Capable of Honor (14 page)

The riot in Molobangwe had been the first indication that this was not so. It had been an odd little affair which had swept through the mud-and-wattle town like a vagrant wind one stifling afternoon. It was over in half a day, but not before Terry had turned in desperation to the British, who as always were ironically ready to help those who were in process of booting them out; and not before Obifumatta had seized the opportunity to harangue the crowd, swing it to his side, and emerge as the popular hero. The Council of Elders had not dared act against him then, nor had Terry’s mother, even though it was apparent that much more than an afternoon’s rioting and fun had been involved. The episode had been a warning to Terry, and when he arrived home from the UN—after a pleasant plane ride that he had shared with Senator Bob Munson of Michigan, the Senate Majority Leader, and his wife Dolly, on their way to a month in Britain and the Continent—the warning was spelled out in language so blunt as to temporarily shock and paralyze him.

It appeared that the Communists, who literally twenty-four hours before had been working with him in absolute singleness of purpose at the UN, were working for different purposes six thousand miles away in Africa. He was not the first African to make this sad discovery, but it struck him with the same dismay, both laughable and pathetic, with which it strikes others in the naïve continent as they harshly, inexorably, inevitably find it out.

The Soviet and Chinese attachés, his smiling friends when he left Molobangwe for New York, greeted him with different faces when he got back. There was a short, ugly conference in the ramshackle old palace that once had housed some of the Christian missionaries who had attempted, without much success, to bring their own brand of progress to Gorotoland. The present-day missionaries were tougher and more to the point. Terry was told that he must form at once a “coalition government” in which Obifumatta would have equal rank and in which Communist-trained officials (“progressive elements,” they were called by the world of Walter Dobius) would control the police, defense, and foreign policy ministries of Gorotoland’s embryonic government.

At first Terry refused point-blank to accede to these demands. He was reminded sarcastically that the United States and Britain were far away and not really, despite Britain’s dutiful gesture, very interested, whereas Communist forces were right here and very actively interested. In the final compromise—which all parties, though they hailed it dutifully, knew would be final no longer than it would take one side or the other to break it—Terry had yielded a co-equal command of the defense ministry and a small share of foreign policy to his cousin. Police control he kept for himself, and equal rank he would not concede, pointing out that it was a matter of blood and nothing he could do anything about. The headlines in the West were very encouraging: COALITION GOVERNMENT SOOTHS TROUBLED GOROTOLAND; and, COALITION LAUNCHES NEW PEACEFUL ERA FOR AFRICAN NATION; and, STRIFE-TORN GOROTOLAND EASED BY POPULAR-BASED GOVERNMENT. Walter Dobius and his world wrote and broadcast millions of encouraging words about it, and all those in the West who feared they might have to take a stand if things got sticky relaxed and took a drink instead.

The “coalition” lasted for just over four uneasy months, after which the Communists made their first attempt to overturn it and murder Terry. He escaped, brought the drifting, mindless street mobs to his side by the sheer impact of his powerful personality, and drove Obifumatta, the coalition “ministers,” and their Communist supporters back into the bush. Obifumatta at once appealed to Peking and Moscow for help, received loud pledges from each, and filed an appeal with the United Nations. To Terry’s shocked dismay, all those elements in the Western world whose views were symbolized and sometimes synthesized by Walter and his friends at once began to attack him and build up his cousin.

“A genuine popular uprising somewhere on the globe is sometimes one of the healthiest things that can happen to this confused old town,” Walter wrote. “Washington this week is faced with its newest problem, but, in a relieved sense, also with its newest hero. Tired to death of ‘Tiresome Terry,’ the brash and erratic young ruler of Gorotoland, influential leaders here are welcoming with some relief the attempt by his cousin, Prince Obifumatta, to establish a truly democratic regime in the difficult African country.”

Who these friendly American “leaders” were, neither Terry nor any disinterested observer could see, since President Hudson’s administration, far from embracing Obifumatta, had immediately pledged its support to Terry. But if Walter Dobius said so, a great many of his colleagues and countrymen were ready to believe that it must be true. Favorable reports on Obi at once began to flood the press and airwaves.

