Delicate Ape
Page 20
Lord Evanhurst stood awaiting silence. Thin and old, yes, but empurpled, his delicate face showing no trace of the clever brain behind it. His dignity carried to the furthest corner of the hall. “It is with the greatest regret that I bring you word that our Secretary will not be able to attend the present conclave.” He waited but the reaction was minute. The press didn’t stir; the story was in type, awaiting only deadline release. Only to the least important nations could this be information, and even they must have been fed by the grapevine. “The President of the United States has named the first secretary to Secretary Anstruther, De Witt Gordon, to act in his place. Secretary Gordon will assume the chair.”
Gordon came forward. The applause was not of their knowledge of him, it was for his stature. He spoke. Words, brave words, stirring words, no apologies, no hint of the anxieties wracking him. Time enough for that tomorrow when the business was begun. Nothing must mar today, not even the knowledge that Piers Hunt was in freedom.
He finished speaking in tumult and shouting. The relief on his face was pitiful. He had been accepted. He raised his arms. “At the suggestion of the dean of our members, Lord Evanhurst, I have asked a man whom Secretary Anstruther calls friend to speak to you of our beloved and absent leader. Secretary Fabian of Equatorial Africa.”
The delegations were without interest. Another speech. The opening of the Conclave, pretty speeches, pageantry, no more. Nothing of import at the ceremonial overture. But the galleries were agape. They had come for the show; they would suck this orange to the fullest. They knew what the delegations had forgotten. Every moment for peace could be important.
The emphasis of eyes shifted from the stalls of the mighty to the faraway position of the new African nation. Fabian rose, majestic, commanding. Even the delegates were forced into attention as he stood there waiting for the murmur of applause to subside. Mouths bent to ears, the rustle of sound. This is Fabian, the mystic, the guarded, the enigmatic.
Fabian lifted his hands. “Peace be among us.” It was a prayer, not a catch phrase of the Conclave, a prayer more powerful than the perfunctory obsequy which had opened the meeting. It was torn from the black man’s hope. He waited until its overtones faded into the high dome.
“I have been asked to speak to you of Secretary Anstruther, our Secretary, my beloved friend. I cannot speak to you of my friend. When the heart is heavy with grief the mouth is filled only with silence.”
There was the first faint wind of doubt blown across the heads of the mighty. Gordon’s hand lifted and fell, but Evanhurst did not move. Only his lips were finer drawn than before. Among the Germans there was the shifting of eyes. The hall was silent as Fabian’s voice softened.
“I can speak of our Secretary but there is no reason for me to speak of him. You knew him. You knew he was a gentle man, a good man, a just man.” The clangor of iron rang in his words. “Secretary Anstruther is dead.”
There was no sound from the delegates in their marble stalls. The first rumble of distant thunder came from the galleries alone. The guilty ones dared not stir.
“Because he was just, his death demands that justice be fulfilled. Because he was just, his assassins must be brought before justice. Secretary Anstruther was murdered.”
The thunder grew. The Germans looked for escape but there was no escape here. Man was watching from above, man waited without. Gordon’s eyes were holes in the clay of his face. On Evanhurst’s mouth there moved a smile but his thin fingers were wound tight about the arms of his chair.
“I cannot tell you how he was murdered. I do not know. I found his body with the one who was the instrument of death. I carried both to the Lake of the Crocodiles that the killer might be destroyed even unto his ash, that my friend might rest where his goodness is enshrined, where his peace will be preserved.”
They were losing fear, the guilty ones. Brecklein’s fingertips came together. Sly hope crept over them. Hugo put up his eyeglass.
“My friend is gone. And when I knew that he was gone, I was afraid. I knew he was not killed because he was gentle, although his gentleness betrayed him to his enemies. He was not killed because he was good, although his goodness was a threat to them. He was not killed because he was just, for being a just man he was not quick to accuse. He was killed because he was a man of peace. And I was afraid. I thought with him peace too had died, as his assassins meant peace should die. In my fear I believed these things. Until today.
“Today a man proved to me that I was wrong. Peace is not dead because peace must not die. This man can speak not of Secretary Anstruther but for him. Better than I he can speak to you for my friend. Because he was the better friend. Because he believed when I knew only doubt and fear.”
His hand gestured Piers to his feet. “I give you Piers Hunt.”
Piers spoke while the moment held. His voice throbbed into the hall. “I speak for Secretary Anstruther.”
He didn’t wait for them to gather their forces to strike him down, for despite Fabian’s belief to the contrary, they would strike even here in the sanctum of peace if given opportunity.
“Secretary Anstruther labored for peace. Secretary Anstruther believed in peace. Secretary Anstruther wanted only peace. Because he was a man of peace, he is dead.”
He didn’t know how much he dared say. He didn’t know how much truth he dared put into the massive hands that knotted above. Truth was the powerful weapon. Throughout the history of the world it had been withheld from man as too dangerous for his manipulations. Piers would not fear man, he could not. Man alone could save the world. The truth must not be confined to the chosen; it must be given all. He must speak now or Anstruther and that for which he stood went down into darkness forever.
He knew and man must know. They must look back and see one man alone in the jungle of the past daring to aspire to the dignity of man, neither to ape the apes nor to be satisfied with the brutish natural state of man. How many men must have been done away with both by the apes and his fellow brutes before the achievement? But the achievement came to be. The apes still swung by their tails but tails were no longer the shape of nobility. The luxurious ape, the aristocratic ape, the darling ape, the delicate ape was legend and dust. One man aspiring raised all men above the apes.
