The Wilson Deception (17 page)

The old man had been right. Life as John Barnes wasn't good enough. The old man was right more than Joshua probably gave him credit for. Being Speed Cook's son had never been easy. The man was so big, so tough, so smart. So angry. How could his son not be a disappointment?

He thought about the time back in Steubenville when he and his friend Morris—cursed by his moon face to be called Lunchpail—were playing Custer and Indians. They couldn't have been more than eight years old.

Two older white boys came by and said they couldn't play that game, that Custer was white and had no nigger troops. Joshua had heard his father talk about the Negro soldiers out West, so he answered that there were lots of colored troops.

“Yeah,” Lunchpail chimed in, “and they were too smart to get massacred like Custer.”

They took the beating. Lunchpail went down easy and Joshua decided that was the better choice. They got off with a fat lip for Joshua and no visible marks on his friend, but the episode left them with an overpowering shame. They hadn't fought. Joshua didn't want to face his father. He said they should camp out near Echo Cave, a couple miles downriver.

It got so cold that night. Lunchpail kept crying, so they started to walk back through the moonless night. Soon Lunchpail turned his ankle. They slept in a pile of leaves, huddled together for warmth.

The walking was easier after the sun came up. In an hour, they hobbled into the yard of the hardscrabble Cook Hotel.

Joshua's mother came tearing down the stairs. She screamed Joshua's name. She slapped him. Then she hugged him hard, spitting out scalding words through tears. Joshua blubbered the story out. He couldn't stop talking.

His father came home an hour later. He hadn't slept, looking for Joshua all night. His face was like a stone. Carrying an axe, he took Joshua into the woods behind the hotel. The man could split wood one-handed, five bulging fingers gripping the axe near the end. He handled it like a hatchet.

They stopped at a tree that was about forty feet high. His father said Joshua had to chop it down and make it fall north, safely away from their shed and chicken yard.

Joshua had split wood before, but he had never taken down a tree. He was eight. That first day, he chopped until a blister popped on each hand. Afraid to come home, he sat out next to the tree until it got dark, then slunk into the house.

His mother washed his hands. “Boy's hands are hurt,” she said to his father.

In silent reply, his father lifted his two hands with their twisted fingers. His face was still stone.

His mother wrapped Joshua's hands in cloth for the second day. He chopped for another two hours, each swing getting more feeble. He had no idea how to make the tree fall in the right direction. When his father came by to watch him, Joshua asked how he could do it.

“You need to figure that out,” his father said.

When Joshua went out to the tree on the third day, he could hear his parents arguing, which was something they didn't do. His father wasn't a man you argued with. You could work around him, but arguing didn't work.

A few minutes after the voices ended, his father arrived and took the axe. With what seemed like a single swing, he dropped the tree exactly where it was supposed to fall, then sat on the trunk. Suddenly his father's face was full of feeling.

Joshua was afraid.

In a low voice, his father said, “You listen to me now, son. You listen and remember.”

Joshua nodded.

“You made some terrible decisions out there with your friend. One bad choice after another.”

Joshua nodded.

“You can't do that.”

Joshua nodded again.

“Colored people can't make bad decisions, not ever, not without paying a terrible price.” His father looked savage enough to tear up the forest with his bare hands. “Every decision you make, every one, it has to be a good one. D'you understand?”

Joshua nodded again, terrified by his father's urgency.

“That's how you're going to be better than your old man.” His father's eyes bore into him. “You've got to be. I won't allow you not to be.”

Joshua started bawling.

His father reached out and pulled him against his rough shirt. The shirt smelled. Tobacco smoke from the crap game that went all night in the hotel's back room. The horse that the Cooks used to pull their wagon. His father's sweat.

Shaking his head, Joshua took a last drag on the Gaulois. He had to get the president's clothes in order. He and his father and Fraser, they'd been stumbling around in the dark for months, trying to make the right decisions. Through it all, Joshua had known that he was lucky, lucky that the old man was still big and tough and smart, and angry enough to take months out of his life to save his son. It was time for Joshua to take care of himself.

He stubbed out the cigarette on the window sill. It left a smudge. He'd have to get something to wash that off.

