The Mandarin Club

by Gerald Felix Warburg

  At month’s end, Alexander was back, bronzed and mosquito-bitten. He appeared on Rachel’s doorstep one afternoon, sporting a salt and pepper beard he had yet to shave. They sat on the porch and talked for hours, floating along in a meandering conversation as the light angled across the top of the oak trees.

  There was a confidence about him once more, an openness to life, that she found utterly compelling. His ego was restored, his skepticism tempered. He had a wise heart and he listened—a man who actually listened! In his hearing, her self-analysis, which had tended over the years to become whiny and sophomoric, began to mature. She found herself climbing steadily again toward solid ground. It was then that Rachel, once again in the comfortable glow of his presence, began to suspect he was her guardian angel.

  On Friday morning, the week before the Congress returned, she called him at his office on a whim.

  “Are you working hard?” she asked.

  “Hardly working, actually. Just plodding through some Asia Society conference papers for a Sunday Current piece.”

  “Is it terribly interesting stuff?”

  “Of course. I found some documents tracking cash flows in and out of East Asia after the E-War. Did you know the Taiwan market is still off thirty-one percent, but Shanghai and Hong Kong have had a net increase in European investment?”

  “Fascinating,” she deadpanned.

  Alexander laughed. “I knew you’d agree.”

  “Is there any possibility I might corrupt you?”

  “Well, I have certain standards. But then, what exactly did you have in mind?”

  “I was thinking of playing hooky—a picnic maybe? It’s about eighty degrees and crystal clear. Seems like a mortal sin to waste one of these last summer days indoors. Can you take a long lunch?”

  “Best offer I’ve had all week.”

  “Great. By the way, what are you wearing?”

  “Is this one of those phone sex questions?” He chuckled again. “I thought you needed a really husky voice for those. But, since you asked, I’m clothed in journalists’ business casual: chinos and topsiders.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Why? Where are you taking me?”

  “Out to sea.”

  She picked him up forty-five minutes later with two salami sandwiches and special sauce from the Italian Store, and drove to Jack’s Boathouse, under the girders of Key Bridge at the foot of Georgetown. There was Jack himself, taking the sun in a weathered lawn chair, chatting with a couple of off-duty cabbies, who drank beer as they fished. A long line of green metal canoes lay on the pier in the sunshine.

  They sat on some moldy boat cushions in their rented canoe and launched into the gentle river flow. Rachel paddled strong in the prow, while from the stern, Alexander guided them with an almost imperceptible turn of the blade.

  She talked a steady stream into the breeze, Alexander urging her on, or steering her with a question. There was a rhythm to their work together, aided by a friendly current, which lulled her.

  “So, I’ve been thinking about going back to get my Ph.D,” she offered.

  “Really?”

  “Finally finishing something for once. I could teach some undergraduates American history as I go. I want to make sure the next generation knows what came before al-Quaida and the Internet. Remember the past—Santayana and all that.”

  “Remind me again how in the hell you ended up a lobbyist instead of a professor.”

  “I was the youngest,” she laughed easily. “Equal parts mediator and manipulator. Beneath the smart-ass act, I was actually incredibly insecure. I always wanted to make sure I figured out the process. That way, I could make peace, I could help everybody get what they wanted, and I could be their advocate. I never wanted to just watch and analyze things. That’s why I always balked at pure academics.”

  They floated through the narrows between Roosevelt Island and the Virginia shore. The Lincoln Memorial and its back porch were just coming into view around the southern tip of the thickly wooded island. The water lapped lazily at the marble steps.

  “I’ve been too damn busy for years,” she said. “I kind of had my head down, barreling ahead—probably welcomed all the distractions. All the background noise of modern life getting in the way; too busy to see things. I mean, Jamie will be gone in eight years, away to college and his own life.”

  “Makes a lot of sense,” he said, following her carefully from the stern. “Getting back to your history thing, you were such a happy student once upon a time.”

