The American Ambassador

by Ward Just

  The predictable union of Western movies, the Hardy Boys, and Ernest Hemingway’s publicity. And it was also true that of those who died, they gave no thought at all: who they were, or the lives they had led, or what they believed in. They were just extras littering the landscape, earning a day’s pay for a day’s work with no billing whatsoever. It was all physical, the look of the land and the weather, the Land-Rover’s terrible racket, the odor of the vegetation. They drove out of the watercourse and onto the road, scarcely more than a path. Huge anthills flanked them. In the distance was a herd of antelope, scampering in the opposite direction, away from the car’s noise. Only a few hours more to the capital, through the savannah, purple now at dusk. The driver was muttering under his breath, Kleust nervous, looking left and right. From the rear seat he watched Kleust; there was too much noise to talk comfortably. It was hot and he began to doze, thinking of the report he would make, to the ambassador, and then, if the ambassador agreed, to Washington. In Washington they were anxious to do something, anything, to retrieve the situation. They were weary of negative publicity, do-nothing liberals. They wanted a recommendation but it had to be effective, something decisive, no more halfway measures, nothing amateurish; it had to succeed, the assistant secretary was most insistent on that point. He made the point again and again in his late-night conference calls to the ambassador. In Washington, they wanted guarantees. He would advise the ambassador that it was time to place bets, the wheel on its last circuit. Rien ne va plus. No doubt Kleust would make a report as well, though the Germans had no assets in the region and would not act. And perhaps Washington would not act either, though he doubted it; the administration wanted to play.

  He opened his eyes when the car abruptly slowed, then accelerated when Kleust yelled. They were surrounded by armed men, and suddenly explosions were all around them. He had never heard gunfire, nor the sound of grenades, and for a moment he did not understand what was happening. He had the absurd feeling that he had wandered onto a skeet field. Then he was pushed forward, stunned, the air out of him; it was as if a great hot hand had cuffed him. The windshield splintered and the car careened to one side. The driver was there and then he wasn’t; his vacant seat was wet with blood. The car came to rest.

  An acrid, sour smell filled his nostrils. He was upended, his head in the front seat, his body in the rear; he could not move. Things flew around him but he heard nothing. Kleust wrestled him out of the car and into the ditch. He was on his back. The sky was violent, a brilliant African violent at twilight. Kleust was beside him, firing a pistol. He methodically pulled back the hammer, aimed, and fired. The driver’s rifle was on the ground beside Kleust. It took him a moment to identify it, its use. He picked it up, balancing the barrel on the car’s fender. The barrel chattered on the metal. It took him a moment to pull the trigger; he did not want to hurt anyone. But he Bred once, and again, after a hesitation. It was likely that this was all a terrible mistake. He and Kleust were diplomats, with diplomatic immunity. Kleust seemed to think it was for real, though. He pulled the trigger again and seemed to find a rhythm to it, pulling the trigger, and feeling the kick against his shoulder. It seemed so very slow and silent, almost languid. He heard nothing except music, unfamiliar modern music. Someone had a transistor radio. The music was monotonous.

  When at last the scene in front of him organized, he noticed the driver on his back in the middle of the road. A flash behind him, a grenade. The stench was awful. Someone was bending over the driver. He aimed and fired and the man twitched and fell. This was simple enough to do, point the rifle and fire and the man you fired at was dead. His mind was working so slowly, all his movements in slow motion against the violent dusk, mares’ tails across the enormous sky. He was humming to the music now, believing himself most clear-headed. These were not live human beings, though the moment itself was real enough. The blood on his hands and arms was real, and the music inside his head was real. The two men in the road were not real.

