Neither Five Nor Three Page 7

“I don’t know, yet,” Paul said. The elevator door closed behind him. He was left looking at a receptionist sitting very impressively behind a desk. Impressively, because once this landing had been a linoleum-covered place without any pretty girl waiting to receive visitors as they came out of the elevator.

  “Yes?” She was proud of the effect she caused.

  “I’m Paul Haydn. I have an appointment with Mr. Crowell, the Feature Editor.”

  “Just a minute please.” She slowly lifted a telephone. “Won’t you take a seat?”

  Paul repressed a smile. He chose an armchair in white leather, looked at the light grey rug and then at the prints framed in red against a dark grey wall. “Snazzy,” he said, but the girl only gave him a pitying look. Where I come from, she seemed to say, we use this kind of place for an outhouse. He retired into silence, smiling broadly now.

  She reported, “Mr. Crowell is not in today. But his secretary says Mr. Weidler wants to see you as soon as you arrive.”

  Paul’s eyebrows gave away his surprise.

  “Mr. Crowell’s secretary will show you—”

  “Tell her it’s all right, I know the way.” He rose and went toward a door. “Straight ahead and then to my left?” She didn’t answer, but began telephoning more urgently this time. She stared after him worriedly. She looked much prettier when she was being human, he thought.

  He entered a long corridor, with offices leading off on either side. Some of the doors were closed: conferences going on. Others stood open, showing business-like interiors. The waiting-room’s luxury was replaced by efficiency. He felt slightly better: Trend was a good magazine, a good place to work, except for its name and its waiting-room.

  Two or three people walked past him, glancing quickly at him, paying little attention. From the largest office, a grey-haired, pleasant-faced woman hurried out. “Why,” she said, stopping in surprise, waving a sheaf of papers at him, “if it isn’t—”

  “And just imagine, it is!” In spite of his teasing words, he shook hands with her enthusiastically. He had always liked Mrs. Hershey. “It’s good to see someone I know, around here.”

  “You’re coming back?” she asked eagerly. My, she was thinking, and doesn’t he look as nice as ever? More serious, but still as quick to shake your hand as if he meant it.

  “I don’t know, yet. Some people don’t want me back, I hear.”

  “Why, that’s just spite!” So she had heard the rumours, too. “Miss Guttman!” She intercepted a blonde secretary in a neat suit and a dazzling white waistcoat.

  “Why, Mr. Haydn! Pleased to meet you again.”

  “Hello, Annie!”

  Miss Guttman’s face flushed with pleasure even under the pancake make-up. She laughed and said, “So you didn’t forget us.” It was a long time since anyone in the office had called her Annie.

  “Couldn’t,” he said. “Couldn’t imagine this place running efficiently without you two.” That was true enough, in its way. “See you both later. Now I’m—” he nodded in the direction of the Boss’s end of the corridor.

  Miss Guttman watched him as he walked on. She was only then remembering that she had meant to disapprove of him. “You know, that permanent I got yesterday has just ruined my hair,” she said angrily, touching its tight curl. “Ten dollars. I ask you! I could sue them.”

  “Never mind, dear. The waistcoat looks nice,” Mrs. Hershey said with a smile.

  * * *

  Mr. Weidler’s secretary was waiting for him.

  “Mr. Haydn?” She was new, too. And very young. Paul began to feel old, practically tottering on the edge of senility. He would soon be talking in terms of the days when. She took him through a small white room furnished with much white leather and many red-framed prints. (Daumier, he noted with surprise: the realities of life against a cushioned setting.) But the inner office was still the same old place. Even before Weidler rose from his cluttered desk, shook hands warmly, and offered him a battered—but surprisingly comfortable—brown leather chair, Paul Haydn was warned that his hunch had been right. You did not arrive so promptly in this inner office, unless you were considered urgent. Not necessarily important, just urgent. He was glad he had decided to visit Trend so soon. This feeling of urgency had bothered him in these last few days.

