The Fourth K (10 page)

He had, of course, tried drugs for a brief period; they were, after all, as integral a part of American culture as they had once been of the Chinese empire. And for the first time he discovered a startling thing about himself. He could not bear the loss of control that drugs caused. He did not mind being unhappy as long as he had control of his mind and body. Loss of that control was the ultimate in despair. And the drugs did not even make him feel the ecstasy that other people felt. So at the age of twenty-two with everything in the world at his feet, he could not feel that anything was worth doing. He did not even feel what many young men felt, a desire to improve the world he lived in.

He consulted his godfather, the Oracle, then a “young” man of seventy-five, who still had an inordinate appetite for life, who kept three mistresses busy, who had a finger in every business pie and who conferred with the President of the United States at least once a week. The Oracle had the secret of life.

The Oracle said, “Pick out the most useless thing for you to do and do it for the next few years. Something that you would never consider doing, that you have no desire to do. But something that will improve you at least physically and mentally. Learn a part of the world that you think you will never make part of your life. Don’t squander your time. Learn. That’s how I got into politics originally. And this would surprise my friends, I really had no interest in money. Do something you hate. In three or four years more things will be possible and what is possible becomes more attractive.”

The next day Christian applied for an appointment to West Point and spent the next four years becoming an officer in the United States Army. The Oracle was astounded, then
delighted. “The very thing,” he said. “You will never be a soldier. And you will develop a taste for denial.”

Christian, after four years at West Point, remained another four years in the Army training in special assault brigades and becoming proficient in armed and unarmed combat. The feeling that his body could perform any task he demanded of it gave him a sense of immortality.

At the age of thirty he resigned his commission and took a post in the operations division of the CIA. He became an officer in clandestine operations and spent the next four years in the European theater. From there he went to the Middle East for six years and rose high in the operational division of the Agency until a bomb took off his foot. This was another challenge. He learned to use and manage a prosthetic device, an artificial foot, so that he did not even limp. But that ended his career in the field and he returned home to enter a prestigious law firm.

Then for the first time he fell in love, and married a girl he thought was the answer to all his youthful dreams. She was intelligent, she was witty, she was very good-looking and very passionate. For the next five years he was happy in marriage, happy as the father of two young children, and found satisfaction in the political maze through which the Oracle was guiding him. He was, finally, he thought, a man who had found his place in life. Then misfortune. His wife fell in love with another man and sued for divorce.

Christian was dumbstruck, then furious. He was happy; how could his wife not be? And what had changed her? He had been loving and attentive to her every wish. Of course he had been busy in his work, to build a career. But he was rich and she lacked for nothing. In his rage he was determined to resist her every demand, to fight for custody of the children, deny her the house she wanted so badly, restrict all
monetary rewards that come to a divorced woman. Above all, he was astounded that she planned to live in their house with her new husband. True, it was a palatial mansion, but what about the sacred memories of the life they had shared in that house? And he had been a faithful husband.

He had gone again to the Oracle and poured out his grief and pain. To his surprise the Oracle was completely unsympathetic. “You were faithful, so that makes you think your wife should be faithful? How does that follow, if you no longer interest her? Of course it is more natural for a male to be unfaithful. Infidelity is the precaution of a prudent man who knows that his wife can unilaterally deprive him of his house and children without a moral cause. You accepted that deal when you married; now you must abide by it.” Then the Oracle had laughed in his face. “Your wife was quite right to leave you,” he said. “She saw through you, though I must say you gave quite a performance. She knew you were never truly happy. But believe me, it’s the best thing. You are now a man ready to assume his real station in life. You’ve got everything out of the way—a wife and children would only be a hindrance. You are essentially a man who has to live alone to do great things. I know because I was that way. Wives can be dangerous to men with real ambition, children are the very breeding grounds of tragedy. Use your common sense, use your training as a lawyer. Give her everything she wants, it will make only a small dent in your fortune. Your children are very young, they will forget you. Think of it this way. Now you are free. Your life will be directed by yourself.”

And so it had been.

