The Kennedy Moment

by Peter Adamson

  Walking to the West Village via Sutton Place was a long way round. But it was at a time of day when First Avenue was at its pedestrian busiest, as the thousands who work at the UN and the various banks and offices of Midtown headed out to lunch.

  She turned east by the 59th Street bridge, making towards the FDR Drive, slowing her pace slightly as the crowds thinned in the sidestreets. A minute later she turned right and crossed to the row of four-storey townhouses on the tree-lined east side of Sutton Place. Without pausing, she glanced at the recessed entranceway to Number 13. At Sutton Park she turned right again on 53rd and rejoined First Avenue five blocks north of the building where Michael was sitting in a 6th-floor conference room eating a tuna salad from a plastic tray.

  The brass letter box had been approximately fourteen inches wide.

  The conversation between the two of them for the rest of that day was conducted via answering machine. During an afternoon break, Michael left a message suggesting dinner at Angelo’s on Mulberry Street. An hour later, Seema left a message at the Doral confirming the arrangement. The thought that Michael might also have invited Stephen crossed her mind for a moment; long enough for her to register disappointment.

  But Stephen had not been invited. And in the event the dinner at the long-established restaurant in the heart of Little Italy had gone well. The conversation had at first been stilted, subdued. Most of the tables were occupied and the ‘big thing’ was off the conversational menu. Yet it loomed over them, making any other topic seem forced, as if it were merely trying to fill the void. Michael had persisted in asking about her research, and his interest had led her into explaining some of the problems. The big thing was still there in the shadows, but a kind of intimacy, an enjoyment of one another’s company independent of what was being said, had grown between them as the evening lengthened, as if the presence in the shadows were being kept at bay by the plucky light of the candle.

  After dinner, she had moved the candle slightly to one side so that they could see each other more clearly. ‘My hope, in the first place—’

  They were interrupted by the arrival of espresso and Sambuca. When the waiter had left, she began again. ‘I wanted to write a book that would be about slaves as people, try and find a way to restore that dimension of individual humanity. And I thought in the case of the Hemings family I might just be able to glean enough information to do that.’

  ‘And is there enough?’

  ‘If I fill in some of the detail of what their lives were like from a much wider literature, then, yes, I think there is.’

  ‘Because they were Jefferson’s slaves?’

  ‘Yes. They were owned by Martha’s family – Martha Wayles, Jefferson’s wife. They came to him when he married her.’

  ‘So it’s a biography of a family.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But your publisher wants it to be more about Jefferson?’

  ‘Not only that. They want it to be about the relationship between Jefferson and Sally Hemings.’

  ‘And you think that would undermine what the book’s trying to do?’

  ‘It would carry a kind of subtext that says the only reason she’s important or worth knowing about is because she was Jefferson’s mistress. And I wanted the Hemings to be important and interesting in their own right.’

  Michael sipped the wonderful, viscous espresso and thought for a moment. ‘You could say that it’s the danger inherent in the whole concept, though.’

  Seema picked up the spoon and removed the coffee beans from the Sambuca, alive to the fact of how much she was enjoying telling Michael about her concerns, despite the threat from just beyond their little circle of light. ‘I know. We only have any information about their lives because they belonged to Monticello, and a lot of the people who might read it will really only be interested because of Jefferson. But, Michael, there’s a difference, isn’t there? The fact that they were Jefferson’s slaves is the reason we know about them, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only thing that makes them interesting, which is how my publisher sees it.’

  ‘Do it the publisher’s way and you undermine your purpose.’

  ‘Exactly. But do it my way, and apparently I undermine the sales.’

  To her own surprise, Seema suggested they have a second round of espresso and Sambuca, not quite knowing whether this was to prolong what was, or to postpone what was to come.

  ‘Of course it’s so frustrating not to know more. I’ve never worked on anything that made me wish so desperately that we could reach back into the past and really know. But there is enough, I think. She was obviously a remarkable woman. And sometimes just knowing about the context brings her alive. I mean, imagine a seventeen-year-old girl who’d never left a plantation in rural Virginia suddenly being transported to the most glamorous city in the world, accompanying Jefferson’s daughter to balls at Versailles on the eve of the French Revolution. I think it could be wonderful. But the truth is I really need a sabbatical to finish it. Six months. A year would be better.’

  And so the evening had passed more enjoyably than either could have anticipated. But the presence in the shadows could not be banished indefinitely, and when they left the restaurant at midnight it followed them out into the streets, closing in on them as they headed towards Washington Square. Seema attempted to keep it at bay for a while longer by telling him how the square had been the first soil in America to be owned by Africans, slaves who had been given the land as a buffer between their Dutch masters of New Amsterdam and the Native Americans. After that the talk died away as they cut the corner of the square, avoiding the addicts and the broken bottles and needles.

  Just as she was wondering whether to invite him to come in, he unfastened the brass clasp of the bag. ‘I’ve got something for you.’

  She looked at him in the darkness of the doorway. He set the bag down on the tiled floor and took out the envelope inside its two plastic bags. He paused before handing it to her. ‘Are you sure you’re still all right with this?’

