by Allen Drury
And as abruptly as he had pinned her down he released her, stood up, stretched, and went into the bathroom. She remained motionless where she was, not stirring until the phone rang as he came out, toweling vigorously and starting toward his drink. She lifted the receiver and, in a tone as casual as though she had been mending socks, asked who it was. Then with an expression of surprise she said respectfully, “Yes, Mr. Secretary, just a minute. Here he is.”
The car radio was on as they swung out of Forty-eighth Street onto Massachusetts Avenue in Spring Valley and started the run across town to the Sheraton-Park on Sixteenth Street, and once again much was being said about the troubles of the M’Bulu. By this time, the Secretary of State noted, the public was being given the general impression that the President had told the Savior He couldn’t walk on the water. Apparently the Secretary’s companion had the same reaction to the broadcast, for he gave a slow chuckle and shifted a little in his seat.
“Orrin,” he said, “what in the world—what—in—the—world—did Harley do to that young man? Must have been something terrible, Orrin. I can’t remember things getting so stirred up since you and I did all those awful things to Mr. Robert—A.—Leffingwell. Can you, Orrin?”
“Well, it’s all very unfortunate,” the Secretary said as he drove briskly down nearly deserted Mass. Avenue. “I missed giving Harley the pitch by half an hour, and consequently the sky has fallen in. Or, at any rate, all our eager friends, allies, and enemies would like to have us think so. It’s amazing how unanimous they can get when it’s a case of embarrassing the United States.”
Senator Cooley chuckled.
“Seems to me like you’re getting a mite prickly in your new job, Orrin. Think of what a gray world it would be for them if we weren’t around to embarrass.”
“It’s so damned childish, that’s what gets me. Grown men and grown nations—because many of them are grown that do it; it isn’t always the babies who might possibly be excused on the ground they don’t know any better—yapping at our heels on the slightest pretext they can find. Listen to that: ‘British reaction tonight is harshly critical of the President—’”
“Maybe there comes a time in the life of a nation,” Seab Cooley said, “when you haven’t got much more to do but react. Maybe you get hypersensitive and waspish just because you’re sick and sad inside that nobody any more cares enough to react to you like that. Could be a lesson for us someday, too, you know, Orrin.”
“‘Far-called our navies melt away,’” the Secretary quoted with an ironic note. ‘“On dune and headland sinks the fire …’ Yes, I suppose so, Seab. But not yet awhile. Not yet awhile, God willing and God grant us strength. We have an awful lot to do before we reach that point, I do believe. And so do they believe, all of them, when you come right down to it. Just suppose there were no United States to bulwark the world? Where would all the yappers be then?”
“Ground up and sold for hamburger at Moscow Meat Factory No. 1,” Senator Cooley said with a dry chuckle. “Yes, sir, ground up and sold for hamburger at Moscow Meat Factory No. 1.”
“Exactly,” the Secretary of State agreed as they swung around Ward Circle past American University and continued the long plunge down Massachusetts Avenue toward the center of town. “That’s why I sometimes find it a little hard to be as dutifully polite as I’m suppose to be in this job.”
“Kind of hard for Orrin Knox to hold it in, isn’t it?” The pugnacious old face looked solemn, but there was a puckish gleam in the eyes. “Good, for you, Orrin! Good for you!”
“So Beth tells me. She tells me I may be a great man someday if I can just stand the discipline of it.”
“Very kind woman, Beth,” the Senator from South Carolina said. “Very kind of you both to invite me to dinner tonight.”
“Oh, I had a motive,” Orrin said cheerfully. “Aside from always being glad to see you, of course, which we both are. I want your help in dealing with the M’Bulu, Seab. I’m really taking him rather seriously. I have to, now.”
“What do you think would happen, Orrin, if sometime the United States just refused to take some over-inflated episode seriously? If the United States just said, ‘Now, you all just run along and stop bothering us. We just never heard about it, so you all just run along.’ Would the world really come to an end, Orrin? Or would they respect us the more for being strong enough to do it?”
