“Yeah,” Clem said, ruminating. “Don’t matter to me, though. I’m no politician. I just want to pry some wheat loose.”
“What did they say in Washington?” William asked.
“Oh, the usual patter — it would be interfering with internal affairs in India — meaning that if the people get food they might support the present government.”
“Don’t they like Nehru?” William asked this with some interest. He had not known what to make of that composite man upon his one visit to America.
“Sure they like him as far as he goes,” Clem said. “He don’t go far enough for some of our Republicans. They want him to swear eternal vengeance on the Russians and eternal loyalty to us. Nehru won’t swear; no sensible man would. But that don’t interest me, either. What interests me is getting people fed, if for no reason except that starvation is a shame and disgrace to the world and totally unnecessary in modern times. I don’t believe in using food, mind you, to manipulate people. Get everybody fed, says I — then you start even. Once all bellies are full, people won’t have to vote this way and that so as to get a meal. That’s democracy. We ain’t practicing it.”
Food and democracy were Clem’s themes, and long ago William had become bored with his brother-in-law. He saw dreaminess creep into Clem’s brilliant blue eyes, a tensity lifted the thin, almost boyish voice, and he recognized both as signs of what he called Clem’s fanaticism.
“I do not want to hurry you,” he said in his carefully controlled voice, “I do, however, have a business meeting of unusual importance within the next fifteen minutes.”
Clem brought back his eyes from the world beyond the window. The dreaminess vanished. He got up and went over to the chair facing William and sat down and leaned his elbows upon the desk. His square face looked suddenly sharp and even acute. “William, I get letters from China.”
William was startled. “How do you do that?”
“Somebody I used to know in Peking.”
“You’ll get yourself into trouble mixing with Communists,” William said sternly.
“I guess I won’t,” Clem said. “The Old Boy knows.” The Old Boy, in Clem’s language, was always the President of the United States.
“What does he say?” William asked.
“Just told me he didn’t approve,” Clem gave a sharp cackle.
William did not make a reply, and, as he foresaw, Clem went on without it. “William, there’s a mighty famine over yonder in China. You remember? Rivers rising, dikes crumbling away into the water.”
“A good thing,” William said. “It will teach the Chinese people that Communists cannot save them.”
“That ain’t enough, though, William,” Clem said with insistent earnestness. “That’s only the half of it. We got to get the other half across to them. We got to get food over there. What the Reds can’t do, we gotta do, or the people will think we can’t do it, either, and so what’s the use of giving us a try?”
“People ought to be punished for making the wrong choice,” William said grimly.
Clem saw the grimness with detached pity. “You oughtn’t to take pleasure in punishing people, William. I declare, it’s not worthy of such a big man as you are now. It’s kind of an Old Testament way of thinking that was done away with when the New Testament came along.”
“I will not discuss my religion with you,” William said with some violence.
“I don’t want to discuss religion, either,” Clem said. “I wouldn’t hardly know how to say what I believe, and it’s your business if you want to be a Catholic, and I told Henrietta so. I don’t mind what a man is, if he’s a good man — that’s what I always say. My father believed in faith, but it certainly didn’t save him, and I wouldn’t recommend it. I’m not really interested in religion. All I say is if a man don’t have a full belly—”
“I know what you say,” William said with weariness. “Let’s get to the point.”
Clem came to the point instantly. “William, I can get the food to send to China, and to India, too. We’re so stuffed with so much food over here that my buyers can get it by the hundreds of tons without bothering Washington at all. I can get my hands on ships, too. Even the Old Boy don’t have to do anything — just sit there and look the other way. But I need you, William.”
“What for?” William asked warily.
The light of gospel came into Clem’s blue eyes. He held up his right hand in unconscious gesture.
“William, I want you to get behind the idea with your newspapers, so that I won’t be hampered by any senators and the like! Everybody reads your papers, everybody over this broad land. There’s millions of people reads your newspapers that don’t read anything else. Even senators are still afraid of millions of people. I want you to tell the people that if we get our extra food over there to Asia it’s worth any number of bombs, atom bombs — hydrogen bombs, even—”
“Impossible!” William’s voice rang hard with anger. “If this is your wonderful idea—”
“My idea is to get food to the starving, William! I don’t ask you to do it. I’ve got my ways of getting into places. I’ve got my friends. I only ask you to explain to our people.”
“Your friends must be Communists!”
“I don’t care what they are, any more than I care what you are, just so they get our food to the starving. People will ask, where is the food coming from? America! Don’t you see? America don’t even ask if people are Communists. Good old America just feeds the starving. It’s the greatest advertisement for our democracy—”
“Impossible!” William said bitterly. “Sentimental, absurd! Clem, these people won’t ask anything. They’ll just eat. Most of them will think that it’s the Communists who are giving them food. You are too naïve.”
Clem refused to yield. “Even if they do think it’s the wrong party, they’ll be stronger to see tyranny in the end, won’t they? A starving man can’t see right or wrong. He just sees food. You’ve got no judgment when you’re hungry. You can’t even rebel.”
Clem watched William’s face for a waiting second. It did not change. “You’ve never been hungry, have you, William? I have.”
William did not need to answer.
Miss Smith opened the door softly. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Mr. Lane, but the gentlemen are waiting in the Board Room.”
Clem got up. “You don’t need to use fancy methods with me, lady. Just tell me it’s time to go. Well, William—”
“I wouldn’t think of doing what you suggest,” William said. “I don’t agree with you in any particular.”
Clem stood looking down on him. “Let ’em starve, eh, William?” he said after an infinitesimal pause.
“Let them starve until they confess their folly,” William said firmly and got up. “Good-by, Clem. Give my love to Henrietta.”
“Good-by,” Clem said and turning he left the room.
Neither of them had put out a hand to the other, but William did not notice it. He seldom shook hands with anyone. He disliked the contact, but more than that in recent years there were twinges of neuritis in his hands which made it painful to suffer the vigor of Clem’s grasp. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead and poured himself a drink of ice cold water from the silver thermos bottle on his desk. The strangest touch of fate in his strange life was the fact that Clem Miller was his brother-in-law, Clem, whom more than half a century ago he had first seen on a Peking street and never thought to see again — Clem, that pale and hungry boy, the son of the Faith Mission family, living in a cheap alleyway, a hutung in the poorest part of the city, Clem, whom even then he had despised. How had it come about? Half a century ago. …