by Ward Just
"She must have been right some of the time."
"She was," the old man replied. "That was the trouble."
"Avril went for years. Swears by her."
"Avril's been away from Montparnasse for too long."
Alec debated whether to tell the old man about the young girl with chestnut curls in the tiny casket and decided not to.
"She was remorseless," Axel said abruptly. "But Sylvia never saw it that way. Sylvia said Mrs. Pfister only wanted to see people in touch with themselves, whatever the hell that means. She wanted a sunny future for everyone. Basically, she was on the side of women." He paused, his eyes narrowing. "Basically, Stalin wanted people dead."
Alec said nothing to that, but he wondered what prediction Mrs. Pfister had made for his mother.
"Eddie Peralta took charge. We got rid of her, sent her back to wherever she came from and made certain she stayed there." He looked up. "How did we get on this subject?"
Alec said, "The imam."
"I heard that story forty years ago." He looked at his watch. "Are they doing a good job down there? Is the silver polished? Are they using the good crystal?"
"They're fine. Your man in the Kremlin sent caviar."
"I should hope to God he did."
"And I put the French roses in the fireplace."
"Good, good."
Alec was looking at the photographs. There was one of Eisenhower and another of Colonel Donovan, and one of Fred Greene with his arm around Marlene Dietrich, both of them grinning; it was a photograph taken somewhere in Scotland before the war. There was one of Axel sitting on an ammunition case, cleaning his rifle with great concentration, his helmet rakishly cocked to one side as if it were a fedora, a cigarette hanging conspicuously from his mouth; Alec thought of an author's dust-jacket photo. And next to that was the shot of a dead German infantryman, his eyes wide open, his stiff fingers touching the Iron Cross that hung around his neck. By itself front and center was the photograph of the girl in the beret, the shot gray and out of focus. Alec noticed that the glass in the frame was smudged with fingerprints.
The old man was silent, watching his son.
He said, "God bless her."
Alec nodded and stepped back.
"All these years. I hate the Pfister woman for what she said about Nadège, and Sylvia for asking her. What did she know about it? Nothing."
"What was that about, actually?"
"We could have used her in the war."
Alec didn't know whether he was talking about Nadège, Mrs. Pfister, or Sylvia.
"She could have come with me on the interrogations. That's what I did, you know, because I spoke German. No one else did. We captured one of their intelligence people in 'forty-three, and after the formal interrogation, which was useless, we began to talk about Goethe and the manuscript known as the ur-Faust. He became emotional and I thought he would break down and tell us what he knew, but he didn't. Thinking about Goethe stiffened his spine. He was contemplating the German soul, never a simple thing. We didn't get the time of day out of him. Ten years after the war he sent me a book he'd written about Goethe and inscribed it: To my American Mephisto. It's in there somewhere." He waved a hand at the bookcase.
"I'll go downstairs now," Alec said. "I think they've arrived." He had felt a minute change of pitch in the room's vibration.
"He would have talked if she'd been there, and how."
"You should come down in five minutes."
"I wish she were here tonight."
"Who's that, Dad?"
"My Nadège, the girl on the bicycle." The old man's voice had thickened and he was squinting. "And Fred. We had quite a time together in France, living in one place and another, always on the run. We were coordinating people who didn't want to be coordinated. We were all so wild. Fred had a temper to go with his red hair. He'd spit in the eye of a President. He gave the count a hard time, too." The old man sipped thoughtfully at his Scotch, giving the impression of a man who counted on his audience to read between the lines
"Five minutes," Alec said. "Don't be too long; they're waiting downstairs." He rose and stepped to the door, standing there with his hand on the knob.
