The American Ambassador

by Ward Just

  “Yes,” she said doubtfully. “You had the room closest to the flower garden, at night with the windows open . . .” Her memory stirred, then lay still, disclosing nothing. She did not remember the nightmares. Both she and Bill were heavy sleepers, and Bill Jr. was a very heavy sleeper. “The garden outside your window, remember how sweet-smelling it was? We were very happy there.”

  “We were? I don’t remember.”

  “How strange. You, with your good memory. The rains, the heat, the little Ford car . . . the houseboys.”

  “I remember very well the call that night. When, as you say, you burst into tears over the telephone. The houseboy came to get me, to take me back to bed. They were all whispering, ‘the boys,’ back in their ‘quarters,’ the two rooms they were allotted. We were waiting dinner. I remember the black skins of the boys, and my skin so white. I laid my forearm across the forearm of the houseboy, an X in black and white. My arm so small, his so thick. I remember thinking that he could snap my arm like a twig, though of course he would never do such a thing; not then. He told me a story, putting me to bed. You were on the telephone with the embassy.” He looked at her standing in the drizzle; they forgot everything that wasn’t convenient, that would not contribute to their good opinion of themselves. He thought she had aged in the four years since he’d seen her, thick around the hips, her hands crabbed. She was clasping and unclasping her hands, moving her wedding ring around her finger; and her voice had thickened, too. It was a voice comfortable with fatalism and confusion. He thought she was just this side of sullen, protecting what was hers. “And the next day, the drive to the airport, and then to the hospital in the airplane. I wanted to stay with the houseboy, but you insisted. He wants to see you, you said. Don’t you want to see your father?” He let the thought hang, watching her flustered reaction. “It was a small airplane, I suppose it was an asset of the CIA. Everything is, in that part of the world. Your escort let me touch the barrel of his Browning, his ‘piece,’ black as the forearm of our houseboy. Shall I call the houseboy by name? You called him Charles, though of course that was not his real name. It was the name you gave him, for your convenience. A name you could pronounce. Charles, fetch the drinks. Charles, see to the dishes. Charles, always willing.”

  “It was his name,” she said.

  “His Christian name,” he said. “But he was not a Christian.”

  You should have heard the buzz of conversation in the houseboys’ rooms, when they learned what had happened. The baas had been attacked and injured, upcountry where the government’s writ did not run. The baas had shown his white skin, the passport of the ruling classes, and it was not magic after all. The baas had lost his juju. His blood had been spilled. Things were never the same after that, were they? That day, our boys entered the twentieth century. Remember when they saw us off at the door, waving as we left for the airport in an embassy car, driven by your escort? So subdued, they averted their eyes; they knew they were the enemy. It was the beginning of reality for them. The baas had raised their consciousness, wouldn’t you say? Charles had packed something for the baas, some fruit I think it was, and your escort sent it sailing out the window, back at their feet; you didn’t even notice. Then we were in the plane, but the airstrip where we were to land was insecure, so we circled and circled, until assured that a landing was safe. You never said a word, just sat and looked out the window, as we circled. We were told to put down, there were no rebels in the area. Remember that shantytown, the rain forest all around us, so green? We landed in a shower, your escort so handy with an umbrella. He was out of his mind with fear, he had the umbrella in one hand and the Browning in the other. You held my hand as we ran to the car, your escort very nervous because the driver was a black. And the short drive to the hospital—the streets were empty except for government troops on every corner. We assumed they were government troops because they were in uniform; but they wore the other uniform, too, faces black as night. You couldn’t wait to get to him. You ran down the corridor, I remember the sound your wet shoes made. You were crying then, too. And ran to him in the bed. I tried to keep up but you were faster. You just flew down the corridor, you were so anxious to see him. From the doorway I watched you bend over him, climbing on the bed, your skirt hiked up over your thighs. He was laughing, so happy to see you. I see your ringed hand, his face on the pillow. He was bandaged, and there was blood on some of the bandages. Blood on the doctor, blood on that Kraut friend of his. Blood on the sheets. I stood in the doorway, waiting. No one saw me. But as the poet said, Who cares for the roses when the forest is burning?

