Hasty conferences, a couple of treaties, the firing of a few scapegoats, and the definition of spheres of influence not very sharply,– because the parties were always jockeying for advantage-had led to the present formally courteous accommodation, which was being strengthened as in both major countries the effects of fourth– and fifth-genera-
tion commitment were felt. A little confidence in your ancestors' achievements could work wonders.
And in your own achievements, too. He'd had a bad moment yesterday evening when Lora insisted on dragging that black into the photo with Prexy. Of course, she'd done it in order to embarrass him, just as she'd put on that dress she knew he loathed. Yet, as he'd realized a second later, everyone present who had kids of the same age, including Prexy-for what he was worth-would have sympathised instead of being repelled. It was a kind of in-group status symbol nowadays for teenagers to keep up this family-scale guerrilla warfare. Pour 'Spater les bourgeois! But sooner or later they'd learn that the minds of the bourgeois had been blown long before they were born.
So, if anything, her grand gesture, inviting this black to the party and parading around with him for hours on end, was more likely to have reinforced than weakened his coverl
Though naturally it would make sense to have security double-check the boy . . .
Now then: What about this question of the alien ship? What did they imagine, Back There, that he could do? He'd made all the suggestions to Sheklov that he could think of on the spur of the moment: financing some sort of hypothetical study of the problem, for example, under the guise of training in, management initiative, along the lines of courses he'd heard of many years ago that were given to industrial designers, You invented an imaginary race with three legs, or sonar instead of eyes, or living underwater, and told the students to equip this species with transport and accommodation. But this, although he personally regarded it as an inspiration because it was perfectly feasible to ask some bright young people, “How do we trade with contraterrene creatures?,” apparently meant nothing to Sheklov. He kept talking about “an attitude of mind.”
Have to go over this again in detail. Say after lunch in the den. Give the room another sweep for bugs first, naturally. But right now ;t Pressure that had been building up in his bladder since he awoke finally drove Turpin out of bed. There appeared to be a ritual about Sunday in the Turpin household. Sheklov hoped fervently that he wouldn't have to endure it more than once. But apparently Mrs. Turpin's mother insisted on it. Her name was Gleewood, but that had not been the maiden name of Mrs. Turpin. There had been some divorces-a fact that did not in the least surprise him.
Not wishing to seem discourteous, he accepted Mrs. Gleewood's invitation to join her and her daughter in the living-room and watch Rev. Powell's nationally-networked service at noon-the “lip service,” as someone had caustically termed it during last night's party. Peter, looking haggard, came too, several minutes after it started. That triggered off a lecture from his grandmother concerning the disgracefully casual attitude of young people to religion. Then she asked where Lora was, and Peter answered sharply, “Lying on her bed in a drunken stupor-where else?”
Which gave an excuse for another and longer blast. Sheklov sat there wishing the floor would open and swallow him, while Mrs. Turpin-Sophie, as she insisted he call her-simply sat with glacial calmness, sipping a rapid succession of gin atomics brought by Estelle. To reinforce his cover, Sheklov had intended to talk a little with the maid in the family's hearing about their supposedly shared homeland; so far, however, the girl had absolutely refused to be drawn.
It had crossed his mind, very vaguely, that she might not be Canadian herself, but the only reason he could think of for pretending to be was if she was wanted for a criminal offence, and had changed her identity to one that could hot be too closely investigated. The Canadians were efficiently unco-operative when it came to answering inquiries from the States about their citizeas.
Still, that was irrelevant. Right now, his job was to put himself beyond the reach of unwelcome prying.
To start with, he must get Turpin to have this Danty
checked out. Turpin would have an excellent excuse to do so, considering his daughter's connection with the boy. Boy? More like young man. Over twenty, under twentyfive. Hard to be sure owing to his bony leanness.
Had it surprised him to find that a Canadian timbersalesman could quote the Bhagavad-Gita7 He hadn't shown the least hint of it, just given a nod of satisfaction at the aptness of the passage. True, one did find people who adhered to non-Western religions both here and north of the border. But it was so atypical, he shivered imperceptibly whenever he recalled his incredible lapse. He had had to utter those words. It was as though someone else took momentary command of his tongue.
Then there was lunch, at which Turpin appeared with a sort of after-shave advertisement bluffness and a forced air of goodwill towards the world, and-shortly afterLora too, tousle-haired, bleary-eyed, and even more snappish than Peter. Mrs. Gleewood told her what she thought of her behaviour, in particular because she had dared to bring a black into her own home, when everybody knew that all the blacks in America were ready to slip a knife into your ribs the instant they got the chance.
“Don't talk to me about that radiated slug,” was Lora's sullen answer, at which Mrs. Gleewood rounded on Turpin.
“You know what this rude little bitch needs?” she rasped. “Six months in a reform camp, that's whatl”
“Hear, head”-loudly from Peter.
Details about reform camps had been included in Sheklov's briefing. He expected Turpin to explode at that. The camps were for incorrigible juvenile delinquents, and the most famous-at Sandstone, Georgia-boasted the highest murder-rate and the highest suicide-rate in the country. But Turpin merely said in a mild tone, “Lora will get over this phase, you know.”
“The hell I will,” Lora said, and moodily turned to her food.
By the time Turpin suggested he and Sheklov adjourn to the room he called his den, for coffee and liqueurs, it was all the latter could do not to shake his head in inexpressible admiration. Coping with this abominable motherin-law, this near-alcoholic wife, this homosexual son, this promiscuous daughter, and his job at Energetics General and his role as the best Russian agent ever to be injected into the States-it defied belief l
When Turpin had assured him that the den was clean of bugs and they could talk freely, he tried to say something of what he was feeling. But Turpin, pouring tiny goblets of Tia Maria, stared in apparently genuine incomprehension.
“Don, I don't see what you mean. Sure, the kids are a bit wild, but I meant it when I said they'd settle down. Granted, I'm sort of sorry about Peter, but it's this protracted-adolescence bit, and it's simply the-uh-the in thing to flaunt your defiance of the conventions for a few years before you straighten your head anal cool off. He has girls too, you know, now and then.”
“Nonetheless, a family like this must be-”
“My family,” Turpin cut in with an air of not wanting to be contradicted, “is my best single cover. Sophie is a first-rate company wife. If it hadn't been for her, I could never have got where I am. I have to endure her mother, of course, but we only see her during the summer; she has a winter place in Florida. I planned the family to be my cover, in fact, so if you have any quarrel with it, you go blame the census department. I have an average number of kids, I give them average allowances, they've had typical educations, typical everything. My only worry has been that sometimes I've wondered whether someone might not figure it was so close to the norm it must be planned.”