  Weidler, he was pleased to see, was not much changed. In appearance, at least. He was a short stocky man with a red square-shaped face, grey hair bristling from many years of crew cuts, clever eyes, and a ready smile. He was a happy optimist by nature. He had started Trend in the thirties when nearly everyone else had been more than depressed about any future. From a small magazine “dedicated to the arts,” with departments for literature, painting, and music, it had expanded into “a magazine for living,” where the departments had grown to cover many subdivisions. But the emphasis was still on art in general. It avoided politics, personalities, and editorial comment.

  Bill Weidler, apart from a good business sense, had been activated by one idea: why keep literature, painting, music separate? They all influenced one another. Why not show that? Show it in terms that the ordinary intelligent man or woman could understand. There were plenty of people in America who wanted to go on educating themselves after they left school or college. (“You get a kick out of recognising a picture, a symphony,” Weidler would explain with his broad smile. “It’s good to know that when people start talking about Eliot or Faulkner or Le Corbusier, you don’t feel dumb. Sure, I’m appealing to snobbery, but who isn’t a snob? No closed shop in that. You can call it potted culture, but no reader’s going to remain the poorer because he’s read us. We don’t cheat him.”) All you had to do was to make the learning process attractive. None of this silly superior stuff that catered for two thousand minds and repelled the rest—silly, because it defeated itself, it couldn’t operate except at a loss: first, a financial loss, then the loss of itself and all its potential influence. And Trend had both annoyed and amused all its initial critics by avoiding any loss whatsoever. There were, it seemed, enough ordinary intelligent people to make it pay and expand.

  Now Weidler offered Paul a cigarette and turned his chair to look out of the window, too. Just as he had built his magazine’s sales on appealing to people’s desire to understand more, he had built the magazine itself on his own ideas of human relationships. He hired good men, treated them well, and kept himself approachable. None of this higher-than-God stuff, as he’d put it. It was harder, nowadays, to keep an eye on everything and get to know the men who worked for him. Since the war, and the increasing interest in music and painting and architecture, his staff had doubled. But Paul Haydn was one of the pre-war crowd. He looked at Paul shrewdly, lit a cigarette himself, and put his feet up on the window sill.

  “Well, Paul, glad you came around to see us so soon.”

  “Sooner than I meant to, frankly,” Paul said. He had only intended to call on Crowell of his old department, and get a general picture of the situation in the office.

  “Got tired of having a vacation? Well, the sooner you can start here, the better for us.”

  Paul Haydn was a little taken back by this reception. He wasn’t ready, yet, to discuss definite dates. He owed himself a holiday, a time to choose his future carefully. This was like a second start in life. You didn’t hurry it. He said, “I wanted to know how I stood about this job. That’s all.” He looked around the small room, noting the photographs of a smiling wife and two pugnacious boys, the silver cup for rowing, the Piranesi prints on the wall. “Glad to see this hasn’t changed. I got scared when I came into the office, at first. Thought you were branching into the latest from Paris.”

  Weidler’s plain, good-natured face relaxed in a broad grin. “Oh,” he said self-consciously, “all that feminine touch? Don’t let it worry you. It’s there to impress the people who like being impressed. But the real set-up is much the same. We are still looking for the right men to work here.” In spite of his smile, a worried look came over his face. He was watching Pa
ul Haydn carefully.

  “Frankly,” he went on, “we need you back. You know our policies, our market. Crowell isn’t at all well—he’s been ill, off and on, for the last three years. He wants to resign this September. So, although we are asking you to come back as his assistant editor, you’ll be Feature Editor in a few months. That’s an important job.”

  Paul nodded. He was impressed. “I know,” he said quietly. “But why am I getting this chance? I thought a man called Blackworth was firmly established as assistant editor.”

  Weidler’s face changed completely. All the good humour was gone, and he looked bitterly unhappy. “Blackworth just wasn’t the right man.”

  “But you’ve had him four years—nearly five.” The wrong men didn’t stay on Trend four months. Paul said casually, “There’s a story going around...”

  Weidler was very still.

  “...that I’ve been plotting to get Blackworth removed,” Paul went on smoothly. “I don’t like that. I don’t like that one bit.”

