The Trespassers (42 page)

The motherland, the fatherland—the very vocabulary of every people the earth over showed that it was the same treachery. The child brought into existence, trusting, guileless—and then told it was not wanted, there was no room for it in the life of the parent country, no place for it, no safety or honor or desire for it.

The bitterness in the heart, the rawness of the knowledge—a million refugees from Germany and Spain and Czechoslovakia must know the same darting, thrusting agony that she was now knowing.

Yes, she could think again now. She could think of people, of nations, of a world at the mercy of savage men, the ruthless ones who could lay about them when the need came—the need, there was always the need. She could think again; perhaps that meant that her own blinding hurt was lessening at last.

“Oh, Jas, Jas, why did you have to?”

Whenever the telephone rang, whenever the post came, whenever the doorbell shrilled, some silent hope scurried out of its hiding place in her heart. A moment later, like a frightened animal, it darted back again.

It wouldn’t be any good, anyway. The telephone call, the letter, the sudden unannounced appearance at her door—none of it would be any good. She could never trust him again, she could never rely on his most deep and solemn promise. For if the need ever came, he would find the way to betray it.

Long ago, a year ago on the beach at Montego Bay, she had lain in the sunny white sand and argued with her doubts about Jasper Crown. Later she had begun to love him, and the doubts were shoved back, aside, away. But never, not in her greatest perplexity about what he was under all his outer facets—never had she thought him capable of this.

She would go ahead alone. She would go ahead somehow. When she tried to plan how, Ann stopped her. “Time enough after March first, when you leave the store, Vee. We can think it all out then. You can’t think straight yet.”

Time enough. “You have another six weeks to do it without any danger to you.” Now four of those six weeks were gone by. Was Jasper still hoping that she would come to see it his way while there was still time?

Did Jasper take blue capsules to make him sleep for four hours or so? Did he quiver at the sound of the telephone? Jas, Jas, are
you
happy?

Frank Terson and Giles Craven drank their coffee, paid the check for their dinners, and went back to the office. Jasper had called a meeting for nine.

“The man’s insatiable for work,” Terson said. “He’s the most driving human I’ve ever known.”

“I’ve been worried over him the past month,” Giles said. Sympathy was mixed with puzzled resentment. “He’s killing himself and everybody else with this constant night work. What’s got into him, anyway?”

They walked in silence through the bitter January night. Giles was more irritated than sympathetic. This meeting for nearly a dozen people—it could have been managed during business hours, but here it was. Of course, if you spoke up and pleaded an important engagement, Jasper was completely polite about excusing you from attending, but after doing that once or twice, you found yourself merely nodding when he next said, “Do you suppose we could talk this over after dinner? My days are so jammed up.”

But when the meeting was opened, it was apparent that something was in the air. Jasper seemed a shade more friendly than he had been for weeks. His eyes were more alive; his whole bearing was more relaxed. He was, as always, openly satisfied during the quick check-through of new business and current business. JCN now had 130 affiliated stations and sixty sponsored programs. The daring scheme of selling
all
the news from one city to one advertiser was even more of a success than anybody had hoped. Four of the leading advertisers in the country had bids in against the first chance to “buy” London or Paris; two wanted Madrid, Berlin, or Prague; two more wanted “any city anywhere that became the next big news spot.” A gross business of over twelve million for their first year now was on the books. Unless disastrous cancellations turned up later, they were “in.”

After an hour and a half, the meeting seemed to be drawing to a close. It was then that Jasper reached forward to the interoffice communicator on his desk. He clicked up a lever.

“Pipe it through, Joe, we’re ready.”

He went to the wall, where a large cabinet stood. A large disk of taut silk was in the center of it. He turned a switch.

“Something I want you to hear,” he said quietly. “First audition.”

For another moment there was silence. Then a voice came into the room. It was a strong, deep voice, the perfect male speaking voice for radio.

“Good evening. This is something new in foreign news commentating. As far as I know, this is the first time the president of a national or international network has taken a nightly job of talking directly to the millions of people who—”

The rest of the sentence was lost. Ten voices spoke at once. They drowned out the words coming through the amplifier.

