by Ward Just
"Beats me," she said. "Where?"
He said, "Hard to say. End of story." Of course it could have come from any of the senators in attendance. It could have come from Red Lambardo. But Ed knew that it came from Alec Behl, because Alec was nowhere mentioned until the last piece, and then in sentences so respectful that Slyde might have been writing about Louis Brandeis. Those sentences, so admiring, so without Slyde's usual sarcasm, had the effect of making Alec an instant Visible. Slyde had the subtlety to omit any mention of Axel, and Red Lambardo was mentioned only in passing, "doing the best he could with a bad brief." The Slyde columns were picked up everywhere, even Time.
"What do you think?" she said. "Was it Alec?"
"What did he stand to gain?"
"You're right," she said. "He had nothing to gain."
Ed Peralta raised his hands, stretching, looking over her shoulder out the window.
"I wish he hadn't gotten involved."
Ed shrugged.
"Cowards," she said again. "It's Axel's fault."
He did not reply to that; she was off the point, and he had already said too much. The light was failing fast on Wisconsin Avenue; it was close on five o'clock. In his office he never noticed the weather, even the change of seasons. He had lived in an indoor paper world—estimates, proposals, memoranda, situation reports. Newspapers, magazines, an occasional book of current affairs or history, mostly European and New England history. He was horn in Rhode Island but had not been back for many years. His family was gone. As a boy he had been a keen sailor and now he could not remember the last time he had been on a boat. His father had owned a Hinckley with teak decks and a set of red sails. A Wampanoag who lived at the boatyard in Jamestown taught him to sail, all the time spinning tales of the tribal lands up near Gay Head on Martha's Vineyard. Much later, Ed thought of his life in the government as similar to an Indian's on a reservation. You hunted on government land and bought your goods at the government store but you maintained your own rituals and worshiped your own gods. You stayed inconspicuous and encouraged your family to stay inconspicuous as well. When your children grew up, they went away. He knew the government's limitations but never wanted any other kind of life. He lived in a government within the government, and was accountable to that government. He liked knowing and not being able to tell what he knew. That, and the satisfaction that came from knowing a job and doing it well, and the many friendships here and abroad.
"Anyone stand up for you, Ed? Anyone at all?"
"Jesus Christ, Sylvia." He sighed, exasperated now. He had done everything but draw her a blueprint. She had been away from Washington for too long, had forgotten how things worked, how they had to work for the government to function. Sometimes you needed to sacrifice; that was the way it was set up. You could not believe the incoherence of the government until you had been inside it, attended the meetings and read the memoranda, the way things rocked and rolled on their own motion; you practiced damage control and then one day the fire was too big to contain and someone had to stand up. Someone had to say, "It's me, I'm responsible," particularly if he wasn't. Confession in hand, the arsonists agreed to take their gasoline and go home. They had to have a trophy, something to show for all the hard work they d done.
"That was the point," he said patiently. "Keep everyone else away, far from the hea: and the glare. Give them enough smoke and they'll forget about the fire. No character witnesses in my trade except sotto voce, over drinks at a party or in someone's office. Listen, Ed Peralta's a good man, got his cock caught in the wringer, maybe there's more here than meets the eye, maybe less, but Ed's okay, been with us a long time, don't crucify him. That's why your Alec was a godsend. Alec and his quiet manner. Alec and his friendships. Alec, his smoke and his mirrors. Best of all. Alec son of Axel."
She closed her eyes and did not speak. She remembered telling Alec years ago that she had never felt competent as a mother. Part of what she said was her usual exaggeration, but there was truth there, too, when she confided that she knew plenty but didn't think that what she knew had value for a child. She should have thought again, because her timidity had thrust her son into Axel's orbit as surely as if she had sent him aloft on a rocket. Now he was too far away to be seen by the naked eye.
"They're not cowards," Ed said.
"Would you call them friends?"
"My best, my closest friends," he said firmly.
"It's a terrible story you've told me, Ed. And so—meaningless."
He smiled broadly but did not want to begin a discussion on meaninglessness. It only led you into assassinations and war, to no profit. He was looking out the window again, watching the passersby on Wisconsin Avenue. He was trying to remember the Wampanoag's name and failing.
