by Ward Just
It’s sleazy business, he said.
It’s business, Jerome replied. It’s the way you’ve organized your country.
My country, yes. And yours also.
I pay taxes, I obey the law, I am a citizen, and if I went abroad I would carry the passport. I am grateful to this country, but it is not mine. My country disappeared in 1933.
This country has been hospitable?
Hospitable, yes.
Gave you citizenship . . .
Citizenship you earn, Jerome said.
. . . a good living.
You earn that, too.
Gert, the silence grew as they looked at each other, seeing for the first time the great gulf between them. It was more than Harry Ballard's suburban Jew-baiting, and Jerome North’s German superiority. I allowed myself to look closely at my Grandfather North. His face was set hard as stone, and he communicated great physical strength, his shoulders and bald head, and massive hands wrapped around the sherry glass. If I had to guess his business at that moment I would have said gangster, a capo regime of the Cosa Nostra. But he was not a gangster at all; he fancied himself a scholar, an educated man, and more dangerous by far than Harry Ballard, for he had no illusions. He gave the impression of a man who had seen everything, who knew how insecure things were, how on a knife’s edge his own and others’ existence. He was the sort of man who was always waiting for a knock on the door, poor bastard.
At least we agree about that, Harry said.
And when I looked at Grandfather Ballard, Gert. I saw something new. He had pulled himself together; he was more resilient than I thought. But he was drunk, too, and angry. He looked like an angry child about to have a tantrum, and therefore unpredictable, like any child.
Dinner’s waiting, the ambassador said.
That ended it for the moment. They trooped into the dining room, the table and sideboard laden with the essentials of an American Thanksgiving. The women tried to make light of things; the grandmothers were making a great effort with each other. But Elinor was glaring at the ambassador, and the grandfathers were silent. Harry had brought his Martini with him. Of course he continued to smoke at the table, ashes on his white shirt, and beside the dinky little ashtray next to his plate. But it wasn’t ended. The silences were long, though the grandmothers and the ambassador tried to cover them. The ambassador’s answer to everything is noise and more noise, aimless chatter, anything to avoid the truth. Which soon showed itself.
They want me to take early retirement, Harry said.
Is that what you want? Elinor asked.
No, it isn’t what I want. Why would I want to retire? It’s Baum. Baum wants me out. Baum wants to buy me out.
You should have seen him, Gert. He’d held it back as long as he could, then he had to let it out. He was purged, that was what he was telling them. It was Thanksgiving in a city he hated, and he was frightened to death. Fear and trembling. He’d looked around his warm capitalist aquarium one fine day, and saw he was face to face with a shark. Baum. The shark and the pilot fish, O’Reilly, running things to suit themselves. And he was out. Social Darwinism in Chicago. And there was no place to hide.
Is the price right? Jerome asked quietly.
Isn’t a question of price, he said. I don’t want to get out.
Jerome lifted his eyebrows, but said nothing.
I enjoy working. I have always enjoyed it, going to the office, putting a deal together, making money.
Yes, Jerome said.
Would you? Harry asked. Would you be bought out? A turd named Baum comes into your office, takes it over, decides to buy you out? Bye-bye, Ballard we’ve got other plans. Government money, a Philippine connection. The golf course isn’t where it’s at, Ballard. You wouldn’t like it, you’d fight like hell. You’d go to your friends, fight like hell. Good, close friends, come to a man’s aid. And that’s what I’m going to do.
Friends, the ambassador said doubtfully.
Yes, friends. I suppose it doesn’t work that way in the Department of State. Except I always heard it did, the Foreign Service Protective Association. Presidents come and go, the Foreign Service remains. You’re secure, perfectamente.
I’m sorry, Dad, Elinor said.
This is real life, girl, Harry said. There’s no security in business. It’s not like the government or a university, the Civil Service or a tenured professorship. Or the fixers, on top no matter who’s elected. This is free enterprise. It’s the bottom line and only the bottom line, and whether or not you fit into their plans. Well, sometimes you can force it. With a little help from a few close friends, as the late Mayor Daley used to say.
Friends can be helpful, sometimes, Jerome said.
Harry’s been worried sick, Grandmother Ballard said.
Shut up, Louise, Harry said.
Worried sick, she repeated. Insomnia, nausea—
Thanks, Louise.
It’s true, Harry. You said the other night that it was worse than the Depression. She turned to the table and reminded them that Harry Ballard had saved his father’s business. Drove from one end of the Midwest to the other, negotiating with creditors. And he paid them back, every penny. No one lost a cent. The first year we were married, she said, I didn’t see him for six months. It was a very painful time. And of course in the end the business had to be sold.
Then I misspoke myself, Harry said. Nothing was worse than the Depression. The Depression was the worst time I have ever seen in my life. The Depression was a holocaust, that god damned Roosevelt. The only thing that got us out of it was the war. It was a hell of a high price to pay.
