A Shade of Difference

by Allen Drury

  “No,” Orrin said, “you go. What time will you be back?”

  “Oh, about three, I suppose.”

  “Well, all right. But do see Felix then for sure, okay? Because it could be quite vital. The stakes are suddenly much higher all around than they have been. I’m counting on you.”

  “Sure thing. When will you be coming up?”

  “I guess Monday morning, now. I hadn’t planned to, but there it is. The world doesn’t stand still for plans, nowadays. Now go back to sleep and get some more rest. You need it.”

  “I took it easy today; I feel much better. And Orrin—thanks about tomorrow.”

  “Certainly. You know you’re very welcome. Just be sure and see Felix when you get back.”

  “Right.”

  12

  The day was glorious as he turned off West Seventy-second Street onto Riverside Drive and drove north toward the George Washington Bridge. The sky was bright with the exaggerated blue of autumn, a very few clearly defined clouds drifted white above the New Jersey Palisades, a lone river steamer plowed slowly up the wind-whipped channel of the Hudson, and close to the churning gray water the sea gulls dipped and swung. Not many cars were on the Drive at ten o’clock on this beautiful Sunday morning, and he drove with the feeling, sometimes unexpectedly granted even in the city of New York, that he was master of the universe. It was a feeling he would have enjoyed any other time, but today, as always on these visits that now extended back over so many years, he felt only a sadness so deep he wondered if he would ever recover from the burden. Each time, of course, he did, or thought he did, but each new time the pain returned as crushing as before.

  This, however, was something he must try not to think about too much, even though the years did not lessen it as years were supposed to do. One could adjust to certain things, but one could never really accept them; the aching protest remained, no matter how dutifully one made obeisance to the Lord’s unfathomable will. It was so unjust, so unnecessary, so unfair—but he must stop that. It never solved anything, helped anything, or got him anywhere in his endless argument with a destiny that had turned out to be much darker than he had ever dreamed it would be when he first embarked upon it.

  Not, of course, that the world was aware, save in the most casual way, of the void that lay beneath his outwardly successful career. “If, now and again, the senior Senator from West Virginia seems gripped by a melancholy beyond that normally brought by the endless contentions of men at the United Nations,” Time had said in its cover story on him three months ago, “he perhaps has reason.” There had been the briefest of comments, a genuinely kind reference, as though it were something the magazine had to include but did not relish, to his personal tragedy. Back home, it was rarely mentioned, seldom thought of, hardly known. His constituents, and many of his friends, had only a vague notion that there was something unhappy there. Fortunately his fundamental good nature and likable character were such that few really remembered and understood and felt the kind of sympathy that was, in itself, a pain.

  For this, in all honesty, he was grateful, for he did not know for sure whether he could bear what he had to bear if it were the object of a constantly expressed general commiseration. There were things it was best that society not notice too much; some doors it was best, by mutual agreement, to keep closed. This was one of them. Nothing could be done about it, and endless expressions of sorrow could only make more difficult a burden that at no time was easy. He was grateful to society for forgetting. It did not help him forget, of course, but it made his remembering a little easier.

  And so as usual, he told himself with a bitter self-sarcasm as he swung over the massive bridge to the Palisades Parkway and started the scenic run above the river toward West Point and Newburgh and his destination not far beyond, he had once again worked himself into the perfect frame of mind for it. Why did he always do this? Why could he not achieve the serenity of acceptance that he had sought in vain to achieve over the empty years? Why, why, why? … Well: he knew the answer to that, right enough. Because it was the sort of thing no man could accept serenely, unless he was a saint or until he was dead.

