Edge of Eternity (18 page)

His face hardened.

She immediately regretted being so candid. “Don't be mad,” she pleaded. “I wouldn't upset you for the world—but you asked me the question, and I wanted to be honest.” Tears came to her eyes. “And my poor grandpa spent all night in jail, in his best suit.”

He forced a smile. “I'm not mad, Maria. Not at you, anyway.”

“You can tell me anything,” she said. “I adore you. I would never sit in judgment on you, you must know that. Just say how you feel.”

“I'm angry because I'm weak, I guess,” he said. “We have a majority in Congress only if we include conservative Southern Democrats. If I bring in a civil rights bill, they'll sabotage it—and that's not all. In revenge, they'll vote against all the rest of my domestic legislation program, including Medicare. Now, Medicare could improve the lives of colored Americans even more than civil rights legislation.”

“Does that mean you've given up on civil rights?”

“No. We have midterm elections next November. I'll be asking the American people to send more Democrats to Congress so that I can fulfill my campaign promises.”

“Will they?”

“Probably not. The Republicans are attacking me on foreign policy. We've lost Cuba, we've lost Laos, and we're losing Vietnam. I had to let Khrushchev put up a barbed-wire fence right across the middle of Berlin. Right now my back is up against the goddamn wall.”

“How strange,” Maria reflected. “You can't let Southern Negroes vote because you're vulnerable on foreign policy.”

“Every leader has to look strong on the world stage, otherwise he can't get anything done.”

“Couldn't you just try? Bring in a civil rights bill, even though you'll probably lose it. At least then people would know how sincere you are.”

He shook his head. “If I bring in a bill and get defeated I'll look weak, and that will jeopardize everything else. And I'd never get a second chance on civil rights.”

“So what should I tell Grandpa?”

“That doing the right thing is not as easy as it looks, even when you're president.”

He stood up, and she did the same. They toweled each other dry, then went into his bedroom. Maria put on one of his soft blue cotton nightshirts.

They made love again. If he was tired, it was brief, like the very first time; but tonight he was at ease. He reverted to a playful mood, and they lay back on the bed, toying with one another, as if nothing else in the world mattered.

Afterward he went to sleep quickly. She lay beside him, blissfully happy. She did not want the morning to come, when she would have to get dressed and go to the press office and begin her day's work. She lived in the real world as if it were a dream, waiting only for the call from Dave Powers that meant she could wake up and come back to the only reality that mattered.

She knew that some of her colleagues must have guessed what she was doing. She knew he was never going to leave his wife for her. She knew she should be worried about getting pregnant. She knew that everything she was doing was foolish and wrong and could not possibly have a happy ending.

And she was too much in love to care.

•   •   •

George understood why Bobby was so pleased to be able to send him to talk to King. When Bobby needed to put pressure on the civil rights movement, he had more chance of success using a black messenger. George thought Bobby was right about Levison but, nevertheless, he
was not entirely comfortable with his role—a feeling that was beginning to be familiar.

Atlanta was cold and rainy. Verena met George at the airport, wearing a tan coat with a black fur collar. She looked beautiful, but George was still hurting too much from Maria's rejection to be attracted. “I know Stanley Levison,” Verena said, driving George through the urban sprawl of the city. “A very sincere guy.”

“He's a lawyer, right?”

“More than that. He helped Martin with the writing of
Stride Toward Freedom.
They're close.”

“The FBI says Levison is a Communist.”

“Anyone who disagrees with J. Edgar Hoover is a Communist, according to the FBI.”

“Bobby referred to Hoover as a cocksucker.”

Verena laughed. “Do you think he meant it?”

“I don't know.”

“Hoover, a powder puff?” She shook her head in disbelief. “It's too good to be true. Real life is never that funny.”

She drove through the rain to the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood, where there were hundreds of black-owned businesses. There seemed to be a church on every block. Auburn Avenue had once been called the most prosperous Negro street in America. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference had its headquarters at number 320. Verena pulled up at a long two-story building of red brick.

George said: “Bobby thinks Dr. King is arrogant.”

Verena shrugged. “Martin thinks Bobby is arrogant.”

“What do you think?”

“They're both right.”

George laughed. He liked Verena's sharp wit.

They hurried across the wet sidewalk and went inside. They waited outside King's office for fifteen minutes, then they were called.

