A Shade of Difference (7 page)

Thinking of such scenes, which are becoming increasingly frequent of late, the Congressman sighs again and gives an unconscious, instinctive jerk of his right shoulder, as though someone were trying to hit him and he were ducking the blow. His eyes are troubled behind their gold-rimmed glasses, and across his handsome scholarly face, with its high cheekbones, classic brow, and full lips, an expression of trouble, both innocent and obvious, passes briefly. Ray Smith, approaching him unnoticed from the left, does poke him with a friendly fist and asks, “What’s the matter, Cullee? Somebody walking over your grave?” The Congressman shakes his head and looks down at the shorter Senator with a quickly concealing smile.

“I’m worried about water. Are we going to help those folks in the San Fernando Valley? Looks to me like we’ve got to if we’re to be elected next year.” Ray Smith grins back and says with a playfulness just a trifle too exaggerated, “Elected to what, Cullee?” And abruptly the Congressman realizes that Ray Smith and his wife agree. He’s actually afraid of me, he thinks, and it is impossible to deny a thrill of ego at that. He thinks maybe I could beat him, if I wanted to; or at any rate, he isn’t sure he could beat me. And he asks himself again, as he has on many more occasions than he has ever let on to Sue-Dan: why not? Why shouldn’t I? California’s different; they’re more progressive out there. Somebody has to break the ice, and why shouldn’t I? Out there, maybe a man could.

Thus his thoughts again parallel Seab Cooley’s, and now almost identically. There is the same commingling of passionate belief, personal ambition, and practical politics; the only added ingredient being that Cullee, a much younger man reared in a much different age, is able to stand back for a second and think to himself with an ironic and troubled amazement how fantastic this America is, which lets one man seek office on one basis in one state and another man seek office on almost the diametrically opposite basis in another state. How broad this umbrella, which covers so many children, he thinks; and underneath the joshing, uncomfortable conversation he is attempting to carry on with Senator Smith a deeper melancholy comes as he adds to himself: and will they ever rest together in harmony and peace, or will they always betray the ultimate reality of brotherhood and love that is the great final promise of the American dream?

But now, he chides himself, you’re talking like an editorial writer, and the whole thing is a lot more basic than that. The whole thing at the moment, in fact, is as basic as Sue-Dan Hamilton and what she thinks when she goes to bed with Cullee Hamilton; because while this still happens very often it is beginning to become obvious to one participant, at least, that the other doesn’t think too much of it. Certainly not as much as she used to in the first wild months of a union that seemed at the time so inevitable it couldn’t be stopped. Now he is beginning to find it possible to think that under certain conditions it
could
be stopped; and the thought terrifies him, for what would life be like without little old Sue-Dan? But even here a basic, ironic honesty still intrudes. You’d get along, boy, his mind tells him; you’d get along. But his body adds instantly, it wouldn’t be the same. Oh, no, indeedy. It wouldn’t be the same.

At once there leaps into his mind—by now Ray Smith is really quite worried that the Congressman does intend to run against him, because he seems so absent-minded and unresponsive to all of Ray’s sallies and there surely can be only one explanation for that: Cullee’s so busy thinking how to beat him that he isn’t able to concentrate on small talk—a picture of hot, dusty Molobangwe, capital of Gorotoland, lying in the blazing sun of distant Africa. He recalls the mud-and-wattle huts, the cattle and chickens in the streets, the guttural, rapid, curiously clicking sound of Terrible Terry’s native tongue, and in the rambling, ramshackle European structure, left over from an early ill-fated Christian mission, which now serves as the royal palace, a peculiar conversation with his elusive and half-naked host. The talk appeared to center around politics and the M’Bulu’s impatient and uneasy relationship with the British, but underneath it all Cullee had the impression that it concerned Sue-Dan.

They had been in Molobangwe for a week at the request of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and the visit had proved, so far, quite disappointing. “Why don’t you run along over there and see what’s up with that boy?” Representative J. B. (“Jawbone”) Swarthman of South Carolina, chairman of the committee, had suggested in his lazy drawl. “Mebbe he’ll let you in on things he wouldn’t tell the rest of us.” It was indicative of the working relationships in the Congress that neither Cullee nor Jawbone made any point of this practical reference to his color.

Jawbone’s assumption, however, had been false, and this had been very disturbing. In Africa he soon began to feel that he was being received, not as a fellow Negro, but as a prying and probably hostile American. Despite his preliminary reading, he had been a little too goodhearted to expect this, and so his first visit to Africa was proving something of a shock. The conversation with Terry had served to increase this unhappy realization that in a continent of tribes he was regarded as the representative of just another one, and that probably inimical. The whole thing was so foreign to his idealism about his own background, both racial and national, and his exhilaration at the great African surge to independence that was contemporaneous with his college years and start in public life, that he was having considerable difficulty accepting it. Consequently he did not pay too much attention to the M’Bulu’s rambling, if charming, discourse. Except that, at the end of it, he had gathered enough to be able to report later to the committee in Washington that there was probably real trouble coming with the British; and to carry away in the back of his mind the feeling that Terence Ajkaje, given half a chance, would love to appropriate his wife.

Whether Sue-Dan fully understood this he never knew directly, except as he was male enough to know when his female was desired by another male. He did realize that she was conscious of it to some extent, and perhaps bothered by it a little. He preferred to think that she had not encouraged it, and indeed there was little opportunity during their long, jolting rides through the back country in Terry’s old American jeep that had come down to Gorotoland through the mysterious channels of jungle and desert trade from some unknown long-ago battleground far to the north. His wife had been circumspect and noncommittal in the presence of the M’Bulu, who alternated between showing off his gorgeous robes and appearing stripped to a breechclout with his magnificent torso rippling like molten ebony in the sun. Sue-Dan had professed to be unimpressed by all this, and had even remarked sardonically at one point, “For a man with as many pretty clothes as you’ve got, Terry, you sure do like to undress.” Terry had given her his charming smile and exploded into delighted laughter. After that, save for his final talk alone with the Congressman when they had both sat around half-naked drinking native wine in the steaming hot room that had once resounded to “Rock of Ages” thumped out on a pump organ, the M’Bulu had been ceremoniously and fully clothed.

And now, Cullee thinks uneasily, Terry is at the United Nations and his argument with the British is front-page news, and sooner or later their paths will probably cross again. In fact, he is almost sure they will, for although he has turned down Jawbone’s suggestion that he “trot along down to that Jason party for the Emmbooloo in Charleston,” he is sure Terry won’t miss the chance to come through Washington on his way back to New York and create as many headlines as possible for himself in the process. And he, as the most popular, well liked, and respected Negro in Congress, will indubitably be expected to be on hand at some point along the line.

He decides, as he stands there by the Senate door responding with a tenth of his mind and attention to the nervous chatter of Senator Smith, that both he and Sue-Dan will stay out of it as much as possible. Patsy Labaiya and her family can whoop it up for old Terry as much as they like, but he, Cullee Hamilton, will do only the minimum that he absolutely has to; and Terry can be a white man’s pet nigger if he is willing to lend himself to the Jasons’ patronizing ways, but he, Cullee Hamilton, having been down that road and back on several occasions, will be damned if he will do the same. And he is also not disposed, given the present uncertain state of his marital situation, to encourage any stray sparks in igniting any stray dynamite that may be lying around.

He frowns, driving Ray Smith almost frantic, and after an absent-minded expression of thanks for Ray’s help on the San Fernando Valley viaduct, meets Seab Cooley’s eyes once more, gives a polite nod which is politely returned, goes out the swinging doors of the Senate, and starts back down the long, dim marble corridor, crowded with tourists who think he is probably a clerk, to the House.

