A Shade of Difference (111 page)

Five: A Shade of Difference

1

But, of course, so reluctant are men to seek the love that binds them, in contrast to the eager diligence with which they pursue the hate that divides, that by next morning the effect of the speech of the senior United States delegate to the United Nations had been pretty well dissipated around the world.

There were still many millions of ordinary folk in many places over the earth who were profoundly moved and touched and would not soon forget his gray, strained face and desperately earnest words, and who thought that possibly, in the seats of power and communication, so urgent an appeal might perhaps have some moderating effect. But they were only the ordinary folk. In far too many seats of power and communication it was tacitly understood at once that nothing like that could be allowed to interfere with the course of events.

As the speaker had truly implied, love
was
an embarrassing concept, too simple and too direct and too naked and too desperate for those who produced the clever editorials, the smooth radio-television commentaries, the bland, self-serving statements of the leaders of men. Suavely, with respect for Senator Fry’s brave effort but with a gentle irony concerning the impossibility of what he proposed, the disturbing subject was put back in its proper place and allowed to do no harm to the plans of the mighty as they whipped on the hurtling juggernaut of the hapless Twentieth Century.

Nor, in fact, was it only the mighty who so reacted; for even among the ordinary folk the human suspicions, the human envies, the human fears and worries and mistrusts came back almost at once after the initial emotion of the speech had died away.

“It’s all very well to tell
us
to love
them,”
people said, from Shanghai to Seattle, from Tierra del Fuego to Hudson’s Bay, in Zanzibar and Yap, in Moscow and Washington, in London and Paris and New Delhi and Athens and all the points between. “The real problem is to get
them
to love
us.”

And so, as always when some human voice gives expression to the deepest yearnings of the human heart, mankind paused for a brief, shivering moment to weep hastily for its own fate and then plunged hurriedly back into the blind pursuit of it.

It was generally agreed that Senator Fry’s speech was very noble, and it was apparent already that it would be widely quoted and requoted in many places for as many years as the world had yet to run—but it was seen that it was, after all, only a speech.

Humanity had more pressing things to attend to. And so, as always, few dared to love. And the globe spun on.

In the two days following, while the Secretary-General saw to the final arrangements for the annual United Nations Reception and Ball, and while the nations studied the new posture of world affairs in the wake of the Assembly’s almost-condemnation of the United States, the various participants in the visit of the M’Bulu and all its ramifications assessed their positions as the episode passed into history.

For Terrible Terry himself, towering at Idlewild in his gorgeous robes before the B.O.A.C. plane that would carry him home, smiling and waving triumphantly to the reporters and cameramen who had gathered to see him off, it seemed that history had given him half the garland while still retaining its grip upon the remainder. He did not show it to those who saw and photographed his cheerful face, nor did he acknowledge it in the happy and confident words in which he permitted himself to be quoted, but it was in a strange mixture of moods that he was leaving the United States.

He did not know, at this moment, what he would find in Gorotoland, or how, or whether, he would survive it. He was not physically afraid, for he had a fierce courage that convinced him that he would win out, whatever the obstacles; but along with it, unfortunately for his complete peace of mind, went an intelligence sophisticated enough to know that sometimes courage was not enough. He might
not
win out, when all was said and done. That would depend on many factors—his people, his cousin, the Communists, the British, his mother, himself. In these complicated days a chieftain needed more than paint, dried bones, a shield, a spear, and the conviction of his people that he was invincible. Invincibility required many things, nowadays: the gods that watched over him would have to be not only well disposed but well equipped. He waved and chatted, but there gnawed at his heart many doubts and misgivings now that he actually faced his return. It did not help him any to see approaching four familiar figures from Washington, or to be told, as they greeted him with a slightly ironic cordiality at planeside, that he would have two of them for company at least as far as London.

“But how delightful!” he exclaimed, as the watching reporters hovered close around. “How delightful, Senator Munson; how delightful, Mrs. Munson! And you, Mr. Secretary? Could we not persuade you and Mrs. Knox to travel with us, too, to brighten up the journey?”

“I’m afraid not, Terry,” Orrin Knox said. “We just came up to have dinner with these two and see them off. Then I think we’ll stay in town tomorrow and attend the UN Ball tomorrow night. Sorry you couldn’t be there.”

“Oh, you know how it is,” Terry said. “Affairs call one home. There is always something.”

