Empire: A Novel

by Gore Vidal

  In the main entrance hall, crowded as usual with visitors, Mr. Cortelyou greeted them in front of the Tiffany screen. “The President will join you in the family dining room. She’s joining you.”

  “She’s better?” asked Del.

  But Cortelyou was now stowing them in the small presidential elevator; then he shut the door, and remained behind. Rattling alarmingly, the elevator rose. Caroline clutched Del’s arm: would the machine be stuck? Would they die of suffocation before help came? But after what seemed like a purgatorial if not presidential term, they came to a halt, and Del led the way into the living quarters. One of the Germans opened the door to the dining room, where the table was set for four. To Caroline’s surprise, Mrs. McKinley was already in her place. Had she been carried in, and set upright, like a doll? The face was unreal in its prettiness. Like so many women whose career is illness, she looked younger than her years. “Miss Sanford,” the voice was nasal, like a crow’s cawing, “I’m glad to see you again. Sit down here, next to me. The Major sits on my other side. I don’t know why Mr. Hay’s department fusses so when a husband and wife want to sit together at supper. After all, that’s why you get married, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not sure, Mrs. McKinley. But, then I’m not married …”

  “Yes,” said the First Lady, and smiled. The smile was indeed lovely; and like a young girl’s. “Well, you’ll make a fine couple, and with money, too. Did you know that the Major’s the only honest man we’ve ever had as president? Mr. Cleveland came here poor as can be, but when he left he was able to buy that mansion of his in Princeton. Well, the Major and I have finally, after all these years of scrimping, been able to buy our old house in Canton, Ohio, and guess how much we paid?”

  “I don’t know,” said Caroline, who did know. The Tribune had already carried the story.

  “Fourteen thousand, five hundred dollars, and the Major’s going to spend three thousand more—which is all we have left—on fixing it up so that when I’m feeling poorly, like last summer, we can just hole up there, and he can still be president, with the telephone and all. Do you play cribbage, dear?”

  “No. But I can always learn.”

  “You ought to. Euchre is a good card game, too. I always win, you know. It’s important when you’re a wife, to have something to do.”

  “Miss Sanford has her newspaper.” Del meant to be helpful; and failed.

  Mrs. McKinley buried her sudden frown in the bouquet of hot-house roses beside her plate. “I never read those … things.”

  “Neither do I,” said Caroline quickly. “I only publish, which is very much like … like cribbage, I think,” she added nonsensically. Why, she wondered, was she here? Obviously to be approved of by the Major and his lady as Del’s wife; but why was that so important?

  The Major stood in the doorway, large and serene, eyes glowing with—was it opium he was supposed to take? In his left silk lapel he wore a pink carnation, to set off Ida’s pink roses. Caroline got up from her chair and curtseyed. The President crossed to her; he took her hand and, gently, seated her again. The low and beautiful voice was as rustic as Ida’s but without the canting nasality. “I’m glad you could come, Miss Sanford. Sit down, Mr. Hay. Ida …” Fondly, he touched his wife’s face; fondly, she kissed his hand. Caroline noted how pale each was. But then he had nearly died of pneumonia after the New Year’s reception, and she had had a nervous collapse the previous summer. Caroline tried to imagine what it was like to be at the head of such a vigorous, loud nation; and failed.

  Lunch was as simple and as enormous as the President’s dove-gray waistcoated paunch, which began very high indeed on his frame and curved outward, keeping him from ever sitting close to table, which accounted, no doubt, for the single shamrock-shaped gravy stain on the black frock-coat that hung in perpendicular folds to left and right of the huge autonomous belly, like theater curtains drawn to reveal the spectacle. Quail was followed by porterhouse steak which preceded broiled chicken, each course accompanied by a variety of hot bread—wheat muffins, corn sticks, toast, and butter. Butter flowed over everything, and the Major ate everything while Ida picked at this and that. Del, Caroline noted with alarm, kept pace with the President: two of a kind, obviously. Would Del be as fat? Across Caroline’s future fell a shadow, every bit as large and fateful as President McKinley’s stomach.

