Free Fellow Travelers by Thomas Mallon Page A

in Korea:

    we would come the next time and the rain would have washed the dirt away and there would be nothing there but bones. We went back and we got on to them about it, about the people digging up the graves and taking the clothes. They tried to tell us it was the dogs that did it, that did the digging. (They must have had pretty smart dogs that could dig the graves and take the clothes off the men.) I suppose you could call that “brainwashing,” but you’ll excuse me if I tell you I think it was just typical b.s. from these monsters.

    This, Tim told himself, was why he was here. Communism—and whatever could be done about it—was more important than Jones’s grandstanding, or even McCarthy’s, more important than his own being in love with some handsome phantom who must now despise him.
    He lingered at Jones’s desk, reading letter after letter from hospital after hospital. He thought of Father Beane and the missionaries, and he wondered, guiltily, why his own feet should not be freezing and bleeding in the Asian snow.

    “Can’t say much for the hat,” Beverly Phillips declared. “It looks like an upside-down lightbulb, don’t you think? The suit’s pretty, though.”
    Mary looked hard at the hemline. “That’s
still
shorter than what I’ve got, I’m pretty sure. I raised the last of my old skirts a couple of weeks ago, and I’m not about to drag out the machine again.”
    “Ah,” said Beverly. “Your evening with Fuller, right?” She mocked herself with a sigh: “
Some
of us are just barnacles on his dreamboat.”
    Mary laughed. “Oh, Jesus, Beverly.”
    “I’m sorry. I sound like Miss Lightfoot, God forbid. It’s none of my business, honey. I also apologize for dragging you here.” This morning Beverly had asked Mary if she’d like the second of two complimentary tickets she had for this late-afternoon fashion show at the Mayflower Hotel. During the past hour the women had finished off a plate of sandwiches and two cocktails apiece.
    “Anything that’s gratis,” said Beverly. “I’m still ‘Helen Holden, Government Girl.’” When Mary’s expression showed no recognition of the old radio serial and its plucky, thrifty heroine, Beverly sighed. “You’re too young to remember. And I’m too old for the part.” Nearing forty and divorced for several years, Beverly Phillips was raising two sons, who would soon be waiting for their dinner, up in Friendship Heights.
    The last pair of new outfits started down the makeshift runway. “Did you see Perle Mesta’s article this morning?” asked Mary. The city’s best-known hostess was over in Russia, filing pieces with the
Washington Post
on the subject of Soviet women.
    “About all those butch gals wearing construction helmets and rebuilding Stalingrad?” Beverly asked.
    “She says even the expensive dresses look like junk compared to what you can get over here for five dollars at Woodie’s.”
    “Well, the one that came past me a minute ago cost forty-five bucks, and I’m not a big enough capitalist for that.”
    “Are you sure you won’t join us?” asked Mary. After agreeing to go to the fashion show, she had phoned her date and told him to meet her here at the Mayflower.
    “Don’t be silly,” said Beverly. “I never mind being a fifth wheel, but if I don’t get going soon the boys are likely to burn down the house. So where’s he taking you?”
    “We’ll probably wind up having dinner here. Maybe the movies afterward, though I think the poster for
From Here to Eternity
scares him a little.”
    “The shy type? I like that. In fact, I’d rather have that than Burt Lancaster. Who is this non-beast?”
    “His name’s Paul Hildebrand. His family owns one of the breweries along the river.”
    “What happened to young Dr. Malone?”
    “He’s been operating a little slowly for my taste.”
    “So how’d you meet the brewer?”
    “It’s embarrassing. Millie Brisson, the secretary to the congressman who got me my