Space: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  ‘And I agree with Captain Grant. Knock it off.’

  ‘I never swore till I met Gantling. He is really a—”

  ‘Start now,’ Grant said. ‘My opponent is what you say. He has the character of a weeping willow, and it looks as if we’re going to retire him. Thanks to Finnerty … and you.’ He added this last phrase so lamely that Finnerty had to say, ‘Captain Grant. You better know now. It was Penny who dreamed up the idea of us three veterans.’

  Grant nodded severely, then asked, as if he were her father, ‘Where is young Pope now?’

  ‘Who knows? He was so disgusted when Senator Gantling reneged on the appointment to Annapolis that I think he just sat in a corner and cried. Then someone told him that each year the Navy sends a handful of superior enlisted men on to Annapolis. He’s in the Navy somewhere, and before long, if I know him, he’ll be selected for Annapolis.’

  ‘If I’m elected … I really don’t know much about this, but if I’m entitled to, I’ll appoint him.’

  ‘John would not rely on that, Mr. Grant. He’s been deceived before … by a senator.’ Her lips trembled and she came close to tears, but then she stuffed the last of her burger into her mouth, looked at her watch and said, ‘We’re due at the glove factory.’

  When Grant won the primary in the early summer of 1946, Penny Hardesty moved to his statewide headquarters in Benton, where she assumed, with Finnerty, command of that office. From everything she read, she became convinced that this was the year for a Republican triumph, and it was she who coined the phrase that helped Grant cast scorn and ridicule on the rather drab ward heeler the Democrats had nominated to oppose him: ONLY ONE MAN IS FIT TO SERVE IN THE SENATE. She also invented the slogan that helped the entire state ticket defeat the Democrats: HAVEN’T YOU HAD ENOUGH? She drafted sharply worded statements explaining how Truman’s ineptness and the fumbling of the Democratic Congress had caused meat prices to rise while delivering little profit to the farmer. She ventilated three regional scandals in which Democratic bureaucrats had abused the Western states, and to cap her achievement, she went personally to the home of Ulysses Gantling and persuaded him, for the welfare of the party and the nation, to make a ringing endorsement of ‘our great naval hero, Captain Norman Grant.’

  On election night, when Grant saw the magnitude of his victory and realized that he had won six secure years in Washington in one of the finest jobs the nation had to offer, he told Finnerty and Penny, ‘I want you to come to Washington with me.’

  He encountered two objections: his wife, Elinor, deemed it most unwise to take so young a girl to the capital; and Penny herself pointed out that she did not yet have her degree from the university. To his wife, Grant replied, ‘That bright little girl is forty years old right now. It’s Washington that had better watch out, not Penny Hardesty.’ And to Penny he said, ‘I’ve called the people at Fremont State, and they’ve arranged to transfer your credits to Georgetown University. It’s all been done.’ Then he added the clincher: ‘And if Mr. Pope does get into Annapolis, there you’d be.’

  So Penny Hardesty, nineteen years old and the fourth child of a working-class family that had never sent a member beyond high school, went to Washington to help establish a newly elected senator in his offices and to pick up a full scholarship at Georgetown University, arranged for by her employer. She resembled the thousands of other young girls who left distant states to build their careers in the nation’s capital; they were all bright, all ambitious, all moving into a city where eligible men were outnumbered by nubile women ten-to-one.

  On that score Penny had no worries. In fact, she was so fearfully busy attending to her senator twelve hours a day and cracking her books at night that she could not have dated had she had the opportunity. Tim Finnerty, through his association with her in the Fremont campaign, appreciated what a brilliant, coordinated person she was and was ready to escort her anywhere. Indeed, he was so eager to do so that she had to clarify things: ‘Look, Finnerty. There’re two reasons why we’re not allowed to get serious. A Midwest Baptist is not the girl for a Boston Catholic to take home to his mother, and his sister in the nunnery, and his uncle Francis Xavier, who is a priest. And somewhere out on the bounding blue I have a sailor.’

