by Ward Just
A few months later Gus Harding took early retirement and moved to Muncie to be near his grown children. Three evenings a week he filled in on the copy desk of the Muncie paper. Quiet work: putting the commas in the right places, checking the spelling, eliminating flights of fancy, four-syllable words, and unsubstantiated facts. That Gus, the city editor said, he’s a treasure.
Ned Ayres followed Gus Harding. The day before he was to leave Herman for Indianapolis he took a walk around town, one end of Benjamin Franklin Boulevard and back again. He walked in soft sunlight, a lovely September day, a natural masterpiece with no hint of the winter soon to come. Elms in full leaf leaned across the boulevard in an arbor, and for a moment Ned thought of a foreign land, provincial France or the hill towns of Tuscany. He had become acquainted with both in his European civilization class in the twelfth grade. He admired these towns from a distance, so old, ancient really, thick with tradition, from the outside most peaceful. By contrast, Herman was only brick and mortar. It had been settled before the Civil War but no buildings, neither stores nor houses, survived from that time. Ned was entranced by the idea of France and Italy, but it never occurred to him that he might visit there himself. Instead, he had Indianapolis. He was twenty-one years old now with a manner older than his age, no doubt a consequence of his decision to avoid college life with its frivolity, its fads and lonely passions, its conformity. He had been working after hours since he was fourteen and full-time at the Post-Gazette since graduation from high school, honors all around. Herman had become a straitjacket but he knew he would miss it, if only as a measuring stick. Herman was a place he had left but a half-dozen times in his life, two field trips to Chicago—the Museum of Science and Industry in the morning, the Art Institute in the afternoon—and trips with his family to Louisville and east to Kenyon, in Ohio. His father was insistent about college and had heard nice things about Kenyon and its English Department. Judge Ayres knew that Indiana University, his old school, was not suitable. Too large and rah-rah and at the same time confined, landlocked. But Ned refused even to entertain the idea of higher education. His father made the application to Kenyon anyhow, and when the acceptance came, Ned refused to open the letter. He knew what he would do with his working life and college was a distraction, yesterday’s news. Something would be lost, certainly, but much more would be gained because Ned would be submerged in the news. The rest he could pick up as he went along. Shakespeare and Carnegie and Picasso and Newton and Homer, even Big Bill Thompson, Chicago’s crooked mayor between the wars, and Indiana’s flirtation with the Ku Klux Klan. The Battle of the Somme. Ned believed he had successfully managed the first stage of his apprenticeship. Indi-anapolis was the next stage, and then—who knew? He thought of Chicago.
Ned strolled by the Buick dealership and the pharmacy, the coffee shop next to the pharmacy. He waved to old Mr. Neggin and old Mr. Neggin waved back before returning to his urn. Ned thought of stopping in to see Uncle Ralph, then decided not to. The old soldier slept most of the day and night, and even when he was awake he was silent except for an occasional nonsense sentence. His hands were restless and now and again he whistled a tune from the Great War, looking at his steepled thumbs. The judge continued to stop in on Saturday mornings, stay five minutes, and leave. Ned passed the courthouse where his father was in the discovery phase of a trial, something to do with bankruptcy. Ned glanced at the window of Johnson’s Jewelry and its spread of Bulova wristwatches and engagement rings. Then he was at the window of William Grant Haberdashery with its hand-lettered For Sale sign with the telephone number of the bank. The interior was empty, dust on the floor, an electric wire hanging naked where an overhead light had been. Ned shook his head at the disarray. William Grant had always been tidy, racks of double-breasted blue suits, racks of ties and display cases of shirts and sweaters, ribbed black socks, red suspenders. Ned remembered the umbrella with its ebony staff and silver handle with its discreet notice: Not For Sale. As if any man in Herman would buy such an accessory. Whatever did Grant have in mind? The ebony reflected a soft glow, suitable for a slender dancer in a top hat and a white silk scarf, wingtip shoes, a lime-colored shirt with French cuffs and little blue initials over the breast pocket, and a silk vest with a gold chain that went across the waist from here to there. Poor Grant, he thought he was bringing a touch of class to worn-out Herman. So the lawyer was correct after all. The haberdasher was, first and last, a fantasist.
