Gone to Soldiers by Marge Piercy Read Free Book Online Page A

formerly. It was good that people generally knew little about the sexual habits of their politicians.
    â€œOh, Jack. That boy is a dundering bore,” Karen Sue drawled, giving the judgment at least two diphthongs. Abra wondered if her disillusionment were similarly based, but she had no intention of discussing her sexual life with Karen Sue. Abra believed in being a complete gentleman.
    â€œSo, have you begun to work for the great man yet?” Djika asked, leaning across Karen Sue.
    â€œTomorrow’s the first of the month, and that’s when Professor Kahan is starting me.”
    â€œSeems absurd,” Djika said sourly, perhaps jealous of the appointment. “You start the first of December and then you’ll break off for vacation. Why not wait till the first of January?”
    â€œPerhaps her professor doesn’t take a little old vacation,” Karen Sue said. “Just works his assistants to death fifty-two weeks in the year.”
    â€œI’d just as soon get on with learning the job,” Abra said. “I’m curious as hell.” She had been introduced to Oscar Kahan at a conference on Fascism where he had spoken, eloquently she had thought, on the tension between the petty bourgeois base of German fascism and the growing amity between the Nazi party and the German industrial elite. Her own advisor, Professor Blumenthal, was a German refugee from the Frankfurt School. Kahan had been one of the few American-born speakers at the conference to present anything sophisticated. She had been extremely pleased when Blumenthal had recommended her to Kahan.
    â€œIs he married, honey child?” Karen Sue asked. It was always her first question.
    â€œI never get involved with anyone in my field. I have an exogamous personality.” She had got to use her line after all.
    â€œThen what do you talk about?” Djika asked scornfully. For the last two years, she had been enjoying an unhappy but fulfilling affair with a married professor, Stanley Beaupere. Although Abra was chary with details, Djika pressed upon both of them the exact words of Stanley Beaupere, demanding full intellectual attention and analysis. As his marriage unraveled, its seamier side was picked stitch by stitch for Djika’s audience of two.
    Djika was a refugee from Danzig, although it was hard to think of her as such. While Djika viewed herself as living almost in squalor, she actually lived more poshly than Abra, if less poshly than Karen Sue. Djika combined fervent Catholicism and fervent socialism, the former shared, the latter unshared with her family.
    Djika was bright, and Abra valued her for that hard European-educated intelligence that seemed at once more pointed and broader-based than Abra was used to among her colleagues; she also found it a great convenience to be friendly with the only other woman in her department. At least she had someone to slip off to the ladies’ room with. She had met Karen Sue at political parties, gradually realizing that she was the hostess. Not only did Karen Sue seem to grasp everything about clothes, designer, cut and fabric, but she was the only woman Abra knew who read The Wall Street Journal every morning, speculated in stocks and bonds and seemed to understand what she was doing. The contrast between Karen Sue’s fluffy belle airs and her financial acumen amused Abra, who admired expertise per se. She had even enjoyed listening to John talk about lobstering, until she had asked all the more interesting questions.
    She thought several times of telling Karen Sue and Djika about her proposal, but each time she did not speak. Why? She did not care to introduce the subject of Hank’s anti-Semitism. She really had to get along with Djika, and she had her suspicions about Djika’s attitudes. She also did not feel as if it would be in good taste to mock Hank, who after all had meant to do her an honor, however she had perceived the proposal. On