George broke the silence at last, saying, “I want to ask a question.”
Everyone looked at him in relief — anything to distract the mind — and George said, “This may be stupid, but are we sure Bradford is wrong? I mean, what if he did go to China? Could he really be a force for peace?”
“Not for a minute,” Meredith Fanshaw said.
George turned to him and said, “How can you be sure? Bradford is still an important man, a well-known man. If he managed to explain his motivations, how can we be sure it wouldn’t do any good?”
Howard, sitting on George’s other side, said, “You answered that one yourself, George, a couple of months ago.”
“I did?”
“After you taped the interview, we talked about television images as opposed to real people. Remember?”
“Vaguely,” George said. “I believe I started drinking around then.”
Howard said, “I asked you what television would do if somebody like Bradford Lockridge did something crazy, and you said television would have to destroy him. In order to make it acceptable to the viewers.”
George frowned. “I did? Well, I’m not sure I was right. People like drama, television likes drama. What Bradford is talking about is personal statesmanship of the highest order. You know, he just might be able to bring it off.”
“No,” Wellington said. The word thumped like a bag of laundry in the center of the table, and for a few seconds no one else spoke. Then Sterling said, quietly, “I think Wellington’s right. It would be just too far off the beaten track. Once he did it, Brad would be branded as a crazy man no matter what he said or how fine his motivations.”
“He’d be Rudolph Hess,” Howard said. “That’s the exact parallel. In fact, Hess had more going for him than Brad has. He was still a young man, so he couldn’t be accused of senility. And he wasn’t retired, he was an active high-level member of the Nazi government. He had an impeccable reputation, perfect position and the most noble of motivations. But the instant his parachute opened over England he was a nut and nobody was ever going to take him seriously again.”
“That’s right,” Sterling said. “And not only did the Germans publicize the idea he was crazy, the English themselves took it for granted he’d had a mental breakdown. Everybody took it for granted. You can’t go that far from normal behavior, no matter what the reason, and still be considered sane.”
“All right,” said George. Holt, looking at him, nearly smiled at the realization that George had seen himself, for one glorious moment, as the interviewer with the inside track to the savior of mankind. The dream died hard, but it died, and George said, “You’re right, I guess. He couldn’t do anything but hurt himself.”
It was time to come back from the tangent. Holt said, “That’s why it’s up to us to decide what to do about it. It’s up to the family to protect him and make sure he doesn’t do himself an injury.”
Eugene, at the head of the table, said, “And our problem is complicated by the fact that we have to keep it a secret from Bradford, too. Whatever we do, we do it without his cooperation.”
“Without his knowledge,” Holt said. “If he discovered what we were up to, he could stop us in ten seconds flat.”
Meredith Fanshaw said, “How?”
Robert told him, “When I talked with Bradford, he warned me not to try to stop him, and not to tell anybody else. If he becomes aware of any attempt to keep him in this country, he intends to pick up a phone and call a reporter and have a news conference.”
Fanshaw said, “To announce what?”
“His intention to go to Peking.”
“He wouldn’t! What good would it do him?”
“He believes the glare of publicity would keep the people from stopping him.”
“It wouldn’t,” Wellington said, and everybody looked at him, amazed to hear Wellington volunteer an opinion. There was a little silence, but Wellington had nothing else to say, so finally Eugene said, “No, it wouldn’t. Bradford would be officially detained at once, that’s only natural. And committed to some sort of institution.”
Howard, in his most dry and bitter manner, said, “There’s a full glare of publicity for you. Bradford publicly crazy in front of a news conference.”
Turning to Holt, Sterling said, “Joe, we keep using the word crazy. I haven’t seen Brad since last spring, which is apparently before all this happened. Is he crazy?”
“That isn’t a question you can answer,” Holt started. “He’s had—”
Howard interrupted, saying, “Yes, you can. What if I asked you if I was crazy? What would you say?”
“I’d say no.”
Howard pointed at Sterling, across the table from him, and said to Holt, “Is my father crazy?”
“No.”
“All right. Is Brad crazy?”
“I can’t do it that way,” Holt said. “I’m sorry, I know what you’re trying for, but it just can’t be done that way. Brad is somewhere on the spectrum between sane and insane. He’s had — he’s probably had, I have to see him to find out for sure — he’s probably had recent brain damage. It doesn’t seem particularly severe or particularly extensive. He still behaves and performs much as he always has. To some degree his judgment has been affected, but that seems to be all.”
“It’s enough!” Harrison said.
Sterling said, “The reason I asked, I wanted to know if Brad could still make public appearances without his condition being obvious.”
Holt said, “So far as I know, he hasn’t deteriorated since that interview was shot, two or three months ago.”
Fanshaw said, “What about simply tucking him away somewhere, holding him incommunicado?”
“Sooner or later,” Howard told him, “some reporter would want to find out why Bradford Lockridge doesn’t grant interviews any more, doesn’t come to the phone any more, doesn’t attend any more party functions, hundred-dollar-a-plate dinners, that sort of thing. Sooner or later, somebody in the news media would smell a story in it, and find it.”
Sterling said, “Robert, how long do we have? When does he plan to leave?”
“I don’t know,” Robert said. “He wants Evelyn to go with him, and she hasn’t given him an answer yet, but I think he knows the answer’s going to be no.”
Eugene said, “It should be yes. She should tell him yes, and make him believe it.”
Robert glanced at him and nodded. “You’re right. So he’ll keep her informed of his plans.”
Holt said, “Could she convince him? It would be worse if he saw through it.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Robert said.
Fanshaw said, “In the meantime, what about the rest of us? There doesn’t seem to be anything to do. Bradford has to be stopped, but we don’t know how.”
“That’s one thing we’ll all have to do,” Eugene said. “Try to think of a way to stop him.”
Wellington said, “And intercept his correspondence.”
Eugene turned to him, saying, “Of course. You’re absolutely right, his correspondence with the Chinese.”
Howard said, “I’ll move out to the house, I can do that without making him suspicious. I’ll see what I can find.”
Holt told him, “I’ll be there by the end of the week, Howard. I’ll have to make an excuse to give him a medical onceover.”
Sterling said, “Robert, I think we should arrange a leave of absence for you from the university, and that you should take a place in Eustace or Chambersburg, somewhere close by, so you could be reached in an emergency.”