by Irwin Shaw
Unhappily, when my husband told the lady of my impending arrival and announced to her that that would mean the end of their relationship, she made one of those half-hearted attempts at suicide with which silly and frivolous women try to prove to themselves and their lovers that they are not silly and frivolous. The lady telephoned my husband just after she took the pills, and was unconscious, in negligee, in her apartment, when he arrived. He did what was necessary and stayed with her at the hospital until he was assured by the doctors that she was out of danger. Luckily, the people at the hospital were civilized and sympathetic, and my husband managed, with a minimum of bribery, to keep the entire matter out of the newspapers. There was a wave of rumor, of course, in certain circles of the city, and there was no doubt a quite accurate estimate of the situation current for a week or two; but in Europe present scandal blends easily into centuries of anecdote, and when the lady appeared two weeks later, looking as pretty as ever, on her husband’s arm at a diplomatic reception, the event seemed safely in the past.
My husband recounted the entire story to me on the first afternoon after my arrival. I listened and told him I would say no more about it and we have not mentioned the matter again to this day. I think I can honestly say that I have not permitted the incident to change, in the smallest particular, our relations with each other.
It is at this point in my story that I begin to perceive some of the problems that a writer faces. To make understandable what has happened it has been necessary to explain, as fully as I have, the background and personality of my husband, the kind of marriage we enjoy, and the stages and accidents of his career. But none of these things has its proper meaning unless it is viewed in relationship to the climate in which he worked and in which we lived and the pressures to which he was subjected. A more skillful writer would no doubt manage to include as much information of this nature as was necessary in a well-contrived series of dramatic scenes, so that the reader, while being held in suspense and amused by the brisk conflict of personalities, would be brought, almost without his realizing it, adequately prepared, to the climax of the story. There are two reasons why I have not attempted to do this. In the first place, I find it beyond my still undeveloped powers. And secondly, in my reading, I have found, for my own tastes, that the writers who did this particular thing most deftly were the ones I finally could not stomach.
There are crucial days in the lives of men and women, as in the lives of governments and armies; days which may begin like all other days, ordinary and routine, with no warning of the crises ahead and which end with cabinets fallen, battles lost, careers brought to a sudden and catastrophic halt.
The crucial day for my husband was clear and warm, in late spring, when the waters of the harbor of the port in which he was serving as vice-consul were blue and calm. At breakfast we decided the season was well enough advanced so that we could dine thereafter on the terrace of our apartment and I told my husband that I would search in the shops that day for a pair of hurricane lamps to shield the candles on our table in the evening. Two friends were coming in after dinner for bridge, and I asked my husband to bring home with him a bottle of whiskey. He left the apartment, as usual, neat, brushed, deliberate, unmistakably American, despite his many years abroad, among the lively pedestrian traffic of our quarter.
My husband is a methodical man, with a trained memory, and when I asked him, later on, for my own purposes, exactly what took place that morning he was able to tell me, almost word for word. The consul had gone north for several days and my husband was serving temporarily as chief of the office. When he reached the office he read the mail and despatches, none of which was of immediate importance.
Just as he had finished reading, Michael Laborde came into the office. (Remember, please, that all names used here are fictitious.) Michael had the office next to my husband’s and he wandered in and out through a connecting door, almost at will. He was no more than thirty years old and held a junior post in the commercial side of the consulate. He was personable, though weak, and my husband considered him intelligent. He was lonely in the city and we had him to dinner at least once a week. He had a quick, jumpy mind and he was always full of gossip and my husband has confessed that he enjoyed the five-minute breaks in the day’s routine which Laborde’s visits afforded. This morning, Michael came into the office, smoking a cigarette, looking disturbed.
“Holy God,” he said, “that Washington.”
“What is it now?” my husband asked.
“I got a letter last night,” Michael said. “Friend of mine works in the Latin-American section. They’re howling in anguish. People’re getting dumped by the dozen, every day.”
“A certain amount of deadwood …” my husband began. He is always very correct in questions like this, even with good friends.
“Deadwood, hell!” Michael said. “They’re cutting the living flesh. And they’re going crazy on the pansy hunt. My friend says he heard they have microphones in half the hotels and bars in Washington and they’ve caught twenty of them already, right out of their own mouths. And no nonsense about it. No looking at the record for commendations, no fooling around about length of service or anything. A five-minute interview and then out—as of close of business that day.”
“Well,” my husband said, smiling, “I don’t imagine you have to worry about that too much.” Michael had something of a reputation locally as a ladies’ man, being a bachelor, and, as I have said, quite personable.
“I’m not worried about myself—not about that, anyway,” Michael said. “But I’m not so sure about the principle. Official purity. Once people declare for purity they’re not satisfied until they nail you to the wood. And my friend wrote me to be careful what I say in my letters. My last letter had scotch tape on it. And I never use scotch tape.”
