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PARTISAN REVIEW
the hell is he anyway? For
all
I know, he's a general."
"He wants trouble," Smitty said.
"Well, we don't. Trouble is the last thing we want. So don't
you and your kraut woman get any ideas. Understand, Smitty?"
This was the first indication that the lieutenant was a.t all
familiar with Smitty's extra-military preoccupation. Smitty flushed.
Margaret had observed the Russian officer's visit. She had come
into the factory yard just as he departed. And he had turned in his
high sea.t and studied her, aloof, bouncing in the cart, but still com–
fortably situated around
his
cigarette holder. She watched
him
go,
her hands on her hips. Smitty and I walked up to her.
"He owns the world, such a man," she said bitterly.
"He don't own a damn thing," Smitty said.
"Ach! You are innocent of Russians. You know nothing of Rus–
sians. You Americans are like a ma.tch, a small flame, then pfft. The
Russians are a conflagration. You think with the Russians I could
keep my factory?"
"Don't you worry about them, baby," Smitty advised. "You
ain't going to have no dealings with them. And none of them are
going to give you any trouble. None of them better."
"Are you going to throw yourself in front of the flood like you
are a. dam? Hah! You would be washed away."
"I can take care of myself. And I can take care of any man
tries to get in my way."
"Yes, Maggie," I told her, "I think you could keep your factory
even with the Russians pulling at the foundations."
"Maybe," she said. "Maybe not. It would be difficult. It would
perhaps be too difficult.
It
would be dangerous, I think."
"There a.in't going to be no Russians."
"Will you defend me, my American?" she mocked.
"You just let me know if any of them ever tries bothering you."
Well, love had made a soft spot in Smitty but the rest of him
was as hard as ever. His violence wasn't deeply corrupted. And the
way he considered the stray Russians who came through our lines,
you could see that he'd jumbled them all together, made them into
a heap, a pile of stra.ngers. And Margaret stroked
his
homicide
till
it was strong and resolute and hard. Her professed fear of the Rus–
sians made him wild. Her forebodings of what they might do to her
made him itch to prove himself. The lieutenant warned
him
several
