by John Boyd
He called it the Helgalian Method, and around the Pentagon they thought he had named it in honor of his wife. Hansen let the assumption stand. In some circles it would not have been considered proper for a civilian to work on a top-secret project. Technically, Helga was a civilian.
Hansen vaporized Texas, moved on to Oklahoma and Kansas, then jumped to Georgia and Alabama. Finally, with forced nonchalance, Primrose tossed him Virginia, and Hansen coolly accepted the task. Working until midnight with one Polaris missile, he and Helga spotted the drop so accurately that the only spot in the Virginia-northern North Carolina complex where anything bigger than a scarab could survive was a strip of Cape Hatteras.
In many ways, those weeks in early August rising to a natural climax in the joint convention of the Republican and Democratic parties, plus the coming eighteenth birthday of Joan Paula, furnished Hansen with one of the most interesting tours of duty in his naval career.
Cora Lee finally accepted McCormick’s suit, and she had been transferred to Camp David to put her closer to Washington and her enthralled suitor. Camp David, now rechristened Honeymoon Cottage, also offered better security facilities since a Marine battalion trained for guard duty was billeted on the property.
He and Helga had located an old-fashioned ranch-type house formerly owned by a landscape artist who would have qualified for the High Command: He had wisteria arbors, morning glory vines, and an intricate box-hedge maze on the large back lot. In addition, there was a studio in the rear of the garage, with the maid’s quarters above, and there was one-half of a basketball court in the paved area before the garage, with the basket above the garage doors. Helga was sold on the house, principally because of the studio. She was taking adult education classes in tailoring and taxidermy, and the studio was ideal for cutting clothes and stuffing squirrels.
Hansen raised an eyebrow at the taxidermy, but Helga explained, “Cutting and sewing in tailoring reinforces my skills in cutting and sewing in taxidermy. As you know, Ben, I’m a conservationist, but I have no time for lobbying or committee meetings. The next best thing to conservation is preservation.”
It was a fun house, a beautiful place for a cocktail party unless a guest chanced to wander unescorted into the maze. Since the climax of August occurred on the twenty-ninth with the nominating convention in Baltimore, and since Joan Paula’s birthday fell on the same date, Hansen was dragooned into giving a cocktail party to welcome the newly appointed cabinet officers. Secretary of Labor McWhorter Douglas and Secretary of Interior Brockton Hall, who had joined the sessions in the admiral’s office.
Dr. Houston Drexel dropped by the Pentagon more and more often. He had once been Dr. Carey’s superior in the World Health Organization, and he had blocked her appointment as his successor. “It was too rough for a woman,” he told Hansen. “It was a job in which you really had to put out, and she wouldn’t.”
Helga was pushing her underground activities with vigor and had organized a Georgetown chapter of the Loyal League. Her new vice president was Caron Drake, wife of a lieutenant commander on sea duty, and Caron was frequently around the house on club business with Helga. Sue Benson, who had been made president of the Virginia Beach chapter, an honor she deserved, was also a frequent house guest.
Only one disappointment touched the life of the captain.
Recalling Dalton Lamar’s exodus from car and country on the day the Russians lost, he was impressed by the man’s use of planning and operations principles in his Operation Abominable Snowman, although the operation, itself, had been premature. As a pastime, Hansen planned himself an operation based on the direst of contingencies. He wrangled his psychological profile from ONI, updating it from his midshipman days with a quick test from Dr. Drexel, and set up his tactical situation:
Situation: Helga is converted to the FEM. Joan Paula is dismissed from college because of self-impregnation. Primrose and the Joint Chiefs defect to Premieress Ailyanovna. President Habersham is a secret agent for Mother Carey who wins the election. The FBI is infiltrated by Lesbians.
He fed the situation and the profile into the Mark 37 with a request for solutions compatible with his profile. When his chief yeoman returned the answer in a sealed envelope, he read with more than mild curiosity:
Take vows and enter monastery.
Change attitude toward females.
Adopt homosexual practices and go drag.
