XII

The afternoon before election Matthew and Bunny sat in the latter’s hotel suite sipping cocktails, smoking and awaiting the inevitable. They had been waiting ever since the day before. Matthew, tall and tense; Bunny, rotund and apprehensive, trying ever so often to cheer up his chief with poor attempts at jocosity. Every time they heard a bell ring both jumped for the telephone, thinking it might be an announcement from Helen’s bedside that an heir, and a dark one, had been born. When they could no longer stay around the office, they had come down to the hotel. In just a few moments they were planning to go back to the office again.

The hard campaign and the worry over the outcome of Helen’s confinement had left traces on Matthew’s face. The satanic lines were accentuated, the eyes seemed sunken farther back in the head, his well-manicured hand trembled a little as he reached for his glass again and again.

He wondered how it would all come out. He hated to leave. He had had such a good time since he’d been white: plenty of money, almost unlimited power, a beautiful wife, good liquor and the pick of damsels within reach. Must he leave all that? Must he cut and run just at the time when he was about to score his greatest victory? Just think: from an underpaid insurance agent to a millionaire commanding millions of people⁠—and then oblivion. He shuddered slightly and reached again for his glass.

“I got everything fixed,” Bunny remarked, shifting around in the overstuffed chair. “The plane’s all ready with tanks full and I’ve got Ruggles right there in the hangar. The money’s in that little steel box: all in thousand dollar bills.”

“You’re going with me, aren’t you, Bunny?” asked Matthew in almost pleading tones.

“I’m not stayin’ here!” his secretary replied.

“Gee, Bunny, you’re a brick!” said Matthew leaning over and placing his hand on his plump little friend’s knee. “You sure have been a good pal.”

“Aw, cut th’ comedy,” exclaimed Bunny, reddening and turning his head swiftly away.

Suddenly the telephone rang, loud, clear, staccato. Both men sprang for it, eagerly, open-eyed, apprehensive. Matthew was first.

“Hello!” he shouted. “What’s that! Yes, I’ll be right up.”

“Well, it’s happened,” he announced resignedly, hanging up the receiver. And then, brightening a bit, he boasted, “It’s a boy!”

In the midst of her pain Helen was jubilant. What a present to give her Matthew on the eve of his greatest triumph! How good the Lord was to her; to doubly bless her in this way. The nurse wiped the tears of joy away from the young mother’s eyes.

“You must stay quiet, Ma’am,” she warned.

Outside in the hall, squirming uneasily on the window seat, was Matthew, his fists clenched, his teeth biting into his thin lower lip. At another window stood Bunny looking vacantly out into the street, feeling useless and out of place in such a situation, and yet convinced that it was his duty to stay here by his best friend during this great crisis.

Matthew felt like a young soldier about to leave his trench to face a baptism of machine gun fire or a gambler risking his last dollar on a roll of the dice. It seemed to him that he would go mad if something didn’t happen quickly. He rose and paced the hall, hands in pockets, his tall shadow following him on the opposite wall. Why didn’t the doctor come out and tell him something? What was the cause of the delay? What would Helen say? What would the baby look like? Maybe it might be miraculously light! Stranger things had happened in this world. But no, nothing like that could happen. Well, he’d had his lucky break; now the vacation was over.

A nurse, immaculate in white uniform, came out of Helen’s bedroom, passed them hurriedly, smiling, and entered the bathroom. She returned with a basin of warm water in her hands, smiled again reassuringly and reentered the natal chamber. Bunny and Matthew, in unison, sighed heavily.

“Boy!” exclaimed Bunny, wiping the perspiration from his brow. “If somethin’ don’t happen pretty soon, here, I’m gonna do a Brodie out o’ that window.”

“The both of us,” said Matthew. “I never knew it took these doctors so damn long to get through.”

Helen’s door opened and the physician came out looking quite grave and concerned. Matthew pounced upon him. The man held his finger to his lips and motioned to the room across the hall. Matthew entered.

“Well,” said Matthew, guiltily, “what’s the news?”

“I’m very sorry to have to tell you, Mr. Fisher, that something terrible has happened. Your son is very, very dark. Either you or Mrs. Fisher must possess some Negro blood. It might be called reversion to type if any such thing had ever been proved. Now I want to know what you want done. If you say so I can get rid of this child and it will save everybody concerned a lot of trouble and disgrace. Nobody except the nurse knows anything about this and she’ll keep her mouth shut for a consideration. Of course, it’s all in the day’s work for me, you know. I’ve had plenty of cases like this in Atlanta, even before the disappearance of the Negroes. Come now, what shall I do?” he wailed.

