Space: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  Then the big man from the northwestern district revealed the deeper purpose of this meeting: ‘Norman, you must keep your eye on the bigger target. 1948. Tom Dewey will pretty surely be our man then, experienced, one national campaign under his belt, a born leader. He’ll run against that goddamned haberdasher from Kansas City, and you know and I know that if the election were held today, Truman wouldn’t get ten electoral votes. Even Senator Fulbright of his own party advised him to resign, the country’s so against him.’

  The manufacturer from Webster laughed. ‘Did you hear Truman’s reply to that one? Said he needed no advice from Senator Halfbright.’

  ‘We all know he’s a disgrace, totally unfit to sit in the White House, and our job is to get him out. Returning this state to its proper stance in 1946 is the best thing we can do in preparation for 1948. A good strong senator. Knock off that damned Democrat in Webster …’

  That’s why I’m here,’ the manufacturer said. ‘Grant, I need your help. Enormously. With you heading the ticket, I can defeat that Democrat. With Gantling, I’ll not only lose the House seat but also the Senate.’

  ‘Is he really so weak?’ Grant asked, and as soon as he uttered these words Elinor realized that he was beginning to visualize himself as savior of the party, as a man standing before the voters with fresh new ideas, and she was frightened.

  Elinor Stidham had been born in 1917, when her father, a well-to-do farmer from north of Clay, was absent fighting in France. She therefore never knew him as the robust, simple man he had once been; she saw him only as a frail person, badly damaged by the war and unsure of himself. She was two when he was finally released from the hospital, and she could not recall his ever playing with her, or bouncing her on his knee; he certainly never spoke of the war or of the adventures she imagined him as having.

  She developed into a quiet, stately girl who always seemed much older than those in her class. She did extremely well in school, and at the university, too, and could have become quite popular had she sought that kind of approval. Her marks were mostly A’s and she joined one of the good sororities, but she was elected to no office, not even in Kappa Alpha Theta, and most students were ignorant of her presence on campus.

  Boys always noticed her, but after chilly rebuffs they allowed her to move alone, which she did, from sorority house to library to classrooms to the gymnasium. She was tall, slim, attractive, with very dark hair which she kept tight about her head, and it pleased her that several of the more serious male students, especially the bookish types, signified a serious interest in her, even though the rowdy element no longer did.

  The campus was astonished, therefore, when its premier football player, Norman Grant, suddenly started dating her. Half a dozen campus beauties had invited him to their dances, and several dozen others would have liked to do so, but it was obvious that he’d settled on Elinor Stidham.

  A wealthy alumnus, proud of Norman’s football skills, had casually given him a Chevrolet on the sensible grounds that ‘any football player as good as Norman Grant is entitled to a convertible.’ In it Norman drove Elinor up to the Stidham farm, where he spent long hours talking with Frank Stidham, who still refused to mention his experiences in the war but who was eager to talk about the nature of a good society.

  Stidham was a Republican, of course, as all responsible citizens of Fremont tended to be, but he had an extremely wide social comprehension which encompassed Burke, Jefferson, Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson and especially the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville, whose ability to identify the fundamentals of the American system astounded him: ‘If a young man wanted to grasp the true nature of this country, the only book he would have to read is De Tocqueville.’

  ‘Professor Bates says the same thing about Lord Bryce.’

  ‘Well, now …’ Stidham twisted in his chair as if his back hurt, then smiled. ‘Bates has something there. Yes, he has. But when I was in England, I felt that men like Bryce, and I met a lot of them, ponderously elaborated the obvious, which is what Bryce does, I’m afraid. But in France the brilliant mind cuts right into the heart of a problem, laying waste the verbiage, and that’s what De Tocqueville does. Have you read him, Norman?’

  ‘No, I’ve been too busy trying to keep up with my classes. Pre-law is no snap.’

  ‘Why do you play so many games, Norman? Isn’t football enough? Do you really need basketball, too? And then baseball?’

  ‘I’m just geared that way, sir.’

