The American Ambassador

by Ward Just

  “That’s very interesting, Kurt.”

  He stared at her a moment, sipping his drink. “It’s quite a dossier, but it’s incomplete. There’s a missing part, and perhaps he’s the only person who knows what it is, the part that’s missing, that gave him the belief that—his father is an enemy to be destroyed. It’s all there somewhere.” He thought it was like trying to recall a vanished civilization, the Hittites, the Etruscans, one of those. “The missing part is important to us because it could give us a clue to his behavior. We are not at a point where we can predict what he’ll do, or how he’ll do it. He does not seem to have a pattern. Herr Duer calls it ‘grammar.’ He does not have a ‘grammar’ that we can parse.”

  She said suddenly, “Are there ever any women in his stories?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Never? Not in any of the stories?”

  “We wondered about that, too.”

  “Bill and I—” she began.

  “Yes?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing, nothing, nothing. I can’t help you. And if I could, I wouldn’t.”

  “We were hoping,” he said patiently. “We are looking for a clue to the pattern.”

  “You’ll have to find that yourself,” she said.

  “Elinor,” he began.

  “Bill and I love each other very much,” she said.

  “Yes, of course,” he said.

  “It’s important to understand that.”

  “All right, Elinor.” He filled his glass with ice, and Scotch to the brim. He knew what she was saying, but he didn't see how he could put it to use. And he was not sure he believed her, that the boy was a consequence of her happy marriage. She and Bill, who loved each other very much. That fit no pattern he knew of.

  “Tell me about the girl,” she said softly.

  “We know very little about her. We think she’s retarded. Autistic. Slow, at any event. A young woman who lives inside herself. We have found out that much. We know very little of her former life, except that in Paris she worked in a dress shop. He is kind to her.”

  “And is she kind to him?”

  “It would appear so.”

  “And what do you know of their comrades?”

  “Nothing. We think Bill Jr. and the girl move around, now with a group in Munich, now in Hamburg, now in Berlin. It's a culture. It’s an entire culture in Germany. They despise Americans, which makes Bill Jr. very unusual. Very, very unusual.”

  “Tell me about them,” she said. “Yours. This culture that my son and his girl have joined. Or that has joined them.”

  “Good haters,” he said. “They’ve been stunned, by the memory of the Nazis, and the advent of the Americans. They see the Americans as barbarians, the great colonialists; people like me are weaklings and traitors, American puppets. Fausts. The governments of Europe are only the creatures of the Americans. American money, American culture, American CIA. They see a world out of control and want only to hasten the process, start it spinning faster and faster until it—melts.” He leaned forward, smiling. “Like your own children’s story, Sambo, and the tigers turned into butter. A kind of Sambo as if it were written by the Brothers Grimm. Except they don’t know what kind of butter they want. They don’t think about that, and I imagine it doesn’t interest them. It doesn’t animate them. To deracinate, that’s what interests them. They have no ideology except that of the young Marx.” He made a face, indicating a furious, uneducated, adolescent Marx. A Marx who had not yet written anything of consequence. Who had not thought. “Destroy what is destroying you, destroy it completely and forever. And then decide what is to be done.” He said, “We live in a dream world. The trouble is, so do they.”

  His soft, cultivated voice seemed to fill the room. He had a mid-Atlantic accent, only a trace of German guttural; what gave him away was the formality of his diction. Elinor thought it was an easy voice to listen to.

  “What does she look like?”

  “She is a good-looking young woman, slender.”

  “Fair?”

  “Dark.”

  “A German?”

  Kleust nodded. “She is German, yes.”

  “Stylish?” Elinor asked. “Is she stylish or dippy?”

  “Stylish in the way of European young. She is well groomed.”

  Yes, Elinor thought. That was what she wanted to know. “You said she is—retarded? It’s hard to believe. Bill Jr. . . .” She shrugged.

  “She is slow. She rarely speaks. But perhaps that is only her way. Perhaps there is something in the background of her life. Perhaps it is an act. These things are hard to know.”

  “That’s it, then,” Elinor said.

