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A Shade of Difference

Page 51

by Allen Drury


  “Is this the kind of justice the Assembly desires, Mr. President?” he shouted indignantly, more openly emotional than he customarily preferred to be. “Is this the kind of mockery we want to have made of our United Nations procedures?”

  A great shout of “No!” welled up from many places across the floor, and he nodded with an abrupt, violent gesture of satisfaction, as much as to say, All right, then!

  “Mr. President, I move that the motion of the delegate of the United States be modified to adjourn this debate to a day certain. I move that the motion read to adjourn debate to one week from today.”

  “That tears it!” Lafe whispered as a roar of approval came up, but Hal Fry only whispered hurriedly, “Wait and see.”

  At the podium the Congressman from California came forward again to the lectern, an expression of contempt on his face as the Ambassador of Panama stepped back.

  “Mr. President,” he said, “this is highly irregular. This modification is not in writing as Assembly rules provide; it is not formally before the delegations—” “Stop stalling, white man!” someone shouted from the general direction of Kenya, and a look of blind anger came for a moment over his face; but he mastered it.

  “But, Mr. President,” he said with a grating emphasis, “the United States of America is not afraid of a little pip-squeak parliamentary trick like this one. I know, Mr. President, that we should all bow down to the great Ambassador of Panama, who loves the United States so, and whose wife and brother-in-law the great Governor of California love the United States so, and to all the rest of them. But my delegation is not about to do it.”

  “Don’t be too smart,” Lafe urged him in a worried whisper, “or you’ll turn them all against us.” As if he had heard this inaudible admonition far down in the sea of faces before him, Cullee’s tone changed back abruptly to one of reason, at a cost only he knew, for his knuckles again were white with strain where they gripped the lectern.

  “Now, Mr. President, if anybody here is making a mockery of anybody’s procedures, it is the Ambassador of Panama. He knows the Congress in all probability cannot complete action in one week. No, Mr. President,” he said as a ripple of sarcastic laughter ran through many delegations, “it is no more reasonable than to expect this Assembly or your own legislatures to move with equal speed on something. Men need time to digest and consider a thing of this importance. The Assembly knows that. The Ambassador knows that.” He paused, and so volatile was the group before him that they immediately quieted and followed his next words with a growing murmur of approval. “I will say, however, that I do believe the Ambassador has a point. I will grant you that I did not think through the full import of my motion. Some time limit may well be perfectly reasonable, and I am willing to accept it.”

  “Oh, brother,” the London Daily Mirror whispered to the London Evening Standard. “How graceful can you get when you’re eating crow?” “Jim Crow?” the Standard inquired with a pleasant relish. “Who knows?”

  “But I am only willing to accept it within the reasonable limits of what men can accomplish in the parliamentary procedures of a free body, Mr. President. I will modify my amendment to read that debate be adjourned to two weeks from today. I so move.”

  “Mr. President,” Felix Labaiya said, coming forward again as Cullee stepped back, and again ignoring him, “the delegate of the United States gives an appearance of reasonableness here. But Mr. President, how much longer must the world accept the excuse that his country is unable to move fast but must drag along—and drag along—and drag along—on these racial matters? How much time does a nation want? It is more than a hundred years since the slaves were set free, Mr. President, and how free are they today? I say the United States has had enough time, Mr. President! I say we should stop being patient, here in this United Nations, with those who flaunt the will of mankind on this great issue that concerns the whole world so deeply. I say if the United States intends to act in good faith, let her act.

  “If the delegate of the United States will not accept my modification, Mr. President, I shall move that his motion be amended to read one week, and I shall ask for a vote of this Assembly to force the modification.”

  “Does the distinguished delegate of the United States wish to speak further to the question of modification of his motion?” the President inquired into the buzzing, rustling, whispering, gossiping silence that fell. Cullee stepped forward, and down in the American delegation Lafe Smith said, “Come on, Cullee baby, we’re praying for you. Nobody can help you now. Do it right!” And again Hal Fry, enwrapped in erratic and wandering pain, managed to say encouragingly, “He will. He will.”

