The Kennedy Moment

by Peter Adamson

  Toni Restelle assimilated this for a moment. ‘Okay, but principals only at this point. What’s the top guy’s name?’

  Becket Bradie grimaced slightly. ‘Director General? Almasi. Egyptian. Bureaucrat’s bureaucrat. Lifetime guaranteed one hundred per cent ineffective. Got the job on Buggins’ turn, as the Brits say.’

  ‘I thought you wanted them in?’

  ‘I do. But I think we oughta sideline the protocol here. The relevant guy over there is an American. Top man. Key figure in the global smallpox campaign for the best part of a decade. Also happens to be ex-CDC and someone quite a few of us have worked with. Completely sound.’

  ‘So we bring him in instead?’

  ‘That way we could involve WHO but still keep it in the family.’

  ‘Name?

  ‘Michael Lowell. Dr Michael Lowell.’

  37 | This is from the top

  Michael’s ability to compartmentalize, a facility that had served him well over the years, seemed to have abandoned him as he sat, twisted sideways, at the tiny desk in his room on the fortieth floor of the Doral Inn. A moment ago he had even found himself speculating about whether Stephen might have been foolish enough to join the crowds watching the NYPD operation at Grand Central. Not that it was really a worry. Even if the FBI had been photographing the crowds it would only signify if they could manage to match faces with anything they had on file.

  For the last hour he had been dictating letters onto tape. Tedious work, but he had made it a rule to deal with the fallout of meetings before flying back to face the backlog in the office. He pulled another set of papers towards him, knowing he was not cutting through the paperwork with his usual bow speed. He clicked ‘record’ on the miniature dictaphone but eventually hit the ‘pause’ button. Toby’s texts would almost certainly be being read in Washington by now. But by whom? He stared at the blank wall, re-running scenarios. But the possible paths divided too early and too often to lead him to any strong probabilities. Eventually, one of those paths would have to end at the White House. But who knew how many steps there might be between Sutton Place and Pennsylvania Avenue?

  All that remained now was to annotate the draft communiqué of the inter-agency co-operation agreement, adding his own glossary for the benefit of senior staff. He stared at the title: ‘Operational definition of lead-agency status in Regional and Country offices of the Member Organizations of the United Nations Family.’ By now the search would be well under way. But no matter how many times he traversed the ground he could not find a way that would lead anyone back to himself or any of the others. There were no fingerprints, hair, fibres, saliva. And none of the usual search parameters could possibly flag any of the five. Don’t imagine these guys have any magic powers, is what he had told Seema as they had walked back from lunch. They’ll need something to go on. And they’ve got nothing at all. For a few minutes he wrote in the margins of the meeting papers on the desk, explaining the ambiguous or meaningless phrases that compromise had thrown up, knowing that significance was likely to be attached to them in the disputes that would rumble on in the months to come. Seema had not in fact pressed him for reassurance, but he had sensed the need. And in the end the lunch that had started so awkwardly had been the highlight of his week, his year, except for the anxieties that had surged to greet them as soon as they had stepped back out into the normal world. He signed off on the draft communiqué and added it to his impromptu out-tray on the bed. Would there be other such times? Or was it just wishful thinking to believe that, without the shadow of their enterprise, the lunch would have been perfect, that she had enjoyed the time together as much as he, that it might be the first of many such times? Had what seemed to exist between them for those few hours been only the binding of the secret they shared? He did not know. And he dared not hope.

  By half past four he was ready to go, Gladstone bag packed, passport, wallet and Swissair ticket laid out on the bed with overcoat, scarf and gloves. He still had a few minutes to kill and wondered whether to set an alarm and lie on the bed for fifteen minutes. He might get some sleep on the flight, but would go straight to the office from the airport. He decided against it and instead made a last check of the closets and drawers in the room he had occupied for the past week.

  Satisfied, he collected up his travel documents and overcoat. The room was anonymous again, the walls and drapes an anodyne beige, the pictures inoffensive. Nothing at all to dislike, and yet vaguely terrifying. He stood for a moment longer, unable to stop himself bringing to mind the candlelit loft in Greenwich Village with all its warmth and personality, its sense of possibility. He was on his way out when the phone rang on the bedside table. He left the bag propping open the door. Probably the front desk wanting to know what time he planned to vacate the room.

  ‘Michael Lowell.’

  ‘Michael. Becket Bradie here. How’s tricks?’

  ‘Beck, good to hear you. You in Atlanta?’

  ‘DC, Mike – something’s come up. Ever heard of a place called Poughkeepsie?’

  ‘Some place on the Hudson?’

  ‘Can you get yourself there mid-morning tomorrow?’

  ‘I’m just about to leave for Geneva. One more minute I’m out of here.’

  ‘Glad I caught you. Saved you a trip back from Europe. Listen, can’t talk on the phone but something real big’s coming down the line that needs you and me both. Can you get yourself up to this Poughkeepsie place first thing tomorrow?’

  ‘I guess …’

  ‘Great. Call this number and let me have your schedule. Metro North from Grand Central. Sorry, Mike, this is from the top. And as I said, it’s big.’

  Michael scribbled the number on the telephone pad.

