Пользователь - WORLDS END Страница 27

Robbie knew all about politicians and parliaments; in his country they were called Congress and had steadily refused to vote what the safety of the country required. Now, of course, there would be a quick change, the purse strings would be loosened. The policy of Budd's was fixed; it was "first come, first served" to all the world. The terms in this present crisis would be fifty percent of the purchase price to be placed in escrow with the First National Bank of Newcastle, Connecticut, before the order was accepted; the balance to be placed in escrow a week before the completion of the order, to be paid against bills of lading when shipment was made. Munitions makers had grown suddenly exacting, it appeared. Robbie added confidentially - to everyone - that he had cabled his firm recommending an immediate increase of fifty percent in its entire schedule of prices: this to meet inevitable rises in the cost of materials and labor.

The visitors would depart; and while the next lot cooled their heels in the lobby, the salesman would take off the heavy alligator-skin belt which he always wore, slip a catch, and draw out several long strips of parchment with fine writing on them. He would sit at his portable typewriter, the newest contraption created by Yankee ingenuity, and would study the parchment strips and proceed to type out a cablegram in code.

That secret code had been one of the thrills of Lanny's life for several years. It was changed every time Robbie made a trip, and there were only two copies of it in existence; the other was in the possession of Robbie's father. The one other person who knew about it was the confidential clerk who devised it, and who did the decoding for the president of the company. The belt in which Robbie kept his own copy was never off his person except when he was in the bathtub or in swimming; usually he swam from a boat, and before he sank down among the fishes he would make sure there were no agents of foreign governments near by.

Robbie had talked quite a lot about ciphers and codes. Any cipher could be "broken" by an expert; but a code was safe, because it gave purely arbitrary meanings to words. The smartest expert could hardly find out that "Agamemnon" meant Turkey, or that "hippo-griff" meant the premier of Rumania. Robbie would use the cable company's code-book for the ordinary phrases of his message: "I have promised immediate delivery," or "I advise acceptance," and so on; but crucial words, such as names of countries, of individuals he was dealing with and the goods they were ordering, were in the private code. These precautions had been adopted after a deal had been lost because Zaharoff had a man in the office of Budd Gun-makers and was getting copies of Robbie's messages.

Seeing how overwhelmed his father was, Lanny asked if he could help; and the father said: "It's too bad you don't know how to type."

"I can find the letters on the keyboard," replied the boy, "and you don't hit 'em so fast yourself."

"You'll find it's pretty poor fun."

"If I'm really helping you, I'll think it's the best fun there is."

So Robbie wrote his cablegram in English, and showed the boy how to look up phrases in the regular code-book, and underlined those words which would be in his own list. While Robbie interviewed a friend of Captain Bragescu, just arrived from Rumania, Lanny worked patiently by the "hunt and peck" method, producing a long string of ten-letter words: "California Independed Hilarioust Scorpionly Necessands," and so on. Lanny's grandfather, who had tried hard not to let him be born, and who so far had refused to recognize the failure of that effort, would learn from this painstaking service that the government of Holland was anxious over the possibility of invasion, and would pay thirty percent premium for delivery of twenty thousand carbines during the month of August.

By the time Robbie's interview was concluded, the message was ready, and he went over it and found only two or three errors, and said it was a great help; which of course made the boy as proud as Punch. Robbie burned the original message, and let the ashes drop into the toilet bowl. Then Lanny asked: "Do you ever add anything out of code?"

"Sometimes," replied the father. "Why?"

"Just say: 'Lanny coded this.' "

Robbie chuckled, but he said: "Wait till he sells the guns and gets the money!"

IV

The cablegram dispatched, the pair went for a stroll, to get some fresh air into their lungs before lunch. The other delegations could wait, said Robbie; no sense in killing yourself - anyhow, Budd's was loaded up with orders; in the past couple of weeks they had accumulated a "backlog" for six months. For years Robbie had been urging the family to expand the plant; Robbie's eldest brother, Lawford, who was in charge of production, had opposed it, but finally their father had adopted Robbie's program. Now he wouldn't have to worry any more.

"What's he worrying about?" asked Lanny, and Robbie answered: "Bankers! Once you let Wall Street get its claws into you, you cease to be a family institution."

