A Shade of Difference (101 page)

When it came to wives, he thought with a gentle little smile at his own fancy, the older models seemed to be the best models. With the newer ones, something too often seemed to go wrong with the automatic transmission. With the older ones you could feel comfortable doing what he was now about to do, as he lifted the receiver of his private telephone and dialed a number in Spring Valley. He could see the book-lined study where the phone was ringing, the desk, cluttered like his own, where both the man and the lady of the house worked together on speeches and legislation and all the other matters that now concerned them. It was a homey room, and he had a warm feeling about it, increased when he heard the gravely pleasant voice of its proprietress say hello.

“Beth,” he said, “I’ve just sent home a worried man to you. I think you should repair his morale with your kindly ministrations.”

She chuckled.

“I always do, Mr. President. What makes this so special?”

“A lot of things, I think. Seab’s death. What happened to Cullee. Uncertainties about our course in this present matter. Things that are happening in the world—the lot. It’s not so easy being Secretary of State in times like these.”

“Or President, either. I think you both manage very well.”

“Thank you. I try, as he does. It isn’t always very clear what the course is, but—we go ahead. Largely, I suspect,” he added humorously. “Because there isn’t anywhere else to go. But, seriously—he does seem quite disturbed tonight. Unusually so, for Orrin. I’ve told him not to worry, and I want you to know that he has no cause for it from me. I’m thoroughly satisfied with the job he’s doing.”

“I’m sure you are, and we both appreciate it. I know he has been very worried about this whole situation. A good deal of what he’s felt he must do has gone against his basic feelings about it—he would have been much more impatient and much more critical if he were still in the Senate, of course. But he is really trying hard to adapt himself to this new position, understand its demands and necessities, and view the world from the different perspective that it requires. It isn’t always easy.” She gave a rueful little laugh. “Foggy Bottom isn’t the Hill.”

“No more is the White House. It’s amazing the difference a mile of Pennsylvania Avenue can make. Well: I just wanted you to know that he really does have my complete confidence and support. I also wanted to give you my love and thank you for helping him. That helps me, too. And it helps the country, of course. We’re all in your debt.”

“You’re very kind, Harley. You’re one of this world’s really good people, I think. I feel very fortunate that we have you there, right now.”

“Thank you, my dear, I value that. One other thing, that I forgot to ask him when he was here. Have you heard him say where Hal Fry is?”

“I believe he’s in Harkness Pavilion tonight. I’m dreadfully worried about that.”

“So am I. We don’t know quite what it is, but evidently it’s something pretty final. Such a tragedy, on top of the others he’s had. I just wanted to call him and tell him we’re with him.”

“Again, you’re very kind.”

“It’s a small gift, to stay the world.”

“It may be all we have,” she said.

“Yes,” the President agreed thoughtfully. “Yes.”

“Give Hal my love, too, will you?”

“I will. And, as I say—boost your old boy’s morale for me.”

“I will, Mr. President. Thank you so much for calling. My love to Lucille.”

“Thank you.”

That was one good wife, and waiting down the hall, probably reading quietly, was another, ready to hear whatever he wished to tell her about the problems of the day.

There really wasn’t a great deal, except that they never decreased, only increased, and that each time one diminished another surged into urgency to take its place. It was a never-ending flood, and there really wasn’t much to say. Here he was—and there they came—and that about summed it up. There was no getting out of the way, no finding someone else upon whom to shove off final decisions, because there wasn’t anyone else. He was It, and in the crucible of Geneva so soon upon his taking office he had realized that by some fortunate fluke of fate and character he was going to be able to carry the burden without either maudlin self-pity or self-blinding egotism. He just kept going along, doing the best he knew how, meeting each new challenge as it arose, refusing to be stampeded into fear or persuaded into overconfidence, and somehow one day followed another and the world was still here, and maybe, in a few little areas, somewhat more hopeful than it had been the day before. That was about all one could expect in this age, he had decided, and he was content that he possessed the character and the ability to lead the country forward in this slow, inch-by-inch progress toward some hoped-for era of stability and peace that remained very far off but might yet be attained if the decent element in mankind could but be given sufficient time, patience, and devoted determination.

