The American Ambassador (12 page)

Elinor said, “The poor thing.”

“Ba Owen says she's a witch. Powerful witchcraft. He advises us to be careful. She has bad juju.” He smiled. “She scares Ba Owen.”

Elinor snorted. She dipped her hands in the water and splashed some on her belly and thighs. She lowered herself into the water, pushed off, and floated on her back to the middle of the pool. The heat was rising, and the dense smell of Africa with it, overwhelming the chlorine in the water and the fume of the flowers. She floated on her back without moving her head. Bill watched her a moment, then said, “Kurt's coming by today.”

She lifted her head, paddling slowly. “Here?”

“The office. But maybe I'll bring him home for lunch, after. Would you like to lunch with Herr Kleust?”

“Of course.”

“Maybe I'll bring him home with me, then.”

“All right.”

“He and some of his people are coming by this morning.” She moved her arms, sending little ripples over the surface of the water, looking at him steadily. He looked very tall, standing by the edge of the pool. “They didn't say what it was about. But I think it's Bill Jr. Something about Kurt's manner.”

She scissored to where he was sitting and lifted herself out of the water, standing dripping at his side. “Call me when you leave the office, will you do that? I'll plan lunch for three on the terrace. Do you really think so?”

“Yes.”

“Is that what Kurt said?”

“It's just a feeling.”

“Bill—”

“That's all I know.”

“But why in your office? Why doesn't he just come here?”

“He has some people with him. Who knows? Maybe he wants to make it official.”

“Oh, God,” Elinor said.

 

He remembered leaving Elinor at the pool, dressing quickly, and driving to the embassy to read the overnight cable traffic: bulletins from the West. His DCM, Harry Erickson, had brought him the folder and now sat in the leather chair in the corner of the room, silent while the ambassador read. There was nothing new and he read swiftly, initialing each page. The last document was a transcript of the President's latest press conference; loose questions, casual answers. It was the performance of a nimble public relations man. The ambassador scanned the cable for references to Africa; there were none. No surprises, Africa was low on everyone's list, and the President had no interest in the continent; he had never been to Africa. His generals had never been to Africa either, so the region was the State Department's problem. Of course it was no different in the Soviet Union. In his forty years as a foreign policy specialist, Andrei Gromyko had never been south of the Sahara. They knew nothing firsthand so naturally they saw the continent as an abstraction. The people in it were not real. This President and every President since Teddy Roosevelt saw Africa in the faces of her
mzees
, in their English suits or tribal robes; or in the fiction of Hemingway or Waugh; or from the films, America's memory.

When he was done he rang for coffee and handed the folder across the desk to Harry.

Harry said, “God, he is a yo-yo.”

North looked at him. “Is that what you think?” Harry Erickson smiled and shrugged. “Well, he isn't. He is a lot of things, but he isn't that.”

“I'm entitled to my opinion. He's the
baas
, I'll go along with you there.” Harry looked at him, a suggestion of belligerence. “I thought, if you don't mind, I'll go upcountry today. There's a ceremony in the north, I'd like to see it—”

“Go ahead,” North said.

“—tribal ceremonies.” He smiled. “Centuries-old customs. Weird rites. Fertility dances.”

“Go ahead, Harry.”

“Interior minister's invited me. I thought I'd take Josh along, that's right up his alley.” Josh Pafko was the station chief. Harry stood looking at him. “Alice is taking a trip. She and Jan are going to Salisbury. For the shopping.”

“Nairobi would be better.”

“Alice hates it here. She just hates it and feels she has to get away, to take a trip somewhere. Africa's not her cup of tea. The atmosphere, she doesn't like it. Of course she's excited about this trip. They've been planning it for a while.”

“How long are they going to be away?” He was thinking about Kleust, due any minute.

“A week, she says,” Harry said. He stood tapping the file folder into his open palm. “Jan Francis is a cunt.”

North smiled, nodding. He wondered how many people Kleust would bring with him. Kleust liked to travel in groups, the more spear carriers the better.

“There's nothing to be done about it,” Harry said. “Alice doesn't travel well. She said she did, before we were married. She said that was what she liked about the Foreign Service, the travel. But she doesn't like Africa.”

