A Shade of Difference (19 page)

“It can be as powerful as you let it be,” the Secretary-General said quietly. “That is something you in the United States sometimes forget. The decision on how powerful always rests with you, because if you desire you can always ignore it. Possibly you would prefer not to remember this, for it is perhaps easier not to accept the obligations remembering would impose upon you.”

“Surely you are not suggesting that we ignore world opinion! You don’t want us to have Hungaries, now, do you? Surely not as an African you don’t. Even less as Secretary-General.”

The Secretary-General stared across at the vast glowing peaks and canyons of Manhattan, the enormous buildings afire now with a million lights, and his eyes looked as far away as Lagos.

“No, of course not. But sometimes I wonder—I wonder if perhaps your reluctance to be tough doesn’t play directly into the hands of the Soviets who would destroy you—destroy me—destroy the UN.” He smiled ruefully. “Why did you seek me out?”

“Partly to get acquainted. Partly to assess whatever damage the President may have done in his press conference.”

“Ah, yes, the President. A great man, in his unpretentious way. But I know little about the reaction. My African colleagues for the most part no longer talk to me. I am relatively isolated in this position, which is exactly the way the Soviets want it.”

“But surely some of your friends talk to you still,” the Secretary objected. “Or, if not, your own appraisal is sufficient and well informed, I’m sure.”

The Secretary-General shrugged.

“Obviously the President’s remark was ill-advised and thoughtless, even though anyone with an ounce of sense and an iota of goodwill can perceive exactly what he meant. You understand, of course, that there are plenty of people in this house who possess a great deal of sense and not one speck of goodwill. His refusal to see the M’Bulu, while also understandable, was perhaps even more unfortunate. There I think possibly he was ill-advised.”

“He wasn’t advised at all,” the Secretary said bluntly. “I failed him, because I didn’t know that he had advanced the hour of his press conference. It was an understandable human error.”

“The world turns these days on understandable human errors to which understanding is refused,” the Secretary-General said. “It is the business of many here not to understand. No amount of explanation could erase now either the general impression left by the remarks or the decision not to see Terry. I am afraid the United States cannot ignore entirely the situation thus created.”

“But it’s such a stupid tempest in a teapot!” the Secretary exploded “Such utter silly nonsense. Particularly when you take into account that—that little—adventurer.”

The Secretary-General smiled, a sudden gleam of white teeth against black skin, and his eyes filled with a quizzical amusement.

“He is that. He is all of that. He is not a nice young man, the heir to Gorotoland. But marvelously popular in your country. Let us see—it is just past six.” And, crossing to an outsize television set, he turned it on and switched rapidly over the channels. On two of them Terrible Terry was already appearing, talking with slow earnestness on one, grinning and waving happily on the other. The Secretary-General snapped off the machine with a sardonic expression and returned to his chair. "It is a wonderful medium for the dissemination of information. I am sure Orrin Knox, or anyone else giving a true picture of the M’Bulu, would receive equal attention.”

The Secretary smiled.

“You just don’t understand our free society … You think, then, that we should now undertake the hopeless task of appeasing the unappeasable. That was the idea with which I came here, but I wanted confirmation.”

“Some gestures should be made, I think. They will not appease Terry, and he may not accept them, but at least you will have made them. It is important to give the Afro-Asian states the idea that you are humbling yourselves. They love that.”

“I take it you tell me that as an African,” the Secretary said dryly. The Secretary-General smiled.

“Sometimes I can understand the point of view. However, I tell you basically as Secretary-General, who wishes to do what he can to remove unnecessary frictions from the path of co-operation here. God knows there are enough necessary ones.”

“Yes. Well: the President is on his way to Michigan right now, so that part of it can’t be helped. But maybe we can fix up something else for his royal importance.”

“The Jasons are apparently going to do what they can to help in Charleston,” the Secretary-General observed. The Secretary of State snorted.

“That’s a great crew. I mean, something in Washington.”

“Good luck,” the Secretary-General said. “Will I be seeing you at the Turkish reception this evening?”

“No, I think I’m going back to Washington around eight. I’ll probably be back next week for the Assembly debate. I’ll see you then.”

