Mr. Adam

CHAPTER 8

On the Washington plane I sat next to a man who said his name was Seymour Foreman, and that he was in real estate in Hartford. He asked me if I’d heard the news and I said I had. He said it was a terrible state of affairs, and that by God he was going to retire and spend the rest of his life fishing. He complained that now that he was able to get building materials in quantity, and architects could let their imagination run in designing new and smart low-cost homes, nobody wanted to build houses any more. “It is this way,” he explained: “People don’t build houses for themselves. They build for their children. And if they’re not having any more children they’re not having any more new homes. I don’t see why Washington doesn’t lash this Adam down and at least start token production.”

I told him, logically I thought, that Adam was like an oil well. You had to be very patient and careful in bringing in the well, else the production might gush for only a short time, and then stop altogether. By practising conservation, the future of the race could be assured. This was particularly important when you considered that research was going forward to utilize all Mr. Adam’s capabilities, instead of A.I. being forced to use the present wasteful methods.

That was all right, Foreman pointed out, but meanwhile the real estate and construction business was getting shaky. If he were in automobiles, or washing machines, or drug stores, or haberdasheries it would be different. Some businesses were not affected. But who wanted to invest in an apartment house when there was a good chance that two generations hence it would be inhabited solely by the rats, and a few surviving octogenarians? The trouble with real estate, there wasn’t any future in it.

I said, “Mr. Foreman, that is the whole point. If we don’t handle Mr. Adam properly, there will be anarchy.”

“Well,” he growled, “Washington had better get on the ball, or there won’t be a businessman in the United States—big or little—who will support the Administration in the next elections.”

“What difference will that make?” I inquired. “The Republicans are just as sterile as the Democrats. The only solution is to make A.I. work.”

Mr. Foreman looked at me sharply, as if he had not really seen me before. “Do you work for the government?” he asked.

“Yes,” I admitted. “Temporarily.”

“Do you know anybody in the N.R.P.?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, you better tell them the public is damned sick and tired of this fooling around. Now you take my daughter. She graduates from college this year, and majored in Home Economics. Boy, is she mad!”

In seventy minutes I learned a good many things I hadn’t realized before about how things had gone since W.S. Day. For instance, practically nobody was getting married, but lots of people were living together. Manufacturers of baby shoes, in Massachusetts, had already closed down, and the toy business was acknowledged on the rocks. The Hays Office, in Hollywood, had banned all reference to motherhood, or babies, as being too painful a subject to portray on the screen. Fanny Brice, in the interests of good taste, abandoned her radio role of Baby Snooks. The school teachers had formed an association, looking towards the future, to concentrate on adult education. Harvard University was spending several millions to gather a compendium of all man’s knowledge, and bury it in time capsules, in case A.I. failed, Darwin was right, and man would again evolve from some lower species. The undertakers seemed to have the only business with a future.

Eight-column banner headlines greeted me in Washington. They all said the same thing—“ADAM LIVING WITH WIFE!”—which showed that within a few hours the shrewd Gableman had managed to counteract Fay Knott’s blast in the Senate. But apprehension harried me until I entered the Adam suite in the Shoreham.

When I rang the ball Jane opened the door a crack, and then released a chain latch. “What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Reporters. Photographers. In regiments.”

“Did you let them in?”

“Sure. I didn’t want them to pound the place into splinters. No interviews, though. I told them any official statement would have to come from either you or Mr. Gableman. Just pictures.”

“What kinds of pictures?”

“Chummy pictures. Pictures of Homer and Mary Ellen together.”

“Doing what?”

“Oh, in the kitchen washing dishes—she washing and him drying; and Mary Ellen sitting on the side of a chair while he read; and playing gin rummy—all sort of homelike.”

I kissed Jane on the nose. Jane’s nose isn’t quite sure what part of her face it ought to grace, but at that moment it seemed beautiful. There is nothing like a nice, chummy picture to drive the snakes of scandal out of the home. “You’re a smart girl,” I said, “and the Civil Service Commission shall hear about this, in an expurgated version, and the first thing you know you will have your classification raised.”

“That’s wonderful,” Jane said.

“How’s Mary Ellen taking it? What has she done to Adam?”

“It’s amazing,” Jane said. “It’s positively amazing. She didn’t do a thing to him. She just said she thought she understood, and that so far as she was concerned she knew it was strictly archeological, and he shouldn’t worry about it. They’re in the kitchen now, having a drink.”

