Amerika (7 page)

“Gentlemen,” he began, speaking in Russian. “Comrades. We can all be proud. The men in this room have accomplished a peaceful occupation of a magnitude unprecedented in the history of the world. But for our efforts, what might have happened? Nuclear holocaust? Internal rebellion? We have bought time.”

His guests glanced around uncertainly, sure he had not summoned them so urgently because he wanted to praise them.

As if reading their thoughts, Petya frowned and continued. “However, much remains to be done. There is continued unrest in the Soviet Union. Moreover, there are problems here in America. Alaska has never been pacified and it is costing us ten divisions, plus an unacceptable amount of air power, just to control it. There are lesser pockets of resistance in the Rockies and West Virginia.

“You know the details; I will not belabor them. The centra! committee met yesterday in Moscow, There was, I am told, much anger and impatience. The co
mmi
ttee demands that America be neutralized immediately.”

The men around the table were confused; America
was
neutralized, was it not? It was Andrei, whose intimacy with Samanov was well known, who dared speak.

“Sir. America is a country without arms or an army. There is little or no communication between areas. The people are self-occupied and dispirited. What more is wanted?”

A smile played on Petya’s lips. “Our brothers in the Kremlin fear ghosts—the ghosts of American power and independence. At yesterday’s meeting a most serious antighost measure was discussed. A certain faction proposes to explode low-yield nuclear devices upon one or more
Am
erican cities, as a demonstration of our resolve.”

“Which cities, Comrade General?” one KGB officer asked.

“None in Virginia, I trust,” Samanov said dryly. “Gentlemen, the point is that we are under great pressure. Our timetables must be accelerated. The Kremlin fears that Americans may realize they have options. Not military options, of course, but they could organize and refuse to cooperate. They could unite in spirit. They could provoke us to take actions none of us wants. We must move quickly. I have a plan, the only one I believe will avert disaster. The United States of

America must cease to exist. It must be reformed, broken up into separate countries, based upon the administrative areas you now direct. Only such a demonstration of American helplessness, I am convinced, will prevent the extreme elements in the Kremlin from proceeding with their nuclear demonstration.”

There was a long, startled silence. The KGB officers, men not easily shocked, exchanged astonished glances. Again, it was Andrei who spoke. “General, we here today seem to be in a most difficult position. We must negotiate some sort of balance between those in the Kremlin who want this nation utterly prostrate, and the Americans themselves, who wish to cling to some semblance of dignity and independence.”

“Well put, Andrei,” Samanov said.

“Thank you, General, but it is only a pretty phrase. To reconcile those objectives, we need a plan that all concerned can live with.”

“And that,” said Samanov, without missing a beat, “is precisely what we have. The specific mechanism for dismantling the United States will be what we are calling the Third Continental Congress. The whole idea will be to
persuade
Americans that they are participating in the process, not that they are being forced. This will require tact and subtlety. We must do in a few months what took the Romans generations—-we must develop an indigenous ruling class, Americans who look to us for leadership yet have the trust of their fellow citizens.”

Petya lowered his head and spoke now in a different tone. “Too often, the world has viewed us Russians as a rude, uncultured people. It is a lie! We are the nation of Tolstoi, of Chekhov, of Pushkin, of Tchaikovsky. We are a great and sensitive people. The eyes of the world are upon us, and it is our great and historic responsibility to make this occupation a humane one.”

Andrei Denisov had heard this speech, or others like it, often enough to follow along by rote. But he wasn’t, listening. He was already thinking how Petya’s plan might be implemented in his home territory,

Amanda took a seat at the back of the darkened, nearly empty auditorium just as her daughter began to dance.

Jackie seemed buoyed up by the recorded music as she gyrated masterfully across the stage alone. She’d chosen a piece by Aaron Copland for this audition— “Fanfare for the Common Man,” a raucous tone poem that was kinetic, vibrant, redolent of A
m
erican myth. It called for movements that were expansive, loose-limbed, muscular, for strutting postures that might be feminine but could never be finicky. In her stark white leotard and with a single red ribbon holding back her hair, Jackie mimed a physical wisdom beyond her years. She was part dervish, part temptress. She was riveting.

When Jackie had stepped onto the stage, Amanda’s face had been unconsciously composed into the mixture of interest and support that mothers have always worn when their children performed, recited, or played a sport. But by the time Jackie turned and flipped into the handstand she’d worked so long to perfect, Amanda’s mouth had dropped slightly open, her eyes just a bit wider with the awe that anyone, parent or not, feels at a great performance. She had almost forgotten that Jackie was her daughter in those last uplifting moments of movement; she was transfixed simply by the technical expertise and deep emotion that a performer was conveying to an audience.

The music stopped, and as the other contestants broke into unrestrained, even enthusiastic applause, Jackie was abruptly an anxious teenager again—thrilled with her dance, yet eager for approval. Soon all eyes were on the judges, three women with clipboards, staff members of the all-powerful Area Cultural Committee in Chicago. They conferred, huddled over their note pads, until finally one of them rose, a thin, plain, intense woman in a dark suit.

“The committee would like to thank all of you. Dance is such a joyous expression, with a long tradition. As we have traveled the last three weeks to these area tryouts throughout the Central Administrative Area, it has been very gratifying to see so much interest in the return to traditional dance, with its grace and discipline, after the undisciplined and unseemly contortions of recent years. Thank you again. Mrs. Knox will let you know the results.”

Amanda saw Jackie’s face fall. The woman’s words were an unmistakable slap at the modern dance that Jackie loved—and had just performed—and a defense of the classical ballet that was officially favored by the Russians, in America as well as in their own country.

