A Creed for the Third Millennium (28 page)

Dr Christian lifted up his telephone
receiver a little gingerly. 'Joshua Christian speaking. May I help
you?'

'Oh, good!' said a deep and familiar
voice. 'My name is Tibor Reece. I'm not usually in a position where I have to
announce who and what I am myself, but there are very good reasons why I'm
phoning you in person, Dr Christian.'

'Yes, Mr President?' What else did one
say?

'Dr Christian, I have read your book and
I am impressed. However, I'm not phoning you in person just to tell you that! I
have a favour to ask of you.'

'Of course, Mr President.'

'Would it be possible for you to come
down to Washington for a couple of days?'

'Yes, Mr President.'

'Thank you, Dr Christian. I'm sorry to
disturb your work, and I'm afraid the confidentiality of this matter makes it
impossible for me to organize transport for you, or invite you to stay with me
as my guest. But if you are willing to get to Washington under your own steam, I
will arrange for a room to be held in your name at the Hay-Adams Hotel - it's
comfortable and close to the White House. Can you bear with me through all these
inconveniences, Dr Christian?'

'Of course, Mr President.'

There was an audible sigh of relief from
the telephone. 'I will contact you at the Hay-Adams on — say —
Saturday?'

'This Saturday will be fine, Mr
President.' Did one have to keep on saying 'Mr President', or could one say
'sir' occasionally? Dr Christian decided that he would risk the occasional 'sir'
when he met the President. Otherwise how could one behave but
stiltedly?

'Thank you very much, Dr Christian. A
further favour, if I may?'

'Certainly, sir,' said Dr Christian
bravely.

'I would greatly appreciate it if you
kept this matter to yourself. Until Saturday?'

'Yes, Mr President.' No use pushing his
luck with the 'sirs'.

'Thank you again. Goodbye.'

Dr Christian sat, flummoxed, looking at
the receiver he still held in his hand, then he shrugged, cradled it.

Mary buzzed on the intercom. 'Josh?
Everything okay?'

'Fine, thanks.'

'Who was it?'

'Are you alone, Mair?'

'Yes.'

'It really was the President. I have to
go to Washington, but he doesn't want it spread around.' Dr Christian heaved a
sigh. 'It's Thursday afternoon, and he wants me down there by I presume Saturday
morning. But the matter's confidential, so there will be no travel priorities
for me this time. Do you think you can try to find me a seat on tomorrow's
train?'

'Can do. Would you like me to come with
you?'

'Good Lord, no, I can manage! But I guess
I shouldn't say anything to the rest of the family, so what excuse am I going to
find for a rush trip to Washington?'

'That's easy,' said Mary dryly. 'Tell
them you're going to see Dr Carriol.'

'Why didn't I think of that? What a
clever puss you are!'

'No, I'm not clever. It's just that
sometimes, Joshua Christian,
you
are dumb!' And his sister cut off her
end of the intercom with an angry squeal that hurt his ears.

'Well, I've sure done something, but I do
wish I knew what,' he muttered.

The confidentiality of the matter may
have prevented the President from inviting Dr Christian to stay at the White
House, but the arrangements made for his accommodation in Washington were very
nice, and when Dr Christian presented his Totocred card for vetting, it was
waved away. He had walked from Union Station using a street map, and was in his
room waiting for Tibor Reece to call by midday Saturday.

The call came through about two o'clock,
and something in the President's voice told Dr Christian that this was not the
first such call. Oh, dear! However, there were no overt or covert reproaches;
the President just sounded extremely glad to find Dr Christian had
arrived.

