The car drove to the laundress’s village and straight through it. The driver never spoke. The laundress sat squat and stolid. Both of them perspired. The heat was relentless; unless you were strong, it could kill you. The driver was very strong, the weaker of the two, but filled with power nonetheless.
It was a two-hour drive to the airport at Asunción. The driver got out, began to reach for the canvas case.
“Sit!” the laundress said. The language was Spanish.
The driver whirled back to his place, remained immobile while the laundress took the clothes in one hand, the black leather case in the other.
In Spanish the driver said, “May I ask one question, please?”
The shawled figure nodded.
“What if the laundress causes trouble? How is she to be handled?”
“With great and tender care,” the shawled figure replied. “Explain that I shall return in three days at the outside, that she is my guest, that she need do nothing not pleasing to her. Tell her she has been working too hard and I want her to rest.”
“She is very stupid,” the driver said. “I think she will not understand.”
“Then it will be your job to be patient. I want her happy on my return, happy and alive; if she lacks either of those requirements, there will be much suffering, am I being clear? You in particular will be greatly discomforted.”
The driver nodded.
“She has an extraordinary natural instinct for ironing work. If I ran this loathsome place I would declare her a national institution. I have not had shirts as crisp since forty-five.”
The laundress took the flight from Asunción to Buenos Aires. The Paraguayan Customs men were all insipid fools; there was no passport trouble expected, and none materialized. Argentina, of course, was different, so the “laundress” remained there, and it was a prosperous businessman who headed for the Pan Am counters. A businessman of middle years and totally bald. The baldness was an irritant, of course—he had turned prematurely gray when he was not yet twenty-five, and his hair, curly and white and thick, was his most distinguishing, his most attractive feature. He was terribly proud of his hair; it was one of the things that set him apart from, as well as above, others. “The White Angel” they called him then.
So it had pained him, the day before, back in the blue house, when he had shaved his hair off. Still, he wasn’t that unattractive bald. His face showed power. And as soon as he returned to Paraguay, he would of course let it grow back to its former snowy splendor.
He caught the Pan Am flight to JFK. It took more than ten hours nonstop, arriving at New York at a quarter past six the following morning. The following morning would be Tuesday, and he fully planned to get the night flight back for Buenos Aires on Wednesday. Thursday at the outside, but Wednesday, preferably.
Speed was always preferable.
He spent the entire flight awake, the black box in his lap. Others slept; he, instead, considered contingencies. So many things might go wrong, and he had to be prepared for any and all. His mind had kept him alive so far; he had complete confidence it would not fail him now. His mind plus his black leather box. So long as he had it, anguish was his constant companion. The potential for anguish, at any rate, the very real threat of mind-cracking pain, which was sometimes more effective than the pain itself.
The plane arrived precisely as scheduled, and most of the passengers were bleary through Customs. He pretended to be, though he was, and in fact needed to be, totally acute, because this arrival moment placed him, like some jumbo jet at takeoff, in the time of maximum vulnerability. Not that he was worried about his passport. True, it had been handled quickly, but there were skilled artisans in Asunción who were used to express work. No, the Customs guards would pass him along happily, all would go fine with them, but if there had been an unknown disaster, an unknown informer perhaps, if all had gone wrong and he was to be discovered, the logical time to take him was now.
He retrieved his bag, passed through Customs, moved to the greeting area beyond, looked around. He had never been to this airport before, and its size confused him. Actually, he had never been to this country before, and its size would undoubtedly have confused him too, except that he did not plan on touring it, only the one place, just Manhattan. He stood quite still in the greeting area. Erhard was supposed to meet him. Those had been his instructions, but what if a wire had been silently intercepted, a phone quietly tapped—for a moment, though he would have died before admitting such a thing to anyone, he actually contemplated running. Just flat out bolting toward the nearest exit. Once outside, though, where? Which foolish direction?
