Five Smooth Stones (84 page)

Parsons greeted him with a rosy smile. "Nice to see you, sir.... Lovely day it's been.... Mrs. Parsons and I were saying just last week 'O, Wind, If Winter comes'... I'll just hang it up for you.... Mr. Travis is in the study...."

But Lawrence Travis had come out of the study to greet him and was standing in the center of the hall. "Glad you could make it early, David. What'll it be? A drink, tea, coffee? If Marcia was here it would be tea, ready or not. She'll be back for dinner, by the way—"

"Coffee. You-all don't know it yet, but the next time I come to England I'm moving in—just for that coffee."

Because there had never been a reason for a private talk with Lawrence Travis before, David had never been inside the study. As he entered he blinked at books so numerous that they had to be stacked on tables and even on chairs here and there. And, he remembered, there were fully as many in their apartment in New York.

"Gosh, the annex of the Bodleian—"

Travis laughed. "I could use that space, couldn't I? Wait —sorry, David, I'll have to clear that chair—" As he removed books and papers from the chair beside the fireplace and the coffee table in front of it, he said: "It's what comes of not getting inside a school until I was ten.... My grandmother was what the folks down there called a 'good reader.'... Her mother had learned from the people she belonged to as a slave. They'd be damned as liberals today.... Grandmother taught me until the year we got a horse as well as a mule.... The nearest colored school was eight miles—"

"And the nearest white?"

"Two.... Three.... Sit down, David. We'll need that fire soon, spring or no spring." As David took his seat, Travis smiled across at him from his own seat on the other side of the grate. "Res' yo'se'f, man."

David chuckled, smiling contentedly. It was good to hear someone say something like that, unafraid of ridicule. He was at home. Always when he met his own kind of people in a world of whites there was this inner content, this sense of relaxation, of coming home; even, he had often thought, if he didn't happen to like the particular individual he was with.

"Y'all better stay 'way from that bandana-haid talk, Mr. Travis. You fixin' to get yourself read out of the race by us enlightened Negroes."

Travis laughed again, an easy, relaxed man here in his own study, still young looking, little gray in the dark hair, and showing no trace of the weight of the responsibilities he had carried, the crises he had weathered, the instant, agonizing judgments he had been forced to make in situations where not even his government could help him. A real great man, thought David, and here I am with him, the two of us like a couple of old friends sitting on the porch steps on a hot southern night.

"Enlightenment and forgetfulness of the past aren't necessarily the same," Travis was saying. "Forgetfulness of the dark areas of the heart and mind that existed before is not, in my opinion, a corollary of enlightenment. And, as far as that is concerned, how do you define enlightenment?"

"I don't. Not me. I know a lot of guys who think they can, but I'll pass that one."

"That's wisdom. By the way, Brad sends his best. So does Peg."

"Are they both all right? Brad writes once a month when he primes the pump. I sure miss him."

"He's fine. Peg—-" Travis held out one hand, palm down, turning it from side to side. "It's a crying shame."

They talked through two cups of coffee, and David through four small sandwiches. "Sara and I went walking and shopping today. Makes you hungry," he said apologetically.

"I wish there weren't such long absences between our brief meetings, David. I always have the fear that the next time we meet you will have grown up."

"Gosh, I thought I had."

"Somewhat, David, somewhat. Not entirely. Wondering why you're here so early—by request?"

David remembered another night years before, when he had heard Brad say, in almost that same tone, those same words: "Wondering why you're here?"

"Well," he answered, "I can't help being curious."

"In the Bible there's something about the last shall be first."

"Yes, sir."

"I'm no Bible student, in spite of having been brought up by a grandmother who knew it, so help me, from cover to cover, including the 'begats.' And she was great on prophecy. She said she was born with a veil."

"Are you serious, sir?"

"Hardly. For one thing she prophesied the end of the world once too often. Also the freedom of our people. Both were always just around the corner. It shook my faith. Besides, I'm enlightened, as you just remarked."

David laughed. "Anyhow, the State Department thinks so."

"David, if the people all over the world with whom I've negotiated and dealt in various ways, and have won over to our side, had one half the mother wit she had, I wouldn't be the 'esteemed Mr. Travis.' I'd be back where I came from, practicing law in Boston, Massachusetts, believe me."

