“You don’t doubt you’ll win it?” Danny tucked into his asparagus and poured them both more wine.
“At this point only a native-born Spanish poet posing as an American could beat me. You know the rules? Nobody can compete who spoke Spanish as a child or who has traveled to Spain or spent more than two weeks in Mexico. Otherwise they’d just be handing our scholarship money to Spanish expatriates.
“But how goes the hotel business? I know the Trafalgar is doing well, at least during the twenty hours a week I’m there. You were nice to give me the job three years ago, but for a long time now I’ve really been earning my keep. There is tons of Latin-American business. And, by the way, the Ambassador has a Spanish-speaking person at both their desks.”
If he were going to tell her anything, now was the time. He was tempted. Well, he’d take just a tiny step in that direction.
“There’s a board meeting coming up. They’re bringing in trustees. You know that the stock is held by the Hyde Park people? I assume they’ll bring in trustees I can feel happy with. So I guess it’s safe to say: not much change.”
Florry looked slightly distracted. Suddenly she turned to him. “Danny, I can’t stay the night. Because—this is no fabricated excuse—Sister Alicia does need me very early in the morning. Three girls, sisters, are coming in to the orphanage, don’t speak any English, Mexican uncle is driving them up from San Diego. The mother disappeared—that kind of thing.”
Danny said he was disappointed, but she didn’t have to leave right after dinner, did she?
No, but maybe after an hour? He leaned over and kissed her deeply, lingeringly.
“Or so,” she managed.
• • • •
She gave their coded knock on the hotel door: dot-dot-dash-dash-dash. The tall blond young man with the light blue eyes and the pearl-white teeth opened the door. They spoke only in Spanish. After a year at Salamanca, Tracy Gulliver could speak as well as any native Spaniard.
“Did you tell him?”
“Well, no, Tracy, I didn’t.”
He offered her a glass of wine, but she said no, she had had enough wine tonight.
“Why not?”
“After I was there for a while, I figured—”
“He … did it with you?”
Florry pushed him away. “Of course he did it, Tracy. I mean, grow up! If I wasn’t going to do it I wouldn’t have gone up to his room. He has paid over six thousand dollars for me during this year, plus the extra stuff I get in the hotel.” She smiled suddenly, and looked up at him coquettishly. “I mean, do you want to make a dishonest woman out of me?”
Tracy found it hard to smile, but finally did so. What, really, did it matter, one more time? But the last time.
“So when will you tell him?”
“I decided I’d write to him from Salamanca!” She kissed him lightly on the cheek. “On stationery from Assistant Professor and Mrs. Tracy Gulliver.”
His smile was now radiant. “ ‘Tracy Gulliver’ said in Spanish isn’t easy.”
“I’ll practice.”
Twenty-nine
A CABLE was waiting for Henry at Hué. It was from Richard Clurman, who advised Henry that his request was granted, that he could return from Saigon for a six-month leave. “At least six months. We’ll talk about it in New York.”
Henry spent two days attending the funeral of Than Koo, consoling his relatives and writing a detailed cable on the events of those terrible hours. In an entirely separate cable, addressed to Clurman, he acknowledged gratefully the considerate treatment of his request to leave Saigon for a while, but now he confessed that the experience of Hoile had “wiped me out. I know it’s only temporary, Dick, but honestly, I feel now no curiosity, no desire to write down what happened, to interview anybody about anything. I’m afraid I’m not going to be very much use to you out in the field for a while, and I don’t mean out in the field in Saigon, or Rome or Moscow or Paris. I mean out in the field anywhere.”
After writing so solemn a sentence, his spirits lifted, and he went on, “Did you spot what Nelson Algren said a while ago? He captured my mood exactly. Somebody asked him how up he was on world affairs and Algren said, ‘Put it this way, if Marjorie Morningstar married the man in the gray flannel suit on my front stoop at noon, I wouldn’t bother to go to the wedding.’ I’m afraid I feel a little that way, but obviously I can’t take that out on Time Inc., so maybe I’d just better have a leave of absence without pay.”