Well, the ambassador said, the Japanese had something to do with that.
We had warning, Harry said darkly. Roosevelt chose to ignore the warning. That’s the most charitable explanation.
The ambassador offered more turkey all around, but there were no takers. No wonder.
Elinor said, What are you going to do, Dad?
Let’s ask the ambassador, Harry said. The ambassador is skilled at difficult situations. What do you do, when things aren’t working out? Well, we know what you do. You turn tail and run. You break your promises. A little heat in Washington, you just fold your hand. No matter how many’ve died, or relied on your word. You just let them walk in without opposition. I thought it was disgusting, the last days. That chopper on the roof of the embassy. Throwing people off so that the god damned newspapermen and their servants and mistresses got away. You should be ashamed of yourself. I’m ashamed, if you’re not. Brave boys, dead for nothing. Brave ally, lost. Love your enemies, screw your friends. Christ, even Roosevelt wouldn’t’ve behaved that way.
The ambassador was silent a moment. He looked at Grandfather North, raising his eyebrow in his characteristic way. He was very uncomfortable. Then he began to talk about the last days of Saigon, and the ten years that preceded them. He said something about a coherent strategy. You have to know whether victory is possible, he said. Sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes victory is not possible, and then—
That’s why half the world’s Communist, Harry said. “Coherent strategy.” Faint hearts. No balls.
The ambassador put the carving knife down, a clatter.
Then Jerome North cleared his throat. He was sitting at the table as though it were his office desk. His arms were resting on the cloth, his hands folded in front of him, just touching the napkin. His eyes were focused on the middle distance. He said softly, I have never found it wise to depend on friends, in the last analysis. Friends may be helpful in the beginning, until their own interests are at stake. It is asking too much of friends to put your interests above their own. And in extreme circumstances, it is very foolish. This is why I have always worked alone. I own a seat on the Boston Exchange. I do not even have a secretary, for my investments are few. Easy for me to keep track of them; and no one can keep track of me. Because of my method of operation, I have declined numerous profitable proposals; and I have losses of my own, of course. But I have found it imp
rudent to rely on friends or the government or any system apart from one’s own appreciation of God’s way. You would call this “the odds.” These have rarely been in my favor. I suspect you have had better luck, but your temperament is more optimistic than mine, and your history more benign, with the exception naturally of the Depression. There was a depression also in Europe, though perhaps the surprise was not so great; we in Europe are accustomed to depressions. I agree with the poet who said that this is the worst century so far. I believe it is unwise to rely on luck, or on the experience of the past, if you have been lucky. Each day is new, like no other day; each day has its perils and requirements. Each day must be lived. You don’t like me. I understand that. Perhaps I undermine your position. I have sympathy for your situation, and I do not envy you. However, the problem is larger than Baum. It isn’t Baum. And it isn’t O’Reilly. It’s the—you would call them odds.
Harry Ballard was looking at his enemy with a fixed smile. He dropped his cigarette into the mashed potatoes, and reached across the table for the wine. His body arched, reaching; but his hand fell short, toppling a water glass. His face drained of color. Elinor and the ambassador looked away. Jerome did not move. Harry said, I think I’m going to be sick. And he left the table; and he was sick.
Ah, Gert, he said. What a nest of snakes. Thanksgiving in the capital, the ruling class tearing and eating one another, and the ambassador, the host of the banquet, watching it all spin out of control while reciting his government’s platitudes. I had some admiration for my mother, a woman who had clearly risen above her environment. And the ambassador? He did not know how to listen, and he would never learn. He did not know who he was, at that table. And the old men: neither of them lived a year. In a year they were both dead, victims of their own arrogance and greed. Vicious old men. Good riddance.
That was the story. She listened with her whole heart. It had the enchantment of a fable. Varieties of American experience, the capitalist heartland.
That night she went with him to meet his friends, and the next week she left her father and the apartment for good. She said she was going to live with a boy and when her father asked for his name she told him Wolf. She believed he would hit her, but Wolf said he would not; Wolf would be close by to ensure that he did not. And in the event, her father was calm, almost nonchalant. She took her things, and her money, and left.
That was past, and still she lived inside Wolf’s brain, behind his forehead. And Wolf lived in her, too. They had been everywhere in Europe, but lived mostly in Paris. It was easy for them to be anonymous in Paris, a beautiful young woman and her American boyfriend. Sometimes she pretended to be French, other times German. He was sometimes American, but mostly German. They pulled on identities like suits of clothes. They were fluent in languages and manners. They had found targets in Paris, Munich, and Rome. There were many enemies, dating from as far back as she could remember. Yet they were easily targeted, being for the most part unwitting. Always, however, there was meticulous preparation. Wolf insisted on it. Because of his obsession with security, the authorities had never discovered them. They remained free, masters of their own future, and she compared it to living in a dream, obeying no laws but their own.
