Lonely Crusade (23 page)

“For how much?”

“Three dollars for each of us.”

“That was cheap enough. Even a Negro doctor would have charged you five.”

“But that’s not what I’m talking about. You don’t invite people to your home and force them to become your patients.”

“You were not forced, were you? You didn’t have to accept the shots, did you?”

“Well, practically.”

“Lee, you try to escape realism. The doctor was doing you a favor to give you the shots for three dollars when the customary price is five or more. Perhaps he could not afford to give them to you for nothing. Do you think that all Jews are rich?”

“I don’t, no, but many Negroes do, and that’s another thing. They think that Jews control all the money in the world. We Negroes in America know that money has power. We feel that because of their money, the Jews have the power to do more for us than anyone else.”

“But you, Lee, know that’s foolish, don’t you?”

“Well—yes, some of it—about the Jews having all the money. But I believe, like other Negroes, that Jews fight, and underhandedly, our struggle for equality.”

“Lee, let me tell you this. There are few great Jewish capitalists in this nation. Historically, there is a reason for this. Most Jews who emigrated to this country did not have money to buy land. The gentile landowners, merchants, and manufacturers would not employ them for any but the most menial of tasks. Therefore many went into business in self-defense. The same condition exists today. There has been a concerted effort on the part of gentile capitalists to keep Jews out of big business. That’s why Jews—a very small percentage, actually—entered the virgin field of Negro business. The gentile didn’t want it, as the gentile has never wanted any of the dirty, low-profit businesses. You see few Jewish names in the auto industry, the steel industry, aluminum, coal, petroleum, utilities, or building. These are the American big businesses. The Jews have had to grub, Lee; they’ve been discriminated against, oppressed, and segregated right here in this nation. It’s not as obvious or as brutal as Negro oppression, but in many ways it has been more terrifying. Until the Russian revolution this was the last nation on earth where the Jew could feel safe from physical violence. He had nowhere to go and no way to get there. But the Negro American is an American. No matter what happens to him he is still an American. That’s something even Bilbo can’t take from him. He might be pressed down but he can never be liquidated.”

“That’s all fine, Rosie. But answer me this: why don’t Jews want Negroes to have equality?”

“With that I don’t agree.”

“Then you say the Jew is fighting for Negro equality.”

“Let me answer that in this way. I think you will discover that most Jews are disturbed by the problems of all oppressed groups, and most social-minded Jews take pride in fighting against all racial and religious discriminations.”

“Against all but the Negroes’.”

“Perhaps it can best be explained by saying that Jews think in terms of self-preservation. Most of their manifestations of both prejudice and progressiveness are directed toward that end. The Jew has been oppressed, not only today, but for nineteen hundred years; he has been oppressed in practically every nation where he has wandered, in every historical era through which he has passed. The fact that he has survived is not an accident. The Jew has survived by developing habits of survival. He bears the stamp of his oppression—just as the Negro bears the stamp of his oppression. If this is what you dislike in the Jew, you must also dislike it in yourself.”

“I do,” Lee Gordon said.

“And that is where you cease to think,” Rosie pointed out. “For out of the people’s oppression has come every new way of life. This is not accident, but one of the processes of materialism. As Marx wrote in the preface to his
Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
, ‘It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.’ This is the source of most of our Western culture, civilization, religion, ethics; the source of American democracy, Russian socialism. The Mosaic laws came out of a people who had been enslaved; Christianity was the haven for the Jewish forgotten man when he was being persecuted by the Rabbis and the Cæsars; democracy grew from colonial subjugation; Marxism out of industrial exploitation—”

“Therefore out of Negro oppression—”

“Might come Communism to America. Why not? The Negroes are no more separated from the masses in search for a satisfactory way of life than are the Jews.”

“So all the answers lie in Communism?”

“What else? The ideal existence of mankind is where property is vested in the state and human values are the highest values.”

“Look, Rosie, suppose we don’t want to be Communists? Suppose we want first to be capitalists as do most other people of America?”