Martin Luther King was a handsome man of thirty-three, with a mustache and prematurely receding black hair. He was short, George guessed about five foot six, and a little plump. He wore a well-pressed dark-gray suit with a white shirt and a narrow black satin tie. There was a white silk handkerchief in his breast pocket, and he had large cuff
links. George caught a whiff of cologne. He got the impression of a man whose dignity was important to him. George sympathized: he felt the same.

King shook George's hand and said: “Last time we met, you were on the Freedom Ride, heading for Anniston. How's the arm?”

“It's completely healed, thank you,” George said. “I've given up competitive wrestling, but I was ready to do that anyway. Now I coach a high school team in Ivy City.” Ivy City was a black neighborhood in Washington.

“That's a good thing,” King said. “To teach Negro boys to use their strength in a disciplined sport, with rules. Please have a seat.” He waved at a chair and retreated behind his desk. “Tell me why the attorney general has sent you to speak to me.” There was a hint of injured pride in his voice. Perhaps King thought Bobby should have come himself. George recalled that King's nickname within the civil rights movement was De Lawd.

George outlined the Stanley Levison problem briskly, leaving out nothing but the wiretap request. “Bobby sent me here to urge you, as strongly as I can, to break all ties with Mr. Levison,” he said in conclusion. “It's the only way to protect yourself from the charge of being a fellow traveler with the Communists—an accusation that can do untold harm to the movement that you and I both believe in.”

When he had finished, King said: “Stanley Levison is not a Communist.”

George opened his mouth to ask a question.

King held up a hand to silence him: he was not a man to tolerate interruption. “Stanley has never been a member of the Communist Party. Communism is atheistical, and I as a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ would find it impossible to be the close friend of an atheist. But—” He leaned forward across the desk. “That is not the whole truth.”

He was silent for a few moments, but George knew that he was not supposed to speak.

“Let me tell you the whole truth about Stanley Levison,” King went on at last, and George felt he was about to hear a sermon. “Stanley is good at making money. This embarrasses him. He feels he should spend his life helping others. So, when he was young, he became . . . entranced.
Yes, that's the word. He was entranced by the ideals of Communism. Although he never joined, he used his remarkable talents to help the Communist Party of the USA in various ways. Soon he saw how wrong he was, broke the association, and gave his support to the cause of freedom and equality for the Negro. And so he became my friend.”

George waited until he was sure King had finished, then he said: “I'm deeply sorry to hear this, Reverend. If Levison has been a financial adviser to the Communist Party, he is forever tainted.”

“But he has changed.”

“I believe you, but others will not. By continuing a relationship with Levison you will be giving ammunition to our enemies.”

“So be it,” said King.

George was flabbergasted. “What do you mean?”

“Moral rules must be obeyed when it doesn't suit us. Otherwise, why would we need rules?”

“But if you balance—”

“We don't balance,” King said. “Stanley did wrong to help the Communists. He has repented and is making amends. I'm a preacher in the service of the Lord. I must forgive as Jesus does and welcome Stanley with open arms. Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons. I myself am too often in need of God's grace to refuse mercy to another.”

“But the cost—”

“I'm a Christian pastor, George. The doctrine of forgiveness goes deep into my soul, deeper even than freedom and justice. I could not go back on it for any prize.”

George realized his mission was doomed. King was completely sincere. There was no prospect of changing his mind.

George stood up. “Thank you for taking the time to explain your point of view. I appreciate it, and so does the attorney general.”

“God bless you,” said King.

George and Verena left the office and walked outside. Without speaking, they got into Verena's car. “I'll drop you at your hotel,” she said.

George nodded. He was thinking about King's words. He did not want to talk.

They drove in silence until she pulled up at the hotel entrance. Then she said: “Well?”

He said: “King made me ashamed of myself.”

•   •   •

“That's what preachers do,” said his mother. “It's their job. It's good for you.” She poured a glass of milk for George and gave him a slice of cake. He did not want either.

He had told her the whole thing, sitting in her kitchen. “He was so strong,” George said. “Once he knew what was right, he was going to do it, no matter what.”

“Don't set him up too high,” Jacky said. “No one's an angel—especially if he's a man.” It was late afternoon, and she was still wearing her work clothes, a plain black dress and flat shoes.

“I know that. But there I was, trying to persuade him to break with a loyal friend for cynical political reasons, and he just talked about right and wrong.”

“How was Verena?”

“I wish you could have seen her, in that coat with a black fur collar.”

“Did you take her out?”

“We had dinner.” He had not kissed her good night.

Out of the blue, Jacky said: “I like that Maria Summers.”

George was startled. “How do you know her?”

