Comrades
a novel by Earl Coleman

Chapter 5

There was never such a day, the sky scrubbed clean with the early October cold, the sun like gold in a heaven without clouds. Leonard and Rachel were coming up the stairs of the subway, arm in arm. She paused, stopping the two of them at a shop window which she used as a mirror to adjust her new hat. They moved on and went through the revolving doors of the Woolworth Building. Leonard pressed the elevator button for the twentieth floor.

This wasn't the day she'd learned she had no nest egg and was penniless. This was October 5, 1929 and her world was changed. She embraced Izzy and said, "Isaac Lieberman, I'd like you to meet Doctor Leonard Gitomer." Leonard was not a very tall man but he seemed a giant as he shook hands with her brother. She was so proud.

"A pleasure, a pleasure. Wait. I'll make some room. It's always so crowded with briefs and papers there's no place for people. Here, I'll clear a space," and he moved some stacks of documents which were lying on the extra chair to perch them somewhat precariously on another pile on the radiator. "So. Sit, sit. Rachel, let me take your coat." He hung their coats on a clothes tree. "I've heard Rachel speak of you and I'm so glad to meet you at last. We're all so busy, all of us, you know, everyone in such a rush to work, make money, we never have time for each other, even family. That's the way in our America. And then, too soon, you're gone." Suddenly he paused, glanced at Rachel to see how she reacted and sat down, his fingertips bridged under his chin. "So -- I was surprised to get your call to meet here in the office. A social visit, it would be better . . . "

"This isn't really a social call, Mr. Lieberman," Leonard said quietly.

"Please, not Mr. Lieberman -- Isaac. You've got some legal business I can help you with -- fine, and I thank my sister, who always looked out for me, always." He took a yellow pad and pencil from the center drawer of his desk.

"I believe the legal business is with you -- Isaac."

"With me?" Isaac looked from Leonard to Rachel and back.

"Yes," Leonard continued. "Specifically, Isaac, with your handling of the insurance money that Rachel collected on Sam's policy."

"I told her -- Leonard -- may I? -- Leonard. I told her. I bought stocks with the money and the stocks went down and the money's lost. I told her." He leaned forward now, his fingers braced on the desk.

"She authorized you to purchase securities?"

"Pardon me?"

"My understanding is she told you to bank it for her. She gave it to you for safekeeping."

"Wait. Wait, Leonard. Are you acting as Rachel's legal representative? What authority do you have to ask me questions?" His voice was shrill when he got excited, just as it was when they were kids, Rachel thought. "He has my authority, Izzy," she said, smiling brightly.

"I told you I was sorry, Rachel. With hindsight, hah, with hindsight it's easy to see you'd have been better off with the money in a bank. But at the moment -- at the moment . . . "

Leonard nodded encouragingly. "Yes?"

"At the moment here was this newly made widow, a man dead who was never able to put together five cents, and he leaves her a thousand dollars for the rest of her life. So I tried. It's my sister, after all."

"Do you mind if I smoke?" Leonard asked.

"Not at all. Smoke, smoke. Here's matches, an ashtray I'll get," and he hustled out of the office. Leonard and Rachel exchanged glances. He smiled reassuringly. When Isaac returned Leonard had filled and lit his pipe. "Izzy -- may I? -- Izzy, you recognize there is a problem here. Your sister gives you a thousand dollars of insurance money for safekeeping, and on your own initiative you speculate with the money on her behalf. Why?"

"To make it grow."

"I think there was more to it than that, Izzy. It may have been only a thousand dollars, but it was all your sister had between her and having to beg from her family. So without her authorization, and in spite of the substantial risks involved, you took it upon yourself to speculate with her money. I have no reason to suspect malfeasance but without some plausible reason from a sophisticated investor I must confess it seems to be imprudent at the very least. As well as actionable."

"Actionable? What -- are you threatening me? Rachel. You hear what this man is saying? You're my sister!" Rachel beamed.

"Under the circumstances, Isaac, we truly feel that the best solution to this problem is for you to make restitution. We know you didn't benefit financially but your reasoning for taking such risks would not bear scrutiny in a courtroom. Now would it?"