  ‘Got that?’

  ‘What happens when I get there?’

  ‘You’ll be picked up at the station. Some hideaway place up in the Shawangunks, about a half-hour drive. Be good to see you.’

  ‘You too … No clues at all?’

  ‘See you in the morning.’

  38 | If only they knew

  The dog-eared postcard was scrawled in Stephen’s habitual green ink:

  Toby,

  Just wanted to confirm that Michael and I received your letter. We will of course let you know as soon as we hear anything.

  My own future remains uncertain, but I find myself enjoying the change from dreaming spires to shining skyscrapers …

  Creep. Be surprised if Michael had even shown him the drafts. He flipped the card over to reveal an aerial view of the southern tip of Manhattan, the twin towers dominating the foreground with Greenwich Village spread out behind. He had been updated by Michael’s call, but the postcard had still brought a shiver as he slipped it back into his jacket pocket and reached for his glass.

  For a day or two, drafting those texts had given him a good feeling. But now that was in the past, leaving him to face weeks at the office that were more and more difficult to get through. He swivelled around on the bar stool, turning his face away from the Friday-night schmoozing. All in all, he wished they would remove that illuminated mirror in which he had rather too often seen his own visage staring back at him from between bottles of obscure liquors that, as far as he could see, nobody ever ordered. Behind his reflection he recognized the usual crowd in the bar: the would-bes and might-bes and has-beens and never-had-a-hope-of-beings from the worlds of show business, advertising and other professions for which his respect knew no beginning. He looked down at the beaten copper of the bar to escape the sight of his own face. This was not how the others were spending their Friday evenings, or their lives. Twenty years ago the five of them had all started off together; all of them young, gifted and white; except for Seema, of course, who was young, gifted and brown. The world at our feet. ‘There was nothing before us, there was everything before us.’ He looked up at himself between the perky little optics, his face larger and his eyes smaller than he had ever imagined they would be. And through his reflection he contemplated the week pa
st and the week to come, the already-forgotten product briefings and script conferences, the client lunches and the video presentations, the blue-sky Mondays and the TGIFs, the empty home and the empty bottles. His image blinked back at him. Yes, you mate. All things dobbed in you’d have to say it’s pretty impressive: what you might call putting something back into society; pushing a comprehensive range of planet-destroying aspirations; making remarkable new discoveries in the field of human needs; putting new width into the generation gap; touching new heights of supersonic snobbery.

  Hélène looked around at the familiar quarters that she had thought never to see again. She had yet to unpack but found herself lying on the bed listening to the already nostalgic sounds of the African evening. The ceiling fan rotated in the dimness. She dozed miserably.

  When she awoke again the light had fallen and the movement of the fan was more felt than seen. Sleep had brought no relief. The tiredness that had followed her over the Atlantic was more powerful than anything jetlag could explain. And it would be there tomorrow, and the day after that. On top of it all she recognized the malady which always struck on her return to Africa. In New York or Montreal she was anonymous, unremarkable; back here she was shadowed by a certain consequence, a sense of others’ awareness of her own presence that related solely to the fact of being white. Partly, she supposed, it was the interest aroused by any foreigner. But partly, also, it was the residual body language of colonialism, in word and look and gesture. Being Canadian did not matter. Being white was all that counted. Sometimes she thought it was just her, that the malady was whatever the opposite of paranoia might be – seeing the symptoms of what she had come to think of as ‘unmerited status syndrome’ in ordinary, everyday politeness. But that was not it. She could observe the differences in the same way as any woman can observe the ways in which she is treated differently from a man. And she cringed to think of it.

  Outside, the evening cicadas had started up and the heat was beginning to abate. She should turn the fan off. Drink some water. Shower. Change. Bestir herself and go out to dinner. She had not been back to L’Eau Vive in two years, not wishing to invite remembrance of the night she had waited there so long. Waited for the lover she would never see again.

  On the bedside table, just at the edge of her vision, she could make out the blue air-mail envelope; the envelope that contained the proof that all that had happened in the last few weeks was real. She reached for it again, switching on the lamp.

  Dear Hélène,

  Great to see you in NY. I hope the rest of your trip went well and that you found your parents in good health. I have rarely known NY so cold, but I guess it must have been worse in Montreal.

  There were several more lines with bits and pieces of news. Finally, at the very end of the letter, just above Seema’s signature, the paragraph whose meaning had taken a second or two to register.

  I also wanted to let you know that I’ve posted the letter and proposal we discussed. I’m not sure I’ll hear anything back, but will let you know if I do.

  Stephen had used the words ‘Wall Street’ so often in his lectures as to have made of it an almost mythical place. But, setting foot in the real street for the first time, it was the ordinariness that astonished him. In offices way above, new schemes for rent-seeking were doubtless being concocted, but down here at street level the scene was distinctly sublunary: a sprawl of scaffolding and traffic violation signs, fire hydrants and ATMs, shop awnings and steam vents. Like the rest of the city, an unfinished chaos of energy and greed. Ahead stood the hopelessly belittled spire of Trinity Church, pointing a forlorn finger towards a less material world. Breakfasting at the Chelsea that morning, he had found himself descending deeper into the quicksands of morbid introspection from which it seemed there could never be any escape. He knew no one in the city, apart from Seema, and he had nothing to do but absorb himself in the nuances of his own circumstance. He bought a coffee from a street vendor and carried it across to the bench in front of the church.