“She belongs to the club.” Jacky was supervisor of the colored staff at the University Women's Club. “It doesn't have many black members, so of course we talk. She mentioned she worked at the White House, I told her about you, and we realized you two already know each other. She has a nice family.”

George was amused. “How do you know
that
?”

“She brought her parents in for lunch. Her father's a big lawyer in Chicago. He knows Mayor Daley there.” Daley was a big Kennedy supporter.

“You know more about her than I do!”

“Women listen. Men talk.”

“I like Maria, too.”

“Good.” Jacky frowned, remembering the original topic of
conversation. “What did Bobby Kennedy say when you got back from Atlanta?”

“He's going to okay the wiretap on Levison. That means the FBI will be listening to some of Dr. King's phone calls.”

“How much does that matter? Everything King does is intended to be publicized.”

“They may find out, in advance, what King is going to do next. If they do, they'll tip off the segregationists, who will be able to plan ahead, and may find ways to undermine what King does.”

“It's bad, but it's not the end of the world.”

“I could tip King off about the wiretap. Tell Verena to warn King to be careful what he says on the phone to Levison.”

“You'd be betraying the trust of your work colleagues.”

“That's what bothers me.”

“In fact, you'd probably have to resign.”

“Exactly. Because I'd feel a traitor.”

“Besides, they might find out about the tip-off, and when they looked around for the culprit they'd see one black face in the room—yours.”

“Maybe I should do it anyway, if it's the right thing.”

“If you leave, George, there's
no
black face in Bobby Kennedy's inner circle.”

“I knew you'd say I should shut up and stay.”

“It's hard, but yes, I think you should.”

“So do I,” said George.

Y
ou live in an amazing house,” Beep Dewar said to Dave Williams.

Dave was thirteen years old; he had lived here as long as he could remember; and he had never really noticed the house. He looked up at the brick façade of the garden front, with its regular rows of Georgian windows. “Amazing?” he said.

“It's so old.”

“It's eighteenth century, I think. So it's only about two hundred years old.”

“Only!” She laughed. “In San Francisco, nothing is two hundred years old!”

The house was in Great Peter Street, London, a couple of minutes' walk from Parliament. Most of the houses in the neighborhood were eighteenth century, and Dave knew vaguely that they had been built for members of Parliament and peers who had to attend the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Dave's father, Lloyd Williams, was an M.P.

“Do you smoke cigarettes?” said Beep, taking out a packet.

“Only when I get the chance.”

She gave him one and they both lit up.

Ursula Dewar, known as Beep, was also thirteen, but she seemed older than Dave. She wore nifty American clothes, tight sweaters and narrow jeans and boots. She claimed she could drive. She said British radio was square: only three stations, none playing rock and roll—and they went off the air at midnight! When she caught Dave staring at the small bumps her breasts made in the front of her black turtleneck, she was not even embarrassed; she just smiled. But she never quite gave him an opportunity to kiss her.

She would not be the first girl he had kissed. He would have liked to let her know that, just in case she thought he was inexperienced. She would be the third, counting Linda Robertson, whom he did count even though she had not actually kissed him back. The point was, he knew what to do.

But he had not managed it with Beep, not yet.

He had come close. He had discreetly put his arm around her shoulders in the back of his father's Humber Hawk, but she had turned her face away and looked out at the lamplit streets. She did not giggle when tickled. They had jived to the Dansette record player in the bedroom of his fifteen-year-old sister, Evie; but Beep had declined to slow-dance when Dave put on Elvis singing “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”

Still he lived in hope. Sadly, this was not the moment, standing in the small garden on a winter afternoon, Beep hugging herself to keep warm, both of them stiffly dressed in their best clothes. They were off to a formal family occasion. But there would be a party later. Beep had a quarter bottle of vodka in her handbag to spike the soft drinks they would be given while their parents hypocritically glugged whisky and gin. And then anything might happen. He stared at her pink lips closing around the filter tip of her Chesterfield, and imagined yearningly what it would be like.

His mother's American accent called from the house: “Get in here, you kids—we're leaving!” They dropped their cigarettes into the flower bed and went inside.

The two families were assembling in the hall. Dave's grandmother, Eth Leckwith, was to be “introduced” to the House of Lords. This meant she would become a baroness, be addressed as Lady Leckwith, and sit as a Labour peer in the upper chamber of Parliament. Dave's parents, Lloyd and Daisy, were waiting, with his sister, Evie, and a young family friend, Jasper Murray. The Dewars, wartime friends, were here too. Woody Dewar was a photographer on a one-year assignment in London, and had brought his wife, Bella, and their children, Cameron and Beep. All Americans seemed fascinated by the pantomime of British public life, so the Dewars were joining in the celebration. They formed a large group as they left the house and headed for Parliament Square.

Walking through the misty London streets, Beep transferred her attention from Dave to Jasper Murray. He was eighteen and a Viking, tall and broad with blond hair. He wore a heavy tweed jacket. Dave longed to be so grown-up and masculine, and to have Beep look up at him with that expression of admiration and desire.

Dave treated Jasper like an older brother, and asked his advice. He had confessed to Jasper that he adored Beep and could not figure out how to win her heart. “Keep trying,” Jasper had said. “Sometimes sheer persistence works.”

Dave could hear their conversation. “So you're Dave's cousin?” Beep said to Jasper as they crossed Parliament Square.

“Not really,” Jasper replied. “We're no relation.”

“So how come you live here rent-free and everything?”

“My mother was at school with Dave's mother in Buffalo. That's where they met your father. Since then they've all been friends.”

There was more to it than that, Dave knew. Jasper's mother, Eva, had been a refugee from Nazi Germany and Dave's mother, Daisy, had taken her in, with characteristic generosity. But Jasper preferred to underplay the extent to which his family was indebted to the Williamses.

Beep said: “What are you studying?”

“French and German. I'm at St. Julian's, which is one of the larger colleges of London University. But mostly I write for the student newspaper. I'm going to be a journalist.”

Dave was envious. He would never learn French or go to university. He was bottom of the class at everything. His father despaired.

Beep said to Jasper: “Where are your parents?”

“Germany. They move around the world with the army. My father's a colonel.”

“A colonel!” said Beep admiringly.

Dave's sister, Evie, muttered in his ear: “Little tart, what does she think she's doing? First she flutters her eyelashes at you, then she flirts with a man five years older!”

Dave made no comment. He knew that his sister had a massive crush on Jasper. He could have taunted her, but he refrained. He liked Evie and, besides, it was better to save up stuff like this and use it next time she was mean to him.

“Don't you have to be born an aristocrat?” Beep was saying.

“Even in the oldest families there has to be a first one,” Jasper said. “But nowadays we have life peers, who don't pass the title to their heirs. Mrs. Leckwith will be a life peer.”

“Will we have to curtsey to her?”

Jasper laughed. “No, idiot.”

“Will the queen be there for the ceremony?”

“No.”

“How disappointing!”

Evie whispered: “Stupid bitch.”

They went into the Palace of Westminster by the Lords Entrance. They were greeted by a man in court dress, including knee breeches and silk stockings. Dave heard his grandmother say in her lilting Welsh accent: “Obsolete uniforms are a sure sign of an institution in need of reform.”

Dave and Evie had been coming to the Parliament building all their lives, but it was a new experience for the Dewars, and they marveled. Beep forgot to be charmingly dizzy and said: “Every surface is decorated! Floor tiles, patterned carpets, wallpaper, wood paneling, stained glass, and carved stone!”

Jasper looked at her with more interest. “It's typical Victorian Gothic.”

“Oh, really?”

Dave was beginning to get irritated with the way Jasper was impressing Beep.

The party split, most of them following an usher up several flights to a gallery overlooking the debating chamber. Ethel's friends were already there. Beep sat next to Jasper, but Dave managed to sit the other side of her, and Evie slid in beside him. Dave had often visited the House of Commons, at the other end of the same palace, but this was more ornate, and had red leather benches instead of green.

After a long wait there was a stir of activity below and his grandmother came in, walking in line with four other people, all dressed in funny hats and extremely silly robes with fur trimmings. Beep said: “This is amazing!” but Dave and Evie giggled.

The procession stopped in front of a throne, and Grandmam knelt down, not without difficulty—she was sixty-eight. There was a lot of
passing round of scrolls that had to be read aloud. Dave's mother, Daisy, was explaining the ceremony in a low voice to Beep's parents, tall Woody and plump Bella, but Dave tuned her out. It was all bollocks really.

After a while Ethel and two of her escorts went and sat on one of the benches. Then followed the funniest part of all.

