Chapter 1 

The man was a communist because his mother wanted him to be a communist and would pay him not to work. He lived in the basement of a large house overlooking the Bay in the Berkeley Hills and would go down, each morning, and play his ukelele with other old communists in the fresh-ground coffee place. "Let me tell you a story," he would say. "I rescued a pilot in the North Sea that had been shot down by Nazi's. Oh yes, I was in the Air Force and flew missions as a navigator and was very proud of helping fight those mad dog Nazi's." He was drunk all the time, in fact he would go to AA meetings lit up strumming his ukelele with, sometimes, a younger woman on his arm. The communists of that day seemed to know each other and were always in a loose circle that included academics, local politicians, some media types. They loved to pour wine and tell tales. "What? Is a communist a criminal? No, a communinist is just another point of view, a superior point of view that would make the world better if adopted. Will it get adopted here in the US? I doubt it but you stick to your principles, this is what I was always taught.

His father had owned a construction company back east and the other divorced him and came out West. "My mother lived in Finland and saved Lenin when he was shot before the revolution. That's why when I go to Russia I'm escorted around by the KGB. I can go almost anywhere, not quite everywhere."

He was short and wiry with a shock of white hair with a sailor cap on all the time. It wasn't a cap I was familiar with but I had seen them worn in some European films.

"I have to live with my conscience you see. It's only fitting. But I don't belief half of it." And then he would laugh and strum his ukelele very fast and end with a flourish, his arm thrown up and his face frozen in a gesture of good will or guilt it was hard to tell.

There was another communist who lived in a good sized cottage at the fringes of the Hills. He lived there with his wife and had been the editor of People's World for a long time before retiring and running apartment buildings for income. Science fiction excited him a great deal and he organized reading and writing groups devoted to science fiction.

David Eide
January 24, 2014