He said, "I hated doing it. I hated it personally, do you see? But there I was in the box. My friends were in other boxes..." He stopped suddenly, remembering the name, Alfred something. When the war came he joined the Merchant Marine for the wages; and if he was on the North Atlantic run, his chances were about one in five. He had forgotten what he was saying to Sylvia. That was what happened when you were out of the loop. You picked up bad habits, such as wanting to perform in front of attractive women. He did not think he had said too much and he thought that she of all people would understand life's ironies and paradoxes and where loyalties lay. Sylvia always had a grasp of the machine and was never bewitched by the purring of the gears, and that was why in the early days she was not trusted. She'd refused to shed her Gramercy Park skin. Even Axel had his doubts; and with that, his memory did another turn.
Sylvia saw the shadow cross his face, his eyes sliding away to the ceiling. She believed she had been too harsh with him and now asked gently what his plans were.
He said, "I do some consulting here and there, carefully. I have to keep my hand in somewhere to stay alive. I used to play a little tennis, but my doctor said that was a no-no. Now I sit around and read the newspapers, take a walk, and have lunch with the boys on Wednesday unless it's all business, and then I stay away. Did I tell you that Lambardo is sometimes there? He and Axel have gotten quite close. And La Bella Figura sometimes has a cocktail with us before we sit down."
She nodded. Paulina seemed to be all things to all men.
"I watch a ballgame on television. Once in a while someone calls me up and I agree to consult, read his tea leaves for him." He was looking at her strangely, remembering something specific and wondering if he should say anything. "Billie's got quite a thriving real estate business, did you know that? She and Alice Grendall."
"I heard," Sylvia said.
"You can't believe the prices," he said.
She laughed and said she could.
"I hate not working," he said.
Sylvia glanced at her watch. She and Willy had plans to see an early movie.
"I owe you an apology," Ed said abruptly.
"Don't worry," she said lightly. "Your secrets are safe with me. I don't understand them anyway."
"Not that," he said.
His tone of voice had changed and he was looking directly into her eyes.
"That woman," he said. "Years ago. You know the one I mean. I can't remember her name."
Sylvia knew at once that he meant Mrs. Pfister.
"The one who lived in Falls Church."
"What about her?" Sylvia said.
"She told fortunes."
"Yes," Sylvia said.
"We were involved."
She looked at him blankly, having no idea what he meant.
"We were listening," he said.
"You were listening to Mrs. Pfister?"
"There were so many people in and out. It seemed to us that half the State Department was visiting Mrs. Pfister, or at least their wives were. The news spread very quickly; you'd be surprised. And later on, years later, she attracted a real following, even some of the Kennedy people. What were we to think? At first she seemed harmless enough; swamis are a dime a dozen in northern Virginia. But then we rec
eived evidence—"
"What evidence?" Sylvia demanded. "Evidence of what?"
He did not reply immediately.
"What evidence?" she said again.
"I can't remember precisely what it was, or how we got it. It was information that we obtained. Someone talked or we sent someone over to check her out. We didn't know who she was or where she came from or who her friends were, and the'séances were more than personal. It wasn't only health and love life, the way you'd expect, but other kinds of gossip, family business, finances. Then the husbands got interested and went to her to ask about government matters, personnel changes and their own futures. Foreign policy dilemmas. In the beginning we thought she was only a fad, like hula hoops or margaritas, and that she would fade, like any fad. But she didn't fade. You know Washington, everyone so quick to enlist, whether it's a hairdresser or a tailor or the new swinging freshman senator or a rising hostess. We were worried; who was she anyway? And what did she do with the information she learned? We didn't know her provenance, Sylvia."
"So you listened in."
"Yes."
"Eavesdropped."
"Yes."
"On me. With Mrs. Pfister."
"That's correct."
"And others," she said.
"Others, too."
"As we talked about our personal lives, ourselves and our husbands and what the future held. The things that were in our hearts."
"Some of it was personal, some of it wasn't."
"And how did you listen, Ed?"
