The Troubled Air (31 page)

As he said the words, the phrases seemed remote, without meaning, their only flavor a residue of mockery and ignorance. They sound, Archer thought, going back to his history classes, like the speeches that were made by orators in the legislatures of Southern states before Secession. Just that orotund, exactly that dead. Four, five years ago, in the lost, defeated past.

“And the people who were yelling loudest about the Communist menace were so outlandish,” he went on, picking his way troubledly through the maze of argument. “They called Roosevelt a Red, remember, and they said Truman was out to set up Communism in America. And anybody who thought that the miners ought to get five cents more an hour or that Franco wasn’t a perfect gentleman they called a traitor … And that magazine—
Blueprint—
is a bit on that side, too—they’ve attacked the mildest kind of liberals as subversive and they’re perfectly willing to ruin people without the semblance of a trial or any kind of reasonable investigation. You can’t help but feel that there’s something sinister about them … And now, recently, on the other side, you find out that Americans have been passing on military secrets to the Russians … Frankly, I was surprised. I guess I was naive. I still don’t think that any of the Communists I’ve known would do anything like that. Maybe Mrs. Pokorny …” Archer added as an afterthought. “But I don’t really know. I only saw her for ten minutes. I guess I feel that there are two kinds of Communists … The conscious conspirators and the ones who’ve been misled into believing it’s a kind of noble reform movement. And the conspirators can be handled just like anyone else who breaks the law. The others …” He shrugged. “I guess we have to bear with them. As long as they don’t break the law we have to regard them as innocent, with full rights to speak, to earn a living …”

Mr. Sandler made a grunting noise. It was impossible to interpret. He was searching for a place to park on the crowded street and he hardly seemed to be paying attention to Archer. Archer sat back, feeling that what he had said was lame, unconvincing, but feeling, too, that as clumsy as it was he had clarified his position for himself for the first time. The chaotic impressions, the welter of conflicting forces, the complex claims of affection and dislike were for once organized and compartmentalized, however rudely. At least, he thought, I’ve come to a working basis on this. Whatever Hutt thinks or Sandler does, I can locate my own position on the emotional map.

Mr. Sandler found an open space and backed his car in skillfully, grunting loudly as he spun the wheel. “Too many cars on the streets these days,” he complained. “No reason for it. Just restlessness. Women,” he said. “Haven’t got anything to do at home. Get in the car and roam around and block up the streets.” He took the ignition key out of the lock and got out. Archer got out on his side and waited for Sandler to come around and join him.

“Club’s only a block away,” Sandler said, as they started walking. “That’s par for the course. One day I had to park nine blocks away.”

He bounced swiftly along the sidewalk and Archer had to stretch his legs to keep up with him. Almost impersonally, Archer wondered what was going through his companion’s mind. Obviously, Mr. Sandler was interested in finding out about the people on the program and about Archer himself, information that went beyond what Hutt had given him. That alone was hopeful. The old man must still have doubts or be prepared to compromise in some way, Archer thought, or he’d have closed me off long before this.

A colored man took their coats at the entrance and there was the clink of ice from a small bar off the lobby. Archer’s mouth felt dry and he wanted a drink, but Mr. Sandler merely poked his head through the door of the bar, muttering, “Want to see who’s there.” He looked in for a moment, then bobbed out. “God be praised,” he said, “for once my son isn’t holding up the bar at this hour.” Then he took Archer’s elbow and guided him toward the dining room. He indicated a staircase rising to the next floor, saying, “Used to be some of the biggest poker games in the state of Pennsylvania went on up there. In the old days. No more. None of the old spirit left. Now they come here with their wives,” he said darkly, indicating with a gesture of his head a man and a woman going through the dining-room door ahead of them.

The dining room wasn’t crowded and Mr. Sandler guided Archer over to a small table in a corner, away from any of the other diners. As they passed the other tables, Mr. Sandler nodded brusquely, and grunted greetings. The men who said hello to him were mostly middle-aged, substantial-looking, with that look of being a little behind schedule that businessmen have at lunch.

“Hello, Charlie,” Mr. Sandler said to the head waiter, who had come over to their table. “Got any oysters today?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Sandler,” the headwaiter said.

