by Allen Drury
“Senator Munson,” Raoul Barre observed, “manages to be subtle in the most unsubtle way.”
“It usually works, too,” Bob Munson said, and Lord Maudulayne chuckled.
“So it does,” he said. “Well, lead us to the drinks first, and then we’ll talk, eh, Raoul?”
“Indeed, he overwhelms us so we have no choice,” the French Ambassador said amicably. “Farewell, ladies. Watch out for Dolly. She and the Senator have an entente cordiale that I believe extends to matters of state as well. She will be working on you as hard as he works on us.”
“Anyone who can make Kitty and Celestine tell something they don’t want to tell is pretty good,” Dolly said with a laugh, “and I’m not. You needn’t worry, Raoul.”
“How nice we are all old friends,” Raoul said, patting her cheek. “All these little lies serve only to draw us closer together.”
“Run along with Bob,” Dolly told him, “and have a good time.”
“In your house,” Raoul said with a bow, “always. Always.”
There were now, Bob Munson noted as he linked one arm with Lord Maudulayne and the other with his colleague and steered them toward the nearest bar, approximately two hundred of Dolly’s expected three in the house, and Vagaries was beginning to resound with their babble. Three orchestras were playing, one in the enormous living room, one in the great glassed-in sun porch and one in the ballroom upstairs, and there was a sort of loud, reverberating roar flooding the mansion, compounded of three different popular tunes going loudly at the same time, the thump of feet dancing, chandeliers tinkling, ice clinking, and everywhere amiable voices, getting increasingly loud and fuzzy, talking, talking, talking. He could sense already from the relaxed and easy tone of things that the party was very likely going to last until three, if not later, and as the two ambassadors got their drinks and he switched quietly to plain ginger ale he decided that much could be done about the nomination before it was over. At the door he saw Orrin and Beth Knox arriving with Brigham and Mabel Anderson, to be followed immediately by Lafe Smith, traveling alone, and Seab Cooley, arriving with Arly and Helen Richardson. Crystal Danta came in with Hal Knox, George and Helen Keating followed and in a moment Tom and Anna August entered just ahead of the Ryans, the Welches, and the Andrews, who, their official differences on the Federal Reserve bill forgotten, arrived together in a merry group. Elsewhere in the room he could see Alexander and Mary Chabot of Louisiana talking animatedly to Allen and Evelyn Whiteside, and in the crush on the great winding staircase toward which he was leading his two companions he saw Winthrop of Massachusetts and his horsey, charming wife talking to Victor and Hazel Ennis, who looked hearty and a little tight, while behind them Fred Cahill of Missouri was struggling upwards with four drinks clutched desperately in his hands toward his wife and Luis and Concepci6n Valdez of New Mexico, who were hemmed in at the top of the stairs. The Senate was well represented already, and would be more so before long. He waved heartily to them all across the surging crowd and was about to take his captive diplomats up the stairs to Dolly’s private study when he felt a nudge and looked around to find the Majority whip and their ebullient colleague from West Virginia beaming at his side.
“Where are you taking Claude and Raoul?” Hal Fry demanded, while Stanley Danta smiled pleasantly upon them. “And why can’t we be invited?”
“I think it’s a case of high-level rape, old boy,” Lord Maudulayne said cheerfully. “We no sooner got in than we were told to come talk about Bob Leffingwell. Who wants to talk about Bob Leffingwell? Must we face these international crises day after day? Is there never a letup? Of course you’re invited.”
“The President was trying to reach you, Bob,” Senator Danta said. “He said Howie Sheppard just phoned and said he was going to make the opening statement for Bob tomorrow morning.”
“What a nice idea,” Senator Munson said in a pleased tone. “That’s very generous of Howie.”
“Very,” Stanley Danta said with just enough dryness in his voice so that Raoul Barre immediately looked as alert as a terrier. Senator Munson smiled expansively.
“If you see Howie around,” he said, “you tell him how pleased I am, will you? He’s a real member of the team and we won’t forget it.”
“Indeed I will,” Stanley said impassively. “Are we interrupting something?”