So late on Easter Sunday night Attorney General Christian Klee left the White House to visit Oliver Oliphant, to ask his
advice and also to inform him that his one-hundredth birthday party had been postponed by President Kennedy.

The Oracle lived on a fenced estate that was expensively guarded; its security system had bagged five enterprising burglars in the last year. His large staff of servants, well paid and well pensioned, included a barber, a valet, a cook and maids, for there were still many important men who came to the Oracle for advice and sometimes had to be fed elaborate dinners or provided with lodging.

Christian looked forward to his visit with the Oracle. He enjoyed the old man’s company, the stories he told of terrible wars on the battlefields of money, the strategies of men dealing with fathers, mothers, wives and lovers. He talked of how to defend against the government, its strength so prodigious, its justice so blind, its laws so treacherous, its free elections so corrupting. Not that the Oracle was a professional cynic, he was merely clear-sighted. And he insisted that one could lead a happy successful life while observing the ethical values on which true civilization endures. The Oracle could be dazzling.

The Oracle received Christian in his second-story suite of rooms, which consisted of a narrow bedroom, an enormous bathroom tiled blue that held a Jacuzzi and a shower with a marble bench and handholds sculpted into its walls. There was also a den with an impressive fireplace, a library and a cozy sitting room with a brightly colored sofa and armchairs.

The Oracle was in the sitting room resting in a specially built motorized wheelchair. Beside him was a table, and facing him were an armchair and a table set for an English tea.

Christian took his place in the armchair opposite the Oracle and helped himself to tea and one of the little sandwiches. As always, Christian was delighted by the appearance of the
Oracle, the intensity of the man’s gaze so remarkable in one who had lived for a hundred years. And it seemed logical to Christian that the Oracle had evolved from a homely sixty-five-year-old to a striking ancientness. The skin was shell-like, as was his bald pate, which showed liver spots dark as nicotine. Leopard-skin hands protruded from his exquisitely cut suit—extreme age had not vanquished his sartorial vanity. The neck, encircled loosely by a silk tie, was scaly and ridged; the back broad, curved like glass. The front of the body fell away to a tiny chest; you could encircle his waist with your fingers, and his legs were hardly more than two strands in a spider’s web. But the facial features were not yet ravaged by approaching death.

Christian poured the Oracle his cup, and for the first few minutes they smiled at each other, drinking tea.

The Oracle spoke first. “You’ve come to cancel my birthday party, I assume. I’ve been watching the TV with my secretaries. I told them the party would be postponed.” His voice had the low growl of a worn larynx.

“Yes,” Christian said. “But only for a month. Think you can hold out that long?” He was smiling.

“I sure do,” the Oracle said. “That shit is on every TV station. Take my advice, my boy, buy stock in the TV companies. They will make a fortune out of this tragedy and all the forthcoming tragedies. They are the crocodiles of our society.” He paused for a moment and said more softly, “How is your beloved President taking all this?”

“I admire that man more than ever,” Christian said. “I have never seen someone in his position more composed over a dreadful tragedy. He is much stronger now than after his wife died.”

The Oracle said dryly, “When the worst that can happen to you actually happens, and you bear it, then you are the
strongest of men in the world. Which, actually, may not be a very good thing.”

He paused for a moment to sip his tea, his colorless lips closed into a pale white line like a scratch on the seamed nicotine-spotted skin of his face. Then he said, “If you feel it’s not breaking your oath of office or your loyalty to the President, why don’t you tell me what action is being taken.”

Christian knew that this was what the old man lived for. To be inside the skin of power. “Francis is very concerned that the hijackers have not yet made any demands. It’s been ten hours,” Christian said. “He thinks that’s sinister.”

“So it is,” the Oracle said.

They were both silent for a long time. The Oracle’s eyes had lost their vibrancy, and seemed extinguished by the pouches of dying skin beneath them.

Christian said, “I’m really worried about Francis. He can’t take much more. If something happens to her …”

The Oracle said, “There will be a very dangerous confrontation. You know, I remember Francis Kennedy as a little boy. Even then I was struck by how he dominated his cousins. He was a natural hero, even as a young boy. He defended the smaller ones, he made peace. And sometimes he did more damage than any of the bullies would have done. Black eyes darkened in the name of virtue.”

