A Shade of Difference (18 page)

“This is Felix,” he said. “I am in the Delegates’ Lounge, as you can hear”—he put a hand over his right ear to shut out the booming loudspeaker, now calling for Mr. Hirosaki of Japan, please—“and everyone up here is quite excited about the President’s comments on Terry. It is ideally timed for us.”

“Everyone here is terribly excited, too,” she said in a pleased tone of voice. “In fact, everyone is FURIOUS. Wouldn’t you know that old fool would put his foot in his mouth? Leave it to him! But, more fun for us. They’ve already had a big row about it in the Senate.”

“Oh? Were you there?”

“I was earlier, but then I had to go and have lunch with Beth Knox and Dolly Munson and Kitty Maudulayne and Celestine Barre—”

“An interesting group,” her husband observed with a smile that sent some warmth over the wire. Patsy chuckled.

“Yes, wasn’t that a combination? But VERY interesting. Beth isn’t worried at all,” she added less cheerily.

“She will be,” the Panamanian Ambassador promised, again with a smile. His wife laughed.

“Yes. Well, I started the row, anyway, because the minute the news came over the wire—” Felix winced as he always did at the thought of the wire-service teletypes tapping away in the Dumbarton Avenue study; but it was Patsy’s money, and who was he to quibble? Just Patsy’s husband. “I got right on the phone and called Ray Smith, and do you know—he went right on the floor and made the most magnificent speech about it … At least,” she said more thoughtfully, “I THINK it was magnificent. The reports aren’t too clear yet, because Seab Cooley got into it somehow and you know how he can confuse the issue when he wants to. I don’t see why that old mountebank DOESN’T DROP DEAD. I really don’t. Anyway, it’s now a big issue down here, too. Which is all to the good for the luncheon. Now we’ll really get attention.”

“I never doubted it,” Felix said with an irony he knew she didn’t miss. “When the Jasons go to work on something, I’ve found they rarely fail. Why don’t you buy us the Canal and give it to us for a birthday present?”

“Wait until Ted’s elected,” she said cheerfully. “We may be able to work something out. What’s happening up there?”

“Much discussion, much excitement, much annoyance. The Africans are very exercised, the Asians are upset. The Europeans are baffled and the Communists are happy. All in all, one grand mess.”

“Will it help your resolution?”

“Certainly. I don’t see any possibility of its failing now. Even if it gets blocked in the Assembly, I think it may be possible to get it to the Security Council as a threat to world peace. Particularly with this assist from the President.”

“Felix,” his wife said, “I may be dense, but exactly how does the problem of Gorotoland affect peace? I mean, I can see that as a moral matter, possibly, as a nice thing to do, an idealistic gesture, it makes sense. But I don’t quite see how it rates as a threat to peace if Terry doesn’t get his independence until the date the British have promised him. After all, a year isn’t so long to wait. Just how does it come under UN procedure in the form you’ve presented it?”

“UN procedure,” Felix Labaiya said dryly, “never was very exact, and it’s becoming less so every day. It’s already been attacked on just the grounds you say. The British tried to keep it out of First Committee, where it really doesn’t belong, with just that argument. But we’ve all learned things from the Russians. You can get the UN to do whatever you want it to if you just present it with something loudly enough and insist that it act. Maybe ten years ago sentiment for precedent could have been mustered to block the whole thing at the outset. Now you can get the Afro-Asians to go along with anything, provided certain of the big powers are against it. Once upon a time Britain could have got enough votes to have the whole thing thrown out. She doesn’t dare try it today. Not even with U.S. help.”

“Yes, but what I mean is,
why?
Why is it so vital that Gorotoland be freed at once? Why is it such an issue? Why is everybody suddenly so wild on the subject?”

“Specifically, why am I? Well, to me it’s simply a matter of common justice. Nearly all of Africa is free, just as the M’Bulu says, and it’s about time the rest of it was, too. And with Soviet help I felt it could be done most directly in the form in which I’ve presented it.”

“Why did the Soviets choose you?” Patsy Labaiya asked. The Ambassador made a small, disgusted “Tchk!” sound and his tone sharpened noticeably.

“No one chose
me.
No one chose anybody. It was my idea all along. I happened to mention the matter to Tashikov one day at lunch and he said they would be glad to help if they could. I’ve told you all that.”