  “I just feel burnt out. I wish I could achieve something that’ll last beyond the next pay check. Something with some enduring value beyond the next election cycle. I mean, it could be just building a house for Habitat for Humanity. You know, one real roof over the heads of one needy family. Or help save an acre of rain forest off in Costa Rica.”

  “You’re not burnt out.”

  “I wonder sometimes.” She stopped paddling for a bit, then turned in the boat to catch a glimpse of him. He was wearing a blue Nationals cap that clashed awkwardly with his maroon polo shirt. “I’m just feeling so damn restless.”

  “Restless is good. Lotta great things spring from restless minds.”

  “How you figure?”

  “Lewis and Clark. Bill Gates. Teddy Roosevelt—they were all restless guys. I mean, Winston Churchill was an insomniac. Wrote volumes of history all night.”

  “He was well-lubricated, if memory serves me correctly. Gin, wasn’t it?”

  “He stayed up late scheming to outlast the Nazis. The gin must have helped; he pulled it off. So, yeah, restless is good.”

  He shifted their course, circling back to the north along the eastern shoreline of Roosevelt Island. The park was deserted—no joggers out with their retrievers in the midday heat.

  “So you think I’m driven?” she asked. “I feel as if I’ve been direction-less for months.”

  “Rachel, you’ve been one of the most driven people I’ve known since the day I first met you in Palo Alto. You used to intimidate grad students much older than you. You’d take on anybody, anytime. But after what you’ve been through lately, my God, if you hadn’t become a little reflective, you’d be pretty twisted.”

  “You’ve been through a few changes, too, lately,” she said, smiling weakly as she observed the water dripping from the end of her rutted paddle. The drops formed circles pulsing away from the canoe. “You’re starting to show some signs of life, Bonner.”

  “You lectured me on the subject, if I recall. That day in Upperville. Challenged me to come out of hibernation, or something.”

  “And you finally have. Don’t you see?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You were feeling so sorry for yourself. Especially after you screwed up that krytron story and got pounded. You were in danger of becoming a little pathetic. Now, you give a damn again. About the China story. About doing your best. You care about me. You take risks.” She turned her head to look at him again. “You’re driven, too.”

  “Well, I care about my work, about getting it right. I actually believe that line about newspapers being the first draft of history. I feel like only the good writing gets preserved. The rest of the garbage—the McPaper junk—will just get used for kitty litter. But, hey, I’m not like you. You seem obsessed sometimes. Like you’ve got to be the perfect super-woman.”

  “Sure, or else they’re all going to find out I’m some kind of fraud, some kid from Cody just playing grown-up.”

  “It’s another reason I don’t envy women at all. You have these incredibly contradictory role models you’re supposed to fulfill. Look at the crap on the newsstands. I mean, how can you live up to Ms., Good Housekeeping, and Oprah, all at the same time?”

  “Not to mention Playboy and all that soft porn on the drug store magazine racks.”

  “It’s no surprise to me that women stress out when they can’t be all things at once. It’s impossible.”

  “Goddamn Madison Avenue. T
hey make us all feel like failures.”

  “You shouldn’t work at it so hard, Rachel. Sometimes with your stuff—with Barry, with your job, hell, even back in the Stanford days—it seems like you’re dancing to someone else’s tune.”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “Well, maybe it’s time to find your own music. Find your own inspiration. I’d love you, whatever that was.”

  Rachel considered this last declaration for some time before she spoke. “You know, that’s probably the answer to about a thousand women’s group questions. The one they all try to figure out.”

  “Say what?”

  “The ‘what do women really want?’ one.”

  “Oh. Sorry, didn’t mean to pontificate.”

  “Don’t apologize, silly. It is. Women just want to be appreciated for who they truly are. Not for some performance they pull off. At the office. Or in the kitchen. Or in the sack, for that matter.”

  Alexander was studying her from behind, wishing he could read her eyes. Her arms swung wide in oversized gestures as she paddled, carving the air in big circles. Across the water, the few faces along the Georgetown waterfront were too distant to discern. Beyond the Whitehurst Freeway and the Watergate Towers, the city loomed, all glass and steel and silence. Inside, work was grinding on, churning out the memos and e-mails that passed for the city’s natural product.