“Yes,” thought Matthew to himself, “what should he do?” The doctor had suggested an excellent way out of the dilemma. They could just say that the child had died. But what of the future? Must he go on forever in this way? Helen was young and fecund. Surely one couldn’t go on murdering one’s children, especially when one loved and wanted children. Wouldn’t it be better to settle the matter once and for all? Or should he let the doctor murder the boy and then hope for a better situation the next time? An angel of frankness beckoned him to be done with this life of pretense; to take his wife and son and flee far away from everything, but a devil of ambition whispered seductively about wealth, power and prestige.

In almost as many seconds the pageant of the past three years passed in review on the screen of his tortured memory: the New Year’s Eve at the Honky Tonk Club, the first glimpse of the marvelously beautiful Helen, the ordeal of getting white, the first, sweet days of freedom from the petty insults and cheap discriminations to which as a black man he had always been subjected, then the search for Helen around Atlanta, the organization of the Knights of Nordica, the stream of successes, the coming of Bunny, the campaign planned and executed by him: and now, the end. Must it be the end?

“Well?” came the insistent voice of the physician.

Matthew opened his mouth to reply when the butler burst into the room waving a newspaper.

“Excuse me, sir,” he blurted, excitedly, “but Mister Brown said to bring this right to you.”

The lurid headlines seemed to leap from the paper and strike Matthew between the eyes:

Democratic Leaders Proved of Negro Descent

Givens, Snobbcraft, Buggerie, Kretin and Others of Negro Ancestry, According to Old Records Unearthed by Them.

Matthew and the physician, standing side by side, read the long account in awed silence. Bunny entered the door.

“Can I speak to you a minute, Matt?” he asked casually. Almost reluctant to move, Matthew followed him into the hall.

“Keep your shirt on, Big Boy,” Bunny advised, almost jovially. “They ain’t got nothin’ on you yet. That changing your name threw them off. You’re not even mentioned.”

Matthew braced up, threw back his shoulders and drew a long, deep breath. It seemed as if a mountain had been taken off his shoulders. He actually grinned as his confidence returned. He reached for Bunny’s hand and they shook, silently jubilant.

“Well, doctor,” said Matthew, arching his left eyebrow in his familiar Mephistophelian manner, “it sort of looks as if there is something to that reversion to type business. I used to think it was all boloney myself. Well, it’s as I always say: you never can tell.”

“Yes, it seems as if this is a very authentic case,” agreed the physician, glancing sharply at the bland and blond countenance of Matthew. “Well, what now?”

“I’ll have to see Givens,” said Matthew as they turned to leave the room.

“Here he comes now,” Bunny announced.

Sure enough, the little gray-faced, bald-headed man, came leaping up the stairs like a goat, his face haggard, his eyes bulging in mingled rage and terror, his necktie askew. He was waving a newspaper in his hand and opened his mouth without speaking as he shot past them and dashed into Helen’s room. The old fellow was evidently out of his head.

They followed him into the room in time to see him with his face buried in the covers of Helen’s bed and she, horrified, glancing at the six-inch-tall headline. Matthew rushed to her side as she slumped back on the pillow in a dead faint. The physician and nurse dashed to revive her. The old man on his knees sobbed hoarsely. Mrs. Givens looking fifteen years older appeared in the doorway. Bunny glanced at Matthew who slightly lowered his left eyelid and with difficulty suppressed a smile.

“We’ve got to get out o’ this!” shouted the Imperial Grand Wizard. “We’ve got to get out o’ this. Oh, it’s terrible.⁠ ⁠… I never knew it myself, for sure.⁠ ⁠… Oh, Matthew, get us out of this, I tell you. They almost mobbed me at the office.⁠ ⁠… Came in just as I went out the back way.⁠ ⁠… Almost ten thousand of them.⁠ ⁠… We can’t lose a minute. Quick, I tell you! They’ll murder us all.”

“I’ll look out for everything,” Matthew soothed condescendingly. “I’ll stick by you.” Then turning swiftly to his partner he commanded, “Bunny order both cars out at once. We’ll beat it for the airport.⁠ ⁠… Doctor Brocker, will you go with us to look out for Helen and the baby? We’ve got to get out right now. I’ll pay you your price.”

“Sure I’ll go, Mr. Fisher,” said the physician, quietly. “I wouldn’t leave Mrs. Fisher now.”

The nurse had succeeded in bringing Helen to consciousness. She was weeping bitterly, denouncing fate and her father. With that logicality that frequently causes people to accept as truth circumstantial evidence that is not necessarily conclusive, she was assuming that the suspiciously brown color of her newborn son was due to some hidden Negro drop of blood in her veins. She looked up at her husband beseechingly.

“Oh, Matthew, darling,” she cried, her long red-gold hair framing her face, “I’m so sorry about all this. If I’d only known, I’d never have let you in for it. I would have spared you this disgrace and humiliation. Oh, Matthew, Honey, please forgive me. I love you, my husband. Please don’t leave me, please don’t leave me!” She reached out and grasped the tail of his coat as if he were going to leave that very minute.

“Now, now, little girl,” said Matthew soothingly, touched by her words, “You haven’t disgraced me; you’ve honored me by presenting me with a beautiful son.”

