A Shade of Difference (21 page)

“You needn’t be flaunting it,” Maudie said tartly. “Even suppose it’s true. Which,” she added, “I don’t.”

“All right,” he said, suddenly sterner, “get along out, now, and mix those drinks. I’ll take it up to her. Then,” he added wickedly, “maybe you can put off dinner an hour, Maudie, and think about it, down here in the kitchen.”

“Hmph,” she said. “Little boy like to talk about getting the moon, but once he got it, what he got? Just plain old cheese. Not gold and silver at all, just plain old cheese.”

“All right, get along, I said!” he repeated sharply. “And hurry it up!”

“I’m gettin’,” she said grumpily. “Don’t rush me.”

So much for that, he thought angrily as he went to the television set and snapped it on. So much for God damn that. Little boy
will
get the moon and see what it’s made of. But even as the screen began to light up and there appeared upon it exactly the bland and happy face he expected to see, he knew the answer. Maudie’s answer. Just plain old cheese.

“Of course,” the M’Bulu was remarking in a film clip taken out on the concrete expanse of the plaza with the Secretariat Building looming most impressively behind him, “I am sure the United States does not wish to be in the position of being discourteous or inconsiderate to Africa. But—” he shrugged and gave his charming gesture and smile. “But—”

“Then you think, Your Highness,” the network correspondent asked eagerly, “that the President definitely should have canceled his trip to Michigan to remain in Washington and entertain you?”

“Oh, I would not want to disturb the President’s plans,” Terrible Terry said politely. “He knows what is best for his own health. And, I assume, for his country. But—” And again the charming shrug and smile.

“Then you
do
think he should have stayed?”

The M’Bulu laughed.

“Now you are attempting to get me to be critical of the President.”

“Oh, no,” the network correspondent objected, but Terry went on.

“I think the President is a great man. I am sure that if he decided to insult Africa, he had reasons for it. And I am sure they make sense to him. Even if,” he added wistfully, “they leave all of us in Africa somewhat puzzled.”

“You would say that the United States, then, has definitely lost ground in Africa as a result of the President’s snub?”

Again the M’Bulu shrugged and smiled.

“I would not want to pass judgment, but—well, yes, I think the United States definitely will have to regain some lost ground. If, of course, the United States cares what we in Africa think. Sometimes we are not so sure.”

Cullee made a disgusted sound and snapped off the set as Maudie returned with the drinks.

“A great man, Maudie. He’s going to tell the United States what to do. I think maybe he’s also going to lead us poor black folks out of slavery, if he has the time.”

“Pfoof,” she said. “’T’s all I can say. Pfoof! Here’s your drinks.”

“Thank you,” he said, starting up the stairs. As he did so, she laughed suddenly. “Bet she’s still listening to him. What do you bet?”

“You know I’d lose, Maudie. Don’t hurry dinner.”

“You going to be mighty embarrassed when you find you have forty-five minutes to kill,” she called, but he didn’t deign an answer.

Nor, he thought as he kicked open the bedroom door and went in carrying the tray, was there any particular answer to make. Most of the older women of his race had an instinct for going straight to the jugular, particularly in matters involving life, death, love, and other fundamentals. Maudie had sensed it out, all right, though she had never before voiced it so frankly. By the same token, maybe she had made him face it more honestly than he had up to now. The thought did not give him a pleasant expression as he came into the room, and the shrewd little fox-face that greeted him from among the pillows and lacy things of the bed threw it back to him without an instant’s hesitation. Of course the bedroom television set was blaring too, and of course Terry was still on it, though on another channel. He put the drinks on the night table, went over to the machine, and snapped it off with a vicious twist of his fingers. Sue-Dan promptly switched it back on again with the remote-control mechanism beside the bed.

“Leave it off!” he demanded, and after a long look and a moment sufficiently prolonged to tease him she complied with a little chuckle.

“What’s the matter? You don’t want to hear your old friend Terry?”

“No.”

“Big man. Real famous now. Better look him up, Cullee. It might help your career.”

“How’s that?” he demanded, going to the closet and taking off his coat and tie, tossing his shirt on a chair, putting his glasses carefully on the bureau, coming back to sit on the edge of the bed as he unlaced his shoes. “What’s he got to do with my career?”

