A Shade of Difference (96 page)

There was a rap on the door, the entry of an intern and a couple of nurses with a wheelchair, which they pushed alongside his bed and asked him to get into. Even as he started to comply he paused and turned back, startled and dismayed, toward the radio.

“—found dead this morning by a policeman at the foot of the Capitol’s West Front overlooking the city of Washington. Senator Cooley, seventy-six, had just completed an eight-and-a-half-hour filibuster on the resolution introduced by Representative Cullee Hamilton of California. The Senate passed the resolution following completion of Senator Cooley’s filibuster.

“In a development that many observers believed might be connected with the death of the South Carolinian, Representative Hamilton himself was savagely beaten in the early hours of the morning by a group of unidentified men.

“Senator Cooley, President Pro Tempore of the Senate and for many years regarded as its most powerful single member, first came to Washington in—”

Oh, Seab! he thought with anguish: Cullee! What are they doing to us all?

And with a fierce determination that startled his young attendants as it flared across his face—I
will
help. God, I
must.

2

The weather had changed at last, the wistful golden lingerings of autumn had come to an end. Fog and puffy, slate-gray clouds bearing promise of snow hung low upon the city and the river. A few tugs passed up and down the darkly churning channel, a few gulls, lonesome in the chilly air, swung dispiritedly over the water. The world looked cold, and it was.

In the overheated, overcrowded Lounge behind the two-story windows that framed this hostile scene of winter’s encroaching desolation, the calls for Mr. Ahmed Khan of Pakistan, Señora Elena del Arbro of Chile, Mr. Grovious Bato of Yugoslavia, Mr. Bibbiyu Crubb-Shama of the Ivory Coast came sternly over the loudspeakers in the heavy tones of the young ladies, beginning to call a little more firmly, a little more stridently as the rising babble of the gathering delegates almost drowned out their voices. The plenary session on Kashmir was not scheduled to start until ten-thirty, but already the room was filling to capacity, its occupants concerned not only with the latest tensions of the uneasy subcontinent but also, and even more excitedly, with the action of the United States Senate last night and its intriguing and fascinating aftermaths, the death of Senator Cooley, the savage beating of Congressman Hamilton, the bubbling and all-important question of how the whole business would affect the Labaiya proposals when debate resumed in the plenary at 3 p.m. tomorrow.

Not the least of those who wondered, as he sat quietly off to one side, pretending to be absorbed in
La Prensa
but in reality carefully studying the stream of multicolored faces entering the Lounge, was the Ambassador of Panama himself.

For Felix Labaiya, the last couple of days had passed in the busy but essentially unsatisfying pastime of attempting to firm up the votes he had, attempting to acquire new ones, and attempting to keep alive in the press a steady flow of confident propaganda that would assist in all his purposes. He thought now that he had enough pledges to do what he wanted to do, but in this chattering and tricky atmosphere one could never be sure. One thought he had the commitment of some dusky delegation one moment, only to be led off down the garden path by a vague hint of withdrawn support a moment later. By rights, there should be no problem. He was dealing with the United States, a most vulnerable country on matters of race here in a United Nations that in recent years had been transformed into a temple of race, and yet—one could not be sure. They were, he suspected, just playing with him because he was white. He, too, ironically, was having trouble because of race. Yet he was almost certain that when the voting came he could count on very strong support, quite possibly enough to achieve his purpose—and this despite the fact that the Congress, surprisingly enough, had made good on Cullee Hamilton’s promise and passed his resolution as he had said it would.

Contemplating the swirling crowd before him as more and more delegates came to the door, stood for a moment looking about for friends, and then moved on into the room to join the many little gossiping groups, he congratulated himself that patience and planning would place him in a position of commanding influence here despite his continuing questions and uncertainties about some delegations. The action of the Congress, he would give its members credit, had been more astute and perceptive of the realities here than he had believed possible; yet it was, after all, a gesture made under pressure. There had been enough things said during debate in both houses so that all he need do in the Assembly was quote certain excerpts from certain speeches in order to restore to their original hostility those delegates who might have been impressed by the final result in Washington. He did not think it posed so great a problem, particularly when what he proposed to do would of course arouse all but a few of the Afro-Asians to the point where they would very likely forget all their hesitations, if they had any, and rush to his support in the wild excitement of the moment.