It was in that spirit that he had accepted Orrin’s ideas, which substantially paralleled his own once he understood the full nature of Terrible Terry’s visit and its ramifications, concerning how best to meet the situation in the United Nations. It had been asking much of the country and the Congress to accept what many Americans regarded as a deliberate self-humiliation in the face of an unprincipled international demand. But they had been willing to follow him and the Secretary because they had confidence in their honor and good intentions.

Now the Secretary was much disturbed, and so apparently were their representatives at the UN, because of some last-minute rumors that the voluntary act of the Administration, carried out in good faith and with good intentions, might not be regarded as sufficient. He could not believe that the judgments of the Assembly could be so shallow; nor could he believe, if it came right down to a matter of basic influence, that the United States could be overridden on an issue that would require a two-thirds majority to do what the enemies of the United States wished to do. He was satisfied that his Administration had done and was doing everything necessary both to meet the honest demand and to thwart the punitive harassment. So he did not feel, on this night before the final debate, that any of them should feel upset or uncertain about it.

Particularly must Hal not feel so, burdened as he was by personal harassments far more dreadful than any of the rest of them had to bear. The President could only imagine the dark passage through which the senior Senator from West Virginia must be moving now, its terrors made even more terrible by the fact that he had gone through similar passages before. Except, of course, that none could be quite so terrible as the certainty of one’s own death, conferred by a fate that must seem capricious and evil and unfair beyond all rationalization.

It was for this reason, far more than any worry that he might have that Hal would fail him in the debate, that he wanted to talk to him now. Yet it must be in exactly the right tone, neither overly pitying nor overly businesslike, or it would defeat its own purpose. He thought for a while, staring thoughtfully out upon the shining obelisk of the Washington Monument, before he picked up the phone again and put through his call.

The last brisk nurse had popped in with orange juice, the last bright intern had painstakingly made him recite his medical history all over again, silence had fallen at last upon the great hospital—and there had descended upon him at once the most completely devastating feeling of depression he had ever known. Now the busy pursuits of his day at the United Nations were far away. Now he must face his situation without devised and determined distraction, without thought-muffling activity, without anyone or anything to help him. Nothing he had experienced up to this moment could compare with the wave of desolation that swept over him now.

Out of his despair he cried out to a God who had apparently forsaken him, in stumbling words and half-formed phrases that made little sense save agony as he whispered them into the darkened room. In some pain-wracked harking-back that he could not explain and whose impulse and origin he could not remember, he kept saying over and over again, like a little boy, “Why are You mad at me? Why are You mad at me?” Somewhere he had heard the question before, somewhere far away, but where or when he could not say; nor could he understand why God did not give answer to so anguished and sincere an inquiry.

So passed time, how much he did not know, as the long night deepened and with it his awful loneliness. There came the moment eventually when the last defense, a great bitter rage, welled up and he told God that he no longer believed in Him, that He did not exist, that He was a mockery, that no Deity Who could visit upon a man so many pointless agonies could possibly make claim to further faith or respect. And after that, in due course, out of the shattering silence of the universe that followed this anguished repudiation, there came the slow, steady, inevitable restoration of faith; the benison of a great humility; the knowledge, implanted in him in childhood and never far from his thoughts in all his troubles, that God was with him always and that no rejection, however bitter, however violent, however terrible, could remove His loving presence or drive It from the world.

And with this, finally, there came the beginnings of peace; the tentative, struggling, but ever-stronger return of serenity; the gradual regrowth of certitude and hope; the acceptance that passeth understanding, out of the love that passeth understanding. Gradually he stopped raging, stopped crying, stopped worrying, stopped forever being torn apart by alternatives and might-have-beens. For reasons he could not understand, for purposes not of his making, he had been given a path to follow in his closing days on earth: So be it. Thus had the Lord directed him, and thus would he do. Never again in the time remaining would he be a victim to doubt and despair. God was not mad at him, and though he did not understand God’s reasons, he would believe in them and go forward in the calm certainty that in some way he perhaps would never understand, they made sense and would give him strength to do for his country whatever tasks still lay ahead.

