Advise and Consent (83 page)

So, now what? He didn’t know, exactly. He had refused a call from the President at the hotel, and ten minutes after he reached the office Mary had informed him of another. “Tell him I’m not here,” he said sharply, and she had. But there would be another call in a while, he supposed, and the President would keep it up until he answered. He might as well, next time, though he did not know right now whether he could manage to be civil or not. He would feel a lot better, he thought, if Orrin were the one trying to reach him; but Orrin, he knew, was busy on purposes of his own, and he knew they boded no good for Robert A. Leffingwell. At the moment he found it hard to care.

“I think something is going on in Orrin Knox’s office,” AP said, turning away from a phone in the press gallery. “They’re awfully coy about his whereabouts over there.”

“I haven’t been able to raise Tom August,” UPI offered.

“And I can’t find Seab or Warren Strickland,”
The Wall Street Journal
remarked.

“I don’t suppose anybody would be in the mood for a stroll to the Office Building?” AP inquired.

“I’m with you,” the
Times
said, throwing down a copy of his own paper. “I keep hoping that some morning I’m going to find enough time to read this thing, but it obviously isn’t going to be today.”

“It’ll keep,”
The Wall Street Journal
said. “It’s history.”

“
You
think you’re kidding,” the
Times
said with a grin, “but
we
know you’re not.”

And collecting the
Birmingham
News
, the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
and Paris
Soir
, who all happened to be in the gallery at the moment, they headed for the elevators and, they hoped, the news.

This was one of the times, Beth thought as she moved quietly about the big old house in Spring Valley, when she wondered how she had ever gotten mixed up in politics. But even if she hadn’t, she decided, things probably wouldn’t have been so very different. Sooner or later these moments came; it seemed to fall to men to create disasters and to women to come around and mop up after; and even in some other context there might well be a household of unhappy people depending upon her to keep things going while they gradually untangled themselves from the web of sorrow and despair in which they had become entrapped.

Politics, she had decided long ago, was neither as good nor as evil as people said; it was somewhere in between, with aspects of both, and on occasion one or the other predominated as it had now. Up to now the evil had been in control, but this, she knew, marked the turning point—a terrible turning point, but a turning point which for that very reason could not be evaded. From this point forward the good guys were going to triumph over the bad guys because in the curious development of the ever-changing American story there came a time when they always had to, and this was it. And leading the posse as it thundered toward the pass would be the volatile, stubborn, cantankerous, brusquely tender-hearted man she had married, his emotions rubbed raw, his feelings completely engaged, his whole being devoted with a grim single-mindedness to his purpose.

Thinking upon the number of times she had seen this happen, she could not refrain from a smile in which amusement and affection were inextricably mixed. From college right on through, she had always found it the most touching characteristic of the many she had discovered in her husband, and she had seen it take him from a modest beginning in the law straight to the top of his country without a pause along the way. The pauses had come after he had reached the top, when he had tried to go even higher and been stopped by factors composed about equally of organized political opposition and his own prickly character. It had been one of her own personal triumphs, which she never mentioned to anyone but which gave her much quiet satisfaction, that she had gradually over the years brought him to understand his own responsibility in this. And she had done it without conflict or tenseness or nagging—the note she had sent him at the convention had been only one of many such quietly humorous summons to sensibility that she had sounded—and without in any way jeopardizing their deep understanding and partnership. Indeed it had only become stronger all the time, so that she could not remember a period when their relationship had not been undergoing a process of growth. “I suppose that’s a sign of lots of friends, when you have three nicknames,” a wistful boy who didn’t then have too many friends had remarked soon after they met; and at that moment, though he didn’t know it at the time, Elizabeth Henry had decided irrevocably that helping him was what she wanted in life. And so she had, in the early years, the Springfield years, the Washington years, in all the triumphs and defeats of a gallant and controversial heart, knowing that because of her support the defeats were far less devastating than they might have been, and that because she was part of them the triumphs meant far more to him than they ever could have otherwise. “Orrin and Beth,” the sign had said, and it had unknowingly paid tribute to far more than a shrewdly powerful political team; it had also paid tribute to a marriage as near perfect as any she knew.

