There were four lines going into his office. His staff would be slammed with phone calls going in and out. I bowed my head. “Would you please do an emergency breakthrough?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am … This is the office of the governor and it would be best if you tried to—”
“I am the governor’s wife. He was just shot. I am calling from the Moon.” I was so good. I was not screaming, but every one of my words was frozen in ice. “Please initiate an emergency breakthrough from Nicole Wargin. Please.”
That pause. I know why it’s there, but the waiting would kill me. “Surely.”
It occurred to me, in a strange, calm, rational place in my brain, that I might be about to get bad news and it would be better if I was sitting down. I slid the chair back and sank into it.
“—need to set up a press conference. See if you can get George—” My husband’s chief of staff always sounds calm, and hearing Medgar Davis going about his business gave me a gap to breathe in.
“Emergency breakthrough. This is the operator. I have Nicole Wargin on the line from the Moon.”
Mr. Davis gasped. “Scott. Get off the line.” Whoever he was talking to hung up without hesitating. “Mrs. Wargin. I’m sorry, I didn’t think you would have heard yet. I was waiting until I had more details to call.”
“It was on the radio. All I know is that shots were fired at the capitol at the governor.” I asked the one question I needed to know. “Is he alive?”
Silence. Waiting. Mr. Davis drew in a long breath that took all of the air out of the room. “I don’t know.”
“How can you not know?” I hunched over the table. Don’t yell at the staff. Don’t yell.
“I wasn’t there. I’m sorry. This is why I waited to call you, because I’m still trying to find out exactly what happened. What I know at this time is that the governor was shot twice.” His voice faltered and in my years of knowing the man, it is the only time I have heard even a gap in demeanor. But he’s known me for just as long and he did not coddle me. “Reports say that one of the times was in the head.”
I could not draw air and bent tighter, pressing my head against the table. The door to the phone booth snapped open. I couldn’t straighten. Eugene crouched beside me, breathing hard, and wrapped his arms around my back.
I fought the constriction in my ribs. “He had bodyguards. How did this happen?”
“I don’t know. We’re trying to find that out now.”
I wanted to scream at him that he had been setting up a press conference and he didn’t know how my husband had been shot. He didn’t even know if he was alive. I said none of those things, because I knew they had their own set of contingency plans for worst-case scenarios. As did I.
You do not get to be a politician without receiving death threats. You did not watch your husband decide to run for president of the United States without knowing that assassination was a possibility. Medgar Davis was simply following directives that Kenneth would have left him and I resented the hell out of him for it.
There would be people he needed to call. He needed the line clear. “What…” My throat clenched and I had to swallow to speak. “What hospital?”
“Washington Memorial.” His voice faltered again and that was almost worst. “I am so sorry you found out from the radio.”
“Call me the moment you know anything. I don’t care how small.” I hung up the phone and sat in the darkness of my arms. Eugene squeezed my shoulders and laid his forehead on my back. I rolled my head to the side. “He’s been shot. In the head. Reportedly.” I clung to that “reportedly” because that meant it was in doubt.
“Oh God.” His hands tightened.
I pushed myself up out of his kindness, and lifted the phone. My hand was shaking so badly I could barely grip the receiver. I wiped my face on my sleeve. “I asked about a radio. Can you check on that for me?”
He hesitated. I’m not sure if he thought the radio or leaving me alone was a bad idea, but he nodded and stood up. “What else do you need?”
“There’s—” I had to clear my throat. “There’s a folder in my quarters in East Bay. Can you bring it to me?” I could feel his reluctance rolling off of him in waves, but I didn’t wait to see Eugene go. I trusted him to trust me about what I needed.
On the phone another young woman on Lunetta who might be a spy answered, “Operator.”
“Earth, Kansas long distance, please.”
“Surely.” The sound changed as I stared at the wall opposite, with my feet tucked beneath the chair. A different woman said, “Long distance.”
“Operator, I’d like to place a call to Kansas City: Elmwood eight-zero-four-zero-three.”
“Surely.” Again, the air changed with the hand-off and a different woman answered. “Washington Memorial Hospital. How may I direct your call?”
I wanted to ask her where my husband was, but a switchboard operator would have no idea. “I’m calling for one of your patients. Nathaniel York, please.”
“Surely.”
A moment later, the phone rang. And rang. And rang.
I’d almost given up hope. “Nathaniel York, speaking.”
“It’s Nicole.” I charged ahead, knowing that my voice was shaking, knowing that he would think the worst about Elma. “Kenneth has been shot. I don’t know any details and I hate to ask, but I don’t know who else—” Who else would understand what it means to be hundreds of thousands of kilometers away from your love. “He’s at Washington Memorial, too. I’m sorry. I know you’re— Could you…?”
“Yes. I’m going right now.”
“Thank you. I … I just don’t want him to be alone.” And that was when I broke.
* * *
Light footsteps ran down the hall and Helen skidded to a stop in front of the phone booth. I became aware that I didn’t hear any other voices down the hall as she yanked the door open. Her hair stuck up at angles and her cheeks were flushed from running.
I opened my mouth and words would not come.
