Camelot

by Caryl Rivers

  She hurried down the stairs and ran out to Jay’s car and got in beside him. It was dark, but she thought, too late, that she had been stupid not to meet him someplace else. Someone might see her with the suitcase.

  “Sorry I was late,” he said. “Milt made me do two church social pictures tonight. McChesney said he’d do them for me, but Milt had a hair across his ass and made me do them. You got everything?”

  She made a mental note: Toothpaste. Clean panties. Diaphragm. “Oh damn!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I forgot to leave my time slip for the week in Charlie’s box.” Irritation skittered across his face. “Damn it, Mary, that means you won’t get your check. We’d better go by the paper.”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll do it on Monday.”

  “Last staff meeting Charlie said he wasn’t going to accept any more slips on Monday.”

  “He always says that. He never does anything about it.”

  They were driving along the main road that led out of the city and onto the highway that would take them to Washington, and the car’s headlights swept across the billboard that stood at the edge of town: BELVEDERE. A CITY OF PROGRESS AND PLEASANT PEOPLE.

  Jay snorted. “Progress and pleasant people. That’s a hot one. At least we’ll be getting out of this pisshole for a little while.”

  “Yeah, it’s good to get away.”

  “This place is full of WASP Babbitts with tiny minds. They want urban renewal? They ought to drop a bomb on it and start over.”

  “I’m a WASP.”

  “You’re different.”

  “Oh, come on. I suppose the Irish are great examples of tolerance.”

  “I don’t make any claims for the Irish. But this town is full of pricks.”

  “You can’t write everybody off in a whole city.”

  “I can if I want to.”

  “That’s dumb.”

  “I don’t care if it’s dumb or not. I don’t want to argue about it. I got shit tonight at every fucking assignment.”

  “You started it.”

  “I started it? I just made a little remark, and you climbed all over my back.”

  “I did not. I said Belvedere wasn’t the very worst place in the entire world.”

  “I don’t want to argue. It’s a stupid argument, so knock it off, for Christssake!”

  She turned to stare at the dashboard, furious. Who did he think he was, Genghis Khan, ordering her around? She looked at him. He was gripping the wheel, scowling. She felt that she was seeing him for the very first time. What was so great about him? He was a very ordinary-looking man, why hadn’t she noticed that before? The shirt he was wearing was a bilious green, the kind a farm boy would wear. His clothes were terrible and his manners worse. Sitting next to her in the car, Sigmund Freud shook his head, sadly.

  You are committing adultery and throwing your marriage away for a man who is not good enough for you. Just like a woman.

  And his clothes are terrible.

  Yes, they certainly are. Have you ever read Anna Karenina?

  You mean where the woman takes a lover and ruins her marriage and throws herself in front of a train!

  That’s the one, yes.

  I’d never throw myself in front of a train because of him. He’s a jerk.

  Ah, how women become disenchanted when libido fades. An hour ago you were madly in love with him.

  Well, that was an hour ago. Now I think he’s an asshole.

  What do women want?

  They want men not to be assholes.

  I never thought of that.

  You should have, you’re fucking Freud.

  Then he reached over and touched her cheek and said, “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean all that. I had a lousy day and was taking it out on you.”

  He looked tired, and very young and vulnerable, and she hated herself for thinking he was an asshole. She moved over beside him and rested her head on his shoulder.

  “Honey,” he said, “when I get like this, ignore me. I act like a jerk sometimes when I get pissed off.”

  The endearment warmed her; it was what her father used to call her mother. He seemed unaware that it was the first time he had used it, but she felt a rush of gratitude towards him. He was, she realized, very much like her father, tall and lean, and there was a reservoir of tenderness inside him that she sensed was like the father she remembered.

  “I made reservations for us. Mr. and Mrs. Jay Michaels. That’s my middle name, Michael. In case, you know, anybody tried to check.”

  “I’m Mrs. Michaels. Oh, I’ll have to remember that. What if they ask me for some kind of identification?”

  “I don’t see why they would. We’re just an ordinary couple, checking in for the weekend. We’ll have to look like we do this all the time, so they won’t know we’re two hicks from Belvedere.”

  “You’re not. You’ve been lots of places.”

  “Yeah, Fort Dix, Fort Hood. To me, a Howard Johnson’s motel is putting on the Ritz.”

  “We have to move up in the world, Jay.”

  “We sure as hell do.”

  He pulled the car up in front of the Washington — a block from the White House — where it was driven off to be parked by a valet. A bellman took the bags, and Mary followed Jay to the counter. The lobby was lovely, all polished wood and lush carpet, and Mary could feel her heart pounding wildly inside her chest. The treasurer of the Class of ‘56 was not exactly a woman of the world. She wanted to take his hand but thought it might look gauche. Did they look married? The clerk looked at her, and she had the feeling she had just sprouted a huge scarlet A on her chest, like Hester Prynne’s.

  Jay said, “Mr. and Mrs. Michaels,” to the clerk, and it sounded so absurd she wanted to giggle. The bellman took the bags and carried them upstairs, and Jay tipped him fifty cents. The bellman looked at his palm and slammed the door on the way out.

