Irving Wallace - The Man

Senator Dilman had gone with the clergyman to visit the brownstone, and he had been enchanted by the quiet residential street with its maple trees, the small green front lawn, the walk up to the entry hall, the generous, comfortable rooms and nineteenth-century fixtures. Immediately he had bargained for it and closed the deal. That had been five years ago, more than five years ago, and not one day had Dilman regretted the financial encumbrance. For to this brownstone off Sixteenth Street Dilman owed not only his first real pleasure in having a place where he belonged, but also his enduring relationship with Wanda Gibson, and, because of last night, he owed to this house his first feeling of acceptance as the new and accidental Chief Executive of the United States.

Last night, he thought. And then his memory held on last night.

The feeling of acceptance had come at some time after one o’clock in the morning. As his chauffeured limousine turned into Van Buren Street, Dilman, sandwiched between the Secret Service agents, had become aware of a phenomenon. This was a well-off Negro neighborhood, but a hard-working one, and its inhabitants went to sleep early. The thoroughfare was always blanketed in darkness well before midnight. But last night, after midnight, the street was lighted with illumination from every house, and alive as a Mardi Gras. And then, as they had neared his brownstone, Dilman realized that Van Buren Street was thickly lined on both sides with people, neighbors and others of the capital city, who had come to be the first to set eyes upon America’s new President.

When the limousine had drawn up before his front lawn, and he had emerged, the size of the crowd in attendance had overwhelmed him, almost one thousand persons, he had guessed. The faces, many recognizable, had been mostly black, but there were whites here and there, although Dilman had been unable to discern if they were reporters, Secret Service agents, or simply sensation seekers of the kind who rushed to accidents. As he had walked between the agents to his front door, the applause had begun, then swelled, and there had been cheers. Dilman had paused, deeply moved, and had exhaustedly waved and waved, and then gone inside his house.

He had fallen asleep so quickly, he now supposed, because after the first fear and trepidation, the paralysis induced by change and sudden elevation, he had been warmed by friendship and approval. But now the harsher light of morning was upon him. The soothing blackness was gone. The uncertain whiteness waited.

He shut off the shower, emerged dripping onto the bath mat, quickly dried himself, then went into the bedroom to dress. This was a momentous day, and perhaps he would be expected to attire himself specially for it. He considered his dressiest Sunday black suit, then decided that it would be awkward in the morning. He settled for the charcoal one he had purchased ready-made at Garfinckel’s for his first appearance as temporary presiding officer of the Senate, during the Vice-President’s last trip abroad, six months before his death.

As he dressed himself, his mind compulsively revived one more event of last night, one that had taken place a few minutes before he retired. Sitting on his bed, wondering if the Secret Service men in the living room could hear his voice, he had dialed the Spingers upstairs.

The phone had hardly begun to ring, when it was answered. The voice he had recognized as belonging to Rose Spinger.

“Hello, Rose, I hope I didn’t wake you. This is Doug.”

Her response had been pitched high with excitement. “Oh, Doug, we hoped-heavens, I mustn’t be calling you Doug any more, or even Senator or landlord-”

He had smiled to himself tiredly. “Please, Rose, no formality. Nothing has changed between us. I-”

“Thank you, Doug. Oh, my heavens, to think of it! Did you see us outside in front, in that mob, waving to you?”

“I’m not sure. I saw Wanda for a second.”

“Of course, you would have. We’re all so thrilled. We’re sorry for that accident in Europe, but since it was God’s will, we’re happy you will be there to guide us. We need you, Doug, we all need you, and the Reverend says this is the hand of Providence… Oh, heavens, he’s telling me to be quiet and let you speak to Wanda. All right. Except I want to say for the Reverend and myself, from our hearts, that we wish you strength and courage.”

“Thank you, Rose, I need that.”

“The Reverend went to knock on Wanda’s door. She’s still up. She’ll pick up her phone in a second.”

“I’ll wait. Thanks, Rose.”

In the seconds that he waited, his brain had become alive and projected the early pictures of Wanda Gibson. When he had bought this brownstone five years ago, and while it was still in escrow, he had been invited to dinner by the Springers to celebrate his acquisition. He had met the Spingers before, many times, but always about the Hill, or at Crispus Society affairs, or at parties given by African Embassies near Sheridan Circle. This was the first time that he had accepted an invitation to their home. Twice, as a representative, he had been asked to their dinners, and twice he had declined with fabricated excuses. As a member of the House, he had not wanted to be in the position of having to answer to white colleagues who might charge that, as a Negro, he was being used by the head of the most important Negro organization. His timidity had been ridiculous, he had known, especially since other Negro congressmen and white liberals had attended those dinners in a natural way, and had enjoyed Rose Spinger’s cooking. Thereafter he had told himself that if he was ever invited again, he would accept.

The familiar timidity had assailed him but one more time, just before signing the escrow papers on the brownstone house. He had wondered what those on the Hill would think, once it got out, about a senator owning a house in which he permitted the leader of America’s largest minority pressure group to live. Nobody, apparently, had cared. Perhaps, Dilman thought wryly, because nobody, apparently, cared what he did at any time. In the Senate, until his surprising selection in Party caucus to serve as President pro tempore of the body when Vice-President Porter was out of town or ill, few had seemed aware of his existence. He was one of a hundred names on the roll call, rarely absent, but almost always silent and withdrawn. He made no speeches, gave no interviews, introduced no bills, and he went along with the Party and T. C. and everyone. Even though, after filling Espinosa’s unfinished term as Senator, he had been endorsed by the Party to run on his own (with strong Negro and labor support, against a weak opponent, destroyed by a graft exposé four days before the voting), and he had been re-elected to the Senate on his own, he had felt an interloper.

He had accepted the Spingers’ third invitation to dinner not as a senator but as their landlord, and he had gone unafraid, knowing at last that no one, not even such Southern red-neck mouthpieces as Representative Zeke Miller or Senator Bruce Hankins, cared or gave a damn.

There had been six of them at that intimate dinner at the Spingers’ five years ago, the host and hostess, a colored engineer and his colored teacher wife, himself as the personage and guest of honor, and Wanda Gibson. It had been his initial meeting with Wanda Gibson, and for the first time in the many years since Aldora’s death he had realized that affection and desire within him had not atrophied but had only been sublimated.

Even then, five years ago, Wanda had not been a girl, but a mature woman-a lady, he had always thought of her as being, a lady-of thirty-one. She was a graduate of the University of West Virginia, with economics as her major; and she had worked for her favorite professor in Morgantown and Charleston, and followed the professor, known for his liberal books, to Washington, D.C., when he accepted a government advisory job in the latter part of the Lyndon Johnson administration. When T. C. had become President, and Wanda’s professor had gone back to his university, she had stayed on in Washington. For the last two years she had held a well-paid position as executive secretary to the director of Vaduz Exporters, in nearby Bethesda, Maryland.