  ‘Do you want to come up and we’ll go over what I have to do?’

  He picked up the bag again and his voice faltered. ‘No, it’s been … too nice an evening to spoil with this’ – he handed her the envelope – ‘for me, I mean. Can we talk about it tomorrow?’

  ‘We could meet here at the end of the day.’

  ‘Seven o’clock?’

  ‘Fine. Shall Stephen come too?’

  ‘No need. I’m seeing him for breakfast. I’ll brief him then.’ He leaned forward to kiss her cheek. ‘Goodnight, Seema.’

  ‘Goodnight, Michael.’

  He was stepping back into the street when she spoke again, from halfway through the inner door of the building. ‘Michael.’

  He turned on the sidewalk.

  ‘I had a nice evening, too.’

  26 | Let’s do it

  Stephen’s meeting with Michael had left a slightly sour taste. They had been unable to talk about the plan in Zum-Zum’s, the German-style deli where they had eaten a hurried breakfast. So the conversation afterwards, as he walked with Michael to his meeting, had been necessarily condensed. And it had felt a little too much like taking instructions.

  Back in the lobby of the Chelsea, he poured himself more coffee and put the Times aside, his mood not improved by an article about a Unitarian clergyman who had apparently lost his faith but carried on pretending. According to the story, he had felt that who and what he was – to his wife and family, to his friends, his congregation and his community – had been entirely built on the foundation of being a Christian minister. To abandon the foundation, he had feared, would be to bring the whole edifice tumbling down. And so he had remained silent, going through the motions of being a priest for more than ten years until the inner conflict had led to a breakdown. It had been a moving story, ending with a description of the love and support shown by those whose repudiation he had feared. In the last few paragraphs, the writer had speculated that no one could know how many
other members of the clergy were in a similar position, offering as an aside a chilling if not entirely relevant reference to Edgar Allen Poe’s famous comment that ‘no one will ever know how many coffin lids are scratched on the inside’.

  The piece had sharpened the sour taste and he ordered a second bagel, eventually leaving the Chelsea Hotel soon after half past nine to walk downtown to Seema’s apartment.

  They had lunched together twice in the time since the others had left New York, and visited an exhibition at the New York Historical Society one bitterly cold weekend, but Seema had deliberately not invited Stephen to the apartment. Now, as she buzzed him up, she was still thinking about the previous evening.

  He refused the offer of coffee and seemed anxious to be on his way. ‘So, they’re still in the little fridge?’ he asked, determinedly offhand.

  ‘I’ve never even opened it.’

  Stephen was forced to kneel under the spiral staircase to take out the first of the plastic bags, its contents almost invisible through a crusting of frost. He closed the door and shuffled backwards on his knees until there was room to stand.

  Resting the canvas shoulder bag on the table, he stowed the container inside and took an age fastening the straps. This done, he turned towards her and took a deep breath. ‘Point of no return, I guess.’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘You’ve got the letter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Michael show you it?’

  ‘No, it’s all sealed up. Clean of any prints or anything. It’s just to be taken out of the bag and pushed through the mailbox.’

  ‘With gloves.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Quite right.’

  He pushed an arm through the strap of the bag and paused at the open door to the landing. ‘Okay, let’s do it.’

  No one needs an excuse to wear gloves on a February day in New York, and Stephen attracted no attention as he crossed the main concourse of Grand Central. He had delayed his arrival until the evening rush hour and the steps were crowded with Amtrak commuters streaming towards the platforms. From a point halfway down the staircase he had already identified a partly open locker.

  At the last moment, without knowing why, he veered towards one of the coffee counters. There he surveyed the concourse, just one of thousands of rush-hour commuters waiting for a train. He sipped from the plastic cup, the world running past him as time stood still. So far, his involvement had been driven by Stephen the radical historian. The other Stephen had not been consulted. Until now.

  For twenty minutes more he remained on the revolving stool, accepting a refill and slowly admitting that it was in any case too late. Not to go through with the plan now would be to sustain a blow which no version of himself could survive. Feeling slightly numbed, he paid his bill and unfastened the straps of the shoulder bag. The locker he had first identified still stood half open as he rounded the foot of the stairs. It was twenty minutes past six.

  Glancing up to see if anyone might be watching, he opened the door all the way, took out the still-cold plastic bag and pushed it deep inside the locker. Letting his shoulder bag fall to the floor, he felt in his jeans pocket for the quarter and inserted it into the slot, turning the handle clockwise until the coin dropped. He was about to turn away when he remembered the key. Quickly he tugged it from the lock and, telling himself that there was no need to hurry, walked towards the foot of the stairs. On the bottom step, he rested the bag on the stone balustrade and took out a leather coin purse. Gloved hands struggling with the zip, he placed the key inside the purse and returned it to the bag, fastening it with both buckles and ducking his head inside the loop of the strap so that it sat diagonally across his chest.

