Neither Five Nor Three (Helen Macinnes) (37 page)

Scott Ettley nodded. Obviously, he thought.

“He actually told you the time and place?”

Scott said, “Yes.” And from these questions, and the way they had been put, he realised not only that Orpen’s disaffection was already known, but that he himself was doubted by Bill and the others. And the whole picture changed, shifted its focus. He had hoped, in those last few minutes, that he could cut himself off from Orpen completely by forgetting him. But he couldn’t. Nicholas Orpen’s importance made his own silence impossible. There were—as Orpen himself would say—only two choices. He could choose either Orpen, or the Party. He might as well have spared himself all the arguments, all the worries which had accompanied him on the long journey here. No arguments were necessary. There was only the choice, and complete obedience to that choice.

Bill talked in a whispering voice, with quick glances over his shoulder at a closed door behind him. It was apparent that the meeting, in the room behind that door, was already in progress. And from Bill’s narrow eyes, drawn with worry, it was equally apparent that the meeting was a serious one.

Were they discussing Orpen? Was he as important as that? Ettley felt the perspiration break over his forehead again.

Bill was repeating his question. “Did you see him?”

“Yes.”

“He talked to you?”

Scott Ettley hesitated for a moment. Then he nodded.

“He won’t come here tonight?” Bill’s white face looked searchingly at Scott Ettley. Then he tightened his lips. “That means he is serious. He ought to have been here two hours ago. This is the third meeting in the last two days that he has refused. We’ve sent someone to see him; he pretends he isn’t there. We’ve telephoned; he picks up the receiver quietly, he listens, but there’s no answer.” Bill shook his head slowly, uncomprehendingly. “This is a terrible thing,” he said.

Ettley said, “I can’t believe he is serious.” But his voice lacked conviction.

“Comrade Peter will want a more definite answer than that.” Bill’s head turned again toward the closed door. Then, almost pathetically, he added, “But I can’t believe it either. This is a terrible thing. Terrible... Does he realise what”—again the head turned toward the door—“what may happen?”

Scott Ettley, who couldn’t follow Bill’s meaning, only looked blankly at the white face.

“There’s too much of this,” Bill said. “Too much. Doesn’t he see that it must be stopped?”

Again the exact meaning escaped Ettley. Bill was afraid; that was all the meaning he could find. He’s getting too old, Ettley thought. He’s too old for any important job. “When did this trouble start anyway?” he asked. He nodded towards the other room.

Bill lowered his voice still more. “It’s been going on. Hidden. But on Monday night, just after you left Thelma’s, there was a bitter argument. On Tuesday,”—he looked at the door as if Comrade Peter’s face was there, watching him—“on Tuesday there was an open disagreement on matters of policy.” He pursed his lips, and once more he shook his head slowly. “Then there were other difficulties, too. Charles’ death...and Thelma hysterical...and her apartment filled with insurance men investigating the windows—they’ve been all over the place, into every room...and reporters...and God knows what. Luckily, I got Comrade Peter out in time. But he doesn’t place much confidence in Orpen’s organising powers any more. Well—that’s what happens when you trust a woman like Thelma and let Charles run all over the place.”

Ettley said nothing at first. As far as he remembered, Orpen had objected to Charles being in the apartment on Monday. It had been Bill’s own negligence that had assumed Charles was as drunk as he pretended to be. But now Bill was saving himself. He, too, was making his choice. Then, on impulse, Ettley said, “That was Orpen’s only defeat.”

“One mistake can be enough if the timing is wrong.” Bill looked at him shrewdly, waiting for further information. No doubt he knew more than Ettley about Orpen’s successes. But he was interested now in finding out how indiscreet Orpen might have been with the younger man.

Ettley looked ignorant.

“And he’s been making several mistakes recently,” Bill went on. “There was Blackworth at
Trend.
There was Fremming in Hollywood, and Merlin in Chicago. Yes, they’ve all been fired from their jobs in the last month.”

