The American Ambassador (19 page)

She said, Yes.

He said, The ambassador was without remorse.

She had nodded in the darkness, imagining the dead African; the African with no name and no history, no grave and no headstone, murdered by an American in Africa. She wanted to know if his father had ever dared to hurt
him
, if he had ever raised his fist or pointed a weapon at him. But she did not know how to ask. She assumed the answer was yes. She was thinking of the future now, the two of them together in Europe. They would be happy in Europe, with its many national boundaries; it was a natural hiding place. In Europe, they could disappear; millions of people had disappeared in Europe. And there were many targets, human beings, installations of an official nature; they could search for the targets together as they had the afternoon they had walked near the Louvre. Of course she would have to think up an excuse for her father, in order to leave the apartment. He would want some explanation, it would not matter what it was. She wondered where they would go, perhaps back to Germany. There were many places to live anonymously in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. They would follow his plan. And they would protect each other, that was the main thing. She thought of the money she had saved, the neat stacks of bills in the hatbox under her bed. It had never occurred to her to spend it, and now she was happy that she hadn't. It would be wonderful for them to have transportation of their own, perhaps a little red car. Then they could go anywhere.

Wolf was silent and his breathing was labored. A vein pulsed in his forehead.

She cradled his head in her lap. Outside it was gray, the morning so sudden. She wanted to make love again. She looked at him, his face drawn in the gray light. He was a handsome boy, his eyes closed now, his lips a thin hard line. She wondered what he was thinking. Was he thinking of her? She imagined herself in his thoughts. She imagined herself behind his forehead, being the blood rushing though his vein. Behind his forehead was a comfortable room, a pretty sunlit room with flowers, a place to live anonymously. She could see through his eyes; see, and not be seen. If he was thinking about her, what did he see? She kissed him on his forehead and his eyelids fluttered.

He whispered, The ambassador used to take me to the Department on Saturdays, when we lived in Washington and he was a deputy assistant to the deputy assistant, something like that. I was very small. He went to the office to read the cable traffic. To discover who's screwing up and where, he said. The office was quiet and I wondered whether the world stopped on weekends to give American diplomats a rest. There were always telephone calls to be made. At the touch of a button the ambassador could talk to other bureaus in the building, or with embassies abroad. He liked being in the office with the telephone and its buttons, and the switchboard that could link up—anywhere. And he had a picture on the wall, Lincoln. He took it with him wherever he went; it always hung on a wall close by. The ambassador's great hero, Lincoln. Lincoln and his mercantile war. Lincoln and his eman-ci-pa-tion proc-la-ma-tion. What a fucking fraud. Worse than Bonaparte.

She bent down so that her ear was next to his mouth.

He whispered, So now he does not know where I am, nor what I am doing. He does not know where I live. He knows no more of me than of the African he shot and killed. Yet I am an embarrassment to him, and in time I will be an embarrassment to the Department of State, to the government, and to the nation. He is afraid because he does not know where I found what I believe in; he does not know my antecedents. He is afraid because he does not know where I come from. I am like a foundling in the family. I was left on the doorstep, and he has a responsibility. Like Lincoln, he must try to hold the family together. But he cannot discover my provenance. I am like a code to which he cannot, try as he might, find the key. He has never known my heart. He does not know why I hate him so.

When?

He looked at her.

When was the first time you knew? She cradled his head, held him tight to her stomach, his beard scratching her belly. Knew their cowardice and corruption, their vanity. She held him more tightly, both arms around his head. She watched his muscles move in his arms and chest, his thighs. Her beautiful young man, Wolf. He uncoiled, his thighs parting.

They looked at him together. She wanted to jump out of her skin. She could not keep her hands off him.