All this and more tumbled from Ned’s memory as he stood at his desk in the newsroom on Michigan Avenue in Chicago waiting for the next act. The time was past midnight. He returned the bottle of scotch to its place in the credenza. He made no move to leave, his eyes patrolling the great vacant room. The card players had vanished. The night watchman looked in, gave a wave, and continued on. Ned smiled, thinking it was time for him to move from the middle of the country to its eastern edge. There were different lessons to learn in the East, an older environment with still a ways to go. In the East things were less confined because of the open ocean and settlements that dated from the sixteenth century, all in all a more forgiving ambiance—and then Salem and the witch-hunts came to mind. Well. He would have to see for himself, and Washington was a good place to begin.
Later in that dreadful year, Ned’s last in Herman, someone had the temerity to put the Post-Gazette up for a Pulitzer Prize, the gold medal for public service, the idea being to show support for the nation’s newspapers, beleaguered but courageous as ever. The nation’s provincial press deserved words of encouragement. A vigilant watchman of the night. But the nomination did not survive the first cut. The Grant story had slipped off the screen, too much attention paid to it and so many loose ends. Too much inside chatter. Very many questions without satisfactory answers. Just about everyone was happy to see it disappear, including Ned Ayres. The story began as something instructive and ended in rancor and confusion. Ned turned off his office light and stood in the near darkness. He lit a cigarette, thinking of Elaine, thinking too of Michael Ardmore, who was his own verification. Elaine went her own way, so did her father. Thing was, you could never leave the business altogether. The business was truly a kind of cult, and difficult to read your own motives because your work was the full disclosure of the motives of others. That was the way the board was set up, the dice in play. Looked at in a certain way, the way of utter neutrality—well, William Grant didn’t stand a chance.
Ned Ayres buttoned his coat and took one last look around. He hurried through the newsroom until he reached the bank of elevators.
In twenty minutes Ned was home, switching on lights as he went from room to room. His feet hurt. He wondered if another glass of scotch would brighten the evening and decided it would not. He stood at the picture window looking into dimly lit and empty Astor Street. God, that was an awful piece about Jacqueline Kennedy. He wondered how much of it was factual. Probably not much. The younger reporters took liberties that the older ones did not, as if the typewriter keys were little magic wands that conferred reliability, the machine a kind of god. Maybe there should be an age requirement in the newsroom, say thirty years old, men and women alike. Let them learn their trade on a smaller paper where the stakes weren’t so high and an old-timer could warn them about adverbs, and not in a kindly way. A bark with an expletive at the end of it showing that he meant business. Well, the stakes were often high on smaller papers, too. Ned continued to look out the window at the single streetlight and a couple necking, pressed against the chassis of a blue Cadillac as the snow commenced to fall.
Sometime in the early morning Ned awoke in a state of high confusion. He had been dreaming or hallucinating, one or the other. He was in a dark place, a city park or private lawn. He lay still, allowing things to settle. His memory stretched back. He was speaking to old man Elias, his family scattered, his life in ruins. His wife was ill. The bank was up for sale. He rarely heard from Leatrice and the boys. At Christmastime he sent them checks but the notes that came back were pro forma, a Ha
llmark card with a scribble on its face. Ned Ayres sat up in bed. The hallucination vanished and he returned to real time, three a.m. according to the clock on the bedside table. The encounter had come at dusk on the day before Ned was to leave for Indianapolis. Ned had seen Mr. Elias accept the note, look at it, and tear it into pieces. He had never told anyone, figuring that the Grant matter should have one inviolable secret. There had been the usual rumors about the note that Grant had left behind. No one had seen it except his father-in-law; seen and destroyed. Ned told him that he was leaving town, probably for good. They spoke briefly about the old man’s family, and Ned made the inquiry. What had the note said? He realized at once that he had crossed a line. He apologized. Forget it, he said. I’m sorry I asked. Howard Elias turned away without speaking. Ned left the question hanging. The old man sighed, as much groan as sigh. He seemed to be gathering himself from some unspeakable burden.
