A Shade of Difference (113 page)

By 10:30 p.m., all the guests having arrived, both dance bands were performing at the peak of
their noise and brilliance, both dance areas were filled with swooping, dashing, laughing occupants. The ball was moving at a high pitch of felicity that pleased the Secretary-General as he finally left the reception line and stood for a moment beside the information desk in the central lobby. Many distinguished persons were present, the Ambassador of Panama, Lord and Lady Maudulayne, Raoul and Celestine Barre, many another famous delegate and his lady, many members of the press, several movie stars and actors from Broadway, many members of the Secretariat, the Governor of New York, the Secretary of State, famous statesmen, famous thinkers, famous people. The affair was going well, the S.-G. could sense it. He felt well pleased. Not even Ghana and Guinea, who had submitted formal written protests to his office this morning because of his intervention in the debate, looked sour tonight. They had greeted him cheerfully and now were dancing with an air as gay and carefree as that of all the rest.

Even Vasily Tashikov, he noted with amusement, was dancing with his solid wife, and as they passed the Secretary of State and Mrs. Knox, out in the center of the swirling throng, he could see all four nod and smile with a reasonable cordiality. Even they had succumbed to the mood of the evening, he congratulated himself; even they. Was it not possible to hope, in such a moment, that someday, somehow—

“It would be nice, wouldn’t it?” Senator Smith of the United States said quietly at his elbow, and he turned to see that the Senator, too, was watching the little exchange of amenities on the dance floor.

“What?” the S.-G. asked with a start at dissembling; but then he yielded to the mood of the evening and gave up the dissembling. “Yes, it would,” he agreed gravely. “If only—”

Lafe sighed.

“The story of the world, summed up in two words: If only. But damn it!” he said with a sudden dark anger that the Secretary-General could understand and fully share, “This is the way it should be! This is how it ought to be! Why can’t we do it!
Why can’t we ever do it?”

“I do not know,” the Secretary-General said quietly. “The man who finds the answer to that, and shows us the way, will live forever in men’s hearts.”

“Well,” Lafe said, more calmly, “it won’t be you or I, that’s for sure.”

“But we must always try.”

Lafe smiled.

“Oh, yes. I don’t think either of us has any intention of stopping … And it
is
a wonderful party. Everything is going so well.”

“Yes. I hope you will stay until the dancing ends.”

“Oh, you know me,” Lafe said. “Until the last note sounds.” His face lighted up as a young Indonesian pair danced by. They saw him, stopped, and waved eagerly, and he waved back. “Excuse me,” he said, and moved to engage them in animated conversation.

The S.-G. did not know how long he would stay. He was not as young as he used to be, he did not dance the Western or Latin dances very well, his principal wife had long been dead, and he had no particular companion for this evening. But, still, a man should enjoy the hour while he could, and so he decided to cut in, carefully selecting for the purpose one of the more matronly ladies, brilliantly saried, of the Indian delegation.

As he started forward to separate her politely from her partner, the Ambassador, he was delayed by the Congressman from California, dancing with a tall young Negress, very pretty. Cullee placed an enormous hand gently on his arm.

“Mr. Secretary-General, I would like very much to have you meet my friend, Miss Sarah Johnson of the United States. Sarah and I just met.”

“How fortunate,” the Secretary-General said with an amused and gentle smile for something in Cullee’s tone. “For you both.”

“For me, anyway,” the Congressman said with a cheerful glance that his partner answered.

“It may be mutual,” she said. “We’ll have to tell you later, Mr. Secretary-General.”

“One thing now, though,” Cullee said, still holding him by the arm. “I just want to say that I am proud of you, sir, for your speech to the Assembly. I didn’t know when I asked you whether you would want to or not, but I took a chance you might. I think we should all be grateful to you.”

The S.-G. smiled.

“Some aren’t.” The Congressman made an impatient gesture.

“Oh, them! Don’t worry about them, Mr. Secretary-General. All decent people are, and they’re still what count, in spite of everything. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you. As an American—as a Negro—and I guess, maybe, just—well, as a citizen of the world, if one can say that.”

“It’s easier to, tonight. I thank you. And of course I, like all decent people, will forever be in the debt of Senator Fry.”

“Yes,” Cullee said gravely. “I wish he could have been here tonight, but—no chance.”

“Is it all over?”

“It soon will be.”

“He is a brave man, and a fine one.
There
is a citizen of the world, if the world will but listen.”

“Who knows?” Cullee said gloomily. “But,” he said, deliberately breaking the mood, “no place for such talk tonight. We’re having a fine time at your party, sir, and we hope you are, too.”

“I am about to,” the S.-G. said with a smile. “I have designs on Miss India. Or, rather, I should say,” he added, cocking his noble head on one side and giving her a quizzical squint as she danced by with the Indian Ambassador, “Mrs. India. Or Mother India. I think the ‘Miss’ disappeared long ago.”

“Good luck,” Cullee called as the stately old man moved off toward her. “I hope the Ambassador will let her go! … Now, Miss Sally J., let’s dance.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, swinging comfortably into his arms as though she had always belonged there. “As you say.”

She was puzzled by his answering expression, quizzical and sad for a moment. She could not know that he was saying to himself, Oh, no, Miss Sally J. Not yet awhile. Life isn’t
that
pat.

Five minutes later, Krishna Khaleel, relieved of his pleasant but sedate companion by the Secretary-General, and the Secretary of State, similarly relieved of his by the Governor of New York, who had cut in on him and taken Beth away with a dashingly boyish smile, found themselves standing together by the information desk looking out upon the crush.

