by Mark Helprin
At first, no one moved. Then the neurons of the Fourth Estate made their connections, and when it became clear to everyone at the same time what Dewey had done, that this was a year’s worth of October surprises, that Self would never be able to get anywhere close, that Dewey had let it ride almost on purpose so he could make a spectacular comeback, that, in the idiom of the press, “This was it” . . . when all this came clear, pandemonium exploded as thousands of journalists began to file stories on cell phones and laptops, and a few thousand others rushed the doors.
And then, spontaneously, everyone stopped again. They stood on their chairs, turned to Freddy, and began to applaud ferociously. It sounded like the ocean upon the rocks of Land’s End during a gale. Tears were running down their faces, some wept convulsively, and all were overjoyed. By God, Dewey had done it. The genius behind him was a Native American. Of course Moofoomooach was a name, a name of the great and oppressed tribes of the prairie, the land of Dewey’s birth. He had reached back to his origins as if in a magic rite, and found a brilliant Native American to help him repair the broken heart of the country. White Eagle Moofoomooach, or Moofoomooach White Eagle (who knew?), was probably a chief. And he was clearly a genius. He would in one fell swoop transform the Republican Party, restore it to its Lincolnesque origins, rewrite American history, harmonise the disparate forces that had torn the continent in half since the beginning, and save America’s soul.
Everyone onstage except Fredericka, Finney, and Dewey joined in the thunderous, unceasing applause. Freddy said to Fredericka, “They got it right off. That’s because we’re in America. In England, they never get it.”
THE NEXT STEP, a day later, was for Dewey to tell Freddy what to put in the acceptance speech. This was a formality. Even Mushrom made the speeches up entirely on his own, but Dewey had to save face. He and Freddy sat on cane chairs in the study at Earthquake Ranch, sherries in hand, leaning forward in conversation.
“I prefer this kind of hard chair when doing something important, don’t you?” Dewey asked. “Big overstuffed furniture makes me even more indecisive than I am, I think. People have said that. Do you agree?”
“Yes,” said Freddy, “and it’s bad for the back.”
“So, look,” Dewey told him, almost in a whisper, “I’m supposed to tell you what to put in my acceptance speech.”
“Yes,” said Freddy.
“But, God! I don’t know! If I knew what to put in the speech, I wouldn’t have a speechwriter, would I? You do it. Just make it . . . you know.”
“What?”
“Idoh know.”
“Okay.”
“You know, the word that sounds like that woman who has a big behind, the singer.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“I don’t have time for policy. I don’t have time for language. All I do is raise money. Look.” Dewey took out of his pocket a piece of paper, unfolded it, and passed it to Freddy. “Those are my fund-raisers just today. I have to go to every one of these places and get money out of nervous people who want to have their picture taken with me in case I become president. Read it.”
Freddy read out loud: “ ‘Senator Knott’s fund-raisers for today will set up at the following locations: The Legends at Fox Innards; The Whammo Estate at Snake Creek; The Nuns at Aztec Pointe; Chlamydia; The Residences of Potemkin Village; Mer du Cheval; and Eau de Toilette.’ ”
“Remember when they used to have towns?” Dewey asked. “And at every one of these goddamned things they serve white wine and cheese. Do you know what it’s like to stand next to a gorgeous woman with a mouth full of aged Camembert? It’s a nightmare. It’s worse than having sideburns. How’m I supposed to find time to study economics, strategy, and diplomacy?”
“You don’t need much time to study diplomacy,” Freddy volunteered. “I learnt it in half an hour, and I’m an expert, really I am.”
“You must be. I mean, for an Indian to know all that foreign stuff, that’s really compulsive.”
“Compelling.”
“Whatever.”
“Diplomacy is very simple, Dewey. It consists of a body of key phrases with which you can speak portentously and say nothing. I’ve used them for many years now. You have to if you want to survive among the titled heads of Europe.”
“The what?” Dewey asked. “I thought you were an Apache.”
“My mother is an Apache.”
“We ought to have her for the speech, sitting next to Dot.”
“Let’s talk about the phrases. What might you say if asked a question about, for example, the budget?”