  In this, perhaps the moment of greatest responsibility he had ever known, there shot through the mind of the Congressman from California as he stood again at the lectern, the fearful thought that at this moment in time, at this particular juncture of history, in this very place, right here and now, the fate of the United States in the United Nations literally rested in the hands of just one man. The moment would pass at once, seized or lost, turned to advantage or allowed to slip away forever—and all on the basis of what that one man did, right here and now. Instantly with the thought there came the additional one: I can’t think about that or I’ll be lost; and so, with a silent prayer that his colleagues of the Congress would back him up in what he was about to do, he spoke briefly and to the point and in the only way that was now possible, given the angry restlessness in the vast throng watching him intently from the floor. Anything else, and the debate would obviously go on, to who knew what ultimate conclusion for his country.

  “Very well, Mr. President,” he said with a quiet gravity into the fiercely attentive hush that came to the assemblage as he spoke, “the United States is not afraid to accept the challenge put forward by the Ambassador of Panama.” There was a little raucous laughter, a few catcalls, but he finished calmly. “I move that debate on this amendment be adjourned to one week from today to permit the Congress of the United States to consider my resolution now before it.”

  “The Assembly has heard the modified motion,” the President said hastily before anyone else could interrupt. “All those in favor—”

  “Roll call!” shouted someone from Ghana, all alone in the silence, and the President nodded obediently. The Secretary-General drew the name; the President received it.

  “The voting will begin with Cuba.”

  “No!” shouted Cuba.

  “Cyprus.”

  “No.”

  “Czechoslovakia.”

  “No.”

  “Dahomey.”

  “Yes”—and there was a sudden intake of breath across the hall.

  “Denmark.”

  “Yes.”

  “Dominican Republic.”

  “No.”

  “Ecuador.”

  “Sí.”

  “El Salvador.”

  “Sí.”

  “Ethiopia.”

  “No.”

  “Federation of Malaya.”

  “Yes.”

  “Finland.”

  “Yes.”

  “France.”

  “Oui.”

  “Gabon.”

  “Oui”—and again the explosive hiss, countered immediately as Ghana shouted “No!”

  And once again as the roll call neared completion with China, Yes, Colombia, Sí, Congo Brazzaville, Oui, Congo Leopoldville, Now, Costa Rica, Sí, the tension rose and the silence became almost unbearable. With Costa Rica’s vote the tension broke and there was an immediate buzz and stir all across the great room as many delegations began to tot up their tally sheets.

  “On the motion of the distinguished delegate of the United States to adjourn debate on the amendment of the distinguished delegate of Panama to one week from today,” the President announced, “the vote is 50 Yes, 49 No, 21 abstentions, remainder absent. The motion is adopted and debate on this item is adjourned to one week from today.

  “If there is no further business to come
before today’s plenary session,” he added quickly, “the Assembly will stand adjourned until 10 a.m. Monday, at which time we shall have before us the resolution of the Soviet Union relative to attempts by forces in the island of Luzon in the Philippines to break free from the central government.”

  “Now,” Lafe said as they walked off the floor together, “I think you’re going back to the Waldorf and lie down, my boy, and I think that as soon as I can make arrangements, you’re going in the hospital for some really thorough tests.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Hal Fry said, for he was now feeling much better and in truth it did seem ridiculous. “Just ridiculous. I’m feeling fine. No kidding,” he said, as his colleague looked skeptical. “I am.” He smiled. “I’ll race you to the Delegates’ Lounge.”

  “You will in a pig’s eye. Come on, now. I want to see you back to the hotel. And really, now, Hal—”

  “I’ll be all right, I said. I really am feeling much better.”

  “I want your solemn promise,” Lafe said as they started down the stairs to the Delegates’ Entrance on the ground floor. “One more spell like today’s, and you go in for tests and no nonsense. Promise?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Hal Fry began, but his colleague gave him a squeeze of the arm for emphasis that made him wince.

  “Promise, I said.”

  “Well. I’ll think about it.”

  “You’ll do it,” Lafe said.

  “Yes, Daddy,” Hal Fry said. “I’ll do it.”

  “All right. That’s better. I wonder if we should wait for Cullee.”

  “I think he’s having lunch with the S.-G.”

  “That should be interesting.”