“Well, K.K., what do you make of it?”

“It is a happy scene,” the Indian Ambassador said cheerfully. Then he looked cautious and somewhat puzzled. “What—what, eh? What do you mean?”

“Oh, all this mixing of the races, as we say in some parts of my country. Your ‘shade of difference’ does not seem so serious tonight.”

“Nothing seems serious tonight,” K.K. said with a smile. “No, not tonight.”

“Why should it ever be?” the Secretary pressed, enjoying his little intellectual game as K.K. looked first starchy, then more relaxed.

“We do not wish it.”

“No more do we. Why, then, does it come about? Are you to blame? Or are we?”

“It comes about because of history,” the Indian Ambassador said. “That is why it comes about, Orrin. You know that as well as I. We are prisoners of the past. The irony of it is,” he added with a rueful smile, “that it is not
our
past, yours and mine and that of all these others here.
We
did not make it. It was made by others, long before—and so we must suffer. It hardly seems fair.”

“No, it does not,” the Secretary agreed, more seriously. “Does it not seem to you, then, that we must try to get out from under it? That we must move onto some new way of thinking about it, together?”

“Ah-ha!” K.K. cried with a sudden laugh. “Now you are leading me on down paths where Hal tried to lead us. Now you wish us to forget the past, and you know we cannot do that.
Poor
Hal,” he added, suddenly sad. “Such a dear friend; such a horrible thing.”

“I think he feels he may have left us something, if we will but listen.”

“But not by forgetting the past. It is impossible, for us.”

“I think many of
us
would like to try,” the Secretary said. His companion looked at him for a long moment.

“But it is not you who suffered,” he said softly.

To this, for which there was little answer—or at least none that could be understood or accepted by many who danced in happy companionship across the Main Concourse—the Secretary returned only, after several seconds of looking directly into the liquid brown eyes that looked directly into his, a shrug.

“Where does that leave us for the future, then? What will it do to the world, if we cannot escape it?”

“Alas, where does it leave you in your own land, let alone the world? How can you handle it elsewhere, if you cannot handle it here?”

“But we
are
handling it here,” the Secretary protested. His companion laid a hand quickly on his arm.

“Let half the people who are in this building, which is temporarily enchanted on this enchanted night, go forth into the city of New York, and in ten minutes’ time they will be able to tell you how well you are handling it here,” K.K. said softly.

“And you?” Orrin Knox asked harshly. “Do you handle it so well, in India?”

“Do not mistake me, my friend,” the Indian Ambassador said. “I am not one of those who thinks he is perfect, or that his country is, in this regard. Oh, no, not I! It is just that we must all realize an equal guilt.”

“I
do,” the Secretary said, still in the same harsh tone. “I ask only an equal humility. Or perhaps, as Hal Fry said, an equal love.”

“Ah, yes,” K.K. said gently. “All living comes full circle to that, does it not? And how few perceive it!”

“More than achieve it, I think,” the Secretary said. “That is what brings the tears of the ages—that in the area of love so many perceive and so few achieve.”

They were silent for a time while the band played gaily and the colorful crowd danced by. The mood had changed when they spoke again, because for that, too, there was no answer.

“My lady and yours are both free,” the Indian Ambassador noted. “Shall we rejoin them?”

“I think we should,” the Secretary said. “Why don’t we exchange partners for a dance? I know Beth would enjoy it.”

“How nice!” K.K. cried with a pleased expression. “What a happy thought!”

So the nations danced on, as the night wore away beside the East River to midnight, 1 a.m., 2 a.m., 3 a.m. Quantities of liquor, quantities of food, much music, much dancing, much jovial good-fellowship filled the Main Concourse of the fantastic palace in Turtle Bay that housed the hope of men who did not always let hope enter in.

If Only and Why Can’t We, those two unhappy guests at the wonderful affair, were presently pushed outside into the cold night air of Manhattan and thought of no more. The Shade of Difference, their dark and bitter companion, had been barred at the door to begin with, and would not again stalk the long glass corridors and comfortable conference rooms until he was needed. He did not mind this temporary banishment, for he knew he would be needed very soon. In the Delegates’ Lounge no imperious female voices trumpeted the names of man, the chairs and sofas and coffee tables stood deserted. In the Security Council, the Assembly Hall, and the committee rooms the desks stood empty and night enfolded the scenes of yesterday’s contention that would soon be the scenes of tomorrow’s.

Only the Main Concourse remained brightly lighted and alive, and in it the nations danced on, above the abyss that always yawns beneath nations, which somehow become accustomed to it; and only a few of those who danced were moved, now and again, to ponder wistfully the touching human frailty of the happy sight. Above hung arrogant Sputnik, outspread stood ready Zeus, steadily on its steel wire went the Netherlands’ pendulum on its endless journeyings back … and forth … and back … and forth …

Passing beneath it with his wife sometime around 2 a.m., the Secretary of State glanced up and paused. They stood together hand in hand as the gleaming ball traversed its imprisoned path in response to laws far more inexorable than any man would ever promulgate.

“It is a privilege to live this day and tomorrow,” the inscription said.

How like the Dutch, Orrin Knox thought as the band swung into a new set behind them and once again the brilliant throng was galvanized to action: how like the Dutch, to expect so little of time, and ask so little of it.

And yet, perhaps, how sage a counsel to give the troubled world to see it through the strange, unhappy circumstances devised by its quarrelsome sons, as they fail to find in hatred the salvation that they might, had they but the courage, find in love.

November 1960—February 1962

New York—Washington—Sanibel—Doyles

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