The Wilson Deception (10 page)

Even with his tie off, Joshua's work clothes set him apart. Chez Dennis was not a haunt for the valets of Paris. In contrast, his father, nursing his second beer of the evening on the other side of the table, looked like he had spent the day with a shovel in his hand—which he had.

“Can't say I like that man,” Joshua said, “but I can't say I hate him, either.”

His father looked up.

“He seemed to see me as a man.”

Disdain twisted Cook's mouth. “As long as you're in your place, brushing his suits and polishing his shoes.”

Joshua shrugged. He didn't need a lecture on class consciousness or race pride.

“I've got to write your mama and sister,” his father continued. “Tell them you're alive.”

“No, you can't do that. They know who you are, that you're my father and she's my mother. They'll read everything you write, especially this fellow Dulles. When I was in the army, they read everything I wrote.”

“It's cruel not to tell them. I feel like a liar every time I write.”

“Go on home and tell them yourself. You can't do anything more here. You sprung me out of prison and here I am, drinking bad beer with the revolutionary vanguard of Paris' working class. That's amazing. Thank you, Daddy. I'll never forget it. But you can go home now. It's my problem from here on out.”

Cook reached over and squeezed Joshua's forearm. “It is amazing. I can hardly believe it. But I'm not going anywhere until you're back home yourself, and you're Joshua Cook again.”

“John! John Barnes!” Allen Dulles beamed down on them.

Joshua straightened in his seat and nodded to an empty chair.

After perfunctory small talk about the weather—it was growing slightly warmer—Dulles asked about Joshua's situation at the president's residence.

“He seemed to accept me. He didn't ask a lot of questions.”

“Excellent,” Dulles said through a broad grin. “That's just first rate.”

“Why am I there?”

Dulles turned up his smile to a higher wattage. “Ah, all will be revealed in the fullness of time. Tell me. Did he talk about today's negotiation?”

Joshua considered his answer. “He seemed real tired. Maybe he's a bit impatient with the Italians and the French. You don't need me in his house to know that.”

“Ah, yes, good. You know, he and Clemenceau really went at it today, an old-fashioned shouting match. The premier said that Wilson should be wearing the Kaiser's helmet, which triggered an outburst of steely Presbyterian outrage over the vindictiveness of the French.” Dulles allowed himself a soft chortle. “But I wander from the point. You must be patient, Mr. Barnes. He'll get more comfortable with you and speak with you more. He's a sociable man. Tell me, is the president making any plans to go anywhere? Is Mrs. Wilson?”

“I heard some talk, just from other staff you know, that he's going to tour what they call the devastated regions. Which I guess is the part of France where we fought the war. Say, if you ask me, the man should stay home in bed a few days. He looks pale, has that funny twitch in his eye, this one.” Joshua pointed to his left eye.

“Did anyone come by to powwow with him on the sly, just tête-a-tête?”

“Nope.”

“Not Colonel House?”

“Nope.” Joshua thought a second. “There was that little doctor of his, the navy man, Grayson. No one else.”

“Only Grayson?” Dulles asked.

Joshua nodded.

“Interesting. One thing I want to remind you, Barnes. You must take special care on the street to attract no attention from French or American authorities, MPs, or anything like that. If you're detained in some fashion, there will be distinct limits on what we can do for you.” With a nod, Dulles rose and left.

“He's not much of a drinking man,” Cook said. He and Joshua drank in silence.

“Can't say I like him much, either,” Joshua said, “but he's kept his word so far. Nobody's bothered me, and I do prefer being free.”

“It's a kind of freedom, not even living under your own name, but listen to what he said. You can't afford to take any chances out there.” The older man cleared his throat and sat up.

Joshua could feel the speech coming.

“Your mother and I didn't raise you up all those years, see to your education, send you off to college, just for you to be someone else, someone's lackey. You're made for better things. You can do things in this world that we never could. You owe that—” He stopped, aware that his son wasn't listening. His eyes were darting around the room.

“Joshua!” he said sharply.

Joshua looked at him. “You done?”

“No, I'm not done—”

“Well, I am.” The younger man made ready to stand. “Don't ever do that again.”