  He was conscious of his voice, low and guttural, and her wide eyes. She drew back, and he could see the whites of her eyes. He was looking for some flicker of recognition, but he did not see it. So he took another step into the past, speaking still in German. “It was strange then. And even stranger in retrospect, though I remember everything. Every single thing. You were very angry, do you remember how angry you were? Spitting nails, you said later, when you could talk about it. Such an injustice, him wounded and in bed, in pain, almost killed. For what? you said.” He raised his voice to a falsetto, mocking her. “Who do you think you are, you two, Jack Armstrong and Siegfried? I have been worried to death.“ He watched her closely now as he turned the screw. “You looked up from the bed, your hair mussed, your face wet. I had never seen an expression such as that. Certainly I had never expected to see you with such an expression, you who were so composed and even-tempered, so well-bred. You said something to that fascist friend of his, the one who works for the Bonn administration. You were sitting on the bed with his head in your lap, looking at him but talking to the fascist. Saying how foolish, how reckless, they had been. Challenging the savages. But thank God, no one was killed, meaning that they had not been killed. The fascist was grinning. You were spitting nails at the fascist, but he kept shaking his head. He had his arm in a sling and was leaning against the wall, smoking; so self-satisfied. He looked as if he’d stepped off a yacht, so debonair, expurgated. Then the fascist commenced his explanation, everyone quiet and attentive while he talked. The important work that they were doing, the bad luck that followed. The fascist said something in German, a quotation of some sort, and everyone laughed. Then the Kraut doctor pulled out a bottle of Champagne, popped the cork; the cork hit the ceiling. Smiles all around. After all, things could have turned out—differently. Worse than they did turn out. The white men were alive. The white men had survived. After a while, I went outside. There were boys playing ball, it must have been soccer. They were older than me, playing with a ragged soccer ball, dodging puddles. When they saw me, my white skin and blue eyes, they ran. So I was alone in the courtyard, wondering why they had run away. Were they afraid? What power did I have that they would be afraid of me, a five-year-old boy. Or was I someone necessary to avoid? I stood outside his room. I heard you laugh, once, and I looked inside. His face was gray as ashes but he was grinning as you fed him a sip of Champagne. One sip only, the doctor said. You fed him as you might have fed an infant. A thin line of Champagne dribbled down his chin, and you wiped it away with a cloth. I heard a noise then and looked behind me. Your embassy escort was standing outside the door, swinging the Browning by its grip; he was an enormous man, very muscular, very frightened. Perhaps it was the first time he had ventured outside embassy ghetto. The boys were well away by this time, standing across the road; they were standing quite still, looking at the glowering white man with the Browning. He had been watching me all this time, but when he saw me look at him he went inside. He stood just inside the door, his shadow visible; his shadow, and the shadow of the Browning. I wanted to go across the street with the others, but I dared not. I was afraid that if I crossed the street, he would shoot me. So I stepped into the middle of the courtyard and kicked the soccer ball, a feeble kick in their direction. It was their ball, and they were entitled to it. It bounced across the road and hit a tree. They made no move to fetch it. I was ashamed of my coward
ice, I knew I had let them down; and I knew that we were on the same side. I turned my back on your escort and walked away, around the side of the building, trying to lose myself; low windows, the sills were eye-level. The rooms were empty and dark, with their doors open; I could hear your noise, laughter and commotion down the long hall. All the rooms were empty, except the last one. Three blacks, a man in bed, two young nurses attending. His riñe lay beside the bed, old and not at all lethal-looking; not like the Browning. The nurses were doing something to his stomach, but he neither moved nor cried out. His face was opaque, almost featureless but filled with life, as life teems under the skin of the ocean. I knew that somehow he was connected to the ambassador, and what had happened in the bush. He turned suddenly and our eyes met. I could feel the ignition. What must he have thought, a white boy outside his window? The nurses were oblivious, whispering, applying a dressing to his stomach. We stared at each other, and he made no move. We communicated by other means. Perhaps he saw under my skin what I had seen under his. When one of the nurses turned and caught sight of me, she gave a little gasp, turning toward the man in the bed. His eyes never left mine, but he nodded his head curtly. The two nurses conferred, then one of them left his side and came to the window, and pulled down the shade. But not before he had put his forefinger to his mouth, the universal signal; not that I needed to be told. Not that I needed to be reminded to keep silent about the wounded black man in the dark room. Not that I needed to be threatened, either. I walked back the way I had come, stopping again at the ambassador’s window. The laughter was quieter now. Someone suggested that you leave, he needed rest. I saw you rise and walk to the door. You were holding a cup of Champagne. When you got to the door you did a dance, a kind of boogie. Then the fascist German said, Where’s Bill Jr.? And you said, I don’t know. I think he went outside. He’s so young and Bill’s so tired and beaten up. . . . Hearing that, I left the window and walked across the street, retrieved the soccer ball, and gave it a good kick. The boys were still there. One of them caught it, and they ran away. The sun was so hot, the puddles were already evaporating. I stood in the courtyard, watching the man with the Browning, and remembering the wounded man in the bed: one of the nurses had dipped her hands into a cup of water, and patted his mouth, moistening his lips. They had been so silent and efficient, and clandestine. It occurred to me that they loved him, whoever he was. It was some time after that, the nightmares began.” At the end his voice was so low it was almost a whisper.

