The Comedy is Finished

new direction we’ll simply go right back to feudalism under another name, with General Motors and Chase Manhattan instead of the kingdom of this and the duchy of that. We have to push on it, that’s all, deflect it a little. We may not even see the effect in our lifetime. Not everybody can be Martin Luther. Columbus died having no idea how much he’d changed the world.”

Change the world. Eric changed me, and then he went away, his work unfinished. If he’d even been killed, if he’d died along with Paul and the others, it would be easier to forgive. What did it matter that he had abandoned her unwillingly, only because he’d been captured and put in jail? He had swept her beyond the point of no return, that was all that mattered, and then he had gone away.

Take an interest? Yes. She did have an interest after all. She raised her eyes, finally, to gaze at the giant television screen, where the program was about to begin, where the government was about to announce whether or not they would release Eric Mallock. Let him go, you bastards, she willed at the screen. Let him go so I can kill him. And then myself. That last journey they would take together.

After the usual station identification the screen abruptly went black, and a male voice spoke: “Ladies and gentleman, the following is a special news event program for which Channel 11, Metromedia, has donated its time and facilities to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Channel 11 is honored by this opportunity for public service.”

The black screen then gave way to a view of the FBI man, Wiskiel, standing in front of a pale blue curtain; on the huge screen of the living room he was a powerful, intimidating presence. He stood silent and blinking a few seconds, apparently waiting for something, then all at once started to speak:

“I am Michael Wiskiel, Deputy Chief of Station, Los Angeles office of the FBI. I have been in charge of the Koo Davis investigation, and I am now addressing myself to his captors. You have demanded that I remain in charge, so I’m here, but I’m not the man who can answer your other demands. Deputy FBI Director Maurice St. Clair has flown out from Washington with the government response. I assure you I’m still in charge of the investigation even though Director St. Clair is the man who will talk to you in the course of this program.”

Having finished, Wiskiel stood where he was, gazing solemnly at the camera. Peter, laughing, said, “A television star is born.” But the evident tremble in his voice foiled his attempt to dispel the nervous gloom created by that overwhelming presence.

“I don’t like that TV,” Joyce said. “The picture’s too big.” Which was true.

“Quiet,” Peter said. He and Ginger were seated at opposite ends of the long beige suede sofa, while Joyce was curled on the fur rug at Peter’s feet.

On the screen, Wiskiel had been replaced at first by more blackness and now by a picture of a man seated at a desk. This was evidently a set, a suitable location already existent in some corner of Channel 11’s studios and employed now not for effect but convenience. The desk was wood and fairly ornate; the man behind it was seated on a padded swivel chair, and in the background were shelves filled with old-fashioned books, in sets. The man himself was probably in his late fifties, heavyset, with a red-complexioned rugged face gone to jowly fat. Sheets of typing paper, evidently a script, lay neatly squared on the green blotter before him, held at their edges by his blunt thick fingers. Looking up at the camera from time to time with small angry eyes, but speaking in a gravelly voice devoid of emotion, the man read the script:

“I am Deputy Director Maurice St. Clair of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The terms you have given us for the release of Koo Davis call for our release of ten so-called political prisoners. Let me say right now, at the outset, that Koo Davis is an American institution of whom all Americans are proud, and that the government of the United States and the Federal Bureau of Investigation will do anything within our power to see that no harm comes to Koo Davis, up to and including the agreement to any reasonable or possible ransom demands. We are not slamming the door. But I must also say that this initial demand is neither reasonable nor possible, and that we simply can’t meet it.”

There was a stir in the living room, but no one spoke. Joyce’s expression was shocked, Liz was taut, Ginger pained, and Peter affronted. But none of them made a sound.

“I promise you this is not a trick, or a ploy. We are prepared to negotiate in good faith. But, in order to do so, we’ll have to prove to you that our inability to meet this demand is not our fault, and we’ll have to make it clear to you what we can and cannot do. For this reason, I’m going to have to speak to you specifically about each of the ten individuals you have named. Even though you presumably already know these individuals, I will have to describe each one briefly; you will soon see why.”

“For the wider audience,” Ginger said; a kind of fatalistic humor in his voice. “Something very bad is about to happen, Peter.”

“Shut up,” Peter said.

On the screen, Deputy Director St. Clair had been replaced by a black-and-white photograph of a scruffy young man in a jacket. The picture was apparently a blow-up form an ordinary snapshot, with the graininess and grayness of such blow-ups. The young man, whose otherwise bland face was decorated by a wispy dark beard, squinted in sunlight; behind him farm buildings could be seen.

“Norm Cobberton,” said Joyce, at the same instant that Deputy Director St. Clair’s voice sounded again, speaking while the screen still showed the photograph:

“This is Norman Cobberton, thirty-four, currently serving twenty years to life at the Federal Correctional Facility at Danbury, Connecticut. Cobberton, in the late nineteen-sixties, engaged in union organizing activities among migrant farm workers in the plains states and the American southwest. His activities included such crimes as arson and other destruction of property, as well as the organizing of so-called goon squads to attack and intimidate non-striking workers.”

St. Clair himself reappeared on the screen, still reading his script: “Early this afternoon, Cobberton was interviewed at Danbury. This is his response.” St. Clair looked up at the screen, his stubborn eyes gazing without forgiveness at the audience for two or three seconds before the scene switched.

This setting was clearly institutional. In the background was a pale green wall with a barred window, through which rain obscured the outside world. At a wooden table, on an armless wooden chair, sat a man identifiable as the one in the photograph; but older, and clean shaven, and wearing wire-rimmed glasses. His left forearm rested on the table, his fingers poking and pulling at something invisible, and while he spoke his sad and rather tired eyes watched his moving fingers:

“I don’t know who those people are who kidnapped Koo Davis.” The echo of the hard-walled room made his words rather hard to understand. “I don’t say they’re wrong. Or right. Everybody does what they think best.” He looked up at the camera, then quickly down again. “What’s best for me is not to go. Even if it’s offered, I mean. I expect to be released in three years, I think I’ve learned a lot, and Americans have learned a lot, too. I intend to go back to the work I was doing before, but I believe this time it’ll be possible to work within the law. Within the system. Cesar Chavez, others, have shown us it can be done.”

An off-camera voice said, “You don’t want to go to Algeria?”

“I don’t want to leave the country, no.” Again Cobberton looked at the camera, his expression troubled but determined. “I don’t want to give up.”

“Traitor!” The word burst out of Peter, as though not of his own volition. “Toady! Coward! Traitor!”

Ginger slapped the sofa seat between them: “Be quiet.”

Another black-and-white photograph had appeared on the giant screen, this time showing a fat-faced young woman in her late twenties, with wildly unkempt hair and heavy dark-framed spectacles. The background was indistinct. St. Clair’s voice said, “This is Mary Martha DeLang, thirty-eight, currently serving an indeterminate sentence in a California state prison. A radical theorist, author of several books on left-wing social theory and revolutionary practice, she was convicted in 1971 of smuggling guns to revolutionary friends in a California prison. The friends, and two prison guards, were killed in the subsequent escape attempt. Miss DeLang was interviewed this afternoon.”

She appeared on the screen, older than the photo but still fat and still with the same unmanageable wild hair. Gazing intently to the right of the screen, apparently at her interviewer, she said, “I can work here. The book I’ve wanted to write all my life. I’m not an activist, that was an—aberration. Eventually I’ll be released, but certainly not before the book is finished. Nowhere else would I have the— opportunity—I have here. I won’t go.”