“Patsy Labaiya called a while ago. She thinks you ought to go to Charleston for that luncheon.”

“LeGage Shelby called a while ago,” he said in a voice that mimicked her own sarcastic tones. “He thinks I ought to go to Charleston for that luncheon.”

She laughed.

“Cullee’s other wife. You can say no to Patsy, but sure enough you aren’t going to say no to ’Gage. Now, are you?”

“Yes,” he said levelly, “I did say no to him.”

“And had another fight.”

“And had another fight.”

“Could be the Jasons could help you when you run for Senator next year,” she observed dreamily, nestling down in the pillows with a luxuriant air.

“If
I run for Senator,” he corrected, slipping out of his trousers and draping them over the chair with his shirt.

“Oh,” she said, as he sat again on the edge of the bed. “I expect you will.”

‘The Speaker thinks I should,” he admitted, and for the first time since he had entered the room Sue-Dan looked genuinely pleased.

“Good for him. He’s got some sense, that old man.”

“He’s got plenty of sense,” Cullee said, starting to strip off his undershirt. He was conscious of an immediate tensing alongside.

“What you got in mind, Cullee?” she asked sharply. He gave a sarcastic laugh.

“I just like to get undressed and run around naked. Isn’t that what you been thinking right along? Surely, now, you haven’t been thinking anything
else,
little Sue-Dan.”

Her eyes looked enormous, though not, he thought bitterly, from any fear or anticipation of him. She played this game all the time.

“I’m tired.”

“I’m tired,” he mimicked. “So am I tired. But I’m not tired right
here.
See that, Sue-Dan? Terry isn’t the only big man. You got a big man, too.”

“Why can’t you ever leave me alone?” she demanded angrily, starting to roll out the other side of the bed; but he reached an arm across and pinned her down with one enormous hand as he reached down with the other, ripped off his shorts, and dropped them on the floor.

“I’ve got to show you who Cullee’s wife really is,” he said huskily, stripping back the blankets and clambering over her. “I think maybe you forgot since the last time.”

“I haven’t forgotten anything,” she said through her teeth, struggling fiercely under him.

“Then stop it,” he said angrily, his face an inch from hers, his powerfully muscled athlete’s body slowly and inexorably crushing down upon her. “Just stop it. God damn it, do you mean I have to rape my own wife?”

Suddenly her struggles ceased as quickly as they had begun, her arms went around him, the world became a place of wild confusion, until at last they cried out together in hoarse, incoherent exclamation and a quietness descended.

“Now get off me,” she whispered abruptly with a harshness that broke the mood at once. “Just get off me, big man. You’ve proved it, whatever it was you wanted to prove.
Get off me.
”

“You just can’t help but be good, even when you hate me, can you, Sue-Dan?” he said with an equally harsh sarcasm as he started to comply. “You’re just a natural-born lay, Mrs. Congressman Hamilton.”

“Better not let anybody else find it out,” she said shrewishly, and he swung back one huge hand, caught her wrist, and again pinned her down helpless on the bed, leaning over so close his face was again an inch from hers.

“Better not
you
ever let anybody else find it out,” he whispered with a menace that he was pleased to note made her look genuinely terrified. “Or I not promise what I do to you, little Sue-Dan.”

And as abruptly as he had pinned her down he released her, stood up, stretched, and went into the bathroom. She remained motionless where she was, not stirring until the phone rang as he came out, toweling vigorously and starting toward his drink. She lifted the receiver and, in a tone as casual as though she had been mending socks, asked who it was. Then with an expression of surprise she said respectfully, “Yes, Mr. Secretary, just a minute. Here he is.”

The car radio was on as they swung out of Forty-eighth Street onto Massachusetts Avenue in Spring Valley and started the run across town to the Sheraton-Park on Sixteenth Street, and once again much was being said about the troubles of the M’Bulu. By this time, the Secretary of State noted, the public was being given the general impression that the President had told the Savior He couldn’t walk on the water. Apparently the Secretary’s companion had the same reaction to the broadcast, for he gave a slow chuckle and shifted a little in his seat.

“Orrin,” he said, “what in the world—what—in—the—world—did Harley do to that young man? Must have been something terrible, Orrin. I can’t remember things getting so stirred up since you and I did all those awful things to Mr. Robert—A.—Leffingwell. Can you, Orrin?”

