“I’ll make it better than any marriage there’s been on earth, George, no bickering like my folks, or bossing around like my girl friend, Dorothy, did, no unfaithfulness from either of us like the people we know about here-the Arthur Eatons-that kind. You won’t want to chase, George, because you’ll have no need to. I’ll keep a beautiful house, and raise the best-mannered, smartest children, and give you interesting meals, and help you with your work, and charm your friends so you’ll be proud of me. You’d be surprised what I’m really like, George, how much better I am-better-groomed, and brighter, more fun-like when you first met me-remember? It’s just been worse recently, and you appreciate that, you know why. But once you have the right job, the one that’s perfectly right for you-and there’s no rush, George, I won’t quit until you tell me to-but once you’re settled and happy, then I can give up the White House office. You’ll see how different I’ll be, how relaxed, devoted, better-looking, once I get away from that horrible job and that poor miserable man I’m working for.”
“I’m sure of it, Edna,” he said.
“You can be surer than being sure of being sure of it,” she said grandiloquently. “Once I’m free to devote myself to you, and be with our kind of people, who are happier, as we will be, and not tied down to a friendless, tormented, heartbroken black man, with his black thoughts, who is worrying about being killed, who doesn’t even have a wife to console him because she drank herself to death, whose son is failing in school, whose daughter is passing for white-who is so afflicted with personal problems, nobody would believe it, let alone what he goes through in public where-”
She realized that her beloved George’s cool hand was upon her hand, caressing her hand lovingly, lacing his fingers through hers like they were married and in bed together. “Edna, what are you saying?”
“What am I saying?” she repeated, not remembering.
“About the President having a daughter. You must be mixed up. No more drinks. What if someone overheard you?”
“George, stop teasing. I haven’t been drinking any more than you. I’m very sober. I know everything I’m saying, and I never make up anything, like other wives do. You’ll see. You’ll find out. It’s one of my virtues from my father. You’ll always know your wife says everything true.”
“Everyone knows Dilman has that son in college, but-”
“George, I told you I never, never lie,” she said indignantly. “He has a daughter, too, older than Julian, and it’s a secret because she’s passing for white in New York, so he doesn’t recognize her maybe, or she him, I don’t know which, so that’s why nobody knows, but it’s true.” Through bleary eyes, she decided that he was still unconvinced of her integrity, and this was no way to begin a marriage. “George, he calls her Mindy, so does Julian call her Mindy, except her made-up passing name is Linda. Linda Dawson.”
“I can see where that would make him worried,” said George Murdock sympathetically. “It’s just odd, somebody as black as the President having a daughter hidden somewhere, white enough to pass.”
“Hormones,” she said knowingly. “Or is it genes?” She studied George’s many faces and tried to bring him into focus. “I don’t lie or exaggerate, George-”
“I didn’t say that you did.”
“But maybe you are thinking it-Edna, you are thinking, she is the kind of wife who’ll get drunk and make up stories and embarrass you socially. You said he’s black so how could he have a daughter who could pass? I can prove it, George. I wrote it down word for word in my diary. Did you know I have a diary? I started one the day T. C. moved into the White House. I thought some day-I’m not pretending to be a writer like you-but my job, I thought some day maybe my diary could be history. It isn’t much, but I am a President’s confidential secretary, two Presidents’, and maybe some day when we’re all dead, our children can make a million dollars getting a writer to fix it up. You hear of those things.”
“Very intelligent, Edna. I see I’m going to have an intelligent wife. Just don’t put me in your diary.”
She started to giggle and could hardly stop. “Of course you’re in it, George, but nothing you won’t like. You and T. C. and President Dilman-”
“And Mindy Dilman alias Linda Dawson. Pretty exotic company.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it, and released it. “Did Dilman tell you all of that stuff about his family?”
“Heavens, no-George, do you think we can have just one more drink to celebrate, a short one?-Dilman? No, he’s secret as a clam or something, and I don’t blame him, do you? But about the daughter, it came from him, sort of, well-I’m not sneaky, don’t think that-I’m very integrity, full of-you know-I never leak things to you-isn’t that so, George?”
“I’ve never known anyone with as much integrity as you, Edna.”