  When two of the football players asked Grant why he bothered with that Stidham broad, seeing that she never put out, he smiled and said, ‘Elinor and I’ve known each other since high school. We dated a couple of times then.’

  ‘Did she put out then?’

  ‘It’s none of your business—but no. But one thing kept sticking in my mind.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘When I drove up to the farm in a borrowed car for our first date, her father spoke to me as if I were his equal. Maybe you’ve seen him. Smallish fellow, seems to be in pain a good deal. And he told me that his daughter was very precious to him—”

  ‘All fathers say that. I went with a dame—”

  ‘And he added that it wouldn’t be necessary to impress his daughter by driving seventy miles an hour around the curves of a dark road.’

  ‘What the hell has that got to do with anything?’

  ‘The more I thought about it, in later years, that is, the more I realized that he was letting me know that the Stidhams take life seriously. And so do I.’

  He had left the university with eight varsity letters and a high B-plus, which made it easy for him to enter law school in Chicago. When he left Clay, Elinor had two more years to go for her degree, but she never doubted that he would be back, to see her father if not her. Once she said sardonically, ‘I sometimes think that Norman comes here to eat your pies, Mother, and to have Father tutor him for his law exams.’

  Mr. Stidham was not a lawyer, but he was an acute student of American history, especially its foreign policies relating to war, and Elinor could remember clearly the night in 1938 when her father told Norman, I’m deeply worried about Mr. Roosevelt’s actions vis-à-vis Japan.’

  ‘We could handle Japan, if anything happened,’ Grant assured him.

  ‘I don’t mean that. It seems to me that war in Europe is inevitable. Things are so unstable that even the slightest disruption …’

  ‘What has Europe to do with Japan?’

  ‘Don’t you see? If war does break out there, attention will be diverted from Japan, and their war lords will feel free to undertake the most daring ventures. Sooner or later they will do something which will infuriate America, and then the fat’s in the fire.’

  ‘Why are you blaming President Roosevelt?’ At his law school Grant was discovering to his astonishment that most of his better professors defended Roosevelt, whereas no one in Fremont did.

  ‘I simply think he ought to do nothing that drives a wedge between us and Japan.’

  ‘Is he doing so?’

  ‘I’m afraid everything he does is antagonistic’

  ‘Maybe we should be antagonistic. The way those yellow devils have been treating China.’

  ‘The point is, Norman, that if Roosevelt continues, this nation must be prepared to fight Japan on a very broad front indeed.’

  ‘It’s a small island. We can handle that island, I’m sure.’

  ‘You should look at your map. It’s a group of islands, and they will not be the battlefield.’ When Norman asked what would, Stidham took down an atlas which displayed the Pacific in a large double-spread. ‘The battlefield will be the entire ocean. Java down here. The Philippines up here. Malay even. Hawaii no doubt.’

  Such reasoning was preposterous, and Norman said so: ‘Japan is a tiny place, sir. They’re not capable of an effort like that. Our Navy would knock the hell out of them.’

  In 1940, when he was back in Clay with a law degree and a foothold in a good local office, Norman proposed to Elinor S
tidham, as she had always been sure he would. The wedding was held in the Baptist Church, and the honeymoon was by train to Niagara Falls. Because of Norman’s sports achievements, newspapers as far away as New York City chronicled the marriage, and while they were staying at the newlyweds’ hotel at the Falls, an admiring older couple showed them the wire-service announcement in the Buffalo paper, then ordered a bottle of wine to help them celebrate.

  In 1942, when all of Mr. Stidham’s remarkable prophecies had come true, Norman Grant was sent to Dartmouth College for a six-week course that would make him an officer in the United States Navy, and the problem arose as to what his young bride ought to do for the duration. The two men, Stidham and Grant, discussed the matter thoroughly and decided that Elinor should stay at the Stidham home and engage in such patriotic work as might develop, but when they informed her of their decision she surprised them by saying that she had already written to the hospital in Hanover, New Hampshire, where Dartmouth was located, and had obtained a job as helper in some menial capacity.

