THE AMERICAN DELEGATION LOOKED AT EACH OTHER didn't feel that he had been able to bring home to his tormentors how unethical their conduct had been. He had certainly become very angry, but his anger had somehow been dissipated by his sheer amazement that such things were possible in the twentieth century. He made a quick decision. Lifting the telephone, he called British European Airways and booked a flight on a plane to Zurich. With two hours to kill, he paced the room reconstructing the scene with his three visitors and his dinner with the Prime Minister, his mood settling into one of cold and righteous indignation as he thought of all the choice phrases he would have used had he had the presence of mind. Then, with forty minutes to go, he put his passport in his pocket and decided not to say good bye to his wife since explanations would only dilute his fury. He quietly closed the front door and left the house. The taxi arrived at the airport with some minutes to spare, so Henry went into the departure hall. The young ladies directed him into the immigration line. Here, a colorless gentleman looked at his passport for a small eternity, seeming to read mysterious meanings into old visas. Eventually the colorless gentleman looked up, not at Henry, but past him. A voice in Henry's ear said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Kermidge." It was Peddick. Veronica worried about Henry for the next three weeks. Although he was not ill, he showed no inclination to rise, and began to grow a beard out of sheer indolence. He never spoke except on one occasion when he said, "I'm a patriot, my dear. I'm staying in bed to make it easy for the police. In these hard days of intensive burglary and juvenile delinquency, it would be unfair to put too much pressure on the Yard by moving around." Sir Humphrey came to the house once or twice, but Henry just sat and stared at the ceiling, never saying a word. Preparations were being made to launch Henry's rocket, and Sir Humphrey, a kind and devoted man at heart, sought to cheer up Veronica by telling her that a peerage was eminent. "Even if Henry bridles at being Lord Kermidge, he'd surely wish to see you Lady Kermidge." "I don't care, so long as he eats." One night, some twenty-five days after Henry's attempt to fly to Zurich, the press the world over noticed mysterious and intensive diplomatic activity. It was remarked by vigilant American journalists that the Secretary of State left a public dinner in Cincinnati to fly to Washington. A few minutes later, the President of the United States left a fishing holiday for the capital in a helicopter. The faces of these two dignitaries looked especially grave. Newspapermen in Moscow observed that a meeting of the Supreme Soviet had been called at only an hour's notice and the grim-faced deputies were disrupting traffic as they poured into the Kremlin. Areas were cordoned off, and the police were uncommunicative. In Paris, a crisis was stopped in midstream as a rumour spread, making the rising cost of living seem trivial indeed. The Right Honorable Arthur Backworth left Chequers at four in the morning for Number 10 Downing Street. Observers caught a glimpse of his ashen face in the dark bowels of his Rolls Royce. The wires from America reported not only the unexpected presence of the President and Secretary of State in the federal capital, but also of an unusual number of big generals and admirals, all of them sullen and thunderous. Businessmen attempting transatlantic calls found there were endless delays. Tempers were frayed the world over. 20 MOON/Yurth One of the last to know the reason why was Henry, who was fast asleep when Veronica and Bill broke into his room with all the morning papers. He glanced at the headline of the first paper and began to laugh, slowly at first, then hysterically, until the tears poured from his eyes coursing through his beard and onto the striped pajama bottoms he wore. For a full quarter of an hour he laughed, weeping, moaning, gripping his sides, tearing the sheets with a delight that overlapped into anguish, panting like a dying man, and dragging Veronica and Bill with him in his lunatic joy. Suddenly, the laughter stopped, and they all looked at each other without energy, without emotion. Henry, breathing deeply, took up the newspaper and read the headline again. It said in banner type, SWISS REACH THE MOON' NOT INTO UNHAPPINESS Not into Unhappiness love should wind, Nor to depression deep lay low man's soul, But lend itself to joy and peace of mind, With pleasure sweet and long its only goal. Yet every day a thousand hearts are broken, Twice that number eyes are bathed in tears, And greater grief than even plowman's yoke That bends him with the labor of the years, Is shared by man and woman, young and old, And treasured like an heirloom valued long, And on it goes until our lives grow cold, This tuneless love that we have made a song. And yet if ever once we have it not Then we become a discontented lot. -C. Taufer 21