“I don’t know anything about the budget. Remember, Moofoomooach, I don’t know anything about anything that I’m supposed to know something about.”
“Right. You would say, then, ‘The woodpecker of insolvency becomes the dolphin of inexactitude.’ ”
“I would say that?”
“Yes. What if they ask you about your sexual practices?”
“It’s none of their business.”
“Yes, but that’s not diplomatic. Say, rather, ‘The chicken of sexual inefficiency becomes the moose of dismay.’ ”
“Yeah,” said Dewey, “I think that’s true.”
“There’s a phrase for anything: ‘The mole of senility becomes the egg of manual dexterity.’ ”
“I could use that.”
Freddy then poured out a dozen diplomatic standards that he had used in England with great effect upon diplomats, journalists, and hysterical pastry chefs: “The bone of precision becomes the duck of anxiety. The worm of sincerity is raped by the snail of deceit. The baboon of ingratitude is rebuffed by the ostrich of self-immolation.”
“The baboon . . .” said Dewey. “The baboon of what?”
“Ingratitude. The baboon of ingratitude.”
“Oh.”
“The fish of insouciance is eaten by the insect of apathy. The outrigger of consideration is smashed by the octopus of petulance. The hippopotamus of generosity dances with the tortoise of disbelief. And the wildebeest of neglect is approached by the goose of democracy.”
“But, Moofoomooach,” Dewey pleaded, “Dewey Knott can’t do that.”
“Why not?” Freddy asked. “I know a thousand of them.”
“I just can’t do it.”
“Try.”
“Do I have to?”
“You’re the one who wanted to learn diplomacy. Let’s say one of those pinheads asks you a trap question, on national television, and you don’t have the slightest idea what he’s talking about.”
“I never do.”
“All right. Be diplomatic. What would a diplomat say?”
Dewey thought, and after some time he groaned and raised his right hand in the air, index finger pointing at an angle toward the ceiling. “I’ve got one. I’ve got one.”
“Go.”
“The cheeseburger of my car runs away in canoes full of nuts!”
“Excellent,” said Freddy. “That throws them off balance, makes them look insane. Give me another.”
“The chickens of Pearl Harbor scream at Ethel Merman’s socks?”
“You’ve got it!” said Freddy. “Now go with it.”
And in the following days, Dewey did. Not knowing what he meant, the press reflexively assumed that he was brilliant. More brilliant even than Self. More brilliant, it was said, than even Albert Einstein. Dewey was on a roll. Freddy was on a roll. It was only a matter of time.
FOR TWO DAYS a storm had beaten against the walls of Balmoral, turning them olive with an almost imperceptible magenta sheen. Storm-filled air flowed down the mountainsides, moving ragged clouds before it; the streams overflowed and their excessive rocking and washing left lines of white froth on the banks; and the sides of trees were lashed black with rain.
On a dark and haystack-levelling afternoon, the queen and Prince Paul had taken refuge by the fire. Their tall windows were so well caulked that the fire brigade could have turned hoses upon them and not a drop would ha
ve come through. The queen sat with her back to one of these windows, the fire to her left, Paul in front of her on a chair. Filling the rest of the couch to her right were books and papers. Especially when she could not set foot outside, she loved to read all day. Freddy had inherited from her the maddening concentration he readily directed to works on philology, or naval operations in narrow seas.
Paul tapped his foot and tried to remain absorbed in a polo magazine. They were all so bloody the same. Everyone in them wore polo shirts and helmets. Everyone rode a horse. Everyone had a mallet. The adverts were invariably for the same shops and cars. If you’d read one, you’d read them all. He took some more tea, glanced at the fire, and switched to the newspapers. As he opened The Times he said, “I love it when it’s like this.”
“Like what?”
“Sea state seven. Love it.”
“Why?” asked the queen, looking up from (translated) intercepts of Chinese military traffic.
“Because it shows your limitations.”
“My limitations?”
“Yes. You’re treated like a . . . like a god.”
“You know that I think it’s horrible.”
“That’s what you say.”
“I would trade any day. . . .”