  Senator Grant showed Penny his memorandum to officials in the Navy in which he asked their advice as to whether he was legally entitled to appoint to Annapolis a young man who had already enlisted as an ordinary seaman. The Navy, inordinately proud of having one of its heroes in Congress, called immediately to assure Grant that they would look into the matter and reply shortly. In the meantime Penny received a letter from her sailor, proving that this young man did not wait for others to solve his problems for him:

  Marvelous news. I’ve been appointed to Officer Candidate School. It won’t be Annapolis, but it will give me a chance to go into flying later on. I’ve already told Mother and Dad, and I want to tell you, too, but nobody else. I stood either at the very top of all the men who took the exams, or close to it. It’s going to come true, Penny.

  Just as she was kissing the signature, Senator Grant came by with the good news: ‘Navy tells me to go ahead.’ And on this assurance she sent the telegram: SENATOR GRANT HAS APPOINTED YOU TO ANNAPOLIS. I AM PROUD OF YOU. PENNY.

  She would always remember the ensuing years as among the richest of her life—not the most exciting, for they were to come later, but the most rewarding. She worked in the office of a fine man, whom she could respect increasingly. She worked beside a brilliant man, Tim Finnerty, whose shrewd insights into political maneuvering she envied. She was attending a fine university whose professors, Finnerty pointed out acidly, ‘are exactly the kind of Catholic subversives you yokels from the West ought to come up against.’

  She was beginning to see, from the inside, that the Democrats were not the inept slobs she had said during the campaign and that Harry Truman was a rather more substantial President than she had at first perceived. ‘Watch out, Finnerty. That man won’t be a pushover in 1948.’ But both Grant and Finnerty were satisfied that Dewey would win easily.

  Because she was taking pre-law courses at Georgetown, she became Senator Grant’s liaison with the Justice Department and developed a burning admiration for the manner in which the Supreme Court of the United States served as a buffer between the various branches of government and especially between the forty-eight sovereign states.

  On four different occasions she had an opportunity to meet Justices of the Court: twice she carried papers to Chief Justice Vinson, who seemed austere and preoccupied. Justice Burton she liked immensely, but Justice Douglas made her suspicious; she agreed with Senator Grant that some of his dissenting opinions were asinine. But the Court as a whole, especially the stalwart conservative judges like Burton, Reed and Jackson, satisfied her that the system evolved by the founding fathers was a good one, probably the best known to any nation.

  But when the work was done, and her explorations finished, it was to the lovely town of Annapolis that she repaired, always delighted by the first sight of its towers, the stateliness of the Naval Academy, the delicate charm of its little streets and Southern mansions. Sometimes, as she drove her Plymouth in from Washington on Friday evening, she would draw over to some curb and simply look at the beauty of this rare town, checking the old brick houses she had not seen before, then driving slowly down to the enchanting harbor that crept right into the heart of town, with small craft lining its shores. It must be, she thought, the most beautiful state capital in America.

  To her left, as she studied the harbor, rose the old gray buildings of the Naval Academy, where John Pope was learning the rules of his profession. In his plebe year he was allowed few privileges; sometimes Penny made the trip to Annapolis and wasn’t even able to see him. But she came to know the widow of a naval captain who ran a small boardinghouse on colorful Pinckney Street, and when John was not available, there she nestled down to study her law books. When he was given freedom he joined her there for dinners wh
ich the widow delighted to prepare, after which John took over the Plymouth for a drive through the Maryland countryside.

  Once when he had a full day off, they boarded the ferry and rode across the bay to the Eastern Shore, where they entered a strange and beautiful world that seemed locked by history into the eighteenth century. They ate crabs and oysters and beaten biscuits and told each other how different this was from Fremont and Nebraska. On one drive back John spotted an ice cream stand, from which he purchased a pint of rum raisin ice cream, and as they finished the last bites, licking the wooden spoons, Penny whispered, ‘I was going to say that I wished life could go on like this forever. We don’t have to wish it. You and I can make it continue.’

  After their first sexual experience in the autumn of 1944 it had been understood between them that they could repeat it whenever an opportunity occurred, and during John’s senior year in high school they had found many occasions for relaxed and extended explorations. They were in love and there was every expectation that some day they would marry; they both wanted this, equally, and no attractive girl that John met as a football hero diverted him from Penny, and not even a man as gifted as Tim Finnerty distracted her.

