The Wilson Deception (12 page)

“Eliza,” he said in a tight voice. “I don't prefer to be alone. I'm afraid I'm used to it, more used to it than I thought I could be. But I don't prefer it.”

She touched his cheek with her gloved fingertips. “I suppose we can work on that.”

“Yes, of course.”

He knew he should feel relieved and warmed. Part of him did. But he also felt the old wariness. This was too easy. Would the hurt come back? Could he trust her? Or had he become someone who couldn't believe in a good thing?

 

T
he door to Clemenceau's house opened. A very large man in a French army uniform—a colonel?—gave a slight bow and took Fraser's hat.

“Ah, Dr. Fraser,” Clemenceau called out from his study. “Come in.” The premier beamed from behind his massive desk, then came around to stand with Fraser. His walrus mustache concealed his smile, which could only be inferred from the angle of his whiskers. “I am told that the car retrieved you from Mrs. Fraser's hotel. I conclude that things are well on the home front.”

Fraser felt himself flush. “Very well, sir.”

Clemenceau took Fraser's hand in a warm grip. “Oh, my poor friend. I had no idea. You are in love with your wife.” He separated from Fraser and took up a raincoat draped on a chair. “These American women. I fear she makes you unhappy, but that is our fate. We all end badly.” He shrugged into his coat. “Sadly, I have no time for such important subjects. I must be off. Allow me to present Colonel Boucher.” The large man from the door bowed again, even more formally this time. Fraser knew him as the silent man in the corner during earlier visits. The premier was gone before Fraser could speak.

“Please, let us walk in the garden,” Boucher said with a heavy accent, “where I can apologize for this small trick on you. I hope you will agree with me that the trick is a small one.”

They walked into a day of half spring. The sun was playing peekaboo, bringing warmth one minute, then fading before a chill breeze, then shining back again. Boucher showed no interest in the weather. He sat heavily on the stone bench and painstakingly opened a packet of cigarettes; Fraser, still standing, declined his offer of a smoke.

The Frenchman lit one and dragged greedily on it, blowing smoke up and away from them. “It is an act of patriots,” he said, brandishing the pack, “to smoke the Gauloises, even though they are vile.” He stood with a moan. “I am the patriot, always.”

He took Fraser's arm and began to walk in a circle around the small garden. “I wish to speak with you concerning the Cooks, the father and the son. You know them, of course.”

Colonel Boucher, Fraser thought, must be a spy, but he was all wrong for the job, far too large. Spies should be slender, reedy creatures, cat-quick physically and intellectually, capable of hiding behind pillars and slithering between fence boards. Like Allen Dulles.

Boucher was immense, powerful-looking, ponderous. Far more likely to pound you into submission with his bare hands than to outwit you with a fiendish ploy.

Some weeks before, the colonel was explaining, the French Bureau Deuxième received a routine report that the American Army had lost a prisoner, a Sergeant Joshua Cook. Boucher looked meaningfully at Fraser.

Fraser resolved to hold his tongue until the Frenchman was done. He already had missed his opportunity to deny any knowledge of the Cooks.

“One of my colleges,” Boucher continued.

“Colleagues.” Fraser immediately regretted making the correction.

“It is so? Coll-EEGS?”

Fraser nodded in response.

“Yes, of course. Coll-eegs. One of my colleagues observed that a Mr. Speedwell Cook visited the premier on February nineteen, the terrible day when Monsieur Clemenceau was shot. I was present then, you may recall.” Boucher paused a moment. “She also noted that Mr. Cook helped subdue the criminal who did this terrible and cowardly thing. All France is grateful to Mr. Cook for this.”

Fraser waited.

“An agent then was assigned to . . . observe Monsieur Cook's hotel, in the Montparnasse. There he found a remarkable thing. Monsieur Cook went to the Eiffel Tower and met with an American spy. Really, only Americans could think of a meeting there,
n'est pas
?”

Fraser cocked his head in mute agreement, his respect for Allen Dulles declining swiftly. Apparently he hadn't known that French spies were watching when he met with Cook. Perhaps he hadn't cared.