What did you say?
I’m sorry. I asked about Grant’s farewell note.
Oh, Howard Elias said. It was a short note.
Ned said, The missing element.
Howard Elias offered a thin smile, as one does on contemplating a simple answer to a complex question.
He looked at Ned, then lowered his voice. William said he was sorry for the trouble he had caused. “I am so very sorry,” William wrote. It was a gentleman’s note, you see. Unsigned, but I recognized the script, Howard said.
Five
Milo Passarel
ONCE A FORTNIGHT Ned Ayres dined with the publisher of the newspaper. They met at the publisher’s downtown club, usually at the table in the far corner of the room, the one with the glancing view of the fortified gates of the White House, the mansion white-lit beyond. That evening, a little after eight, they met in the bar but decided to go directly to the dining room, the bar being crowded with noisy lawyers. Their language was filthy, even the women. Milo Passarel was a gentleman of the old school, as people liked to say, courteous almost to a fault. He was often silent and always booked the table known as the Coolidge table, in memory of Silent Cal, who once spent an entire evening mute as a stone. So inconspicuous was the president that one evening he disappeared into the gents and when next seen was strolling across Lafayette Square and up the driveway to his house, where he knocked on the door and was admitted by a Marine guard who saluted and asked for ID. That, anyhow, was the story.
Milo, like President Coolidge, was easy to underestimate, mildly spoken and abrupt without being contentious, perhaps miscast as the publisher of a newspaper, a business that was, after all, loquacious, a rumble-tumble side-of-the-mouth business that attracted more than its share of rogues and exhibitionists, skeptics, wiseguys devoted to transforming any silk purse into a sow’s ear. The noisy lawyers reminded Milo of the newsroom at deadline time, not that he devoted much time to the newsroom. That was Ned Ayres’s chore. And so the publisher listened a moment before escorting Ned out of the bar and into the cathedral atmosphere of the dining room, sparsely filled, two candles burning at Silent Cal’s table. Milo nodded at a senator he knew slightly. Then a waitress was at their table asking for drink orders and Milo Passarel selected a bottle of Rioja, as he usually did.
I like the Rioja, Milo said. It’s good value. It’s low end of the scale compared to what they’ve got in the cellar, Chambertin and some of the really good Bordeaux, Lafitte and the others. But I prefer the Rioja, tasty, no nonsense. Built to last. They know what they’re doing in Spain.
Good value, Ned replied.
Without preamble Milo Passarel began to speak of an old friend, dead of a stroke two days earlier. His obituary was in the paper that morning, an account that featured a scandal of years past, a minor scandal as Washington scandals went, but a scandal nonetheless. Placed high up in the obituary, third paragraph actually. Was that necessary, Ned? He was a good man. The obit roughed him up.
Yes, Ned said. We call it the sweet and sour balance.
More sour than sweet, the publisher said.
Ned Ayres waited a moment before replying. He said, Point taken.
People are not saints, the publisher said.
Definitely, Ned replied.
God help you in this town if you put a foot wrong.
The Justice Department was involved, Ned said.
And when his wife called me she was in tears.
Ned Ayres nodded in sympathy.
I sent your reporter a note about it. Sharply written note.
She told me, Ned said. Showed me your note. Said she wanted to speak to you, explain her method. I told her that was a bad idea. But she said her feelings were hurt and she wanted to explain why she wrote it the way she did, the sweet and sour balance. I said that was definitely a bad idea because the publisher has nothing to do with the preparation of obits. I do. I supervise obits and whatever else is in the paper. The weather report. The Dow Jones Industrial Average. Milo? Can I suggest that this obituary is way below your pay grade?
Milo raised his eyebrows and said, Nothing in the paper is below my pay grade, alas. That’s why I carry the title of publisher. And it bothers me that the worst is always the first in our obituaries.
But you see what I’m saying.
Of course. That doesn’t mean I approve.
