Mr. Adam

CHAPTER 10

It was one of those awakenings when you know something is wrong, and for a while you cannot figure out what it is, and then you discover that it is yourself. My head felt floaty, as if it were filled with helium and wanted to disengage itself from my trunk, and my elbows and knees ached. When I sat up I definitely had white flashes and spots in front of my eyes. “Oh,” I groaned. “I feel awful.”

“That’s too bad,” said Marge, looking at me with deep interest. “What’s the matter, hangover?”

“I didn’t drink enough to have a hangover.”

“Oh, I think you did,” Marge said.

“No I didn’t. I think I’m sick.”

“Oh, I hope not,” Marge said apprehensively. “I certainly hope not. I’ll bring you some aspirin, and coffee.”

The coffee tasted horrible. “You put salt in here,” I accused her, “instead of sugar.”

“No I didn’t. Really I didn’t, Stephen. Just stay in bed and you’ll feel better. I’m sure you’ll feel better.”

“Call Tommy Thompson,” I said. “I think I’ve got pneumonia, or something.”

She got Thompson in a hurry. He was sleepy-eyed, and wearing a maroon dressing gown I suspect he had filched from the Army. He held my wrist, and felt my forehead, and looked under my eyelids. “Pulse is a little rapid,” he said. “I don’t see anything else wrong.”

“When I look at things,” I said, “they won’t stand still. Things keep jumping around.”

“Nerves,” Thompson said. “Just plain nerves. You’ll feel better in a little while. You ought to relax for a few days. Why don’t you and Marge fly down to Florida?”

“Oh, no,” I said. “We’re in the last lap, now. I’m not going to leave here and have something happen. I want to get this job wrapped up, and finished. Then we’ll take a vacation, won’t we, dear?”

“It would be lovely,” Marge said.

After thirty or forty minutes I began to feel better, as Thompson had predicted. But all day long everything I ate and drank tasted salty.

Tommy and Maria and J.C. Pogey went back to New York on the Congressional that afternoon, and Homer and Marge and Jane went to the station to see them off. The last thing Pogey said, he said to Homer. “Son,” he told him, “if everything doesn’t work out the way it is planned, don’t feel too badly about it. Not your fault. It just wasn’t set up to be that way.” I never saw such an incorrigible pessimist.

Monday, on which we had hoped to begin A.I., passed, and the other days of the week trooped past after it. Generally, people seemed satisfied with the N.R.P. plan for selecting the first A.I. mother, and those who would be next in line. But Moscow wasn’t satisfied, and said so very plainly. The Russians didn’t mind selecting an American for the first A.I. mother, but the second ought to be Russian, and the third perhaps might go to Great Britain. As to the smaller states, they weren’t to be considered until much, much later. As a matter of fact, the Russians didn’t see any need for including Poles, Rumanians, Hungarians, Turks, Egyptians, or Persians in the plan at all. Those lands, the Russians said, could be re-populated any time, and the Soviet Union would be glad to attend to it. The State Department countered by asking Russia, for the tenth time, whether it was true about the two Mongolians. The Russians said this was strictly an internal matter.

Domestically, things were better. The Congress viewed the plan as an unexpected and welcome gift of patronage. Whenever a Congressman has a chance to give away something that doesn’t belong to him, it is so much gravy. It was a splendid opportunity to pay off political debts, win social favor, and endear themselves with women’s organizations. It was just ticklish enough, politically, to be exciting. And since the N.R.P. had placed a week’s deadline on the nominations, they could always plead that the Administration forced them to choose in haste, in case their nominations failed to meet public approval. Some made their choices public—when they were absolutely certain they were politically foolproof. But most said they wouldn’t divulge the names until the drawings.

In that week we took Homer down to the Eastern Shore, for fishing, and to Bowie for the opening of the spring racing season, and to the National Theater, and for a trip through the Shenandoah Valley, and by the time the next Monday rolled around Homer really appeared fairly healthy. I do not mean that he could go out and chop down trees. I merely mean that he looked as if he could beget a number of babies.

