“No bribes,” he told her. “We’ll play when we both feel like it next.”
To my surprise, she obeyed him. He locked the door behind her, motioned me to a chair, and sat himself on the desk in such a position that his face was looking down into mine. “What makes you think you want to stay?” he demanded.
“Perhaps I’m curious.”
“I never buy curiosity no matter how cheap it comes.”
“There are other reasons too.”
“You think you can be of assistance to me?” He laughed. “Hollingsworth wants me to continue his political education, and since our discussion on the bridge … well, you’re not exactly sympathetic.”
“I hardly know why,” I said, “but I believe you misrepresented yourself that night.”
He drummed his fingers on the desk, debating what I had said. “Perhaps, perhaps.” In aside, he murmured, “The fact that I’ve been drinking is hardly promising.” When he looked up, there was an odd expression on his mouth. “So you stay in spite of my political opinions?”
“I reserve decision.”
His mouth twisted. “I know very little about you.” Running his finger along the desk, he held it up to see how much dust he had garnered. “Lovett, I don’t think you appreciate the situation.”
“I’ve never pretended to,” I told him.
“If you stay, you’ll be committed to this.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“It may have certain consequences for you.” His voice had become so soft I strained to hear him, and it was in the resolute absence of any threat that I felt the force of what he said. He had succeeded in frightening me.
“Perhaps I look for consequences,” I muttered.
“You?”
“I don’t know why,” I told him. “Or maybe I do. But there it is. In any case what have I to lose?” I blurted out suddenly.
McLeod shrugged. “I can hardly decide what to say, and yet . .” For himself, he murmured, “There’s a limit to what a man may support.”
Someone rapped gently on the door.
“Well, he’s here,” McLeod said. He was quite pale. “Stay then, Lovett.”
Turning the key, he turned his back as well and returned to the center of the room. Hollingsworth opened the door and held it aside for Lannie who followed behind him. He was dressed nattily in a gabardine suit with a knit tie and brown-and-white sport shoes. His blond hair was plastered down with oil, and he looked as if he had just taken a shower. “My, it’s a warm day,” he said pleasantly. He looked about the room, took cognizance of me, and in a continuation of the same movement, perhaps to mask his surprise, took the leather brief case he had brought with him and laid it on the table. Then he took a chair from the wall, set it at one end of the desk, and motioned Lannie to it. Looking at neither McLeod nor me, she drifted into it, set her hands on the desk, and seemed to stare at them, examining indifferently the frayed cuff of her violet suit.
Then Hollingsworth sat down, opened the flap of the brief case toward him so that he might lay his hand on any of the contents and lit a cigarette. McLeod had not yet taken the remaining chair, and I stood almost behind him, near the bed, waiting diffidently for a position to be assigned.
Hollingsworth cleared his throat. “Before we begin,” he said, “I think Mr. Lovett ought to leave the room.”
McLeod’s voice was unexpectedly husky. “He wants to stay.”
“That’s all very fine, but I think he’ll have to go.” Hollingsworth had disposed of the problem.
“I haven’t made up my mind about it,” McLeod drawled, “but I’m half inclined to let him remain.”
“One would have to say you’re not in a position to …”
McLeod cut him off. “I’ve agreed to this procedure. You’re not obliged to follow it. You’ve got an alternative. Until you choose to use it, I’ll insist on my prerogatives.”
Hollingsworth jabbed out his cigarette. “This is entirely unforeseen.”
McLeod studied him intensely. “There’s a good deal that’s unexpected,” he murmured.
“I want him out,” Hollingsworth said.
“Then he’ll have to take your … colleague with him.”
A breeze might have ruffled Lannie’s hair. She looked up at us for a moment, before returning to her study. With a concentration of which she was probably unaware, she picked at dead skin on a fingernail.
Hollingsworth slid a sheet from the brief case. “I think a fellow ought to sit down,” he said to McLeod, “and if Mr. Lovett does not mind staying on the bed, owing to the informality …” He adjusted his tie. “I suppose we may as well begin.”
TWENTY
ONE moment,” McLeod told him. He circled past the desk to the window, and fingered the shade. Then he pulled it down and returned to his seat. With one of his long arms he reached for the lamp bulb, switched it on, and adjusted the shade so the light glared into his eyes.
Hollingsworth tapped his pencil. After due consideration he pushed his chair back and reversed what McLeod had done. He went to the window and lifted the shade, came back to the desk and turned the light out. A deprecating smile played over his mouth. “That isn’t necessary yet,” he said.
McLeod looked indifferent. “As I’ve told you, I’m willing to co-operate.”
“That’s fine,” Hollingsworth said. “A fellow appreciates such an attitude because this kind of meeting can often get to be endless if you know what I mean.”
“Where do you want to begin?”
Hollingsworth tapped the pencil again. He might have been establishing order. “I’m of the tough-skinned variety, I would say, but you know there is a source, so to speak, of embarrassment for me. That is when there are lots of mistruths. Frankness is to be appreciated.” He coughed apologetically. “You see we know so much about a certain party that he couldn’t retain in his own interest anything that was important.”
“I stand by my original statement,” McLeod said.