“What? What am I doing?”

“Acting like I'm a four-year-old boy who needs to be schooled. That's over.”

“Who got you out of that prison? Who made that happen? I'm not ever going to stop being your father.”

“I said thanks. I'll say it again—thanks. This thing with Dulles . . . maybe it'll work out. Maybe I'll end up back in jail. Maybe it'll get me shot as a deserter.” Cook sat back as if he'd been slapped.

“But that schooling-the-four-year-old thing? It's over, right now and forever. Or we are.” Joshua stood and began fumbling in his pocket.

Cook held up his hand. “Stop it. I'll pay.”

Without looking up, Joshua threw some bills on the table. “I got it.”

Cook stared at his son's back as he stalked out. The boy was young. He couldn't see how far they had to go. Dulles got him out of jail. That was good. Hell, it was great. But what mattered was how it all ended. How did Joshua get his life back, his life as Joshua Cook, a young man of talent and promise and consequence? That was the problem that was eating at Cook, keeping him awake at night. He had no plan for that.

 

J
ohn Barnes sized up the two men arriving for late tea with President Wilson. Each left the impression that he came from another world, but those worlds were very different. The slender Arab prince in sweeping robes wore a mild expression that bordered on the beatific. He seemed to emerge from a time long ago. The Englishman, Lawrence, barely seemed to inhabit his small body, its outsized head, the mismatched Arab headdress and British army uniform. One moment he seemed huge, vibrantly present and magnetic. The next moment, he seemed a refugee from another planet, lost and detached from the here and now.

Barnes had volunteered to assist the maid with the tea service, hoping to overhear something for Dulles. He carried individual cups from the sideboard to each man. When Barnes served Wilson, the president looked surprised, then carried on.

Lawrence, waving the tea away, was in the midst of an animated description of a recent airplane flight over Paris. “If only the prince and I had had a few bombs,” Lawrence said as Barnes retreated, “we could have taken care of this wretched peace conference once and for all. We were reduced to throwing seat cushions down on an unsuspecting citizenry. Great fun, nevertheless!”

When the three men were alone, Lawrence began to translate for Feisal. “The prince,” he began, “wishes to explain to you that the French claims to Syria are absurd to the point of insanity.”

Lawrence quickly grew impatient with the role of mere translator. As he leaned forward to speak, Feisal sat back and watched. “The simple truth, Mr. President, is that Clemenceau doesn't really care about Syria and the Lebanon, not at all. He will pretend he has a mission to defend the Christians of Damascus, as the British will pretend they wish to protect the Jews of Palestine, but in both cases it is a thing of the imagination, conjured up for public consumption, perhaps to salve their own consciences, should they ever locate them. The prince and his people bear no ill will to Christians or Jews, so Clemenceau knows he has no reason to oppose us. And the British, well, they have themselves in a pretty cock-up. They promised the prince's father that they would restore Arab control once the Turk was beaten. They cannot betray that solemn commitment for this filthy deal with the French.”

Wilson indulged a small smile and sat back in his chair. “The French are so often absurd,” he said. “Their absurdity on this question will be revealed when our commission travels to the Middle East to gauge Arab public opinion.” He smiled more broadly and gestured with his cup. “And that treaty they signed with Britain over these lands—Sykes-Picot—my heavens, Colonel, it sounds like a type of tea.”

“The commission will be a triumph, of course,” Lawrence answered, “but there is only one key to this situation. And that key is you.” He turned his violent blue eyes on the president. “If America holds firm—if Wilson holds firm—all will be well.”Perhaps he so rarely looks people in the face, Wilson thought, because it's unnerving when he does.

The prince broke the next silence, restoring Lawrence to the role of translator.

“We have talked to Clemenceau,” Lawrence related. “He blusters about the French tradition in the Holy Land back to King Baldwin of Jerusalem. When he does so, truly, we think he must be joking in that exquisitely sober way of his. There is no such tradition.”

Lawrence burst out of his translation again. “You know, Mr. Wilson, that Clemenceau only cares about the Germans, about bringing them to their knees.”

Wilson smiled and nodded his agreement.