Then he saw little Erhard limping toward him through the crowd, followed by big-shouldered Karl, and he realized that if “safe” was a word you could possibly apply to one with his past, not to mention his present, then he was, once again, yet, still, perhaps even permanently, safe ...
15
DOC PICKED THE RESTAURANT for dinner, Lutèce, which Babe had of course heard of but had never been near. Elsa had never even heard of it, but when Babe picked her up and told her it was the most expensive place in town, her already considerable nervousness increased. He taxied down with her—ordinarily they subwayed everywhere, but you didn’t subway to Lutèce, not unless you were the dishwasher, anyway—and no matter how he tried, he could not calm her. She looked terrible, her dress was wrong, she hated fancy places, people would stare at her, they would know she didn’t belong.
The one thing Babe was sure of was that they’d stare all right. She was in a blue dress, simple and plain, with a single strand of pearls at her glorious throat, and the color of the dress played right into the color of her eyes. “You look illegal,” Babe said as they entered the restaurant, which was true, but it did not serve visibly to calm her.
Doc was waiting for them in the tiny back room of the second floor. Just two other tables. If you wanted to be seen, at Lutèce you ate downstairs. If you cared about conversation, you sat in the back room, preferably in the corner.
Doc stood as they walked in. He took a quick look at Elsa, then shook his head. “I thought you said she was pretty,” he said to Babe. “Really, Tom, I must talk to you sometime about standards.”
“This is Hank,” Babe said. That was their way in public. Hank and Tom. No reason for it really. It all started after H.V. died. They needed things to cling to then. Secrets were handy. And cheap. A bridge binding them together. They needed secrets badly after H.V. went; if you didn’t have someone to cling to, the currents were too strong; the swirling rumors were enough to knock you down, steal your air, drag you out to sea.
“You’re very lovely,” Doc told her. “No lovelier than Grace Kelly, but you’ll get by.”
They sat down. When a captain appeared, Doc asked if they minded if he ordered for them. Babe and Elsa hurriedly said, “Please.” Doc spoke French for a while and the captain replied, then disappeared, and Elsa said how well he spoke.
“Thank you, I wish I did—I don’t know what I actually said, but what I was trying to do was just order some Chablis. Do you know Chablis? It’s a Burgundy.” He gave Babe a big smile. “The great ones are almost green-eyed; they’re the wines that most resemble diamonds,” and on “diamonds” he glanced at Elsa, laid his fingertips on her skin, stroked gently.
Gee, Babe thought, he likes her, isn’t that terrific?
No, Babe thought, when they were done with the truffle in crust and into the rack of lamb, it isn’t so terrific. Dinner, which, at the start, so it seemed, could not have gone better, was now tying him in knots.
Because Doc could not keep his hands off her.
Stop, he wanted to scream at Doc.
Stop him, he wanted to scream at Elsa.
But you didn’t scream at Lutèce. You whispered. You chuckled and you dabbed your napkin across your lips and you nodded when the waiter refilled your wine glass without being asked, and you made pleasant chitchat no matter what was happening inside you; even if your brothe
r was sitting there making a play for your girl, you just sat there amidst the drolleries, even if your girl didn’t seem to mind.
Babe put his hands in his lap, clasped his fingers together.
“Some lady,” Doc said. They were drinking red Burgundy now, Bonnes Mares ’62, and he finished his glass.
Babe nodded as the waiter refilled it.
Doc smiled at Elsa. “You miss being home? Switzerland?”
“I think everybody misses being home sometime. Don’t you?”
“I guess,” Doc said. “Where is home exactly? I don’t know Switzerland all that well. Zurich and Geneva and that’s it.”
“I’m not from there.”
“You must be from somewhere.”
“A tiny place. No one has heard of it.”
Why’s she being so goddamn coy, Babe wondered. She was from outside Lake Constance, she’d told him that, why the hell shouldn’t she tell Doc?
“Bet you know skiing,” Doc said, changing the subject.
