Amerika (24 page)

“It’s all quite legal,” Mel Austin said.

“Did you not lead a group of townspeople to the exile camp in violation of the curfew?” Gurtman demanded.

“An illegal act of defiance,” Herb Lister said.

“An act of decency,” Ward said. He turned to Mel and Fred. “What are you two doing, being part of

this?”

“It’s legal,” Mel said.

“Be realistic,” Fred said. “What choice have we

got?”

“What choice?” Ward raged. “We can stand up to this Nazi, and show a little guts—”

“You’re a deputy,” Herb Lister said. “You enforce the law as we define it, or you’re out.”

Helmut said calmly, “Your choice is simple. Either you and your men enforce the curfew or we will do it alone.”

Ward stared at the German in rage and frustration. He was outgunned. It was as simple as that.

“If there’s no more business at the moment,” Helmut said with taunting sincerity. “I would say this meeting’s adjourned.”

They drove from the White House to the Capitol in two limousines, the president’s and Samanov’s. Peter rode with Samanov, and he was not unaware of the symbolism involved, however jovially the general had issued the invitation.

The drive up Pennsylvania Avenue, complete with motorcycle escort, took only a minute or two. Peter was struck by how few people were on the streets, and with what disinterest they regarded the passing of their leaders.

He was speaking to a joint session of Congress— members of both the House and Senate meeting in the vast House chamber, with the president, the vice-president, members of the Supreme Court, and other dignitaries looking on.

The speaker of the house, a bony, crafty old buzzard, shouted out his introduction—“a new leader, a new generation, the first governor-general of the Heartland region, my good friend Mr. Peter Bradford”—and the sergeant at arms escorted Peter to the podium. He noted how the PPP loyalists applauded enthusiastically, while the other members only gently touched their hands together.

Suddenly he was facing them, the six hundred or so men and women who ruled America, or pretended to.

He had thought and thought about the speech. He
realized that he could not express all the fear and uncertainty and suspicion that he truly felt—those must remain hidden, if he was to be a public man. But neither was he willing to deliver the pep talk for Heartland that Andrei wanted; the government’s propaganda machine was already boosting Heartland and he didn’t intend to be another cog in the machine.

Peter had only one rule of speechmaking—keep it short. He had scribbled a few notes on the back of an envelope as they drove to the Capitol and added to them as he was being introduced. Now, for better or for worse, he began to speak, partly from the notes, more from his heart.

“Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Mr. Vice-President, members of Congress, ladies and gentlemen ...”

It was a mouthful, and after he got it out he paused and said, “I never expected to be here.”

He spoke with such innocence and candor, no one could doubt his sincerity. His audience chuckled with amusement and sympathy.

“Like most Americans,” Peter said, “the course of my life has not been what I expected. I think of the history of our country and wonder at its growth and change. I wonder if Washington or Jefferson could have imagined the shape and condition of the country just two centuries after their lifetimes. I wonder at the amazement and possibly the despair of Abraham Lincoln if he were to have seen the changes since the nineteenth century. Yet somehow, despite all the changes, our country has survived.

“I come from a part of the country where life, in many ways, is simple and predictable.

“Every spring when the ground thaws we plant a seed. In the summer it grows to maturity and is harvested. In the winter the earth rests, waiting for new
planting. And when we plant again, it is not the same stalk of com or grain that we saw standing beautiful in the field the summer before, but the seed is the same and given time, effort, and good fortune, another crop will emerge to feed hungry people.

“The seed is in the ground. It is the history and experience of two hundred years. I promise you I will give it my time and my effort, and with the help of the people of my area—the Heartland—we will see a bountiful harvest.

“Thank you and God bless.”

There was a hush as his speech abruptly ended; four-hour-long orations were not unknown in that chamber. People were looking around, not sure what they had heard, or how they should respond.

General Petya Samanov, the most powerful man in the chamber, maintained a poker face, even as Andrei Denisov began to applaud enthusiastically. It had not been what Andrei had asked for, yet his sense was that it had been good, perhaps better than he had expected. The parable of the seed, Andrei thought, all the better for being of uncertain meaning. Had it seemed to hint at American independence, an American rebirth? If so, so much the better.

Andrei leaned close to Samanov. “It is good,” he said. “Good.”

Samanov slowly nodded and began to applaud. Marion watched him carefully, then she too began to clap vigorously. Soon the listeners rose to their feet and the chamber echoed with applause and cheers.

Peter, still at the podium, was genuinely surprised. His face beamed, masking a thought that had suddenly occurred to him: if these people approve of me, something must be wrong.

* * *

The bus rolled east through the darkness, across southern Illinois, passing Springfield, Abe Lincoln’s home, through the heart of America. Devin and Clayton had seats in the back, where they could talk if they kept their voices down.

“How’d you get into the underground railroad business?” Devin asked.

Clay laughed quietly. “Just lucky, I guess. No, I was an Episcopal priest, serving up tea and salvation to nice old ladies. A pleasant life. Useful, in its way. A few good works thrown in—a center for the homeless, that sort of thing. But then the Transition came and I had to choose. It was like slavery, like the Vietnam War, one of those great moral issues that defy fence straddling. So I talked to God and God and I agreed I ought to try to help people who were being oppressed by this regime. Ergo, the underground railroad. Except that, instead of slaves, we’re mostly helping political dissidents—hiding people who’d be imprisoned if they were caught, trying to reunite families, that sort of thing.”

“How many of you are there?”

“It’s hard to say. A lot. Religion in America had never been tested like this before. You could always play at social reform, with no greater penalty than pissing off your congregation, or maybe losing your job, but now we’ve got people in jail, hundreds of them. You pay the price if you stand up to the New America.”