Later, it was still raining. The sliver of sky that she saw from the window was pearly, the color of oysters. A soft Paris rain, benign and inviting, mixing with the smells of the street and their own sweet bed-smell. She closed her eyes, so happy, trying to hold on so that it would belong to her forever. She heard the high-pitched laughter of children on their way to school, and then a scraping in the corridor outside the bedroom door. For an instant, she held her breath; her eyes snapped open.
He
was there, prowling like an animal, listening. But her door was locked, they were secure. Max would never dare enter her room. After a moment, he went away and she was left with the sounds of the street and the rain, and Wolf rising, walking lightly across the room to the hotplate, carefully setting the kettle to boil.

He came back to bed with tea.

He said, I have been thinking about your question.

Yes, she said eagerly. She wanted to know everything about him. She wanted to combine their stories, his and hers, entwine them like vines so that there would be no difference between them. It would be the same story with different characters. In that way they would become one person.

He began to smile, bringing the tea to his mouth, holding the hot mug with both hands. She did likewise. He said, It was Thanksgiving 1975. The ambassador and Elinor had decided to have a family Thanksgiving, both sets of grandparents: everyone would come to Washington. He explained the American custom of Thanksgiving, its symbolism. Victory over the savages, thanks given to God.

H
E MADE IT
clear that the families did not get on. There were cultural differences, and differences of taste. Some small difference of politics. These were well known. It was as if each set of grandparents was struggling for control of the family: Elinor was an only child, as was the ambassador. The grandparents disapproved of each other, as they disapproved of the life their children had chosen. It was a replication of the contradictions of capitalism. It was a family in opposition.

They all arrived on Thursday morning, the Norths from Boston, the Ballards from Chicago. The ambassador had arranged for identical suites at the Georgetown Inn, and once they were checked in they all arrived at the house on O Street.

The atmosphere was badly strained, and to cover it the ambassador made a great show of making drinks. Everyone had a Martini, except for Grandfather North. When the ambassador asked him what he wanted, he said it didn't matter. Anything. Anything that was at hand, except he didn't want a Martini.

Well, the ambassador said, we have everything.

Perhaps some wine, Harry Ballard said. When I was growing up, we always had Champagne at Thanksgiving.

You choose, Jerome said. It doesn't matter.

Sherry, the ambassador said.

Anything, Jerome said.

The women were in the kitchen. Elinor had made the ambassador promise to keep them all in the living room so that she wouldn't have to entertain her mother and her mother-in-law while she was preparing dinner, but the ambassador couldn't manage that simple task. So the grandmothers stayed in the kitchen while the men made small talk in the living room. The ambassador was nervous, trying to be solicitous of his father at the same time he was being polite to his father-in-law, knowing they both disapproved of him. Grandfather Ballard disapproved of his politics, and Grandfather North disapproved of his character. So they made small talk.

Gert said, Small talk?

Talk so small that it was almost invisible, Wolf said.

While the ambassador and Grandfather Ballard struggled to be polite, Grandfather North stood silently by, inspecting the premises. It was the first time he had been in the O Street house, and I could see him looking at the pictures on the wall and the books in the shelves, trying to simulate the ambassador's life from the evidence in front of his eyes. It was also true that the ambassador and Grandfather Ballard were smoking cigarettes, and the smoke hurt his eyes; so he stood apart from them, portly and meticulous in his dark suit, a gruff expression on his face. He watched Harry Ballard as he might have watched a dangerous animal. And Grandfather Ballard was hard to measure, being continuously in motion, his chin high in the air.

He and the ambassador had a second drink, and a third.

The women emerged from the kitchen, and they all stood in a tight little circle, except for Jerome. From time to time he would dab at his eyes with a handkerchief. But no one noticed, they were all talking at once, making such an effort with one another.

Elinor's face was flushed. I was on the top step of the stairs, watching them in the living room. I had gone around and shaken all their hands, Harry Ballard's dry hand, Jerome North's rough hand, the wet hands of the women; and then I had excused myself, to go upstairs on some errand or other. I knew Elinor had had a Martini before they arrived. For a week, she and the ambassador had talked of the Thanksgiving visit. An accident waiting to happen, she said. It is our business to make it pleasant, he said. As pleasant an accident as possible, he said, laughing. When we were alone that morning, I could hear her talking to herself. She hated Thanksgiving, the idea of it, and the food, stuffed turkey, mashed potatoes, creamed onions, and the rest of “the glop.” She was careful to give me instructions, to be cheerful and polite, to talk to both grandmothers, to say please and thank you, to absolutely use no bad language, and, she added grimly, to keep my fingers crossed.