Isaac sank back in the chair, his feet not touching the floor. "What kind of restitution? A thousand dollars!?"

"I do believe Rachel is prepared to go to law if you don't agree," Leonard said mildly.

"Rachel!?"

"Yes, Izzy. I will."

Isaac drummed his fingers on the desk. He shook his head from side to side. "You try to do a favor -- for free! OK. I don't agree but let me think about it. For this you had to come down here to my office -- we couldn't talk on the telephone?"

"No, Isaac," Leonard said, moving his pipe stem gently to make his point. "We have thought about it. If Rachel doesn't leave here with a check for one thousand dollars she'll serve you with papers tomorrow morning."

"What -- more threats? Rachel . . . "

"We've wasted our time, Rachel," Leonard said and rose and went to the clothes tree.

Isaac pushed himself up from his swivel chair. "Wait. Wait. A thousand dollars!? It was for her!"

"That's without normal bank interest," Leonard said. "I told Rachel that she should collect interest on that money but she said she'd be happy with the thousand dollars, Sam's policy. I would want the interest, but Rachel, as you know, is a sweet person."

"And I send it to you is no good?"

Rachel looked inquiringly at Leonard, who shook his head.

"That's right, Izzy, we have to have it right now," she said.

"Rachel . . . I'm your brother!" He snatched his checkbook from the drawer, wrote the check and thrust it at Rachel. "May I?" Leonard asked. He took the check from Rachel and examined it. "This seems fine," he said. "I'm so pleased we could put this behind us with no trouble." He returned the check to Rachel, who tucked it into her purse.

Rachel embraced Isaac, kissed him on the cheek; Leonard shook Isaac's hand, took Rachel's arm, and they left. Waiting for the elevator she squeezed Leonard's elbow and because there was no one else around stood on tip toe and kissed him. "You were wonderful," she said. "Sam's money, he should rest in peace."

"Now," Leonard said as the elevator approached their floor, "we perform the second part of our pleasurable morning. I will take you to meet my broker, with whom we'll have lunch. You will invest your thousand dollars in AT&T, as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar, and I will invest a further two thousand dollars in Atwater Kent." The door opened for them.

*

Joel woke with a start. He had had the most extraordinary dream. In the dream he saw his father appear, not as Hamlet's father had with a lantern for a face, but his own father, in war paint, astride a horse, on top of a hill. He beckoned to Joel and moved off. Joel struggled after him through brambles that grabbed at his clothes, but lost him. He came at last to an Indian village amid soft, rolling hills with teepees and a campfire.

Sitting at the fire was an Indian girl with long black hair. Had he seen her before? She looked familiar but he couldn't make out why. He went to sit beside her and she took his hand in hers, her fingers long and cool and supple. His heart fluttered in his chest like a bird. She turned her dark eyes to his and smiled so sweetly that when she let their hands rest in his lap he felt himself burst into flames and melt. He had awakened in the middle of the night to find his pajamas wet at the fly, his breathing heavy, his heart pounding. First he felt panic and then a great lassitude and fell back to a dreamless sleep. His hand fumbled now to touch his pajama pants. They were no longer wet but stiff.

As he lay in his bath he examined his penis, to see if he could understand what seemed to him a profound mystery, disturbing in some way. There was hair that had begun to grow just above it peering tentatively through the skin, isolated small black dots, looking almost like specks of dirt or ink. He soaped himself vigorously with a vague idea that they might disappear. He didn't know if he wanted them gone or not. Soon he found himself caught in the feeling he had had in the night, his heart hammering heavily. Soap bubbles multiplied. An amazing thing happened -- his penis grew in the midst of the lather, lengthened, thickened, even as he scrubbed, now compelled to continue. The memory of the dream returned to him and he stopped soaping, lay back in the tub, his eyes closed to recapture the dream, all five skinny feet of him, his erection rising. His groin felt full, weighted; the Indian girl turned to him softly with her dark eyes and then and then as his back arched and his legs tensed trembling, and he touched the rosy head of his penis, she kissed him full on the lips with a taste of sugar, of milk, of softness like the tub of heated water in which he lay and he had a feeling that he was a new volcano, forming miles under and pushing through the soft earth to explode. He shot up a jet of white seed and another and another, falling in strands onto the soapy water. It was unbearable and wonderful and when it slowed and then stopped he caught his breath, sorry it was over, hoping the maiden, who had faded from him, would return.