On noon Monday we went to the Capitol. That is, Marge and I went to the Capitol. We left Homer at the hotel, at his own insistence. He was fearful, and I suppose rightly, that he would receive an ovation if he were discovered sitting in a gallery while the drawing took place, and he was deathly afraid of public attention.

The drawing was held on the floor of the House, and the scene was so familiar, with its warlike connotation, that it seemed like looking at an old newsreel. Only this time it wasn’t Wilson or Roosevelt wearing the blindfold.

When the preliminaries were over, the President reached his hand into the goldfish bowl and drew out a capsule and handed it to the Clerk of the House. He opened it, unfolded a slip of paper, and shouted into the banked microphones: “Number 646. The number is 646!”

Up from the well of the House there floated an excited feminine scream. “What was that?” Marge asked.

“Just an overwrought female,” I said.

“I don’t know,” said Marge. “Do you know what it sounded like to me. It sounded just like when a woman wins a door prize at a bridge party, or right after she yells ‘Bingo.’ I wonder who had number 646?”

I noticed an unusual commotion in the Press Gallery. Ordinarily the Press Gallery moves swiftly and efficiently to get out the flash, but now it seemed to be erupting in all directions. “I’ll find out what happened,” I told Marge, left my seat, and worked my way down the corridor.

I ran into Bingham, the UP man. “How about a statement?” he asked before I had a chance to speak.

“On what?”

“Don’t you know who he picked?”

“No.”

“Number 646,” Bingham said, “is held by Fay Knott.”

“You mean one of her candidates?”

“No, by her, personally.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I feel sick. You’ll have to excuse me.” I did feel sick. The baroque tiled walls of the corridor were all leaning in towards me. I blundered my way back to Marge. “Let’s go,” I told her, “646 is Fay Sumner Knott. What a catastrophe! What a disaster!” I thought of the President. “That poor unlucky man,” I said. “That poor, poor unlucky man!”

When we reached our car Marge asked, “But why did she nominate herself? I don’t think that is fair.”

“I suppose,” I said, “Fay Sumner Knott couldn’t find any other woman in her own state as admirable as herself. That’s the way she figures, you know.”

“What’s going to happen?” Marge asked. “Can’t you get it cancelled, or something? Is it really so bad?”

“Wait until I break the news to Homer,” I said.

We reached the hotel and we went up to 5-F. Jane opened the door for us and I walked in, feeling that there should be signs around saying, “Achtung—Minen!”

Homer was waiting in the living room, with the early editions of the afternoon papers strewn around his chair. “Well,” he said, “what’s the verdict?”

“Senator Knott,” I said.

“What about her?” Homer asked.

“She won the draw. She’s going to be A.I. Mother Number One.”

Homer started to rise, lost control of his legs, and sat down again, his mouth hanging open. “No!” he said when he could speak. “No! No! I won’t do it, Steve. I won’t have anything to do with this any more. Why she’s the worst—the absolute worst—I’m going away right now.” He got to his feet, and started for the door.

“Now wait a minute, Homer,” I pleaded, clinging to his arm. “Wait a minute and let me tell you something.” He was hard to stop as a telegraph pole that wants to go somewhere, but I slowed him down before he reached the door. “Homer,” I said, “there are a lot of things to consider—an awful lot!”

I led him back to his chair, and he sat down and he put his head in his hands. Every few seconds he’d shake his head and pull his hair. “Homer,” I said, “what is to be will be. It was all done fair and square, and you can bet that the President didn’t want to pull her number out of the goldfish bowl because he doesn’t like her any better than you do or I do. But this is a democracy, Homer, and that’s the way we have to do things.”

“It is a democracy for everyone except me,” Homer protested. “I’ve got a hundred and forty million dictators sitting on my neck and I don’t like it and I’m going away.”

“It isn’t as bad as you think,” I told him, and motioned to Marge and told her to quick bring some liquor. “It could be much worse, Homer. Suppose you had to marry her and live with her? But you don’t. You don’t even have to see her. Actually, it doesn’t make any difference to you whether she is number one or number eleven million eight hundred thousand six hundred and forty-two, now does it?”