“Not a bit of it,” Bob Munson said. “Just a chat about things. Why don’t you round up Orrin and Brig and maybe Tom August and drop up to the study pretty soon? Don’t make it obvious, but when you can.”
“No, no,” Raoul Barre said quickly, “by all means don’t make it obvious, Stanley. Only one hundred and seventy-seven people by conservative count are watching us at this very moment. Don’t make it obvious.”
“Nonsense,” Senator Munson said firmly. “You French always exaggerate. As for you, Hal, why don’t you see if you can find your UN pal from the Mysterious East and bring him along too? I’ve talked to him once already, but more won’t hurt.”
I’m glad Kitty isn’t in on this,” Claude Maudulayne murmured. “She despises K.K.”
“A great statesman,” Senator Fry said gravely. “A beacon light of Asia. At least I think that’s what you called him in that Press Club speech, Claude.”
Lord Maudulayne smiled blandly.
“You tend to your Republic,” he advised, “and we’ll tend to our Commonwealth. But do go get him, Hal. Nothing spices up a discussion like K.K.’s syntax.”
“Brother, do I know it,” Senator Fry said dryly. “I’ll get him.”
“I’ll get the others,” Senator Danta added.
“Good,” Senator Munson said. “We’ll see you up there in fifteen minutes.”
“Right,” Stanley said.
Looking back as he and the Ambassadors proceeded slowly through the crush up the great winding stairway, Bob Munson could see that there were indeed quite a few who watched them go, and upon them all he turned a cordial and noncommittal smile. Across the room he could see the Secretary of Defense talking earnestly to Charlie Dale, the missile boss, and just beyond he caught a glimpse of Justice Davis arguing vigorously with the editor of the Star, Nearby the director of the FBI was chatting genially with the Secretary of Commerce and his wife, and in a bay window to their left, surrounded by the Ambassador of Lebanon and several miscellaneous princes from Saudi Arabia the director of the Central Intelligence Agency and two of the primmer male members of his far-flung crew of motley misfits were passing the time of day. Dolly was looking refreshed and as though she had gotten a second wind from somewhere, and just before they turned the curve in the stairs and lost the room from view he saw Vasily Tashikov and his frumpy consort come in, causing a little stir among the guests. He would have to talk to Tashikov, too, but that was a sparring match that would have to wait until later; he could see from the Soviet Ambassador’s quick start of recognition and little ironic smile as their eyes met and he observed the three of them that it would be a ticklish and probably unprofitable proceeding. So he shrugged and waved and, chatting pleasantly with his companions, led them down the second floor hallway past the ballroom and the library to Dolly’s study, where he closed the door firmly on the roar of the party, made sure the bar was well stocked, and then turned abruptly to his guests.
“Fellows,” he said candidly, “what should I do?”
The Ambassadors looked startled, looked at one another, and laughed.
“You Americans,” Raoul Barre said pleasantly, “what a race. Such a combination of indirection and candor. Sometimes you tell us nothing and next thing we know you have thrown yourselves upon our mercy. What are we ever to make of you?”
“It is puzzling, isn’t it?” Bob Munson admitted with a grin. “Let’s say our mutual aim should be enough understanding to get along and not enough to get in each others’ hair.”
“We haven’t always been sure of that with Howie Sheppard, old boy,” Claude Maudulayne observed. “Sometimes his aim has seemed to go much b
eyond that. Moralisms in one hand and missiles in the other, what? It has been a little disturbing at times.”
“That’s exactly it,” Senator Munson said, seizing the opening. “I think that’s probably why the President has wanted to make a change there for some time. I think he was beginning to get a little disturbed, too.”
“Oh, it was not health, then,” Raoul said. “I did not think so, right along.”
“No,” Senator Munson said, “it was not health. It was a concession to our good friends in Europe, believe it or not. Sometimes we do take your opinions into account, Raoul.”
“When we unite and make it impossible for you to ignore them, yes,” the French Ambassador remarked. Senator Munson gave a little bow.
