by Mark Helprin
Dewey smiled. The smile said, Come with me, and victory is ours. “Well? Are you in? Moofoomooach? Desi? Popeel?” He laughed nervously, looked down, and raised his head, smiling his most charming smile. “Okay? Let’s do it! How ’bout it, guys? Look, except for vice president, which I’ve already thrown to Draff, there isn’t any higher post. Isn’t it enough? You’re not Democrats, are you? Finney? Finney?”
THE NIH PHARMACOLOGISTS said it was all a matter of metabolism. Freddy should burn through the residual Proclorox in from twenty-four to forty-eight hours; Fredericka, in the same time, for although she had less muscle mass and weighed less, she was younger. Then again, some subjects had Proclorox “auras” that lasted for weeks or months. The best way to flush the drug would be to walk the subjects all day long and perhaps get them out on the water, where they could breathe massive volumes of fresh air.
Thus it was that before sunrise the next morning, the Prince and Princess of Wales were walked like zombies through San Francisco with a Secret Service agent apiece, another ahead and one more behind. This strange party of six walked from Russian Hill down to the Embarcadero, to the China Basin, through the Mission District, to the summits of Twin Peaks and Mt Davidson, through Stern Grove to Lake Merced, the Zoo, and the Pacific, along the coast all the way to the Golden Gate, and back through the Presidio to Earthquake Ranch. They had two lunches, the first at a goat-meat restaurant in the Mission District, and the second at a stand on the beach, where the party consumed twenty-four skewers of shrimp and twelve bottles of beer. A little later, while Fredericka and a female agent went into the heather to pee, Freddy and the others stood on a cliff and made their contributions to what they thought was the ocean but was actually an adult education class studying the tide pools a hundred feet below.
Not one word did Dr and Dr Moofoomooach speak on this excursion, as the Secret Service reported hourly on its secret frequencies. The agents did notice however that their charges seemed to be awakening. Upon this Senator Knott pinned his hopes as Mushrom winged his way first-class to Borneo, “Hail to the Chief” echoing inescapably within his head.
After a hot shower and a ginseng soft drink, Freddy and Fredericka rode with Finney to the Marina. So as to be inconspicuous, all were clad in yachting clothes. Soon they were out on the bay, their sleek racer ploughing through afternoon sunlight on a steady wind. The sky was the deep San Francisco blue that draws people from across the world, and, as intended, the air forced itself cleanly into the lungs of all on board.
“Would you like another ginseng?” Finney asked Freddy, forgetting that Freddy had not spoken since he had returned to the Knott camp.
Freddy sighed and leaned back, scanning the water. Then he said his first words in almost two weeks. “We milked the cows.”
Finney rose from his seat and almost fell overboard.
“Bossy and Bella.”
“My cow was Bella,” said Fredericka. “I liked her. She gave milk.”
“My cow was Bossy,” Freddy said. “I liked him. He gave milk.”
“Do you know me?” Finney asked them excitedly. “Do you know where you are?”
“We lived in the cottage,” Freddy answered. “We milked the cows.”
“They’re coming back,” Finney said over his cell phone. “They’re awakening. Tell Senator Knott.” He flipped the phone shut. “Thank God,” he said. “Just in time. We’ll get them a good dinner—something that sizzles, and strong hot tea.” Then he sat back and exhaled in relief.
Freddy trailed his hands in the foam as the water lapped the hull, the wind blew, and he began to awaken. “Milk,” he said. And, then, “Not milk.” His mind, which had been floating like a blimp, brushed the ground now and then with mooring lines as thin as catfish whiskers. In his days of oblivion he had solved some knotty problems and picked off a riddle or two, and as the world clarified he struggled to bring back with him through the glowing curtain at least some of what he had discovered. Fredericka was following closely behind. Her oblivion had floated her purely on love. Neither riddles nor questions had haunted her, so she came back not wiser but, rather, stronger and lovelier.