Amanda stood up, crestfallen. The judges stood in front of the stage, saying their goodbyes. Amanda gathered her courage and walked slowly down the aisle. She stood there a moment until one of the judges noticed her and smiled stiffly.

“Yes?”

“I’m Amanda Bradford,” she said, holding back her anger. And that was not easily done. Too much had happened that day. The child in her yard, the news about Devin, and now this woman’s cruel rejection of Jackie.

“Jacqueline’s mother,” the teacher, Mrs. Knox, prompted.

“Yes,” the judge said. “And you’re concerned that my comments were directed at your daughter.”

“I’m concerned about the fairness of the judging process,” Amanda said tersely.

“There’s a lot more to these competitions than being a potentially good dancer, Mrs. Bradford.”

“My daughter was wonderful. How can you possibly not give her a chance?”

“We’re looking for the kind of dancer who is able to become part of a corps—one of a group expressing the kind of spirit and attitude we’d like to see in our young people.” The woman’s face was a frozen mask; Amanda realized that she could never penetrate her wall of ideology.

Moments later, in the car, Amanda embraced her weeping daughter. “Oh honey, it makes me so damn mad. I could kill.”

Jacqueline stopped crying, gaining control. “Could you really, Mother?” The question hung between them as they drove away.

Finally, in late afternoon, the group of Fort Davis prisoners reached the courtroom. It was a small, drab box with walls painted a hospital green and the sour smell of industrial soap in the air. The chamber was adorned only by the US-UN-USSR flag above the judge’s bench. Devin waited his turn before the magistrate, fighting the rising panic in him.

“83915,” the judge droned, without looking up.

“83915, sir,” Devin parroted back.

“Devin William Milford, you are assigned to live in the town of Milford, Nebraska, and not to travel more
than twenty-five miles from there for any reason.” The judge paused a moment, as though trying to remember something. “You’re Devin Milford?” he asked, for the first time looking directly at the man before him.

“Yes, sir.”

The judge seemed undecided, as if he wanted to say something, to establish human contact. The hesitation passed. He met Devin’s eyes for a moment, and Devin looked away. At once, the judge resumed his businesslike tone. “You will reside at the home of your father, William Bradley Milford. You will report without fail to the designated authorities once each week. If you violate your parole, you will be returned to confinement. Do you understand?”

“Yessir.”

“Next case,” the judge intoned.

“Sir.” Devin felt the bailiff grasp his arm, but he stood firm. “My children, I have to see them. I—”

“You have your instructions,” the judge snapped, cutting him off. “Bailiff.”

Devin turned and walked to the back of the courtroom. The guard at the door looked at him and smiled. “Well, how’s it feel to be a free man?”

Andrei was back in his Chicago office by late afternoon. Still disturbed by the meeting with Petya, he sought diversion by watching the films Mikel had assembled of Devin Milford’s doomed campaign for president. Milford, Andrei acknowledged, had been a magnetic figure; there was power and passion in him, a brutal candor, and a tide of restless energy. Yet there was also a quality of injured innocence in Devin that was peculiarly American. Andrei recognized that innocence as both his strength and his weakness.

On the monitor, Devin Milford delivered his campaign speech: “Since the takeover by the Soviet Union and the shift by which the United Nations has become its surrogate, we have remained concerned with our own individual, selfish interests, ignoring that we are one people, interdependent.

“What we thought was impossible has happened,” Milford continued on the TV screen. “We have been subjugated by a foreign power. And if we are honest, we cannot blame our defeat on the EMP or the original surrender. We must blame it on the condition of our society before those things happened. On our loss of purpose, our lack of vision, our lack of faith in ourselves and—”

The door opened and a shaft of light cut across the screen. Kimberly was ushered in by Mikel,

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Devin Milford. He tried to run for president once.” “He’s very attractive.”

“He should have been shot,” Mikel said.

“He was released today after five years in a prison camp.”

Kimberly wrinkled her nose. “I guess he’s not so attractive anymore.” Andrei looked at her, a twinkle in his eye, and said, “A lesson to us all.”

Ali
three of them were drawn back to the image on the screen. After a moment Kimberly said, “I don’t remember seeing him before.”

“He was denied access to the media. He traveled across the east making this speech and gaining support. When he started to become a threat, we removed him from the race.” He switched off the tape.

“Why are you watching this now?” she asked.

“He’s the closest thing to a true leader your country
has produced during the Transition. I need to understand, and prevent, such phenomena.”

“But you have all the power, all the weapons.”

“It is a clich6, Kimberly, but true, that ideas are more powerful than guns. Most people do not understand that, or believe it, but Milford did. A French philosopher once noted that courage is the only emotion that is more contagious than fear. This man has, or had, five years ago, the kind of courage that has toppled more secure empires than ours. So I am interested in the nature of Milford’s appeal and whether five years of the reeducation process has had the desired effect upon him.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t just kill him, if he was such a threat.”

Andrei’s face clouded and by reflex he cast a hard glance at Mikel. “Killing is rather barbaric and ultimately counterproductive. ”

“As counterproductive,” put in Mikel, “as indulgence sometimes is.”

“Mikel,” said Andrei, “didn’t you have some correspondence to attend to?”

Scowling, the aide left the office, and Kimberly nervously lit a cigarette.

“What is it, darling?” asked Andrei, seeing the trouble in her face. “I thought you had rehearsal this afternoon on your new play.”

“I did. It’s about Robert Shelter. The man who wrote my play. Someone arrested him. I know you’re too busy to check on everything that happens, but—” Andrei interrupted. “I ordered it.”

Kimberly was shocked. “Why? How could you?” “The outlaw theaters are getting out of hand. I have been entirely too lax. They are proliferating and as they ridicule the government—they are getting dangerous.”