  “Quite.”

  Before lunch, however, there was the inevitable visit to the Delegates’ Lounge, and as he entered it, talking to the Secretary-General with a politeness that had not yet yielded to comfortable familiarity, the Congressman from California wished with an agonizing wrench at his heart that he had not come. Across the room, framed in the windows, backed by the East River in the autumn sun, he saw the four people he would most have preferred not to see. Simultaneously they saw him. The M’Bulu gave him an ironic smile and bow, Felix a blank stare; LeGage looked at him with a strange expression filled with pain and anger, and Sue-Dan appeared tense and ostentatiously uncaring. His own thoughts were such a mixture of things that he started to nod but found that this hurt so much that he had to stop and look away.

  The Secretary-General, apparently not noticing, though Cullee suspected he noticed very well, took his arm in a kindly fashion and turned him away toward the center of the room.

  “Here is someone you should meet,” he said, “even though you seem to be opposed today. I am sure that on other issues of interest to Africa you will soon find yourselves in agreement.”

  But even as he started to make the introduction his voice died, for the smug young delegate of Kenya was obviously having none of it.

  “This is what I think,” he announced loudly, so that conversation stopped all around and many eyes turned to see, “of American stooges.”

  And with elaborate care he spat upon the rug at the feet of the Congressman from California.

  “Miss Sadu-Selim of the U.A.R.,” said the young lady at the telephone desk. “Señor Alvarez of Mexico … Mr. Abdul Kassim of Iran, please call the Delegates’ Lounge …”

  ***

  Three: Cullee Hamilton’s Book

  1

  And so in the course of the Almighty’s unpredictable unravelings of the puzzles He sets for men, the fearsome burden of the world’s troubles had come to rest for a time upon the shoulders of the Congressman from California; and as he stood in the Delegates’ Lounge and watched the sputum of the terribly, terribly self-righteous young man from Kenya stain slowly into the green rug at his feet, he held desperately to just one thought: Thank God they’re broad shoulders—thank God they’re broad. He knew he had to hold to some such thought and think very hard of nothing else, for otherwise, despite the gently restraining hand of the Secretary-General on his arm, he would draw back an enormous fist and in a lightning insensate reaction the smug young man from Kenya would be suddenly and sadly damaged and put out of commission for quite some time. And that, of course, would be exactly the kind of scandal the smug young man from Kenya and all his friends and encouragers were hoping for.

  So instead Cullee remained for a long moment with his head lowered and in his eyes a gleam of such contempt that the young man from Kenya, for all his brash arrogance, was frightened and abashed and presently turned away with an uneasy, self-conscious shrug that somehow did not look at all as brave and scornful as he intended. Nonetheless, the fact of his contemptuous action remained; and after a moment the talk began around them again, with an extra excitement and liveliness now in the wake of this new unanswered affront to the United States. In a moment the whole Lounge was buzzing with it. Nearby a group of reporters buzzed with it too, and it would not be long before the whole wide world would buzz. Of such noble items was the story of mankind composed in this sad, chaotic age.

  “I think perhaps we had best go up to lunch, now,” the Secretary-General said calmly at his side, and after a moment he allowed himself to be turned away and led out of the huge room where Rumor was king and Gossip prime minister. As they left he caught one more glimpse of the quartet by the window, out of the corner of his eye and hardly in focus, but clearly enough so that even as he deliberately tried not to look he could see again the sardonic smile of the M’Bulu, the little air of satisfaction on the Panamanian Ambassador’s face, LeGage’s strained and embittered expression, the self-consciously scornful look of his wife. Don’t be so show-offy, little Sue-Dan, he told her silently: don’t be so show-offy or your big man will— Only that wasn’t true, he caught himself up blankly: her big man wouldn’t do anything at all, the way things stood now. And he did not know when they would change, or if they would.

