Freddy and Fredericka

by Mark Helprin

  Dacheekan was so horrified he couldn’t speak. Finney smiled. Dot was lost. “We’ll fall off the screen for two weeks,” Dewey said, “and then what?”

  “Even if we did,” Freddy told them, “it would give Dewey’s every utterance the gravity of a cannonball. But not to worry. The reporters will be there by the thousand. Every night you’ll be on the news, fly-fishing and making some pronouncement upon politics and foreign relations. You’ll go from being a greedy jerk—that is, in people’s minds—to being an oracle. The reporters will love you for bringing them to the White Mountains on days when New York and Washington become giant woks, and their gratitude will effloresce in their dispatches. The people will see that you’re above the job, and, when they do, they’ll give it to you.”

  “I can see that,” said Dewey. “We’d save millions a week.”

  “Fine,” said Hare, “but what about strategy? What are you going to talk about?”

  Dewey looked at Freddy.

  Freddy said, “Whatever comes up. You don’t have to programme it in advance.”

  “You don’t?” asked Dot.

  “No. That would be manipulative.”

  “Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing?” Dacheekan asked. “Manipulating?”

  “Certainly not,” said Freddy. “We mustn’t try to manipulate anyone, ever. You are bound to respect your subjects. Just tell them the truth at all times, think hard on the nation’s problems, and remember your oath.”

  “What oath?” Dewey asked.

  “The one you’ll take when sworn in.”

  “What about issues?” Dot asked. “What about soccer moms?”

  “What about them?” Freddy wanted to know.

  “What should he say? What would you have him say?”

  “Soccer moms,” Freddy said, “spend all day driving around in shapeless vehicles that look like Flash Gordon’s bread truck, and their children watch television in the back and ape the superficial characters therein. This is the cause of deep unhappiness, because what they want is so different from what they have, even if they don’t realise that this is so. They don’t want their children to dress like circus clowns, speak like zombie chipmunks, and behave like programmed machines. They want sons and daughters they can talk to; they want a struggle that they can win but that they are not assured of winning; they want to know physical exhaustion; they want to be sunburned; they want to smell eucalyptus; they want to weep; they want to dance naked for their husbands; they want to feel the wind, see the stars, swim in a river, slam the back door, and laugh uncontrollably with their children. That’s what they want. They don’t want the crap they have, the crap Self promises, or the crap you would promise if you could figure out what to promise. They want to be free, to have dignity, to know honour and sacrifice. What else does anyone want?”

  Dot was stunned into silence, because this was what she wanted, too, and had always wanted. Freddy looked at her, understanding that at heart she was a pioneer woman who had been born in the wrong century. By nature she was strong and beautiful, or at least she had been when she was young, and needed neither Washington, nor power, nor prestige, but mountains, rivers, and views so immense that they could fit only in her native West. So Freddy said, “When was the last time you crawled up a mud-bank, crashed through the reeds, and tasted the iron in your own blood? When was the last time your heart beat like crazy and you were soaked in sweat? When was the last time you loved, and were loved, so deeply that it possessed your soul? When was the last time you felt the presence of God so strongly you floated upon the rising tide like Moses in his cradle?”

  “Whoa!” said Hare. “Young man, are you aware of what happened to William Jennings Bryan? How golden and emotional he was? How many times he ran? How many times he lost?”

  “I am aware,” Freddy said.

  “The American people,” Dacheekan said, “are interested only in little things, not big things. They want to be fat. They want to be happy. That’s all they care about, all they know. That’s the reality.”

  “I have been with the people of this country from the Hudson to the Pacific,” Freddy said, “and I know that you’re wrong. It’s people like you, who are no better than your contemptuous description of them, who crank the machinery that dulls their lives, who cater to the worst among them. They are a spiritual people. They want love and greatness. I know. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived among them as you have not. I was taught to listen to the deeper heart, and from one end of this country to the other, I have.”

  “That’s an illusion, boy,” said Senator Hare, bitterly, “that I once shared.”

