guns.”
“Bully!” This time, her brother and Dr. Hanrahan said it together.
Flora looked from one of them to the other in exasperation. “
And
he won’t come a dime below two billion dollars in reparations, all of it to be paid in specie or in steel or oil at 1914 prices. That’s a crushing burden to lay on the proletariat of the Confederate States.”
“I hope it crushes them,” David said savagely. “Knock on wood, they’ll never be able to lift a finger against us again.” Instead of knocking on the door or on a window sill, he used his own artificial leg, which drove home the point.
Flora had given up trying to argue with him. He had his full share of the Hamburger family’s stubbornness. Instead, she turned to Dr. Hanrahan and asked, “How much longer will he have to stay here now that he’s started to get back on his feet?”
“He should be able to leave in about a month, provided he makes good progress and provided the infection in the stump doesn’t decide to flare up again,” Hanrahan said. Flora nodded; she’d seen he gave her straight answers. He finished with a brisk nod: “We’ll shoot for November first, then.”
After giving her brother a careful hug and an enthusiastic kiss, Flora left the Pennsylvania Hospital. Fall was in the air, sure enough; some of the leaves in the trees on the hospital grounds were beginning to turn. She flagged a cab. “The Congressional office building,” she told the driver.
“Yes, ma’am.” He touched the shiny leather brim of his cap, put the Oldsmobile in gear, and went out to do battle with Philadelphia traffic. The traffic won, as it often did. Philadelphia had been the
de facto
capital of the USA since the Confederates bombarded Washington during the Second Mexican War, more than thirty-five years before. Starting even before then, a great warren of Federal buildings had gone up in the center of town. Getting to them was not always for the faint of heart.
“I have a message for you,” said Flora’s secretary, a plump, middle-aged woman named Bertha. She waved a piece of paper. “Congressman Blackford wants you to call him back.”
“Does he?” Flora said, as neutrally as she could. “All right, I’ll do that. Thank you.” She went into her inner office and closed the door after her. She didn’t turn around to see whether Bertha was smiling behind her back. She hoped not, but she didn’t really want to know.
Dakota, a solidly Socialist state, had been returning Hosea Blackford to the House since Flora was a girl. He was about twice her age now, a senior figure in the Party, even if on the soft side ideologically as far as she was concerned. And he was a widower whose Philadelphia apartment lay right across the hall from hers. He had left no doubt he was interested in her, though he’d never done anything to tempt her into defending herself with a hatpin. To her own surprise, she found herself interested in return, even if he was both a moderate and a gentile.
“Now,” she muttered as she picked up the telephone and waited for the operator to come on the line, “is he calling about Party business or…something else?”
“Hello, Flora,” Blackford said when the call went through. “I just wanted to know if you had seen the newspaper stories about strikes in Ohio and Indiana and Illinois.”
Party business, then. “I’m afraid I haven’t,” Flora said. “I just got back from visiting David.”
“How is he?” Blackford asked.
“They’ve fitted the artificial leg, and he was up on it.” Flora shook her head, though Blackford couldn’t see that. “Even with one leg gone, he talks like a Democrat.” She inked a pen and slid a piece of paper in front of her so she could take notes. “Now tell me about these strikes.”
“From what I’ve read, factory owners are trying to hold down wages by pitting workers against each other,” he said. “With soldiers starting to come home from the war, they have more people