“And the British are on all sides of the question, so they will join whoever is the strongest.
You
must be the strongest. You can carry the day for an entire people, one that has earned its liberty with blood shed fighting the Turks.”

Placing his cup and saucer on the low table before him, Wilson spoke directly to the prince, leaving pauses for Lawrence to translate his words into Arabic. “You may rely on me. And may I compliment you on your alliance with the Jews. I have been spoken to by many, including Brandeis and Baruch, and they have quite persuaded me. It reassures me that despite religious differences, this region can be a model of how different groups may exist peacefully, side by side. It will stand as a lesson in harmony and fellowship for people everywhere.”

 

“You remain a remarkable specimen,” Fraser said to Clemenceau while peering at the bullet wound in his back. It had largely healed over, only a puckered dent of flesh still visible. He was in the premier's bedroom, a large, plain room that looked out on the garden. “There can't be five men your age in Europe who could have survived that shooting and be carrying on with the bullet still inside them.”

“Ach, it's not such a miracle. It was a small pistol, the bullet goes through the wall of the car first, then the cushion, then it collapses into my back, grateful for the rest.”

Fraser couldn't suppress a laugh. “You and your exhausted bullet may put your clothes on.”

Clemenceau stood quickly, then staggered to the side.

Fraser steadied him. He guided Clemenceau back to a sitting position. “Perhaps you're pushing too hard?”

Clemenceau shook his head while staring at the floor. “This is not because of my friend the bullet. Since I was a boy, I become dizzy from standing too soon.”

“But your strength is not what it was.”

“That has been true every day for the last thirty years.” He stood more slowly, found himself solid and reached for his shirt. “I must be strong so I can speak sense to your very spiritual president, who believes that the German people are meek as mice. I also must resume my exercise regimen with my gymnastics instructor.”

Fraser shrugged his agreement.

Clemenceau laughed in triumph. “This is why one must have many doctors. That fool Reynard forbids it, but you do not. Today, I trust American medicine.”

“You trust those who agree with you.”

“Who does not? But I am a physician, too, so together, you and I make a majority!” While buttoning his shirt, Clemenceau asked, “You are distracted, doctor?”

“Sorry if I seem so. I just received word that my wife and daughter will soon arrive from New York.”

“You are not pleased?”

“It's been a long time. The war, you know.”

Clemenceau began stuffing his shirttails into his trousers. “I had an American wife, you know. These American women can be terrible. My wife thought that because husbands have affairs, it is acceptable for wives to do so. It is difficult to understand how a society can survive with women who hold such ideas.”

On the first floor of the house, they found the Dulles brothers seated in the parlor.

“You are here,” Clemenceau said to them, pausing on his way to his library, “for more talk of Syria.”

Foster Dulles stood quickly. “There are some matters we would like to review with you. We won't need much of your time.”

“But I have agreed to send your president's commission to Damascus. There, they will discover that all Arabs wish to be Frenchmen. Is it not enough that I agree to such foolishness? Have you Americans thought up something yet more foolish that I must agree to?”

Foster's face moved into an expression that may have been intended as a smile but fell short of the destination. “As the Premier knows well, there are many ways to agree to a course of action. One can agree to an idea—say, the creation of a commission—yet never actually do anything about it.”

“But,” Allen Dulles broke in, “we don't wish to detain the good Dr. Fraser from his many and vital duties.”

When Fraser reached the sidewalk, he felt spring all around him despite the gray sky. He sidled through the small crowd that waited to gawk at the wounded premier and climbed into a French military car for the ride back to the hospital.

The exchange with Clemenceau had been humiliating. He often felt humiliated when Eliza was the topic.

When he learned she would cross the Atlantic to see him, his first thought was that the journey was designed to set Violet loose on Paris society. On reflection, he decided that was unfair to both mother and daughter. Indeed, he could not deny the basic geography. He had left New York. Now Eliza was, in some fashion, coming after him. He felt dread, excitement, a whisper of hope, a presentiment of disaster. Could matters between them be better? Even worse?

The car passed a couple walking down the boulevard. The man pushed a perambulator. The woman held his elbow with one hand. Sadness washed over Fraser.