“Yes, yes, I know, to be a country woman who raises dogs and plays the piano. I’d like to see you give all this up, I would.”
The queen glanced heavenward. “So would I.”
“Then why not give Freddy his chance?”
“It wouldn’t change things much for us, and he’s still young.”
“Have you seen his bald spot of late?”
“Of course I haven’t,” the queen said wistfully. “How could I have? He’s in Pah-kiss-tahn. I hope they have decent food.”
“What would it matter?” Paul asked, turning the page. “He’s as fat as an Obderoofie.”
“He’s as thin as a Teensilcat,” said the queen, “and I do worry about him.”
Paul looked over his reading glasses and beyond the paper. “In that our race was constructed,” he told his wife, “to go into strange and inhospitable lands, I would imagine that a two-week holiday in Pah-kiss-tahn is within the limits of his endurance.”
“Wasn’t he supposed to be going somewhere else?” the queen asked, her brows knitted.
Paul took on the expression of an inmate of Bedlam as confusion and frustration racked his soul. “I have vague memories,” he said, “dark memories, at the tip of my tongue, so to speak. But I don’t know. He went to Pah-kiss-tahn, didn’t he?”
“Pah-kiss-tahn,” said the queen. “I, too, have vague memories. I can’t summon them. I feel very much as I did when I wanted to remember the sweet I found in the playhouse as a child. I’ve never been able to recall it. Was it an Exeley Cream? No. A Bittrick’s Toffee Melt? No. What was it?”
“Pah-kiss-tahn,” said Paul, determinedly. “Pah-kiss-tahn.”
“This damnable weather!” the queen said. “I command it to cease!”
“Good try,” said Paul, as the rain beat savagely against the glass and even the royal fire hissed as stray droplets rode the air pressure past the baffle in the flue. “Would you like another biscuit?”
“Was it a Derbyshire Chocolate Cherry Cow?” The queen was distracted.
“You know what the Americans are up to now?” Paul asked, referring to a story he was in the midst of reading as he spoke. She saw the animation in his face.
“They’re always up to something, aren’t they?” she asked in return. “Must we ever go back? Dealing with them is so difficult. The criminals we sent to Australia, the lunatics to America. That’s why they have to pretend that something was wrong with George the Third. Remember the crazy fat-woman in Washington whom they chose to have me to tea? She screamed and jumped up and down the whole time. I thought that if she lost her balance she would crush me.”
“Yes, but where was I?”
“It was easy for you. You were hunting rogue ostrich. What is it about the Americans? It’s as if they are we with a broken nose. They do what we do, but they do it so badly, as if history were not an instructress. Everything immediate, nothing in synchrony, nothing slow, nothing withheld. They are the Pietà dropped down a marble staircase and glued back together by a drunk.”
“I don’t know,” said Paul. “They’ve saved our bacon three times in a century. That’s not so gauche, is it?”
“I didn’t say that they’re not powerful. It’s just that they lack every kind of refinement and common sense. And they think they invented the light bulb. Everyone knows it was Geoffrey Deakin.”
“Do you know what they’ve done? Do you remember Dewey Knott?”
“Yes, he’s the one who ate the dog biscuits that were in the silver bowl on the coffee table.”
“Did he like them?”
“He hated them—I could see it in his face—but he dared not back down. He ate seventeen: liver, liver with chicken, calf’s foot, honey glazed tripe. . . .”
“Didn’t you stop him?”
“Why should I have? Besides, I was talking to his wife. What was her name? Spot?”
“Dot.”
“Dot took one, chewed it a bit, wrinkled her makeup until it looked like a Venezuelan lakebed in a hundred-year drought, and secretly—she thought—deposited it underneath this very sofa. That’s why Mitterand always looks there when he comes into the room.”
“François?”
“No, the poodle. What about Dewey Knott?”
“He’s running for president, you know.”
“How pedestrian, to seek office.”
“He’s come back up miraculously on the eve of his convention, after being behind by sixty points. Now he’s ten points ahead of Self.”
