Capable of Honor (20 page)

“Mr. President,” they wrote: “We feel that we must express the abhorrence that the overwhelming majority of your countrymen feel concerning your invasion of innocent, helpless Gorotoland. As holders of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, we feel we have a right to admonish since we feel we express the overwhelming opinion of America on what your course should be.” In Congress, Senator Fred Van Ackerman of COMFORT and Arly Richardson were only the start of a noisy parade. In New York, a distinguished group of actors, artists, authors, scientists, publishers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, were busy with telephone and telegram urging as many of their fellows as they could reach around the country to sign their names to a full-page ad headlined MR. PRESIDENT! STOP THIS INSANITY IN GOROTOLAND! which would appear in sixty-seven leading newspapers tomorrow morning. LeGage Shelby of DEFY, first major Negro leader to speak out, had issued a statement terming the President’s action “wanton imperialist aggression of the worst neo-colonialist type.” And in Dallas, Rufus Kleinfert, Knight Kommander of the Konference on Efforts to Encourage Patriotism (KEEP) was calling the Gorotoland decision “an obvious concealed Communist-inspired move to bring the United States into universal disrepute.”

And of course the world was reporting in. Moscow and Peking had issued angry statements. London was nervous, Bonn alarmed, Rome quizzical, Paris wry. Eleven U.S. embassies had already been attacked by well-organized spontaneous student rioters, seven tin pot dictators in Africa and Asia had already seized the opportunity to burn down U.S. Information libraries and thus get rid of outside ideas once and for all. The President of Egypt was threatening to close the Suez Canal to American shipping, Morocco had already closed its airfields to American craft en route to Africa. The International Film Festival at Scquircz, Yugoslavia, had turned into a mass protest rally of all the right-thinking movie folk from Bandung to Beverly Hills, and in London an International Committee to Oppose U. S. Imperialism in Gorotoland was being formed by Britain’s oldest, most doddering, most pathetic peer.

All in all, Harley Hudson reflected with a wry smile and some return of his normal easygoing humor, it was quite a morning to be President of the United States.

He still had no doubts that he had done the right thing: as he had told Ted Jason, the issue had to be made sometime, and in the last analysis it really made no difference where it was made or over what. The battle was continuous and the decision to bring it a showdown could be taken whenever it seemed advisable or necessary. Gorotoland might not be the most convenient ground, but then, what would be? No place would be convenient for the United States unless the United States struck first. Until the United States did, the ground would always be of the enemy’s choosing.

There was a curiously childlike strain in these protests from some of his more vocal countrymen about “inconvenient and inaccessible terrain.” Did they really think the Communists were going to choose terrain convenient and accessible to the United States to conduct their maraudings? He wondered where the perfect ground would be, in the minds of Walter and his world, and what the perfect issue. Nowhere and nothing, he was forced to conclude from their febrile yappings now.

Somehow they wanted the deadly issue between the free world and the slave to be settled without war, without conflict, without controversy, and without any advantage for their own country—not even the advantage of a guaranteed stability, apparently, for that would require force, and force, apparently, was the only thing they really were able to abhor. All else they could swallow, but threaten them with the possibility of force and they would climb the wall, just as they were doing now. It baffled him how such people could sincerely consider themselves to be loyal Americans loyally dedicated to America’s preservation, yet he knew the great majority did. It increased the burden of opposing them, for no such tolerance informed their attitude toward him. He was a monstrous midwife who would have to answer to history. He gave a grim little chuckle as he recalled the tart comment of his fellow midwife, when Orrin had first read Walter’s column.

“I’m a monstrous midwife helping Walter have a miscarriage of mice,” he had remarked. But the mice were not so funny, gnawing as they did at the vitals of the Administration as it sought to meet a deliberate challenge its leader felt had to be met, and in just the way in which he had chosen to meet it.

He pushed the shouting papers aside with a motion that was, for Harley Hudson, surprisingly impatient, and pressing the buzzer on the intercom, asked his secretary to get the chief American delegate to the UN on the line. The screams of Walter’s world were so much chaff on the winds of history: he was dealing in fundamentals much more serious than their quivering vituperations.

When Cullee Hamilton answered from U.S. delegation headquarters across the street from the UN the President gave him precise and specific instructions as to what he was to do in Security Council later in the day.

“If you agree with me, that is,” the President said. “I don’t want to jeopardize your political future. If you’d rather not be the one to do it, you can turn it over to Lafe.”

