A Shade of Difference (14 page)

“Mr. Chairman, I would just like to put one question to His Royal Highness before the vote. Is he aware that Soviet and Chinese technicians are in his country illegally and that arms from Communist sources are being smuggled into the highlands to a secret point there?”

An exaggerated expression of surprise came over the M’Bulu’s face, followed by a broad smile.

“Well, Mr. Chairman, if Her Majesty’s Government really think outworn charges about Communism will delay this vote on freedom for Gorotoland, I think they are mistaken. Why
is
it, Mr. Chairman, that everyone—
everyone
in the West who wishes to stop the forward march of peoples always—
always—
tries to scare the world with Communism? Do they not understand that this is old stuff now? Do they not know that the peoples of the world can no longer be frightened with it? Do they not know the world simply does not believe it any longer? Mr. Chairman,” he said gravely, “I again ask your help for my poor enslaved country. I have no more to say, distinguished delegates. It is in your hands.”

And with a flourish of his gleaming robes he stalked from the rostrum without another glance at the British Ambassador, who seemed for a second, but only a second, at a loss.

“Very well, Mr. Chairman,” he said matter-of-factly, “I wonder if the Ambassador of Panama would read his resolution to us, so that we may all hear it again before we vote, bearing in mind the question I have just put to His Highness, which is based on very well-authenticated information reaching Her Majesty’s Government from very reliable sources within Gorotoland.”

There was a stir, and into it Patsy Labaiya’s husband spoke from the floor.

“It is irregular, Mr. Chairman,” he said, a frown on his shrewd dark face and a characteristic sharpness in his tone. “I see no reason why I should read the resolution. Let the distinguished delegate of the U.K. resume his seat and let the
rapporteur
read it, if that is the desire of the committee.”

“I
will read it,” said the Yugoslav delegate in the chair, and preceded to do so as Lord Maudulayne resumed his seat and the Secretary of State passed him a note that said, “We have intended to vote with you all along at this stage, but watch what the press will make of it.” Claude Maudulayne nodded rather grimly and tore up the note.

“Whereas,” the Yugoslav delegate said in his thick but recognizable English, “it is the legitimate desire of all colonial peoples to achieve independence, and,

“Whereas, it is the purpose of the United Nations to encourage and support all such legitimate aspirations of all colonial peoples everywhere, and,

“Whereas, it is the intention of the United Nations, furthermore, that all states should speed the easing of racial tensions, whether springing from the colonialist past or any other cause—”

“Damn it,” Claude Maudulayne whispered, “I still don’t like that language. And neither should you.”

“He wanted ‘imperialist past’ and it’s taken us six days of negotiating to get agreement on ‘colonialist,’” Orrin Knox whispered back. “The Asians and Africans wouldn’t permit any further change. Be thankful for small favors.”

“And, whereas the Territory of Gorotoland is the outstanding area at the moment where these purposes may be achieved most speedily,

“Now, therefore, it is the recommendation of the General Assembly that the United Nations do all in its power to persuade the United Kingdom to grant immediate independence to the Territory of Gorotoland.”

“Roll call!” the Soviet Ambassador shouted. “Roll call!”

“If the distinguished Soviet delegate will wait until I put the question,” the Yugoslav delegate said with some asperity. “The question is, does the First Committee approve this resolution and recommend its referral to, and adoption by, the General Assembly?”

“Does the First Committee approve immediate independence for Gorotoland!” Vasily Tashikov said loudly.

“That is not the question,” the Yugoslav delegate said with a pout. “I have stated the question. A roll call has been requested.” He reached into a small box before him and, in the UN custom, drew the name of the first nation to be called, the others to follow in their alphabetical order in English. “We will start with the Malagasy Republic.”

“Oui,”
said Malagasy.

“Mali.”

“Oui.”

“Mauritania.”

“Oui.”

“Mexico.”

“Sí.”

“Mongolia.”

“Yes.”

“Morocco.”

“Oui.”

“Nepal.”

“Abstention.”

“Netherlands.”

“No.”

“New Zealand.”

“No.”

“Nicaragua.”

“Abstención.”

“Niger.”