His penis receded into the froth, now crisscrossed with the tracings it had left behind, and he laid his head back so that his hair was almost completely under water. Behind his eyes the Indian maiden still held his hand. She wore a chamois tunic and moccasins with intricate beading. He swam in her dark gaze, her hand clasped in his now as he surrendered to her. He would have fallen asleep in the tub except that his mother knocked gently on the door. "Joel?"

"Yes, mama. I've just finished." He climbed out of his bath and dried himself, his penis tender to the touch of the rough towel. He stood on the toilet seat so he could see himself more clearly in the mirror over the sink. As he did he realized suddenly, and with a joy that took his breath away, that he himself had brought her back, that he could bring her back at any time. He finished drying himself, happy in the mystery of his own body. He could do it again but this morning he had to go to a Yipsil meeting.

He was going to make his first speech to the group and he still had time to go over it in his mind once more if he had his breakfast now. He let the water out of the tub, watching the white strands of himself disappear. He scrubbed the tub thoroughly.

He concentrated on the morning. He knew he couldn't sound like Debs or Thomas. They were men and knew a lot. Besides he didn't want to. He wanted to sound like himself. He remembered hearing Norman Thomas speak and the effect it had had on him. That's how he wanted the audience to feel, like when he gave the Gettysburg Address in the Assembly and two girls cried. He put on his bathrobe, went to his room and dressed, regretful again but eager to get on with the day, relinquishing his Indian maiden only because he knew he could reclaim her.

They had breakfast together but neither of them spoke. Rachel smiled into her coffee cup. Joel wondered if he could talk to his mother about his dream and his experience in the bathtub but knew that he could not. He closed his eyes and wished that his father was there. With his father he could have talked about anything. Could he tell Mottel about this? He didn't know if he could!

"Is Doctor Gitomer coming today?" he asked.

Rachel shook her head. "I'm sorry, Joel. I was daydreaming. Yes, he is. We're going to the Jewish Theological Seminary where they have a museum, and when we come back we'll all have supper together. When will your meeting be finished?"

His voice broke as he began to speak. Sometimes it was high and sometimes low even in the same sentence. He seemed to have no control over it but liked it when it was low. "We're meeting at noon, mama. I'll be home by about five." He had another spoonful of Post Toasties and milk. He always sliced a banana into it and put sugar on top. "Mama? Does Leonard -- Doctor Gitomer -- only like to do Jewish things?"

Rachel smiled at him. "Joel. You know that Leonard would love it if you went to cheder so that you could be bar mitzvahed. Right? He'd also like it if you felt a little less Indian and a little more Jewish. Right? And you know that he doesn't like the idea that I let you join the Young People's Socialist League, or the idea of socialism, which he says is against this country. Right? Do you really want to ask him to change? Does Leonard ask you to change? Joel?"

He was sorry he had said it. "No, mama."

"Joel. You're a young man, such a fine young man you're going to be, and you're finding your own way. Right? Your papa, God rest his soul, would want you to find your own way, and so do I, but, Joel, he would want all people to find their own way, not just you, not just him. So Leonard is finding his own way. He's entitled?"

"Yes he is mama. I'm sorry," and he went to her and they hugged each other, but Joel remained uneasy. "Mama, I think Leonard has already found his way. I think that's what I meant."

"Joel, no. We learn new every day, all of us. I can't begin to tell you all I've learned just this year. But look at you so big, so handsome." She smiled up at him in his Yipsil blue shirt and red bandanna. "Your first speech! Do you have it written out?"

"No mama. I didn't write it. I'm going to say it, like papa."

Rachel smiled at him warmly, her head shaking from side to side in the wonderment of him.

