Advise and Consent (8 page)

At this frank display of a rather woebegone approach to life, which the Vice President had kept fairly well bottled most of the way up from South Carolina but had finally expressed with embarrassing candor, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee shook his head as though brushing away a persistent fly, or as though confronted with a problem for which there was no solution; as indeed there wasn’t, for this one.

“I’m sure you can, Harley,” Tom August said in his gentle, professorial voice. “I’m sure he will make use of you. After all, you know everybody.”

“Of course I know everybody,” Harley Hudson said, “and they listen to me, too. Not as much as they do to Bob Munson, of course, but I have some influence, don’t I, Tom?”

“I believe you do,” Senator August said reassuringly. “I do believe you do. I wouldn’t worry about it, Harley; I’m sure you’ll find when you get to your office that he wants to talk to you and enlist your help. After all, it would be very foolish of him not to, I should think.”

“I should think so too,” said the Vice President rather wistfully, “but sometimes he hasn’t, you know. Why, I don’t know half of what goes on, Tom. I wouldn’t say that to everybody, you understand, but you’re an old friend. It hurts me sometimes, it really does. Why, supposing anything should happen, Tom; I wouldn’t even know how to begin.”

“Now, hush, Harley,” Senator August said abruptly, feeling as though this were entering a realm of self-revelation so devastating that he should at all costs head the Vice President off, “now, hush. Nothing’s going to happen. Nothing
at all
is going to happen.”

“I don’t know,” Harley Hudson said unhappily. “Lately I’ve been waking up at nights and worrying about it. You don’t suppose it’s a premonition, do you Tom?”

“No,” Senator August said. “I wish you wouldn’t worry so, Harley. Nothing’s going to happen, and even if it did, I’m sure you’d do the right thing. We all know you would.”

“I’d be scared to death,” the Vice President said simply.

“You wouldn’t have time to be scared,” Senator August said.

“Oh yes, I would,” said Harley Hudson. “Oh yes, I would.”

“Well,” Tom August said as the plane taxied to a stop, “I refuse to listen to you get yourself into a state about it any longer. He likes you, and he’ll want your help, and so will we all. See, there’s a White House car waiting for you, right now.”

“I’ll bet it isn’t for me,” the Vice President said in a lonely voice. “I’ll bet it’s for you.”

And so it was. There was a young State Department officer with it, and he informed Senator August that the President wished to see him at once, and if the Senator didn’t mind, could he come right along now—? After which, for he was a polite young man, he asked the Vice President if they could drop him anywhere.

“I have my own car waiting, thanks,” Harley said stiffly. “You see?” he added to Tom August. “You see?”

“Hush,” the Senator said, looking pleased and flattered in spite of himself. “I’ll see you on the Hill, Harley.”

“Give him my regards,” the Vice President said, rallying his lacerated feelings for a parting shot, “tell him I said hello.”

“I’ll tell him he should make use of you in this,” Senator August said, meaning to be kind but sounding smug instead.

“Oh, swell,” Harley Hudson said bitterly. “Oh, fine and dandy. You do that, Tom. You do that very thing.”

Shortly after eleven o’clock in his closely guarded Embassy on Sixteenth Street opposite the National Geographic, Vasily Tashikov framed a cable to Moscow on the Leffingwell nomination and sent it forward to the coding room for transmission. It was a shrewd if somewhat incomplete appraisal of the appointment, an assessment of its world and domestic political implications, and a suggestion for certain actions to be taken in the event of favorable action by the Senate. After it left his desk the Ambassador called home and reminded his wife that they were to attend the party at Mrs. Harrison’s that night. She did not particularly want to go and neither did he, but they knew it was both a duty and an opportunity: a chance to spend an evening with people they despised, to whom they felt infinitely superior, and to whose destruction and that of their country the Ambassador and his lady were implacably and inescapably dedicated. He had received orders, given on a rising tide of confidence in victory, to be as brutal as he pleased in his diplomatic conversations, and Vasily Tashikov was looking forward with some satisfaction to doing just that

At Her Majesty’s Embassy out Massachusetts Avenue and at the French Embassy on Belmont Road, the nomination was also of some interest. Lord Maudulayne, pausing in a busy day to take a call from Kitty in New York, was advised that she had talked to Senator Fry, “and he sounds dreadfully amused about Bob Leffingwell.” Senator Wannamaker, though, she reported, did not, and it was likely there would be quite a fuss in the Senate about it, she gathered. She would be flying in with Celestine Barre at four-thirty, and would he be good enough to call Raoul Barre at the French Embassy and tell him so? Both ladies wanted orchids for Dolly’s party, so he could order hers at once, and don’t forget to tell Raoul the same. She did think the whole Leffingwell thing was going to be exciting, and what attitude should she take officially if she happened to meet somebody she knew when she and Celestine went to the UN for lunch with the heads of the British and French delegations?