“I don’t duck out,” Cullee said calmly. “And I do agree with you, 100 percent. In fact, I’d be terribly disappointed if you wanted me to do anything else.”

“Good,” the President said. “Then we’re ready for them.”

“Let ’em come,” Cullee said.

And come they did, the first wave greeting him as he arrived at the United States delegation building across First Avenue from the UN an hour later. He had asked the driver to take him up to the new apartment house on East 63rd Street to pick up Sarah Johnson, and they had shared a comfortable, if worried, ride back downtown. She was working now in delegation headquarters in an office two floors below his: he found that quite often he was dropping in there. They had also dated a good deal at the endless round of UN dinners and cocktail parties, he had taken her out occasionally for dinner and the theater. A couple of times he had stayed overnight. But, as he had told Lafe, he couldn’t have said at the moment exactly what it meant, if it meant anything. Except that she was comfortable—that perhaps was the best word. Comfortable and reassuring, after all the hell he had gone through with overclever, overambitious, waspish little Sue-Dan.

Now as the limousine moved slowly through the midmorning traffic down FDR Drive, they were uneasy about the news from Gorotoland but curiously exhilarated, too.

“I only hope we can carry it off,” she said thoughtfully.

He frowned.

“We’ve got to.”

“I suppose the roof will blow off the UN today,” she said with her slow, amused smile. “I can hear them now.”

“Another Hate America day. Sarah, you and I are a couple of no-good nothings, to be running the errands of such an imperialistic, colonialistic, grasping, arrogant, evil nation. How can we live with ourselves?”

“I don’t find it hard,” she said. “Particularly when I see some of the alternatives.”

“They aren’t too attractive, are they?” A scornful expression came into his eyes. “Even if they think they are, just because they’re black.”

“They have egos,” she agreed. She gave his arm a sudden squeeze and uttered a gentle little laugh. “So do some others I could mention.”

“Do you think I do?” he asked with some dismay, abruptly serious, finding curiously painful the thought that she might be criticizing, however gently.

“In a nice way,” she said, squeezing his arm again. “A necessary way, to be in politics, I suppose.”

“I don’t think I’m too bad,” he said, still, ridiculously, hurt. “You have to have a certain self-assurance to stay in the game, but I don’t think—”

“Now, I’m sorry I said anything,” she said, though still with a gently humorous air. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I think you have a very nice ego.” She smiled again. “Just the right size to be United States Senator.”

“I don’t know about that,” he said, flattered. “There’s a lot of things involved in that.”

“Nobody’s better equipped,” she said seriously. “I’d come out and work for you myself.”

“You would? Do you mean that?”

“Why not?” Her tone lightened. “There are worse causes to work for.”

“I’ll remember that,” he said with a smile. “That may just do it. That may just make me decide. I’ve been hesitating, but with an offer like that I may just have to do it.”

“I think you’d better,” she said, as the car swung off the Drive at 42nd Street and prepared to double back past the UN to U.S. headquarters. “We need people like you.”

“Do you really mean that?” he asked, quite touched by her suddenly earnest tone. She gave him a quick look.

“Of course I do. This girl doesn’t say things she doesn’t mean.”

“That,” he said soberly, taking her hand in his, “is why I like this girl.”

“Now,” she said, flushing and pleased. “I don’t know whether you mean that.”

“Same as you,” he said simply. “I don’t say it unless I mean it.”

For a moment they looked at one another with a candid, trusting gaze that withheld nothing. He was about to speak, impelled by some instinctive knowledge that this was the time to do it, to accept what was offered, to give up Sue-Dan once and for all, evil and unhappy as she was and evil and unhappy as her influence over him had been, to commit himself to the future and be thankful he had found it. The words were almost out when the chauffeur suddenly rapped on the glass, rolled it down, and asked, politely but with a noticeable tremor in his voice, “Do you want me to try to go right through, Mr. Hamilton? It looks as though it might be—kind of hard.”

