Washington, D.C., page 34
Clay smiled, off the hook. He was mild. “I honestly can’t see the President as a Communist fellow traveler.” Nervous laughter. “But if old Harry is traveling anywhere in my direction, why, as Democrat, I’m perfectly willing to give him a lift.” There was applause at this necessary piety.
Quickly Clay recognized the nearest arm, realizing too late that it belonged to Sam Biermann, Burden’s friend and ally.
“Now, Congressman.” The voice was slow and folksy. Clay prepared himself for battle. “You’re on record as having said that you didn’t intend to run for the Senate at least until 1952, wanting to get, you said…I have the exact quote right here…‘a maximum of experience in the House of Representatives first…’ ”
“That’s right, Sam, I did say that. But how was I to know that I’d get the maximum experience two years ahead of schedule?” Everyone laughed while Clay maintained the poker face of the frontier wit.
Sam did not acknowledge the pleasantry. “You also went on to say, it’s right here in the interview…that you would never (and now I quote) ‘under any circumstances consider challenging Senator Day in a primary because I look upon him not only as my closest political friend but also as what you might call a father, the man who brought me to Washington in the first place.’ ” Suddenly a man sneezed. The effect was comic but it went unnoticed in the eager silence. Everyone was interested in what the response to this would be.
Clay took his time answering. When he finally spoke, he was careful to give the impression of a man troubled but in the right. “Whatever I said then I will say now. I regard Senator Day as one of the finest men I have ever known and if it hadn’t been for him, I might never have got here. All that’s true. It’s also true that I would never oppose him for anything.”
Clay paused; then he took the plunge. “Now I’m not going to speak for him. I haven’t the right. But I will say this, though the Senator has not personally told me his plans, I have been assured by others that after thirty-six great years in the United States Senate, Burden Day will not run again this year.”
An explosion of excited talk forced Clay to raise his voice in order to be heard. “Let me repeat. I have entered this race in the firm conviction that James Burden Day will not be a candidate for re-election!”
Arms waved. Clay’s name was shouted. He pointed to Harold Griffiths.
“Congressman!” Harold Griffith’s voice was clear and proud. The room grew still. Though Harold was the butt of many Washington jokes, none could deny the popularity of his column, in which the West’s decline was daily noted and duly mourned. Hardly a day passed that freedom was not about to be irrevocably lost to the Antichrist. For Harold, Armageddon was always imminent and the United States never ready to do battle for the Lord; the once superb American armies long since dispersed by politicians who had been duped by canting liberals, lulled by Eleanor Roosevelt, misled by Chiefs of Staff who systematically betrayed the American fighting man, exchanging that marvelous creation of smooth flesh and hot blood for complex and sophisticated weaponry, as though a mere machine could ever take the place of a well-muscled arm. Harold was happiest at the brink; the vision of a smashed earth informed with agony a syntax of such confident confusion that Peter Sanford had created a new word to define Harold’s richly clotted prose, “barococo.”
“I think that most of us are agreed that you’d be a fine addition to the Upper House. We need young blood in positions of power. But, sir, assuming you are nominated next month and elected next fall, what will your posture be concerning military appropriations in the light of your own military experience, as holder of the Distinguished Service Cross, while taking into account the current Soviet menace in Europe, particularly to Berlin…” Harold filibustered until the first shock of Clay’s statement had been somewhat absorbed.
Clay’s answer to Harold was nearly as long and ceremonious as the question. More questions followed. The worst seemed over, until a sharp voice said, “Tell us, Congressman, why are you so certain that Senator Day will not be a candidate for re-election?”