When he got back to Saigon, Clurman had already responded: “I HAVE AN IDEA. WHEN DO YOU GET TO NEW YORK? ADVISE.”
At Guam there was the usual layover. He found himself walking into the PX. He stared at the bottle of forty-dollar brandy. He was no longer tempted to buy it.
He bought more of the usual things. For Tommy and Emily he got the new Japanese Olympus radios—one each. Children do not like to share toys, he reminded himself. Though Caroline had always offered to share hers with her older brother. That was true except for the little mother-of-pearl binoculars; she had wanted those so badly she simply hid them. He longed to see her again, and to tell her about Than Koo. She would understand.
He arrived in New York at noon on Saturday, called Caroline, and agreed to go to the country that afternoon. He bought the New York Times on the train and was astonished to read, on the business page, of the resignation of Daniel T. O’Hara as president of Martino Enterprises. What was going on? He read the entire news story and then turned to The Wall Street Journal, where he found a personal analysis combined with an interview. He read it hungrily.
“The resignation came as a surprise to Mr. O’Hara’s associates. It is known among his friends that O’Hara is interested in politics. In 1964 he put in an early bid for the Democratic nomination for the Senate, but was blown out of the political water when Robert F. Kennedy announced his own candidacy. One associate speculated that Mr. O’Hara wished to devote much of his time during the next two years to lining up support for a race in 1968 against Senator Jacob Javits. The leading contender for the Democratic nomination is now Paul O’Dwyer, but Mr. O’Hara is young, well connected (his grandfather was President Roosevelt), and has built a reputation as a skillful manager.
“Questioned about the 1968 race, Mr. O’Hara said it was too early to talk about it, but he did not deny an interest in it. What will he do in the meantime? He will, he said, open a consulting business specializing in the development and maintenance of hotels. The firm will be called O’Hara Consultants. Two ‘skilled executives’ have agreed to join the firm, he said, but he declined, as premature, to give their names.”
Caroline was waiting for Henry at the Greenwich railroad station. Their embrace was intense. It struck them both at that moment that their reliance on each other was critical. Henry could sense that the union—Danny and Caroline—would not survive.
“Henry, let me suggest something. We go by the house, you can give Suzy a smooch—she’s the only one at home at this hour—and leave your bag. Then we’ll get into the car and drive off, have lunch somewhere, maybe the Red Barn at Wilton, get right away from it, what do you say?”
A half hour later, Caroline was at the wheel of Danny’s convertible. She left the station wagon for Thelma, who would crisscross the children in midafternoon to their various classes in piano, art, religion, typing, First Aid—whatever the schedule was for that day; it was all neatly typed out and tacked onto the bulletin board in the kitchen.
It was a soft day in spring, the azaleas on the Merritt Parkway sleepy and seductive, the air still and fragrant. Caroline drove slowly. Henry asked, How bad is it? She confessed that she felt in Danny a deep restlessness, a sense that an explosion had to come.
“What’s the business about his quitting Martino?”
“Believe it or not, I learned about it yesterday. But in talking with Lila a week ago, I now know that she knew it was coming. Something she said that made no sense when she said it comes to life now. She said something like, ‘I don’t
worry about what Danny will do.’ I thought it was some vague reference to the running for Senator business, but Lila doesn’t much go in for speculative thought. She obviously knew that Danny had to do something because Danny was no longer going to be president of Martino.
“But that’s all I can tell you.”
“And on the other front, Carol?” Carol. Only Henry called her that.
“On the other front, he is more distant every month. He has a girl, Henry, in Los Angeles. He goes there a lot. I had an anonymous letter. I assume it was written by the girl’s other—gentleman. Pretty conclusive stuff. The letter had an odd P.S., said that if ever I wanted to prove a point to Danny, or something of that sort, I should ask him about his mother’s necklace. What’s that all about?”