“I’m Swiss, so I must.”
“Don’t get that,” Doc said.
“Oh, it’s just a story, I’m not good at telling stories, but there was a Welsh actor, I don’t remember his name—he was in some movies though, but I don’t remember their names either—”
“You’re right, you’re not good at telling stories,” Doc got in.
They both laughed.
Babe sat there.
“It doesn’t matter who, maybe it was Richard Burton, I’ll pretend it was Richard Burton, he was the Welsh actor, and he was being asked about a part in a movie, or maybe it was a play, I can’t remember, it was one or the other—”
“You’re awful at telling stories,” Doc said this time.
They were both giggling now.
Babe looked at her blue eyes. They had never seemed more lovely. He was very much afraid he was going to do something terrible, just terrible, so he held his hands pressed together in his lap with all his strength.
“—it doesn’t matter if it was a movie or a play, the point was he had to sing in the part and the producers or directors, one or the other, maybe it was both, they asked him if he sang and he said, ‘I’m Welsh, so I must’ ”
“I don’t get it,” Doc said.
“The Welsh have great pride in being musical,” Elsa explained.
“And the Swiss ski, now I get it,” Doc said. He emptied his wine glass again, ordered another bottle. “Where did you learn?”
“Lake Constance—that area, a small town nearby, I lived all my life there.”
“My God,” Doc said, getting all excited. “I know where you learned—there’s a ski freak works in my company, and he bores the ass—pardon me—he’s very dull because all he talks about is his skiing and was the snow powdery in Kitzbuhl and how many feet deep was it at Squaw Valley and what it was like getting helicoptered to the Canadian peaks and coming down through new snow, and if you think the oil-drilling equipment business is dull, you should hear this guy—”
“You’re a worse storyteller than I am,” Elsa said.
Doc roared. The other two tables glanced surreptitiously in his direction, and he quieted fast, went “Oops, ’scuse me, but there’s the point, the be-all and end-all behind my soliloquy, this ski freak’s favorite place in all the world is the Lake Constance area, because that’s where Mont Rosa is, am I right or am I right, you learned to ski on Mont Rosa, admit it.”
“I’m amazed,” Elsa said.
“And next to Rosa is Mont Charre, which is great, but just a hair less great than Rosa, am I right or am I right?”
“A hundred per cent,” Elsa said.
“I’m making all this up,” Doc said.
Elsa went, “What?”
“There isn’t any ski freak, there isn’t any Mont Rosa near Lake Constance, and there isn’t any Mont Charre either, am I right or am I right?”
Elsa said nothing.
Babe just watched them. He didn’t know what was going on, but whatever it was, he’d liked it better when Doc was touching her.
“I’ve done too much business in Switzerland, I know the way they talk, you’re not Swiss.”
“No.”
“What are you?”
“Can’t you tell from my accent?”
“German, I’d guess. German, and you’re no twenty-five. Thirty?”
“Thirty-two. What else do you want to know?”
“How much longer are your work papers good for?”
Elsa waited before she said, quietly, “Why are you humiliating me?”
“No reason. Just that a lot of foreigners like to marry a lot of Americans—then, when they’re all nice and legal here, sometimes the marriages don’t work out so well.”
“And that’s what you think? I’m trapping your brother? Why don’t you just come out and ask me?”
“No point,” Doc said quietly. “You haven’t told the truth about much of anything yet, why should you now?”
“No reason,” and as Babe watched, she fled the tiny room, and as Babe started after her, Doc grabbed his wrist and held tight. “Let her go,” Doc said.
Babe whirled on him. “Why—because you tell me to?”