Obviously, the Mark 37 had a malfunction in the personality analysis section. Hansen knew his appreciation of the female could never be altered and as for Number 3, he’d rather be dead than wear a miniskirt. However, the primary recommendation intrigued him. He had been impressed by the spiritual serenity and peace of mind he had found in the Father Superior at the Birch Mountain Monastery, so he dropped a note to the Father inquiring about his health and expressing curiosity about the canonization of Brother Johannis.
Within three days, he had received a penciled reply scrawled in box letters:
greetings to captain b. f. hansen, usn. we regret that the former naval father superior lost faith and died. brother johannis rose to his own trump to pursue the harlot.
be of good cheer for our superior brother died a-shouting “wine does more than milton can to justify god’s ways to man.”
a brother, former doctor, says our brother died of alcohol. snakes coiled round him. imps pitchforked him. i hold that devil’s advocate fled our order at such speed that he left his devils behind. rites of exorcism have been held.
beware the babylonian whore. she is nigher than afore.
f. s. ot-c
Primrose commiserated with Hansen over the Father Superior’s death, but he was not surprised at the choice of his successor.
“You see, Ben,” the admiral said, “the monks go there to suffer and do penance for their sins. The Admiral Father Superior ran a taut ship but a happy ship. The monks didn’t suffer enough under his command. Probably they developed guilt feelings for not meeting their suffering quotas. You can’t suffer a little extra on Wednesday to make up for suffering you missed on Tuesday. God knew the Admiral Father Superior was simply not qualified for command in that area.”
Hansen left the discussion feeling strangely comforted. Primrose had the same knack for explaining the command problems of God that the Father Superior had owned for explaining God. Although he continued to regret the brothers’ choice of the Admiral Father Superior’s successor, Hansen knew it must have been trying on the selection board to thrash out the qualifications of the commander of a monastic operation while observing a vow of silence.
Besides, Hansen consoled himself, things were rough all over. France had elected a Feminist president, and a woman MP rose in the House of Commons to ask a question and she never sat down. Helga shook her head sadly when Sweden went under, and the Reichstag of the newly reunified Germany selected a chancelloress who vowed die Mutterland would never again war against Britannia, la belle France, and Mother Russia.
On the home front, things were looking up. Moran, of Mississippi, was the new director of the FBI and he had declared a war on crime. Syndicate men were being killed so fast that the newspapers were publishing casualty lists. Time said it was a vendetta brought about by the slaying of Mr. Powers when he was gunned down on the steps of the bureau as he hurried back with the tape for the secret files, but Defense kept calling it Pope’s War. In mentioning it during a session, he said he wished Moran would call it off, since his boys were killing McCormick votes.
Hansen’s political education was moving apace. As the Friday of convention and cocktails neared. Primrose said the party was timed perfectly because he wanted to be gassed up and near friends when Dubois discovered he had been railroaded out of the Vice Presidency.
“But the President promised him Democratic support, and he has a four to three Republican majority on the nominating committee,” Hansen recalled.
“He’ll get the Democrat vote,” Primrose promised.
Underlying all Hansen’s int
erest was his growing excitement over the coming convention, and Helga was equally agog over the cocktail party. As Defense went, so went State, so Pickens wangled an invitation for Acworth Cobb. Hansen himself invited Drex, Dr. Houston Drexel.
On the day his divorce became final, Drexel dropped by Hansen’s office to bend the only sympathetic ear in the military, as he put it. Drexel was depressed, and Hansen had time to listen because he was nuking Arkansas, one of his easier states. Obviously Drexel had a tender feeling for his former wife and was hurt by her loss.
“The feminine withdrawal had nothing to do with our breakup,” the doctor volunteered. “I was to blame. Margaret was a girl who liked to sleep in of a morning. But I have this compelling urge for sex at 4:15 every morning, not at 5:05 or 4:20 but 4:15. Every blessed morning, at 4:15, flip, and there it was. Margaret called it her instantaneous insomnia. I’ll say this for the girl, she responded loyally because she knew it was either my rest or hers and that my work at Health, Education, and Welfare was important. But her doctor recommended the divorce, and he’s male. Divorce him or crack up from loss of sleep, he told her. But Margaret loved me. At the end, she was begging me to resign and move to a later time zone so I’d make my demands at an hour more convenient for her. I might have resigned, but I’d rather be divorced than live in California.”