“And now this Sergeant Cook, we discover for our surprise, he is working for President Wilson, but he is no longer Sergeant Cook! He is named John Barnes. For a simple Frenchman like me, this becomes confusing. I think you Americans must be very subtle.”

“Why talk to me about this?” Fraser asked. “I'm not involved in any of it.”

“Ah, yes. Why you? It seems that you have not only cared for Monsieur Clemenceau, also earning the gratefulness of all France—truly, we are very lucky in our American friends, are we not?” When Fraser said nothing, Boucher resumed. “Now, it seems, you also provide the medicine to President Wilson. This is very interesting to us. Very.”

Boucher noticed that his cigarette had burned most of the way down. He pinched it out and placed the butt into his jacket pocket, then pulled out the pack. The breeze blew out two matches before he had fired up a new cigarette and resumed their circuit.

“Now, this sickness of Mr. Wilson, we are told by your government, it is minor. It is nothing whatever. And yet”—Boucher flung his arm wide to express his astonishment—“because of this
minor
nothing he threatens to return to America on the notice of a moment. We are left to scratch our heads, no? This is more American subtlety. We long for someone with the subtlety of an American to help us understand. And my coll
eague
, the same very one, she says to me, ‘Colonel Boucher, why not an actual American?' And I think that is very smart. We know just the person, I think. That person is
you
, already such a friend to France.” Boucher paused and turned to Fraser with a half smile on his face, triumphant at having reached the end of his narrative. The cigarette went to his lips for a deep drag.

“Why would I do such a thing, spy on the president against my own country?”

Boucher's arms spread wide again. “Spy! Spy! You make so much . . . so much of the drama. We do not ask that you dance the dance of the seven veils or take secret photographs of weapons or maps. We ask only that you talk to us. That is all. We are, as you know, your allies. We are America's truest allies, beginning with your own war for independence, won by French soldiers and French ships.”

Fraser shook his head. “You're asking me to tell you what I know about the president. That would require me to betray his trust in me as his physician, which is something I could never do.”

Boucher flapped his hands to silence Fraser. “I am not smart how I do this. I have left something important out.” He took another drag on the cigarette, then pinched it out and dropped it in his jacket pocket. “Please let me say this. We are allies, America and France. We are friends. So our two countries must cooperate. When a person who has made a crime runs from the control of one of us.” He gestured to his left. “To the control of the other of us.” He gestured to his right. “The one receiving the criminal must say so, and then must help in the capture and proper penalizing of that person.” He clapped his hands together to show the capture of the miscreant. “You know this is so?”

Fraser held his tongue, dreading the direction of Boucher's speech.

“But now,” Boucher resumed, “we know of Sergeant Cook, his, what do you say, whereabouts? He has been convicted by our ally, our friend, of committing this crime, a very serious one. The French Army shot many soldiers for this crime of deserting. We know it is very damaging, this deserting. It loses the morale of an army. Sergeant Cook is not to be shot, but deserting is a crime for American soldiers, too, and he is to receive a very big penalty. A man like that, like Sergeant Cook or Mr. Barnes as he is now called, is exactly the sort of man we have promised the American government that we will tell them about. Should we not say to your government, here is your Sergeant Cook? Should we not help you capture him again?” Boucher paused and stared evenly at Fraser.

Boucher, still waiting for Fraser's response, sat on the stone bench. Fraser found it necessary to wipe off a shoe with his handkerchief, stalling while his mind whirled in circles, searching for the best words. He joined Boucher on the bench.

“Colonel,” Fraser began, “you did say that Sergeant Cook is now working for the American government, since he is employed at Mr. Wilson's residence?”

Boucher broke out into a wide grin. He opened his arms wide and rocked back. “You see, this is where we find the confusion.”

“Certainly, Colonel, the American government would not allow him to work so close to the president if Sergeant's Cook's legal situation were as dire as you suggest.”

“Ah, yes, but here is the American subtlety. He does not work as Sergeant Cook. He works as John Barnes. Who knows that John Barnes is Sergeant Cook? I know. You know. Someone in the American government may know. But the Army is still looking for Sergeant Cook. We have asked them and they say it is so.” He raised his eyebrows. “So, it would seem that
they
don't know. We wonder if President Wilson knows.”

