A Shade of Difference (97 page)

It was thus that the junior Senator from Iowa saw them as he entered the Lounge, looking tired and worried, shortly before 11 a.m. The spectacle did not improve his somber mood.

He did not doubt that the Labaiya Amendment would be beaten now that the Hamilton Resolution had been passed, but it was impossible not to feel in the wake of all the unhappy events of the last twenty-four hours a sense of foreboding and misgiving that depressed him greatly. He knew, as an intellectual proposition, that this was not very sensible thinking, that only coincidence had made the outlook so depressing. But emotionally it was easy to fall into a somber mood.

Everything seemed to be going wrong.

Not, he repeated sternly to himself as he stood there looking about, drawing interested eyes and interested murmurs from the colorful crowd, that the United States really had anything to worry about now. Admittedly the attitude of the Congress had not been filled with a wild enthusiasm in either house, but it had passed the Hamilton Resolution and the country was now committed both to assisting Gorotoland and to moving even more earnestly in the direction of assisting its own colored population. The Assembly would have to feel a degree of vindictive unreason greater than any he had seen yet to insist on its own censure motion—particularly since it took two-thirds to pass, and particularly since the United States was still the principal foundation rock, financial and otherwise, upon which the United Nations rested. Both on the score of good faith and the score of its consistent dedication to the world organization, his country stood unassailable to any fair and honest appraisal.

Why, then, the uneasiness and the tendency to somber mood? Why the formless sense of impending unhappiness? Probably, he decided, for the reasons he had already thought of: his sorrow for Seab, his concern for Cullee, above all the tragic necessity of helping Hal Fry face what he had to face.

And yet, as the sole representative of the United States of America in the Delegates’ Lounge of the United Nations at this moment, it was incumbent upon him to show a smiling and confident face to the gossiping nations that examined him so narrowly as he stood there. The sight of the M’Bulu and Felix and their jocular friends chortling away down the room did not disturb him, but they annoyed him, so carefree and unconcerned did they appear to be at such a time. Well, he told them in his mind as he forced his face into a pleasantly noncommittal expression by a determined effort of will, enjoy your little laugh, boys. We’ll see who laughs last.

He was conscious of someone at his elbow, a dignified presence alongside. The Secretary-General held out his hand.

“Good morning, Senator. My congratulations on the action of the Senate. It has been well received here.”

“Has it?” Lafe asked, shaking hands. “I wonder.”

“Oh, yes. Somehow the tragic events attending upon it seem to have made it more acceptable. There is a certain”—the S.-G. hesitated and a curious expression, compounded of irony and a sad understanding, crossed his face— “a certain liking for blood, here. A death—a beating”—he gave a bitter little smile—“the passions they symbolize are taken as proofs that the United States is really concerned about this matter.”

“My God. Was anyone in doubt?”

“Many. Many. After all, what was the response last week to the threatened action of the Assembly? It was to offer financial aid, or to withhold it, to couple the moral argument with the monetary whip—it seemed to many to be the standard American response. Now there is a feeling that America’s heart is also engaged. It is felt it shows a certain—maturity, shall we say.”

“Maturity!” Senator Smith said sharply, momentarily forgetting his duty to be amicable. “Good Lord, look who’s talking!
Maturity?
It is very nice,” he added more calmly, “not to be patronized.
Maturity!
Well, well.”

“I am simply expressing the feeling as it comes to me,” the Secretary-General said mildly. “I do not say it represents my own. I know what the United States has done in support of the United Nations over all these years. But this is the first time it has presented any proof that it is seriously anxious to improve the lot of its own colored people.”

“The
first
time?” Lafe said, trying hard to keep his expression pleasant, but again finding it difficult. “What has my government been doing all these decades, if it has not been giving proofs to the world? We have given thousands of proofs to the world!”

“The new states are not aware of them, you see. It is only a very short time that they have been allowed to see the world beyond their borders. In that short time, many very well publicized events in America have shown them the other side of the coin. The mob that threw things at Terence Ajkaje symbolizes America to them. Or at least it did until now.”

