by Ward Just
The truth was, the time for connection was long past—and, in fact, there was a connection. But it was not a “connection.” It was not vivifying. He hated her. He hated them both. And it was not theoretical, it was personal. It was them. Listening to his son, he closed his eyes. The boy was talking about Africa, their common life together; he closed his eyes and tried to imagine the five-year-old with tousled hair and solemn expression, the bright boy who always seemed older than his years. The boy who knew too much. The boy who demanded that a picture be removed from the wall of his room before he could go to sleep at night. It didn’t matter which picture: one had to go. It was a cute ritual, a family joke, his grave insistence, his pudgy finger moving, then stopping: There, that one! Except that all of them were Elinor’s, drawn with her own hand. His eyes squeezed shut, the ambassador tried to make something of that. It was an obvious technique of the diplomatic craft, what you want and what they want, and trying to find consequence in an unconscious or trivial act, fooling with language. Anything to get an agreement, some common ground on which all parties could stand without shame. When you dealt from strength you always wanted agreement because agreement proposed stability: a predictable future, meaning a future much like the past. And that was precisely what the opposition did not want. So you watched the which clauses and where the commas went, and you understood that it was all a dance in fulfillment of the natural cycle, eat or be eaten. Perhaps his demand that a picture be removed from his bedroom wall was an undeclared wish to destroy his mother’s fertility. Or perhaps he didn’t like the view.
He stepped from behind the tree and went to Elinor’s side. He and the boy looked at each other. He felt his son’s vitality, his nervous energy, his resolve and elation. It all came down to this. Never had he felt more a bankrupt, an old nation opposing a young one; and the young one was of his own making. He said, “We’re here. What do you want?”
“She can go. You stay.”
Elinor linked her arm through Bill’s, smiling at him. Then she turned back to her son. “Why me?” she asked. “And as I told you before, don’t speak to us in that tone of voice.” She thought, A little bit prim in the circumstances. Mom as headmistress. And as she spoke she heard her own mother’s flat midwestern voice, and that caused her to smile.
Perhaps Bill Jr. heard it too, for he said, petulantly, “You’re not in charge here.”
Bill thought, Grübelei. The shape of the table, square, rectangular, round, oblong; coffin-shaped, dumbbell-shaped, Z-shaped, T-shaped. It had been months and months, working that one out. The opposition knew we were tired, and that gave them an advantage; unfortunately, the reverse was not also true. They were not tired, and our knowledge of that was no help at all. Those talks, it was like listening to Pachelbel’s Canon for six months, no relief. He had made that remark to Elinor long ago and Bill Jr. had looked up and said, Who’s Papa Bell?
He put his arm around Elinor, realizing as he did so that his hand had gone numb. Fowler and the hospital room, Richard and the nurses, came back to mind, in and out of his memory. He wondered if they had missed a fragment, or whether the numbness was psychosomatic. His mind was numb, along with the hand. Papa Bell: They had laughed and laughed, and couldn’t explain the joke to Bill Jr., he was so young. He caught his breath, feeling Elinor’s warmth. Her scent filled his nostrils, and he drew closer to her. He kissed her on the cheek, feeling her soft warmth, and feeling furtive also, as if the affection between them was forbidden, and would be taken as a sign of weakness.
The boy said, “So here we are at last.”
“Speak English,” Bill said.
“This is normal,” the boy said, continuing in German. So that was the way it would go, they speaking in English, the boy in German.
“We met your girl,” Bill said.
“My girl,” Bill Jr. said. “She’s not my girl. What do you think she is, a servant?”
“Your girl,” Bill said. “She’s very pretty.”
“She was dressed up for you to”—he sought the word—“admire.”
Bill said, “Besides the girl, how many are you?”
“Many,” he said.
“They hate Americans,” Bill said. “Why do they trust you?”
“I hate Americans even more than they do. Isn’t that what you always said? It takes one to know one. Isn’t that one of your—”
“Clichés, yes,” Bill said.