Man must be made to remember what aspiring man forgot when the achievement was forgotten as an achievement, when it was granted; remember that the brutish spirit remained dormant in too many of his brothers. They no longer clubbed their thrust-jawed, jut-browed way through the jungle. They had taken on the outward accouterments of dignified man but within the brute instinct roiled. Man must remember anew what man dignified as man forgot, that there would always be those others who could not forget the graces and luxuries of the delicate ape, who would, after having forgotten the pattern, ape the ape. It was the brutes who waged the wars; it was the apes who instigated them, swinging from their safe high-leaved trees.
As these atavists could not be bred out of the race, neither could men of aspiration, men who watched neither the earth nor the trees, whose eyes lifted to the stars and beyond.
Thus he spoke and there was silence while he thus spoke. His words went on out of his hard anger and determination. He saw the rage and frustration beginning to cover the faces of the Germans, the fearful defeat on Gordon’s shoulders, the ironic acceptance of reversal in Lord Evanhurst’s smile.
And his anger grew and he spewed out the entire truth. “I accuse the guilty ones and I say to you in Fabian’s hands is the proof of their guilt. There is proof in a telegram which forged the name of Fabian. There is proof in a man hired to pilot a death plane. There is proof in the murdered body of Anstruther—a bullet hole in his back. They will say they did not kill. That is true. Their hands are not soiled with blood. Their hands only forged the tool that would slay.”
His voice rang harshly, “I accuse them by nation—Germany. I accuse them by name—Brecklein, Schern, von Eynar.”
The three did not believe this. Their he
ads jerked and they started to rise. They shrank again in their chairs as he cried out, “Stand! Stand and deny!—what you cannot deny.”
His voice quieted to scorn. “And I accuse the Judas who sold his friend not for thirty pieces of silver but for the robe he wears—De Witt Gordon.”
The fear and shame on Gordon’s face was terrible to see. Piers turned his eyes away from it. “I accuse all those who have threatened peace by dealing with these men.”
The anger was gone. “Secretary Anstruther died for peace. Because he had decreed that no nation and no individual within any nation should threaten peace.”
Behind Evanhurst he saw Watkins’ strong shoulders, shoulders waiting for burden, willing to accept it. He saw Mancianargo, and the way his whipped eyes lighted in hope as the interpreter whispered to the Italian peasant. He saw incredulous tears on the cheeks of the French Dessaye. He saw faith replacing fear under the flag of Czecho-Slovakia, of Poland, of Finland, of Greece, of all nations who had suffered and died and risen again from hell.
“Secretary Anstruther was murdered by men and nations who despise the equality of peace. I give you that proof now, not to the few in secret session, but now to all men of peace. You shall decide the rewards of the guilty.”
There was no doubt where Asia would take stand. Justice stood awful on the brows of her nations. As Fabian went, now would go the conference.
“Anstruther is dead but his words are not dead.” He held the sheaf of papers high in his hand for all to look upon. If he was shot down now, the papers were safe. “I bring you his last work, the words he entrusted to me.”
They were open accusation. They were Piers’ findings of the border incidents, and they were the simple familiar tale of treachery against a man who was a man of peace, who could not be swerved from right and decency and the good. He would not hurry these words, each syllable must be heard by all present. He was weakening now, the drugs with which Fabian had bolstered him were wearing thin and pain had reawakened, spearing him. He didn’t falter. The men without power, the men with voice and will alone, the Nicks and Willies and Bulls, must hear; there must be no chance for the schemers to scheme again, to threaten, to harry and bribe, to offer counter-proposal. He read until the last paper alone was in his hand, and he leaned against the podium.
“This was written in the plane, the plane piloted by that German officer, purchased by that American friend, the plane in which he was given death, a shot in the back. I read you the last words of Anstruther.”
He read:
“Without peace, our world ends. There can be no peace unless we are strong enough, courageous enough, to deny our weakness. It would be weakness for us to turn back from what we know is right.”
No one could doubt that these were the words of Anstruther. No one among the nations but had heard him so speak. No one would ever know that Piers Hunt had on that despairing night, on his return from the desert, forged this last paper.
He read the final line: “Germany must continue to be protected in accordance with our agreed plan for peace.”
He clenched the podium. His eyes lifted to the faces of the men, his voice cried, “Anstruther died for peace. Do you want peace?”
He waited, heard the first whisper, the echo, “Peace.”
He cried again, louder now, “Do you want peace?”
The echo repeated more strongly, “Peace. Peace.”
His sight was blurring but his fingers dug into the stand and he remained upright. “Do you want Peace? Do you want Peace?”
He heard the swelling from above, from below, from without, “Peace … Peace … Peace … ”
Fabian’s hand caught his arm, supported him. He saw from far away Evanhurst and Gordon opening empty mouths, their words silent under the chant for peace. He saw the graven images of Germany. He alone heard the mocking voice of dissent, “Melodrama, Piers?” He alone answered, “Any weapon for peace, Morgen. Even death.”
The Conclave would dare not turn against the cry of man, rising to frenzy now, to grandeur. This time he had won. But he knew the fight must be fought over and again, each year, each day, each minute. The beast would snarl anew, the delicate ape would scheme. Man must fight on until peace was as fixed on the earth as the stars were fixed in the cosmos.
The room was fading but the magnificat of the chant swelled to a roar, “Peace … ” He saw Fabian’s face, strong, smiling. As Piers crumpled, he smiled too.
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Copyright © 1944 by Dorothy B. Hughes
Cover design by Erin Fitzsimmons
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