Capable of Honor (13 page)

“Healthy,” Senator Smith said, with a certain bitterness in his voice in spite of himself as he thought of the smiling, handsome youth sitting serenely in his closed-off world. “Always healthy. But no improvement at all”—he tapped his forehead—“up here. However,” he added firmly, “I am determined to bring that boy back if it is humanly possible to do so, and I will. He’s in a sanitarium up the Hudson, you know. I go up twice a week now and work with him. The people there say he’s beginning to expect me, but I can’t tell. He never got to expecting Hal, though he went there often enough, poor guy. But I’m working. It doesn’t leave much time for extracurricular activities. And you know?” he added with a curiously naïve air that touched his companion, “I find I don’t really mind it much, now that I have something important to think about instead of just me.”

“Maybe Hal accomplished something with his dying,” Cullee suggested gently. Lafe nodded.

“Hal accomplished a lot of things with his dying. Whether they know it in the UN or not.”

“Oh, they know it,” Cullee Hamilton said bitterly. “They remember his last speech, though they’d rather not. They’re dying themselves, and they know that, too, but they try to keep on pretending it isn’t so.…I won’t mind getting off the delegation. I’ve had about enough of watching them destroy the hopes of the world with their petty bickering and their insane drive to destroy every rule of civilized behavior that makes any attempt at strengthening world order.”

“You couldn’t tell Selena and her guests that the UN is dying. They’d scream bloody murder and call you a damned reactionary.”

Congressman Hamilton made a scornful sound.

“That crew,” he said. And again: “
That crew.
” They rode in silence for a little until Lafe broke it, more lightly.

“And what about your extracurricular activities? Seems to me I see you and Sarah Johnson at an awful lot of UN parties together lately. Is this true love or just relaxation?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think either of us has thought it through, yet.”

“She has, you can bet,” Senator Smith assured him. “They always do.…Where’s Sue-Dan these days? Are you getting a divorce?”

“Seems to me you’re getting awfully personal all of a sudden,” his companion said with a frown and a note of genuine annoyance in his voice. But on the strength of a good and genuine friendship, Lafe refused to be impressed.

“You know me,” he said with his engaging, boyish grin. “What fun is a world without gossip? I’m getting a divorce, for what it’s worth as an example to you.”

“Yes, but you don’t love her,” Cullee said, his voice so low Lafe could hardly hear it. “God help me, I still do.”

“You’d be better off,” Lafe said, though he knew he was risking a real explosion if he kept it up. “You know it.”

“I know it,” Cullee said, “But my heart and my guts and my—the rest of me, don’t know it.” He brought a powerful fist down upon his knee with a sudden heavy sigh. “Ah, damn it!”

“Where is she?” Lafe asked in a matter-of-fact tone. “Did she decide to go to work for LeGage Shelby in DEFY?”

“Yes, she’s jazzing around with that no-good, loudmouth sonny-boy I used to call a friend,” Congressman Hamilton said, a frown deepening on his handsome face at the thought of his clever, ambition-whipped ex-roommate and the Defenders of Equality for You that he had put together from the more irresponsible elements of the younger Negro community. “Both of them laughing and sneering at me all day long, I expect. Well,” he said darkly, “time takes care of the likes of that. You go down that road, you end up in a smash. Or so my Maudie tells me.”

“Who’s Maudie?” Lafe asked with a smile. “Another girl friend?”

“She’s my sixtyish girl friend. She keeps my house for me in Washington. She’s about the only company I’ve got down there, now Sue-Dan’s—gone away.…Anyway,” he added with a bitter little laugh, “I’ve got a good excuse not to get a divorce right now. You didn’t ever hear of a Senatorial candidate getting a divorce before election day. The voters don’t like that.”

“If she’s running with DEFY, you’d be better off getting one.”

“Maybe in Iowa,” Congressman Hamilton said, “but out in California DEFY and all the rest of the alphabet go over big, you know. It doesn’t hurt me to have a wife and an ex-campaign manager with DEFY. Politically, that is. Other ways, voters wouldn’t care about anyway.”

“Walter Dobius says DEFY is a sterling symbol of the noblest aspirations of the younger elements of the Negro race, constructive in purpose, democratic in procedure, forward-looking in thought, and profoundly a part of the American dream,” Senator Smith informed him solemnly. “Don’t you agree?”

Congressman Hamilton snorted.

“What Walter Dobius doesn’t know about the Negro race and its aspirations would fill even more books than he’s written. And be about equally intelligent, in my opinion.”

