by Allen Drury
2
And so it came time for the nations to dance, and from all the reaches of Megalopolis the Great City, from all the apartments, the hotel rooms, the delegation offices and headquarters, the homes and temporary resting places of the races of man, the long line of cars and taxicabs began rolling up to the Delegates’ Entrance as the hour approached nine-thirty on a clear, cold Monday night.
Some came in Fords, some in Ramblers and Chevrolets, some few in tiny sports cars incongruous in the sleek parade. The choice of most, aware of their nation’s dignity and anxious to suitably chariot their own importance, appeared to have settled upon the chauffeured Cadillacs, the Jaguars and Mercedes-Benzes provided by Manhattan’s many rental agencies. Out of these stylish conveyances there emerged powdered white faces and shiny black, dignified tuxedos and the flamboyant raiment of the distant plains and jungles. Bowing, smiling, laughing, nodding, they descended and moved within, while all about, electric in the air, could be felt a sense of the high portentousness of the nations, the touchingly hopeful pomposities of man.
Look at us, they seemed to say: We are the nations. We are the peoples.
We cannot blow ourselves off the face of the earth.
We cannot banish ourselves from history.
We are too important for that.
Look at us, how bright, how brilliant, how notable, how brave!
Do you not believe it?
Outside, overlooking First Avenue, the line of flags snapped bravely in the wind, and indoors, as the guests deposited their coats and then turned left from the entrance to make their way around the long curved wall that on its other side houses Conference Room 4 on the floor below, all the proud standards stood massed there, too, crowding the narrow passageway so that quite often some delegate in tuxedo or flowing robe would find himself brushing Israel, say, out of his face, while his wife did likewise with Italy or the Ivory Coast. Potted palms and other decorative plants, reminiscent of the homelands of many who came crowding in, stood over against the glass wall that separated them from the night, and distantly in the Main Concourse could be heard the sound of orchestras playing as the line moved slowly forward in gay and happy anticipation.
Presently the long, jostling progression emerged into the Concourse, to find waiting the pink little figures of the President of the General Assembly and his wife, the grizzled classical stateliness of the Secretary-General. Names were given, hands shaken, greetings exchanged. Duty done on both sides, the guests moved on into the shiny expanses where the wide-eyed Boy and Girl Scouts, the members of the Springport, Indiana, Parent-Teachers Association, the United Nations Study Group of the Women’s Club of Twin Falls, Idaho, and all their counterparts and copies were wont to gather at other times to learn the exciting story of the world organization.
Now the room had been modestly transformed under the direction of the Secretary-General—not too much, for the budget would not permit it, hampered as it always was by the refusal of some notable members to meet their assessments—but with a potted plant here, a festoon of paper streamers there, whirling lights behind red and blue and yellow glass that cast a flickering, multicolored combination of light and shadow upon the Main Concourse and gave a delightful and pleasing aspect that increased the holiday mood with which the guests turned to their partners and stepped forth upon the floor.
Grouped near Sputnik, midway toward Zeus, a dance band played the latest tunes, while downstairs, on the lower level of the post office and the gift shop, another could be heard performing for the dancers there. Toward the south end of the room, near the desk where Miss Burma (East), Miss Malaya (North), Miss Viet Nam (South) and Miss Thailand (West) were accustomed to comment on the unsuspecting tourists, long tables were set out with liquor and food for the buffet, and all along that part of the room, on both sides, smaller tables and chairs stood ready when the dancers should feel moved to eat or drink.
By 10:30 p.m., all the guests having arrived, both dance bands were performing at the peak of their noise and brilliance, both dance areas were filled with swooping, dashing, laughing occupants. The ball was moving at a high pitch of felicity that pleased the Secretary-General as he finally left the reception line and stood for a moment beside the information desk in the central lobby. Many distinguished persons were present, the Ambassador of Panama, Lord and Lady Maudulayne, Raoul and Celestine Barre, many another famous delegate and his lady, many members of the press, several movie stars and actors from Broadway, many members of the Secretariat, the Governor of New York, the Secretary of State, famous statesmen, famous thinkers, famous people. The affair was going well, the S.-G. could sense it. He felt well pleased. Not even Ghana and Guinea, who had submitted formal written protests to his office this morning because of his intervention in the debate, looked sour tonight. They had greeted him cheerfully and now were dancing with an air as gay and carefree as that of all the rest.
Even Vasily Tashikov, he noted with amusement, was dancing with his solid wife, and as they passed the Secretary of State and Mrs. Knox, out in the center of the swirling throng, he could see all four nod and smile with a reasonable cordiality. Even they had succumbed to the mood of the evening, he congratulated himself; even they. Was it not possible to hope, in such a moment, that someday, somehow—
“It would be nice, wouldn’t it?” Senator Smith of the United States said quietly at his elbow, and he turned to see that the Senator, too, was watching the little exchange of amenities on the dance floor.
“What?” the S.-G. asked with a start at dissembling; but then he yielded to the mood of the evening and gave up the dissembling. “Yes, it would,” he agreed gravely. “If only—”
Lafe sighed.