“I don’t remember whether you knew about it. Somebody stole Rachel’s big diamond necklace the night of her party before the wedding. The state troopers were all over the place the next morning.”
Caroline reached over and put her hand down on Henry’s shoulder. “Henry. You know what that has got to mean?”
Henry paused at some length. But finally he said, “Yes. I can’t believe he’d bring up the business about the necklace to anybody … I can’t believe it. But then I guess I can believe anything about Danny at this point.… So, Carol, what now? You want me in the act?”
“No. When the moment comes, and I guess yes, it’s coming, I’ll tell you.”
“Is your priest—still … useful?”
“He’s been perfect. Has kept me slowed down to just the tolerable speed.”
“I don’t mean to diminish for a minute the importance of the spiritual question, but could it be that at this point your commitments, or what you think of as your commitments, are hurting you? I mean, more than helping you?”
Caroline was obviously glad to be able to address the question with the only other person she had ever spoken to about it.
“No no, Henry. You truly do not understand—no, that’s the wrong word. You aren’t—familiar with—the Christian complex. I was with Father Kevin yesterday. You may remember that he officiated at our—funny, how subconsciously I avoid the word ‘marriage,’ now that I propose to—I have to get the terminology right here, Henry, because it’s important to me. I’m not about to ‘dissolve’ a marriage, because in my understanding I don’t have the power to do any such thing: the vows were exchanged, the marriage was consummated. I am Danny’s wife, he is my husband, as long as he lives. He will be free in conscience, and of course in law, to remarry; I won’t be. Not unless it proved that for whatever reason, the marriage didn’t take place. Have you ever heard of ‘psychic consummation’?”
“No. What is it, Carol?”
She laughed. “What it probably is, is liberation theology. A fancy way to deconstruct a marriage. What it says is that a marriage isn’t consummated merely by the physical transaction on the wedding night. It can only be consummated when there is a psychic union, an emotionally evolved decision by husband and wife to stay together forever. I mention this primarily to make the point that Danny has been—in every sense of the word—my husband. When we married, he wanted very much to marry me, and I don’t doubt the sincerity of his wedding vows, though I guess at this point I have to say I wouldn’t be surprised if all along he had dalliances, perhaps going right back to the period when we were first married.
“But Father Kevin helped a great deal. His technique is really wonderful. It sounds obvious, but it isn’t. What his technique is, is never to answer a question, only to ask it. So he asks, ‘Do you still love Danny?’
“Answer: ‘Yes, I do.’
“ ‘Does he still love you?’
“I answer, ‘That depends what you mean by love. If you mean exclusively enamored by, the answer is no. If you mean merely, “has tender feelings for,” I’d say yes.’
“Next question, ‘Does his presence in the house affect affirmatively, or negatively, the lives of the children?’
“And now for the first time, Henry, I’d have to say, ‘negatively.’ Because the children are growing, and they begin to notice their father’s aloofness, the lack of interest he has in what they do—in them. His neglect of their mother.
“So I’ve had to answer, ‘On the margin, negatively.’
“ ‘Will the children suffer materially from a separation of their parents?’
“I answer to that one, ‘Modern divorce laws pay reasonable attention to the needs of mother and children.’
“He then asks, ‘Are you satisfied that if you proceed to separate, you are following the dictates of a conscience guided by your understanding of Christian priorities?’ ”
Caroline did not proceed, as she had done until now, to answer the final question she had posed. Henry said nothing, but clearly he was waiting for the resolution. Only her answer to this question mattered.
Finally Caroline spoke. “I said to Father Kevin, ‘I’m not quite ready yet to answer that question.’ ”
“What did he say to that?—No, I shouldn’t ask; that is an improper question.”
“Yes it is, Henry. But I’ll answer it just the same: He said, ‘When you are ready to answer that question—answer it.’ ”
Henry opened the door. “Come, Carol. Let’s go in, have something to eat.”
