“How did this happen, Richard?” the doctor asked in an Oklahoma accent that went strangely with her aloof Chinese face, or what little Attenborough could see of it inside the shield.
“Tripped and fell with a glass of ice water in my hand,” he said.
“Ice water. Uh-huh.”
As she turned her head the shield flashed in the bluish fluorescent light. Attenborough was lying flat on his back, trying to be as pleasant as possible, hoping to put this self-conscious minority person at her ease. He received no smile in return, no nod, no sweetening of voice.
“How long ago did this injury occur?” asked Dr. Chin.
She was spraying something onto his wound. It felt like frozen ammonia and he jumped in nervous reaction. Still no flicker of sympathy in her frozen face, much less recognition.
“Didn’t look at my watch,” Attenborough said.
“Half an hour ago, Richard? Longer ago than that? Sooner?”
“Like I just got through telling you, honey, I don’t know for sure. What’d I do, hit an artery?” He was still bleeding; he had bled all over Macalaster’s car on the way to the nearby private hospital, blood soaking right through the several napkins in which his hands had been wrapped while he was unconscious.
“No, your arteries are fine,” Dr. Chin replied. “The blood just isn’t clotting the way we’d like to see it do.”
Another young female in a shield swabbed the inside of his elbow with alcohol and tied a rubber tourniquet around his biceps. “Make a tight fist for me, Richard,” she said. “Now release it.”
Attenborough looked down and saw blood draining out of his arm into the barrel of a big syringe. “You figure I haven’t lost enough of that stuff, sweetheart?” he said. She pulled out the needle. “This is for tests Dr. Chin wants to run,” she replied.
“What kind of tests?”
Dr. Chin answered the question. “Just routine. I’m going to leave you for a few minutes. A surgeon is going to sew you up.” She gave his name, but Attenborough didn’t bother to listen.
The surgeon was a white male in a short-sleeved tunic. “Howdy, Doc,” Attenborough said. “You don’t hardly see a white arm hanging out of a coat like yours anymore.”
No smile from this one, either. He was young, like Dr. Chin, and also wore a plastic shield over his face. His-and-hers space suits, Attenborough thought; maybe they’re married and that’s how he beat the ethnic odds and got into medical school.
“You won’t feel anything except a needle and a slight burning sensation,” the surgeon said. “That will be a shot of local anesthetic to make your hand numb.” He sutured the cut while a nurse stood by, sopping up blood with one gauze pad after another and dropping them into a transparent plastic bag.
“Why the hell does it keep on bleeding like that?” Attenborough asked.
“That happens sometimes to fellows like you, Richard,” the doctor said. “I’ll bet you notice the same thing when you cut yourself shaving.”
“I don’t cut myself shaving.”
“You don’t?” said the doctor. “That’s lucky, Richard. All finished; sixteen stitches.”
“No wonder it bled.”
“Right. The nurse is going to bandage your hand. What I want you to do after that is keep it elevated. That means hold it up high, like this.”
He lifted an inert hand to demonstrate what he meant in case Attenborough had trouble understanding four-syllable words, but the patient didn’t hear him; he had fallen asleep again.
An hour later, Dr. Chin had some trouble awakening the Speaker. This did not surprise her in the least because the laboratory tests she had ordered confirmed the diagnosis she had made on the basis of the obvious visible signs. This patient was an advanced case of cirrhosis. He bled so copiously from a trivial wound because his atrophied liver had all but ceased manufacturing the enzymes that cause blood to clot in a healthy person. The jaundiced skin, the saffron eyeballs, the edema the doctor had noted when she depressed the flesh in his calf, and now this deep sleep from which she awakened him by breaking a capsule of spirits of ammonia under his nose, all indicated the nature of his illness.
“Jesus Christ!” Attenborough said, awakening with a gasp. “What the hell was that?”
Dr. Chin said, “Do you often fall asleep like that?” She had removed her shield now that Attenborough had stopped bleeding: good-looking girl, but chilly.
Attenborough said, “Do you always wake people up with goddamn smelling salts?”
“Not always. Do you fall asleep a lot without knowing that you’re doing it?”
“I nod off sometimes.”
“Have you noticed in the mirror how yellow your eyes and skin are?”
Attenborough did not answer this question, or any of the others that she put to him in rapid succession, because the answer to them all was yes and he had the feeling that this girl was leading him toward some incriminating admission that he’d be better off to avoid.
Finally Dr. Chin said, “Your blood alcohol level is four point two, Richard; under the law, one point zero means a person is intoxicated. If you weren’t an alcoholic, that level would be high enough to be life-threatening.”
“Life-threatening?” Attenborough said. “Hell, honey, you must have got my tests mixed up with some brother you pulled out of a wrecked car.”
“No, that’s not a possibility. Richard, I want you to listen to me very carefully. You have cirrhosis of the liver. It is in a very advanced stage. That’s why you bled so badly. That’s why you’re turning yellow. That’s why you fall asleep all the time. If you don’t stop drinking immediately, you will die.”
“I will? When?”
