The Golden Willow by Harry Bernstein Read Free Book Online Page A

obsolete, and he was too old to learn a new one; as a result, he had been out of work for a number of years. To make matters worse, the IWW had fallen into decline and scarcely existed anymore, and Peo sat home most of the time smoking cigarettes. But he had lost none of his belief in the organization, and he blamed the Communist Party for its downfall. They had stolen the IWW's membership,he claimed, and helped the capitalists destroy their most potent enemy.
    It was a charge that Rose violently disputed, and it came up at one of the family gatherings under the grape arbor, with the two shouting at each other. Ruby and I had been helpless to prevent the subject of politics coming up, as it did so often among all people with the threat of war hanging over us and the country divided over our entry into it.
    It had begun with that, and there seemed to be general agreement that Hitler had to be stopped somehow; then Rose began to praise the Soviet Union for what it was doing to battle the Nazi armies, and this brought Sidney into the discussion, saying bitterly that if the Communists hadn't signed their infamous pact with Hitler before the war started there might not have been any war, and Rose telling him angrily he didn't know what the hell he was talking about. Now it was starting, and Ruby and I were casting worried looks at each other. Then Peo came out of his silence to say, “Maybe they got what they had coming to them.”
    Rose flashed an infuriated look at him. “Is that so?” she said. “Is that the official word of the IWW—assuming that organization is still alive?”
    Peo's look at her was equally murderous. “If it isn't,” he flashed back, “it's because you Commies killed it.”
    He'd used the word
Commies
, which was the worst kind of insult. So they were at it again, and there was no stopping them. They went at it hammer and tongs, only this time it became more than words, and when Rose accused the IWW of being a bunch of stupid bums who couldn't read or write, Peo took the piece of cherry pie Rose had given him before and threw it into her face. There was a violent uproar, with Jim holding Rose back from attacking Peo, andAunt Lily holding Peo back, and everybody shouting, and the children looking on in fright, and Ruby and me helpless.
    It wasn't long after that day that our neighbor Mrs. Birnbaum came bursting unceremoniously into our house shouting at the top of her voice, “The Japs have bombed Pearl Harbor!”
    Ruby and I looked at each other. The same thought was in our minds: I would be drafted. I was physically fit. It wouldn't be long before even married men with children would be drafted, and I would be no exception. Soon enough all this took place, and to make matters still worse, word came that Ruby's brother, Morris, who had been drafted despite his mental condition, had been wounded in a battle on Saipan.
    When we received the news about Morris, Ruby nearly collapsed. This was the second time I had seen her like that; the first time had been when her mother died suddenly of a heart attack four years earlier. Only this time it was worse because of the shadow that had been hanging over us and the fact that I myself might be called into the army.
    I tried to reassure her. “I doubt very much if I'll be called,” I said. “They rarely take married men with children.”
    But I was wrong. One day a letter beginning “Greetings” came, summoning me to Grand Central Station for my physical examination. I had to be there at eight in the morning. It took an hour to get there, so I was up at six, and Ruby was up with me, and she was trying to hide the way she was feeling. I had been told that if you passed the exam you were inducted immediately into one of the military forces. You did not go home. So this could be the last time I saw her and the children. It was not with pleasant feelings that I ate the breakfast Ruby made for me, and I'm sure she was repressing tears. This could be the first