“But you can never become bourgeois. To become workers is the Negroes’ millennium. Do you think the Negro people can become bourgeois when they have not yet been accepted by the proletariat.”

“Perhaps not, but we can give it the old American try.”

“That is the pity of it.”

Now the waiter approached. “Are you finished?”

Neither of them had more than touched their food. “I am,” Rosie replied. “How about you, Lee?”

“Yes, I’m finished also.”

“Will you have dessert?” the waiter asked.

Rosie glanced at his watch. “No, I don’t have time; I have a three o’clock appointment.” Turning to Lee, he said, “But you stay and have your dessert.”

“No, thanks, but I’ve had enough also. I filled up on conversation.”

Rosie chuckled and said to the waiter: “Just bring the check.”

While they were waiting Lee said laughingly: “You still have not given me one really valid reason why the Negro should not be anti-Semitic.”

“Then I will give you one. Because the Negro has greater enemies than the Jew can ever be.”

Now Lee laughed aloud. “You always have the answer, Rosie.”

The check came and Rosie paid it. As they arose Lee said: “I can really say truthfully I enjoyed this lunch, Rosie.”

“I’m glad you did, Lee. Call me up some time.” Rosie gave him the telephone number. “And when you have a free evening come out and see me—and bring your wife. If you forget the number I’m in the book, the only Abraham Rosenberg on Pomeroy.”

“Pomeroy? That’s in City Terrace, isn’t it?”

“Yes, you know it?”

Following Rosie to the street, Lee blinked his eyes against the afternoon sun. “I lived in City Terrace once.”

“You did?”

“Yes, for a week.”

“For only a week?”

“That’s right, but that’s another story.”

Rosie halted at the bus stop and Lee waited with him until the bus came.

“See you, Rosie, and thanks again.”

“Don’t mention it, Lee. It was a pleasure.”

A funny Jew, Lee Gordon thought, walking back toward the union shack. And how much of what he said was true? And how much was Communist propaganda? And how much just plain Rosie? But it softened Lee’s tendency toward anti-Semitism to know that the Jew also was afraid.

Chapter 14

L
EE GORDON
lay on the davenport, his head cushioned on the arm rest, reading “Lil Abner” in the Sunday comic section. Ruth sat across from him, curled in the deep armchair, musing over the pictures in the society section. Along with the faint perfume of freshly cut grass and flowers, a pleasant warmth stole in through the open windows and filled the room with the soft, wonderful glow of a lazy day. The serenity of a Sunday had enchanted them.

At her slight exclamation over something she had seen, he turned his head to look at her and thought how lovely she was in the pale-green robe with her hair down and her professional demeanor relaxed for a change. The impulse stirred in him to kiss her, but he was too lazy to move.

Just as his eyelids were about to close, the sharp sound of laughter from next door opened them. He raised himself on his elbows to watch the Morrows’ teen-age daughter Yvonne, clad in printed shorts, scamper across the lawn with her Scotty, Zulu, at her heels. The muscles of her long brown legs rippled in the midday sunshine.

Sight of their well-trimmed lawn reminded Lee that his needed cutting but he put it quickly from his mind as a horrible thought and settled in complete relaxation. If life could be like this, just one long lazy day—he was thinking when the telephone rang.

“I’ll answer it,” he finally said.

“You’re welcome,” she smiled.

He struggled to his feet and went into the bedroom. During the few short minutes of conversation the pleasantness had gone from the day. For a long moment after cradling the receiver, he stood beside the night stand wondering what it was that Foster wanted of him as uneasiness settled in his mind. Then he went back into the living-room and announced to Ruth: “Foster wants us to come to dinner this afternoon. Would you like to go?”

She looked quickly up, frowning at the constraint now in his voice. “What’s the matter, what’s happened?”

“We have an invitation to Foster’s for dinner this afternoon.”

“Foster? Who are the Fosters?” She made it sound as distasteful as if she had spoken of filth.

“Foster,” he said, “is vice-president of the board of directors of Comstock Aircraft Corporation, one of the major stockholders, and general manager in charge of production in the plant.”

“Oh, Foster!” Her voice had a sudden singing quality. “Of course. For dinner?”

