A Shade of Difference (81 page)

“No, I don’t take you for a fool!” the Secretary said angrily. “I take you for a man who has a reasonable kindness in his heart and might have the guts to show it, if he weren’t too afraid of his own shadow. The President and I stand behind this, you know. We’ll move, whatever the language says; you can be sure of that.”

Cullee Hamilton shook his head.

“Not just my shadow, Senator,” he said softly. “Lots of shadows, all black … I couldn’t do it and feel right inside. God, you know that!” he said in an agonized voice. “How can you ask me to?”

“I don’t know,” the Secretary said, folding the resolution and putting it back in his pocket. “I don’t know. Sentiment, I guess. Loyalty to an old friend. A foolish belief that things are best accomplished in this mixed-up land of ours when they are accomplished with the broadest general agreement and the least individual hurt. Some feeling that you might be able to understand, apparently mistaken. Some conception of a Cullee Hamilton who perhaps doesn’t exist. Evidently,” he said, and he got to his feet quickly, “I was wrong on all counts. Sorry to have bothered you. I guess all I did was send you back to the waiting arms of LeGage Shelby, right?”

“No,” the Congressman said, “not quite that.… Wait a minute.” He gave a small, tired smile. “Maybe you’ve talked me around again.”

“I don’t want to do that,” Orrin said, and then added with a sudden, engaging candor, “Of course I do, but not unless you can really see it.”

“I might accept ‘give serious and
affirmative
consideration to moving with greater speed,’ and so on. But he’ll have to come and ask me for it himself.”

“Oh, well, then it’s pointless. He never will.”

“He must.”

“He won’t.”

The Congressman shrugged and turned half-away.

“Very well. Then there won’t be any changes—and if any are tried from the floor, I’ll scream so loud they’ll hear me around the world—and he can filibuster until he drops, as far as I’m concerned.”

“You drive a hard bargain.”

“It’s the education we get. Will he come?”

“I’ll call Bob, and we’ll see what we can do. But I can’t make any promises.”

“Nor I.”

But after the Secretary had left, quickly as an experienced politician does when he thinks he has an agreement, the momentary satisfaction Cullee had gained from this outwardly adamantine position faded rapidly.

There returned almost immediately his dismayed suspicions of Orrin Knox, the possibility that he might well be just a too-compliant pawn in the larger game of the Secretary’s Presidential ambitions. The more he thought about it, the more his anger and dismay increased. Of course, the only, possible position was the one he himself had followed right along. True enough, it would be easy to accept a modification in the Senate with the bland comment that, “I see no danger to my resolution; the modification is designed to accomplish the fundamental purpose; it is acceptable to me.” But no one in the Congress would be under any illusions about the change in language, nor would the subtle and legalistic minds that hovered around the racial issue both domestically and in the United Nations. They would say Cullee Hamilton had sold out, and for what? Not even for his own political advantage, which some of them might be able to understand and forgive, but for the political advantage of Orrin Knox, which they could not understand and would not forgive.

But—on the other hand. There was the Secretary’s desire, and the Congressman felt it to be quite genuine, to give Senator Cooley a face-saving way out, to protect an old friend and not let him be hurt too badly in reaching his accommodation with the inevitable. Cullee could see this. He didn’t want to be mean to the old Senator just to be mean. He did, as Orrin had said, have “a reasonable kindness in his heart” and no desire to be harsh unless he had to.

Very well, then. Let the old man come to him, as he had suggested, and he would see. He might be able to give an inch if that would help Seab walk his rough last mile; and anyway, from what he heard, things were shaping up against Seab’s re-election so strongly that a paper triumph on this small feature of the Hamilton Resolution wouldn’t make much difference anyway. Perhaps he could afford to be generous, after all. Perhaps, as Maudie said, he should stop all this worrying and come back to the good opinion of the man in the minor. On that basis, maybe he too could be gentle with Seab, as long as it didn’t interfere with his basic purpose. Maybe he could.