All of it, she felt now as she went softly about the house while the Andersons still slept and the day’s sorrow had not been fully taken up again to be carried until sleep could come once more, had in a sense been preparation for this supreme test arising out of the Leffingwell nomination. So much hung upon it: what would happen to the nominee himself, in the first instance; what would happen to the country, in the second; above all, from her standpoint, what would happen to her husband’s future and to hopes and plans which she knew were temporarily dormant but still very much alive.

She had known at breakfast that he had been awake most of the night, for she had been too, although Mabel mercifully slept a druglike sleep in the other bed and did not disturb her. She had also known, without his telling her, what he planned to do. They had talked very little at breakfast, but she had seen him go out the door with the same air of implacable determination she had seen many times before. “Good luck,” she had said as she kissed him good-by, and he had nodded rather absently. “I’ve got a lot to do,” he said, “but if you need me here for anything, don’t hesitate to call. I’ll come home if necessary.” “I’ll manage,” she said, and suddenly he had smiled and come back from the whirling storm of his own thoughts. “You always do, Hank,” he said, rubbing his fist against her chin; “that’s one of the reasons I like you.” “It’s mutual,” she said lightly, and he had kissed her with a sudden warmth that showed he was paying attention to it. “Orrin and Beth,” he said with a chuckle. “What makes anybody think he can lick
us?
” And he had driven off to the Hill comforted and fortified as always.

This had disposed of the first challenge of the day, and a few minutes later when Hal came down she had disposed of the second by giving him a quick breakfast and telling him firmly to go and get Crystal and get away somewhere and try to enjoy the beautiful weather and forget unpleasant things as much as possible. Her son’s eyes still looked dark with pain and lack of sleep, and she could tell it was not going to be easy for him and his fiancée to escape the shadow hanging over them all; but she also knew that he grasped the wisdom of the advice, for he nodded quickly, gave her a quick kiss and hug and then hopped in his car and drove off. She said a little prayer as he left that the two of them would realize that the fact that life on occasion could be utterly tragic did not mean that it could not also on occasion be utterly happy. She would have to rely on youth and common sense to reassure them on that, and she guessed they would.

That left only Mabel and Pidge to be looked after and as she stepped out for a moment onto the porch to snap off some tulips and bring them in for the dining-room table she heard sounds of stirring upstairs. She knew this would not be an easy day for any of the Knoxes, but, she thought wryly, that was probably one reason the Lord had made them so tough, so that they could stand things. She stood quietly at the foot of the stairs for a moment, composing her thoughts and her person to their customary serenity, and then went up to say good morning to Brigham Anderson’s widow and child.

“How are you, Mr. President? I thought I might come down sometime this morning and we could have a talk.”

“Well, I’ll tell you, Fred, I do appreciate your call and I would love
to see you, but you know how it is. I’m just loaded down with work
this morning and I don’t quite see how—”

“Perhaps this afternoon, then?”

“This afternoon, too, I’m afraid. Why don’t I try to square things away later in the week sometime and give you a call?”

“Well—”

“You needn’t bother to call me, I’ll call you.”

“But it may be important for the nomination that I—”

“I’m sorry, Fred. We’ll just have to wait and see how the week develops. Is that all right with you?”

“But—”

“It’s good to hear your voice, Fred. We’ll have that talk sometime, never you fear.”

“But, God damn it—”

“Sorry I have to run, Fred, but I do. I’m sure you understand.”

“I think you’d better see me, Mr. President. After all, I know certain things—”

“What do you know, Fred? How to murder a man?”

“
....
I only did what you wanted me to.”

“Oh? Who told you that? I don’t remember that I did.”

“But—”

“Don’t do anything hasty you might regret, Fred. Now I really must say good-by. It’s been grand talking to you.”

“But, God damn it—”

“Good-by, Senator. Keep in touch.”