They sat down, then immediately stood up again. They took off their hats and bowed. They sat down and put their hats back on again. Then they went through the whole thing again, looking for all the world like three marionettes on strings: stand up, hats off, bow, sit down, hats on. By this time Dave and Evie were helpless with suppressed laughter. Then they did it a third time. Dave heard his sister splutter: “Stop, please stop!” which made him giggle even more. Daisy directed a stern blue-eyed glare at them, but she was too full of fun herself not to see the funny side, and in the end she grinned too.

At last it was over and Ethel left the chamber. Her family and friends stood up. Dave's mother led them through a maze of corridors and staircases to a basement room for the party. Dave checked that his guitar was safe in a corner. He and Evie were going to perform, though she was the star: he was merely her accompanist.

Within a few minutes there were about a hundred people in the room.

Evie buttonholed Jasper and started asking him about the student newspaper. The subject was close to his heart, and he answered with enthusiasm, but Dave was sure Evie was onto a loser. Jasper was a boy who knew how to look after his own interests. Right now he had luxurious lodgings, rent-free, a short bus ride from his college. He was not likely to destabilize that comfortable situation by beginning a romance with the daughter of the house, in Dave's cynical opinion.

However, Evie took Jasper's attention away from Beep, leaving the field clear for Dave. He got her a ginger beer and asked her what she thought of the ceremony. Surreptitiously, she poured vodka into their soft drinks. A minute later everyone applauded as Ethel came in, dressed now in normal clothes, a red dress and matching coat with a small hat perched on her silver curls. Beep whispered: “She must have been drop-dead gorgeous, once upon a time.”

Dave found it creepy to think about his grandmother as an attractive woman.

Ethel began to speak. “It's such a pleasure to share this occasion with all of you,” she said. “I'm only sorry my beloved Bernie didn't live to see this day. He was the wisest man I ever knew.”

Granddad Bernie had died a year ago.

“It is strange to be addressed as ‘my lady,' especially for a lifelong socialist,” she went on, and everyone laughed. “Bernie would ask me whether I had beaten my enemies or just joined them. So let me assure you that I have joined the peerage in order to abolish it.”

They applauded.

“Seriously, comrades, I gave up being the member of Parliament for Aldgate because I felt it was time to let someone younger take over, but I haven't retired. There is too much injustice in our society, too much bad housing and poverty, too much hunger in the world—and I may have only twenty or thirty campaigning years left!”

That got another laugh.

“I've been advised that here in the House of Lords it's wise to take up one issue and make it your own, and I've decided what my issue will be.”

They went quiet. People were always keen to know what Eth Leckwith would do next.

“Last week my dear old friend Robert von Ulrich died. He fought in the First World War, got in trouble with the Nazis in the thirties, and ended up running the best restaurant in Cambridge. Once, when I was a young seamstress working in a sweatshop in the East End, he bought me a new dress and took me to dinner at the Ritz. And . . .” She lifted her chin defiantly. “And he was a homosexual.”

There was an audible susurration of surprise in the room.

Dave muttered: “Blimey!”

Beep said: “I like your grandmother.”

People were not used to hearing this subject discussed so openly, especially by a woman. Dave grinned. Good old Grandmam, still making trouble after all these years.

“Don't mutter, you're not really shocked,” she said crisply. “You all know there are men who love men. Such people do no harm to anyone—in fact, in my experience they tend to be gentler than other men—yet
what they do is a crime according to the laws of our country. Even worse, plainclothes police detectives pretending to be men of the same sort entrap them, arrest them, and put them in jail. In my opinion this is as bad as persecuting people for being Jewish or pacifist or Catholic. So my main campaign here in the House of Lords will be homosexual law reform. I hope you will all wish me luck. Thank you.”

She got an enthusiastic round of applause. Dave figured that almost everyone in the room genuinely did wish her luck. He was impressed. He thought jailing queers was stupid. The House of Lords went up in his estimation: if you could campaign for that sort of change here, maybe the place was not completely ludicrous.

Finally Ethel said: “And now, in honor of our American relatives and friends, a song.”

Evie went to the front and Dave followed her. “Trust Grandmam to give them something to think about,” Evie murmured to Dave. “I bet she'll succeed, too.”

“She generally gets what she wants.” He picked up his guitar and strummed the chord of G.

Evie began immediately:

O say can you see, by the dawn's early light,

Most of the people in the room were British, not American, but Evie's voice made them all listen.

What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming,

Dave thought nationalist pride was bollocks, really, but despite himself he felt a little choked up. It was the song.

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight

O'er the ramparts we'd watch'd were so gallantly streaming?

The room was so quiet that Dave could hear his own breathing. Evie could do this. When she was onstage, everyone watched.