  “What’s it?”

  “It’s an act, a masquerade. She’s playing a role of some kind. She’s not retarded.”

  “How do you know?”

  “My son hates imperfection. It offends him. He likes things to be complete and faultless. Quite the idealist, my son.” She said, “And they killed someone.”

  Kleust nodded.

  “My son and the girl you think is retarded.”

  “Yes.”

  “Who was the man they killed?”

  “Please,” he said.

  “Who was the man they killed?’'

  Her voice, so loud in the quiet study, startled him; it rattled the glassware. He waited a moment before replying, and when he did it was in the same easy manner. “I won’t tell you, Elinor. I can’t. I have been instructed to say nothing about the killing, where it happened, or the identity of the victim.”

  “Why?”

  “Security, I suppose. I don’t know why,” he said. “They didn’t tell me why. I have no need to know why. That’s the truth.”

  “Was it a cold-blooded killing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who pulled the trigger?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It does to me, Kurt.” She tried to imagine it, the location, “the scene of the crime.” Was it a crime al fresco? Or indoors. Perhaps at lunch or over drinks. Perhaps after a quarrel, angry words, and an impulsive solution. She wondered if they took him unawares; perhaps his back was turned to them. Then she realized she did not know if the victim was a man or a woman. But she wanted to know, and would keep asking questions until she found out. She wanted to know everything about it, them.

  He tried to avoid her eyes. He could not connect the son with the mother, they seemed to be of different species. But Americans were always difficult to connect, one to the other, husbands to wives, parents to children. In Washington, everyone came from somewhere else; and they never returned. They seemed to create themselves, with no reference to their forebears or place of birth. They seemed to be without definition, so unpredictable. He remembered Elinor and the boy together, years ago in Africa; the boy was stubborn, she was just as stubborn. They were always locked in combat. So they were not of different species after all. He looked at her now, her eyes hard as granite. She would follow the road wherever it led, an admirable woman; she was a woman who liked the truth. He said, “I will tell you what we think, and then you must ask me no more questions. Is that agreed?” She nodded. “There is some evidence that the girl pulled the trigger, but we are not sure. And it does not matter. Truly it doesn’t, except in a court of law. That is not an issue here. In the terms we are discussing, it is only a detail.”

  “Thank you, Kurt.”

  He said drily, “You’re welcome.”

  She said, “I had to know.”

  He reached across the table to touch her hand. She reminded him of a woman he had known in Hamburg, after the war, the athletic daughter of a merchant family. He had fallen in love with her, and with her entire family; they had endurance. They had lived through the worst days of the war, managing somehow to maintain themselves, the personality of the family; she was a lovely girl, married now, living somewhere in the south of Germany, politically active, he seemed to remember. He remembered, irrelevantly, the family’s house in Ha
mburg, in the pretty Uhlenhorst district, near the little cul-de-sac canal. They had lived—been born in, had died in—the same house for three hundred and fifty years. The house had been rebuilt many times, and passed down as one would pass down a family Bible, because it was a family Bible, in a way, the structure that contained the family’s spiritual history, with all its parables and lessons and laws. The house was damaged in the war, but not destroyed; many family members were killed, in Hamburg and elsewhere. Now he remembered about the blondhaired daughter, she was a Green. In his mind’s eye Kleust saw the daughter and her father, old Croner, stiff as a ship’s mast, marching along the canal in the evening with the family Weimaraner. . . . Then the image vanished, as quickly as it had come. He released her hand and said, “Do you see what I mean, about the danger to Bill and to you?”

  She looked at him, surprised. “I have always seen it,” she said.

  “Well, then,” he began.

  “Tell me what to do,” she said, leaning forward, her chin resting on her knuckles. It was a simple question, and then her voice began to rise. “Tell me what you would do in these circumstances, if you were Bill and me. What would you have us do?”

  The glassware trembled again, and again he waited for the noise to recede so that he could speak again in his soft voice. “Tell me everything that you can about him, anything at all that you can think of, that might help us. Friends, places that he used to go.”

