But that wasn't so. The short, fat pilot, Sandy Jespersen, had also seen the wooden-mold bottle, the Elixir of Ubique, as it had become finally. This was not a private vision; it had, in fact, gotten him here to Des Moines. And the pilot had seen the reversion of the LaSalle as well. Something entirely different had overtaken Al, it would seem. At least, he hoped so. Prayed so.
Suppose, he reflected, we can't reverse our regression; suppose we remain here the balance of our lives. Is that so bad? We can get used to nine-tube screen-grid highboy Philco radios, although they won't really be necessary, inasmuch as the superheterodyne circuit has already been invented - although I haven't as yet run across one. We can learn to drive American Austin motorcars selling for $445 - a sum that had popped into his mind seemingly at random but which, he intuited, was correct. Once we get jobs and earn money of this period, he said to himself, we won't be traveling aboard antique Curtiss-Wright biplanes; after all, four years ago, in 1935, transpacific service by four-engine China clippers was inaugurated. The Ford trimotor is an eleven-year-old plane by now; to these people it's a relic, and the biplane I came here on is - even to them - a museum piece. That LaSalle I had, before it reverted, was a considerable piece of machinery; I felt real satisfaction driving it.
"What about Russia?" Mr. Bliss was asking. "In the war, I mean. Do we wipe out those Reds? Can you see that far ahead?"
Joe said, "Russia will fight on the same side as the U.S.A." And all the other objects and entities and artifacts of this world, he mulled. Medicine will be a major drawback; let's see - just about now they should be using the sulfa drugs. It's going to be serious for us when we become ill. And - dental work isn't going to be much fun either; they're still working with hot drills and novocaine. Fluoride toothpastes haven't even come into being; that's another twenty years in the future.
"On our side?" Bliss sputtered. "The Communists? That's impossible; they've got that pact with the Nazis."
"Germany will violate that pact," Joe said. "Hitler will attack the Soviet Union in June 1941."
"And wipe it out, I hope."
Startled out of his preoccupations, Joe turned to look closely at Mr. Bliss driving his nine-year-old Willys-Knight.
Bliss said, "Those Communists are the real menace, not the Germans. Take the treatment of the Jews. You know who makes a lot out of that? Jews in this country, a lot of them not citizens but refugees living on public welfare. I think the Nazis certainly have been a little extreme in some of the things they've done to the Jews, but basically there's been the Jewish question for a long time, and something, although maybe not so vile as those concentration camps, had to be done about it. We have a similar problem here in the United States, both with Jews and with the niggers. Eventually we're going to have to do something about both."
"I never actually heard the term 'nigger' used," Joe said, and found himself appraising this era a little differently, all at once. I forgot about this, he realized.
"Lindbergh is the one who's right about Germany," Bliss said. "Have you ever listened to him speak? I don't mean what the newspapers write it up like, but actually-" He slowed the car to a stop for a semaphore-style stop signal. "Take Senator Borah and Senator Nye. If it wasn't for them, Roosevelt would be selling munitions to England and getting us into a war that's not our war. Roosevelt is so darn interested in repealing the arms embargo clause of the neutrality bill; he wants us to get into the war. The American people aren't going to support him. The American people aren't interested in fighting England's war or anybody else's war." The signal clanged and a green semaphore swung out. Bliss shifted into low gear and the Willys-Knight bumbled forward, melding with downtown Des Moines' midday traffic.
"You're not going to enjoy the next five years," Joe said.
"Why not? The whole state of Iowa is behind me in what I believe. You know what I think about you employees of Mr. Runciter? From what you've said and from what those others said, what I overheard, I think you're professional agitators." Bliss glanced at Joe with uncowed bravado.
Joe said nothing; he watched the oldtime brick and wood and concrete buildings go by, the quaint cars - most of which appeared to be black - and wondered if he was the only one of the group who had been confronted by this particular aspect of the world of 1939. In New York, he told himself, it'll be different; this is the Bible Belt, the isolationist Middle West. We won't be living here; we'll be on either the East Coast or the West.