At the back of the room stood Peter Sanford, large bellied but firm-fleshed, a huge and to Clay entirely mysterious presence. They were enemies, of course. Enid’s dying had accomplished that. Yet whenever they met socially, Peter was pleasant and Clay had yet to be the victim of one of those spiky sentences for which his brother-in-law was becoming known, the abrupt and savage saying of the unsayable. Even The American Idea had so far treated Clay gently, to the extent that he was noticed at all. But despite all outward signs of amity, it was plain that Peter hated him; a matter of some consolation to Clay, since the man who hates is invariably at a disadvantage, in politics if not in life. Over the years, Clay had disciplined himself to hate no one, with some success.
“Hello, Peter.” Clay was casual. “My brother-in-law.” Uneasy laughter from those who knew that the two were not friends. Startled, Harold Griffiths stepped back against the wall, as though to protect himself from possible ricochet.
“I asked,” said Peter, “what makes you so certain that Senator…”
“Now, Peter, you know I can’t divulge sources any more than you can or any other journalist. Didn’t I say that it wasn’t for me to speak for Burden Day? Yet isn’t the fact that I’m running proof that he is not a candidate?” That was an error. One must never phrase the weakest argument as a question.
Clay tried to continue but Peter was too quick for him. “No, it doesn’t. The only thing it proves is that you are running….”
“But I would never oppose him.”
“But suppose,” Peter’s voice rose, and Clay allowed it to drown out his own. There was nothing left for him to do but play victim and gain sympathy. “Suppose your information was wrong? Suppose Senator Day is a candidate? What will you do then?”
The room was quiet. The risk was great. Clay took it. “Senator Day will not be a candidate for re-election. But,” Clay paused. He flung the dice. “If he is a candidate, I shall of course withdraw from the race. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you.”
Swiftly Clay crossed to the door. Win or lose, he had made every front page. The press corps was leaving the room as quickly as he.
* * *
—
“But how do we get out of this?” Blaise was distraught. “Burden is running again. You know that. Everybody knows that.”
Clay ignored him; he spoke into the receiver. “Look, this is important. You must find the Senator. Yes, I know you have your orders. All right. Ring me back. I’m in Mr. Sanford’s office.”
Clay put down the receiver, and answered Blaise. “I’ll handle him. Don’t worry.”
“How can you handle him?”
But Clay turned his back on Blaise’s wrath and looked out the window at Ninth Avenue, sordid by daylight.
Blaise’s voice continued. “It was good strategy to say he probably wouldn’t run, implying he’s sick and old but then to say that you’re willing to step aside if he does run when you know perfectly well…”
“Peter was there.” As Clay spoke, a brightly painted girl stopped two sailors outside the Old Dominion Bar and Grill. “He did the needling. He asked the question which I had to answer. He’s trying to make it tough for us, isn’t he?” Clay watched Blaise’s reflection in the window. Blaise gripped the arms of his chair, like a man anticipating the dentist’s drill or a crash landing. “I don’t suppose there’s anything you can do.” Statement, not question.
“No.” Blaise was curt. “He does what he likes.”
“I see.” Clay did not press the point. It was sufficient that he had made it. Meanwhile, the girl went off with one of the sailors while the other sailor went into the bar where Clay had once picked up a girl from Raleigh. They had made love on the sofa in his office. She wore no stockings and wanted no money. Thinking of her, he wished he were the sailor across the street in the bar, free to pick up a girl and make love and not have to listen to Karl, his administrative assistant, who had just entered the room, full of alarm.
“Here’s the latest poll.”
Clay seized the document. He did not share the old-fashioned politician’s aversion to the new science of polling. They feared it because if they were not delicate human instruments uniquely able to forecast the weather of their constituencies, they were nothing, their curious art made irrelevant by statisticians using slide rules. But Clay wanted only to know which issues were hot and which were cold, preferably before anyone else knew. And so, at regular intervals, Blaise’s firm of consultants reported on the mood of his constituents; and he was able to respond accordingly. As a result, he was the most popular of the state’s delegation to Congress, until now.
“What’s wrong?” Blaise turned to the aide. “Is he down?”
