The Troubled Air (34 page)

“I love this spot,” Alice said. “It’s so—faraway.”

Archer nodded at the strange word. “I know what you mean.”

“It’s extravagant for us to come here twice a week,” Alice said, “but I can’t resist it.” She turned her eyes away from the figure of her son on the ice and looked at Archer worriedly. “Clement,” she said, “have you any news for me?”

“Yes.”

“Good or bad?”

Archer hesitated. “Good,” he said. “Pretty good.”

“What does that mean?” Her voice was immediately fearful, the voice of a woman for whom all modification of the word good had inevitably been disastrous.

“I got a promise out of the sponsor,” Archer said. “Or at least a half promise. After awhile you can work again. …”

“After awhile?” Alice’s voice sank. “How long?”

“Three, four weeks.”

“Is that definite?”

Archer looked out the window. A girl in a flying pale-blue wool skirt was doing intricate figures on the center of the ice, exultant, effortless, beyond the fear of gravity or failure. “It’s almost definite, Alice,” Archer said gently, still watching the girl, who was down on the point of one skate now, in a tight, whirling dance. In the foreground, just in front of the window, Ralph plodded past. He waved soberly at his mother. Alice made herself smile and waved back at her son.

The waiter came over with Alice’s tea and the whiskey. Archer measured the soda into his glass, glad to have something to occupy his hands.

“What does it depend on?” Alice asked. “Can I do something to help myself?”

“I’m afraid not, Alice. I think the sponsor wants to wait and see how much of a fuss is kicked up in the next couple of weeks.”

“It’s not fair,” Alice said. She was nearly sobbing, and her lined, tragic face was incongruous over the gay skating sweater that she had worn under her fur jacket. “I ought to be allowed to do something, say something … They don’t understand. They don’t care. Nobody cares.”

Archer put his hand over hers in sympathy, hoping to keep her from crying. “I care, Alice,” he said lamely. “I’m doing my best. We live in queer times. We just have to hope we can weather them. Honestly, I think you’ll be back at work within a month and this whole thing will have blown over.”

“A month,” Alice said, trying to control herself. “How am I going to live for a month without working? Why couldn’t they have told me about this three weeks ago when I was offered that job on the road? Why did they have to wait like this? Why is everybody so mean?”

“Look, Alice,” Archer said, “I’ll help you. Do you need money?”

“I can’t take money from you,” Alice said brokenly. “What right have I to take money from you?”

“Don’t talk like that. How much do you need?”

“I have a hundred and sixty-five dollars,” Alice said, “and the rent hasn’t been paid yet this month and. …”

“Is that all you have?” Archer asked incredulously, sickened at the thinness of the shield between Alice and extinction.

“What did you think?” Alice asked with a flat attempt at irony. “Did you think I had a million dollars hidden away in bonds?”

“I’m sorry.” Archer reached into his pocket and took out his check book and pen. He wrote out a check for a hundred dollars. “Here.” He put it in her hand. “This’ll help for awhile.” Alice looked down dazedly at the check in her hand, as though she couldn’t quite make out the handwriting. “It’s not much,” Archer said, quickly, anxious to forestall thanks, “but it may tide you over. And if you need more, call me.”

“Oh, Clement …” There was no stopping the tears now, and people at other tables looked over curiously at the large, gaily dressed woman, weeping and clutching a check among the tea things. “I don’t know how I can do it. And I have to do it. I have to … I’m so afraid. I haven’t been able to go to sleep since you came up to my house last week. There’s no one I can turn to. You’re the only one. No one is interested. Except Ralph. And I have to pretend to him that everything is fine. It’s so lonesome … lonesome …” She choked up and bowed her head. Her hands, with their inaccurate polish on the uneven nails, worked convulsively, crushing the check. Sniffing, she spread the check out on the table, smoothing it. Then she folded it neatly and put it in her bag.

The girl in the pale wool skirt swept past the window. She had short black hair and blue eyes and her face was young, empty, almost bored with her proficiency.

“You don’t have to sit here with me,” Alice said after awhile. “I’m sure you’re busy.” She was embarrassed now and didn’t look at Archer. She stared at the girl making her lazy perfect circle of the rink. “When I was young,” she said, “I had legs like that. Go ahead, Clement.” There was sudden pleading in her voice. “Please go.”

“You’ll call me if you need me, now,” Archer said.

“Yes.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Archer put down some money for the drinks and stood up. “And I’ll call you and let you know what’s happening, Alice,” he said. “Don’t worry,” he said, knowing that it sounded inane, but not having any other comfort to offer. He patted her shoulder and went out, leaving Alice at the window, watching her awkward son among the lilting figures of the swift, brightly colored girls.