“Yes, I know. But it still puzzles me.”

“Puzzling or not, it seems to be working perfectly all right. And of course the whole thing builds up beautifully for the luncheon and Ted. Would he like to come back up here with me and watch the final voting, or does he have to go right back to California?”

“I expect he’ll have to go back,” Patsy said, “but you can talk it over in Charleston. He does want to come back through here and see the President; I know that.”

“Oh? That’s intriguing.”

“Yes, very. It’s a courtesy call, of course, but—”

“One of those where you put your pistols on the table when you sit down,” her husband suggested with a smile. She laughed.

“Probably. Well, I’m delighted everything’s going so well. Things are all set for the luncheon, too. It’s going to be wonderful.”

“LeGage Shelby wanted me to be sure and tell you he would be there.”

“I’m so surprised,” Patsy said ironically. “If there was anyone I thought would stay away, it was ’Gage Shelby. He hates headlines so … The one who says he
is
going to stay away, of course, is Cullee Hamilton, and he’s the one we really should have.”

“Can’t your brother do anything with him? If he wants to run for Senator, I should think he’d need Ted’s support. Surely that provides some leverage.”

“California’s a funny state,” Patsy said. “Just when you think you’ve got political leverage on someone, you find the leverage isn’t there and you fall flat on your face. The voters are too independent to co-operate. So is Cullee. Ted can offer his support, and it may be of some assistance, but his opposition wouldn’t hurt much. Everybody runs on his own out there. I certainly wish he would come, though. He’s so respectable. You know what ’Gage is.”

“Yes,” said Felix Labaiya. “And here he comes now, so I’d better conclude.”

“I wish you were here,” his wife said in a voice that suddenly changed completely. “Right
here.”

“Yes,” he said, thinking dryly. Well, that’s dutiful; I must be dutiful, too. He put a little fervor in his voice. “We must discuss all that in Charleston.”

“Is that a promise?”

“A promise.”

“I’ll hold you to it,” she said, “Tell ’Gage I’m absolutely thrilled to death that he will be with us.”

“He will be thrilled that you are thrilled,” Felix said. “Good-by, now.”

“How is she?” LeGage asked, dropping into the armchair on the other side of the table. “Well, I hope.”

“So excited about the luncheon she cannot see straight,” Felix said, and they both laughed pleasantly over the fiction, which neither believed, that Patsy was ever so excited about anything that she couldn’t see straight.

“Ah, yes,” ’Gage said dreamily. “That will be quite an affair, particularly with Justice Davis about to hand down a decision on that appeal for injunction on the school integration case.
Quite
an affair. Is Cullee coming?”

Felix frowned.

“Apparently he is not.” ’Gage frowned, too.

“What’s the matter with that boy?” he asked in an exasperated voice. “Doesn’t he know this is a chance to stand together and really strike a blow for something constructive? I ought to talk to that boy.”

“I thought you had,” the Panamanian Ambassador said in some surprise. “And if you haven’t, why haven’t you? And if you haven’t, why don’t you?”

LeGage gave an embarrassed little laugh.

“Well, you don’t exactly understand the relationship between old Cullee and me. We were roommates at Howard, you know; we understand each other pretty well; and—well, he doesn’t take much from me without getting mad. I can’t push him; he gets stubborn. He’s already mad at me about something else down there, a bill that DEFY wanted to have passed, and—I just don’t know whether it would do any good for me to talk to him about the luncheon or not. That’s why I haven’t because I haven’t been sure. I thought it might just make it worse.”

Felix Labaiya gave him a skeptical and appraising smile.

“Don’t tell me there’s someone who has the great LeGage Shelby intimidated. I do not believe it. What does this Cullee have that I don’t know about? I shall have to cultivate him when I am in Washington.”

“He’s worth it,” LeGage said. “He’s really quite a boy.”

“You sound as though you genuinely admire him. This, too, is rare.”

’Gage Shelby smiled, somewhat uncomfortably.

“Let’s just say he can—do things I can’t do.” A rarely honest expression crossed his face for a moment, and his companion realized that only a very genuine emotion could produce such a result in one who normally lived behind several brassy and self-protective layers. “He’s got guts about some things I haven’t,” LeGage said simply. “Let’s put it that way.”