“Call on me any time. I like to think I can be of some use to someone.”

“Oh, come now,” the Secretary said. “It isn’t that bad.”

“Almost,” the Secretary-General said. “Almost my friend.”

And that was symptomatic of the UN at this stage of its existence, the Secretary thought as he walked down the long corridor to the elevator, descended thirty-eight floors, and emerged from the Delegates’ Entrance to cross the furious homebound rush on First Avenue just before it funneled into F.D.R. Drive up the East River. A pervasive questioning filled the gleaming glass structure of the nations, “this house,” as so many of them called it. If only the performance equaled the potential—if only: that bitter, annoying, frustrating phrase. If only—the world’s troubles would be over.

Well, he thought as he entered U.S. delegation headquarters and returned to his office, not in his lifetime, probably, and probably not in the lifetime of anyone now living. Attack, struggle, and fall back; attack, struggle, and fall back. Maybe a little less back each time; that was the most one could hope for. He marveled at his own patience and thought again of the President’s comment on his changing attitude of late. He smiled. This was not like impatient Orrin Knox. Impatient Orrin Knox was learning, in the crucible of world events. Impatient Orrin Knox might really be a statesman, someday, if he kept at it long enough.

He paused for a moment to stare out his office window, his eyes traveling up the lighted Secretariat Building to the top floor, where he had just been. The private apartment was still illuminated and a tiny figure was still standing in the window staring out at fabulous Manhattan. Moved by some sentimental impulse, the Secretary raised his arm and waved, but there was no response, and indeed it was ridiculous to suppose that out of all that fantastic jumble of buildings the S.-G. should be looking at Orrin’s window. But he felt better for the gesture as he turned back to his desk, put through a call to Washington, and prepared to take the next step in his plans for easing the situation.

It was a lonely office the S.-G. had, he thought with a shiver. All the offices that bore men’s hopes were lonely—his own, he realized too, not least among them.

I shall see that gorgeous figure stalking down endless corridors in my dreams, Hal Fry thought as he emerged from the restricted delegates’ area into the Main Concourse of the UN, and there it was again. His first instinct was to let it go, but this was superseded instantly by duty, and he hurried forward, calling “Terry!” As the M’Bulu swung about with a pleased smile, the Senator became conscious of hurrying feet behind him, and he and the Indian Ambassador arrived together at their objective in the center of the echoing expanse of lobby, emptied now of its usual thronging tourists and occupied only by a small trickle of secretaries, clerks, and delegates going home.

“My two good friends!” the M’Bulu exclaimed. “Always together, a really genuine international friendship.”

“It wasn’t my intention,” Hal Fry said amicably, “but I heard the patter of little feet and there he was.”

“Oh, if I am not welcome, Hal—” Krishna Khaleel began, but the Senator from West Virginia waved him silent.

“Nonsense, I haven’t any secrets to hide. I just want to know what our young friend here is going to do to us as a result of the President’s rather undiplomatic—frankness.”

Terrible Terry smiled and made his hands-out, palms-up gesture with a graceful shrug.

“I am not doing anything to anyone. I am the one who is having things done to me. I am simply awaiting with interest to see—what next!”

“Mmm,” Hal Fry said. “Well, we hope there won’t be any ‘what next,’ at least of that kind. And, of course, he didn’t mean any personal disrespect to you. You know that.”

Again the M’Bulu shrugged and smiled.

“Who can say what is in the mind of another?”

The Senator from West Virginia snorted.

“Half the world, apparently, or so I hear around the corridors. The things they read into the President’s mind are quite something.”

“I
regret he gave them the opportunity,” Terry said, and this time he did not smile. Hal Fry looked at him for a second, debating several tactics, and then chose, characteristically, the most direct.

“Who gave who the opportunity? I don’t recall that you were invited. As I remember it, you demanded to be asked. A self-invited guest need not necessarily expect the same cordial reception as one who is invited. Isn’t that right?”

