Short Stories: Five Decades (76 page)

“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 consul 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.

“I came down from the embassy earlier than I expected,” the consul said, when my husband had seated himself, “because I had to tell you this myself. You’re suspended, John, as of close of business this day.”

My husband has told me, speaking of that moment, that he experienced a curious sense of relief. Subconsciously and without apparent reason, for almost two years, he had been living in expectation of hearing just those words. Now that they had been finally said, it was almost as though a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. Certainty, even of so disastrous a nature, was, for a flicker in time, more comfortable to bear than continuing doubt.

“Repeat that, please,” my husband said.

“You’re suspended,” the consul said, “and I advise you to resign immediately.”

“I’m permitted to resign?” my husband asked.

“Yes,” said the consul. “Friends of yours have been working for you behind the scenes and they’ve managed that.”

“What’s the complaint against me?” my husband asked. Curiously enough, despite his premonitions of the last two years, he had, up until that moment, no inkling of what the complaint would be.

“It’s a morals charge. John,” the consul said. “And if you fight it, that much is bound to get out and you know what people will think.”

“They’ll think that I’ve been kicked out for homosexuality,” my husband said.

“Well, not the people who really know you,” said the consul. “But everyone else …”

“And if I fight it and win?”

“That’s not possible, John,” the consul said. “They’ve had people after you and they know all about the lady who tried to commit suicide. They have statements from the doctor, from the porter at the lady’s apartment, from somebody at the embassy who went out and did some detective work on his own and then tipped them off.”

“Who was that?” my husband asked.

“I can’t say,” the consul said, “and you’ll never find out.”

“But it happened more than five years ago,” my husband said.

“That makes no difference,” said the consul. “It happened.”

“If I resign suddenly, like this,” my husband said, “the people who don’t think it’s because of homosexuality will think it’s because I’m a security risk—or disloyal.”

“I told you,” the consul said, “that everybody concerned has agreed to keep it as quiet as possible.”

“Still,” my husband said, “these things always leak a little.”

“A little,” the consul admitted. “Perhaps the best thing would be for you to leave as quietly as possible and go to some place where you’re not known for a year or so and let it blow over.”

“What if I were to go to all the people I’ve worked for in the Service,” my husband said, “and got statements from them about the value of my work for those periods while I was with them—that is, a defense of my record to balance against this one extracurricular offense—”

“There are no extracurricular offenses any more,” the consul said.

“Still,” my husband persisted. “What if I got the statements—some of them from people very high in the government by now—”

“It wouldn’t do any good,” the consul said.

“Even so,” my husband said, “perhaps I’d like to try. Would you make such a statement for me?”

The consul hesitated for a moment. “No,” he said.

“Why not?” my husband asked.

“For several reasons,” the consul said. “Remember, you’re being treated leniently. You’re being permitted to resign and people have agreed to do their best to keep it quiet. If you oppose them, you’re bound to anger someone who’ll talk and you’ll find yourself all over the newspapers and dismissed summarily, to boot. Secondly, if I give you a statement, no matter how closely I keep it to a professional evaluation of your work in this consulate, I’ll seem to be encouraging you in your opposition and lining myself up on your side. Believe me, John,” the consul said, and according to my husband, he sounded sincere, “if I thought it would help you, I’d do it. But knowing that it would
hurt
you, it’s out of the question.”

My husband nodded, collected his things, and walked out of his office for the last time. He came home and told me what had happened. We cancelled the bridge party I had intended to give and discussed the matter the better part of the night. A good deal of the time we spent speculating on the identity of the person at the embassy who had taken it on himself to track down John’s story. We could fix on no one and to this day we have no hint as to who it might possibly have been.

In the morning John sent in his resignation and two weeks later we flew to America. We bought a car and set out West, looking for a small, quiet place, in which we could live cheaply and without neighbors. We had a lovely trip and we enjoyed the richness of the scenery and talking once more to Americans, after being so long abroad.

We found our little house, by luck. After five minutes of inspecting it and surveying the empty desert lying on all sides of it, we made our minds up and have not regretted the decision for a moment. I have rearranged the furniture to suit our tastes and had two large bookcases built for John’s books. The hurricane lamps I bought the day John worked for the last time serve us wonderfully for our dinners in the patio under the starry desert sky.

There was only one incident in all the time that made me feel that perhaps our plan for ourselves was not going to work out, and it was entirely due to my thoughtlessness that it happened at all. Several months ago, on one of my trips to town, I bought a fashion magazine which had in it an article, illustrated by photographs, entitled, with typical vulgarity, “Fashionable Americans Abroad.” There, pictured on a snowy terrace at St. Moritz, was the consul and his wife. They were both deeply tanned and smiling widely. They looked, I must confess, very handsome and young and lucky in their skiing clothes. Thinking, foolishly, that it would amuse my husband, I passed him the magazine, saying, “He still manages to get around, doesn’t he?”

My husband looked for a long time at the photograph and gave it back to me, finally, without a word. That night, he went for a long walk across the desert and did not come back until just before dawn, and when I saw him the next morning, his face looked old and ravaged, as though he had spent the night in bitter struggle. The peace and forgetfulness that I had thought we were achieving were all vanished from his face and for once, in my presence, his defenses were gone and all the violence of his pride, his endless ambition, his baffled jealousy, were plainly evident, all focussed and brought to an unbearably painful point in the smiling image of the man he had once admired and served so faithfully.

“Never do anything like that to me again,” he said, in the morning, and although we had not spoken a word to each other for nearly twelve hours, I knew what he meant.

But it is all over now, although it took the better part of three months, and during that time my husband said hardly a word to me, hardly even read—but spent the days staring across the desert and the nights staring into the fire, like a bankrupt going over his accounts again and again, running the losses through his head, in helpless, silent hysteria. But this morning I came in from town with a letter from Michael, who, alone among our old friends, continued to correspond with us. It was a short letter and my husband read it quickly, standing up, and without changing his expression. When he had finished he handed the letter to me.