The City of Strangers. Michael Russell
a bunch of guys with too much beer inside them. Several of them carried bundles of newspapers; one carried a furled flag; another carried billboards. Two of the men wore distinctive silver-grey shirts with a large L on the left side, in scarlet, close to the heart; the uniform of the Silver Legion of America. When they stopped on the corner of Broadway and 43rd they were quieter, gathering around the flags.
The newspapers were handed out, the billboards propped against a store front, the flags unfurled. The flag was the red L on silver; L for the Legion, L for Loyalty, L for Liberation. The placards bore scrawled headlines from the newspapers the men were selling: Social Justice, Liberation, National American. ‘Buy Christian Say No to Jew York!’ ‘Keep Us out of England’s War!’ ‘The Protocols of Zion and the End of America!’ ‘Roosevelt Public Enemy Number One!’ They moved along Broadway in twos and threes, hawking their papers, and shouting the headlines.
They were all New Yorkers, with names like other New Yorkers; mostly they were German and Irish names. But they weren’t only there to sell; they were looking for the enemies of America in the streets of their city; anyone they thought might be a Jew.
Dan Walker was already bored calling the headlines of the papers he never read anyway. He wanted another beer. Van Nosdall was a lot keener, thrusting out blue mimeographed slips as he moved through the crowds. ‘There’s only room for one “ism” in America, Americanism!’ ‘Democracy, Jewocracy!’ ‘Hey, Yid, no one wants you here! We’re coming for you!’ As he screamed ‘Coming for you!’ at an elderly couple, heading to the theatre, he formed his fingers into a pistol and laughed. ‘Pow!’ Dan Walker yawned.
‘Let’s get a beer for Christ’s sake!’
Then he stopped and smiled.
‘See the piece of shit there –’
He was looking at a boy of sixteen or seventeen, with a thin face and large, dark eyes. Anyone would have said he was Jewish. You could always tell a Jew of course, but this one was Jewish Jewish. He was staring at the two men with real anger in his face, and he wasn’t moving; he wasn’t trying to run the way he was supposed to. Dan Walker walked forward, with new enthusiasm for the slogans he had been leaving to Van Nosdall till now. He walked up to the youth, who was standing his ground, quietly unyielding.
‘Read Social Justice and learn how to solve the Jewish question.’
The Jewish youth nodded, unexpectedly.
‘OK, I’ll take one.’
It was an odd response; he should have already been running.
Dan Walker looked round at Van Nosdall.
Nosdall shrugged. He handed over a copy of Social Justice, and the youth handed him some change. As he opened the paper the youth glanced at the contents, with a look of deep seriousness. He turned a page.
‘I’ve been reading Father Coughlin’s articles about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It’s certainly some piece of work, some piece of work.’
He folded the newspaper up and put it in his pocket.
‘I’ve never seen shit like it. So this is what I’m going to do – I’m going to take it home and wipe my arse with every last, lying, fucking page.’
With that he ran, out into Broadway, through the traffic.
Dan Walker and Van Nosdall were already running after him. The bundle of papers was dropped. Dan put his fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly. This was what they were all waiting for, this was real politics. And while a couple of men remained behind to pick up the newspapers the whole gang that had emerged from the subway only ten minutes earlier was racing through the blasting horns in pursuit of the young Jew. They had one now. And as long as they kept him in sight, they would run till they caught him.
He was in west 44th Street now, heading towards the Shubert Theatre. The street was quiet after Broadway and 7th Avenue; the theatres weren’t open yet. He looked round. They weren’t far behind. The other men had almost caught up with the two he had spoken to already. There were at least a dozen of them. He turned right abruptly, into the alley that ran between the Shubert Theatre and the Broadhurst. The gates were open. He stopped for a moment, catching his breath, and walked between the two theatres for a moment.
It was dark here now, and it was a dead end. At the top of the alleyway Dan Walker and Van Nosdall were standing, watching him. The youth turned round, and stood looking up at them. The other men were there now. They grouped together, extracting a variety of batons and coshes and knuckle dusters from their coats, grinning and joshing one another. They produced a wailing wolf-like howl, all together, and started to walk down the alley towards the Jew.
He seemed remarkably, unaccountably unafraid.
Quite suddenly a door out from the back of the Broadhurst Theatre opened. The youth gave a wave to the advancing party and walked into the theatre. The door closed. The men ran forward. It was a fire exit; it was heavy, blank; it had no lock or handle on the outside. Two of the newspaper sellers hammered on the door.
At first only one man turned round and looked back up the alley. A truck had just stopped there and in the light from 44th Street he could see a gang of men getting out of the back. Some of the others were looking round now; then they all were.
The whole street end of the alleyway was blocked by a small crowd; there were a lot of men there, twenty-five, thirty. They carried baseball bats and pickaxe handles. There was complete silence for some seconds. No one was hammering on the Broadhurst fire door now; no one was laughing. The men from the fish truck filled the alleyway. They moved in a line towards the men from the Silver Legion and the Christian Front, looking for healthy political debate.
On West 44th Street Longie Zwillman’s Pontiac passed the fish truck. The driver, closing the back doors, touched his cap as the car approached.
The Pontiac carried on into Broadway.
*
There wasn’t much that was old in New York. Keens Chophouse on West 36th Street was as old as most places that were still standing. It had been there long enough that clay pipes still hung from the ceiling where long-dead customers had kept them. It smelled of old wood in a city where that smell was barely known. John Cavendish sat upstairs on the raised platform in front of the small-paned windows that gave on to 36th Street.
It was still early and there were few customers, but those there were, were kept well away from the table the Irish army officer was sitting at. It was Longie Zwillman’s table. Cavendish waited. He had been there for half an hour. It wasn’t a problem. Half an hour to sit and do nothing was welcome; half an hour to sit and think of something other than what he was doing. He thought of his wife and his children in Rathmines. It would be another two months before he went home. It was hard. He didn’t often let himself think about how hard it was. Whatever New York was, there were moments when it really wasn’t much at all, if you only stopped long enough to take a breath.
They talked for half an hour about nothing in particular: how old their children were; what was the most impressive thing at the World’s Fair; the news from Europe. They were almost strangers but for reasons neither of them was entirely sure about they trusted one another. Each had information the other wanted, or at least had some chance of getting it. As the main course arrived Longie Zwillman took out an envelope. Inside were several small photographs. He fanned them out on the table like playing cards. There was a brownstone building, cars, half a dozen men going into the building or coming out. Some faces were very clear, some indistinct.
‘This is the German bookstore on 116th Street. There’s a lot of stuff distributed there, not just American Nazi Party pamphlets and Bund papers, but pretty much any pro-German, Roosevelt’s-a-commie, anti-Semitic, democracy-will-eat-your-kids crap you can think of. Silver Legion, Christian Front, Social Justice, National American. You’ve seen all that already.’
‘Some of it.’
‘You’ve