announcement.”
Flannery snapped his fingers. “I forgot to get a capsule of MacPherson’s background. Some of that should be in, too.”
“Definitely,” said Talley.
Flannery twisted in his chair toward Edna. “Can you be a good girl and fetch Representative Harvey Wickland in here? He can give us what we need for now on MacPherson.”
Edna came out of her swivel chair, hastened to the door leading to the President’s Oval Office, opened it, and then halted, surprised. Everyone in the crowded room was on his feet, all converging upon Arthur Eaton, who stood in the center of the room, in the middle of the eagle of the United States seal woven into the thick green Presidential rug.
Edna turned to Flannery and Talley. “Something’s happening!” she exclaimed. “Everyone’s gathering around Secretary Eaton.”
Immediately, Talley and Flannery jumped to their feet, pushing past her into the room toward Eaton. Reluctantly Edna followed them to the center of the Oval Office.
Eaton, his voice dry and low, was speaking aloud. “I have just been called outside to take a telephone call from Frankfurt. I have terrible news to report to all of you, terrible news, and it grieves me. Speaker of the House Earl MacPherson died in surgery, on the table, under the knife, ten minutes ago. This has been confirmed. Now the Speaker is also dead.”
A great gasp swelled through the room, and off somewhere there was someone hysterically sobbing, and after that there was a sickening silence.
Edna heard Tim Flannery, beside her, whisper, almost to himself, “Multiple vacancy.”
The first to be heard speaking aloud was Governor Wayne Talley. “I don’t believe it.”
The second to be heard aloud was Arthur Eaton. “It is true.”
Then it was that General Pitt Fortney called out, “Who in the hell is T. C.’s successor?”
Arthur Eaton held up his head. “According to the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, the next in line is the President pro tempore of the United States Senate.”
For strange and suspenseful seconds, the Secretary of State’s pronouncement hung in the air, and those who heard it were immobilized, allowing it to sink into their minds, as the curved walls with their niches and shelves of dead mementos seemed to close in on them.
“The President pro tempore of the Senate,” the Attorney General intoned, as someone might intone Amen.
And then at once, all at once, collectively, each in the room seemed to realize who this was, who their next President of the United States was, and all at once all of them, collectively, turned their gaze upon the one man who stood somewhat apart from them, near the Buchanan desk.
Everyone, it seemed, was staring at Senator Douglass Dilman. And for Edna it was frightening to see that in each person’s eyes, without exception, there was registered a look of horror.
Within thirty minutes the group, grown larger from the arrival of other members of the government, had assembled in the Cabinet Room. They stood now in a semicircle, with an opening in the center for two still photographers and two television cameramen representing the press pool, clustered around the long, dark mahogany table.
Once, while waiting, Eaton had asked Douglass Dilman if he had any close relatives or friends in the city whom he might wish to have witness the ceremony. He had replied, in an undertone, “No, sir, no one.”
Once, minutes ago, Eaton had beckoned to Edna and Tim Flannery and demanded a Bible. There was much scurrying about, but no copy of the Bible was to be found, until Edna remembered the one in the lower drawer of her desk. She had gone to get it, and found the cheap, battered Bible, a Gideon Bible she had borrowed from a hotel room in Memphis once, on a trip with T. C., and had forgotten to return, and which she now retained for reference purposes. Guiltily, she had brought in the Gideon Bible and given it to Eaton.
She found herself still standing next to Eaton, who leaned against the high-backed leather chair bearing the tiny brass nameplate “Secretary of State.”
She heard Eaton inquire of Senator Dilman, “Do you wish this open on any particular passage?”
She heard Dilman reply, “Psalms 127:1.” Slowly, Eaton leafed through the book, and then he said, “Is this it? ‘Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.’ ” He glanced inquiringly at Dilman, and Dilman swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and said, “Yes, sir, that is it.”
It was during this moment that Noah F. Johnstone, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, came through the corridor door and across the room, gravely nodding at the familiar faces turned toward him. Even without his robes, Edna thought, even in his bow tie and dark suit, the Chief Justice appeared impressive. He was a giant of a man, with a slight stoop and an uneven gait. His sunken face, wrinkled and wise, betrayed no emotion.
He came around the Cabinet table into the glare of klieg lights, nodding to Talley, and then to Dilman and Eaton, and he took his position beside T. C.’s old chair. “Are we ready?” he inquired of no one in particular, and then he accepted the open Gideon Bible from Eaton, squinted down at it, and said to Dilman, “Take the Holy Book in your left hand and raise your right hand. I will recite the oath of office as it is written in Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States. When I have finished, please repeat the oath.”
He proffered the Bible to Dilman, who accepted it and held it with difficulty in his left hand, and raised his trembling right hand. Chief Justice Johnstone lifted his own right hand, and measuring each word, he rendered the oath of office.
When he was done, he waited.
After a painful interlude, Douglass Dilman’s thick lips moved, and the words that he repeated came out low and slurred.
“I, Douglass Dilman, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
He halted, and looked around the room, bewildered, as if seeking a friend in a company of strangers. The harsh kliegs, blended with the light of the overhead neon grill, made the witnesses to the historic tableau seem ghostly. He had lowered his right hand, and suddenly Chief Justice Johnstone reached out and grasped Dilman’s right hand in his own and shook it.
“Mr. President,” the Chief Justice was saying, “we deeply mourn the passing of our beloved past President, but the continuity of our government, the welfare of our country, must stand above any one individual in these perilous times. Our hearts go out to you for your double burden-and may the Lord in Heaven bless you and watch over you as the new Chief Executive of this nation-and-as the first Negro to become President of the United States.”
II
It was the muffled sound of argument that awakened him.
There was a thin line of ache behind his forehead as he listened, sorting and separating the muffled sound into two sounds, the first shrill and feminine, cross and indignant, the second low and male, calm and placating.
His head was deep in the fat pillow, so deep that when he turned, he could not see the time. The pillow had been handmade by Aldora, almost double-sized and stuffed with gray goose down, and presented to him on their first anniversary, so long ago, when their marriage still had hope.
The cross fire of altercation beyond his bedroom wall, increasingly abrasive, continued louder. He lifted himself ever so slightly on his forearm and was able to make out the time on the electric clock humming upon the end table beside the bed. It was eight fifty-two, and although the room was darkened by the drawn shades, he knew that it was morning.
He realized that he had meant to be awakened earlier, had meant to set the alarm, but had forgotten to do so before falling asleep. The shutoff lever on his telephone had banished all calls, and in his utter exhaustion he had slumbered on and on. It was shameful, he thought behind the headache, and, as always, to do anything shameful
