"Sometimes you don't want to be right. It costs too much," Flora said. "Nobody in the USA wanted to let C.S. Negroes in when he started persecuting them. The Democrats were worse about it than the Socialists, though."
"All right, so we didn't have things straight all the time, either," David answered. "Dewey'll do a better job of holding down the CSA than La Follette would have."
"That's the plank he ran on. We'll see if he means it," Flora said.
David laughed. "Was there ever a politician you wouldn't say that about?"
"I can think of three," Flora replied. "Debs, Teddy Roosevelt, and Robert Taft. When they said they'd do something, they meant it. It didn't always help them. Sometimes it just left them with a bull's-eye on their back."
After a moment's thought, David nodded. "And two more," he said: "you and Hosea."
"Thank you," Flora said softly. "I try. So did Hosea-and he never got the credit for it he deserved." He never would, either, and she knew it, not when the economic collapse happened while he was President. After a pull at her beer, she went on, "I'll give you another one: Myron Zuckerman."
"He was an honest man," her brother agreed.
Flora nodded. "He was. And if he didn't trip on the stairs and break his neck, I never would have run for Congress. My whole life would have looked different. I would have stayed an organizer or worked in the clothing business like the rest of the family."
"Zuckerman's bad luck. The country's good luck."
"You say that, with your politics? You'll make me blush. It's only because I'm your sister." Flora tried not to show how pleased she was.
"Hey, I disagree with you sometimes-well, a lot of the time. So what? You are my sister, and I'm proud of you," David answered. "Besides, I know I can always borrow money from you if I need it."
He never had, not a penny. Flora had always shared with her parents and sister and younger brother, but David stubbornly made his own way. I'm doing all right, he would say. It seemed to be true, for which Flora was glad.
He grinned at her. "So what does it mean, what we've been through since the Great War started? You're the politician. Tie it up for me."
"You don't ask for much!" Flora exclaimed. Her brother laughed. He picked up his beer bottle, discovered it was empty, and waved for another one. Flora drank from hers. If she was going to try to answer a question like that, she needed fortifying. "Well, for starters, we've got the whole United States back, if we can ever stop the people in the South from hating us like rat poison."
"Since when do they like us that much?" David said: a painfully true joke. He went on, "We can hold them down if we have to, them and the Canadians."
"A Negro who got out of the CSA before the Great War said that if you hold a man down in the gutter, you have to get into the gutter yourself," Flora said. "Do we want to do that?"
"Do we want the Confederate States back in business? Do we want them building superbombs again?" David asked, adding, "The one they used almost got you."
"I know," Flora said. "Don't remind me."
"Well, then." By the way David said it, he thought he'd proved his point.
But Flora answered, "Do we want our boys down there for the next fifty years, bleeding a little every day? It would be like a sore that won't heal."
"Better that than worrying about them blowing us off the map," David said. "And they would, too. We've fought them four times in the past eighty years. You think they don't want to try to get even because we won the last two?"
"No, I don't think so, not for a minute." Flora knew some Socialists had thought such things after the Great War. It was unfortunate, but it was true. Nobody thought that way any more, though. Once bitten, twice shy. Twice bitten…"Still, if we can't turn them into people who belong in the United States, what are we going to do with them?"
"Do we want people like that in our country? People who murdered eight or ten million Negroes? Even when the Tsar turns loose a pogrom, it's not as bad as that."
"A choleriyeh on the Tsar." Flora hated the idea of Russia with a superbomb, too. Germany would have to deal with Russia, though; the USA just didn't have the reach. She got back to the business at hand: "They didn't kill all the Negroes."
"No, but they didn't try to stop the Freedom Party goons, either. They cheered them on, for crying out loud," David said. "And you know what scares me?"
"Nu?" Flora asked.
"If it happened down there, it could happen here. It could happen to Negroes here, or, God forbid, it could happen to Jews. If you get enough people hot and bothered, anything can happen. Anything at all."
"God forbid is right," Flora said. "I like to think we wouldn't do anything like that…"
"Yeah. Me, too. And how many shvartzers thought their white neighbors wouldn't do anything like that? How many of them are left to think anything now?" Her brother answered his own question: "Not many."
"Maybe seeing what the Confederates did will vaccinate us against it," Flora said. "We can hope so, anyway."
"Alevai," David said.
"Alevai omayn." Flora nodded. "But can you imagine a politician saying, 'I want to do the same thing Jake Featherston did. Look how well it worked down there'?"
"Mm, maybe not-not for a while, anyway." David smiled crookedly. "Let's hear it for bad examples. I always aimed to be one for my children, but massacring people goes a little too far."
"A little. Sure." Flora reached out and set her hand on his. He looked astonished. She realized she hadn't done that in-oh, much too long. "And some bad example you are."
"Hey, I'm a Democrat. How can I be anything but a bad example?"
"You'll have to work harder than that." Flora hoped he wouldn't get angry. He had worked hard, all his life.
He didn't. "Here. I'll give it my best shot." He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. "How am I doing?"
"I think you need to try something else." Flora fought not to laugh.
"Don't know what. I already drink. Don't want to chase women-I'm happy with the one I caught. And you're the family politician."
"Well! I like that!"
David's smile got crookeder yet. "You know what? Me, too."
Flora pointed to the pack. "Give me one of those."
"You don't smoke."
"So what? Right now I do."
He handed her a cigarette, then leaned close to light it from his. She thought it tasted terrible, but she didn't care, not just then. They blew out smoke together.