozey, will you bring the stew?" Madeline said.
'Sure thing."
&nb
sp; JaWce Lacouture said, speaking louder as he went behind the screen, "B,t surely you know that a Russian worker gets less than a worker in any capitalist country."
"Of course- There are two reasons for that. Socialism triumphed first in a feudal country," Bozey said, reappearing with the stew, 'and had a big industrial gap to close. Also, because of the imperialist threat, socialmn had to divert a lot of Production to arms. When socialism triumphs everywhere, arms will become useless, and they'll all be thrown in the sea.
"But even if that happens, which I doubt, it seems to me," said Janice, "that when the state owns the means Of Production, the workers will get less than if capitalists own them. You know how inefficient and tyannical government bureaucracies are."
"Yes," interjected Madeline, ('but as soon as socialism triumphs everybody will need a central rywhere the state will wither away, because nobod e wine Then the workers will get it all.
Pass the government any more, around) Bozey."- "Sure thing-2) mowing his eyes at her, "Do you believe Warren said to his sister, na that?
"Me?" Madeline said, giggling.
"Well, that's how the argument goes ds with Communists? For "Wouldn't Dad die if he knew I'd made frien heaven's sake don't write and tell him-' "that about Finland?"
"Have no fear." Warren turned to Bozey. country was then about a The Russian invasion of the tiny northern
week old, and already looking like a disaster.
"Okay. What about it?"
"Well, you know Russia claims that Finland attacked her, the way Hitler claimed Poland attacked Germany. Do you believe that?"
"It's ridiculous to think that Poland attacked Germany," Bozey said calmly, "but it's highly likely that Finland attacked the Soviet Union. It was probably a provocation engineered by others to embroil socialism
the imperialist war."
in "The Soviet Union is fifty times as big as Finland," Janice Lacou ture said.
"I'm not saying the Finns did something wise," said Bozey- 'They were egged on into making a bad mistake. Anyway, Finland just used to be a duchy of Czarist Russia. It's not an invasion exactly, it's a rectification."
"Oh, come on, Bozey, Madeline said. "Stalin's simply making hay while the sun shines, slamming his way in there to improve his strategic position against Germany. "Of course " , Warren said and that's a damned prudent move in his situation, whatever the morality of it may be." Bozey smiled cunningly, his eyes starting from his head. "Well, it's lift their hands in holy horror when a socialist government does something realistic. They
think that's their exclusive privilege."
quite true he wasn't born yesterday. The imperialists liny do you suppose the invasion's flopping on its face?" Warren
said.
"Oh, do you believe the capitalist newspapers?" said Bozey, with a broad wink "Yuu think the Russians are really winning?"
"Why, all this nonsense about the Finnish sid troops in white unifomis makes me ill," Bozey said. "Don't you suppose the Russians have
I
I - m Lskis and white uniforms too? But catch the New York Times saying so."
"This is a lovely stew," Janice said.
"I used too many cloves," Madeline said. 'Don't bite into one."
Warren and Janice left right after dinner to go to the theatre.
He was on a seventy-two-hour pass from Pensacola, and Janice had come up from Washington to meet him; dinner with Madeline had been a lastminute arrangement by long-distance telephone. when they left, Madeline was cutting out her dress and Bozey was washing the dishes.
'What do I do now?" Warren said, out in the street. The theatre was only a few blocks away. It was snowing and cabs were unobtainable , so they walked. "Get myself a shotgun?
"What for? To put Bozey out of his misery?"
"TO get him to marry her, was my idea."
Janice laughed, a-d hugged his arm. "There's nothing doing between those two, honey."
"You don't think so?
"Not a chance. that's quite a gal, your little sister.
note I say?"
"Jesus Christ, Yes. The Red Flame of Manhattan. That's a hell of a And I Wrote my folks I was going to ('YOu just tell your parents that everything's cause it is." v's' do They walked with heads bent, the snow whirling on the wind into their faces.