“And what do you do now, Drex, at 4:15 every morning?”
“Forty-five push-ups and then take a cold shower.”
His story touched Hansen, and he seemed so lonely that Hansen issued the invitation on the spot.
Hansen had not counted on six guests, since there would be only four girls—Helga, Joan Paula, who would qualify as a grown young lady on the day of the party, Caron, who had agreed to come over and help out, and little Sue Benson who would be a house guest the weekend of the party, up from Virginia Beach on Loyal League business.
Helga was ecstatic. Five cabinet members and the Chief of Staff at one cocktail party easily qualified her as the hostess of the season.
When Hansen arrived home on the Friday, he found the patio festooned with Chinese lanterns, all decks swabbed, and the brightwork in the kitchen gleaming brightly. After conducting his materiel inspection, he lined the personnel up in the living room and found them to his satisfaction in their bright cocktail dresses. He gave them a “Well done,” and went into his bathroom to prepare for his guests.
As he shaved and showered, he felt that he had been somewhat remiss because he had failed to compliment Helga on her most marvelous accomplishment of the day, a perfect harmonizing of hostesses.
Commander Drake’s wife in a cocktail dress was completely different from the sensual, languid woman he had seen around the house in slacks, and she was in perfect contrast to Sue Benson. Caron Drake’s glossy black hair swept almost to her shoulders before it curled under, whereas Sue’s red hair was bouffant and curled outward at the bottom. Caron glided and swayed as she walked, while Sue strode and jiggled. Sue’s voice rang like bells, and she had a straightforward, spread-leg stance which froze a man with the hope that she would leap, while Caron spoke with a husky sibilance that gave intimacy to her hellos and she beckoned a man with curves and concavities.
With their low-cut necklines, the girls were a study in mammary contrasts: Caron’s were lobular and pendant, suggesting Oriental exoticism, whereas Sue’s were globular and pneumatic, suggesting Occidental eroticism. Neither woman could hold a candle to Helga, however, whose cool Nordic beauty exemplified controlled and focused romantic power. Sexually, Helga had command presence.
Yet, apart from romance, Hansen had to admit that Helga’s matronly poise was less striking, by ever so little, than their daughter’s virginal vitality. He was glad that Joan Paula was taking her first drink under parental supervision.
When Hansen greeted his guests and introduced them to the hostesses, he took avuncular pride in the girls, and fraternal pride in the restrained approval of them by his guests. He had become somewhat concerned about restraint, with male attitudes growing so perfervid, and he feared that Caron might mistake Acworth Cobb’s tic for a lewd wink. But Caron acknowledged his introduction so prettily that Hansen knew Helga must have alerted her. She winked back.
Helga served the get-together martini in the living room, and Primrose was so appreciative he challenged the captain to desert bourbon and branch water for the driest martini ever assembled. A suggestion from an admiral was a command, and Hansen switched drinks with unfeigned gusto, noticing that Helga was as delighted by the admiral’s compliments as a schoolgirl. Two great command presences were mixing smoothly.
Hansen had briefed his guests that this was his daughter’s first drink, and Dr. Drexel, the courtly and handsome Mustang, proposed a ribbon-cutting ceremony. All gathered around as Joan Paula took her first sip, and the admiral inquired, “Now, Joan Paula, doesn’t that martini meet with your approval?”
Joan Paula took a second sip to confirm her opinion and shook her head. “No, sir. If I’d wanted a vermouth frappé, I would have ordered one.”
Laughter at her repartee broke the ice.
State insisted on bourbon and water for his bread and potatoes drinking, and Caron requested permission to mix his drink to her own secret recipe.
Laws of social gravitation were setting in.