Grandfather Ballard held the floor. Elinor had asked him about the firm, how things were going, if he expected the market to rise. An unfortunate question, as it turned out, because the firm had just named a new chairman. There had been a purge. An aggressive, gauche, younger man. Unscrupulous. Jewish, he said, and then caught himself.

Very able, of course, he said. Very, very clever man; not an amiable man, but a clever man. Worked all day long. He turned to Grandfather North. It's hard when the young fellas come in, shoulder the old hands aside. When there's blood in the water it draws the sharks, ha-ha. Don't you think? When Jerome looked at him with no expression at all, he said, 'S matter of fact, this fella's from Boston, maybe you know him. Baum. His name is
Baum.

No, Jerome said.

Smart little bastard, Harry said.

I expect he is, Jerome said.

He was a big shit in Boston, Harry said.

My goodness, Grandmother North said.

More like a little turd, Harry said.

Harry
, Eloise Ballard said.

Why would I know him? Jerome asked quietly.

I don't know. Thought you might. Boston's small town, everyone knows each other. Isn't that right?

No, Jerome said.

Dinner's served, Elinor said.

Chicago, we all know each other.

It'll get cold, Elinor said.

You can all bring your drinks, the ambassador said.

But Harry was at the bar, pouring himself another from the ambassador's silver shaker. When he turned around he spoke to the room at large, though he looked directly at Jerome North. He said, Mister Henry Fucking Baum doesn't like the way we do business. We've only been doing it for a hundred and five years, except for the war years when everyone joined up. European theater. We all went to the European theater, and the senior partner never came back. Interregnum then, we just closed up shop to win the war. We formed up again in 'forty-six, those of us who were left, been making money ever since. Profit every year, though last year'n the year before that a little down. OPEC, the god damned Arabs, and the scandal that you've got here in this town, the god damned newspapers. Business flat, the government's nose in everybody's business. The Grrrrreat Society, started it all. That's way it is in business, up 'n down, down 'n up. Board looked around and brought in the turd. New blood. God damned right, it's new blood. But we'll see. Alla returns aren't in. We'll see about Mister Henry
Baum.

Dinner's served now, the ambassador said.

And he's brought in his people, you expect that. New blood, new broom. Boston broom. Mister Benjamin Fucking Fein and one other. O'Reilly. Bond man in Boston. P'litic'ly connected, had some job in Washington.
You
probably know him, Bill. You know everyone in Washington. That's what my daughter Elinor tells me, when I ask her. There just isn't anyone who's anyone in the capital you don't know. Capital's right name for it, too. That's where all the money is.

The ambassador said, Name doesn't ring a bell.

He's a fixer, Harry said.

It still doesn't ring a bell, the ambassador said.

He fixes things. Things get bent out of shape, he fixes it. Thing's going in one direction, he fixed it to go in another direction. Fixes it so that his friends win and his enemies lose. He'n Henry Baum are
like that
, close as brothers, been working together in Boston for years. It's a sweet deal.

What's his name again? the ambassador asked. The women were at the door to the dining room, and beyond the door you could see the table and its candles, the turkey steaming on the sideboard. Harry Ballard hadn't moved from the bar, though.

Maynard O'Reilly, Harry said.

The ambassador turned to his father; really, it was a gesture of solidarity. He said, Wasn't Maynard O'Reilly a something-something in Treasury under Kennedy?

He was an assistant secretary, Jerome said. Johnson moved him out, put his own man in. Grandfather North hadn't budged either. It was a test of wills between the two old men to see who would be the last to walk into the dining room, sit down to the glop.