But it was hard for Freddy. Never had he been so mentally flaccid. The great store of memories and knowledge within him, intended since his birth and early childhood to personify nothing less than England itself, bubbled disconnectedly like magma that cannot find a vent. He wanted to bring back this stuff of dreams, but it was a battle. And in the battle his allies were dressed in a most distinctive fashion. He saw them in plaids and bearskins, with enamels and royal crests, all the signs and symbols—in his royal wardrobes by the hundreds and thousands—that were earned with the blood of real and courageous men, and that anchored his soul (no matter what anyone thought) in the long history of his islands: too long to know or even fathom, but blessed with a continuity that made it accessible if only the right sign would present itself to pull him from his confusion. He was in danger, as they said at Sandhurst, of failing to pivot upon the point.
In losing the catch of his memory, all would be lost, so he prayed from the midst of his confusion that he would know the things that were calling out to him, and that he would receive a sign.
As the boat cut through frigid blue water, the sign was delivered as if in direct answer to his prayer. As fast as the yacht beat the wind on a northward track, or perhaps faster, a ship passed them going south, and when the ship’s stern slipped by and skated off to port as it turned—in the most graceful manoeuvre a ship can make—the Union Jack appeared within the ensign of the United Kingdom, furling and unfurling in the strong breeze, blood-red, as blue as the sea off Skye, and whiter than cloud.
Freddy winced under the pressure of many thousands of associations. The red was the colour of poppies that every November his father and mother wore, and the significance of which he had understood even as a very young child. Over hundreds of years, hundreds of thousands of ships had floated under that ensign, harvesting the colours of the world into the story of a magnificent island. On the stern of the passing vessel was its name, Prince of Mists, and its port, Glasgow. Suddenly, Freddy was home.
“Fredericka,” he said.
“Yes, Freddy?”
“It’s all coming clear now.”
“Is it?”
“Yes, quite. I saw it in the nether world where we were sent. Mr Neil is an anagram, as is the live ash circle.”
“What’s an anagram?”
“Fredericka, we found the object of the quest, in the fire, where Lucia died. We have endured what the ancient kings endured, and we have been given, by the grace of God, the most precious gift, as were they. You become a king not by making yourself great, but by recognising the greatness of others and humbly receiving your appointment. Now I know this, like the kings before me, and, as they prevailed, so might I.”
Finney had been listening, and was bunched up in a strange position, trying to make sense of it.
“These ramparts,” Freddy said to Fredericka, indicating the immense castle that was San Francisco, with its pale towers, hills, and keeps, “in their otherworldly colours, are what Mr Neil called the New Caernarvon—in a land of mists, forgetfulness, and tremblings of the earth. It’s a repetition of something that happened a long time ago, in simpler times, to Birchod the Fat. Because I see it clearly now, I know what is to happen. It has occurred before, and will, in forms varying and unfolding, occur again. Past and present are now running together. Can you feel it?”
“Uh-oh,” said Finney, having heard all of this.
“You are the equerry of Knott. Are you not?”
“Yes,” said Finney. “I am the equerry of Knott.”
“He is to battle Self, is that not so?”
Finney nodded.
“He wants me to join the battle, does he not?”
“Yes,” said Finney, “he wants you to do some speech work and advise on foreign and military affairs. I wouldn’t call it. . . .”
“He wants me to batt
le for the truth, because he cannot lift his sword for the truth, having kept it too long in the blackness of untruth. That is why he sent you to bring us from the land of forgetfulness.”
“That might be one way of putting it,” Finney said, remembering that he had, in fact, broken these two out of a mental institution, and that they called themselves Moofoomooach.
“I’ll tell you something, Finney,” Freddy said, cupping his hands in the bay and drinking salt water as if from a Viking chalice. “You are part of this.”
“I know I’m part of this.”
“Not the way you think. Hundreds of years ago, your part began when your forbears crossed the great ocean. You are a larva-in-waiting.”
“I am?”
“Yes, and you will be rewarded. For rescuing us from the land of forgetfulness, you will be made a knight. But more is to be done, and the way is laid out,” Freddy said, smiling like a lunatic. At that moment, Prince of Mists, out of Glasgow, gave a blast of its whistle, which swept over the harbour like an invisible tsunami and echoed off the hills and bridges. It thundered in their chests and rattled San Francisco’s million windows. Freddy stood to salute as the plume rose from the ship’s funnel. His salute was perfectly rendered and distinctly English.
