The red-faced man’s arm shot up and out in a salute the Germans had made odious all over the world. “Heil Hitler!” he said. “You fools want the Nazis back again.” He drove off before horns blared behind him.
Edna Lopatynski’s laugh was shaky, but it was a laugh. “Well, Diana, are we Communists or are we Nazis?”
“No,” Diana answered firmly. “We’re Americans. If the government is doing something stupid, we’ve got the right to say so. We’ve got the right to make it stop. And that’s what we’re doing.” She looked around. Chuck Christman and E. A. Stuart were both close enough to hear what she’d said.
Yes, she’d expected to get called a traitor and a Communist. That anybody could think she was trying to help the Nazis after Heydrich’s lunatics murdered Pat…Her free hand folded into a fist. She wanted to clock that guy. The nerve!
Several cops stood around watching the picketers go back and forth. One of them ambled over to Diana and fell into step beside her. “You running this whole shebang?” he inquired.
“I organized it, anyhow,” she said. “I don’t know that anybody’s in charge.”
“Yeah, well, if it goes wrong you’re the one we’ll jug,” the policeman said. “Keep doing like you’re doing. Stay spaced out. Let people through. Stuff like that. Long as you play by the rules, we won’t give you no trouble. I think you’re full of hops myself, but that’s got nothin’ to do with what’s legal.”
“My son got killed for no reason,” Diana said tightly. “President Truman never has said why we still need to be in Germany. I don’t think he knows, either.”
“He’s the President of the United States.” The cop sounded shocked.
“He was a Kansas City machine politician till FDR dumped Henry Wallace,” Diana retorted. “He’s only President ’cause Roosevelt died. He’s not infallible or anything.”
“Huh.” Shaking his head, the policeman went away.
Several men who looked like state legislators-they were mostly portly, they had gray hair, and they wore expensive suits-came out onto the Capitol steps to watch the demonstration. Some of them shook their heads, too. They must figure we’re a bunch of crackpots, Diana thought. Well, we’ll show ’em!
One of the legislators got into an argument with his colleagues. Another man ostentatiously turned his back on him. Diana wondered if the first guy was on her side. She could hope so, anyhow.
A car horn blared. The driver stuck his left hand out of the window, middle finger raised. He didn’t bother slowing down.
Lobbyists and lawyers with briefcases passed through the picket line on the way to doing business in the Capitol. “You should be ashamed,” one of them said, but he took it no further than that. More ordinary people went through, too-men in work clothes, women in dresses they’d got from the Sears catalogue or made themselves.
A couple of them said unkind things, too. But one fellow who looked like a mechanic said, “Give ’em hell, folks!” and flashed a thumbs-up. Diana wanted to kiss him. Not everybody hated them! She’d hoped that was true, but she hadn’t been sure.
A fat, middle-aged man stood on the sidewalk watching the demonstrators. Every time Diana turned around and got another look at him, he got hotter and hotter. Edna Lopatynski also saw it. “That fellow’s going to make trouble,” she said quietly.
“I’m afraid you’re right,” Diana answered. “But what can we do about it?”
They went back and forth twice more before the fat man blew a fuse. “Commies!” he yelled. “Nazis!” He didn’t know which brush to tar them with, so he used both. Then he charged into them, fists flailing.
A woman squalled when he hit her. Another woman stuck out a foot and tripped him as he rampaged past her. A man sat on him and kept him from doing anything worse than he’d already done.
The Capitol police came over in a hurry this time, and came over in force. The fat man yelled obscenities. “I dink he boke by dose,” said the woman he’d hit. Her nose was sure bleeding: red spotted the front of her white blouse. Jack and the photographer from the News both took pictures of her.
“You can’t haul off and belt a lady like that, buddy,” one of the policemen said. “You’re under arrest.”
“Lady?” The fat man found several other things to call her, none of them endearments. Then he said, “You oughta haul her off to jail for doing crap like this. You oughta haul every goddamn one o’ these yahoos off to jail, and you oughta lose the key once you do.”
“They may be jerks, but they aren’t breaking any laws,” the flatfoot answered. “Assault and battery, now…” He clicked his tongue between his teeth. “You should be ashamed of yourself. She ain’t even half your size.”
“A rattlesnake isn’t big, either, but it’s still poison.” The fat man had strong opinions.
So did Diana. She wanted to tell the cops to haul him off and lose the key. No matter what she wanted, she made herself go on marching without saying anything. The police didn’t like her. They wouldn’t appreciate her sticking her oar in. If she just let them do their job…
They did it. They got the fat man up onto his feet, cuffed his hands behind him, and led him away. He swore a blue streak all the way, which did him exactly no good.
“Bring our boys home from Germany!” Diana chanted. The other picketers joined her. Together, they made more noise than the fat man. Diana thought it was obvious they made more sense, too.
“Here you are, Congressman.”Gladys plopped the day’s papers onto Jerry Duncan’s desk.
“Thanks,” he said. “Could you bring me another cup of coffee, too? Can’t seem to get myself perking this morning.”
She grabbed the cup and saucer. “I’ll be right back.”
“Thanks,” he said again, absently this time. He was already starting to study the papers. You had to keep up with what was going on if you wanted any chance to keep your head above water. The New York Times came first. It was much more pro-administration than Jerry was, but had far and away the best coverage of foreign affairs.
Gladys brought back the fresh cup, steam rising from it. Jerry Duncan sipped without consciously noticing where the coffee’d come from. After the Times, he went through the Wall Street Journal for economic news, and the Washington Evening Star, the Post, and the Times-Herald to find out what was going on in his second home.
Those done, he reached for the Indianapolis News and the Indianapolis Times, then for the Anderson Democrat. You also had to stay current with what was going on in your district. If you decided Washington was your first home, not your second, the folks back in Indiana would likely throw you out on your ear next chance they got.
Right in the middle of the News’ front page was a photo of cops dragging off a wild-eyed fellow who could have dropped a few pounds, or more than a few. A woman with a picket sign and what looked like bloodstains on her face and on her blouse watched him go. Man arrested after attacking demonstrator, the caption said.
The story under the photo was almost studiously neutral. It identified the leader of the demonstration as “Diana McGraw, 48, of Anderson.” She was “moved to oppose government policy on Germany after her son, Patrick, was killed there in September, long after the formal German surrender.”
“Hmm,” Jerry said, and went to see what the Times had to say: it was the more liberal paper in town. Because it backed the Democrats, it looked down its nose at anyone presuming to protest against their polices. But even its tone was more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger. Its editorial said, “While we understand Mrs. McGraw’s grief and outrage, and those of other similarly afflicted, the United States must persist in its mission of returning Germany to civilization and democracy to Germany.”