  The President spoke of the coming trip across the country. “Mrs. McKinley will make the effort.” He gazed at her fondly. She munched a quail’s leg. “Her doctor comes, too. And your father, of course. In fact, I want the whole Cabinet with me. Not everyone can get to see us here in Washington …”

  “Seems like everyone does.” Mrs. McKinley frowned.

  “But they don’t. So we’ll go to them. It’s very frustrating for me, these front-porch campaigns, having to stay home in Canton. Because I like … I really like going to see the folks …”

  “I don’t.” Ida spread butter over a length of cornbread. “Never have. Always wanting something, the folks, from my dearest.”

  The President ignored her obbligato. “You get a sense of what they’re thinking about, which you don’t in this place. You also get a chance to talk straight to them, without the papers coming in between.”

  “You know, Miss Sanford has one of those newspapers, dearest. I told her she should learn to play euchre. Much better way to pass the time. You can win money, too, if you gamble, which is a sin.” Ida looked suddenly sly.

  “I like your paper, Miss Sanford. Much of the time,” the Major added with a droll blink of the huge eyes.

  “We like your Administration, Mr. President. Much of the time.”

  McKinley laughed. “You may like us even more of the time after this trip.”

  “The President,” Del made his contribution, “is going to speak out, against the trusts …”

  “Like Colonel Bryan?” Caroline could not resist.

  “Perhaps more like Colonel Roosevelt.” The Major was bland.

  “But most like President McKinley.” Del was enthralled by the Major, Caroline decided.

  “The President’s going to meet the problem head on. He’s also going to discuss the tariff. He wants commercial reciprocity.”

  Ida hissed at Del. The President’s face did not change expression. Del did not stop talking. “He’s going to challenge the Senate at last …”

  Ida hissed Del even more loudly. As Caroline turned to look at her hostess, McKinley with a practiced gesture flipped a buttery napkin over his wife’s head; but not before Caroline had got a glimpse of the mouth as it set in a ghastly rictus, while the wide-open eyes showed only the whites. Beneath the napkin the hissing continued.

  “I hope you won’t write this in your newspaper.” McKinley helped himself to a Spanish omelette which had appeared just when Caroline had prayed for deliverance from food.

  “No, Mr. President. I understand that all this is,” Ida was now making a gurgling sound, “in confidence.”

  “Caroline is discreet, sir.” But Del was nervous.

  “I’m sure. Unlike Mr. Hearst.” McKinley shook his head; spoke with his mouth full. “Have you been reading the New York Journal? Not only am I the most hated creature on the American continent, their exact words, in spite of my reelection …”

  “You even beat Bryan in his home state …”

  “But I lost New York City by thirty thousand votes. Anyway, they’ve now written that if bad men can be got rid of only by killing, then the killing must be done.”

  “That is—atrocious!” Caroline was shocked; she was even more shocked that she had not seen the story. Del explained why. “After the first run, Mr. Hearst killed the story. So it wasn’t in the later editions. For once, the Yellow Kid figured he’d gone too far, even for him. And Blaise,” Del added. Mrs. McKinley was now silent beneath her napkin.

  “All the more curious,” said the President equably, “because Mr. Hearst had just sent me one of his editors to apologize for the things they wrote ab
out me during the election.”

  When a Kentucky governor had been killed, Hearst’s irrepressibly savage employee Ambrose Bierce had written a quatrain that had shocked the nation:

  The bullet that pierced Goebel’s breast

  Cannot be found in all the west;

  Good reason, it is speeding here

  To stretch McKinley on his bier.

  “Hearst wants to be the Democratic candidate in ’04,” said Del. “He figures Bryan’s had his last chance, now he’s getting into place.”

  “I wish him luck.” McKinley was mild. Caroline wondered if he was as serene as he appeared; or was he, simply, a consummate actor? “Anyway, I shall be out of it. I shall never run again.”

  “That will upset Father,” said Del. “He’s already talking you up for a third term.”

  “We’d better put a stop to that.” McKinley turned to his wife. As neck and shoulders were no longer rigid, he removed the napkin.

  “There’s nothing more boring—I say—than talking about the tariff.” Ida picked up where she had left off.