  Best think about the UN, he decided hastily; that was certainly problem enough to fill any man’s mind for the remainder of the ride. He had watched it feeding on its own tensions in the past three days, the endless self-cannibalizing of ideas, intentions, motivations, hopes, fears, objectives, ambitions, speculation, gossip, that went on all the time but always stepped up to an exaggerated pace whenever some new, unusual event occurred in the world to provoke it. What had begun as an unfortunate but probably harmless comedy of errors in the President’s inadvertent press conference remark and his first reaction to the M’Bulu’s visit had been transformed abruptly by the latter’s dramatic gesture in South Carolina into something far more dangerous and troublesome. And now Felix Labaiya was stepping in to make it even worse. And behind Felix, he supposed, either as a direct party in interest or just for the hell of it, was the Soviet Union.

  And yet why, he challenged himself abruptly, should he so quickly assume that the Soviets had anything to do with it? Wasn’t he being quite unjust to Felix, who after all had never given any overt cause for such suspicions? Of course there was gossip about him in the corridors and the Lounge, but, then, there was gossip about everyone on some count or other. No one had ever caught Felix out in anything that could be attributed beyond question to Soviet influence. Why should one assume now, just because something was embarrassing to the United States, that Soviet influence was calling the tune? Might not Felix honestly feel this way? Many delegates did, particularly among the newer states. Why shouldn’t Felix arrive independently at the same judgment?

  Furthermore, the assumption of Communist influence was too pat. Like many a United States delegate, Hal’s first impulse on being assigned to the United Nations had been to assume, for a while, that Communist malevolence was behind everything hostile to the United States. It did not take him long to perceive that while the malevolence existed, it did not encompass every antagonism, or inspire every hostility, to his country and the West. If the West weren’t vulnerable on so many points, he was honest enough to admit, it wouldn’t suffer attack on so many points. If his own country weren’t vulnerable, it wouldn’t now be such a sitting duck for the double-barreled assault of the Ambassador of Panama and the heir to Gorotoland.

  Thus his thoughts went as the river grew narrower and more lovely above West Point and the sharp outlines of earlier morning gave way to the gentling haze of the day’s growing warmth. And then abruptly he was unable to fill his mind with the subject any longer, for now he was nearing his objective and the time had come to brace himself once more for other things.

  He passed through Newburgh, turned off Highway 9-W to the river, came in sight of it rolling magnificently to his right, came to the well-remembered clump of woods, the small neat gates, the small unobtrusive sign: Oak Lawn. He turned in and began the winding approach, his breath beginning to come shorter as it always did despite his angriest efforts to keep it steady, his heart beginning to pound hurtfully. Had it been easier when she—before the day he had come home and found—but that, too, he did not want to think of, though he inevitably did. He supposed her presence used to help somehow, though, looking back, it seemed to him that it had always been the closest thing to hell that he would ever know on earth.

  And then he was at the parking lot, carefully placing his car alongside the others—some modest and empty, others, not so modest, with chauffeurs waiting—and was on his way up the familiar walk to the familiar door. He was greeted with the hushed, respectful tones that were standard courtesy here, escorted down the long, waxed corridors, taken through the big sun porch overlooking the river, left to walk out alone upon the lawn. Fifty feet away, sitting by himself on a rattan chair in the brilliant sunlight, he saw a strikingly handsome boy of nineteen, his eyes looking far away, intent on something no other eyes would ever see, beyond the river. />
  “Jimmy!” Hal Fry called, his voice high and near breaking, as it always was at this moment, however he tried to keep it normal. “Hi, Jimmy!”

  The boy turned in his slow way, that to a stranger might appear thoughtful, and gave the gravely beautiful smile that illuminated his face with a kindness beyond comprehension. There came an expression of friendly and all-embracing greeting, though Senator Fry knew that he had not recognized him now for many years, would never recognize him again, did not have the slightest realization of who he was or the slightest memory that he had ever been there before.

  With a little half-sob in his throat he tried to keep his smile steady and reassuring as he went forward through the gorgeous morning to greet his son.

