Echo House

by Ward Just

  Chairman Tyner looked questioningly at Adolph, and Adolph said, "They weren't Kaffirs; they were Boers. He wasn't a captain; he was a conscript. And there was no mix-up, either, because there was no Military Cross. The rest of it, I'm not in a position to say."

  "Aren't women extraordinary," the chairman said.

  "Women live in a dream world," the senator replied bitterly.

  When the call came at last everyone turned toward Adolph Behl. Curly Peralta began to clap and then all the men applauded, stopping abruptly when old John picked up the receiver and handed it to the senator. Adolph took it and stood at attention, listening, but it was evident at once that something was wrong, because after a few moments he began to cough uncontrollably and dropped the receiver. From the billiards room Constance asked what was wrong, darling. Someone stepped to the sideboard and poured Adolph a large whiskey, handing it to him carefully as if it were medicine. Old John retrieved the receiver and replaced it in its cradle.

  Adolph stood motionless, the whiskey glass in his hand, the expression on his face unreadable. He looked like a classroom lecturer who had unaccountably lost his place and had forgotten what came next. He shifted the whiskey glass from his left hand to his right and in a sudden violent motion hurled it at the wall. Bits of crystal flew everywhere, but still he did not move. When his wife approached him he roughly pushed her away as if she were a tactless servant. You bastard, Constance snarled, loud enough for everyone to hear. Adolph's attention went quickly elsewhere, to his friends who were dumb with shock and dismay, except for Sir Charles Rath, who was too worldly to be shocked by anything and was rarely dismayed.

  Humiliation gave way to rage, fury seeking to conceal insult as, many years later, the scar on the wall was concealed by a little Picasso sketch, a merry satyr in a loincloth scratching his cloven hoof. The senator was trembling, talking loudly to no one in particular, vowing revenge. His friends joined in because they too had been insulted. They all thought they were climbing to the top of the tree together, and when they discovered they weren't, they were furious. Adolph was still a United States senator and that counted for something, but his ambition was to be vice president. The nomination had been promised to him, and now the promise had been rudely withdrawn.

  Curly Peralta managed, "What did he say exactly?"

  Adolph mentioned a name, the young Midwestern governor, so well-liked in his own state and neighboring states, including Adolph's own state. He was the Man's choice, selected no doubt for his amiability and ignorance of national affairs; he would be a lap dog. Then Adolph murmured, "Alabama."

  He meant that the Alabama delegation might revolt. He had good, close friends in that delegation, men he had known for years. He had attended their weddings, had stood godfather to their children, had hunted on their plantations as they had come to Echo House for billiards and conversation. Because it stood first on the roll of states, any Alabama revolt could turn the convention. The radio static had cleared, and George Steppe turned up the volume so that they could all listen to the balloting.

  Adolph stared at the radio as if it were human and capable of any surprise. But Alabama was solid; no one broke ranks, not a single delegate. The head of the delegation bawled the unanimous vote to cheers in the great hall. Adolph had been an usher at his wedding and had managed a private bill through the Senate on his behalf; and now Adolph thought he heard laughter in the chairman's voice. And so it continued through the alphabet until the applause began to build—and then George brusquely switched off the radio.

  For a moment no one knew what to do or say. They looked to Adolph for a lead, but he gave none. There was general movement in the direction of the sideboard; everyone beginning to talk at once while they prepared their drinks, agreeing that betrayal could not go unpunished. Curly Peralta decided that the nominee had sent a dreadful signal: his word could not be trusted, and in national politics a man's word was his destiny. A bad beginning, Curly said, and the nominee—the Man—must needs be taught a lesson. The means were near to hand, allies to be enlisted without delay, friendly newspapermen, finance people, Senate colleagues—for was this not an affront to the dignity of the Senate?—state chairmen, religious leaders, members of the bar. Each man had his own list of markers to be called when the time came. God, what a mess.