And now they could see ahead that First Avenue was filled with a swarming mob that washed from the UN esplanade to the steps of U.S. headquarters. Traffic was rapidly backing up on either side of it; four or five mounted policemen were trying vainly to push back the marchers who surged against the door of the U.S. building; sirens were beginning to sound in the city as police cars screamed toward the area. Banners and placards bobbed through the crowd:

DOWN WITH HUDSON THE WAR-LOVER! … HANDS OFF GOROTOLAND! … OBI, GREAT! HARLEY, NUTS! … DEFY DEFIES YOU, MR. PRESIDENT! … OIL STINKS! COMFORT DEMANDS NEGOTIATIONS NOW! … LET’S HAVE A NICE BIG WAR, HARLEY! … AMERICA, THE NEW IMPERIALIST! … U.S. SAYS: KILL NEGROES AT HOME, KILL NEGROES IN AFRICA … HOW ABOUT U.S. AGGRESSION, HARLEY?

Off on the edges of the roaring crowd Cullee could see cameras grinding, flashbulbs popping. I hope you’re satisfied, he told them grimly. This is the way you want it.

Whether this was a fair comment by a mind that usually tried to be fair, he did not have time to analyze, for it was obvious that he must make some decision at once or their car would be engulfed in the mob with consequences that could literally be fatal. He had a wild, ironic impulse to shout, Go ahead, John, they’ll let us through, we’re all black! But of course it was gone as it came. It was obvious he and his companions were Americans, the stamp of their civilization was on them whatever their color, and in addition the two small flags on the front fenders were there to advertise it. Already he could see the nearer rioters beginning to turn, he could see their eyes picking out the flags, and he could sense the impulse that shot through an ever-larger segment of the crowd.

He yanked open the door, grabbed Sarah’s arm and pulled her after him, yelled, “Take the keys and leave the car, John!”—and then the three of them were running back toward 42nd Street, managing to elude the stragglers still rushing toward the riot, managing to find haven, finally, among the morning crowds on 42nd, where he abruptly slowed down. They began walking, winded but as though they belonged there, slowly around the long block until they could come again, unobserved, to the upper edges of the mob.

“I didn’t want to abandon government property, John,” he said with a shaky laugh, “but I thought, better lose a car than our lives.”

“That’s right,” their driver said fervently. “That is right!”

“Maybe it won’t be lost,” Sarah said as they turned back toward First Avenue. “Maybe the police got there in time.”

But this, they saw as they came in sight of the mob again, was a vain hope. Though the police had noticeably increased in five minutes, the mob still filled the street. It too seemed to have increased, and over at the far side smoke was rising. Through it they could see the wheels of their overturned limousine. It lay on its back, windows smashed, tires ripped. Someone had doused it with gasoline and set it afire, and around its pyre a ring of rioters, holding hands, moved with a lively step and a happy chant. “Down with U.S. mur-der-ers, down with U.S. mur-der-ers, down with U.S. mur-der-ers. Yeaay!” And again, “Down with U.S. mur-der-ers, down with U.S.—” And yet again, as the mindless circle continued its jocular parade.

“I think,” Sarah Johnson said in a voice close to tears, “that we did the right thing. How horrible!”

“I know we did,” Cullee said grimly. “Officer!” he said to a nearby mounted policeman patrolling the edges of the crowd, “can you get us into U.S. headquarters?” He pulled out his wallet, showed his credentials. The officer smiled, tipped his cap to Sarah, but shook his head.

“I’m afraid not, Congressman. You see what they’re doing. I don’t think it’s even safe around at the back, right now. You’d better stick by me. Or I’ll stick by you, rather. As much as I can.”

They could see now that the front of the headquarters building was spattered with mud, eggs, and manure. Even as they looked two windows on the second floor were shattered by flying rocks, and an approving shout went up. There was an extra disturbance just in front of the door, a flurry of motion, a sudden great splash of oil across the door and the ground-floor windows immediately adjacent. A great “Yeaaay!” rose exultantly from the crowd. It was repeated with an even wilder, more savage, and triumphant note as the oil was followed by a flare that ignited it instantly, sending a great wave of flame running up the front of the building.

“Excuse me,” the mounted policeman said abruptly and swung his horse away, directly into the crowd as his fellows did the same from all around the periphery. There were screams, yells, groans, boos, but the mob at last began to give way. Staring intently into the sea of insanely contorted faces, Cullee saw at last the two he knew must be there. For a brief instant his wife Sue-Dan and LeGage Shelby stared back at him as though from a cavern in hell. Then they were lost again in the crowd, but not before he knew that they had seen him, too, and not before a terrible pain for a moment wrenched his heart. They were lost to him, lost; yet was not he still lost to them? His face must have said as much, for he became conscious again of Sarah Johnson’s hand upon his arm.