He gave her a sighing look as if torn between tears and laughter. She had gained her feet and was moving quickly toward the bath when suspicion overtook her. “What does he want, did he say?” she questioned sharply.

“It was his secretary who called. He only said that Foster wanted us for dinner.”

But she would allow no stray doubts to dim her enthusiasm. “Oh, he probably has a job for you.”

“I doubt it,” he replied.

And then he recalled what Joe Ptak had said to him his first day on the job: “There is a man named Foster. If you want a job making twice as much as you do, go over and tell him you’re working for me.”

But if it was just concerning a job, why would Foster invite them both to dinner on a Sunday afternoon? his reason asked him. Was it to exert some kind of pressure on him, to put the fear of God in him, or have him slugged by goons? He thrust this from his thoughts as foolish. But then McKinley had said that Foster was “a bitter and ill-tempered man, given to violent rages,” who “hated the union in a deadly manner.” Afterward, at the meeting the week before last, McKinley had stated further that Foster had bought out one of the union leaders. Lee had thought it silly at the time but now it took the shape of credence. And then that “Beware!” McKinley had whispered just as he was leaving; had it been a warning that Foster would also try to buy him out? McKinley had been absent from the meeting the night before and only eight Negro workers had put in an appearance. Did that mean that something had already happened to him?

He checked his galloping imagination and took himself in hand. Just because Foster had asked them to dinner he was seeing goblins in the land. What harm could possibly come to them? As Rosie had said the other day, people had other things to think about besides dreaming up tortures for poor Negroes.

It was, no doubt, as Joe had stated and Ruth had guessed, that Foster wanted them out to dinner to offer him a job. After all, Jackie thought he was all right—swell, she had said—and she should know since she worked right in his office.

But his uneasiness would not relax and it kept him wondering just the same.

“What shall I wear, Lee?” Ruth called from the bathroom.

“Wear? Oh, just a dress. I don’t suppose it’s anything elaborate.”

“You’re a lot of help,” she cried. “I mean what type of dress? Will there be sports, tennis or riding—”

“Oh, I don’t know. He just said dinner.”

“Do you think my black satin will be too flashy? It’s for afternoon.”

“Any dress. What difference does it make?”

“It makes a lot of difference if you’re looking for a job. I don’t want to appear too prosperous and still I want to make a nice appearance—”

“I’m not looking for a job,” he growled.

“Oh, don’t be so pessimistic, he might offer both of us a job.”

Lee Gordon did not reply to that because he hoped it was not so. But it rooted in his uneasiness, and by the time he had combed and brushed his hair and changed his clothes he was of half a mind to call the whole thing off. Before he could reach a decision he looked out the window and saw the long green convertible pull up before the house.

“The car’s here,” he called, catching some of Ruth’s excitement.

“I’m ready,” she replied, and came dashing into the bedroom fresh from her bath.

Looking up again, Lee saw a short dark Negro in chauffeur’s livery alight from the car and saunter toward the house, and he went to the door to meet him.

“You Lee Gordon?” the chauffeur asked.

“Yes, I am. We’ll be right out.”

“Mr. Foster wants you to come and see him. He sent me after you.”

“Yes, I know. His secretary called.”

The chauffeur gave a sheepish grin. “He been double-checking on me. He told me to call but I was going to surprise you.”

“I can imagine.” Lee started to withdraw but the chauffeur stopped him, “This your house?”

“My wife’s and mine,” Lee replied.

“Partners, eh?”

“Well—yes.”

“Nice place. Me and my old lady been thinking of buying a little place like this, but Mr. Foster says he’s going to build us a house on his grounds and we just going to wait and let him do it.”

Turning indoors, Lee called: “Ruth—”

She came quickly beside him, serene and svelte in a chic black ensemble, wearing the tiny professional smile she had developed for the working class.

But the chauffeur was not to be awed by people of his own race. “My name’s Roy,” he announced, letting them know that they were Negroes too. “This your wife?”

Lee felt a slight resentment at his familiarity. “Mrs. Gordon,” he said.