“C
OME ON, GIRLS,” ARCHER CALLED UPSTAIRS,
“let’s try to get there before the beginning of the third act.”

Kitty was still getting dressed, with Nancy assisting. There was a giggle from above and then Nancy came to the head of the stairs. “Don’t be a tyrant,” she said. “Your poor pregnant wife is struggling with a stuck zipper.” She smiled down at him. She was dressed in a plain black dress that Archer had seen on her before and thought very becoming. But tonight it somehow seemed too severe. Nancy looked tired and her hair, which was usually fluffed out and full of life, looked stringy and dull. Never a plump woman, she seemed to have lost weight in the last few weeks, too, and her face, under the clever makeup, looked drawn. Archer stared up at her, as she stood at the head of the short stairwell, leaning on the newel post. Something of what he was feeling must have shown in his face, because Nancy stopped smiling and said, “What’s the matter, Clement? Is anything wrong?”

Archer shook his head. “No. Nothing.” He was old enough to know that you never told a woman, no matter how friendly you were with her, that she was not looking her best. “I just don’t want to be late. Jog my wife a little, like a good girl.”

“Don’t be mean to her,” Nancy said. “You’ve got to pamper a lady at a time like this.” She went into the bedroom.

We’re getting old, Archer thought, remembering what Nancy had looked like when he had first seen her in the Indian summer classroom so many years ago. Old.

He went slowly into his study, where Vic was lounging in the easy chair.

“Don’t worry, Clement,” Vic said, “we’ve got plenty of time.” He stood up. “Do you mind if I make a call? I promised young Clem I’d call him after he had his supper.”

“Go ahead.” Archer sat down wearily.

Vic went over to the telephone at the desk. He picked it up and dialed swiftly and carelessly. In the middle of the process, a strange expression came over Vic’s face. He listened intently, holding the instrument close to his ear, his eyes downcast and serious. Briefly he glanced at Archer and opened his mouth, as though he wanted to say something. But the phone was answered before the words came out.

“Hello,” Vic said into the phone. “Clem? How’re things?” He held the phone a little away from his ear and Archer could hear the high, shrill, excited voice of the child at the other end of the line. “That’s good,” Vic said. “How was the lamb chop? Nice and rare? That’s it. Never let them get away with it. The world is full of people who’ll try to cook a man’s lamb chop to death if you’re not careful. Apple sauce, too. Oh, that sounds delicious. That’s just what I’m going to have for dinner, myself. Have you been nice to Johnny and Miss Tully? Remember, I’m depending on you, Clem.” Vic smiled gravely into the phone at the boy’s answer. “OK, son. I’ll tell her. Good night. I’ll be home early. No, not that early. I’ll read to you tomorrow night. Tell Johnny I said to behave himself. Cheers.” He put the phone down slowly, staring at it. “Ever since Saturday afternoon,” Vic said to Archer, “he insists that everybody say ‘Cheers’ to him at least once every fifteen minutes.” Vic didn’t move away from the desk. “Clement,” he said, “did you know your phone was tapped?”

Archer was staring at the evening paper on his lap. He looked up. “What was that?”

“Your phone is tapped,” Vic said. “Did you know it?”

“What?” Archer said dazedly.

“Your phone is …”

“Yes. Yes. I heard you.” Archer stood up and went over to the desk. He looked down stupidly at the black plastic instrument with the white divided dial. 1, ABC 2, DEF 3, 0, at the end, all by itself, to call the Operator. “No, I didn’t know. How do you know?” He looked sharply at Vic to see if he was joking.

Vic wasn’t joking. “During the war,” he said, “I had a friend in the OSS. They showed him how to recognize it by the tone. He let me listen in on a telephone booth in Washington that was tapped. In a restaurant frequented by certain gentlemen from governments in exile.”

Archer looked down incredulously at the innocent-seeming piece of machinery, no different from ten million others all over the country. He picked it up and listened. It sounded like every other telephone he had ever put to his ear.

“Dial a few numbers,” Vic said in a low voice. “You’ll hear a kind of echo after each click.”

Archer hesitated a moment. Then he dialed four times, at random. The echo was there. He put the phone down. His first emotion was anger. “God damn it,” he said. “God damn it.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Vic said carelessly. “There’re probably fifty thousand taps on at this minute in this country. Maybe a million. You’ve got a lot of company. Tribal custom of the people.”

“Who does it?” Archer asked. He was surprised at the thickness of his voice and the difficulty with which he formed the words. “Who the hell does it?”

Vic shrugged. “The FBI, most likely. They’re busy little boys.”