Behind the locked doors of the Embassy on Sixteenth Street, Vasily Tashikov sat at his desk staring thoughtfully at the morning papers with their banner headlines and their skillful speculations. So far none of them had related the death of the Senator from Utah directly to the Administration’s drive to confirm Robert A. Leffingwell, but reading between the lines the Soviet Ambassador, who was an astute if humorless man, could perceive that many of them felt there was some connection. This, from what he had observed of all the personalities involved, led him to believe that there might be something damaging to the nominee which had been known to the chairman of the subcommittee, which in turn had brought upon him such pressure that he had gone under. It was the sort of equation a representative of Communism could understand, for in one form or another it happened in his country all the time. He decided he would advise Moscow that the nominee might fail of confirmation, necessitating some revision of plans that were already being formulated on the basis that his reasonable approach to the ambitions of the unfree world might soon be a dominant factor in American foreign policy.

Not that it would matter in another day or two anyway, the Ambassador thought with a vengeful satisfaction, for very shortly now his government hoped to have an announcement that would put the arrogant capitalist imperialists in their place once and for all. It wasn’t quite certain yet, but the cable the decoders had just given him indicated that only a matter of hours, required by the necessity for complete scientific confirmation, separated his way of life from a new and quite possibly crushing triumph over the other.

If the President only knew, Harley Hudson thought, how far ahead of him some people were, he might give up trying these indirect approaches to things. The Vice President didn’t suppose he ever would, for that was his nature, but he for one wasn’t fooled by the technique he had just been subjected to.

It was all very well for him to call up and exchange commiserations on the sad event that had befallen the Senate, but it had been all Harley could do to refrain from a tart rejoinder—in fact, more than tart, for he suspected the President knew considerably more about events leading to the tragedy than had yet been revealed, or might ever be revealed. Something about that White House conference hadn’t quite rung true to the Vice President. He had realized finally that it had been the President’s sudden capitulation, which in spite of Brig’s hopes, spurred by his great relief at having the situation apparently so easily solved, had been just a little too pat, seen in retrospect. It was this realization which had prompted his offer of a joint press conference, unhappily sought too late; and it was this which had turned to an iron indifference to the President’s wishes the sorrow and dismay he had felt when the news came last night.

The President’s calm show of regret now, in fact, had come close to leaving the Vice President breathless; if what he suspected was true, there had been a monumental nerve and gall about it that had both repelled and fascinated him. This, he supposed, was greatness—this ineffable combination of sincerity, insincerity, straightforwardness, duplicity, determi-nation, adaptability, and sheer downright guts. Thank God he wasn’t great, he told himself with a surge of innocent relief. He would settle for being just what he was, which might not be so very brilliant but at least left him feeling comfortable with himself. He would settle for that, and so, he hoped and believed, would the country, if it should have to come to that.

Not that he had not found the conversation interesting, of course, as he always did his talks with the President. He was acutely aware that this time the President had called him, not the other way around, and he knew that a number of things had gone into this decision. Most important, he realized, must be the fact that the President felt himself hard-pressed all around and was looking for allies wherever he could find them. This indicated a number of things, and it was with some satisfaction that the Vice President had been able to tell him, when they finally got to it, that there really wasn’t much he could do about the situation in the Senate. He knew the President knew this, but he also knew the President was hoping that it might not be true. “You know my relation to them,” Harley had remarked with a rare touch of humor, “rather like the helpless headmaster of a large and very unruly boys’ school.” The President had laughed and told him that he underestimated his own standing. “Oh, I don’t think so,” the Vice President had replied candidly. “Particularly in my case. Nobody pays any attention to me.” “I’m paying attention to you, Harley,” the President had said, and the Vice President had given a short, sardonic laugh which had effectively stopped the conversation for several seconds until the President finally joined in it heartily. Then he said candidly that he needed Harley’s assistance on the nomination, and would he do everything he could during the day to line up votes? The Vice President had considered temporizing but decided there was no point to it any more, if there ever had been. “I can’t help you, Mr. President,” he had said quietly. “I’ve decided this isn’t a good thing to do. It’s already cost too much in terms of human pain and unhappiness. I’m not having any part of it anymore.” The President had accepted this instantly, thanked him for his courtesy in listening, and hung up. Possibly he hoped second thoughts and reflection would change the Vice President’s mind; if so, he was mistaken.