*

When Joel had joined the YPSL almost a year before, the initiation ceremony had been full of solemn symbols and he had felt like an Indian lad about to join the company of braves. Mottel had lied and said he was thirteen even though he was far from it, but he looked and sounded it, especially with his knowledge of socialist theory. The assembly hall was packed. The leader stood at the lectern on the dais flanked by the two seniors, the young man on his right, the young woman, blond and rosy, on his left. The leader had himself been a Yipsil and was now twenty-two, which seemed to Joel impressively old and experienced. They wore the blue shirts and the red bandannas of the Yipsils, as did all the young people in the hall -- as did Joel himself, waiting with the other inductees out in the passageway. Two young Yipsils with flags stood ready to lead them in, just like the honor guard in school marching into the auditorium with the colors.

They filed down the center aisle, their flags flying. The room was dark except for the candles on the tables at the front. They stood before the dais, spread out, all ten of them, seven boys and three girls.

"Comrades," the leader said, "You are about to take a most important step. You are about to join hands with your comrades around the world, comrades who believe that socialism is the path that will lead all the people in the world to a time of plenty, a world without war, a world where the fruits of our labors are shared more equally, a world of justice, a world where profit does not rule our lives, a world where we are judged by what we contribute to the welfare of all, all of us comrades together in this journey."

The candles flickered, the ten youths stood straight.

"You are our flower. Yours are the hands that will receive our torch and yours are the hands that will carry it. You are our future and our hope. When you join us you join our struggle and the struggle of millions around the world. With you in the vanguard socialism will triumph!" And from the audience an echoing roar, like a clap of thunder, "Long live socialism." And then from the assembly came the song which Joel had heard before but never with such force or emotion:

"Arise ye prisoners of starvation,
Arise ye wretched of the Earth,
For Justice thunders condemnation,
A better world's in birth . . . "

It was his father on the hill, it was the Way, it was every book he had read, all the poetry he had felt, the tenderness and the strength of his father. It was the sadness of Mottel. It was the cops raiding the meeting. It was the war party that he was part of.

When the ceremony was over they had all dispersed to rooms throughout the building, Joel to a library with more books than there were at school. An older Yipsil with a faint new moustache was examining a shelf of books. Joel walked to him and asked, with a vague wave of his hand, "Where do I start?"

"Where do you start what? Oh, you mean all this. It does seem overwhelming, doesn't it? What have you read, comrade?" He seemed very formal, almost teacherish. He must have been fifteen or sixteen!

Joel had never been addressed as "comrade" and he found it thrilling. "Very little. Some pamphlets and tracts, lots of articles. Some Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll. Some poetry. But -- this . . . how can I . . . ?"

The young man appraised him and smiled encouragingly. "We all begin somewhere. You'll be OK. How old are you?"

Joel gulped, hesitated for a moment before he said the lie, then said, "Thirteen." It was accepted without question.

"What grade are you in?"

"The seventh."

"I'll tell you. What I'm going to suggest may be a little advanced, comrade, but I think you can manage it. Have you read the Communist Manifesto?"

"No," said Joel, "but I know it's by Karl Marx."

"With Engels helping. Come, let's see if we can find it." They looked through the stacks together.

"What's your name, comrade?" Joel asked, taking delight in using the word.

"Eric. And yours?"

"Joel."

"You were just inducted, weren't you?"

"Yes, I was."

Eric had moved to another shelf and said, quite matter of factly, "You've joined life, comrade. Real life. What you'll find is that there is no other. Once you have politics there are only three other things you need: books, music and a woman."

"A woman?" Joel asked, thinking of his mother.

Eric looked at Joel and smiled faintly, "A love life, comrade."

"A love life," Joel repeated wonderingly, and paused a moment. "What kind of music -- opera? I know some."

"Opera's OK. I prefer classical music. The three Bs, of course. Tchaikovsky and Chopin because I'm a romantic and Chopin was a revolutionary, if only a nationalist. But there are so many, Franck, DeFalla, Saint Saens, Debussy. It's endless -- like these books. Do you know classical music at all?"

"No, comrade."

"Well -- we'll have to have a recital for you -- yes? At my house. Ah, here we are. See. The book is so small. So is a stick of dynamite, comrade."

"Can I take it home?"

"Of course. Welcome, Joel," and he put out his hand, which Joel took. "I'll see you," he said, turning to leave.

"Wait, Eric. When? Where?"