“You mean to say they have a man sitting somewhere all day and all night just listening to my phone?” Ludicrously, as he said it, he thought of the money it would cost the Government, three shifts a day, three men, with a fourth one for relief. How much did an FBI agent get? Four thousand, five thousand a year? Multiplied by four.

“No,” Vic said. “I don’t imagine so. They have recording sets. It all goes onto wax and somebody collects them and listens at his leisure.”

Helplessly, Archer thought of a hard-faced young man in a slouch hat, like the ones you see in the movies, sitting alertly in an official-looking room, listening to Kitty ordering roast beef and lettuce from the market; to Gloria, in the slack part of the day, calling her niece in Harlem, complaining about finding Mr. Archer’s pipe ashes all over the tables; to Jane agreeing to attend a football game with Bruce and going over the date the next day with her best friend, giggling icily and heartlessly about the transparency of the male sex; to Archer talking to O’Neill, asking him if he had a hangover, too, after the last night’s drinks at Louis’ bar. And to what other invitations, purchases, secrets, expressions of hope, of weariness, weakness, intimacies?

“Why do they do it?” Archer asked stupidly. “What’s it for?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Vic said soberly. “You’d have to tell me.”

Archer stared at his friend. Is he suspicious, too, he wondered. “How about your phone?” he demanded. “Is that tapped, too?”

Vic rubbed the edge of his jaw. “No,” he said.

“What does a man do about it?”

“Nothing,” Vic said gently. “Absolutely nothing.” He looked across at Archer, smiling. It was a strange, rather unpleasant smile.

“Is there something to be done? Isn’t there someone to see? To explain …?”

“Write a letter to the New York
Times.
” Vic grinned crookedly. “Establish radio silence. Move to an island …”

There was the sound of footsteps descending the stairs, and the mingled voices of Nancy and Kitty. Archer jerked his head around toward the door. Then he swung back, just before the women entered the room. He shook his head warningly. Vic nodded, and Archer knew he wouldn’t say anything about the phone in front of Kitty.

“Both you boys dead drunk by this time?” Nancy asked.

“Just about,” Vic said. “Kitty, you look glorious.”

“I’m glad to see you like fat girls,” Kitty said. She did look beautiful. Her skin was plumped out by her pregnancy, silky and unlined, and her throat looked full and warm as it swept down into the low V of her silk jacket. Her eyes were bright and unshadowed and Archer could tell that she was prepared for joy and triumph as she sat in the audience watching her pretty and talented daughter add glory to the honor of the family that night.

“Vic,” Nancy said, “I think we’ll have to have another baby. Purely as a cosmetic measure. I want to look like that, too.”

“Sure,” Vic said. “I’ll ask the boss for a raise for breeding purposes.”

It all seemed unreal and distant to Archer. Was there a dictaphone hidden in the room, too, he wondered, along with the betrayed telephone? Why not? What would an FBI agent deduce from this conversation? That they were vulgar people, irreverent in the face of Motherhood, and by inference equally unreliable in their attitude toward other capitalized words? Patriotism, Loyalty, the Constitution? He shook his head. Kitty was saying something, and he hadn’t heard.

“What’s the matter, Clement?” she repeated, staring at him. “You’re miles away. Are you worried about something?”

“He’s a dreamer of dreams,” Vic said. “He is seeing beauties that are not of this world.”

“I am dreaming of dinner,” Archer said. “I had a light lunch.” He shook himself slightly and said, “Let’s go,” and they went out in a bustle of fur coats and scarves.

The auditorium was full and the audience, composed of parents and friends, was indulgent and friendly, laughing heartily at the familiar humor of the play, the loud ex-football hero, the young campus intellectual, the abstracted but upright English professor, the belated flirtatiousness of the professor’s wife confronted with her ex-beau, the meek wisdom of the dean attempting to steer a humorous and respectable course between the roaring demands of the trustees and the principles of academic freedom. The play was all about the trouble the unpolitical English professor gets into by announcing that he is going to read as a model of English composition the last letter of Bartolomeo Vanzetti, written before his execution. It was a curious device to use as a basis for a farce, but, watching it from his seat next to Nancy, Archer realized how cleverly the authors had done it, avoiding tragedy yet not vulgarizing the document itself or the principles involved, comfortably assuring the audience by little deft strokes that all would in the end turn out well, that the ex-football player for all his bluster was a thoroughly good sort, that the Dean, when forced to a decision, would behave admirably, however much he might sigh over his dilemma, that the trustee would see the light, that no one would be expelled, no one fired, that the wife would return to her husband and the young girl settle with the bright if somewhat radical young man, that all men were decent and susceptible to reason because the playwrights themselves were transparently decent and reasonable men. No wires were tapped and the Federal Bureau of Investigation was not mentioned at any point during the evening.