  “Whether or not it is, Moofoomooach,” said Finney, who by virtue of his position and beliefs was the trustworthy arbiter, “there are political issues that we must contend with, which is hardly a dishonour for us.”

  “What issues?” asked Freddy, who always preferred the forest to the trees.

  “HMOs, for example, which as of today’s polling are the top issue, blowing everything else out of the water.”

  “They are?” asked Freddy, who thought Finney was talking about something else entirely.

  “By seventy to thirty over the next strongest category,” Finney said, professionally. “You may not care about HMOs, I may not care about HMOs, but the people care about HMOs, and that’s a fact. What would you say about them?”

  “They have rights just like anyone else,” said Freddy.

  “You mean cheating people?” Dewey asked. Dewey was mad at his HMO because it had advised him by letter that he was pregnant.

  Freddy cocked his head. “Cheating people?”

  “Denying them benefits,” Finney said.

  “I don’t think that’s the essence of it, do you?” Freddy asked.

  “Then what is the essence?” Dacheekan demanded.

  “Must we be explicit?”

  “Yes.”

  “I abstain,” Freddy said, delicately.

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Dewey challenged. “Do you?”

  “Yes, Dewey,” said Freddy, “I always do.”

  “Moofoomooach,” Dewey said, with some irritation, “HMOs are a burning issue. They can make or break this campaign.”

  “They shouldn’t be a burning issue,” Freddy answered. “We’ve had HMOs since the time of the cavemen.”

  “Since the time of the cavemen?” asked an astonished Dacheekan, a proud Californian. “What are you talking about? The first HMO was Kaiser Permanente, in World War Two.”

  “No,” said Freddy, with a huge dollop of condescension. “That was World War One, it was Kaiser Wilhelm, who happens to be a relative of mine, who was not an HMO, and, believe me, the first HMO much predated World War Two.” He was now less frustrated than entertained.

  “I beg to differ!” said Dacheekan.

  “Take it easy, Randolph,” Dewey urged.

  “No! The first HMO was Kaiser Permanente, in the California shipyards, in the Second World War.”

  “That would be news to Oscar Wilde,” Freddy declared, “not to mention Leonardo da Vinci.” Everyone looked at him uncomprehendingly.

  “Who’s Oscar Wilde?” Dewey asked.

  “Even he didn’t really know,” Freddy stated.

  Dewey was lost. “All right,” he said. “The cavemen had HMOs.”

  “Of course they did. Even animals—monkeys, lemurs, kangaroos. . . .”

  “Fine,” said Dewey, “kangaroos have HMOs.”

  “Yes, Dewey, they do. I’ve seen them.”

  Dewey looked at Freddy with the air of someone who is being mocked. “Are the doctors kangaroos?”

  “The doctors,” Freddy repeated. “The doctors. What doctors?”

  “HMOs have doctors, Moofoomooach, don’t they?”

  “Yes, of course they do.”

  “Well, are they kangaroos?”

  “Dewey,” Freddy instructed patiently, “kangaroos can’t be doctors, they’re animals.”

  �
�But you said they were.”

  “I did not, Dewey, you did. You brought it up.”

  “Drop it,” said Finney. “Just drop it. Forget the kangaroos. It’s not doing us any good.”

  There was a long silence in which foghorns were bleating up and down the bay like cows lost in a Cornish miasma. Dacheekan stood up to deliver an ultimatum.

  “I know what you’re going to say, Randolph.”

  “Do you, Dewey?”

  “I think so.”

  “What?”

  “You’re going to say that if I don’t throw Moofoomooach overboard, you’re leaving with your money and everything else.”

  “That’s what I’m going to say. Consider it said.”

  “Good-bye, Randolph.”

  “Dewey!” Dot shouted.

  “Shut up, Dot. I don’t care what you do, Randolph, Moofoomooach is going to run this campaign. I’m going to introduce him to the press tomorrow.”

  “You can’t do this to the party, Dewey.”

  “I’m the nominee, Randolph, not you. I’ve got the delegates, and I’ve got the votes.”

  “But you don’t have the money, Dewey, not any more.”