  The women listened from the billiards room, where they had resumed their card game. Young Axel remained in the shadows, hearing the gathering of the tricks and the shuffle, the falling of the cards and the thick silence before the bidding, the scratch of a match when one of the women lit a cigarette. In the Observatory the talk trailed away, growing softer—and then someone laughed and the others joined in. The women looked at each other and continued their aggressive play, their conversation barely a murmur. Axel wondered if this was what his father meant by the dream world of women. Unsuited by temperament to the hard realities of government and politics, they lived in a half-light of illusion; they turned the facts to mean what they wanted them to mean, and perhaps in that way achieved their heart's desire. It would be a kind of freedom, amending or ignoring the rules the men made, playing cards while the world came to an end.

  One no trump, Constance said, her voice soft as a feather.

  Doubled, lone Peralta replied.

  Meanwhile in the Observatory the weather was changing. Winter gave rise to spring, the hard ground suddenly loose and receptive. The men commenced to talk about the ticket, its strengths and liabilities, who would be with them and who against them and how strongly. They were breaking the nation down by region and class. They were dismantling it the way a mechanic dismantles an engine, appraising each part by itself and then as a function of the other parts. The ticket had appeal to the middle of the nation and to farmers generally and white-collar voters. The Northeast was a problem. New York was a special problem, and the baby-faced Midwestern governor would be no help there. No help in the parishes and synagogues and no help in the union halls. They'd best hide the lap dog in the alfalfa. The election would be a mighty struggle to be sure, and how much better if the nominee had kept his word and chosen our good friend as his running mate. But we can't walk back the cat. What's done's done. If they were clever about it and campaigned with energy. If they put their money into the right pockets in the critical cities. If they stuck to the traditional principles of the party—well, then, we're winners.

  Axel looked at George Steppe. The young man had not failed to notice that "they" had abruptly become "we."

  "He doesn't know anything about Washington," Adolph said. "He's never lived here. He doesn't know the way we do things. He won't know who counts. He won't know how to preside over the Senate. He's too green. These outsiders always muck things up."

  "He's not a quality man," George said. "But it's a strong ticket."

  From the billiards room came a tinkle of laughter, Constance's successful finesse.

  "Bad show," Sir Charles put in.

  "This wouldn't happen in Britain," David Longfellow said.

  "Certainly not by telephone," Sir Charles said, and that drew a smile from Adolph.

  And then, boats catching the freshening breeze, they were off again, plotting the course of the campaign, identifying natural hazards, predicting strategy and tactics, and, conspicuously, who would be involved and who wouldn't be involved. One of them called it the great American holy war, and you volunteered cheerfully, rallying to the din of the megaphone. Neutrality was a sin, and how much better to direct things from headquarters rather than in the stink and blood of the trenches. Any candidate would covet their experience and practical knowledge. They were veterans all, with campaign ribbons to prove it—including, as of tonight, a Purple Heart, ha-ha. The Man will need all the help he can get, Senator Bilbauer said. He needs us. He'll come begging. The phone will ring any time now.

  Listening to them, it was obvious even to young Axel that there would be no revenge, not that night or any night. And from the look on his face, Adolph Behl knew it, too. So he
gave them his full attention as they gathered around the sideboard with their drinks, helping themselves to shrimp and crabcakes, all the while talking themselves back from the precipice. The compass began its swing: high emotion had given way to chaos, and chaos back to judgment. These were practical men. Tomorrow held more promise than yesterday, and government was forever. There was more than one route to the top of the tree, and no one wanted to be left behind.

  David Longfellow did not sense that the wind had shifted.

  "God damn him," David said. "We're going to twist him the way he's twisted us, pardon my French. He's not clean. I happen to know about the woman he sees in New York and where he sees her. I know her name and where she lives and he knows I know. The Man's a whoremaster—"

  "David," Judge Aswell said quietly. "Shut up."

  "It's ammunition," the banker said lamely.

  "Let's caucus," Curly said, rubbing his hands together.