“And by the same token,” the Ambassador said firmly, “you can do things he can’t do. And you have the guts to do them, too. Such as lead DEFY to new victories and deal so splendidly with our friends of the Afro-Asian bloc here.”

“That was one of the Nigerians on the phone just now,” ’Gage said with a pleased smile, distracted to more comfortable matters. “They’re having a conference in half an hour about your resolution and they want me to be there.”

“Have you cleared it with the Secretary?” Felix asked with a certain mocking note that did not escape his companion. LeGage smiled.

“Nope. But he needn’t worry. I’m just supposed to explain the fine points to them if they ask me.”

“They regard you still as an outsider,” the Panamanian Ambassador said. LeGage gave him a scornful look.

“Shucks, man. They don’t
really
take me in. I’m not a Negro. I’m an
American.
We Americans, we got it made, you see. They’re jealous of
us …
Got it made!” he said with a sudden deep bitterness. “Oh, brother. Have we got it made.”

“Well,” said Felix Labaiya-Sofra with a quiet conviction. “You will have. One of these days.”

“Yes!” his companion said with a sudden naked fierceness in his voice, though his face retained its usual sardonic mask. “Yes, man. You just bet we will.”

“Have you seen Terry?” Felix asked with a deliberate change of tone. LeGage laughed.

“Terry’s in the recording studios being interviewed by the networks. In another hour he’ll be the most from coast to coast. That boy never had it so good. He’s really riding high.”

“Well,” Felix said, “I can’t be at your Afro-Asian conference, because they would never ask me, but you take them a message from me. You tell them,” he said, his eyes narrowing as he looked down the lounge to the bar, where delegates and press now clustered, drinking and gossiping beneath the wooden map of the world, “that I, of course, deeply deplore the unfortunate and insulting attitude of the President of the United States toward His Highness and, indeed, toward all African states generally. You tell them that I intend to push my resolution with unrelenting vigor until it is adopted by the United Nations. You tell them I shall never flag or fail in the cause of freedom and opposition to colonialist domination of which, as a Panamanian, I know something.”

“Say, now!” ’Gage Shelby said with a laugh. “That’s quite a speech, Felix, boy.”

“You tell them,” the Panamanian Ambassador repeated in a completely humorless tone.

“I’ll tell them … Can I fly down to Charleston with you tomorrow?”

“Gladly. And, look. Why don’t you call Cullee? We really do need him, and I’m sure this is something sufficiently important to overcome your strange and uncharacteristic reluctance.”

“We-ell,” LeGage said, looking doubtful. “I’ll think about it.”

“He really does have you scared, doesn’t he?” the Panamanian Ambassador said. LeGage grinned.

“Not exactly scared. You just don’t understand about Cullee and me. That boy’s got
character.
”

“And you haven’t?”

“Sometimes when I’m around him,” LeGage admitted, not altogether humorously, “I’m not so sure.”

They stood for a moment silent in the glass-walled living room on the thirty-eighth floor, looking out over First Avenue to the fantastic spectacle of New York flung upward to the sky, a last shred of sunset dying behind the city’s silhouette, the lights coming on in a hundred skyscrapers, an impression of overwhelming life, cruel, challenging, ruthless, beautiful. The Secretary-General shook his head.

“Fabulous city. Fabulous. Words can never do it justice. It has to be lived to be believed. You are lucky to have it in your country.”

The Secretary of State smiled.

“Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But you’re right; there is nothing like it. In some ways it is hardly America, but there’s no denying it’s the twentieth century.”

“Would you like a drink?” the Secretary-General asked. “I have some sherry, or something stronger.”

“Sherry will be fine,” the Secretary said. “I’ve got to cut down on this UN high life. I don’t see how you regulars stand it.”

“It took me a while to arrive at a happy compromise,” the S.-G. admitted with a smile. “The British left us a drinking tradition in Lagos, but it’s nothing like this.”

“Of course I suppose it has its purpose, as much as in Washington. A good deal of your business gets done at receptions, cocktail parties, and dinners, I’ve observed.”

“Even more than yours,” the Secretary-General said, “because of course in Washington you deal in the substance of power. You can really make things happen. Here we deal only in power’s shadow. We can only talk. We can’t make much of anything happen.”

“Sometimes the talk can be very important,” the Secretary said, staring into the amber depths of his glass. “World public opinion can be a powerful thing.”