A Shade of Difference

by Allen Drury

  True enough, he thought now; always true, of course, for everybody; and yet somewhere there must be an answer to the confusions of Cullee Hamilton, caught between the races, his wife probably in bed this very moment with the triumphant M’Bulu, his dearest friend turned away from him in hopelessness, facing all alone on the United Nations esplanade the plight of the decent man who tries to hold to a moderate course in the Century of Immoderates which will have none of it. He could talk to Orrin Knox or the President, but they would only repeat what they had said before, only try, like Lafe Smith, to bring him around and prod him along with their reverse psychology of whip-and-carrot and play-on-pride. He could seek out LeGage in the vast haunted city, but he would only repeat what he had said before, try to goad him into frenzy with scorn and sarcasm and the old, worn arguments about the white man’s guilt. And how would that serve America, or point the way to decency, or bring to either race the benison of an end to hatred and the start of love?

  Presently, a tall figure bulking large against the garish messages of Brooklyn across the water, silent and enwrapped and barely nodding to the guard who let him out onto First Avenue after midnight, he left the UN and started walking blindly across the island of Manhattan. There was one more he might talk to, and perhaps he could see him tomorrow; but that, he suspected, was just a stalling. Essentially, there was no outside help for it and no easy way out: there was just one little boy at the end of this long street, and that was himself. If Cullee Hamilton couldn’t help Cullee Hamilton, then, sure enough, wasn’t anybody who could.

  3

  “So you see,” the Senator from West Virginia explained, on the broad green lawn in the soft sunny Sunday morning, under the kindly, sheltering tree, “we do the best we can, and once in a while—a great while—we seem to respond.”

  “But not very often,” Lafe Smith said gently. “Not very often. If truth were known.”

  “If truth were known,” Hal Fry said in a tortured whisper, “not once in the last five years.”

  “Yes,” the Senator from Iowa said. “Jimmy,” he went on after a moment in a conversational tone, “would you like me to bring you a present next time I come? I might be able to find something you’d like, down in New York.”

  There was a quick look, a smile of infinite warmth and kindness, and—nothing.

  “It doesn’t do any good,” Senator Fry said in the same half-whisper. “It just never does any good.”

  “Somewhere there must be an answer. Somewhere there must be.”

  “Don’t you think I’ve tried to find it?” Hal Fry asked sharply. “What do you think I’ve been doing all these years?”

  “I know,” Lafe said quickly. “Of course you have. I didn’t mean it to sound like that … But, somehow, there must be a key.”

  “Why should I think so, any more than anyone else with the same—problem?” Senator Fry asked. “Lots of people never find the key because there just—isn’t—anything—to unlock.”

  “But he looks so—”

  “That’s what kills me. If he only looked like an—an—”

  “Don’t say it!” Lafe said sharply. “Don’t say it. You just torture yourself and it doesn’t do any good. And maybe it isn’t true. You have to hope.”

  “How long?” Hal Fry asked with a stricken look. “How long?”

  For several minutes they said nothing, the handsome boy between them smiling graciously into the distance at something only he could see, the sound of softly muted voices coming to them from other groups under other trees, in the distance the sounds of a tennis game on a court below, hidden by the drop of hill to the Hudson. Finally Senator Fry stirred and slowly stood up.

  “I think we’d better go. You’ve been very kind, but—this is enough.”

  “As you say. It’s up to you.”

  “No, I really think we’d better.” He looked down at his son, and for a moment the boy looked up, happy, serene, appearing to possess some otherworldly understanding that gave him again the heartbreaking expression of sympathy and kindness. His father leaned forward, kissed him on the forehead, and turned abruptly away.

  “Good-by, Jimmy,” Lafe Smith said. “I’ll see you soon.”

  The handsome face turned toward him for a moment. An expression of fleeting regret came momentarily into the beautiful dark eyes, then was erased as instantly as it had come. Lafe too turned away, with a heavy heart and a rising tension through his body. His day’s real task was just beginning.

  How he would approach it, as they walked quickly back through the main buildings, he did not for the moment know. It was not until they reached the car that he decided that the direct approach was, as always, the best for him.

  “Would you like me to drive?” he asked casually. “You probably don’t feel like it right now, do you?”

  “Why?” Hal demanded quickly. “Do I look sick?”

  “A little. And understandably, I should think.”

  “I’m feeling pretty good this morning. Upset about him, of course, but then I always am. The other isn’t so bad today. Maybe I’m finally turning the corner on it, whatever it was.”

  “I hope so,” Lafe said slowly. “Give me the keys.”

  “You say that in a funny tone,” Senator Fry said with a half-humorous but questioning smile. “What do you know that I don’t know?”

  “Give me the keys and get in. We’ll talk about it.”

  “All right I hope it makes more sense than that little know-it-all at the UN. It seems it’s all a guilt complex because of—Jimmy.”

  “I wouldn’t say so,” Senator Smith said, easing the car smoothly into the Sunday-thronged parkway going south. “I have a friend,” he added presently, “who thinks you ought to go in for a complete checkup and some real tests for a change, instead of all this oddball chatter that may only be wasting time.”

