None But Lucifer

Chapter XV

He hesitated a long time before writing. Then, rather than dictate the letter to his secretary, he borrowed a typewriter and wrote it himself.

Dear Johnson: I seem to have put myself into a little difficulty. Maybe you can help me.

He stopped there, his eyes straying to Gloria. She was sitting erect and knitting a sweater with great concentration. Tenderly he watched the smooth skin between her eyes pucker as she solved an intricate problem of knitting, and then relax placidly. It amused her now, being at his office, he thought. Later she mightn't find it so nice.

The night Gloria and I got engaged, I was feeling pretty romantic, naturally, and I said something about us that I guess I didn't phrase properly. Now it seems to have taken hold like a spell of some kind.

I said something to the effect that we'd never be happy apart. Offhand you would think that would imply only a sort of negative unhappiness. But it isn't like that. When we're separated, we suffer miserably. We feel empty, lost, filled with the most intense psychological pain. We want to be together the next possible instant, no matter how difficult or inconvenient getting together would be.

He reread the last sentences, feeling naked at exposing his emotions so completely to Johnson. But this was no time for stoicism. He went on:

I know it was my fault. I should have been more careful, though I didn't know I was casting a spell, and I had no idea our spells were so damned literal. I should have said something to the effect that we'd be happier together than apart. Tell me how to modify the terms of the spell so it will have that effect.

Please answer immediately, air mail, special delivery. I've done all I can to lift the spell, but nothing seems to work. The situation is becoming most uncomfortable.

"Unbearable" would have been closer to the truth, but he sent the letter as it was.

"Come on, darling. Let's go."

"I thought you had a lot of work."

"Not much," he evaded. "It's finished."

It was or it wasn't; he didn't know which. Johnson would certainly have found plenty to do, moving this or that pawn or setting in motion some vast project that would affect the lives of millions of people.

On the few mornings when he came to the office — more out of desperation for something to do than from any taste for diabolical plotting — his secretary brought in reports, clippings, and graphs, and stood around waiting for him to say something. He never could think of anything intelligent. Yet he could see Johnson's plan move to its climax.

The country was divided into three factions: True isolationists, who wanted no European entanglements of any kind; democratic sympathizers, who wanted intervention against the aggressors; and admirers of the dictatorships, who were split into two bodies — a very small group of advocates of intervention on the side of the aggressors, and a larger group who disguised their sympathies behind pleas for isolation. He could see that, by lobbies, whispering campaigns, and inspired articles. Johnson would keep the three-cornered fight stirred up until every element of torment had been wrung from it, before allowing it to be settled by an actual struggle for power.

The plan seemed overwhelmingly huge and detailed to Hale. It made him feel baffled and frustrated. Johnson would always know what to do. He could pick up the telephone, and the next morning armies would or would not march, millions of people would or would not eat, anything might or might not happen, depending on which pawn he moved. It was like finding the correct switch out of millions. Johnson could reach out negligently and find it; Hale would have to throw most of them before anything would happen. The point was, he wasn't Lucifer.

In short, he felt the way you would feel if your job were to cause the most misery to the most people in the most efficient manner possible. He accepted the philosophy of Hell. He had to, seeing the minute amount of happiness and the cosmic amount of pain and torment in the world, and hence being less subject to qualms than unrealistic outsiders. He wanted to do his job of running the hemisphere properly, but he couldn't. Experimentally he could goad one pawn to sudden success, or harry another to destruction. But he would have to ignore everything else while he did it, like an inexperienced corporation sending all its salesmen to grab one small order.

"Come on, Gloria!" he cried. "Let's get out of here before I go nuts!"

"Just let me finish this line," she said, and began knitting with frantic haste.

"Oh, please —"

"It'll take me only a second." She dropped a stitch. "Oh, darn!" When he stepped forward angrily: "Just this line, Billie-willie —"

He snatched it away; the next instant he was sorry. He pulled her to her feet and kissed her. "I'm sorry, darling. I'm getting jittery." She smiled forgivingly. "Where do you want to go?" he asked.

She squeezed his arm. "I don't care, I'm happy just being with you."

Yeah, he thought dejectedly, what a spell he'd laid! The idea had been all right, but he should have defined his terms more fully. They certainly weren't happy apart. But that didn't mean that they were happy together. "Oh, nuts!" he hissed. Who could have figured out in advance how that idiotically literal spell would work out?

She was staring at him, her eyes brimming. "What's the matter now?" he demanded.

"You didn't have to say that you did. I do like being with you, even if we don't do anything."

"I was thinking of something else — business."

You bet she liked being with him, Hale thought. Anything was better than having tht incredibly painful longing gnaw at them. They couldn't brush their teeth separately without feeling depressed and almost frantic at a few minutes' separation. So, rather than suffer that horror, he took her wherever he went.

But he couldn't bear staying home with her any more than he could help. She would knit and talk about subjects they had exhausted long before, and grow resentful if he read or listened to phonograph records. Or, from boredom, she might call up her friends for a party. Normally he would have been able to escape into another room, but his damned spell wouldn't allow him to, no matter how much he hated the noise of silly chatter and dance music.

"Let's go to a movie," he said.

"Oh, darling! There's a cute picture at the State, and they have vaudeville. Don't you love vaudeville?"

"Yeah," he muttered. There was a French film at the Playhouse that he had been conniving to see. But Gloria didn't understand French and refused to read subtitles, and, anyhow, she disliked foreign pictures to the point of tears if he tried to force her into going. He couldn't even sneak off by himself to see it. They'd never be happy apart.

He slammed the office door loudly enough to startle the staff. It was the first time he had seen them look up from their work. Oddly, that made him feel better.

For several days he avoided the office. They got up late, dressed and ate quickly, and left the apartment. He could have used his cars, or the yacht, or his recently acquired airplane, to escape the dread Johnson's desk aroused in him. But swift, aimless travel for its own sake had ceased to be entertaining.

He began to prefer walking. He liked the Haroun-al Raschid feeling that mixing with his subjects, unbeknownst to them, gave him. But — Gloria was not an athletic girl. She preferred high heels to walking shoes, and after ten blocks complained until he called a taxi. Nor could he leave her and walk alone. They'd never be happy apart.

Gloria did let him take her to a serious play. Considering that he had promised not to try to change her, he thought he had done pretty well. It was a great change from movies, musicals and farces, and he enjoyed it. But when they left, Gloria was sullen.

"What's the trouble?" he asked.

She thrust out her chin. "I don't know much about plays, but —"

"— but you know what you like," he finished for her.

"Yes."

He lit a cigarette and asked: "What didn't you like about it?"

"I don't like that deep stuff. What have I got to do with the Irish revolution? I like plays —"

"— that remind you of us. Isn't that right?"

She looked hurt. "You never let me finish —"

He wanted to tell her that she didn't have to, but, no matter how much she annoyed him at times, his love for her kept his tongue in cheek. He said: "Don't you ever get tired of that subject? It isn't inexhaustible."

"It is to me. Love —"

"I know. Love is a woman's whole life." He put his hands on her shoulders. "I don't want to hurt you, darling, but I honestly don't think we're important enough to occupy your whole mind for the length of time you're going to live."

She pressed her fist against her face to keep from crying furiously. All the way home he had to protest that his nerves were touchy and that he really loved the nickname, and her, and the inexhaustible subject of themselves.

He wished Johnson would hurry his reply to the letter. Johnson would know how to fix things. It wouldn't be so bad if he could only have some time to himself. Like most people, Gloria was good enough company when taken in reasonably small doses. But twenty-four hours a day, every day, would wear anybody's company thin. If only Johnson would deliver him from her damned bridge parties, her shopping excursions, and the afternoon teas she was going in for! He didn't object to them, for her. But, hell, she might show a little consideration for him.

Every man settling into marriage routine has to make some sacrifice of bachelor privileges. But nobody in history ever had to contend with as much as Hale.