Amerika Read online

  “Peter,” she said cheerfully as he moved toward her, “what brings you—”

  “I need to talk to you,” he said. “Come across to the park with me.”

  Startled by his urgency, Amanda Bradford hesitated. She glanced over her shoulder and thought of asking the woman in back of her to hold her place in line. But no, even that might be perceived as special privilege, might create resentment. She silently abandoned the queue and followed her husband.

  Peter Bradford sat down on the edge of a battered bench, oblivious to the cold. His wife sat beside him. She reached for both his hands and tried to read his agitated face. “It’s Devin . .

  Amanda’s first thought was that Devin Milford was dead. Her breath caught.

  “He’s,coming home.”

  “Thank God.” Amanda caught the fleeting wounded look on her husband’s face, but it was already too late to explain. “When did he get out of the hospital?” “He wasn’t in the hospital, Amanda. He was in a prison camp.”

  “All this time?”

  Peter nodded.

  “Those bastards.”

  Peter moved toward her, then thought better of it, staying where he was, a little hurt, perhaps half angry. “Yeah. Well, I thought you’d like to know.”

  “Oh, Peter,” she said. “Don’t. I hate what happened to Devin, and I’m glad he’s going to be all right— whatever that means—but we’ve been married twenty years, for God’s sake.”

  She took his arm, and he looked down at her sadly. “That’s the way it is when you’re second choice to a hero.”

  “He wasn’t a hero when I married you—-I’m not sure he’s a hero now.” She smiled. “I think you’re a hero. You’ve held your family together and this county too. I don’t love Devin Milford. I don’t even know who he is anymore. I love you.” Her eyes glistened. “For such a smart man, you can really be dumb sometimes.”

  She kissed him and he smiled almost bashfully. “And to think I risked my place in line for this,” she kidded, feeling anew about Peter the way she always wanted to feel about him.

  Chapter 4

  For two hours they were shown “indoctrination” films: crude, committee-approved rhetoric about the administrative areas and the PPP and all the other glories of the Transition. Finally there was a lecture, warning the almost-ex-prisoners to be Good Citizens, to be Positive and Patriotic, lest they once again be declared “antisocial” and in need of “reeducation.” Devin nearly shuddered at the prospect.

  After the films, Devin and forty or fifty others were herded into a converted barracks that now contained a dozen green metal desks and twenty or so file cabinets left over from World War II. Each desk had a clerk behind it, checking records. In time, Devin was called before a thin and severe young woman who studied his file with a glazed expression.

  “Your records were left in the truck from Fort Davis. That’s why you had to wait so long.” She spoke with a slow Texas drawl, her large brown eyes focusing on his file. “Are you somebody important?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you got a red tag on your file and that usually means something important.” She looked at the file again. “Huh. It says here you ran for president in 1992.” She scrutinized Devin’s face. “Is that a joke?”

  “Yes.”

  She looked at him suspiciously. “You must’ve really screwed up. Were you a fascist?”

  “No.”

  “It says here you were in a mental hospital too.” “No. They sent me to Fort Davis.”

  “Well, the file’s probably screwed up. Most of them are. But if it’s peachy with you, it’s peachy with me.” She regarded him again and smiled. “The prison record’s what counts anyway and yours looks real good. You have to go through orientation and delousing and then the magistrate’ll see you.”

  “What? We were cleaned at the camp.”

  The interview had ended. The young clerk closed Devin’s file. “Next.”

  When Andrei’s jet Sanded at Dulles Airport, west of Washington, a military helicopter was waiting to whisk him westward to the command headquarters of General Petya Samanov, an “adviser” to the American government. In fact, Samanov was the single most powerful man in the country.

  His estate, Birdsong, was built in the 1790s by one of Virginia’s first governors. The red-brick mansion sat atop a low hill, circled by oaks and lush farmland composed of gently rolling fields where generations of Virginia’s finest, fleetest horses had grazed. A bronze plaque by the front door boasted that Washington,

  Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe had all visited here, and Petya Samanov gloried in this connection.