“I praised them to Mr. Archer. Fried. Make sure they’re nice. Mr. Archer’s from New York and he’s critical. He eats in the best restaurants. Or he ought to, the money he’s making.” Mr. Sandler grinned. “I’ll have them, too. What’re you drinking, Archer?”

“Bourbon old-fashioned, please,” Archer said.

“Two, Charlie,” said Mr. Sandler. “And don’t seat anyone near us, will you? We’re talking business.”

“Of course, Mr. Sandler,” the waiter said. He went off toward the bar.

“Didn’t drink until I was fifty,” Mr. Sandler said. “Then I heard a hotel owner at a summer resort say he didn’t like Jews to come to his place because they didn’t drink, and all his profit came from the bar. Thought that was a reasonable enough attitude. Promptly went at the bottle. Haven’t stopped since.” He smiled briefly. “Pleasantest way of combating anti-Semitism yet devised. You knew I was Jewish, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Archer said, feeling uncomfortable.

“The nose.” Mr. Sandler tapped his nose vigorously. “Gets longer every year. Never stops growing. Hell of an imposition on the chosen people. Ever see Napoleon’s death mask?”

“No, I don’t believe I have,” Archer said wonderingly, feeling that Mr. Sandler jumped around unfairly.

“Nose nearly down to his chin. With all his other troubles. Tough on a vain man. Often wondered what Napoleon thought when he looked in the mirror in the morning on St. Helena. Now,” he said, “I suppose you’re waiting to hear from me.”

“Well, yes,” Archer said. “Naturally.”

“What would you like to hear me say?” Mr. Sandler leaned forward over the table and peered shrewdly at Archer.

“I suppose I’d like you to say I can go back to the old system of putting on the show,” Archer said. “Hire anyone who’s good for the show and fire anyone who’s bad for the show.”

“Uhuh.” Mr. Sandler nodded. “Thought you’d say that. Won’t do it, though. Can’t do it. If you’re going to stick to that, I guess I’ll just have to shake your hand, wish you good luck and say good-bye. After lunch, of course. Do you still want to listen to me?”

“Yes,” Archer said.

“Good. Glad to see you’re a reasonable man. Thanks, Charlie,” Mr. Sandler said to the waiter, who was placing their drinks in front of them. He lifted his glass. “Health,” he said.

They drank. The old-fashioned was very good, almost straight Bourbon, with just a twist of lemon-peel to point up its flavor.

“I hate to have to say what I just did,” Mr. Sandler said. “For thirty years I’ve run my business on one basis and one basis only. Does a man produce or doesn’t he? If he produces he goes up. If he doesn’t—out. That receptionist in my office—that colored girl. Some of the people around me raised hell when I brought her up from bookkeeping. Thought it would antagonize some of our contacts, seeing her sitting there in the front office like that. But she’s smart, she’s pretty—she’s got a nice, soft voice on the telephone, I like to hear it—and she knows how to let the right people in without falling all over them and keep the wrong people out without making them feel as though they had leprosy. Best girl for the job I’ve ever had. And she’s worked out fine. Nobody’s complained. Just the opposite. People wait for hours, with pleasure, feasting their eyes. And Ferris. My general manager. An Irishman. Big, rough Mick, and when he first came up he was as crude as a stone club. But I gave him a big share of stock in 1940 and when I die, he’s getting enough more to give him a controlling interest in the business. My wife’s been after me to put my boy in. Not a chance. Boy’s useless. I’m very fond of him, but he’d run the business into the ground in three years. I didn’t work all my life for that. I’d spin in my grave like a rotisserie. Affection is for the home. Domestic consumption only.” Mr. Sandler looked up as the waiter put the plates of fried oysters on the table. “Taste them,” he commanded. “If you don’t like ’em, send ’em back.”

“Delicious,” Archer said. The oysters were tender and nut-like, with a crumbly brown crust. Mr. Sandler ate with evident pleasure, using his knife and fork neatly and methodically.

