From the street there was the sound of a shot. “Now they’re firing at us!” Peter pulled the sheet to his chin.

  Aeneas crossed to the window and looked out. “I see no guns. Must have been a car’s exhaust.”

  “Is the man still there?”

  Aeneas nodded.

  “What’s he wearing today?”

  “A top hat and a red, white, and blue vest like Uncle Sam.”

  “Nice. What does the sign say?”

  “ ‘Commies live here.’ That’s the first line. Then right under that, ‘Go home to Russia, if you don’t like the U.S.A.’ ”

  “I don’t think he’s as nice as he looks,” said Peter thoughtfully. “You’d think he’d have something better to do than picket us.”

  “Sometimes I think the mad will win.” Aeneas turned back into the room. “You should see the mail this morning. One letter was written on toilet paper. It had been used.”

  “Eloquent.”

  “By and large, anal erotics tend to be crypto-fascists, with the possible exception…”

  Diana came into the room. “Peter, I’ve got to talk to you. I’m sorry, Aeneas.”

  When Aeneas had gone, Diana sat on the edge of Peter’s bed. It was as if they had been married twenty years.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything!” She picked up Billy’s testimony.

  “Is it Billy?”

  “Good Lord no! It’s Father. I didn’t know about Clay’s press conference until this morning when I read the paper. Naturally, I went straight to the house and there was Mother with the press, babbling away because Father wouldn’t see them.”

  Diana folded Billy Thorne’s testimony in half and then in quarters; an attempt to fold it into eighths failed. “I found him sitting on a bench in the garden. When I spoke to him he didn’t even hear me, didn’t see me.”

  “He looked suddenly very old,” Peter said to himself, getting what he thought was the range. But apparently the Senator was simply distracted. “Actually he seemed quite cheerful. Then when I asked if it was true, what Clay had said, he…he…”

  “He said it was?”

  Diana nodded and Peter realized that what at first he took to be grief was healthy rage. “He said he’d thought it over and decided that there was really no point in serving another term which could lead nowhere since he was out of the running for President. He said he was tired of the Senate and he wanted to make some money before it was too late, since I was…”

  “Clearly never going to marry again.”

  “Thanks.” Diana flicked his stomach with her forefinger. “But he wouldn’t tell me why he was giving up.”

  “Perhaps he did. It’s quite possible to be tired of the Senate. I am.”

  “It’s the only thing he cares about.” She frowned. “Clay’s done something to him.”

  “What could he do?”

  “I don’t know. A threat…something. I thought for a moment it might be the…the Ed Nillson business.”

  “But all that was quite innocent, wasn’t it? Nillson didn’t even go to jail.”

  “But innocence doesn’t mean a thing if you seem to be guilty.”

  “Appearance is all, substance nothing.” Peter’s favorite theme: he ticked it off mechanically. Then: “Will he change his mind?”

  “No. He’ll announce his retirement on Monday. And that will be that.” Then she wept and Peter comforted her, thinking hard.

  At last Diana wiped her eyes on the sheet. “You really ought to get up. It’s demoralizing the way you lie in bed half the day.”

  “But I get bored just standing around. In bed, I can think, scheme, plot, and I am doing that even as I dry your tears with Kleenex.”

  “How I hate Clay!” The passion was unexpected.

  Peter studied her thoughtfully, wondering what she really felt. Then he put her to the test. “I can keep him from being elected.”

  Diana looked at him with red eyes.

  “Do you think I ought to?”

  “Yes.” The flatness of her response was reassuring.

  “So do I.” Peter was thoughtful. “It will crush my father.”

  Even in her pain, Diana smiled. “Isn’t that what you want?”

  Peter laughed. “Yes, I suppose that is what I want. Denied a father’s love, I have also been denied a father’s hate. Now I can achieve it. Poor man.”

  “You will. He loves Clay.” She got to her feet and crossed to the mirror.

  “How do you mean that?” Peter studied her suspiciously.

  “It’s plain that he does.” She rearranged her hair, with swift gestures.

  “So Enid thought.”

  “I don’t mean physically, at least I don’t think I do. I never know about those things. But it is not natural for one man to involve himself so completely in another’s career that he sacrifices his own daughter, not to mention…” Diana was prepared to continue at some length on the subject of Blaise. But Peter was not. He flung back the sheet and sat up slowly, pleasantly aware of the huge body that gave the appearance of unusual physical strength. A false impression for which he was grateful, since he was a physical coward: he would go to any length to avoid pain, to outwit death. As a result of this natural cowardice, he had redressed the balance of his own temperament by the constant exercise of a moral courage that made it altogether too easy for him to be unpopular in a good cause.

  “Let us behave ethically, as well as historically.” He pulled off his pajama top.

  “What does that mean?” She put down her comb.

  He pushed a book at her, open to the page where he had checked the sentence “History has to do with results; motives and intentions are the business of ethics.” “Kirkegaard. It’s always nice when a writer in fashion has something useful to say.”

  He picked up the telephone and buzzed for his secretary in the office below, and told her to ring Al Hartshorne.