"Believe you? Heck, I know it."

Travis absently poured more coffee into their cups. "Where was I?"

"The last was being boosted up to first. When a Negro says something like that, he's usually referring to his own people."

"I am. Africa."

"Africa!"

"Yes." Travis was deadly serious now. "The dark continent, some call it. In my opinion, and that of many others, the cradle of the future, just as it was the cradle of the far-distant past. Perhaps not the future of my generation, or of yours, or even your children, but the future of the world, nonetheless. And times a'wasting for it to start moving. There seems a strange parallel, perhaps unrelated but interesting to observe, in the emergence of Africa as a power to be reckoned with, and the stirrings in our South. And in our North, too, among our people. When I was at home this last trip I went to Atlanta and New Orleans—not by choice—"

"Gramp wrote me about it. Thanks for seeing him—"

"Don't thank me. You deserve the thanks. His gumbo, David! I thought I knew something about it—but I don't. It could win him a diplomatic post; it shows wisdom, judgment, and deviousness. However, what I am getting at is the general feeling in the South, the sense of ferment, of preparation. One can almost hear a bugler blowing softly just before he sounds 'Charge!' So it is in Africa, at the same moment in time."

"I agree it's interesting to think about."

"Africa will fly off in all directions at first, like the old woman with the wooden leg. But her people will learn. And by a circuitous route that brings me to you."

David grinned. "Anything I can do to add to the confusion—"

"It won't be exactly little, although it may not be world shaking. Still, one never knows. Last fall the suggestion came to me through—let's say a mutual friend, that I give some thought to proposing your name to the Department of State for a post in Africa."

David was conscious of no surprise; it had been obvious that Lawrence Travis had been leading up to something of the kind, but he could find no words. He was almost expecting what Travis said next.

"Zambana, to be exact.... You'll recall that Jedediah went home for a month just after he got to England? It dovetailed nicely."

"How do you mean?"

"That his father called me, asked me a great many questions about you, and has indicated that he would be pleased to have a young man, well versed in constitutional and international law, with good judgment and a level head, assigned to his country as an adviser to him. He of course can only express a desire. He is a tactful man. And a pragmatic one. And not at all ignorant of the fact that his country is wealthy —very wealthy—and strategic. Zambana's friendship, once the country is independent, which it will be in a few months, will be a damned juicy plum. He is hardheaded, dedicated, and won't play favorites. Still—"

It was coming too fast now; David wasn't taking it in; he knew he wasn't and he hesitated, trying not to let his mind jump ahead of Travis's words. "Mr. Travis—please—you're going too fast for me. You don't need to tell me that it was Hunter who made the first move. Let me kind of sort it out. You are thinking of proposing my name—David Champlin's —to the State Department—"

"Department of State—"

"Yes, sir—Department of State for some kind of advisory job in Zambana? When?"

"It's been done."

"Good God!"

"You must file a formal application, of course."

"But there's a hell of a lot of red tape and waiting, isn't there? Security check and so on—"

"Yes. In this instance the check is almost completed."

David was on his feet now, prowling the small room, winding up finally at a window in the side wall overlooking a passageway between this house and the next, a passageway that was half alley and half thoroughfare, where spring had not yet come. It was a far cry from the recreation hall at Pengard and the day Tom, Chuck, and Suds had angered him by taking over the reins of his life, practically cinching a job for him that he hadn't even known about. But in this situation any such resentment as he had felt then would be stupid. This was the way things were done in the echelons in which Travis moved. He supposed that the government would go ahead and throw a security check on a guy even if he only wanted to be a grocery clerk, if the right person asked for it. It wasn't a thought that exactly made for peace of mind.

When he turned back into the room his smile was bitter. "I can't," he said. "It's out. Let's forget it."

"Why, David?" Lawrence Travis's eyes were on his face and its bitter smile, and his voice was gentle, as gentle as the voice of the porter on the Humming Bird had been the first time he had taken a train, humiliated and sick-angry. "Why, David?" asked Travis again.