I went into the little kitchenette, one of those hotel affairs with a lot of glasses, very few plates, and hardly any silver. There they were, as Jane said, having a drink. But Homer was about as relaxed as a high tension wire, and he was holding his glass as if he were afraid it would jump out of his hand. Conversely, Mary Ellen appeared unworried and gay. She was wearing a starched, cotton something that was so perfect you wanted to surround her with cellophane and put her on the back cover of a magazine as the happy wife with vacuum cleaner.

“Hello, Steve,” Homer said, keeping his eyes on the floor.

“Hello, Steve,” said Mary Ellen. “I was just telling Homer he shouldn’t worry. All big men have this sort of thing happen to them. Look at Lincoln. They maligned him, too. I do think Homer is Lincolnesque, don’t you, Steve?”

“Sure,” I said, “at least.”

“He shouldn’t let this thing worry him. It’s all politics, isn’t it Steve?”

“Oh, absolutely,” I said. I kept wondering what was going on in her head, back of the wide-set gray eyes.

Homer lifted his head, started to speak, thought better of it, and gulped at his drink instead. I knew what Homer was thinking. He was a convulsive tangle of remorse, guilt, and downright fear. “Oh Lord,” he managed finally, “I wish I was like other men.”

“Other men,” I said gallantly, “wish they were like you.”

“I want to speak to Steve alone for a moment,” Mary Ellen said. “You don’t mind, Homer?”

“Oh, no, certainly not,” Homer said, and he went out of the kitchenette faster than I had ever seen him move before.

Mary Ellen didn’t speak immediately. She whirled the ice in her glass, lit a fresh cigarette, and then looked at me directly a few seconds with those level gray eyes. I recognized the look. I’ve had it from Marge a few times. It is grim business. “It was pretty lucky for the N.R.P. that I happened to be in Washington, here with Homer, when this thing blew up in the Senate today,” she said. “Or did you plan it that way?”

“Who do you think I am, Machiavelli, Junior?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if you didn’t encourage Homer to run around with that girl just to get his mind off the responsibilities of his home, so he’d go quietly when you were ready to lead him to the slaughter.”

I had to know how much she knew. “Exactly what do you think went on between Homer and Kathy Riddell?” I asked.

“I think I can tell you exactly,” Mary Ellen said calmly. “I think she seduced him—probably only once—after very careful preparation.”

“Did Homer tell you that?”

“Certainly not! And if he started to tell me about it I wouldn’t let him, because if he ever told me I’d have to give him up. And that I am not going to do!” I knew she meant it. “Poor Homer,” she continued, “is transparent as that window pane. He’s so honest, and decent, and gentle, and kind that when he tries to lie you just have to feel sorry for him. Why I knew—the first night I got here. He told me about this Kathy—and her archeology—and how nice it was to meet someone with mutual interests, and asked me whether I minded.”

“You knew?”

“Certainly I knew. Women always know, although most times they won’t even admit it to themselves, and they try to tell themselves that there is a chance they’re mistaken, and they don’t want to make any false accusations. They do that because their husband’s infidelity presents a problem they’re afraid of facing. They’d rather pretend it didn’t happen. They’re weak. I’m not.”

“No,” I agreed, “you’re certainly not weak, Mary Ellen.”

The straight line of her chin held firm, but her eyes suddenly misted. “You see, I love Homer. I’ll always love him. That’s why I can’t afford to be weak, or delude myself, if I’m ever going to get him back. I’m just a plain woman, Steve. I’m no glamour-puss. I’m only going to have one man who really, honestly loves me, and that man is Homer. So by golly I’m going to fight for him.”

“That’s fine, and most laudable, and I’m in favor of it,” I told her, “but look at the position—”

“You’re going to tell me about humanity, and my duty to the country, but it doesn’t affect me at all. I don’t like the idea of Homer being used to fertilize ten million women, by the artificial insemination method, any better than I like the idea of him sleeping with The Frame.”

“I think you’re being narrow-minded. It is an entirely different matter. As a matter of fact, after our medical advisory committee eliminates waste from the methods of A.I., there isn’t any reason why you and Homer shouldn’t lead an entirely normal married life. The doctors will need him, perhaps, only a few days out of each month.”

“I still don’t like it,” Mary Ellen said. “Have you ever considered my side of it?”