It was therefore in a calmer and more reasonable mood that he heard the phone ring half an hour later and picked it up to be advised by an obviously surprised Orrin Knox that if he cared to drop in at Bob Munson’s office around 5 p.m., a profitable discussion might be held. It would mean that not only Seab, but he, too, would have to come part way, but certainly no farther than he himself had suggested, and would that really be too much to ask? He was momentarily soured again and suspicious, but after a second agreed that yes, he would be there.

“After all,” he said with just enough emphasis to make the point to the Secretary,
“I
have nothing to lose.”

Orrin agreed, and the date was set.

Set for the senior Senator from South Carolina, too, and it was with a sense of growing triumph that he walked once more along the corridors of the Old Senate Office Building, once more rode the subway to the Senate side of the Capitol, once more trudged along with his rolling, barreling gait to the hideaway of the Majority Leader. He had made it quite clear at lunch that he might be willing to accept a compromise on the Hamilton Resolution, but only if that nice colored boy came to him; and now, apparently, he had. Bob Munson’s call had been a little hazy on details, and at first Seab had objected stuffily that he didn’t see why his own office wasn’t a good enough place for the Congressman to come and have a talk; but then the Majority Leader had said something, rather vaguely, about “pride and personal touchiness—you know,” and Senator Cooley had said yes, he knew. He had finally agreed, reluctantly but knowing he had the whip hand now and could afford to be generous, to meet Cullee on neutral ground, in Bob’s office.

“After all, Bob,” he had said with a happy feeling of triumph, “I have nothing to lose. You know that, Bob.”

And Bob, a little hesitantly, had agreed, and the date was set.

So here he was, once more in command of a situation that had looked, for a little while, as though it might be difficult and perhaps disastrous. There had been moments in the past few days when he had actually wondered whether he could swing things his way once again, or whether the Cooley influence and the Cooley magic had finally failed. His own quick tally of known Senate opponents, probables and possibles, had convinced him that the outcome was entirely up in the air; but evidently there were things he didn’t know about. Evidently Bob and Orrin and their young friend from California had found that the opposition was too strong for them, should the resolution be left as it stood. Evidently he was in better shape than he knew.

Evidently everything was going to be all right.

It was therefore in a relaxed and friendly mood, humming a little tune as he plowed along, that he came to the Majority Leader’s office once again and, entering, found himself confronted by the three of them. They looked, as he could instantly see, rather ill at ease and not too happy about the way things were going.

“Now, then,” he said expansively, for there was no need to keep everybody edgy, “it’s nice to see you, Congressman, and you, too, again, Bob and Orrin. I hope the world is treating you well, now, Congressman, I truly do.”

“Well enough, thank you, Senator,” Cullee said evenly. “And you, sir, I hope.”

“Oh, fine, thank you. Quite fine. Now, Orrin and Bob, why don’t you—”

“We’re just going, Seab,” the Majority Leader said quickly. “Don’t kick me out of my own office, now.”

“Offered mine, Bob, but you said—”

“Yes, Seab, we appreciate your coming,” Orrin Knox said hurriedly. “Come on, Bob, let’s go down to the floor and see Tom August. I’d like to have him get this thing through Foreign Relations Committee tomorrow morning, if we can.”

“Orrin still thinks he’s running the Senate, Bob,” Senator Cooley said with a lazy grin. “You just watch Orrin now, else he’ll be running this old Senate again. Can’t have that, Bob. No, sir, can’t have that.”

“I didn’t do so badly, in my day,” the Secretary said. “Cullee, thank you for coming. We’ll see you both later.”

“Yes,” the Congressman said, in the same even tone.

After they had gone, he and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate remained for several minutes silent and constrained in the comfortable room littered with the photographs and political memorabilia of the Majority Leader’s long career in Washington. Both seemed disposed to examine these, Cullee because he felt tense and nervous and at first uncertain how to proceed with the formidable old man before him, Seab Cooley because he felt disinclined under the circumstances to lord it over the boy but felt instead that he should give him a moment or two to calm down before Cullee began his inevitable offer of compromise. It was with some surprise therefore that he became aware that a great stillness, as palpable almost as Bob Munson’s leather armchair, had come over the Congressman; and began to perceive, with the first flickering of alarm, that it was not the stillness of diffidence but the stillness of determination that had settled upon the handsome black face across the room. More quickly than he had intended, caught slightly off balance, not yet really worried, but puzzled, he broke the silence first.