"I've been thinking about Ed lately. In my father's day you could have spoken to a man and killed that investigation. I should have done more. I had the ways and means. I had enough on Lambardo to put him away for good. But I thought the thing would resolve itself. I never believed they'd sacrifice Ed. Ed was their loyalist. The Peraltas are Spanish, you know. Old Spanish family, bluebloods. In Spain they're serious about loyalty." He shook his head sadly and waved in the direction of the bookcase, as if the answer were to be found on the shelves— The Federalist Papers, Forrestal's diaries, Freeman's Lee, Sandburg's Lincoln, General Grant's memoirs, Lippmann's A Preface to Morals, Adams's Democracy, Huckleberry Finn, Partington's Main Currents of American Thought, Bailyn's The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution.
"The Spanish people. Beautiful people, and so badly used." He flinched then, shuddering, his head turning, the scar livid in the grayness of his face, the scar a fault line that reached to the center of his skull. He sighed heavily, losing breath, leaning forward in his wheelchair, fighting for balance, his starched shirt creaking.
Alec moved quickly to his side, supporting him; and then he heard the old man mutter something from a distant region of his mind, a woman falling in a storm of gunfire—
Axel looked up suspiciously, his eyes hooded and without focus. But the episode passed and he lifted his chin defiantly, growling, "Don't worry, I know where I am."
"I know you do."
"God, how they fought. The Spanish."
"Are you all right now?" The old man had a wild look in his eye.
"Last time I believed in anything, until I met Nadège."
Alec nodded; an encounter more than half a century past. Of course what the statesman forgets is as important as what he remembers. The same thing was true for nations.
"How passionate the Spanish were! Mystics in their souls, anarchists in their hearts. The Enlightenment never got that far south. The Enlightenment stopped at the Pyrenees." His voice was thick but color was returning to his face. He brought his hand up, extending his finger as if it were the barrel of a revolver. "You asked me what it was about, Nadège, Sylvia, and Mrs. Pfister. It was what it's always about, possession. They want to own your heart. They gaze at a portrait on the gallery wall and they want to be both viewer and artist, canvas and paint. Mrs. Pfister said that Nadège died and that I was responsible. But she was alive when I left. I never would have abandoned her, you see. Axel Behl would never do such a thing, never. It's only a feature of the accident that I can't remember a thing. But you put it behind you because you have to. Isn't the important thing to forgive yourself?" He made a fist, then moved his fingers in the direction of the mantel, smiling suddenly as he welcomed a new thought; the old one hid vanished. "Bring me the picture of Fred and his friend."
Alec handed him the photograph of Fred Greene and Marlene Dietrich.
The nurse looked through the door; noise from downstairs came with her. "Is everything all right? I heard something." The old man looked at her as if she were Marlene Dietrich, tilting his head and half-closing his eyes, the debonair look he had when he was a young man.
Alec said, "We're fine."
"She gave Fred an original print of The Blue Angel. I kept it for safekeeping when we went to France. It's around here somewhere."
Alec looked at his watch.
"I live in a museum."
Alec opened the door.
"Everyone's dead now," the old man said with sudden enthusiasm. "I helped make the city of the dead and now I live in it, the last corpse. Many of them I don't even know. Millions."
"Mr. Behl," the nurse said.
"All that's missing is the crêpe and the coffins. The pallbearers are already here. Do you think our commander-in-chief can deliver a suitable eulogy?" Axel glared at the nurse. "What d
o you know about it, Marlene? Not a damned thing. You're out of it. You're not au courant." He looked at her, blinking. He knew he had made an error of speech but did not know what it was. He finished his Scotch and set the glass carefully on the table next to the untouched Champagne. He turned to Alec and said quietly, "I'll be down in ten minutes. I'll use the elevator."
"I'll come and get you," Alec said.
"Fine."
"It'll be a fine party," Alec said.
"I need a fresh shirt," Axel said to the nurse.