  It was therefore in a closed-off unhappy world of his own, lost in his thoughts and barely able to be civil, that he permitted himself to be taken over the soft carpets to the elevator and so up to the fourth floor to the Delegates’ Dining Room. In the elevator, as they stepped in, the Indian Ambassador was talking rapidly to the delegate of Ghana; before they fell abruptly silent, K.K.’s “an obvious piece of smarmy political lollygagging in the hopes he can get to the Senate” came clearly to his ears. He started to swing about angrily, but again the S.-G.’s firm pressure on his arm prompted a more sensible reaction. He turned slowly and nodded with an air of cold dignity. K.K. returned it briskly, but Ghana gave him only the barest of nods. You black bastard, he thought with a sardonic contempt, haven’t you heard we’re all brothers? Ghana must have gotten the message, because he returned an angry frown. Cullee turned back and faced front, feeling somewhat better.

  In the dining room, conscious that many eyes were giving him the outwardly casual, quickly appraising examination reserved for those who have power by those who are jealous of it, he made some desultory attempt at small talk with the S.-G. which did not move very smoothly, despite that gentleman’s long practice in the exchange of necessary nothings with his unruly colleagues. Finally the Congressman put down his knife and fork and turned to the older man with an air of troubled intensity.

  “How do you stand it?” he demanded. The Secretary-General looked surprised for a moment, and Cullee went on in a bitter tone: “Being patronized by the blacks, I mean. You expect it from the whites, but how do you stand it from your own people?”

  “You say my own people,” the S.-G. said with an air of weary discontent. “You sound like the whites do, listing us all together. My own people are the Nigerians. They don’t patronize me. The rest of Africa—” He shrugged. “At this stage, all we seem to be able to do is despise one another. It is fashionable to blame the colonialists for this, but I am not so sure it is not inherent in us. Perhaps it is our fatal flaw, being hostile and suspicious and unkind towar
d one another.”

  “They do a powerful lot of talking about brotherhood,” Cullee said, aware that dark ears nearby were straining to hear and hoping they would, “but I don’t see much of it lying around this place. Don’t they understand I’m trying to work it out in the Congress in the best way it can be worked out?”

  “They’re impatient,” the S.-G. said. “You have to understand—”

  “Yes, I understand,” Cullee said shortly. “I understand what an easy excuse that is for riding roughshod over every decent and practical way of doing things. It’s all very well for these Fancy Dans from outback to do a lot of talking, but it’s another thing for them to achieve anything with all their talk. It isn’t that simple.”

  “To many of them, it is.”

  “Then they’re never going to get anywhere. They’re always going to be disappointed.”

  “And you aren’t disappointed?” the Secretary-General asked gently. “I had rather thought you were, in many things.”

  “Why should I be?” Cullee demanded harshly, picking up his fork and resuming his meal. “I’m doing all right for a Negro, in my country.”

  “If that is the ultimate in aspiration that a Negro can have,” the S.-G. agreed, “then I grant you, you should be well content.”

  And why indeed should he not be, the Congressman thought angrily as he found himself suddenly involved in the storm of doubt, self-doubt, doubt of purpose, doubt of country, doubt of ultimate aim and achievement, that he knew the older man had deliberately tried to force him into. Well: it wasn’t hard. Old Cullee didn’t need much of a push to get to brooding. It was part of a nature that had always given him troubles that were hard enough to bear when the world was leaving him alone, let alone when it was not.

  There came to his mind, in one of those journeyings back that come so often when the heart is hard pressed by events, the sleepy little street in the sleepy little town in South Carolina where he had been born; not too far, as he learned many years later, from Seab Cooley’s Barnwell. Of all the facts in the universe, that at the time was among the remotest, though it would eventually become a joking point and also, in some curious way that he had expressed to Orrin Knox the other night in Washington, a small sentimental link between himself and the fierce old Senator. It was a link neither had ever mentioned to the other, except in an occasional indirect exchange of compliments, as through the Secretary of State; but it was there, if they needed it. For all the defensive insistence of the South that its residents “understood one another,” in some infinitely subtle, infinitely complex and indescribable way, they did. They “talked the same language,” particularly in time of need. If he ever needed the Senator’s help, the Congressman had always felt, he could get it, and vice versa. Until now, when he knew they would meet on the battleground of the one issue upon which, he felt fearfully, neither he nor Seab nor their respective peoples might be able to really help each other, desperately imperative though it was for them and their country that they do so in this confused and tragic time.

 

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