The Dinner Party (26 page)

“And what's that?”

“Love thy fellow Republican. No low shots at the party. He's ours and we love him.”

“You got me, Web. I love him too.”

“Augustus always loved cowboy films,” Jenny said sweetly.

Softly, half-singing, Elizabeth said, “‘But we are endowed with a mushroom-like cloud, and one happy day we'll all blow away—'”

“That's uncalled for,” Dolly said quietly.

“Yes, I apologize,” Elizabeth agreed.

“Yet,” Leonard said, pausing to search his memory, “there is this.” He recited slowly:

“When our children's children shall talk of war

As a madness that may not be;

When we thank our God for our grief today,

and blazon from sea to sea

in the name of the dead the banner of peace

that will be victory.”

“Same poet who wrote the tidbit your president quoted. But after having served in World War One, he was no longer cute.”

“I don't know what that has to do with anything,” Dolly said, troubled by the turn the conversation had taken.

“Something the president didn't memorize. I think some things that he didn't memorize are important,” Elizabeth said, smiling.

“I think this has gone far enough,” Dolly said. Heller smiled tolerantly. Anticipating Justin, Richard pointed out that this was another generation. “The thing is Bill,” he said to Justin, “that when twenty years goes by, which it does in ten minutes or so, you find yourself with a new generation, new notions, new ideas—and certainly a way of speaking up.”

“Don't think we're immune to that,” Frances said. “You know Sylvia Palmer, don't you?” she asked of Jenny.

“I haven't seen her for ages. We don't get to Washington that much.”

“Well, her daughter, Claire—well, she just took off and married a black man. Well, a black man—in my day, we would have called him colored, but today you call them black. Not that he's black, kind of light brown color and good looking. He has an important position in the general accounting office. Do you know that Sylvia came to me to see whether I could get Webster to do something for her new son-in-law. And when I asked her wasn't she devastated, she said, no. Suppose she had married a Jew.”

Unfortunately, Frances had a voice that carried, one of those high, piping little-girl voices, and while the other end of the table had not been listening, the tail end of her remarks caught them.

The senator had a reputation for being imperturbable because in moments like this, he took refuge behind a blank, expressionless mask. Rather than exploding to the cause, this gave him time to consider what should be said, as opposed to what could be said.

Jenny was controlled. That suited her. Having been raised in a milieu where reactions were properly controlled, she said nothing and simply stiffened her face. So when Frances cried out, “For heaven's sake, forgive me,” Jenny's expression did not change, nor did she respond in words. Afterwards, Richard would recall her expression as
withering
, a word he had previously considered to be merely a literary device. It was sufficiently withering, and he decided to leave the ball with his mother-in-law and say nothing that would smooth these troubled waters.

At the other end of the table, Dolly went into a frantic tale of her difficulties in trying to recreate a Colonial herb garden. But she prefaced her remarks with, “It's quite all right, Frances. It's an understandable slip of the tongue.”

Winifred, leaning against Augustus, said, “Never thought the little old pigeon was that silly.” She was controllably drunk. The senator had wondered earlier why Justin had brought her. “Usually,” he had said to Dolly, “he doesn't bring her.” But nothing was usual tonight, and the senator had the feeling that it was becoming more and more like Alice's tea party. Augustus chuckled with pleasure, and Dolly, armed with years of political diplomacy, was in animated conversation with Heller and Justin. Leonard and Elizabeth had become spectators. And Frances was driven to compound her distress, mentioning that Jenny was not really Jewish, and therefore should not feel hurt.

“Of course, my dear,” Jenny said graciously. “That's why my name is Levi.”

The lemon mousse was served. The senator realized that the dinner had come to its final moment. For this he was grateful.

THIRTY-FOUR

W
hen the ladies rose to go into the library, leaving the men at the dinner table, Leonard whispered to his father, “I can't stay here, Dad.”

“Yes, I can understand that.”

“I think I'll step outside. I need a breath of fresh air.”

“Sure. I'll see you later?”

Leonard nodded.

Dolly was preoccupied with three women in various degrees of annoyance, petulance, and alcohol. Leonard waited until the women had left the room, and then he slipped out through the living room and into the front hallway. As he came out of the house, he saw that the big limousine was still parked where it had been when it first pulled up. One of the Secret Service men got out of the car and faced him.

“Who are you?”

“Leonard Cromwell.”

“Do you have identification?”

“I live here.”

“I asked you, do you have identification?”

“I live here. We had a dinner party; I'm wearing black tie; and I'm at home, so I have no identification. If you're so crazed on the subject, I'll go inside and get some.” He turned toward the door.

“Hold on! You don't go in the house!”

The other Secret Service man got out of the car and said, “For Christ's sake, Hinton, that's the senator's kid.”

“How do you know?”

“How do I know, how do I know—I know.” He said to Leonard. “Forget it, kid.”

Leonard started off toward the pool.

“He swallowed the book, kid. Forget it.”