  He watched her shake her head. She raised her arms, and then let them fall, a gesture of exhaustion. She said, “No,” shaking her head vigorously, a denial.

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “All of it’s true. It is very vivid. It is vivid still.”

  “My God—” she began.

  He smiled. It always came as such a surprise, the subplot, the thing taking place offstage, in the wings. So disconcerting, when you applied theory to memory, meaning when you applied a theory of history to history itself. When you rejected the benign interpretation, a belief in good will or ill luck or the purest chance in the way the facts cavorted. There were those with power and those without power and the powerless would not be liberated until the powerful were eliminated, shot dead. No middle ground. Either you had a Browning or you didn’t. So now he had given her another Africa, a seething, burning Africa, and it seemed not to agree with her Africa of fragrant gardens and willing, childlike servants, nicknamed like household pets; or Jack Armstrong and Siegfried on the prowl. She lived in a Western dream world. We were very happy there. Your father and I and you, too, loved Africa. Loving it most when they were destroying Africans. We used to be inseparable as a family, your father and I, and you, too.

  He watched her put her hand to her temples. He said, “Later that night, back in the capital, back home, embassy ghetto, you called your father in Illinois. On the telephone with your father you were very stiff upper lip, British memsahib. You described to him the kind of day you’d had. And you told him what you had not bothered to tell me. You said, We almost lost him. Can you imagine what I thought, hearing that? But I had my secrets, too.”

  “It was not my father,” she said. “It was your father’s father. It was Grandfather North I called that night.”

  He shrugged. “Then he went away again, back to the United States, with you. He had to make his report. I was left alone with Charles, and the other . . . boys. You’ll be surprised to learn that Charles was trying to educate himself. He was trying to learn to read English. I was five years old, and I could read better than he could. So I tutored him. At five. And he told me about the village he came from, the life there; the political life of the village, what the people believed in, and what brought him to the capital. He was the sixth son of a chief, did you know that? Your Charles, head boy. That would be the sort of thing you’d appreciate, a fine old county family. Someone came by every afternoon to see how I was getting on, those weeks when he was at the State Department and CIA reporting on his misadventures, and the state of play on the Dark Continent. Sometimes it was the fascist German, sometimes one of the embassy people. How’re things, Billy. Have everything you need? Heard from your folks today, they’re fine, be home soon. By then, of course, the coup was over. The government had prevailed, and the streets were quiet. When I asked Charles about it, he was not communicative. The time was not right, he said. There had been a mistake. We had been reading from Huckleberry Finn, a child’s version, one of my books. Too many Nigger Jims, he said. He did not know the embassy’s role. But now there are quite a few documents available from that time, and it’s no mystery what the embassy tried to do. What he tried to do. His role in aborting the revolution. Naturally it did not stay aborted for long, Africa being Africa . . .”