  “Who is Al Hartshorne, and what are you doing?”

  “He is a lawyer, and I am behaving historically.”

  “You’re certain that what you’re going to do will defeat Clay?”

  Peter nodded, and let the trousers of his pajamas fall to the floor.

  “You look,” said Diana, “like a Japanese wrestler.”

  “Tell Aeneas that the search for identity has ended.”

  In the shower, beneath hard-driving water, he began to compose sentences in his head.

  IV

  Blaise adjusted the knob of the television set. A hollow voice filled the room: “…beyond the Han River. Meanwhile, Communist units have already crossed the thirty-eighth parallel and the army of the Republic of Korea is reported to be in full retreat. This afternoon President Truman will meet with the National Security Council and it is expected that he will…”

  “He’ll back down. The American people won’t fight!” Bitterly Harold Griffiths addressed the television commentator, as though he were somehow responsible for the decadence of a nation.

  “It is known that General MacArthur favors direct American intervention in Korea…”

  “Thank God for Mac!” Harold was cheered by this bright counterpoint to the announcer’s solemn theme.

  “In the light of Tuesday’s U.N. Security Council resolution, the free world is now committed to render such assistance to the Republic of Korea as may be necessary to repel armed attack. However, not until the President’s press conference this evening will we know to what extent American forces will be used…”

  “Turn it down, Blaise.” Clay was peremptory. Other things came before a mere Asiatic war. Blaise obediently turned off the sound, just as General MacArthur appeared on the screen; a long dyed lock of hair was carefully plastered across the bald high curve of his head, giving the general the look of an aging roué attempting to recreate with cosmetics the appearance of a loving youth.

  Clay motioned to Karl, who stood beside Blaise. “Show them the press reaction from back home.”

  Karl gave Blaise a thick manila folder. Without a glance, Blaise passed it on to Harold, who studied the press clippings, intently searching for his own name.

  “I suppose,” said Clay, “that it could be worse.”

  Harold looked up, stricken. “I’m being called a liar, do you realize that? Right here it says…”

  “Yes, Harold.” Clay was patient. “I am also thought to be a liar, as well as a fraud.”

  “I could sue for libel. I’ll have to sue for libel.” Harold stopped suddenly, no doubt aware that the object of his suit would be his employer’s son. For a moment Clay found himself enjoying the situation. But Harold was not without ingenuity. “You know who’s really behind this, Burden Day.”

  Blaise looked at him blankly. Harold continued, “He and that daughter of his persuaded Peter to write all this. It’s just the sort of thing that that old crook…”

  Clay stopped Harold with a gesture. “Relax,” he murmured. He suspected that Harold knew not only about Nillson and Burden but also about his own dealings with Burden. Fortunately Harold was, like it or not, his permanent ally. “Actually the press back home,” Clay observed judiciously, “isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Those papers that support Democrats say this is just a smear…”

  “Which it is!” Harold’s voice was loud. “Unfortunately, most of the papers in that God-forsaken state of yours are Republican and they…”

  “They’ll never let the voters forget that I am a fraud. That’s quite true.” Clay was pleased that he could say the worst about himself without distress or shyness.

  “Which you are not!” Harold struck the press clippings with the flat of his hand; much too vehement, thought Clay, who observed mildly, “That is our story anyway.”

  Clay saw Karl smile; and he wondered what Karl really thought. When Peter’s story had first appeared, the reaction of the staff was one of shock and indignation. But then, as the days passed, Clay detected a change. It was plain that questions were being asked, and the fact that they were meant that he was in serious trouble.

  Peter’s attack had been shrewd. Ostensibly he was writing not about Clay but about the uses of money and publicity in politics. He cited a number of national legends which were, he maintained, the cold-blooded creation of men whose usual work was the selling of commodities on television. Then, almost casually, he discussed the buildup of Clay. He paid tribute to Clay’s natural charm and political dexterity. He did point out that Clay had accomplished nothing in the House of Representatives, but he added fairly that this might be more the fault of the system than of the man. Nevertheless, though Clay had done nothing for which he could be admired, he was universally regarded as one of the most important young politicians in the United States. Peter asked why and then answered his own question. Money was being spent in large sums to sell a product, and so far the sales campaign had been a success. Through the press, which could always be bought in subtle ways, and through television, where time is literally for sale, a man as personable as Clay could be entirely recreated to fit whatever image of leadership the electorate at the moment desired. Peter then revealed what the researchers had decided was the 1950 ideal in politicians and he demonstrated how Clay had been made to seem youthful but not callow, conservative but not reactionary, religious, but not zealous, and though a widower (a bit of tragedy always enhances a legend) a loving father, as witness the countless pictures of Clay with his daughter at Laurel House, playing games, riding horseback, walking hand in hand through the poison ivy of the Potomac Heights. Then, almost as an afterthought, Peter revealed what had really happened at the Lingayen Airfield.

  “…called me a liar. It’s plain slander…”

  Clay cut Harold short. “You’ll survive. Don’t worry. No one expects the truth from the press. The problem is how I get off the hook.”

  “Because politicians are expected to be honest?” Harold took his revenge.

