I Married a Communist Read Online Free PDF

really six six? What does Nathan say? Does he wear a size sixteen shoe? Some people say that's just publicity."
    "And his skin is as pockmarked as it looks in the pictures?"
    "What does Nathan say about the daughter? What kind of name is Sylphid?" asked Mrs. Schessel, whose husband was a chiropodist, like my father.
    "That's her real name?" asked Mrs. Svirsky.
    "It's not Jewish," said Mrs. Kaufman. "'Sylvia' is Jewish. I think it's French."
    "But the father wasn't French," said Mrs. Schessel. "The father is Carlton Pennington. She acted with him in all those films. She eloped with him in that movie. Where he was the older baron."
    "Is that the one where she wore the hat?"
    "Nobody in the world," said Mrs. Unterberg, "looks like that woman in a hat. Put Eve Frame in a snug little beret, in a small floral dinner hat, in a crocheted straw baby doll, in a veiled big black cartwheel—put her in
anything,
put her in a Tyrolean brown felt with a feather, put her in a white jersey turban, put her in a fur-lined parka
hood,
and the woman is gorgeous, regardless."
    "In one picture she wore—I'll never forget it," said Mrs. Svirsky, "—a gold-embroidered white evening suit with a white ermine muff. I never saw such elegance in my life. There was a play—which was it? We went to see it together, girls. She wore a burgundy wool dress, full at the bodice and the skirt, and the most enchanting scrollwork embroidery—"
    "Yes! And that matching veiled hat. Tall burgundy felt," said Mrs. Unterberg, "with a crushed veil."
    "Remember her in ruffles in whatever that other play was?" said Mrs. Svirsky. "No one wears ruffles the way she does. White
double
ruffles on a black cocktail dress!"
    "But the name
Sylphid,
" asked Mrs. Schessel yet again. "Sylphid comes from
what?
"
    "Nathan knows. Ask Nathan," Mrs. Svirsky said. "Is Nathan here?"
    "He's doing his homework," my mother said.
    "Ask him. What kind of name is Sylphid?"
    "I'll ask him later," said my mother.
    But she knew enough not to—even though secretly, ever since I had entered the enchanted circle, I was bursting to talk about all of it to everyone. What do they wear? What do they eat? What do they say
while
they eat? What is it
like
there? It is spectacular.

    The Tuesday that I first met Ira, out in front of Mr. Ringold's house, was Tuesday, October 12, 1948. Had the World Series not just ended on Monday, I might, timorously, out of deference to my teacher's privacy, have speeded on by the house where he was taking down the screens with his brother and, without even waving or shouting hello, turned left at the corner onto Osborne Terrace. As it happened, however, the day before I had listened to the Indians beat the old Boston Braves in the final game of the Series from the floor of Mr. Ringold's office. He had brought a radio with him that morning, and after school those whose families didn't yet own a television set—the vast majority of us—were invited to spill directly out of his eighth-period English class and down the hall to crowd into the English department chairman's little office to hear the game, which was already under way at Braves Field.
    Courtesy, then, necessitated that I slow way, way down and call out to him, "Mr. Ringold—thanks for yesterday." Courtesy necessitated that I nod and smile at the giant in his yard. And—with a dry mouth, stiffly—stop and introduce myself. And respond a little daffily when he startled me by saying, "How ya' doin', buddy," by replying that on the afternoon he'd appeared at Auditorium, I'd been one of the boys who had booed Stephen A. Douglas when he announced into Lincoln's face, "I am opposed to negro citizenship in any and every form. [Boo.] I believe this government was made on a white basis. [Boo.] I believe it was made for white men [Boo], for the benefit of white men [Boo], and their posterity for ever. [Boo.] I am in favor of confining citizenship to white men ... instead of conferring it