Finney flipped open his phone and pressed a few buttons. “We’re coming in. He’s awake. She’s awake. They can talk.”
As the swift little yacht came about and beat on the wind toward a setting sun that boiled as yellow and orange as an egg in a cup, Freddy, and only Freddy, heard the Skye Boat Song repeating again and again, beautifully, delicately, and timed exactly to the waves.
DEWEY’S IMAGE CONSULTANTS had done his hair up in a kind of pompadour, held in place while it set by white netting that made him look like a very homely Amish woman. So as not to disturb the hair, he sat stiffly in an armchair at the centre of his capacious living room. The chances were nil anyway that he would take a seat on the couch, where he might have to sit next to someone who wasn’t running for president. A lifetime of politics had taught him to seize any throne-like seat, to move toward the cameras, to get out of the limousine first, to stand on the highest step, and to find the best ray of light in a room, placing his head in it even if he had to walk like Toulouse-Lautrec.
And, of course, Freddy knew what underlings are supposed to do. As he approached he smiled more than Dewey smiled—showing gratitude for having been allowed into Dewey’s presence—bent almost as in a bow, and said his own name, to honour the fact that though everyone knew Dewey, Dewey wasn’t supposed to recognise anyone but other politicians, movie stars, famous journalists, and people who had given him large amounts of money. “Moofoomooach,” Freddy said.
Because Dewey wanted something from Freddy, he responded with contrived modesty. “Knott.”
“But I am,” said Freddy.
“You are what?”
“Moofoomooach.”
“I know,” Dewey told him. “You’re Moofoomooach, and I’m Knott.”
“That’s correct.”
“I know,” said Dewey, who had contended with this sort of exchange all his life and never understood what was happening. “Shall I call you Dr Moofoomooach, or just Moofoomooach? Hello, Popeel.”
“Hello, Dewey,” Fredericka said, forgetting that it was not her place to be familiar. Dewey’s eyebrows arched, but that was all.
“Just call me Moofoomooach,” said Freddy, as if launching into a George M. Cohan song.
A steward brought refreshments that Freddy and Fredericka began to devour. The food in California mental institutions can leave much to be desired, and they would eat ravenously for a week. Dewey watched for a while, and then he said, “Moofoomooach, today we’re sixty points behind Self. Self has eighty, and we have twenty. That’s not so bad. I mean, it could be worse. Two weeks ago, it was worse. But nobody pays attention any more. Self was on the front pages of all the papers this morning, dedicating a feminist horseshoe pitch. I was on page nine, picking fried clams out of my teeth in the blackness of my limousine. They used infrared. You know what the headline was? ‘Knott Free-falls in Fetal Position as Election Guillotine Sucks-in His Head: Says a Fried Clam Would Make a Better President Than He Would.’ That’s what I said. I said, ‘A fried clam would make a better president than he would.’ I meant Self, but look what they did. We’ve got no more donors, no more money, no more press. The convention starts tomorrow. My speech is on Thursday and I don’t have one. Mushrom wrote all kinds of crap about mushrooms, redwoods, and Superman, and then he took a powder. Draff figures it’s all over, so he’s blackmailing me to get my former colleagues in the Senate to approve seven billion dollars for rest stops on interstates in North Dakota. Rumours are circulating that I’m a dope addict and Dot is having an affair with Liberace, never mind that he’s dead. So, you know, we’re going to lose, we’re going down the drain, we can’t pay you, you’ll be mocked . . . but I ask you to write me another speech. The first one did wonders. It put us way ahead. They said I was Lincolnesque, Churchillian, that a new corner had been turned in this country’s history. Then you disappeared. Where the hell were you?”
“We were in a mental institution,” said Fredericka, perkily.
“What were you doing there?”
“We took drugs,” Freddy said matter-of-factly, “we milked cows, and we ate porridge.”