“Assuming you continue to consume alcohol at your present rate, it could be a matter of weeks. Even days. Richard, your liver is on the point of complete failure. When it stops working, your kidneys will fail. Then your brain will die. Your heart may keep on beating for a while, but eventually—soon after these events, if you’re lucky—it will stop too, and that will be the end.”
“Jesus, Doc. All I did was trip over a rug and cut my hand, and I’m going to die from it? Where’d you get your license?” He sat up on the bed or the operating table or whatever it was. It was so high off the floor that Dr. Chin, who was short like himself, had to stand on a footstool to examine him. He swayed; she steadied him. He said, “Gotta go.”
They were inside a little cubicle, closed off by curtains, that was designed to give the illusion of privacy. Attenborough wanted to get out of there before somebody overheard this crazy talk and called The Washington Post. Christ almighty, Ross Macalaster might be right outside! “ ‘Scuse me,” he said.
With her hand still gripping his arm, Dr. Chin said, “Richard, my medical advice to you is, don’t go. Let us help you. Your case is not hopeless—at least not yet. The liver is the one organ in the body that can regenerate itself. If you stop drinking now, it may repair itself over time. You still have a chance to recover and lead a normal life. It’s your decision.”
“All right,” Attenborough said, “I’ll give it up. Now I’ve really got to go.”
“It’s not as simple as that. You can’t do this alone.”
“Like hell I can’t.”
“Richard, nobody can; you need help. We have a detoxification facility right here in the hospital. Let me check you in so that you can get the help you need.”
“I told you, I don’t need help. I don’t have time for help. Jesus Jumping Christ, girl, they’re going to impeach the President and you want to lock me up in a drunk tank?”
“Impeach the President? Can’t they do that without you, Richard?”
Obviously she thought he was crazy, some kind of derelict raving about an imaginary world. He didn’t bother to contradict her; it would be even worse, he knew, if she realized who he was. “Where’re my clothes?”
“Richard, I can’t force you to stay. Who’s your personal physician?”
“Don’t.have one. Never bee
n sick a day in my life, except for malaria, which is what makes my eyes look funny.”
“I advise you to see a doctor. Get a second opinion. But do it soon.”
“I’ve already said I’ll give up the drinking. Gimme my clothes.”
“You’re already dressed, Richard, except for your suit coat. Your friend, the one who brought you in, has that.”
“Oh. Well, hell, I was so busy listening to the prognosis I didn’t notice I already had my pants on. But you got me all wrong, Anna.”
“Richard, if you try to give up alcohol on your own, your body won’t let you do it. You’ll have delirium tremens. DT’s. You know what they are?”
“Only by reputation. Doctor, I thank you for keeping me from bleeding to death. You’re as pretty as a picture, but you’re too damn serious. Now I’m going to walk out of here and forget you ever made the mistake you just made. No lawsuit, no repercussions of any kind. That’s a promise.”
Dr. Chin regarded him with Confucian inscrutability. He knew that she was absolutely right about everything she had told him, but he couldn’t help that. He had to go. “Got promises to keep, Anna, honey,” he said.
Dr. Chin nodded. It was plain to see that she was dismissing him from her mind; she had done her duty. He was just another loser. “Good luck, Mr. Speaker,” she said.
16
That night Zarah Christopher was unable to sleep. She had ridden to the hospital in the backseat of Macalaster’s car, holding Attenborough’s swathed hand in her lap, and when she got home she saw the brown circular bloodstain, big as a dinner plate, that his leaking wound had left on her skirt. Inside the overheated house, the stench of putrefying blood was overpowering, and even though she put the ruined dress into a plastic bag, threw it into the trash, and then took a shower, this particular odor triggered memories. Some were from her own life, some from what she had guessed and dreamed about her family’s life, some from both. These amounted to a history of the Christopher family: disappearances, lost loves, death at the hands of fools, betrayal by friends, hopeless desire—every kind of psychic imprisonment provided by the twentieth century.
By now it was five in the morning. Half-nauseated by memory and lack of sleep, she called Mallory, and by five-thirty the two of them were walking together along the tarred bike path in lower Rock Creek Park, a choice of time and meeting place that both knew was safe because it was so manifestly unsafe: no mugger or rapist would look for victims here for another hour and a half, when the early-morning runners and bicyclists began to come out.
Nevertheless, two security teams covered Mallory, stalking before and behind, murmuring to each other by radio. As soon as the bodyguards drifted out of earshot, Zarah began to speak, very softly. In order to hear, Mallory had to move so close to her that their bodies were only just not touching. He felt the magnetism of her body. She went on talking at the same nearly inaudible volume, seemingly unaware of him physically.
“You say you knew my father,” she said. “What do you know?”
“The reputation,” Mallory replied, “not the man. The O.G. briefed the Senate Intelligence Committee when he was captured by the Chinese Communists, Patchen did the same when he was released. It was obvious that he was greatly admired.”
“You were a member of the Intelligence Committee at that time?”
“Yes. But I didn’t know until recently that you were abducted with Patchen by the Eye of Gaza. Or that your father got you out.”
“I see.” Her voice was unemotional and unsurprised.
Mallory said, “You saw Patchen die, I understand.”