“Oui.”

“Nigeria.”

“Yes.”

“Seems to be a landslide,” NBC/UN whispered to the London
Daily Mail
in the press gallery. “Serves us jolly well right,” the
Daily Mail
responded dourly. “Imagine trying to stop genuine independence in this day and age.” “Nothing to the reports of Communism, then?” NBC inquired. The
Express
snorted. “You Yanks are hipped on the subject just like Terry said. Why don’t you come off it?” “Okay,” NBC said with a shrug. “I just wanted the official word.” “You got it from Maudulayne, right enough,” the
Daily Mail
said, “but that doesn’t mean it’s true. Listen to South Africa! What could you expect?”

“No,” said South Africa.

“Spain.”

“No.”

“It appears you have a very handsome victory,” the Secretary-General murmured to the M’Bulu. “I cannot complain,” said Terrible Terry.

“Turkey,” said the
rapporteur.

“No.”

“Uganda.”

“Yes.”

“Ukrainian S.S.R.”

“Da.”

“U.S.S.R.”

“Da.”

“United Arab Republic.”

“Yes.”

“United Kingdom.”

“No,” Claude Maudulayne said firmly.

“Here we go,” said NBC, leaning forward.

“United States.”

“No,” said Orrin Knox with equal firmness, and there was a sound of released tension through the room.

“Afghanistan,” the
rapporteur
went on, going back to the head of the alphabet after running through the U’s, V’s, W’s, and Y’s. “Albania … Algeria … Argentina … Australia …”

“The vote on the draft resolution submitted by Panama,” the Yugoslav delegate said presently, “is 51 Yes, 23 No, 36 abstentions, others absent. The resolution is adopted and referred to the General Assembly.

“If there is no other business, this meeting of First Committee is adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., when we will consider General Assembly draft resolution 6 stroke 98, proposals for suspension of nuclear testing by the eleven nuclear powers.”

At the door, as the delegates crowded out, the M’Bulu of Mbuele, halted by many congratulatory handshakes, awaited with a happy smile the approach of the British Ambassador and the American Secretary of State.

“There,” he said comfortably. “It was not so bad, was it, Your Lordship?” Claude Maudulayne shrugged.

“It was an interesting advisory. And that, of course, is all it was.”

“But with the weight of world opinion behind it,” the M’Bulu said, somewhat less sunnily.

“If it passes the General Assembly, possibly.”

“Surely you don’t think you can stop it!” Terry said with an anger he made noticeably louder as the press began to approach.

“Who knows?” the British Ambassador said. “We want some answers on those reports I mentioned before H. M.’s Government would be willing to relax their very determined opposition.”

“Reports!” Terry demanded. “Who told you about ‘reports’?”

“I’m not going to tell you,” Lord Maudulayne said with a cheerful smile at the press. “I don’t want the poor beggars eaten. There’s the matter of the slave trade, too.”

“Come now,” said the London
Daily Express
in a peremptory tone. “Surely H. M.’s Government aren’t going to bring out those old chestnuts!”

“Aren’t you interested in whether they might be true?” Claude Maudulayne inquired mildly.

“I know they’re not,” the
Express
said flatly. “I’ve been to Gorotoland and seen for myself, haven’t I, Your Highness?” He turned to the Secretary of State with an impatient air. “Mr. Secretary, why did the U.S. vote with the U.K.?”

“We feel the program of independence for Gorotoland is well timed and well phased, on the whole,” Orrin said, “and in any event, if it is not, we aren’t so sure this kind of pressure is the way to help the situation. We haven’t decided what to do when it comes before the Assembly.”

“Then we may be for it there,” the
New York
Times
said quickly. Orrin shrugged.

“Wait until it gets there and see.”

“Is it because you’re afraid of the blacks?” the
Express
inquired. The Secretary’s expression hardened, and it was Terry who came to the rescue.

“Enough, enough!” he cried with an infectious gaiety. “Enough of such solemn talk! Ahead of me lies my delightful visit to the southern United States, my dinner at the White House, my reception at Her Majesty’s Embassy, the chance to renew old acquaintances and make new friends for Gorotoland. Enough, enough!” And he burst into a roar of delighted laughter that quite startled his listeners.