“It makes a difference that she has a number at all,” Homer said. “Imagine, when she has a child that will be my child too!”

“Well, all your children are bound to look pretty much alike, you know, Homer,” I argued. “As a matter of fact you probably won’t be able to tell one from the other in a few years.”

“I’ve thought of that too,” Homer replied, “and believe me I don’t like it.”

Marge brought drinks. Her hand was unsteady when she gave them to us. I remembered that Marge liked Homer, and she always felt she had a personal stake in him. “Now drink your drink and let’s talk this over sensibly,” I said.

“That’s another thing I don’t like,” Homer went on stubbornly. “How would you like to go out on the street and everyone would have the same face and all of them would be like yours?”

“Well,” I admitted, “I think it would be confusing, but at the same time that just illustrates how impersonal this matter has got to be to you.”

Homer drew a deep breath, and drank his highball without taking his glass from his lips and just at that moment Gableman came in, followed by Abel Pumphrey, and both of them looked fresh and happy. Pumphrey grabbed Homer’s hand and began to pump it and said, “Well, well, now we’re on our way, aren’t we, Homer? The worst is over, and there’s all clear sailing ahead.”

“That’s what you think!” Homer said. “The worst is just beginning.”

“No, you mustn’t feel like that,” said Mr. Pumphrey. “My boy, it was almost a miracle, having Senator Knott become A.I. Mother Number One. Almost a miracle! There can’t be any criticism of N.R.P. about that pick—no, sir. It shows that the Administration is absolutely unbiased, allowing a member of the opposition to win the draw. And the Senate will like it, too. They’ll all be proud to have one of their members become a mother.”

Homer could not speak. I forced another drink into his hand.

Gableman showed a mouth full of rotting teeth in a wide grin. “Senator Knott is down in the lobby right now,” he said. “She’s coming up in just a moment to pose with you. She is an extremely attractive woman, isn’t she, Homer? Even if she did cause us a little trouble some time ago, I don’t think the President could have made a luckier choice, that is, from the political standpoint.”

Homer choked on his drink and gasped, “Did you say she was coming up here?”

“Yes, just as soon as all the photographers and newsreel men arrive,” said Gableman.

Suddenly Homer relaxed, in the manner of a fighter loosening up in his corner. “If she comes in here,” he said, very softly, “I’ll strangle her.”

“You’ll what?” said Abel Pumphrey, the veins jumping up from under his Herbert Hoover collar.

“I’ll tear her to pieces and throw her up for grabs,” Homer said, “like this.” He extended his long arms and showed how.

I decided it was time to intervene. “Gentlemen,” I said, “Mr. Adam is overwrought. He has been unnerved by the strain. I think you had better excuse him. You had better go on downstairs and tell Senator Knott that Mr. Adam is sorry, because if she comes up here I really do think he will slap her around.” I led them to the door, and got them outside.

“What’s wrong with him?” Gableman asked. “Has he gone nuts?”

“My gracious,” said Abel Pumphrey, “I never realized he was so temperamental. Why, he acts as if he thought he was the biggest man in N.R.P.! If anyone should have retained a grudge because of what Senator Knott said in the Senate, it should have been me. But I took it in my stride, and now I welcome Senator Knott as the ideal American A.I. mother. She has beauty, brains, and, ah, money. What more can Adam want, particularly when he doesn’t have to actually, ah, to actually have any connubial contact with her.”

“I think it’s a little personal,” said Gableman. “I’ll always figure that Adam and that actress had a good deal more in common than archeology.”

“I would watch him closely,” Abel Pumphrey advised. “Very closely indeed. I simply don’t understand him. I don’t understand him at all.”

Homer was still in his chair in the living room. “Well, I got rid of them,” I told him.

“Thanks, Steve, but I really don’t think I’ll go through with it.” He spoke very quietly, calm as a banker who has reached a decision not to make a questionable loan.