  The men were outraged, with Norman making the most sensible objection: ‘I’ll be busy twenty hours a day. There’s no way I could …’

  She would not listen. Better than any young woman in the state of Fremont she understood the nature of this war. For years she had listened as her father patiently identified the major strains that must produce the conflict, and if he had been unable to convince the members of the Clay City Rotary Club, or his new son-in-law, he had certainly convinced her.

  She had followed Norman to Dartmouth and had served as nurse’s helper in the local hospital. Then she had moved to the Patuxent River in Maryland when it looked as if Norman was going into naval aviation. When BuPers suddenly switched him to the badly understaffed destroyer unit on the West Coast, she found a job in Seattle helping to run a restaurant, and from there she had sent her husband off to what became, in 1944, the great Battle of Leyte Gulf.

  Now, in 1946, she looked much as she had in high school and college: still slightly underweight, still smartly dressed, still distinguished by her fair skin and very dark hair. As each year passed she became more beautiful, and although during the war she had given ample proof of her courage, she seemed always to become a little more frail, a little more vulnerable.

  She did not want her husband to challenge Senator Gantling. She did not want him to move to Washington if perchance he did win: ‘Norman has fought his war, gentlemen. It’s unfair to make him repeat.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be a good idea,’ the man from the northwest asked, ‘if we called Paul Stidham in here? He knows Gantling. He knows Grant. He’d give us all sober advice.’

  So Stidham was called on the telephone, and shortly he was among the men with whom he had conducted many campaigns. Tight-lipped, with his forefingers pressed against his lips in a kind of church steeple, he listened as the politicians spread their problems before him, and after his daughter had expressed forcefully her opposition to Norman’s candidacy, he said very quietly, ‘I agree completely that Ulysses Gantling has run his course. If you offer him to the voters again, we will lose his seat and the Democrats will retain their hold on that House seat. Gantling’s time is up, and he must face that harsh fact. He must step aside for a better, younger man, and I know no one more qualified to make the challenge and serve in the Senate than Norman Grant. I’ve followed his course of self-education for the past fourteen years, and he’s ready. You men will serve the state and the nation well if you nominate him and see that he wins the primary.’

  ‘Will you serve as state chairman? Grant for Senate?’

  ‘Certainly not. I shall support Senator Gantling, as always.’

  ‘But it would look dreadful … Norman’s own father-in-law …’

  ‘And his wife,’ Elinor said crisply.

  ‘Good God!’ the man from Webster growled. ‘Are we a bunch of insane children?’

  The politicians jumped on the Stidhams, pointing out the scandal that would inflame the state if a young man challenging a well known incumbent found his wife and his distinguished father-in-law supporting the opposition.

  ‘You’re entirely correct,’ Stidham said quietly, ‘it would be scandalous. But I’m beholden to Ulysses Gantling and could not possibly desert him, especially since I believe that Norman can win despite my stand.’ He could not be moved. Honor-bound to continue defending a man he had helped into the Senate years ago, he refused to abandon him in the last stages of a career which had not been outstanding but which had been defensible. Ulysses Gantling had never been a first-class senator and would never be, whereas Norman Grant had at least an outside chance, so logic demanded that Paul Stidham shift his allegiance to his son-in-law. But honor required that he stand by his old friend, and this he would do.

  ‘What about your daughter, then? Shouldn’t she campaign for her husband?’

  ‘I campaign for nothing,’ Elinor said.

  ‘Will you at least keep your mouth shut?’ the man from Webster asked.

  When Elinor refused to reply, the man from Calhoun, on whom would fall the heavy burden of opposing Gantling, the honored citizen of his own town, asked, pleadingly, ‘Don’t you admit that your husband is much the better man?’

  ‘He’s a superb man,’ Elinor said, moving slightly toward where her husband sat.

  ‘Wouldn’t he make a fine senator?’

  ‘The best.’

  ‘And don’t you want to see Tom Dewey elected in ’48?’

  ‘Anything to get rid of Truman.’

  ‘Then will you please keep your mouth shut?’

  Elinor looked at her father, who stared straight ahead. Finally she said, ‘My family has always supported Ulysses Gantling, who has proved himself to be honest and trustworthy …’

  ‘And damned dull,’ someone interjected.