“That’s heresy. In the first degree. Walter thinks he’s going to make the whole world hop Friday night when he makes that speech for Ted.”

“Won’t make me hop,” Cullee said bluntly. “He never has and never will. I got Walter’s number about ten days after I arrived on the Hill. He came around to give me a few pointers on how to lead the Negro revolution from a back row seat in the House. It was kind of him, but it didn’t have much bearing on the realities in that great body.”

“Walter pretty well tells everybody how to do everything,” Lafe said thoughtfully. “Of all the sad cases of
ego gigantea Washingtonia
I know, I think he’s about the worst. The annoying thing about it is that he can write—and he’s a terrific reporter—and he really does do a conscientious job, according to his lights. It isn’t easy to dismiss him out of hand. He’s too damned good.”

“He and his pals can swing maybe five hundred thousand votes in California,” Congressman Hamilton said matter-of-factly. “That’s enough to be decisive.”

“But you aren’t going to let that influence you,” Lafe suggested with a humorous certainty.

“I’m not going to let that influence me.…What do you think of this business tomorrow in Security Council?”

The Senator from Iowa looked grave.

“I think Walter and his friends are going to scream to high heaven if it happens. I think it may very well be a decisive factor in the presidential election. I think it may beat Orrin, if he runs, and it may even beat the President, if he runs. Certainly it will if Walter and his world have anything to say about it. And we know they will.”

“You really think it’s as bad as that,” Cullee said thoughtfully. “Maybe you’re right.”

Lafe stared grimly out at the driving snow as though all the world’s devils were in it, while the car crept slowly down toward the Waldorf.

“Just look at the consequences that can flow from it,” he said finally. “War could come from this, buddy. Don’t make any mistake about it.”

Cullee gave him a quizzical look.

“It wouldn’t if Harley would back down.”

“I have the feeling Harley thinks we’ve backed down long enough. What do you think?”

“Oh, I agree. I’ve always agreed. But if you think it will beat Orrin and Harley, then it will probably beat me. Because I certainly shan’t sidestep the issue, regardless of Jasons or anything else. Nor will you—you run, too, this year, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes. And Iowa, I’m very much afraid, is going to be inclined to agree with Walter Dobius—for different reasons, but with the same result for me. But”—he gave his charming grin—“I have a trick or two up my sleeve. Uncle Lafe isn’t beaten yet, by a long shot. I’ve talked Iowa around before, when the right’s been on my side. And I will this time, although”—his expression became somber—“it won’t be so easy.”

“Well,” Cullee said as the car came to a crunching halt in the drift in front of the Waldorf, “it may not be necessary. This may go entirely differently tomorrow.”

“Maybe. But don’t bet on it.…Want a nightcap before we turn in?”

Cullee nodded.

“Sure.…Oh, oh!” he added with a sudden humorous note as the warmth of the lobby enveloped them and he saw seated across the room a giant ebony figure, looking, though it was obviously trying not to, dejected and forlorn for all its gorgeous robes and haughty air. “Do you see who I see?”

Lafe chuckled.

“I do. Shall we spread a little cheer by inviting him to join us?”

“He sure needs it,” Cullee Hamilton said, not without a certain relish. “Boy, does he ever. However, if you don’t mind—”

“O.K.,” Lafe agreed. “We’ve had our fill of him, after all.…Tell me,” he said as they walked on by, not looking at Terry, carefully ignoring his sudden recognition, his eager starting to rise, his forlorn sinking down again as he realized they did not want to see him, “did you ever meet Mabel Anderson—Brigham Anderson’s wife?”

“No, I haven’t,” Cullee said as they entered the bar. Something in his companion’s expression caused him to smile. “Oh, that’s it, is it?”

“No,” Lafe said thoughtfully. “Not necessarily. I got a letter from her today, though. First I’ve heard from her since she left Washington after his death.…She’s a nice girl,” he added, as if to himself. Then he grinned. “I know what you’re thinking—too nice for Lover Lafe. But maybe Lover Lafe is ready to settle down. Who knows?”

“Write her back, by all means,” Cullee suggested with a smile. “At once.”

“I already have,” Senator Smith admitted, with an obvious satisfaction that made his friend laugh.

“We’d better drink to that,” Cullee said. “What’ll you have?”

“Something for that,” Lafe said, “and also something to wish luck to our friend in the lobby. He needs it.”

And, indeed, it was clear to any perceptive observer that His Royal Highness Terence Wolowo Ajkaje, 137th M’Bulu of Mbuele, ruler—as long as he could hang on—of turbulent Gorotoland, outstanding young leader—at least he
had
been, until just recently—of emerging Africa, did, indubitably, need all the cheer he could get.