Leonard walked on through the night without looking back. The moon was almost full, and a wonderful silver glow lit the grounds. He felt that he was walking in a dream. The guard was mad—obviously mad. The guard had taken him for a terrorist. They were all mad, caught up in a giant neurosis, a nation gone paranoid, and the disease Aids was a part of it. Out of a kettle of insanity an insane disease had been brewed, and where once simple, bony witches had danced, now there was a dance of driven clerics screaming that abortion was a sin, that Aids was a punishment from a God who burned souls in hell forever and who would cheerfully burn mankind to make a biblical prophesy come true. It was a nightmare. Only in a nightmare could madmen rule the world with thousands of atomic bombs—which in a spell of petulance or frustration could destroy mankind.

He dropped down cross-legged on the warm stone terrace of the pool. The house was beneath him, down the slope, and in the moonlight it was lovely. Yet this was no nightmare. There was the black stretch Cadillac, and leaning against it one of the Secret Service men smoking a cigarette whose tiny glow was a firefly—up with a puff and then down.

The thought that he, Leonard, was to leave this place, nightmare or not, step out of it forever into cold eternity, still clutched at his heart and awoke the inner pleading that it should not be so. There was enough beauty to soften the nightmare, the silver world below and all around him, the lights from the house, a doll house with a candle flickering inside, the faint smell of wood smoke on the wind, and the icy moon, dominating the wild array of stars, billions of stars and billions of planets, and billions of cultures and here, a dust mote called the earth, where madmen proclaimed themselves the vicars of God. Beauty and the beast, or was it that only what the beast touched lacked beauty? It had all been beautiful once; whatever else the Maker was, the Maker was an artist.

He took a pallet from one of the lounge chairs, folded one end of it, kicked off his shoes and positioned himself to meditate. No guru had taught him meditation, but a small Japanese gentleman who taught philosophy at Harvard. A student had come to a rashi, who was a teacher of meditation, and asked him why one should sit and meditate, and the rashi had answered, so that you will not be afraid to die. A story very old, as old as the fear of death.

A chill had come into the summer night. Leonard let the cool air caress him. The air was inside of him and outside of him, without separation. He watched his breath rise and fall, and gradually his mind cleared and his fear went away.

THIRTY-FIVE

T
he women had left the room, and the four men, the senator, Augustus Levi, Webster Heller, and William Justin, sat at one end of the dining room table. MacKenzie had poured the drinks, brandy for Heller and Augustus, Baileys for Justin, and port for the senator; and now he was offering the large humidor of cigars.

“I see no Cuban,” Justin complained.

“No, I don't use them.”

“By golly,” Heller said, “you must be the only member of Congress who is a cigar smoker and doesn't come up with Cubans.”

The senator was troubled; it took all the effort he could muster to focus on the matter at hand, working out his own fantasy that Leonard was mistaken, that the boy had invented the story, that he simply used it for its dramatic effect. He had not been shaken by the news that his son was a homosexual; it was something he had sensed for many years. But the news about Aids—that couldn't be true, it must not be true—

“Senator?”

“I am not a smuggler,” he said harshly.

“Oh—oh, come on, sir. Those are harsh words.”

Augustus had come to realize, during the dinner, that something was deeply wrong. He knew the senator, but this man tonight was not the man he knew. MacKenzie was at his side now, and Augustus chose a Flaminco panatela. “These damn things,” he said, “are pretty near as good as the Cubans. I don't have the virtues that the senator has, but I think it's just too fucken stupid to pass a law and then have every rich cigar smoker and half of the Washington crowd breaking it. You have Flamincos and Don Diegos here, and I'd like to see the Cubans that are any better.”

“I hardly think you have to lecture us, Gus,” Justin said.

“No? Well I'm not the host and you're not in my house, so I can break some rules. I know old Web here for twenty-five years, but I never met you before tonight, and I'll be damned if I'll sit here and listen to you call me ‘Gus.' It's Mr. Levi. Levi. You call me that, and you can get your jollies by saying to yourself that this old Jew has to be humored, and what more can you expect from a lousy Jew?”

“Oh, hold on,” the senator said. “Please, Gus, that's not called for, and if you don't apologize, I certainly will.”

Justin, on his feet, exclaimed, “I don't have to hear this.”

“Sit down,” Heller said. “We're family. Gus was in our party before you were born. He's the nastiest sour old long-horn bull in the crowd, but that's the way he is.”

“My apologies, Mr. Justin,” Augustus said lazily, lighting his cigar and grinning. “Webster is right. I call them as they fall. You should sit in the House of Commons in London for a few hours and hear those Brits go at each other. They pull no punches. When a man's their enemy, they specify.”

“Gus, we're none of us enemies here.”

“On the other hand,” Augustus said, “when I listen to our Congress, it turns my stomach. ‘My esteemed colleague.' ‘My learned opponent.' ‘My old friend.' Bowing and scraping to some of the worst, brainless, ignorant bastards that ever polluted Washington—and nobody willing to open his mouth and call a son of a bitch a son of a bitch.”

“I think,” Richard said coldly, “that no one here is an enemy.”

“He's right,” Heller agreed. “Don't divest us of the few trappings of civilization we still retain.”

Justin was pulling himself together over his Baileys and cigar. Now he looked up at Augustus, his eyes narrowed and angry, his voice controlled. “I understand your position, Mr. Levi. You are an old man and entitled to your perquisites. I have erred.”