The Rake

by William F. Buckley

  Ledyard had stayed on at Georgetown, moving on quickly from student of law to professor of law and affiliate of the blue-chip firm of Covington & Burling, for which he did estate work. He was familiar with JP’s finances because the two cousins’ grandmother had died shortly before the plane crash that took Stephanie’s life. Harrison had handled the grandmother’s estate on behalf of the two parties, the live granddaughter and the estate of the dead granddaughter.

  Ledyard knew his friend JP to be a thorough and ambitious scholar, conscientiously committed to doing his best at whatever job he had in hand. As of January 1988, this job was to serve as professor of French literature at the University of Colorado. The death of Stephanie had meant an influx of funds for the benefit of Jean-Paul, since theirs had been a childless marriage. This lessened the need for JP to concern himself with earning a living. He was financially independent enough to be able to tailor his obligations to the University of Colorado in whatever way was satisfactory to both parties. What he wasn’t free to do, however, was marry his new lady, Henrietta Durban.

  “Harrison, surely there is something in the law that rescinds a marriage not…exercised? I mean, we are talking about a marriage contracted, I take it, in 1969—perhaps early 1970—with no subsequent interaction between bride and groom.”

  “No. There is no such provision as you’re reaching for in the law. In theology, a marriage is annullable if never consummated. Your lady—”

  “Henrietta.”

  “Henrietta has the son—Justin—so that would not apply to her, the hypothesis that the marriage was never consummated. And there is the further complication: civil law doesn’t always harmonize with religious law. She—Henrietta—is a practicing Catholic?”

  “Oh, very much so. She takes, well, liberties with the Ten Commandments, but she is structurally a member of the Church. For that matter, so am I.”

  “I knew that, JP. Just trying to tie the strands together. As you tell it, neither of the married parties has sought a divorce. That’s right, isn’t it?”

  “I assume Henri would have told me if she herself had ever sued for divorce. If her husband took the initiative, whatever ensued would be part of a court record, right?”

  “Goddam it, JP, find out where in hell the marriage took place. We’ve got to get details of that kind, otherwise we’re helpless.”

  “But JP, I don’t want to go into it.” As ever, they were talking in French. “You want me to stir up a hornet’s nest. It would be painful to do this. And if I succeeded in getting a civil divorce, what would that do about the marriage in the eyes of God? What reason is there to conclude that the marriage—the marriage, JP—can be annulled? Can an annulment take place if the petition for annulment is not endorsed by both parties?”

  “Of course it can, Henri. Recall the wedding of George IV to Caroline. His marriage to Mrs. Fitzherbert was annulled, and God knows she made a fuss about that, banging on the doors of Westminster Abbey!”

  “JP, cher Jean-Paul, I do not want such an exercise. I don’t want to protest anything.”

  “Then you do not want to marry me.”

  “You have to understand what I am saying. I am married. My husband is unfaithful. And I have been unfaithful. But I have to be faithful to the eternal vows I made.”

  Jean-Paul rose from the sofa. “I have to think things through.”

  “Yes. And so must I—my beloved Jean-Paul,” she said. “But call me when you feel like it. And”—she did not try to contain the tears—“take me in your arms, whenever you want.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Boulder, April 1988

  Justin approached Amy in the spring. He was nearly eighteen, he reminded himself, and not inexperienced in the vicissitudes of life. He had learned early that life could be sharp and arbitrary. There had been the shock of his grandfather’s death when he was fourteen; then the loss of his great-aunt to the convent; then the wrenching separation from his nurse-protector, Nadine, as he and his mother made the trip into another world, one he had only read about. Of course, he knew English, which his mother had taught him from infancy. But now he had to speak in English day and night. He had had to make a fresh set of friends, and there were new demands at school—it had never occurred to him that the United States had a history, let alone one he would be expected to master. He had learned what every boy learns at puberty, and then there was the special situation at home, he and his mother, with no father.

  He thought himself entirely adult in important matters, notably in his concern for his mother, which had evolved into a sense of responsibility for her. But with it all he was still a very young observer of the world around him, with a lanky, obstinate concern to know life and its mysteries.

  The whole sexual scene had descended on him the previous spring. There were the hints and allusions that Paul would make about various teachers, and now even about Sarah—Paul’s twin sister! She had been an integral member of their team; no longer. Now it was Justin and Paul. Paul brought to their rendezvous the scintillating erotic books, some of them even illustrated. Then came the night at the campsite with Paul, in the pup tent. All alone, except for the battery-powered portable television—and the movie. Deep Throat. Justin felt a stirring in his loins not felt keenly before, but now suddenly demanding. He said to Paul in quite solemn tones, “You know what, Paul? We need to get laid.”

  Paul agreed, though he was apprehensive about it.

  They would do it in Denver, during the summer vacation. Justin would cautiously, but diligently, inquire about just where to go to do it—to have it done—how much it would cost, whether tips were appropriate, all those things. He was a quick learner and in weeks knew everything that was within the reach of an energetic sixteen-year-old living in a sophisticated academic community and bent on exploring that great key to social behavior, social relations, social protocols, and human passions.

