But then they hear, distantly, the cheering thump of Nelson Eddy singing “Stout-Hearted Men,” and over that, through the deep darkness, comes the voice of Uncle Sam, firm, resonant, unwavering: “0 suffering, sad humanity! O ye afflicted ones, who lie steeped to the lips in misery, illegitimi non carborundum, as Vinegar Joe useter say: Don’t let the bastards grind ya down! I know the gloomy night before us lies like a black arse in a coal-hole, but jumpin’ jig-a-jig! we ain’t weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God a Nature has placed in our pockets! So punch, brothers, punch with care! Punch in the presence of the passenjare, so when Jesus comes to claim us all and says it is enough, the diamints will be shinin’ but no longer in the buff!”
“But O Uncle Sam,” cry the people, making doleful moan and groan, “the Angel of Darkness is loose in the world, and iniquity goes unpunished! They go on contriving the mischief of their hearts, opening their shameless mouths, unleashing their lying tongues like the venom of adders fitfully spurting forth, vipers that cannot be charmed! Confusion and panic beset us, horrendous anguish and pain, like to the throes of travail!”
“Damn my britches!” sighs Uncle Sam, “for the land what is sown with the harvest of despair! I hear ya talkin’, piggy-wigs, but is it not wrote in the ancient Scrolls: ‘When they engage the Phantom, amid all the combat and carnage of battle, the Sons a Light’ll have luck three times in discomfitin’ the forces of wickedness; but three times the host of the Phantom shall brace themselves to turn back the tide. But on the seventh occasion the great hand of Uncle Sam shall finally subdue the Phantom, and He will make truth to shine forth, meanin’ me, bringin’ doom down upon the Sons a Darkness like a tom-tit on a horse-turd!’”
“Yea, six times have they appeared before our Judges, men well versed in the Book of Study and in the fundamentals of the Covenant, and this is the seventh,” reply the people. “Thou bringest us cheer, O Uncle Sam, amid the sorrow of mourning, words of peace amid havoc, stoutness of heart in the face of affliction!”
“Well, awright then,” thunders Uncle Sam, “straighten up and fry right, friends! Go forth to meet the shadowy Future, without fear, and with a manly heart on, for they are but anathema maranatha, and dirty dogs to boot! Don’t fergit that all that has been and is and shall be throughout all time are in my hand, so there may be storms in my path, but I’ll wear a smile, cuz in a little while, my path’ll be ro-o-ses! And so, trustin’ in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good and anon, let us remember the Maine, cock a snook, cover the embers and put out the light — toil comes with the morning, and broil with the night! Hoo hah! God bless you all!”
“Thine is the battle,” respond the children of America. “From Thee comes the power; and it is not ours. The base of spirit wilt Thou burn up like a flaming brand in a hayrick, a brand that devours wickedness and that will not turn back until guilt is destroyed!” Then they tune in their radios to an all-night station playing Frankie Laine’s “I Believe,” and drift off, their minds freed of the Phantom’s terrors, dreaming peacefully of baseball, business, and burning hayricks.
For the Rosenbergs, it is not so easy to sleep. Julius has dutifully composed his last will and testament, but Henry Ford II he is not. In fact, he has nothing to leave his two sons but best wishes, three cartons of rather pathetic personal effects which the FBI is bound to paw through, some dead bugs, and his exemplary misfortune. He has good reason to doubt they will possess even his name. “Love them with all your heart and always protect them in order that they grow up to be normal healthy people,” he begs his lawyer, Manny Bloch. “Our children are the apple of our eye, our pride and most precious fortune.” He last saw his sons two days ago. Unless Justice Douglas’s stay is upheld, he will not see them again. They were dragged away, screaming, confused. He can’t write to the boys himself. Ethel will do that. He is afraid the boys will be angry. With him. He is afraid their memories will be erased. Or will not be. He is afraid his legs will fail him on his way to the chair and make his boys ashamed. “You Manny are not only considered as one of my family but are our extra special friend. Be strong for us, beloved friend. Never let them change the truth of our innocence. For peace, bread and roses, in simple dignity, we face the executioner with courage, confidence and perspective, never losing faith. As ever, Julie.”
It is time for the prisoner in the play to die, and the young girl must make her farewells. She endeavors to smile, but her voice catches in her throat and she nearly breaks down. She and her brother used to have a game at bedtime, reciting lines from Shakespeare, and though the prisoner has made it clear he is not after all her brother and doesn’t know Shakespeare from Barney Google, she wishes now she could…. “What was it?” the prisoner asks. “I… I told it to you once, and you said it was silly.” “Say it again,” the prisoner says softly. The girl swallows, looks up at him. “‘Good-night, good-night!’” She cannot quite control her voice, but struggles on, thinking: at the end, this is all there is. “‘Parting is such sweet sorrow… That I shall say good-night till it be morrow.’” She goes toward the anteroom, hesitates, hoping — in vain — that he might yet respond with the matching lines, and then with a choking sob hurries through the door and closes it behind her. For several seconds the prisoner stands rigidly intent upon that door, until at length, without changing his attitude or his expression, watched raptly by the Warden and the Chaplain, he speaks very tenderly and reminiscently:
“Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast!
Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!”
“P.S. — Ethel wants it made known that we are the first victims of American Fascism.”
7. A Little Morality Play for Our Generation
The play is over. The girl has made her tearful exit, and her brother, the condemned prisoner, has gone through the act of clutching his throat and quoting Shakespeare on the fear of death, amazing the Warden and the Chaplain. The Jailer has arrived to call the prisoner to his execution, and the prisoner, standing erect like a soldier at attention, regarding them all fixedly and with a voice low and steady, has replied: “All right, let’s go.” They’ve gone. The curtain’s come down and the audience, if there is any, is now applauding. They take curtain calls. Now the condemned man is smiling and so is the girl in her little sailor dress. All just make-believe. Then, let’s see, they…uh…they scrub off the greasepaint and change out of their stage costumes. Always liked that part, the makeup. A kind of transformation comes over you, a kind of metamorphosis. It was while a girl in my class was putting makeup on me one night that I thought she was in love with me. Maybe she was. Probably I didn’t make the right moves. Water under the bridge. Anyway, off with the makeup and costumes. There’s a cast party afterwards at the Paramount Cafeteria tonight, they’re all going to that and hurrying to get ready. Everybody in the cast is lusting after little sixteen-year-old Ethel Greenglass, the sister in the play, and they all drop by casually to poke their noses in while she’s changing, but she’s too excited by her own performance to notice. She supposes that middle-aged men winking and blowing congratulatory kisses at her in her underwear is just part of the theatrical life. Anyway, let’s face it, she’s a tough little broad from the slums, a lot of horny brothers, this isn’t exactly Whittier High School, she knows the score. Anuses, dildos, the whole lot. She’s probably seen all there is to see right in the hallways of her own tenement house. Whores have often lived there, working their trade in the rooms next to her own bedroom, she’s no goddamn innocent. But has she ever…had it? Hard to guess. Probably not. Certainly no boyfriends. Not till Julie. Probably too idealistic. Standoffish. Too much familiarity with it has made her shy away. She wants something better out of life. She dreams of escaping the slums. She’s young, bright, pretty, talented, she can sing and act and she’s got nerve — that’s the famous Broadway formula for success, isn’t it? Just like in the motion pictures — and it’s all just a few blocks away. Each night they do The Valiant in this crummy little makeshift dump of a neighborhood theater, she thinks: Tonight I may be discovered! But each night nothing happens. She goes home to her lousy room in that stinking slum tenement, where her wretched old witch of a mother rails at her: “You’ll never get ahead, you smart-ass little twit! There’s no place in life for arty people!” Maybe she didn’t say “you smart-ass little twit,” I just made that part up. Quite likely, though. Or something just like it in Russian or Polish or whatever the hell the old lady was. Ethel has had to leave school and go to work. She makes seven dollars a week as a clerk in a shipping company on West Thirty-sixth Street, and gives it all to her mother. She gets two dollars back for carfare and lunches, but she walks to work and often skips lunch to save for voice and piano lessons at the Carnegie Hall Studios. At her job, left-wingers are trying to seduce her into union activities: she’s cute and has a lot of personality, she might make a good organizer. She likes the special attention they give her. She could be headed for a life of lawlessness and disorder, strikes, premature anti-fascism, a Daily Worker subscription, subversion, treason, and death in the electric chair. Or the theater could be her salvation. If she became another Clara Bow, her life and that of thousands of GIs fighting in Korea could be saved. And she doesn’t even have to become another Clara Bow — just so her dreams of success are not soured. That’s the secret: keep them hoping. But after the party at the Paramount Cafeteria, one of the older guys in the cast, some bum in his mid-forties, offers to take her home. Uh, the Lower East Side streets are dangerous, he’ll see her home safely, something like that. I didn’t know if the Paramount Cafeteria served beer or not. Probably not, anyway it was still Prohibition. I think. The guy probably had a hip flask. So he says he’ll see that she gets home safe, nothing wrong with that. The condemned brother maybe, good irony in that. Probably not, though, because that was the part played by Paul Muni in the movie — a younger guy. So maybe it’s the Chaplain, a pious man, maybe Catholic in the play, chastity vows and all that, though in fact he was probably a Jew or an atheist, most theater people are. Or maybe the Warden, keeper of law and order. Anyway, she’s grateful. She’s still feeling dreamy. Exhilarated. She’s glad to have somebody to talk to on the way home. What about? Her hopes, her fantasies. The old guy encourages her, putting an arm around her sympathetically. Like a father. She opens up her young heart to him. In response, he pushes her into a dark doorway, hauls up her skirt, tears his fly open, and tries to push his throbbing cock between her legs. She screams. No, she can’t scream, who would she scream for? Besides, uh…he’s pressing his mouth against hers. What does she do? She bites him maybe. Knees him in the nuts. Something like that. It’s a very rough scene for a little starry-eyed sixteen-year-old girl. She runs all the way home, terrified and disheveled, crying, her dreams shattered, thinking: So that’s what the theatrical life is like! She becomes a Communist instead and commits espionage.