A Shade of Difference (32 page)

Three hours later, after the half-touched luncheon, the agonizing gestures toward coherent, consecutive conversation, the farewell attempt to impart, as if a raised voice and desperate reiteration could do it, some memory of this visit, some anticipation of the next, he was on the road back down to New York, driving slowly in the thickening afternoon traffic. He was trying hard, but without too much success, to control the crying in his heart as he remembered the politely puzzled smile; the kindly, considerate concern, utterly genuine yet terrifyingly impersonal; the regret at his going that was already forgotten by the time he had walked twenty steps. For a moment his eyes blinded with tears and he lost sight of the road. If Jimmy had not been so attractive a boy, if he had been ugly or malformed, if it had not been so easy to see all the wonderful things he would have been if only—if only—

He told himself with a great effort of the will, aided by the angry cries of a group of college kids roaring by, too close, in a convertible with the top down, that he must snap out of it or run the risk of endangering his own life and that of others on the highway with him. His own he did not particularly care about at this moment, but he could not be so irresponsible toward others. It seemed as though half the population was out taking advantage of the last golden days of fall, young couples, old people, solitary drivers, families with children, gay groups of happy folk. No doubt in sheer healthy exuberance twenty or thirty of them would have smashed each other up and be dead by nightfall, but it was not his task to add to the toll if he could help it.

So by concentrating carefully on his driving and steadily, fiercely, determinedly pushing into the back of his mind the contrast between his personal problem and the heartbreaking beauties of the lovely day, he safely negotiated 9-W, got back on the Palisades Parkway, came eventually again to the George Washington Bridge and the crossing to the city. It was five o’clock; the early dusk was beginning to fall; the river glinted like molten brass as it stretched away south on his right. Wrapped in a mixture of sunset, fog, and haze, their mystery and magic increased by the twilight, the towers of Manhattan shot up in jumbled confusion against the sky. Like no other city, he thought: no other city. In many buildings the lights were already beginning to come on; across on the Palisades as he went down Riverside Drive the neon signs of amusement parks and grocery products added their twinkling glitter. Like a ruined caravel, the wreck of the copper sunset sank in low black clouds and night had come.

And now he must find Felix, he told himself with a feeling of guilt. The visit had taken longer than he had intended; he should have cut it short and come back sooner—but how could he? How could he? They had told him long ago there was no hope, but how could one not have hope? Perhaps the next question, the next carefully joking comment, the very next attempt to arouse interest—and suddenly the polite smile would become really perceptive, the eyes turn suddenly from impersonal kindness to genuine understanding, the softly slurred words become suddenly clear and filled with the urgency of the great intelligence that had once been there. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps—dear God, was it not worth hoping for? And how could one hurry, when the chance might be just around the corner?

But there he was again, he told himself as he drew alongside another car at the intersection of Forty-sixth and Fifth, and he must not,
he must not.
Ahead beyond the canyoned buildings he could see in his mind’s eye the tall bulk of the Secretariat looming, lit here and there where cleaning women worked slowly through, readying it for the new week, or where in some isolated office someone worked for the world, even on Sunday. And so did he, and he must make up for lost time now.

He realized with a mild start of surprise that the car next to him was moving forward, even though the stoplight was still red; the car behind him honked impatiently, so evidently the signal had become stuck. He moved out across Fifth, cautiously at first and then more surely as he realized the cross-traffic had stopped. This struck him as odd until he was almost to Third Avenue. Then he remembered that the signal light he had seen as red had been at the bottom of the signal post, not at the top; and red—real red—of course was at the top. For the first time a strange little prickle of fear ran along his scalp. “There it is again,” he said aloud in a surprised voice; and added, as though it could be brought back to sense by a matter-of-fact tone, “That’s
damned
peculiar.”

And so it was; but as he drove on across Second and First and into the garage beneath the Secretariat and left his car—he found it simpler and cheaper to leave it there and cab back and forth to the Waldorf—he felt nothing further. His vision was quite all right again; he experienced only the natural tiredness to be expected from the emotional strain of the visit and the physical strain of the drive; he was, on the whole, rested and lively and alert. As he started toward the elevator he noticed a familiar limousine in its place near his and, on an impulse, turned toward the attendant, a pleasant-faced boy from Malaya who was studying law at Columbia.

“Is the S.-G. in the building?” he asked in some surprise. The boy nodded.

“He came in about an hour ago with Ambassador Labaiya of Panama. They went right on up to his office, I believe. Señor Labaiya came back down and got his car about ten minutes ago.”

“Thank you.” He hesitated a moment; it might make it difficult to find Felix later, but he felt he really should talk to the Secretary-General. “Maybe I’ll run up, too, just to say hello.”

“Yes, sir. Do you want me to call and tell him you’re coming?”

“No, thanks. I’ll just go up.”

“All right, sir.”

On the thirty-eighth floor he found two secretaries on duty, an air of unusual bustle. In some alarm he asked for the Secretary-General and was shown in almost immediately.

“Senator Fry,” the Secretary-General said, rising and coming forward with a friendly smile that seemed to Hal to hold considerable concern. “Do sit down. My secretary has been trying to reach you at the Waldorf.”

“Yes, I’ve been out of town. I just got back.” He decided on the direct approach, and the knowledge that Felix had just been here fortified it. “What can you tell me about the Panamanian resolution?”

His host looked startled.

“So you’ve heard about it, then?” Hal Fry, who had learned long ago in West Virginia politics that it was sometimes best to feign a knowledge one did not possess, said nothing. The S.-G. sighed.

“He was just here, you know. Perhaps if you had come ten minutes earlier, it might have been possible to talk the matter over and work out something less damaging. I am sorry.”

“So am I,” Hal said, and he was, as he suddenly began to realize how narrowly he might have missed the chance to save his country the trouble that now would almost certainly plague her here in the UN. “Do you have a copy I can see?”

“It’s being mimeographed for distribution to the delegations,” the Secretary-General said. “I would like to show it to you, but—” he smiled. “You know the delicate technicalities of my position. I can’t play favorites. Everyone should have it by about 8 p.m., I should think.”

“It’s bad, though.” The S.-G. nodded.

“It is, as our critics of the organization often say, just words. But—very hurtful words. And very damaging, in the context of these times and the circumstances that prompted its introduction.”

“Is it a new resolution or an amendment? Because if it’s a new one, then maybe we can stop it before it gets to the floor of the Assembly …” His voice trailed away at the S.-G.’s expression. “Damn it! Somebody very clever has been at work on this thing.”

The Secretary-General looked tired.

“Very clever indeed. Felix is clever. Terry is clever. Their friends are clever. I am the object of their cleverness a dozen times a day. I know they are clever.”

“What do you think the reaction will be?” Hal Fry asked, a growing dismay in his heart as the full import of his missing Felix began to bear in upon him. Probably it wouldn’t have made any difference, probably Felix was determined upon it, probably he was beginning to torture himself unnecessarily—and yet. Yet it could have been just the thing needed to head Felix off, a quiet talk with this patient and thoughtful man here in this office that had seen so many would-be crises smoothly compromised away before they could burst into the open in the hectic atmosphere of notoriety, prejudice, and exacerbated attitudes on the floors below.

“The reaction will be about as you anticipate it in many areas,” the Secretary-General said.

“We may need your help,” Senator Fry said simply, and his host nodded.

“I am always being accused of betraying my own colored race,” he said with a grim humor, “but I don’t mind it, by now. My good offices are always available in the interests of compromising differences. I shall do what I can, of course, within the limitations of the Charter.”

“Well, that’s something,” Hal Fry said with a certain bitter jocularity. His host smiled.

“I would hope so. I like to think I am of some value in this house. Would you like me to call Felix and see if I can get him back right now? It might be we could still—”

But even as he reached for the phone in response to Hal’s nod, it rang under his hand. He lifted it and listened, shook his head at the Senator with an expression of annoyance, and finally said, “Yes, Mr. Ambassador. It will be done … That was Tashikov. He has heard that the Ambassador of Panama has an amendment to his resolution on Gorotoland and he wants it translated into Byelorussian. This will prevent distribution until at least midnight and, of course, foreclose any counter activities until tomorrow. He obviously knows what it says, so there’s no point in recalling it now. Felix couldn’t if he wanted to.”

“Which he does not,” Senator Fry said.

“Again, I am sorry. Ten minutes’ time, and—”

“Well, we’ll just have to see it through. It won’t be easy, but we’ve no choice, apparently.”

“Good luck,” the Secretary-General said.

“We’ll need it,” Hal Fry said. “That’s for sure.”

A few minutes later at the Waldorf he called Orrin in Washington and told him what had happened, apologizing bitterly for his own delay in returning to the city. The Secretary assured him that he was quite certain it wouldn’t have made any difference at all, that Felix was apparently operating on a broader plan than they had either of them imagined him to be, and that even if a meeting had been held in the Secretary-General’s office, the chances of a compromise would have been nil.

“I do believe this,” Orrin said, “so I don’t want you to worry about it for a moment. How was the boy?”

“The same.”

“In good health, though.”

“Oh, yes,” Hal Fry said with a terrible bitterness. “My son will live forever. He won’t have a mind, but he’ll be in good health.” He made a strangled sound. “My God, Orrin, how does the Lord let such things happen?”

“Now, Hal,” the Secretary said firmly, “stop it. That won’t do any good, and you know it. I want you to find Lafe and go to delegation headquarters at once and start making plans for a reply tomorrow. Do you hear me? That’s an order.”

“Yes … Yes, I guess that’s best for me.”

“It’s best for the country. I want us prepared tomorrow. I’ll be flying up at 9 a.m. I want everything ready.”

“All right,” Senator Fry agreed, obviously forcing himself to be businesslike, and succeeding. “I guess it’s the least I can do, after messing it up the way I have.”

“And stop
that,
too! I’m not kidding when I say it wouldn’t have made any difference. You’re just letting it upset you because you were already upset by your trip up the river. It wouldn’t have made any difference. Now, damn it, get that through your head!”

“Yes, Orrin,” Hal Fry said humbly. “You’re a kind man and I’ll try not to let you down again.”

And although the Secretary once more reassured him, with all the indignant force at his command, and although he presently returned to the conclusion himself that it probably wouldn’t have made any difference even if he had seen Felix, he could not escape the guilty feeling that he had failed Orrin, failed the President, failed the country by staying too long in the golden day with the handsome boy who did not know him. He realized that his state of depression was making him feel this way, but he couldn’t help it. He
did
feel this way, and that was all that mattered.

13

“Mrs. Vhadu Labba of India, please,” said the heavy voice of the busty blonde at the phone desk. “Mrs. Vhadu Labba of India, please call the Delegates’ Lounge … Dr. Ranashah of Iran, please … Ambassador Labaiya of Panama, please … Lord Maudulayne of the U.K. …”

And now, as always in the hours preceding a crucial meeting of the Assembly or the Security Council—in other words, almost every day—the United Nations hummed with gossip and speculation from top to bottom and one end to the other. Word of the new turn of events—sped by a speculative story from the
New York
Times’
UN correspondent under the headline “U.S. FEARS U.N. MOVE ON TERRY”—had given the organization its newest sensation. “It looks as though Uncle Sam is in for it,” a member of the Canadian delegation had remarked, not without relish, to a member of the delegation of Pakistan; and, typically, their cheerful agreement was being echoed, to greater or lesser degree, in many other conversations now going on in the lounges, the corridors, the eating places and conference rooms of the world’s mansion. Its inhabitants, disregarding the admonition to those who live in glass houses, rarely let pass a chance to throw stones at one another and now were having a high old time of it.

Thus the North Lounge was even noisier than usual on this morning of Felix Labaiya’s latest
démarche
in The Problem of Gorotoland, now broadened by the M’Bulu’s dramatic bravery in South Carolina and about to be broadened much further by the Panamanian Ambassador’s decision to seize upon the pattern of events and turn it to his own purposes. The support for his doing this was loud and vigorous in many sections of the room, and it was already apparent as the two senatorial members of the American delegation came in that many of the smaller states were already beginning to make up their minds in the matter, and not in a way favorable to the United States.