The Golden Age Read Free Page B

Blaise few questions other than generalities. Could Hitler conceivably defeat France, much less England? Should we help France and England arm or remain neutral?
    As part of Timothy’s preparation, he had read a year’s worth of
Tribune
editorials. The new phrase “Arsenal of Democracy” was acceptable, said Blaise, “but England must pay its way on a cash-and-carry basis.” No surprises.
    Timothy looked through the camera’s lens; the picture was everything he had hoped. Blaise looked, if not Jovian, Olympian; perhaps Bacchic. So far so good. People seldom listened to professional public figures unless, like Roosevelt, the speaker had learned to talk very slowly with all sorts of oddly stressed emphases in order to be heard precisely as well as seen. Out of frame, in the shadows, Vandenberg’s bespectacled owl-like eyes were trained attentively on the scene as he sat up straight, allowing the loose parabola of his stomach to rest on thin gangling arms and legs held in disciplined place like the stiff starched collar that supported his bullfrog jowl.
    Blaise spoke so smoothly that Timothy paid no attention to him. But then, as the film was changed, Blaise suddenly sat up straight in his chair, always a sign, Timothy had learned in the few “real-life” documentarymovies he had done, that the speaker had started to think as well as resonate air.
    Timothy took the clapper and clicked it an inch away from Blaise’s nose. “Blaise Sanford, November fourth, 1939. Take two.”
    Blaise looked the camera in the eye. “All of my sympathies are with the Allies, as they were in 1914. I find particularly repellent Mr. Hitler’s regime, and though, in the long run, Stalin is the greater menace, I take it for granted that as we are too far away for Hitler to ever dream of attacking our shores, there is no danger to us in any foreseeable future. So thanks to geography, the Washington
Tribune
remains neutral with a natural bias to our allies in the last war, the first—and let’s hope last—World War.”
    In the shadows, Vandenberg stirred. Timothy could smell Mitzi’s gardenia-based perfume.
    “In the years since that war, we have been bombarded by books and films, by propaganda, if I may use the right word, to the effect that all war is a bad thing, since people do get killed. For close to twenty years we have been hearing how quiet it was on that western front. We’ve also been looking at morbid picture books of the dead and the dying in the trenches of France. A generation has been convinced that any war is some sort of historic error. Well, it’s very hard to interpret history as you live through it, day by day, as I have done. All I know for sure is that the curtain has gone up again on the second act of that grisly war. Once again France and England confront Germany. What are
we
to do? I can only hope that a generation overwhelmed with anti-war—with pacifist sentiments as the young are today will accept the fact that, should fate so ordain, we may yet, all of us, be called upon to fulfill our national destiny. But that time, thank God, is not yet here. I also trust that Mr. Roosevelt has the sense to realize how eighty percent of all Americans are against our taking sides, much less taking part, in the slaughter to come.” Blaise stopped.
    “Cut,” said Timothy. “First-rate, Blaise.”
    Vandenberg was on his feet applauding. “Never knew you were so sensible, Blaise. You sound just like me. Doesn’t he, Mitzi?”
    “Particularly back home in Grand Rapids.” Mitzi was mildlysardonic. Timothy wondered what so … elegant seemed the word … a lady saw in this caricature of a Midwestern senator.
    Blaise mopped sweat from his face. “Between the fire and your lights, I’m burning up. I must say I surprised myself. I left Franklin a loophole to get us into the war.”
    Vandenberg shook his head. “I don’t think he’ll use your loophole once he’s made up that devious mind of his about what will