  “Fifty cents I tipped him, the ingrate,” Jay said. With the slamming of the door, her apprehension came unstuck. They were safe; she felt almost guilty. She kicked off her shoes, letting her feet sink in the pile of the carpet.

  “Jay, what is this, the presidential suite or something? You can wade through this rug. How much did it cost?”

  “You’re not supposed to ask that.”

  “Come on, how much?”

  “Fifty-six dollars a night.”

  “Fifty-six dollars. Oh, my God!”

  “We big-time photojournalists travel in style. Let’s see how the view is.”

  He walked to the window and opened the curtain. Below them, the city was blinking and tiny and perfect.

  “There are people who live like this, all the time,” she said, in awe.

  “Comes the revolution, we’ll turn it into a fucking steel mill. Come on, let’s shower.”

  “You go first. I’ll unpack.”

  “No, dummy, this is supposed to be a big sex weekend. I don’t want to shower by myself.”

  “Oh.”

  He laughed and kissed her and said, “You really are a hick. Hurry up, I’ll get the shower warm.”

  She got undressed, and he called out, “Hurry up, I’m turning into a prune!” She went into the bathroom and stepped naked into the shower with him, and thought how odd it was that she felt perfectly natural naked with him, and, with Harry, she had never undressed with the light on.

  “I’m going to put soap all over you, I’m kinky that way,” he said. “Let’s see if everything’s there. You have the nicest boobs. One, two — three? I don’t remember three. Oh well, I like you ‘cause you’re different.”

  “Rat,” she said and tickled him and he squirmed. She took the soap and said, “My turn,” and started to slowly soap his body all over.

  “See, Pat, isn’t this more fun than getting into the shower with Checkers!”

  “Yeah, he gets a little smelly sometimes when he thaws out too much.”

>   “This is almost as thrilling as the time I nailed Alger Hiss. ”

  “Oh, Dick, you’re getting to be a sex fiend. Let me put soap all over you!”

  “Oooh! Ohhh! Oh, God, this is so sexy. That’s it, Pat, put a little more soap on my tie.”

  She laughed and kissed him, and he picked her up and carried her, soaking wet, into the bedroom, and they made love on the rug, leaving soap and big water stains all over it. Dried off, she nestled in his arms and went to sleep, and in the morning they made love again and went out to savor the delights of a whole day together. They walked along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and bought a little print of the canal in a shop in Georgetown. Later they went to the museum and wandered through a room where a collection of pharaohs looked sternly down on them. He stood in the middle of the room and said, “I suppose you’re wondering why I called you here today,” and she laughed as if it were the wittiest line ever spoken. They walked together, holding hands, and she thought she would try to memorize everything she felt and saw, so that she could remember it for the rest of her life. It was something she could fold up and pack away like some priceless object, and if she never had another like it, she could take it out from time to time and remember it.

  Much later, back in the room, he was quiet, subdued almost, and she turned to him and began to touch him, loving the taste and feel of him — the salty taste of the skin near his shoulder, the softness of his nipples, the texture of the hair on his chest — he was so beautiful. But, of course, you weren’t allowed to say that about men’s bodies.

  He stood up and led her to the chair, where he held her and kissed her breasts. She wanted to say to him, “I adore you,” but instead she knelt before the chair and rested her head on his thighs, and he bent forward, his hands cradling her buttocks, his lips against her hair. He was still sitting in the chair when she rose and guided him into her.

  She began to move on him, feeling she was both possessor and possessed, and she asked, “Do you like this?” and he said, “Yes. Oh yes.”

  She remembered as a child, at Ocean City, being tumbled in shallow water. She was not afraid but exhilarated as the wave rolled her over and dragged her onto the sand. She wanted that same feeling now, to be dragged out of control into the foam, over and over and over and over. All of her senses imploded into some molten center where the barriers between their bodies simply melted away. She called his name, an incantation, and she heard his voice someplace far away.

  He held her close to him as his breathing slowed, held her tightly, as if he feared she might turn to vapor and drift away from him. “I love you,” he said. “I love you so much it scares the shit out of me.”

  She felt he had opened a door in his chest and let her walk through it. She put her finger up against his lips, ran her finger along his cheek.

  “I never thought — I never knew I could love anybody like this. I don’t want to lose you, Mary.”

  “I’m here.”

  He shook his head. “I want you to leave Harry for good and marry me.”

  “Oh, Jay.”

  “We’re good together, Mary. Not just in bed. God knows we’re good there.” He ran his fingers lightly across her breasts. “We could be a team. Your words, my pictures. There would be no stopping us.”

  “You make it seem possible.”

  “It is. It is possible.”

  “I have a child, Jay.”

  “I think I could learn to be a good father. I don’t know much about it, but I could learn.”

  “I’d have to get a divorce. I didn’t think Catholics believed in divorce.”

  “I do. Why should two people bump along, tied to each other, miserable? It doesn’t make any sense. It’s not a big deal. People get divorced all the time.”

  “Not in Belvedere. I don’t even know anybody who’s been divorced.”

  “We’ve got bigger things ahead of us than Belvedere. Come here.”

