The Better Angels

by Charles McCarry

  Leo Dwyer appeared in an iridescent silk dinner jacket, a goblet of white wine in one hand and his own darker drink in the other. His face broke into a grin at the sight of Patrick. He wiped the palm that had been holding Caroline’s sweating drink on his woolly head, and shook hands.

  “Patrick! Never miss your show when we’re ashore. I thought you won the round with Mallory. Caroline didn’t.”

  “Caroline has always judged me pretty harshly.”

  “Patrick let Mallory talk too much,” Caroline said.

  “That was the beauty of it,” said Leo. “Let him babble. It’s the best thing you could have done. I mean, germ warfare, oil spills, infanticide for the blacks, tax bonuses for people who have babies with high IQs, gobbling up the whole hemisphere! You could smell the carrion on his breath.”

  “That must be from one of your books, Leo.”

  “Listen, I haven’t got the imagination to create a character like Mallory. He opens his mouth and little devils march out—you’ve seen those statues in Japan?”

  Leo put a hand on the small of Caroline’s back and let it slide carelessly over her buttocks. Patrick was able to watch this caress with detachment; Caroline’s being touched, entered, smelled in her heat by this man didn’t disturb him. He wondered why. Caroline had the look, which he had never seen in her before, of a woman satisfied with the physical side of her life. Julian had never touched her in public, but she had always looked at him when his attention was elsewhere like a bitch in heat. At Leo, she wrinkled her nose. It was a parody of wifely flirtation. This was so out of character—Charlotte’s turning a cartwheel would have surprised him less—that Patrick snorted with laughter. Caroline gave him a questioning look.

  “I like the look of you two together,” Patrick explained. “Young folks in love. It’s appealing. I told Charlotte about you after we had dinner on your boat last year.”

  “Yeah,” said Leo, “well, I tell you, Patrick, prostates are failing left and right in my age group. If mine goes I want to get the benefit of its last ounce.”

  Leo’s words, delivered in his fast shrill voice clicking with the dentals of his native New York, were distinctly heard by all around them. Faces turned, then turned away again as one.

  Lockwood had entered the room, with Julian just behind. The President’s head with its shock of hair and its great pulpy nose floated far above the crowd. He and Julian were inches taller than all but a few of the other men. Women clutched the arms of men for support and pulled themselves up on tiptoe.

  The hush created by Lockwood’s entrance lasted only seconds. Suddenly Leo began to clap. The others turned, startled; Suzie Stanwood’s outraged face snarled at them. Leo had spoiled the illusion that Lockwood was just dropping into a familiar house. To save Lockwood the embarrassment of seeing Leo humiliated, Suzie and then all the others began to applaud.

  Lockwood stood nodding, smiling, seeking out faces in the room. Then he held up his hands and the noise stopped.

  Lockwood began to talk. The guests in their rich clothes fell back, as if to give him air. Lockwood’s whole lanky frame was visible now. He looked odd in a tuxedo; his clothes never fit him particularly well, and though his outfit was a new one, the collar stood away from his neck. The trousers bagged. Julian, standing behind him, wore a very old dinner jacket that lay, as his clothes always did, unwrinkled on his body. There were signs that fingernail scissors had been used to trim the frayed satin of its lapels.

  Lockwood said very little. It was a speech of thanks.

  “I know how much you all paid for Suzie and Harvey’s very fine tea and crackers, and I want you to know it’s appreciated; we’re poor folks in this administration, and we’re glad to have your help, and proud to know every one of you,” he said. “Just keep on helping us right to the end. If you’ve been watching the opposition, I guess you know how much we need you, how much the country needs you.”

  “Needs you, Mr. President,” Suzie Stanwood cried. This time the applause needed no leading.

  Suzie announced the song her husband had written for Lockwood, and the President stood near the piano with a glass of soda water in his hand, a smile rippling over his battered features, while Harvey played the piano and Suzie sang the words in her glassiest musical comedy soprano. The lyric had just the right touch —affectionate badinage suggesting the deeper feelings Lockwood’s supporters had about him.