  “Then let’s not talk any more about it.” The Major smiled at her; and indicated for the waiter to bring them the first of several pies. “I want my second term to be truly disinterested. I want to do the sort of things that ought to be done but which you can’t do if you’re fretting about being reelected.”

  “Poor Mark Hanna,” murmured Caroline.

  McKinley gave her an amused, appreciative look. “He’ll have his problems, I suppose. But I’ve made up my mind.”

  “He’s sick.” Ida sounded pleased. She helped herself to apple pie; if nothing else, the fit had given her a good appetite. Did she know? Caroline wondered. Or did she not notice that the game course had abruptly given way to dessert?

  “Do you think,” asked Caroline, “that there’s any chance of Mr. Hearst being nominated?”

  McKinley shook his head. “He is much too unscrupulous—too immoral—too rich. But if, let’s say, he managed, somehow, to buy the nomination, he could never be elected. Curious that he should call me the most hated creature in America, when I am—reasonably popular, while he is the one who is hated.”

  “Reasonably hated,” added Caroline.

  “Reasonably hated,” McKinley repeated; then he turned to Del. “Have you told her?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Have you told your father?”

  “I’ve told no one at all.”

  “It was,” said Ida, staring intently at Caroline, “my idea.”

  “What is—it, Mr. President?”

  “I’m appointing Del assistant private secretary to the president, with the understanding that when Mr. Cortelyou moves out and—and up, Del will be secretary.”

  Del turned pink with pleasure.

  Caroline saw immediately the eerie symmetry. “It is the same position that John Hay had, when he came to Washington with President Lincoln.”

  “I think it fitting.” The President smiled; dried his lips with a napkin, just missing a shiny buttery spot on the Napoleonic chin.

  “Oh, that was so long ago.” Ida was entirely in the present when she was not out of time altogether.

  “But to look a long way ahead,” said Caroline, “thirty-eight years from now, if you are like your father, you will be secretary of state.”

  “In the year,” McKinley paused; not so much to count as to marvel, “1939. What on earth will we be like then?”

  “Gone, dearest. In Heaven, with little Katie. And good riddance to everybody else.” Mrs. McKinley put down her napkin. “We’ll have coffee in the oval parlor.” The President helped her up, while Caroline and Del flanked the sovereign couple. “I’m glad Del’s marrying you.” Thus Ida gave her blessing to the appointment and the marriage. Caroline was relieved, for Del’s sake. Whether or not she married him, she wished him well; realized that this was the greatest day of his life so far. As Lincoln had lifted the young John Hay out of the irrelevant mass and placed him squarely in history, so McKinley now lifted the son.

  They proceeded into the oval sitting room, where the coffee service had been set up.

  “When do you start work?” Caroline helped the President arrange the drooping First Lady in a green velvet chair.

  “In the fall,” said Del.

  “After the tour.” In his antimacassared rocking chair, McKinley rocked slowly back and forth, gently settling the contents of that huge stomach. “Shall I tell your father? or do you want to?”

  “You should, sir.””

  “No.” Caroline was firm. “Del must confide in his father, this one time, anyway.”

  “Your young lady is a born politician.” The Major bestowed the highest accolade within his gift. Then smiled at Caroline, and she was struck, yet again, by the beauty of his plain face. Over the years, goodness of character had transformed what might otherwise have been a dull, somewhat bovine appearance into an almost god-like radiance—almost because, unlike most gods, there was no fury, no malice, no envy of mortal happiness in William McKinley, only a steady radiant kindness, like a comforting nimbus about that great head, whose rounded chin reflected the afternoon sunlight, thanks to the butter with which it was, like some sacred balm, anointed.

