American Romantic

by Ward Just

  Then Harry was at her elbow, and as she looked at him, his tousled hair and proud smile, she imagined them years hence at an important embassy somewhere in Europe, Harry the American ambassador, first among equals. She would have her own life during the day, and in the evenings preside at glittering events. Glittering, but down-to-earth too. American menus. American music. And in due course they would find a pretty retirement villa in the American West, somewhere near their grandchildren. Harry would take a teaching job while he wrote his memoirs. She would ride horses every day and in the evenings do what normal people did, whatever that was. Play Scrabble. Go to a movie.

  Harry’s arm was around her waist.

  Oh, he said, you were great tonight. Just great. Everyone said so. Did you have a good time?

  Better than you can imagine, May said.

  PART III

  Eight

  CONSIDERING his age, the ambassador was in good health, aside from some arthritis, allergies in the spring, bouts of insomnia. His feet had troubled him for forty years and so he used his whalebone cane for any distance longer than a city block. His hours were regular, as predictable as the consoling chime of an old clock. He lived alone. Visitors were rare. He owned a car but seldom drove it. During the day he listened to music and read, biographies mostly (so confidently composed, so unreliable), often took a walk at dusk, half a mile up the road to the village for dominoes and an apéritif in the café, occasionally two apéritifs, before walking home in the darkness, carrying a flashlight for safety. He was known in the village as a reliable man, good-humored, good at dominoes, often called upon to settle disputes of a factual nature. Did Austerlitz precede Jena or follow it? Was America’s greatest test of horseracing the Preakness or the Belmont?

  In the evenings the ambassador watched movies from Hollywood’s golden age, Bogart and Boyer, Dietrich, and at midnight the late news, a street demonstration in Paris, early returns from the Asian capital markets, more dead in Iraq and Afghanistan. Three times he had spotted someone he knew from former days, young men grown old, weary-faced, incongruous in bush jackets and floppy hats, cargo pants, thick around the middle, often (and more incongruously) bearded. They were the ones in horn-rim eyeglasses standing in the background at the impromptu press conference at Kandahar or Mosul, replying to impertinent questions concerning the aid mission or the drug trade, government corruption, secret negotiations with the Taliban, civilian casualties, indices—“metrics”—of progress, the always elusive estimate of the situation. Listening to them he could only recall his own war, the same excuses, the same lame optimism. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Americans are an impatient people. So few Westerners could speak Pashto. The ambassador had heard that the State Department was shorthanded, so a number of recent retirees were encouraged to sign on with one of the many private consulting firms to come back on board as a contract hire. Some of them were from as far back as Indochina, familiar with the routine, the paperwork, and the rest of it. Pass the physical, secure the relevant clearances, you’re in. Serious wages, all benefits, a six-month stint, back in the game, a last hurrah for Uncle Sugar. So they kissed the wife goodbye, called the grandchildren, and left the eight-room Greek Revival in Camden, up in Maine, or the condo in Clearwater, down in Florida, and signed on, bringing with them the army-issue backpack that had last seen duty at that hill station in the central highlands—what was its name? But he had forgotten the name. The ambassador had romantic thoughts about offering himself, but his age and his feet argued against it and perhaps his experience was not precisely the experience the government required. Harry was not a field man except that one time. Nevertheless, he always offered a smart salute to the disheveled figure on the small screen. God bless. Come home safely.

  When the screen went black Harry Sanders did not move but sat quietly, deep in his memory, dozing. He knew he often got things out of sequence. One posting often ran into another. His memory was not reliable that way. When he looked up an hour later he saw to his surprise a naked woman and a middle-aged man in a tuxedo enjoying a glass of champagne on a beach somewhere. A pornographic movie, the normal post-midnight fare in washed-out color. The beach reminded him of a resort in Asia during the war, and he couldn’t think why until he noticed the hut in the distance, its thatched roof shaped like a topi. Harry watched for a while, the girl was beautifully built, and then he was back in his memory again, and she was there too, this time in disguise.

  This is part of what he remembered from his fourth posting, perhaps his fifth.

  He was waiting in the anteroom of the presidential palace tapping his cane on the toe of his shoe. The windows were thrown open to the afternoon heat, a damp salty heat that carried with it the aroma of garlic. It always amused them to keep the American ambassador waiting, if only to show that they were mortal and you were, too. Then he heard his name and stood to be ushered into the president’s office, a narrow rectangle in shape. It had the aspect of a railway car except for the fifteenth-century oil of Aphrodite rising from the sea, an artwork said to be from the atelier of Botticelli. The president rose to greet him.

  Excellency, Harry said.

  Ambassador, the president replied, in a voice so deep it resembled an animal’s growl. Please sit. You would like coffee?

  I would, Harry said. Medium sweet.

  The president murmured into his telephone and shortly a servant arrived with a tray holding two small cups. The president took a sip of coffee and waited.

  Three nights ago, Excellency, goons struck a village. Two dead, three wounded.

  I heard something about it, the president said.