Fraser felt cornered. He decided to head for the exit. “Look, Colonel, I'm a doctor. I don't know why you thought I was the person to raise these matters with, but I can assure you that I can't help you in any way with them.” He stood.

“Ah, but you are exactly the person who can help us,” Boucher began. “I wished to speak with you in this way, not in my office, to ask if you could speak with Sergeant Cook, who is the son of your friend Speedwell Cook. In that speaking, you could explain how Sergeant Cook could help America's ally and friend, France. And in return, France could help Sergeant Cook, perhaps by deciding that it need not describe to the American army where Sergeant Cook is. Perhaps we could do more.”

“This is blackmail,” Fraser said, “and hardly the act of an ally and friend.”

“I do not know that word. Black? Mail?”

Fraser, disgusted, jammed his hands in the pockets of his trousers and turned to leave the garden.

Boucher raised a hand halfway and spoke again. “Wait, Major. I ask one more question. It is more American subtlety that I do not understand. Sergeant Cook was a soldier of bravery. We have seen his records. My army has given him a medal for his bravery. Why do Americans treat black men, brave black men, in this way?”

Fraser shook his head. Boucher was playing every card he had.

Fraser stepped to the door and into the house, prompting Boucher to follow. “Ah,” Boucher called as he strode with Fraser, “you are right to pay no attention. Because I understand little, I am sometimes rude. And because of that, I will never become general. But you and me and Sergeant Cook, we all can help each other and then we all go on and have happy lives, n'est pas?”

Boucher opened the front door for him. Fraser stopped and looked up at the sky that opened before them. When the conversation began, he thought his choice would be between being loyal to his country and being loyal to his friend and his friend's son. The choice no longer seemed so stark. Fraser might be able to apply some American subtlety to it. France, as Boucher said, was an ally. Fraser needn't tell Boucher anything the French shouldn't know, and Joshua didn't have to, either. They could manage this.

He turned back to Boucher. “What do you want to know?”

 

A
dmiral Grayson, wearing his dress uniform, escorted Clemenceau and Lloyd George into the president's bedroom. He pointed to the two armchairs on one side of the bed, then circled to the other side where a straight-back chair sat near the president's head. Wilson sat upright, his papers stacked in two piles on a short-legged tray that straddled his hips.

Before sitting down, each visitor took Wilson's hand and expressed pleasure at his recovery. The open windows admitted the mingled aromas of spring blossoms and garlic from a nearby kitchen. Clemenceau felt a slight nausea from the smells, along with the constant itch of the eczema on his hands. He put both out of his mind.

Wilson waited for them to settle themselves. “I'm most grateful,” he began, “that you're willing to indulge my current indisposition in this way. I assure you I'm feeling remarkably better and am definitely on the mend. But,” tilting his head toward Grayson—“my physician insists that we not run too long, so I propose we get right down to it. The current question, I believe, involves the Czechoslovaks?”

Lloyd George spoke. “Colonel House has reviewed with you the positions as they have unfolded in recent days?”

Wilson, who had lifted a paper, returned it to the tray before him. “Gentlemen, I adhere to my former view that we make better progress when the discussion is among those of us who hold positions of ultimate responsibility and are directly responsible to our people. That, it seems to me, is how democracies should make peace. So I propose that we proceed on that basis, without regard to other discussions that may have taken place, with . . . others.”

“As you wish, Mr. President,” Clemenceau said. “Under that protocol, I must revert then to the fundamental position of the French nation, that the security of its eastern and northern borders remains paramount. We have seen two wars against the Boche. Germany cannot be allowed to make war on France yet again.”

Wilson nodded with a bland smile fixed on his face. “I quite understand your position. I have grown most familiar with it.”

After a few moments of silence, Clemenceau spoke again. “Then it is a simple matter, one of justice, to allow France to rebuild those lands devastated by the war. It will take a hundred years to remove the scars that this war has left, but we must begin that work. It is a sacred duty. You have seen them, lands that will never be the same, where gas poisons the soil, where nothing lives, where bombs hide in the ground and will blow up our children and their children? Just before your illness you went there?”