But there were others who hadn’t been fired, Ettley thought. What about Wainway in Hollywood? Hadn’t he just persuaded one of the major studios to let him make a picture on the Harlem slums? The story and its angle had been hand-picked by Orpen. And distribution of the film had already been guaranteed in Europe and Asia. Or what about Kensley? He had asked for a year’s leave of absence from his Seattle job to write a book on the Korean problem. He had got the leave of absence and a grant, too, from an institute that subsidised deserving authors. The publisher had been picked by Orpen, just as the book’s subject and tide had been. Already it was being talked about as “the definitive account of Korea.” Yes, there were plenty of successes still to be chalked up to Orpen’s account.

Ettley couldn’t resist saying, “How’s Kensley’s book coming along?”

“It will be published early in June,” Bill said. Then he smiled. “But what made you think that was Orpen’s idea?”

“Wasn’t it? It seemed probable.”

“Orpen only passed on the idea,” Bill said. He looked at the closed door behind him and dropped his voice. “Comrade Peter wouldn’t call it an idea, anyway. He’d call it a directive,” he added, and the amusement left his face. He glanced at his watch and frowned, and his eyes were worried again. “Soon, now,” he said almost to himself. He sat down on the dented arm of a battered mohair couch.

Isn’t Bill allowed into the meeting? Ettley wondered. Has he been disciplined too? Here he is, playing office boy, keeping an eye on me, waiting to be summoned in his turn. Comrade Peter is a tough master. Yet that’s what we need, we need toughness and discipline and strength; we don’t want men who are corrupted. Then he glanced with a touch of contempt at Bill. He’s gone fat and soft. His job was too easy. He was too sure of himself.

“What’s your own news—good?” Bill asked suddenly.

Ettley nodded. On Monday, he would have reported it proudly. But tonight, he would keep it and tell it at the proper time, to the proper people.

Bill looked at him. His lips tightened. He said nothing more.

Ettley paced around the boxlike room. A cheap coloured print of the “Rape of the Sabine Women” hung on the yellowed plaster wall. At the windows, draggled lace curtains with holes adding to their openwork were stretched tightly over the dark green shades. Three naked bulbs clustered against the centre of the greyed ceiling. The mohair couch, its chequered pattern lost with years and grime, lay against one wall. Opposite, two high ill-assorted chairs were lined up like soldiers on parade. A small square of dingy rug lay apologetically in the middle of the room, making it still smaller. Any patient who came in to wait here for the doctor with the unpronounceable name on the window-card would feel twice as ill before he entered the consulting-room next door. Or did any doctor practise here? Looking at the film of dust on the cheap brown furniture, at the grimy floor, Ettley decided that no real doctor worked here or he would pass on more germs than he routed.

The connecting door half-opened. A man, tall, red-faced, dressed in a rough tweed jacket and grey flannel trousers, stood there, blocking any view of the dimly lit consulting-room behind him. He beckoned to Scott Ettley. Bill had risen to his feet, expectantly, but there was no signal for him.

Ettley looked back for a brief moment as he followed the stranger into the other room. Bill had settled back on the arm of the couch again. There was resignation on his face. There was also fear, now undisguised.

* * *

In the inner room, furnished in a miserable way to imitate a doctor’s office, three men waited. A desk had been pulled out from the wall to serve as a table. Its single lamp seemed to give more light in the direction of an empty chair than it did to the rest of the room. The red-faced man who had acted as messenger took his place silently beside the others. Four faces, grave and watchful, turned toward Ettley. “Sit down,” the red-faced man said, and gestured to the empty chair.

Ettley waited for Comrade Peter to speak. And when he did, it was obvious that he was in control. The pretences of Monday had been discarded. Now, his voice came cold and clear from the shadowed side of the warm room. As he questioned he smoked continuously, holding his cigarette in his curious way, his eyes half-closed, his head tilted back as he waited for the answers.

Ettley kept them business-like, factual. He talked only about himself, about his father’s reactions, about his future with the
Clarion.
Never again, he thought determinedly, would the criticism of “sentimental nonsense” have to be flung at him. He had learned a lot since his last meeting with this man called Peter. Now, as he gave exact answers to the brief searching questions, he began to feel his confidence returning. He could even notice a chart of a skeleton hanging near Comrade Peter’s shoulder and the decrepit examining table on which hats and coats had been thrown. And he could sense that the men who listened so carefully were pleased with his report. The sudden note of approval in the grave voice of the man called Peter was the highest praise of all. Ettley, as he listened to his further instructions and repeated them carefully, had never felt so sure, so capable, so completely in control of his emotions. It was an intoxicating moment—this moment of alertness, of understanding and confidence.

And it was then that Peter, lighting another long cigarette, suddenly asked about Orpen. When had Ettley last seen Orpen? And why? And how?

There could be no change in Ettley’s way of answering, no change which wouldn’t be noted by the four quiet faces watching him so intently. And without any hesitation, any alteration in voice or expression, he answered. It was, he told himself, all a part of this efficient examination. Even when he was asked to give a full report on his meeting today with Orpen, he kept the same cold objectivity and repeated Orpen’s words accurately. For this was a moment when all private emotions must be forgotten. Orpen was not to be judged as a friend in this room; here, he was only being judged as the renegade. Too much was at stake.

“And that was the last remark he made?” prompted the red-faced man, glancing at Peter as if he were speaking for him.

“Yes,” Scott Ettley said. “When I asked him what he was going to do, he replied ‘I don’t know.’ That was all he said. And I left.”

The four men looked at each other, and then they seemed to avoid looking at each other. At that split moment, some decision—perhaps already argued—was made.

Peter cleared his throat. That would be all, Ettley was told. His instructions were clear? He would destroy all evidence of his Party membership? He would only use his new contact in the gravest emergencies?

Yes. Everything was clear.

Then, as he opened the door, there was a quick interchange of sentences, something about Orpen; but it was spoken too low for Ettley to hear. “Wait in the outside room,” a voice called after him. And the man who had brought him into the consulting-room rose to follow him to the door. This time, the man’s signal was for Bill.

“We’ve a decision to make,” the man was saying to Bill as he closed the door behind them.

Scott Ettley, wondering what it was, feeling a nervousness which surprised him, knew one definite thing at least. Whatever this decision was, Bill would certainly agree with it. His vote, if a vote was taken, would be cast on Comrade Peter’s side. Bill had learned a few things himself since Monday night, and he had learned them principally in this dismal room while he waited. But what had made him so afraid?

Waiting in his turn, Ettley’s nervousness increased. Had he said something that was wrong, done something wrong? No, he thought as he went over his reports, first about the reactions of his father, about his job on the
Clarion
, then about Orpen, no, there was nothing there that was weak or inefficient. Nothing. There had only been one difficult moment, when Scott had had to explain to Comrade Peter that he couldn’t possibly step into any job of major importance in the
Clarion
even if his father did own it, that he had to begin in a position that was credible and work his way up toward the top. But he had explained as tactfully as he could. The others in the room had helped Scott by saying yes, that was the way things were worked. “In a capitalist bourgeois democracy?” Peter had asked angrily, scornfully. But in a moment, as he eyed the embarrassed look on their faces, he had said, “Very well, very well,” with a rough good humour, and he had gestured to Scott to continue. And afterward, he had been approving. So that awkward moment had been forgotten.

But what else, then?

Ettley wished he could raise a window, let some fresh air into this room. He wished he could walk out of that door, out into the cool dark street. What was keeping him here? He had been given his instructions.

When the door opened at last, it was Bill who entered. Decision had returned to his movements, but his eyes were still tight with worry. Perhaps it was his own fear, hidden now, that made his voice harsh, uncompromising.

“You have a job to do,” he said.

Ettley said, “I’ve been given my instructions.”

“Here are additional instructions,” Bill said, and the furrow between his eyebrows deepened. “You are to ’phone Orpen. Tell him you did not come here tonight. Tell him you’ve been trying to think it out, tell him you don’t know what to do. Ask him to meet you, to talk to you.”

“What if he won’t come?”

“You must see that he does. If you are upset enough, he will come.” Suddenly the voice lost its sharp edge. “You are someone he is very fond of. You know that?”

Ettley nodded. Too fond, he thought bitterly.

Bill said, “So we depend on you. Can we?”

Ettley stared at the grim white face. He nodded.

“Good. Telephone Orpen tonight. At midnight. Tell him you are calling from a drugstore on Lexington near Fifty-ninth Street. Tell him you’ll wait for him at that corner, at the northwest corner.”