Part 5 (1/2)

Paco and Loo, the only single bachelors on the tour besides himself, were again quartered with him at the Astoria.

Paco said, ”My friend, there I agree with you completely. America has the best plumbing in the world. And the most.”

Hank was pulling off his shoes after an arch-breaking day of sightseeing. ”Well, I'm glad I've finally found some field where it's agreeable that the West is superior to the Russkies.”

Loo was stretched out on his bed, in stocking feet, gazing at the ceiling which towered at least fifteen feet above him. He said ”In the town where I was born, there were three bathrooms, one in the home of the missionary, one in the home of the commissioner, and one in my father's palace.” He looked up at Hank. ”Or is my country considered part of the Western World?”

Paco laughed. ”Come to think of it, I doubt if one third the rural homes of Argentina have bathrooms. Hank, my friend, I am afraid Loo is right. You use the word _West_ too broadly. All the capitalist world is not so advanced as the United States. You have been very lucky, you Yankees.”

Hank sank into one of the huge, Victorian era armchairs. ”Luck has nothing to do with it. America is rich because private enterprise _works_.”

”Of course,” Paco pursued humorously, ”the fact that your country floats on a sea of oil, has some of the richest forest land in the world, is blessed with some of the greatest mineral deposits anywhere and millions of acres of unbelievably fertile land has nothing to do with it.”

”I get your point,” Hank said. ”The United States was handed the wealth of the world on a platter. But that's only part of it.”

”Yes,” Loo agreed. ”Also to be considered is the fact that for more than a hundred years you have never had a serious war, serious, that is, in that your land was not invaded, your industries destroyed.”

”That's to our credit. We're a peace loving people.”

Loo laughed abruptly. ”You should tell that to the American Indians.”

Hank scowled over at him. ”What'd you mean by that Loo? That has all the elements of a nasty crack.”

”Or tell it to the Mexicans. Isn't that where you got your whole South-west?”

Hank looked from Loo to Paco and back.

Paco brought out cigarettes and tossed one to each of the others.

”Aren't these long Russian cigarettes the end? I heard somebody say that by the time the smoke got through all the filter, you'd lost the habit.” He looked over at Hank. ”Easy my friend, easy. On a trip like this it would be impossible not to continually be comparing East and West, dwelling continually on politics, the pros and cons of both sides. All of us are continually a.s.similating what we hear and see.

Among other things, I note that on the newsstands there are no publications from western lands. Why? Because still, after fifty years, our Communist bureaucracy dare not allow its people to read what they will. I note, too, that the shops on 25th October Avenue are not all directed toward the Russian man on the street, unless he is paid unbelievably more than we have heard. Sable coats? Jewelery?

Luxurious furniture? I begin to suspect that our Soviet friends are not quite so cla.s.sless as Mr. Marx had in mind when he and Mr. Engels worked out the rough framework of the society of the future.”

Loo said seriously, ”Oh, there are a great many things of that type to notice here in the Soviet Union.”

Hank had to grin. ”Well, I'm glad you jokers still have open minds.”

Paco waggled a finger negatively at him. ”We've had open minds all along, my friend. It is yours that seems closed. In spite of the fact that I spent four years in your country I sometimes confess I don't understand you Americans. I think you are too immersed in your TV programs, your movies and your light fiction.”

”I can feel myself being saddled up again,” Hank complained. ”All set for another riding.”

Loo laughed softly, his perfect white teeth gleaming in his black face.

Paco said, ”You seem to have the fictional _good guys and bad guys_ outlook. And, in this world of controversy, you a.s.sume that you are the good guys, the heroes, and since that is so then the Soviets must be the bad guys. And, as in the movies, everything the good guys do is fine and everything the bad guys do, is evil. I sometimes think that if the Russians had developed a cure for cancer first you Americans would have refused to use it.”

Hank had had enough. He said, ”Look, Paco, there are two hundred million Americans. For you, or anyone else, to come along and try to lump that many people neatly together is pure silliness. You'll find every type of person that exists in the world in any country. The very tops of intelligence, and submorons living in inst.i.tutions; the most highly educated of scientists, and men who didn't finish grammar school; you'll find saints, and gangsters; infant prodigies and juvenile delinquents; and millions upon millions of just plain ordinary people much like the people of Argentina, or England, or France or whatever. True enough, among all our two hundred million there are some mighty prejudiced people, some mighty backward ones, and some downright foolish ones. But if you think the United States got to the position she's in today through the efforts of a whole people who are foolish, then you're obviously pretty far off the beam yourself.”

Paco was looking at him narrowly. ”Accepted, friend Hank, and I apologize. That's quite the most effective outburst I've heard from you in this week we've known each other. It occurs to me that perhaps you are other than I first thought.”