Defense, who had shown an interest in Sue Benson, even before he met her, sat beside her to discuss his basketball career at the University of Alabama, with Labor adding an occasional detail. Joan Paula sat between HEW and Interior, while Helga zeroed in on the admiral. It was a warm afternoon and the martini pitcher reflected the heat.
The maid was supposed to take over at six, but she was late, and so Hansen, as host, went in and mixed a new batch to Helga’s formula which was very sparing on the vermouth, Joan Paula’s remark to the contrary notwithstanding. As Hansen dipped the cork from the vermouth bottle into the pitcher of gin, he commented to himself that six weeks ago he might have found the formula somewhat unusual. Duty with the High Command had certainly broadened his viewpoint.
As he refilled glasses from the frosted flagon, he stopped to chat with State, whose drink awaited replenishment by Caron who seemed smitten by the older man.
When Caron delivered and asked State’s opinion of the second bourbon and water, he answered, “Ma’am, that’s just about the best bourbon and water I ever squeezed my lips around.”
“Are you Southerners as slow in everything as you are in talking?” she asked.
“We think smooth and easy, ma’am. Our words sort of cuddle up and hug each other.”
“I must say, Mr. Cobb, your mind must be a very warm and loving place.”
“On the job, I’ve got to be cold and hard, but in my heart I reckon I’m the most peace-loving man you ever met, surely the most beauty loving.”
“Then, by all means, I must show you Captain Hansen’s wisteria arbor before the sun sets, Helga’s stuffed animals, and a delightful maze in the back yard with all kinds of delicious little nooks and grottoes.”
“Mrs. Drake, there’s nothing more attractive to me than the downhang of a drooping wisteria blossom.”
“The wisteria’s not blooming,” Hansen interjected.
“Then, that maze would do right well. I’d just love to see any little nook or grotto you’d be gracious enough to show me, Mrs. Drake.”
“Please call me Caron, Mr. Cobb.”
“I’d love to. ‘Caron’ flows like the Oostanaula in the moonlight.”
As Caron led the Secretary of State out to the maze, Hansen dropped over to put Defense at ease with Sue Benson, but Defense was already at ease, teaching her basketball, obviously, because she was standing in front of him with that cocky little leg spread. “Now, tell me. Ogling Ogie,” she was saying, “how do I guard against a fall-away jump?”
“Hold my drink, Ben,” Defense said, “and stand back… Now, you’re guarding me. Spread your legs a little farther apart. Hold your arms higher.”
She ma
de a stalwart little guard, the captain thought, as Defense hunched his great height above her, patting an imaginary basketball.
“Now, I’m dribbling.”
She giggled. “I thought puppies did that on carpets.”
“You lean forward to guard me. Suddenly, I fall back, and that brings you farther forward, off balance, but while I’m falling back, I catch myself and arch forward, over you, like this, and shoot. If I’m lucky, I can see those two points flashing down there on that scoreboard.”
“Defense,” the captain said, “I’ve got a hoop over the garage door and a basketball in the maid’s room above the garage. If Sue’s interested, you could demonstrate how it’s done while there’s still daylight.”
“What d’you say, Ogling Ogie?” Sue challenged. “If you’re game enough to test my guard, I’m game enough to keep you from sinking a basket.”
“You’re pretty good at guarding,” Defense said, “but I was all-Alabama.”
Hand in hand, they rushed out to the patio and across it to the maid’s room above the garage.
Defense had splashed his drink, slightly, onto the captain. Drusilla had not shown up, and the party was humming. So the captain decided to do the serving.
He returned with a fresh beaker to the group around the coffee table who were listening with interest as Helga and the admiral engaged in a vivacious conversation about cockroaches. Joan Paula had taken only a few sips of her first martini, but HEW’s and Interior’s were stone dry.
He was happy that Joan Paula was starting her drinking in a temperate manner.
“Papa,” Joan Paula said, “your little commanding officer is the most fascinating man I’ve ever seen. He reminds me of Alexander Pope, without the hump.”