“God, Jas, you’re not
really
going to—”

“Every night, Jas? How can you—”

“What a stunt—my Lord, the publicity value—”

“It’s absolutely new. Imagine Paley or Sarnoff—”

Jas turned the switch off and stood listening to the surprised hubbub. Then he held his hand up for silence.

“I’ve been working it out for a couple of weeks,” he said. “I had several recordings made to see how I sounded on the air. Seems all right, doesn’t it?”

A flutter of approving comments came at him. “Resonant”…“born radio voice” …“what a stunt for the head of a network.”

“It’s no stunt,” he said. “I have gone into it from every angle—policy, F.C.C., my time, hooking in when I’m on a business trip, all that.”

“You going to write your scripts, Jas?”

“When I can. I’ve written the practice ones. Been down here evenings, with some of the news staff. When I can’t write the script, I’ll have Borles do it—he knows what I want now. He’ll do most of them. He could be a really great news analyst, but that soprano voice of his—”

Jasper reached for the interoffice communicator once again. “Start it again, Joe—maybe they’ll listen through this time,” he said pleasantly.

“Good evening. This is something new in foreign news commentating. As far as I know, this is the first time the president of a national or international network has taken a nightly job of talking directly to the millions of people who keep turning to that network for information or for fun.

“There is a reason why it has never been done—or something that goes under the guise of a reason. It is thought that a broadcasting company must remain impartial, unbiased. That is a good thought. In a country where freedom of speech is one of the basic props of our national life, every opportunity must be given to the voice of the opponent, the dissenter, even though you thoroughly disagree with what that voice says. The Crown Network has been and will be impartial and unbiased in that regard; indeed, it is the law that we must give equal time on the air to both sides of any question.

“But that does not mean that I, for instance, as an individual who happens to be head of the Crown Network must be silenced before the millions of you that JCN is proud to call its audience. I may, and now will, state my opinions of the news as well as any other man who wishes to be a news analyst—and can get a job as one! I may, and now will, come to you every night at this same hour to sum up the day’s foreign news, to offer you an interpretation of its meaning and importance. It will be
my
own interpretation, not my company’s interpretation. I will be as much of an individual as if my name were Swing or Heatter or Kaltenborn, instead of Crown.

“Now, my advertising colleagues here tell me this is a dangerous thing to do. I may express opinions that will offend an advertiser. That advertiser may then wish to take his show off JCN and put it on some other network.

“My only answer to that possibility is, and must be, ‘Let him.’ Most advertisers will continue to put their shows on any network that reaches as many millions of people as this one does. Most advertisers believe as heartily as you and I in any man’s right to free speech—even if that man happens to be the head of a radio network. “Now I come to the news of the past twenty-four hours—” The deep, clear-cut voice went on with the news. It was straight-forward speaking, with surprising dashes -of humor and colloquialism. “Like Swing, only slangier,” Giles thought. The broadcast lasted for fifteen minutes, with no interruption for tooth paste, cathartic, cigarettes, or any other product. At the end, the voice said, “Good night,” and another voice immediately came in. “Thank you, Mr. Crown. That was Jasper Crown, President of the Crown Network, in his nightly ten-fifteen summary of the major foreign news. If you have comments or suggestions, write to him personally. Busy as he is, he will answer you personally.”

For a moment there was complete silence. Then the discussion bubbled on all sides at once. Would it antagonize any big advertiser? How many? Which? Did the F.C.C. have any rulings on a thing like this? If this caught on, and Jasper Crown’s name became famous in the new role of commentator—Jasper sat, relishing every word of it. His head was dropped forward while he fiddled with the buttons of his cat. When at last he straightened up, the vices fell away.

“I’ve been going into this myself, from every angle you’ve raised,” he stated calmly. “I’ve called our biggest advertisers on the phone, and all the major agencies, feeling it out. I’ve talked to Washington. I’ve talked to our libel lawyers, in case I get calling Hitler a bastard.”