  She looked up, offering him the slightest of smiles. “I don’t know anything, Kurt. I know nothing about him, nothing that would help you or help us. I know nothing that would allow us to—predict. Where he is, or what he’ll do.”

  He said, “My colleagues and I, we are at sea.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Perhaps when the young woman makes contact—”

  “If she makes contact,” Elinor said.

  After a moment he said, “How long have you lived in this house?”

  She hesitated, considering. “A long time. Twenty years? I guess it’s twenty years. My father and Bill’s father lent us the money to buy it. Otherwise . . .” She shrugged, sighing, inspecting her hands.

  Kleust waited for her to continue and when she didn’t looked over her shoulder at the books, floor to ceiling. Bill’s books, shelf after shelf of lives of Lincoln, and of various American statesmen, the Roosevelts, Wilson, Truman, Eisenhower, Hull, Stimson, Dulles. And the wars, Revolutionary, Civil, One, Two, Korea, Indochina. Congressional directories, beginning with the Eighty-sixth Congress, first session. He smiled. The library was recognizably a Washingtonian’s. She was watching him and he said, “Who was Gaston W. Means?”

  She turned to look at the books. “A thug. A private detective who wrote a book about Harding.”

  “Harding?”

  “One of our Presidents. Between Wilson and Coolidge.”

  “Yes, the Washington Conference. A limit to the world’s navies.”

  She smiled. “I don’t know about that. When we think of Harding, we think of Teapot Dome.”

  He said, “It’s a fine library.”

  “My library is upstairs.”

  “Yes?”

  “Novels, books on art. Narratives and pictures. Women’s things. Tell me a story, draw me a picture, Kurt.”

  “Your boy is out of our orbit,” he said. “That is what Duer thinks, and I agree with him. If this were Germany, I would have an idea. Like Inspector Maigret, perhaps; the crimes he solves are always very French, don’t you think? Something would present itself, a bouillabaisse without rascasse. But in this country—” He gestured at the books, and let the sentence hang. “Our own crimes, and those who commit them, are German. Do you see? Products of our own culture, which they seem to love, hate, and fear all at once, and without discrimination. In any case, they see it being destroyed. I think they see it as already moribund, Europe as a museum for the pleasure of American tourists. America’s attic. A theater of American operations. For the next war, an American battlefield.”

  He heaved himself to his feet and stepped to the window, looking out into O Street. The streetlights had blinked on, but the sidewalks were empty; it was such a warm night, how strange that no one was about. “Good burgher children, brought up during our economic miracle. That was what we thought it was, a miracle, a testament to the resilience and energy of the German people. A triumph of the German culture. To them it’s ashes. They think it ashes, for which their parents and the friends of their parents are responsible. The rulers of Germany. They rule the world, or anyway that part of the world that the Americans don’t rule. Destroy the rulers and you destroy their world. Make them frightened, make them want to fight back, the more vicious and the clumsier, the better. Kill one man, frighten a thousand men. Cause their world to creak and groan. Inspire nostalgia. This will take a long time, the longer the better, because this is what they do. This is a way of life. They are patient, they are tough, they are ambitious, they are unbalanced, and they don’t believe in miracles. In their way, they are realistic.”

  She had moved to the door and stood there now, nodding. “Come upstairs, Kurt. You want grammar. I’ll show you grammar.”

  She had never invited a friend into her studio. Kurt stood shyly to one side, as if he had entered her bedroom. She turned on the bright overhead lights, then walked to her easel and positioned it so that he could see it clearly.

  She said, “My son.”

  A small canvas, at first look a thicket of black lines, in disorganized opposition to themselves. Then the trees became a forest. Kleust saw the face, then lost it, and found it again for good. She had used the blackest pigment, and as the German stared at the portrait he thought of Conrad’s Congo jungle in motion, seething and deadly at dusk. Malignant but alive, he thought. He looked at the canvas and thought of the beginnings of things. This was young Bill as Elinor saw him: a face in the jungle.

  “It’s good, El.”

  They turned. Bill was in the doorway.