He looked down worshipfully at the chubby, ball of brownness in the nurse’s arms.

“You needn’t worry about me, Helen. I’ll stick by you as long as you’ll have me and without you life wouldn’t be worth a dime. You’re not responsible for the color of our baby, my dear. I’m the guilty one.”

Dr. Brocker smiled knowingly, Givens rose up indignantly, Bunny opened his mouth in surprise, Mrs. Givens folded her arms and her mouth changed to a slit and the nurse said “Oh!”

“You?” cried Helen in astonishment.

“Yes, me,” Matthew repeated, a great load lifting from his soul. Then for a few minutes he poured out his secret to the astonished little audience.

Helen felt a wave of relief go over her. There was no feeling of revulsion at the thought that her husband was a Negro. There once would have been but that was seemingly centuries ago when she had been unaware of her remoter Negro ancestry. She felt proud of her Matthew. She loved him more than ever. They had money and a beautiful, brown baby. What more did they need? To hell with the world! To hell with society! Compared to what she possessed, thought Helen, all talk of race and color was damned foolishness. She would probably have been surprised to learn that countless Americans at that moment were thinking the same thing.

“Well,” said Bunny, grinning, “it sure is good to be able to admit that you’re a jigwalk once more.”

“Yes, Bunny,” said old man Givens, “I guess we’re all niggers now.”

“Negroes, Mr. Givens, Negroes,” corrected Dr. Brocker, entering the room. “I’m in the same boat with the rest of you, only my dark ancestors are not so far back. I sure hope the Republicans win.”

“Don’t worry, Doc,” said Bunny. “They’ll win all right. And how! Gee whiz! I bet Sherlock Holmes, Nick Carter and all the Pinkertons couldn’t find old Senator Kretin and Arthur Snobbcraft now.”

“Come on,” shouted the apprehensive Givens, “let’s get out o’ here before that mob comes.”

“Whut mob, Daddy?” asked Mrs. Givens.

“You’ll find out damn quick if you don’t shake it up,” replied her husband.

Through the crisp, autumn night air sped Fisher’s big tri-motored plane, headed southwest to the safety of Mexico. Reclining in a large, comfortable deck chair was Helen Fisher, calm and at peace with the world. In a hammock near her was her little brown son, Matthew, Junior. Beside her, holding her hand, was Matthew. Up front near the pilot, Bunny and Givens were playing Conquian. Behind them sat the nurse and Dr. Brocker, silently gazing out of the window at the twinkling lights of the Gulf Coast. Old lady Givens snored in the rear of the ship.

“Damn!” muttered Givens, as Bunny threw down his last spread and won the third consecutive game. “I sure wish I’d had time to grab some jack before we pulled out o’ Atlanta. Ain’t got but five dollars and fifty-three cents to my name.”

“Don’t worry about that, Old Timer,” Bunny laughed. “I don’t think we left over a thousand bucks in the treasury. See that steel box over there? Well, that ain’t got nothin’ in it but bucks and more bucks. Not a bill smaller than a grand.”

“Well, I’m a son-of-a-gun,” blurted the Imperial Grand Wizard. “That boy thinks o’ everything.”

But Givens was greatly depressed, much more so than the others. He had really believed all that he had preached about white supremacy, race purity and the menace of the alien, the Catholic, the Modernist and the Jew. He had always been sincere in his prejudices.

When they arrived at the Valbuena Air Field outside Mexico City, a messenger brought Bunny a telegram.

“You better thank your stars you got away from there, Matt,” he grinned, handing his friend the telegram. “See what my gal says?”

Matthew glanced over the message and handed it to Givens without comment. It read:

Hope you arrive safely Senator Kretin lynched in Union Station Stop Snobbcraft and Buggerie reported in flight Stop Goosie and Gump almost unanimously reelected Stop Government has declared martial law until disturbances stop Stop When can I come?

“Who’s this Scranton broad?” queried Matthew in a whisper, cutting a precautionary glance at his wife.

“A sweet Georgia brown,” exclaimed Bunny enthusiastically.

“No!” gasped Matthew, incredulous.

“She ain’t no Caucasian!” Bunny replied.

“She must be the last black gal in the country,” Matthew remarked, glancing enviously at his friend. “How come she didn’t get white, too?”

“Well,” Bunny replied, a slight hint of pride in his voice. “She’s a race patriot. She’s funny that way.”

“Well, for cryin’ out loud!” exclaimed Matthew, scratching his head and sort of half grinning in a bewildered way. “What kind o’ sheba is that?”

Old man Givens came over to where they were standing, the telegram in his hand and an expression of serenity now on his face.

“Boys,” he announced, “it looks like it’s healthier down here right now than it is back there in Georgia.”

“Looks like it’s healthier?” mocked Bunny. “Brother, you know damn well it’s healthier!”