Life was doing puzzling and unhappy things to the 137th M’Bulu, and he still was in something of a daze about it. His was a sad case. “Yesterday’s hero”—as the
London Daily Mail
had put it to the
Daily Telegraph
only this morning in the Delegates’ Lounge—“today’s bum.” It was a strange and unsettling experience for one possessed, but a few short weeks ago, of the unrestrained plaudits and unstinting assistance of all those elements, both in the United States and abroad, who now turned upon him stony and unfriendly faces as they went happily about the business of helping his cousinly rival hurl him from his throne. And all for no logical reason that he could see—except that his cousin, the hated Obifumatta, had managed to capture both the support of the Communists and the attention of all those legend-makers and seekers after truth—the right kind of truth, of course, and the proper kind of legend—who had so recently favored Terry himself with their fond and encouraging regard.

It was all very peculiar. Six months ago Terence Ajkaje—“Terrible Terry” to the jet-set and the world’s headlines—had descended upon the United States and the United Nations like an avenging black angel riding down a path of light to blast away the enemies of progress. (That was the way he had actually been portrayed, in fact, in a cartoon in the
Washington Post
. Alas, the contrast today! Now he appeared in the
Post
’s cartoons skulking out from under a manhole cover in the street across from the UN building, emitting from his mouth such fictitious and unfair comments as, “That ship can’t desert us sinking rats!”
Sic transit gloria mundi
, at least on some people’s editorial pages, and all in the sad short space of six little months.)

Half a year only separated him from his days of triumph. Those were the glorious days in which he had literally captured the attention of the world when he escorted a little colored girl to school in South Carolina and was stoned and egged for his deed. Those were the great days when, aided by the Communist bloc, most of his fellow Africans and Asians, and such enemies of the United States as Panama’s Ambassador Felix Labaiya-Sofra, he had roused the brawling United Nations to frenzy and come within a single vote of winning censure of the United States for its racial policies. Those were the times of triumph when Terrible Terry was on the cover of
Time
,
Life
,
Look
,
Newsweek
, the
Saturday Evening Post
, and
Screen Gems
; when the
New York Times
vied with the
New York Post
, the New York
World Journal Tribune
, and even the
Christian Science Monitor
in heaping praises on his head; when the English language—except for a few sourly skeptical editorials in the place where the English language began—hardly held enough glowing words to do him tribute. And then—suddenly—disaster. Collapse. Bursting bubbles. Popped balloons. A pained reaction every time he heard, “The Party’s Over” on the radio. Calumny. Criticism. Slander. Libel. Denunciation. The End.

Or almost The End. The End if it hadn’t been for the powers he had done so much to harass six months ago; The End without the United States and Great Britain.

And why? What had he done, except be the dutiful agent of all the enemies, both foreign and domestic, of those two peculiar countries? Hadn’t he appeared on all the right television programs, addressed all the right forums, attended all the right functions (including, he recalled with a special bitterness tonight, a party given by Selena Jason Castleberry “In Aid of Independent Gorotoland”), produced all the right answers to all the right questions put to him by all the right interviewers? He had denounced “imperialist aggression” as self-righteously as anyone, his caustic strictures on “neo-colonialist adventurism” had rung out with the best, no one had done more than he to thwart, besmirch, and demean the United States and the United Kingdom. Walter Dobius had written a total of ten columns supporting him, Walter’s friends and colleagues in both countries had given him the full treatment to speed success for his cause and disaster for their own governments. And now it was all gone. Where, and how, and why?

The process had begun, he could see now, with the weird little riot that had occurred in his capital city of Molobangwe just on the eve of his most triumphant moments at the UN. When Terry had left dusty Molobangwe to come to New York seeking immediate independence from Britain and the confusion of the United States on racial matters, he had appointed his mother, aging but still shrewd and ruthless, to serve as co-regent with his cousin Obifumatta. Prince Obi, scion of one of the royal family’s many cadet branches, had sworn blood oaths and fealty ten times over, and although Terry realized that he possessed an intelligence and ambition almost as great as his own, he had decided to take the chance of leaving him in command. He had been confident at the time that the Council of Elders who advised the throne would take stern and immediate action if Obifumatta attempted anything disloyal. He was also certain that if the Council failed in such a crisis, his mother would poison Obi at once. He therefore left home feeling quite serene. He had made just one little mistake: although he had secretly accepted Soviet and Chinese Communist aid, like many another ambitious African adventurer he had been sufficiently egotistical to think that he could somehow escape being presented with the bill for it.