The general is interested, but not surprised. Over the years, he has been in a number of unsafe places: Minsk, Bataan, Okinawa; as a young man in his twenties, in the shell-churned abattoir of the Western Front. Very little can frighten him.
And what does Stevenson have to frighten him with? A sudden, icy feeling in the gut that everything up to now has been a setup for something yet to come. The incident at the checkpoint; the meetings with Sparkman, with Wallace, with King; the rumors, the car bomb, Rommel's arrival. But to whose advantage? There is a devious mind at work. Wallace? He lacks the subtle touch. King? Rommel has come to protect King's people-but Rommel has come also to disarm them.
In the end, Stevenson mouths platitudes about safety and the breakdown of civil order.
Rommel's smile is a wolf's smile. "It is to remedy this breakdown of your civil order that I am come."
A growing noise outside the building forestalls any reply-which is good, because Stevenson has none. Only that the League is gasoline thrown on smoldering embers; that the United States could have handled things, given time. The trends had been good; lynchings had been on the decline. If only Black had been more assertive, and less defensive of "states' rights." If only the northern machines had leaned harder on their southern colleagues. If only Wilson had not made casual bigotry so fashionable with his praise forBirth of a Nation.
If only. Stevenson sighs.
People outside begin hooting. Looking out the window, he sees a bus escorted by a company of soldiers. There is a banner on the side of the bus: We Serve Neither King nor Kaiser. If it is meant to reassure the whites of Selma, it fails. People hurl catcalls at the bus. They shake their fists. Some stones are thrown, but when the soldiers cock their rifles and level them at the crowd, the locals disperse, muttering. They know the Germans will fire if pushed. Stevenson sees the darkies through the windows of the bus, eyes white and wide as saucers. They are unarmed and they know it. The unwelcoming crowd is supposed to be disarmed too, but no one can believe that.
Rommel has joined him by the window. "Brave men," Stevenson tells him.
"They are soldiers doing their duty."
Stevenson watches the bus out of sight. "I wasn't thinking of the soldiers." When they turn away, Stevenson asks bleakly, "What's the point, general? Too much blood has been spilled for them to live in their old neighborhoods again. Neither side can pretend the clearings never happened."
Rommel shrugs. "I am only following orders. The World Court mandated this busing. So long as my troops are here, your rednecks dare not make trouble."
"But your troops can't stay forever. Once they're gone, those people will go for each other's throats."
Rommel purses his lips, disliking the futility of his mission. "There is too much history here," he answers. "We do what we can, while we can. Yet, somehow, there must be a final solution to the redneck problem."
"What?" Stevenson asks sardonically. "Kill them all?"
Rommel makes no reply for a moment and Stevenson's heart freezes as, once again, the wind brings the odors of dead fires from the ruins of Darktown. Then the general shakes his head-though with how much reluctance Stevenson dares not guess.
Outside his hotel, a woman stops him with a hand on his sleeve. He sees red-rimmed eyes, makeup hastily applied, hair not quite in place. "They say you're an important man," she says. "A senator from up north."
Stevenson inclines his head. He does not deny it.
"You can tell them they're making a mistake, making a terrible mistake. They'll listen to an important man like you. Tell them they've made a mistake." Her voice grieves; her eyes plead.
Stevenson lays his hand over hers. "Tell who? What mistake?"
"My husband!" the distraught woman says. "They've taken my husband to the camp."
He understands now, and nods. "It's their policy," he says, "when any of their soldiers are killed by terrorists."
"But Leroy had nothin' to do with that! He's a good man, a decent man. God-fearing. He never had no truck with the coloreds-they kept to their side of town and we kept to ours-but he never wished them no harm."
Over her shoulder and down at the end of the street, across the railroad tracks, stand the cold embers of Darktown. The distant sound of hammers and saws echoes in the still, muggy air. Rebuilding-with hope or fatalism? "He wasn't one of the mob?" Stevenson says harshly. "Not one of those who fired those houses over there and shot the people who tried to run out of the blazing buildings?"
The woman backs away from him. "No, he never. Even if some of the coloreds was helpin' out the SCLC like folks said, they was only a few. Most coloreds are good folks. Leroy, he said they should just arrest the troublemakers and leave the good ones alone. The night they- The night they- The night the fire broke out, he stood by the parlor window, cussin' and sayin' how they'd bring the Huns in for sure."
"But he didn't do anything to stop them."
She flinches at the accusation in his voice, but snaps in desperation. "What did you want him to do? One man? They'd call him a 'kraut-kisser' and a 'nigger-lover' and maybe burn our home down, too. But he never burned nobody, never shot nobody, never rode out at night."
No, Stevenson thinks sadly, he only stood by while others did. He understands, finally, the message in Revelation. Ye runneth neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm. Therefore, I spew ye forth from my mouth. The devil gets his due, but those who will not choose sides get nothing but contempt. He remembers King's words about how men are measured.
Yet, such a sentiment might itself be too easy. When standing up means to risk everything-wife, home, life itself-how many would sit by in quiet impotence? The Northern bosses loathe the barbarism in the South. Their graft is impartial; green is the only color that matters. But in the end they had held Party unity more dear, so who is Adlai Stevenson to judge Leroy? He looks over his shoulder to the German HQ and thinks how evil may be done even in a good cause, and not only by Erwin Rommel. Stevenson knows he ought to do something for Leroy, if only because the poor son of a bitch is the closest thing to a liberal the town has.
Stevenson counts himself wise for promising nothing, but he needs most of the Old Crow before he can accept the truth. There is no time to call Daley for instructions; and the phones would be tapped in any case. Stevenson sits at the desk in his room and scrawls a note on the hotel's stationery, informing Rommel about Wallace and King. "Rigorous questioning" at the barbershop will reveal Wallace's whereabouts, he writes. King is hiding in Selma's Darktown, but might be lured out to meet with Rommel, who is a nominal ally.
Rommel, with a German's obsession for legal literalism, will try to arrest King for theft of contraband and King, just as certainly, will resist. Wallace, his head stuffed with Southern irredentism, will never surrender either. But by making clear to them the common enemy, Stevenson might yet engineer the alliance he seeks. Martyrs do wonders for unity; the brotherhood of death can weld hostile factions together.
He calls the front desk and has a runner sent up. When the boy knocks-it is the same wavy-haired, swivel-hipped lad he used before-Stevenson hands him another cartwheel and a sealed envelope. He tells him the message is a plea to release some innocent hostages and that he should take it to Rommel immediately. The boy runs for the stairwell. Stevenson closes the door behind him and returns to the bottle of Old Crow.