“Thank you. So you understand. Part of my job is, you know, to monitor his calls, the business ones, like I did for T. C., listening on the extension and taking down the gist of it shorthand so he has a record to refer back to. Standard procedure. So whenever Dilman makes a call, I’ve got to listen, except when it’s something real personal, like when he calls old friends like Nat Abrahams or the Spingers or some woman who lives with them named Gibson or his son, he tells me to get off, and let it be personal and I do. Well, this day he was letting me monitor calls, and maybe he was busy or upset, I don’t know, but he called his son and didn’t tell me-to get off, I mean-maybe he didn’t know or forgot I was on the line-and there it was, the President and his son Julian talking, and when I heard what they were saying to one another, I knew I shouldn’t be hearing it but I was too embarrassed to get off and let him hear the click and then always have him suspicious of me, so I suffered through, it, and when they hung up, I hung up simul-same time-and that’s how I heard the argument about his daughter and her passing, and about her, the daughter, being like her mother, Dilman’s wife, who wanted her to be white like she wanted to be white herself, and because Aldora, Dilman’s wife, couldn’t, she took to drinking-I don’t believe in drinking except socially, do you, George?-until she even became an alcoholic in that sanitarium in Illinois-in Springfield-and died after, except that was a long time ago. Isn’t it all horrible, George, how people let their lives become? Ours won’t, will it? For my part it won’t, I promise you.”
“I promise you, too.”
“I’ll be the best wife ever, George, once I’m away from that horrible atmosphere.”
“You’re the best wife in the world right now, darling. Let’s have one more for the road on that. Okay?”
They drank, and a half hour later they had a hamburger and gallons of hot black coffee-she was determined to give evidence of her wifely frugality-at the counter of the Mayflower Coffee Deck.
After that, they strolled for a long time in the cold, and George bought her a gardenia corsage in some place that was open late and warm inside, and then they walked through Lafayette Square until she felt the cold and began to sober. Then, so thoughtfully, so generously, he hailed a taxicab and took her home, and because it was late and she was wonderfully weary and he was inspired to get up early in the morning and look for the right job, he did not come in, except inside the hall of her apartment. She stayed in his arms, and as they kissed this time, she permitted him to pet her bust as long as he wanted to, because her bust and all of her belonged to him, and it felt good, so good.
When he was ready to go, and she could make out one of him, not two or three, she said, “You meant everything you said tonight, George, didn’t you?”
“Everything, sweetheart.”
“I think I bored you, talking so much, but I was so excited. It’s not every day a girl is proposed to and accepts. I hope I didn’t say anything foolish or-or indiscreet. Did I?”
“Of course not.”
“Well, if I did, it doesn’t matter, because we belong to each other now, no secrets, never, promise? You can trust me with everything and I can trust you. Isn’t that right, George?
&nbs
p; “Sweetheart, from now on you’re not Edna Foster and I’m not George Murdock. We are Mr. and Mrs. Murdock, almost, for all intents, and whatever we say to one another, and that goes for both of us, is sacred as pillow talk. Agreed? Agreed.”
“I love you, George. You’ll be famous, I know.”
“That’s not important. I love you too, that’s all that matters. You have a great trip to Paris, and stay away from those seductive Frenchmen-”
“George, silly-”
“-and when you return, I’ll be right here, with the wedding band and a job, a real big job this time. That I can promise you for sure.”
FOR RELEASE AT 9:30 P.M. PARIS TIME
Office of the White House Press Secretary Abroad
THE UNITED STATES EMBASSY, PARIS
COMPLETE TEXT OF PRESIDENT DILMAN’S SPEECH AT APPROXIMATELY 11:00 P.M. TONIGHT CLOSING THE FIVE-DAY CHANTILLY CONFERENCE FOLLOWS. THE PRESIDENT IS DELIVERING THE ADDRESS AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE STATE BANQUET BEING HELD FOR HIM AND FOR PREMIER NIKOLAI KASATKIN OF THE U.S.S.R. BY THE PRESIDENT OF FRANCE IN THE HALL OF MIRRORS OF VERSAILLES PALACE. SIMULTANEOUSLY THE TEXT OF PREMIER KASATKIN’S REPLY WILL BE RELEASED AT THE SOVIET EMBASSY.
IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE BANQUET, PRESIDENT DILMAN WILL RETURN TO PARIS FROM VERSAILLES. HE WILL SPEND THE NIGHT IN HIS SUITE AT THE QUAID’ ORSAY BEFORE FLYING TO WASHINGTON IN THE MORNING.
WHILE THE five-day conference had been successful, the long hours had been strenuous, and Douglass Dilman had intended to return to Paris the moment that he and Premier Kasatkin and the French President had finished their public speeches. But when the formalities in the Hall of Mirrors had ended, and the bewigged, liveried servant had assisted Dilman from his chair, the Russian Premier energetically charged to his side.
“Mr. President,” Kasatkin had said in his guttural yet clearly understandable English, “you do not leave so soon to go to bed, no? In my country, to lie down after much rich food and wine is like lying down in the grave. Always, after feasts, I walk for thirty minutes in the court inside the Kremlin walls. We must enjoy a breath of air together in the magnificent gardens of Versailles, not to observe how tyrants built and lived, but to see that we live in health, now that we are friends and in accord.”
For a moment Dilman’s mind went to the five days of arguments, concessions, bartering in the drafty Grand Château at Chantilly. Although the Soviet Premier had been generally reasonable, his occasional flare-ups of temper had been irritating, as in the instance of his demands for freedom for native Communists in Baraza and other AUP countries. Too, his sporadic sarcasm had been annoying, as when he had chided Dilman and Eaton for finding a Communist bogeyman under every American bed. “You outlaw the Turnerites on the pretext they are using our good Moscow gold to overthrow you,” he had said. “Do you think we are crazy to waste money on your oppressed minorities, to incite them, when they have more anger against their capitalist overlords than we ever had or will have? Bah. When you are in trouble, you try to wriggle out and divert your masses from your own shortcomings by making them see Red, at home or in Africa.” Yet the gibes, the tantrums, had been fewer than Dilman had expected, and after Kasatkin had spoken his pieces for his Presidium and Pravda back home, he had always proved ready to trade. He was not a fanatical crusader, Dilman had guessed early. He was a pragmatist. When he spoke as Communism’s voice, with Lenin’s intelligence, he was perverse. When he spoke for himself, with his own intelligence, he was reasonable.
Now the Russian had extended a friendly and spontaneous invitation to Dilman, and Dilman found the other’s brusque, forthright, roughneck warmth difficult to resist or offend. Yet Dilman was tired. “Well,” Dilman said hesitantly, “I had promised Mr. Illingsworth and Secretary Eaton we’d try to get back at-”
“You promise nothing to the ones who work for you, you owe them nothing,” Kasatkin said with mock severity. “You owe only your proletariat, the working people, your allegiance and health to do good.”
Dilman cast a sickly smile at the Russian leader. “I’m less certain than you that my proletariat-or yours, for that matter-are all so unanimous in worrying about our good health.”
“You speak for yours, I shall speak for mine,” said Premier Kasatkin cheerfully. “Come now, Mr. President, some air, the two of us together, no advisers, no specialists, no petty bureaucrats. Five days we have been surrounded. One night, the last, let us be alone together, a social promenade to cement our continuing good relations. What are thirty minutes in a lifetime, after all? And who knows?” He winked broadly. “Our thirty minutes may mean more to the world than our other accomplishments of a lifetime.”
The Russian seemed so determined to end their meeting on a friendly note that Dilman could deny him no further. “Very well,” he said. “A short walk, then, in the gardens.”
Arthur Eaton had come upon them during the last exchange, and he appeared pained, trying to indicate that he disapproved, but Dilman avoided his eye. Dilman had permitted the Russian to take him by the arm, when Eaton finally protested. “Mr. President, we’re expected to depart-”
Premier Kasatkin brushed his hand toward Eaton as he might brush off a bothersome fly. “You go have some champagne with the other courtiers, Eaton. You keep busy with my pretty secretary with the yellow hair over there-Natasha. She admires you. Give your President and me, two simple men of the streets with bad table manners, a chance to discuss earthier matters alone-like our children, and our hernias. A half hour, Mr. Secretary.”