  “You got me all figured out, wise guy,” she said after a time. Then she set her paddle across the bow and they began to drift. “So, what the hell do I do now?”

  “Now?”

  “I mean, next.”

  “Right. Well, I guess I’m afraid you’ll move out west somewhere. You and Jamie. Head for the ranch, get closer to his uncles, or something.” “And you’ll stay here chasing that damn Pulitzer until you’re eighty?” “Unless I actually win sometime. Probably wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I did.”

  “You’re like a dog chasing a car,” she laughed. “What the hell would you do if you caught it? By the way, are you really worried we’ll leave town?”

  “Of course I am,” he admitted. “With Barry gone and your work stuff sounding kind of shaky, I’m not sure what holds you to this city on a swamp.”

  “So, do you have an alternative plan?”

  “I suppose I could come up with one. . . if pressed.”

  “Try me.”

  He didn’t speak at first, yet she could feel his eyes on her back. “I think you should stay right here in town. Find something meaningful to do, like you said. Something enduring.”

  “Such as?”

  “Oh, all kinds of things.” She could hear his breathing now, anxious as he paused. “Work for some non-profit—I’m sure they’d love your expertise—getting money for housing. You could teach history at Georgetown. Take some real chances. . .”

  He paused, watching a jet climbing north from the airport, before he added, as if an afterthought. “Maybe have another baby.”

  “A baby?” She spun her shoulders full around in the canoe and stared. “I’m well past forty. Soon to be divorced. Potentially unemployed. . . and you think I should have another baby?”

  “Well, I mean. . . sure. That’s enduring.”

  She was shaking her head slowly now, an incredulous grin spreading. “You’re quite a piece of work, Bonner. You really think an old man like you is up to it?”

  He splashed her once. It was just a reflex, just a quick flick of the paddle. He was joshing, but it was a critical miscalculation. Her back was hit by the sudden spray, soaking into her red T-shirt.

  She came back strong, two hands full of river water across his face. He retaliated with the paddle again, soaking her front this time. She came after him now with an open can of beer. As she reached and he dodged, she lurched over the edge and fell into the river.

  She surfaced quickly, grasping the edge and flipping the canoe, tossing Alexander into the shallows alongside her. Alexander was gasping when he came up, hip deep in the water, somehow grabbing the cooler with their sandwiches. He hollered as she pointlessly splashed his face again, the last residues of tension washing away.

  They struggled to right the canoe, then finally pushed it, stumbling in the muck on the uneven river bottom, until they beached it on a deserted strip of sand on the eastern side of Roosevelt Island. Somehow, two beers and the sandwiches were salvaged.

  They made their picnic right there on the shore. They sat unobserved in their own secluded cove, waiting for their clothes to dry. Everything around them was stillness, save the river flowing smoothly past, unheard. Awkwardly at first, they began to kiss. In the silence, they began to caress each other, fingers tracing lines as they lay at the edge of the sand on their private island. Their eyes were open and their bodies warm, absorbing the simple touches.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked, his eyes on the sky.

  “I was thinking that at this moment, after all these years, we are finally breathing the same air,” she replied, her certainty growing. “I love this air.”

  They laughed together and kissed some more, eyes closed now. Then they were entwined, enveloping each other, and they made love in the gentle heat, oblivious to the busy city all around them.

  SEPTEMBER

  PENANCE AND LIBERATION

  Mickey Dooley found the irony quite delicious. The CIA recruiters for Asia work now preferred UC Berkeley’s graduates to those from Stanford.

  In the old days, the Agency fed off the preppier grads, the more reliably Establishment students from the sylvan haven down on the “Farm” in Palo Alto. Berkeley was then considered suspect: too close to the People’s Park crowd, Telegraph Avenue, and the Viet Cong sympathizers on the radical fringe. Since the Mandarin Club’s campus days, however, Serra House had drawn considerable resources from the local high tech companies most eager to promote U.S.-China trade. Silicon Valley satellite vendors, software designers, high performance computer execs—they were the Serra House champions now. Power politics and analysis of China’s byzantine bureaucratic factions had become a Berkeley specialty. So the CIA talent scouts increasingly targeted the Chinese-American linguists and expatriates at Cal.