“I was away five years,” said Devin. “Before that, it didn’t seem that they were going after religion.”

“They never did,” Clay said. “They were smart. Let’s face it, by the 1980s religion was not a major force in American life, so why stomp on it? Scare it, buy it off, co-opt it, the way they did business and politicians and journalism and everyone else. For most churches today, it’s business as usual. Ask them about the Russians, and you’ll get some mumbo-jumbo about having faith and the Lord working in mysterious ways.” “But some of you resisted?” Devin pressed.

“Oh sure. The Catholic church hasn’t been so split since the Reformation. We Episcopalians have a pretty good record, relatively speaking—a lot of our guys act like they’re docile, but they’re secretly helping us. You know who’s really made out like bandits in the Transition?”

“Who?”

“The evangelicals. The TV preachers. They ate it up. Had an answer for everything. God’s punishing us because we’d been a nation of adulterers and druggies and homos and abortionists and all that; in other words, the Ruskies got us because we didn’t pay attention to Jerry Falwell and Jimmy Swaggart. So what’s their answer? Keep the faith, brothers, and keep them cards and letters coming!”

Devin laughed. “And the checks with ’em.”

“You got it. The Russians like that message. Down south, they treat the evangelicals real good. They won’t let them have their own TV networks again, not yet, but they let them on Natnet once in a while. And those guys would kill to get on the tube.”

Clay grinned in the first light of morning. “It’s a funny world.”

“Yeah,” Devin said. “My sense of humor keeps getting challenged.”

Jackie was in her room, gazing out at the new morning. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

Her mother came in quietly and put her arms around her. For a time no words were spoken; icicles caught the sunlight and glinted in the window.

Finally Jackie, still looking out at the empty fields, said, “I have this daydream. That he comes back. He’s on his cycle and he says he couldn’t live without me. He—”

She broke off, embarrassed. Amanda stroked her hair and Jackie continued. “He says, no matter what, he’ll take care of me. We’ll be all right.” She looked up at Amanda, eyes bright with tears. “I didn’t go with him. He asked me to go and I didn’t.”

Amanda said, “I don’t think either of you was ready.”

Jackie stiffened a bit. “You don’t know. You always had Daddy.”

Amanda smiled wistfully. “Once ... I had a choice, a little like yours. But he was”—she shrugged—“too

scary.”

Jackie gazed at Amanda with surprise, maybe new respect. She had never imagined there might have been drama or conflict in her mother’s early life.

“I thought Daddy was, you know, your childhood sweetheart.”

Amanda smiled. “I had a long childhood, dear. There was room for two or three sweethearts.” She hugged herself. “Anyway, all that was years ago.”

“Mom, do you ever, like, wonder what would have happened?”

“Maybe sometimes. Not often. I’m very glad I married your father. Look at the bonus I got—you and of course your brother the hulk. See what I would have missed.”

“You could have skipped that.” Jackie smiled a little.

Amanda walked to the door, then turned back. “If
he loves you enough, maybe he’ll come back, if he can,” she said. “And if he does come back, maybe you’ll still have enough love for it to make a difference.”

Jackie weighed her mother’s words, then shook her head in bemusement. “God, Mother, you’re supposed to be trying to cheer me up.”

Amanda smiled a bittersweet smile. “Sorry. Best I can do.”

The bouncing of the bus awoke him. He looked up and saw an armed national guardsman moving down the aisle. He pulled himself together, trying to show no emotion.

“Relax, it’s okay,” Clayton said. “A border check. We’re about to enter the late great state of Indiana.”

The guardsman was lanky and casual. He glanced at their IDs and moved on.

“See, I told you those papers were cool,” Clayton said. “You ever been to the Industrial Area?”

“Not lately,” Devin said drily.

“It’s not a pretty sight. What the Russians wanted mostly from us was agricultural—our farm capacity. If we would produce more and eat less, they could eat more, which is how it’s working out. Plus, they wanted to make use of our high-tech capacity, and some of our scientific and medical knowledge. Then there’s Hollywood. The Russians love our movies and they knew they could never duplicate Hollywood on the banks of the Volga. Essentially, Hollywood now is doing what it always secretly wanted to do—making trash, pure and simple. No phony-baloney art. Just sex and violence, except the message has changed a little. I mean, Rocky doesn’t beat up on commies anymore—he’s after neo-fascists now.”

Devin was looking down the road at the checkpoint they were approaching. The border guards on the Indiana side wore different uniforms than the Heartland guards. Past the guards, beyond the high, electrified fence, was an open area patrolled by jeeps with mounted machine guns.

“Anyway,” Clayton said, “the point is that the Russians didn’t have much use for industrial America, the so-called Rust Belt. It was dying anyway, so they speeded the process. Maybe you know some of this, heard it where you were. They stripped most of the new mills—the robotic assembly lines—anything that was better than what they had in the Soviet Union. Then they just let the rest atrophy. No new equipment, no replacement parts. They figured anything we could make here, the Japanese and the Koreans could make better and cheaper. Which maybe made sense on paper, but what they did was leave an entire region— Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania—with something like' fifty percent unemployment.”

“My God,” Devin said.

“And they won’t let them out,” Clayton continued. “It’s like a disease that they’ve quarantined.”

They cleared the checkpoint and moved into the outskirts of Hammond, Indiana. They passed block after block of shabby motels, fast-food joints, and tent cities that had sprung up in vacant lots. Thousands of men milled about, gazing up anxiously as the bus moved past.

“What’re they doing?” Devin asked.

“Trying to get across. Out of this wasteland to someplace where there’s work.”

“Will they?”

“Not many. They’ll hang around here, in these camps, then drift back to wherever they came from.”