by Allen Drury
He grinned.
“You’re so good for me. You have no idea.”
“Oh, sure I have,” she said with a smile. “It’s what keeps me going between appointments to have my hair done.…Toss me my shoes, will you? In fact, help me put them on.…Cullee Hamilton called, incidentally, I forgot to tell you. He said he’d come by and walk us down to the reception.”
“Did he?” the Governor said with an expression of exaggerated surprise as he knelt to oblige with the shoes. “What’s that about, I wonder?”
“Maybe he’s afraid Patsy’s really going to run for Senator in California and he wants to beg you to keep her away.”
"Patsy isn’t going to run for Senator from anywhere,” he said with a surprising impatience. “I wish she’d get over the idea that it’s fun to get someone like Cullee stirred up. He’s too important, at this point.”
“Even though he cast a veto and is proud of it?”
He gave an ironic grunt.
“That won’t hurt him very much. Some of the teach-in crowd will squeal, but nature has them in a nice box for him. After all, he’s black. They may hate him for supporting the Administration in Gorotoland but they’ve simply got to love him for being a Negro. There’s no way they can get around it. God!” he said with a sudden bitter honesty that quite startled her. “How I hate all those damned intolerant little self-righteous, self-centered boors. Somebody ought to wash their mouths out with soap, give them a good licking, and send them to bed. Along with all the pompous little twerps egging them on, that some abortion of justice has put on the faculties.”
“My goodness!” she said with a hearty laugh. “Are you ever violent! What have they done to you, except urge you to run, from every stately campus and ivory-covered tower?”
“Oh, I know,” he said, relaxing into a grin as they heard a knock on the door. “They’re major roots in my grassroots support. Don’t worry. I won’t tell them what I think.”
She nodded.
“I know. That’s part of the price tag, isn’t it?”
He gave her a long stare, and his eyes did not drop until he was ready for them to.
“Here’s Cullee,” he said finally, as the knock came again, a little more insistent. “Be nice.”
“I always am,” she said with a sunny smile. “It’s my most wonderful characteristic.”
And as they sat and chatted for a few moments before going down to the pre-banquet reception, she was: friendly and frank with Cullee, who, an imposing and magnificent ebony giant in his white tie and tails, was very much at ease with them. He asked after Patsy with the ironic designation “Senator Labaiya,” and a grin that dismissed her, and the Governor responded with just enough of a grin in reply so that Cullee knew there was no point in worrying about that. There was also a fleeting reference to the incumbent junior Senator from California, Raymond Robert Smith, and again there was something in the tones of both the Governor and the Congressman that seemed to take care of that. Ceil realized that in ten minutes’ time they were disposing of the political future of California in the fall elections; providing, of course, that the price tag was honored. She was not entirely sure what it would be until they left the room and started toward the elevator. Then Cullee, who was the man in a position to present it, inquired casually,
“I expect you’re really going to bawl the President out tonight, hm?”
The Governor smiled.
“Do you think I should?”
“No, I don’t think you should,” the Congressman said, “but a lot of important people who want you to be President think you should. So you will, I guess.”
“What would you do if I did?”
Cullee gave him an impassive stare.
“Issue a statement repudiating you at once,” he said calmly. “What would you expect?”
“Knowing you,” the Governor said, “I’d expect it.”
Cullee shrugged.
“Well.”
“But,” Ted said with a smile as they reached the elevator and Cullee touched the button, “I may not be so easy to categorize as all that.”
“Then you certainly won’t satisfy Walter and his crew,” the Congressman said, adjusting his tie in the mirror beside the door.
“Must I?” Ted asked, seeking Cullee’s eyes in the mirror and holding them until the Congressman turned around.
“It’s up to you. I thought you wanted to be President.”
“Maybe it needn’t be quite as drastic a commitment as that,” Ted said. Cullee studied him thoughtfully.