  “What do you mean, wasting time? It isn’t that bad, is it?”

  “Who knows?” Lafe said shortly. “If you won’t go in for a checkup, who can tell?”

  “Who is this friend of yours, anyway? Some blonde you found under a sofa—or on top of it—in one of the conference rooms in the Secretariat?”

  “He’s a young fellow who’s interning at Harkness Pavilion. I had a long phone conversation with him Friday night after the Nigerian party.”

  “How did that go, by the way? I tried to get dressed and make it, but I really did feel lousy, as I phoned you. Did I miss anything?”

  “You did. Everybody including his wife and LeGage Shelby jumped on Cullee Hamilton, and I don’t know whether they succeeded or not. He was out on the esplanade later and I went out and talked to him, but I don’t know whether I succeeded or not.”

  “Funny, I didn’t see much in the papers about it.”

  “Oh, yes, it was in the Times this morning; he was the fifth paragraph, something about, ‘It was reported meanwhile that Congressman Hamilton, under severe criticism and pressure from African Negroes and some American Negroes as well, might withdraw his resolution when the House meets tomorrow.’ The Daily News also had an item, small but gory. ‘Negro Congressman Rows With UN Africans at Dance,’ I believe the headline said.”

  Hal Fry shook his head with a saddened expression.

  “That’s a shame. I hope he’ll stand firm.”

  “I don’t know. It’s up to him. There’s nothing we can do. Anyway, buster, don’t change the subject. How about going in that hospital and getting that checkup?”

  For a few moments his companion was silent as they drove along, maintaining a steady pace that cut the miles away under them as they sped toward the city. Then he sighed and spoke in a voice that suddenly sounded drained of all will and determination to fight back.

  “I’m afraid to, Lafe. I’m afraid they’ll really find something, too.”

  “Maybe not,” the Senator from Iowa said. Then he added firmly, “But—maybe. In any event, wouldn’t you like to know?”

  “I’ve often wondered, as I suppose e
veryone does,” the Senator from West Virginia said slowly. “I don’t know whether I would or not. You see, I’ve had quite—quite a bit—to bear—in my life. I don’t really know that I want to be told for sure that I’ve been singled out to bear more.”

  God, Lafe Smith inquired politely, how does one answer that one? Got any ideas? But through the dimness that blurred his vision for a moment he recognized that he must not voice any doubts, not give any quarter to weakness when strength was all that remained to see his colleague through whatever destiny was his. So he spoke in a matter-of-fact tone that disclosed no emotion other than courage for the working day.

  “I don’t think that it will come to that. But of course it is your decision, and perhaps I have no right to force you to it. Maybe it’s best to leave it a mystery, if that’s what you prefer.”

  “And go along half crippled when we face what we do in the United Nations?” Senator Fry said quickly, and then gave a sad smile. “You see? I answer my own question … When can they take me at Harkness Pavilion?”

  “I’ll call for you tomorrow morning and see,” Lafe Smith said, speaking very carefully for fear he might sob or make some undignified sound or otherwise betray his emotions. “I think perhaps the sooner the better.”

  “Yes,” said Hal Fry, staring unseeing at the fading autumn colors as they sped along, “I think perhaps so.”

  Moving briskly about the gleaming yellow kitchen at “Vagaries,” supervising the final touches on the brunch, Dolly Munson thought with a worried little frown about her husband. For all that she had been in love with Bob for quite some time, it was not until their marriage that she had begun to realize the insistent, incessant demands of the Majority Leadership and the inevitable wearing effects it has upon those who hold it. There was a sort of subtle, steady attrition that began in January, when Congress convened and there came a brief burst of furious activity as Presidential requests reached the Hill and bills were introduced. There was then a temporary respite in February and March while committees met and members made speeches around the country as party organizations held banquets in honor of their respective political saints. Then, after the Easter recess, the pressure began to pile up and the grind was on. From then until final adjournment, Congress worked, and worked hard. And no one worked harder than the man in the Senate who must set the pace, help to pilot legislation through, thread his way amid the conflicting claims of a hundred imperious egos, and bring his colleagues safely to shore when the final gavel fell.

  No one worked harder, although, she would admit, the Speaker probably worked as hard. But she wasn’t married to the Speaker and he wasn’t her responsibility. Bob was, and now as she gave the cook a final compliment, took off her apron, and prepared to go out on the terrace to greet her guests, she decided firmly that they really would travel after adjournment, maybe as far as Europe, as they had originally planned, maybe on around the world. The Majority Leader had earned the rest, in this lengthy session that had seen so many things occur in the United States and elsewhere, and she was determined he should have it. Particularly when it now appeared that the session would conclude in one fine fandango over the Hamilton resolution, the visit of Terrible Terry, and the ramifications thereof.