  "There's unfinished business here," George Steppe said, gesturing at the telephone.

  "Yes," Curly said, looking at Adolph. But the senator did not turn from the window. Watching his father from the shadows, Axel could not erase the sight of his mother holding her arm and hissing, all burdened Galway in her distress, You baaaassstard. Now she was calmly dealing cards, telling another story as she stared coldly at her husband. He was standing alone at the rain-streaked window that gave out onto the rooftops and monuments of the capital. Low scud had moved in, and the darkness was as dull and restless as the surface of an ocean. He seemed lost in the humiliation of the telephone call. None of the others felt it as he did. They were his friends but like good horsemen they mounted again when they were thrown—or, to be exact about it, when a fellow rider was thrown. The race was not forfeit because a man fell off his horse, even if the circumstances were unfortunate or suspicious; the contest continued over the many, many furlongs remaining. This seemed to be the point that Curly Peralta was making, his high-pitched voice causing even the women to smile as they threw down their trumps. Everyone knew that revenge was a dish best eaten cold, but Curly was insisting that on this occasion it was a dish best refused.

  "Don't you agree, Charles?"

  They all turned to the portly Englishman examining the books in the low bookcases; they were books on the architecture of Washington, D.C. Sir Charles Rath looked up and muttered something noncommittal.

  "Come on, Charles!" George Steppe's voice was loud. "Tell us your view of revenge. Do you take it or leave it?"

  "Yes, Charles. Give us the benefit of your advice." This was Constance, her voice drifting in from the billiards room.

  Sir Charles looked unsuccessfully at his friend for a signal. When Adolph gave none, he decided that tact was a virtue. "My friend will do as he thinks best," the Englishman said mildly.

  "So loyal, Charles," Constance said. "You're so loyal. It's such a lovely quality in men. It becomes you."

  "The unfinished business," George said softly to Curly.

  "It's positively inspiring," Constance said, her voice ragged around the edges.

  Adolph wasn't listening. He lifted his shoulders and let them fall. "Revenge," he said, looking across the room at Sir Charles. "I'll have it the way that our mentor said to have it, 'Without haste, but without rest.'"

  Sir Charles smiled bleakly, recognizing Goethe's thought.

  "That's not your business," Stanley Greene said loudly. He had been listening attentively these many minutes, his smile growing as the compass swung. His view of human nature was as wide as a column of type. The old cynic was rarely disappointed, and now he cackled maliciously. "Revenge is my specialty," he said. "Leave the revenge to me and watch Sunday's paper." The editor drew on his cigar and blew a huge smoke ring that floated across the oval room until it touched an upright rose in a fluted vase and collapsed. He looked inquiringly at David Longfellow.

  "Leave it alone," Judge Aswell said.

  "You wouldn't be wanting to interfere with an editor's prerogative? You of all people, Justin. You who've been so forthright in support of freedom of expression. David has the scoop!" The editor smiled broadly, the smile fading when he saw David Longfellow shake his head; and with that, the whoremaster disappeared for good.

  Old John had glided to Senator Behl's side, a whiskey on his silver tray. The senator shook his head and they stood looking out the window at the scud, breaking here and there to reveal the Capitol building and the Washington Monument, conspicuous in pink. John had been with him for many years. They were about the same height and age and might have been brothers, so closely did they resemble each other. They shared a bookish temperament and a love of horticulture. They were united in their dislike of the swampy weather in Washington, a climate so thick and swollen that anything grew. Constance's English garden was an incoheren: brawl that threatened everyone's peace of mind. Any blockhead could make a garden in Washington.