“It’s got to be. The country’s getting so divided that you won’t be able to equivocate much longer. If, that is,” he added with a little smile, “you are equivocating. Myself, I’ve been giving you the benefit of the doubt. I’ve been telling myself that you were genuinely trying to make up your mind.”
“I’m genuine,” Ted Jason said with a smile. “You’ve just seen me in one or two ungenuine moments, that’s all.”
“Such as when old Terry was over here romping through South Carolina last fall,” Cullee remarked. “Yes, I know.”
“It seemed advisable to support him then,” the Governor said. “It may now. I’m not sure.”
“I can believe that,” Cullee said as the elevator arrived. “There’s a lot at stake in Gorotoland.”
“Indeed, yes,” Ted said as they stepped on and started to descend.
“I hope you will both wind up eventually seeing it the same way,” Ceil remarked. Cullee smiled with a certain skepticism.
“We start from rather far apart.”
“But Washington brings so many divergent points of view together,” she said gently.
His smile broadened.
“Marvelous, isn’t it?”
She gave him an amused glance and nodded. “Marvelous. Tell me,” she added abruptly, “did you get what you came to get tonight? About the Senatorship, I mean?”
For a second he looked startled. Then he grinned.
“I think so.” The grin broadened. “Haven’t had to pay anything for it, either, have I?”
The Governor laughed, apparently without rancor.
“Not yet,” he said amicably. “Maybe never.”
“That would be the best solution,” Ceil said, and before Ted could answer, as the elevator came to a stop and through its yet unopened doors they could hear the babble of famous voices halfway through the second drink, she cried, “And here we are!” Linking arms with both of them she drew them forward into the reception. The sound immediately rose in excitement, and somewhere over by the bar someone began applause that surged across the room as photographers hurried forward to take their pictures and record their triumphal entry.
“Is Walter here?” the Governor called out, and someone shouted back, “No, he’s going to jump out of a cake at the banquet!” The thought provoked a wave of laughter, and on it they were washed pleasantly along for the next half-hour, shaking innumerable eagerly grasping hands, smiling innumerable automatic smiles, engulfed in the loud “Hi, there’s!” and “Haarh y’alls?” that always launch a Washington reception. Suitably greeted and made much of, they were then ready for the parade to the head table. Still accompanied by Cullee, who promised that he would break away at the door and “seek my own level” at Table 16, they moved to the little room just off the ballroom where they were to form in procession.
There they found Walter Dobius, who greeted them with a solemn handshake. A slight paleness gave the only indication that he was still remembering the luncheon at “Salubria” and anticipating the speech to come.
“This is an important evening for you,” Ceil remarked, more to be saying something than for any other reason. He bowed gravely.
“It is an important night for the country. I expect many things will be changed after tonight.”
“You frighten me,” Governor Jason said with a smile. Walter was not amused.
“Don’t frighten us,” he said coldly. “Too much depends upon you now.”<
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“That frightens me,” Ceil murmured as Walter turned away to greet Associate Justice Thomas Buckmaster Davis of the Supreme Court and his inevitable sidekick, the executive director of the Post; and though she said it lightly, it was apparent to her husband that she meant it. He gave her a contemplative look but did not reply.
Then they were entering the enormous ballroom, led by Patsy, regal in orchids, diamonds, and the great green Star of Boonarapi, followed by Walter, nodding with a grave acknowledgment as the applause welled up from the handsome audience that filled every table and overflowed into the halls beyond. But Walter’s applause, though warm, encouraging, and respectful, as befitted his dignity and international stature, was as nothing to the roar of sound that suddenly rose from the room as the Edward Jasons came up the steps onto the dais.
Primordial, animal, visceral, consuming and, to them, frightening in its intensity, it engulfed them. Instinctively the procession halted. After a second’s hesitation, as the photographers shoved and jostled frantically to snap their pictures and from the projection booths high in the walls the network cameras and spotlights swung down to focus upon them, the Governor and his wife stepped forward. He raised his arms, his right hand linked with hers, and together they waved. The sound rose yet higher, passing beyond human control, beyond sense, beyond sound to become almost a solid thing, a great chunk of animal hunger that swallowed them up and transformed them in that instant into free individuals no longer but symbols, thenceforth and forever captive to the dreams of other men.
