Fluke

by Blinder, Martin;

  Harding thumbs through the pages in his hands — they’re out of order, a few sheets upside down. Doesn’t matter. He lays them on the lectern and continues extemporaneously.

  “A bad deal, for you, for me, for America, is one where might makes right. Where an entire people may be declared an enemy simply because they have a different language, a different religion, a different bit of pigment in their skin. Where there festers an unbridgeable chasm between the lives of the rich and those of the poor.”

  Each one of his listeners — white, black, Hispanic, Asian — hangs on his every word.

  “The world has been thus for a long time. It is not likely to quickly change its ways. But this administration, the Harding administration, believes that America, over time, can make a difference. That we can build a land where the strong are just and the weak are secure, a land where the less fortunate cast off their chains of poverty. This President knows, deep down, that a government pure of heart can enable us to do together what would be impossible for any of us, however dedicated, to do alone. Working hand in hand, you and I in partnership — the good Lord willing — we shall make this oft-battered world happier, safer, a better place for our children. Together, we shall strive to guarantee a fruitful life — for all mankind.”

  Harding gazes from row to row. Each member of the audience feels as if he’s looking directly at him. “That, my good friends, is my heart’s desire.”

  In her apartment, Nan, eyes moist, listens open-mouthed at this echo of her own very words.

  “I thank you all,” concludes Harding, “and God bless.”

  For a moment time stops. The audience, enveloped by Harding’s almost painful sincerity, sits in a reverent silence. And then ringing applause and cheers erupt from every corner of the assembly hall and spill from radio sets across the country and on out into Nan’s living room as she shares in her President’s triumph, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  In the dressing room nearest the coliseum’s stage, Florence anxiously holds her husband’s hand as he sags back in a wooden chair, shirt off. Sawyer’s stethoscope up against his chest. Continuing applause and shouts of “Harding, Harding” leak through the chamber’s thin walls.

  “I dunno, Warren — ,” says Sawyer as he lifts the stethoscope out of his ears. “It’s possible you had a heart seizure. A little one.”

  “That was a heck of a big crab last night . . .”

  “We really should bring in a specialist . . .”

  “I feel fine,” Harding insists. He starts to cough again.

  “Yeah,” says Sawyer, “that would make you a great epitaph. ‘He felt fine.’”

  “I do.”

  “You feel like hell. Florence — ?”

  “Wurr’n. Let’s do as Doc says.”

  Harding sighs. “Why now? Why does it have to happen now?” He tries to rise, feels dizzy, and flops back in the chair, terrifically short of breath, his face shining with sweat.

  “Stay put!” orders Sawyer. “Till we get a cardiologist.”

  “Right. You’re the doctor,” says Harding weakly.

  42.

  Nan, now distinctly pregnant, is amongst the theatergoers spilling out from The Biograph’s matinee. Afternoon newspapers have just hit the stands, the paperboys touting headlines about the President’s attack to passersby. Copies are snatched up as fast as the boys can collect their nickels. Nan rises to the challenge, securing several copies each of the Post, the Star, and the Bulletin.

  That afternoon, worrisome news came that my poor Warren was suddenly indisposed. From eating some bad crab. The doctors asked that he cancel all appearances for the rest of the week. Go straight through to San Francisco to convalesce. I’d been keeping close count of his speeches — one hundred thirty-five in fifty-two days — and remember thinking: Well, at least he’ll finally get a little rest, thank God. At the time I had no inkling — I guess nobody did — just how ill my darling really was.

  A classically fine San Francisco summer afternoon — foggy and bitterly cold. The Pierce-Arrow carrying Harding, Florence, Hoover, Sawyer and Travis, encircled by a motorcycle escort, makes its stately way to the Palace Hotel. Outside its Market Street entrance, a small crowd awaits. It includes a quiet line of black men and women carrying signs:

  EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK

  and

  ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL

  and

  COLORED PEOPLE HAVE RIGHTS TOO

  The limousine glides on past the front hotel entrance and around the corner to a side door. Harding peers through his window at the demonstrators. He is wrapped neck to toe in a blanket, his hair entirely white much like Woodrow Wilson’s just three years before. He coughs. Then he asks, “What the hell’s going on out there, Mr. Travis?”