"Oh. I'm mostly here on Saturdays but if you'd like to come to a concert at my house on Friday night -- here, I'll write my address for you."

"Thank you comrade -- Eric."

Today, a year later, Joel was mounting that podium, his heart banging his ribs, ready to make his speech, recognizing so many in the hall. He remembered the packed hall where he'd heard Eugene Debs back when he was very small. He had worked out in his head what he felt, thinking of his father, of Mottel, of what they felt and what he felt about them. For some reason, as he stepped before the lectern he remembered racing down the alley with the package for Mikey's father. Now, as he faced his comrades, he regretted fleetingly that he had made no written notes, had nothing that he could lean on, but then he cleared his throat and began, tentatively at first.

"I have been a Yipsil for a year," he started. He was speaking! He could do it! "Most of you have been in the Movement much longer than I have so I can't really bring you some piece of knowledge you don't know or my way of looking at something that you haven't seen. I'm learning all that from you. So far I've learned a tiny thimble of the ocean that there is to learn. So when Comrade Ben asked me to speak I asked myself what it was that I could bring you. I decided I could only bring you my own self -- what it means to me to be your comrade.

"Every person here is my comrade. Sometimes comrades are also friends, but friends, even when they're best friends, are not always comrades. I think what I mean by that is that we have joined each other, even more than brothers and sisters -- comrades." The hall was packed. The blood danced in his veins as he addressed the upturned faces.

"A tribe is a powerful thing of course, a group -- Italians or Russians or Indians or Jews. But Comrades! That is a special thing. We are all of us comrades, wherever we are, whatever we are.

"I think of what Eugene Debs said: 'When I rise it will be not out of my class but with my class.' We understand what Debs meant. It is our way, the way we try to live. We offer ourselves and our leadership to the working class as you offer your comradeship to me. This is what you mean to me. I will do my best to live up to it."

He stopped, overcome by his own emotion, dazed by the thunderous applause. He descended from the podium in a fog. He had been the last speaker, and so it seemed as the audience rose to leave that everyone wanted to touch him, say a word to him, stand beside him. He was exhilarated. And then he saw her coming toward him, the girl from his “Exploitation of the Working Class” study group, Clara, her clear face dimpled, her hair black and long, her eyes shining. It was Clara. His Indian maiden was Clara.

Comrades were crowding around him, his heart banging. Clara had penetrated the group, coming nearer. Suddenly he realized that he didn't want Clara to be his Indian maiden. She was his. She was now part of him. He didn't want to lose her. Clara might look like, might even be the Indian maiden of his dream, but she wasn't his Indian maiden. When she broke through the throng and took his hand in hers he almost swooned. She looked to be almost sixteen. Her Yipsil blouse was bursting with her, with her woman-ness.

"Joel," she said, smiling coyly, her eyes shining, "you were wonderful."

"Thank you, Clara." He leaned close to whisper. "I was scared."

She whispered to him in turn, raising herself on her toes, bracing herself with her left hand on his arm, her breast brushing his chest, her right hand cupped about his ear so that he nearly fainted with the closeness of her lips to his skin. "Meet me in the library in fifteen minutes," and she turned and left.

When he got there the library was empty and he was afraid that he had missed her, but then she entered and hurried to him, wearing low-cut shoes, a Yipsil blouse and red bandanna, a dark navy skirt, her face like an ad in a magazine, all fresh and sparkly. Her eyes crinkled when she smiled. "Joel, I don't have much time. Would you like to work on Sundays?"

"Yes, yes. At what?"

"My father has a glove store, a big capitalist glove store, on Hester Street. On Sundays we put a stand outside and sell from the stand. Crowds you can't believe." She let her hand rest on his arm, pressing it gently. "We have someone selling from that stand but he's leaving. It pays two dollars for the day. You get there at eleven and you set up and sell until about five, and then you bring in the gloves, count the inventory and the money, and leave at about seven. Would you like that?"

"Yes, I would!"

"So, tomorrow, OK? Here's the address. I've got to run now." She smiled, her dark eyes embracing him. "We'll have a chance to know each other." She pressed his fingers with hers. "You're going to be somebody," she said.

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