Promise of Joy (61 page)

3

“Orrin—” familiar voice said, and on the screen of the Picturephone the familiar, craggy old face looked tired and exhausted, as tired and exhausted as he was, as the whole world seemed to be in this haunted hour nearing midnight. “Do you need any company down there?”

“Thanks, Bill,” he said gratefully, “but I’ve got plenty. People are running in and out of here on shuttles with intelligence reports, news bulletins and what-have-you. I’m swamped in company. In fact, I think in a few minutes I’m going to kick them all out and just try to think for a while.”

“It doesn’t look good, does it?” the ex-President said gloomily, and he responded with a sigh.

“No. It does not look good. What would you do, Bill?”

“I’m beginning to think,” William Abbott said slowly, “that I might—I just might—go in, Orrin. I never thought I’d come to that conclusion, but in the last couple of hours I have. I hate to see us do it, but—it may be we cannot survive in the long run if we permit the balance to be upset so terribly as it seems about to be.” He too sighed. “It’s a hellish thing. I’m sorry to complicate it more for you by putting myself on the other side, particularly at this moment. But this is the moment when it has to be decided, isn’t it? One way or the other, it can’t wait much longer.”

“One way or the other,” he echoed quietly, “it can’t wait much longer. I agree with you, this is indeed the moment.…Suppose I were to intervene—and,” he added quickly as his predecessor gave him a sudden sharp look, “I haven’t decided yet, though I know I’m going to have to sometime before this long night is over—suppose I were, how should I go about it? Suppose you were me, as in a sense you were and still are, of course, the only other man living who genuinely understands this job from the inside—how would you do it? Where? When? On whose behalf?”

“I wouldn’t want to presume to tell you—” the ex-President began, but he interrupted, “I’m asking, Bill.”

William Abbott looked away for a long moment into far distances. Then he looked back.

“I keep remembering,” he said finally, “a tired old patrician in Mandarin robes saying that he
would
go to Geneva.”

“Yes,” the President said gravely, “I keep remembering him too. But that was a long time ago, Bill, as history has moved these past few days. And how much of this—this”—he gave an ironic, unamused smile—“how much of this ‘yellow tide’ can he control at this moment? He’s let the beast loose, to quote our friends of the
Post,
and I’m very doubtful that he and his colleagues have any real control of it any longer. It will go until it exhausts itself, and by that time
he
may not be there any longer, either. Right?”

“It will go until it exhausts itself,” William Abbott said softly, “or until it meets a real stone wall.”

“Yes, I agree with that.”

“And if it meets a stone wall, and simultaneously the old Mandarin and his government are strengthened in their control by the most affirmative and vigorous measures of support coming from the Pacific side—”

He nodded.

“It could just possibly be done. On the other hand, if he cannot keep control in the next few days and if the tide tosses up new leaders as fanatical as itself—and Russia really does go down altogether—and Europe and the West do lie open—and we in time do become the beleaguered citadel.…”

“The man wants certainties,” Bill Abbott said with a momentary humor. The President smiled, a brief second of relaxation in the midst of so much chaos. Then his expression turned serious again.

“The man would like to have them,” he conceded, “but he knows they aren’t available. There is a lot to be said for siding with the Russians, Bill, difficult and hostile as they have always been, under whatever government. They
are
the West’s ‘bastion,’ feeble though it is. They
are
occupying the space between, certainly not very effectively, but at least they’re there, a buffer, a mass, something for the tide to exhaust itself against sometime soon. They are, as our frantic friends from the media now advise us, part of our general Western heritage and culture. They
are
‘like us’ and the Chinese
are
‘not like us.’ So maybe the liberals have a point: maybe we should make the decision in Russia’s favor.”

“And with a new government in charge now, apparently a fighting government—perhaps if the tide meets a stone wall with a strong Russian government on the other side of it, a fighting government that has our very strong and vigorous support—”

“And a government in Peking that would have very strong and vigorous opposition coming from the Pacific side—” Again he nodded. “It could just possibly be done.… Those, I take it, are the options as you see them?”

“Pretty much the only viable ones now, I think,” Bill Abbott said, “because though I know you have most sincerely tried, Orrin, I don’t really think nonintervention is any longer feasible. Don’t you agree?”