“We haven’t much time. You have no idea, the effort. And the luck.”
Bill said, “Congratulations, then.”
“Get on with it,” Elinor said. “Whatever it is.”
“They were with you this morning, your shadows.”
“Who was with us?”
“Duer’s people, three of them. Not at all difficult to spot, Herr Duer’s storm troopers. He must be losing his touch. You lost them somehow because when you came back here they were gone.”
“They’re not Duer’s,” Bill said. “Probably they were somebody else’s, my people maybe.” He knew the boy was lying, and the knowledge chilled him; the fact that he knew absolutely. His tone of voice, even in German; the way his mouth moved. The connection between them was direct. He wondered if the boy had the same ability.
“No, they were Duer’s. We know who they are. We have photographs of them, and identities.”
He said, “We were not followed. Your mother wouldn’t allow it.”
“So? And you, Ambassador?”
“She didn’t ask me.”
“Clumsy, Ambassador. Very clumsy.”
Bill listened to him. He imagined he could hear his son’s heartbeat, and trace his brain waves. And his son could surely do the same. But none of this would have any effect, except on his own emotions; he was shaken, realizing now the blood tie, and the reciprocity, between them.
“Get on with it,” Elinor said again.
“It would be best if she goes.”
“No, it wouldn’t be best,” Elinor said. “I told you before. Your father and I, we’re inseparable. Always have been.” She hesitated, sighing, as if she were suddenly out of breath. “Oh, Billy,” she said, her voice falling, the child’s name false-sounding. The boy had brought his hands slowly to the level of the hedge so that they could see what he carried. They knew it was there, but seeing it and knowing it were separate facts; he wanted to frighten them. Pretty, sleek, heavy weapon, the quintessence of the gunsmith’s art. He handled it knowledgeably, as if he knew what he was doing. Ugly piece, Bill thought, a weapon that had no sporting purpose whatever.
His son said, “Have you thought about it at all, these past few days, your career in the government? What you did and why, and the consequences.”
“Not much,” Bill said.
“You never thought you’d be called to account.”
“Not by you,” Bill said. His words made I . . . impression. It was as if he was hurling words at a wall, the word rebounding, misshapen, taking odd bounces.
“Now you know,” he said. Then, “I’ve been told you didn’t tell them much about me.”
“That’s right,” Bill said.
“I’m interested why not. I’m the enemy, isn’t that so? You took an oath to defend your Constitution against people like me. Enemies foreign and domestic. Enemies without and within. I’m both. What happened to your oath?”
“Stop it,” Elinor said.
“You look old, Ambassador.”
He did not reply. He supposed it was true.
“Sick, you look washed up.”
“I had an idea that this was between us,” Bill said. “And that it can end right here. If you have me, then you won’t need anyone else. Do you understand?” He watched the boy shift position, cradling the weapon, dipping his shoulder characteristically, his expression suddenly igniting. The boy wanted what everyone wanted, freedom, liberation from whatever demons haunted him. A clean bed, enough to eat, good health, however one defined well-being; a fully-booked Lubyanka, a bottle of fifty-year-old Armagnac,
a country club membership. An end to the noise in one’s own head, a sense that the conditions of the present moment were intolerable; to secure the future, kill the past. He waited for a reaction and when there was none. Bill added, “And there isn’t anything in the oath about informing on my son. If I’m the target.”
Elinor said, “Stop it!”
“I thought about it a lot, though. Elinor and I decided that you were our responsibility.” He watched his son for the signal he knew would come but the boy only nodded.
“A sentimental position,” he said.
“Call it whatever you like. But it isn’t sentimental. And you haven’t answered my question.”
“Well, it won’t end right here. That’s the point.” He swung the weapon around so that it was pointed at his father’s chest. “What do you suppose the consequences of this will be?”
Elinor said, “I will hate you for the rest of my days.”