“Oh, now, Hal,” the Indian Ambassador said, “I do not think we should get into a public argument right here in the lobby of the UN—”

“I’m not getting into an argument,” Senator Fry said reasonably, “and, anyway, it’s late. There’s hardly anybody around. Let him answer if he will. Or am I,” he said with a sudden amiable grin, “being entirely too Western and direct?”

The M’Bulu gave a merry laugh and shook his head.

“You are being very American—let us put it that way. And I, perhaps, was being too—civilized when I thought I could depend on the famed hospitality of your country. Apparently it is very selective. It does not extend to those whose skins are black.”

“That’s a lie, and you know it. From Kwame Nkrumah and Sekou Toure right on up, African leaders have been entertained at the White House.”

“Then I do not see why I am unworthy,” Terry said harshly. “Am I any different than they are? How, tell me. How?”

“You do not represent an independent state,” Senator Fry said patiently. “That is how.”

“It seems to us a very precious distinction,” Krishna Khaleel said in a superior tone. “I must confess, Hal, it does seem splitting hairs.”

“I suppose,” the Senator said. “Or, at any rate, you’re all going to act as though you thought so if you think you can make a little propaganda from it.”

“Who is this ‘all’ who is going to do this?” the M’Bulu asked in bewilderment. “Who is conducting this sinister conspiracy against the great United States? Is she really so alone in the world? I am sorry for you, America!”

The Senator from West Virginia smiled.

“I know. I know. I am talking of shadows, and here at the UN everyone is calm and well-intentioned and kindly toward one another, nobody uses empty pretexts to attack anyone else, love and harmony fill the air, and we are all friends and companions in the great adventure of world peace. I salute you as you join our ranks, o noble son of Africa. May your days be long and your efforts fruitful. We shall look to you to lead us from the darkness into light.”

“Hal, Hal,” K.K. protested. “Now you are not being serious again. How is it possible to keep you to the serious point?”

“How fortunate,” the M’Bulu said with a quick irony, “that I do keep to it. What would you advise me, then, Senator? What should one who is—in the words of your President—‘a little character,’ do now? Should I cancel my visit to South Carolina? Should I give up my plans to visit Washington? Should I steal away silently, as suggested in effect by the United States, with no doubt the close concurrence of the United Kingdom, and be seen and heard no more? Do you think that would make the Afro-Asian states feel more kindly toward your country?”

“That is right, Hal,” Krishna Khaleel said solemnly. “You must think of the Asian-African states.”

“I think if I were you,” Hal Fry said as the M’Bulu disposed himself on one of the long, low benches where the tourists gather and looked out across the dark, swift-racing river to the giant neon Pepsi-Cola sign over Brooklyn, “that I would go to South Carolina as planned and go to Washington as planned. I’m sure you haven’t the slightest intention of abandoning either idea, and I suspect that in Washington it will be possible for you to see many people important to your cause. I haven’t talked to the Secretary since noon, but I think probably you will find that he is arranging opportunities for you to see members of the Congress, perhaps, and others with whom you might wish to confer. Possibly,” he said, hoping to goodness it was true, “he is arranging some suitable social event for you. I am quite sure that you will be made welcome in Washington.”

Terrible Terry gave him a long, thoughtful look and then smiled.

“By everyone save the one man who counts most. No,” he said, all amiability suddenly gone, “I do not think my colleagues from Africa are so mistaken in their reactions. I think their instincts tell them truly when, through me, they are being insulted. I think it will take some substantial amends in Washington to make up to them for this.”

“I believe you will have them,” Hal Fry said with a calculated indifference. “K.K., are you going back to the Waldorf?”

“No, thank you, Hal,” the Indian Ambassador said importantly. “Not yet. I wish to discuss some matters with His Highness, if you will excuse us now.”

The Senator from West Virginia shrugged.

“Surely. Will I see you at the Turkish reception?”

“
I
shall be there!” Terrible Terry said with a sudden happy eagerness. “I would not miss anything of this wonderful UN.”

“Keep smiling, K.K.,” Hal Fry said. And, recalling another conversation at the height of the Leffingwell controversy some months ago, he added dryly, “It won’t matter in a hundred years.”

But the Indian Ambassador preferred not to be amused. Instead, he looked offended.