HE TOOK STACEY out to dinner on 57th Street that night. He wanted to take his mind off Guttman’s impending arrival, for he was mystified by it. Why hadn’t Guttman told him? Presumably he would arrive the following day, but when would he come to see Nessheim? Would he come to see Nessheim?
The restaurant was a low brick building with a hipped roof of pale green tiles. In front stood an enormous block of painted green wood, roughly the size and shape of an upright canoe, with ‘Tropical Hut’ spelled out in wonky bamboo lettering. Inside you went down from the entrance lobby past the coat check into a big room with exotic decor: fishing nets dangled from the ceiling, threaded with brightly coloured glass lights; pictures of palm trees and grass thatched houses decorated the walls, along with masks and conch shells. All intended to conjure up some imagined Polynesian paradise.
They sat in a corner booth, partitioned off with slatted screens of split bamboo. Stacey had changed clothes, and wore a deep red roll-neck sweater and grey Oxford slacks. She’d also put on a necklace of worked gold which looked Spanish or Aztec. Nessheim didn’t want to ask who’d bought it for her; even if she’d bought it for herself, he felt bad that he could never match that kind of largesse.
‘What is Polynesian food anyway?’ she asked. He looked at the menu, a big book full of pages offering exotic cocktails and a range of ‘Polynesian specialties’ – though since the waitress informed them that pineapple was impossible to obtain, most of these dishes were unavailable.
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘Tell you what,’ said Stacey, closing her menu book with a thump. ‘Let’s just have the ribs.’
These proved excellent: long slabs of charcoal-barbecued ribs that had their origins in Mississippi rather than Samoa. They ate ravenously, and stuck to beer rather than the Aloha specials. As he finished and wiped his fingers with about his twelfth paper napkin, Nessheim said, ‘I thought tomorrow we could walk out to The Point. It should be beautiful with all the snow, and I bet you the Lake’s frozen by the shore.’
‘I can’t, Jim. I promised to help out with something.’
He resisted the urge to ask what. He’d grilled her enough for one day, he figured. If she wanted to tell him she would.
Eventually she said, ‘Did you know Negroes can’t buy houses in most of Hyde Park?’
‘They can’t buy houses most places. Why are you bringing that up?’
‘I think it’s a disgrace. This is supposed to be a liberal community – that’s what President Hutchins is always claiming. Yet the university goes along with housing segregation as if it’s not their concern.’
‘What’s that got to do with walking to The Point tomorrow – or not walking?’
‘There’s a meeting about it in Mandel Hall. I said I’d go – maybe something will come out of that.’
‘I doubt it.’ Stacey shot him a look, and he said, ‘Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe in segregation.’
‘I know, some of your best friends are Negroes.’
‘I don’t have any friends, remember? But a Negro saved my life one time.’
‘Sure,’ she said, caustic. ‘How?’ Curious now.
‘Rescued me from drowning.’
‘I don’t believe it. You swim like a fish.’
‘God’s truth.’ He held his hand up as if taking the oath.
‘Where was this? The pool in Ida Noyes?’
‘Long Island Sound.’
He shook his head. He knew he kept hinting at his past, but he couldn’t do more than that. Not yet, anyway.
The waitress now appeared. They were too full for dessert but ordered coffee. Nessheim said, ‘I thought you’d given up politics.’
‘I have. But I haven’t given up right and wrong.’
‘And I have?’
‘I don’t know. I hope not. You seem to think the war’s right.’
‘Of course I do. Even back home in Wisconsin, where pretty much everybody’s got German roots, they recognise that Hitler has to be stopped as well as the Japanese. They’re not so wild about our Russian allies, but I can’t say I am either. Not since the Nazi-Russian pact – I thought that was indefensible.’
‘You’ll get no argument from me,’ Stacey said. ‘But there are some people who think the Russians need to win the war even more than we do.’
‘Why’s that?’ It sounded kooky to him.
‘Because only then can “true revolution” proceed everywhere else. That’s what the Fourth International declared.’ She raised both eyebrows.
‘You don’t believe that, do you?’ he asked, trying not to sound worried. ‘That we’re fighting for the sake of revolution.’
‘I used to.’
‘So did Trotsky, and look what happened to him.’
‘That’s not funny.’ She seemed taken aback.
‘I didn’t say it was. But you know, I don’t think Trotsky would have been any better than Stalin if he had come out on top. Do you?’
She thought for a moment, then said reluctantly, ‘No, I don’t. I think he would have tried at first to be humane, but then either power would have gone to his head like it did Stalin or he would have been deposed for being too nice.’
She shrugged. ‘Sometimes too nice and too weak are the same thing.’
There was a bitterness in her voice which hinted of experiences she was keeping to herself. Nessheim said, a little exasperated, ‘I wish you’d tell me where you’ve been the last few years.’
‘I will, when you extend me the same courtesy.’
Nessheim smiled, but added, ‘At least tell me what changed your mind – you know, about Russia and revolution.’
‘I don’t know. Sanity returned.’ She paused. ‘And then I met someone.’