Momentarily he was annoyed with her, because she was speaking the truth, and he did not want the truth, least of all from her. “Act like a human being?” he said. “Do you think anyone’ll let me? Don’t you read the papers, any more, or listen to the radio?”
“Doug, I know what’s going on, exactly. Our people are singing Moses, they’ve got Moses, and that’s an unfair pressure for you. And the bitterest whites are hating more than ever, and persecuting us more than ever to get their hate out of their systems, because they can’t get at you. And the in-betweens-I listen, I overhear them-they don’t know what to think. They feel threatened and uneasy because your presence makes them feel like members of a minority for the first time. They don’t believe you’ll rule as a white, like T. C., but as a black man, and they’re worried you’ll make their precious pure-white Christian land into a Dark Continent. They should know how little they have to fear from you.”
Dilman winced at the last. He fought to keep his dignity and manhood in her eyes. “Wanda, believe it or not, I only want to do my job now, do it, get it over with, and go back to where I came from. Yet it seems no one will let me. The Negroes want this and that because I’m Negro. The whites want this and that because I’m not white. T. C.’s gang wants me to be T. C., when I’m not him at all. You want me to be-to be something else. God, even my own son-”
He broke off, lost in misery, and she waited, and then she said, “You saw Julian?”
“He came to the office today. I had to talk to him about his grades and about doing better in school, something more important than ever now. So I had to listen to that Negro-versus-white-school business all over again. I know, Wanda, I know what you’ve said, but there it is, and he has to do well. I told him he was spending too much time with the Crispus Society, and he owed more time to himself and his future. Well, I thought we had it settled, and then suddenly he had to see me again, in the middle of the afternoon, so important it couldn’t wait. So I saw him. You’ve never heard anyone so unreasonable and agitated. Now it wasn’t the Crispus Society he was defending, but those damn Turnerite hoodlums. Sure they got the raw end of the stick down in Mississippi, and there’ll be more of that. But it’s not a Federal matter.”
“What did he want from you?”
“To use my influence to get Nat Abrahams to intervene. Heaven knows, Nat does his share helping us. Now he’s busy with something for himself. His office has already told the Turnerites he is unavailable. I have no right, either as his friend or as the President, to influence him. Julian wouldn’t listen. He was practically frothing.”
Dilman kept working his fist into his palm. “I didn’t know what got into him, and then I finally figured it out before coming here. He must have run into that writer who’s been doing my biography, Leroy Poole, up in the White House. They were both up there at the same time. And Poole-he talks Crispus, but he acts Turnerite. I suspect Hurley is a close friend of his. Poole’s a very eloquent and inciting young man, and to someone like Julian, who is so much younger, and so impressionable, who in fact admires Poole’s writings, that Turnerite talk can be unsettling. I’m sure that’s what was behind Julian’s tirade. Anyway, I had to be very firm with Julian. I told him no and that was that. He didn’t like it. I don’t even know if we’re on speaking terms at this point.”
Wanda’s hand reached out to touch Dilman’s fist. “I’m sorry, Doug.”
Anxiously he asked, “You agree with me on this, don’t you?”
Wanda nodded. “Yes. They’re being mistreated in Hattiesburg, but that’s not unusual, wrong thought it is. I don’t like Hurley’s talk and what he stands for. Neither does Paul Spinger.”
Dilman put another match to his cigar. “Good. You make me feel better already.” He glanced at her, and then he said, “That’s why I need you, Wanda. That’s one of the reasons. You’re the only frank and honest person I can discuss my problems with, personal or otherwise. That’s why I came here to see you right now, hard as it was.”
“Why did you come here, Doug?”
“To ask you a favor.” He waited for her blanket promise, but she was silent. He went on. “Wanda, now that I’m-I’m President, seeing you on the old basis is going to be impossible. You know that.”
“I know that, Doug.”
The trace of sadness in her voice accentuated his growing fear of losing her. He said, “I don’t want to lose you.” He added, “I need you to-to push me forward. Wanda, I figured it out early this afternoon. I was hiring a white Southern girl for my social secretary-”
“Well, that took courage.”
“Senator Watson’s daughter. She’s exactly right for the position. There’ll be some dirty digs, but there would be whatever I did.”
“What about Diane Fuller?”
“I’m getting her another job, secretary in the press section of Miss Watson’s department. But there remain a couple of key openings, secretarial openings, administrative ones, on the White House staff. We’ve had resignations, as you can imagine.”
“Yes.”
“Now there are these openings.” He paused. “Wanda, I want you to accept one of those jobs.”
She did not appear surprised. “That’s thoughtful of you, Doug. Unfortunately, I already have a good job.”
“Vaduz Exporters? Wanda, this is the White House. You’ve told me yourself, a dozen times, you don’t like your boss-who is that director?-Gar, Franz Gar. Well, here’s a chance to leave him. I know you have a well-paying setup at Vaduz, but you told me it is mechanical and dull, and you have no contact with people. It would be different in the White House. The work might not pay as much, but I’d look after that soon enough. It would be fascinating for you. Most important, it would be helpful to me. I could see you every day. We could talk.”
“And no one would know we were friends? How nice,” she said bitterly. “How shrewd of you, Doug. And courageous, too. What if someone found out I was also your girl friend?”
Her caustic challenge disturbed him. “Don’t become angry, Wanda. It would only be temporary, a temporary arrangement, like my own job. Later, we-”
“No, thanks,” she said flatly. “Until now our relationship, platonic as it is, has at least been honest. Even if it means not seeing you, I refuse to change that. I won’t let what there is between us become surreptitious and back-door.”
“Wanda-”
“Absolutely no, Doug. You’re having a rough time, and I hate to make it rougher. But I’m not moving into Harding’s closet. When you have the nerve to see me again, you’ll know where to find me, if it’s here or someplace else. Doug, I-”
The soft knocking on the door stopped her, and brought Dilman to his feet. “Yes?” he called out.
The door opened partially, and Reverend Spinger slipped in, and closed it behind him. He looked from one to the other. “Haven’t you been hearing it?”
“What?” Dilman asked.
“The noise out front-” He started for the covered side window.
Dilman listened. What he had been too engrossed to hear above his conversation with Wanda, he heard now. There came through the walls the rumble of many voices. “What’s going on?” he asked apprehensively.