“Yes, that’s all very fine, Seab,” the Secretary said as he turned left on Idaho Avenue to Woodley Road and then turned right toward Connecticut Avenue, “but it isn’t very practical in the nervous situation the world has got itself into. You’ve no idea the way they go twittering around that UN aviary up there like a flock of sparrows in a high wind. And if you happen to believe in it then you have to take it into account. You can’t just dismiss it cavalierly. We’re committed to it, and that automatically means that everybody from the biggest power to the littlest can put his oar into what we do. So—we have the M’Bulu. And the M’Bulu, as you gather, is making the most of it.”
“Mmmm. That’s why you’re going to see young Cullee.”
“Yes. I think he can help. You could, too, Seab, if you would.”
“How’s that?”
“Just by keeping quiet. Just by not inflaming the situation any more than necessary.”
“If you mean be kind to Ray Smith—” Seab began with a humorous air. Orrin snorted.
“Ray’s a fool. I hope Cullee runs and beats him. No, have your fun with Ray, if you want to. But tomorrow, for instance—do what you can to keep this luncheon from boiling over into something unpleasant in Charleston.”
“I haven’t been invited. You know that, Orrin. Wouldn’t invite the Senators from South Carolina. Might put the curse of respectability on it. The Jasons can’t have that.”
“Respectability in South Carolina, you must remember, Seab. Other places your presence might not be considered respectable.”
“I might just go, you know, Orrin,” Senator Cooley said gently. “I just might, now.”
“That’s exactly what I mean, Seab. That’s exactly the sort of thing. Please don’t. It’s too important to play games with.”
“I’m not playing games, Orrin. I’m protecting my state.”
“And the political future of Seab Cooley,” the Secretary said. His companion chuckled.
“Looks to me like the political future of Orrin Knox is involved, too. Ted Jason’s going to get a mighty lot of mileage out of this with the colored folks, Orrin.”
“Well,” the Secretary said bluntly, “that may be. But we’ve got to hope it will be as orderly as possible and that they’ll get out of there without some sort of incident or other. That’s where you can be of assistance, Seab. Just help keep the noise down to a minimum, okay?”
“Least I can do, if I don’t go, is issue a statement, Orrin. You know I’ve got to do at least that much, now.”
“All right, issue your statement. But tell your friends not to start any funny business.”
“It isn’t always my friends who start the funny business, Orrin. We have elements that aren’t so well mannered about these things. Can’t say they’re my friends, though. Necessarily.”
“They vote for you. They’ll listen to you. I’m asking your help, Seab. Please.”
“What are you going to do for him when he gets to Washington, Orrin?”
“I said please, Seab.”
The senior Senator from South Carolina smiled.
“Now, Orrin, you know perfectly well I’m not going to give you any answer to that. I’m just going to keep you guessing. I’m a vicious, evil old man, Orrin. Everybody knows that. But I’ll say this: Within the necessary limits of what I have to do to protect myself politically, Orrin, I won’t stir things up for you. I’ll help you with your kinky-haired kinkajou.”
The Secretary laughed as they turned right off Cathedral Avenue onto Connecticut and headed down toward the rambling, comfortable old Sheraton-Park Hotel, where Seab had hi
s apartment.
“The first thing you can do is stop repeating that phrase. You had your fun with it this afternoon, and that annoyed the Africans enough. Don’t use it again. What do you think of Cullee?” he asked abruptly. His companion shrugged.
“For an educated colored man, I think he does very well. He seems to be a well-mannered fellow. I haven’t any argument with him.”
“Lucky Cullee,” Orrin Knox remarked. Seab chuckled as they swung under the portico.