  Three hours later, after the half-touched luncheon, the agonizing gestures toward coherent, consecutive conversation, the farewell attempt to impart, as if a raised voice and desperate reiteration could do it, some memory of this visit, some anticipation of the next, he was on the road back down to New York, driving slowly in the thickening afternoon traffic. He was trying hard, but without too much success, to control the crying in his heart as he remembered the politely puzzled smile; the kindly, considerate concern, utterly genuine yet terrifyingly impersonal; the regret at his going that was already forgotten by the time he had walked twenty steps. For a moment his eyes blinded with tears and he lost sight of the road. If Jimmy had not been so attractive a boy, if he had been ugly or malformed, if it had not been so easy to see all the wonderful things he would have been if only—if only—

  He told himself with a great effort of the will, aided by the angry cries of a group of college kids roaring by, too close, in a convertible with the top down, that he must snap out of it or run the risk of endangering his own life and that of others on the highway with him. His own he did not particularly care about at this moment, but he could not be so irresponsible toward others. It seemed as though half the population was out taking advantage of the last golden days of fall, young couples, old people, solitary drivers, families with children, gay groups of happy folk. No doubt in sheer healthy exuberance twenty or thirty of them would have smashed each other up and be dead by nightfall, but it was not his task to add to the toll if he could help it.

  So by concentrating carefully on his driving and steadily, fiercely, determinedly pushing into the back of his mind the contrast between his personal problem and the heartbreaking beauties of the lovely day, he safely negotiated 9-W, got back on the Palisades Parkway, came eventually again to the George Washington Bridge and the crossing to the city. It was five o’clock; the early dusk was beginning to fall; the river glinted like molten brass as it stretched away south on his right. Wrapped in a mixture of sunset, fog, and haze, their mystery and magic increased by the twilight, the towers of Manhattan shot up in jumbled confusion against the sky. Like no other city, he thought: no other city. In many buildings the lights were already beginning to come on; across on the Palisades as he went down Riverside Drive the neon signs of amusement parks and grocery products added their twinkling glitter. Like a ruined caravel, the wreck of the copper sunset sank in low black clouds and night had come.

  And now he must find Felix, he told himself with a feeling of guilt. The visit had taken longer than he had intended; he should have cut it short and come back sooner—but how could he? How could he? They had told him long ago there was no hope, but how could one not have hope? Perhaps the next question, the next carefully joking comment, the very next attempt to arouse interest—and suddenly the polite smile would become really perceptive, the eyes turn suddenly from impersonal kindness to genuine understanding, the softly slurred words become suddenly clear and filled with the urgency of the great intelligence that had once been there. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps—dear God, was it not worth hoping for? And how could one hurry, when the chance might be just around the corner?

  But there he was again, he told himself as he drew alongside another car at the intersection of Forty-sixth and Fifth, and he must not, he must not. Ahead beyond the canyoned buildings he could see in his mind’s eye the tall bulk of the Secretariat looming, lit here and there where cleaning women worked slowly through, readying it for the new week, or where in some isolated office someone worked for the world, even on Sunday. And so did he, and he must make up for lost time now.

  He realized with a mild start of surprise that the car next to him was moving forward, even though the stoplight was still red; the car behind him honked impatiently, so evidently the signal had become stuck. He moved out across Fifth, cautiously at first and then more surely as he realized the cross-traffic had stopped. This struck him as odd until he was almost to Third Avenue. Then he remembered that the signal light he had seen as red had been at the bottom of the signal post, not at the top; and red—real red—of course was at the top. For the first time a strange little prickle of fear ran along his scalp. “There it is again,” he said aloud in a surprised voice; and added, as though it could be brought back to sense by a matter-of-fact tone, “That’s damned peculiar.”

  And so it was; but as he drove on across Second and First and into the garage beneath the Secretariat and left his car—he found it simpler and cheaper to leave it there and cab back and forth to the Waldorf—he felt nothing further. His vision was quite all right again; he experienced only the natural tiredness to be expected from the emotional strain of the visit and the physical strain of the drive; he was, on the whole, rested and lively and alert. As he started toward the elevator he noticed a familiar limousine in its place near his and, on an impulse, turned toward the attendant, a pleasant-faced boy from Malaya who was studying law at Columbia.