  “Seems some Coloreds are putting on a public display, sir. They’re demanding equal rights.”

  “Demanding?” asks Harding. “Where do they get such ideas?”

  “I believe from you, Mr. President.”

  Seven thousand miles due east across a continent and an ocean, dawn gently lightens the sky over Paris. Charlie Forbes, entirely alone on the highest deck of the Eiffel Tower, finishes a last cigarette, carefully removes his spectacles, and slips them into his breast pocket. Then he climbs over the rail and heads rapidly for the concourse 984 feet below.

  43.

  That evening, propped up in the bed of the Palace’s presidential suite, Harding enjoys a game of poker with Sawyer, who sits alongside. He looks and feels considerably better.

  The flower-filled room is further cluttered with bundles of letters and cards. Florence is at the desk, wading through a stack. Harding glances up from his hand — a full house, as yet unbeknownst to Sawyer — and turns to his wife. “You can’t possibly respond to them all, Duchess.”

  “I intend to make a good start. Listen to this poem: ‘From Tommy B. Lawton, age 10. We love all our Presidents but the best are so few — Washington, Lincoln, McKinley and you.’”

  “McKinley?” asks Sawyer, “Why McKinley? What a dud. Only thing he did of note was get himself assassinated.”

  The old newspaper editor in Harding slips out. “Our young poet probably liked the rhythm: ‘McKinley and you.’” He smiles, a faraway look in his eyes. “Back in Marion, remember? The Star used to publish a ‘Poem of the Week.’ I recall, there was this little girl who had written one. Sweet, passionate, straight from her heart . . .”

  The phone on the desk rings.

  Florence sighs. “I’m gonna have a word with that switchboard.” She picks up. “Hello?” She listens, then turns to her husband. “Mr. Hoover and Mr. Hughes wonder if you’re up to a brief conference.”

  “Of course, of course.” A cough, but a small one. Then he collects Sawyer’s money.

  Florence looks at Sawyer, who nods. She turns back to the phone. “Doc Sawyer says only a few minutes.” She listens. “All right.”

  “Good,” says Harding. “Some things I want to run past them. For tomorrow’s speech. And we should decide the best way to deal with my other distinguished cabinet member. Albert Fall should be here tonight, Daugherty by tomorrow.”

  “I have it. How about a double lynching?” suggests Sawyer. “Two on a rope. Save the taxpayers some money.” There’s a knock on the door. Sawyer goes to open it. “I’ll even furnish the rope. But I don’t think you’re quite up to making any speeches yet, Warren. You heard the heart men. They all say ten days bed rest. Minimum.”

  Hoover and Hughes enter. Hoover carries a small file, Hughes a handful of newspapers. Harding is almost his old, cheerful self. “Come in, gentlemen, come on in.”

  It’s shortly before midnight in Washington. Nan, wearing a nightgown and slippers, replaces the receiver of her bedside candlestick phone, pads over to the bathroom, retrieves a glass of water, returns to set it on her nightstand, then turns do
wn the bed covers.

  That evening the news from California was encouraging. Reports were that the President’s illness had broken, and that he would soon resume his speaking engagements.

  She climbs into bed and opens a book entitled Preparatory Schools of England.

  I took a chance, called long distance, tried to get a cheery message to him through Dr. Sawyer.

  But the operator said all lines were jammed. I wish to God I’d kept trying. I wish to God . . .

  It’s the end of a long day for the President and his group. Sawyer and Hughes have already left the suite for their own quarters; Hoover too is finally headed for the door. There he pauses, nods at Florence, and turns back for a moment to face Harding, resting comfortably in bed. “Don’t let the stories out of Washington get to you, Mr. President. You make the best possible appointments you can with what you know at the time. Politics often comes down to a choice between greater and lesser evils.”