“So it appears,” he said. “Our only hope on such occasions is that you know what you are doing and aren’t getting us into something that may weaken the whole Western position and give our friends in Moscow an irrecoverable advantage. You’re quite sure,” he added tartly, “that this is never the case?”
“Even in your own country,” Raoul Barre said calmly, “there is much sentiment for a new accommodation.”
“There really is, you know,” Lord Maudulayne offered casually. “I just got back from a speaking tour last week, you know, Seattle, San Francisco, L.A., Denver, Des Moines, Chicago, Philadelphia. The feeling was quite obvious all along.”
“I know it is,” Bob Munson admitted, “and I know you all will take advantage of it to pressure us as much as you can. I repeat, though, you’re quite sure of what you’re doing, you really know it’s the wisest course?”
“Who knows what is wisest in this troubled age?” the French Ambassador asked with a moody shrug.
“Some people pretend to,” Senator Munson said sharply. “Or so it seems to us.”
“My dear chap,” Claude Maudulayne said with an asperity of his own, “it is not that anybody pretends anything. It is simply that we are very old peoples who have been warring with one another for a very long time and we have developed certain instincts about what can and cannot be done over all these long centuries. I think our record stands well when it comes to the pinch.”
“Oh, indeed,” Bob Munson conceded, “except that you have so often waited until the pinch really pinched before you did anything about it.”
“And that has not been your policy?” Raoul Barre asked shrewdly. “I do not recall America at the barricades leading us on so very often in advance of the pinch, as you put it.”
“We’ve tried,” Senator Munson said, a trifle bleakly. “Since the last war particularly, we’ve tried. We haven’t your talent for leadership, maybe,” he said to Claude, “or your talent for realism, maybe,” he said to Raoul, “but we’ve tried. In our bumbling, blundering, well-meaning way, God knows we’ve tried. It isn’t entirely our fault if somewhere along the way it’s all seemed to go wrong.”
“Good intentions,” the French Ambassador said with a sigh. “How seldom they go hand in hand with reality.”
“And now it’s reality to give in to the Russians?” Senator Munson asked. “I cannot believe it.”
“Not exactly, no,” Lord Maudulayne said thoughtfully. “Not exactly. There again, to quote Raoul, you Americans. You oversimplify. You want it black and white. It isn’t black and white.”
“God knows,” Senator Munson replied, “that anybody who has an active knowledge and experience of United States politics knows that things aren’t black and white. But sometime, somehow, there has to come a time on nearly every issue when they are, when you’re either for something or against it, when you’re either with somebody or opposing him. That is what I think we have been searching for in international affairs ever since the war—that moment. And we don’t feel you have helped us much to find it.”
“Sometimes such moments are very small and very quick,” Raoul Barre said softly. “Sometimes they come in a second’s time, in some small aspect of events almost lost amid the general rush of things, here and gone before we hardly know it, only revealing later in their awful consequences how pivotal they were. Who knows if America’s moment has not passed? Ours has,” he finished, so bitterly that Lord Maudulayne made a movement of protest.
“Oh, not yet, old chap,” he said firmly. “Not yet, if we can all stick together.”
“Well, there we are again,” Bob Munson said. “How, and for what goal? It seems to us right now that the goal seems to be complete surrender to the enemy.”
“There you go,” Claude Maudulayne said. “The enemy. With us, you see, enemies are not enemies until—”
“Until they are bombing your cities,” Senator Munson said bitterly. “Yes, indeed. Well, not for us, thank you. We prefer to get them catalogued a little earlier than that.”
“But what an inconsistent catalogue,” Raoul Barre suggested gently, “and how temporary. Down with the Boche, up with the Boche, down with the Japs, up with the Japs, down with Russia ... up with Russia? Who can say? With us, you see, once an enemy, always an enemy, no matter what the niceties later, which is why we have found it difficult to moralize our way from position to position with you. If you wish to use the Germans for your purposes, well and good, but do not tell us they are not Germans anymore, because we know it is not so.”
“And are the Russians any different?” Senator Munson demanded. “What makes them friends now?”
“Senator, Senator!” Claude Maudulayne protested. “They are not friends. They are never friends. They are an uncomfortably strong force at the moment which must be handled with care, not with bludgeons.”