“I can try to hurry up your transfer.”

“The hell with it,” Harry said.

North rose and went to the window, and looked down into the embassy courtyard. He watched the guard rise slowly from his chair, his hands on his knees. He stood a moment, swaying in the heat, then walked slowly to the barrier, where a car waited, its engine idling. Waves of heat rose from the skin of the car. The barrier was a simple red-and-white-striped pole, comical to look at; it resembled an elongated barber's pole. The guard, Benson, stepped over it, inspecting the flag that hung limply from the car's left fender. He bent his head down as the driver's window descended. He tipped his hat, then checked the clipboard, his finger moving ponderously down a list of names. And with a great smile, saluted and turned to raise the bar. It lifted easily. The Germans.

North said, “We have visitors.”

“It won't do any good,” Harry said.

“I can talk to the under secretary.”

Harry shook his head.

“Alice—” North began.

“Alice can go to hell,” Harry said.

North watched the car float into the courtyard, a mirage. Benson slowly lowered the barrier and returned to his chair in the shade. He was smiling and fanning his face. Air conditioning in cars was a great thing.

North said, “Have you read the new security orders?”

“Sure. It's all crap. Nothing ever happens here. But we have to do it.”

North turned from the window. The security division's orders: an iron gate and ashcans filled with sand so that a car or truck would have to approach in a tight S-curve. No one could get into the curve until an embassy civilian checked papers. There were four marines, one at the entrance to the S-curve, two flanking the gate, a third out of sight in the guardhouse. Mines left and right, everyone armed. The ambassador's office would be relocated at the rear of the building, next to the code room. Bulletproof glass, reinforced doors, a safe that would explode at the twist of a key. This was an order that confirmed the task force report, two years in the writing. Or was it three? In that time, two ambassadors had been kidnaped, and three killed. Threats were routine. How quaint it was now to read Kennan's memoirs, his descriptions of wandering alone late at night through European cities, listening to café chatter, getting a feel of things in the streets. “It's not crap,” he said.

Harry said, “All right, it's not crap. But why don't they give us combat pay?” He signed, and shifted direction. “She doesn't know what she's getting into. She doesn't understand anything. She's just a small-town girl.”

“Jan's been out here a long time.”

Harry said, “She's native. She's slept with every man, woman, and child. And animal. I've heard she sleeps with animals. That's the rumor.”

North watched the car doors open and three men hastily exit, hurrying across the asphalt to the embassy entrance. White men in white suits. It was only twenty yards but he knew they would be sweating by the time the Marine corporal opened the door to admit them. The flag of the BRD hung damp as a dishrag. Almost as damp as Harry Erickson, he thought.

He said to Harry, “I can arrange some leave, you and Alice, get away together—”

“There isn't anything to be done about it.”

He saw the younger man's reflection in the window glass, a slender, thin-lipped, thirtyish man, white short-sleeved shirt, blue cotton trousers, a shock of sandy hair; he had a tattoo on his forearm, an anchor. He did not look like a man who would have a tattoo. It was as incongruous on him as love beads would be on Averell Harriman. He and Alice, midwestern stoics; except she had begun to lose it. They were from a small town in Minnesota, the upper Midwest, the winters so cold steel would snap. For three years they had been trying to have a baby. They had been two years in Washington, two years in Morocco, a tour on a desk in the African bureau, and now here. Harry's record was excellent. On paper, he was formidable.

“It's easy for you to be cool about it, Bill. You've got Elinor. And I know you think I'm not fitting in and that's why you want my transfer speeded up. But how is that going to look, wife trouble in Africa? They know how to read between the lines. The Department hates instability, and you can't deny it.”

“I wouldn't,” North said.

He tucked the file folder under his left arm and took a step to the door. “It's Alice who needs the transfer, not me. She's the one who's fucked up.” He opened the door. “I want to do a good job, Bill. She's never left Minnesota, that's the problem. I don't know what to do about Jan Francis. You know what Alice does all day?” He looked away, hesitating. He said, “Never mind. I'll see you tomorrow.”