At this final exchange of glances, five charming ladies whose presence in the Family Gallery is unnoted by the two participants exchange glances of their own and, with them, amused smiles and a significant nod or two. Beth Knox, wife of the Secretary of State, has come to the Hill to have lunch with Dolly Munson, wife of the Majority Leader. In the corridors on the street level two floors down they have, just a few moments before, run into Kitty Maudulayne, wife of the British Ambassador; Celestine Barre, wife of the French Ambassador; and Patsy Labaiya, wife of the Ambassador of Panama, dressed as always in one of her bright, garish dresses and bright, garish hats. Since no one of any prominence can be seen in Washington with anyone else of any prominence without half a dozen people immediately speculating on the significance of it all, Beth and Dolly have both been instantly struck by this odd conjunction of Britain, France, and Panama. Both have perceived some of its possible implications in view of recent developments at the UN, and it has taken only the slightest and most elusive of feminine communications to produce a unanimous and hearty invitation to join the luncheon party. This has been promptly accepted by Kitty, who loves politics and gossip; by Celestine, who has approved with her gravely silent smile; and by Patsy, who interrupts her own rush of conversation long enough to cry, “My dears, we’d be simply DELIGHTED,” and then goes on talking about her own opinion that the recent and surprising marriage of that perennial prowler about town, Senator Lafe Smith of Iowa, may already be on the verge of breaking up. It has been her DISTINCT impression, Patsy informs her companions, two passing newspapermen, a Capitol cop, and a group of tourists from Nebraska, that ALL IS NOT WELL in that household. Why, do THEY know that at Dolly’s last garden party at “Vagaries,” Lafe and little Irene were seen by Justice Tommy Davis of the Supreme Court VIOLENTLY arguing behind one of the rhododendrons, and now that Lafe is up there at the United Nations, Patsy’s husband, HER husband, Felix, says it’s common talk that Lafe is— But here the Senators’ private elevator arrives and swallows them up, leaving behind two disappointed newspapermen, one grinning cop, and six puzzled but thoroughly intrigued tourists from Nebraska.

Now in the Family Gallery, where, as Dolly murmurs to Beth, even Patsy Labaiya has to shut up, they have dutifully stood for Carney Birch’s prayer and then settled down to watch the Senate for a little while before going back down for their 12:30 luncheon reservation in the Senators’ Dining Room. Beth says she can’t stay away from the Senate even though Orrin is at State, now—“it’s always been home to us, and I guess it will always be”—and now that Dolly has finally landed Bob Munson after long and diligent effort, she is finding that she, too, is drawn constantly to the best show in town. The best, and, with the House, the most important, in the opinion of the Congressional wives. The ambassadorial, knowing that here in these chambers United States foreign policies are implemented and American money is approved for distribution abroad, are inclined to agree.

While Tom August drones on about the aid bill, interrupted occasionally by heckling questions from Paul Hendershot of Indiana and Victor Ennis of California, five busy minds of five busy ladies click away like efficient little machines. Beth Knox, thinking over the telephone call that comes faithfully from Orrin every day that he is away from her, recalls that last night he expressed a genuine worry about the latest developments at the UN. The M’Bulu of Mbuele is vividly present in Beth’s mind, for Orrin has told her without embroidery exactly the problems posed by that shrewd young figure: the possibility that the United States, though it will do its best to seek a compromise, may yet have to break with Britain on the issue; the possibility that France, still courting the favor of the young African states she released to independence, may also find herself forced to certain imperatives of national interest; the possibility, not yet supported by real proof but always present, that the Soviets may seek and in Gorotoland possibly find one more African foothold; and the Secretary’s additional uneasy feeling that “this boy is a hell-raiser and I don’t know where he will jump next.”

Added to that, Beth’s own feeling of incompleteness when Orrin is away, and she has a good deal to contemplate as Tom August rambles along; added also the fact that just before she left the big comfortable house in Spring Valley for the Hill she received another phone call, this one from Springfield, Illinois. Her son Hal and her daughter-in-law, Senator Stanley Danta’s daughter Crystal, had burbled over with the news that the Knoxes would presently be grandparents. This too, understandably, gives her much to think about.

For Dolly Munson, reflecting her husband’s concern with getting the Senate session concluded, the problems are also of a domestic, though somewhat less emotional, nature: whether she should have one last quick cocktail party and buffet at “Vagaries” on Saturday night, or whether Congress will have left town by then so that everyone of any importance will be gone—whether she should tell the advance crew of servants to leave for Michigan to open the house in Grosse Pointe next Monday or whether she and Bob should stay over a week and just enjoy Washington and the Valley of Virginia in the beautiful fall weather without having to worry about the Senate, Congress, government, social obligations, or anything else—whether it might not even be best for Bob to take him away altogether, arrange a quick reservation on Cunard to Europe, and do their relaxing in London and Rome. Being married to the Majority Leader has brought with it many subtle responsibilities Dolly never really found out about in her first unhappy marriage. The basic problem of how to take care of a man, which Beth knew instinctively on the day she first met Orrin in college, is only now being fully understood by Dolly.