  Then last night, another goon attack. By all accounts unprovoked. The village was asleep. This time, three dead.

  Two, I think. The third is recovering in hospital.

  The third man died this afternoon, Harry said.

  I am not up-to-date, then, the president said.

  Evidently not, Harry said. He took a sheet of paper from his briefcase and put on his eyeglasses to read it. This was a little bit of theater to get the official business out of the way so that he could speak plainly. What he was obliged to read was a four-sentence paragraph that expressed the grave concern of the American government at an attack that was wholly unwarranted and that could only damage relations between the two countries because, as the president well knew, there were implications concerning the eastern rim of NATO, et cetera et cetera, the president of the United States himself greatly troubled at the loss of innocent life, et cetera et cetera, with the government either unable or unwilling to put a stop to it. Harry read the text slowly and left the sheet of paper on the president’s desk so that he could read it himself at his leisure.

  One always regrets loss of life, the president said.

  Your goons, Harry said.

  The president frowned. His eyes appeared to moisten. Such a harsh word, he said. They are not goons, Ambassador. They are young men who feel themselves insulted. Humiliated by a minority population. He paused and sighed. I understand a young woman was involved.

  The attack was unprovoked, Excellency.

  We have different information. As is so often the case.

  These attacks must cease, Harry said.

  My country has a cruel history, the president said. We have been overrun countless times in two millennia. The Greeks, the Trojans, the English, Carthage, Rome. The Turks. The president paused again, apparently overcome with emotion. He continued with the litany of aggressors: Saracens, French, Persians. It has to be said that the Jews have done us no harm. Nor the Americans, and that is why I speak so frankly to you. You must give us latitude, given our history. These people among us are beasts. Brutes.

  The three dead included a woman, aged sixty-five. Shot in her bed.

  My information is that she had a weapon.

  Her knitting needles?

  That is unworthy of you, Ambassador.

  Nevertheless, Harry said.

  Boys can be rough sometimes.

>   They were not boys, Harry said.

  All inquiries are being made, the president said.

  It would be very good if your inquiries resulted in arrests.

  We live in violent times, the president replied.

  When was it not violent here?

  I do not remember such a time, the president said with a smile. I would say that we have not been fortunate.

  And there, for the moment, the matter rested. Harry stifled a yawn and sipped his coffee. He had been awakened at five a.m. by his station chief, informing him of the attack. Shall we go look? the station chief said, and they were soon in a car bound for a settlement in the hill country north of the capital. A half hour later, dawn breaking, they arrived at the village. A small gathering of women and a few men met them at the well. Next to the well was an elderly man lying on his back under an olive tree. Rigor mortis had begun to set in. His fingers were rigid a few inches above the earth. He looked as if he were about to ascend into the sky. His beige-colored face was heavily stubbled and his eyes were open. He wore pantaloons and a blue shirt and except for his wristwatch he could have lived in the previous century. His look was one of surprise. No wound was visible and then someone said that he had been shot in the back. The village women were weeping and the men were sullen. The men began to speak, all of them at once. The assassins were cowardly, typical of their race. They had arrived at ten p.m., everyone in the village asleep. They fired indiscriminately. They did not care who they killed. Two more bodies were at the rear of the house. They fired in a cowardly manner. The victims had no means of defending themselves. Harry noticed children peeking around the legs of the men. Harry and his station chief stayed an hour or more listening to the various accounts of the killings. Finally one of the men said, When will you Americans do something?

  Harry nodded but did not reply.

  Justice is better, Harry murmured, realizing as he said it that to this community justice was vengeance. There was no difference between them.

  What did you say? the man demanded.

  Rest assured, Harry said, I will do what I can.

  Animals, the man said. They’re animals. You must do something before they kill us all. He stepped forward and handed Harry a looseleaf binder, insisting that he inspect the contents. Harry knew what was inside but opened it and began to turn the pages, photographs of previous atrocities committed against his people. Women, men, children, some dead by gunshot, others by knife or bludgeon. One photograph after another, some close-up, others taken from a distance. Some of them were obviously years old, the edges furred from fingering. The man’s face began to soften as Harry turned the pages. Every village in the country had similar dossiers, dating from years back, scrapbooks meant to show the depravity of the enemy, his vicious recklessness, his bloodlust. Keep vengeance alive. Harry looked aside to see an old woman gather a shawl around her shoulders and bend down to touch the stubbled face of the dead man, as if that touch would bring him to life.

  You must control your people, Excellency.

  We have many grievances, Ambassador.

  You are in control here. You have the authority.

  And them, the president said. They must control their people, too.

  Still, you have the upper hand.

  There are provocations—

  On both sides, Harry replied. And last night, an old woman dead in her bed.

  Their women are as vicious as the men, the president said. He stood up then. The meeting was concluded.

  I wish you good day, Ambassador.

  And you, Excellency. My government will be watching your investigation. An arrest would be helpful.

  In due course, the president said. And may I offer my condolences.

  Harry nodded, uncertain of the reference.

  The events in San Francisco, the president said. How many dead?

  Six, Harry said. Five wounded.