“Three points,” said Karl. “But that’s not the problem…”
“Burden’s gone up five.” Clay slammed the paper onto Blaise’s desk. “What happened?” He turned to Karl as though he were responsible. “What’s the analysis?”
“We don’t know yet. Might’ve been that speech he gave Monday at the State Historical Society. It was broadcast. Had a lot of impact. I’ve got a recording if you want to…”
“One lousy speech doesn’t account for a jump like this. What’s the old bastard doing? Where’s he been? Who’s he been talking to?”
“I don’t know exactly…”
“But you ought to know exactly. I mean we should know exactly.” Clay seldom lost his temper with those who worked for him. At worst he tended to take them for granted; a treatment which he knew did not distress the dedicated.
“I guess it’s sentimental, what’s happening.” Karl retrieved the crumpled poll. “He’s been Senator since before most of us were born and now he’s going around the state, reminding everybody of the good old days.”
“No mileage in that,” muttered Clay. Over half the electorate did not know that there had been a Depression in the ’30s, while a third could not identify either Senator. Most, however, had heard of Clay. Although his film had failed in the country, Blaise had seen to its promotion in the state.
“Judge Hooey just called to say that Burden’s definitely going to announce his candidacy over the weekend. If he does…”
“I withdraw. Have you got a job for me, Blaise?”
“I’m not sure we want you, after this.” Blaise was bewildered; he was also angry that Clay chose not to confide in him. But Clay had no intention of confiding in anyone. At moments of crisis, he preferred to act on his own.
Then Senator Day’s office was on the line. When Clay asked, “Where is he?” a hostile voice (was it Dolly Perrine?) said, “The Senator’s not coming back to the office. But he will be home for dinner…”
“But where is he now? This minute?”
“He’s at Mrs. Carhart’s house but…”
II
Could they speak of no one else? Burden readjusted his aching shoulder against the side of the armchair. A very clean break, according to the doctor who had peered down at Burden as he lay on his back in the X-ray room of the hospital to which he had been taken in an ambulance from the scene of the accident, a flight of steps on the Senate side of the Capitol. He had fallen from top stair to bottom and as he did, a bone in his shoulder broke with a crack he could hear through the flesh. In his pain he had a sudden vision of man as vegetable: were not bones twigs? sap blood? and what in nature more resembled a hand than a leaf? Satisfied with this beautiful perception, he had fainted at the foot of the stairs.
* * *
—
Now five months after the very clean break, he was still in pain. But there was nothing to be done. Once the age of brittle bones splintering began, it would not end until, bedridden from a fall, he would succumb to that swift pneumonia which fills the lungs with water, completing with a drowning the famous cycle that began the day the waters of the womb broke. Better, he decided, to take a gun to one’s head and go in flame, though between fire and water he preferred the cooler elements.
Millicent Smith Carhart was undecided about Senator Joseph McCarthy. On the one hand she was convinced that at every level of American life, crypto-Communists were at work (look at the behavior of the Negroes since the war), and yet, “He is such a distasteful man. That dreadful face, those jowls, that voice.”
“Don’t worry. He won’t last.” Burden was soothing.
“But one does worry. And he can do such a lot of damage before he’s finished.” She poured tea. Vapor from the pot briefly obscured her face. Burden thought of oracles. What was it Cicero had said? But he could not recall. Lately whenever he started to quote from memory, the words often failed to come in proper sequence, leaving him with a frustrated sense that a door in his mind was part shut.
“Senator Tydings will finish him off. Remember when Joe said that he would let his case rest or fall on whether or not Owen Lattimore was a Communist? Well, his case fell, thanks to Senator Tydings.”
“Oh, I think Lattimore must be a Communist, don’t you?”
“There is no evidence that he is.”
“Yes, but there is none that he is not.”
“Now you sound like Joe McCarthy.”
Millicent frowned. “I know of course that he’s probably hurt a good many innocent people, which is terrible, but after all there are Communists in the government and they are changing this country and if he can tell us who they are, well, then maybe it’s worth a bit of confusion.”
