The Immigrant’s Daughter by Howard Fast Read Free Book Online Page B

votes behind his Republican opponent. She spoke, pleaded, unrolled facts and figures, and drew applause from those who would not vote for her as well as from those who would. It was a catharsis she needed desperately, and in the course of lashing out against a war she hated, as she hated all war, she came to know Tony Moretti. A half-dozen times during the course of the campaign, Moretti turned up to sit and watch her and listen to her speak. He never had a comment. He never spoke of approving or disapproving of anything she said, but he always chatted with Barbara for a few minutes, mostly about the old times and the people he had known in the twenties and the thirties.
    The day after the election, Wednesday evening, Moretti asked Barbara and Boyd to join him for dinner at Gino’s place. Gino was dead these many years, but the place had not changed, defying the freeways that laced the city and the hordes of tourists that had invaded the city during the sixties. It was still an old-fashioned Italian restaurant, with straw-bottomed bent-wood chairs and checked tablecloths, maintained by one family for over seventy-five years — a long, long time in San Francisco. Barbara wondered whether it was as filled with memories for Moretti as it was for her.
    After they had been greeted effusively by Gino’s son, Alfred, escorted to the best table, and there ordered their dinner, Moretti nodded at Barbara and said, “Now we’ll talk about it.”
    â€œWhile I was banging my head against the wall,” Barbara said, “I thought you might tell me to stop, or shift my position and let the bloody side dry up.”
    â€œNo, you had to do it your own way. You made the best race of anyone in the party. I didn’t think there was any way you could win, and neither did Boyd here, but maybe you could have won. I’ve been thinking about that.”
    â€œOh?”
    â€œDid you think you might win?”
    â€œYes, I guess I did.”
    â€œAh—”
    The spaghetti came. Moretti had ordered, and without emphasis he had included a Higate Cabernet Sauvignon 1968, their very best year. Barbara took note of this. It was as if the man knew everyone in San Francisco who was worth knowing, and perhaps he did, and their ways as well.
    They finished the spaghetti, and Barbara asked him what she had done wrong.
    â€œI don’t like the question,” Boyd said. “You knew who she was. I told her she was being set up.”
    â€œI wasn’t set up!” Barbara exclaimed. “And if you don’t mind, this is between Mr. Moretti and myself. I want to know.”
    â€œI don’t like the question so much either,” Moretti said, “because it wasn’t what you did wrong. You’re a political person, Barbara, but you’re not a politician. What do I mean by that? First, let me say something about a political person. I remember you when you were a young woman. I can remember once, right here at Gino’s place, must have been just before the end of the war and you had been writing for the Chronicle in the Far East and you were having dinner here with your father, and I came over to wish him the best, and he introduced us.”
    Barbara knitted her brows and closed her eyes, and then, “Oh, yes. Of course. But your hair was black—”
    â€œAnd I weighed sixty pounds less. Well, thirty years is a long time. But I recalled that, Barbara, because there was a beautiful young woman, richly endowed, and like fifty million other young women, you could have settled for a family, for kids, or for a job or a career — the way this new women’s movement puts it.”
    â€œI had a family and a son,” Barbara reminded him.
    â€œYes, but you know what I mean. You started way back with the longshore strike, when you went into the soup kitchen, and then you ran your car right into Bloody Thursday and set up a first-aid station. Guilt, I suppose. You know, three