“Enough, indeed,” the Secretary of State agreed dryly. “How about some lunch?”

“Alas, I have contracted to meet the distinguished Ambassador of the Soviet Union and the Secretary-General for lunch,” Terrible Terry said. “Possibly next week, if I may be so bold as to request a rain check.”

“Fine with me,” Orrin said. “Claude? A quick one, because I have a lot of telephoning to do to Washington.”

“All caused by me?” the M’Bulu asked coyly. The Secretary smiled at the attentive press.

“You do love to be the center of things, don’t you? No, not entirely by you. There are other things that concern the government of the United States.”

“Ah,” said Terry. “But none more important, surely.”

And in this, as the Secretary of State was to reflect in glum retrospect two days later, the M’Bulu was to be proven entirely correct.

5

The crowded elevator arrived at the fourth floor and two Indians, three Sudanese, a Cypriote, two French correspondents, three American correspondents, a graying secretary from the Economic and Social Council, and the junior United States Senator from Iowa stepped off. The others rapidly found their luncheon companions and dispersed from the humming little entryway to the Delegates’ Dining Room, but the Senator paused a moment to watch the hubbub of arrivals, greetings, handshakes, and exclamations in half a hundred tongues before wandering to the reservations desk to get his table number.

“Senator Smith of the United States,” he said with the intimately boyish grin that always fluttered feminine hearts, and the large Brunhilde behind the desk, true to her sex, gave a pleased titter and obediently skimmed through her reservation book with a swiftly ingratiating pencil.

“Table 47, Senator Smits,” she informed him with a dazzling display of teeth, and Lafe Smith reached over and patted her on the cheek.

“I can always count on you, can’t I?”

“Oh, yess, Senator Smits!” she assured him with a hearty giggle. “For annnysssing!”

“Ah, ah!” he said. “You’ll be giving me ideas.”

“Oh, Senator Smits!” she exclaimed, turning away with a wink and a blush to the grave Pakistani who was pretending not to hear this intimate exchange. Senator Fry, approaching his colleague from the rear, poked him in the small of the back.

“That was a disgusting exhibition,” he observed. Lafe grunted and swung about with an amiable grin.

“Hi, buddy. I just have to keep in practice.”

“I thought you were a sedate old married man now,” Hal Fry remarked. For a moment his companion lost his cheerful expression.

“Yes,” he said. “Who are you waiting for?”

“Nobody in particular. I thought I might run into you. And you?”

“Well, I took a table for two,” Lafe said, “and—actually—”

Senator Fry shook his head.

“All right. I’ll run along. I won’t even ask who she is.”

“But I don’t know who she is.” Lafe grinned. “Yet.”

“Oh, come on, now. I don’t believe even you are that good. Particularly right here in front of God and the UN.”

“As a matter of fact, there’s a little nurse in the Medical Service, and—I don’t know, you understand, she may be married with ten kids, but when I was in there the other day to get some cold pills she seemed—uh—friendly, as it were.”

“I’ll bet, ‘as it were,’” Hal Fry said. “What does Irene think of this?” Again a shadow filmed his colleague’s eyes.

“If she doesn’t like it,” he said shortly, “it’s her own damned fault. If, of course,” he added pleasantly, “it’s any of your business.”

“Sorry,” Hal said. “Your love life is so much a part of Washington, you know, that even up here one expects to be kept informed. But forgive me if I’m intruding.”

“You are and I do,” Senator Smith said, good nature restored. “There’s that little lady now.” He stared intently at a group of girls getting off the elevator, but none responded.

“There goes that little lady now,” Senator Fry remarked after they had passed. Lafe smiled.

“Very significant. Don’t have to tell an old campaigner like me what it means to be deliberately ignored. I may even have to have some more cold pills this afternoon.”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” his colleague told him, not entirely in jest.

“Oh, I may be pure as the driven snow these days, for all you know,” the Senator from Iowa said. He frowned. “About as pure as my wife. But that’s another story. How was Fifth Committee? Are the administrative and budget vultures still after poor old Uncle Sam?”