“Your friend is too nervous,” my husband said.
“He says Il Blanko has ninety paid spies in Europe,” said Michael. Il Blanko was Michael’s epithet for the senator who was freezing the Foreign Service into a permanent attitude of terror. “My friend says the damndest people are reporting back all the time. He says they sit next to you in restaurants and write down the jokes when you’re not looking.”
“Eat at home,” my husband said. “Like me.”
“And he says he’s heard of a new wrinkle,” Michael went on. “Some crank you never heard of decides he doesn’t like you and he sends an anonymous letter to the FBI saying he saw you flying the flag upside down on the Fourth of July or that you’re living with two eleven-year-old Arab boys and then he sends a copy to some hot-eyed congressman and a couple of days later the congressman gets up waving the letter and saying, ‘I have here a copy of information that is at this moment resting in the files of the FBI,’ and the next thing you know you’re in the soup.”
“Do you believe that?” my husband asked.
“How the hell do I know what to believe? I’m waiting for the rumor that they’ve discovered a sane man on F Street,” Michael said. “Then I’m going to apply for home leave to see for myself.” He doused his cigarette and went back into his own office.
My husband sat at his desk, feeling, as he told me later, annoyed with Michael for having brought up matters which, to tell the truth, had been lying close to the surface of John’s consciousness for some time. John had been passed over for promotion twice and his present appointment, even when the most optimistic face had been put upon it, could only be regarded as a sign that, at the very least, he was out of favor in certain influential quarters in the Service. For more than a year he had had moments of uneasiness about his own mail and had, without specifically admitting it to himself, taken to keeping the tone and contents of his letters, even to intimate friends, mildly noncommittal. As he sat there, he remembered, disquietingly, that several personal letters among those he had received in the last few months had had scotch tape on the flaps of the envelopes. And in the course of his duties in the visa and passport sections he had received information
through intelligence channels on various applicants, of a surprisingly intimate nature, information which must have been gathered, he realized, in the most unorthodox manner. And in recent months he had been visited, with annoying frequency, by investigators, persistent and humorless young men, who had questioned him closely for derogatory information about colleagues of his, going back in time as far as 1933. Since all this, as the investigators always pointed out, was merely routine, my husband was conscious of the fact that the very same young men must certainly be making the same inquiries about himself.
My husband is a realist and was not one of those who considered these activities merely wanton persecution of the department. An actor in it himself, he realized better than most the obscure and fearful nature of the struggle which was taking place in the world and the necessity for measures of defense; treachery existed, and he regarded as ingenuous those of his friends and acquaintances who pretended it did not. It was only in the current vagueness of definition and limits of the term that he was uneasy. Trained to assess guilt and innocence by definite standards, and, as a result of his extended service in Europe, having grown into a habit of tolerance of political diversity, he could not help but feel that perhaps he would be considered old-fashioned and not sufficiently severe by his superiors. The custom he had fallen into of discussing with me all invitations, with a view to avoiding being associated, even in the most casual way, with anyone who might conceivably discredit him, was, while necessary, increasingly irksome. The pleasure of society, to be truly enjoyed, must have a certain automatic and spontaneous quality, and in the last year or so all that had vanished. To judge, professionally, the virtue of colleagues and applicants, is one thing—it is quite another to be forced, on the most innocent occasions, to speculate on the politics, the discretion, the potential future disgrace, of dinner companions and tourists to whom one is introduced, by chance, in a bar.
John’s speculation was interrupted by the arrival of Trent. Trent was an executive of an American oil company which had an office in the city. He was a large, soft-spoken man, from Illinois, a little older than my husband. John occasionally played golf with him and considered him a friend. My husband rose and shook Trent’s hand and offered him a chair. They talked for several moments about inconsequential matters before Trent settled down to the business that had brought him to the consulate.
“There’s something I want your advice about,” Trent said. He looked uncomfortable and uncharacteristically ill-at-ease. “You’re mixed up in this particular line and you know what’s going on better than I do. I’ve been over here a long time. I read the magazines from home every week, but it’s hard to tell from them just how serious something like this would be. I have a problem, John.”
“What is it?” my husband asked.
Trent hesitated, and took out a cigar and bit the end off without lighting it. “Well,” he said, finally, laughing sheepishly, “I was once asked to join the Communist Party.”
“What?” my husband asked, surprised. Trent is a large, expensively dressed man with carefully brushed gray hair and he looks the perfect image of what, in fact, he is—an ambitious, successful business executive. “What did you say?”
“I said I was asked to join the Communist Party,” Trent repeated.
“When?” my husband asked.
“In 1932,” Trent said. “When I was in college. The University of Chicago.”
“Yes?” my husband said, puzzled, not understanding what Trent wanted from him.