So he thought his cause was in good condition as he prepared to put aside his newspaper and move down the long room to a chair by the window where he could see the gorgeous figure of the M’Bulu sitting alone with his back to the room, staring out moodily upon the wind-whipped waters of the winter-dark river. Don Felix, grandson of Don Jorge, master of La Suerte and oligarch of Panama of the new style, a long, long way from the old in these hurrying days of world upheaval, congratulated himself that he would yet win out over his country’s enemies. They had achieved a shrewd maneuver with the Hamilton Resolution, but he told himself that it was hardly enough.

For the second time in twenty-four hours Terrible Terry was doing something he had almost never done in recent years: he was revealing to the world that he was seriously upset about something. It was not, in this case, a direct disclosure to another person, as it had been to Senator Munson in Washington. It was a more subtle, indirect uncovering, something about the set of his shoulders, the angle of his head, the half-defiant, half-angry, wholly tense way in which his elbows rested on the arms of his chair and his long fingers clasped themselves tightly together as he rested his chin upon them. He had deliberately turned his chair to the window so that his back was to the room, a move designed both to discourage interruption and to conceal from the avid eyes of the bustling throng the uneasy concern that filled his intelligent eyes and furrowed his massive forehead. He did not intend for the world to know that the heir to Gorotoland was gravely worried, and he did not know that the fact was clearly apparent to all who happened to glance, as many did, at his solitary figure by the window.

The assumption that sprang to most minds was of course correct: he was indeed upset about the odd little riot in Molobangwe, and upset about it now with a deep and steadily growing concern as he reviewed the details provided half an hour ago in a special report of the Resident, sent over to him by messenger from Lord Maudulayne at British headquarters on Park Avenue. Like Lafe Smith, with whom he had flown up on an early morning plane from Washington, he had decided to forego catching up on the sleep he had lost during Senator Cooley’s filibuster in order to get back at once to the politicking of the UN as it approached the Labaiya debates. Now he wished he had taken the time to get at least three or four hours before facing this. He and Lafe had talked a little, quite inconsequentially, and dozed a little, quite fitfully, on the quick flight up; such rest as he had managed to achieve had been very brief and not very refreshing. Now he felt tired and pestered by life and, for the first time in many years, not quite so confident and sure of himself as was normal to his fierce pride and monumental self-assurance.

Disclosed in the report from the Resident—accompanied by a cheerful little note which said only, “Sounds a bit sticky, doesn’t it? Have fun! M.”—was a pattern of activity that sent up many little warning signals to a mind extremely jealous of its power and instantly suspicious of all attempts to encroach upon it. The riot had begun in one of the outer compounds of the town, had seemed to follow a predetermined route as it moved from hut to hut in toward the palace, and had finally culminated in the ostentatious flight of the Council of Elders to a nearby village. Dramatically his regent-cousin had then appeared to quiet the mob, which had responded with a suspicious speed, and then had recalled the Council of Elders, who had given him great praise and tribute for his courageous handling of the hectic situation. Acting, Terry was sure, under pressure, his mother too had added her tributes, and the riot was over. At his cousin’s request, everyone had then joined in a wild public tribute to the M’Bulu and to his leadership of Gorotoland’s cause in the far-off United Nations. Apparently everything had ended with the situation exactly as it was before: except that his cousin had displayed to the world the fact that he could control the street mobs, the Council, and Terry’s mother. Otherwise, Terry told himself sardonically, nothing at all was changed in Gorotoland.