“Always. Why don’t we wait for a minute and see if Orrin comes up?”

“Okay. I’ll ask Miss Fluoristan of 1896 to give us a table for four.”

“I’ll ask her. You’ve titillated the poor girl enough for one day.”

“Titillated!” Lafe Smith repeated dreamily. “What an obscene, delightful word. Can’t you just see me with my naked hands around her naked—and my naked—and her naked—and—”

“All right,” Hal Fry said hastily. “Save that for the next time Tashikov makes a speech in the Assembly and I need something to keep me awake. Not here. I’ll be back in a second.”

“There’s that little guy from Gabon,” Lafe said with a shift to seriousness. “I want to ask him something, anyway. See you in a minute.”

Their errands completed, they met again by the entrance to the blue-and-white dining room just as the Secretary of State and the British Ambassador came out of the elevator and moved to the reservation desk. Hal hailed them, and in a moment they were on their way in together. By doing a little quick reshuffling that would a few minutes later badly upset four lady members of the Friends of the United Nations of Pipestone, Minnesota, Miss Fluoristan had managed to give them the prize table that sits in the northeast corner of the great glass-walled room looking straight up the East River to the Queensborough Bridge and beyond. The gentle autumn haze had lifted a little; the sun was bright and almost hot upon the river, ruffled by a freshening breeze. Oil barges and sightseeing boats trudged busily up and down, and over the bridge beyond the apartment buildings of Beekman Place and Sutton Place they could see a stream of tiny cars constantly coming and going.

“Well,” Orrin said as they settled down and ordered drinks before turning to the menu, “and how was Trusteeship Committee?”

“You know Fourth Committee,” Lafe said. “Flick, flick, flick from our little friends in Moscow, as always. Guess what we talked about this morning: just the same thing you did in First Committee—Gorotoland. I must say that boy has his groundwork well laid.”

“He’s a shrewd fellow,” Hal Fry agreed. “We even had to spend an hour on it in Fifth Committee, too. Did you vote in First?”

“We did,” the Secretary said. “And he won, substantially.”

“And we lost,” Senator Fry said. “Substantially.”

“We did.”

“I’m not so sure, with all respects to you, Claude, that this is a wise position for us to take,” Hal Fry observed. “I have a good many qualms on this one.”

The British Ambassador looked argumentative, but the Secretary shrugged.

“The press asked. I told them. I said we regarded the commitment made by Britain on independence as well phased and well timed. And in any event, I said, we didn’t feel that the situation would be helped by this kind of pressure. I said I didn’t know what we’d do in the General Assembly.”

“Once in a while,” Lafe observed, “I’d like to see us be consistent all the way through, you know? If we’re against it, let’s be against it. If we’re for it, let’s be for it. All the way.”

“Well,” Orrin said. “We may be.”

“We would appreciate that,” Claude Maudulayne said. The Secretary smiled.

“Or, again, we may not be,” he said cheerfully, and then sobered at once. “No. I don’t mean to be frivolous about it, but there is much to be said on Terry’s side of it, even admitting Communist infiltration, hidden slave trade, ritual sacrifices, and all. After all, most of the rest of Africa is free now, and—”

“Yes,” the British Ambassador said, “and look at it! Just look at it! Sinking back into tribalism in a dozen areas, abandoning all the protections of liberty, all the safeguards of the human being that some of us tried to give them over so many hard years—”

“Maybe they never really wanted them,” Hal Fry suggested. “Maybe they just wanted to be left alone to slaughter one another down the ages.”

“Well,” Claude Maudulayne said. “I must be fair, too. Of course there are some who have tried. Julius Nyerere has tried. Nigeria has tried. Some others have tried. But look at those who haven’t, starting with Ghana. But you’d never know it,” he said bitterly, “to read some of the press.”

“There are certain major elements of the press that occupy a curious position relative to the United Nations,” the Secretary of State said thoughtfully. “They decide arbitrarily that
it is best
for their readers to believe certain things about certain areas of the globe. It rather confuses things … Speaking of our troubles,” he said as they finished giving the pretty Japanese waitress their orders, “wouldn’t you like to eavesdrop on that conversation down there by the window?”