"Because I'm a Negro." There was no inflection in the voice, and David's eyes were without warmth, without anger, without any emotion whatever, flat and black.

"You're out of your mind, David." Travis said it quietly. "That has nothing to do with it. Actually—"

"Mr. Travis, I know what you're going to say. You know that when I was at Pengard I was Jim-Crowed in a unique way. The rumor was started by two southern gentlemen—one the real thing as our society judges gentlemen, the other a phony—that I was a homosexual. The Department of State wouldn't touch me with a barge pole. So—that's the ball game. And thanks—I mean, really thanks."

"David." Travis walked over to him, took his arm and led him back to his chair, almost forcing him into it. "I'm sending for drinks. They're called for right now. Do you think for one minute that I didn't make sure that this was thoroughly checked out? Have you forgotten the investigation and the report that Prentiss made? Those were available to the FBI. Even Clevenger was interviewed and said nothing harmful. Goodhue—" Travis chuckled—"said he didn't remember you except vaguely, that he was sure he would if there had been anything like that. You came out of that phase of the investigation with an absolutely clean bill of health."

David said nothing for a moment, then began to laugh. It was not what Chuck called his "blockbuster" laugh; it was a gentle laugh.

"Let me study about it, Mr. Travis. Just for a while."

***

Later, while Travis was greeting his friend Solomon Abikawai in the sitting room, David managed to whisper to Jedediah, "Man, am I glad to see you. I was scared you wouldn't be here." Before Jed could do more than smile reassuringly, Travis took David's arm and led him toward the man he had come to meet. "Biblical" had been a good word; Solomon was taller than his son; his skin had a more brownish cast, and the lines in his face were deeply grooved. He was a spare, stern man, with the powerful shoulders so noticeable in Jedediah. His eyes held more reserve than his son's; his voice was heavier and deeper. He wore native costume, a deep crimson robe over a long white undergarment, and David tried to convince himself it was a case of clothes making the man, that he was not really that sternly regal, but found himself awed and tongue-tied nonetheless. A formidable .guy, he thought, and probably a damned astute one, and he wished this meeting was in actuality what it appeared to be on the surface—a purely social one, and not with himself as a specimen to be judged, because this man's judgments would be without tinge of emotion, impersonal, just, and, once made, not subject to appeal. Not even the surprising warmth of his smile reassured David; Solomon the Stern, that was this man. Not once was he aware of any direct scrutiny by Abikawai, only those casual glances any man gives another in a small, friendly gathering.

Sitting comfortably in front of a small fire after dinner, David's uneasiness lessened as he realized that the decision was as much his as it was Solomon Abikawai's and Travis's; he had not yet made up his own mind; even thinking of a move so drastic brought an awareness of the wrench it would be, the dislocation of his life and plans, and he was damned if he was going to sit like a scared child in a principal's office and worry about the judgments and opinions of others.

As he had expected, Solomon Abikawai initiated discussion almost immediately. He might have been asking a casual question of a tourist. "What do you know of my country, Mr. Champlin?"

"Mainly what your son has told me, sir, woven in with what I've read."

"Then you know more than most foreigners. It is generally known, of course, that we are a wealthy country in many respects. Our natural resources are enviable."

"And envied, sir." He had settled on "sir" as being respectful and not likely to be wrong.

"Yes." Abikawai's gaze was direct, ignoring the others. "And envied. As you say. Do you also know wherein we are vulnerable? Our weaknesses?"

"I should think that any Negro out of our South would be able to put his finger on several of them. I'd say one of the main ones would be the type of education that was made available under colonialism. It was bound to be an education aimed chiefly at increasing the value of the individual to the economic life of the country, at the same time maintaining his sense of inferiority and as far as possible erasing any sense of national pride." He stopped, afraid that he was talking too much, but Abikawai nodded slowly, and he went on. "In a country, as differentiated from a state in our Union, I suppose there would be exceptions. There would have to be a higher form of education encouraged for a certain group, an upper-echelon group, let's say, so there would be someone with whom at least to make a pretense of dealing." He stopped again, and again Abikawai nodded, not speaking, and he continued. "Isn't that what you have now? And will have when you become independent?"