“Well,” Hortense said, “aren’t you pleased?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“I am. I’m proud of you.”
“Okay, I love to be prouded of.”
“I want to go home now.”
“Then let’s go.”
“But let’s look one more time.”
We looked at the building once more and then got in her car and started home. She made me drive. “I’m too proud to drive,” she said; “my mind wouldn’t be on it.”
We were just falling asleep when it popped into my mind to ask: “Any word from your gumshoe?”
“Now why do you bring that up? Why, on this night of nights, do you have to ask that?”
“You’re five months gone, that’s why.”
“And why do you have to say that?”
“Because it’s true.”
She cracked up, crying and refusing to let me touch her. In every way, she made a production of it. Then at last, she said: “She hasn’t started yet. The one Mr. Hayes wants to put on it is Finnish but speaks Swedish, too. He thinks she could start by asking Inga for a job and then when Inga says no, to sit down for a minute or two to pass the time of day. It seems she’s good at that kind of thing, and Mr. Hayes thinks Inga could be of considerable help. The house keeper always knows, he says, what the master is up to, and she might pass out stuff to a visitor she liked. The girl, Mr. Hayes says, has made an art of sociability.”
“Sociability helps.”
“Does that answer your question?”
“It’s what I wanted to know.”
“Kiss me.” And then: “Lloyd, I’m getting terribly nervous.”
19
Of course, once we moved into the building, Hortense wouldn’t have been Hortense without giving a party, a big stinkaroo in celebration thereof, although she called it an “opening” and acted as though it was something anyone would do under the circumstances, or, as she put it, “the least we can do, in all decency.” But I was beginning to find out that all she knew to do or that rich people like her knew to do about anything — from the birth of an heir to the shotgun wedding preceding it — was a little party for three hundred people or so. What such parties accomplish I haven’t yet found out except to make Hortense take a deep breath and say, ‘Thank God that’s over’ — and then begin planning the next one.
But if it would make her happy — and, especially, ease her mind — it was all right with me, and I pitched in to help to the extent that I could. My help consisted mainly of moving the Institute in so we would have something to celebrate. It was quite a job, and I called on secretaries, Dr. Lin, our Chinese librarian, Carter and Johnson, and, of course, Davis. Our quarters took up three floors of the new building, including the first floor. There, through a heavy glass door was the big room I’ve already mentioned, now finished in oak paneling and furnished with bookshelves, desks, leather chairs, and thick carpeting. It was to be our reception room, with secretary, phone, and the usual intercom hookup. Beyond was my private office and beyond that, Hortense’s and beyond that, a small dining room with bar, kitchen, and pantry. Her mind, though she apparently didn’t realize it, ran to the entertainment and facilities it required more than to the conference rooms upstairs.
But not Davis’s mind. He had ideas about our library. The minute he started to talk, I knew they were good. His point was that fifty percent of our subjects would figure in one of America’s wars but that a lot of references to them would be found in standard works which weren’t too expensive to buy — for example, for the Civil War, the Official Record; for Battles and Leaders, the Southern Historical Society Papers, the Photographic History, and the Bassler collection on Lincoln. He thought if we stocked these books, it would save all kinds of work for our scholars, and they wouldn’t have to go to the Library of Congress or the National Archives or wherever, but would have them right at hand there in our own building. I agreed and authorized him to buy sets wherever he could. All that summer he had been making his deals, which was how he came to have all those books in storage. They had to be moved in now by truck and then hauled up to the second floor and shelved. In front of the shelves we put rolling ladders, index cabinets, and desks. I copied the room from what I had heard of a scholar’s room — Rupert Hughes — in Los Angeles, which was a model of efficiency, I had heard. On the third floor were the “study rooms” for our “fellows.” The other seven floors we rented out, and this led to a small brouhaha just before the big bash. Donald Klein, our rental agent, had his desk inside the front door where he took it for granted that he could buttonhole guests as they came in regard to rental space. Of course Hortense hit the roof when I told her and went boiling downstairs to see him. I went along, unhappily, not believing in brawls and hoping she wouldn’t start one. But count on her: “Don,” she said, “of all the people I wanted to come, I think I wanted you the most, and here I find out you’re going to sit at this desk and sell! Don, how could you? Oh, how could you!?” It turned out that he couldn’t.
There was no particular reason for me to be nervous that day. Hortense had lined everything up down to the last detail, especially my part in it. But for some reason, I was — plenty. As director, I was to stand with her and Mr. Garrett and help receive the guests, dividing with Sam Dent the job of supplying names, though since he had no official connection with the Institute, he didn’t stand in the receiving line. But because he knew the Garrett staff and, of course, the politicians, and I knew the fellows, board members, scholars, and Institute staff, it seemed that between us, we had everyone covered. It was my first big Washington party, however, and I had a lot to learn.
I felt something, something more than I had expected, the moment I get there around four, with things due to start around five. It may have been the baby grand piano that had been moved in without my knowing it or the bull fiddle in its case, leaning in one corner. Or it may have been the chrysanthemums, the big jardiniers full of yellow ones, standing in all four corners and in rows against the wall. Or it may have been the half-dozen black girls in the dining room whom I glimpsed through the open doors — the caterer’s contingent, in dresses so short there was probably a law against them — bare legs, bare midriffs, skimpy bras, and little lace caps and aprons. Or it may have been the black girl at the desk, dressed the same way, who was reading a magazine and who put her hand on the phone when I went over to call Hortense, saying: “Sir, this phone is for incoming calls only. I can’t let you use it. There’s a pay phone in the lobby.” Or it may have been Hortense’s manner when I went out in the hall and called her — the quick brush she gave me, as if to say she was busy and would I kindly leave her alone. Whatever it was, I finally got it through my head that something was about to happen. And, of course, I tried to get with it, which is a bit hard to do when you have no idea what you’re trying to get with.