  “By golly, Suzie, I think I’m going to take you along on the campaign and have you sing,” said Lockwood when she was done and the applause died. “I’ll just sit in a chair on the stage and smile. We’ll win by a landslide.”

  Suzie reached up and kissed Lockwood, then stepped back, clapping her hands over her mouth in mock surprise at her own boldness. Lockwood, never at a loss for the right gesture, put his arm around Harvey Stanwood’s shoulder, led him over to his flushed wife, and, hugging them both, spoke their names in his booming backwoodsman’s voice. Then with a nod seeking permission from Harvey, he planted a loud kiss on Suzie’s cheek.

  The knack of breaking away from people was one that Lockwood had long ago perfected. He gave the Stanwoods one final squeeze, then lifted a hand and plunged across the room, his eyes fixed on a point at the edge of the crowd.

  He shook hands with Leo and nodded to the Grahams. Then he leaned down and gave Caroline a tender kiss on the forehead. His hand lingered on her cheek.

  “They didn’t tell me you’d be here,” Lockwood said.

  “Maybe they were afraid you wouldn’t come. Hello, Julian.”

  Julian had taken a step or two backwards when he saw where Lockwood was heading. Now he reached around the President and shook hands with Leo. Leo beamed. To be picked out of two hundred people to be kissed by the President! Julian felt his own lungs filling with the breath of enjoyment, to see how pleased Leo was with Caroline.

  Lockwood went on talking to her for several minutes, asking about the children, about her new life. The crowd pressed close and listened.

  “Polly gives me reports when you two talk on the phone,” Lockwood said, “and I have some word from Julian when you see each other. But it’s not the same as seeing you. It was so nice of you, Leo, to bring Caroline here.”

  “Well, Mr. President,” said Leo, “I guess you could say you brought us together, so it’s only fair.”

  Everyone except Leo was careful not to look at Julian. The little man looked upwards at him, eyes dancing. Julian smiled. Charlotte, like a monkey snatching a grape from the floor of a cage, grinned brightly at this exchange between old husband and new.

  Caroline went on with the conversation as though nothing had been said. Patrick watched her, all his old feeling for her rekindled. She had always been invulnerable. When they were lovers he’d had a recurrent dream in which some part of Caroline’s body an arm or leg or sometimes even her trunk, would be cut off. Something would slice through the round flesh, and it would be the same inside as out, the color of ivory. In the dream, there was no blood; she would heal at once. She did the same in life.

  Finally Lockwood and Julian moved away. Most of the others drifted with them, so that there were expanses of empty space in the long room at one end, and a tight crowd of people at the other. Patrick and Charlotte and Leo and Caroline were quite alone.

  “If this room were a ship we’d turn turtle,” said Charlotte.

  Julian separated himself from the crowd and returned to them.

  “I wanted to say hello properly,” he said. “How are you both? Jenny and Elliott are all packed and sitting on their suitcases, waiting for you.”

  They exchanged dates and times; Caroline and Leo would pick up the children in Washington on the day the convention ended. Leo peppered Julian with questions; he was anxious that the surprise of the trip to Antarctica be preserved.

  “Between you and me,” Leo said, “Caroline finds it hard, not having the kids all the time. But you two did the right thing, giving you custody. Who but the Secret Service can protect the
m as long as you’re with Lockwood? I want you to know, Julian, I do everything I can to keep them safe. They’re like my own.”

  Julian nodded. Leo had seized his arm in his sincerity.

  Caroline watched their reflection in the glass. Now that it was after ten and all the lights of the city were extinguished, the blackness outside made a funhouse mirror of the twisted glass. That was the idea of it. It was a work of art that created a kaleidoscope of new works of art. The crowd around Lockwood was reflected as a long crawling creature with a glittering back, the women’s jewels, and many short black legs, the men’s trousers.

  Julian said, “Patrick, come with me to the piano.” They walked together to the instrument. A few alert heads turned but no one approached. Julian put a finger on a treble key and pressed it silently; only he and Patrick heard the hammer brush the wire.