“Only in a general way,” I admitted. “But now I begin to understand how you feel.”

“At first I was just overwhelmed and terribly frightened,” Mary Ellen explained. “I didn’t dare argue about anything, or say a word about my rights. It was just too—colossal. Then when they took Homer away I couldn’t think of anything to do. I’d cry all night, every night. If it hadn’t been for Mrs. Brundidge—she made me get a grip on myself. Then I made all sorts of wild plans. I was going to kidnap Homer, or appeal to the Supreme Court. But I knew I wouldn’t get any sympathy, especially from the women. People would just say I was jealous, and selfish. Well, I am jealous, damn it!”

I wondered how much Mary Ellen was going to complicate the plans of N.R.P. “What do you propose to do?” I asked.

“I know that there isn’t anything I can do at the moment about A.I.,” Mary Ellen said. “All I want, now, is for Homer to stay in love with me. I’m more afraid of one woman than I am of millions.”

“I think you’re wise.”

“You’ll help me, won’t you, Steve?”

“I certainly will,” I agreed. “After all, I’m working for the government, and I have a job to do for the N.R.P., and I can’t let them down. But from now on, you can depend on me to keep a tight rein on Homer. I’ll admit I thought it was a good idea, at the time, for Homer to go out with The Frame. He has all sorts of inhibitions, as you probably know better than I do, and I thought if a good-looking girl gave him a lot of attention it would help break them down. I didn’t have any idea it would go as far as it did.”

“And I can stay here?”

“You can stay,” I promised, “as long as the doctors agree it is okay.”

It was a promise I couldn’t make good. In a few days the storm caused by Fay Sumner Knott’s charges concerning l’affaire Frame died down, but at once a new and disquieting murmur spread over the land.

It burst into public, of all places, on the prim editorial page of the Washington Evening Star. The Star began by saying it had always been in favor of the Home, and Marriage, just as it had always been against Evil, and Disease. But in view of the fact that it had received so many letters on the subject it felt obligated to present the views of what appeared to be a large portion of its readers.

The Star carefully backed into its editorial by recalling that during the war the government maintained a rigid control of strategic and critical materials. It recalled the stern measures taken to guard our precious supply of uranium at the time that the atomic bomb was being developed. Mr. Adam was a far more important substance than uranium, and there was obviously less of Mr. Adam than there was of uranium.

The Star then delicately inquired whether the government was doing its full duty to future generations when Mr. and Mrs. Adam lived under the same roof, and presumably occupied the same bed. Adam, the Star said, was a vital and limited national property, and in this case the rights of the nation, and indeed of the world, must be placed above Marriage and the Home.

The Washington Times-Herald said practically the same thing, but in a somewhat different way, on the following day, under a caption which read: “Is This Treason?”

The Times-Herald said that it didn’t matter much whether Homer Adam was involved with The Frame, or whether he was involved with his wife. In either case, it was negligence on the part of the Administration. It was certainly sabotage, and possibly treason.

The Times-Herald significantly recalled the story of the two unspoiled Mongolians, which Moscow had never denied. Had Communist agents infiltrated into the upper brackets of N.R.P.? It certainly looked like it. And if they had, what better way was there for the Communists to conduct a war of extermination against the United States than to sabotage Mr. Adam?

The answer, of course, was very simple. Place Mr. Adam under the strictest military guardianship, and conduct a nice, short, preventive war against Russia before it was too late.

On the day following—a Thursday—all the newspapers bristled with letters-to-the-editor, mostly of female origin, protesting against Mrs. Adam, and the reporters on Capitol Hill said Congress was being swamped with mail.

Homer and Mary Ellen naturally were aware of what was going on, and they were both fretful and jumpy. On this Thursday I had driven them to Mount Vernon in an N.R.P. sedan, ostensibly so they could soak up some colonial atmosphere, but actually to keep them away from the radio. I tried talking about everything else except what was on their minds, but I could see it wasn’t working. When we returned, Jane called from the office: “I’ve been trying to get you all day,” she said. “Hell is popping. Everybody is taking turns stabbing you in the back, as if you were a human dart board. They all say you’re responsible.”

“I am,” I said.

“They’re after your job,” Jane warned.

“They can have my job, and they can take it, and—”

I noticed that Mary Ellen was at my shoulder. “Mr. Pumphrey just sent you a memo—a red memo—” Jane continued. “He says it is imperative that you attend the meeting of the Planning Board at ten tomorrow.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll be there.”