  By a quarter to six he was crossing 42nd Street to the lobby of the Chrysler building. After walking in one entrance and out of another, he spent the next hour walking haphazardly around Midtown, ending up near the Port Authority Bus Terminal where he stood in line for a yellow cab. Progress was slow in the evening traffic and it was after 7.00pm when he finally arrived in his room at the Chelsea Hotel. He locked the door. Still wearing the gloves, he removed the key from the purse and polished it for a full minute using a soft cloth and a small bottle of lens cleaner. He then transferred it to the clear plastic bag waiting on top of the mini-bar. Finally he placed the bag and key inside an identical second bag, torn from a roll bought earlier that day. Only then did he take off the gloves and open the half pint of Jack Daniels he had picked up at the liquor store on the corner of 23rd.

  27 | The heart of a perfectionist

  Montreal, February 10th, 1981

  Hélène sat in her father’s study reading job advertisements in the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association. Her parents had gone to bed hours before, having failed to extract any information about the sender of the hand-addressed letter that had arrived for her that morning, postmarked London.

  What they would have made of Toby Jenks in person she could only imagine. She had opened the envelope with trepidation, but in fact the letter had been sensible, chatty, humorous on the subject of supersonic travel and inquiring whether she had made any progress with her decision about making a new life for herself in Canada.

  The weekend in New York had been altogether too overwhelming for any sorting out of her feelings. When she had told him about Fabrice, in that late-nite bar in the small hours of the Saturday morning, she had seen how disturbed he had been. For her. For himself. And she had all but heard his inner thoughts as she had spoken of the commitment and courage of the man she had loved and who was now almost certainly dead. At one point, after he had drunk two more beers, she had heard him say, almost under his breath, ‘Ah my dear, I cannot look on thee’. It had always been his habit to come out with lines, often quotations or fragments of poems, that were enigmatic, wistful, meaning more to the speaker than the listener. Remembering now, she walked through to the kitchen and took a beer from the two-four in the fridge, the floorboards of the old house creaking at every step as she carried it back to the study.

  The letter had mentioned, seemingly in passing, that he had also written to Michael. But of course there had been nothing about the content. She sipped the beer, imagining him drafting and redrafting, knowing that under all the bluster beat the heart of a perfectionist. And she did not entirely believe his line that he had abandoned poetry for jingles.

  It was now nearly eleven. She had drunk only a third of the beer, but could already feel the first slight disorientation. The house was in darkness, apart from the reading lamp by her father’s chair. Best of all, the letter had made no absurd declarations, placed her under no pressure. Perhaps Toby might be capable of growing up. Fine. But she would not be the prop to his vine. Not that she was capable of being anybody’s prop at the moment. To her relief, the tests at McGill had shown up nothing, and the consensus had been that her symptoms were the result of fighting off the constant threat of infection. Her parents had agreed and prescribed a return home to Canada.

  She closed the journal and replaced the beer on the coaster. In any case, there was no point in thinking about the future, with or without Toby Jenks, until the weeks to come had told their story.

  28 | Iacta alea est

  Shortly after seven o’clock on the evening of Tuesday, February 10th, Assistant Secretary-General Camden Hughes left the headquarters of the United Nations by the main gate, pausing only to unfurl an umbrella. Turning right on to First Avenue, he set off to walk the seventeen blocks to Sutton Place, almost keeping pace with the red tail-lights crawling uptown towards the 59th Street bridge. Most of the commuters would already be home, but there were still hundreds of pedestrians on First Avenue, mostly heading for the restaurants and bars on Second and Third.

  As he cleared UN Plaza, a slight figure wearing a raincoat and carrying an A&P shopping bag watched from under the awning of the Metropolitan Café on the opposite side of First Avenue. After waiting at the lights to cross 49th Street, Hughes set off again u
p the slight incline, causing the figure in the raincoat to step out from the doorway and begin keeping pace with him, separated by a jostle of pedestrians and three lanes of traffic.

  Hughes was a tall man and in a hurry to get home, and Seema had to stride out to stay half a block behind, hand at her throat to secure the plastic rain hood around her face. The evening was as wet and moonless as forecast.

  On the corner of 52nd Street, he stopped by a neighbourhood supermarket and came out a few minutes later carrying a plastic bag in the same gloved hand as his briefcase. At the next corner he turned off and headed east on 53rd. Seema crossed First and followed, staying well behind. When he turned left into Sutton Place South she hurried to the corner to keep him in sight.

  For four blocks she kept her distance as Hughes passed under the awnings of the expensive apartment buildings of Sutton Place, crossing eventually to the block of narrow-fronted townhouses between 57th and 58th Streets. Reaching one of the doorways, he removed his gloves and began struggling one-handed with the key. A lamp, suspended from the small second-floor balcony, illuminated the number ‘13’ carved in elegant Gothic script into the stone of the lintel.

  As Hughes disappeared inside, Seema continued on uptown. The rain was becoming heavier. Turning left under the massive girders of the 59th Street bridge, she rejoined First Avenue and turned south again, heading against the traffic. A few minutes later she re-entered Sutton Place at 56th Street.