  “It’s just damn good, don’t you think, Kurt?”

  “Yes,” he said unconvincingly.

  “Looks just like me, don’t you think?”

  Kleust smiled. “Did you have a good sleep?”

  Bill looked at Elinor, raising his eyebrows. “Grrrrreat,” he said. They heard the ring of the telephone downstairs and Bill turned, moving out of the doorway.

  She put her hand on his arm. “I’ll get it. You go downstairs with Kurt. Make us drinks. Big ones.” She went quickly down the stairs.

  “You do look better,” Kleust said.

  He repositioned the easel, then turned off the lights. He was so preoccupied that he did not think to agree, to say the natural thing: Yes, I do. I needed to lie down. Sleep works wonders. All I needed was a good sleep.

  Wisconsin Avenue seemed narrower than he remembered it, but it was not narrower, only more crowded. Lights flashed and throbbed, and the smell of food was everywhere. There was noise also, music and traffic and chatter, the American young on the prowl, having at each other in Georgetown. Here and there a matron or bureaucrat walked quickly, homeward bound, blank-faced; hear no evil, see no evil. Bill Jr. stood on the sidewalk in front of the drugstore and watched them; there were all the elements of a European circus. A faggot pranced by with two sleek Afghan hounds. Two dazed teenagers with backpacks pointed at him and giggled. A girl with her right breast exposed strolled by. Three black boys followed the girl, jiving, talking at her. She slowed and moved to partly cover her breast. He thought that compared with this, the Hamburg waterfront was almost demure.

  He watched a patrol car, two bored officers in the front seat. Bill Jr. watched them carefully, but they kept their eyes front, like soldiers on parade. One of them appeared to be asleep. When the patrol car stopped in traffic, the black boys began to hiss. Hisssss. But the windows were up and the air conditioning was on, so the police didn’t hear anything, and it wouldn’t have made any difference if they had. The girl went into a leather boutique, but the
boys did not follow; a security guard was at the door, conspicuous with billy club and holstered revolver. Packages to be checked at the door. Shoplifting punished to the fullest extent of the law. No smoking. No bare feet. No food. No drink.

  American young: empty vessels, you could pour anything into them, chemicals, melodies, basketball scores, a war. But not a revolt. Not an upheaval. Their delicate systems would reject it as completely as salt water. They’d vomit it up, retch it into the gutter. Too much trouble. Who needed the hassle? Who needed it? Where’s the real action, man? They were as useless as the tsar’s household guard, lazy and drunken and without fiber. What control the authorities had, to so demoralize and undermine an entire generation. Never underestimate them. Never underestimate the tenacity and cunning of the American ruling classes. He had said it over and over again, but the comrades refused to believe it. Better believe it, he said.

  A derelict in fatigues was pulling at his arm now. Bill Jr. had wheeled at the touch, and the derelict did not know how close he came to a broken wrist. A buck, he needed a buck. He was scarcely coherent, unshaven, stinking of wine. His hands shook. One of the veterans no doubt, they were everywhere. One of the comrades had said Washington resembled Berlin in 1920, American streets similar to the noble George Grosz canvases. The derelict stepped back, his hand out, palm up. The security guard was watching them, alert to anything that could interfere with commerce. Then the derelict seemed to lose interest, ambling off; he looked suddenly frightened. At any event, he did not want to push too hard. The man in the leather jacket and blue jeans might push back, and then where would he be? Better to keep to the straight and narrow. Better to ask, not demand. Better not to be too insistent. Better to take what is given, and be thankful. And if nothing is given, that was anyone’s right. One had no claim, really. Bill Jr. watched him go, the encounter already forgotten. The derelict in fatigues was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, making pass after pass with his hand; he looked like a vagabond matador, old, overweight, out of touch, out of it. But no one noticed. Passersby passed by, their eyes on the middle distance, up; the old soldier was invisible. But Bill Jr. noticed that as the people passed, swinging their arms, they checked their billfolds, the men patting their rear pockets or their coats, the women squeezing their purses, holding them a little more tightly. Everyone did this. No exceptions.