  “I may not have the money, but I’ve got God, salt water, and Moofoomooach.”

  “Yeah,” said Dacheekan, “and kangaroos.”

  THE NEXT DAY, Freddy was completely free of Proclorox, and in a symphonic mood. The press conference at which Moofoomooach was to be introduced was in the convention hall of the Archipelago Hotel, a Hong Kong–based chain of which, via complicated and secretive trusts, Freddy was the majority owner. Six thousand reporters were assembled for the announcement. A candidate does not change campaign managers just before the convention unless he is shipping water. On the one hand, this was what the reporters were hoping for, but, on the other, rumour had it that Dewey had found Moofoomooach, and that was a story in itself, especially as the press had collectively decided that the Moofoomooach story was a ruse, and dropped it. After all, no one had actually seen Moofoomooach, and even if someone had, he hadn’t been on television, and therefore he was not real. But if he did exist, it would trump even the overwrought portrayal of the Republican nominee gasping for air.

  Everyone believed that Moofoomooach was not his true name. No one had a name like that. The prize would be to discover who was behind the pseudonym. Any one of a dozen top Washington political operatives—not one of whom could have written Dewey’s “Moofoomooach Speech” if his life had depended on it, and not one of whom could draw upon history or statecraft any more than he could shove his fund-raiser-bloated body into a chocolate mousse cup—was suspected. They all played it up, convincing the press that the genius behind Dewey’s brief shining moment had been Phops Brooks (even though he was a Democrat), Louise Trembler, Denis Penis (who for some reason pronounced his name, even if no one else did, in the—sort of—French way, as Daynee Paynee), Rickey Champagne, Phil Buckits Whitmony, and others. As the story had built upon itself, excitement had risen, and even before the principals entered a hall buzzing with the murmur of six thousand competitive talkers, strobes popped like a lightning storm that covers ten states. In the gusts of free-floating anticipation, men tightened their belts and women ran their hands through their hair.

  When the nominee’s entourage arrived, the news spread so fast that it smacked the back wall of the auditorium like a bull whip. The frenzy was sadly reminiscent of the aftermath of an assassination. Once in the hotel, Dewey walked with blistering speed as Freddy shouted out instructions to bellboys and waiters: “Someone dust the chandelier; change the flowers in the centre-court fountain; take that vulgar sign down from the front of the Spreckles Ballroom.” Perhaps because of his natural authority and his new-found energy, the people to whom he directed these orders obeyed them, and the people to whom he offered advice took it. In response to Freddy’s military-style uniform inspection of a room-service waiter, who actually saluted when called to attention, Dewey said, “Moofoomooach, what the hell do you care what the waiters wear, or how the hotel is run?”

  “Perfection is the aim of dentistry, and should be yours if you want to win. You must let everything in the nation flow through you, so you can know it. You must see everything, and forget nothing. The country is a whole, with no part irrelevant. This morning, on the terrace, I spent an hour and a half talking to a single geranium.”

  “You did?” Dewey asked as they sped along. “How come?”

  “It spoke to me, and I answered it.”

  “You mean you liked it.”

  “I liked it, but it also spoke to me.”

  “What did it say?” asked Dewey. “What could it say?”

  “Things more wondrous than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Dewey. It told me about the lifeblood of America, and it told me how to run this campaign.”

  “A geranium?”

  “Geraniums are sagacious and beautiful.”

  “Okay, Moofoomooach. You know that I’m in. You may be trying to test me, I don’t know, but I’m in. I made my decision, and I’m sticking to it.” They came to the hall, and paused. “All right,” Dewey said as applause rose deafeningly, “let’s meet the press.”

  The noise grew so overwhelming that walking against it was hard. Moving alongside Dewey with unconcerned and inexplicable grace was Moofoomooach. Just by looking, the journalists could tell that this was he, a man as mysterious and unknown to them, they thought, as a bog-sleeping Neanderthal in a glass case in the lobby of the National Geographic Society, or, as Freddy called it, “The Putatively Socially Acceptable Excuse to Look at Corpses from the Grave Society, formerly The Putatively Socially Acceptable Excuse to Look at African Women’s Bare Breasts Society.”