'I'll send a car to pick you up at four,'
said Tibor Reece, and hung up so quickly Dr Christian had no time to protest
that he wouldn't mind the walk

Nor did he have much chance to inspect
the White House, for a servant conducted him swiftly through various corridors
to what seemed a private sitting room; in retrospect his chief impression was
one of disappointment It couldn't compare for beauty or elegance with any of the
European palaces or even stately homes he had toured via videotape during his
schooldays. In fact, he thought it rather sterile and dreary. Maybe the brevity
of its changing tenancies and the conflicting decorating ideas of its First
Ladies precluded its acquiring either beauty or elegance? There was certainly
nothing to rival the ground floor of 1047 Oak Street, in his humble opinion
anyway.

President Tibor Reece and Dr Joshua
Christian did look very alike; each man recognized the fact in the moment of
meeting. Their eyes were level, a welcome and most unusual occurrence. And their
hands felt good intertwined, broad-based, long-fingered. Smooth-skinned, but
still working hands.

'We could be brothers,' said Tibor Reece,
gesturing to a chair opposite the one from which he
had risen to greet his guest. 'Please sit down, Doctor.'

Dr Christian sat, deciding that the
President's remark was not one he cared to comment on; he declined a drink,
accepted coffee, and said nothing while the coffee was brought and dispensed.
However, he was not at all uneasy, and his host sensed this gratefully; so often
the President had to exert precious energy he could ill afford to squander in
putting a guest at his ease.

'You're not a drinking man, Dr
Christian?'

'Only a good cognac after a meal, Mr
President. But I don't define that as a drinking man's habit. We got into it at
home to warm up for bed.'

The President smiled. There's no need to
apologize, Doctor. It's a very civilized habit.'

And so within minutes they established a
calm and mutually respectful rapport, more through their frequent silences than
through the chitchat custom dictated. Finally the President sighed and put his
cup down.

'Nitty-gritty time, Dr
Christian?'

'Yes, sir, I think so.'

But Tibor Reece said nothing more for a
moment, sitting with his hands clasped and frowning down at them. Then he made a
little shrugging movement with his shoulders, and glanced up quickly.

'Dr Christian, I have a personal problem
of some import, and I'm hoping you can help me. After reading your book, I am
sure you can.'

Dr Christian said nothing, merely
nodded.

'My wife is very disturbed. In fact,
after reading your book I'd call her a classic case of millennial neurosis — all
her problems are caused by the times we live in.'

'If she's very disturbed, sir, it may be
that there's more to it than neurosis. I say that only because I
can't allow you to hope I'm a universal healer.
I'm only a man.'

'Granted.'

The President embarked upon his tale,
never once stopping to remind Dr Christian of the matter's confidentiality,
though as he proceeded his disclosures became more and more harrowing, more and
more humiliating. And more and more potentially dangerous to himself, if he had
judged his man wrongly. In actual fact he was not relying entirely upon his own
judgment; Dr Judith Carriol had investigated this man with exquisite
thoroughness, and nothing had uncovered a tendency to betray patients'
confidences, or innate lack of principles.

Tibor Reece was a desperate man. His
domestic blisses were nonexistent, conjugal relations were nonexistent, a proper
degree of love and care for his daughter was nonexistent. And his wife's
self-preoccupation was ever increasing. The possibility of a nationwide scandal
was something he had lived with so long it did not concern him nearly as much as
the purely personal aspects. Clearly what he really wanted was a healed wife
rather than a cowed one.

'What do you want me to do exactly?'
asked Dr Christian when the story was told.

'I
don't know, I honestly don't
know. For tonight, just stay to dinner, huh? Julia is always home on Saturday
and Sunday nights.' He smiled wryly. 'This is a Monday-to-Friday town, everyone
splits for the weekend, even Julia's boyfriends.'

'I'd be glad to stay for dinner,' said Dr
Christian.

'She will take a fancy to you, Doctor.
She does to any new masculine face. And you do look a bit like me.' He laughed,
the sound of a man who did not laugh enough. 'Of course that may mean she hates
you on sight! Though I doubt it. It wouldn't be in character. I shall arrange to
be called away at the end of the main course, to give you an opportunity to be
alone with her, and I'll stay away about half an
hour.' He looked at his watch. 'Good God! It's way after five already! My
daughter and I always meet here around five-thirty every day.'