“Yes.” Hollingsworth reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a paper pad. He scribbled something on it, tore off the sheet, and passed it to McLeod. “I think it will save time if you admit you are the person whose name I have written here.” He leaned forward slightly.
McLeod tore the paper into bits. He did not reply immediately, his fingers working aimlessly at a button on his shirt pocket. Finally he got it open, slipped the scraps within, and closed the flap. “All right,” he said at last, “that gentleman and myself are identical.”
“Jim-dandy,” Hollingsworth said.
He passed across the desk a yellowed newspaper clipping on which I could glimpse a group photograph of several men. “You can see the time we saved. I’m glad you also think honesty is the best policy. Now if we can just continue like this …”
McLeod made no response. He leaned back in his chair, twisted around slowly to look at me. Then he winked. It seemed a painful attempt.
Hollingsworth was studying some papers he had withdrawn from the briefcase. “I wonder,” he said finally, “if you would be so kind as to outline for me the biography of the gentleman mentioned.”
“You have it all there,” McLeod protested.
“One never knows.”
Staring at the ceiling, McLeod recited as if to himself, “Born of working-class background. Age of twenty in 1921. Became interested in the revolutionary movement. Worked as machinist, studied Marxist classics at night. Joined the Party 1922.” And the foundation outlined, he went on in the same dry voice he always employed in talking about himself, to list a series of positions. He was in this country and he was in the other, he fulfilled one function only to surpass it with the next, so that in a steady ascent from branch to district to national, spiced with the inevitable journeys to Mecca, he outlined a history whose items were not uncharacteristic. Here, he led a strike; there, he was the focus of agit-prop; a factional fight; a stretch in jail; member of American Central Committee; each fact a brick to be laid in position an
d tamped with mortar, the date following the statement with careful precision. “Returned abroad, 1932. Travelled extensively, 1932-1935. In Soviet, 1935-1936. Spain, 1936-1938.” More trips following upon them, a year in Moscow, a year in America, but now he was vague and the conditions were unnamed. He floundered ever so slightly, correcting himself once about a date, and then, without transition, in the same voice with which he had related the rest, stated, “In 1941, left the Party. Subsequently worked as statistician for American government bureau 1941-1942. Under assumed name. Quit bureau in 1942. Since worked at odd jobs under name of William McLeod. That’s all.”
Hollingsworth had been making check marks on the typewritten pages before him. “You say you worked as a statistician for a government bureau of this country?”
McLeod grinned. “Why don’t you call it a first approximation?”
“A fellow can let it pass for the moment.” Hollingsworth wiped a cowlick out of his eye. “In 1935 you were in a certain Balkan country.”
McLeod seemed to be trying to remember. “For a week or two.”
“You speak a particular Balkan language fluently.”
“With a very bad accent.”
Hollingsworth shook his head. “Fluently.”
Leaning forward in his chair, McLeod looked at him. “What are you getting at?”
“There’s some doubt as to the country of your origin.”
“I was born here. You have it listed in your papers, no doubt.”
“We cannot find a record of birth.”
“Your concern, I should say, not mine.”
Hollingsworth sighed. “It’s all very complicated.” He wrote something again on the pad of paper and extended it to McLeod. “You see that Balkan name?”
McLeod nodded. “Means nothing to me.”
“Oh, the fellow it seems is quite a character. Born in one of the Balkan countries by a father of that nationality and an Irish mother. You never met him in 1936?”
“Never.” McLeod shook his head in emphasis.
“That was the name you used in said country.”
“You’re mistaken.”
“I have photographs here.”
“Show them to me.” Both of them had begun to rise in their seat.
“For the time being I’ll hold them.”
“You don’t have photographs,” McLeod said.
Hollingsworth took out his cigarettes, lit one for himself and then offered the pack to Lannie. She had come out of her reverie and was staring at McLeod with an intensity so great that he would turn away each time their eyes met.
“Taking into account the name of the first gentleman we have agreed upon,” Hollingsworth continued, “would you care to admit that he came to America at the age of seventeen from that Balkan country and returned on numerous occasions?”
McLeod seemed puzzled. He rapped a finger against his teeth as though to assess whether they were hollow. “I hardly know your purpose, Leroy. It seems an extraordinary approach to me, but in any case I will state with complete assurance that the answer is no.”
Hollingsworth did not seem perturbed. Unhurriedly, he read aloud from a note he held in his hand. “Proficient in conspiratorial techniques. Leader of—I would prefer not to mention the names of these organizations before your friend. Speaks English fluently with Irish inflection.”
“You know quite well,” McLeod drawled, “that I speak English with a bad accent.”
Hollingsworth continued to study the paper. “Notorious in his activities. Reputation as the ‘hangman of the Left Opposition.’ ” He removed wax from his ear with a finger. “Correct a fellow if he’s wrong,” he went on, “but they’re another one of these conspiratorial organizations, I understand. Lesser importance. Not considered worthy of top urgent attention.” Hollingsworth ended his recitation. “This gentleman means nothing to you?”
“Nothing at all.”