  In the week before John enlisted in the Navy, they had made love every night, as if trying to store up memories sufficient for the long years ahead, and whenever he managed to snatch a leave, they did the same. Once she traveled to Chicago to be near the Naval Training Station when he was granted two days of freedom, but now that he was a fully registered midshipman at the Naval Academy he felt constrained: ‘The Navy would knock the devil out of me if they found I’d been registering with you in some cheap hotel.’ This they refused to do, so their love-making was restricted to the Plymouth, parked in some dark Eastern Shore lane, or in the home of some girl friend in Washington. But their affection for one another increased with each meeting, whether they were able to go to bed or not.

  Mostly they talked, neither ever growing weary of learning what the other was engaged in. ‘They have some of the brightest professors at Georgetown. Really brilliant men whose teaching is entirely different from that at Fremont U. Question. Question. Question. They want to drive you in a corner, and if you can’t fight your way back … goodbye.’

  John said that his studies at the Academy were tougher than he had expected, especially in mathematics. ‘You’d think the Navy ran on a slide rule. Sometimes I can hardly keep afloat, until I remember that the others are having an even tougher time with the formulas than I am. You know, Penny, we got a damned good education back there in Henry Clay High School.’

  On one visit, when the widow either accidentally or prudently had to visit relatives in Baltimore, they hurried to bed, where John confided the good news: ‘As you know, I put in for aviation training, and three days ago I received confirmation. I go either to New Mexico or Pensacola for real flight training. Not exploratory stuff, but the real thing.’

  Before he could do this, however, he had to master small-craft sailing, and the Navy kept some nineteen two-man boats in the Severn River, where he learned to handle sails, cast off ropes and dock his little yacht, as he and Penny called it. Twice he was able to take her sailing, and on one glorious weekend he and six other novices, under the eye of a former Navy captain, were able to take their girls on a two-day cruise down the bay to the enchanting town of Oxford, which dated back to the 1600s. The men slept aboard; the girls checked in at the old inn on the waterfront, and at dusk they met for crab cakes and beer. On the quiet sail back to Annapolis, John whispered, ‘The day I graduate, we get married.’

  ‘I decided that three years ago,’ Penny said. She was well on her way to becoming a lawyer, and told him, ‘When you’re flying off some carrier, I’ll be fighting government cases in some town like Boston. You watch.’

  Even though she had learned to respect the quiet, tough manner in which Harry Truman handled the perilous tasks of the Presidency, she was astounded when the 1948 election drew to a close with him still in contention. She had assumed, like all Washington people from the Western states, that Governor Dewey would win easily, and she had even played the game of who would be invited to join his Cabinet: ‘There’s a real chance that Senator Grant will be offered Secretary of the Interior.’

  ‘And I’ll advise him not to accept,’ Finnerty said.

  ‘Why in the world not?’ Penny asked. ‘When Dewey wins this year, he’ll be good for eight years. That’s better than being a senator.’

  ‘There’s nothing better than being a senator,’ Finnerty said.

  Together with Grant, they returned to Fremont to campaign for the entire Republican ticket, and when she saw once more that stable, solid group of Republicans she was reassured: ‘Dewey has it. And you, Senator Grant, are going to have to make some tough decisions. How do you incline?’

  At such moments she became vaguely aware that her boss and his wife were not having an easy time handling his new responsibilities. Elinor Grant was as attractive as ever, her dark hair still framing the pallid face austerely, her controlled smile still giving an aloof but pleasing impression. What seemed lacking was any conviction that she approved what her husband was doing. When Midshipman John Pope took his girl Penny to the Army-Navy game in Philadelphia, it was a total event: both of them wanted Navy to win, silly as it might seem to others; both of them cheered, and drank beer afterward, and yelled at their friends in a day of irresponsible delight. And whenever Penny negotiated a new milestone on her way to a law degree, John exulted with her. When Mrs. Grant refused to participate in any celebration of her husband’s achievements, Penny said, ‘Maybe she doesn’t comprehend what an enormous thing it is to get a bill passed through the Congress. Especially one that will benefit the entire West.’