And now Dilman and Kasatkin were crossing the ancient cobblestone courtyard of the seventeenth-century Palace past the saluting Garde Républicaine, marching through the gate of the iron grillwork fence, preceded and followed at short distances by United States Secret Service men and Soviet KGB agents.
As the two leaders entered the 250-acre gardens, Dilman could see that the autumn season had already stripped the ancient trees of their green foliage. Yet the night was mild, refreshing, and the varicolored gush and spray of the spotlighted fountains lent their walk a festive air.
Dilman indicated a path that led in the direction of the Trianons, and the Russian Premier nodded and turned off with him, while the bodyguards ahead scampered back into line. Out of the corner of his eye Dilman glanced once again, as he had so many times in the past five days, at his Soviet counterpart and marveled at the familiarity of his face. What there was about Kasatkin, he had realized from the moment of their first handshake in the Grand Château at Chantilly, what there was that had partially disarmed and captivated Dilman, was the Russian leader’s uncanny resemblance to old Grandpa Schneider.
In the pantheon of Dilman’s memory, the brightest eternal flame honored Grandpa Schneider. When Dilman was seven and eight and maybe nine years old, surrounded by squalor, poverty, anger, deprived of all love except that which his mother could find strength and time to spare, the only male affection and guidance that Dilman had known had come from Grandpa Schneider. The old man-although lately Dilman had realized the old man could not have been that old then-had not been a grandpa and his name had not been Schneider. He had been an immigrant Jewish bachelor and a tailor (which, in Yiddish, was schneider), and because, when he was not hunched over the sewing machine or over the steam presser, he sat in a rocker, wearing a shawl and spectacles low on the bridge of his nose as he stitched, he had become Grandpa Schneider to the colored neighborhood and had been as pleased as if he had been crowned.
For Dilman, as a child, that rickety hot tailorshop had been the manor hall of a bountiful prince. Sitting cross-legged at Grandpa Schneider’s feet, while the old man repaired his shirts or patched his knickers or black stockings for free, Dilman would listen big-eyed to anecdotes of a faraway duchy named Bialystok in a kingdom named Poland. From Grandpa Schneider he would receive at no cost, and in equal quantities, Jewish aphorisms, licorice sticks, revised stories from Sholem Aleichem and Tolstoi, cinnamon rolls, and capsule biographies of such intellectuals as Emma Goldman, Lincoln Steffens, Elbert H
ubbard, and Arthur Brisbane.
Long years later Dilman had often thought that more than the material deprivation of his youth, the oppression of his race, the goading of his mother, it was the magical goodness and encouragement of that kindly, improbable old tailor that had sent him to books, to schools, to law, to whatever he had become in life. During the hard years much had gone out of Dilman’s memory, or faded into the hinterland of memory, but not Grandpa Schneider. Dilman’s love for the old man was ever there, burning bright.
And that was why, although he had come to the Chantilly Conference tense, prepared to be aggressive, he had been immediately softened by Nikolai Kasatkin, despite the latter’s subsequent bombast. For the faces of the Soviet Premier and the immigrant tailor of cherished memory were almost the same face. Thereafter, Dilman had been unable to be anything but friendly, amiable, and receptive toward Kasatkin, who, himself disarmed, most often responded in kind. If the Chantilly Conference between two of the mammoth powers on earth were a success, and its success one day recorded by learned professors in weighty historical tomes, would there be any mention in any index of “Schneider, Grandpa”? Well, so much for definitive histories, Dilman had thought.
Tonight, observing Premier Kasatkin strutting beside him along the Versailles garden path, Dilman still saw the old tailor’s knobby peasant profile matching the Russian leader’s profile, but he observed more. For all his sixty years, Kasatkin was taller, heavier, more muscular than the one residing in Dilman’s memory. Too, Kasatkin’s silver hair was fuller, his nose more pugged, his bridgework (startling, when he laughed) made of stainless steel and not gold.
Kasatkin had moved his head, caught Dilman’s glance, and smiled. “Yes, you are familiar with this dynastic relic, I see. It is my first visit. Has it changed much since you were here after the Second War?”
The Man Page 55
