Establishment by Howard Fast Read Free Book Online Page A

briefcase filled with money that might or might not change the destiny of some six hundred thousand Jews in Palestine. It had already changed her own destiny. She felt a strange, ominous certainty that if her husband walked out of the house with the briefcase in his hand, she would never see him again.
    But she also was quite aware that she had such feelings in the past about people she loved, and that nothing had ever come of her intimations of doom. It was a question of mood and misery. Her mood was bleak, but the misery began to lighten. She was not unused to being honest with herself and facing and accepting her own feelings, no matter how deplorable they were. She had been alone in the past, and she could face the prospect of being alone again without any great qualms. If she had to choose between having a husband who was in a constant state of depression and frustration and having no husband at all, at least for a time, the latter was preferable. Her days were full. She was a mother, a housekeeper, a writer, and the president of a very large and complex charitable foundation. She would not retreat into the hurt of rejection; she had watched and sympathized with the utter terror and hopelessness of women who were rejected, and she had sworn to herself that she would never go that way; in any case, she felt that she understood her husband sufficiently to realize that he was not rejecting her. And in the very back of her mind, deep down where it was pretending to hide from her consciousness, was a tiny flutter of pleasant excitement at the prospect of being in command of her own household and her own time, of not having to plan ways and devices to cope with a morose man who agonized and apologized for not being able to have an erection.
    However he conceived of his manhood, it had dried up in the little Victorian house and in the profitless garage. Staring at the bulging briefcase of money, Barbara asked herself, Have I ever faced what he is? What he truly is? Or have I been unwilling to accept the possibility that a man as gentle and kind and loving as Bernie Cohen, who spent ten years as a soldier, can find his happiness no other way? Or have I been conditioned to believe that a Jew cannot be a professional killer?
    Once the phrase had formed in her mind, she was overcome with guilt and remorse. No , she told herself angrily, if I can’t understand what a sensitive Jew feels about what has gone on in Europe during the past ten years, then I am a total clod . She was overcome with sadness and tears welled into her eyes, then she told herself even more angrily that this was abject self-pity and she would have no part of it.
    â€œI am a mature, healthy woman,” she said. “I am a successful writer. I have had two decently successful books, and I am halfway through a third. I have family and friends and a beautiful son with a voracious appetite, and I have a fascinating husband who is a little crazy. I will not feel sorry for myself. I will do what I have to do and he will do what he has to do. Otherwise this marriage is not worth a damn.”
    She felt much better after that declaration to herself, and the sound of Sam yelling told her that he had awakened from his nap. By the time she arrived in the nursery, Sam was gurgling with laughter and bouncing in his crib. “You should thank God,” she said as she picked him up, “that your mother is descended from a line of oversized fishermen and gold miners. You get heavier and heavier. You’re also wet and smelly.”
    The doorbell rang just as she finished diapering Sam. She put him in his playpen, went downstairs, and opened the door.
    A rather stout, red-faced man in a dark suit stood there. He wore a sweater under his suit jacket, and his bulbous nose was heavily veined.
    â€œAre you Mrs. Bernie Cohen?” he asked.
    â€œYes?”
    â€œBarbara Cohen, maiden name of Barbara Lavette, residing here?”
    â€œYes. What do you