The Troubled Air (54 page)

“He wasn’t drunk,” Jane said ruefully. “He married a twenty-eight-year-old lady he’s known since the end of the war.” For a moment, Jane’s lips trembled, but she bent over to light a cigarette, and when she raised her head again, her mouth was under control. “He’s a funny man,” she said lightly. “He took the trouble to send me a lot of letters up there at school this last month. Seventeen letters,” she said with childish precision.

“He’s a fool,” Archer said, furious with the seventeen letters and feeling that without reading them he could accurately tell his daughter what was in them.

“Oh, don’t be mean to the poor, man,” Jane said. “He has his points. I never took him seriously, but I won’t deny he was a nice man to go out with. He—he made me feel—” she searched for the true and accurate word. “He made me feel slender.”

Archer tried to keep back the smile and half-succeeded.

“But I suppose in a little while,” Jane said, staring out between the curtains at the dark backyards, “he’d have turned out to be like all the rest. Weary-making.” She shrugged. “You told him he was too old for me, didn’t you, Dad?”

“Yes.”

Jane nodded. “He was supposed to come out on Sunday and drive me back to school,” she said. “Then he called up and said he couldn’t drive me back, he had to get married. I guess it’s childish—but I always feel real mean when anybody breaks a date with me.” She turned and faced Archer. “You look solemn, darling,” she said. “Please don’t look solemn on my account.”

Archer stood up and went over and kissed her forehead. “From now on,” he said, “whenever I think of you, there will be a wide smile on my face. Because you’re going to turn into a very good type.” Jane’s lips trembled again and the tears came into her eyes, but they just glistened there.

“Now,” Archer said, “I’m going to bed. Coming upstairs?”

“Not just now,” Jane said softly, smoking furiously. “I’m not tired. I’ll just sit down here for awhile and think about twenty-eight-year-old women.” She managed a quivery smile for her father as he waved to her and went out of the room.

He left her there, faced with what would probably be the first sleepless night of her life, a night in which she would have to chew and digest her first major defeat, a night in which she would have to take a long step toward maturity. But as he went up the stairs, Archer felt curiously light-hearted. Part of it was relief that Barbante was now safely out of the way, but the greater part came from the new feeling of pride and confidence that Jane had given him.

Only one bed was turned down in the bedroom and Archer guessed that Kitty was sleeping in the spare room. For a moment, he thought of going in and saying good night to her. Then he sighed and began to get undressed. It can wait till morning, he thought.

He was asleep two minutes after he turned out the light.

T
HERE WAS A BELL RINGING SOMEWHERE AND HE WOKE UP AND
reached for the phone on the table next to the bed.

“Hello,” he said, but there was no sound in the receiver. Then he remembered that the phone had been disconnected. The bell rang again and he realized it was downstairs, at the front door. He looked at the clock. It was only eight o’clock. He felt exhausted, as though he had run a great distance the night before. He closed his eyes, hoping someone else would open the door or that whoever was there would go away. But the bell rang again and he got up. The other bed was still made up. Kitty hadn’t slept in it. Bruisedly, he put on his robe and fumbled into slippers. He walked downstairs heavily, annoyed at the insistent clamor.

He opened the door. There was an old man there in a torn army overcoat and a cap. It was raining out and the old man was purple with cold and his cap was soaked.

“Western Union,” the man mumbled, thrusting out an envelope. “Sign here.”

Archer sighed. He searched aimlessly in the pocket of the robe for a tip. There was a handkerchief in the pocket and a half-used book of matches. “Sorry,” he said to the old man. The old man smiled sadly and skeptically, accustomed to ingratitude, and hunched off into the rain. Archer closed the door. He went into the living room and turned on a lamp, because all the curtains were drawn He sat down slowly in an armchair and stared at the yellow envelope. Then he tore it open, his fingers clumsy with sleep, and unfolded the message.

CANNOT REACH YOU ON PHONE. URGENT YOU BE IN MY OFFICE NINE O’CLOCK THIS MORNING. URGENT. O’NEILL.

Archer let the telegram drop to the floor. He sat with his legs stretched out for five minutes or so, too tired to move. Then he heaved himself up slowly and went upstairs, avoiding looking at himself in the hall mirror. His legs felt old and uncertain on the steps and he had a thick taste in his mouth. Upstairs, he looked along the hall to Jane’s room. The door was closed now. He thought of going in to the guest room and talking to Kitty, and hesitated, his hand on the curve of the banister. Just say good morning, he thought, say I’m sorry, say it is too late for us now to be enemies, say, I am going to have breakfast, will you join me for a cup of coffee? Then he shook his head. It will have to wait, he thought. It’s too bad, but it will have to wait.

He went to the bathroom and shaved carelessly, cutting himself, because his skin was tight and flaky. He remembered the flecks of blood on Burke’s collar the night before and Burke’s loud, accusing voice. He took a shower, his face stinging where the soap got into the cuts under his chin. His stomach felt tight and knotted, even in the shower. When this is over, he thought, I ought to go to a doctor.

He dressed quickly, putting on the same clothes he had worn the night before because he didn’t feel like making any decisions about what shirt, what tie, what suit to wear. While he was knotting his tie before the mirror, Kitty came in. She was fully dressed. He took one look at her, then glanced away. He couldn’t bear the way she looked.

“I have to go up to O’Neill’s office,” Archer said, conscious of his wife standing behind him. “I just got a telegram. I don’t think it’ll take very long. I’ll be back soon. Then we can settle whatever has to be settled.” He didn’t like the way that sounded. Dry, cold, antagonistic, without pity or love or hope. But he was too tired to choose the proper words.

“We don’t have to settle anything,” Kitty said. She sounded exhausted. “Everything’s settled.”

Archer didn’t reply. He put. on his jacket, flattening down the collar.

“That suit’s all creased,” Kitty said. “You look awful.”

Archer looked in his wallet. There was enough there for a taxi.

“I’ll make you breakfast,” Kitty said.

“I haven’t got time.”

“You can’t go out without breakfast,” Kitty said stubbornly.

“I said I haven’t got time.” He turned and faced her. There were big dark rings under her eyes, making them look enormous and desperate, and the bones of her face seemed to be pushing out of her skin.

She stared at him for a moment, then walked clumsily over to the bed and sat down, her head bent, her hands hanging limply down. Archer took a step and kissed the top of her head. Her hair smelled stale and dry. She made no move and he left her sitting like that.

He bought a newspaper at the corner and went into a drugstore for coffee. The coffee was hot and he could only drink it in tiny sips as he glanced through the paper. There was no story about the meeting the night before. Or he couldn’t find it. He was too impatient to go methodically through the thick paper. The casual readers of the
Times
were treated that morning to news of an airplane disaster in which thirty-eight people had died and to an exchange of discourtesies in the UN between the Americans and the Russians on the subject of China.

He finished his coffee and went outside and hailed a taxi. The taxi skidded to a halt at the curb, but as he took a step toward it, a plump woman with an umbrella dashed past him and reached the door and flung it open. “Be a gentleman!” the woman said, snapping her umbrella shut and waving it in his face. Her voice was triumphant and menacing and she nimbly threw herself into the cab and slammed the door. Archer watched the cab pull away, throwing water from its tires, and he was very wet by the time he found another cab.

The pretty girls in the outer office smiled deliciously at him when he came in and offered him melodious soprano good mornings, as though nothing had happened to them or to him, as though youth and sex, commerce and high income were permanent and irrevocable. But O’Neill’s face reflected a different climate. He was alone in his office, standing at the window, staring out, sagging in his clothes. When he turned to greet Archer he didn’t smile and his eyes were weary and clouded. He shook hands silently. For a moment they stood in the middle of the office, looking at each other uncomfortably.

“I’m sorry, Clem,” O’Neill said. “Terribly sorry.”

“Forget it.” Archer shrugged. “Hazards of the trade.” He took off his wet overcoat and threw it over a chair. The rain had soaked through at the shoulders and his jacket was damp and warm.

“They’re waiting for us,” O’Neill said. “Hutt and Sandler. In Hutt’s office. Do you want to ask me any questions?”

“No.”

O’Neill hesitated, as though he wanted to say something. Then he shook his head slightly and went over to the door and opened it. “Let’s go, then,” he said.

They walked through the mingled smells of perfume and typists’ toilet water in the large outer office to Miss Walsh’s desk at the far end. Miss Walsh looked up at them with sallow hostility. “Go right in,” she said. “He’s waiting.”