Together, hand in hand, they walked into the restaurant. Suddenly Caroline stopped. She lifted her finger to her lips. “Don’t say anything, dear dear Henry, that suggests Father Kevin has been anything less than saintly to me, through it all.”
Henry nodded. And squeezed her hand.
On Monday, Clurman absentmindedly lit a cigarette while his other lit cigarette lay on the ashtray only half consumed. Clurman was absentminded about such matters (he had once ordered two complete meals sent to his room at a hotel). He was not in the least absentminded about the hundred-odd correspondents posted nationally and internationally to serve Time/Life. Henry Luce had for many years put heavy emphasis on contracting to the extent possible the time between the event and his readers’ survey of it, through the instrument of Time’s reporters, researchers, and writers. No expense was inordinate. When Marilyn Monroe was found dead in Los Angeles on a Sunday morning, one million copies of Time had already been printed and were on their way to subscribers. Yet purchasers of Time could buy the magazine on Monday morning with twenty-nine inches of detail on her death: a technological miracle over the news-gathering part of which Clurman had presided, two or three telephones ringing at one time, two or three cigarettes, as often as not, burning at one time.
The Chief of Correspondents had sensed the closeness between Henry and his interpreter, whom Clurman had met and admired on one of his trips to Saigon. Clurman had authorized an under-the-table special bonus for Than Koo’s work in bringing together invaluable information on the last hours of President Diem. He knew that a sharp break from conventional journalism for Henry would be good therapy.
“We got a request a week ago.” He leaned back at his desk. “Columbia School of Journalism. Paul Appleby has had a stroke. They are left without an up-front ex-reporter star professor. School starts in a week. They want a replacement, somebody who’s served as a working journalist. One semester is all they need—they’re working on a permanent replacement. Ten grand, and Time Inc. will pay an extra five. I think it’s just right for you, what do you say?”
Clurman could never quite understand that subspecies that needed to deliberate. He was pleased, but not surprised, when Henry said, “Sounds good.”
They spent three hours, and then lunch, discussing Vietnam. Clurman had concluded that President Johnson would not pull out and possibly couldn’t do so, and what he wished for most was any evidence of internal weakening in North Vietnam. He wanted to know how Hanoi could take the punishment. “How can they get ten, fifteen thousand troops down the Trail every month? How can they stand the damage we’re doing to their shipping? How do they succeed in replacing the people we apprehend and imprison or execute?” H
enry said that no one was theoretically better equipped than he to try to answer such questions, but that he couldn’t do so. “My experience at Hoile is—the national experience.” It was not easy to satisfy Clurman, and Henry did not succeed in doing so.
The class Henry was to teach was made up of eighteen students, one or two freshly graduated from college, the majority in their mid and late twenties, two or three in their early thirties. These last had engaged in newspaper work mostly in outlying parts of the country. They had been picked by their editors as especially promising reporters/analysts who needed that odd combination of book learning, competitive writing experience, exposure to historical texts, deep drafts of newspaper culture that the journalism schools seek to provide.
Henry was the complete professional. In fourteen years he had done everything, specifically including a few paragraphs for the Encyclopaedia Britannica’s Yearbook, a historical update on Vietnam. He had interviewed and conversed with many of the men and women who dominated the news, had done reporting for twenty cover stories and had himself written eight for Time. He was inexhaustibly patient with those with whom patience was merited, or necessary. If it required twenty hours at the Quai d’Orsay to get something from President Charles de Gaulle, Henry would wait as patiently as, only a couple of years ago, he had waited, in a car, outside the last building President Ngo Dinh Diem had spent a night in. If a student was deeply troubled in a search for the best way to frame a story, Henry would stay with him (or her—ten of his students were women) as long as required.
But if a student was frivolous or exhibitionistic, Henry could be as unsparing as he had been in the boxing ring. The second day of class a tweedy young man with a wispy mustache, who affected a stutter and walked about with a gold-topped cane, raised his hand after the week’s assignment had been read out and said, “What’s the point in reading The Taming of the Shrew?”
William F. Buckley Jr. Page 23