“Yes, I know,” the Secretary agreed, a trifle dryly. “Well, perhaps next year. After all, you’ll be a member then.”

“Yes,” the M’Bulu agreed, and for a moment nothing but the most complete satisfaction showed in his face and filled his heart. “Yes. So I will.”

“Are you going straight on from London?” Dolly Munson asked. “We’ll be at the Dorchester, and perhaps if you’d like to have dinner—?”

“Oh, no, thank you, thank you,” Terry said quickly. “I must hurry on.”

“Can’t wait to get back, eh?” the Majority Leader couldn’t resist asking, and the listening reporters crowded closer for the M’Bulu’s answer.

“You know how it is,” he said cheerfully. “Affairs of state, affairs of state!”

“They
are
time-consuming, aren’t they?” Beth Knox agreed gently, in a tone that caused Terry to give her a sudden sharp glance. But he covered it with a laugh.

“You and your husband should know, Mrs. Knox. Indeed you should.”

“Well, have a good trip,” the Secretary said, as the jets began to whistle and the stewardess appeared and looked down upon them questioningly from above. “Robert,” he said, shaking hands, “rest well. You deserve it. Dolly, my dear, take care of him.” He leaned down. “A kiss to travel on.”

“Yes,” she said, returning it. “You be careful, too. Beth”—they kissed and looked at one another soberly for a second—“you take care of this one, too.”

“I will,” Beth said. “Do have a wonderful time, both … And you, Your Highness,” she said as the Munsons went up the steps and disappeared inside. “A safe journey home.”

“And safety when you get there,” Orrin Knox said quietly as the reporters retired and the cameramen drew back for a last shot of them shaking hands.

“Thank you,” Terry said, suddenly sober. “It is kind of you to wish me that after—after—” He stopped.

“We are a strange people,” the Secretary said. “Don’t try to understand us. Travel well.”

“I shall,” the M’Bulu said. “And now,” he added with a sudden change of mood and a wink to them both, “I must pose once more for my public.” And, ascending to the door of the plane, he turned and did so, laughing in the glare of the flashbulbs and the night lights of the great airport, roaring with activity all around, while from a window nearby the Munsons waved down to the Knoxes and the Knoxes waved back.

“Well,” Orrin said as they watched the plane lift off and dwindle rapidly into the night, “there goes an interesting young man.”

“Which,” Beth said, “probably ranks as the understatement of the year.”

“Yes,” he said, tucking her hand under his arm. “Brrh, it’s cold out here! Let’s get on back … And a curiously appealing one, too, in his own strange way. I wonder, though—I still wonder whether I handled that correctly. I just don’t know.”

“I suppose I’m partly to blame, too,” she said as they walked rapidly along. “Even though the Secretary of State told me Cullee’s resolution was
his
idea, I still think I had something to do with suggesting it.” She smiled. “So if you aren’t happy with the results, blame me.”

“I know,” he said glumly. “I know. But—Seab, for instance. And Cullee getting beaten up. And then this gray fizzle at the UN, after everything we’d done … You wonder. At least I do.”

“Cullee doesn’t hold it against you. And I’m sure Seab didn’t either. He was a fighter; he respected fighters. And as for the UN—well, I don’t see that we could have done much else, regardless of the outcome. Anyway, Harley’s satisfied; I’m satisfied. Most people are, I think. So why look back?”

“I didn’t used to, much. But the world intrudes, now … What are you going to do tomorrow—shop out the town?”

“Want to join me?”

“I suppose I should be over at the UN, but what the hell. Even Secretaries of State have to relax sometimes. Yes, I will.”

“Good.”

“And now,” he said soberly, “one more task and then we can go back to the Waldorf and go to bed.”

“Yes,” she said, equally subdued. “I hope he will know us.”

“I don’t know,” Orrin said. “Lafe’s going to meet us there first, and maybe he’ll have the late word.”

And, as they met him in the hushed corridors of Harkness, he did; but it was not what they had hoped to hear, though it was what they feared. Hal, he told them, had collapsed completely when he and Cullee brought him back to the hospital. He was now in partial coma and under heavy sedation, unable to see anyone.

“The doctors,” Lafe said in a saddened voice, “don’t know when, if ever, he will be able to—see anyone again. I’ll keep in touch with him, and if there is a better period before—before—I’ll let you know, Orrin, and maybe you can fly up. But they don’t hold out much hope now.”