“One must always be prepared for delays I suppose.” He made a passing remark. “Can we think of this fellow as your brother?” In the course of saying this, he kept looking at his cigarette upon which a half-inch of ash had accumulated, and seeing no ashtray on the desk held it over the floor. “Do you mind if I drop it here?” he asked immediately after his first question.
McLeod answered the second. “I’ll get a plate for you.” He rummaged through the closet and came up with a single dish which he set upon the desk. “I’d appreciate it, Miss Madison,” he said quietly, “if you would use it as well. You may enjoy dirtying the floor, but you’ll have to curb the pleasure.”
Lannie’s hand trembled, her eyes seemed enormous. She was about to speak, and then restrained herself.
Hollingsworth cleared his throat. “I must ask you again to request Mr. Lovett to leave the room.”
McLeod looked at me and I shook my head. “Afraid not,” McLeod said.
Holding the pencil between his finger tips as though he were demonstrating the size of a fish, Hollingsworth waved both hands slowly up and down in unconscious adjuration. “It would decidedly be for the better for all concerned.” His flat blue eyes stared past me lifelessly. “I shall have to make a report about this. Mr. Lovett will be in the position of a gentleman possessing State Information.”
“You’ve always got the option,” McLeod said slowly, “of taking me in and barring the cell. Why is it that you don’t?”
Hollingsworth made no answer.
“It occurs to me that you’re making no report about this little interview.”
“The department allows a wide latitude in interrogative techniques,” Hollingsworth said coldly.
“Not that wide. To skip the paper work? To have no record of what we say? Man, you’ve already committed the first heresy.”
“Much as a fellow might appreciate the benefits of your experience, I have to ask you to allow me my own methods.”
“I don’t think you understand yourself what’s in your head. If I were your superior, and knew you made no record, I’d set a man to watch you, and a man for him as well.”
Hollingsworth’s cheeks had reddened. He looked like a little boy being reprimanded. “I think the best thing is to proceed,” he said quietly.
“Oh, of course. To the workbench by all means.” To my surprise McLeod seemed furious. “For the record I protest this approach.”
Hollingsworth blinked his eyes slowly, pleased apparently by McLeod’s anger. “Would you care,” he said very softly, “to relate any special occurrences which took place while you worked as a statistician in the aforesaid and unnamed bureau of the government?”
“Nothing took place.”
Hollingsworth clicked his tongue. “I hate to be unpleasant, but this is an outright lie as we all know. It can only lead to a fellow making certain assumptions.”
A pause. “All right, it was a lie,” McLeod said. “Something did happen, but I know little about it.”
“If you would tell a fellow what you do know,” Hollingsworth requested courteously.
McLeod lit a cigarette and watched the flame on the match as it crept toward his fingers. When it seemed about to burn him, he blew it out and watched the smoke drift upward from the molten head, a dreamy smile upon his mouth. At last he seemed to collect himself. “I have your permission to be long-winded?” he asked Hollingsworth.
“I would like the story to be complete without being extended beyond the bounds of a fellow’s patience, if you don’t mind,” he said.
“There’s a lot for you to learn in it,” McLeod observed. “If you guard a machine ye’re obliged to suffer its anxiety.” He drew smoke from his cigarette, and began to talk. As though compelled to organize even those materials most alien to him, he delivered a long speech or more precisely a lecture, hurrying himself just perceptibly if he thought Hollingsworth about to ask a question, dallying over details when he sensed that he had our attention. The discourse was for Hollingsworth, but it was for myself as well, and there were moments when he was talking directly to Lannie.
“You may put it,” McLeod began, “that I worked in one of the endless ramifications of the embryonic State Capitalism, a big place with thousands of people and thousands of desks, and this but the local branch, mind you.”
He went on to describe with relish how the various parts of the organism fitted together, the circuits of the memos in their pneumatic carriers, the hierarchy of the telephones, the schedule of the elevators, the honor-guard of the secretaries, and the stenographers arranged by hundreds on the floor, geared to the communications which moved with their own laws and their own inertia from office to office, and occasionally embarked on a journey between the outside world and the inner structure. “In all this, you might say I was only a blood cell in a minor organ.”
Then, after years of regular and orderly process, something happened. “I don’t know, I can’t tell you what it was,” McLeod said, “an object of some sort or other, not too large I imagine, but it was gone, and no one knew how.”
The organism reeled from the shock and trembled to its extremities. “You cannot appreciate it unless you were there, unless you’d donated your time to the tune of a thousand days, and each morning you’d passed the guards and gone to your own proper elevator, got off at your own floor and sat before your desk which rested there waiting for you all through the night. The displacement of that little object displaced a great deal else. Cysts broke, pus spread, the blood became infected and carried the fever with it. You should have seen the giant stagger. There were guards collected at every joint and operations galore. The stripping of elevators and the examination of cables, the counting of pneumatic carriers, the tapping of the telephones, the questioning of ignorant stenographers.” McLeod held out his hands to encompass the enormity of the operation. “You must understand,” he said, “that this was subtle as well. It didn’t happen all at once, and at no time did the works shut down. The memos still went back and forth, the desks were filled, the guards would nod at you in the morning, and the stenographers like the little geese they are would take off in a flock for the john at the stroke of ten.”
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