“Excellent,” said the queen. “Self is a psychotic. He pinched my behind. I do hope Dewey wins. Among other things, with Dewey, dinners would be far less complicated—liver, liver with chicken. . . .”
“Do you know how he did it? He brought into his campaign an Indian, ‘White Eagle,’ who writes all his speeches, dictates strategy, and is, I imagine, a kind of regent. According to the American press, White Eagle can do no wrong. Evidently he was a boyhood chum of Dewey’s. They were blood brothers. Strange. White Eagle is said to be twenty-five years or so younger than Dewey. How could they have been childhood friends?”
“Perhaps he’s Dewey’s son,” the queen said. “Things like that do happen.” She was referring to Paul’s illegitimate daughter, whom he begat with a waitress in a ski restaurant in the Polish Alps.
“I don’t see why they should get so worked up over a wog,” Paul said. “The whole world’s going crazy over wogs.”
“Yes,” said the queen, mockingly. “Isn’t it strange? You’d think there were more wogs in the world than anyone else.”
“I grant you that, but, still,” said Paul, “everything is wogs. Wogs, wogs, wogs. No one cares about people like us any more. It’s not fair.”
“Do you suppose, if Dewey becomes president, that we’ll meet this wog? What’s his name?”
“White Eagle.”
“It would be terribly awkward. I’m sure that White Eagle is perfectly intelligent and perhaps civilised. It’s just that I’ve never known a president joined at the hip with an Indian.”
“What about Roosevelt and Hopkins?”
“Hopkins was an Indian? I thought he was Jewish. Oh, I so miss Freddy,” the queen said. “I hope he comes back from Pah-kiss-tahn soon.”
“I just hope,” said Paul, returning to The Times, “that he’s finally lost some weight. God knows, I would if all I had to eat was wog chow.”
IT WAS A CLEAR NIGHT in San Francisco, but still the foghorns sounded like the souls of lost seals calling across the bays of the Northern Pacific. The lights of helicopters and boats, like insects engaged on busy errands, made soundless lines as smooth as the tracks of satellites moving among the stars. High above this, Dewey and Finney sat on the teak garden benches of Dewe
y’s terrace, surrounded by potted evergreens. Each morning when Dewey looked out the sliding glass doors of his bedroom he would note that amid the millions of sharp evergreen needles were millions of shining droplets combed from the fog and ready to fall into the planters to water the soil.
“You know,” said Dewey, bourbon in hand, “it’s really no good going from a hospital, where you hold dying children, to a tortilla bakery with a fucking mariachi band. With all the pressure and attacks, and then things like that, and everyone hanging on your every goddamned word, how are you supposed to stay sane?”
Finney took a long time to answer. He was watching a light on the fantail of a freighter make an immensely long blink as it disappeared behind and then emerged to the east of Treasure Island. “What?” he asked.
“How are politicians supposed to be sane?” Dewey said, about to repeat his lament, when Finney interrupted.
“Yes, mariachi bands after hospices for children. The answer is that politicians were never supposed to be sane, and aren’t.”
“We aren’t?”
“Do you think you are?”
Dewey had never been asked that. He screwed up his face and looked at the stars. From Finney’s perspective, in the dim light, he looked like Harpo Marx. Dewey’s eyes moved about like dogs that dart to and fro behind a fence. “No,” he answered.
“That settles it,” said Finney, “although I won’t quote you.”
“It doesn’t matter if you do. I’m golden now.”
“I know.”
“What’s the problem then?” Dewey asked. “Why are you so negative?”
“I suppose,” said Finney, “that it’s just that, the night before your acceptance speech—which will make or break you—you don’t have an acceptance speech.”
Dewey tapped his foot upon the floor, indicating the rooms below. “He’s working on it.”
“But have you seen it? Have I seen it? Has anyone seen it?”
“No one saw the other one.”
“This is different. Length, policy, importance.”
“Don’t worry. These days importance is not important. I mean, no one knows anything anyway. I trust Moofoomooach. He gave me seventy points in two days. The whole country’s Moofoomooach crazy, and anything he does will work. He could translate The Hunchback of Notre Dame into Yiddish, and when I gave it they would say I was George Washington.”