“Eugene sent me. I know. You don’t have to say anything.” She sat next to me and took my hand. “Do you want silence or distraction?”
I wanted to go home. “Distraction.”
She compressed her lips, nodding. “My uncle is a classical singer, a tenor. He introduced me to ‘You Can’t Raise a Goldfish in a Wineglass,’ which is actually a drinking song, but he sang it as if it were opera. When I was very little, he used to sing me to sleep when he visited and I had a favorite song, ‘Eighteen Touches,’ that I would always ask for. I found out later it was about touching a courtesan, but he had changed the lyrics to be a game about my toys. I found this out by singing it on the school playground.”
“No.” I pasted a smile on and faced Helen as if I were listening to her. The rest of my body gravitated toward the mascon of the silent telephone.
“My teacher recognized the melody and spoke to my parents, quite upset, to which my father said, ‘Why did you recognize the song?’”
That seemed to require a laugh. I did. “I asked for a radio. Do you know…?”
“They are working on it, but have to find an extension cord to reach into here, I think.” Helen bit her lower lip, then squeezed my hand. “Let someone else listen to the radio.”
I shook my head. “I’m not there.”
She looked down, and her jaw worked for a moment. “So, my uncle sang with a wonderful orchestra at a dinner club and we would get dressed up to—”
“Did you talk to Paulo?”
“Nicole, you don’t have to—”
“If I don’t do something useful, I’m going to come apart.” My entire body was shaking with the urge to work the problem and it was not a problem I could work. “Did you talk to Paulo?”
She nodded with her whole neck, biting her lips again. She looked so sad for me that I wanted to yank my hand away and scream obscenities at her. “Yes. I did. We were playing chess when Eugene found me, in fact.” Helen shifted in her chair to be
closer to me. “When Eugene announced that Faustino was missing, Paulo became quite distressed.”
I brought my attention around to focus on her and hung on like a lifeline. “Did he know where Faustino had gone?”
“He would not say. But I think he knows.”
“I talked to Ruben.” I nodded, pulling my hand free as gently as I could, and straightened in my chair. “When Eugene made the announcement, I asked casually if he had any ideas and he did the sort of flat denial that is an admission. What about the spacesuit?”
“According to Paulo, that was a different thing, although I am not convinced. He said Faustino had offered to take someone’s shift because his girlfriend had gotten sick and he was afraid he was a carrier and would infect the suit.” She shook her head. “I did not get a chance to follow up there.”
Because Eugene had found her and told her Kenneth had been shot.
“That would be easy enough to find out.” I rubbed my forehead. If I couldn’t hear the fans, then I would swear they were off. The air in the booth was so tight and still. “We can also check against the duty rosters in Frisch’s office.”
Myrtle shouldered the booth door open, carrying a CPK bag in one hand. She dropped it on the table and bent to grab me. “Oh, honey. I’m so sorry.”
I buried my face in her neck where she smelled of lilac talc. “There hasn’t been any more news.” It was a question as much as a statement.
“Eugene is following with the radio.”
Helen said, “I thought one of us could set up in another booth to listen—”
“Let her listen.” Myrtle pulled back and gave Helen a fierce look. “When Eugene was overseas during the war, people always wanted to keep the papers and radios from me. Not knowing is worse.”
“Thank you.” I’m not sure I was audible.
She squeezed my shoulder. “What do you need?”
“Will you … will you pray for him?”
“I thought you didn’t— Of course, honey. I’ve been doing that since I heard.”
“I don’t.” I answered the question that she had cut off. I didn’t believe in God. “But Kenneth does.”
* * *
Not knowing is the worst. Myrtle was right. The radio did nothing to help with that. It sat in the corner with no news, no matter which of our five stations Eugene turned the dial to.
Waiting is the worst. I had to sit on my hands to keep from calling Kenneth’s office again. The cast put unyielding pressure against my left thigh. How could they not know something by now? But when I looked at my watch, only forty-five minutes had passed since I’d talked to Nathaniel.
Being powerless is the worst. I stared at the file folder Eugene had brought me. “I need a pen. Please.”
Eugene looked around from the radio. What I love best about him is that he didn’t tell me things could wait. He straightened and dug in his arm pocket to pull out a pen. My hands were still shaking and I fumbled the pen when he handed it to me. It fell in slow motion, bouncing off the table and spinning to the floor.
Bending, Myrtle scooped the pen off the floor and put it on the folder. She turned to the CPK bag and opened it. “You should eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I know.” She set a tube of something in front of me. “But you need to keep your strength up.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Honey … I’m not going to fight you on anything else. But you need to eat som—”
I snatched the tube and stood, throwing it across the tiny room. “I’m not hungry!” My chair tipped and fell behind me. The tube smacked against the wall, rebounding toward the ceiling.
Myrtle snatched it out of the air.
The shaking had gone from my hands through my entire body. “Goddammit. I don’t want anything to eat. He went to the capitol because I asked him to. I will not ‘feel better’ if I eat something. I will feel better when the goddamned phone rings and they fucking tell me something.”