  With the life of Wall Street flowing all around him, he acknowledged to himself that he was at a low ebb. He had even diagnosed the problem. He had Gramsci’s pessimism of the intellect without his optimism of the spirit. And, comforted in some small way by this formulation, his mind strayed as always to the one ‘big thing’ that offered consolation.

  If only all these people knew.

  Setting the coffee down on the bench beside him, he opened his shoulder bag and pulled out the New York Times. There was Tom, of course. Why hadn’t he thought of that? They had never had much in common, but it would be someone to talk to, share a lunch with. And he was presumably contactable through the paper.

  After a few more minutes he looked up from the Times, irked by a vague dissatisfaction that prevented him from concentrating. Surely, seated here at the beating heart of capitalism, he ought to be experiencing something more than this almost comical sense of its banality, this acute awareness of its complete indifference to his own presence. But, reduced from the global engine of exploitation to a shabby street-corner hot-dog stand, from the Camelot of capitalistic hegemony to the rather grubby stars and stripes hanging unenthusiastically from a pole above an office entrance, he was finding it difficult to relate to it all in any very satisfactory way. And surely there ought not to be so many pigeons?

  Seema was standing, distracted, by the kitchen window looking out on the fire escapes and the February drabness of Lower Manhattan, when the phone rang, echoing round the loft.

  ‘Michael! Has anything happened?’

  ‘I called to let you know I’m still here.’

  ‘In the city? What happened?’

  ‘Last-minute change of plan. Another meeting. Upstate.’

  ‘How long for?’

  ‘No idea. I’ll be through Manhattan again on my way back.’

  ‘You’ve no idea when?’

  ‘No. I’ll call you.’

  For a few more minutes they talked of something and nothing, Seema biting back the questions.

  ‘Michael, I don’t have anything on this week. Call me when you come back through town. We could get together. Even if it’s only for a coffee on your way to the airport.’

  The man holding up the card with the words ‘Dr Michael Lowell’ in red felt-tip looked as if he might be a survivor of the hippie community for which the college town of New Paltz had once been famous. Red check shirt, jeans, Budweiser belt buckle, tooled leather boots, thin hair drawn into a less-than-luxurious ponytail, he extended a hand as Michael approached. It was not clear whether the station wagon boasting a half acre of wood-effect panelling was a regular cab or a private vehicle. The driver had simply given his name as Ken. Michael threw the Gladstone bag on the back seat and slid himself into the front.

  Leaving the town line, they headed west across the Mid-Hudson Bridge towards New Paltz and the Catskills. Only two hours away from New York, as Ken pointed out, but a different world. Michael agreed, watching the last few clapboard homes of Poughkeepsie pass by and thinking this might just be a conversation Ken had enjoyed many times before.

  After twenty minutes or so, the station wagon turned off the Minnewaska Road by a sign that read ‘Mohonk Mountain House’, where they were flagged down by two armed and uniformed marines. The pair obviously knew Ken, but asked Michael to step out of the car and show ID. After checking the Gladstone bag and consulting a list, they were waved through on to an unsealed road, broadening here and there into passing places as it curved gracefully through the landscaped grounds of a country estate. In another quarter mile, as they were rounding a long downward bend, there appeared before them a Victorian fantasy castle sitting on the edge of a half mile of frozen lake.

  ‘Ain’t got nothin’ like that in New York City, Mike.’

  39 | No one wants to talk

  Tom Keeley bent to kiss his wife on the top of her head as he came back to the breakfast table, carrying toast. She caught his arm and lifted her face towards him. ‘Don’t
kiss me on my head, it makes me feel old.’

  He kissed her, lingeringly, on the lips. ‘You still look sixteen.’

  ‘Go put your glasses on.’

  The boys had left for school. It was warm enough to have the windows open, a pale February sun streaming in as Caroline poured more coffee. ‘So I thought you didn’t get on too great with this guy?’

  ‘He’s okay. Can’t say I ever really took to him. First time I met him he stopped me on the landing outside my room and asked what I was “reading”. When I said Chemistry he looked at me over his glasses and said “how amusing”.’

  ‘Oh God, an Oxford type. And you had to share a room?’

  ‘God no! Same staircase is all. Got to know him a bit. Bad case of adolescent Marxism. Doesn’t seem to have cleared up.’

  ‘He’s not still a Marxist?’

  ‘Yeah. Going down with the ship.’

  ‘He call you at the Times?’

  ‘Yeah. Lonesome, I expect. Doesn’t know anybody in the city. Doesn’t even really seem to know what he’s doing here. Resigned from his college apparently. Made a big deal of it. No one’s ever done it before, if you can believe that. Bottom line is he inherited a fortune, so I guess he can do what he likes.’

  ‘And what he likes is hanging around the Chelsea Hotel?’

  ‘I guess that’s some sort of a left-wing, Bohemian, thing. He was always a bit strange. Seemed awfully tense, though.’