  The curiosity of the members of the press was so powerful and acute that they felt it pushing and pulling their bodies. They grunted, groaned, and sighed. “Who is he? Who is he? It’s Moofoomooach! He’s real. He’s here. God! Look! He seems so at ease! He’s taller than Knott! He’s a natural! What a story! Moofoomooach! Charisma! Charisma! Moofoomooach! Cover of Time! This is it! Gotta get this story! What’s he gonna say! Moofoomooach! Moofoomooach! Moofoomooach!” It sounded like a New Hampshire pond three weeks before the first frost, when the frogs are overwhelmed by hysteria.

  Surrounded by Dewey aides and half hidden by a velvet curtain, Fredericka was worried. This was the first time Freddy had been on a stage in almost two years, the first time he had been before the press, the first time he had been on a “panel” of sorts. She remembered how during an interview with an American television network its correspondent had hesitated in mid-sentence, saying, “I’ll uh . . .” causing Freddy to break in and shout vigorously, “is the only God! And Muhammad is his messenger!” The correspondent had had no idea that “I’ll uh . . .” sounded like Allah, so he said it again, very taken aback, and Freddy screamed, “is the only God! And Muhammad is his messenger!” This played well in certain parts of the world—though not all. She remembered when he had become hopelessly enmeshed in a dispute with Bertrand Russell over the question of whether or not animals have souls. Lord Russell spoke against the proposition. Freddy just that day had suffered the death of Rosebery, his pet tortoise of seventeen years. As a child, Fredericka had witnessed the confrontation on television—the young prince, not yet twenty, raging at the nonagenarian philosopher until the BBC cut him off after he said, somewhat tendentiously, “Fuck you, I loved my tortoise.”

  But Freddy had learnt a lot, and his confidence did seem to have been justified. He was now the central focus of the vast country in which, a few days before, he had been unknown, incarcerated, and a mental patient. Obviously, he knew what he was doing even if no one else did. She relaxed.

  Up stood Elsie Bovine (which she pronounced Boveen), a woman of heroic proportions, whose nickname was “The Thunderbird,” and whose overwhelming lacquered blond hair looked like a very large piece of furniture in the lobby of a Portuguese hotel. The wife of a billionaire who, in Dewey’s parla
nce, had “pulled Dewey’s nuts out of the fire” countless times, she herself had slept with almost every man on the stage except Freddy and Dewey. Having presided at a hundred party functions, she should not have been nervous, but never had she seen anything like this. The stroboscopic attack upon her senses, the hubbub in the hall, and the fact that the mysterious Moofoomooach was just a few feet to her left gave her a stage fright that made her forget the few trite lines that had been supplied to her by one of her husband’s many Mushroms.

  Hardly able to breathe, she looked at her watch. She thought she was going to faint, for never before had she addressed the whole world. But she couldn’t remember what to say. She glanced at her watch once more. Five minutes over, and she hadn’t said a thing. She sighed. The way everyone was looking at her, she knew she had to say something, anything. So she looked at her watch yet again, and said, “I’m running behind.”

  The instant she said it, Fredericka winced. She knew that, having a dozen times on a dozen stages done what he was almost certainly about to do, Freddy would not quit now. No one would think, as Freddy thought, that Elsie Bovine had referred to herself by a parodied Amerindian name. The only person in the world who would have heard it that way was Freddy. “Oh no,” Fredericka said, but she could do nothing, for at the instant the woman had said, “I’m running behind,” Fredericka had seen an idiotic smile leap to Freddy’s lips and disappear. It had to vanish for the next phase, which followed immediately. His expression became strong and grave. He thrust himself from his seat and stood to his full height, raising his left arm and hand as if taking an oath. After silence ensued, Freddy filled the hall in a deep, noble, aboriginal accent he had heard in a hundred movies. “Ugh!” he said, “I am . . . White Eagle!” He sat down so hard it almost broke the chair.