  All of that—and then Mr. Lafayette entering his life. He thought it urbane, on meeting him, to call him “Général Lafayette,” as though this Lafayette were the great marquis. Jean-Paul thought this amusing and invited Justin to continue calling him “mon général.”

  And then, for the first time Justin could remember, his mother started going out in the evening. Sometimes she would call him, or manage to get a note to him, saying she would be working late and going out to dine with colleagues. But several times she had exactly ascertained when Justin would be leaving the apartment, as he often did to watch a sports event with a friend, or to join someone in a study session before an exam. One evening he waited across the street, his bicycle parked around the corner, and saw Général Lafayette approach the entrance to the building. Justin did not stay there on watch, waiting for his mother’s guest to depart, but he permitted himself to wonder whether, when he was away on other evenings, and on occasional weekends, Général Lafayette was keeping his mother company.

  Justin went to Amy a few weeks later. He trusted her. And he knew that his mother trusted her. From Amy he wanted to know more about his mother, beginning with her background.

  Amy told him only that Henrietta did not talk about her married days, “before you were even born, Justin.” Amy felt that Henrietta’s privacy should be respected, and that Justin should feel the same way about it. “You’re a darling boy and your mother loves you, so don’t make life difficult for her.”

  Justin had no intention in the world of respecting his mother’s privacy.

  He had for some time contemplated probing the locker in her closet. He knew only that it existed. But the idea of getting to know more than that had germinated, and he waited impatiently for a convenient time. One Thursday his mother spoke of a late afternoon staff meeting at the Chinook Library.

  He got back from school and went to her bedroom. Her closet had no lock. In a corner, behind where her clothes hung, he found a bookcase and in it a leather case about the size of a shoe box.

  He lifted it to her bed. It was locked with a simple combination loc
k. It was a matter of minutes before he had contrived to open it. He had tried first his mother’s birthday—9-8-4-8—which failed. Then his own—5-6-7-0—which worked. He opened the case and found his mother’s birth certificate, his own birth certificate (“Justin Raymond Durban”), her passport, his own passport, 20,000 French francs in 100-franc bills, and a Crédit Lyonnais bank book. There had been no transactions in the three years since they left France, and the book showed a total of 150,000 francs. He whistled. That would translate to about $25,000. Her patrimony, he surmised.

  There were letters, perhaps a dozen. He did not have the heart to inspect these, but he looked with special interest at a photograph, in a slender wooden frame, of a young man, perhaps nineteen or twenty years old. It bore only the notation, in ink, “September, 1969.” The young man was smiling—or was he laughing? His hair was loose in the breeze, his hand gripping a jacket of some sort, a parka perhaps. He was conspicuously American, pleasing to look at, carefree, manifestly at home in the outdoors. This—Justin felt the sweat on his brow—must be his father. And it was the same man he had seen and heard at the Democratic rally the year before. He was looking at a photograph of Reuben Castle.

  Justin scooted to his own room for his camera. He photographed his birth certificate, his mother’s passport, and then the photograph.

  He put everything carefully back in place, and carried away this secret knowledge in silence.

  One day, he promised himself, he would uncover the whole story.

  BOOK THREE

  CHAPTER 24

  Honolulu, Hawaii, February 1972

  When he walked down the gangplank of the SS Helmsley in Honolulu, Lieutenant Reuben Castle was off his stride. He left behind on the navy transport vessel 1,082 men, going home after fighting a losing war. Their destination—the next stop after twelve hours of reprovisioning—was San Luis Obispo, California, where rapid discharge papers would be made out. The restless, bored soldiers were not permitted shore leave in Hawaii, even for a few modest hours.

  Castle was happy to leave the ship, but a little apprehensive about being alone for the first time in a year and a half. Two days before, Lieutenant Castle had been handed a dispatch by a courier from the radio room. It was from the Department of Defense. The first line caught his eye. His father was dead.

  He knew what the letter would go on to say. As a duty officer at the Personnel Deployment Office with the Fourth Infantry Division in Vietnam, he was familiar with bureaucratic army prose. He had seen dozens of dispatches notifying soldiers of deaths in their families, and it had been his job to relay to the Pentagon word of soldiers lost in action. These dispatches in turn generated letters carrying the bad news and extending the condolences of the nation, signed by the president.

  Late one night, after much drink with Bill Sulla, Reuben thought of devising different form letters for the army to use. This permitted a little morbid fun, but the two young men didn’t act on the idea. “Look, Reuben,” Bill said the next day, “these notices have to be utilitarian. You can bring out the violins when it’s a soldier who has been killed, but you can’t get in anything weepy if it’s a dead parent. How can you expect the Department of Defense to know if you and Dad even got along?”

  First Lieutenant William Sulla, West Point Class of 1970, was a practical man, except for what Reuben considered his insane desire to court death. After a mere three months serving at Personnel, where the job was to route incoming soldiers to their destinations, Sulla began his agitation to be assigned to combat duty. “What’s your hurry?” Reuben asked him. But he didn’t pursue the point. Bill Sulla, West Pointer, had accepted that fighting the war was the main task in South Vietnam. And that was what he wanted to do.