“This was for your own good—”
“Bullshit—”
“It was.” Doc held on to him, and Babe couldn’t break the grip. Doc was too strong. “I traveled all around, I can spot people, there’s a million broads around the world would like to live here, they can’t, they’ll try all kinds of things—”
“I didn’t ask you for approval—”
“You’ll thank me. I knew her type the minute she walked in—hell, I knew it when you wrote the goddamn letter, people don’t fall all over each other like that unless somebody’s after something—”
“You don’t know—”
“I do, I know, goddammit, believe me—”
“Why should I?—ever—pawing the hell out of her and then putting her on a goddamn rack—”
“That’s a business tactic, you soften somebody up first, get them off guard, it means nothing—”
“Lying means nothing—”
Doc squeezed harder. It was starting to hurt. There was pain, and they still whispered in the quiet, delicate room. “You never tell the whole truth, you got to withhold things, like when I asked you to come to D.C., I meant that. If I’d told you I’d gotten the mugging note you would have thought I was asking you because I was panicked over you getting hurt, so I held back something—I knew about the mugging—but I wasn’t lying—and I’m not lying when I tell you to let this one go, she doesn’t love you, forget her—”
“You don’t know that—”
“I do, use your head, she’s gorgeous, why else would she love you?”
“Because I love her,” Babe shouted, and he ripped free and took off through the restaurant. He careened into a waiter carrying coffee cups, spun off, kept on, not even pausing when the crash came, down the stairs he went, two, three at a time, stumbling, then past the bar and into the October evening, not stopping until the sidewalk, where he turned one way, the other, then grabbed the nearest cab and raced on up to Elsa’s place, buzzed her door hard, again and again, but she wasn’t there, she wasn’t there. He waited five seconds, buzzed again, no answer, buzzed five seconds after that, nothing, no reply, she wasn’t home, maybe he’d beaten her back, maybe he was just too quick. No, it wasn’t that, it was obviously not that; she wasn’t coming home, not where she’d be a sitting duck for him, because for all she knew, he’d led her into it, let her get destroyed like that. For all she knew, he was just as guilty as Doc, and where she was now was probably walking, just walking, or maybe sitting in some dark flick only not watching the screen. She had a lot to think about, Elsa did.
He loved her. He didn’t give a shit if she was Korean, he loved her. She had no way of knowing that, though; no way of knowing how he felt after twenty-five years of awkwardness to suddenly feel graceful when he was by her side.
The
thing to do was get back to his place and wait for her to call. Pray for her to call. He could wait by her door, but that was pushy, and he hated pushy Jews. Doc might be back at his place, but not for long. It would take him maybe a minute to pack. They had nothing to say to each other. He had nothing to say to Doc, anyway. Not now. Not now. Babe broke into a run. He went fast, faster than usual, as fast as he could and still sustain the three miles back to his place. Babe tore on through the night. His tooth hurt like crazy ...
16
IT WAS JUST BEFORE eleven when they entered Riverside Park and started toward the boat basin. The bull-shouldered bald man let the one in the black raincoat do the leading. The raincoated one began to say “Careful,” but the bull-shouldered one interrupted: “English. Always. Less conspicuous.”
“As you wish. But watch your step. It’s very dark.”
“I do not like meeting in places like this. Even our newspapers report the violence in American parks.”
“Scylla set it. The spot and the passwords. He likes parks.”
“It was stupid.”
“Are you frightened?”
“That strikes you as amusing?”
“Yes.”
“We all accepted its existence, even when we were winning. Those of us with brains were aware. Once you forget fear, you miss contingencies, and from there it is but a short drop to the grave.”
They reached the boat basin at eleven promptly, then began to count uptown, passing the required number of benches. Finally, at perhaps five minutes past, they sat on an empty bench and watched the Hudson. The bull-shouldered man glanced behind him from time to time. Habit. There were trees and brush and shadow, but no movement. “What time is it?” the bull-shouldered man inquired at a quarter past.
The raincoated one said, “Fifteen after. Why didn’t you bring a watch?”
“I brought one, I’m wearing one, I just wanted to be sure it was working properly.”
The Novels of William Goldman: Boys and Girls Together, Marathon Man, and the Temple of Gold Page 104