“And now, I suppose, all is harmony and they love us,” Lafe said, “and we shall defeat the Labaiya Amendment by an overwhelming majority.”

He was conscious of a little change in the S.-G.’s eyes, a veiled expression for a second.

“Won’t we?” he asked quickly. “After all, it takes two-thirds.”

“It is not my position to intervene in these matters,” the S.-G. said, “unless requested.”

“I’m requesting. What do you hear?”

“I should beware a wild majority,” the S.-G. said cryptically. “I should also beware,” he said with a relieved smile that showed how little he wished to talk, even guardedly, in so public a place, “of newspapermen trying to ferret out embarrassing things.”

And he gave a little bow and faded gracefully away as the London
Evening Standard
and his colleagues moved in upon them.

“Good morning, Senator,” the
Standard
said crisply. “How does the situation look to you now?”

“It looks as though I have an appointment across the street at U.S. headquarters,” Lafe said easily, though his mind was racing furiously as a result of the Secretary-General’s last remark.

“Come on, Lafe,” the
New York Times
told him. “You can do better than that for us.”

“Can I?” Lafe asked, a slightly acrid note coming into his voice. “How, pray tell?”

“Oh, just tell us how confident you are,” the
Chicago
Tribune
suggested. “How many hundreds of votes we have to spare in licking the Labaiya Amendment. And things like that.”

“I’m not a vote-predicter, and I really do have to run along. Why don’t you see me tomorrow? I’ll know better what’s going to happen then.”

“That’s no fun,” the London
Daily Mail
said. “We’ll all know then. We want to know now.”

“Mmm-hmm. Well, excuse me, boys. Go see Terry and Felix down there. They’ll talk.”

“All right,” the
Standard
said, suddenly annoyed. “We bloody well will.”

“You bloody well do that,” Lafe said, turning away. “See you later.”

“What’s going on here, anyway?” the
New York
Herald Tribune
asked as they started purposefully down the Lounge toward the window where Felix and the M’Bulu were now holding forth to an admiring circle. “He didn’t sound very happy.”

Nor was he, as he got his hat and coat and hurried down the Delegates’ Stairs to the Main Concourse and made his way out through the groups of students, the earnest ladies from Boston and Denver, the loudly talking tourists who crowded the low-ceilinged expanse awaiting their turn to tour the building. He was genuinely disturbed by the S.-G.’s obscure warning, for he thought he probably interpreted it rightly. He was also on his way to Harkness Pavilion to see his colleague. Neither item made him happy.

He paused briefly at the circular information desk and borrowed a phone to put in a call to Washington, completed it, and then hurried out past Zeus and Sputnik and the slowly swinging steel ball of the Netherlands to catch a cab and proceed north through the cluttered traffic of the frigid metropolis.

There had been an injection of procaine in the sternum. A few minutes after that, a needle had been inserted, suction had been applied, the needle had been handed to a nurse who carried it briskly away.

“Is that all there is to it?” he asked blankly. “Is that all that this elaborate preparation led up to?”

“That’s it,” the doctor said, smiling. The enormity of it struck him a heavy blow.

“It doesn’t seem like much, for a death sentence,” he said with an ironic bitterness. The doctor at once looked grave.

“It may not be that, but if it is—if it is—you will have to draw on all your resources—and I think you have them—to bear it. It will not be easy, but I think you can do it. That’s my impression, anyway, from what I’ve read of you.”

“Thank you,” Hal Fry said, and in spite of the curious state of suspended feeling in which he seemed to be, a shadow of his customary humor came into his voice. “You’re sure you can believe all you read in the papers?”

The doctor gave a sudden smile, as if surprised and pleased by this show of spirit, and Hal realized how anxious they must all be for him to carry it off well. You needn’t worry, he reassured them in his mind. I’ve got promises to keep, and miles to go, before I sleep.

“I’m not sure I always do,” the doctor said, “but from the little I’ve seen I’d say they were probably accurate about you. What’s going to happen over there at the UN on this anti-American amendment?”

“It’s going to be defeated tomorrow or the next day if I have anything to say about it,” Hal Fry said. “And I will,” he added with a sudden defiant grimness, for the general sedation he had been under for the past twelve hours was beginning to wear off.