“What’s the reaction? How’d it go down?”

“It’s big, Jas—you’ve got something terrific—”

He looked about him. Admiration stood upon every face. “He thinks of everything. You don’t catch this guy napping.” He could almost read the praise.

“The general reaction is good enough so I’m ready to do it. The advertisers? Just so I don’t praise That Man in the White House. The agencies? About the same—just so I stay on foreign news and off politics. Washington—that will be all right if we keep on giving equal time to both sides of everything.”

“Want to bet, Jas? Bet you a hundred that inside a month some advertiser will be clamoring to sponsor
you.
”

Uproarious laughter greeted it. It was midnight when the meeting broke up, in clear agreement to try this precedent-breaking new idea. Jasper left the office with Giles and Frank, and they walked him home. He invited them up to his apartment for a drink.

“I’d like to, Jas,” Terson said. “But I’d better not.”

“Marge would brain me,” Giles said flatly. “This is the third time in a week I’ve left her alone all evening. New baby, and all.”

Jasper nodded. Yes, they had to get home. In the dark, he smiled, and there were ridicule and bitterness behind it.

They parted and he started to go up. Then he changed his mind and went into the bar. He ordered whisky and water, and sat alone, drinking it. He didn’t want it much, and it lasted for a long time. At another table, there were two men whom he recognized. He nodded to them and hoped that they would leave it at that. He would rather sit alone.

Upstairs, he sank into one of the big leather chairs. He was tired, now that the “audition” was over. He was often tired. It was a little surprising, because this wasn’t the first time he had worked day and night for a month at a stretch. Nor was it the last. He’d keep on this way until the company had weathered at least its first year, and had enough backlog of renewing contracts and profits to stand up against any setbacks that might lie ahead. And now, to all his other duties, he had added this new one. He wasn’t doing it out of any hunger for personal fame. He was undertaking it only for the network. Five nights a week on the air; that was a big contribution to make to building its name and fame.

This is the way it had to be. This newest idea was only one idea. There were a dozen more, there would always be a dozen more. He had to be able to dedicate himself to them when they came, all of himself. For another year, there was no choice. She should have been able to see that—God damn it, she should have been able to see that. Perhaps she still would. There was still time.

A hundred times he had thought of telephoning Vee. He missed her badly, he needed her. He had thought of going to see her, to try once more to make her see it his way. But premature efforts at fixing things up always blew up in your face. There was still time, and something might happen to make her realize that it was no good forcing a man into emotions he did not feel. Something as simple as hearing his voice on the air, when his nightly broadcasts started—that might touch her and make her see how much wiser for both of them to wait until he was his own man again, and could turn to the responsibilities of a home and marriage and children. He had always known marriage wasn’t for him, and then he had forgotten that in the absorbing problem of Gontlen and the rest of it. But then he had come face to face at last with what had really happened to him. He had been a fool not to have visualized the whole thing more clearly, and to have known that he was not ready yet. Yes, a fool. He was big enough to face that charge. A Goddamned, Christ-bitten fool.

For nearly an hour, he sat in the big chair. He had never been this tired. The heavy, dragging load that was upon him that first morning after they’d come back from The Jonathan was upon him still. He was never free of it. It balked dismissal, it defied his most determined effort to escape from under it. It was like living with a load of wet cement in your guts—weighing you down, dragging at you. You woke up with it. You went to sleep with it. Even while you worked or argued or dictated letters, you were aware of it. It was like hate, and you hated it back because you couldn’t beat it out of your system.

But he would beat it yet.

Vee did not hear his voice on the air. When the nightly broadcasts started a fortnight later, she did not know about them. She never turned on the radio. The very word “radio” had the power to send her mind hurtling off into the vast associative spaces of memory. Without realizing that she was doing it, she kept her eyes averted from the big instrument in the living room, and from the handsome portable in her bedroom. Particularly from the portable. Jas had given it to her for Christmas. It was a large, heavy one, done in some brownish tweed fabric. It stood on the low table where he had placed it for her. But it stood silent and ignored.