In that way they—lived. They ate, slept, made love, went shopping, saw friends, took trips. The years passed. There was the rendezvous in Hamburg, where Gert was able to watch the ambassador and his wife. Gert and Wolf moved from place to place, settling finally in Berlin. They were waiting for something but she did not know what it was. She knew that Wolf was impatient, and it was in Berlin, sitting in a café on the Ku-damm one afternoon in October, that plans suddenly jelled. She was drinking coffee and watching the people; he was reading Die Welt. He muttered something in English, and then began to chuckle. He tapped her on the arm and showed her a short item on page five. The American diplomat, William North, would be delayed taking up his post as chargé in Bonn by an unspecified illness. Wolf tapped the paper with his finger, grinning. Then he moved to the rear of the paper, the television listings. Max Mueller the journalist would appear on weekend television, one of a panel of experts who would discuss NATO strategy.
Have you been thinking about him? he said in English.
She nodded.
How would you like to see him again, darling? he asked.
She shuddered.
I think so, he said. Yes.
4
THREE DAYS LATER they were in the open, on the street. Somewhere on the threshold of consciousness, Gert sensed a great mass of people. They were without recognizable faces or distinguishing characteristics of any kind. Anonymous urban life, faces you saw in a subway or supermarket, glimpsed and instantly forgotten. Gert scanned the wide boulevard, apartment buildings rising either side, high as the walls of a prison, and as bland. They were featureless brick buildings, shades pulled against the afternoon sun.
Wolf leaned forward, cocking his head, listening hard; there was music, an insistent guitar and hard bass, falsetto voices, modern Western music overhead, an angel’s chorus. She turned and saw Wolf, the expression on his face one of radiant enchantment, as if he had entered a charmed circle.
Gert sensed the people inside the apartments moving restlessly, like rats in a maze. They would create a great pressure, their bodies bumping and sliding, tumbling down stairwells, falling over each other, scratching at the walls. There were more of them in the houses on the side streets behind the apartment buildings, far as the limits of the district, miles and miles, each house filled to overflowing; and everywhere a pressure to get away, to evacuate. They were unable to free themselves and each day there were more of them, younger and stronger, more determined and high-strung, pressing against the thick walls and shaded windows.
He felt the pressure inside his own skull and stepped back, away from the curb, giddy, a fixed smile on his face. Sunday in Berlin. A window slammed and the music stopped, midchorus. Up the street was a commotion.
Gert said, “Look.”
All activity in the boulevard ceased, vehicles suddenly still. Gert looked at the faces of the occupants and could see they were terrified, their faces gray and drawn like the faces in church windows. What next? The light failed, as if a great hand had seized the sun, squeezing shut, releasing little lemon drop fragments of liquid light. An explosion crashed overhead, Boom! Gert did not flinch, and perhaps did not notice. Police appeared in their leather jackets and jodhpurs and steel helmets, dense with menace. It began to rain. Bells commenced to toll, and from the doorway of the largest building the rats began to pour. Gert watched them intently. The traffic waited as they scrambled out the door and into the street.
Gert continued to stare at the frightened faces.
Wolf stepped back from the curb, pulling the hood of his raincoat over his head. Gert shuddered. He knew she was suspicious; they had waited too long at the curb. He brusquely took her by the shoulders and moved her so that she was facing him. A raindrop hit her forehead and she blinked, surprised. He put his finger to his lips. Then he buttoned her raincoat and handed her a black plastic hat. Rain fell in huge fat drops, and thunder crashed once more.
“What?”
He said, “It’s the church. Mass is letting out.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she did not reply.
He took her by the arm and they walked quickly up the boulevard. The police had halted traffic, allowing them to cross the street to the church. Organ music, an exhausted recessional, filled the street. The priest nodded at them, but they ignored him. He hurried her along and at the next intersection steered her into a cafe. They stood at the bar and he ordered hot chocolate for them both.
He said, “Take off your hat.” She looked at him and he nodded. She slowly removed the hat and let it fall to the floor, tossing her head as she did so, her dark hair swaying from side to side.
The chocolate arrived but when she moved to grasp the cup, he touched her wrist.
“It’s hot, let it cool off. Let it cool.” He
r hand continued to move, as if she hadn’t heard him. He said roughly, “Don’t.”
She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, laughing gaily. He turned casually, eyes patrolling the room. An ordinary bourgeois café on a Sunday in Berlin, two couples at tables by the window, engrossed in conversation. An elderly bearded man drinking coffee at a table in the rear. The elderly man was looking appreciatively at Gert, admiring her profile. A teenager in blue jeans bent over the jukebox, punching buttons. He and Gert were the only ones standing at the bar.