  It was in post-Cold War Berkeley that Langley had placed considerable assets. These included a modest new investment in Mickey, whose first consulting job back in the States was there on the fringe of the sprawling UC campus.

  It was a gorgeous fall—dry days and cool nights—in the Berkeley hills above the noise and smog on Interstate 80. Branko had been good to him, more than fulfilling his every commitment. He had taken the heat from within the administration and the congressional oversight committees for the messy exfiltration effort on July 4. He had also promised to use all available assets on the ground in Beijing to watch Lee’s back, though he gave Mickey no operational details. In the wake of the E-war and the bitterness produced by the cancellation of the Seattle summit, U.S.-China relations remained moribund. Branko had apparently failed to make contact with Lee through back channels, and Mickey had no news of their old friend in the PRC’s Foreign Ministry.

  Branko arranged for the Agency to fly Mickey east a couple of times. He sat on an ad hoc committee with some of Branko’s staff reviewing China analysis, providing alternative views, testing old assumptions. While China issues were hot, it nevertheless seemed like make-work. It was as if Langley was just keeping tabs on him or holding him in reserve for some future effort. Mickey knew he wasn’t seeing anything particularly fresh or sensitive, nor was he apprised of any detail on the desperate effort to penetrate the Red Dragons. The riddle of the cowboys deep inside the Second Directorate was too raw for Mickey to see any of the good stuff.

  Branko did let down his reserve for an unusual dinner invitation, welcoming Mickey into his home for a family meal. Just seeing Branko calmly serving up plates to his four youngsters, and watching his wife Erika and the new baby, made Mickey ever more reverential. Branko was so purposeful, but such a decent guy for a spook. That was the Branko he had
known back in college. That was the man Branko had grown to be. Over the course of that simple meal—Branko had even asked Mickey to say the grace—Mickey felt years of chill between them melt. Lost respect was restored, suspicion replaced by touches of the camaraderie of old. This restoration alone brought Mickey contentment, as if, amongst so many of his failures, here was one mission where success remained at least a possibility.

  Mostly, Mickey found himself on the sidelines as events marched onward. He awaited the arrival of some of his clothes and papers a family friend had retrieved from his Beijing closets. He spent some time with a RAND affiliate, doing a long-range study, funded by the CIA, on Chinese technology policy.

  Having been terminated by Telstar, he was persona non grata in Beijing, and any overt cooperation Mickey might have offered the company could only have harmed their sales. The Chinese had long memories. So it was a very quick goodbye, a slice of Telstar stock tossed into his abrupt severance package, and Mickey was floating free.

  It was a gift from the gods—this isolation that afforded him so many hours with the boys. He would meet their school bus each afternoon, sitting on the curb chatting amiably with the waiting au pairs and mothers, flirting in his jocular manner.

  It was a fantasy world for him, a voyage back to some wondrous childhood. He’d stay with the boys after school, playing catch, sipping lemonade and eating cookies. The boys, who were shy and quiet at school, would roll about and wrestle at home in the afternoon. Then they would do homework around the kitchen table. Mickey let them have “TV dinners” consisting of decent, mostly Italian food Mickey cooked up fresh and served up as they watched the baseball pennant race games together.

  They talked a lot when the sound was off, rambling conversations about California history and Spanish verb conjugations. For some time, Mickey felt guilty that the boys rarely spoke of their mother. He had taken them to a counselor, worried about the psychological toll their flight had exacted. The boys were remarkably unfazed by the new arrangements. They readily accepted Mickey’s declaration that this was the only way he could secure them a solid American education. He never interfered with Mei Mei’s letters or phone calls, which had already become less frequent. The one time they spoke directly on the phone, he promised her access whenever she decided to visit the States.