It was Friday, the last day of July. Newsboys were shouting la guerre again. Germany had declared martial law. She was going to war with somebody, and it could only be with France's ally. People appeared to have lost interest in the ordinary tasks; they stopped on street corners, or in front of bistros, kiosks, and tobacco shops, to talk about the meaning of events. People spoke to you who wouldn't ordinarily have done so. "They're scared," said Robbie. "That brings human beings together."

There came the sound of drums; a regiment marching - toward the east, of course. The soldiers sweated under a load of equipment; rifle and bayonet, knapsack, a big blanket roll, a canteen, even a little spade. Their blue coats were long and heavy, their red trousers big and baggy. The crowds came running, but they didn't cheer. Neither- the soldiers nor the people looked happy. "Is France mobilizing?" asked Lanny, and his father replied: "Troops would be moving toward the frontier in any case."

They returned to the Crillon, and while they were at lunch a cablegram was brought to Robbie. "From Newcastle," he said. It was in code, of course, and Lanny exclaimed eagerly: "Oh, let me try it!" The father said: "O.K."

When they went upstairs Robbie took off the magic belt, and Lanny shut himself in his bedroom with cablegram and code-book, leaving the father free for more interviews. The cablegram conveyed the information that Turkey was twenty-four hours overdue upon the first payment for ground-type air-cooled machine guns ordered. Might it not be wise to cancel the deal and dispose of the guns to the British army? Robbie was to advise immediately what increased price he thought the British would pay.

It sounded so important that Lanny took the decoded message to his father, and Robbie cut short his interview and got busy on the telephone to locate a member of the British military mission then holding consultations with the French Ministry of War. Lanny went back to put into code the words: "Advise cancellation Turkey am making inquiries Britain."

A man like Robbie Budd would normally have a secretary with him; but Robbie was active, and had always preferred to handle his own affairs and write his own letters to his father. Now he was caught in a sudden hurricane, and less willing than ever to trust anybody. So there was a chance for a fourteen-year-old boy to step into a secretary's job - for which he was not without some preparation.

Robbie checked the message and found it all right. He put on his magic belt and went down to take a taxi for an appointment with the British officer. Lanny filed the cablegram, and then went to the street and bought the latest newspaper. When he came back he found there was a letter for his mother - in the familiar handwriting of Marcel Detaze, and postmarked Juan-Ies-Pins. It was an unusually thick letter, and Lanny didn't have to guess that Marcel would be pouring out his soul. He took it up to his mother's suite. He would rest for a while from being a code expert, and resume his role as consultant upon affairs of the heart.

V

Beauty had been to lunch with her friend Emily Chattersworth, and was loaded up with "sensible" advice on the problem which was exercising her. But when she saw that letter, all the labors of her friend were undone. She paled and caught her breath, and her hands trembled while she read. When she had finished the long letter, she sat staring in front of her, biting her lip as if enduring pain.

Lanny had an impulse to say: "May I read it?" But he feared that wouldn't be polite, and merely asked: "Is he in trouble, Beauty?"

"He is uncertain about everything," she answered, and then started to read him the letter, which was in French, and began "Chйrie." Before she got very far, her voice broke, and she handed him the sheets, saying: "You have to know about it."

Lanny read: "I have been hoping every day to hear from you and to see you, but now I fear it will be too late. It looks as if there will be mobilization, and I cannot come to Paris because it would look like running away. I cannot be sure, but I expect my class will be called among the first. If I go, I will write you. I do not know where I shall be, but you can write me in care of my regiment.

"I keep reminding myself that you are an American, and I cannot be sure how you will feel about what is happening. But you know that I am a Frenchman and can have no doubt who is right in this unwanted conflict. It is cruel that our happiness has to be broken, and that millions of other women will be stricken with grief. It is perhaps a minor tragedy that men of talent have to be dragged from their task of making beauty, and instead must destroy it upon the battlefield. But it is our fate, and if the summons comes, I shall not permit myself to be weakened by repining. In this I hope for your help.

"One sad idea has been haunting my mind. It may be that Lanny's father will wish to take him out of this hell which Europe is about to become. It may be that you will wish to go with your son. I have thought about it day and night, and what it is my duty to say to you. I have written half a dozen letters and torn them up. I have pleaded with you for the right of our love; and then I have decided that I was being selfish, thinking about my own welfare while making myself believe I was thinking about yours. I have written a letter of renunciation, in the name of true, unselfish love, and then decided that I would seem cold, when in reality I was so trembling with grief and longing that my hand could hardly control the pen.

