Page 38 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

"I've received an approach."

"What would he pay you?"

"Not much, I'm guessing."

Lev said: "Don't think you can turn down a perfectly good job, then come to me for an allowance."

"Okay, Grandfather," said George, although that was exactly what he had been thinking. "But I believe I'll take the job anyway."

His mother joined the argument. "Oh, George, don't," she said. She was going to say more, but the graduating students were called to line up for their degrees. "Go," she said. "We'll talk more later."

George left the family group and found his place in line. The ceremony began, and he shuffled forward. He recalled working at Fawcett Renshaw last summer. Mr. Renshaw had thought himself heroically liberal for hiring a black law clerk. But George had been given work that was demeaningly easy even for an intern. He had been patient and looked for an opportunity, and one had

come. He had done a piece of legal research that won a case for the firm, and they had offered him a job on graduation.

This kind of thing happened to him a lot. The world assumed that a student at Harvard must be intelligent and capable--unless he was black, in which case all bets were off. All his life George had had to prove that he was not an idiot. It made him resentful. If he ever had children, his hope was that they would grow up in a different world.

His turn came to go onstage. As he mounted the short flight of steps, he was astonished to hear hissing.

Hissing was a Harvard tradition, normally used against professors who lectured badly or were rude to students. George was so horrified that he paused on the steps and looked back. He caught the eye of Joseph Hugo. Hugo was not the only one--the hissing was too loud for that--but George felt sure Hugo had orchestrated this.

George felt hated. He was too humiliated to mount the stage. He stood there, frozen, and the blood rushed to his face.

Then someone began clapping. Looking across the rows of seats, George saw a professor standing up. It was Merv West, one of the younger faculty. Others joined him in applauding, and they quickly drowned out the hissing. Several more people stood up. George imagined that even people who did not know him had guessed who he was by the plaster cast on his arm.

He found his courage again and walked onto the stage. A cheer went up as he was handed his certificate. He turned slowly to face the audience and acknowledged the applause with a modest bow of his head. Then he went off.

His heart was hammering as he joined the other students. Several men shook his hand silently. He was horrified by the hissing, and at the same time elated by the applause. He realized he was perspiring, and he wiped his face with a handkerchief. What an ordeal.

He watched the rest of the ceremony in a daze, glad to have time to recover. As the shock of the hissing wore off, he could see that it had been done by Hugo and a handful of right-wing lunatics, and the rest of liberal Harvard had honored him. He should feel proud, he told himself.

The students rejoined their families for lunch. George's mother hugged him. "They cheered you," she said.

"Yes," Greg said. "Though for a moment there it looked as if it was going to be something else."

George spread his hands in a gesture of appeal. "How can I not be part of this struggle?" he said. "I really want the job at Fawcett Renshaw, and I want to please the family that has supported me through all these years of education--but that's not all. What if I have children?"

Marga put in: "That would be nice!"

"But, Grandmother, my children will be colored. What kind of world will they grow up in? Will they be second-class Americans?"

The conversation was interrupted by Merv West, who shook George's hand and congratulated him on getting his degree. Professor West was a little underdressed in a tweed suit and a button-down collar.

George said: "Thank you for starting the applause, Professor."

"Don't thank me, you deserved it."

George introduced his family. "We were just talking about my future."

"I hope you haven't made any final decisions."

George's curiosity was piqued. What did that mean? "Not yet," he said. "Why?"

"I've been talking to the attorney general, Bobby Kennedy--a Harvard graduate, as you know."

"I hope you told him that his handling of what happened in Alabama was a national disgrace."

West smiled regretfully. "Not in those words, not quite. But he and I agreed that the administration's response was inadequate."

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