“I think we’ve got a candidate,” the executive director of the Post shouted happily to the gray-haired little figure of Justice Davis jumping wildly up and down at his side.
“My dear boy,” Tommy Davis cried. “My dear boy, I think we have!”
Launched in so spectacular a fashion, the Jason Foundation Dinner for the conferring of the Good and Faithful Servant Award upon Walter Dobius, columnist and statesman, moved in an ever-tightening tension toward its climax. Not even the entry, ten minutes later, of Prince Obifumatta was sufficient to interrupt its steady progression. (The leader of the gallant fight against American imperialism had decided to delay his departure for the front so that he might appear over the weekend on Face the Nation, Meet the Press, a CBS special entitled, “Gorotoland: Foredoomed Adventure?” and an NBC counterpart, “Gorotoland: Why Are We There?” Taken together, these hastily produced programs, rushed to the screen as a major contribution to the calm, dispassionate consideration of the situation, represented three hours of prime time with the American public. No intelligent leader of a modem rebellion ever turns down this kindness of the networks, which sometimes seems to be offered automatically to anyone sufficiently hostile to the aims and purposes of the United States. The only reason Prince Terry was not doing the same was because nobody had asked him. Terry was yesterday’s enemy; today he was a friend and as such no longer worth the time. Also, of course, such appearances might win him public support. He was already back somewhere in the bush leading his troops. It was all very sad from his point of view, but great from Obifumatta’s.)
Not even Obi could distract for more than a minute or two the dazzling audience that ate a rather absentminded meal as it stared with an avid interest at the handsome Governor and his beautiful lady.
Admittedly, there were a few small areas of skepticism: Helen-Anne Carrew, expressing herself so loudly that she could be heard four tables around and at one point provoked an indignant, “Oh, hush!” from the wife of the Norwegian Ambassador—Lafe Smith and Cullee, keeping up a running cross fire at their table against the worshipful comments of Krishna Khaleel and the Ambassador and Ambassadress of Uruguay—Bob and Dolly Munson, maintaining a pointed and effective silence at another table where Senator Raymond Robert Smith of California was holding forth with a nervously insistent enthusiasm about what a great Governor Ted was (“I’ll tell him what you think,” Senator Munson finally remarked, which was of course what Ray Smith wanted)—at the next table Bob Leffingwell and his wife trying to refrain from provocatory responses to the provocatory comments of Fred Van Ackerman and LeGage Shelby of DEFY—and the principally diplomatic table where Raoul Barre of France joined Herbert Jason and Selena Castleberry in fulsome praise of Governor Jason while Celestine Barre smiled in her silent, enigmatic way and Lord and Lady Maudulayne rather uncomfortably put in an occasional cautious word for the Secretary of State.
But for the most part it was an audience that had really awed and overwhelmed itself by the depth of its awesome and overwhelming welcome for the Governor. Senators and Congressmen, members of the government, members of the diplomatic corps and the press, spoke with a qualified caution and restraint they would not have shown an hour ago about the chances of the President and Secretary of State. Quite without anyone planning it—and even though logic told them it was a friendly audience anyway, which could have been expected to react as it did—an enormous boost had suddenly been given to the Governor of California, and to all those forces of dissidence and criticism of America’s policies that hoped to make of him their spokesman and standard-bearer.
Logic had nothing to do with it. Emotion had abruptly taken over, and with its spur a psychological tide in five frantic minutes had suddenly been set running at top speed. Astounding, inexplicable, unexpected—there it was, suddenly and permanently, a fact of political life in this presidential year.
Most gratified of all was the honor guest. Walter, for all his confident talk in recent days, had really not been at all certain how his speech would be received, either here or by the country. Now he had no doubts.
With the end of doubt came a growing impatience to get at it. When Patsy arose forty-five minutes later and gaveled the excited room to silence he told himself that he hoped to God she would have the sense to keep it brief. He had underestimated Patsy. After the generous applause for her had died down, she kept her introduction very short, reading from text in a voice whose slight tremor alone revealed her own excitement and tension:
“The Jason Foundation welcomes you tonight to the biennial ceremony which, for me and my family, represents perhaps the most worthwhile—certainly the most satisfying—enterprise that we conduct: the honoring of the American citizen who has contributed most to the welfare and the future of our beloved country. Tonight the Good and Faithful Servant Award, always special, is even more special, for it goes to one who for twenty-five years has served America as few men have: with honor, with decency, with integrity, and with an impartial fairness and justice that have made of his name a marvelous beacon to the world.
“To introduce him to you,” she said, and permitted a smile to break through, “I present to you one who has always been a beacon to ME, ever since I was a little girl in awe of my big brother who always knew everything—and still does—the Honorable Edward Jason, Governor of the State of California.”
And now, little Teddy, he told himself in Ceil’s wry phrase as he faced a hall gone mad, you’ve got to be good. And you will be, he promised himself fiercely: you will be. You’re not going to let them stampede you—you can’t afford to let them stampede you. These loving monsters will eat you alive if you let them. You cannot, you cannot.
“Madame Chairman,” he said with a grin when the mass of sound had finally died down (“Five minutes and seventeen seconds, I make it,” ABC said to CBS in a booth above, and CBS confirmed it), “Big brothers don’t ever admit it, but sometimes they’re in awe of little sisters, too.” There was warm laughter and spurred by it, another prolonged burst of applause. When it ended his expression changed, became solemn and serious. An attentive hush fell as they strained to listen, and only the vague drunken noise of a too-happy supporter being vehemently shushed by his wife and dinner guests, somewhere toward the back of the room, broke the ravenous silence.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said gravely, “we meet tonight in a time of unusual tension for our country and the world, to confer upon one who is probably America’s le
ading journalist the Good and Faithful Servant Award. (“Look at Walter,” Helen-Anne urged her tablemates. “He doesn’t like that probably.” “Hush” said the Norwegian Ambassadress severely again. “Don’t hush me, Inge!” Helen-Anne said loudly. “I won’t buy any herring next week,” The Norwegian Ambassadress looked furious but did not reply.)
“To our award winner, and to his profession,” Ted Jason continued, “we look for information, analysis, and guidance to help us better understand and bravely meet the challenges which, so constantly in this century, confront this land of ours.
“For twenty-five years he has indeed been a good and faithful servant to us all. Informed in analysis, astute in criticism, he has rarely permitted partisanship to overcome his sound and objective judgments. No more will he do so now.
(“Hm?” said Bob Munson in a startled voice, and at the table adjoining. Bob Leffingwell caught his eye and gravely winked.)
“The same even-handed fairness, the supreme, dispassionate intelligence he has always given us—we need them in present days more than we ever have before. Guidance and stability is what his country wants from him. His country knows he will not fail it.
“There is in this man,” the Governor said smoothly, “no intemperance, no irresponsibility. (“Oh, brother! And this is going over nationwide television!” Helen-Anne exclaimed. This time the Norwegian Ambassadress didn’t even bother.) Though we may find these characteristics in others, we will not find them in him as the nation works its way through the serious difficulties that now confront it.
(“I wondered when he was going to get to those,” Krishna Khaleel said brightly, but to his surprise and that of many others, that was the first and last the Governor said on that subject.)
“Decency, integrity, honor—these are the qualities my sister has rightfully attributed to our honored guest tonight. Add to them restraint, dignity, good judgment, the ability to understand points of view with which he disagrees, the ability to accord them graciously their proper place in a free America—these, too, distinguish him. Never has he failed them; never have they been more needed.