It was his turn to look far away, while several long and obviously difficult moments passed. Then he nodded slowly, for the third time.

“Yes,” he said, forced by events to concede at last. “I agree.…”

“And so?” the ex-President asked.

“And so,” he said with a return of some of their old joshing humor, “I think you have contributed greatly to my confusion—or possibly my clarification. I don’t really think you would want me to give you a preview of what I intend to do, though. Or would you, Bill?”

The ex-President smiled.

“Not if you don’t know yet, Orrin,” he said.

The President smiled back.

“That’s right,” he said. “But stand by, Bill. I may want you down here at any time.”

“Any time at all,” William Abbott said. “The only thing I might presume to urge is that you decide fast.”

“Before the night is over,” he said quietly. “And that’s a promise.”

Before he reached that moment, however, there were other calls, most of which he refused, a few of which he accepted. He cleared his office of official intruders, gave word he was not to be disturbed until further notice. In the next half hour Bob and Dolly Munson, Warren and Mary Strickland, Lafe and Mabel Anderson, the Vice President and Sarah and Ceil and Valuela, all called with concern, sympathy and support. All the men were gravely worried. The women, he could tell, were quite genuinely terrified of what might be coming next. Yet all gave him proof of friendship that strengthened him enormously: all were selflessly concerned with
his
feelings,
his
mood,
his
confidence,
his
courage: all were brave. The last call he accepted before returning to the Mansion came from an old and often difficult friend for whom he felt, nonetheless, a strong regard and a deep affection.

The little Justice looked as tired as any, but his perky spirit remained unchanged.

“Orrin—” he began. “Mr. President—”

“Orrin will do, Tommy. How nice of you to call.”

“How nice of you to accept my call,” Justice Davis said. “When you have such terrible things to decide.…”

“Help me decide them,” he offered, and for once was surprised by Tommy’s response: he refused.

“No, sir,” he said firmly, “I will not. Now, that doesn’t mean that I don’t sympathize and don’t want to help, Orrin, but I just don’t feel it’s my proper place to give advice. And anyway,” he confessed with a sudden smile that lightened the moment, “I don’t know what I would advise if I
did
advise. That,” he said, starting his sentence lightly but ending abruptly somber, “is how scared
I
am.”

“Don’t be scared, Tommy,” the President said, moved by this show of desolation from one normally so bright and chipper. “At least, don’t admit you are.”

“Aren’t you?” the little Justice asked, giving him a look at once shrewd and oddly humble.

“As hell,” he acknowledged quietly. “But I’m not going to show it for one minute.”

“You couldn’t,” Tommy Davis said fervently. “It would absolutely devastate us all.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” he said, and meant it. “Of course, I do want your advice, as always. Bill Abbott and I were discussing a couple of options a little while ago. Tell me what you think of them.…”

“Well,” Tommy said slowly when he had finished, expressing no surprise that nonintervention seemed to be no longer among them, “I think those ideas pretty well cover what’s available.”

“Which one, or which combination of them, should I follow?”

“You know my sympathies in general have always been with Russia,” Justice Davis said frankly. “Not that I liked their old system, or their new one, either, for that matter, such as it is, but just because I felt that we simply had to get along with them if the world was not to be blown apart.” His eyes widened thoughtfully and he spoke in a musing tone. “I suppose it never really occurred to me that it might be blown apart by them and the Chinese. I suppose it never really occurred to any of us liberals that anything like that could actually happen. Oh, we knew it
intellectually,
but we have always been so quiveringly sensitive about the possibility that the world might be blown apart by the Russians and
us
that we pushed the other possibility into the backs of our minds. We were always so harshly critical of what our own country did because we thought it would make the Russians angry and so increase the chances for world disaster. We took China more or less for granted, off there on the side—although rationally, of course, we always knew the chance was there.…And now it’s come.”

“And now it’s come. So what do I do, Tommy?”

“I don’t know,” the little Justice said, “I honestly do not, Orrin. But I do say this to you: as far as I am concerned—and I like to think you will find this true of most of those I think of as genuine liberals, as distinct from the ‘phony’ or ‘professional’ liberals who dominate so much of our thinking nowadays with their automatic blind reactions to things—as far as
I
am concerned, I shall support whatever you do loyally and affirmatively and with genuine acceptance, because you are my President, doing the best you can, and I think I owe you and my country that.”

“Well, thank you, Tommy,” he said, genuinely moved. “I warn you, I may take you up on that. That informal ‘war council’ I was thinking about a while back may become a very necessary reality at any moment. I may need you right here beside me.”

“I shall be there,” Justice Davis said. “In the meantime, if you want a statement from me supporting your decision—
whatever
it is—you will have it.”

“Good,” he said. “Sometime in the next twenty-four hours. You’ll know when.”

“Fine,” the little Justice said. “Count on me. And, Orrin—Mr. President: God bless you, and do be of good heart. There is great strength in this country still. It won’t let you down.”

“If I didn’t believe that, Tommy,” he said simply, “I literally could not go on. Good night, old friend. Thanks for your call.”

“Not at all,” said Justice Davis with a quaintly old-fashioned dignity. “I should be a poor friend indeed if I could not give comfort when it is needed.”

And comforted he was, he thought as he left the Oval Office and walked slowly, past the respectfully watching guards whose faces, worn like all faces by the strain of these days, brightened a little as he passed, to the Mansion. Comforted by old friends, comforted by a faith as basic as Tommy’s in the good heart of the country, comforted by faith in himself and comforted by the Lord, though he did not spend too much time directly addressing Him. Like many pragmatic people, the President had a basic feeling that the Lord would be there when he needed Him, and usually, he had found, the Lord was.

He knew he must touch base with three more people, and then he would reach the decision which he now knew to be very close. He paused before a door some distance down the second-floor hallway from his and rapped gently a couple of times.

“Yes?” Hal called promptly. “Is that you, Dad? Come in.”

“If you aren’t asleep—”

“Asleep!” Hal said, opening the door. “Is anybody in the world asleep tonight?”

“I suppose not,” he said, entering to be greeted with a kiss from Crystal. Both were in robes, a fire was burning brightly in the grate, a tray with milk, cake and cookies was on an ottoman. Facing their two chairs, a television set chattered urgently on. He caught a glimpse, photographed from a plane high up, of a long, dark column winding, winding, with a certain inexorable, implacable slowness, across a frozen waste. With a sudden, almost harsh movement, he stepped over and snapped it off.

“Do you mind? I want to talk.”

“Sure,” Hal said easily. “We’ve had enough for a while, ourselves. It doesn’t change: they just keep coming along.” He drew up a chair to face theirs. “Want something to eat? The kitchen sent up a pretty good supply.”

“I will, thanks,” he said, helping himself to a piece of cake and a glass of milk and settling into the chair.

They watched him with an affectionately attentive concern while he ate. He looked, they thought, very tired, but, in some almost indefinable way, less tense than when they had seen him briefly at breakfast that morning. Hal, who knew his father, voiced the conclusion he drew from this.

“You’ve decided, and you want to bounce it off us and see what we think.”

He smiled.

“Not quite decided yet, but close.” The smile faded. “God help me if I’m wrong.”

“Who’s to say now what’s right or wrong?” Hal inquired moodily. “Only history will be able to tell us that someday—if there is any. Basically, I would guess you’ve decided we’re going in.”

“What makes you think that?” he inquired with some sharpness.

“Because I know you,” his son said. “You’ve given nonintervention the old school try and done your best with it, but events have caught up with you and now you feel you must move one way or the other. Right?”

For a moment he contemplated bluff, then abandoned it: Hal did know him.

“Essentially,” he said. Crystal leaned forward.

“Why?” she asked earnestly, not reproving, just asking. “Before the war broke out, when you were facing the Russians and Chinese in Panama and Gorotoland, you held out against the Congress, the media, a lot of the country, most of the world. You were adamant. We were kidnapped”—and her eyes darkened for a second at the memory, and so did his—“and still you were adamant. Now you’ve held out for a while—but you aren’t going to hold out any longer. I don’t question your decision, because you have many more facts than I do. I’m just curious, as many people are going to be. Why?”