  Until the Transition, Birdsong had been a historic landmark, open to tourists, but it had fallen into disrepair until Petya chose it for his home and headquarters. He kept an office in the White House, but it was here that he preferred to spend his time, amid the magnolias and the sweet-gum trees.

  As his helicopter alighted in the field beside the mansion, Andrei admired its clever defense network. The casual visitor saw only the house and outbuildings, the barns, ponds, jumps, white fences, and tall trees; no one would discern the regiment of KGB border troops that was on duty in the bunker beneath the largest bam, or the squadron of attack helicopters less than a mile away, screened by century-old oaks. Petya could hardly have been safer in the Kremlin itself.

  The hand-carved door of the graceful mansion flew open and Petya himself burst out of the vestibule, his arms outstretched. He was a tall, robust man of sixty, deeply tanned, with shrewd brown eyes, graying hair that was thinning on top, and long bushy sideburns. His quick and easy smile illuminated his face with friendly charm. He wore gray flannel trousers and a tweed jacket, as befit his role as country squire. Andrei took the steps two at a time and embraced his friend and mentor.

  “My general,” he said in Russian, truly moved.

  “Andrei, my dear boy,” Samanov said, in English. “It is such a delight to see you, even under these dubious circumstances. Come in, come in.”

  He led the way into a huge drawing room with fires roaring at either end, where two dozen men and a few beautiful young women were drinking and talking. The men, most of them old friends from university days, gathered around Andrei. They shook his hand, embraced him, and made jokes; soon Andrei was grinning like a schoolboy, relaxing as he never could in Chicago.

  The men, primarily KGB officers, were dressed in business suits and looked quite American. Andrei took the women to be callgirls—they were Russian, for security’s sake—invited by Petya for whatever moments of relaxation might occur.

  “We are all here,” Petya said. “All the area advisers, and the advisers to the South Florida Space Zone and the three International Cities.”

  “I hope I have not delayed you,” Andrei said.

  “We would wait for you forever, Andrei,” Petya said with a wink. “Or at least another ten minutes. Come, we must begin.”

  He led the way into the dining room, where his guests left drinks and women behind and took their places around a long mahogany table whose surface was so exquisitely polished that it glinted. Elaborate silver sconces adorned one wall and on the opposite wall was an electronic overlay of the U.S. Petya Samanov stood before the map, his face somber now.

  “Gentlemen,” he began, speaking in Russian. “Comrades. We can all be proud. The men in this room have accomplished a peaceful occupation of a magnitude unprecedented in the history of the world. But for our efforts, what might have happened? Nuclear holocaust? Internal rebellion? We have bought time.”

  His guests glanced around uncertainly, sure he had not summoned them so urgently because he wanted to praise them.

  As if reading their thoughts, Petya frowned and continued. “However, much remains to be done. There is continued unrest in the Soviet Union. Moreover, there are problems here in America. Alaska has never been pacified and it is costing us ten divisions, plus an unacceptable amount of air power, just to control it. There are lesser pockets of re
sistance in the Rockies and West Virginia.

  “You know the details; I will not belabor them. The centra! committee met yesterday in Moscow, There was, I am told, much anger and impatience. The committee demands that America be neutralized immediately.”

  The men around the table were confused; America was neutralized, was it not? It was Andrei, whose intimacy with Samanov was well known, who dared speak.

  “Sir. America is a country without arms or an army. There is little or no communication between areas. The people are self-occupied and dispirited. What more is wanted?”

  A smile played on Petya’s lips. “Our brothers in the Kremlin fear ghosts—the ghosts of American power and independence. At yesterday’s meeting a most serious antighost measure was discussed. A certain faction proposes to explode low-yield nuclear devices upon one or more American cities, as a demonstration of our resolve.”

  “Which cities, Comrade General?” one KGB officer asked.

