Roger noticed that he did not say Comrade Barton and wondered whether
Black Tom did not quite trust him yet. But he found later that Black
Tom tagged no man with artificial distinction, except in addressing a
meeting whose sympathy he was not quite sure of. In a few moments he
had explained the case to Roger, and turned him back to Katya.
"You can work here if you like. It's noisy at times, but we can fix
you up with a kind of office down in the corner. Or you can work
elsewhere."
"Here. I don't mind noise."
"Tell Jim to fix up the office Philips used to have," he ordered Katya,
took his hat, and was gone.
"Let's go and have lunch," Katya suggested. "Tom's probably forgotten a
lot of details you ought to know."
But Anne was expecting him and anxious to hear. "Suppose you come home
and have lunch with us?"
Roger thought that Katya smiled, but was not quite sure. One never was
sure whether Katya smiled unless her eyes actually twinkled, her face
was so swarthy and still.
On the way home Roger listened with interest to Katya's history of the
Anderson case, but, as they came to the bottom of the long flight, he
wished he could run ahead and prepare Anne. He led and Katya followed,
still talking. At the door they met Anne. For a moment she looked
disturbed and then greeted Katya with such ease that Roger felt all
responsibility for the lunch drop from him. While she skilfully reset
the table and twisted the menu to include three instead of two, Katya
talked on.
Nor did she stop when Anne summoned them, and only for short periods
during lunch. From the Anderson case and the Labor Movement, she
drifted to Russia, to her native village, to the Jewish pogroms, her
struggles for an education, her imprisonment under the Czarist system,
her escape and flight from Siberia through Sweden to Finland and
the United States; her gradual migration westward, from an eastside
tenement in New York, through New Jersey, to Chicago, to San Francisco.
She talked vehemently but without bitterness. In her long fight for an
idea, she had become impersonal.
She ate almost greedily, but neither Anne nor Roger felt that she knew
what she ate. She smoked cigarette after cigarette, lighting one from
the other, and drank cup after cup of black coffee without noticing
that Anne refilled her cup. Anne was considering making more coffee,
when at last Katya broke off.
"You're a perfect hostess, Mrs. Barton. I don't believe you've said a
word."
Anne flushed. Evidently this woman had not expected her interest.
"It's fascinating," she said, with just a touch of primness that
brought an odd look to Katya's eyes. Roger felt uncomfortable.
"We've never had a chance before to get it first-hand," he said
quietly, and saw Katya's eyes twinkle. She rose and, to Roger's
embarrassment, ran her hand over his thick, wavy hair.
"You're a nice boy."
She put on her things, waited a moment for Roger to join her, but when
he made no motion, shook hands with both and went clumsily down the
stairs without looking back.
"Almost as conceited as Hilary Wainwright, in her own way, isn't she?"
Anne said demurely.