WILLIAM PHILLIPS
243
I said I would try. I did like him. Women are not like men, they have to
like a man. Then he began to cry. I tightened up. I couldn't stand seeing
a fifty-year-old man crying, especially one who had given his life to the
revolution.
He said he had something so terrible to tell me he could hardly talk
about it, in fact very few people knew it. He said in a low, quivering
voice that he had been born a cripple. He had a shrivelled penis. He said
he might not be able to get an erection. But we could, he .said faintly,
do other things.
He lifted my dress and his sweaty hand crawled up my thigh. He
took out his sad, little penis and played with it with his other hand. His
hands shook. I couldn't look, but out of the corner of my eye saw that
he couldn't get an erection. I turned away and began to shiver. I tried
again to look. But I felt nauseous. I thought that a shrivelled penis made
me sicker than a whole one. But I couldn't say so. I felt sorry for Algie.
I almost forgot my own troubles. His seemed worse than mine, for he
had to face mine too. It was too much.
We gave up. He buttoned his fly . I fixed my dress. He took a big
swig of vodka and gave me the bottle. I took a long drink.
After a while, we tried to forget what happened. I said we could be
friends and work together. Political people, I said, have to put the past
behind them. He nodded his head like an obedient child. I said we could
stay married. It was easier that way, why bother to explain. At that mo–
ment I don 't believe I was thinking of the advantages of being married
to Algie. But Arbuto said I had a practical head on my shoulders.
I continued to see Algie at special meetings, and we often had dinner
or lunch at his favorite posh cafes. It was like old times. But I began to
notice that he was starting to fall apart, and for the first time in my life I
felt guilty.
It
was a strange feeling. I thought that maybe I could have
done more for Algie. He dressed like a worker on vacation, with sporty
shirts and tight pants. He had a far-off, frantic look in his eyes. I heard he
was running around, looking for political action. Arbuto said he was
cooking up crazy schemes, which he had difficulty in talking him out of
Nobody listened to him, but they all took his money, which he was
pouring out like water. One day Arbuto and I had lunch with him to
set him straight. We tried to tell him that to work in the movement he
had to be more disciplined. In fact he would endanger the movement if
he didn't stick to orders from Arbuto. We said he might even stay out of
politics for a year. But he wasn't listening.
Finally, Arbuto had an inspiration. We had dinner with him in a
small, quiet restaurant, and Arbuto said to Algie: "We have something in
mind for the movement that only you could do. Why don't you start a
publishing house in New York. You could spread our ideas in America.