  “I knew who Charles was,” she said, exasperated, her voice rising. “I knew where he came from, what his aspirations were.”

  “Because the embassy ran a check, right?”

  “He told me,” she said.

  “You can’t remember the nightmares, but you remember that.”

  “My God, Bill.”

  “Every night,” he said.

  She sighed, a long, drawn-out sigh. She seemed to diminish, her shoulders slumping.

  He thought, Almost there now. “That’s only one slice of history from my magnificent childhood.”

  She said, “It’s fiction.”

  “No,” he said. “It’s real enough.”

  She said, “I didn’t say it wasn’t real. I said it was fiction.”

  How they loved to conceal their own duplicity, and the evil consequences of their actions. Americans with their myriad instruments of surveillance, cameras, wires, sensors, satellites, aircraft. The countries of the West were wired for sound, no conversation so casual that it would escape the electronic monitor. But still they knew nothing. They could not put what they knew into context, because they did not believe in history. They said, It’s fiction. Meaning: Oh, it’s real enough to you, but it isn’t the truth. They wanted things to be nice so that they could sleep soundly at night. He looked at her now, so defeated. They accepted their mediocrity, reveled in it. No accident that he was who he was, a man to put things right. To redress the balance. To indict them for their crimes, though looking at her now, so pathetic, it hardly seemed worth the trouble. Still, there was a debt owed. He would require full payment. It was his pleasure and obligation to do so. They, he and Gert, had risked so much, focusing their lives at a single point. They had neglected nothing, forgotten nothing. His inspiration was Gert. She was a great hero, like La Pasionaria or Emma Goldman or Rosa Luxemburg. He had restored her to life, had replaced that which they had stolen from her; she would be his forever. He loved her with all his soul, and even now he grew heavy, thinking of her. He could feel her urgent breath on his neck, commanding him. He did not need to love anyone else, for his love must not be diluted. He wanted purity of heart, purity of action. And must do nothing to betray her. Her trust was absolute, and he would le
ave nothing undone to guarantee it. He and Gert and their compatriots, so intimate, close as lovers, so harmonious with their single vision of justice—they had agreed long ago: no compromise, no clemency. No peace. Let the game be played on German soil. They would pursue their enemies to the ends of the earth and they had to be lucky only once. They had taken an oath on it, in the names of all the revolutionary dead, in this century and the stupendous last century, and all the centuries of struggle and sacrifice. They acted in the name of humanity. Now they would realize their great vision, and set the clock ticking. A single act calculated to outrage and bewilder their enemies, to exhaust their patience and comprehension, and introduce to them this brainstorm: that anything was possible, that there were no exclusions, no forbearance, no compassion, no limit. He said in English, “You must take responsibility.”

  “Responsibility,” she said dully, looking at him. What did he mean? Responsibility for what?

  He said, “Find him. Bring him here.”

  She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.

  “Get him now.”

  “I’m here,” the ambassador said, emerging suddenly from the dusk.

  He had watched them from the beginning, watched Elinor and the girl, Elinor looking at the sketches, the girl’s sweet smile. He himself could not be seen, and did not want to interfere. He watched the girl hurry away, then his wife and son together, talking. The boy appeared as if by magic, no more than ten feet from him. Bill watched Elinor’s face come alight, a smile any mother would give a returning son, even a prodigal; most particularly a prodigal. I don’t care where you’ve been, or what you’ve done, you’re mine, and I forgive you. He believed that somehow Elinor could connect. He had not thought beyond that—only connect, and then see what would follow. Odd how one ignored the experience of a lifetime. It was the amateur's approach to any summit meeting. Anything could follow if only they got to know each other again, talked across a table, had a drink together and located common ground. Surely there would be common ground. Listening to them, he wondered what it was he hoped for. A tearful reconciliation? Expressions of love? Perhaps a mutual acknowledgment of past error, dignified apologies. A sentence or two of atonement, with a promise to forget the past.