“Well, it’s all very unfortunate,” the Secretary said as he drove briskly down nearly deserted Mass. Avenue. “I missed giving Harley the pitch by half an hour, and consequently the sky has fallen in. Or, at any rate, all our eager friends, allies, and enemies would like to have us think so. It’s amazing how unanimous they can get when it’s a case of embarrassing the United States.”

Senator Cooley chuckled.

“Seems to me like you’re getting a mite prickly in your new job, Orrin. Think of what a gray world it would be for them if we weren’t around to embarrass.”

“It’s so damned childish, that’s what gets me. Grown men and grown nations—because many of them are grown that do it; it isn’t always the babies who might possibly be excused on the ground they don’t know any better—yapping at our heels on the slightest pretext they can find. Listen to that: ‘British reaction tonight is harshly critical of the President—’”

“Maybe there comes a time in the life of a nation,” Seab Cooley said, “when you haven’t got much more to do but react. Maybe you get hypersensitive and waspish just because you’re sick and sad inside that nobody any more cares enough to react to
you
like that. Could be a lesson for us someday, too, you know, Orrin.”

“‘Far-called our navies melt away,’” the Secretary quoted with an ironic note. ‘“On dune and headland sinks the fire …’ Yes, I suppose so, Seab. But not yet awhile. Not yet awhile, God willing and God grant us strength. We have an awful lot to do before we reach that point, I do believe. And so do they believe, all of them, when you come right down to it. Just suppose there were no United States to bulwark the world? Where would all the yappers be then?”

“Ground up and sold for hamburger at Moscow Meat Factory No. 1,” Senator Cooley said with a dry chuckle. “Yes, sir, ground up and sold for hamburger at Moscow Meat Factory No. 1.”

“Exactly,” the Secretary of State agreed as they swung around Ward Circle past American University and continued the long plunge down Massachusetts Avenue toward the center of town. “That’s why I sometimes find it a little hard to be as dutifully polite as I’m suppose to be in this job.”

“Kind of hard for Orrin Knox to hold it in, isn’t it?” The pugnacious old face looked solemn, but there was a puckish gleam in the eyes.
“Good,
for you, Orrin!
Good
for you!”

“So Beth tells me. She tells me I may be a great man someday if I can just stand the discipline of it.”

“Very kind woman, Beth,” the Senator from South Carolina said. “Very kind of you both to invite me to dinner tonight.”

“Oh, I had a motive,” Orrin said cheerfully. “Aside from always being glad to see you, of course, which we both are. I want your help in dealing with the M’Bulu, Seab. I’m really taking him rather seriously. I have to, now.”

“What do you think would happen, Orrin, if sometime the United States just refused to take some over-inflated episode seriously? If the United States just said, ‘Now, you all just run along and stop bothering us. We just never heard about it, so you all just run along.’ Would the world really come to an end, Orrin? Or would they respect us the more for being strong enough to do it?”

“Yes, that’s all very fine, Seab,” the Secretary said as he turned left on Idaho Avenue to Woodley Road and then turned right toward Connecticut Avenue, “but it isn’t very practical in the nervous situation the world has got itself into. You’ve no idea the way they go twittering around that UN aviary up there like a flock of sparrows in a high wind. And if you happen to believe in it then you have to take it into account. You can’t just dismiss it cavalierly. We’re committed to it, and that automatically means that everybody from the biggest power to the littlest can put his oar into what we do. So—we have the M’Bulu. And the M’Bulu, as you gather, is making the most of it.”

“Mmmm. That’s why you’re going to see young Cullee.”

“Yes. I think he can help. You could, too, Seab, if you would.”

“How’s that?”

“Just by keeping quiet. Just by not inflaming the situation any more than necessary.”

“If you mean be kind to Ray Smith—” Seab began with a humorous air. Orrin snorted.

“Ray’s a fool. I hope Cullee runs and beats him. No, have your fun with Ray, if you want to. But tomorrow, for instance—do what you can to keep this luncheon from boiling over into something unpleasant in Charleston.”

“I haven’t been invited. You know that, Orrin. Wouldn’t invite the Senators from South Carolina. Might put the curse of respectability on it. The Jasons can’t have that.”