  “I’ve looked into that Ibn Awad question since we talked,” he said.

  “So have I,” Patrick replied.

  “And?”

  “There’s some persuasive evidence, Julian. I suppose Emily told you about our encounter with Clive Wilmot in that place in San Francisco.”

  “Yes. What’s his purpose?”

  Graham looked away. “I’ve no idea. You know, of course, that if I don’t handle this story Clive will find someone else who will?”

  Julian sighed. “Yes. Patrick, I think it would be unwise to jump into this too quickly. I’m checking, but there’s a limit to how much I can do while the convention is going on.”

  “You’ll have to do something soon. It’s a choice of doing it before the story breaks, or reacting afterwards.”

  “Yes. That’s the standard set of choices.”

  The cords in Julian’s neck were stretched tighter than usual.

  Caroline had turned around again and was watching him and Patrick.

  “I only wanted to tell you that I’ll talk to you as soon as I have a full picture of this thing,” Julian said.

  “I want to talk to Lockwood.”

  The President had separated himself from the crowd. Twenty minutes had passed since his arrival. He was walking across the room through eddies of laughing people, hand in hand with Suzie Stanwood. Julian struck a series of treble quarter notes on the piano, nine rising followed by nine falling.

  “The song of the Maryland yellowthroat,” he said. “The President may want to come on the air with you, Patrick. Go slow. Be patient.” Horace had been gone for a week. “Wait a little,” Julian said.

  Lockwood, his face still alight with the long anecdote he’d just told, shook hands with Patrick. Politicians have a look about them when they stop recognizing faces after days of campaigning. Lockwood had it now as he wrung Patrick’s hand, squeezed his forearm. Suddenly he realized who Patrick was, and the intelligence came back into his gaze.

  “Patrick,” he said, “we’ve got to get together. It’s been too long.”

  “So Julian and I were just saying to each other.”

  Patrick looked deep into Lockwood’s eyes. He saw nothing there but the same clear conscience he’d always seen. The President gave his arm one more squeeze and was borne off into the crowd again.

  Patrick turned to Julian. “How much truth are you telling him?”

  “About what?”

  Patrick reproduced the rudimentary tune Julian had picked out a moment before on the piano. “Why was Horace in your office every day? Where is he now?”

  Julian began to turn away. Patrick grasped his sleeve. The hard wool was so old—probably it was the same dinner jacket Julian had had at Yale—that it had a faint sheen of green under the bright light that was focused on the piano. The Stanwoods’ whole apartment was lit like a stage set; it was even signed on one white wall with the bold signature of the theatrical designer who had done it for them. The place was on the edge of going out of style; people were beginning to copy it.

  “You’ve been very careful not to lie to me, Julian. Are you doing the President the same favor, you and Horace?”

  “Patrick…” Julian’s bony shoulders shrugged.

  “Horace left the country, Julian. Where did he go?”

  Patrick’s face, usually so smooth, had its old look, like a face inked on a knuckle, with emotions twitching beneath the surface like a joint under the skin.

  Lockwood was leaving. Julian shook off Patrick’s hand and followed him out the door.

  15

  Next day, there were more looking glasses in Caroline’s hotel suite. She offered Patrick Graham a drink from the tray on a side table, but he refused. Caroline shrugged, and her image was thrown from one mirrored wall to another. She looked like her old self: jeans, a simple blouse, a scarf knotted under her falling hair. Her shoes, Patrick knew, had cost three hundred dollars. She wore a throwaway discount store watch on her wrist.

  Patrick took her downstairs to the bar; the food was good, and it wasn’t a place where he’d be likely to encounter anyone who knew him.

  Caroline didn’t look at the menu. For tax purposes, Leo owned the suite they were staying in and her tastes were known. The waiter brought her a spinach salad and a glass of iced tea. She ate the salad without pausing, then sat back and watched Patrick debone a grilled sole. He did it with dexterity, lifting out the spine and ribs in one piece and leaving two plump pieces of white flesh on his plate.