  “None in Virginia, I trust,” Samanov said dryly. “Gentlemen, the point is that we are under great pressure. Our timetables must be accelerated. The Kremlin fears that Americans may realize they have options. Not military options, of course, but they could organize and refuse to cooperate. They could unite in spirit. They could provoke us to take actions none of us wants. We must move quickly. I have a plan, the only one I believe will avert disaster. The United States of

  America must cease to exist. It must be reformed, broken up into separate countries, based upon the administrative areas you now direct. Only such a demonstration of American helplessness, I am convinced, will prevent the extreme elements in the Kremlin from proceeding with their nuclear demonstration.”

  There was a long, startled silence. The KGB officers, men not easily shocked, exchanged astonished glances. Again, it was Andrei who spoke. “General, we here today seem to be in a most difficult position. We must negotiate some sort of balance between those in the Kremlin who want this nation utterly prostrate, and the Americans themselves, who wish to cling to some semblance of dignity and independence.”

  “Well put, Andrei,” Samanov said.

  “Thank you, General, but it is only a pretty phrase. To reconcile those objectives, we need a plan that all concerned can live with.”

  “And that,” said Samanov, without missing a beat, “is precisely what we have. The specific mechanism for dismantling the United States will be what we are calling the Third Continental Congress. The whole idea will be to persuade Americans that they are participating in the process, not that they are being forced. This will require tact and subtlety. We must do in a few months what took the Romans generations—-we must develop an indigenous ruling class, Americans who look to us for leadership yet have the trust of their fellow citizens.”

  Petya lowered his head and spoke now in a different tone. “Too often, the world has viewed us Russians as a rude, uncultured people. It is a lie! We are the nation of Tolstoi, of Chekhov, of Pushkin, of Tchaikovsky. We are a great and sensitive people. The eyes of the world are upon us, and it is our great and historic responsibility to make this occupation a humane one.”

  Andrei Denisov had heard this speech, or others like it, often enough to follow along by rote. But he wasn’t, listening. He was already thinking how Petya’s plan might be implemented in his home territory,

  Amanda took a seat at the back of the darkened, nearly empty auditorium just as her daughter began to dance.

  Jackie seemed buoyed up by the recorded music as she gyrated masterfully across the stage alone. She’d chosen a piece by Aaron Copland for this audition— “Fanfare for the Common Man,” a raucous tone poem that was kinetic, vibrant, redolent of American myth. It called for movements that were expansive, loose-limbed, muscular, for strutting postures that might be feminine but could never be finicky. In her stark white leotard and with a single red ribbon holding back her hair, Jackie mimed a physical wisdom beyond her years. She was part dervish, part temptress. She was riveting.

  When Jackie had stepped onto the stage, Amanda’s face had been unconsciously composed into the mixture of interest and support that mothers have always worn when their children performed, recited, or played a sport. But by the time Jackie turned and flipped into the handstand she’d worked so long to perfect, Amanda’s mouth had dropped slightly open, her eyes just a bit wider with the awe that anyone, parent or not, feels at a great performance. She had almost forgotten that Jackie was her daughter in those last uplifting moments of movement; she was transfixed simply by the technical expertise and deep emotion that a performer was conveying to an audience.

  The music stopped, and as the other contestants broke into unrestrained, even enthusiastic applause, Jackie was abruptly an anxious teenager again—thrilled with her dance, yet eager for approval. Soon all eyes were on the judges, three women with clipboards, staff members of the all-powerful Area Cultural Committee in Chicago. They conferred, huddled over their note pads, until finally one of them rose, a thin, plain, intense woman in a dark suit.

  “The committee would like to thank all of you. Dance is such a joyous expression, with a long tradition. As we have traveled the last three weeks to these area tryouts throughout the Central Administrative Area, it has been very gratifying to see so much interest in the return to traditional dance, with its grace and discipline, after the undisciplined and unseemly contortions of recent years. Thank you again. Mrs. Knox will let you know the results.”

