(1971) The Book of Daniel by EL Doctorow

Author:EL Doctorow [Doctorow, EL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-76295-5
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2010-11-09T14:00:00+00:00

They’re all gone—the friends, the girl who writes for Cosmopolitan, the photographer. Artie Sternlicht is on his back on the mattress with his hands behind his head. “I have no energy,” he says. His voice is soft now. “I’m sick. I can’t get up off my ass.”

Daniel wants to leave but both Artie and his girl insist that he stay for dinner. She is in the cubicle kitchen just inside the front door, where boards lie across a sink-bathtub to make the table, and the icebox is half-sized so that you stoop down to open it, and the blackened two-burner stove has curved legs. The whole apartment is this front alcove converted to a kitchen, a closet bathroom with a water tank and pull chain hanging from the wall, and the bedroom furnished with a mattress, a table, a color TV set and a collage.

“Your sister mentioned you only once,” Artie says. “She said she had a brother who was politically undeveloped. She made it sound like undescended testicles.”

A Japanese paper lantern around a hanging bulb provides the light in the room.

“She’s beautiful,” Baby says from the kitchen. “I really like her. I didn’t figure her to freak out. I mean, y’know, she’s not the kind.”

“I think she was coming here, she was on her way here,” I tell them. “I think she was bringing you material for your collage.”

Baby stands in the doorway. “Save the Isaacsons,” she says. “That poster.”

I nod. Artie sits up and folds his legs. “Oh Christ,” he says. He folds his arms.

“You discussed it with her?”

“Ah shit. I wish I could drink some wine. I wish I could turn on. When do we eat, Baby?”

“I’m making whole-wheat spaghetti.”

“It’s too fucking hot,” Artie says. “This fucking city is like an oven.” He stands up and starts to pace the room. “You want to know what was wrong with the old American Communists? They were into the system. They wore ties. They held down jobs. They put people up for President. They thought politics is something you do at a meeting. When they got busted they called it tyranny. They were Russian tit suckers. Russia! Who’s free in Russia? All the Russians want is steel up everyone’s ass. Where’s the Revolution in Russia?”

He looks at me as if he really expects an answer. He paces. “The American Communist Party set the Left back fifty years. I think they worked for the FBI. That’s the only explanation. They were conspiratorial, They were invented by J. Edgar Hoover. They were his greatest invention.”

“How do you know Susan?”

“Baby, how do we know Susan? I think we met her in Boston when I was up there to rap.”

“That’s when it was,” Baby calls in.

“She was into this thing about your parents,” Sternlicht says.

“Right.”

“Well, man, I mean can I tell it to you straight or are you gonna trip out the minute I open my mouth?”

“Go ahead.”

“Your folks didn’t know shit. The way they handled themselves at their trial was pathetic. I mean they played it by their rules.

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