  – 3 –

  NICOLAY was propped up in an armchair beside a coal fire. A faded tartan-patterned blanket covered the lower part of a body preparing soon to be in fact what it looked even now to be, a skeleton. The beard was wild, long, white. The eyes—nearly blind and oversensitive to light—were covered by a green shade. Hay recognized nothing in this old man of the young secretary who had persuaded President Lincoln to bring Johnny Hay to Washington as assistant secretary. “We can’t bring all Illinois,” Lincoln had complained. But Hay had joined the White House staff; shared a bed and an office with Nicolay, five years his senior. Later, in the aftermath of that heroic era—the American Iliad, Hay always thought—the two men had together spent a decade writing the story of Lincoln. Then Nicolay had been given a sinecure as a marshal at the Supreme Court; then he became ill and retired. Now he lived in a small house on Capitol Hill with his daughter, on the margin of the American present but at the center of its past.

  Although Nicolay no longer resembled the man that he had been, Hay was conscious that despite his own numerous debilities he himself was still very much Johnny Hay, who had simply glued on a beard and lined his face with a pencil in order to impersonate an old man—an old man of state; and so had managed to fool everyone but himself. He knew that he was doomed to be forever what he had been, young and appealing and—the word that he had come to hate, charming, even as he charmed, and charmed. Those whom the gods wish to disappoint they first make charming.

  “You’re making headway, I hope.” Hay indicated the desk where papers and open books were piled. Nicolay was at work on yet another Lincoln book, recently interrupted by a trip up the Nile.

  “Oh, I try to work. But my head is not what it was.” Hay marvelled that the Bavarian-born Nicolay still spoke with a German accent.

  “Whose is?”

  “Yours, Johnny.” Back of the wild white King Learish beard, the young Nicolay was smiling. “You grow more fox-like with time …”

  “The fox is weakening, Nico. The dogs have got the scent. I hear the huntsman’s bugle.” Hay was a master of the elegiac note.

  “You’ll go to ground.” Nicolay’s hand shook as he pulled the tartan tighter about himself. The hand was white, bloodless, dead. “It is good news about your boy.”

  Hay nodded, wondering why he himself had not been pleased. In recent years, since Pretoria, in fact, he had come to admire and like his son; yet he did not want him to be so vividly and precisely his own replacement. Now that the son had started up glory’s ladder, the father must prepare to surrender his own place higher up; ladder, too. “Del will go far,” he said. “I never thought he’d have what it would take, but the President did—does. Del’s like a son to the President.”

  “And not t
o you?” Nico stared at Hay, who looked at a copy of the now faded lithograph of Lincoln with his two secretaries, Nicolay and Hay. Had he ever been so young?

  “Well, yes, to me, too. But he’s more like his mother.… Anyway, he’s at the start and we’re at the end.”

  “You’re not.” Nico was flat. “I am. I’ll die this year.”

  “Nico …” Hay began.

  Nico finished, “I think there’s nothing next. What do you think?”

  “I don’t—think. There’s not much now. I’ll say that.”

  “Religion,” Nicolay began, but stopped. Both stared at the neutral fire.

  “I go, at last, to California.” Hay’s mood lightened at the thought. “We start tomorrow. The President and the Postmaster General and I and forty others. We shall, yet again, bind up the wounds of the South, and then on to Los Angeles, and a fiesta, and San Francisco, where the rest of the Cabinet joins us, except clever Root, who says he must stay close to the War Department, where he directs our far-flung empire. Do you think it wise?”

  “What wise?” Nico was drifting off.

  “The empire we’re assembling. Do you think,” Hay was curious to know what Nico would answer, “that the Ancient would approve?”

  Nico’s response was quick. “The Ancient, no. The Tycoon, yes. He was of two minds, always.”

  “But he acted with a single view.”

  “Yes, but he thought for such a long time before he acted. The cautious Ancient and the fierce Tycoon held long debates, and Mr. Lincoln, in the end, arbitrated, and handed down his decision.”

  “The Major took a long time making up his mind.”

  “The Major is not Mr. Lincoln.”

  “No. But he is as essential to us in his way. I think we have done the right thing. I was persuaded of it when I was in England, and saw what prosperity—and civilization—empire had given them. Now they begin to falter. So we must take up the burden.”

  Nico looked at Hay directly. “Mr. Lincoln would never have wanted us to be anyone’s master.”

  “Perhaps not.” Hay had long since given up trying to imagine how Lincoln would have responded to the modern world. “Anyway, it’s done. We are committed.”