The Planning Board, on Friday morning, looked like the directors of a bank who have just been informed that the cashier has departed with all the liquid assets. When I entered, they regarded me as if I were the cashier. Gableman and Klutz shifted as far as possible from my chair, to avoid contamination. Pumphrey, his baggy face a mottled purple, stared at me as if I had just made an attack on his life. “I am very glad to see you here, Mr. Smith,” he said. “I hardly need to tell you that this is a crisis!”

Sitting as observers, their chairs against the wall, and looking pious and complacent as good little boys watching a fight from the other side of the street, sat the liaison officers for the War, State, Interior, and Navy Departments, the Public Health Service, and the National Research Council. In a corner, inconspicuous as possible, sat Danny Williams, the President’s Secretary, who used to be on the Washington Bureau of A.P. He was unsmiling and grave, but when I glanced at him, one owlish eye closed in a wink. They were all watching me. I didn’t say anything.

“We all have had the greatest confidence in you,” Pumphrey said. “But now we feel we have been betrayed. Do you hear that, Mr. Smith—betrayed!”

“I don’t see what’s so terrible in letting Homer Adam stay with his wife for a while,” I said. “You asked me to get him into shape so that we could start A.I. That’s what I’ve been doing. If any of you think you can handle Homer better, I’ll be perfectly happy to step out. I’ll be more than happy. I’ll be delirious with joy.”

Into the eyes of Percy Klutz came the wild gleam I had seen before. “It is exactly as I thought all along,” said Klutz. “It is too big a task for one man. What we need is an entire new organization, and I have drawn up an entire new organizational chart.”

Before anyone could stop him he sprang to his feet, and unrolled a six-foot chart from a map case on the wall. “Now,” he said, “you will see that everything is almost the same, except up at the top, here, where we had Mr. Smith, and down here in Operations. We restore the committee, as originally planned, to direct policy on Mr. Adam. It will be a somewhat larger committee than first suggested, so it will include the State Department. Is that all right with you, Colonel Phelps-Smythe?”

Phelps-Smythe, who had been sitting with folded arms, his chair tilted back, enjoying himself, came erect, and said, “That’s all right with the War Department. My general has instructed me to say that the War Department’s chief concern is in security. Now I don’t have to point out that if the War Department had been left in charge of Adam’s field security, nothing like this would have happened.”

“Oh, I’ve provided for that,” said Klutz. “Right down here.” He indicated a row of boxes at the bottom of the chart. “I’ll get to that in a minute. First, we will take care of Mr. Smith. You don’t mind, do you, Mr. Smith?”

“I don’t mind.”

“Well, Mr. Smith continues as Special Assistant to the Director, but his functions change somewhat. He becomes more of a liaison man between the policymaking committee and the operations end. You see, he will have a number of assistants who will take actual charge of Mr. Adam. There will be assistants in charge of security, housing, recreation, health, and so forth.”

“That doesn’t sound bad, Percy,” said Abel Pumphrey.

“Just a matter of simple reorganization,” said Percy proudly. “Every agency has them.”

“Do you think it will quiet all this criticism?” Pumphrey asked. He looked at Gableman.

“I should think so,” said Gableman, “provided Adam is separated from Mrs. Adam.”

“What do you say, Mr. Smith?”

“I say it stinks,” I said. “If you put Adam in a straitjacket again, he’ll just get sick, or go nuts. Then where will you be?”

Danny Williams, who hadn’t said anything thus far, spoke. “Instead of all this chart business,” he asked, “wouldn’t it be better if Adam just started having babies?”

“Naturally,” said Abel Pumphrey, “that’s ah, what we’re all after. That’s our motto—production, production, and more production.”

“Well, Steve,” Williams asked me, “do you think Adam is in good enough shape to start producing?”

“I think he’s about ready,” I replied, “but I wouldn’t like to say for certain until the medical advisers okayed it.”

“And if A.I. started, all this criticism would end, wouldn’t it?” said Pumphrey.

“Oh, absolutely,” said Gableman, “providing, as I said, his wife was out of the picture.”

“That’s what the President thought,” said Williams. “The President thought that if Adam’s health had improved we should just put him into production. I suppose that both from a political and a medical standpoint we had better separate Mr. and Mrs. Adam for the time being. But I don’t think there’s any need for all this reorganization.”

That, of course, settled it. At least I thought it did. Klutz, dejected as an inventor who has been told his perpetual motion machine won’t work, rolled up his chart. Phelps-Smythe looked sour and grumbled something I didn’t quite catch, but which obviously concerned me. I said that if the doctors okayed it, production could begin Monday.

When I returned to Adam’s suite Mary Ellen was packing. She was crying without any noise. Tears kept coming into her eyes, and she’d wipe them with the back of her hand, but she wasn’t letting even a sniffle escape her. Finally she turned to me and said, “You don’t have to tell me to get out. I knew when you got that call last night that I’d have to go.”

“Now take it easy, Mary Ellen,” I told her. “It could be a lot worse.”

“What did they decide?” she asked.

“Well, they decided that A.I. had to start right away. That was the first thing. And they thought it best that you and Homer separate for a while. Anyway, it would be pretty embarrassing for you to stay just at this time, now wouldn’t it, Mary Ellen?”

“I don’t think so,” she said in a small voice. “I don’t think it would be so terribly embarrassing.”

“Oh, sure it would,” I told her, trying to sound convincing. “Anyway, this separation is just temporary. Just as soon as production levels off, and is placed on a sound basis, you and Homer will be able to be together again.”

“I wish I thought so.”

“What makes you think it won’t happen?”

She stood up, very straight, unashamed of her tears and her anger. “It’s that girl—The Frame. She’s after him again!”

“After him?”

“She called him from California this morning. What does she want? Why does she keep after him?”

“What do any of them want? She wants to have a baby, I guess.”

“No, it’s deeper than that. Steve, I’m afraid. I’m terribly afraid!”

I remembered the glimpse of the fanatic The Frame’s face had unmasked just before she boarded her plane. In a vague sort of way, I was afraid, too, but all I said was, “Stop worrying. I’ll take care of anything that comes up. Did you say anything to Homer?”

“No. I was with him in the living room when the call came in, and afterwards I asked who it was, and he told me, and all I could say, naturally, was how nice that she had called.”

“What did he tell her?”

“He just grunted, and said yes and no. Of course he knew I was listening.”

“Where’s Homer now?”

“In the kitchen, brooding.”

I went into the kitchenette. Homer was staring into a tumbler of milk as if he expected something to poke its head out of it. I told him about the meeting of the Planning Board. It didn’t seem to affect him any more than if I were describing a Friday afternoon session of the Hyannis, Nebraska, PTA. I said, “I understand Kathy called this morning.”

“Yes,” and then: “Steve, I can’t forget her. I keep thinking about her all the time.”

“Mary Ellen,” I told him, “loves you. Mary Ellen is taking a terrific beating, without complaining. Mary Ellen is my nomination as a swell wife.”

“Oh, I know it, Steve. Mary Ellen is wonderful. But how can I help it if I keep thinking of Kathy? I can’t control my thoughts, can I?”

“I suppose not,” I said. I told him he’d get his final physical the next day, and that A.I. would begin on Monday, if everything went according to schedule. He didn’t seem to mind. He kept staring at things without seeing them, and I wondered what The Frame had told him that made him act like he was the central figure in a hashish dream.

We took Mary Ellen to the station and put her on the New York train. They seemed to have a lot of things to say to each other, but they didn’t mean anything. She would write every day, and tell him how Eleanor was getting along. He would write every day, too. She hoped he wouldn’t have to be away from the baby so long—he should see how she was changing. He said he was sure Steve would fix it up for him to visit Tarrytown, but not just now of course. She said she didn’t think this A.I. would be as bad as he expected. He said he supposed he would get used to it.

I told Mary Ellen that pretty soon she should buy some spring clothes, and send me the bill, because all that was included in the N.R.P. budget, and she should buy all she wanted.

She leaned down from the train steps and kissed him. She kissed him hard, and clung to him. I knew what she was thinking. She was thinking that probably she would not see him again.

Back in the hotel, I telephoned Tommy Thompson, and he promised to be in Washington in the morning. “I’ll bring a surprise for you,” he said.

Homer and I played gin until midnight. The twelve o’clock news led off with an excited announcement that, doctors willing, A.I. would begin on Monday. As yet, the identity of the first A.I. mother, “destined to again carry forward the banners of humanity,” had not been revealed.