“Felt him die. He had his arms around me, shielding me from gunfire with what was left of his body.”
“Then he was tortured.”
“Yes, but that’s not what I meant. He had serious war wounds. They had stripped him, so I saw them. Felt them on his skin.”
“And you?”
Though she knew he was asking, because it had happened before, she did not answer the unspoken question: Were you tortured, too? She made a gesture. “Here I am.”
“Thanks to Patchen and your father.”
“Among others, yes.”
“And of course you were where you were because of them, too.”
“Was I?”
He put a hand on her forearm, the first time he had touched her since they had shaken hands on meeting. “Zarah, there’s no need for you to explain yourself to me.”
He spoke with such youthful earnestness that she laughed. She said, “Are you offering me absolution for the sins of my family? I’ve learned since coming to Washington that people usually offer that when they discover that I come from a line of spies.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“And that’s not what I wanted to explain.”
“Let me explain, then. Your background means nothing to me. What I see is what I want.”
“I know that, but what you want is impossible.”
Mallory stopped walking and turned to face her. “What is it, exactly, that you think I want?”
In her cool. almost-American voice, Zarah said, “I think you want me to be the missing half of yourself.”
“Am I that transparent?”
“Not transparent. Consistent.”
They smiled at each other. “And if that is what I want, why would that be impossible?”
“Because, as you just suggested, I am who I am and nothing will change it.”
“Explain that, please.”
She smiled. “No, not now. The moment has passed.”
“Then I’ll have to reschedule it,” Mallory said. “Consistency, you know.”
Without comment or gesture, Zarah walked on. They passed under a streetlamp; in its feeble light they could see a misty rain falling before they felt it on their skin.
“Why were you so upset about Lockwood?” she asked.
One of the security people stepped between them and handed Mallory an umbrella, already open, then fell back out of earshot again. Mallory lifted the umbrella, inviting Zarah to join him underneath.
“Do you really want to know?” he asked.
Rain drummed on the umbrella.
She nodded. He told her about Ibn Awad.
She said, “I already know about that; everyone does. But he was assassinated by his own son. Lockwood said so on television.”
“That’s true as far as it goes,” Mallory replied. “But the assassin was an American agent. Your cousin Horace ran the operation, with Lock-wood’s authorization, on Julian’s initiative.”
Zarah said, “That’s why they stole the election? To save themselves from the consequences of killing Ibn Awad?”
Zarah walked out from under the umbrella and stood alone in the downpour. They were under another light, beside a park bench on which a derelict was stretched out under a thick layer of newspapers. Even in her distraction, she thought it strange that Mallory’s guards seemed to be untroubled by the presence of this unknown person.
Mallory said, “They may have called it something else—a higher duty, perhaps, but yes, I’m sure that was the reason.”
Zarah closed her eyes.
An hour had passed since they had met; behind the overcast, the sun was rising. The light and the rain intensified. Now they could see each other’s face more clearly, but the noise of the rain obliged them to speak louder than before.
“I’m sorry,” Mallory said.
Zarah said nothing in reply. After a moment, she opened her eyes again. The first runner of the day, a lean young person, obviously an athlete, loped by, peering at them through oversize yellow goggles even though there was barely enough light to see the path. But though her mind was still elsewhere, in other lives and places, Zarah recognized the runner.
1
Later in the day on which Zarah recognized the runner in Rock Creek Park, Hammett and Julian Hubbard met in one of the rooms off the atrium of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. The location, just across Seventeenth Street from the
Executive Office Building, was convenient for Julian and involved minimal risk of observation or even recognition. No one who knew them was likely to be here, and they arrived a few minutes before closing time and rendezvoused in front of Samuel F. B. Morse’s The Old House of Representatives, a painting that does not ordinarily attract crowds of art lovers. In light of his recent encounter with the incumbent Speaker of the House, Hammett thought that the choice of meeting point showed a certain insouciance. Of course Julian had no way of knowing this, and Hammett did not let him in on the joke: He did not want to call attention to his interest in Attenborough, for whom he had certain plans.
Though they now lived and worked in the same city, the secretive Hammett had summoned Julian to this meeting through their fellow Shelleyan, Seven-One of Stamford, Connecticut. The two men had not seen each other since Hammett had burst into Julian’s basement office after Manal Macalaster’s last séance. Since then, because of his estrangement from Lockwood and his consequent disappearance from the news media, a good deal of life had gone out of Julian. He was faintly stooped, faintly haggard, faintly distracted. His voice was a shade less authoritative. Hammett felt little sympathy for this diminished Julian. Although he was aware that his fellow Shelleyan might have a different opinion of the relationship, he himself had never thought that the two of them were personal friends or ever had been. They were compares, bound together by the godfatherhood of the Shelley Society. They were useful to each other, and in Hammett’s scheme of things this was a sounder basis for a relationship than any amount of good old democratic mutual esteem and affection. Besides, it was inconceivable to him that friendship could exist in the absence of a seamless identity of ideological conviction, and while it was true that Julian professed the correct politics and worked for the right outcomes, his beliefs rose from shame and not, as in Hammett’s case, from ancient grievances transmitted by blood and the memory of suffering.
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