 

W
ithout waiting for an answer to his knock, Allen Dulles entered the president's library with a bulky package under his arm. Lloyd George and Clemenceau stood near an open window. A warm breeze riffled the heavy, cream-colored curtains. Wilson sat near the window, his legs extended and crossed at the ankles. He was launching into a story, so Dulles waited near the door.

“So there's this colored fellow,” the president said, “and he's found a gun and tried to pawn it as his own. The pawnbroker gets suspicious. He sneaks out of the back of the store and finds a policeman who arrests the man.

“The Negro's then hauled before the judge, who takes one look at him and asks, ‘Don't you know that it's against the law to carry a gun in New York?'

“‘Yassuh,' the darky says. ‘I just found that out.'

“The judge then asks, ‘And don't you know that it's also against the law to pawn an article that doesn't belong to you, something you just found?'

“ ‘Yassuh,' comes again from the darky. ‘I just found that out, too.'

“ ‘So,' the judge asks, wagging his finger, ‘what will you do if you ever find a gun like this in the future?'

“The darky thinks for a minute and says, ‘I's be sure to pawn it in New Jersey, suh!'” Wilson showed his big teeth when he laughed.

The others smiled politely. Dulles stepped forward into the lull.

“Ah, Mr. Dulles,” the president said. “Do pull the chairs back and place the map there on the floor. And please stay to make a record of our decisions.”

Sinking to his knees on the carpet, Dulles took the package from under his arm and unfolded it carefully. He smoothed its folds flat.

The multicolor map of Europe and the Middle East, produced by the British Army's cartography office, measured about eight feet wide by six feet. For today's discussion, Dulles had used different colored inks to outline alternative borders for Yugoslavia, Poland, Hungary, and Austria. The yellow lines were the borders before the war began; red lines marked borders when the fighting stopped, as best anyone could figure out; the blue ones were the British proposal for a settlement; the brown lines sketched the French counterproposal. Labels pasted onto the map marked existing countries or nations that proposed to be born.

Dulles had mastered the rationale for each alternative settlement, though some could be explained only by the naked self-interest of one Big Power or by a small community's fear of being subject to stronger neighbors. Preparing the materials had meant a very late night, not to mention missing another soiree at Cromwell's chateau. He hated missing the party. Like the peace conference, Cromwell's revels could not go on forever.

“Mr. Dulles,” Lloyd George exclaimed. His voice contained the rhythm of Welsh lyricism yet only a trace of that accent. “This looks like another baffling exercise in geographic nuance. I trust you are prepared to guide us.”

Clemenceau pulled a chair over to the bottom edge of the map. “Perhaps, ” he said, “we might attempt something more intelligent than restoring colonies that were lost two thousand years ago, as we did for the Greeks.”

Lloyd George tut-tutted in a way that no American could. “Did you see that Greece landed troops in Smyrna.”

“Yes,” Clemenceau answered, “but there is no report yet of where they left the wooden horse. Very cunning of them to conceal it.” He tugged on the grey gloves he used to protect the skin of his hands. “Really, Mr. Prime Minister,” he scolded while peering down at the map. Gravity tugged his features and his mustache earthward. His somber expression was that of a schoolmaster reminding a bright pupil of something he should know. “This British preference for ancient claims is nothing but whimsy. The Jews must have Palestine. The Greeks acquire Smyrna. Yet you begrudge France its rights in the Lebanon and Syria, presumably because we have been there for the last fifty years and are actually there now. Our claim is far too strong to satisfy your scholars.”

Dulles had pulled two chairs over to flank Clemenceau's. He walked to the top side of the map and knelt so he could point out landmarks, cities, and natural features for the decisions of the day.

“Monsieur Premier,” Lloyd George said as he sat, “you have assured us that so far as France is concerned, all depends on the German borders, payments from Germany, and the disarmament of Germany. Having accommodated you on each of these points, even at the risk of sowing the seeds of a bitter German resentment, we discover that France's appetite for distant lands revives, more ravenous than ever. It is both shocking and disappointing, sir. Most disappointing.”

Clemenceau turned his head to the British leader without changing his expression. “How can a man be shocked who has promised the same lands to France, to Prince Feisal and his Arabs, to your Hebrew friends, to your own petroleum industry and Royal Navy, and to how many others? You will end up disappointing a great many people. But France will not be among the disappointed.”