  He let the fish go cold. Patrick didn’t really like to eat. Caroline remembered that about him, the tiny mouthfuls slowly chewed. An invisible mother seemed to stand by him, muttering encouragement: Don’t you want nice strong teeth? Wouldn’t you like wonderful curly hair? He was deaf to her coaxing.

  “Caro, I want to talk to you.”

  “So I gathered.”

  “You’re the only truly daring person I’ve ever known.”

  “Oh, dung, Ahmed.”

  Patrick was startled. “Out of what dark pocket did that name come?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Seeing you. You haven’t changed at all, except to get rich.”

  Caroline reached across the table and snuffed out the cigarette Patrick had left burning in the ashtray. She called the waiter and he took the ashtray away.

  “I’m just back from Baghdad,” Patrick said. “The people are no better off now than they were in the sixties. It’s the same all over the Third World. Hopelessness, flesh dropping off people’s faces from untreated disease; bad diet, sleeping minds. Nothing has worked.”

  “I know that.”

  “You don’t care.”

  “They don’t care. Why don’t they build boats and come and kill us? Or even kill their own leaders? They’ve had long enough.”

  “You know why.”

  “Yes, and so do you by this time. Patrick, whatever we said to each other when we were young, we always knew that change was an impossibility. It really made no difference to us. We could always go back to being Americans. Face it—we were just fucking around.”

  “You, maybe. Not me; not in any way.”

  Caroline gave him along look, and a grin spread over her face. Within this polished man she did see the boy, posing for her, as for a photographer, in revolutionary’s rags.

  “I believe you,” she said. “You are still the same. I see it sometimes on television. When you were on with Mallory last week you burned with loathing for him.”

  “You don’t burn anymore, Caro?”

  “I love Lockwood. That’s a personal thing. Can he stop Mallory? Not in the long run, Patrick. Nobody can. Mallory is right, you know—he’s seen the really vital point about mankind.”

  “Mallory has?”

  “Yes. It’s obvious. Humanity is sick and tired of being what it is. It’s always wanted to escape from its state of being—into the ocean seas, the Indies, the frontier, the New Frontier, space, the life hereafter, war—anything to kill the boredom. You and I and all the other pathetic asses in the Movement were desperately trying to fly out of ourselves. Why do you think angels—and devils, too—have wings? Behind all
the religion and all the bullshit about how wonderful we are—’humanity’ is a word meaning instinctive goodness, the one quality humanity lacks totally—the real fact about this race is its incurable self-disgust. Mallory sees that.”

  “I won’t believe that.”

  “Of course you won’t. That’s why you always hated Julian, apart from the sexual competition. He was different from you and me. Ahmed and Fat’ma—I mean, Jesus! We had to see things through filters—drugs or illusion. Julian at least looked at them as they were.”

  “Julian? Do you think he saw you as you were?”

  “Oh, yes. That’s why he never loved me. And that’s why I loved him, you know—because he wouldn’t love me. He refused to think that loving me was important. To Julian, our marriage, and our love affair before it, was like Russia. I was the invader. I’d advance and advance like Napoleon or the Wehrmacht, leaving scorched earth behind me. Julian was the imperturbable Russian general. He just kept on retreating. In the end, he knew I’d march into the winter and freeze to death.”

  Caroline’s eyes were bright; in the darkened bar their glistening was like alighting effect—where did the light reflected in them come from? Patrick had never heard her talk so much. Her speech when they were living together had to be pulled out of her; days would go by while she read or watched hours of television or practiced yoga in utter silence.

  Even later, after she and Julian had married, she seldom spoke to Patrick. When she did, it was usually to hurl some bitter witticism. In Washington, she’d had a certain fame out of that; he feared her at his dinner table.

  Patrick realized that the only subject that had ever truly interested Caroline was Julian. Everything else bored her. Anger, all the old injury and sense of loss, rose in Patrick; then it left him. He felt free; never before had he been with Caroline without having in his heart some fragment of hope that she would come back to him and love him. He’d seen at last that that could never happen.