Page 199 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

But it was too good merely for samizdat publication. Vasili evoked the world of the prison camps with brutal vividness--but he did more. Copying it, she had realized, with an ache in her heart, that the camp stood for the Soviet Union, and the story was a savage critique of Soviet society. Vasili was telling the truth in a way that Tanya could not, and she burned with remorse. Every day she wrote articles that were published in newspapers and magazines all over the USSR; every day she carefully avoided reality. She did not tell outright lies, but she always skirted around the poverty, injustice, repression, and waste that were the actual characteristics of her country. Vasili's writing showed her that her life was a fraud.

She took the typescript to her editor, Daniil Antonov. "This came to me in the mail, anonymously," she said. He might well guess that she was lying, but he would not betray her. "It's a short story set in a prison camp."

"We can't publish it," he said quickly.

"I know. But it's very good--the work of a great writer, I think."

"Why are you showing it to me?"

"You know the editor of New World magazine."

Daniil looked thoughtful. "He occasionally publishes something unorthodox."

Tanya lowered her voice. "I don't know how far Khrushchev's liberalization is intended to go."

"The policy has vacillated, but the overall instruction is that the excesses of the past should be discussed and condemned."

"Would you read it and, if you like it, show it to the editor?"

"Sure." Daniil read a few lines. "Why do you think it was sent to you?"

"It's probably written by someone I met when I went to Siberia two years ago."

"Ah." He nodded. "That would explain it." He meant Not a bad cover.

"The author will probably reveal his identity if the story is accepted for publication."

"Okay," said Daniil. "I'll do my best."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The University of Alabama was the last all-white state university in the USA. On Tuesday, June 11, two young Negroes arrived at the campus in Tuscaloosa to register as students. George Wallace, the diminutive governor of Alabama, stood at the doors of the university with his arms folded and his legs astride, and vowed to keep them out.

At the Department of Justice in Washington, George Jakes sat with Bobby Kennedy and others listening to telephone reports from people at the university. The television was on, but for the moment none of the networks was showing the scene live.

Less than a year ago, two people had been shot dead during riots at the University of Mississippi after its first colored student enrolled. The Kennedy brothers were determined to prevent a repeat.

George had been to Tuscaloosa, and had seen the university's leafy campus. He had been frowned at as he walked across the green lawns, the only dark face among the pretty girls in bobby socks and the smart young men in blazers. He had drawn for Bobby a sketch of the grand portico of the Foster Auditorium, with its three doors, in front of which Governor Wallace now stood, at a portable lectern, surrounded by highway patrolmen. The June temperature in Tuscaloosa was rising toward a hundred degrees. George could visualize the reporters and photographers crowded in front of Wallace, sweating in the sun, waiting for violence to break out.

The confrontation had long been anticipated and planned by both sides.

George Wallace was a Southern Democrat. Abraham Lincoln, who freed the slaves, had been a Republican, while pro-slavery Southerners had been Democrats. Those Southerners were still in the party, helping Democratic presidents get elected, then undermining them once in office.

Wallace was a small, ugly man, going bald except for a patch at the front of his head that he greased and combed into a ludicrous quiff. But he was cunning, and George Jakes could not figure out what he was up to today. What result did Wallace hope for? Mayhem--or something more subtle?

The civil rights movement, which had seemed moribund two months ago, had taken wing after the Birmingham riots. Money was pouring in: at a Hollywood fund-raiser, movie stars such as Paul Newman and Tony Franciosa had written checks for a thousand dollars each. The White House was terrified of more disorder, and desperate to appease the protesters.

Bobby Kennedy had at last come round to the belief that there must be a new civil rights bill. He now admitted that the time had come for Congress to outlaw segregation in all public places--hotels, restaurants, buses, restrooms--and to protect the right of Negroes to vote. But he had not yet convinced his brother the president.

Bobby was pretending to be calm and in charge this morning. A television crew was filming him, and three of his seven children were running around the office. But George knew how fast Bobby's relaxed openness could turn to cold fury when things went wrong.

Bobby was resolved that there would be no rioting--but he was equally determined to get the two students enrolled. A judge had issued a court order to admit the students, and Bobby, as attorney general, could not let himself be defeated by a state governor intent on flouting the law. He was ready to send in troops to remove Wallace by force--but that, too, would be an unhappy ending, Washington bullying the South.

Bobby was in his shirtsleeves, bent over the speakerphone on his wide desk, with wet marks of perspiration under his arms. The army had set up mobile communications, and someone in the crowd was telling Bobby what was happening. "Nick has arrived," the voice on the speaker said. Nicholas Katzenbach was deputy attorney general, and Bobby's representative on the scene. "He's going up to Wallace . . . he's handing him the cease-and-desist." Katzenbach was armed with a presidential proclamation ordering Wallace to cease illegally defying a court order. "Now Wallace is making a speech."

George Jakes's left arm was in a discreet black silk sling. State troopers had cracked a bone in his wrist in Birmingham, Alabama. Two years earlier a racist rioter had broken the same arm in Anniston, which was also in Alabama. George hoped never to go to Alabama again.

"Wallace isn't talking about segregation," said the voice on the speaker. "He's talking about states' rights. He says Washington doesn't have the right to interfere in Alabama schools. I'm going to try to get close enough so you can hear him."

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