  Amanda saw Jackie’s face fall. The woman’s words were an unmistakable slap at the modern dance that Jackie loved—and had just performed—and a defense of the classical ballet that was officially favored by the Russians, in America as well as in their own country.

  Amanda stood up, crestfallen. The judges stood in front of the stage, saying their goodbyes. Amanda gathered her courage and walked slowly down the aisle. She stood there a moment until one of the judges noticed her and smiled stiffly.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Amanda Bradford,” she said, holding back her anger. And that was not easily done. Too much had happened that day. The child in her yard, the news about Devin, and now this woman’s cruel rejection of Jackie.

  “Jacqueline’s mother,” the teacher, Mrs. Knox, prompted.

  “Yes,” the judge said. “And you’re concerned that my comments were directed at your daughter.”

  “I’m concerned about the fairness of the judging process,” Amanda said tersely.

  “There’s a lot more to these competitions than being a potentially good dancer, Mrs. Bradford.”

  “My daughter was wonderful. How can you possibly not give her a chance?”

  “We’re looking for the kind of dancer who is able to become part of a corps—one of a group expressing the kind of spirit and attitude we’d like to see in our young people.” The woman’s face was a frozen mask; Amanda realized that she could never penetrate her wall of ideology.

  Moments later, in the car, Amanda embraced her weeping daughter. “Oh honey, it makes me so damn mad. I could kill.”

  Jacqueline stopped crying, gaining control. “Could you really, Mother?” The question hung between them as they drove away.

  Finally, in late afternoon, the group of Fort Davis prisoners reached the courtroom. It was a small, drab box with walls painted a hospital green and the sour smell of industrial soap in the air. The chamber was adorned only by the US-UN-USSR flag above the judge’s bench. Devin waited his turn before the magistrate, fighting the rising panic in him.

  “83915,” the judge droned, without looking up.

  “83915, sir,” Devin parroted back.

  “Devin William Milford, you are assigned to live in the town of Milford, Nebraska, and not to travel more than twenty-five miles from there for any reason.” The judge paused a moment, as though trying to remember something. “You’re Devin Milford?” he asked, for the first time looking directly at the man before him.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The judge seemed undecided, as if he
wanted to say something, to establish human contact. The hesitation passed. He met Devin’s eyes for a moment, and Devin looked away. At once, the judge resumed his businesslike tone. “You will reside at the home of your father, William Bradley Milford. You will report without fail to the designated authorities once each week. If you violate your parole, you will be returned to confinement. Do you understand?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Next case,” the judge intoned.

  “Sir.” Devin felt the bailiff grasp his arm, but he stood firm. “My children, I have to see them. I—”

  “You have your instructions,” the judge snapped, cutting him off. “Bailiff.”

  Devin turned and walked to the back of the courtroom. The guard at the door looked at him and smiled. “Well, how’s it feel to be a free man?”

  Andrei was back in his Chicago office by late afternoon. Still disturbed by the meeting with Petya, he sought diversion by watching the films Mikel had assembled of Devin Milford’s doomed campaign for president. Milford, Andrei acknowledged, had been a magnetic figure; there was power and passion in him, a brutal candor, and a tide of restless energy. Yet there was also a quality of injured innocence in Devin that was peculiarly American. Andrei recognized that innocence as both his strength and his weakness.

  On the monitor, Devin Milford delivered his campaign speech: “Since the takeover by the Soviet Union and the shift by which the United Nations has become its surrogate, we have remained concerned with our own individual, selfish interests, ignoring that we are one people, interdependent.

  “What we thought was impossible has happened,” Milford continued on the TV screen. “We have been subjugated by a foreign power. And if we are honest, we cannot blame our defeat on the EMP or the original surrender. We must blame it on the condition of our society before those things happened. On our loss of purpose, our lack of vision, our lack of faith in ourselves and—”