The Oracle paused and Christian poured him some hot tea though the cup was still more than half full. He knew the old man could not taste anything unless it was very hot or very cold.

Christian said, “Whatever the President tells me to do, I’ll do it.”

The Oracle’s eyes were suddenly very bright and visible. He said musingly, “You’ve become a very dangerous man in these past years, Christian. But not terribly original. All
through history there have been men, some considered ‘great,’ who have had to choose between God and country. And some very religious men have chosen country over God, believing they would go to everlasting hell, thinking it noble. But, Christian, we have come to a time when we must decide whether to give our lives to our country or to help mankind continue to exist. We live in a nuclear age. That is the new and interesting question, a question never before posed to individual men. Think in those terms. If you side with your President, do you endanger mankind? It’s not so simple as rejecting God.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Christian said. “I know Francis is better than Congress, the Socrates Club and the terrorists.”

The Oracle said, “I’ve always wondered about your overwhelming loyalty to Francis Kennedy. There are some vulgar gossips who say it’s a very faggy business. On your part. Not his. Which is odd, since you have women and he does not, not since the death of his wife three years ago. But why do the people around Kennedy hold him in such veneration, when he’s recognized as a political dunderhead? All those reformist and regulatory laws he tried to shove down that dinosaur Congress’s throat. I thought that you were smarter than that, but I presume you were overruled. Still, your inordinate affection for Kennedy is a mystery to me.”

“He’s the man I always wished I could be,” Christian said. “It’s as simple as that.”

“Then you and I would not have been such longtime friends,” the Oracle said. “I never cared for Francis Kennedy.”

“He’s just better than anybody else,” Christian said. “I’ve known him for over twenty years, and he’s the only politician who has been honest with the public, he doesn’t lie to them.”

The Oracle said dryly, “The man you described could never be elected President of the United States.” He seemed to puff out his insect body, his shiny-skinned hands tapped the controls of his wheelchair. The Oracle leaned back. Above the dark suit, the ivory shirt and simple blue streak of his tie, the glazed face looked like a piece of mahogany. He said, “His charm escapes me, but we never got on. Now I must warn you. Every man in his lifetime makes many mistakes. That is human, and unavoidable. The trick is never to make the mistake that destroys you. Beware of your friend Kennedy, who is so virtuous, remember that evil can spring from the desire to do good. Be careful.”

“Character doesn’t change,” Christian said confidently.

The Oracle fluttered his arms like bird wings. “Yes, it does,” he said. “Pain changes character. Sorrow changes character. Love and money, certainly. And time erodes character. Let me tell you a little story. When I was a man of fifty, I had a mistress thirty years younger than myself. She had a brother who was ten years older than she, about thirty. I was her mentor, as I was with all my young women. I had their interests at heart. Her brother was a Wall Street hotshot and a careless man, which later got him into big trouble. Now, I was never jealous—she went out with young men. But on her twenty-first birthday, her brother gave a party and as a joke hired a male stripper to perform before her and her friends. It was all above board, they made no secret of it. But I was always conscious of my homeliness, my lack of physical appeal to women. And so I was affronted, and that was unworthy of me. We all remained friends and she went on to marriage and a career. I went on to younger mistresses. Ten years later her brother gets into financial trouble, as many of those Wall Street types do. Inside tips, finagling with money entrusted to him. Very serious trouble that
landed him a couple of years in prison and of course the end of his career.

“By this time I was sixty years old, still friends with both of them. They never asked for my help, they really didn’t know the extent of what I could do. I could have saved him but I never lifted a finger. I let him go down the drain. And ten years later it came to me that I didn’t help him because of that foolish little trick of his, letting his sister see the body of a man so much younger than myself. And it wasn’t sexual jealousy, it was the affront to my power, or the power I thought I had. I’ve thought of that often. It is one of the few things in my life that shame me. I would never have been guilty of such an act at thirty or at seventy. Why at sixty? Character does change. That is man’s triumph and his tragedy.”