“I’ll tell you frankly, Homer, I don’t think there’s much of a chance that Fay Knott will produce a baby anyway. She was married a couple of times, and nothing happened. When her second husband died, people said he froze to death.”

“It is the principle of the thing,” Homer said.

“That’s exactly it—a matter of principle,” I argued. “Is it right for any one man to put himself in the place of God, and condemn the world to slow death? You don’t want to be in that position, do you?”

“I’m not putting myself in that position,” Homer said. “I just don’t want to have anything to do with that woman.”

Marge sat on the edge of his chair, her long, sleek legs swinging, and ran her fingers through Homer’s hair. It was the first time I had ever seen her touch another man like that, and I found that whatever I had to say had gone from my lips. “Think of the other women, Homer,” Marge said. “Think of me and all the other women who will just curl up and die inside if they lose hope. You know, you’re the hope of every woman, Homer—even those you’ll never be able to satisfy.”

Homer didn’t answer. He kept his eyes on the floor. I knew he was thinking. I thought, I guess Marge put it over all right, and then I said, “We’ll go down to the lab about noon tomorrow, Homer. We’ll take it easy until then. Now buck up. It isn’t really going to be as bad as you think. For the time being you’re going to have a very easy program, and every day they don’t need you in the lab we’ll go to the races. You like the races, don’t you?”

Presently Jane Zitter came in. She had been getting the latest bulletins from the Capitol on her bedroom radio. She was flushed with what I presume was a vicarious maternal instinct, and she began to recite the list of those fortunate enough to be drawn in the first group after Fay Knott. There was a National Committeewoman from California, the winner of last year’s Atlantic City beauty contest, several childless widows of veterans, the wife of a railway president, and the granddaughter of a Vanderbilt.

“You see,” I told Homer, “you should think of those people, instead of Knott. Think of how disappointed they would be if anything happened.”

He nodded. I sighed. I thought my battle was won. I began to think of plans. Marge and I would take a sea voyage to Honolulu, or perhaps to Rio. The world would be a good place to live in again. Eventually, I might even allow Marge to persuade me to okay an A.I. baby. The telephone rang, Homer unfolded and answered it, and presently he began his ritual of yeses, noes, and grunts that showed The Frame was on the other end. I mentally kicked myself for not having asked the FBI to put a tap on our phone. I’d have given anything to have known what The Frame was telling Homer, but his face was immobile and unrevealing.

That night we played bridge, and at nine o’clock I flicked on the wall radio, and who should be there but Gabriel Heatter. “Oh, there’s good news tonight,” he said like the peal of an organ. “Yes, there’s good news tonight. Dare I say it? Yes, I think I will dare say it. Mankind marches on! Tomorrow there begins the greatest experiment in all history. Will it succeed? Will it fail? It must succeed! Yes, everyone in the sound of my voice knows that. It must succeed!”

“You see what honest Gabe says,” I told Homer.

“And Heatter predicts that it will succeed,” Heatter said. “Heatter wants you to remember that Heatter predicted the end of Hitler—and Mussolini. And now Heatter predicts it will succeed! Nine months from tomorrow we will all breathe easy again! Nine months from tomorrow that fine and inspiring example of American womanhood, Senator Fay Sumner Knott, will again lift aloft the glorious torch of motherhood. Nine months from tomorrow there will be a miracle—a baby will be born!”

Homer smiled. I didn’t like the way he smiled. “What are you thinking, Homer?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing,” Homer replied. “Nothing at all, really.”

Heatter insidiously switched from a description of Homer’s hair, to the need of all men for hair tonic, and I shut him off. “What do you think of honest Gabe?” I asked Homer, feeling uneasy about that smile.

“I like to listen to him,” Homer replied. “He is so optimistic.”

“Yes,” Jane agreed. “During the Battle of the Bulge I don’t know how I could have carried on without Heatter.”

“I don’t think he’s a newscaster at all,” I said. “I think he’s a chanter in a choir. But I like to listen to him, as Homer does, because he is so optimistic. I feel that so long as Heatter and his partner, God, have everything in hand, I don’t have to worry.”