  Sulla got his way after just three months of petitioning. In early May, the tall, bronzed lieutenant—he managed one hour per day of South Vietnam sun during his desk duty—was formally assigned to the First Battalion, Eighth Infantry. But exactly six weeks later he was back at his old desk at headquarters, assigning other American soldiers to combat. Bill Sulla had led his infantry platoon on a mission and on day two set off a land mine, happily underpowered. He suffered a leg wound. The Purple Heart injury was not incapacitating, but under the get’em-home regulations in force by that point in the war, Lieutenant Sulla was told he was entitled to return to the United States. He didn’t want to leave, though. Not until he was ordered to leave. He felt he owed West Point active duty for two years.

  “Okay, Lieutenant.” Sulla was being spoken to by Major O’Reilly, personnel officer. O’Reilly was a bearded veteran, by nature ruler of the roost. He’d have been efficient—and content—managing a truck depot. “We’ll let you stand in at the personnel desk. I suppose I could say that if Colonel Sapperly” (the staff called him “Colonel Sarsaparilla”) “was on duty today he’d have called out a parade to honor your sacrifice.”

  “Cut it out, Major.”

  “Okay, okay. Anyway, nice show. Go back and report in to Lieutenant Castle. You’re familiar with responsibilities there.” So Bill Sulla returned to the PDO, working next to Reuben Castle, who never left the office during the day, not even to catch the sun.

  Reuben was handed the DOD letter as the liner trod tirelessly over placid hot seas, bearing toward Hawaii at twenty-one knots. The letter informed him of the death of his only living relative. He explained it to Bill Sulla, who had seven siblings. “My mother died soon after I was born. I have no aunts, no uncles, no siblings, no—” Reuben paused for an instant “—no offspring.”

  The news brought back the memory of a phone call he had received during his dwindling days at UND. Reuben had been relieved when his father told him that he did not want to attend any ceremony or celebration other than the commencement itself. “You know, Reub, I don’t mix things up very well, lots of people around I don’t know. Your mother was good at it and you inherited all her way of doing things. You’ll go into politics one of these days, I know. Well, you’re in politics now, in a way. You ever lose an election?”

  “I guess I didn’t ever, Dad. But I’ve got a new election coming up.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m going to apply for law school.”

  “When?”

  “Well, right away. Usually the law schools like applications to come in six months before term starts. If they insist on that, I’ll have to go for spring term to start in.”

  “Spring term when?”

  “Well, spring term next year.”

  “What does your draft board tell you about that?”

  “If I’m actually in school, I’m safe.”

  “Safe from what? From Vietnamese gunfire?”

  “Well—well, yes, obviously. They’re not going to come over and shoot me here.”

  “Now, look here, Reuben. I want you alive. But not as a man who refuses to do his duty. It’s okay to criticize policy, and you’ve done that enough. But now you’re soldier age and if the draft board tells you it’s your turn to fight, then it’s your turn to fight. When I get to your commencement I want to know what day you’re signing up.”

  And that had been that.

  The message advising Reuben of his father’s death had a practical side. Details were given in a printed paragraph from the adjutant. Lieutenant Castle was entitled, under existing regulations, to request discharge from the ship’s roster at “the next port of call”—in this case, Honolulu—leaving him free to put in for a slot on an air force transport, to expedite family funeral arrangements. Such transport flights left every few hours, carrying personnel and special equipment from Hawaii to “the mainland”—idiomatic use in Hawaii to designate the continental United States.

  Reuben had plenty of time to reflect on his options. Honolulu was thirty-two hours away.

  Yes, Bill Sulla was familiar with the office in which he had worked for six months. At the Personnel Deployment Office, four officers, two warrant officers, and six enlisted clerks decided, weighing demands, where to send the
men who arrived from training in the States. In the months Sulla had served there before moving on to combat duty, a half million men had been processed, arriving in Saigon and fanning out to do duty as artillerymen, snipers, cooks, and orderlies. They had come and gone through the PDO, more than three thousand of them shipped back in caskets.

  Bill Sulla had spent many hours with Reuben Castle, but not many discussing the war in which they were both engaged. They talked about everything else. Bill found Reuben astonishingly well informed on what was going on in the noncombat world. He admired Reuben’s capacity for work and his skillful allocation of his energies—Reuben Castle always had time to address any problem, and time to engage in any diversion. He managed, even, to feign interest in what it had been like spending four years at West Point.

  Routinely, individual officers working at the PDO were sent out for duty in the field after a few months. It was to advance himself on that combat-duty list that Sulla had labored. That summer and fall, back at the PDO, he allowed himself to wonder how it was that Castle’s name never appeared on the combat-duty roster, even though he had been much longer than six months at headquarters. Sulla did not bring up the point, but he could not help noticing that Castle cultivated the approval of the middle-aged, shrewd-eyed soldier most directly in charge of the weekly shuffle of names which moved personnel from clerical to combat status. This clerk was a mere sergeant, though a master sergeant of over thirty years’ service. Young lieutenants would come for a few months to the PDO, then go out with fighting units. Reuben Castle would always see them off, sometimes buying the beer at the good-bye affairs.