Alec closed the door softly and stepped to the banister. The old man had more angles than a mountain face and his memory was as relentless as a dentist's drill. Good luck to his dinner partners, arrived at last. The President and his wife and the chief of staff were standing in the foyer, smiling broadly, shaking hands with everyone in sight as if Echo House were a hotel ballroom and the birthday party a political rally. The White House photographer sauntered along beside them, casually checking the settings on her Nikon and then shooting one-handed, giving notice that this was an informal assignment, a professional's grace and favor. The pianist was in mid-riff and the waiters moved respectfully to one side. Mrs. Hardenburg served the late arrivals Champagne. The President appeared entirely relaxed, an official at ease and confident in friendly and familiar surroundings. Probably he thought that all private houses in Washington were, to some degree, his own. The other guests wore worldly faces as they stepped forward to shake hands and say a few respectful words, everyone standing straight as soldiers on parade. Even those who knew the President well were composed, and perhaps them most of all. Familiarity bred deep respect. The photographer maneuvered discreetly a few steps away, her legs now together, now apart, as if she were dancing.
There were men in the room who believed that if the cards had been dealt fairly, they would be the one striding through the door at Echo House discharging an aura of authority and inevitability, and burdens splendidly borne. Those who did not know the President well were wearing the faces of the people they wanted to be or thought they were—Voltaire, Dean Acheson, Aristotle, Walter Lippmann, Henry Luce, Jacqueline Onassis, Joan of Arc, Edith Wharton, Duke Ellington or the Duke of Marlborough, Ahab, Anna, old Sartoris, Gatsby, or Portia. Probably that was the trouble with being President; you never met a natural face; the face was always rearranged to suggest someone else. Of course that could be the fun of it, too, if you were a President with an appreciation of hypocrisy and a gift for abstraction. Alec watched the President shake hands with Harold Grendall, Harold beaming and moving in close, saying something private into his ear, the President smiling gamely and noncommittally, patting Harold on the arm and sauntering further into the crowd. There were many old faces who deserved a nod. Bud Weinberg was one of the first, the President rewarding him with a double handshake and a warm smile, the sort of spontaneous open-hearted greeting that had become a signature, Bud replying with a helpless grin that announced, of course he couldn't know abou: the wretched rumors surrounding the nomination to Embassy Paris; the President was a busy man with a full plate of life-and-death issues; when the chips were down and he was fully focused, the President would certainly do the right thing. He always had before. The photographer continued to move with the President, shooting with one hand. Alec hurried downstairs to greet the President's wife.
"How are you, Flo?"
"Don't call me that," she said, but she was smiling as she said it.
Mutual friends had told him she had aged terribly and they were not wrong. Her hair was gray and thinning and her voice tired. She was limping, a sprained ankle caused by a skiing accident, according to the explanation given by the White House. She asked after Axel and then in a voice so low it could not be heard more than a foot away thanked him for inviting them; it was rare that they had an evening out in a private house among friends. The White House was a prison worse even than Sing Sing, with smirking Secret Service louts for jailers. The place bristled with weapons and you couldn't move five feet without being photographed by that tart who thinks she's Cartier-Bresson but's just another political payoff like everything else in this rancid town, so why don't you come over sometime for a drink, say around three in the afternoon. I'll raise Lester Lanin from the dead and we can dance a waltz. I never see you anymore, Alec.
Alec said, "You need a vacation."
She took a glass of Champagne from the waiter at their elbow. "A vacation's not allowed. We're allowed to go places, the West Coast or Vermont. We can go scuba diving or skiing. But it's never a vacation, because there are people wherever we go. How can you have a vacation when you're surrounded by Secret Service louts and three hundred television cameras?"
"Sorry about your ankle," he said.
"So you've heard the rumors, too."
"I heard skiing."
"You heard wrong," she said.
"Don't worry, with the press on the case we'll soon get to the bottom of things." This was a joke but she did not smile. Her expression was distant and unreadable and then he realized she was watching the photographer focus on the President and Avril Raye. On impulse Alec said, "Can you do anything for Bud Weinberg?"
She looked at him coldly and said, "No."
"The stories aren't true, you know."
She laughed harshly. "When did that matter?"
"Bud's a good friend," he said.
