Harry Turtledove - Return engagement

At the kitchen table, Carl wrestled with arithmetic homework. To him, that was more important than anything the President had to say. Who was to say he didn't have the right attitude, either? Chester lit a cigarette and held out the pack to Rita. She shook her head. He set the pack on the little table by the sofa.

"Things in Virginia haven't gone as well as we wish they would have," Smith said. "If they had, we'd be in Richmond by now. But we have moved down from the Rappahannock to the Rapidan, and we haven't given up. We still hold the initiative."

Chester blew out a plume of smoke. He'd heard officers talk that way on the Roanoke front in the last war. Add things haven't gone as well as we wish and we haven't given up together, and what did you get? The answer was easier to figure out than Carl's arithmetic problems. What you got was simple-a hell of a lot of dead soldiers.

"I'm not claiming any great victories down there," the President continued. "But we've hurt the Confederate States, and we aim to go right on hurting them. I said when we declared war that they might have started this fight, but we were going to finish it. I said it, and I meant it, and I still mean it." The jaunty New York rasp in his voice made him sound all the more determined.

He paused and coughed. "There's something else you need to know about, something I wish I didn't have to tell you. It says a lot about the people we're at war with, and what it says isn't very pretty. You may have heard this before, but it's the truth, and not the garbage Jake Featherston puts out with that label on it. Those Freedom Party maniacs and butchers really are massacring Negroes. There's no doubt about it, and they're doing more of it, and worse, than even the Confederates have ever before.

"We know this is true because we have photographs that prove it. Some were taken by Negroes who escaped or who came upon piles of bodies before they were buried. Others were taken by Confederate murderers who were proud of what they did. I know that seems incredible, but it's the truth, too."

Chester looked over at Rita. She was also looking his way. Almost at the same time, they both shrugged. Not many Negroes lived in Los Angeles. Come to that, not many Negroes lived anywhere in the USA. Dealing with the ones who'd fled Kentucky when it returned to the CSA had stirred enough hard feelings. He might have been listening to a report about a flood in China. It was too bad, certainly, but it didn't affect him much.

The President tried hard to persuade him that it did: "We can't let people who do these terrible things beat us. Who knows where they would stop? Who knows if they would stop anywhere? We must show them that no one in the world will tolerate even for a moment the crimes against humanity they are committing. We have to stop them. We have to, and with your help and God's we will. Thank you, and good night."

"That was the President of the United States, Al Smith," the announcer said, as if anyone could have imagined it was, say, the mayor of St. Paul. "We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming." Music came out of the speaker.

"He's done better," Rita said.

"He sure has," Chester agreed. "It was like he was saying things weren't going so well in Virginia, so he'd give us something else to get all hot and bothered about. Except I don't think very many people will start flabbling about this."

"Why should we?" his wife said. "It's going on in another country-and when was the last time you saw a Negro around here, anyway?"

"I don't know. I was trying to think of that myself while he was talking," Chester said. "I couldn't-not right away, anyhow."

"I think there was a colored woman at the grocery store a few weeks ago," Rita said. "But she wasn't buying much. She looked like she was just passing through, not like she really lived around here."

"Once during the last war, I passed a Negro through our lines," Chester said. "I expect he was one of the blacks who rose up against the Confederates a little later on. Served 'em right, the way they treated Negroes even back then."

His wife nodded. "I suppose so. But when the colored people down there keep on fighting against the government, why would anybody think the government would want to give 'em a kiss?"

"Beats me," Chester said. "The Confederates treat their Negroes like dirt, so the Negroes raise Cain, and that makes the Confederates treat 'em worse. Of course, the Freedom Party would treat 'em bad no matter how they behave-I know that. It's a mess, yeah. But is it really our mess? I don't think so."

Rita nodded again. "That's a better way to put it. It's terrible, like you say, but it isn't really anybody's fault. It's… one of those things that happen."

Carl looked up from his homework. "Can I have a snack?" The President might have been talking about the cost of cauliflower for all the attention he'd paid to the speech.

"How much have you done?" Rita asked-Carl had been known not to pay too much attention to the homework, too.

He held up the sheet of cheap pulp paper-so cheap it was closer to tan than white, with little bits of wood that hadn't quite been pulped embedded here and there-he'd folded to make individual squares for all twelve problems. "More than half. See?"

"Have you done them right?" Chester asked. Carl nodded vigorously. "We'll check," Chester warned. "Arithmetic comes in handy all sorts of places. A builder like me needs it every day. Go on and have your snack-but then finish your work."

"I will, Dad." And, after Chester had inhaled half a dozen chocolate cookies and a glass of milk, he did buckle down. Fortified, Chester thought. His son waved the paper in triumph to show he'd finished.

Rita went over to check it. "This one's wrong… and so is this one."

"They can't be! I did 'em right." Carl stared at the paper as if his answers had mysteriously changed while he wasn't looking.

"Well, you can darn well do 'em over," Rita told him. "And you'd better not get the same answers this time, or you'll be in real trouble."

"I'll try." Carl might have been sentenced to ten years at San Quentin. He erased what he'd done and tried again. When he was done, he pushed the paper across the table to his mother. "There."

She inspected the revised problems. "That's more like it," she said. Carl brightened. But she wasn't going to let him off the hook so soon. "If these answers are right, that means the ones you got before were wrong, doesn't it?"

"Uh-huh," Carl said unwillingly.

"How come you didn't get 'em right the first time?"

"I don't know. I thought I did."

" 'Cause you were goofing around, that's why. Are you going to goof around when your teacher gives you a test?" Rita asked. He shook his head. He knew that question had only one safe answer. His mother continued, "You'd better not. I'm going to be looking for that test paper when you come home with it. If you only get a C, I'll make you sorry. And don't think you can hide it from me if you do bad, either, 'cause that won't work. I'll call up Mrs. Reilly and find out what you got. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, Mommy," Carl said in a very small voice. Telephoning the teacher was a parent's ultimate weapon. Kids had no defense against it this side of running away from home.

"All right, then." Rita seemed satisfied that she'd bombed him into submission. "Do you have any more homework?" He shook his head again. She ruffled his hair. "Then go take a bath and get into your pajamas, why don't you?"

A spark of resistance flared. "Do I hafta?"

She ruthlessly squashed it. "Yes, you have to. Go on. Scoot." Routed, Carl retreated to his bedroom. He came out in pajamas: the garments of surrender.

"Honestly," Rita said after she and Chester had played with him and read to him and finally kissed him good night. "Getting him to do anything is like pulling teeth." She scowled at Chester. "Why are men always like that?"