“I hear you,” said Dewey, which is what he said when Hell’s Angels accosted him about helmet laws, “and I’d like to offer you a deal.” He looked around. Only he, Finney, and the royals were about. “Now, you know, politicians promise a lot of things, and then you never hear from them. That’s how you get people to do things for you: you make ’em think they’re going to get something, they put out, and then you walk away. That’s how you can give a thousand people one of ten pieces of the same pie. The motto of a good politician is, Use the pie. So, if I said to you, or hinted, that if I become president I would appoint you to this or that position, unless you had something on me it would mean nothing. But if I gave you a signed and dated letter, you could count on it.
“Why? Not because it’s a pledge. It would be unenforceable as a contract, because there’s no legal consideration, since you’re not allowed to do something in exchange for an appointment. It’s certain because it’s illegal. Giving you a written promise is indictable and impeachable. So, if you have the letter, you have the position.”
“What position?” Freddy asked.
“Secretary of state.”
“That’s more like it,” said Freddy, “isn’t it, Popeel?”
“Finally,” Fredericka said, “a leg-up.”
“Dewey,” Freddy asked, understanding with royal perspicacity that he had the whip hand, “there’s one other thing I’d like.”
“We haven’t got any money,” Dewey said. “We’re fifty million dollars in the hole.”
“I don’t want money. I just want complete control of the substance of your campaign.”
“What substance?” Finney asked.
“Shut up, Finney. Moofoomooach?”
“I want the last word on policy, rhetoric, strategy, the convention, everything.”
Finney was agitated, but Dewey cut him off. “Why not?” he asked. “What have we got to lose?”
TO PLAN THE NEW APPROACH, Freddy met that evening with Dewey’s inner circle—Dewey; Dot; Finney; Randolph Dacheekan, a prime strategist and money man; two perfect campaign donors, Thaddeus Pappy and Bobby Pinn, who were fabulously wealthy and totally mute; the chief of political advertising, Slogan Beery, who was in the doghouse for having spent several million dollars on a television spot the theme of which was “Dewey Knott is like a friendly scrubbing bubble that gets your porcelain whiter than white”; and Senator Hare of Massachusetts, whose tremendous, blue-grey, cotton-candy-like, African-termite-hill-sized coiffure seemed to grow progressively larger as he aged. At eighty-two, his body was like the stick on a corn dog, and his face peeked out from within the quiffs and curls of
his wavy locks like a starving ferret peering from a haystack.
These eight men and Dot gathered in Dewey’s panelled library, which, though it seemed to be floating several thousand feet above a maelstrom of seals, fog, and blue water, was appointed like a men’s club in the Strand. The rugs were ancient orientals, sharp blues and reds; the woodwork had been removed from a famous English estate; the furniture was noble; and the fire was hot. The table at which they sat was the kind of table, of a vermillion and chestnut colour, that Freddy had not seen since he had last set foot in St James’s Palace. A tall-case clock, made in the late eighteenth century by Marmaduke Storr of London, ticked hypnotically and reassuringly in the background.
Dewey opened the meeting. “Moofoomooach here—you all know Moofoomooach—is gonna run the campaign.”
“What happened to Plankton Dick?” Dacheekan asked, referring to the former campaign director.
“Isn’t that the whale that someone chased in the Longfellow poem about Hawaii?” Senator Hare asked. Just as in the Senate, no one paid any attention to him.
“I fired him.”
“What about that tall moose-like fellow you keep around?” Dacheekan inquired.
“Mushrom? He’s in Borneo.”
“You sent Campbell to Borneo?” Dot asked.
“Yes, Dot, to a place where they do a lot of barbecuing. It’s a revolution, Dot. Mushrom’s history, Moofoomooach’s in.” He turned to the others. “Gonna run the campaign. Gonna win. Gonna make history. Gonna get to the White House. Moofoomooach?”
“Dewey?”
“Tell ’em.”
“First,” said Freddy, “we’ll chuck all the polling, focus groups, carnival hats, computers, offices, limousines, and supernumeraries of the entourage. We’re going to halve the personnel and pull back eighty percent of the advertising. We will achieve these economies publicly. We’ll cut the budget by sixty percent or more, and tell the country that you can run a campaign, and a good one, on virtually nothing, that you don’t really need money, that you’d run the government with the same common sense and efficiency, and that you’re going fly-fishing in New Hampshire for two weeks after Labor Day.”