"Talk to Red. Red's handling it."
"You could help."
"It's Red's worry. Red's good at worrying. Red's been worrying for other people for years and years. What I know for sure is that Bud Weinberg isn't our worry. The President has other things on his mind. And so do I. Talk to Red." She glared at him and sneered, "But thanks so much for asking. That's why I was so pleased to come to Echo House tonight, so I could talk to you about that bastarc Weinberg, and remember that the White House is with us wherever we go."
She took him to say hello to her husband. Alec remembered to thank him for the doormat, but the President only smiled suspiciously.
"My idea," the President's wife said, and they moved on.
Then Red Lambardo was at his side, asking where the guest of honor was and rolling his eyes when he was told that the old man was fortifying himself with Scotch and would be down shortly.
The chief of staff said, "It's good to be back at Echo House, the real world. It's been a while since I've seen you, Alec. Been so busy lately trying to reorganize things in the West Wing. It's been chaos. Can I put you on the list for dinner next week? It's for the German chancellor. Let me know." He was admiring the paintings, the Homer and the Hassam specifically, when he lowered his voice. "I'm glad to be here, truly. Wish the old man well. Your father's friendship has meant a lot to me over the years."
Alec thought. Everything that rises must converge. He watched the President's wife take another glass of Champagne, laughing now at something Avril Raye had said. There were half a dozen women surrounding her but the photographer had been banished to the dining room. He said, "Axel takes pride in the success of his younger friends. Always has."
The chief of staff lowered his voice still further and confided that Axel had sent him a memo on the Russian situation, superb memo that contained information he had not known. The State Department and CIA were similarly in the dark. So he was able to put the President in the picture and they were both grateful, as Alec would see when the evening commenced. Red Lambardo smiled broadly and inside the smile Alec could recollect the man in red suspenders he had met years before with Leila. Alec remembered his nonchalance describing an afternoon with "Jack" around the pool in Palm Beach, and later his mysterious Working Group. Red had implied they would overthrow Castro together. Castro then seemed a greater menace than Stalin had ten years earlier. No man had worked harder scrambling to the top of the tree, and now he was there, a loyalist whose devotion reached beyond party or institution to the President personally.
"Axel knows the country backwards and forwards," the chief of staff said. "One of the things I regr
et, I never traveled much. Never had the time, and I suppose Washington was always my town. The other places are just suburbs, as you've said so often. Amazing. He made his first trip to Moscow in the nineteen-thirties."
Alec said, "Care for some caviar?" Mrs. Hardenburg was hovering near them, two plates in her hand.
"No caviar, thanks. Caviar gives me gas. My doctor has me on a salt-free diet. You can't be too careful."
"Red," Alec said. He wanted to ask the chief of staff about Bud Weinberg, and if there was anything to be done and whether his own name fit into the scheme of things.
"The nineteen-thirties was an awkward time to go to the Soviet Union," Red said. "It was like Hanoi in the 'sixties, a controversial thing. Trip like that gets into your file and there's no way to get it out. He had some trouble with McCarthy, didn't he?"
"Some trouble," Alec said.
The chief of staff heard something in Alec's voice and frowned. "Strange period. Thank God it's behind us, nameless accusers, all the rest. Joe was strange. The people around him were strange. But he was a victim, too, you know. He was a victim of his circumstances."
"He was the circumstances, Red."
The photographer was maneuvering in their vicinity, setting up a shot, but the chief of staff waved her away. "True, but isn't there another point to be made here? Joe had a substance abuse problem. He had a chemical dependency. He was beaten as a child. Someone told me just the other day, he was abused by his father. And people didn't like Joe's manners. Senator Joe was a little coarse for Georgetown." The chief of staff shrugged; point made. He fluttered his hand at someone nearby, tilting his head to examine the Homer, a dory adrift on a featureless ocean. "The media didn't do its job. Of course the times were different. Different atmosphere. In some ways I prefer the media the way it was, don't you?"