Short Fiction by Mack Reynolds (ready to read books .TXT) 📕

ten, his not quite ruffled hair, his worried eyes behind their rimless lenses, darkish tinted for the Peruvian sun. She evidently gave him up as not worth the effort and turned to the fright behind the counter.

“I came to pick up my tickets.”

“Oh, yes, Miss.⁠ ⁠…”

“Moore.”

The fright fiddled with the papers on an untidy heap before her. “Oh, yes. Miss Charity Moore.”

“Charity?” Hank said.

She turned to him. “Do you mind? I have two sisters named Honor and Hope. My people were the Seventh Day Adventists. It wasn’t my fault.” Her voice was pleasant⁠—but nature had granted that; it wasn’t particularly friendly⁠—through her own inclinations.

Hank cleared his throat and went back to his forms. The visa questionnaire was in both Russian and English. The first line wanted, Surname, first name and patronymic.

To get the conversation going again, Hank said, “What does patronymic mean?”

Charity Moore looked up from her own business and said, less antagonism in her voice, “That’s the name you inherited from your father.”

“Of course, thanks.” He went back to his forms. Under what type of work do you do, Hank wrote, Capitalist in a small sort of way. Auto Agency owner.

He took the forms back to the counter with his passport. Charity Moore was putting her tickets, suitcase labels and a sheaf of tour instructions into her pocketbook.

Hank said, “Look, we’re going to be on a tour together, what do you say to a drink?”

She considered that, prettily, “Well⁠ ⁠… well, of course. Why not?”

Hank said to the fright, “There wouldn’t be a nice bar around would there?”

“Down the street three blocks and to your left is Dirty Dick’s.” She added scornfully, “All the tourists go there.”

“Then we shouldn’t make an exception,” Hank said. “Miss Moore, my arm.”

On the way over she said, “Are you excited about going to the Soviet Union?”

“I wouldn’t say excited. Curious, though.”

“You don’t sound very sympathetic to them.”

“To Russia?” Hank said. “Why should I be? Personally, I believe in democracy.”

“So do I,” she said, her voice clipped. “I think we ought to try it some day.”

“Come again?”

“So far as I can see, we pay lip service to democracy, that’s about all.”

Hank grinned inwardly. He’d already figured that during this tour he’d be thrown into contact with characters running in shade from gentle pink to flaming red. His position demanded that he remain inconspicuous, as average an American tourist as possible. Flaring political arguments weren’t going to help this, but, on the other hand to avoid them entirely would be apt to make him more conspicuous than ever.

“How do you mean?” he said now.

“We have two political parties in our country without an iota of difference between them. Every four years they present candidates and give us a choice. What difference does it make which one of the two we choose if they both stand for the same thing? This is democracy?”

Hank said mildly, “Well, it’s better than sticking up just one candidate and saying, which one of this one do you choose? Look, let’s steer clear of politics and religion, eh? Otherwise this’ll never turn out to be a beautiful friendship.”

Charity Moore’s face portrayed resignation.

Hank said, “I’m Hank, what do they call you besides Charity?”

“Everybody but my parents call me Chair. You spell it C-H-A-R but pronounce it like Chair, like you sit in.”

“That’s better,” Hank said. “Let’s see. There it is, Dirty Dick’s. Crummy looking joint. You want to go in?”

“Yes,” Char said. “I’ve read about it. An old coaching house. One of the oldest pubs in London. Dickens wrote a poem about it.”

The pub’s bar extended along the right wall, as they entered. To the left was a sandwich counter with a dozen or so stools. It was too early to eat, they stood at the ancient bar and Hank said to her, “Ale?” and when she nodded, to the bartender, “Two Worthingtons.”

While they were being drawn, Hank turned back to the girl, noticing all over again how impossibly pretty she was. It was disconcerting. He said, “How come Russia? You’d look more in place on a beach in Biarritz or the Lido.”

Char said, “Ever since I was about ten years of age I’ve been reading about the Russian people starving to death and having to work six months before making enough money to buy a pair of shoes. So I’ve decided to see how starving, barefooted people managed to build the largest industrial nation in the world.”

“Here we go again,” Hank said, taking up his glass. He toasted her silently before saying, “The United States is still the largest single industrial nation in the world.”

“Perhaps as late as 1965, but not today,” she said definitely.

“Russia, plus the satellites and China has a gross national product greater than the free world’s but no single nation produces more than the United States. What are you laughing at?”

“I love the way the West plasters itself so nicely with high flown labels. The free world. Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Pakistan, South Africa⁠—just what is your definition of free?”

Hank had her placed now. A college radical. One of the tens of thousands who discover, usually somewhere along in the sophomore year, that all is not perfect in the land of their birth and begin looking around for answers. Ten to one she wasn’t a Commie and would probably never become one⁠—but meanwhile she got a certain amount of kicks trying to upset ideological applecarts.

For the sake of staying in character, Hank said mildly, “Look here, are you a Communist?”

She banged her glass down on the bar with enough force that the bartender looked over worriedly. “Did it ever occur to you that even though the Soviet Union might be wrong⁠—if it is wrong⁠—that doesn’t mean that the United States is right? You remind me of that⁠ ⁠… that politician, whatever his name was, when I was a girl. Anybody who disagreed with him was automatically a Communist.”

“McCarthy,” Hank said. “I’m sorry, so you’re not a Communist.”

She took up her glass again, still in a huff. “I didn’t say I wasn’t.