  He saw another rise from behind a bush: khaki shorts, no shirt, and a lean black face. He thought this khaki-shorted man had the face of a musician, a bass player perhaps; he was heavy-bellied and thick-legged. His back was to the man lying in the road, and he looked to be running away. Wonderful, if true, but there was no amnesty for musicians. He fired, aimed, and missed. He had got things turned around. Aim, then fire. That was what he did, but he missed again. He said, Damn. His hearing was returning. He heard Kleust’s pistol, the click of the hammer, and the report. Kleust was talking to himself. He aimed again and fired as the target was nearly out of reach. That was what he was, this musician; he was a target.

  He lay back on the ground, exhausted. The ground was soft. He’d gotten that one. One dead bass player. He saw the musician’s head come apart, a fragment of bone flying off into the bush. The musician’s hand flew up, as if he were trying to catch the bone fragment. He had a big hand, long fingers, graceful as a musician’s should be. Kleust was saying something to him. He was speaking German and grinning. He felt as if he were under water. He could not breathe, owing to the strangling weight on his chest. His hands were filthy and sticky with blood. The sudden silence was terrifying. Kleust was yelling at him in German.

  His legs wouldn’t work, though he struggled to rise. Overhead the sky was darkening, little pinpricks of light high up; perhaps they were stars, but he thought not. Things went in and out of focus, and he could not trust his eyes. He saw the thorny tops of trees. He was rising, Kleust’s arms around his shoulders, dragging him out of the ditch.

  Kleust repeated, You’re all right.

  He said, I’m not.

  He did not know what in his life had led up to this. There had been no preparation, no way to forecast the awful sudden violence. He never saw it coming. He was unprepared, and mystified. What was he doing here, he and the German diplomat? Yet he had killed a man, perhaps more than one man; it had been nothing like what he had expected. That was the trouble, all of it was unexpected. In the slowness of things he had felt a great anticipation, the sense of momentous occasion. History twitched, his life would never be the same. This would be a memory against which all other memories would be measured. He had no doubt that he would live and Kleust, too. He felt a great exhilaration. The others were not real to him. He lay again on the hot brown earth, the grains scratching his cheek, each grain before his eyes. A thin line of ants communicated between black pools of blood.

  They were in the dark. Kleust held his hand, as if they were teenagers on a date. “Bill,” he said. “Kamerad, Kamerad.”

  He said, “Are you hurt, Kurt?”

  “No,” Kleust lied.

  He began to laugh. Kurt’s hurt. Hurt Kurt.

  Kleust’s face was fixed in a dark German anger. Presently the silence returned, thick and painful. Kleust continued to speak but he did not listen. Dusk was nearly complete. It was cold in the car. When he opened his eyes, everything moved in slow motion, helter-skelter. Kleust had given him something from the first aid kit, so the pain was not so bad now. It was located way inside, where he could feel it but not locate it. He was dizzy. So he kept his eyes closed, shutting out the lights. He saw the President and his family, all of them in blue. The President stretched out his hand, in a kind of salute. Accepting the good wishes of the President, he flashed a cocky smile, listening to the monotonous music that replayed itself in his head, a dirge. Then he saw Elinor’s face, and heard her voice.

  This was a moment fixed in his memory, the car speeding and lurching, and the President, and the music. He remembered not another thing until he woke up in the hospital, the doctor and Elinor standing by his bed, Kleust sitting in the chair near the window. He remembered her great smile as she bent down to kiss him, then brought him their son. The boy was so grave, for a moment he did not recognize him as his own. In any case, he did not have the strength to embrace him; and he was marvelously elated, and did not need sympathy. So she quickly took him back.

  PART TWO

>   1

  THERE WERE TIMES when she thought her father a specter, part of the air, everywhere and nowhere. He came and went without warning. There was no pattern to his movements. He was not predictable. She would be sitting quietly by the window, deep into her memory, and she would hear a noise and there he’d be, massive in the doorway, filling it, blocking the light. Often he would approach her, to say something or to touch her hair or shoulder. She would hold herself motionless, waiting for him to leave. Her mind would commence to race, and the noise began. Her mind was like a rushing stream, tumbling downhill over rocks and boulders, eddying, bouncing, shifting direction. When next she looked up he would be gone and the words he had spoken vanished also, though if she listened hard she could discover them somewhere in the room. His words were as spectral as he was. And yet when she looked at him, always out of the corner of her eye, when he was preoccupied, she could see the resemblance. Their eyes were similar, being large, dark, and luminous. They were alike in no other way. Her father was large, barrel-chested and heavyarmed, dark hair thick on his arms and hands. That she was terrified of him went without saying.