“Lucky Seab, maybe. Don’t ever quote me, though, Orrin. I’d deny it, Orrin, so don’t ever quote me. Seriously,” he said as the Secretary eased the car to a stop, “I think he’s a good boy, Orrin. Got more sense in him than they usually have. I wish him well, Orrin. You can tell him I said so, Orrin. Just say: ‘Seab Cooley said to say he wishes you well.’” He chuckled. “That’ll puzzle him, Orrin. That’ll give him something to think about.” He held out his hand and shook Orrin’s firmly as the doorman leaped to open the door. “Thank you again for the pleasant dinner. Getting to an age where I appreciate small kindnesses, Orrin. Seventy-six.” For a second the Secretary thought he was about to be party to a rare moment of pathos with the senior Senator from South Carolina. But he might have known. “And not dead yet,” Seab Cooley said with pugnacious satisfaction. “Not dead yet and not about to be, Orrin! Not about to be! Good night, now. And good luck with your kinky-haired kinkajou.”
“Thank you, Seab,” the Secretary said. “I’m counting on you. Take care of yourself.”
But whether he could count on a Seab hard pressed and “running scared,” he thought as he swung the car down the curving drive and back to Connecticut for the Klingle Road-Piney Branch connection through Rock Creek Park to Sixteenth Street, he was not at all sure. The drive from Silver Spring had taken nearly twenty minutes, and he wondered if it had accomplished so much after all. Now more news was on the radio, reiterating his problem. He switched swiftly to music and sighed as he heard a time-check. Almost 10 p.m. Quite an hour to come calling on Cullee, but he hadn’t landed from New York until almost eight, and then it had taken some time to get home and have dinner, and he hadn’t wanted to rush Seab. Like everyone in Washington, he still had great respect for Seab’s abilities to cause trouble, seventy-six or no.
Curious, though, he reflected as he passed the Woodner on Sixteenth and prepared to swing off a block to the street where the Hamiltons lived, that little message to the Congressman. Curious the whole white-black relationship in the South, that compound of love, hate, tolerance, and intolerance, understanding and misunderstanding, laughter and anger, that he as a Northerner could never fully comprehend. Black-white did not mix so well in his native Illinois, particularly in Chicago, where the proud pretensions of the North went down the drain in the ugly frictions that never eased and often flared. And as for Harlem, that black ghetto existing side by side with all the airy, patronizing pretenses of the white New York cultural world—the South, he thought, need not bow its head too low. The city of its chief critics was no sweet-smelling rose on the face of the earth, that was sure, “fabulous” though it might appear to the Secretary-General and anyone else with an ounce of romance in his soul. A great crawling abyss lay just below the surface of the romance, and it would be a long time, if ever, before New York could say truthfully that its own reality was such as to justify the superior, arrogant intolerance so many of its more publicized residents unfailingly displayed toward other people’s shortcomings.
He parked his car in the neat neighborhood—what did the houses run here, he wondered, $25,000, $35,000, $40,000? He estimated that the one before him with its broad lawn and neatly kept shrubs and gardens must be well over $30,000. The door was opened as he started up the walk. Cullee greeted him dressed in razor-pressed navy-blue slacks, white tie and shirt, a loose gray cashmere sweater—a combination of neat informality exactly right for the occasion, Orrin thought as he extended his hand.
“Cullee,” he said cordially, “you are very kind to see me at this hour, and I appreciate it.”
“Not at all, Senator,” the Congressman said, using the old title Orrin had borne so long and still liked to hear. “I’m honored that you would come here to me … I’ll have to apologize for my wife,” he said as he led his guest into the warmly furnished living room and gestured to a chair. “She had a headache and went to bed early.”
“Just as well I didn’t bring Beth, then. I was going to, and she said no woman wanted to entertain another at 10 p.m. while their men talked business. I guess she was right.” He smiled and looked approvingly around the room. “I see you’re like we are. You like comfortable things. We’ll have to have you out soon.”
“Thank you,” Cullee said. “We’d like to come. Yes, I’m a comfort boy, myself, and I’ve managed to persuade Sue-Dan to go along with me. Her taste rather runs to the frilly, you know, but I hardly thought that would suit a man my size.”
“What was it? Football?”
“Track.”
“That’s right, of course. The Olympics, and so on—”
The Congressman smiled, a reminiscent look in his eye.
“That was fun. I really enjoyed beating those puffed-up boys from the Communist bloc. I think they thought because I was a Negro I’d betray the United States. They had,” he remarked with satisfaction, “another think coming. Cigarette?”