  Harding sighs and shakes his head. “Yes, Herbert. But how do you tell which is which?”

  In Washington, Nan has fallen asleep, the book still in her hands.

  Nine-fifteen p.m. in San Francisco, close to the Hardings’ old bedtime back in Marion, Ohio. They are finally alone, Florence reading aloud from the local newspapers, Harding listening from the bed, sitting up, his back supported by a mountain of pillows. Though his breathing is shallow, he remains attentive.

  Florence puts the Chronicle aside and picks up the Examiner. “Now, my word, listen to this: ‘The President has broken totally with the old guard of his own party. He has laid out a hopeful, and in some ways, a brilliant new pathway for the country — indeed, for the world. His personal reputation has never been higher.’” She looks at him. He nods and smiles in satisfaction. She reads further. “’His last reception, in Seattle earlier this week, was stupendous and well deserved.’”

  Harding listens but is having trouble breathing again.

  Florence continues. “’The public thus far appears unimpressed by rumors of serious impropriety involving members of his administration, none of which, it must be emphasized, directly implicate the President himself.’” She looks over at him. “You see? All of your worrying. For nothing.”

  Harding gasps and stops breathing. He stares at her, glassy-eyed, then slumps back.

  “Wurr’n!” She rushes to him. “Wurr’n, oh dear God, Wurr’n!”

  In her Washington bedroom, Nan suddenly sits bolt upright in bed, wide-eyed, sweat streaming from her face.

  44.

  Two days later, Nan looks past tears and through her veil as the presidential funeral procession lumbers toward the train terminal at the end of Market Street, where The Superb waits, now draped in black crepe. Her gloved hand offers up a solemn little wave as Harding’s coffin passes just a few feet in front of her.

  Watching you move slowly by, I thought of you lying there, all alone. How turbulent your life had been these past few years, how restless and despairing you had become toward the end. And then, suddenly you were gone, and there was nothing more for me to do. It was over. How could that be? It felt to me as if we, our lives together, as if you and I, were just beginning.

  Washington would be no place for me now. Not without you. It was time to return home. Time to take our unborn child far from that soulless city of illusion and its treacheries. Back to Marion, Ohio, where one might grow up amidst the virtues of simple honesty and integrity that you embodied, and which so endeared you to all America.

  I will do my best to uphold your ideals. I will honor you in my motherhood and my maturity. I will make you proud of me and of our child.

  Be at peace, my dear Mr. President.

  Epilogue

  Marion, Ohio, April 18th, 1930.

  Two squirrels scamper up and across an alabaster dome supported by twenty-three marble Corinthian columns. One chases the other down the foremost column to a gravelly clearing in front of the sun-burnished edifice, where some two hundred people sit on folding chairs, watching as a somber President Herbert Hoover mounts the podium.

  A small Marine brass band is off to the side, finishing a dirge. The last strains slowly die away over the President’s crypt.

  Well, it took them seven years to complete my mausoleum — the “Harding Memorial,” as they like to call her now. Most deceased Presidents get properly interred within a few months of their kicking off. But not me. What with yet another scandal uncovered almost every week, you can bet contributions dried up pretty darn quick, and Italian marble don’t come cheap. People felt sorry for me at first, then decided it was probably my fault after all. And I guess, much of it was. I was the guy in charge. So for the longest time I just lay here under some scaffolding and a pile of stones. Then when they finally get the damn thing up, Old Pickle-Face, President Coolidge, refuses to come anywhere near it. Wasn’t till Herbert got elected that we had a President with the balls to come put in a good word for me.

  Hoover begins the dedication.