There was a pile of rumpled newspapers on the floor at Sandler’s feet, where he sat in a leather chair, facing the door impatiently. Hutt was sitting at his desk, working on a script with a blue pencil. Neither of the men rose when O’Neill and Archer came in.

“Good morning,” Hutt said, in his near-whisper. “Will you close the door, please, Emmet?”

O’Neill closed the door. Hutt let them stand there one moment too long, then said, “Find yourselves chairs.” He put down his blue pencil and pushed the script he had been working on to one side.

Archer sat down on a straight wooden chair, facing Sandler. O’Neill remained standing along the wall, bulky and pale.

“Did you see these, Archer?” Sandler asked, kicking at the newspapers on the floor.

“I only read the
Times,”
Archer said.

“Well, you should’ve invested a few more nickels,” said Sandler harshly. “Your name’s all over every other paper in town.”

“You didn’t get a very good press this morning,” Hutt said.

“No?” Archer asked mildly.

“No.”

“No,” Sandler said. “And neither did I. And neither did the Company.”

“I’m sorry,” Archer said.

“You’re sorry.” Sandler snorted and leaned forward angrily. His face was set, his opaque blue eyes that Archer saw now were so much like Hutt’s, cold and angry. He was making an obvious effort to control his temper. “This is a hell of a time to be sorry.”

“What do you want me to say to that?”

“Don’t be impudent,” Sandler snapped. “I didn’t get up at five o’clock in the morning and travel ninety miles to listen to impudence.” His lips were pale and thin and the white, preserved, sharp teeth seemed to bite at every word. “What the hell did you think you were doing, Archer?”

For a fraction of a second Archer thought of trying to explain. Then he looked at the shut, furious face of the old man and Hutt’s pale, frigid eyes, and he knew there was no use. “I don’t think,” he said wearily, not wanting to fight either, “that there’s much sense in going over all that again.”

“Let me tell you some of the things that have been happening in the last few days,” Sandler said. “In case you’re not up on current events. My God-damn phone’s been ringing twenty-four hours a day. In my office. At my home. And lunatics have been unloading the most vicious kind of filth on me, on my wife, on my secretary, my maid, on anybody who picks up a phone. Four goons followed my son into a parking lot last night and beat him up so bad he had to have six stitches over his eye. My butler quit. Every mail I … What the hell are you smiling at?”

Archer hadn’t realized he was smiling. “I guess,” he said mildly, “because it strikes me as a little funny that a butler gives his notice these days because his employer is charged with being sympathetic to Communism.”

“Well, stop smiling,” Sandler said loudly. “It isn’t so God-damn funny. My wife is almost hysterical and I’m going to have to pack her off to Arizona until this blows over. If it ever blows over. And what’s more, cancellations have started to come in for orders from all over the country. Firms we’ve been doing business with for twenty years. And God knows where it will end. And you did it, Mr. Archer, you did it.”

“I can’t really accept that,” Archer said, not because he felt there was any possibility of convincing the old man, but to break up his crescendo of rage. “I didn’t call your home or your office. I didn’t threaten your wife. I didn’t cut your son’s eye. I haven’t canceled any orders. People’re tired and worried and afraid these days, and violent and bigoted. That’s not my fault.”

“I say you did it, Archer,” Sandler said stubbornly, “no matter how many speeches you make on the world situation. And I don’t want any more speeches from you, either. I listened to one too many and I ought to have my tail booted for it and I’ve had enough. You did something to me that nobody’s ever done in forty years and got away with. You lied to me and you pretended to be loyal and you hid information from me and you played on my sympathies in the most cynical and insidious manner and you’re not going to get away with it.”

“I didn’t lie to you,” Archer said, feeling himself grow angry and trying to keep the anger down. “And I didn’t hide any information.”

Sandler laughed sourly. It was an ugly, menacing sound. “Did you or did you not guarantee to me that a man who had been your friend for fifteen years was not a Communist?”

“I did. But …”

Sandler leaned over and picked up a newspaper from the floor. He threw it at Archer. It fluttered loosely, pages falling out and floating to the carpet. “Read that,” Sandler said. Archer didn’t pick up the paper. “Go ahead,” Sandler said hoarsely. “Go ahead and read it. Read about your friend.”