Exiles in the Garden (3 page)

Politics trumps friendship.

Eliot would have understood. Daylight rules.

The old man smiled wanly as the half-light of afternoon began to fail, the room growing dark. He mumbled something that Alec didn't hear, all the while scratching at his wrist. His skin was paper-thin and began to bleed. Alec took his father's hand but the old man was tremendously strong and continued to flay his wrist. At last this unexpected burst of energy began to ebb and he lay still. Alec felt in his pocket for the Leica, the beautiful machine he had owned for more than forty years, a birthday present from his father. It did not seem correct to turn it against him now, and Alec did not favor catching subjects unawares, their attention elsewhere. This seemed to him an invasion of privacy. The truth was, he preferred stationary objects, the Confederate infantryman or a garden at dusk.

I hope you don't hold it against me, that argument we had.

Alec smiled. Which one?

You know darn well which one.

Yes, of course.

I was out of bounds, the old man said. I admit it. But my God, son, you were a mystery to me. You were an enigma. Enigmas trouble me.

Alec had it now. That was the argument that had its origins at Arlington Cemetery—as it happened, the first time he had used the Leica professionally. A military funeral, a bright day in December, one of the World War Two generals laid to rest; a long shot of army brass standing stiff-backed in the cold, squinting into the sun. Alec had positioned himself well away from the gravesite and the other photographers. The morning sun was high in the southern sky. A sergeant major led the riderless horse, a black boot reversed in the right stirrup, the animal sleek as marble. From somewhere nearby an invisible bugler played taps, the notes distant and pure, vivid as primary colors, but unlike primary colors they did not photograph. One of the four-star pallbearers lifted his chin, in thrall to the moment. They gave the photograph four columns above the fold on page one of the newspaper, and the next day the managing editor called Alec in and asked if he'd like to do a tour in South Vietnam, six weeks only, and he'd replied no thank you, he had a wife and young daughter and for that reason did not belong in a war zone, the half-truth delivered with effortless aplomb; and all that time he was holding the Leica and imagining what a wonderful job it would do, so compact and durable, efficient in any light or in any weather. The lens was a miracle. Taking it to the war would be like taking a Maserati to a rodeo. Alec remembered the look of disappointment on the managing editor's face and realized that his days on the paper were numbered. Everyone was expected to take a turn in Vietnam. The other photographers had all put in for it, even the most senior man, a grandfather twice over who had nothing to prove to anyone, except he had been a combat photographer in World War Two, Pacific theater, and had won a prize and thought he was owed another. He looked up to Robert Capa as Kim Malone looked up to Henry Clay. All the photographers had Capa on their minds, his skill with movement in natural light, his merriment under fire. Also, Capa was attractive to women. The managing editor's disappointment was palpable because he thought Alec was a natural. Arlington proved it.

You told him no? Alec's father said when they met the next day.

Emphatically, Alec said. And he didn't like it.

I can see his point.

So can I, Alec said. He'll get over it.

You could do some good over there, you know. Your work is very powerful. You have the eye for it. Everyone says so.

No photograph ever ended a war, Alec said.

But we should all do our part. Whatever we can.

Photography glorifies, Alec said. It's not trustworthy.

Alec, the senator began.

Photography makes things worse, Alec said.

The senator rolled his eyes and sighed deeply. He did not understand how his own son could turn a blind eye to the war, fail to take a stand, the stand being an obligation of citizenship. Somewhere he had failed in his obligations as a father, as a United States senator if it came to that. But he had his own troubles. He was then in the middle stages of a difficult reelection campaign. The tide was running against him and the reason was his opposition to the war. His state was fundamentally conservative and in time of war a senator was expected to support the effort. Anything less was faint-hearted, almost a sin. His opponent was a retired army major who accused the senator of being yet another entrenched Washington bureaucrat with no knowledge of military affairs, a liberal meddler who had never himself "contributed." Not him, not his family, including his able-bodied son the newspaper photographer, all far from harm's way. This was the normal thing in Washington. Force the constituents to fight the battle. Don't you want a senator who's felt the sting of shot and shell? Alec, watching his father, said nothing further, but the look on the old man's face suggested to him that politics not only trumped friendship, it trumped blood.

Well, the senator said, it's your choice.

Sorry, Alec said.

No need to get sarcastic with me—

You'll win your race, Alec said.

Of course I will.

Push comes to shove, they'll want you back in the Senate.

It would have been quite an adventure for you, Vietnam.

Adventure? Not my sort of adventure.

Evidently, the senator said. I don't blame you for being scared. Anyone would be. I would be. I'm sure your wife's pleased.

That's what you think it is?

Sure. Part of it anyway. Why not?

I don't think it is, Alec said.

My only point is, I hope you've thought it through.

More than you have, Alec said. You didn't listen a minute ago. Photography is not trustworthy. Then, wondering how far he could push things with his father, Alec added one more thought. Photography doesn't belong in a war, he said, realizing as he said it that in six words he had swept away a hundred years of images, from Mathew Brady onward. But it was also true that Brady's photographs of the Union dead were beautiful and no less beautiful because they forced you to look and then look away before you looked once again. Robert Capa's falling Spanish militiaman was a masterpiece of arrested action, a true
nature morte,
as formally beautiful as Book 13 of the
Iliad.
The archive was full. Alec had no desire to add to it.

They were in his father's Senate office, its lofty ceilings, its walls lined with framed documents and photographs: the old man on an aircraft carrier wearing an officer's campaign hat a la Douglas MacArthur, in formal rooms with FDR and Harry Truman, Ike, JFK, LBJ, Adenauer, Ben-Gurion, Churchill. Kim Malone was an internationalist in a state that preferred its politics local. On a far wall, in shadows where they could be seen but dimly, were shots of the senator at the state fair behind the wheel of a vintage tractor, his blue serge suit spoiling the effect somewhat; a graduation ceremony at the university; at a Rotary Club dinner; on a park bench with Bernard Baruch. When the buzzer sounded a quorum call, the senator rose and put on his coat, ran a comb through his hair, glanced into the mirror. His legislative assistant looked in to brief him on the nature of the quorum. The senator listened carefully, then dismissed the assistant. He told Alec he would have to leave at once for the floor, an important procedural matter.

Always good to see you, son.

But by God you are a mystery to me.

In a moment Alec was alone in the historic office looking at the documents and photographs, the old man's public life. On his desk was a framed picture of his wife and son, pride of place it had to be said. Alec had been visiting this office for as long as he could remember. Before the photographs of Ike and JFK there had been Alben Barkley and Henry Wallace, Wallace removed sometime in the late 1940s, the errant farmer-commissar airbrushed from the American presidium. Cordell Hull, General Marshall. He remembered as a little boy sitting in his father's high-backed leather chair playing with an onyx pen set, and his father deftly removing the pens from his reach, not skipping a beat as he conferred with his legislative assistant. A grown-up's office, no question. Alec had the idea that dusty secrets hung in the air. His father's voice was always pitched low, the assistant's lower still. Even an eight-year-old boy was a risk. They talked in a side-of-the-mouth code, alluring and forbidding at the same time, the drama reaching its height when his father and the assistant burst into rough laughter, mirthless, the braying noise of the playground. The senator was getting even.

Alec wondered if he had made a mistake refusing the managing editor's offer. And did doubt lead him to his father's office seeking—what? Absolution? An argument? In the newspaper business war was the jewel in the crown. And his father was correct, he did have the eye for it and the agility. At the age of ten Alec was taking photographs for the old man's campaign, learning to blend into the scenery, though the trick was to make not yourself but your camera disappear. Your eyes did the work but in the excitement of the moment your eyes were filled with emotion. Probably the same was true for a war, perhaps more emotion than your eyes could accept, not that it mattered now. Whether his father was correct about fear was another question, one that could be answered only in the event. The truth was, Alec had no desire for the war, and desire always came first. Without desire you were not a craftsman but a careerist doing what they told you to do in hopes that something wonderful would happen, a prize or a shot such as Capa's of the falling militiaman. Like Verdi's
Requiem,
that one photograph would be sufficient for a life's work; yes, in the way that one glorious night of lovemaking would make it unnecessary ever to try again. So you would return often, one war after another, as the roué fell into and out of one bed after another, seeking perfection and finding it just often enough to keep your passport up to date with the relevant visas. You would never get enough of it, knowing there was always a prettier girl or a messier war on one continent or another, next month or next year. Your life would make a distinguished biography, most colorful, perhaps better read about than lived through unless you were named Capa or Casanova. Alec was satisfied with what he had done, saying no without hesitation. He knew at once he had spoken from the heart, as had the managing editor, who declared that he was making a colossal mistake passing up such a magnificent opportunity and never in his life could he have imagined that Alec Malone, of all people—and here the managing editor lapsed into French, as he had a way of doing when he was disappointed—was not after all
un homme engagé.
And asked what that meant, the managing editor thought a moment and said, "Not pledged," smiling briefly to take the edge off. What he really meant was, Not of the fraternity.

Alec took a last look around his father's office, the leather couch, the documents and photographs on the walls, the onyx pen set on the desk, the dust in the air, and felt like the angler who had hooked something very large. He felt the steady haul on the line but the fish would not break water. The line was taut. He had no idea what the fish looked like or whether it was a keeper or a throwaway, only that it was large.

Alec?

He turned around to face his father's private secretary.

The senator will be on the floor for some time, she said. Can I help you with anything? She stood to one side in the open doorway, an attractive woman in her fifties, a manila envelope in her hand. When Alec was a schoolboy she helped him with his homework. He looked at his watch and said he was leaving. No one was allowed in the senator's office when he was absent.

Alec moved closer to his father. The old man had the blank look of the Confederate infantryman. His hair, thin, yellowish, uncombed, fell carelessly over his forehead. His father's eyes closed, opened, and closed once again. Washington in twilight, Alec thought, its eyes shut, out of breath, quarrelsome, its spirit low, the long-nosed man drawing near. Alec placed his hand on his father's shoulder, feeling bone beneath the cloth. He left his hand in place a minute or more, then gave a gentle squeeze and turned away. His father muttered something but Alec did not hear what it was. Maybe the old man had been reading his mind. If Kim Malone had spoken French, he would have said to his son what the managing editor had said. Not
un homme engagé,
but he would not have smiled when he said it.

Alec rose heavily and stepped to the window, watching the day's last foursome motor up the sixteenth fairway amid long shadows from the setting sun, still visible through the trees. Cherry petals blew this way and that. The fairway looked like an aisle it for a bride. High overhead Alec noticed the contrails of a passenger jet beginning its descent into Dulles and suddenly remembered his own plans for the following week, a job abroad shooting stills for a film company, a pleasant enough warm-weather job that paid well. He would be given the use of an apartment and a week to finish the shoot. He could stay on another week if he liked (uh, your own expense, Alec, but you can keep our discount), swim, play golf, drive to the sea. The company was agreeable; the director and the second lead were old friends. They were Hollywood people but unpretentious and hospitable, most professional in their approach to things. Really, it was a vacation masquerading as a shoot. He liked their Los Angeles stories and offhandedness, and he had not seen Annalise for months.

Alec watched the last foursome, now on the green lining up their putts. He recognized two of them, a political analyst often on Sunday morning television and a newspaper reporter. The floor nurse looked in and went away, her footsteps echoing in the corridor.

Who is that? the old man asked.

Man I know, Alec said. Newspaperman.

No. The person who was in my room.

The nurse, Alec said. She's gone now.

It didn't look like the nurse.

Who did it look like?

Someone else. The long-nosed man. He's been here all afternoon listening to us. He takes in every word but he never says anything. I've never heard his voice but I know he's foreign-born. He's not from around here. I don't know where he's from but I don't like him and I wish he'd go away. I'll sleep for a while, Alec. Wake me if there's a quorum call.