North watched him go, then sat down heavily in his chair. Neither one of them had left Minnesota. What the hell were they doing in Africa? Africa was a bad place to create another self, though people often tried. Africa could add another layer to a personality, but you had to keep it away from the center of your being. You had to build a wall around yourself. Africa was too extreme, and the Ericksons were too ordinary. Ordinary people in an extreme situation. The culture of North America was not thick enough to absorb Africa. It could colonize, but it could not subdue; it could destroy, but it could not defeat. It was wise not to fight Africa. The ambassador knew there would be trouble from the first time he met Alice Erickson, with her prairie zeal and her passion to
understand.
With understanding would come sympathy, Q.E.D. Short, blue-eyed, plump, understanding Alice; tall, blue-eyed, slender, condescending Harry. She wore Moroccan bangles and brightly colored slippers, like a character out of Ali Baba. She confided to Elinor that in Morocco she had tried kif, though Harry would have none of it, straight-laced Norwegian that he was. Emotionally, he was still in Eagle Bend. “My Harry,” she said grimly, seeking a reference that Elinor would appreciate, “belongs to the school of Edvard Munch.”

Bill North smiled in spite of himself, thinking of all this.

But the performance this morning was something else. Personnel problems seemed to vary in inverse proportion to the importance of the assignment. Nevertheless, he made a mental note to speak to the assistant secretary, or send him a message, back channel. It was not important enough for the under secretary. Geography was destiny, and Harry and Alice belonged in a chilly northern climate.

His secretary put her head in. “Ambassador Kleust is here.”

He rose to greet them. Kurt Kleust, and two others whom he didn't know. He and Kurt shook hands and Kurt introduced his companions: Major Bruch and Herr Duer. North had seen Bruch at a distance, but Duer was unfamiliar to him. Major Bruch was the military attaché Herr Duer was tactfully unidentified. They were all sweating. North buzzed Cynthia for iced tea, and indicated the couch and the two chairs flanking it. He offered cigarettes while the Germans removed their jackets.

Kleust said, “Bill, you look tired.”

 

He had brought a fat art book for Elinor, a collection of the German Expressionists, mainly the school known as Die Brücke, the Bridge. Kleust believed that she was devoted to twentieth-century German art; in fact, Bill was the enthusiast. He and Kleust looked at the plates while Major Bruch and Herr Duer sat politely silent.

“Squalid German politics, marvelous German art.” They were looking at a Käthe Koilwitz woodcut.

“They go together, night and day,” Kleust said.

“Is it not true everywhere?” Major Bruch inquired. “Even America?”

“No,” Kleust said.

They talked German politics for fifteen minutes, Herr Duer silent on the sidelines. The talk turned to polo. Kleust and Major Bruch were great horsemen. Last week they had played the annual match with the British, and won, as they had the year before. North had thrown out the ball, feeling overweight and out of place on a huge stallion; he hated horses. He had invited the Chinese ambassador to watch the match, and spent an hour and a half explaining polo through an interpreter. It had been an interminable three chukkers, and not a black face in the spectators' enclosure; they might as well have been at the Myopia Hunt, except for the heat and the flies. Major Bruch told an elaborate anecdote about his opposite number, the British military attaché, an overage captain who broke his mallet and was unhorsed. The British were fine sportsmen and played with dash, but—

The preliminaries continued. The essence of the diplomatic life: haste makes waste. Fresh cigarettes were lit. North was watching Duer while listening to Major Bruch. Bruch reminded him of an illusionist distracting the audience with his easy mouth while his hands were cooking the deck, stuffing aces up his sleeve. He judged Duer to be in his middle thirties. His face and arms were white, and his forehead beaded with sweat. He was evidently unused to the tropics. Coming inside from the heat, it was always wise to sit quietly and wind down. Duer was leaning forward in his chair, coiled, waiting. He was clean-shaven but for some reason North suspected that he normally wore a beard. Herr Duer was not with the embassy, he knew that much; he wore the distracted air of someone committing a thought to memory. He had the manner of a detective, and the unkempt appearance of a Fassbinder fugitive, the sort of man who would automatically be singled out at the airport security barrier.