  ‘So I must vote for him. But I will keep my mouth shut.’ With that she patted her husband slightly on the shoulder and left the room.

  During the campaign Elinor took an intense dislike to Tim Finnerty, the brash young newspaperman from Boston whom Norman imported to help run his Benton office. After one glance at Finnerty, she warned her husband: ‘I don’t really care whether you win or lose, but if you care, you ought to get rid of that young monster. In this state a Roman Catholic Irishman from Boston will do you more harm than good.’

  When Norman insisted upon keeping Finnerty, she never again went near the Benton office and showed her resentment whenever the young Irishman visited their home in Clay. She did hear, however, that Finnerty was an asset among the rougher element in the riverfront city of Webster, and she had to take notice when he unveiled the stratagem which more than any other accounted for her husband’s sudden spurt in the polls.

  During the first four weeks of the primary Senator Gantling had played adroitly upon the emotions of his state, pointing out his years of faithful service and the damage being done to the Republican party. To the surprise of many, the old warrior was proving a much abler antagonist than predicted, and three weeks before the voting he looked like a sure bet for reelection.

  It appeared to many voters that Norman Grant was running principally on the ground that he had been a football star at the university; there was a good deal of sports talk, and cheerleading, and nostalgia. And it was after one such rally that Finnerty read the riot warning: ‘We’re going to cut out all this shit.’

  ‘Young man, watch your words,’ one of the locals said.

  ‘Do you want to win this election, or don’t you?’

  ‘Young man, I’ve written to Boston about you. You’re a registered Democrat.’

  ‘I’m employed as an honest workman to see that my old buddy gets elected to the second highest office in this land. I take no credit for what we’re going to do from here in. A friend of mine’s come up with a strategy that’s a beauty. So from tonight on we’ll knock off the old shit.’

  He spent that night on the telephone, and two days later, before an audience in the critical s
wing district in Webster, he revealed the new strategy. It consisted of having Norman Grant pose in front of a mock-up of a destroyer escort, while three good-looking young American men—himself, Pharmacist’s Mate Larry Penzoss of Alabama and Cook’s Helper Gawain Butler from Detroit—stood at attention in their Navy uniforms, bedecked with ribbons and medals.

  He spoke first: ‘I am in the paid employ of Norman Grant. It’s my job to get him elected to the United States Senate. So anything I tell you is suspect. But Larry Penzoss here, from the great state of Alabama, he came at his own expense. He’s not getting a penny from Norman Grant, and he has something important to tell you.’

  With a marvelous Deep South drawl Penzoss re-created the scene on the raft, and with a pathos that brought tears to many, told of Captain Grant’s heroism and compassion. He astonished Grant by recalling in wrenching detail the death of Executive Officer Savage and Captain Grant’s deportment during the burial at sea.

  In the silence that followed his speech, Finnerty indicated that Gawain Butler, now a restaurant man in Detroit, should speak, and the tall black, moving on a prosthetic right foot, stepped forward to tell in impeccable English the story of how Norman Grant had pulled him from the shark-filled waters and had then volunteered to spend the night in the water, at infinite risk to his life, so that a nigger, as he phrased it, might be saved. Gawain ended: It’s up to you to decide whether Captain Grant will make a good senator. I can assure you he made a fantastic captain.’ He saluted and stumped back to his place in line.

  Then Finnerty took over: ‘I warned you before that anything I might say would have to be suspect. So I’m not going to say anything. But with your permission I’m going to read you from the notes I took that day of battle. They were written in 1944, when I was a green kid of nineteen, noting as was my duty the behavior of the bravest man I have ever known, the bravest man the entire state of Fremont will ever know.’

  From an inside pocket, fumbling as he did so, he produced a water-stained book, not the real one, of course, for that formed part of the Navy historical record, but a good imitation, soaked in the washbasin of a Fremont hotel two nights ago and dried over a groaning radiator. Turning the pages carefully, he came to the morning of 25 October 1944 and in a low Irish voice he read: