Goldstein pulled a notebook out of his left breast pocket and wrote something in it. "Maybe that will help some. I don't know, but maybe," he said. "The charge, though, is crimes against humanity, and that can mean whatever the people who make it want it to mean."
"Sounds chickenshit to me," Jeff said. "They gonna make believe the niggers weren't up in arms against our government long before we went to war with the USA? They can do that-I sure can't stop 'em-but they're a pack of goddamn liars if they do."
The military attorney did some more scrawling. "Maybe you want to forget the word nigger."
"How come?" Pinkard asked, genuinely confused.
"Because you hammer another nail into your coffin every time you say it," Goldstein answered. "In the United States, it's an insult, a fighting word." The idea that Negroes could fight whites without having the whole country land on them with both feet deeply offended Jeff. He was shrewd enough to see saying so wouldn't do him any good. He just nodded instead. So did Isidore Goldstein, who went on, "And they'll say things were so bad for the colored population in the Confederate States under Freedom Party rule that it had no choice but to rebel."
"Well, they can can say any damn thing they want," Jeff replied. "Saying something doesn't make it so, though."
"'I'm Jake Featherston, and I'm here to tell you the truth,'" Goldstein quoted with savage relish. "Yes, we've noticed that."
"Oh, yeah. You damnyankees never once told a lie. And every one of you just loves coons, too. And I bet your shit don't stink, either."
"All of which would be good points except for two minor details." The lawyer ticked them off on his fingers: "First one is, the United States are going to win and the Confederate States are going to lose. Second one is, you really are responsible for upwards of a million deaths."
"So what?" Jeff said. That made even Goldstein blink. Angrily, Pinkard said it again: "So what, goddammit? Who gave the orders to drop those fucking superbombs on our cities? You think that asshole ain't a bigger criminal than me? You gonna hang him by the balls? Like hell you will! Chances are you'll pin a medal on the motherfucker instead."
"Again, two minor details," Goldstein said. "First, you used the superbomb before we did-"
"Yeah, and I wish we woulda started a year ago," Jeff broke in. "Then you'd be laughing out of the other side of your face."
Goldstein continued as if he hadn't spoken: "And, again, we're winning and you're not. You might do well to sound sorry for what you've done and to blame it on Featherston and on Ferdinand Koenig. I'm afraid I don't think it will do you much good, but it may do you some."
"You want me to turn traitor," Jeff said.
"I'm trying to tell you how you have some small chance of staying alive," Isidore Goldstein said. "If you don't care, I can't do much for you. I'm very much afraid I can't do much for you anyhow."
"I'll tell you what I'm sorry about. I'm sorry we lost," Pinkard said. "I'm sorry it comes down to me havin' to try and beg my life from a bunch of damnyankees. Seems like I got a choice between dyin' on my feet and maybe livin' on my knees. You had a choice like that, Mr. Smartass Lawyer, what would you do?"
"I don't know. How can any man know for sure before he has to find out the hard way?" Goldstein said. "But I'm still Jewish. That says I likely have some stubborn ancestors up in the branches of my family tree."
Jeff hadn't thought of it like that. He didn't exactly love Jews. But, like most Confederates, he aimed the greater portion of his scorn at Negroes and a big part of what was left at Mexicans. (He wondered what Hip Rodriguez would do in a mess like this. He didn't think Hip would crawl; greaser or not, Hip was a man. But why-why, dammit? — did he go and eat his gun?)
"There you are, then," Jeff said.
"Yeah, here I am. And here you are, and how the hell am I supposed to defend you?" Goldstein shook his head. "I'll give it my best shot. Better than you deserve, too. But then like I said, it's the guys who don't deserve a defense who deserve it most of all."
What was that supposed to mean? Jeff was still chewing on it when the U.S. MPs took him back to jail. He looked around as he walked, hoping for a glimpse of Edith. No luck. Wherever she was, she wasn't close by. He wondered whether he'd ever see her again. If the Yankees hanged him, would they be cruel enough to keep her away even then? He never wondered what the Negroes on their way to his bathhouses thought of him.
T hese days, the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War had less to do. Congress had set it up to hold the Army's feet to the fire-and the Navy's, too. With the war almost won, the Senators and Representatives didn't have much to criticize. Flora Blackford wished the superbomb had vaporized Jake Featherston-but so did the Army. Sooner or later, it would catch him. Either that, or he'd die fighting to escape capture. Flora didn't much care which, as long as the world was rid of him.
A Senator was grilling a Navy captain about why the United States was having so much trouble matching the new German submersible designs. Those promised a revolution in submarine warfare once the USA got them right. That hadn't happened yet.
"Isn't it a fact, Captain Rickover, that the German Navy has had these new models in service for almost a year?"
"Yes, but we only got the plans a few months ago," Rickover answered. You tell him, Flora thought: the captain was a Jew, one of the few to rise so high. He had no give in him, continuing, "We'll get the boats built faster than the Kriegsmarine did, but we can't do it yesterday. I'm sorry. I would if I could."
"I don't need you to be facetious, Captain."
"Well, I don't need you to play Monday-morning coach, Senator, but the rules are set up to let you do that if you want to."
"Mr. Chairman, this witness is being uncooperative," the Senator complained.
"I am not," Rickover said before the chairman could rule on the dispute. "The distinguished gentleman from Dakota-a state famous for its seafaring tradition-wants the Navy Department to accomplish the impossible. The merely improbable, which we've done time and again, no longer satisfies him."
The Senator from Dakota spluttered. The chairman plied his gavel with might and main. Before Flora found out how the exciting serial ended, a page hurried up to her and whispered, "Excuse me, Congresswoman, but you have a telegram."
"Thank you." Flora stood and slipped out. Escaping this nonsense is a relief, nothing else but, she thought.
Then she saw the kid in the Western Union uniform, darker and greener than the one soldiers wore. When a messenger boy waited for you, did you really want the wire he carried? Too often, it was like seeing the Angel of Death in front of you. Her hand shook a little as she reached out for the flimsy yellow envelope.
"Much obliged, ma'am," he said when she gave him a quarter. He touched two fingers to the brim of his cap in a sort of salute, then hurried away.
She had to make herself open the envelope. The blood ran cold in her veins-it almost didn't want to run at all-when she saw the telegram was from the War Department. The Secretary of War deeply regrets to inform you… Tears blurred the words; she had to blink several times before she could see to go on…that your son, Joshua Blackford, was wounded in action on the Arkansas front. The wound is not believed to be serious, and a full recovery is expected. The printed signature of a lieutenant colonel-an assistant adjutant general-followed.
"How bad is it, ma'am?" the Congressional page asked.
"Wounded," Flora answered automatically. "The wire says they think he'll get better."
"I'm glad to hear it," the page said. If the war went on another year-which didn't seem likely-he might be in uniform himself. He probably had friends who already were. Did he have any who'd been unlucky? Flora didn't want to ask.