“What am I supposed to do about it?” Trent asked.
“Did you join?” my husband asked.
“No.” Trent said. “Though I’ll admit to you that I thought about it for a long time.”
“Then I don’t quite see what the problem is,” my husband said.
“The man who asked me to join,” Trent said, “was an instructor. In the Economics Department. He was one of those young ones, in tweed jackets, who’d been to Russia. He’d have the bright boys up to his apartment for beer and a bull session once a week and we’d talk about sex and God and politics and feel pretty damned intelligent about everything. In those days he seemed like one hell of a guy.…”
“Yes?” My husband was still puzzled.
“Well,” Trent said, “I see they’re going after the colleges now, the committees, I mean, and I wonder if I oughtn’t to send in his name.”
At that moment, my husband decided to be careful. He realized then that he didn’t know Trent very well, despite the afternoons on the golf course. He picked up a pencil and pulled a pad over toward him. “What’s the man’s name?” he asked.
“No,” Trent said, “I don’t want to get you mixed up in it. And I’m not sure yet that I want to get mixed up in it myself.”
“Where’s the man now?” my husband asked.
“I don’t know,” said Trent. “He’s not at Chicago any more. I used to correspond with him for a few years and then it petered out. For all I know he’s dead now or he’s taken up yoga.”
“What, exactly,” my husband asked, a little sharply, “is it that you want from me?”
“I just wanted your opinion,” said Trent. “To sort of help me make up my mind.”
“Send in his name.”
“Well …” Trent said uncertainly. “I’ll see. We used to be pretty good friends and I thought a lot of him and something like this could do a man a lot of harm and it’s more than twenty years ago.…”
“You asked me for advice,” my husband said. “My advice is send in his name.”
At this moment, the door opened and the consul came in, without knocking. He hadn’t been expected back for two days and my husband was surprised to see him.
“Oh, I didn’t realize you had someone with you,” the consul said. “As soon as you’re through, I’d like to see you in my office, please.”
“I’m just going,” Trent said, standing up. “Thanks. Thanks for everything.” He shook hands and went out.
The consul closed the door carefully behind him and turned toward my husband. “Sit down, John,” he said. “I have some very grave news for you.”
The consul was a young man, not much older than Michael. He was one of those fortunate young men who appear to swim upward, in any organization, without any apparent effort on their own part. He had clever, slender good looks and he always seemed to manage to be evenly and healthily tanned. He had been married, within the last year, to a very pretty girl, the only daughter of a wealthy family, and the two of them together had the valuable reputation of being an amusing couple, and were much in demand for parties and long weekends at famous houses. He was a young man whose career his elders delighted to advance and he had been clearly singled out almost from the very beginning of his service, for high position. My husband, from whom he differed in luck and temperament so markedly, shared the common attitude toward him, and willingly and almost with pleasure took on the extra duties that the consul’s full social schedule prevented the consul from fulfilling. That is not to say that my husband was not deeply envious of him. My husband was too conscious of his own worth and his solid achievements in the service not to feel a sense of injustice when he contemplated their comparative positions and their probable futures. And besides, while they were both attached to the embassy at X—, my husband had occupied a position of considerably greater importance and no man takes easily to seeing a younger man moved over his head into authority. But an attitude of envy, affection, and devotion, all mingled together, is less rare in a hierarchy than is generally thought possible.
Alone among his fellow workers, Michael Laborde did not think much of the consul, and called him slightingly, because of his light blond hair and his unfailing luck, Goldilocks. I must admit that I, too, was not so completely charmed by the consul as my husband. There was something that I found vaguely unpleasant and false about him, although I was careful not to give any intimation of this to my husband. I also kept to myself a curious little incident in which the cons
ul and I were the only participants. I was out shopping one afternoon by myself and had stopped in front of a window for a moment, when I looked up to see the consul coming out of a doorway just a few feet away. He looked, as always, neat and beautifully dressed. He was not wearing a hat and his hair was wet and newly brushed, as though he had just taken a shower. He took a step in my direction and I began to smile in greeting, when he suddenly turned, without giving any sign of recognition, and walked swiftly away. I was certain he had seen me and there was in his whole performance a sense of embarrassment which was unusual for him. I watched him turn the corner and started on my own way, puzzled. Then, out of curiosity, I stopped and retraced my steps and went to the doorway from which the consul had emerged. The names of the six occupants of the building were on the side of the door and I recognized only one. It was the name of a young American, who was reputed to have a large independent income and who had settled, in the last three months, in our city. I had met him once or twice at parties, and even if his reputation had not preceded him, I would have been able, from his manner of walking and talking, to judge him immediately for what he was. Of course, if the consul had merely nodded to me and said Hello in the normal manner it would never have occurred to me to look at the names on the doorplates.