“Well, sir,” he said, intending to put the boy—or was it himself?—at ease, “why don’t we sit down, now, and talk this over quietly?”

“Would you ask me to sit down if we were in South Carolina and not in Congress, Senator?” Cullee asked quickly, and it was not at all the sort of remark Seab Cooley had expected. It was not insolent, just curious: but it was not the type of curiosity he was used to from the dutifully genuflecting Negroes he knew in South Carolina. Not that they genuflected from fear of him, because he was very well liked by the colored race; he had done a great deal for them in his years in office, and they called him “the Old Senator” and were honestly fond of him. But—they just didn’t question. At least the older ones didn’t. The younger, he was uncomfortably aware, were beginning to talk like Cullee.

“Why,” he said, “I expect I would ask you to sit down if we were in South Carolina. I’d invite any member of Congress to sit down in South Carolina and be honored to do it, sir. Honored to do it. Does that surprise you, now, Congressman? Is that a surprising thing?”

Cullee gave him a long look, his expression unfathomable. Then he gave an ironic little smile and shook his head.

“No, Senator, it doesn’t surprise me that you’d invite any member of Congress to sit down in South Carolina. Please take the Majority Leader’s chair, if you’d like. I’m going to try the sofa.”

And with the casual grace of body that those who are athletes in youth never entirely lose, he turned away and let himself sink comfortably into it while the Senator from South Carolina, feeling oddly as though the interview were getting far out of hand, moved after a moment behind the big oak desk to sit in Bob Munson’s chair. Again a silence fell.

“How soon do you think we’ll be able to adjourn, Senator?” Cullee asked finally, and Seab recognized the remark for what it must be, an indirect opening to give the Congressman a chance to make his bid for compromise. This was better, and he decided to be as helpful as possible in moving the subject along.

“Well, sir,” he said, “as soon as we can get finished with your resolution, I think. I think that’s when, when we get finished up with that. And you know more about when that will be than I do, I expect. Isn’t that correct?”

“Not I, Senator,” the Congressman said with a smile whose import Senator Cooley could not determine. “I think that’s up to you.”

“Oh, sir?” Seab Cooley said in a less friendly voice. “And how is that, may I ask?”

“I understand you are ready to accept a compromise and drop your opposition. That ought to put it through the Senate tomorrow, shouldn’t it? Then we
can
go home.”

“I, sir?” Seab Cooley demanded, with an ominously rising inflection.
“I
compromise? Who said I would compromise? It is
you
who I am told will compromise, not I. That is why you are here, is it not?”

“No, sir,” Cullee Hamilton said in a level tone. “I understood it was why you are here.”

“But Bob told me—” Senator Cooley began. The Congressman interrupted.

“And Orrin told me.”

Again there was silence, and now Cullee Hamilton realized he was seeing something that few men living had ever seen: uncertainty and dismay on the face of Seabright B. Cooley. Perhaps in his earliest days men had seen that—assuredly there were some far back who had—but it had been many and many a long year, the Congressman was sure, since the sight had been permitted anyone. Probably before he was born, he thought with a feeling both awed and sad; probably that long ago.

“Now, sir,” the old man said with a careful softness that somehow seemed suddenly pathetic, “let me understand this. You thought I was giving in and I thought
you
were giving in. Appears to me somebody’s mighty mixed up, Congressman.”

“Yes, sir,” Cullee said quietly. “I wonder which of us it is.”

“My good friends gave me to believe you wanted to see me,” Senator Cooley went on, still in the same careful way, “because you wanted to propose substantial changes in language that would help your resolution go through the Senate. Not that I’d stop opposing it, mind, but it wouldn’t be so hard for me to let it go through, finally, if that was what the Administration really felt it must ask of us. But that wasn’t the way you heard it.”

“No, Senator, it wasn’t. Not ‘substantial.’”

“I wonder how I could have heard it that way?” Seab said thoughtfully, and the Congressman had the strange feeling that the old man was talking to himself and that he, Cullee, wasn’t in the room at all as far as the Senator was concerned.