“Stigmatizing him?”
“He took exception to Lee’s generalship.”
“And what was your reaction?”
“I had none. I’m not an expert on Civil War generalship.”
“You did not defend General Lee?”
“Defend him? Why should I have defended him?”
“A great soldier, a great educator, a great man — and you let these slurs be passed on him without uttering one word in his defense?”
“It wasn’t up to me to defend him.”
“But you accepted this man’s characterization?”
“I did not. He didn’t tell you the truth. He had some idea — he seemed obsessed with it — that I was trying to dictate to him, to block him from the approach he had in mind, to keep him from writing a biography of Longstreet. I kept telling him that I was not. I told him to write his book as he saw it and if that involved derogatory reflections on General Lee, then that was his conception of it, and the Institute had no objection.”
“In other words, you did agree?”
“In no other words but yours, Senator. I told him to write his own book — not my book or the Institute’s book or your book, for that matter.”
“I’ll thank you to leave me out of it.”
“And I’ll thank you not to put words in my mouth.”
By this time I was myself. I sounded civil, verging on oily, and my little crack got a laugh. But the senator wasn’t done yet. He reverted to his basic theme — that I was a faithless, unprincipled creep who had committed a fine institute to anti-Southern writing with his employer’s knowledge.
“Did you or did you not,” he asked me, “discuss this blackening of General Lee’s name with Mr. Garrett?”
“Not until you got in it, Senator.”
“You withheld it from him?”
“I had no reason to bring it up.”
“But you discussed it with Mrs. Garrett?”
“Did I?”
“I am asking you, Palmer. Answer me!”
“I thought you were telling me. No, not with her, either.”
“You’ve seen quite a lot of her?”
“Daily, almost.”
“Where, Dr. Palmer?”
“At her office, at my office, in the Garrett Building, and lately at our offices in the new Institute building. Also at lunch, and quite often, at dinner.”
“And you didn’t mention this to her?”
“Again, not until you got in it.”
“Not even in your cups?”
“In my what?”
He picked up a sheet of paper. “I hold in my hand,” he said, “a copy of the restaurant check you paid on the evening of April 13 last, one week ago today — one the waitress penciled your name on, which shows a fifteen-dollar charge for one quart of champagne. You drank this wine, Palmer?”
“No, I did not.”
“You mean to say, she did? Mrs. Garrett?”
For a moment my head was spinning around, trying to locate myself on this bottle of champagne and figure out what in the name of God he was getting at. His question, though, gave me a clue. He was getting ready to line me up for more of his basic theme: that I had so little respect for Hortense, I’d get cockeyed drunk at dinner with, her, a continuation of what a worthless, respect-lacking employee I was — which, of course, would go down well in the teetotalling parts of Georgia. But mainly, I sensed that he knew nothing of what I had been dreading, which was my relations with Hortense, and my head suddenly cleared. I knew then that I would disregard all the warnings I had had from Senator Hood and let Pickens have it with both barrels, if God gave me the strength.
“No, Senator,” I answered quite casually. “Mrs. Garrett doesn’t drink.”
“Then you drank it, Palmer?”
“No, Senator, I did not.”
“Well, somebody must have!”
“I would assume that the couple across the room did, the couple Mrs. Garrett sent the wine to. A girl at the Royal Arms got married week before last and was having dinner that night with her husband. Mrs. Garrett went over to congratulate them and give Lucy a kiss. Then she asked me to order the wine so she could send it over as a gift from her — which I did. She paid me for it... which leaves you looking rather silly, Senator.”
“Never mind how I look, Palmer. Now did you—”
“Just a moment, Senator; I’m not finished yet.”
“I’m asking the questions, Palmer!”
“And I’m giving the answers. Senator, the mistake you made was to bring this subject of alcoholic refreshment up at a hearing you invited TV to cover, which will show on color film a witness named Palmer with the pasty-pale skin of the man who drinks only water, and a senator named Pickens, with a skin of the deep, crimson-red color that comes from only one pot. Senator, all over Georgia tonight they will see with their own eyes, which of us is sober and which the drunken sot!”
He bellowed something, but the roar of applause I got drowned him out. Then he got another surprise. Mr. Garrett was suddenly there on the dais beside him, looking down at him like something carved out of granite. Then the toneless Garrett voice was coming through the mike.
“Senator, you will expunge from the record all references to my wife — now. Do you hear me?”
But the woman with the stenotype was already tearing up tape. The applause from the crowd bordered on an ovation, with people standing up. As Garrett came marching back, I was still on my feet, and he was extending his hand. I was so glad to take it that I wanted to cry. That handshake, that warm, wonderful grip, was the greatest moment I ever had, in my whole life, with another man.
21
A Croak came over the loudspeaker system: “This hearing’s adjourned,” and the people were swarming around us, shaking hands and aiming cameras. Then we were back in Senator Hood’s office with everyone gloating over what we’d done — Mr. Garrett “for teaching the bastard manners,” and me “for really settling his hash — that cooks his goose in Georgia, make no mistake.” Well, it did cook his goose, as we know, but I didn’t much care at the time. I wanted out of there. Then I found myself down on the street with Mr. Garrett. He was patting me on the back and saying: “Lloyd, as you know, this stuff that Hood peddles — discretion and going along — I’m for most of the time. I practice it myself. But every so often the one thing that fills the bill is a sock on the snoot, and boy, did you give him one today. I’m still exulting over it. I glory in what you did. I can’t thank you enough.”
Then I was home lying in bed with no idea how I got there. I had to be alone, to face up to this thing in my life, not the clobbering of Pickens, because that was something I had to do but took no interest in. It was that handshake and how it made me feel that I had to face up to now, especially what it meant in my life. One thing was clear, and it kept hitting me: once that handshake was given, once I felt as it made me feel, I couldn’t lie anymore. I had to come clean, with no fiddling or foodling or faddling around. So where did that leave me? I wrestled with it, hating to face up to what it was leading to.
Sometime during the afternoon I realized that I hadn’t heard from Hortense and thought it very odd. She must have heard about what had happened. It seemed peculiar that she wouldn’t have called me. A few other people did, those who had my number, with congratulations for what I had done. But she didn’t. Then in the early evening I heard her key in the lock and then she was calling me.
“I’m in here,” I called out, sounding thick.
She came in and without saying hello lay down beside me in the dark but without taking off her clothes. I was dressed, too, with the spread pulled over me. There we lay for several minutes, the first time, I suppose, we’d ever stretched out that way. But she acted so strangely that I asked: “Is something wrong, Hortense?”