  Gert and her father did not have very much to do with each other. She missed her mother, who was dead; and he was gone so often. They met occasionally at breakfast and at the dinner table, rarely speaking. They exchanged no information, and she understood that she must never ask about his work; and should anyone ask her, she should ignore the question. He usually went out after dinner, offering no explanation; and she did not expect one. She spent her own evenings in her room, sketching and listening to music: Wagner, Bartók, the Rolling Stones. She sketched scenes from her early life, as she remembered her early life. She had no social life, because of the fear she carried with her always.

  Once, late at night, she saw her father on television, sitting at a round table with other men, talking about public affairs. His performance surprised her, the other men listened to him with respect, almost deference. Dressed in a sober dark suit, he had affected a little black mustache and horn-rimmed glasses. He looked like a raffish professor, though she knew he called himself a journalist. For a moment, she was not certain it was he. She had to look closely at the screen. He seemed to have changed his personality along with the clothes and facial decoration. He was apparently very witty, for the other men laughed appreciatively at things he said. And he, too, would chuckle, a man entirely aboveboard and at ease, a man comfortable on French television discussing public affairs, his dark side concealed. She watched him carefully, wondering how he did it. The sound of his laughter was unfamiliar to her, however. She had rarely heard her father laugh. He never laughed at home.

  There was much she tried to forget, and much she could not remember. Gert had left the school at eighteen; her real life seemed to begin at that time. She was skilled with her hands and a willing worker, and through the school found employment with a dressmaker in the Sixth Arrondissement. She enjoyed the back room of the dressmaker’s shop, with its bolts of expensive, brightly colored cloth, old Singer sewing machine, and silent mannequins. She listened to music while she worked. Her wages were not high, but she was content; she was as content and untroubled as she had ever been, working with needle and thread, and the machine.

  One afternoon Gert was pressed into service as a model. An important customer was in the shop and the regular model had called in sick and so the dressmaker, with an air of resignation, asked her to fill in. She proposed this not without misgivings, for she thought Gert a strange young woman—of course, naturally, coming from the school. But in the event the dressmaker was astonished. With her slender figure and air of complete self-absorption, Gert was an immediate success, a natural in the salon. She could model anything, from sportswear and lingerie to the most formal ballroom gown. With the right make-up, she looked almost Asian, with her high cheekbones and Slavic eyes; with no make-up at all, she could pass for a troubled American teenager, an innocent abroad. The dressmaker thought her sympathetic and advised her to sign up with one of the large agencies, her look was very much the mode; put you in combat fatigues, the dressmaker said cynically, and I guarantee the cover of Elle. Gert did not understand the reference to combat fatigues, nor to Elle. But she said no. She was happy in the shop, sewing and modeling. She did not mind when the customers looked at her, for she was not expected to say anything. She was not expected to have personal contact with them. They could look at her and she did not have to return the look. When they spoke to her, she was not obliged to reply (and she was thought enchanting, a grave gamine). She could remain within herself, an inhabitant of her own world, or worlds. She said none of this to the dressmaker, contenting herself with a simple Non, merci, Madame. And of course the dressmaker did not press the point, recognizing a bargain when she saw one.

  Gert saved her salary, cashing the checks and putting the money in a hatbox she kept under her bed. Of course she said nothing to her father, who in any case did not inquire about her work. She remained at the shop for three years, until one afternoon, having coffee in a café, she met a young American. He spoke German to her, anticipating somehow that German was her nationality. She was charmed by the young American’s voice, so soft and sure. He seemed to glide over the gutturals of the German language. She thought his voice as soft and sweet and full of promise as Mick Jagger’s.

