The Wilson Deception

by David O. Stewart

  “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.

  Chapter 14

  Saturday, March 29, 1919

  John 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 Du
lles 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.

  Chapter 15

  Thursday night, April 3, 1919

  The syncopated stylings of the band at William Nelson Cromwell’s mansion weren’t pure jazz, but they carried a definite New World bounce. Fraser thought Eliza and Violet would enjoy the Cromwell soiree, though it had been odd to receive the invitation from Allen Dulles, not from the powerful New York lawyer who staged these extravaganzas to extend his influence throughout the peace conference. Fraser didn’t know Cromwell, but that didn’t restrain the lawyer’s enthusiastic greeting, nor his proclamation that Fraser was the savior of the French premier. Fraser couldn’t help but preen a bit under Cromwell’s stroking, watching for its effect on Eliza.

  It was Fraser’s first time inside Cromwell’s preposterously large pile of rococo excess. During wartime the mansion had been a prized destination for the socially ambitious. Cromwell’s serving tables groaned with scarce caviar and champagne at events honoring those caring for war orphans or raising funds to rebuild a giant Braille printing press. Cromwell—with formal manners, ruddy complexion, and anachronistically flowing white hair—carried the romance of daring and not entirely ethical exploits in South America. It was Cromwell, the whispers had it, who engineered the revolution in Panama that cleared the way for the great canal.

  Fraser and Eliza sat at a side table, their chairs turned to face the dance floor, their shoulders nearly touching. The evening had been neither as easy as Fraser had hoped nor as difficult as he had feared. Attentive waiters ensured that their champagne glasses never dropped below half-full. Violet’s seat had been empty for nearly an hour as a succession of officers and gentlemen insisted on dancing with the golden-haired American with the dimpled smile.

  Fifteen months had not dimmed Eliza’s looks. Still no gray in her dark hair. Still a fetching smile and figure. The shifting shades of her hazel eyes still could transfix and confuse. Still with the focus and intelligence that allowed her to manage theatrical companies lopsided with exotic personalities. She was easy to fall in love with all over again, but something held him back, anxious about leaving safe ground.

  “She’s quite the belle,” he said, nodding toward Violet. Where had that young girl acquired such self-possession? She plainly knew now how her teal dress flattered her, how her grace drew the eye, how her hair reflected the light. Those were no surprise. She had those gifts in girlhood. But now there was a compelling poise.

  “She has her father’s looks.” Eliza smiled at him.

  He thought it not a bad smile. “Better than his brains.”

  “Jamie.” Her voice was soft. “How are you? Your letters seemed so, so . . . empty, almost sterile.”

  He swallowed some champagne, then spoke without thinking. “Like most of the men here, I don’t have much idea how I am. I feel like I may never know. The things you see and do, and then see and do again, and over and over. I . . . well, it’s been nothing like the lab back at Rockefeller or my practice in Manhattan. I’ve been useful here. I’m glad I came. I was proud to be here. But. . . .” He looked over at those ambiguous eyes. What was in there, behind them? He had once lost himself in them. “But I shouldn’t simper and whimper. I barely left the hospital, safe and sound here in Paris. I was living very well compared to the men in the trenches.”

  “Father.” When he looked up, Violet’s glow was undeniable.

  Fraser stood for his introduction to a lieutenant of fusiliers.

  Violet sat as the lieutenant withdrew.

  “He looks far too young to go to war,” Eliza said.

  “Most of them do,” Fraser said. “Especially the lieutenants. He was either very lucky or late to the front. Lieutenants didn’t last very long.”

  “Oh, Father, isn’t this just heavenly? The music, the chandeliers, the champagne, the beautiful furniture—”

  “The young men?”

  “Really, Father.” She smiled. “Though they are nice. I can’t begin to think what they’ve been through.”

  “Actually, it was a very different Paris during the war. It could alternate between a somber fear and an almost frenzied merrymaking. The war was so close. The main trenches were barely fifty miles away. Panhandlers and deserters on every corner. Everything felt, I don’t know, desperate.”

  “Father, there’s something I want to say. While you’ve been away, I made a resolve that I will no longer be the giddy, thoughtless creature you have found so tiresome.”

  “Violet, I never said—”

  “No, Father, you didn’t have to say it. I knew what you were thinking. Please give me credit for that much intelligence. I’ll admit there was a period when I didn’t care so much what you thought, but I was young.”

  Fraser resolved to hold his tongue.

  “But do allow me a night in Paris to be totally, blissfully, entirely giddy and thoughtless. It’s Paris, with music and champagne, and so many, many officers.”

  Eliza raised her glass. “Shall we drink to the officers, those here and those no longer here, and especially to our own officer, Major Fraser?”

  “Yes, Mother. That’s perfect.” After the requisite sip, she resumed. “After tonight, I’ll want to know all about how you cured Premier Clemenceau and all the poor soldiers, and about the desperate business of making peace. I’ve been reading the newspaper accounts very faithfully, haven’t I, Mother?”

  Eliza nodded agreement.

  A figure loomed next to their table. Fraser, feeling an agreeable champagne fuzziness, couldn’t be sure how long the figure had been there. When he turned, it proved to be, perhaps inevitably, Allen Dulles. After Fraser made the introductions, Dulles and Violet wafted off to the dance floor.

  “He seems an impressive young man,” Eliza said.

  “Rather a dangerous one, to be truthful. He turns up next to very powerful people at the most uncomfortable times. I wouldn’t like Violet to find him too interesting.”

  “Dear, you make him sound positively fascinating. Perhaps I should get to know him.” After a moment, she reached over to press his forearm. “That was a joke, Jamie.”

  “Of course.”

  “Perhaps not at the best moment.
”

  He gripped her gloved hand and placed his other on top of it. He hated all these feelings inside him, suddenly longed for the emotional anesthesia of the last year.

  “They’re staying on the floor for the next song,” she said, nodding to the dancers.

  “Is this one slow enough to shield you from some of my clumsiness?”

  She squeezed his hand. “Finally. You do take some warming up, Major Fraser. That much hasn’t changed.”

  As they stood, a young black man arrived. He was dressed in formal clothes.

  Startled, Fraser said, “Joshua?”

  “John Barnes, sir, from the president’s residence. You’re Dr. James Fraser?”

  Fraser nodded, the champagne fuzz in his head resolving with surprising speed.

  “Admiral Grayson, physician to President Wilson, asks that you come with me to the residence as soon as possible.”

  “Now?”

  “There’s a car outside, sir.”

  “I hate to do this,” Fraser said to Eliza.

  “Don’t be silly. The president calls. Violet and I will manage perfectly.”

  “What will we manage, Mother?” Violet asked as she walked up with Dulles.

  “I’ll explain, dear. Jamie, go! History beckons.”

  He didn’t think she was mocking him. Maybe she was.

  In the foyer of the president’s residence, Joshua delivered Fraser to a Secret Service agent. After two flights of stairs, the agent knocked on a bedroom door and retreated. Admiral Grayson, looking harried, welcomed Fraser in a low voice. The president’s bed was against the far wall, next to an open bathroom with the light on.

  Grayson drew Fraser aside. “Sorry to disrupt your evening, Major, but I would value your opinion. The situation is pressing.”