“The President,” Burden indicated the portrait of her uncle, “would not have agreed with you.”
“I’m not so sure. Anyway those were different times. But tell me, what’s he really like? I don’t dare ask him to the house.”
“I hardly know him. Thank God.” Burden’s aversion to the demagogue was not only political, it was physical. He could not bear the sight of the man. Only once had he actually talked to him. When a journalist wrote that Burden might head the subcommittee which would investigate the Senator’s charges that the State Department was full of Communists, McCarthy had come to his office and in front of the bust of Cicero he had thrown a heavy arm about Burden’s shoulders and declared, with a tiger’s grin, that although they were on opposite sides politically, they were both anti-Communist. “At least I assume you are,” he added with cheerful menace. Anyway, he was certain that the facts would speak for themselves and, by the way, “Have you seen your ex-son-in-law lately?”
Burden removed himself entirely from the subcommittee. As it was, he would have sufficient trouble in the coming election without being denounced as a Communist. In ordinary times such charges would have been laughed at. But the times had ceased to be ordinary when the Soviet developed an atomic bomb. The fact that such a primitive society could with apparent ease achieve military parity with God’s country meant only one thing: the recipe for the bomb had been stolen from Los Alamos and given to the enemy by high-ranking traitors. It was then, quite by accident, that an obscure senator wanting to be re-elected found that to accuse others of treason was the easiest way of becoming a hero to many, a villain to some, a source of interest to all.
Since the first of the year, Burden had received an alarming number of letters from constituents insisting that he openly side with McCarthy in his attack on the State Department. Burden’s responses were patriotic but evasive. After all, it was only a matter of time before McCarthy hanged himself; his lunatic performance before the Tydings committee was proof of that. At first the Senator had said that there were two hundred and five Communists in the State Department; then he said there were fifty-seven; as of Friday there were eighty-one. And on he rambled, making charges so wild that it was hardly possible to sort them out, much less refute them. Had it not been for the coming primary, Burden was certain that at some point he would have spoken out against the demagogue. But for the moment it was not possible. Once re-elected, however, there would be plenty of time to do in the mucker, a turn-of-the-century word to which Burden was partial.
“But if what he says is all untrue, why don’t some of you Senators try to stop him?”
The door in Burden’s mind suddenly swung open. He quoted: “ ‘He would learn that to accuse and prove are very different; and that reproaches unsupported by evidence affect only the character of him that observes them.’ ”
“Who said that?” But even as she spoke, the door shut again upon a lifetime’s treasure. He was saved by one of the gray maids who announced that Congressman Overbury was on his way to Dupont Circle to speak to the Senator, if it was all right with Mrs. Carhart. Permission granted, the maid departed.
“What is happening?” asked Millicent.
Burden shrugged. The pain in his shoulder came and went. “Clay has just announced that he’ll enter the primary next month, if I don’t run again.”
“But you will run, won’t you?” Millicent was alarmed. The saddest aspect of being “permanent” in Washington was the abrupt way friends had of disappearing, turned out by voters. She had once told Burden that in her youth she had enjoyed the constant comings and goings, particularly as viewed from the White House. But now that she was old she wanted no change of any kind, including death, which she regarded as the ultimate electorate, withdrawing one by one and in capricious order its favorite sons.
“Of course I will run. And win.” But Burden was by no means certain that he could beat Clay, despite the excellent response to his speech before the Historical Society. In a curious way, as his power in Washington diminished, his constituents’ affection for him increased. It was as if they had come to realize that he was the last surviving link with their crude yet hopeful origins. He represented, if not them, their past, and when he went they would be marooned entirely in a present that puzzled them in a way that the past, as viewed with sentiment, did not. Oh, the old warrior still had a string or two to his bow, he thought grandly, but the effort of bending the bow was great and his vision was not what it had been.