"It's simple enough," he said. "Even then, with the basic technology we had. Nothing like today. Of course the tapes were very poor quality. They had to be enhanced."
"And who did the enhancing?"
"Our lads," he said.
"Your lads," she said pleasantly, the image evoking a troop of Boy Scouts bent over a tape machine. She was concentrating on keeping her voice level, as if this were any ordinary afternoon conversation.
"Even then there were some rough spots."
"I'll bet there were "
"Hard to hear."
"What did you hear, Ed?"
"It's too long ago; I can't remember. The usual things, bedroom problems, children problems. Indifference. Anxiety. Problems with parents. The men were more direct, I mean practical. I know that a few of the State Department boys were transferred overseas. They'd been indiscreet. You'd think they'd have had more sense, a swami in Falls Church."
"You'd think so," she said.
"The thing was." He looked at his hands and laughed his half-laugh, shaking his head in wonder. "She was amazing, some of her predictions and her excavations of the past. She was a phenomenon. We tried to figure out how she did it, but we never did. It was all so counterintuitive."
"Yes, she was a phenomenon."
"Well, she didn't have everything. She got things wrong. She'd confuse one event with another. But less often than you'd expect."
"And naturally everyone had a file."
"Of course," he said proudly. "We were scrupulous."
"There was a file on me, for example."
"That was nodis. Specifically you, nodis."
"What does that mean, Ed?"
"No distribution." When she said nothing, only looked at him pleasantly as if they had been discussing the weather or any neutral topic, he added, "It was kept personally by me for safekeeping. No one else saw it."
"Except your superiors," she said.
He shrugged at that.
"And the lads."
"For the enhancement," he said.
"And Axel."
His hands flew off the table and he shook his head vigorously. Not Axel. How could she think such a thing?
"Don't lie to me," she said.
He drew back, offended.
"So," she said, counting on her fingers, "there would be you, your higher-ups, the lads, and Axel. Who else?"
"I began by saying I wanted to apologize," he said stiffly.
"For what, Ed? Making the tapes? Keeping them? Showing them around? What, specifically, are you apologizing for?"
"Try to remember how difficult those days were." He had made a mistake of a kind he didn't often make, talking candidly to a woman. Women took everything personally. That was what you got when you tried to right a wrong, explaining that times had changed—
"Did you think Mrs. Pfister was a Red?" Sylvia laughed unpleasantly, leaning across the table, staring into his wounded face. "Reporting to Moscow, personal to Comrade Stalin?"
"We didn't know," he said.
"Ed," she said. "Save your apology."
"And you don't understand something else, how difficult it was to keep the surveillance in our hands and out of Hoover's. In his hands the files would've been distributed all over town, congressmen, the Oval Office, this Pfister woman a security risk—" He went on to explain the competition between the agencies, Hoover's resentment, the never-ending struggle over turf and the heroic efforts to keep control of the product. He seemed to think she owed him thanks. But Sylvia was already rising, laying a five-dollar bill on the table, skidding the brass lighter across the table into his lap.
"Just a second now," he said angrily.
"Tell me one thing," Sylvia said. "Did Mrs. Pfister know she was being bugged?"
"I suppose she did," Ed said. "She knew everything else."
Sylvia and Willy lived only a few streets away from Alec and Leila but rarely saw them socially. Alec was very busy and Leila and Sylvia competed fiercely. Mother and son met for lunch once a month at Arthur's, a strained affair that usually ended in argument. Sylvia always managed at least one dig at Leila; and she was filled with rumors concerning Axel. Axel was buying a newspaper. Axel had given millions to the Democratic National Committee. Axel had seen Brezhnev at Tashkent. Axel had been photographed in a restaurant with Lauren Bacall. Axel and Paulina had quarreled and Paulina had returned to Rome, ciao!, more or less with Axel's blessing, Axel having grown weary of the Italian temperament. True or false? True, as it turned out, though Alec would neither confirm nor deny. Sylvia was particularly inquisitive about Ed Peralta's troubles, but Alec gave nothing, citing the sacred lawyer-client confidentiality. Superseding that of a mother and son? she demanded. Who exactly is Wilson Slyde? Alec compared the monthly lunch to returning service from Ken Rosewall.