  He took her hand and led her to the window. Below them, the city blinked and moved, a miniature toy put together solely for their enchantment.

  “We can do it,” she said to him. “Oh, Jay, we can do anything!”

  He laughed. “That’s the spirit. We can do anything!” He laughed again, amazed at himself. “Look at what you’ve done. You’ve made me an optimist, me, the original gloom and doom Irishman.”

  “I’ll marry you,” she said. “Oh yes, I’ll marry you, and we can do anything!”

  He had never had a day quite like it. He had come to Berlin to see the wall for himself, and its raw ugliness sickened him. He could not imagine a life constrained by concrete and iron rods. Then he went to Rudolf Wilde Platz, where half the population of West Berlin spilled out across the square and into the surrounding streets. He stood on the platform, his words floating out over the loudspeakers up and down the square, bouncing off the buildings in an eerie echo.

  There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future.

  Let them come to Berlin!

  And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with communists.

  Let them come to Berlin!

  And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress.

  Lass sie nach Berlin kommen! Let them come to Berlin!

  And the crowd roared with a sound that was like the howl of a huge animal. At first, he was exhilarated; a sensation of power surged through him, thrilling him to his fingertips. For one mad instant, he thought that if he asked that crowd to turn and march to the wall and tear it down with bare hands, it would obey him. But even as the adrenaline pumped through him, he was afraid of this sudden strength.

  How many men had experienced such power, to know that their will flowed from them directly into the bloodstreams of the crowd, that it could control their hands and hearts! For some, the thrill would be all. But rationality was his religion, perhaps even more than Catholicism. The rule of the mob seemed to him a horror, anathema to the discipline of democracy. He believed that modern technology and communication, which pierced the veil of old secrets, moved in favor of Western democracy and against authoritarianism. But he worried, too, that the earth might not survive that long. Seeing the wall stirred up his misgivings. He was one of two men on the planet who had stood on the brink of Armageddon. Both of them knew — as no others — how it felt to have the power of hell at their fingertips. It was one thing, he realized, to know, intellectually, that the power existed, another to feel it so close that the hairs on the back of your neck stood on end and you thought, Oh shit, it could happen. I could end the world. There was unusual emotion in his voice when he said before the United Nations, “However close we sometimes seem to that dark and final abyss, let no man of peace and freedom despair. … Together we shall save our planet, or together we shall perish in its flames. Save it we can, and save it we must.”

  As a serious student of history, he knew that blunder, stupidity, ego and error were too often its horsemen. After World War I, two German officials met, and one said to the other, “How did it happen?” and the other replied, “Ah, if only one knew.” He thought it intolerable that one day, two survivors of a nuclear war might stand in the debris of civilization and have the same exchange:

  How did it begin!

  Ah, if only one knew.

  He had traveled a long way from the boy who had wondered, after his brother’s death, if he were boxing with a shadow. He had carried his father’s hopes, and now he realized it was, instead, the future of the earth that rested on his shoulders. He had wanted the job because that was where the power was. Now he had it, and it sobered him. One lesson he had learned was how much he could not do, how complicated the world was. But he determined that he would take the world back at least a few steps from the abyss into which he had stared. His words still bristled with the challenges of the warrior, but he knew there was a man halfway across the world
who would not take that final step either. Together, they had to forge the cold and brittle peace-, anything else was simply madness.

  From Berlin he traveled to the place both his grandfathers had left so many years before, to try their luck in a raw, unfriendly land. In Ireland, the crowds gathered around him as if he were some long lost nephew, and old women touched his cheek as if he were a child. For the first time he understood, with his heart, something of his roots, of why old men gathered in bars in South Boston and listened to the sad laments of a blood-soaked land whose gray skies and lush green grass had not been able to hold them. He had grown up in Palm Beach and Hyannis, more American than Irish, perhaps more English in temperament than either, but the old country stirred that hidden romantic inside him. His wife had written a poem about him early in their courting days, and she had known him better than he imagined.

  Part he was of New England stock

  As stubborn close-guarded as Plymouth Rock.

  But part he was of an alien breed…

  The lilt of that green land danced in his blood.

  Tara, Killarney, a magical flood,

  They surged in the depth of his too-proud heart.

  He hated the idea that anyone would think him sentimental, but in Ireland the coolness thawed under the weight of poetry and the past. As he was preparing to board the plane for home, he stood facing a throng of well-wishers, and he threw to them the words of the song he had learned by heart, sounding odd in the broad, flat tones of New England:

  Come back to Erin, Mavourneen, Mavourneen,

  Come back around to the land of thy birth.

  Come with the shamrock in the springtime, Mavourneen.

  He looked out at the crowd and paused, and when he spoke it was not from a script.

  “This is not the land of my birth, but it is the land for which I hold the greatest affection.”

  He paused again, looking out at the crowd and the green land beyond, the wind making a tangle of his hair, and he made them a promise: “I certainly will come back in the springtime.”

  “I‘ve never seen so many people,” Mary said, looking around her as the vast space of the Washington Monument grounds filled up with humanity, spilling over its edges into the bordering streets.