  When he first spoke to her, she did not reply. She had not listened to what he said, only the rhythm and timbre of the words. Often when she had coffee in a café, men tried to speak to her.

  He asked her if she wanted to go walking along the quai.

  She looked at him boldly, but did not reply.

  He turned back to his newspaper, the American paper in Paris. They were seated side by side at small tables. It was May and the sun was warm. She was drinking coffee and he a beer.

  Why did he think she was German?

  After a moment, he said, It’s a nice day for a walk. We could walk on the quai, and then walk over to St. Germain, look in the bookstalls. See what’s happening, he said in English. He did not smile but his voice was warm. Check out the Frogs, he said. Do you speak English? No matter, I would rather speak German.

  She looked away in confusion. She did not speak English. Her eyes flew upward. She saw pigeons floating and diving, and in the distance the square sullen façade of Notre Dame. Her eyes made a transit of the rooftops of Paris, so familiar to her now, and then she looked at him again, sideways. He was absorbed in the American newspaper. He was dressed in blue jeans and a gray sweater and sneakers, unmistakably an American except for his saturnine face, well formed with full lips and large ears, and a cleft chin. A northern European face, she thought, distinctive, well groomed. She could not see his eyes but believed them to be blue. A distinctive blue-eyed young American then, but subdued; there was a kind of hush about him, so different from the forward Americans who came into the shop.

  He turned to glance at her as he turned a page of the newspaper. The sun turned the hair on his arms golden. She quickly looked away, Addling with her coffee cup.

  He said, Would you like another?

  She stared at her empty cup, feeling her face go hot.

  I’m having another beer, he said. Or we could go to St. Germain.

  Instinctively she shook her head.

  He had said, in the softest German, Who are you afraid of?

  And she had answered, My father.

  Well then, he had said—rising, carefully folding the newspaper, putting a few coins in the saucers, hers and his, taking her hand and helping her to her feet and finding no resistance—well then, we are comrades. My father is afraid of me.

  They walked only a little way that afternoon, along the quai in the direction of St. Germain. They stood for a minute, watching the barges on the Seine. Her shop was around the corner and although she had the afternoon off, she needed an excuse. She could feel herself being pulled into his orbit, like a moon to a planet. She was trying to make sense of his remark, spoken so casuall
y yet with a kind of dramatic flair. His voice was soft as cotton. She wondered what there was about him that his father was afraid of; he did not seem menacing. Then she wondered vaguely what his father looked like, and what kind of person he was. Probably he was an agreeable person, without brutality or guile, even though he was an American; she reflected that Americans were frequently afraid. To an American the world was a dangerous place, though this young American seemed fearless enough. He said something and moved a little away from her. She liked to look at him, so tall and robust, loose-limbed and well mannered. He was looking into a bookstall now, thumbing through volumes, as if he had forgotten about her. She turned and walked across the street. He called after her to wait and she stopped and looked at him. The sun was in her eyes, reflecting off the river, blinding in its brilliance. He had put on dark glasses and she could not see his eyes. She explained that her hour was up, she had to go to work; she couldn’t take a walk to St. Germain or anywhere. He cocked his head, having failed to hear what she said. Her voice was barely above a whisper. He asked when he could see her again. She indicated the café up the street. She was often at the café, at noon and again after work. He asked her where she lived, an address or a telephone number. Do you live alone? Are you in the book? He was standing with his hands in his pockets. They were talking across parked cars. He smiled and spoke his name. She didn’t hear, and shook her head. Then he asked for her name so that he could look her up in the telephone book. Where did she work? He made a little pantomime of writing her name and number. They could meet again for coffee, and take a walk to St. Germain. He did not make a move in her direction, and that gave her confidence. She lifted her head high, as she did when she modeled the most expensive gowns.