“Don’t take any attitude,” Claude Maudulayne said. “Let them guess. That’s what I’m doing.”

“Is that what you’re
really
doing?” Lady Maudulayne wanted to know.

“That’s what I’m really doing,” her husband replied.

“Oh,” she said thoughtfully. “Then I will too. It will be difficult though, don’t you think? He is so controversial, and everybody knows we will all be affected by his appointment, won’t we?”

“I expect so,” Lord Maudulayne said. “By all means be as blank as the sphinx if you see K.K.”

“Pooh to K.K.,” said Lady Maudulayne in a tone that left no doubt of her feelings about the Indian Ambassador. “That tiresome—”

“Ah, ah,” Claude Maudulayne said reprovingly. “Ah, ah. Ties that bind, you know. Little brown brethren, dinner jackets in the jungle, we all went to Oxford and spent our hols together, and so on. The Commonwealth forever. One big, happy family, right?”

“One big happy my foot,” Kitty Maudulayne said crisply. “Sometimes I think this whole thing is—”

“—is the best of a bad bargain and a bad bargain is all we can get in this happy era,” her husband said with equal crispness, “so please don’t say anything revolutionary to anybody.”

“I’ll try not to,” Kitty promised. “Will you have a car meet us at the airport?”

“I think I can,” Lord Maudulayne said. “Have a good time at the UN.”

“I will,” his wife said. “Don’t forget to call Raoul.”

“Immediately,” Lord Maudulayne said.

And, as good as his word, which was generally recognized in Washington to be very good indeed, he put the call through as soon as Kitty hung up. After a couple of minutes with secretaries he achieved his objective and heard the pleasantly accented voice of the French Ambassador brighten with pleasure.

“My dear Claude!” it said. “To what do I owe this always happy event?”

“To wives,” Lord Maudulayne said.

“Ah, those charming little ladies,” Raoul Barre said fondly. “What have they done now, gotten themselves arrested for vagrancy in New York?”

Lord Maudulayne laughed.

“Nothing as drastic as that, old chap,” he said. “Kitty was just on, and she wants to be very sure that I know, and you know, that she and Celestine want orchids for Dolly Harrison’s party tonight.”

“Ah, is that all,” the French Ambassador said. “I was afraid it was something much more desperate and costly than that.”

“She also wanted to know,” Lord Maudulayne said, “what she should say to people who asked her what she thought about the Leffingwell nomination.”

“Oh?” said Raoul Barre carefully.

“Yes,” his colleague replied.

“And you said—?” Raoul suggested.

“Nothing,” Lord Maudulayne said quickly. “I was blank as the Sphinx.”

“I see,” the French Ambassador observed.

“You do?” the British Ambassador asked.

“When did the Sphinx become British?” Raoul inquired.

“A temporary adherence,” Lord Maudulayne said airily. “I’m sure I’ll be as voluble as anything presently, but right now, no.”

“No?” said Raoul Barre in a disappointed tone. “My dear Claude, I find myself in the same predicament as the lovely Kitty. What am I to tell people who ask me, if I cannot get guidance from the one who holds my poor country’s hand and makes sure she proceeds in the paths of righteousness?”

“Hmm,” Lord Maudulayne said. “I wonder if we deserve that?”

“On occasion,” the French Ambassador said. “On occasion, as you well know, clever Albion. Actually, you will be glad to know that I, too, am sphinxlike. Not that anyone has asked me yet, but someone will before long. I am sure of it.”

“Yes,” said Lord Maudulayne. “I will. I am. What do you think?”

“Always unpredictable, always,” Raoul Barre said with a mock sigh. “First the Sphinx and then the bulldoze. Well, I wonder if I should tell you.”

“I think you should,” Claude Maudulayne said. “I definitely think you should. Our hosts will be after us, you know; we can’t escape them for long. By all means let’s have a united front, old boy.”

