It is a thin joke and Goldberg gives it a thin smile in return. "You are no more unhappy than I am, herein diesem Land ohne Kultur." He gauges Stevenson's wry grimace and his smile broadens as he makes a notation. Stevenson is annoyed with himself for letting his knowledge of German show. Kept secret, it might have proven useful later.
"So, what brings you to Alabama, so far from your Illinois?" A pen, one of the new ball-point kind, is poised over a tattered notebook.
Stevenson judges the questionpro forma and tries his cover story. "I'm here to meet privately with some Party officials, in the hope of putting an end to the Situation."
The Situationis what everyone calls it, trying to downplay its significance, trying to talk around the subject as if it does not really exist. It isn't an occupation; just… a situation. Some of Stevenson's circle even pretend that League troops are in the South by invitation-as if President Black has had any choice in the matter.
"And you have by yourself come? A man of your importance? Your father was a vice president, not so?"
"My grandfather-for Grover Cleveland, a long time ago. I'm sure you know how delicate our domestic political situation is, lieutenant. My associates and I thought it best if we kept my little trip off the record."
Goldberg shrugs off the widening rift between northern and southern Democrats. Domestic politics means less to him than the intolerable heat or the lack of a first-rate symphony; or of even a decent beer. "And these people you plan to meet with… None of them are thefranc-tireurs, of course. No one from your Klan, or from the SCLC, or from the terrorist band led by 'Tricky Dick'."
It is a polite invitation to a demurral. They both know that Stevenson would be a fool to contact any of the guerrilla groups operating in the League-occupied zone. What no one knows, least of all Stevenson himself, is how big a fool he can be. The sweat is a sheen on his face, but he checks a move toward his handkerchief. To mop his brow might imply nervousness at the direction of the questioning. "No," he says. "Just local Party officials."
Goldberg grunts his amusement, perfectly aware that the one does not preclude the other. "Their names?" he asks, but his attention is now only partly on Stevenson. A battered pickup truck with local plates approaches the checkpoint, and the sentry, judging the senator no threat to his lieutenant, leaves the guard shack to deal with it.
Stevenson tries ignorance. "I don't know who will be there. It's all been arranged very quietly by the governor's office. We will meet in-"
"Selma," Goldberg says. "You are to meet with Sparkman and his people in Selma." Stevenson shrugs, as if to say that if Goldberg already has all the answers from theMorgensbericht, then he need not detain Stevenson for questioning.
A commotion outside distracts him. A slurred drawl-half drink, half belligerence-shouts something about "nigger-lovin' Aryans" and "get yo' ass outta 'Bama." The lieutenant frowns and rises from his seat. When he steps to the door of the guard shack his holster is already unbuttoned. "Macht er Muhe, Soldat?"
"He's drunk," Stevenson says sotto voce. "Moonshine. That's always trouble." The lieutenant nods without turning. If he was not a careful man before his draft, a few months of occupation duty have made him one.
"An' a god-damn kike officer, too," the same voice says. Stevenson hears another voice, a woman's, urging caution. He looks around the guard shack thinking how little the barnwood walls would slow a bullet. He moves his chair away from the desk, ready to throw himself on the floor if something happens.
But Goldberg describes in graphic terms what drunk drivers can do to their families and calls upon the man's duty to protect his wife and infant son. The man curses, but Goldberg persists and Stevenson is astonished when the redneck actually steps out of his truck and allows his wife to slide behind the steering wheel. He mutters something about "women drivers," but gets into the passenger seat and his wife, with a grateful nod to the lieutenant, drives him away.
"Honor and duty," Goldberg says when he returns to the shack with an over-and-under shotgun in his hand. "These Southern men understand little of civilized behavior, but that much will reach them." He notices that his holster is still unsnapped and refastens it.
"You handled that well," Stevenson says.
Goldberg places the shotgun in a barrel full of confiscated weapons labeledBeschlagsnahmen. He pours himself a drink of water from the cooler; then, in afterthought, another for Stevenson. "You thought 'The Hun' would wave weapons and shout and bring on a shooting." He sits at his desk, pulls out a tag and writes on it. Then he takes the tag to the barrel and fastens it to the shotgun trigger guard, and puts the carbon in a small card box atop the nearby filing cabinet. Stevenson thinks about the Hun obsession with record-keeping more than about their reputation for ruthlessness.
The lieutenant speaks casually while he arranges the card box. "Tell me, Herr Senator… What isyour opinion of 'niggers' and 'kikes'?"
It is the first time that the cool detachment has cracked. Stevenson chooses his next words with care. "I'm a northern Democrat, not a southern one. You must know my record." He gestures toward the reports on the desk. German thoroughness is a commonplace. "No decent man can approve of 'racial clearing. »
"Yet your party cannot hope the White House to retain without the votes of your southern Democrats. And so, you must embrace 'under the sheets. Only, these sheets have hoods on them." Goldberg's lips condense into a thin line. "Have you ever opened a mass grave, senator? Have you ever smelled the rotting bodies of people slain for no other reason but who they were? Such a thing could never happen in France or England or Germany."
Stung, Stevenson hangs his head. Argument would be futile and there is too much truth in the lieutenant's charge. Yet revulsion against the lynchings had been growing, even in the South; and Black-himself an Alabaman and former Klansman-had denounced them in his radio addresses. Stevenson sometimes wonders whether the race war would have happened at all had the League of Nations not meddled.
But he does not argue the point. He is not here to convince one Imperial lieutenant that the sight of foreign paratroops dropping on American cities had turned retail murder into wholesale atrocity. Stevenson isn't sure himself. The «clearings» might have happened anyway. It is vain to argue what might have been.
The Stonewall is not a very palatial hotel. Selma is not a very palatial town. Nothing in the south, in Stevenson's estimation, quite measures up to Chicago. He unpacks his bag, tests the spring of the mattress-it is lumpy-then opens the window. The muggy breeze bears the ashy odor of old wood fires, carried over from the charred ruins of Darktown. He sees the jumble of burnt timber frames over on the other side of the tracks. They look like charcoal lines sketched against the sky, like one of those new «modern» paintings. Standing by the open window, Stevenson fans himself three times with a copy of the local newspaper. He pauses, then fans himself again, this time with his left hand.
Turning away, he settles into the desk chair and waits for the pounding of his heart to slow. Sweat glistens on his broad forehead and he fans himself, this time in earnest. His eyes light on the dresser top and notice the opened Bible. He rises and glances at the text marked by a business card.Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord. The card announces the finest haircuts in Selma.
When he has regained a measure of calm, Stevenson descends to the lobby, where a boy chats idly with the girl behind the desk. He looks to be perhaps seventeen or eighteen. His hair is greased and swept back in the new style favored by the youngsters and he wears his pants low on his hips. They look as if they will slide off at any moment. Stevenson resists the impulse to order the pants pulled up. Instead, he takes him aside and gives him a cartwheel and a name. The boy grins. "Rootie-tootie," he says and walks off with a sassy, hip-rolling gait. Stevenson wonders what the younger generation is coming to. Then he shrugs and sets out for a walk.