Long Voyage Back Read Online Free PDF Page B

group called SMN, Stop the Madness Now, an eclectic collection of feminists, political radicals, pacifists, scientists, doctors and even a few former high-ranking military officers, all of whom agreed on only one issue: the necessity of taking drastic actions to reverse the momentum towards nuclear war. She'd begun as a volunteer, in effect an unpaid secretary, but a year ago had been put on the part-time staff as a fundraiser and occasional speechwriter and editor for one of the retired admirals. But her promotion had, in the last six months, only made her increasingly depressed. The admiral spoke to the same audiences; the fundraising events raised the same piddly amounts of money - their yearly total budget would barely finance a single jet fighter; their letters got published in the Washington Post and New Toth Times and sank out of sight like pebbles in the sea; the marches got marched - and forgotten; and the great masses of Americans, vaguely worried about war, remained quite precisely and strongly worried about how they were going to meet their mortgage payments or feed their children. The prolonged worldwide economic crisis, which was so exacerbating the international tensions, also made reducing nuclear armaments or creating a United Nations superforce very low items on most people's agenda. The United States and Soviet Union argued and manoeuvred for power; Bob and she argued and manoeuvred for - for what she didn't know - and both sets of sides became increasingly alienated. Bob came home at six, gave a big hug to Skippy, a dignified kiss to Lisa, several words and caresses to their terrier Banjo, and a cheerful 'Hi, honey' to her. He went straight upstairs to change his clothes and pack an overnight bag. Ten minutes later they were all having dinner together.
    Jeanne's scruffy jeans and open-necked cotton blouse and long dark hair falling wildly about her face and shoulders contrasted sharply with her husband's neat three-piece suit, neatly combed dark hair and chiselled good looks, but she sensed that their moods were aligned: they were both subdued and anxious, hoping to control their conflict. They sat at opposite ends of the table with Lisa on Jeanne's left and Skip, propped up on two cushions, on her right. Lisa, with her erect posture and adult-sounding precise speech patterns, looked to Jeanne that evening like a young governess in some Victorian melodrama. Her husband was the villain. And she . . . ?
    Jeanne certainly no longer felt like a heroine. Now that her sporadic idealistic efforts to promote disarmament and peace were so clearly ineffective she felt as weak and foolish as Bob had always accused her of being. Yet as she watched him so meticulously eating his dinner and talking with such total seriousness with Lisa about the clothing she planned to wear in the Chesapeake, she could feel herself becoming angry. It was her anxiety being transmuted into anger, anger at those who were causing her fear: the Russians and the Pentagon and people like Bob who could so coolly calculate and contemplate the probabilities of various world catastrophes. Ànd what are you going to be doing, Daddy?' Jeanne heard Lisa say, and saw Bob start in surprise that the forbidden subject had been broached.
    `Just playing with Mars,' he replied with a soft smile. He poured himself more wine and awkwardly signalled with the bottle to ask her if she wanted some more. She shook her head.
    Ìs that all you ever do?' Lisa asked a little impatiently.
    Ì suppose so,' he replied. 'But the situation these days has been changing so fast we have to feed our monster new food five times a day instead of once or twice a week.' She noticed his eyes flash as he said this.
    Ìt still sounds boring,' said Lisa.
    `Calculating the probability of various war scenarios is many things, some of which your mother has strong feelings about,' Bob told Lisa, 'but one thing it never is is boring.'
    `You enjoy this crisis, don't you?' Jeanne said quietly