“The Americans!” said Raoul Barre with a real sigh this time. “They pin one down so. I shall tell them for the moment—not much. After all, the President must deem this man worthy to be our prophet on the road to greater salvation, or he would not have nominated him. I am sure he is quite as adept at combining sermons and sleight of hand as all the others have been lately.”

“You sound bitter,” Lord Maudulayne observed; his colleague snorted.

“I?” he said in an exaggerated tone. “
I?
”

“So you are doubtful, then?” the British Ambassador said.

“I am,” the French Ambassador agreed. “Very. I do not know which way this American animal is going to jump, you know? He is scared and he is lazy; it is a fateful combination. And he cannot yet quite believe that this tune he need not send to ask about the bell tolling, for this time it really could be tolling for him. He cannot grasp it yet; when he suddenly understands, what then? What will he do? That is what I wonder. It is what I wonder about Bob Leffingwell.”

“There are others I would feel more comfortable with at a time like this,” Lord Maudulayne agreed.

“Several,” Raoul Barre said. “If my friends in the Senate ask me, I shall be polite—and reluctant. I shall indicate a doubt, perhaps, to those astute enough to see it, of whom there are a good many in that great body.”

“That was my own idea,” Claude Maudulayne said. “I just wanted to see if you agreed. I thought perhaps on this we had best see eye to eye.”

“I believe so,” Raoul Barre said. “I do believe so. After all these years of telling us that we all survive or go down together, they have finally created a situation in which it is true. We didn’t want it to be that way, but they fought for us and aided us and told us what was best for backward peoples whose progress didn’t match theirs and lectured at us and negotiated with us and prayed over us until it came true. Now we are stuck with them. If they go, we go. We all go. And that includes that deliberate dream of gentlemen in London and elsewhere who insist on staying asleep because the dream is so pleasant, your delightful Elizabeth’s Commonwealth and Empire. What do you hear from the Indians?”

“K.K. is at UN,” Lord Maudulayne said. “I hear nothing yet. I understand he will be at Dolly’s. I may hear something then.”

“I too shall offer an attentive ear to the exquisitely involved English of our distinguished colleague,” Raoul Barre said dryly. “I do not know that I shall learn, but I shall listen.”

“I too,” Lord Maudulayne said. “Thanks for your time and your advice. We will see you at Dolly’s. Don’t forget Celestine’s orchid.”

“Immediately,” said Raoul Barre.

“Darling,” Dolly said when her call finally reached the Majority Leader in his second office on the gallery floor of the Senate wing, “I just wanted to see how you were feeling. I just wanted to know if there was anything I could do about Bob Leffingwell.”

Bob Munson smiled.

“Not much,” he said, “except be your usual charming self tonight and see that everybody mixes. We want a lot of mixing about Bob, the more mixing the better.”

“How does it look so far?” Dolly asked.

Senator Munson grunted. “I’ve been so tied down by mail and calls in my other office I’ve hardly had time to find out. I wanted to get out around a little before the session began, but there were too many things to do. Most of Michigan picked this morning to call me, so I’ve been running errands.”

“It’s good for you. It keeps you humble to remember that you may be Majority Leader to us, but you’re just an errand boy to them.”

“Thanks,” Bob Munson said. “I knew there must be some good purpose in it. What have you been doing?”

“Getting ready for the party. It seems to me I’ve been over everything fifty times, though I’m sure it was only twice.”

“How many are you expecting this time,” Senator Munson asked, “five hundred?”

“About three,” Dolly said.

“Vagaries will be taxed to the limit,” the Senator observed. “I hope every single one will be directly involved in the nomination.”

“Not every one, but a good many. But do you know, the funniest thing? Louise Leffingwell called a little while ago and said they couldn’t make it.”

“God damn him anyway,” Bob Munson said flatly. “What was the excuse?”

“Bob has a touch of virus, she said.”

“He’s just playing hard to get,” Bob Munson said. “But maybe it’s just as well, after all. His being there might serve to inhibit the conversation, and as it is we can say what we think. Except that a lot of us won’t, of course.”

“Isn’t this going to be important diplomatically?” Dolly asked. “I mean, won’t the allies be interested? Won’t they try to influence it, even?”

“I expect they will,” Bob Munson said. “I’ve got to talk to some of them tonight.”