Sylvia bought a house around the corner from the house Jack and Jackie Kennedy had occupied when he was a senator. Tourists were often present, talking in hushed tones and consulting guidebooks; and invariably they would stop in front of the wrong house, the Grendalls' or the Peraltas' across the street, standing on tiptoe and craning their necks to look through the heavy curtains to the darkened rooms within, as if the President and his family still occupied the premises, not Ed Peralta watching the Orioles on TV. Hard to imagine John F. Kennedy as a young senator, and Mrs. Onassis as a young mother still in her thirties. The street retained its unhurried between-the-wars flavor, as if the inhabitants were awaiting the visit of the horse-drawn ice wagon or FDR in his Cadillac, out for a Sunday drive with Daisy Suckley. In the summer the elms clouded the sky, casting the street in deep green shade. From the barnyard of Wisconsin Avenue or M Street anyone entering this neighborhood stepped back four decades or more. On quiet afternoons passersby could hear the music of Schubert or Brahms lingering in upstairs windows, easily imagine the woman of the house crocheting or writing a letter or reading a novel. Somewhere the ring of a telephone and the tap-tap of a typewriter competed with the whirr of hummingbirds; and then a sudden jarring chaos of jet engines as aircraft descended over Georgetown University and the Potomac River into DCA. In its evident somnolence and contentment the street recalled the quality districts of Richmond or Charleston, the chivalrous Old South of white magnolias and black maids in starched uniforms fetching the evening paper from the brick stoop, and then sweeping the stoop.
There were signs of wear and tear here and there, chipped paint and damaged clapboard and mottled brightwork, main
tenance put off from one year to the next, owing to uncertainty, and it was hard finding someone who could do the work properly, who understood the original materials. Cars labored slowly on the cobblestones, careful to avoid the beer cans here and there in the gutter, debris from university revels the night before; no arrests, but a student was injured and a window was broken in the house next door to the Peraltas', Ed watching from his living room with a loaded Beretta in the pocket of his dressing gown, a circumstance that alarmed his wife when he told her later. Whatever happened to Georgetown University? It used to be the nicest school.
Sylvia began to enjoy herself in Washington, even reaching a truce with Ed Peralta, who sent her a dozen roses after their quarrel at Arthur's. She had become fascinated by the war after meeting Wilson Slyde, so hip and easy with his Chiclets smile and street slang, his panther's body and upper-class tastes. Wilson wore bespoke suits and a gold Rolex and drank only Courvoisier and soda. She was near hypnotized, listening to him talk about the war, wondering why so many of the body bags were filled by black boys. Listen up here, you folks ever thought of forming a Princeton Brigade, sort of like the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain, take some of the heat off my peasants? I mean a fine brigade of congressmen's sons and senators' sons. Cabinet secretaries' sons, sons of the White House staff, Mr. Charlie to fight the Charlies, you hear what I'm saying to you? Of course the war had dropped from view, over the horizon of Watergate. But Wilson would not let it go, returning again and again; and very late in the evening muttering how proud he was of his work in the early days of the war convincing the NAACP and the Urban League what a superb job the Army had done integrating the infantry, bringing full citizenship to all those black boys.
Sylvia looked forward to evenings at the Grendalls' or Peraltas', mainly because Wilson was usually there, smiling his cat's smile while he flirted, so cool when he occasionally admitted them to the world they knew only from their television screens and James Baldwin's books. They thought he had a secret and if they got to know him well enough he would tell them what it was, like Salk with his vaccine or Freud with Dora's hysteria. They thought Wilson knew the terrain of the black heart, not only what Huey and Eldridge wanted but what all blacks everywhere wanted and would settle for. Was the black heart divided against itself? The table fell silent when Wilson spoke, unless it was a military subject, the capability of the North Vietnamese Army or the Israeli Defense Force or the utility of the swing-wing F-111. Wilson's was the only black face she ever saw at a dinner table. She always wanted to ask what it meant to him, being the only black key on the Steinway, but she never did, because she knew he would turn her aside with some black jive she wouldn't understand or understand all too well.