Wilson approached the map. “Gentlemen, gentlemen, perhaps we should get down to today's business. I believe we are back in the Carpathian Mountains, this time with Silesia.” He knelt next to Dulles, grunting slightly as ligaments popped in both knees. “Mr. Dulles, would you be so good as to point out the choices before us?”

 

 

 

Fraser knocked on the door of a nondescript office in a nondescript building in an anonymous neighborhood. In response to a shout from within, he entered. Colonel Boucher of the Deuxième Bureau sat at the far side of a nearly pristine desk. The Frenchman's bulk made the desk look like a toy. Leaning forward on his elbows, Boucher's arms seemed to reach across the entire desk. This was the first time Fraser had met him in an official setting.

“Ah, Major Fraser. Thank you for coming. Please sit.”

Fraser selected the only empty chair in the room, a spindly straight-backed affair that would never support Boucher's bulk. He sat tentatively.

“You are enjoying our Paris springtime?”

“Thank you very much. Most of all, I'm enjoying a dwindling caseload at our hospital.”

“Your patients recover? That is
formidable!”

“Some recover, those who can. The others . . .”

“Ah, yes,
la guerre.
Generals should visit hospitals on the day before battle, rather than the day after. Perhaps then we might have less battles.”

“Why did you ask me to come?”

“These reports we receive from you and your friend, Monsieur. . . Barnes, is it?”

Fraser nodded.

“We wish to end this arrangement. It is no longer necessary.” Fraser raised his eyebrows.

“The information, it was not so good. The peace conference, it begins to be finished. Monsieur Barnes, he may return to his life with no further concern for this office.”

Fraser straightened. “Colonel, you can't do that. That's completely unfair.”

“Ah, do you mean that you and Monsieur Barnes wish to continue reporting to the Deuxième Bureau?”

“That's not what I mean at all. As you well know, the one thing Monsieur Barnes cannot do is to return to his life. He's not John Barnes, but Sergeant Joshua Cook of the American Expeditionary Force. At considerable risk, he's been assisting you and your colleagues in order to gain French assistance in removing an unjust conviction against him. At considerable risk, I also have been meeting with you. The price for this assistance from both of us was clear from the start—that the French government would intercede with the United States to rehabilitate Sergeant Cook. You must do so now.”

Boucher clucked. “Must? I
must
do it? I think that is not the way to say that. I
must
do what my superiors direct. Yes, those are things I must do. And that, Major Fraser, is what I am doing now. Monsieur Barnes and you helped us a little, yes. And we helped Monsieur Barnes very much. We did not reveal him to the American authorities so he has not been in the prison. That has been very good for him, has it not? And if Monsieur Barnes wishes to leave our country, we will cause him no problem. I make that pledge to you. Also very good for Monsieur Barnes. The Deuxième Bureau is not his enemy. It is not his friend. This is not what I would call a bad deal for Monsieur Barnes.”

“I would call it a very bad deal. You know the risks he's taken to assist France. Right under the president's very nose. You owe him your help. That was your promise.”

Boucher dropped his eyes to the single piece of paper on his desk. “By all means, Major Fraser, please tell Mr. Barnes to stop taking those risks,
tout de suite,
at least to stop taking them for France. And of course, we say
merci beaucoup
to a friend. We also say
bon chance
. That is what we say, and it is all we will say.”

“This is outrageous.” Fraser stood, heat rising from his face and neck. “You realize that Sergeant Cook and I are in a position to reveal how you have undermined the security of the American president, how you have betrayed the ally who saved France against the Germans. What do you think the response will be when that becomes public knowledge?”

Boucher stared at Fraser, then allowed a trace of a smile to show. “I think a few more newspapers may be sold. I think some speeches may be made. The dogs will bark, the caravan will move on.” The colonel sat back reflectively. “I also think a few Frenchmen may wonder how this Boucher at the Deuxième Bureau was so clever that he placed an agent so close to the American president. No, he placed
two
agents so close to the American president. Perhaps they will think this Boucher should no longer be a mere colonel, but should be a general. It could be. Stranger things have happened.” The Frenchman nodded toward the door. “
Au revoir
, Major Fraser.”

“I shall take this to the premier.”

“
Bon chance
, Major.”