A sober expression replaced Wilson's bland smile. “I have seen them, Premier. The sight of them would dismay a stone.”

“I am not a stone, Mr. President.” Clemenceau's eyes were wet. “I am an old man who cannot betray the trust of his neighbors, his friends, his family, all who know that this peace can be a real peace only if we ensure that Germany can never make war again.”

“Yes, Premier,” Wilson said, “I understand entirely. France must be protected, and America will do so. You have my word.”

 

Looking sleek in a vested business suit and a high starched collar, Allen Dulles glided into his uncle's office at the Crillon. He sat at a side table while Lansing finished a telephone conversation about the laundering of shirts, a service which the hotel was not performing at a level expected by civilized society, or at least by Lansing. Dulles concentrated on stuffing his pipe from a roll-pouch of tobacco. The bang of the telephone receiver into its cradle jerked him from his reverie.

“Is this true?” Lansing gestured angrily at the newspaper open before him. “Is our parson-president actually negotiating from his sickbed?”

“I'm afraid so.” Dulles pulled the pipe from the pouch and placed the stem in his mouth, but made no move to light it.

“Allie.” Lansing paused to restrain his pique. He resumed in a tone still angry but more modulated. “How much longer will I be forced to learn about these developments from the newspapers? It's intolerable. I thought you had a . . . representative in place who would alert us to such things.”

“I can't see him every day.” Dulles began to pat his pockets. First his vest, then his jacket, then his trousers.

“My God,” Lansing exploded, “why don't you put the matches in the same pocket every time?”

Dulles took the pipe from his mouth and smiled. “That only works if I wear the same suit every day.”

Lansing tossed a matchbook to him, but it fell short.

Dulles picked it off the rug. “I'll see him this evening and learn what I can, but we can hardly expect that a president who refuses to disclose his plans to his Secretary of State will unburden himself entirely to his valet, particularly a new one.”

Lansing looked stricken. “Dear God, Allie, his valet?” Lansing's voice was a dying swan, then regained strength. “Your agent is his valet?”

After striking a match and taking several puffs to light the pipe, Dulles spoke around the pipe stem. “Technically, I suppose, he is Mr. Wilson's second valet.”

Lansing stood and clasped his hands behind his back. He turned to stare out at the plaza. His nephew's insouciance could be grating. More than grating. “Affairs of state in 1919,” he said with all the equanimity he muster, “should not resemble eighteenth-century French farce. Tell me about this.”

“The principal valet has been down with the flu for several weeks, and we're not hurrying him back into service. He's happy to recuperate at the somewhat glacial pace we prefer. Our representative, as you so delicately describe him, seems a clever chap, certainly for a Negro.”

“God deliver us from the clever. The president, you know, is endlessly clever.”

“There are worse things.”

The desk chair creaked as Lansing dropped into it. “Don't get me started. Wilson's had such a charmed political life that he's afflicted with the optimism of the consistently fortunate. I fear he simply can't appreciate Clemenceau's power.”

“Your concern is the old man?”

“It should be yours, too. He can seem an eccentric anachronism with those prissy gloves, the droopy mustache, the way he closes his eyes and seems to drift off during meetings. But he's a tough old bird with a single idea he has held without interruption since 1870. Stop the Boches! Stop the Boches! But he cannot stop history. Germany is richer than France. Germans work harder than the French. There are more of them. And now everything he does to protect his cherished France will sharpen Germany's passion for revenge.”

“Surely the president sees this.”

“He does, but I fear he cannot resist Clemenceau. Single-mindedness is a great advantage in a negotiation, especially when combined with an unmediated willingness to be rude. Clemenceau cares nothing for courtesy. Cleverness and courtesy are no match for single-minded bad manners.”

“Mr. Wilson has been quite single-minded about his League of Nations.” Dulles smiled around the pipe stem.

Lansing waved a hand dismissively. “If only it mattered.”

Dulles took the pipe from his mouth. “Speaking of which, do you know the joke making the rounds?” He took his uncle's silence as license to continue. “The negotiators are working for a treaty that will ensure the world a ‘just and lasting war.'”

“Dear God, Allie. Speak to your second valet. Perhaps he can save us.”