  If Penny was confused by Elinor’s indifference, she would have been appalled had she learned that Mrs. Grant still protested the fact that the senator had brought Penny to Washington. ‘Mark my words, Norman, that girl has her cap set for you. Sooner or later, there’s bound to be a scandal.’

  Once, in the moment of victory over the hapless Democrat who had opposed him in the senatorial race, Norman Grant had kissed his ablest lieutenant Penny Hardesty; Elinor had seen this and it rankled.

  She nagged her husband so incessantly that one morning in 1949—when Harry Truman was in the White House for four more astonishing years and big, friendly Tom Clark was on the Supreme Court—Senator Grant summoned Penny to his office. ‘Penny, I’ll let you have the bad news straight, and I don’t want to discuss it. You’re fired.’ She gasped, and then he added quickly, ‘And five different senators want to hire you. I’d take Glancey of Red River. He’s a mover.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked, stunned by the two messages, one so devastating, the other so commendatory.

  ‘I can’t say.’

  ‘It’s Mrs. Grant, isn’t it?’ When he said nothing, she added, ‘It’s got to be.’ When she carried the news to Finnerty he gasped, although he had been forewarned by the senator, and she said, ‘It’s got to be Mrs. Grant, doesn’t it?’ All he would admit was ‘He doesn’t have an easy time with that one.’

  ‘He advises me to take the job with Glancey of Red River.’

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘Then you knew?’

  ‘Yes, and that’s all I’ll say.’

  ‘Well, I’ll say something more. Elinor Grant is going to destroy her husband, you watch.’

  ‘Nothing can destroy our boy, and you know it.’

  She sat on his desk. ‘Why is it that women hate other women? Every senator I know has a wife who despises all the women who work for him. Why can’t women …’

  ‘Frankly, this is the wrong time to discuss the problem with me. I’m getting married next month.’

  ‘That’s wonderful. Who’s the girl?’

  ‘An Irish girl. From Boston. A good Catholic, like you said.’

  ‘Now I can kiss you!’ Penny said, and suddenly she was lost in tears. She was being separated from
two men who meant so much to her, Grant and Finnerty. She had helped propel them toward the stars and now she was being cut loose. ‘You’re buzzards, all of you. And I love you, all of you, even old double-dealer Gantling.’

  Before she shifted jobs she was requested to join in a series of conferences, which determined many of her future attitudes. Paul Stidham, Elinor’s father, now old and enfeebled, hurried to Washington to look into the problems that seemed to be immobilizing his daughter, and as soon as he arrived she appeared to improve, regaining her wit and her quiet competency.

  Paul asked if he could meet with Penny Hardesty alone, and when they sat together in the senator’s inner office he asked bluntly, ‘Did my daughter have any justification in having you discharged?’

  ‘Sexually, none, although I believe she feared that. Tim Finnerty in our office wanted to marry me. I’ve been engaged for some years, more or less, to John Pope, whom you probably remember as a football hero at Henry Clay High School. He’s a midshipman at Annapolis, only a few miles away.’ Speaking almost harshly, she said, ‘I am not a sex-starved young secretary.’

  ‘What was the problem?’

  ‘You know better than I,’ Penny said coldly.

  ‘Her inability to get Washington in focus?’

  ‘Or anything else,’ Penny said with asperity. This man’s daughter had damaged her grievously and she felt no inclination to treat him gently; had he educated Elinor better, this would not have happened.

  ‘What’s her trouble, Miss Hardesty?’

  ‘You’ve surely known for a long time, Mr. Stidham. She’s unable to face the reality of her world. So she engages in fantasies about people like me … and her husband. She has no concept of what his job entails, or the power he might command, or the good he might do.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to work for a real senator, a tough, brawling man who knows what he wants and who gets things done. A Democrat, God forbid.’ She laughed heartily, then apologized: ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Stidham, that I’ve been so blunt. But unless you get your son-in-law off dead center, where his wife has forced him to stand, he’s going to be a very poor senator indeed.’