He looked past her as if she were not present. “Ambassador? What do you suppose the consequences will be?”
He thought that Elinor’s promise was sufficient. She would make a formidable enemy. But he tried once more to concentrate, to see things clearly. The trouble was, the entire world was present; nothing existed beyond this obscure place, a zoo in a divided city. House rules, he thought; but he did not know what they were. He said, “It could end right here. That could be one consequence. But that’s up to you.”
“Yes,” he said. “It is. But there’ll be more. There’s always more. There’ll be a great commotion, won’t there? And fear, fear everywhere, and anger and embarrassment, and despair, at what the world’s coming to. And then we’ll be just a little bit closer to our objective.”
“I’m that important?”
“To me you are,” he said.
Bill shook his head, clearing it. He had heard the words, and tried to think carefully about a reply. Just then he was certain he was going to die. No power on earth could prevent it. He was thinking about the value of life, his own; but it was difficult, with the entire world present. He was an American ambassador but he could be anyone, of any sex, nationality, age, or position. It would be a life given in vain, one more private soldier fallen on an anonymous battlefield. And who would remember, a month or a year or five years from this day? Elinor would. And of course the boy, and it was only a feature of the circumstances that their memories would not agree. He moved to separate himself from her. He took his arm from around her shoulder, searching instead for her hand, finding it, squeezing. The boy was talking but he wasn’t listening. He was trying to think, though there was a great roaring in his head; difficult to think, looking down the barrel of a gun. But of course that was the idea. It was one of the great ideas of Western man. Unlike his father, he would not have time to struggle, except for these few moments. The truth was, he had not expected to be “called to account” by his son or by anyone else. He did not know if that was pride or humility. He knew that with Elinor he was the happiest he’d been, and was not ashamed of his life inside the government. He whispered that to her, and she froze. He turned toward her, concentrating. If he concentrated hard enough she would understand why he must not resist. Resistance was not the point here. The point was not to run away, or to have fear. There was a natural last act to everything, and this was the natural last act for him. He remembered the swollen crocodile, turning on the surface of the African lake, blown by the wind. And that had not been how it looked from afar. As for the consequences—his question, and his son’s—they would be unforeseen. They would be in the turbulent future, and they would have nothing to do with this place, where they, a family after all, now stood. New security arrangements, no doubt. Editorials. A statement from the secretary.
Elinor took a step forward, letting go of Bill’s rigid hand, gesturing sharply. She uttered a rapid sentence, filled with contempt. She held nothing back. She moved toward the hedge that separated them, trying to penetrate the opacity of his eyes. It was darkening, already deep dusk. From somewhere nearby an animal coughed. She could not see his eyes, so she could not judge his intentions. Bill had moved to one side, but she had no intention of standing quietly in the darkness, listening and waiting.
This is what happened. The boy fired two shots, both of them hitting the ambassador in the chest. The power of the charge drove him back. He was flat on his back, arms raised as if to ward off further blows. He made no sound. She screamed, and lunged forward. If she could reach him, she would kill him with her hands. She blundered into the hedge, then stopped. There was a fence concealed in the hedge. She pressed into it, arms flailing. The wire bit into her stomach. She could hear her own voice, an animal’s moan. She reached and kept reaching but she could not advance. Then she stepped back, shocked. The girl had come up behind her son and now stood beside him, much as she had stood beside Bill. The girl linked her arm through the boy’s and they stood a moment, their arms linked, not speaking. They looked so young. The girl’s red tam was bright and jaunty. They took a look around, and then a step backward, and in a moment were gone. She heard their footsteps, running away. She was alone. When it was quiet again she bent down to comfort the dying man.
About the Author
WARD JUST’s sixteen previous novels include Exiles in the Garden, Forgetfulness, the National Book Award finalist Echo House, A Dangerous Friend, winner of the Cooper Prize for fiction from the Society of American Historians, and An Unfinished Season, winner of the Chicago Tribune Heartland Award and a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize.