Democracy (9 page)

“Lovett.” Janet was examining the curtains. “His name is Jack Lovett. This is just possibly the ugliest print I have ever seen.”

“Batik,” Frances Landau said. “A national craft. Lovett then.”

“Frances is so instructive,” Janet said. “Batik. A national craft. There is batik and there is batik, Frances. For your information.”

Frances Landau emptied an ice tray into a plastic bucket. “What does he do?”

Inez stood up. “I believe he’s setting up an export credit program, Frances.” She glanced at Billy Dillon. “Operating independently of Pertamina.”

“AID funding,” Billy Dillon said. “Exploring avenues. Et cetera.”

“So he said.” Frances Landau dropped three of the ice cubes into a glass. “In those words.”

“I thought he was in the aircraft business,” Janet said. “Inez? Wasn’t he? When he was married to Betty Bennett? I’d be just a little leery of those ice cubes if I were you, Frances. Ice cubes are not a national craft.”

“Really, the aircraft business,” Frances Landau said. “Boeing? Douglas? What aircraft business?”

“I wouldn’t develop this any further, Frances,” Harry Victor said.

“I’d definitely let it lie,” Billy Dillon said. “In country.”

“It’s not that clear cut,” Harry Victor said.

“But this is ludicrous,” Frances Landau said.

“Not black and white,” Harry Victor said.

“Pretty gray, actually,” Billy Dillon said. “In country.”

“But this is everything I despise.” Frances Landau looked at Harry Victor. “Everything you despise.”

Inez looked at Billy Dillon.

Billy Dillon shrugged.

“Harry, if you could hear yourself. ‘Not that clear cut.’ ‘Not black and white.’ That’s not the Harry Victor I—”

Frances Landau broke off.

There was a silence.

“The four of you are really fun company,” Janet said.

“This conversation,” Frances Landau said, “is making me quite ill.”

“That or the ice cubes,” Janet said.

When Inez remembered that week in Jakarta in 1969 she remembered mainly the cloud cover that hung low over the city and trapped the fumes of sewage and automobile exhaust and rotting vegetation as in a fetid greenhouse. She remembered the cloud cover and she remembered lightning flickering on the horizon before dawn and she remembered rain washing wild orchids into the milky waste ditches.

She remembered the rumors.

There had been new rumors every day.

The newspapers, censored, managed to report these rumors by carrying stories in which they deplored the spreading of rumors, or, as the newspapers put it, the propagation of falsehoods detrimental to public security. In order to deplore the falsehoods it was of course necessary to detail them, which was the trick. Among the falsehoods deplored one day was a rumor that an American tourist had been killed in the rioting at Surabaya, the rioting at Surabaya being only another rumor, deplored the previous day. There was a further rumor that the
Straits Times
in Singapore was reporting not only an American tourist but also a German businessman killed, and rioting in Solo as well as in Surabaya, but even the existence of the
Straits Times
report was impossible to confirm because the
Straits Times
was said to have been confiscated at customs. The rumor that the
Straits Times
had been confiscated at customs was itself impossible to confirm, another falsehood detrimental to public security, but there was no
Straits Times
in Jakarta for the rest of that week.

Inez remembered Harry giving a press conference and telling the wire reporters who showed up that the rioting in Surabaya reflected the normal turbulence of a nascent democracy.

Inez remembered Billy Dillon negotiating with the wire reporters to move Harry’s press conference out in time for Friday deadlines at the New York
Times
and the Washington
Post
“I made him available, now do me a favor,” Billy Dillon said. “I don’t want him on the wire so late he makes the papers Sunday afternoon, you see my point.”

Inez remembered Jack Lovett asking Billy Dillon if he wanted the rioting rescheduled for the Los Angeles
Times
.

Inez remembered:

The reception for Harry at the university the night before the grenade exploded in the embassy commissary. She remembered Harry saying over and over again that Americans were learning major lessons in Southeast Asia. She remembered Jack Lovett saying finally that he could think of only one lesson Americans were learning in Southeast Asia. What was that, someone said. Harry did not say it, Harry was too careful to have said it. Billy Dillon was too careful to have said it. Frances Landau or Janet must have said it. What was that, Frances Landau or Janet said, and Jack Lovett clipped a cigar before he answered.

“A tripped Claymore mine explodes straight up,” Jack Lovett said.

There had been bare light bulbs blazing over a table set with trays of sweetened pomegranate juice, little gold chairs set in rows, some kind of trouble outside: troops appearing at the doors and the occasional crack of a rifle shot, the congressman says, the congressman believes, major lessons for Americans in Southeast Asia.

“Let’s move it out,” Jack Lovett said.

“Goddamnit I’m not through,” Harry Victor said.

“I believe some human rights are being violated on the verandah,” Jack Lovett said.

Harry had turned back to the director of the Islamic Union.

Janet’s hand had hovered over the sweetened pomegranate juice as if she expected it to metamorphose into a vodka martini.

Inez had watched Jack Lovett. She had never before seen Jack Lovett show dislike or irritation. Dislike and irritation were two of many emotions that Jack Lovett made a point of not showing, but he was showing them now.

“You people really interest me,” Jack Lovett said. He said it to Billy Dillon but he was looking at Harry. “You don’t actually see what’s happening in front of you. You don’t see it unless you read it. You have to read it in the New York
Times
, then you start talking about it. Give a speech. Call for an investigation. Maybe you can come down here in a year or two, investigate what’s happening tonight.”

“You don’t understand,” Inez had said.

“I understand he trots around the course wearing blinders, Inez.”

Inez remembered:

Jack Lovett coming to get them in the coffee shop of the Borobudur the next morning, after the grenade was lobbed into the embassy commissary. The ambassador, he said, had a bungalow at Puncak. In the mountains. Inez and Janet and the children were to wait up there. Until the situation crystallized. A few hours, not far, above Bogor, a kind of resort, he would take them up.

“A hill station,” Janet said. “Divine.”

“Don’t call it a hill station,” Frances Landau said. “ ‘Hill station’ is an imperialist term.”

“Let’s save the politics until we get up there,” Jack Lovett said.

“I don’t want to go,” Frances Landau said.

“Nobody gives a rat’s ass if you go or don’t go,” Jack Lovett said. “You’re not a priority dependent.”

“Isn’t this a little alarmist,” Harry Victor said. Harry was cracking a boiled egg. Jack Lovett watched him spoon out the egg before he answered.

“This was a swell choice for a family vacation,” Jack Lovett said then. “A regular Waikiki. I wonder why the charters aren’t onto it. I also wonder if you know what it would cost us to get a congressman’s kid back.”

Jack Lovett’s voice was pleasant, and so was Harry’s.

“Ah,” Harry said. “No. Not unless it’s been in the New York
Times.
”

Inez remembered:

The green lawn around the ambassador’s bungalow at Puncak, the gardenia hedges.

The faded chintz slipcovers in the bungalow at Puncak, the English primroses, the tangles of bamboo and orchids in the ravine.

The mists blowing in at Puncak.

Standing with Jack Lovett on the green lawn at Puncak with the mists blowing in over the cracked concrete of the empty swimming pool, over the ravine, over the tangles of bamboo and orchids, over the English primroses.

Standing with Jack Lovett.

Inez remembered that.

Inez also remembered that the only person killed when the grenade exploded in the embassy commissary was an Indonesian driver from the motor pool. The news had come in on the radio at Puncak while Inez and Jack Lovett sat in the dark on the porch waiting for word that it was safe to take the children back down to Jakarta. There had been fireflies, Inez remembered, and a whine of mosquitoes. Jessie and Adlai were inside the bungalow trying to get Singapore television and Janet was inside the bungalow trying to teach the houseman how to make coconut milk punches. The telephones were out. The radio transmission was mainly static. According to the radio other Indonesian and American personnel had sustained minor injuries but the area around the embassy was secure. The ambassador was interviewed and expressed his conviction that the bombing of the embassy commissary was an isolated incident and did not reflect the mood of the country. Harry was interviewed and expressed his conviction that this isolated incident reflected only the normal turbulence of a nascent democracy.

Jack Lovett had switched off the radio.

For a while there had been only the whining of the mosquitoes.

Jack Lovett’s arm was thrown over the back of his chair and in the light that came from inside the bungalow Inez could see the fine light hair on the back of his wrist. The hair was neither blond nor gray but was lighter than Jack Lovett’s skin. “You don’t understand him,” Inez said finally.

“Oh yes I do,” Jack Lovett said. “He’s a congressman.”

Inez said nothing.

The hair on the back of Jack Lovett’s wrist was translucent, almost transparent, no color at all.

“Which means he’s a radio actor,” Jack Lovett said. “A civilian.”

Inez could hear Janet talking to the houseman inside the bungalow. “I said coconut milk,” Janet kept saying. “Not goat milk. I think you thought I said goat milk. I think you misunderstood.”

Inez did not move.

“Who is Frances,” Jack Lovett said.

Inez did not answer immediately. Inez had accepted early on exactly what Billy Dillon had told her: girls like Frances came with the life. Frances came with the life the way fundraisers came with the life. Sometimes fundraisers were large and in a hotel and sometimes fundraisers were small and at someone’s house and sometimes the appeal was specific and sometimes the appeal was general but they were all the same. There was always the momentary drop in the noise level when Harry came in and there were always the young men who talked to Inez as a way of ingratiating themselves with Harry and there were always these very pretty women of a type who were excited by public life. There was always a Frances Landau or a Connie Willis. Frances Landau was a rich girl and Connie Willis was a singer but they were just alike. They listened to Harry the same way. They had the same way of deprecating their own claims to be heard.

It’s just a means to an end, Frances said about her money.

I just do two lines of coke and scream, Connie said about her singing.

If there were neither a Frances nor a Connie there would be a Meredith or a Brooke or a Binky or a Lacey. Inez considered trying to explain this to Jack Lovett but decided against it. She knew about certain things that came with her life and Jack Lovett knew about certain things that came with his life and none of these things had any application to this moment on this porch. Jack Lovett reached for his seersucker jacket and put it on and Inez watched him. She could hear Janet telling Jessie and Adlai about the goat milk in the coconut milk punches. “It’s part of the exaggerated politeness these people have,” Janet said. “They’ll never admit they didn’t understand you. That would imply you didn’t speak clearly, a no-no.”

“Either that or he didn’t have any coconut milk,” Jack Lovett said.

Frances did not have any application to this moment on this porch and neither did Janet.

Inez closed her eyes.

“We should go back down,” she said finally. “I think we should go back down.”

“I bet you think that would be the ‘correct thing,’ ” Jack Lovett said. “Don’t you. Miss Manners.”

Inez sat perfectly still. Through the open door she could see Janet coming toward the porch.

Jack Lovett stood up. “We’ve still got it,” he said. “Don’t we.”

“Got what,” Janet said as she came outside.

“Nothing,” Inez said.

“Plenty of nothing,” Jack Lovett said.

Janet looked from Jack Lovett to Inez.

Inez thought that Janet would tell her story about the coconut milk punches but Janet did not. “Don’t you dare run off together and leave me in Jakarta with Frances,” Janet said.

That was 1969. Inez Victor saw Jack Lovett only twice again between 1969 and 1975, once at a large party in Washington and once at Cissy Christian’s funeral in Honolulu. For some months after the evening on the porch of the bungalow at Puncak it had seemed to Inez that she might actually leave Harry Victor, might at least separate herself from him in a provisional way—rent a small studio, say, or make a discreet point of not going down to Washington, and of being at Amagansett when he was in New York—and for a while she did, but only between campaigns.

Surely you remember Inez Victor campaigning.

Inez Victor smiling at a lunch counter in Manchester, New Hampshire, her fork poised over a plate of scrambled eggs and toast.

Inez Victor smiling at the dedication of a community center in Madison, Wisconsin, her eyes tearing in the bright sun because it had been decided that she looked insufficiently congenial in sunglasses.

Inez Victor speaking her famous Spanish at a street festival in East Harlem.
Buenos días
, Inez Victor said on this and other such occasions.
Yo estoy muy contenta a estar aquí hoy con mi esposo
. In twenty-eight states and at least four languages Inez Victor said that she was very happy to be here today with her husband. In twenty-eight states she also said, usually in English but in Spanish for
La Opinión
in Los Angeles and for
La Prensa
in Miami, that the period during which she and her husband were separated had been an important time of renewal and rededication for each of them (
vida nueva
, she said for
La Opinión
, which was not quite right but since the reporter was only humoring Inez by conducting the interview in Spanish he got the drift) and had left their marriage stronger than ever. Oh shit, Inez, Jack Lovett said to Inez Victor in Wahiawa on the thirtieth of March, 1975. Harry Victor’s wife.