“The story of the world, summed up in two words: If only. But damn it!” he said with a sudden dark anger that the Secretary-General could understand and fully share, “This is the way it should be! This is how it ought to be! Why can’t we do it! Why can’t we ever do it?”
“I do not know,” the Secretary-General said quietly. “The man who finds the answer to that, and shows us the way, will live forever in men’s hearts.”
“Well,” Lafe said, more calmly, “it won’t be you or I, that’s for sure.”
“But we must always try.”
Lafe smiled.
“Oh, yes. I don’t think either of us has any intention of stopping … And it is a wonderful party. Everything is going so well.”
“Yes. I hope you will stay until the dancing ends.”
“Oh, you know me,” Lafe said. “Until the last note sounds.” His face lighted up as a young Indonesian pair danced by. They saw him, stopped, and waved eagerly, and he waved back. “Excuse me,” he said, and moved to engage them in animated conversation.
The S.-G. did not know how long he would stay. He was not as young as he used to be, he did not dance the Western or Latin dances very well, his principal wife had long been dead, and he had no particular companion for this evening. But, still, a man should enjoy the hour while he could, and so he decided to cut in, carefully selecting for the purpose one of the more matronly ladies, brilliantly saried, of the Indian delegation.
As he started forward to separate her politely from her partner, the Ambassador, he was delayed by the Congressman from California, dancing with a tall young Negress, very pretty. Cullee placed an enormous hand gently on his arm.
“Mr. Secretary-General, I would like very much to have you meet my friend, Miss Sarah Johnson of the United States. Sarah and I just met.”
“How fortunate,” the Secretary-General said with an amused and gentle smile for something in Cullee’s tone. “For you both.”
“For me, anyway,” the Congressman said with a cheerful glance that his partner answered.
“It may be mutual,” she said. “We’ll have to tell you later, Mr. Secretary-General.”
“One thing now, though,” Cullee said, still holding him by the arm. “I just want to say that I am proud of you, sir, for your speech to the
Assembly. I didn’t know when I asked you whether you would want to or not, but I took a chance you might. I think we should all be grateful to you.”
The S.-G. smiled.
“Some aren’t.” The Congressman made an impatient gesture.
“Oh, them! Don’t worry about them, Mr. Secretary-General. All decent people are, and they’re still what count, in spite of everything. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you. As an American—as a Negro—and I guess, maybe, just—well, as a citizen of the world, if one can say that.”
“It’s easier to, tonight. I thank you. And of course I, like all decent people, will forever be in the debt of Senator Fry.”
“Yes,” Cullee said gravely. “I wish he could have been here tonight, but—no chance.”
“Is it all over?”
“It soon will be.”
“He is a brave man, and a fine one. There is a citizen of the world, if the world will but listen.”
“Who knows?” Cullee said gloomily. “But,” he said, deliberately breaking the mood, “no place for such talk tonight. We’re having a fine time at your party, sir, and we hope you are, too.”
“I am about to,” the S.-G. said with a smile. “I have designs on Miss India. Or, rather, I should say,” he added, cocking his noble head on one side and giving her a quizzical squint as she danced by with the Indian Ambassador, “Mrs. India. Or Mother India. I think the ‘Miss’ disappeared long ago.”
“Good luck,” Cullee called as the stately old man moved off toward her. “I hope the Ambassador will let her go! … Now, Miss Sally J., let’s dance.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, swinging comfortably into his arms as though she had always belonged there. “As you say.”
She was puzzled by his answering expression, quizzical and sad for a moment. She could not know that he was saying to himself, Oh, no, Miss Sally J. Not yet awhile. Life isn’t that pat.
Five minutes later, Krishna Khaleel, relieved of his pleasant but sedate companion by the Secretary-General, and the Secretary of State, similarly relieved of his by the Governor of New York, who had cut in on him and taken Beth away with a dashingly boyish smile, found themselves standing together by the information desk looking out upon the crush.
“Well, K.K., what do you make of it?”
“It is a happy scene,” the Indian Ambassador said cheerfully. Then he looked cautious and somewhat puzzled. “What—what, eh? What do you mean?”
“Oh, all this mixing of the races, as we say in some parts of my country. Your ‘shade of difference’ does not seem so serious tonight.”
“Nothing seems serious tonight,” K.K. said with a smile. “No, not tonight.”
“Why should it ever be?” the Secretary pressed, enjoying his little intellectual game as K.K. looked first starchy, then more relaxed.
“We do not wish it.”
“No more do we. Why, then, does it come about? Are you to blame? Or are we?”
“It comes about because of history,” the Indian Ambassador said. “That is why it comes about, Orrin. You know that as well as I. We are prisoners of the past. The irony of it is,” he added with a rueful smile, “that it is not our past, yours and mine and that of all these others here. We did not make it. It was made by others, long before—and so we must suffer. It hardly seems fair.”
“No, it does not,” the Secretary agreed, more seriously. “Does it not seem to you, then, that we must try to get out from under it? That we must move onto some new way of thinking about it, together?”