The waitress arrived with the Rioja and poured without ceremony. She was young and very pretty, no doubt a substitute. Waitresses at the club were older women, blunt-spoken. This one was smiling. She deftly moved her fingernail to catch a stray drop from the bottle and glided away. Milo had seen none of this. He sighed deeply and looked out the window at the White House lawn, blue in the glare of the lights. Milo was obviously preoccupied, something beyond obituaries. Obituaries were an hors d’oeuvre. Ned had learned to remain silent at such moments. Milo Passarel’s cards were always held close to the vest. His expression was unreadable, his eyes fixed on a distant point.
Milo took one wee sip of Rioja as if it were nitroglycerine and still his mien was inscrutable, a stranger at his own table. He had taken leave, gone away somewhere. He had said to Ned only the other day that he felt like an instructor who taught the same course year after year. One might say—nothing learned, nothing forgotten. He lived in his own world, no question of that, and his world was abstract. When his day ended, at precisely four forty-five in the afternoon, Milo Passarel went home and read in his library. He never worked on weekends. He was never to be disturbed except in the event of an emergency, an explosion in the building, for example. His own cast of mind was not ideal for the publisher of a newspaper. He did not relish conflict. Mischief did not interest him. An ideal page one would be repetitive, like the skin of a great ocean, no wind, no tide, a blanket of water on which no vessels were visible. A good day would be a day without obituaries. A fine day would feature a new invention, something to improve the lives of people. But his family owned the newspaper. He was the inheritor, like it or not. And so he shouldered the burden because that was what he was born to do. That was his assignment. Early in their collaboration Ned made a mistake that he never forgot and that made him laugh whenever he thought of it. He referred to the news business as “fun.”
Milo said, What?
Fun, Milo. The business is fun.
You mean, like play?
Well, not play exactly. More in the line of The Human Comedy.
Milo grunted.
You don’t agree?
It’s an invitation to a beheading, Milo said, a strange remark that Ned Ayres identified as a Nabokov title. And now, in the low quiet of the dining room, Milo Passarel cleared his throat, took a mouthful of Rioja, and told a story from his own life, something he almost never did. His voice dropped an octave and his eyes moved away to fasten once more on the blue lawn of the White House. He said, When I was a boy, Father allowed me to sit in on editorial conferences. I was very young. I was under ten, so much of what was said I did not catch. But I do remember the rough laughter, four or five of them, my father leading. On this one occasion they were t
rying to fix a plank in the party platform. The convention was a week away. The platform had gained quite a lot of attention, though everyone knew it would be utterly and completely forgotten once the convention ended and a nominee selected. They were divvying up the responsibilities. My father would write two editorials, the first conciliatory, the second not. Senator X would handle the Florida delegation. Governor Y would handle Illinois. Their voices fell as they struggled with the emissary to Eleanor. Eleanor Roosevelt was critical to their efforts. Lose Eleanor and you might lose New York. That was the consensus except for my father, who said Eleanor had but one vote in her handbag, her own. Forget Eleanor. I was half listening. I knew some of the names because they were politicians and they were the people my father, the publisher of this newspaper, socialized with. His sword was the editorial page of the paper. He cared for little else, but now and then he would arrive in the newsroom with a story of his own. He’d point with his finger and the chief political reporter would rise and they would both head for my father’s office on the seventh floor. And the very next day there would be an exclusive report on page one, citing reliable sources. That was Father’s life, Milo said, my grandfather’s, too. That’s why they owned a newspaper instead of an automobile company or a law firm. I remember them still in my father’s office, all of them with a drink in hand. This was where the business got done. No stenographer, no tape recorder. The conferences were off-book. And that’s how things got done. And by the way, the business of the newspaper was in other hands. We had a general manager who ran things, a report every Friday to my father, who listened carefully without actually understanding what he was told. He put up a bold front, though, as they went through the various departments, classified and circulation and distribution and the others. Father did enjoy the rumble of the presses as they began the run, and the whine when the machines were at full throat. The entire building shook, including my father’s office. He never bothered with the minor departments. They were a faceless infantry forever in the trenches, remembered with a bonus check at the end of the year. Thank you for your service. Fact was, we were making so damned much money that it didn’t matter.