My words consumed the remaining oxygen in the room. I wanted to keep screaming. If I ate, then I was going to need to go to the bathroom and then I would be out of the room when they called. I would be out of the room when Kenneth needed me. None of my friends looked shocked or angry or hurt by my outburst. They just looked sad for me. That was the worst.
Myrtle bent down and picked the chair up, setting it back on its feet. She put the tube in the middle of the folder. “I’m not going to play fair and I’m not going to apologize.” She rested her hand next to the tube and looked at it. “You’re going to eat that because Kenneth would want you to.”
“You have no idea—”
“I’m supposed to tell you ‘food is fuel.’” She looked at me and her eyes were glittering with tears. “He didn’t say why, but I’m a smart woman. So you’re going to sit down and you’re going to eat that. I’ll accept half the tube, but nothing less.”
I hated her. I hated him. I sat and ate the goddamned tube. I have no idea what it was.
I did not feel better.
* * *
I pushed the half-empty tube across the table. The rest of it sat in a congealed lump in my stomach. “Did you find anything out from maintenance about the thruster?”
Eugene jerked in his seat by the radio, lifting his head. For a moment, I thought he’d fallen asleep, but then I saw his clasped hands and realized he’d been praying. “No … No. They’re still doing cleanup because the propellant we vented is corrosive enough that they don’t want to be out on it in suits when the sun is up.”
People think of the Moon as a cold and forbidding place. During the two-week day, the surface can get to 127 degrees Celsius.
He grimaced. “Plus they’re down workers because of the quarantine.”
“The sun sets … on the sixteenth?” Everything would have been exposed to a full day of sun by then and cooked off. “What are they doing about Halim’s landing?”
“We’re having him set down at the South Pole and then take a Busy—”
The phone rang.
All of us flinched at the clattering bell. I lunged for the receiver and pulled it to my ear. Myrtle moved to stand behind me and put her hand on my shoulder. Eugene turned the radio down, but not off.
“This is Nicole Wargin.” My voice was steady and smooth with all the polish of a Swiss finishing school.
In the time it took for my voice to reach the Earth, I could hear the background. I could hear the hubbub of a hospital. A siren outside the building. Voices clamoring for attention.
“Nicole.” In Nathaniel York’s voice. In the two syllables of my name. I knew. “I’m so sorry.”
PART III
THIRTY-FIVE
MRS. WARGIN DISPLAYS A STOIC DIGNITY AND PASSION THROUGHOUT PUBLIC GRIEF
By ANTHONY LEWIS
Special to The National Times
KANSAS CITY, May 11, 1963—Mrs. Kenneth T. Wargin went bravely through her final hour of public grief today. She gave an eloquent and impassioned eulogy via a telelink from the lunar colony. Mrs. Wargin is on the Moon, trapped with some 300 other lunar citizens, unable to attend Gov. Wargin’s funeral after he was assassinated three days ago on the steps of the United States Capitol. It had been thought that the cause for the cessation of traffic to and from the Moon was related to a polio outbreak, but Mrs. Wargin spoke of sabotage and a plot by members of Earth First. The governor’s office has confirmed that he was en route to the capitol with information related to this when the shooting occurred.
Nonetheless, it was the first time that many had heard of the alleged reason that her husband’s life was taken. She spoke from a tele-conference room on the Moon, projected in the Topeka First United Methodist Church on a screen six meters high behind the casket holding the body of her husband.
She wore a simple black sheath, belted at the waist, with three-quarter sleeves, that made a stark contrast to the cast upon her left arm. A single strand of jet beads hung about her neck, barely drooping in the weak lunar gravi
ty.
Mrs. Wargin said, “My husband was a man who loved the opera and played poker and had a weakness for kittens. He was a fighter for human rights and dignity. He believed passionately in establishing a toehold for humanity in space, even though he had a heart condition that would prevent him from leaving the planet. He believed in fighting for the future of the people he served. And for that last reason, he was murdered.”
Her voice faltered here in one of only two times that her composure broke. It was a vision that few who watched would ever forget. With the camera trained on her face, filling the enormous screen, Mrs. Wargin pressed her hand to her mouth and turned suddenly to Major Eugene Lindholm, the acting administrator of Artemis Base, who was a step or two away. Her blue eyes filled, and for an instant her face looked like that of a widow burdened with sorrow, instead of a governor’s wife. Major Lindholm pressed his hand to her shoulder. She drew a breath and stood erect again for the camera, appearing on the screen over the body of her husband, tears glittering on her cheeks.
“Kenneth was first and foremost a politician in the purest sense of the word. He lived to serve the people. He died to serve the people. I ask you to not let his death be in vain. Find the cowards who killed my husband to stop him from exposing their sabotage on the Moon and on Earth. Find the people who have left me here, trapped on the Moon, and unable to be at his side at the end. Find those who would trap humanity on Earth out of fear.
“My husband sent me to the Moon because there were opportunities for the progress of humanity. He would not say that we should or will abandon the Earth willingly, but that space would give us the tools and the goals and most of all the hope for a future in which we can exercise the best of our potential as individuals.”
After speaking, she remained watching the powers of church and state bid him farewell via a camera directed at the church. Few could witness that living portrait of stoic grief and remain unmoved.
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