  “You know it’s a lie,” Weidler said persuadingly.

  “Sure. I’ve had a lot of exaggerated gossip spread about me in my life, but this particular little item is one thing I’m not going to have tacked on to me. And so I’ve come to ask you why Blackworth is being kicked out. You must have a good reason. Yet no one can give it to me.”

  “They just give you the story that you stole Blackworth’s job?” Weidler rose suddenly, swearing, walking around his desk excitedly. “Of course,” he burst out, “that’s what they want... they want to keep you from taking it!” Then he paused, his face redder than ever. He forced his voice to be normal again. He said, “Where did you hear this story?”

  “Everywhere I’ve been, frankly. You know how New York has its little circles that know all about each other as much as if they all lived round a village green. My circle is the writing field—magazine people, agents, newspapermen, critics. My friends say they don’t believe there’s a word of truth in the rumour about Blackworth; but they’ve heard the rumour and it’s worrying them. Those who aren’t my friends just challenge me to my face. I don’t like this whole thing, Bill, I don’t like it one bit.” He rose, glanced at his watch. “I expect you’re busy.”

  “Sit down, Paul, I’ve plenty of time for this... You are thinking of refusing the job, just when we need you. I know your record, both here and in the army. You had enough experience there with psychological warfare to make you the best man we can find for the job. You were in counter-propaganda, weren’t you? You know that two and two make a good clear four. That’s why they don’t want to see you back here.”

  “Who the hell are ‘they’?”

  Weidler came back to his chair. This time, he didn’t lean back or stretch his legs comfortably. This time, he sat forward with his hands clasped, his elbows on the arm-rests. His eyes were fixed on Haydn, his hair seemed to bristle with anger.

  “I get so damned mad when I start thinking about it,” he said. “But I’ll try to keep my temper and give you a clear picture. You are looking at a man, Paul, who—only six weeks ago—couldn’t add two and two. Sure, that rankles, that bites deep.” He paused, and gave a wry smile. “The only reason I haven’t let anyone know the full story is that—I didn’t want to start a rumour going round that we’ve been infiltrated by Communists. We haven’t!” he added quickly. “Yes, I admit there was an attempt. I found that out six weeks ago. Blackworth has gone. So I’ve stopped the rot. I’ve got my eye on one other man—a bit of a loudmouth who may not be guilty of anything except stupidity—he’s in the advertising department and I don’t see what damage he could do there.”

  “Name of Murray, by any chance? I met him at a party on my first night home. He doesn’t advertise himself very well, I must say.”

  “But until I know definitely about him, I can take no action. You can’t fire a man for what he says.”

  “If a man went around saying he believed in raping children, you’d fire him quickly enough.”

  “But politics and morals are two different things, Paul. You can’t say a Communist sympathiser is the same as a man who rapes children.”

  “I’m only saying a man can be fired for what he says—if his beliefs are pernicious enough. It all depends on what we feel is pernicious. It’s very tough on a typhoid carrier if he has to be segregated from his fellow men, but doctors insist on treating typhoid germs as a pernicious menace to public health. And most of us are very thankful that they do. No one goes around talking about persecution of typhoid carriers.”

  Weidler didn’t answer.

  Paul looked at him. What’s wrong with him? he wondered. Has he lost his old zest for a challenge? Is he going soft? Or has he suddenly found himself in territory that he never believed existed—like a cautious explorer in a new stretch of jungle? Paul said, “Your story interests me a lot. So Blackworth turned out to be a Communist.”

  “He says he isn’t. I don’t know. He swore on his oath he wasn’t.”

  “On his oath of allegiance to the Communist Party?” Paul asked with a smile. “That isn’t much help to us who swear on a Bible. Anyway, what did Blackworth actually do? Obviously he did more than talk, or you wouldn’t have fired him.” His voice was bitter. Then he said, “Sorry, Bill. I’m only a week away from Europe. I can still see people, with stark fear on their faces, starving, filthy, trying to reach our Zone. They’ve walked miles, they’ve sneaked past sentries expecting a bullet in their backs, they’ve hidden in woods and ditches. They are in rags. They’ve nothing, except their hatred for the nice little guys like Blackworth who betrayed them into the kind of government they’ve now got. You should see their eyes, look at their bones, at their bleeding feet. All the refugees from tyranny don’t arrive in aeroplanes, you know.”