“I must say Tashikov and Terry look happy,” Senator Fry observed. “The Secretary-General doesn’t seem so cheerful.”

“What a hell of a spot he’s on, really,” Lafe said. “Those damned bastards chipping away at him every minute of every day; the organization slipping, really, ever since the Congo, nothing in sight to indicate the trend is going to change—Orrin,” he concluded abruptly, “why don’t we have the S.-G. to lunch someday? I think we ought to make more of a fuss over him. The poor guy needs help.”

“We do as much as we can, don’t we?” the Secretary asked. “Without making it too obvious. We can’t afford to court the charge that he’s an American stooge.”

“There isn’t a charge in the world that we try to avoid,” Senator Fry remarked, “that the Communists don’t make anyway. So why should we worry what they say? I think we ought to work with him more closely, too.”

“I don’t think he’ll do it,” Orrin Knox said. “Oh, he’ll lunch with us, I’m sure. But look at him now. He wouldn’t be any more relaxed or communicative than he’s being with them.”

And indeed it did appear to many eyes around the room that the Secretary-General was not entirely at ease in his present company. This was correct, for he was not. He found himself, in fact, wondering with some asperity how it was that his host the Soviet Ambassador could always succeed in placing him at a disadvantage, and concluded that it was by exactly the same means that the Communists used to put everyone at a disadvantage: simply by taking the forms of polite and civilized custom and twisting them around with complete selfishness and ruthless inconsideration to serve their own ends. A luncheon invitation from the head of a delegation was something one in his position did not normally turn down without a valid excuse if he were in New York: so all Tashikov had to do was ask. And then all he had to do was extend the invitation to the heir to Gorotoland, and there were the three of them in the eye of the world, obviously in cahoots and crowing about the vote in First Committee.

Such, at any rate, was the exact impression he knew the Soviet Ambassador wanted to give when he had ordered champagne and started the luncheon with a toast. The toast had been only the standard “To peace!” but when he forced them to clink glasses with a big, obvious gesture and then grinned triumphantly around the dining room, it was obvious to everyone that they were saluting Terry’s triumph. Particularly when that exuberant young man had gulped down his drink, refilled his glass, and gulped that down, too, with a sunny smile upon the world. For him, at least, there was no subterfuge; he
was
celebrating his triumph.

“Mr. Secretary-General,” he said, “this is a wonderful day for my people. And indeed for all people like us, don’t you think?”

The Secretary-General stiffened slightly at this reference to their mutual color and responded with a circumspect courtesy.

“I can understand Your Highness’ satisfaction.”

“Aren’t you satisfied too?” the M’Bulu demanded in some surprise. Their Soviet host chortled.

“The Secretary-General can’t afford to be satisfied or dissatisfied, can you, Mr. Secretary-General? It is beyond the scope of the Charter.”

The S.-G. smiled, a trifle bleakly. “And on the letter of the Charter, Your Highness,” he said, “you will find that the distinguished Soviet delegate is a very fine and meticulous expert. The spirit of the Charter is sometimes something else again.”

“We do not understand spirits in my country,” Vasily Tashikov said blandly. “We are practical people. We consider spirits the same as ghosts. The ghost of the West,” he remarked with a sudden ironic chuckle in which the M’Bulu joined with spontaneous delight.

“I love the UN,” he said simply. “Everyone is so witty and amusing here. You are fortunate to be in your position, Mr. Secretary-General. It is a great honor as well as responsibility.”

“Yes,” the Secretary-General said in a polite tone that warned off further comment along that line. Terrible Terry got the message but plunged right on.

“You can do so much for Africa now. So much more than you could when you were delegate from Nigeria. We all look to you.”

“The Secretary-General,” Vasily Tashikov said, spearing a large bite of steak, “tries to remember, occasionally, that he comes from Africa. Most of the time he is more anxious to be liked by everyone everywhere. Is that not true, Mr. Secretary-General?”

“I conceive it my duty,” the S.-G. said stiffly, “to be as impartial as possible. However difficult the distinguished Soviet delegate and his associates may try to make it for me to be so.”