It was thus with a growing serenity and peace that he heard the phone ring and, lifting the receiver, heard a quiet voice saying, “Hal, this is Harley. How are you feeling?”

“I’m feeling fine,” he said, and there was in his words a vigor and a joy that thrilled and startled them both; and the President responded to it with a joy of his own.

“I am so happy to hear it, and I can tell in your voice that you mean it.”

“I do, Harley,” he said eagerly, “I do. I’ve been lying here thinking—and praying—and somehow, suddenly, it’s all begun to make sense. I didn’t think I’d make it, a little while ago, but—but now I do. I don’t know why, exactly, unless it’s God helping me, but—I just do. So you needn’t worry about me, any more.”

“Well, I think that’s wonderful,” the President said. “Wonderful for you, and wonderful for all of us.”

“Harley,” he asked, still eagerly, and still almost like a little child, a happy child now, wanting to share with someone what had happened to him, “do you ever have experiences like that, in what you’re doing? I mean, when it seems as though there’s no way out, and you feel an awful despair and start thinking there isn’t any God, and then—all of a sudden, when you’ve finally told Him to go to hell and you’re all through with Him—you suddenly realize He’s still there, that He’s been there all the time, watching over you just the same as always?”

“Yes, I do,” the President said after a moment, when he found he could speak again. “You don’t know how often it happens in this office.”

“It’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it?”

“It’s a wonderful thing. And it’s wonderful to hear you so happy in it. I wanted you to know, also, that you have all our love, down here. We’re all of us thinking of you and wishing you well. We know you will do well tomorrow; we have no doubts.”

“Thank you so much, Harley. You don’t know how much that means to me.

“You have our love,” the President repeated. “Sleep well.”

“I will,” he said. “Oh, now I will. Good night, Harley, and God bless you.”

“You, too.”

“He has,” Hal Fry told him with an unshakable conviction. “In my friends—in my country—in His love. I’m all right, Harley. Don’t worry about me any more.”

“I couldn’t,” the President said. “Not any more. Good night, old friend. May you have a good journey and come safe to harbor.”

“I will,” he said with an eager confidence. “I will.”

He lay completely still for perhaps five minutes after their conversation ended. An utter calm, an utter peace flooded into his heart and took gentle dominion of his mind. His exhausted body relaxed. He slept, as deeply and sweetly as a child.

3

On the elevated dais above the green marble podium, the Secretary-General sat all alone in the third of the three seats there, staring out upon the gleaming Assembly Hall as it slowly filled for the resumption of debate on the Labaiya proposals. The President of the Assembly, involved since yesterday in a futile argument with Guiana about its invasion of Surinam, had not yet appeared, and indeed the S.-G. wondered whether he would be able to, so heated and unproductive have the conversations been, so long drawn out and tiring. Last night’s emergency session of the Security Council had merely put the final seal on it. The Netherlands’ attempt to have Guiana condemned for aggression had been vetoed by the Soviet Union, though the United States in the person of Senator Smith had argued for it, repeating the same arguments his country had used on several such occasions in recent years. This had not won the United States any friends, of course; it was just one of those gestures toward principle that the Americans, aided by the British and French persisted in making from time to time. He supposed it would perhaps add one or two more votes that had previously been doubtful when the Assembly voted later today. The votes would not, he thought sadly, be added on the American side of the ledger.

For himself, the S.-G. had reached the point where he refused to be emotionally concerned any longer about the visit of Terence Ajkaje, the Labaiya Amendment, the outlook for the United States, or anything else involved in the issue. He had spent many long and fruitless hours trying to persuade some of his more hotheaded compatriots from Africa to take a more moderate stand, only to receive blank stares, insolent answers, and, finally, bitter accusations. Similarly, his attempts to warn the United States, such as the hint he had offered yesterday in the Lounge to Senator Smith, had apparently been ignored, if they had even been understood. Evidently America in this matter was as self-confidently blind as her opponents were determinedly antagonistic. He had been in the middle of it long enough, and he was having no more.