  He paused, willing to stop there. But Weidler gestured to him to go on.

  He went on, “You see, I’ve been working a good deal among political refugees for the last year. We had to find out if they were genuine. Oh, yes, infiltration is tried there, too. We’ve caught a number of fakes and phonies. But most of these people are genuine.” He paused. When he spoke again, his voice was cold and factual, giving a vehemence to his words that startled Weidler.

  He said, “When you’ve seen the face of a woman, as she tells how her husband disappeared without trace, her elder son imprisoned without trial, no communication allowed, and even the name of the prison only a vague guess; when you look at the thin body of her younger son and see his eyes, and hear how she managed to bring him into the American Zone, walking by night, hiding by day; when you look at the rags on their backs and know that is all they own now, along with each other and the will to freedom which nothing could kill—then you begin to realise just what political persecution is. She was the wife of a schoolteacher in a small Czechoslovakian village. They had a small house which she kept neatly. They survived the Germans. Her husband came back from the concentration camp where he had spent six years of his life. And why was he kidnapped now? Because, in the last elections, he voted ‘No’ to the Communist candidate. That was all: he voted ‘No.’ He had made no speeches, taken part in no organisations against the Communists, had kept silent. One concentration camp is enough for one lifetime, he had said. But when he came to cast his vote, he followed his conscience. There were informers watching the casting of votes. That was all.”

  Paul Haydn stopped. Then he added, “There are thousands like her and her son. And I come back here and find some people still giving out a lofty line of talk about America’s mistakes and its ‘political martyrs.’ By God, I’d like to take all these little hair-splitters and show them the people who struggle into the American Zone. I’d let them look at the human beings they are betraying by their talk. I’d show them some real martyrs!” Then he dropped his voice. “Bill, don’t the people in America know what’s at stake?”

  “I think we do. Most of us do. Most of us sense the overall strategy against us. We don’t always recognise the tactics.
But we are learning.” Bill Weidler’s eyes narrowed. “I think,” he said, “that you are the man to hear the full story about Blackworth. You won’t go calling me a ‘witch-hunter.’ It’s a strange story,” he warned.

  In a strange setting, Paul Haydn thought as he waited: he looked across at the busy office buildings on Fifth Avenue, listened to the dim roar of traffic beneath, imagined the busy sidewalks—people working, people hurrying to engagements, people planning a pleasant party with friends, people looking forward to a quiet night in their own homes. What could be more peaceful, more unsuspecting of evil, more comforting?

  Weidler began his story, speaking quickly but clearly. “In the last three years Crowell has been pretty sick, off and on. He came more and more to depend on Blackworth as his assistant editor. During the last ten months, Blackworth took over most of his work. I didn’t know how far it went, until recently. I’ve always liked Crowell, and I didn’t want to force him to retire. I was waiting for him to admit he couldn’t carry on. In any case, Blackworth was next in line for the editorship of our Feature Department.” He rubbed his nose, then his head. The story clearly embarrassed him. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath.

  “We knew Blackworth as a good writer, a better editor, a young man who was hard-working, clever. His previous jobs had been in a publishing house, and in Washington for two years of the war. I did notice that during the last ten months, the tone of the feature articles was changing. They depressed me. But facts are facts. And here were articles giving facts about America. I began to think that the country was in a hell of a condition, that there were basic wrongs and injustices and corruptions it would be hard to cure. Some letters from our readers would reflect my feelings, but there were others saying ‘Good old Trend! Tell us more of the real truth!”

  “Then one day, just about six weeks ago, a writer I know personally called me up to ask what was wrong with his stuff—we never printed anything he sent us nowadays. He pretended to make a joke of it, but I could feel he was pretty sore. I calmed him down and got him to give me a list of his rejections.