Homer yawned. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I think I’ll go to bed. I’ve got a hard day ahead, you know.”

I told him I thought that was a splendid idea, and he was to forget all his worries. “You just go into this as if it was a business,” I said. “The laboratory will be your office, and on certain days you have to go to the office. All the rest of the time you will be free. Just consider yourself a capitalist who only has to go to the office two or three times a week, and spend an hour or two. You know, it isn’t so bad, Homer, when you look at it that way.”

Homer smiled as if nothing were funny. “Good night,” he said. “Good night.”

Jane Zitter went to bed, and that left Marge and me. “Well, I guess that flap is over,” I said. I began to talk about Honolulu, and Rio, and the gaudy beauty of Sydney harbor, and the minaret-speared moon rising over old Stambul, and the comparative stenches of Naples, Venice, and Cairo.

Marge listened, placid and enigmatic as a lovely model in a department store window. “Do you really believe it?” she said finally. “Do you really believe that anything like that is going to happen, ever again? I don’t think you really believe it. I think you’re just whistling to keep up your courage.”

“Certainly I believe it,” I protested. “By the middle of summer everything will be back to normal, including us. We’ll have a glorious time.”

“Would you like to know what I think?” Marge asked.

“What do you think?”

“I think that if Kay Sumner Knott has a baby you will be able to call it an immaculate conception.”

“You’re a cynic, like J.C. Pogey.”

“We’ll see.”

We kept on arguing until long after midnight, with Marge insisting that things wouldn’t work out right. She said she didn’t like the way Homer was acting, and I said I didn’t either but I wasn’t going to do anything rash that would upset him. She said she had a premonition, and I said that I didn’t believe in premonitions or ghosts or poltergeists. She said I was a stubborn double-dyed jackass and I said she was a neurotic old woman who probably looked under the bed every night when I wasn’t home. She reminded me of all the times she had been right and I had been wrong, and I said that just as many times I had been right and she had been wrong, but I didn’t keep all those times in a catalogue, the way she did, because it would embarrass her. She said I could sleep in my own bed, and I said that was fine with me, and I did.

When I awoke Marge was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at me. She leaned over and kissed me and said, “I’ll say I’m sorry if you’ll say you’re sorry.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It’s a dream of a morning,” she said. “It’s spring. Birds and everything.” Some robins were trying out their voices, and the sun was beating in through the open window, and the breeze from the park smelled of growing things.

It was ten o’clock. We put on our robes and went into the living room and picked up the morning papers. “I’m running up a little breakfast,” Jane called from the kitchenette. “How do you want your eggs?”

“Poached, honey,” I yelled back. “Marge too. Where’s Homer?”

“Oh, he went out for a walk in the park,” Jane said.

“He did? How long ago?”

“He went out at nine. Said he’d be back for breakfast. Isn’t it a glorious morning?”

“Perfect. How did he look?”

“I’ve never seen him look better. He absolutely sparkled. He looked like a schoolboy going out to buy candy for his first date.”

“That’s fine,” I said. Marge looked at me, her head cocked on one side. “Yes, isn’t it,” she agreed.

“The eggs will be ready in two minutes,” Jane yelled.

I picked up the Post and glanced from headline to headline. No matter how much I concentrated, I couldn’t retain a word or a phrase. “Hadn’t you better go out and find Homer?” Marge suggested sweetly.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” I said. “He might be on any path in Rock Creek Park, and we’d just miss each other. Anyway, he’ll be right back.”

“Do you think so, dear?”

“What’s wrong with Homer taking a walk in the park? He’s often taken a walk in the park.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it, dear, so long as he comes back.”

Jane brought a plate and put it on my lap. Two eggs, nestling on buttered toast, stared at me like accusing yellow eyes. Suddenly I wasn’t hungry. I put the plate aside. “Don’t you think you had better go out and find him now, dear?” Marge suggested again. I didn’t like the way she said “dear.” It was like a knife blade sliding across my throat. I didn’t like anything about this morning. I felt that the sun, the birds, the grass and the buds were all laughing at me. I noticed that Jane was watching me, and that little beads of perspiration were standing out on her face, and that her fingers were tightly intertwined.