“Very well,” Bob Munson said. “I give up. You should be happy with Bob Leffingwell, I take it. From these speeches of his lately, I would guess that he favors an accommodation sufficient to satisfy even you.”
The British Ambassador looked at his colleague a trifle hopelessly and Raoul Barre shrugged.
“I do not know—” He began, but what he did not know was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“I’ll get it,” Senator Munson said, and Raoul took advantage of his doing so to murmur, “You see?” to Claude Maudulayne, who murmured, “Difficult,” back. Hal Fry came in with his colleagues and Krishna Khaleel and a certain wary cordiality settled back over the room.
“There is some conspiracy here?” the Indian Ambassador asked with a jocular air which did not quite conceal his suspicion that there really was. “I am glad I have been considered worthy to be included.”
“Nothing of the sort, old chap,” Lord Maudulayne said comfortably. “Just a little talk away from all the hubbub. Bob Leffingwell and all that, you know.”
“Ah,” Krishna Khaleel said knowingly. “I might have guessed. Our dear old Bob never rests. He has a job to do, to get this man confirmed, and he will not rest until it is accomplished. Admirable, is it not, Mr. Ambassador?”
This form of address, which always surprised Claude Maudulayne a little considering the number of times he and his Commonwealth colleague had conferred on matters of mutual interest, almost provoked him to say something which he knew would be a very serious mistake. He almost suggested that K.K. relax; but he knew with a calm certainty that in his presence K.K. would never relax, that in the presence of the British it would be generations before any educated Indian could really relax, that there would always be this self-conscious, faintly hostile, faintly cringing relationship, and in spite of himself he felt a mild but satisfied contempt. Yes, he thought, you’re top dogs now, aren’t you, but there’s one thing you’ll never really have no matter how desperately you want it, and you know it, and that’s our respect. And because he knew that K.K. knew pretty much what he was thinking he threw his arm around the Indian Ambassador’s bony shoulders with an extra cordiality and informed him jovially, “Actually, we’ve been settling the problems of the world, K.K., and we need your help. Roaul and I have been trying to educate our American friend in the niceties of dealing with the Russians and he will have none of it. Now he has reinforcements and I
suppose will have even less of it.”
“I see,” K.K. said, disengaging himself slowly but firmly, “perhaps then it is well I have come. It is most important for us what our friends of this great republic do in this matter, which is the only matter in the world, for that matter.”
“Important for us too, Mr. Ambassador,” Orrin Knox said crisply, mixing himself a whisky and soda and settling into a leather armchair. “We would like to know where you stand on it, if you don’t mind telling us.”
“Always so abrupt,” Raoul murmured and flashed a smile at the Indian Ambassador which seemed to make him feel better about the whole thing. Senator Fry handed him a bourbon and water and he sat down in a rather gingerly way on the outsize sofa. Then he looked blandly around the circle and inquired gently, “But where is Mr. Tashikov?”
“Mr. Tashikov wasn’t invited,” Bob Munson said coldly. “He’s some-where downstairs if you want to talk to him later and tell him all about it.”
“Oh, now,” Tom August said in his soft, worried way, “I’m sure Mr. Khaleel wouldn’t do anything like that. He was just inquiring. Bob.”
“Of course, old boy,” Claude Maudulayne said, growing heartier by the second in an attempt to stave off tension, “of course, now. He was just curious.”
“I thought I would arrange a gathering of friends and talk about Bob Leffingwell a little,” Senator Munson said in an easier tone. “I didn’t realize it would turn into a full-scale debate on foreign policy or maybe I would have invited Tashikov too, K.K.” Then his tone hardened again and he said impatiently, “However, that’s just diversionary and we all know it, so why don’t you answer Orrin’s question?”
“I do not see,” Krishna Khaleel said, turning visibly pale and speaking in a high, persistent voice, “why it would be improper to have Mr. Tashikov here. Certainly he is involved in this matter, no one more so. Why should he not be?”
“It wouldn’t work and you know it, K.K.,” Hal Fry said.