The girl came in on the echo of his
words, escorted by a woman uniformed like a British nanny. The woman did not
stay, she merely bowed with great dignity to the President and went out,
shutting the door firmly behind her. And there was the girl, too tall, too thin,
too like her beaky sunken-cheeked father ever to be called attractive, though
time and a good course of ballet or gymnastics might improve her carriage and
her figure. Her name was Julia, too, but her father called her Julie; she was
about twelve or thirteen years old, definitely pubescent, and already close to
six feet in height. Poor thing.

She behaved with gross immaturity, her
antics more in keeping with a two-year-old. Her father had led her by the hand
to his chair and placed her on his lap, where she sat playing with his tie and
singing to herself tunelessly; it seemed she did not see Dr Christian sitting
watching, for she ignored him as if he wasn't there. She didn't speak. However,
every so often she managed to sneak a quick
glance at Dr Christian, a
furtive, purposive and calculating glance out of eyes that were unmistakably
intelligent. The first time he caught that gaze Dr Christian scarcely believed
what he saw, but immediately he arranged himself so that he could watch her from
under lids ostensibly directed elsewhere; for the instant her eyes encountered
his, she had switched the intelligence off. And after several minutes of playing
this game, Dr Christian began to wonder if she might be a borderline case of
autism. Certainly she was psychotic rather than retarded. Years before, he had
come to the conclusion that the rich and the famous and the socially prominent
were often less well served in the way of medical attention than many far less
fortunately circumstanced people. So he wondered if the girl had
ever actually been competently examined and tested, and he itched to send her to
the Mouse for a couple of days. No one in the world tested better than the
Mouse.

'Mr President,' he said after sitting
observing father and daughter for perhaps ten minutes, 'I wonder if it might be
possible to see your house? I'm afraid I didn't look too closely at anything on
my way in, and this is likely to be my only opportunity. Would it be too much
trouble for someone to show me around?'

Tibor Reece looked intensely grateful. He
picked up the telephone at his elbow, and within two more minutes had Dr
Christian organized, though on Saturday evening there were no professional
guides on duty.

'Let's take it very slowly,' said Dr
Christian to the housekeeper appointed as his escort. 'I want to take the lot
in!'

Thus it was close to seven o'clock when
he returned to the sitting room, after driving the Presidential housekeeper to
the brink of despair by poking and prodding and marvelling and questioning with
interminable thoroughness as he wandered from one room to another.

Julie had gone. Julia had
come.

The First Lady's conduct followed a
pattern Dr Christian recognized at once, for he had encountered women like her
many times before. No sooner was he ensconced on one end of a couch to which she
had directed him than she was ensconced on its other end, body twisted to face
him, one leg tucked under her, the whole pose designed not so much to reveal her
physical charms to him as it was to irritate her husband, who from where he was
sitting could not see precisely what or how much she was displaying to the
guest. And whatever Dr Christian said, she purred in answer, and whenever
possible would emphasize her delight in his dismally undistinguished
conversation by leaning across the vacant cushion between
them to touch him lightly on the arm, or the cheek, or the back of his hand. In
the days when people had smoked she would have made great play with his lighting
of her cigarette, and use the hand that held it to punctuate her pleasure in
him; to himself Dr Christian thought with amusement that when smoking
disappeared from the spectrum of human pursuits, so too did a lot of most
illuminating body language.

A very beautiful woman, Julia Reece.
Almost albino blonde, with rather prominent pale-blue eyes, a fine fair skin,
and a magnificent white bosom left generously on show, but not to the point of
indecency in a President's wife. She too was overly tall (which meant
genetically the child probably hadn't had a chance), but she was Venus-shaped, a
tiny waist separating the voluptuousnesses of chest and hips, and long lovely
legs. She dressed well, very expensively too. And she was about fifteen years
younger than her husband.