“No, thanks; I don’t.”
“Me, either, but one has to make the gesture.”
They smiled at one another with great amiability, and the Secretary remarked thoughtfully, “You know, it’s nice to see you again. We never did get to know each other very well on the Hill, but now that I’m at State maybe we can get together more often. Frankly, I’d like your help with the Africans. They’re my biggest headache at the moment.”
Cullee laughed.
“Got lots of big ideas, haven’t they? Terry, for instance.”
“Terry is why I’m here, as a matter of fact,” Orrin said. His host nodded.
“I thought so. He’s a bad boy.”
“You bet he is,” the Secretary agreed with feeling. “You were out in Gorotoland last year, weren’t you?”
“Yes; Jawbone Swarthman asked me to go out for the Foreign Affairs Committee, so we did. Terry showed us around for about a week.” He smiled. “Didn’t give us any human flesh to eat or show us any sacrifices, but we got a pretty good picture of the civilized side. It isn’t much. Personally, I don’t blame Britain.”
“We start pretty much in agreement, then. I don’t, either.”
“But we may not be able to support her in the General Assembly,” the Congressman suggested. The Secretary’s face clouded.
“I wouldn’t want it officially confirmed, but we may not. We just aren’t sure yet, so please don’t say anything.”
“It stops here. What can I do to help with Terry?”
“First of all, I hope you’ll go to that luncheon in Charleston tomorrow,” Orrin said and then, as a stubborn look came instantly to his host’s face, went firmly on, “and when he returns here to Washington, I hope you’ll pretty well stay right with him all the time he’s here. I want somebody I can trust to keep an eye on him.”
Cullee smiled and for a moment his face lost the stubborn look.
“I’m flattered by that, right enough, but I’m afraid I can’t do it.”
“I wish you would. It would be a great help to me. It would be a great help to the country, I think.”
“You don’t understand,” the Congressman said. “I—I don’t like him, for one thing. He’s kind of—unclean, inside, I think. We didn’t get along too well when Sue-Dan and I were out there—”
“He told me this morning he thought you had a pretty wife,” the Secretary said, and his tone brought an answering smile from Cullee.
“He’s got half a dozen of his own; why pick on mine? But—aside from not liking him personally—it’s difficult to explain to you, Senator, but—I just resent the way you—you people�
��are fawning all over him here. He isn’t worth it.”
“By ‘you people,’ I take it, you mean you white people,’ is that right?” Cullee nodded. “It isn’t my doing,” Orrin Knox said shortly. “The only fawning I’m doing is a strictly political necessity—internationally political, that is. Harley got us rather in a mess, I’m afraid, by not being too tactful this afternoon at his press conference. Now it’s up to me to bail us out. Everybody at the UN who wants to embarrass the U.S., and that’s just about everybody, has seized upon it to make a big rumpus, as you know. You’ve seen television and heard the news.”
“Yes, and I’d like to help if I could, but—I’m not sure I could do much, anyway. Also, I resent playing tail on Ted Jason’s kite. He just wants me around because I’m colored. It’s all part of his schemes for next year. You know that, Senator.”
“Maybe that’s the only reason I’m here,” Orrin Knox said with a calculated bluntness on which several things were riding; but he thought it best to meet it head on. “Maybe I’m just trying to line you up on my side. After all, you know, the colored vote’s the colored vote.”
His host looked at him without expression for a long moment before smiling and shaking his head.
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t think so. I have a lot of respect for Orrin Knox, I may say, and I don’t think so. Oh, of course you’d like my support, and you need the colored vote, there’s no doubt of that. But I really think you’re working on the problem you’ve got right now. I really do.”
“One problem at a time,” Orrin said with a rueful smile, and Cullee smiled, too.
“That’s a good motto.”
“Well, let me ask you— Do you think you can run for Senator out there if you antagonize the Governor and don’t help him with his plans?”
His host shrugged, but the Secretary could see the gesture covered a more troubled mind than the Congressman wanted to admit.