"If I could have one hour's talk with you, I could make it all clear. I expected that as my right, and you gave me to think that I was to have it. But you kept postponing your coming - and I felt that you must have known about this crisis, and the prospect of my being called to the defense of my country. This is not said in complaint, but merely to make plain my situation.

"In what you are about to read, I beg you to remember our hours of ecstasy. Remember our tears that mingled, and all the pulses of our hearts. Everything that I have ever been to you, I am today, and will be forever, if fate spares me. I love you; my being trembles when I think of you, my courage dissolves, I curse war, mankind, fate, and God Himself, that gives us such bliss and then tears it away. I feel all that, and I am all that. But also I am a citizen of France, with a duty there is no escaping. Also I am a rational man, knowing what the world is, and what can happen to a woman in it. I say: 'What have you to offer to this woman, or to any woman born to the pleasant things of life?'

"There are times when I feel that I know about the value of my own work. I say: 'It is good, and some day the world will know that it is good.' But then I remember how van Gogh succeeded in selling only one painting in his lifetime, and that to his brother. So I ask myself: 'Have I anything more than he had?' I tell myself there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of painters, each as sure of his own merits as I am of mine; and very few of them can be right. Who can say there is any sure guarantee that genuine merit will be recognized in the world? Why may it not be suffocated by indifference, just as life may be annihilated in the blast of war?

"I tell myself that if you go to America, you will almost certainly marry there, and I shall never see you again. Grief overwhelms me; but then reason speaks, reminding me that my life may be snuffed out in a few days - or worse, that I may be mutilated, and made into something you had better not see or know about. I say: 'If she takes her dear son to America, that will be the happiest path for her and for him. Her wise American friends must be telling her that. What right have I to add to the ache of her heart?'

"It may be, Chйrie, that all this is fantasy. If so, call it a lover's nightmare, and laugh at it. But it is better to write something foolish than not to let you know my heart. If I am called, what I write thereafter will be under the eyes of an army censor. I beg you to learn not to worry about me, it is the destiny of the men of our time. France must be saved from the insolence of an autocrat, and whatever comes to each individual is his to endure. My love, my blessings go with you, and my prayers for your happiness."

Tears had come into Lanny's eyes as he read, and were trickling down his cheeks. When he was through he, too, sat staring before him, not seeing anything, not knowing anything to say. He didn't think that Marcel believed in prayers, or in blessings. Was it just a manner of speaking, or was it a cry wrung from him when his own forces were not enough to meet his need? Maybe he would be glad to go to war, and to get killed, as a way of escape from his grief.

"It's her own affair," Robbie had said to his son. "It's a mistake to urge people to any course, because then they hold you responsible for the consequences. Let her make her own decision." So the boy didn't say a word, just let the tears trickle.

"Oh, Lanny, what shall I do?" whispered Beauty, at last. When he didn't answer, she began to sob. "It's monstrous that a man like Marcel should be dragged away to war!"

"He doesn't have to be dragged," said the boy. "Don't you see that he would go anyway? We can't help that part of it. Most of the women of France will have that to endure." Robbie had said this, and the boy knew it was right.

But Beauty was a different kind of woman, belonging to the class which wasn't supposed to suffer. So far she had refused to do so. That was why it seemed such a perfect solution of the problem to flee to America, in the care of a capable man who had no part in Europe's hates and slaughters. That was undoubtedly the sensible way - as Robbie and Emily and all her friends kept assuring her. How provoking and unreasonable that a woman who had given her heart couldn't get it back without rinding it all bleeding and torn!

"Tell me, what shall I do?" she repeated.

"Robbie doesn't want me to say any more about it," the boy answered. "You know what I think."

"Harry is coming to take me to dinner," persisted the mother. "What am I to say to him?"

The boy remembered what his father had told him during the affaire Zaharoff. "Tell him the facts, Beauty."

VI

Lanny returned to his other job. Robbie wrote out a long message to his father, advising him that Turkish officials were deeply involved in intrigues with Germany and the outcome might be a blockade of all Turkish ports. The British military mission advised that Britain would certainly want all the ground-type air-cooled machine guns it could get. Robbie advised against charging a higher price, except as part of a general boost in the price schedule. He recommended this latter more urgently than ever. Future quotations should be subject to increase depending upon raw-material prices certain to jump enormously.