  They preferred the disciplined and windswept prairie back in the Midwest, "the State," as Adolph always called it, his constituency. He and John gardened together in the spring, cultivating perfectly aligned rows of white and yellow roses, row upon row. They experimented with hybrid roses, one particularly successful, and they called that the Behlbaver rose. John's surname was Baver. Constance maintained that the rose was remembered by more Americans than any legislation her husband sponsored. Who cared about interstate commerce, the Behl Act? Only the railroads cared about it, and they didn't like it; Midwestern farmers liked it and forgot it. So they worked on their roses, loving the black soil and the harsh climate, a hard wind always blowing from the west ruffling the prairie grass. The senator thought the grass resembled the surface of the ocean, and the arrowheads he and John found no different from the bones of great fishes washed up on Atlantic beaches. Of course Constance hated it, so she always stayed behind at Echo House, or traveled with friends to the spa at the Greenbriar. The senator and John Baver always came back to Washington with stories of the swarms of butterflies that arrived in the spring.

  They stood companionably at the window flanked left and right by the senator's favorite pictures, Childe Hassam's drypoint sketch of a middle-aged Henry Adams and a dense Edward Hopper etching of a farmer's field at dusk. The mariner's telescope was between them, its polished brass and antique fittings giving the scene a preindustrial look. Suddenly they turned their heads, leaning forward like commuters awaiting a bus. They sighed in unison and the senator slumped as if his bones had gone soft. In the distance were bright starbursts, flashes of red, white, and blue glittering above the clouds, disappearing into them when spent. They were fireworks along the Potomac, party loyalists celebrating the triumphant convention and its heroic nominees.

  John continued to hold the silver tray with its glass of whiskey, and when at last the senator took it, John glanced at Henry Adams as if he expected that Adams, too, wished to be served.

  Adolph said, "Thank you, Johnny." He turned now and looked across the room at the wall and the ugly scar his glass had made. He tapped his chest and slowly reached into his inside jacket pocket and withdrew a sheaf of papers folded lengthwise, his acceptance speech. He wordlessly handed it to John Baver.

  "I'm so very sorry," John said. He slipped the speech under the tray, holding it with his fingers, and glided away to the pantry, pretending not to see Constance raise her empty glass, demanding a refill.

  The party had been watching them at the window, waiting for John to leave so that the business at hand could be completed. Curly cleared his throat. "Senator," he said. "Listen to me a minute."

  But Adolph did not turn from the window, where starbursts were still visible among the clouds.

  "Listen to Curly," George said. "There's something we have to do here. It has to be done and you have to do it."

  Curly said, "Make the phone call, Adolph. Make it while it still counts for something. Congratulate the son of a bitch, wish him luck, promise your support, make a joke, give him the usual mumbo-jumbo. Tell him you wish things had tur
ned out differently and you look forward to meeting with him at the earliest opportunity, discuss matters of mutual interest and so forth and so on. You know the drill."

  Judge Aswell nodded gravely. "Do it, Adolph."

  "One club," Constance said, tapping her cards on the table.

  Curly placed the call himself. He waited, then spoke a few words and extended the earpiece to Adolph. And in that gesture and the worldly smile that went with it was the essence of their politics: compromise and magnanimity. Magnanimity in defeat, magnanimity in victory, each requiring largeness of spirit and practical knowledge of the way the world worked. As Curly had said, the usual mumbo-jumbo. The gesture announced: We are not bitter-enders. We do not whine or bang the spoon against the porridge bowl. We do not take revenge in the heat of battle or its aftermath. We struggle, and if we lose, we give way. We congratulate the winner and we pledge our loyalty because there will be other struggles on other days and our opponent today may be our ally tomorrow. Above all, we do not burn bridges. This is the government after all. Party loyalty counts for something and we stand with our brothers, always. It's bred in the bone.

  Curly smiled broadly as he extended the earpiece to the senator, who was still looking out the window at the fireworks, fading now. There was some small noise from the telephone, a sound like the crackling of fire. The women paused in their bridge game, listening hard. Constance's fingers were suspended above the table like a seer's, her trump ready to fall, her expression unruly. Stanley Greene leaned carelessly against the mantel, his dark eyes hooded, watching Adolph Behl with the most open prurience; he seemed to be committing everything to memory. Curly extended his arm, exasperated, shaking the earpiece.