  Without this situation, of course, there might well be a Sunday brunch today at “Vagaries,” for it was a form of entertaining she particularly enjoyed, but it would not be one so directly concerned with the imperatives of politics, both domestic and international, and the difficulties of dealing with worldwide human emotions and opinion. The guest list on another occasion might include some, but not all, of the friends about to arrive at any moment now: Orrin and Beth, Claude and Kitty, Raoul and Celestine, the Speaker, the President and Lucille, Seab, and—an impulsive afterthought and one she hadn’t quite had the nerve to tell Bob about—Patsy Labaiya. Only an episode like the present could bring them all to “Vagaries” on so intimate a basis at the same moment; and there was no telling what their informal proximity at this particular stage of it might produce. “We’ll be thirteen, you realize,” she had said gaily to Lucille, “and who can say what our luck may be?” The First Lady had given the gentle little laugh that so often preceded her most perceptive and unexpected thrusts. “If anyone can make it good, dear Dolly, you can,” she had said, “but maybe even you will have difficulty, in times like these.”

  “The President brings his own luck. I’m counting on that to pull us through.”

  Surprisingly, Lucille had sighed, openly and with a frankness that surprised her hostess.

  “Maybe so,” she had said slowly. “If he doesn’t get too discouraged.”

  “It’s your job not to let him,” Dolly said lightly, but the First Lady’s mood was not so easily broken.

  “I do my best, but a man can only stand so much of this world’s accumulation of persistent ills.”

  “Surely there isn’t any doubt that he can, is there?” Dolly had asked with some concern, and this had finally brought Lucille back to her normal softly tenacious optimism.

  “Oh, no,” she had said, much more cheerfully. “Don’t take me seriously, and don’t quote me. I married a good man. He won’t fail us.”

  “Of course not,” Dolly said in a tone of affectionate scolding. “Or his wife either.”

  But she had found it a disturbing little exchange, both then and in retrospect, and it was with considerable concern that she heard now the sounds of Presidential arrival in the driveway and came forward through the drawing room to meet her guests of honor. She was a little surprised to note that Harley looked as comfortably calm as ever and wondered fleetingly if Lucille hadn’t been imagining things. The First Lady gave her a warning wink, and she linked her arm through the President’s with a cheerful smile and led him to the terrace.

  “Autumn is doing her best for you, Mr. President,” she said, and he nodded in pleased agreement as his eyes swept over the terrace: the long table sparkling with white linen, silver, and glass; the beautifully tended lawn; the maples and elms, russet and gold in the gentle sunshine; the dreamy peace that lay upon the world.

  “Lovely, lovely,” he said. “Heartbreakingly lovely, in fact. In some ways I think autumn is Washington’s loveliest season.” His eyes darkened a little, more revealingly than he knew. “So perfect—and so transitory … But,” he added, more briskly, “that sounds almost gloomy, and that isn’t the way I ought to sound. Or have any reason to sound. Lovely season, and you loveliest of all, Dolly, as always. Where’s my Majority Leader?”

  “Greeting Orrin and Beth about now, I expect. Yes, here they come.”

  “Good,” the President said. “It sounds like a fine little gathering.”

  And so, as it formed and proceeded along its way through the grapefruit, the consommé, the salad, and headed into the sole, the lamb roast, julienne potatoes and cinnamoned peas, it seemed to be. It was not until they came to the cherries jubilee and coffee that a more serious note was injected, and that by the Speaker, who finally leaned back in his chair and said in his calm and unhurried drawl, “Well, sir, looks like we’re going to have an interesting day in the House tomorrow. Shaping up into a mighty interesting day.” He chuckled. “Better come over and watch us, Seab. We might wind up doing something you won’t like.”

  The senior Senator from South Carolina, peering down the table from where he sat between Celestine Barre and Beth Knox, wagged his head and smiled in a gently reproving way.

  “Now, Bill, you know you hadn’t ought to taunt me, Bill. You know it’s not good for my health, at my age. How do you know I won’t like what you do, Bill? How do you know that, now?”

  “Because I expect we’re going to pass Cullee’s resolution,” the Speaker said crisply, “And I don’t expect you’re going to like that, are you?”

  “Passing the House,” Senator Cooley said in the same tone of gentle reproof, “isn’t passing the Senate. Now, Bob can tell you that, Bill. Passing the House isn’t passing the Senate. Don’t expect
the Senate to be quite as easy to push around as your House, Bill. The Senate’s a different matter. Bob can tell you that.”

  “Yes,” the Majority Leader said, “Bob can tell you that, all right. It may not be so easy where Seab and I live.”

  “Isn’t going to be easy where I live,” the Speaker retorted, “but I’m telling you it’s going to be done.”

  “Why, Bill?” Senator Cooley wanted to know. “Why, now? Did anybody ever stop to answer that, before we got ourselves all rushed into this tangle by a couple of colored boys? Not, mind you, that I dislike them—at least, I don’t dislike ours, that Cullee, who’s a fine boy. It’s that foreign Yankee-Poo I don’t like.”

  “Nanki-Poo, Seab,” Orrin Knox corrected automatically. “Anyway, the allusion isn’t pertinent. If you want to blame anybody for getting us into this, blame me. I’ll take it.”

  “Who can logically blame any one individual for what happens in government?” the President suggested. “Or life, either, for that matter; so many factors go into a thing. Isn’t that right, Seab?”