  “Ten years ago, Warren Harding was elected as an image, a lovely, artfully tinted portrait of the sort of man we might all picture as our President — infinitely wise, statesmanlike, with the will, intelligence and talent to do the world enormous good. It was a romantic American fiction as Warren Harding, the man, entered the White House. But by the time of his death, President Harding had somehow managed to grow into that image, making it a reality. Warren Harding recreated himself and was, perhaps, on the edge of greatness.”

  I’m not so sure about that, but thank you, Herbert.

  Hoover pauses and lets his eyes sweep over the faces of the mourners, among them H. L. Mencken; Everett Sawyer, Jr., M.D., on behalf of his late father; and Carrie Phillips, at fifty-eight a most handsome woman, seated with her second — and far younger — husband by her side.

  Hoover continues. “It was his tragedy that at the very moment of triumph, as he struggled so mightily toward perfection, he was betrayed by friends to whom, in old misjudgments, he had given his trust. In the end they broke his heart. But whatever the missteps of Warren Harding — the all too mortal man — we today salute Warren Harding, the gallant, imperishable President. And we honor his extraordinary strength and courage.”

  Hoover had thought to speak longer, but flooded with emotions, now finds that he can go no further. Slowly he steps down. A bugler begins playing Taps.

  Whew! What can I possibly say after all that? Fine fellow, Herbert Hoover. Real shame he’s the one stuck with cleaning up the mess Coolidge and I left behind.

  The crowd starts to disperse.

  And what a mess. Poor Charlie Forbes goes and jumps off the goddamn Eiffel Tower. Jess Smith probably murdered. Al Fall sent to prison for accepting a bribe Sinclair is acquitted of having given him. Daugherty’s neck saved by a hung jury Burns is convicted of having bribed. The economy in shambles. Wall Street twelve feet under. And on and on.

  Most of the crowd has left. The musicians, all packed up, file off the bandstand.

  And my new will, providing for Nan and the little one? Disappears, along with many of my personal papers. The Duchess’ delicate hand, I’ll bet, rest her soul.

  The memorial is deserted now but for two — Nan Britton, eyes shining, and her seven-year-old daughter, Elizabeth Ann.

  Ah — doesn’t much matter any more, I s’pose. Already most folks have forgotten. Who the hell is Warren Harding, they ask. Except you, dearest Nan. You’ll not forget me, will you. And I know, no matter what they say about me, you’ll always care. For you know the truth.

  Mother and daughter take one last look up at the memorial, then turn and hand in hand, slowly walk away.

  Goodbye, my true and deepest love. Try not to be too sad. And goodbye, precious child.

  Elizabeth Ann cocks her head and turns back around as if she’s actually heard her father’s farewell. She tugs on her mother’s arm. Nan stops and
points to the rustling leaves of a nearby tree. Then they resume their steps, but the child’s not convinced. She knows what she heard.

  Lovely little girl, don’t you think? Looks just like her dad.

  Harding’s daughter glances behind her once again and breaks out into a half smile.

  In 1931 Nan Britton wrote and, after difficulty with censors, published a best-seller, “THE PRESIDENT’S DAUGHTER,” telling about her life with Warren Harding. Portraying him as the honest and compassionate man she knew him to be, Nan did her best to salvage his reputation from posterity’s disrepute. She used her substantial royalties to open the Elizabeth Ann Home for unwed mothers.

  Her book includes quotations from several of Harding’s speeches, including this from one given in Minneapolis on July 21st, 1923, shortly before his death:

  “Ask not what your country can do for you; Ask — what may I do for my country?”

  According to a brief, little noticed obituary in the Marion Daily Star, Nan Britton died on August 23rd, 1993, at the age of 96, seventy years to the day of the death of her beloved president.

  Acknowledgments

  The author is indebted to the Harding Memorial Society, the Hoover Institute, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian Institute for generous access to private collections and other research materials in the preparation of this novel.

  Throughout, dialogue has been created, time compressed, and minor characters combined. All significant historical and biographical events, however, are factually depicted; most are a matter of public record. Sad to say, this is a true story.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.