Page 360 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

Hence the ring.

The next primary was California, which gave George a chance to visit Verena.

At LAX he rented a white Plymouth Valiant, a cheap compact--the campaign was paying--and drove to North Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills.

He passed through tall gates and parked in front of a Tudor-style brick house that he guessed was the size of five genuine Tudor houses. Verena's parents, Percy Marquand and Babe Lee, lived like the stars they were.

A maid let him in and showed him into a living room that had nothing Tudor about it: a white carpet, air-conditioning, and a floor-to-ceiling window that looked out onto a swimming pool. The maid asked if he would like a drink. "A soda, please," he said. "Any kind."

When Verena came in he suffered a shock.

She had cut off her wonderful Afro, and her hair was now cropped close to her head, as short as his. She wore black pants, a blue shirt, a leather blazer, and a black beret. It was the uniform of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.

George suppressed his outrage in order to kiss her. She gave him her lips, but only briefly, and he knew right away that she had not moved on from her mood at the funeral. He hoped his proposal would bring her out of it.

They sat on a couch covered in a swirly pattern of burnt orange, primrose yellow, and chocolate brown. The maid brought George a Coke with ice in a tall glass on a silver tray. When she had gone he took Verena's hand. Holding in his anger, he said as gently as he could: "Why are you wearing that uniform?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"Not to me."

"Martin Luther King led a nonviolent campaign, and they shot him."

George was disappointed in her. He had expected a better argument that that. He said: "Abraham Lincoln fought a civil war, and they shot him, too."

"Blacks have a right to defend themselves. No one else will--especially not the police."

George could barely conceal his contempt for these ideas. "You just want to scare whitey. Nothing has ever been achieved by this kind of grandstanding."

"What has nonviolence achieved? Hundreds of black people lynched and murdered, thousands beaten and jailed."

George did not want to fight with her--on the contrary, he wanted to bring her back to normal--but he could not help raising his voice. "Plus the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and six black congressmen and a senator!"

"And now white people are saying it's gone far enough. No one has been able to pass a law against housing discrimination."

"Maybe the whites are afraid they'll have Panthers in Gestapo outfits walking around their nice suburbs carrying guns."

"The police have guns. We need them too."

George realized that this argument, which seemed to be about politics, was really about their relationship. And he was losing her. If he could not talk her out of the Black Panthers, he could not bring her back into his life. "Look, I know that police forces all over America are full of violent racists. But the solution to that problem is to improve the police, not shoot them. We have to get rid of politicians such as Ronald Reagan who encourage police brutality."

"I refuse to accept a situation where the whites have guns and we don't."

"Then campaign for gun control and more black cops in senior positions."

"Martin believed in that and he's dead." Verena's words were defiant, but she could not keep it up, and she began to cry.

George tried to embrace her, but she pushed him away. Nevertheless he strove to make her see reason. "If you want to protect black people, come and work on our campaign," he said. "Bobby is going to be president."

"Even if he wins, Congress won't let him do anything."

"They'll try to stop him, and we'll have a political battle, and one side will win and the other will lose. It's how we change things in America. It's a lousy system, but all the others are worse. And shooting each other is the worst of all."

"We're not going to agree."

"Okay." He lowered his voice. "We've disagreed before, but always kept on loving each other, haven't we?"

"This is different."

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