  “Is the S.-G. in the building?” he asked in some surprise. The boy nodded.

  “He came in about an hour ago with Ambassador Labaiya of Panama. They went right on up to his office, I believe. Señor Labaiya came back down and got his car about ten minutes ago.”

  “Thank you.” He hesitated a moment; it might make it difficult to find Felix later, but he felt he really should talk to the Secretary-General. “Maybe I’ll run up, too, just to say hello.”

  “Yes, sir. Do you want me to call and tell him you’re coming?”

  “No, thanks. I’ll just go up.”

  “All right, sir.”

  On the thirty-eighth floor he found two secretaries on duty, an air of unusual bustle. In some alarm he asked for the Secretary-General and was shown in almost immediately.

  “Senator Fry,” the Secretary-General said, rising and coming forward with a friendly smile that seemed to Hal to hold considerable concern. “Do sit down. My secretary has been trying to reach you at the Waldorf.”

  “Yes, I’ve been out of town. I just got back.” He decided on the direct approach, and the knowledge that Felix had just been here fortified it. “What can you tell me about the Panamanian resolution?”

  His host looked startled.

  “So you’ve heard about it, then?” Hal Fry, who had learned long ago in West Virginia politics that it was sometimes best to feign a knowledge one did not possess, said nothing. The S.-G. sighed.

  “He was just here, you know. Perhaps if you had come ten minutes earlier, it might have been possible to talk the matter over and work out something less damaging. I am sorry.”

  “So am I,” Hal said, and he was, as he suddenly began to realize how narrowly he might have missed the chance to save his country the trouble that now would almost certainly plague her here in the UN. “Do you have a copy I can see?”

  “It’s being mimeographed for distribution to the delegations,” the Secretary-General said. “I would like to show it to you, but—” he smiled. “You know the delicate technicalities of my position. I can’t play favorites. Everyone should have it by about 8 p.m., I should think.”

  “It’s bad, though.” The S.-G. nodded.

  “It is, as our critics of the organization often say, just words. But—very hurtful words. And very damaging, in the context of these tim
es and the circumstances that prompted its introduction.”

  “Is it a new resolution or an amendment? Because if it’s a new one, then maybe we can stop it before it gets to the floor of the Assembly …” His voice trailed away at the S.-G.’s expression. “Damn it! Somebody very clever has been at work on this thing.”

  The Secretary-General looked tired.

  “Very clever indeed. Felix is clever. Terry is clever. Their friends are clever. I am the object of their cleverness a dozen times a day. I know they are clever.”

  “What do you think the reaction will be?” Hal Fry asked, a growing dismay in his heart as the full import of his missing Felix began to bear in upon him. Probably it wouldn’t have made any difference, probably Felix was determined upon it, probably he was beginning to torture himself unnecessarily—and yet. Yet it could have been just the thing needed to head Felix off, a quiet talk with this patient and thoughtful man here in this office that had seen so many would-be crises smoothly compromised away before they could burst into the open in the hectic atmosphere of notoriety, prejudice, and exacerbated attitudes on the floors below.

  “The reaction will be about as you anticipate it in many areas,” the Secretary-General said.

  “We may need your help,” Senator Fry said simply, and his host nodded.

  “I am always being accused of betraying my own colored race,” he said with a grim humor, “but I don’t mind it, by now. My good offices are always available in the interests of compromising differences. I shall do what I can, of course, within the limitations of the Charter.”

  “Well, that’s something,” Hal Fry said with a certain bitter jocularity. His host smiled.

  “I would hope so. I like to think I am of some value in this house. Would you like me to call Felix and see if I can get him back right now? It might be we could still—”