I got up and said, “Yes, I think I’d better go out and find him.” I dressed in a hurry. It didn’t seem necessary to put on a tie.

Out in front of the hotel I looked carefully up and down the street. Wouldn’t it be smarter, I thought, just to wait here for him? There were a dozen roads and pathways that led into Rock Creek Park, in the space of a few blocks, and he might be on any one of them. I tried waiting. I waited for five minutes. Any second, now, he will turn up. Any second I will see that red head bobbing along. I started walking toward Connecticut Avenue, changed my mind, and went in the other direction. Back of the hotel a road curved through the park, and I found myself hurrying down this road. I walked perhaps a half-mile before I stopped. This is stupid, I told myself. This is utterly stupid. He’s probably back at the hotel right now, and Jane and Marge are laughing at me.

I walked back to the hotel. “Did you see Mr. Adam come in?” I asked the doorman.

“No, Mr. Smith. I saw him go out, earlier, but I haven’t seen him come in.”

“What did he do when he went out?”

“I don’t think I noticed. He just walked away.”

“Did he meet anybody?”

“Let me see. No, he didn’t meet anybody. He just walked away. Of course, Mr. Smith, he might have come back through one of the other entrances. Maybe he came in through the terrace, and the swimming pool. If he went walking in the park, that’s the quickest way back, you know.”

“Oh, certainly,” I said. “Thanks.” Naturally, if he went walking in the park, he’d return through the back. He’d probably come back while I waited outside. If he came through the back, the desk clerk would probably have seen him.

I went over to the desk and asked the clerk if he had seen Mr. Adam this morning.

“Why yes, Mr. Smith,” he said. “I saw him about nine. He left an envelope for you. He said you’d be down later to pick it up.” He reached into a letter box and brought out an envelope and handed it to me just as if it were an ordinary envelope.

“Thanks,” I said. I suppose I smiled. People always smile when the desk clerk hands them an envelope, even when it’s an eviction notice, or an advertisement, or a bill. I put it in my pocket, and my legs carried me to the elevator. I said, “Five, please,” as if nothing had happened.

The operator said, “Aren’t you feeling well, Mr. Smith?”

“Oh, not so good,” I said. “Not so bad but not so good.”

I found myself standing in front of the door to 5-F. I thought, maybe it’s only a note saying he’ll be a little late, and I’m making a fool of myself. I thought, maybe I’d better open it here before I go in. I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at it. It was a hotel envelope and on the face of it was scrawled, Steve Smith. That didn’t tell me anything. I thought, if he’s running away, the quicker I find out about it the better. I started to open it and then put it back in my pocket. You’re yellow, I told myself. I took it out of my pocket again. I opened the door and walked into 5-F.

“Well?” Marge asked.

“He didn’t come back?” I said. She didn’t answer. “He left a—there was a letter or something down at the desk.” I tried to open it, but I didn’t seem to be making any progress.

“Let me have it!” Marge demanded. She took the envelope from me, and slid a sharp thumbnail under the flap and it popped open with no trouble at all. Inside was a single sheet of paper, with writing on both sides. She spread it out on the table, and I read it over her shoulder. Homer had written:

I picked up the telephone. “Who are you going to call?” Marge asked.

“I have had it!” I told her. I think I spoke without undue passion, and with determination. “I have had it, and I am going to call the airport, and we will get on a plane to New York right away. We’ll retire to Smith Field and pretend none of it happened.”

Marge took the telephone out of my hand and slammed it on its cradle. “Oh, no you’re not!” she told me. “You can’t! You’re responsible, Steve. If you run out, now, I’ll leave you. I swear it. I’ll leave you flat.”

Jane was reading Homer’s note. She finished it, it fluttered in her hand, and she quietly slid to the floor. “Do you see what you’ve done?” Marge said. “She’s fainted. Get a wet towel, you dope, and start thinking!”