  In a schoolhouse! the president said, his eyes wide.

  We have the killer in custody.

  Yes, of course. Have your authorities discovered a motive?

  The man was deranged, Harry said.

  A tragedy, the president said.

  Justice will be done, Harry said.

  Of course it will, the president said. In due course.

  In a moment Harry was outside in the bright sunlight. He stood on the steps of the palace feeling the heat gather. His irritation increased as he took off his suit jacket and motioned for his driver to follow at a discreet distance. He walked through the gate, nodding at the guards standing at attention. In his irritation he noticed that their shoes were not shined nor their trousers creased. He walked across the square and down the street until he found an inviting café, nearly empty of customers, tables arranged under one large awning. The time was six p.m. Harry loosened his tie, ordered a beer, and watched the street, hazy in the late afternoon. The few pedestrians moved slowly. His irritation diminished as his attention began to drift, other villages in other countries, promises to do something when there was no intention of doing anything. The president was an old fox, his smile sly as he mentioned “the events in San Francisco,” Harry caught off-guard, which the president sensed at once. He had not read the morning paper nor seen the cable traffic. The president’s message: Don’t preach to us. He had a point, too. What they both knew and left unsaid was that the foreign aid bill was making its way through the American Senate. That was the meaning of Harry’s remark “My government will be watching your investigation.” The president needed American money, but he wasn’t going to grovel for it.

  Harry ordered another beer as his memory drifted to Africa, and before Africa, Paraguay. Then he was in the war again, hostilities mercifully ended now. No more of that, probably for some time to come. He smiled, remembering his villa and the houseman who came with it, the vegetation, quiet streets all around. He had lived very well in the war capital, much better even than here, where he was ambassador. Now he watched four young men in leather jackets and blue jeans saunter down the street and pause in front of the disco, Aphrodite’s Disco it was called. Harry sipped his beer and watched them open the door to the disco, and as they filed inside one of them turned around, looked Harry in the eye, and smiled sourly. The other three waited while he lit a cigarette and threw the match into the gutter. The driver was suddenly behind Harry, suggesting that the time had come to move along.

  Sit down, Harry said. Have a beer.

  I will have coffee, Nikos said.

  Do you know those four?

  By reputation, Nikos said.

  They are bad news, Harry said. You can tell by looking at them.

  Juvenile delinquents, Nikos said.

  Harry and Nikos sat awhile, not speaking. They watched a line form in front of the disco. Harry focused on a girl, her shuffle-walk, lithe. He could tell she was not of the country. By her dress and her looks and the way she carried herself, he knew she was European. She was unaccompanied, not the normal thing. From a distance she looked so much like Sieglinde that he rose from his chair and very nearly called out. When she turned around he saw that she was not Sieglinde. She looked nothing like Sieglinde. This was not the first time he had been fooled. Stung.

  These many years later, in retirement, the ambassador was said to be in hiding, but that was surely malicious rumor. Anyone who wanted to find him could do so with scant effort, elementary detective work; and there was no evidence that anyone was interested. He had been retired for a decade and his moment of consequence had occurred many years before that. Moment of consequence—Basso Earle’s ornate phrase, spoken dryly, his annoyance barely concealed. Basso said, We’ve broken dishes, Harry. We took a chance and the chance didn’t work out. His accent thickened, curdling a little. Now comes the cleanup, always more hazardous than the event itself, more fraught. Not the steak, you see. The sizzle. Not the offense but the shadow of the offense. Not the facts of the matter but the perception of the facts of the matter. We live in dark times. Scoundrels abound. Bu
t you know the drill. The cleanup will take some little while—so many loose ends, so much drama—and for obvious reasons you can’t be part of that except to be cooperative in the interview. Our cleanup will be tightly held in-house, a board of inquiry, the objective to tidy the record. Make certain that we’re all on the same page and so forth and so on, and when our work is done the result will be highly classified because the material can be easily misunderstood. Your mission was not in search of a separate peace, as all those sunshine patriots in Congress would claim if they knew about it. So few people understand what we do and how we do it. Dead ends are part of our business. Dead ends are what we live with. That leaves you, and as it happens a solution is at hand. The Secretary has agreed to send you to a small embassy, head of the political section. How does Paraguay sound? Harry said, I speak no Spanish. Basso Earle said, Learn, adding, after a moment’s pause, We’ll not forget about you. I admire your work. I admire your discretion, your way of going about things. The Secretary agrees with me. Paraguay’s nice. It’s out of harm’s way. Basso’s Louisiana drawl thickened as he went along, the beat in two-four time.

  He said, One last thing about the inquiry. Obviously you are an important witness. Remember to answer the question they ask, not the question they neglect to ask. Tell them the truth. Don’t go beyond your brief. Understood? And in case you’re wondering, I’m the first casualty of this affair. I’ll be retiring sooner rather than later, reasons of health. You ever get to Nantucket, give me a call. Tell you something else, Harry. You’re an adventurer just like me. It’s OK, adventuring. Just don’t go all the way every time.