“Tell me,” he said. “If this is—what we think it is—what’s the outlook?”

“It depends on the type. If it’s the type preliminary tests seem to indicate, then the outcome will be”—the doctor hesitated—“relatively swift.”

“How swift?”

“Forgive me. Two to three weeks. A month.”

“But not the next couple of days, then,” Hal said, feeling strangely relieved, as though the doctor had told him he had all the time in the world.

“Oh, no,” the doctor said. “But—” he added, watching him closely, “you understand, Senator—swift.”

“I understand. That doesn’t matter, as long as I’ll be all right for the next couple of days.”

“You will,” the doctor said, taking the cue without surprise and proceeding to discuss it matter-of-factly. “There will be some deterioration even in that time, but probably not enough to be noticeable to others. Especially if we keep you under sedation.”

“I don’t want to stay here,” Senator Fry said sharply. “I’ve got to get back.”

“But—” the doctor began, and paused at his patient’s expression. “Very well. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t. When do you have to be there?”

“The debate starts at 3 p.m. tomorrow afternoon, and I ought to be there right now.”

“Stay in today so we can give you some radiation, and then if you’ll report back in tomorrow night and stay overnight so we can treat you some more, and check in each night as long as the debate goes on, well let you go in-between times. How’s that? Fair enough?”

“I appreciate it,” Hal Fry said. An agonizing spasm struck his chest. “There’s just one thing—if there is some sedation that would stop some of these symptoms temporarily, could I have it?”

“We can give you some muscle relaxants and tranquilizers, if you like, to stop this pain from the nervous system that’s giving you so much trouble. We don’t want to load you up with too much, though, if you want to be active in the debate. But that’s up to you. If you can stand it without too much sedation, it would be better for your reactions and general quickness. On the other hand, if it gets too intense—maybe you won’t want to pay that price.”

“Why don’t you give them to me and let me be the judge? If I really have to use them, I will. But—I’ll try not to.”

“You’re a brave man.”

“I know. And what good has it ever done me?”

But that, he knew, was an understandable human bitterness, and the doctor dismissed it as such. Of course it had done him infinite good, carrying him through his marriage and its tragic conclusion, through Jimmy—Jimmy! Would there be time to go to Oak Lawn once more, and what would be the point, except sentimentality, if he did?—and now his courage must come to his aid again. And already it had, he realized as the brisk young nurses came in and helped him into his wheelchair, though he was perfectly able to walk and only a tiny bandage showed the site of the fateful intrusion into his marrow. He was beginning to come back already, at least in terms of humor and fighting heart.

That this pleased the doctor he made clear when he came in a little later to hand Hal a lab report and explain its notations of hemoglobin sharply down, white blood cells and lymphs sharply up, the presence of many mitotic immature cells.

“That’s it?” Senator Fry asked, scanning it automatically as though it were a report on someone else. Somehow it seemed to be, so determined was his mind to raise a barrier of detachment that would see him through.

“That’s it,” the doctor said gravely. “Acute myelogenous leukemia, if you want to know the formal name of what’s after you.”

“Luke, meet Senator Fry,” Hal said, leaning his head back on the pillow and looking into some far distance with an expression in which sadness and a tired philosophic humor were strangely combined. “Give me a couple of days, Luke,” he said softly, “and then we’ll go away somewhere together.”

“You’ll have them,” the doctor promised, more moved than he wanted to show. “Harkness Pavilion’s gift to the country will be to keep you in shape for that debate.”

“Thank you,” Hal Fry said, managing to smile a little. “I won’t let Harkness Pavilion down. Or anybody else, for that matter.”

“We know you won’t,” the doctor said. “We know … Look,” he added gravely, “—you think this has hit you, but it hasn’t, yet. Not really. The full impact hasn’t come—it can’t, at first; the mind won’t let it. When it does, you call us immediately and we’ll give you enough sedation to put you out completely for a while. All right?”

“And when I wake up, will you have taken it away?”

The doctor shook his head in sad acknowledgment.