  Blaise glared at him. “We’re all involved in this. You wrote the story, I published it and Clay…well, he’s the one who has to fight a tough election.”

  “It would help,” said Clay to the television set which now showed the Secretary of State getting out of a long limousine, “if we could sue The American Idea.” For a long moment no one answered. Harold and Karl were embarrassed. Blaise stared wretchedly at the floor. Clay waited patiently. When he saw Blaise had nothing to say, he continued. “I know it’s difficult to sue your own son. But then, if you agreed, I would be the one to bring suit.”

  “Could you win it?” Blaise looked at him as if he were asking quite a different question.

  “I can certainly prove damages if I lost the election. But by then, of course, it would all be academic. We’d never actually go to court.”

  It was Karl who came to the point. “Everything depends on this doctor who says you weren’t at the airfield during the action…”

  “Clay was there.” Harold set his jaw until he resembled General MacArthur, who once again had flashed onto the television screen; hawk’s profile against a stormy sky.

  Now that Peter was no longer the issue, Blaise was himself again. “I don’t think we’ll have much trouble throwing a scare into the doctor.”

  “Could we get a denial?” asked Karl.

  “Why not?” Blaise was brisk. “I know one of the trustees of the doctor’s clinic. He’s promised to bring pressure to bear. Don’t worry.”

  “But the damage is done.” Harold was gloomy. “One way or the other, we all look cheap as hell.”

  Unfortunate phrase, thought Clay, as a secretary brought him the latest poll. As of today, he would lose to the Republican candidate by eight per cent.

  “What’s the bad news?” asked Blaise. Not wanting to answer, Clay switched on the television’s sound. For a moment he listened to the voice: “…yesterday’s resolution by the House of Representatives that the draft be extended for another year was passed unanimously by the Senate. Senator Taft, however, complained that the President was usurping the powers of Congress by committing the United States to what, in effect, is war…”

  Decision made, Clay turned to Blaise, and for the first time that day, he smiled.

  V

  The false-hearty voices and over-affectionate gestures of embarrassed men made painful Burden’s now infrequent visits to the Senate cloakroom. To his colleagues as well as to himself, he was already on the outside, his place in the world usurped by a younger man.

  For thirty-six years Burden had watched men come to the Senate and go, and if the going was involuntary, it was always unbearably sad. As he had been to others, they were now to him: affectionate but clumsy and altogether inadequate in the presence of the common nightmare, a career’s end. Once he had given up all hope of the Presidency, he had taken it for granted that he would remain in the Senate until his death, a touching tableau which would take place on a leather sofa in the cloakroom, surrounded by friends to whom he would address a few final remarks, for the Record. But unless he were to die before January, this dream was ended, too. He was finished; he would never return, and everyone knew it. They also knew that he had somehow been forced out of the race by Clay. Fortunately, none suspected the truth, and he could at least depart with honor intact.

  The cloakroom was crowded, and for the first time in weeks, Burden was no longer the sole object of pity. The day before had been the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, and during that day the sovereign people had voted.

  “It’s hair-raising,” said one Senator. “Never seen anything like it.” He pulled Burden into the group. “You’re lucky, getting out, still undefeated champion.”

  With awe, they spoke of Senator McCarthy. Until now, The Club had not taken him seriously, regarding his publicity as a kind of theatre. Now they realized to what extent they had underestimated him. He had campaigned against his Senate enemies, and he had been victorious. Even the majority leader of the Senate had gone down in defeat.

  “The dirtiest campaign in the history of politics,” declaimed an elderly Senator, famed for the savagery of his tongue.

  “The people are nuts on this Communism thing. Calling Tydings a Communist!” Heads shook at the thought.

  “Perhaps,” said Burden, “the time has come to take a stand.” But the time, apparently, was not yet at hand. If Tydings could be defeated, no Senator was safe. The people were in an irresponsible mood and the wise man did his best to soothe and humor them by seeming to agree that the war in Korea was going badly because of traitors at home. It was a somber time in the country’s history, and Burden was delighted. If he must fall, why not the Republic, too? Broken marble where the Capitol was, scorched skulls among the tangled grass of uncut lawns. Glorious vision!

  Momberger entered the cloakroom from the Senate floor. He signaled Burden.

  “Lousy news.” That was the apparent consensus. With some passion the two colleagues denounced the electorate. Neither really blamed McCarthy. When the people went mad, there would always be someone to incite them to greater follies. McCarthy could not be held responsible; the beast was simply true to itself, and could not be otherwise.

  “But it was a near thing for Clay.” Momberger gave Burden a sheet of figures. “Final figures, county by county.”

  Burden studied the list of counties, his counties; he knew each one as if it was his own child, knew how it had voted for forty years, knew why, could judge with some accuracy how it would vote. The numbers on the page represented not just an abstract electorate but friends and allies, enemies and detractors. He took some satisfaction in the narrowness of Clay’s victory: a plurality of twenty-two hundred and four votes out of more than a million cast.

  “We damned near lost the state.” Momberger looked grim; in two years’ time he himself would have to face the same voters.