The next step, he presumed, would be for his cousin, if he dared while the British were still in control, to send him word that he might be better off if he remained for a time in New York. Possibly he would be offered the post of special representative at the United Nations, with the implicit understanding that he had better not try to come home, possibly later he would be found dead some morning on a New York street, his testicles cut off and his body flecked with symbolic knifings signifying things to the Goroto people that would be lost upon the Manhattan police. That was the road, clearly, down which his cousin wanted him to proceed. The riot had been simply a preliminary test to ascertain whether his cousin could get away with it. Undoubtedly he had not been at all sure himself when he had caused the riot to begin that he could manage it. There was the chance, ever-present in volatile Africa, that the street mobs would get out of hand and turn upon him—they could as easily murder him as follow him. And the Council of Elders might not have been compliant enough to go along with his plans; and Terry’s mother might have exercised her still-great influence to thwart him; and it could have ended in the cousin’s defeat and death and a completely unqualified triumph for Terry.

But it had not; and the reasons for this were ominous and probably as pointed as one sentence in the Resident’s report intended them to be: “It seems clear on the basis of preliminary investigation that both outside funds and outside influence were present in the origins of this disturbance, and that Soviet and Chinese Communist agents, working secretly with the Co-Regent, were largely responsible for the pattern of events.” Largely responsible for the fact that they and the Co-Regent had not succeeded, the M’Bulu knew with a strange mixture of humor and gratitude, was the fact that the M’Bulu had not yet achieved his aim of independence for Gorotoland and that consequently the British were still in control there.

As long as London remained in charge, neither his cousin nor the Communists would quite dare to overthrow him and his government entirely. The riot just served notice that they were getting ready. And of course they had timed it perfectly, after the British had issued their White Paper on Communism in Gorotoland, and after he himself had joined in heaping scorn upon it. Now who would believe him, if he attempted to turn about and say to the world, Yes, they were right? The West might, but Africa and Asia would only laugh.

What he had to decide right now, as he sat staring out upon the East River, was whether he should fly home immediately or whether he should chance staying until the final vote on Gorotoland’s independence. He did not think any further attempt would be made to overthrow him until independence was guaranteed, and of course the vote here would not automatically produce it, even though he was sure the day would be greatly hastened, since the British would probably in their obliging way bow to the Assembly’s will and begin to pack their bags. It would come soon enough, at any rate, so that he did not think he could afford to wait very long beyond the end of the debate, He might just be able to allow himself this extra day or two, but a shrewd judgment of men and events, coupled with an almost animal instinct for self-preservation, told him he could not tarry a day longer.

The one thing he would not do, given his heritage, brains, and ability, was concede the game without a contest and take the easy way out by seeking asylum in the West. Whatever else he might be, the 137th M’Bulu of Mbuele was not a coward, and there burned in him a ravenous pride and a fearsome desire to get his revenge upon those who had given him such a fright with the riot in Molobangwe.

He had just reached the decision to remain for the debate when the Ambassador of Panama interrupted his reverie and disclosed his new and intriguing plans; and as the M’Bulu contemplated them, his aspect gradually lost the forbidding air that had surrounded it for the past hour. He had decided to remain: very well, let them be hours passed happily in the confusion of his enemies, silly old Cullee lying all whacked up in Bethesda Naval Hospital, the foolish old United States that thought it could buy off the conscience of the world with a tricky resolution in a reluctant Congress, the hopelessly mixed-up British who thought they could tell the tide of history to wait a little while until they were graciously pleased to get out of its way.

They would be shown in due course, by such astute and farseeing men as himself, the Panamanian Ambassador, and all those others here in the United Nations who served the purposes of the future. He could not help a burst of gleeful laughter at the prospect, as his spirits returned completely to their customary cheerful ebullience. Even Felix, amused at the sound, forgot for a moment his characteristic intense, closed-off preoccupation with his own concerns and joined in heartily. Nearby many others, black and brown and yellow, saw them and chuckled in appreciation, not knowing the subject of their hilarity but knowing that it must augur well for the cause to which all of them were devoted.