“Ah-ha!” K.K. cried with a sudden laugh. “Now you are leading me on down paths where Hal tried to lead us. Now you wish us to forget the past, and you know we cannot do that. Poor Hal,” he added, suddenly sad. “Such a dear friend; such a horrible thing.”
“I think he feels he may have left us something, if we will but listen.”
“But not by forgetting the past. It is impossible, for us.”
“I think many of us would like to try,” the Secretary said. His companion looked at him for a long moment.
“But it is not you who suffered,” he said softly.
To this, for which there was little answer—or at least none that could be understood or accepted by many who danced in happy companionship across the Main Concourse—the Secretary returned only, after several seconds of looking directly into the liquid brown eyes that looked directly into his, a shrug.
“Where does that leave us for the future, then? What will it do to the world, if we cannot escape it?”
“Alas, where does it leave you in your own land, let alone the world? How can you handle it elsewhere, if you cannot handle it here?”
“But we are handling it here,” the Secretary protested. His companion laid a hand quickly on his arm.
“Let half the people who are in this building, which is temporarily enchanted on this enchanted night, go forth into the city of New York, and in ten minutes’ time they will be able to tell you how well you are handling it here,” K.K. said softly.
“And you?” Orrin Knox asked harshly. “Do you handle it so well, in India?”
“Do not mistake me, my friend,” the Indian Ambassador said. “I am not one of those who thinks he is perfect, or that his country is, in this regard. Oh, no, not I! It is just that we must all realize an equal guilt.”
“I do,” the Secretary said, still in the same harsh tone. “I ask only an equal humility. Or perhaps, as Hal Fry said, an equal love.”
“Ah, yes,” K.K. said gently. “All living comes full circle to that, does it not? And how few perceive it!”
“More than achieve it, I think,” the Secretary said. “That is what brings the tears of the ages—that in the area of love so many perceive and so few achieve.”
They were silent for a time while the band played gaily and the colorful crowd danced by. The mood had changed when they spoke again, because for that, too, there was no answer.
“My lady and yours are both free,” the Indian Ambassador noted. “Shall we rejoin them?”
“I think we should,” the Secretary said. “Why don’t we exchange partners for a dance? I know Beth would enjoy it.”
“How nice!” K.K. cried with a pleased expression. “What a happy thought!”
So the nations danced on, as the night wore away beside the East River to midnight, 1 a.m., 2 a.m., 3 a.m. Quantities of liquor, quantities of food, much music, much dancing, much jovial good-fellowship filled the Main Concourse of the fantastic palace in Turtle Bay that housed the hope of men who did not always let hope enter in.
If Only and Why Can’t We, those two unhappy guests at the wonderful affair, were presently pushed outside into the cold night air of Manhattan and thought of no more. The Shade of Difference, their dark and bitter companion, had been barred at the door to begin with, and would not again stalk the long glass corridors and comfortable conference rooms until he was needed. He did not mind this temporary banishment, for he knew he would be needed very soon. In the Delegates’ Lounge no imperious female voices trumpeted the names of man, the chairs and sofas and coffee tables stood deserted. In the Security Council, the Assembly Hall, and the committee rooms the desks stood empty and night enfolded the scenes of yesterday’s contention that would soon be the scenes of tomorrow’s.
Only the Main Concourse remained brightly lighted and alive, and in it the nations danced on, above the abyss that always yawns beneath nations, which somehow become accustomed to it; and only a few of those who danced were moved, now and again, to ponder wistfully the touching human frailty of the happy sight. Above hung arrogant Sputnik, outspread stood ready Zeus, steadily on its steel wire went the Netherlands’ pendulum on its endless journeyings back … and forth … and back … and forth …
Passing beneath it with his wife sometime around 2 a.m., the Secretary of State glanced up and paused. They stood together hand in hand as the gleaming ball traversed its imprisoned path in response to laws far more inexorable than any man would ever promulgate.
&
nbsp; “It is a privilege to live this day and tomorrow,” the inscription said.
How like the Dutch, Orrin Knox thought as the band swung into a new set behind them and once again the brilliant throng was galvanized to action: how like the Dutch, to expect so little of time, and ask so little of it.
And yet, perhaps, how sage a counsel to give the troubled world to see it through the strange, unhappy circumstances devised by its quarrelsome sons, as they fail to find in hatred the salvation that they might, had they but the courage, find in love.
November 1960—February 1962
New York—Washington—Sanibel—Doyles
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About the Author
Allen Drury is a master of political fiction, #1 New York Times bestseller and Pulitzer Prize winner, best known for the landmark novel ADVISE AND CONSENT. A 1939 graduate of Stanford University, Allen Drury wrote for and became editor of two local California newspapers. While visiting Washington, DC, in 1943 he was hired by the United Press (UPI) and covered the Senate during the latter half of World War II. After the war he wrote for other prominent publications before joining the New York Times' Washington Bureau, where he worked through most of the 1950s. After the success of ADVISE AND CONSENT, he left journalism to write full time. He published twenty novels and five works of non-fiction, many of them best sellers. WordFire Press will be reissuing the majority of his works.
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