“Well,” the Secretary said after a moment, “if he comes to at all before he goes—you tell him how proud his country is of him, will you? I think Harley is going to give him the Distinguished Service Medal later this week, but of course that probably won’t mean anything to him. If by any chance he does have a good period again, I think Harley wants to come up and give it to him here in person. But I suppose that’s very problematical, at the moment.”

“Very. They doubt that he’ll come back at all, now. The strains of the session yesterday pretty well rushed it along, I gather. He was under terrific tension. Cullee and I tried to make him take it easy, but he wouldn’t, so— there we are.”

“If he had called it off, of course,” Beth said, “then he wouldn’t have left the world his speech. So, maybe—maybe the Lord knew what He was doing, and you didn’t.”

“Speech …” Lafe mused. “It was a great one, but I wonder what difference it will make, in the long run.”

“Sometimes speeches live in ways we can’t calculate or understand,” Orrin said. “It wasn’t such a bad legacy to leave the world. I wouldn’t mind going out with something like that behind me.”

Lafe nodded.

“No, you’re right. Neither would I. I’d be proud … Though I think,” he added in a voice suddenly moved with emotion, “that he blacked out before he really had time to be.”

“What about his son?” Beth asked softly, and Lafe managed a little smile.

“I went up to see him this morning.”

“Oh? How is he?”

“The same. But you know something, Beth? I’m going to work with that boy. I really am. Hal sort of—entrusted him—to me, a few days ago. He asked me to look after him, and I will. I just can’t accept the idea that anyone as fine-looking as that, and as bright as Hal has told me he was as a child, is just—gone—forever. I don’t think Hal really ever accepted it, and I refuse to, too.” He gave a thoughtful smile, something faraway and touching in his expression. “He’s a challenge to me,” he said softly. “I’m going to bring that boy back, someday, Beth. You wait and see.”

“Oh, I hope so,” she said earnestly, putting a hand on his arm. “My dear Lafe, I hope so.”

“I will. I will … Well: you’re staying for the ball tomorrow night? It should be fun.”

“Yes,” Orrin said, “and tomorrow we’re going to shop out the town, so I’m told. Why don’t you have breakfast with us and come along?”

“I’ll have breakfast with you, but I won’t go shopping. I want to do some reading at the Library, I think, and then come back here and talk to some of the doctors about cases like Jimmy’s.” He smiled. “I’ve got a lot of homework to do in that area, if I’m to go about it correctly.”

“Yes,” Beth said. “I think that’s the right thing to do. Now”—she added gently—“now that you have a son.”

“Yes,” Lafe said; and, quite surprisingly for one whom much of the world considered to be generally light of heart and frivolous of purpose, sudden tears came into his eyes. “Yes.”

To the President of the United States, sitting at his desk in the upstairs study, thoughtfully reading the editorials in the newspapers and the great sheaf of telegrams piled before him on this gray Sunday in snow-wrapped Washington, the aftermath of the glittering passage of the heir to Gorotoland was also bringing its second thoughts and sober reappraisals.

It was obvious already that a new and grave turning in foreign policy had come in the minds of his countrymen as a result of the Assembly’s vote on Felix Labaiya’s second resolution. Try as they might, previously friendly journals were hard put to it to find in their editorial hearts quite the measure of earnest endorsement of the United Nations that they had found before. There was the reluctant and cautious admission that just possibly the organization might be moving in directions that would bring it into sharp and perhaps fatal disrepute with the great commonalty of the United States. There was the wistful and aching hope that somehow this would not be so. There was the anguished reiteration of the theme that It Must Survive—There Isn’t Anything Else. And there were the customary stern and self-righteous admonitions to him, the President, to Keep Calm, Judge Fairly, and Not Act Hastily In The Heat Of The Moment.

Well, they needn’t worry—he wasn’t going to do that. But there was no mistaking the correctness of their fearful analyses of the public reaction. Of the telegrams flooding into the White House at the rate of some five hundred an hour, possibly twenty were in wholehearted approval of the actions of the United Nations with regard to the Labaiya resolution; all the rest were as violently critical as the regulations of the Federal Communications Commission would permit. He had also received a number of worried telephone calls from various members of the Senate and House, at home in their states and getting a terrific backlash against the UN from their constituents. He gathered from the worried voices of old friends as they came to him from around the continent that there was a shocked and indignant feeling of “They can’t do that to
us”
that promised rough going in the months ahead for the policies he deemed best.