“BATTLE FOR FREEDOM,” CBS offered: “A NEW LEADER RISES IN AFRICA.” “SPECIAL REPORT,” NBC countered: “WILL DEMOCRACY WIN IN GOROTOLAND?” Pictures of Obifumatta speedily blossomed in all the places where Terry’s picture, so short a time before, had grinned upon the populace. The New York
Times
, moving swiftly to cover the emergency, transferred to Amsterdam the level-headed veteran who had been covering Central Africa and rushed to the scene its youthful expert-on-overthrowing-governments. A flood of dispatches favorable to Obifumatta and derogatory to Terry immediately began to appear.

When Obi’s mercenaries, either inadvertently or by design, broke into the All-Faiths Missionary Hospital at Molobangwe and carried off two white nurses into the bush, and when, two days later, one of the oil tanks at the new Standard Oil development in the highlands area of the country was mysteriously set afire in the night, the tempo increased. In Washington the President remarked, at first mildly in a press conference but then more firmly in a formal statement issued three hours later after consultation with the Secretary of State, that the United States would “not remain silent or idle” while American lives and property were under attack. Obifumatta immediately filed a new protest with the UN and the outcry doubled. Walter and his world now had exactly the sort of issue they loved—the brutal, overbearing United States threatening a helpless little noble, honest, Communist-riddled backward nation—and if what they said about it happened to coincide with the Communist line, well, that was just too bad. They were morally in the right, whatever the facts of it, and high and mighty was their indignation.

“Rarely,” Walter wrote sternly, “has the United States been in a less graceful or more suspect posture than it is today in Gorotoland. True, two American missionary nurses have been abducted and are, presumably, dead. True, a Standard Oil installation has been attacked. But what were they doing there in the first place? The world has seen too much of exploitation moving behind the cloak of mercy. The nurses may have thought they were there to help the natives of Gorotoland. Actually, they may well have been there as an innocent smoke screen for further adventures by the oil interests of the United States.”

“OIL: HOW MUCH DOES IT STILL DICTATE POLICY?” CBS obligingly offered two nights later, devoting roughly forty-five minutes of the hour to Obifumatta and his noble cause, fifteen to Terry and his probable shady tie-up with Standard. “OIL: NEW SWORD OF EMPIRE?” NBC riposted twenty-four hours later. “BEHIND GOROTOLAND’S CRISIS, THE SPECTER OF OIL,” the New York
Times Sunday Magazine
reported at week’s end in two thousand hastily written, characteristically objective words from its youthful expert-on-overthrowing-governments. “OIL,” said
Life
simply, with a thousand words of text, seven pictures, and three bright maps.

Caught in this kind of cross fire between the world of Walter Wonderful and the Government of the United States, the 137th M’Bulu of Mbuele, though it took him a little while to realize it, didn’t have a chance. Almost overnight, it seemed to him, all his support vanished. The friends who had hailed him so eagerly yesterday hailed him no more. In the sort of strange, fantastic, overnight about-face contortion that Walter and his world are all too frequently capable of, he who had been hero was instantly and forever villain. And the thing that staggered and appalled him more than anything else was that Walter and his world got away with it. Apparently their readers and viewers were not aware of the switch, or if aware, were too bored—or too exhausted by innumerable past duplications of the performance—to protest or be skeptical about it. Within a month any mention of Terry, almost anywhere in the American press, carried with it the automatic addition, “youthful adventurer who acquired the throne by strangely suspect methods …” or, “suspected friend and agent of the oil interests …” or, “leader of the anti-democratic forces striving to keep down the people of Gorotoland.…” or some other pack-cry honed and polished to do the most damage.

In all this sad disarray of his hopes and fortunes, Terence Ajkaje had only two things going for him; but they were, while they lasted, substantial. The British Government had immediately announced its support, and the Hudson administration in Washington, unlike some previous administrations, showed no inclination at all to be swayed by the propaganda barrage laid down by Walter and his friends. In fact, a week ago the President had reaffirmed his warning to the rebel forces, and to Obifumatta personally, that the United States would “take immediate and substantial action” if so much as one more American citizen or one more piece of American property were hurt. This was so unlike the decades-old pattern of the United States that for almost a day there was a stunned silence around the globe. Then Walter and his world, the Africans and Asians, the Communists, and indeed all Right Thinkers everywhere, let go with an outraged clamor that made their previous attacks sound like friendly greetings.

It was then that the President had called Walter in to ask his advice firsthand and incidentally let him know that it was not going to be taken no matter how furiously he wrote. It was then that the Security Council decided in a heated emergency session—in which the United States, Britain, and Nationalist China found themselves standing alone against France, Uganda, Ceylon, Chad, India, Dahomey, Yugoslavia, Chile, Cuba, the Soviet Union, Venezuela, and Panama, to take up Obifumatta’s appeals “at the earliest possible moment.” Only by dint of much behind-the-scenes maneuvering at the UN and in the capitals of the Council members had the United States and Britain been able to secure agreement that if Obi were invited to attend and testify, Terry should be, too.

And now here they were, though dismal and different indeed were their respective positions and prospects on this snowy night in Manhattan. Prince Obifumatta, just returned to his suite at the Carlyle (paid for by voluntary contributions from Selena Castleberry, Poopy Rhinefetter, and a host of others anxious to Do The Right Thing), was giving one more gracious interview to one more group of friendly and obsequious questioners from the metropolitan press. Prince Terry was huddled uncomfortably (if six-feet-seven could be said to huddle) in the lobby of the Waldorf, looking fiercely proud and abysmally lonely. Far away in Gorotoland Obi’s forces, coached by their Russian and Chinese advisers, were skirmishing halfheartedly in the highlands with Terry’s forces, coached by their American and British advisers. A temporary lull lay on the scene of battle as both sides awaited events in the UN; but it was, as the Indian Ambassador had remarked today to the French Ambassador when they met at the luncheon given by the delegation of Cameroon, “an interesting and fateful scene.”

“I think we have here the setting for quite a drama,” Krishna Khaleel had remarked with a hiss of concern, “though not, I think, a pleasant one, do you agree?”

Raoul Barre had responded with his sidelong, clever glance and skeptical smile.

“The principal players are ready, as always,” he remarked. “Someday they will be ready and will actually perform. This may be the time.”

“Oh, I hope not,” K.K. had responded with a horrified expression. “Think of the consequences.”

“The world has worried about consequences for decades,” Raoul replied. “It may be tired of worrying about consequences. If it is, consequences will come.”

Before the stormy night ended, consequences would indeed come, greatly increasing the tensions against which the Security Council would vote tomorrow, against which Walter Dobius would make his visit to the UN and, on Friday, his speech at the Jason Foundation dinner, greatly inflaming the angers and passions against which the presidential campaign would have to be played out. But for the moment, all that the participants, past and future, could see was what faced them right now.

Most immediately, in the lobby of the Waldorf, all that Terry could see, dolefully, was that he had received a royal snub from two people whose friendship he had every right to expect. It was true that he had been a little hard on their government six months ago, but after all, their government was backing him now, so why couldn’t they be more cordial? It was one of those things that left him baffled, depressed, and confused as he decided disconsolately that he might as well go up to his room and watch television.

Except that he knew what he would see if he did: hated Obifumatta, grinning forth from all those flattering programs and interviews, just as Terry himself had done six months ago when he, too, had been America’s enemy and the darling of America’s most powerful opinion-makers.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Beth said, “But just what is your ex up to with this luncheon invitation on Thursday?”

“I’m damned if I know,” Helen-Anne Carrew confessed. “He invited me, too, you know, which really indicates he wants to show off about something. I haven’t been to Leesburg in four years. Something great must be under way.”

“I’m glad you’re going to be there, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Oh, so am I. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. It may well be the biggest story of the year.”

“I hope not,” Both said in some alarm. “Surely it’s going to be off the record.”

Helen-Anne snorted.

“Nothing is off the record in this town, as you very well know. It’s just a matter of timing as to when things go on the record. Some sooner, some later, but they always get there, in the end. Personally, I hope they have a terrible fight. Orrin might as well, he has nothing to lose in that quarter.”