Mr. Sandler waited until the waiter left the table. “Now,” he said, “I have to change the pattern. The old days’re over. The free and easy days’re gone. I don’t pretend I like it. I won’t say it wasn’t better when you hired and fired as you damn well pleased and could tell anyone who poked his nose into your business to get the hell out of your office. These days everyone and his brother is strolling in as though he had seventy-five percent of the stock and telling you, Do this, you can’t do this, pay so much, withhold, deduct, add, get permission, open your books. The labor unions, the Government, the God-damn Treasury Department. Do over ten thousand dollars a year and you’re a bloody public institution. And I didn’t bring it about.” Mr. Sandler waved his fork for emphasis. “Your sainted Mr. Roosevelt and his holy heirs and assigns. This is the age of the meddler, and you and your fellow Democrats started it, so don’t be surprised if people you don’t like very much also get the notion into their head to do a little meddling on their own account. You strapped business onto the operating table, and there’s no way of our stopping it if some butcher gets into the operating room with a knife in his hand. Well, the meddlers’re now telling me I can’t advertise my product in a certain way. If I fight ’em, what happens? They boycott me, they get columnists to denounce me, they threaten my customers. I spend a million dollars a year for advertising. The function of advertising is to sell your product. What sort of businessman would I be if every dollar I spent for advertising lost me two dollars in trade? You’re worried about five people. I’m trying to protect five thousand. And about the Communists. You have a fine, lofty notion about them, about protecting their rights. You haven’t ever had to deal with the bastards. I’m a businessman. I have a big plant. I own land. I have stocks and bonds. What the hell do you think they’d do to me if they could? I’d disappear. Like that.” Mr. Sandler snapped his fingers. His face was flushed now and he was speaking in a grumbling, driving tone, as though long years of grievances and fears had piled up in him and were all being expressed now. “They wouldn’t even waste a bullet on an old cock like me. A club to the back of the head and they’d drop me into the nearest ditch. And this isn’t fancy. It isn’t poetry. It isn’t theory. It’s fact. Read anything the bastards have ever written, where they’ve been honest for more than a minute at a time, and you can see it. Liquidation of the bourgeoisie they call it. What do you think that means? Well, I’m the bourgeoisie and I’m not ready to be liquidated and I’ll fight them till one of us drops. I know them. They’ve been sucking around this plant since 1930—and the God-damn New Deal pampered them and blew them up with their own importance and put them where they really could do you harm. There hasn’t been a year since then that they haven’t started trouble in this plant. And if you think that all they wanted was more money for the help and better working conditions, you’re out of your mind. In 1940, I was making a lot of stuff for lend-lease to France and England and they tried to strike me. I don’t mind a union coming up and asking for ten cents an hour more if they think they’ve earned it, but I’ll see them in hell first before I sit down with them and give in to them just because their pals in Moscow have a dirty deal on for the time being with the Germans. I had the FBI in here and I fired every last one of them we uncovered. For a couple of days it looked as though we’d have to close down, and we’ve never closed down for a day in thirty years now. But I’d shut up tomorrow rather than give in to them. I know the bastards and I won’t have one of them near enough to piss on. I kicked my own nephew out of the house because he came home from college telling me about the glories of Lenin and the inevitability of revolution. God-damn little fool. If there’s any kind of crisis, I’ll turn his name in to the Government and have him locked up, so help me God.”

Mr. Sandler had long ago forgotten about eating. He sat with both fists clenched on the table, his face flushed, his eyes pale and angry. Archer listened helplessly, pretending to eat, wondering if there was any sense in staying on.

“And I told his mother that,” Mr. Sandler said. “Right to her face. My own sister. The tears rained down like a waterfall. A disgraceful thing for a Jewish boy. All those Jewish names you see on the Communist lists. Ammunition for the enemy. And they’re senseless. Back in ’39 and ’40, they were all for helping the Nazis, just because Stalin had signed a paper with them. What sort of people are they? A dumb animal in the field has more sense of self-preservation. And I’ve heard all the arguments. They feel rejected, they can’t get into some colleges, clubs, hotels, professions. They’re suffering from a wound and they rebel. Crap. There’re a lot of hotels I can’t get into. I can’t even play golf with Mike Ferris at his club. So what? What wound am I suffering from? I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. I started a business. I got rich. I sent my two boys to college, and my oldest son was a captain in the Air Force. If I was wounded, I just worked harder because of it. There’s a joke about it. A typical Jewish joke. Cohen is angry. He can’t get into a hotel. He tells Levy, ‘You know what we are—we’re second-class citizens in this country.’ Levy thinks for a minute and he looks up to Heaven. ‘God forbid,’ he says, ‘it should ever change.’ ”