Savage Coast by Muriel Rukeyser Read Free Book Online Page B

the printer into town to find out how things were, and he’s going to report to all of us.”
    Bread came, the boy holding the long slender loaf; and they sat eating, passing the wine-cup between the women, passing the bottle of strong bitter wine. It rinsed away the heat and irritation of the train and stop and uncertainty.
    They finished. Looked at each other for confirmation.
    â€œNow shall we go?” Helen turned to Toni. “We must find out something.”
    The father put his hand on hers. “Come back with news,” he said. “Maybe the train will continue, after all.”
    Helen went down the steep steps. The Hungarian team was on the platforms, still waiting for the printer. He could be seen in the distance, running down the street along the platform. As they watched him come, the manager crossed to Helen. “You should find the other Americans,” he advised. “There’s a lawyer, with glasses, who’s looking for you. I told him you were on the train.”
    The printer was close now. He threw his arm up before him like an exhausted marathon hero. He brought news. Helen thought, what a child I am now! And then, as his hand went up, this is it, this the clue!
    The printer could not wait to reach them. He called out, in a hoarse, important voice:
    â€œGeneral Strike!” 70

               CHAPTER THREE
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  At the frontier getting down, at railhead drinking hot tea waiting for pack-mules, at the box with three levers watching the swallows . . . The fatty smell of drying clothes, smell of cordite in a wood, and the new moon seen along the barrel of a gun.
    â€”W.H. Auden 71
    G ENERAL STRIKE .
    The words at the end of a poem, the slogan shouted, the headline for gray industrial scenes, waterfront blue-gray, the black even in the air over mines, the dark sidewalks before factories, covered with lines of gray parading people. Words printed, painted out, broadcast in handbills. Not like this.
    She looked about the platform.
    There, the young pregnant blonde turned, and began her slow walk toward the head of the train, weighted, undisturbed; the Hungarians began to talk at top speed in their own language, a very beautiful one with heavy eyebrows, the grasping printer, the manager, Toni staring, and the anonymous rest; the boys called out from the yellow trees; the pavement was fairground, distinguished and made serious only by the guards near each door of the train. The near guard came closer to the team, and nodded yes in answer to their question.
    â€œ Huelga General ,” he substantiated.
    And the scene was intensely foreign, it was a new world indeed, with these words true.
    The train, the frontier.
    Now the train was held, as surely as if the tracks before and behind had been blown up, as one rumor said; as surely as if the engineer had refused ever to move again, as Peapack must be thinking; or as if the searching party had found, not photographs, but spy incriminations; more surely.
    The anonymous passengers!
    â€œWhat will you do?” Helen asked Toni.
    â€œThe team must decide,” he told her. The printer was talking to the manager, repeating the whole story of what the mayor had told him, had told the American who had been outraged, it seemed, at the mention of the words.
    What American?
    â€œNot the lawyer,” the manager said. “Better find him. He speaks seven languages, too.”
    â€œI’ll tell the family,” Helen suggested to Toni, thinking of the grandmother.
    GENERAL STRIKE .
    They were already wrapping the rest of the sausage in the newspaper, pulling down the great wicker hamper again, preparing to move. The news had come through.
    â€œWhere will you go?” she asked them.
    â€œWe’ll find places in the town,” the father said. “Come with us, it won’t be good to sleep on the train.” He