"y are you so quiet?" said Janice. 'Don't worry about your sister. Really, you don't have to."
us
vice family and "I'M thinking how this war's blown ourWfaem'rielyaaspeart- I mean, we
we're used to that, but it's different no said
ed to scatter here and there," Warrenw. Id.don't feel there's a base any
more- And we're a changin
gether again." 11 9. I don't know if we'll ever pull back to-Sooner or later all la mil et change and scatter," said Janice Lacouture, "and out of the pieces new families t n fl ' She Put her face to his for a moment, a d snow akes fell on the two warm cheeks.
and a very lovely arrangement it is, too start up. That's how it goes, phat! I hope she's rid of that one by t e time Dad gets back.
"The imperialist struggle for foreign markets," said Warren.
jehoe he'll lay waste to Radio City.- h therwise peachy with her.
Be t her-Now hat YRON!" ut the name and stared. He sat as usual on the BDr, Jastrow gasped o his legs, the ay shawl around his shoulders, terrace, the blue blanket over grad on his lap. A cold breeze blowing across the writing board an'd Yellow P s. In the translucent air the the valley from Siena fluttered Jastrow's Page d cathedral atop the vineack-and-white stripe Id red-walled town, with its bl like the medieval Siena in o hills, looked hauntingly yard-checkered frescoes.
"Hello, A.J." declare I'll be a week recovering from the start or me, Byron! I about you only at breakfast. We were you've given me!
We were talking both absolutely certain you'd be in the State "She's here?"
"of course. She's up in the library." u
"Sir, will You eric se me?p
onect myself-oh, and Byron, tell Maria I'd '-Yes, go ahead, let me c g tea right awaylike some stron a time and walked into the 00 three at Byron t k the center hall steps black skirt, pale and library. She stood at the desk in a gray sweater, a It is you. NobodY else galumphs up those wide-eyed. -It is, by God!
stairs like that."
"It's me.
"Why the devil did you come back?"
"I have to make a living." y didn't you let us know you were coming?"
ni an tretched out a hand uncertai Y, d Put it She approached him, s you look rested, to his face. The long fingers felt dry and cold.
"AnYwaY, kwardly and weight She backed off aw you seem to have put on some beastly that day in K6rugs abruptlY. it! owe you an apology.
I was feeling from him and l,m sDrry.- She walked away surprises like berg, and if I was rude to YOu we can use YOu here, but sank into her desk chair. "Well s by now.)t "You're an little. Wi lveu, I thought I'd better just come-y# this are never pleasant. Don't you know that yet?" As though he had returned from an errand in town, she resumed clattering at the typewriter.
That was all his welcome. Jastrow put him back to work, and within a few days the old routines were restored. It was as though the Polish experience had never occurred, as though neither of them had left the hilltop. The traces of the war in these quiet hills were few.
Only sporadic shortages of gasoline created any difficulty, The Milan and Florence newspapers that reached them played down the war.
Even on the BBC broadcasts there was little combat news. The Russian attack on Finland seemed as remote as a Chinese earthquake.
Because the buses had become unreliable, Dr. Jastrow gave Byron a lodging on the third floor of the villa: a cramped little maid's room with cracking plaster walls, and a stained ceiling that leaked in hard rains.
Natalie lived directly below Byron in a second-floor bedroom looking out on Siena. Her peculiar manner to him persisted. At mealtimes, and generally in Jastrow's presence, she
was distantly cordw. In the library she was almost uncivil, working away in long silences, and giving terse cool answers to questions. Byron had a modest opinion of himself and his attractions, and he took his treatment as probably his due, though he missed the comradeship of their days in Poland and wondered why she never talked about them. He thought he had probably annoyed her by following her here. He was with her now and that was why he had come; so, for all the brusque treatment, he was as content as a dog reunited with an irritable master.
Herman Wouk - The Winds Of War Page 35